Romeo And Juliet Act 1 Prologue

What Methods does Shakespeare employ to engage the interest of the audience in the Prologue and Act 1, scenes 1,2 and 3of Romeo and Juliet? Romeo and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare around the 1590’s. The play goes through a lot of emotions as Shakespeare tries to get the attention of the audience watching. He uses different ways of getting the audience interest. The most obvious way he does this is by the way he uses love and hate, using a variety of language and also the way he has a quick developing plot.

Shakespeare gets the interest of the audience by having a contrast between love and hate.

This can be seen form the start of the play. The play begins with a prologue that is 14 lines long and outlines the whole play to the audience. In the prologue it states that Romeo and Juliet are “star crossed lovers. ” This shows that Romeo and Juliet are going to be doomed by destiny.

From this the audience knows what is going to happen in the play and would now want to know how it happens. The opening scene where servants from each house are arguing and starting a fight follows the prologue. The upper class people in each house also get involved. This represents fate and shows that the two families have their differences.

Romeo And Juliet Prologue Analysis

This is a total contrast from the prologue and then the play moves again from the fighting scene to a calmer scene where Romeo and his cousin Benvolio are speaking.

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Their conversation is about love, which totally differs from the scene before. This keeps the audience interested in what is going on. Shakespeare uses a variety of language throughout the play. It is easy for the audience to pick up on this because Shakespeare has different classes of people in the play speaking in different ways. Shakespeare has the lower class people speaking in prose.

An example of this is shown in the first scene where Sampson a servant of the Capulat family says, “Tis true and therefore women being the weaker vessels are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the walls. ” He is speaking in prose and saying that women are weaker then men and should attack the Montague’s family through the women. This shows the rivalry between the families, it also shows what time the play was set in because at that time men were more superior to women. Shakespeare has the higher class people speaking in poetry, this is blank verse, as it doesn’t always rhyme.

An example of this is shown when Romeo is having a conversation with Benvolio. Romeo says, “Why then, o brawling lone, o loving hate, o any thing of nothing first create! O heavy brightness, serious variety, Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health” this is Romeo speaking in poetry. It doesn’t always rhyme but it does contain oxymorons. At the time the play was wrote many other writers used oxymorons in love poetry because love was traditionally combined of opposite emotions, in the play the audience is able to pick up on the state of mind Romeo is in.

There is also contrast in individual scenes. As in the first scene it moved from an argument involving servants from both families who are lower class people to a fight involving higher class people from both families. It then goes on to the prince getting involved who is the highest class. Shakespeare shows this by having the prince to have power by him setting laws. This shows the audience the difference between the classes of people and also shows that the prince is fed up with the rivalry between the two families. Shakespeare also attracts the audience interest by having a fast moving plot.

The prologue tells the audience the outline of the play and what is going to happen then it is shown that how big the dispute between the two families is with a big fight. A fight always gets the attention of the audience because of all the action that goes on. The audience ant to find out what happens next so Shakespeare has Romeo one of the most important characters come in. Romeo finds out about the Capulat party through the Clown and is talked in to going by Benvolio his cousin. From the prologue it is known that two people from each rivaling family fall in love and at this party is where the love between Romeo and Juliet happens.

All of this action has happened in just the first two scenes and the audience would already be very interested. In scene three the audience find out about Juliet. It is found out that she is a young pretty girl that’s always been bought up by a nurse. At the end of the scene the part begins, so the audience will know now that Romeo and Juliet are going to meet here but they are kept guessing how they will meet at the party and how their reactions will be to when they find out who each of them are.