It had been a while since I’d read Romeo And Juliet, and I found I had a few books I hadn’t
yet enjoyed. So…
Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare
– This time I read The New Cambridge Shakespeare edition, edited by G.
Blakemore Evans. The introduction begins with an attempt to date the play, then
moves onto the sources of the story, and the ways in which Shakespeare departed
from them. For example, G. Blakemore Evans writes: “Tybalt and Paris appear in
Brooke only when events demand them. Tybalt is unheard of until he is needed as
the ringleader of the Capulet faction in the street brawl, which breaks out
some months after Romeus and Juliet have been secretly married (955-1034), and
he no sooner appears than he is slain by Romeus. Shakespeare, however,
introduces Tybalt in the first scene in his self-appointed role as leader of
the younger Capulets and then underscores this by showing him as a troublemaker
at the Capulet feast (1.5), a further foreshadowing of Tybalt’s later decisive
function that finds no place in Brooke” (p. 9). G. Blakemore Evans then writes,
“The play is unusually full, perhaps more so than other Shakespearean play, of
words like
time,
day,
night,
today,
tomorrow,
years,
hours,
minutes and specific days of the week, giving us a sense of events
moving steadily and inexorably in a tight temporal framework” (p. 10). In a
section on the characters, G. Blakemore Evans writes, “The slaying of Paris has
raised some critical questions, but there is a mysterious rightness in it that
validates Paris’s love and allows him, in company with Romeo, to be joined with
Juliet in the silent communion and consummation of death” (p. 21). A note in
that section reads, “Juliet’s passing suspicion (4.3.24-9; not in Brooke) that
Friar Lawrence may have given her a poison instead of a sleeping potion
suggests that she recognises the personal dangers inherent in the Friar’s
position” (p. 24). Regarding Romeo’s urge to stab himself, G. Blakemore Evans
writes: “His attempted suicide here is an important index of his comparative
immaturity, a moment in the scene that owes nothing to Brooke. The implied
commitment of such an action – to die for love – disguises nothing more than a
selfish and thoughtless emotional reaction, without any real consideration for
Juliet’s feelings of the difficulty of her position” (p. 27). The text for this
edition is Q2. Notes on differences in the texts do not include just Q1, Q2 and
F, but also Q3 and Q4, and sometimes Q5, F2, F3 and F4, as well as emendations.
There are lots of notes at the bottom of each page. Regarding Romeo’s speech beginning
with the line “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,” a note reads:
“These lines ironically describe the present stage and foreshadow the three
later stages of Romeo’s love: (1) his professed love for Rosaline (‘smoke’ and
‘sighs’); (2) his new love for Juliet (the ‘smoke’ cleared away (‘purged’), a
mutual ‘fire’ burns in the lovers’ eyes); (3) his love threatened
(‘vexed’) by banishment and inundated by the
tears of love; (4) his love, turned to desperation (‘a discreet madness’),
finds death (‘a choking gall’) and finally immortality (‘a preserving sweet’)”
(p. 62). Regarding Mercutio’s lines to Benvolio in Act III Scene i, a note
reads: “Mercutio’s characterisation of Benvolio as a quarrelsome gallant who
will pick a fight under the most whimsical pretexts, or for none, is borne out
by nothing we learn of Benvolio in the play; if anything, he is the opposite.
Thus, in his pique at Benvolio’s suggestion that they should withdraw because ‘the
Capels are abroad’, Mercutio’s criticism tells us more about himself than about
Benvolio” (p. 121). Regarding Juliet’s speech about taking Romeo and cutting “him
out in little stars,” a note reads: “i.e. let me have Romeo to myself as long
as I am alive, and when I die then I will share him with the whole world as a
source of light that will put the sun to shame. Q4 ‘he’ for ‘I’ in 21, adopted
by many eds., too suddenly changes the focus to Romeo’s death, something, as
Delius points out, Juliet ‘cannot, in her present happiness, conceive’.
Accepting ‘he’, Dover Wilson (NS) paraphrases: ‘if, gentle night, you will give
him to me now, you may have him when he is dead to make stars of’” (p. 131).
And regarding Romeo’s lines about the apothecary, a note reads: “Romeo’s
recollection of the Apothecary (37-8) and his earlier thought of his possible
utility suggests that suicide had not been far from his mind during his
banishment – a brilliant touch not in Brooke or Painter” (p. 178). There are
more notes after the play’s text, as well as a textual analysis and excerpts
from Arthur Brooke’s
The Tragicall
Historye of Romeus and Juliet. This book was published in 1984. The copy I
read was from the 1989 reprint.
Juliet’s Nurse by Lois Leveen – This
novel relates the events of the play from the perspective of the Nurse, and
actually begins almost fourteen years before those events, with the birth of a
child who is quicker to leave this world than to enter it. The Nurse soon joins
the Capulet home, here the Cappelletti, to nurse Juliet, who was born the same
day as her own daughter. And we learn more about that family, how Tybalt’s mother
died during Rosaline’s birth, and how Tybalt’s father sent Rosaline away to be
nursed. Interestingly, nightingales and larks are mentioned early on. Friar
Lawrence is here Friar Lorenzo, and he plays a big part in the story. It is he
to whom Angelica (the Nurse) makes confession, and it is he who baptized her
daughter and made arrangements for her to nurse Juliet. We also learn that
Juliet was named after her father’s first wife, who died from the plague. The
plague also plays a big part in these characters’ lives. The Montague family is
here the Montecche family. This story also gives us a different view of Paris,
and here it is the Nurse who urges him to be at Juliet’s grave, which leads to
his death. This book was published in 2014. The copy I read is an advance
reader’s edition.
– Well, it turns out that I own two copies of The New Cambridge Shakespeare
version of
Romeo And Juliet, but the
second is the Updated Edition from 2003. Thomas Moisan has added a new section
to the introduction, covering more recent theatrical and film productions, plus
recent criticism. Also, there are a couple of new photos. The added section
focuses on gender issues and father figures. Moison writes, “And of these the
most complex is, of course, Capulet, a figure whose mixture of comedic traits
and tragic destructiveness makes him a microcosm of his play; bearing a
resemblance to the comically conventional obstructionist fathers we encounter
in ‘lighter’ works such as
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream or the various renderings of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe,
he is a figure whose emotional volatility and irascible assertion of authority
are instrumental in destroying the daughter he initially calls ‘the hopeful
lady of my earth’ (1.2.15), and in vitiating the very nuptial decorums his
position as patriarch would ordain him to uphold” (p. 52). That section also
touches upon the effects of new historicism, and mentions Baz Luhrmann’s film
adaptation. This edition also contains an updated reading list at the end. This
updated edition was published in 2003. My copy is from the ninth printing,
2010.
Prefaces To Shakespeare Volume IV: Love’s
Labour’s Lost, Romeo And Juliet, The Merchant Of Venice, Othello by Harley
Granville-Barker – This volume contains four of the prefaces written by
Harley Granville-Barker, including the one for
Romeo And Juliet. In that one, Granville-Barker writes, “The
dominating merit of this is that Shakespeare takes Brooke’s tale, and at once
doubles its dramatic value by turning its months to days” (p. 40). Regarding
the feud between the two families, Granville-Barker writes, “If it were not for
the servants, then, who fight because they always have fought, and the Tybalts,
who will quarrel about nothing sooner than not quarrel at all, it is a feud
ripe for settling; everyone is weary of it; and no one more weary, more
impatient with it than Romeo” (p. 41). Then, regarding the silent moment
following Tybalt’s challenge to Romeo, Granville-Barker writes, “The moment is,
for Romeo, so packed with emotions that the actor may interpret it in half a dozen
ways, each legitimate (and by such an endowment we may value a dramatic
situation). Does he come from his ‘one short minute’ with Juliet so rapt in happiness
that the sting of the insult cannot pierce him, that he finds himself
contemplating this Tybalt and his inconsequent folly unmoved? Does he flash
into passion and check it, and count the cost to his pride and the scorn of his
friends, and count them as nothing, all in an instant?” (p. 47). He gets a bit
into each of the main characters, and, regarding Romeo, writes, “Romeo has been
called an early study for Hamlet” (p. 76). Then: “But Romeo is not a younger
Hamlet in love, though Hamlet in love may seem a disillusioned Romeo. The very
likeness, moreover, is largely superficial, is a common likeness to many young
men, who take life desperately seriously, some with reason, some without. The
study of him is not plain sailing. If Hamlet’s melancholy is of the soul, Romeo’s
was something of a pose” (p. 76). And then: “He is posing to himself certainly,
more in love with love than with Rosaline, posing to his family and friends,
and not at all displeased by their concern” (p. 77). In the preface to The
Merchant Of Venice, regarding Antonio’s line “In sooth I know not why I am so sad,”
Granville-Barker notes, “It is worth remarking that the word ‘sad,’ as
Shakespeare uses it, may mean rather solemn and serious than definitely
miserable” (p. 105). The copy I read is the First Princeton Paperback edition,
from 1965.
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