Romeo and Juliet

come-what-sorrow-can
Dr Catherine Bates is Senior Lecturer in English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, specialising in the literature and culture of the Renaissance. This is opening of her essay, Come What Sorrow Can, which appears in the programme for the current production.

Breaking with tradition
When Shakespeare turned to an old romance and made of it a play he was doing something very new - not in rifling the story-books for material, for that was what he always did, but in making out of this tale of young love marred a tragedy. Tragedy was still a "high" form - ponderous, serious, and grave. It was traditionally concerned with the deeds of noble men and, in telling tales of the falls of princes and "sad stories of the death of kings", the tragedies Shakespeare had written to date, as well as those of his contemporaries, all conformed to type. The tradition was based on decorum - the misfortunes of famous men were already well-known and laden with consequence: it was therefore appropriate to blazon them forth on the stage. But the bad luck that struck ordinary families remained a private matter, hidden behind closed doors and not of general concern: there was a sense of reluctance, almost of indecency in making such things public, least of all in promoting them to high art.

When Shakespeare chose for his tragedy not the historical past but a contemporary scene, not heroes but a pair barely adult, not a national crisis but a story that, however poignant, was common enough for anyone to identify with, he was doing something radically new. Habituated as we are to soap opera and family drama, we are no longer surprised by the domestication of tragedy, but we would have been in 1595. Romeo and Juliet, is so familiar, so "traditional", it is hard to remember that, in its day, it was modern and innovatory.


			Dr Catherine Bates is Senior Lecturer in English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, specialising in the literature and culture of the Renaissance. This is opening of her essay, Come What Sorrow Can, which appears in the programme for the current production. When Shakespeare turned to an old romance and made of it a play he was doing something very new - not in rifling the story-books for material, for that was what he always did, but in making out of this tale of young love marred a tragedy. Tragedy was still a "high" form - ponderous, serious, and grave. It was traditionally concerned with the deeds of noble men and, in telling tales of the falls of princes and "sad stories of the death of kings", the tragedies Shakespeare had written to date, as well as those of his contemporaries, all conformed to type. The tradition was based on decorum - the misfortunes of famous men were already well-known and laden with consequence: it was therefore appropriate to blazon them forth on the stage. But the bad luck that struck ordinary families remained a private matter, hidden behind closed doors and not of general concern: there was a sense of reluctance, almost of indecency in making such things public, least of all in promoting them to high art. When Shakespeare chose for his tragedy not the historical past but a contemporary scene, not heroes but a pair barely adult, not a national crisis but a story that, however poignant, was common enough for anyone to identify with, he was doing something radically new. Habituated as we are to soap opera and family drama, we are no longer surprised by the domestication of tragedy, but we would have been in 1595. Romeo and Juliet, is so familiar, so "traditional", it is hard to remember that, in its day, it was modern and innovatory.