I personally disagree with this statement but I do think that love and romance are both major parts of the play. Each mood in the play works well with one and other and contrasts well with each other, which makes the play entertaining and work so well. The overarching mood of the play is Love but it would fall to pieces without its other moods. The love is the overarching mood in the play and makes it popular with all of its beautiful images and the enlightening sonnet, which is shared between Romeo and Juliet when they first meet.
One of the best love images in the play is when Romeo has first sighted Juliet and he uses a simile to describe her “it seems she hangs upon the cheek of night as a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear”. He is saying how her beauty is rare like jewels are. It also shows how Juliet stands out against everyone else because of her radiance. The sonnet that is shared between Romeo and Juliet uses words in the lexical set of religion. Shakespeare has done this to make the love between Romeo and Juliet is pure and holy.
The fact that Romeo and Juliet had shared a sonnet shows that their love is mutual. These images make people enjoy the play but if there was too much of this the audience would get bored and would not be as mortified by the tragic ending because they would almost be immune to the other moods and emotions in the play. So to balance out the love and romance, Shakespeare has cleverly juxtaposed the love mood with humour and sexual innuendo. The Nurse is a bawdy character used to contrast the love and often comes out with lines that are perhaps intended to shock but make people laugh i. . “dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit, wilt thou not, Jule? ” and this means that when she was a child, Juliet would fall forwards but when she is older she will be on her back when she is having sex. This contrasts well with the love which was coming up in the play and it adds humour to the play which makes the tragic end more effective because Shakespeare builds up your happiness for Romeo and Juliet and almost makes you forget that the chorus has already told of their doomed love.
This makes the tragic end more hard hitting, as there is a looming sense of Pathos and dramatic irony, which makes us sympathetic for the couple. The two moods of love and humour are well contrasted and without the humour the love would fail. The violence plays a very big part in the play because the reason that Romeo and Juliet’s love could never work out is because the families of the two lovers have a grudge that leads to frequent violent confrontations e. g. ct 1 scene 1 the two families servants fight and in act 3 scene 1 Romeo and Tybalt fight which leads to Tybalt’s death. This makes Romeo and Juliet’s situation much harder because now there is no chance of the Capulets ever setting their differences with Romeo aside. So by adding the violence to the play, it makes Romeo and Juliet’s relationship harder. This adds sympathy from the audience and also makes it more entertaining with all of the excitement of the fighting.
This would be good to see on stage as it would be fast paced and would keep the audiences attention. The tragic moments in the play come in small bursts throughout the play which prepares us for the large amount of tragedy at the end of the play. When Tybalt dies that is a very tragic moment, not only for the Capulet family but now there was an even harder situation for Romeo and Juliet as there was no chance of Romeo ever being forgiven by the Capulets now.
The tragedy at the end when Romeo and Juliet commit suicide is very moving because the dramatic irony is so strong and there is a large sense of underlying pathos because the audience know that if Romeo had got to the Capulet’s vault a little bit later then he would have seen Juliet wake up and he would have realised that she was alive but because he didn’t know she was really alive and not dead. There is a strong feeling of frustration because we know that Juliet is alive and he doesn’t but we can’t do anything to stop his impending suicide. With this strong ending people are moved and it has audiences attentive to the play.
So tragedy is a key mood in the play and definitely helps to make it popular. Through the whole play there are constant references to Greek Tragedy, which has a lot to do with fate. The fate in this play makes it very popular. At the beginning there are many references to fate in the prologue, which builds up dramatic irony, tension and pathos. There are many words in the lexical set of fate “death marked”, “star crossed”, “fatal” and it makes us realise that nothing can stand in the way of fate and Romeo and Juliet are doomed from the start.
The play is revolving around fate because at the start of the play when the two families have a confrontation, the Prince says anyone who fights again will be killed, then Romeo kills Tybalt and Romeo gets banished and it goes on in a chain of events which all build up to Romeo and Juliet’s death which means that if the two Servants hadn’t have started the fight, none of this would have happened, so it again emphasises that Romeo and Juliet were destined to die and that fate controls everything.
There are many references to Greek mythology “Phaeton”, “Cynthia’s brow”, “Abraham Cupid” which would emphasise fate because Greek’s were firm believers that our lives were pre-destined and that you can’t change the course of fate. So fate was a large part of the play and it makes it very popular with the audience. Shakespeare carefully set out the pace of the play. When he wanted a romantic scene he would slow everything down, have as few people as possible in the scene and have as few stage directions as possible.
But when he wanted a fast violent scene he would have lots of people entering and exiting the scene and lots of stage directions, which would make the scene very fast. This would make people more attentive to the play and they would watch it intensively when there were lots and lots of action. And when he wanted to have a slow scene everything was quiet and there would only be one or two people on stage, which would make things gentle.
The pace is an essential part of the play because it is very important to keep the audiences attention and pace is a very good way of getting it. In conclusion I have discovered that all of the moods are essential to the play. Although the love is the main mood it would not work without the other moods that back it up and contrast with each other. The play would fall to pieces without all the moods because the plot simply would not work without them.
