Romeo and Juliet (Grades 9–1) York Notes

For Shakespeare’s audience Italy was an exotic, distant country with romantic and classical associations well suited to a tale of love and violence.

Children were expected to obey their parents and to marry for money and status, so Juliet’s refusal to marry Paris would have shocked most people in an Elizabethan audience.

Catholics were viewed with suspicion by many in Elizabethan England, and the Catholic Friar, meddling with herbs, may have been considered untrustworthy and sinister for this reason.

An Elizabethan audience often chatted and did business during plays so they needed plenty of action and drama to stop them from losing focus. They may well have responded rowdily to scenes such as the street fight in Act I.

Shakespeare, a man well educated in classical literature, such as Petrarchan poetry and the conventions of tragedy, shows their influence in his writing of 'Romeo and Juliet'. The play contains the tragic unities of time, action and place and several sonnets in the Petrarchan style.