Criticism of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Criticism of Romeo and Juliet

In Romeo and Juliet, love serves as the tragedy. According to critic Denton J. Snider, "love, the emotion of the Family, in its excess destroys the Family; though it be the origin and bond of the domestic institution, it now assails and annihilates that institution." The love of Romeo and Juliet for one another, not only destroys their families, but ultimately destroys them as well. Their love and devotion for one another causes them to rebel against the institution of family. All in all, "love, which is the emotional ground of the Family, is here destroying the Family itself" (Snider).

Among the Capulet and Montague families, why does the persistent rebellion among the children exist? Supposedly, the feud is fueled solely by their parent’s strife; however, it is clear that the children are brought into the picture and are victims of Verona’s violent social climate. Shakespeare critic, Coppelia Kahn places emphasis on the parent’s lack of direction in their children:

Instead of providing social channels and moral guidance by which the energies of the youth can be rendered beneficial to themselves and society, the Montagues and the Capulets make weak gestures toward civil peace while participating emotionally in the feud as much as their children do. While they fail to exercise authority over the younger generation in the streets, they wield selfishly and stubbornly in the home.

As in Shakespeare’s England, Verona was a very patriarchal society, and women had little place there, but to tend to the home. Men must bear and fight for their family name, while women bear the children and see to the men. Kahn points out that "Verona’s daughters have, in effect, no adoles...

... middle of paper ...

...w York. Copyright 1969.

Reiff, Phillip. “Politics and the Individual”. Freud: The Mind of the Moralist. www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/502/rieff.html,. Chapter 7. 1959.

Snider, Denton J. " ‘Romeo and Juliet’," in his The Shakespeare Drama, a Commentary: The Tragedies, Sigma Publishing Co., 1887, pp. 36-78. Reprinted in

Shakespearean Criticism, Vol.5.

Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1977.

Simpson, JA and ESC Weiner (prep by). Oxford English Dictionary: Volume V, Second Edition.Clarendon Press. Oxford. Copyright 1989.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. Current Population Reports, P20-515 “Household and family characteristics: March 1998 (Update)” and earlier reports.

www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/htabHH-1.txt, and

www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/htabFM-1.txt.