Romeo and Juliet: A Brawling Love Story

• I'm sorry that the flu swept through my house, but I'm glad to be back today to begin actually reading Romeo and Juliet. Today we'll talk about setting and vocabulary as it applies to our play. (The picture for this post is of the Montague gang from Luhrman's modern day version of the play.) The vocabulary for our play is made up of the following words:

• dramatic irony
• imagery
• soliloquy
• protagonist
• antagonist
• aside
• monologue
• tragedy
• paradox
• irony
• reversal
• climax
• prophecy
• fate
• hypocrite
  

For those of you who need extra help with translating the script, here is a site! For those of you struggling with not enough side notes, you'll see this site gives a line by line translation.

Today we'll begin to read the play, including the Prologue and scene 1, and we will also take some time to fill out your study notes over the play. As Act I opens, we'll get a glimpse of downtown Verona, the street action, and what teenage boys think is cool. You may wonder how much life has changed and if teenagers still value the same things! Is it still important for a guy to be seen as tough? Do guys still like to fight? Are there rival gangs who struggle for power?

When we finally meet Romeo, the fact that he's in love with being in love becomes obvious. It might be confusing that he's in love with a girl that we never get to meet because she's not actually in the play, just referred to as Rosaline. Romeo loves a girl who won't love him back. She has sworn off love, so he just mopes around. The fact that he's not really in love - just thinks he is - sets up a nice contrast for the audience to see when he REALLY falls in love. Aye me, sad hours seem long.