Romeo and Juliet (Dover Thrift Editions)
by William Shakespeare

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Book Reviews of Romeo and Juliet (Dover Thrift Editions)

Book Review: The Tragedy of Forbidden Love
Summary: 5 Stars

The play opens with a lovely sonnet which is unusual since sonnets were meant to be from a lover to his beloved and, at this point, Romeo and Juliet have yet to meet. The sonnet, however, is a highly structured form of prose, signifying order. This contrasts with the immediate disorder of the play's first scene during which quarreling servants provoke a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets.

Shakespeare, always a master at foreshadowing, makes liberal use of it in Romeo and Juliet with the Nurse being one of the first characters to actually foreshadow future events in the play.

Comparisons between light and dark also abound. Upon first seeing her, Romeo compares Juliet to "a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear." It is central to the play that important love scenes take place in the dark, away from the disorder that marks the day. Romeo loves Juliet at night, but he kills during the confusion of the day.

This interaction and conflict of night and day is raised to new levels in the second act when Benvolio states, in reference to Romeo's passion, "Blind is his love, and best befits the dark." And when Romeo encounters Juliet with the now famous words, "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/It is the east, and Juliet is the sun./Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon." Romeo then invokes the darkness as a form of protection from harm, saying, "I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes." This conflict of night versus day will not end until the disorder of the day finally overcomes the passion of the night and destroys the lives of the lovers.

Another special piece of foreshadowing occurs near the end of the first act when Juliet states, "If he be married/My grave is like to be my wedding bed." This will be related over and over during the play, from both Juliet's Nurse and even from her mother, Lady Capulet, who, in the third act comments about Juliet's refusal to marry Paris with the words, "I would the fool were married to her grave."

There is also a strong conflict between the uses of silver and gold throughout the action of the play. Silver is often invoked as a symbol of love and beauty. Gold, on the other hand, is often used ironically and as a sign of both greed and desire. Rosaline is described as being immune to showers of gold, and when Romeo is banished, he comments that banishment is a "golden axe" akin to death. Finally, the erection of the statues of gold at the end of the play serves as a sign of the fact that neither Montague nor Capulet has really learned anything from their loss.

One of the most beautiful of all of Shakespeare's soliliquies takes place during the third act when Juliet beckons for nightfall, once again representing the contrast of the nights of love to the disorder of the day. "Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night,/Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die/Take him and cut him out in little stars,/And he will make the face of heaven so fine/That all the world will be in love with night/And pay no worship to the garish sun."

Much in the way the characters in Richard III dream about their fates in the final act of that play, Romeo, too, has a dream that warns him of his fate, when he awakens and says, "I dreamt my lady came and found me dead." Shakespeare often used dreams to foreshadow, but this particular dream also serves to heighten the dramatic element of the tragedy by irrevocably sealing the characters' fate.

When Romeo goes to the Apothecary to purchase poison, the description of the Apothecary makes it seem as if he were buying that poison from Death himself: "Meagre were his looks,/Sharp misery had worn him to the bones." Romeo pays him in gold, saying, "There is thy gold--worse poisons to men's souls." For Romeo, gold really is a form of poison, since it will help to kill him.

Sexual and biblical references also abound. There is a strong erotic element in the final death scene as Romeo drinks from a chalice (whose shape is often compared to that of a woman). Juliet says, "O happy dagger,/This is thy sheath! There rust, and let me die." The dagger, of course, is Romeo's and the sexual overtones are starkly clear. It is Juliet's love for Romeo which ultimately brings about her death.

There is a strange biblical reference from Benvolio in the very first scene of the play. He remarks, as he attempts to stop the fighting that is going on, "Put up your swords, You know not what you do." These words echo the words of Christ as he attempted to stop the fighting of His apostles with the Romans during his arrest and may foreshadow Juliet's demise, namely her three-day "death" followed by a resurrection which still ultimately ends in death.

And finally, Friar Laurence, at the end of the play seems to be attempting to play God in convincing Juliet to drink a potion which will make those around her believe she is, indeed, dead until he, himself, comes to resurrect her. In his attempt to play God, however, Friar Laurence is condemned to fail by the simple arrogance of his acts, a tie-in with the death of Christ that could not have possibly escaped the early Christians watching performances of the play.

Summary of Romeo and Juliet (Dover Thrift Editions)

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