DHSHX

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a story of star-crossed lovers, intergenerational conflict and of the tragedy of revenge cycles. Audiences have long been drawn to the story of the two lovers from Verona whose doomed passion for each other proves capable of transcending their families’ hate. The death of the young lovers accomplishes that which Prince Escalus’s warnings could not when, at the conclusion, Capulet and Montague finally take each other’s hands and lay their unexplained feud to rest.  

Voyant Excercise
First, open the full text of the play and copy it. Next, go to Voyant. Paste the text of Romeo and Juliet into the box.

http://scalar.usc.edu/works/dhshx/media/RomeoAndJuliet.txt

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=16ff05873e04f1a462204a174dad6114&view=corpusset&withDistributions=raw&docIndex=0&mode=document

Search for the following terms:
The Feud

As the Prologue’s Chorus explains, the Capulets and Montagues, two prominent families in Verona, are locked into a violent and seemingly endless feud. Why are they feuding? We are not told. They are feuding because they are feuding; the quarrel no longer demands a reiteration of its first cause but is instead extended by the vengeance that is enacted after each fresh crime. Thus, violence proliferates and the feud becomes self-perpetuating. As each family demands blood as justice for the death of one of their own, the violence continues in an intractable revenge cycle. The characters of Romeo and Juliet break this cycle and are drawn together despite their families’ mutual loathing.

Petrarchan Love
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Early modern male friendship
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Comedy and Tragedy
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General Resources on Romeo and Juliet
http://www.folger.edu/romeo-and-juliet
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Sources

Full text of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke: https://archive.org/details/brookesromeusjul00broo

Articles about this source:
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/brookes-romeus-and-juliet
http://americanrepertorytheater.org/inside/articles/articles-vol4-i3-how-romeus-became-romeo

Productions and adaptations

Adaptations of the play have used the Capulet-Montague feud to explore how enmity and hatred fuel retributive violence in various times and places. Productions of the play may use the intractability of the Montague-Capulet conflict to explore divisions of class, race, religion, ethnicity, language, and other types of community conflict.
https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/new-mutiny-the-violence-of-romeo-and-juliet

Database by Jill Levenson that compiles a range of promptbooks (1600s-1980s): http://www.itergateway.org/romeo_juliet/

http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca/spotlight/s_f_stratford.cfm#Romeo
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Film versions
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