THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 109
Language of love
Shakespeare finds a new language
of love that has a freshness and
immediacy that was entirely new
in English verse—rich in imagery,
yet sincerely personal and new-
minted by this earnest young
couple, with rich poetic allusions
such as Juliet’s wish to be a
falconer to lure Romeo back like
a trained falcon replacing more
formal metaphors. In his language,
as in his story, Shakespeare
moves on from the divisive
conventions of the past to a new
and more honest and profound
mode of expression. Romeo and
Juliet’s lines resonate with real
feeling. Rarely has young love
been expressed with such
tenderness and such beauty.
Yet that love is doomed
from the start. Juliet urgently
wishes for time to rush by to
bring on the night, “the love-
performing night” (3.2.5) that
will allow them to be together.
But the night is both a time of
love and a symbol of death, and
the urgent race into the dark is
also a headlong charge into the
galloping events that bring them
to their tragic end.
Romeo and Juliet is full of
oppositions—light versus dark,
youth versus age, time running
fast and time running slow, the
moon versus the stars, love versus
hate. Juliet describes Romeo to
her nurse as “My only love sprung
from my only hate” (1.5.137), as
if the oxymorons of Romeo’s
sonnet to Rosaline have taken life.
As we were told it would, it is
the darkness that wins out. Romeo
and Juliet’s love cannot win, for
their romantic ideals prove no
match for the force of their elders’
quarrels. However, in death, they
prove the catalyst that brings the
quarrels to an abrupt end. Capulet
reaches out to Montague “O brother
Montague, give me thy hand”
(5.3.295), as each praises the other’s
child. The Prince stands lamenting
over their bodies: “A glooming
peace this morning with it brings. /
The sun for sorrow will not show
his head” (5.3.304–305). Those left
behind feel a profound shame. ■Adaptations
At least 30 operas and ballets
have been adapted from
Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet, including Prokofiev’s
1935 ballet Romeo and Juliet
and Gounod’s opera Roméo
et Juliette (1867). Leonard
Bernstein and Stephen
Sondheim’s 1957 stage musical
West Side Story moves the
action to New York’s tough
Upper West Side, where rival
gangs, the Sharks and the
Jets, clash. Many other stage
shows have been adapted
from Shakespeare’s play,
including French composer
Gérard Presgurvic’s musical
spectacle Roméo et Juliette:
de la Haine à l’Amour (2001).
More than 60 different film
versions have been created,
beginning with Clemence
Maurice’s 1900 production.
One of the best known is
Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film,
which made an impact
with its beautiful teenage
leads, including 16-year-old
Olivia Hussey as Juliet in a
controversial nude scene. Baz
Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet
(1996, pictured above), starred
Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire
Danes, and set the action in a
modern world of edgy youth on
California’s “Verona Beach.”Adrienne Canterna choreographed
and danced in the ballet Romeo and
Juliet, directed by her husband Rasta
Thomas. Their production mixed
Prokofiev’s score with modern music.