William Shakespeare arrived in London in 1588, and became an actor of success, and a published poet a poet of lyrical, passionate sonnets and he wrote provocative, philosophical plays, plays of pleasure and profundity, creating a standard so singular he has no master and possibly no peer. The great writer William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, the son of merchant John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry and William married Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s daughter, who would become the mother of William’s children Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith. It is easier for the two young people to consider letting go of their names, of the identities by which the world knows them, than it is for those surrounding them. “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet” Juliet says (96). Romeo observes Juliet, who is out on her balcony, thinking of him as he is thinking of her-she wants him to deny his name and family and soon they begin to speak-and he is willing to let go of all but her. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, / Who is already sick and pale with grief, / That thou her maid art far more fair than she: / Be not her maid, since she is envious: / Her vestal livery is but sick and green / And none but fools do wear it: cast it off” (page 96). Romeo murmurs, “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Romeo finds it difficult to leave Juliet, and strays into the Capulet garden. Yet Romeo & Juliet is a play not only of rage and the fatality of grief, but of flirtation, innuendo, mockery, marriage contracts, and reveries. There is a brief calm in Verona, but when Romeo, a Montague, meets and charms Juliet, a Capulet, at a masked ball, Tybalt is insulted by Romeo’s presence and interest in his cousin Juliet. The prince of Verona forbids further fighting, threatening death to those who disobey: “If ever you disturb our streets again, / Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace” (both quotes are from The Tragedies by William Shakespeare, published by Smithmark Publishers of New York in 2000 page 90). When Benvolio tries to stop fighting in the street, Tybalt gestures to Benvolio’s own drawn sword and says, “What, drawn, and talk of peace! I / hate the word, / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward!” That, beyond its recognition of the difference between gesture and word, is a response full of fury. The spirit of the leaders of each family have shaped their communities in their own image. In Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, the families Montague and Capulet have cultivated such a feud that those associated with each feel compelled to take part in the war.
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