Annotate with Me: Romeo and Juliet

Hi friends! Welcome back to another Annotate with Me post! As we know, I am a Shakespeare fan first and human second, so today’s post is focused on one of my most favorite Shakespeare plays — Romeo and Juliet.

Something that particularly motivated me to work on this post is that I see so many people say that the only reason why they don’t read Shakespeare is that they don’t really understand the language and that makes them feel inferior or unintelligent. That truly breaks my heart! I started reading Shakespeare when I was around fourteen, and I loved it but didn’t fully understand it. Then in college, as a theatre major, we had an entire class on Shakespeare, and my love kind of turned into an obsession because I was able to really understand and dissect his works. That is to say: no one is “not smart enough” to understand Shakespeare, you just need to spend a little more time learning how to read Shakespeare.

Shakespeare wrote for the masses, and I feel strongly that everyone should be exposed to his writing because he wrote about the spectrum of human emotion. I personally have learned so much through reading Shakespeare and that is thanks to the teachers I had who helped me understand him. While I am in no way a Shakespeare expert, I do think that I have a good grasp of his works and I would love to help others develop a love for him as well. And, to be 100% transparent I have SparkNotes and CliffsNotes open while I read as it usually helps me process my thoughts, and remember what happens in which scenes, since in the case of Romeo and Juliet, I’ve read it so many times that sometimes the minute details blend together.

So, all that being said, whether you love Shakespeare or not, I hope you enjoy hearing my thoughts, observations, and analysis on one of my all-time favorite stories, Romeo and Juliet. 

Okay, let’s be real, Romeo and Juliet has gotten a bad reputation over the years, and I am simply exhausted with the slander! This play is so much more nuanced than people like to believe it to be, but they don’t look at it deeply because it’s easy or ~cool~ to discount or discredit the story. Romeo and Juliet is not a love story — if it were a love story, it would be one of Shakespeare’s comedies. This play is a tragedy and we’re told so from the beginning. 

In my opinion, the prologue of Romeo and Juliet is one of the best parts of the entire play. It starts off with the chorus —- sometimes this is performed by one actor, sometimes an actual group of actors. I think I once saw a production where this was performed by Nurse — giving the audience an overview of the show that they are about to see. There are so many clever things in the prologue that it takes some time to unpack! It took me thirty minutes alone to annotate these fourteen lines. So, let’s break it down!

Shakespeare sets up Romeo and Juliet’s prologue very similarly to that of ancient Greek tragedies, as he has the chorus inform the audience of what’s to come. They set the scene and inform you that the story that’s beginning is not one that will end happily, however, they do let us know that there will be some resolution to the conflict we’re about to see.

“Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife,
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove”

What they’re saying is, that with the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, the years-long feud between the Capulets and Montagues will be rectified. It’s ironic that the only thing that resolves the feud is the forbidden romance between their children. 

The prologue is also told as a sonnet, and sonnets are typically love poems that explore themes like love in conflict, which is what this story is all about. It’s also fitting that the chorus — the citizens of Verona — are the ones to begin this story, as the Capulet and Montague feud affects the entire city, not just the two families. 

“From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”

The “civil blood makes civil hands unclean” references the fact that this feud has become so woven into the daily life of Verona and its citizens that everyone, even if they’re neither a Capulet or Montague, is somehow caught up in this fight, and many of them lose their lives for it. This hints at the fact that we will see many casualties as the story goes on.

I do love that the Prologue ends with “The which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend” technically, what this means is that we’ll be filled in on the rest of the details as the story progresses, but I also take it as a cautionary moment, where the players and Shakespeare are telling us to pay attention, otherwise, we will make the same mistakes.

The imagery in Romeo and Juliet is so brilliantly done, and it’s one of my favorite things about the writing. In particular, I love the use of light and dark, and religious imagery to represent the relationship between Romeo and Juliet. 

Sometimes, religious imagery when paired with a romantic relationship can be…a bit uncomfortable, in my opinion, but the use of it in Romeo and Juliet is done so wonderfully and is actually one of the things I love most about the show. The use of religious imagery is meant to show the purity of Romeo and Juliet’s love for one another in a world that tells them that their love is wrong purely because of the families they were born into.

It is also used to show what high esteem Romeo holds Juliet in. He compares her to a “holy shrine” and a “dear saint” and compares himself to a sinner, believing that he is not worthy of her love because of her purity, but wishing to have it anyway. Whereas Juliet replies with “for saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch” telling him that he is not unworthy of her, but instead that they are worthy of each other.

The religious imagery also represents how both Romeo and Juliet view love and how their definition of love and romance is different from those around them. Mercutio and Nurse often talk about romance from a purely sexual standpoint, and really devoid it of deeper feelings or connections, the Capulets talk about marriage in a purely political sense and see a marriage between Juliet and Paris as a way to strengthen their social standing. But, our two young lovers see the beauty and purity of love and this thinking mixed with the secrecy of their relationship further isolates them from their families. Their relationship is a sanctuary for them, just as religion is for those who believe in it.

The use of light imagery throughout Romeo and Juliet is so brilliant —- Juliet and Romeo bring light to each other’s lives because they represent love, happiness, and understanding for each other. When he first sees Juliet in Act 1, Scene 5, Romeo says, “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!” which calls back to the scene before where Romeo says “Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling. Being but heavy, I will bear the light”, that represented his sadness in not being loved by Rosaline. From this point on, light is something that he uses to describe Juliet and her presence in his life.

He compares her to light again during the balcony scene in Act 2 (which is probably my favorite scene in the entire play, it’s stunning). The thing that makes him comparing her to light so lovely, is that earlier in the play when he is mourning the fact that Rosaline doesn’t love him, we’re told that Romeo “locks fair daylight out” and hides himself in darkness. Through Juliet, he comes out of the darkness and into the light because that’s where she is. Painting Juliet as this source of light in the darkness is also reminiscent of the religious imagery that the two, but especially Romeo, use in their first meeting.

However, their relationship can only exist in darkness, so while they are light to one another, light is their enemy as it signals that it’s time for them to leave one another. We see this juxtaposition a lot as the play continues, most notably in Act 3, Scene 5.

Up until this point, I think that Juliet has been the more grounded and realistic of the two (which she does not get enough credit for, but that’s another post for another time), but in this scene, she really leans into the wistfulness of their meetings. The sun is rising, signaling that their time together is ending. Typically, Romeo is the one to push how long they can stay with each other, but this time it is Juliet.

“Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”

She’s tired of having sparing moments with her lover — moments that exist only in the deepest of night, as their families would never let them be together in the light of day. Romeo, being who he is, plays along with her notion that it is not day, but night so that the two can be together a little longer. Something in particular that I love about this moment is that we see how similar the two are, and how strongly they feel for one another that they would risk being caught if it meant one more minute with the other. 

The play’s conclusion is heartbreaking for many reasons. Obviously, through poor timing and miscommunication, Romeo and Juliet die before the two are able to really live their lives and be together, which is tragic on its own. However, something I find more disheartening is that I don’t think either family actually learned from anything that just happened.

Once Friar Laurence has told the Capulets and Montagues the truth behind the deaths of their children and his part in it, the two patriarchs decide that it’s finally time to end this feud. Montague talks about building a statue of Juliet made of pure gold, and Capulet vows to make one of Romeo to lie with Juliet for all of eternity. 

What’s so frustrating, and I’m glad that Paris calls them out on this because his loved ones (namly Mercutio) were also casualties of all of this, is that never once do the Capulets or Montagues take ownership over what it is that has happened. With how quickly they decide to end this feud after the death of their children, it’s understandable to assume that this fight was not founded on anything of actual importance. They had the power to end this feud long ago and did nothing because of their lust for power — they resolved it within seconds, but they let the citizens of Verona, including their children, suffer for years. 

The last line in the play, said by Paris, is one of my favorites in the entire show. He’s correct, the story of Juliet and her Romeo is one of woe, and one of the main reasons is because all of it could have been avoided, had their parents not let mindless hate and prejudice guide them and all their choices. That is the real lesson of Romeo and Juliet, and it upsets me that it is often overshadowed and overlooked.

Honestly, I could talk about Romeo and Juliet for hours (and often do, shout out to my friends and family who listen to me speak about it constantly), but I will end my post here so that this doesn’t just become me analyzing the entire play.

I absolutely loved annotating Romeo and Juliet and sharing my notes and thoughts with all of you! I’m planning on annotating all of Shakespeare’s plays throughout the next year and am planning to share a few more Annotate with Me posts around my favorite plays. If you’d like to see some more of my annotations, you can find them on my instagram @readbycait! 

Until next time!