For Thursday: Romeo and Juliet, Acts 4 & 5

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In a few of his plays, Shakespeare has a friar propose a very unorthodox solution to an ethical dilemma: in this case, drinking a potion that will give Juliet the semblance of death (a similar solution occurs in Much Ado About Nothing). How does Shakespeare characterize the friar’s motives and intentions in his language? Are we meant to trust him? Does Juliet?

Q2: How does Juliet’s family and her fiancée respond to Juliet’s death in 4.5? Obviously they’re all crushed, but look at their language: how does Shakespeare ‘stage’ their grief? Do you find it pathetic (emotion-laden) or bathetic (parody)?

Q3: Romeo had been kept away from the play in most of Act 4, but he comes to dominate it in Act 5. How has he ‘matured,’ if at all? Is his poetry more authentic and affecting? Or does he still rely on stock expression of grief and rage? Does he seem worthy of Juliet by the end of the play (you might look at some of his longer speeches)?

Q4: In the 19^th century, the play often ended with Juliet’s death (and some versions had her and Romeo survive altogether). What do you make of the ending of the play, where the Prince re-emerges and acts as a Chorus to the play (which has been absent since Act Two)? Is this really the moral of the play—that “never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”? Or might this conclusion be bathetic itself?