Some thoughts on 1.1. It’s long – by a very rough line count, around 8% of the play. And it’s really good. The tonal shifts dazzle: the coiled spring of the Prologue. The increasing pace and driving rhythm of the servants (and the way in which this moves so naturally into first, verse, and then […]
Continue ReadingMonth: January 2018
A note where I may read (1.1.219-229)
ROMEO ’Tis the way To call hers (exquisite) in question more: These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows, Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair; He that is strucken blind cannot forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost; Show me a mistress that is […]
Continue ReadingTeach me how I should forget to think (1.1.216-219)
BENVOLIO Be ruled by me, forget to think of her. ROMEO O teach me how I should forget to think. BENVOLIO By giving liberty unto thine eyes, Examine other beauties. (1.1.216-219) Plenty more fish in the sea, in other words. (According to the OED, the Cambridge student Gabriel Harvey made this observation in […]
Continue ReadingShe hath foresworn to love (1.1.208-215)
BENVOLIO Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste? ROMEO She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste; For beauty starved with her severity Cuts beauty off from all posterity. She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, To merit bliss by making me despair. She […]
Continue ReadingRomeo and Juliet at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge
Romeo and Juliet, dir. Tom Littler, presented by the Marlowe Society, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 27 January 2018 Not a review, but some thoughts and observations in response. This is at least the fourth student production of Romeo and Juliet that I’ve seen in Cambridge (the first was also the Marlowe in 2001, with a near-unknown […]
Continue ReadingHits and misses (1.1.199-207)
ROMEO Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit; And in strong proof of chastity well armed, From Love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes, […]
Continue ReadingHitting the mark (1.1.190-198)
BENVOLIO Tell me in sadness, who is that you love? ROMEO What, shall I groan and tell thee? BENVOLIO Groan? why, no; But sadly tell me, who? ROMEO Bid a sick man in sadness make his will – A word ill urged to one that is so ill: In sadness, cousin, I […]
Continue ReadingWhere’s Romeo? (again) (1.1.186-189)
ROMEO Farewell, my coz. BENVOLIO Soft, I will go along; And if you leave me so, you do me wrong. ROMEO Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here, This is not Romeo, he’s some other where. (1.1.186-189) Lovely, loyal Benvolio, the one character in the play who is entirely true […]
Continue ReadingGood hearts (1.1.174-185)
ROMEO Dost thou not laugh? BENVOLIO No, coz, I rather weep. ROMEO Good heart, at what? BENVOLIO At thy good heart’s oppression. ROMEO Why, such is love’s transgression: Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed With more of thine; this love that […]
Continue ReadingBright smoke (1.1.167-173)
ROMEO Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O any thing of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel […]
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