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Romeo & Juliet

I’ve got to say before I start that, I’ve struggled like hell with this. Its not so much the language or the play itself. I have actually enjoyed reading and understanding it, and it has shocked me how interested I have become. The problem is the question of the Dramatic Opening, and how best to answer it.

I feel that so much has already been discussed and did not want to just repeat what has been already said.

After studying this piece I appreciate how clever Shakespeare was with his writing. He uses such a lot of different techniques that it is hard to pinpoint the ones that make the real difference.

Because of this I am going to briefly run through the story so far telling some of my views and hopefully by the end I should have answered the question.

When we first started looking at the prologue, I think we were all a bit shock that he actually tell the audience what is going to happen. The more I think about it the more I feel that the prologue was a necessity rather that a choice.

If you imagine being sat in the audience waiting to watch the play, all you would really know is the title and nothing more. This is in contrast with what would happen today. When we go to the cinema I’d say at least 90% of the time we have at least an idea about the plot or storyline.

The prologue is necessary to speed up the play. In films of today you can flick very quickly between scenes and time frames to build up a picture and set the scene in the first 10 minutes. You can’t easily do that in a play and let’s remember that this was always intended to be a play.

I do think that Shakespeare has been very clever in how this background information has been structured though. He has listed all the points that would be hard to put across on stage, without giving anything really away. At first sight it seems that he is telling the whole story but when you look at it he does not say all that much.

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I think the prologue can be split into two half's, the...