I just read Act 1 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, and it was great. The text was foreign but interesting, and I can't wait to finnish the play. As discussed in an earlier post, the writing of Shakespeare is beautiful in many ways, but by reading the past few pages of Romeo and Juliet I have been enlightened to the other wonders of his work.
An interesting thing that Shakespeare does is use puns in his language. An example of a pun is: "There was a man who forgot how to throw a boomerang. Don't' worry, it came back to him. " The use of puns is an interesting detail, easily missed if you are unfamiliar with the text. Romeo and Juliet observe innocent misunderstandings,
"Sampson: Gregory, on my word we shall not carry coals.
Gregory: No, for then we shall be colliers."(Page 9, Line 1-2)
Sampson uses the phrase: 'carry coals' to describe being humiliated, but Gregory perceives it as describing a way of work.
Another interesting thing Shakespeare does is tweak language so that connections must be made in order to understand it. An example of this is, "Benvolio: Madam, an hour before the worshiped sun peered forth the golden window of the east, a troubled mind [drove] me to walk abroad, where underneath the grove of a sycamore that western rooteth from this city side, so early walking did I see your son. Towards him I made but he was 'ware of me and stole into the covert of the wood…" I notice that in order to comprehend this passage, I knew that the sun rises in the east, so Benvolio said it was an hour before dawn, and I knew that a sycamore was a tree. I was pleased that I was able to apply my own knowledge to my reading.
I’m sure that I will find many more details to love and appreciate about Shakespeare on this exotic journey. I would recommend you read Shakespeare, but you should read with others so you catch things you would have missed. Until then I will be gracious for the paraphrasing on the left side of the page.
Bye for now,
Sadie
No comments:
Post a Comment