Romeo and Juliet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and power of Shakespeare's tragedy of two young lovers in Verona, their families divided by a bitter feud
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, written in the early 1590s after a series of histories and comedies. His audience already knew the story of the feuding Capulets and Montagues in Verona and the fate of the young lovers from their rival houses, but not how Shakespeare would tell it and, with his poetry and plotting, he created a work so powerful and timeless that his play has shaped the way we talk of love, especially young love, ever since.
The image above is of Mrs Patrick Campbell ('Mrs Pat') as Juliet and Johnson Forbes-Robinson as Romeo in a scene from the 1895 production at the Lyceum Theatre, London
With
Helen Hackett
Professor of English Literature at University College London
Paul Prescott
Professor of English and Theatre at the University of California Merced
And
Emma Smith
Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Last on
Clip
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'Romeo is slightly ridiculous in the early scenes'
Duration: 02:10
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
READING LIST
Catherine Belsey, Romeo and Juliet: Language and Writing (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Helen Hackett, The Elizabethan Mind: Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty (Yale University Press, 2022)
James N. Loehlin, Shakespeare in Production: Romeo and Juliet (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Claire McEachern (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Paul Menzer (ed), Romeo and Juliet: Arden Performance Editions (Bloomsbury, 2017)
Sasha Roberts, William Shakespeare: 'Romeo and Juliet', Writers and Their Work (Northcote House/British Council, 1998)
Ed Rocklin, The Shakespeare Handbooks: Romeo and Juliet (βRed Globe Press, 2010)
William Shakespeare (ed. Rene Weis), Romeo and Juliet (Bloomsbury, 2012), especially the introduction by Rene Weis
William Shakespeare (eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine), Romeo and Juliet: Folger Shakespeare Library (Simon & Schuster, 2011)
Emma Smith, This Is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright (Pelican, 2019), especially the chapter on Romeo and Juliet
Mark Thornton Burnett, Shakespeare and World Cinema (Cambridge University Press, 2015), especially the chapter on Romeo and Juliet
Stanley Wells, Shakespeareβs Tragedies: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017)
RELATED LINKS
Broadcasts
- Thu 17 Feb 2022 09:00ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Thu 17 Feb 2022 21:30ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
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