document_title: Romeo and Juliet

question_text: who died first in the play romeo and juliet

question_tokens: who died first in the play romeo and juliet

text: Romeo and Juliet

text: Characters

text:
Ruling house of Verona

Prince Escalus is the ruling Prince of Verona.
Count Paris is a kinsman of Escalus who wishes to marry Juliet.
Mercutio is another kinsman of Escalus, a friend of Romeo.

House of Capulet

Capulet is the patriarch of the house of Capulet.
Lady Capulet is the matriarch of the house of Capulet.
Juliet is the 13-year-old daughter of Capulet, the play's female protagonist.
Tybalt is a cousin of Juliet, the nephew of Lady Capulet.
The Nurse is Juliet's personal attendant and confidante.
Rosaline is Lord Capulet's niece, Romeo's love in the beginning of the story.
Peter, Sampson, and Gregory are servants of the Capulet household.

House of Montague

Montague is the patriarch of the house of Montague.
Lady Montague is the matriarch of the house of Montague.
Romeo is the son of Montague, the play's male protagonist.
Benvolio is Romeo's cousin and best friend.
Abram and Balthasar are servants of the Montague household.

Others

Friar Laurence is a Franciscan friar and Romeo's confidant.
Friar John is sent to deliver Friar Laurence's letter to Romeo.
An Apothecary who reluctantly sells Romeo poison.
A Chorus reads a prologue to each of the first two acts.

text: Synopsis

text: The play, set in Verona, Italy, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet servants who, like their masters, are sworn enemies. Prince Escalus of Verona intervenes and declares that further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about marrying his daughter Juliet, but Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years and invites him to attend a planned Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliet's nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Paris's courtship.

text: Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Montague's son, about Romeo's recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from unrequited infatuation for a girl named Rosaline, one of Capulet's nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, is enraged at Romeo for sneaking into the ball but is only stopped from killing Romeo by Juliet's father, who does not wish to shed blood in his house. After the ball, in what is now called the "balcony scene", Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet at her window vowing her love to him in spite of her family's hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself known to her and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar Laurence, who hopes to reconcile the two families through their children's union, they are secretly married the next day.

text: Tybalt, meanwhile, still incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence, as well as Romeo's "vile submission",[1] and accepts the duel on Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt.

text: Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring families' feud, exiles Romeo from Verona, under penalty of death if he ever returns. Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet's chamber, where they consummate their marriage. Capulet, misinterpreting Juliet's grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she refuses to become Paris's "joyful bride".[2] When she then pleads for the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her.

text: Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a potion that will put her into a deathlike coma for "two and forty hours".[3] The Friar promises to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan so that he can rejoin her when she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid in the family crypt.

text: The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, Romeo learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant, Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, finding Romeo dead, stabs herself with his dagger. The feuding families and the Prince meet at the tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two "star-cross'd lovers". The families are reconciled by their children's deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the Prince's elegy for the lovers: "For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."[4]

text: Sources

text: Romeo and Juliet borrows from a tradition of tragic love stories dating back to antiquity. One of these is Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which contains parallels to Shakespeare's story: the lovers' parents despise each other, and Pyramus falsely believes his lover Thisbe is dead.[5] The Ephesiaca of Xenophon of Ephesus, written in the 3rd century, also contains several similarities to the play, including the separation of the lovers, and a potion that induces a deathlike sleep.[6]

text: One of the earliest references to the names Montague and Capulet is from Dante's Divine Comedy, who mentions the Montecchi (Montagues) and the Cappelletti (Capulets) in canto six of Purgatorio:[7]

text:
Come and see, you who are negligent,
Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi and Filippeschi
One lot already grieving, the other in fear.[8]

text: However, the reference is part of a polemic against the moral decay of Florence, Lombardy, and the Italian Peninsula as a whole; Dante, through his characters, chastises German King Albert I for neglecting his responsibilities towards Italy ("you who are negligent"), and successive popes for their encroachment from purely spiritual affairs, thus leading to a climate of incessant bickering and warfare between rival political parties in Lombardy. History records the name of the family Montague as being lent to such a political party in Verona, but that of the Capulets as from a Cremonese family, both of whom play out their conflict in Lombardy as a whole rather than within the confines of Verona.[9] Allied to rival political factions, the parties are grieving ("One lot already grieving") because their endless warfare has led to the destruction of both parties,[9] rather than a grief from the loss of their ill-fated offspring as the play sets forth, which appears to be a solely poetic creation within this context.

text: The earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale akin to Shakespeare's play is the story of Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano, in the 33rd novel of his Il Novellino published in 1476.[10] Salernitano sets the story in Siena and insists its events took place in his own lifetime. His version of the story includes the secret marriage, the colluding friar, the fray where a prominent citizen is killed, Mariotto's exile, Gianozza's forced marriage, the potion plot, and the crucial message that goes astray. In this version, Mariotto is caught and beheaded and Gianozza dies of grief.[11]

text: Modern form

text: Luigi da Porto (1485–1529) adapted the story as Giulietta e Romeo[12] and included it in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti, written in 1524 and published posthumously in 1531 in Venice.[13][14] Da Porto drew on Pyramus and Thisbe, Boccacio's Decameron, and Salernitano's Mariotto e Ganozza, but it is likely that his story is also autobiographical: present as a soldier at a ball on 26 February 1511, at a residence of the Savorgnan clan in Udine, following a peace ceremony with the opposite Strumieri, Da Porta fell in love with Lucina, the daughter of the house, but relationships of their mentors prevented advances. The next morning, the Savorgnans led an attack on the city, and many members of the Strumieri were murdered. When years later, half-paralyzed from a battle-wound, he wrote Giulietta e Romeo in Montorso Vicentino (from where he could see the "castles" of Verona), he dedicated the novella to bellisima e leggiadra madonna Lucina Savorgnan.[12][15] Da Porto presented his tale as historically true and claimed it took place a century earlier than Salernitano had it, in the days Verona was ruled by Bartolomeo II della Scala (anglicized as Prince Escalus).

text: Da Porto gave Romeo and Juliet most of its modern form, including the names of the lovers, the rival families of Montecchi and Capuleti, and the location in Verona.[10] He named the friar Laurence (frate Lorenzo) and introduced the characters Mercutio (Marcuccio Guertio), Tybalt (Tebaldo Cappelleti), Count Paris (conti (Paride) di Lodrone), the faithful servant, and Giulietta's nurse. Da Porto originated the remaining basic elements of the story: the feuding families, Romeo -left by his mistress- meeting Giulietta at a dance at her house, the love scenes (including the balcony scene), the periods of despair, Romeo killing Giulietta's cousin (Tebaldo), and the families' reconciliation after the lovers' suicides.[16] In da Porto's version, Romeo takes poison and Giulietta stabs herself with his dagger.[17]

text: In 1554, Matteo Bandello published the second volume of his Novelle, which included his version of Giuletta e Romeo,[14] probably written between 1531 and 1545. Bandello lengthened and weighed down the plot while leaving the storyline basically unchanged (though he did introduce Benvolio).[16] Bandello's story was translated into French by Pierre Boaistuau in 1559 in the first volume of his Histories Tragiques. Boaistuau adds much moralising and sentiment, and the characters indulge in rhetorical outbursts.[18]

text: In his 1562 narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, Arthur Brooke translated Boaistuau faithfully but adjusted it to reflect parts of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.[19] There was a trend among writers and playwrights to publish works based on Italian novelles—Italian tales were very popular among theatre-goers—and Shakespeare may well have been familiar with William Painter's 1567 collection of Italian tales titled Palace of Pleasure.[20] This collection included a version in prose of the Romeo and Juliet story named "The goodly History of the true and constant love of Romeo and Juliett". Shakespeare took advantage of this popularity: The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Romeo and Juliet are all from Italian novelle. Romeo and Juliet is a dramatisation of Brooke's translation, and Shakespeare follows the poem closely but adds extra detail to both major and minor characters (in particular the Nurse and Mercutio).[21][22][23]

text: Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Dido, Queen of Carthage, both similar stories written in Shakespeare's day, are thought to be less of a direct influence, although they may have helped create an atmosphere in which tragic love stories could thrive.[19]

text: Date and text

text: It is unknown when exactly Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Juliet's nurse refers to an earthquake she says occurred 11 years ago.[24] This may refer to the Dover Straits earthquake of 1580, which would date that particular line to 1591. Other earthquakes—both in England and in Verona—have been proposed in support of the different dates.[25] But the play's stylistic similarities with A Midsummer Night's Dream and other plays conventionally dated around 1594–95, place its composition sometime between 1591 and 1595.[26] One conjecture is that Shakespeare may have begun a draft in 1591, which he completed in 1595.[27]

text: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was published in two quarto editions prior to the publication of the First Folio of 1623. These are referred to as Q1 and Q2. The first printed edition, Q1, appeared in early 1597, printed by John Danter. Because its text contains numerous differences from the later editions, it is labelled a so-called 'bad quarto'; the 20th-century editor T. J. B. Spencer described it as "a detestable text, probably a reconstruction of the play from the imperfect memories of one or two of the actors", suggesting that it had been pirated for publication.[28] An alternative explanation for Q1's shortcomings is that the play (like many others of the time) may have been heavily edited before performance by the playing company.[29] However, 'the theory, formulated by [Alfred] Pollard," that the 'bad quarto' was "reconstructed from memory by some of the actors is now under attack. Alternative theories are that some or all of 'the bad quartos' are early versions by Shakespeare or abbreviations made either for Shakespeare's company or for other companies."[30] In any event, its appearance in early 1597 makes 1596 the latest possible date for the play's composition.[25]

text: The superior Q2 called the play The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. It was printed in 1599 by Thomas Creede and published by Cuthbert Burby. Q2 is about 800 lines longer than Q1.[29] Its title page describes it as "Newly corrected, augmented and amended". Scholars believe that Q2 was based on Shakespeare's pre-performance draft (called his foul papers) since there are textual oddities such as variable tags for characters and "false starts" for speeches that were presumably struck through by the author but erroneously preserved by the typesetter. It is a much more complete and reliable text and was reprinted in 1609 (Q3), 1622 (Q4) and 1637 (Q5).[28] In effect, all later Quartos and Folios of Romeo and Juliet are based on Q2, as are all modern editions since editors believe that any deviations from Q2 in the later editions (whether good or bad) are likely to arise from editors or compositors, not from Shakespeare.[29]

text: The First Folio text of 1623 was based primarily on Q3, with clarifications and corrections possibly coming from a theatrical prompt book or Q1.[28][31] Other Folio editions of the play were printed in 1632 (F2), 1664 (F3), and 1685 (F4).[32] Modern versions—that take into account several of the Folios and Quartos—first appeared with Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition, followed by Alexander Pope's 1723 version. Pope began a tradition of editing the play to add information such as stage directions missing in Q2 by locating them in Q1. This tradition continued late into the Romantic period. Fully annotated editions first appeared in the Victorian period and continue to be produced today, printing the text of the play with footnotes describing the sources and culture behind the play.[33]

text: Themes and motifs

text: Scholars have found it extremely difficult to assign one specific, overarching theme to the play. Proposals for a main theme include a discovery by the characters that human beings are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but instead are more or less alike,[34] awaking out of a dream and into reality, the danger of hasty action, or the power of tragic fate. None of these have widespread support. However, even if an overall theme cannot be found it is clear that the play is full of several small, thematic elements that intertwine in complex ways. Several of those most often debated by scholars are discussed below.[35]

text: Love

text:
"Romeo
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

—Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene V[36]

text: Romeo and Juliet is sometimes considered to have no unifying theme, save that of young love.[34] Romeo and Juliet have become emblematic of young lovers and doomed love. Since it is such an obvious subject of the play, several scholars have explored the language and historical context behind the romance of the play.[37]

text: On their first meeting, Romeo and Juliet use a form of communication recommended by many etiquette authors in Shakespeare's day: metaphor. By using metaphors of saints and sins, Romeo was able to test Juliet's feelings for him in a non-threatening way. This method was recommended by Baldassare Castiglione (whose works had been translated into English by this time). He pointed out that if a man used a metaphor as an invitation, the woman could pretend she did not understand him, and he could retreat without losing honour. Juliet, however, participates in the metaphor and expands on it. The religious metaphors of "shrine", "pilgrim", and "saint" were fashionable in the poetry of the time and more likely to be understood as romantic rather than blasphemous, as the concept of sainthood was associated with the Catholicism of an earlier age.[38] Later in the play, Shakespeare removes the more daring allusions to Christ's resurrection in the tomb he found in his source work: Brooke's Romeus and Juliet.[39]

text: In the later balcony scene, Shakespeare has Romeo overhear Juliet's soliloquy, but in Brooke's version of the story, her declaration is done alone. By bringing Romeo into the scene to eavesdrop, Shakespeare breaks from the normal sequence of courtship. Usually, a woman was required to be modest and shy to make sure that her suitor was sincere, but breaking this rule serves to speed along the plot. The lovers are able to skip courting and move on to plain talk about their relationship— agreeing to be married after knowing each other for only one night.[37] In the final suicide scene, there is a contradiction in the message—in the Catholic religion, suicides were often thought to be condemned to hell, whereas people who die to be with their loves under the "Religion of Love" are joined with their loves in paradise. Romeo and Juliet's love seems to be expressing the "Religion of Love" view rather than the Catholic view. Another point is that although their love is passionate, it is only consummated in marriage, which keeps them from losing the audience's sympathy.[40]

text: The play arguably equates love and sex with death. Throughout the story, both Romeo and Juliet, along with the other characters, fantasise about it as a dark being, often equating it with a lover. Capulet, for example, when he first discovers Juliet's (faked) death, describes it as having deflowered his daughter.[41] Juliet later erotically compares Romeo and death. Right before her suicide, she grabs Romeo's dagger, saying "O happy dagger! This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die."[42][43]

text: Fate and chance

text:
"O, I am fortune's fool!"

—Romeo, Act III Scene I[44]

text: Scholars are divided on the role of fate in the play. No consensus exists on whether the characters are truly fated to die together or whether the events take place by a series of unlucky chances. Arguments in favour of fate often refer to the description of the lovers as "star-cross'd". This phrase seems to hint that the stars have predetermined the lovers' future.[45] John W. Draper points out the parallels between the Elizabethan belief in the four humours and the main characters of the play (for example, Tybalt as a choleric). Interpreting the text in the light of humours reduces the amount of plot attributed to chance by modern audiences.[46] Still, other scholars see the play as a series of unlucky chances—many to such a degree that they do not see it as a tragedy at all, but an emotional melodrama.[46] Ruth Nevo believes the high degree to which chance is stressed in the narrative makes Romeo and Juliet a "lesser tragedy" of happenstance, not of character. For example, Romeo's challenging Tybalt is not impulsive; it is, after Mercutio's death, the expected action to take. In this scene, Nevo reads Romeo as being aware of the dangers of flouting social norms, identity, and commitments. He makes the choice to kill, not because of a tragic flaw, but because of circumstance.[47]

text: Duality (light and dark)

text:
"O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!"

—Romeo, Act I Scene I[48]

text: Scholars have long noted Shakespeare's widespread use of light and dark imagery throughout the play. Caroline Spurgeon considers the theme of light as "symbolic of the natural beauty of young love" and later critics have expanded on this interpretation.[47][49] For example, both Romeo and Juliet see the other as light in a surrounding darkness. Romeo describes Juliet as being like the sun,[50] brighter than a torch,[51] a jewel sparkling in the night,[52] and a bright angel among dark clouds.[53] Even when she lies apparently dead in the tomb, he says her "beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light."[54] Juliet describes Romeo as "day in night" and "Whiter than snow upon a raven's back."[55][56] This contrast of light and dark can be expanded as symbols—contrasting love and hate, youth and age in a metaphoric way.[47] Sometimes these intertwining metaphors create dramatic irony. For example, Romeo and Juliet's love is a light in the midst of the darkness of the hate around them, but all of their activity together is done in night and darkness while all of the feuding is done in broad daylight. This paradox of imagery adds atmosphere to the moral dilemma facing the two lovers: loyalty to family or loyalty to love. At the end of the story, when the morning is gloomy and the sun hiding its face for sorrow, light and dark have returned to their proper places, the outward darkness reflecting the true, inner darkness of the family feud out of sorrow for the lovers. All characters now recognise their folly in light of recent events, and things return to the natural order, thanks to the love and death of Romeo and Juliet.[49] The "light" theme in the play is also heavily connected to the theme of time since light was a convenient way for Shakespeare to express the passage of time through descriptions of the sun, moon, and stars.[57]

text: Time

text:
"These times of woe afford no time to woo."

—Paris, Act III Scene IV[58]

text: Time plays an important role in the language and plot of the play. Both Romeo and Juliet struggle to maintain an imaginary world void of time in the face of the harsh realities that surround them. For instance, when Romeo swears his love to Juliet by the moon, she protests "O swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon, / That monthly changes in her circled orb, / Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."[59] From the very beginning, the lovers are designated as "star-cross'd"[60] referring to an astrologic belief associated with time. Stars were thought to control the fates of humanity, and as time passed, stars would move along their course in the sky, also charting the course of human lives below. Romeo speaks of a foreboding he feels in the stars' movements early in the play, and when he learns of Juliet's death, he defies the stars' course for him.[46][61]

text: Another central theme is haste: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet spans a period of four to six days, in contrast to Brooke's poem's spanning nine months.[57] Scholars such as G. Thomas Tanselle believe that time was "especially important to Shakespeare" in this play, as he used references to "short-time" for the young lovers as opposed to references to "long-time" for the "older generation" to highlight "a headlong rush towards doom".[57] Romeo and Juliet fight time to make their love last forever. In the end, the only way they seem to defeat time is through a death that makes them immortal through art.[62]

text: Time is also connected to the theme of light and dark. In Shakespeare's day, plays were most often performed at noon or in the afternoon in broad daylight.[63] This forced the playwright to use words to create the illusion of day and night in his plays. Shakespeare uses references to the night and day, the stars, the moon, and the sun to create this illusion. He also has characters frequently refer to days of the week and specific hours to help the audience understand that time has passed in the story. All in all, no fewer than 103 references to time are found in the play, adding to the illusion of its passage.[64]

text: Criticism and interpretation

text: Critical history

text: The earliest known critic of the play was diarist Samuel Pepys, who wrote in 1662: "it is a play of itself the worst that I ever heard in my life."[65] Poet John Dryden wrote 10 years later in praise of the play and its comic character Mercutio: "Shakespear show'd the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself, that he was forc'd to kill him in the third Act, to prevent being killed by him."[65] Criticism of the play in the 18th century was less sparse, but no less divided. Publisher Nicholas Rowe was the first critic to ponder the theme of the play, which he saw as the just punishment of the two feuding families. In mid-century, writer Charles Gildon and philosopher Lord Kames argued that the play was a failure in that it did not follow the classical rules of drama: the tragedy must occur because of some character flaw, not an accident of fate. Writer and critic Samuel Johnson, however, considered it one of Shakespeare's "most pleasing" plays.[66]

text: In the later part of the 18th and through the 19th century, criticism centred on debates over the moral message of the play. Actor and playwright David Garrick's 1748 adaptation excluded Rosaline: Romeo abandoning her for Juliet was seen as fickle and reckless. Critics such as Charles Dibdin argued that Rosaline had been purposely included in the play to show how reckless the hero was and that this was the reason for his tragic end. Others argued that Friar Laurence might be Shakespeare's spokesman in his warnings against undue haste. With the advent of the 20th century, these moral arguments were disputed by critics such as Richard Green Moulton: he argued that accident, and not some character flaw, led to the lovers' deaths.[67]

text: Dramatic structure

text: In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare employs several dramatic techniques that have garnered praise from critics; most notably the abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy (an example is the punning exchange between Benvolio and Mercutio just before Tybalt arrives). Before Mercutio's death in Act three, the play is largely a comedy.[68] After his accidental demise, the play suddenly becomes serious and takes on a tragic tone. When Romeo is banished, rather than executed, and Friar Laurence offers Juliet a plan to reunite her with Romeo, the audience can still hope that all will end well. They are in a "breathless state of suspense" by the opening of the last scene in the tomb: If Romeo is delayed long enough for the Friar to arrive, he and Juliet may yet be saved.[69] These shifts from hope to despair, reprieve, and new hope, serve to emphasise the tragedy when the final hope fails and both the lovers die at the end.[70]

text: Shakespeare also uses sub-plots to offer a clearer view of the actions of the main characters. For example, when the play begins, Romeo is in love with Rosaline, who has refused all of his advances. Romeo's infatuation with her stands in obvious contrast to his later love for Juliet. This provides a comparison through which the audience can see the seriousness of Romeo and Juliet's love and marriage. Paris' love for Juliet also sets up a contrast between Juliet's feelings for him and her feelings for Romeo. The formal language she uses around Paris, as well as the way she talks about him to her Nurse, show that her feelings clearly lie with Romeo. Beyond this, the sub-plot of the Montague–Capulet feud overarches the whole play, providing an atmosphere of hate that is the main contributor to the play's tragic end.[70]

text: Language

text: Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic forms throughout the play. He begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, spoken by a Chorus. Most of Romeo and Juliet is, however, written in blank verse, and much of it in strict iambic pentameter, with less rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeare's later plays.[71] In choosing forms, Shakespeare matches the poetry to the character who uses it. Friar Laurence, for example, uses sermon and sententiae forms, and the Nurse uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches colloquial speech.[71] Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the scene the character occupies. For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were often used by men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to Juliet as a handsome man.[72] When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan (which was becoming archaic in Shakespeare's day) to a then more contemporary sonnet form, using "pilgrims" and "saints" as metaphors.[73] Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his love, but Juliet breaks it by saying "Dost thou love me?"[74] By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather than a poetic exaggeration of their love.[75] Juliet uses monosyllabic words with Romeo but uses formal language with Paris.[76] Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris.[77] Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio.[78] Humour, also, is important: scholar Molly Mahood identifies at least 175 puns and wordplays in the text.[79] Many of these jokes are sexual in nature, especially those involving Mercutio and the Nurse.[80]

text: Psychoanalytic criticism

text: Early psychoanalytic critics saw the problem of Romeo and Juliet in terms of Romeo's impulsiveness, deriving from "ill-controlled, partially disguised aggression", which leads both to Mercutio's death and to the double suicide.[81] Romeo and Juliet is not considered to be exceedingly psychologically complex, and sympathetic psychoanalytic readings of the play make the tragic male experience equivalent with sicknesses.[82] Norman Holland, writing in 1966, considers Romeo's dream[83] as a realistic "wish fulfilling fantasy both in terms of Romeo's adult world and his hypothetical childhood at stages oral, phallic and oedipal" – while acknowledging that a dramatic character is not a human being with mental processes separate from those of the author.[84] Critics such as Julia Kristeva focus on the hatred between the families, arguing that this hatred is the cause of Romeo and Juliet's passion for each other. That hatred manifests itself directly in the lovers' language: Juliet, for example, speaks of "my only love sprung from my only hate"[85] and often expresses her passion through an anticipation of Romeo's death.[86] This leads on to speculation as to the playwright's psychology, in particular to a consideration of Shakespeare's grief for the death of his son, Hamnet.[87]

text: Feminist criticism

text: Feminist literary critics argue that the blame for the family feud lies in Verona's patriarchal society. For Coppélia Kahn, for example, the strict, masculine code of violence imposed on Romeo is the main force driving the tragedy to its end. When Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo shifts into this violent mode, regretting that Juliet has made him so "effeminate".[88] In this view, the younger males "become men" by engaging in violence on behalf of their fathers, or in the case of the servants, their masters. The feud is also linked to male virility, as the numerous jokes about maidenheads aptly demonstrate.[89] Juliet also submits to a female code of docility by allowing others, such as the Friar, to solve her problems for her. Other critics, such as Dympna Callaghan, look at the play's feminism from a historicist angle, stressing that when the play was written the feudal order was being challenged by increasingly centralised government and the advent of capitalism. At the same time, emerging Puritan ideas about marriage were less concerned with the "evils of female sexuality" than those of earlier eras and more sympathetic towards love-matches: when Juliet dodges her father's attempt to force her to marry a man she has no feeling for, she is challenging the patriarchal order in a way that would not have been possible at an earlier time.[90]

text: Queer theory

text: A number of critics have found the character of Mercutio to have unacknowledged homoerotic desire for Romeo.[91] Jonathan Goldberg examined the sexuality of Mercutio and Romeo utilising "queer theory" in Queering the Renaissance, comparing their friendship with sexual love. Mercutio, in friendly conversation, mentions Romeo's phallus, suggesting traces of homoeroticism.[92] An example is his joking wish "To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle ... letting it there stand / Till she had laid it and conjured it down."[93][94] Romeo's homoeroticism can also be found in his attitude to Rosaline, a woman who is distant and unavailable and brings no hope of offspring. As Benvolio argues, she is best replaced by someone who will reciprocate. Shakespeare's procreation sonnets describe another young man who, like Romeo, is having trouble creating offspring and who may be seen as being a homosexual. Goldberg believes that Shakespeare may have used Rosaline as a way to express homosexual problems of procreation in an acceptable way. In this view, when Juliet says "...that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet",[95] she may be raising the question of whether there is any difference between the beauty of a man and the beauty of a woman.[96]

text: The balcony scene

text: The balcony scene was introduced by Da Porto in 1524. He had Romeo walk frequently by her house, "sometimes climbing to her chamber window" and wrote, "It happened one night, as love ordained, when the moon shone unusually bright, that whilst Romeo was climbing the balcony, the young lady ... opened the window, and looking out saw him".[97] After this they have a conversation in which they declare eternal love to each other. A few decades later, Bandello greatly expanded this scene, diverging from the familiar one: Julia has her nurse deliver a letter asking Romeo to come to her window with a rope ladder, and he climbs the balcony with the help of his servant, Julia and the nurse (the servants discreetly withdraw after this).[16]

text: Nevertheless, in October 2014, Lois Leveen speculated in The Atlantic that the original Shakespeare play did not contain a balcony.[98] The word, balcone, did not exist in the English language until two years after Shakespeare's death.[99] The balcony was certainly used in Thomas Otway's 1679 play, The History and Fall of Caius Marius, which had borrowed much of its story from Romeo and Juliet and placed the two lovers in a balcony reciting a speech similar to that between Romeo and Juliet. Leveen suggested that during the 18th century, David Garrick chose to use a balcony in his adaptation and revival of Romeo and Juliet and modern adaptations have continued this tradition.[98]

text: Legacy

text: Shakespeare's day

text: Romeo and Juliet ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's most performed plays.[101] Its many adaptations have made it one of his most enduring and famous stories.[101] Even in Shakespeare's lifetime, it was extremely popular. Scholar Gary Taylor measures it as the sixth most popular of Shakespeare's plays, in the period after the death of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd but before the ascendancy of Ben Jonson during which Shakespeare was London's dominant playwright.[102] The date of the first performance is unknown. The First Quarto, printed in 1597, says that "it hath been often (and with great applause) plaid publiquely", setting the first performance before that date. The Lord Chamberlain's Men were certainly the first to perform it. Besides their strong connections with Shakespeare, the Second Quarto actually names one of its actors, Will Kemp, instead of Peter, in a line in Act Five. Richard Burbage was probably the first Romeo, being the company's actor, and Master Robert Goffe (a boy) the first Juliet.[100] The premiere is likely to have been at "The Theatre", with other early productions at "The Curtain".[103] Romeo and Juliet is one of the first Shakespearean plays to have been performed outside England: a shortened and simplified version was performed in Nördlingen in 1604.[104]

text: Restoration and 18th-century theatre

text: All theatres were closed down by the puritan government on 6 September 1642. Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, two patent companies (the King's Company and the Duke's Company) were established, and the existing theatrical repertoire divided between them.[105]

text: Sir William Davenant of the Duke's Company staged a 1662 adaptation in which Henry Harris played Romeo, Thomas Betterton Mercutio, and Betterton's wife Mary Saunderson Juliet: she was probably the first woman to play the role professionally.[106] Another version closely followed Davenant's adaptation and was also regularly performed by the Duke's Company. This was a tragicomedy by James Howard, in which the two lovers survive.[107]

text: Thomas Otway's The History and Fall of Caius Marius, one of the more extreme of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare, debuted in 1680. The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient Rome; Romeo is Marius, Juliet is Lavinia, the feud is between patricians and plebeians; Juliet/Lavinia wakes from her potion before Romeo/Marius dies. Otway's version was a hit, and was acted for the next seventy years.[106] His innovation in the closing scene was even more enduring, and was used in adaptations throughout the next 200 years: Theophilus Cibber's adaptation of 1744, and David Garrick's of 1748 both used variations on it.[108] These versions also eliminated elements deemed inappropriate at the time. For example, Garrick's version transferred all language describing Rosaline to Juliet, to heighten the idea of faithfulness and downplay the love-at-first-sight theme.[109] In 1750, a "Battle of the Romeos" began, with Spranger Barry and Susannah Maria Arne (Mrs. Theophilus Cibber) at Covent Garden versus David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy at Drury Lane.[110]

text: The earliest known production in North America was an amateur one: on 23 March 1730, a physician named Joachimus Bertrand placed an advertisement in the Gazette newspaper in New York, promoting a production in which he would play the apothecary.[111] The first professional performances of the play in North America were those of the Hallam Company.[112]

text: 19th-century theatre

text: Garrick's altered version of the play was very popular, and ran for nearly a century.[106] Not until 1845 did Shakespeare's original return to the stage in the United States with the sisters Susan and Charlotte Cushman as Juliet and Romeo, respectively,[113] and then in 1847 in Britain with Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells Theatre.[114] Cushman adhered to Shakespeare's version, beginning a string of eighty-four performances. Her portrayal of Romeo was considered genius by many. The Times wrote: "For a long time Romeo has been a convention. Miss Cushman's Romeo is a creative, a living, breathing, animated, ardent human being."[115] Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that "no-one would ever have imagined she was a woman".[116] Cushman's success broke the Garrick tradition and paved the way for later performances to return to the original storyline.[106]

text: Professional performances of Shakespeare in the mid-19th century had two particular features: firstly, they were generally star vehicles, with supporting roles cut or marginalised to give greater prominence to the central characters. Secondly, they were "pictorial", placing the action on spectacular and elaborate sets (requiring lengthy pauses for scene changes) and with the frequent use of tableaux.[117] Henry Irving's 1882 production at the Lyceum Theatre (with himself as Romeo and Ellen Terry as Juliet) is considered an archetype of the pictorial style.[118] In 1895, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson took over from Irving and laid the groundwork for a more natural portrayal of Shakespeare that remains popular today. Forbes-Robertson avoided the showiness of Irving and instead portrayed a down-to-earth Romeo, expressing the poetic dialogue as realistic prose and avoiding melodramatic flourish.[119]

text: American actors began to rival their British counterparts. Edwin Booth (brother to John Wilkes Booth) and Mary McVicker (soon to be Edwin's wife) opened as Romeo and Juliet at the sumptuous Booth's Theatre (with its European-style stage machinery, and an air conditioning system unique in New York) on 3 February 1869. Some reports said it was one of the most elaborate productions of Romeo and Juliet ever seen in America; it was certainly the most popular, running for over six weeks and earning over $60,000[120] (equal to about $1,080,000 today).[121] The programme noted that: "The tragedy will be produced in strict accordance with historical propriety, in every respect, following closely the text of Shakespeare."[122]

text: The first professional performance of the play in Japan may have been George Crichton Miln's company's production, which toured to Yokohama in 1890.[123] Throughout the 19th century, Romeo and Juliet had been Shakespeare's most popular play, measured by the number of professional performances. In the 20th century it would become the second most popular, behind Hamlet.[124]

text: 20th-century theatre

text: In 1933, the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie McClintic and was taken on a seven-month nationwide tour throughout the United States. It starred Orson Welles, Brian Aherne and Basil Rathbone. The production was a modest success, and so upon the return to New York, Cornell and McClintic revised it and for the first time, the play was presented with almost all the scenes intact, including the Prologue. The new production opened on Broadway in December 1934. Critics wrote that Cornell was "the finest Juliet of her time", "endlessly haunting", and "the most lovely and enchanting Juliet our present-day theatre has seen".[125]

text: John Gielgud's New Theatre production in 1935 featured Gielgud and Laurence Olivier as Romeo and Mercutio, exchanging roles six weeks into the run, with Peggy Ashcroft as Juliet.[126] Gielgud used a scholarly combination of Q1 and Q2 texts and organised the set and costumes to match as closely as possible to the Elizabethan period. His efforts were a huge success at the box office, and set the stage for increased historical realism in later productions.[127] Olivier later compared his performance and Gielgud's: "John, all spiritual, all spirituality, all beauty, all abstract things; and myself as all earth, blood, humanity ... I've always felt that John missed the lower half and that made me go for the other ... But whatever it was, when I was playing Romeo I was carrying a torch, I was trying to sell realism in Shakespeare."[128]

text: Peter Brook's 1947 version was the beginning of a different style of Romeo and Juliet performances. Brook was less concerned with realism, and more concerned with translating the play into a form that could communicate with the modern world. He argued, "A production is only correct at the moment of its correctness, and only good at the moment of its success."[129] Brook excluded the final reconciliation of the families from his performance text.[130]

text: Throughout the century, audiences, influenced by the cinema, became less willing to accept actors distinctly older than the teenage characters they were playing.[131] A significant example of more youthful casting was in Franco Zeffirelli's Old Vic production in 1960, with John Stride and Judi Dench, which would serve as the basis for his 1968 film.[130] Zeffirelli borrowed from Brook's ideas, altogether removing around a third of the play's text to make it more accessible. In an interview with The Times, he stated that the play's "twin themes of love and the total breakdown of understanding between two generations" had contemporary relevance.[132]

text: Recent performances often set the play in the contemporary world. For example, in 1986, the Royal Shakespeare Company set the play in modern Verona. Switchblades replaced swords, feasts and balls became drug-laden rock parties, and Romeo committed suicide by hypodermic needle.[133] In 1997, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre produced a version set in a typical suburban world. Romeo sneaks into the Capulet barbecue to meet Juliet, and Juliet discovers Tybalt's death while in class at school.[134]

text: The play is sometimes given a historical setting, enabling audiences to reflect on the underlying conflicts. For example, adaptations have been set in the midst of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,[135] in the apartheid era in South Africa,[136] and in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt.[137] Similarly, Peter Ustinov's 1956 comic adaptation, Romanoff and Juliet, is set in a fictional mid-European country in the depths of the Cold War.[138] A mock-Victorian revisionist version of Romeo and Juliet's final scene (with a happy ending, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, and Paris restored to life, and Benvolio revealing that he is Paris's love, Benvolia, in disguise) forms part of the 1980 stage-play The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.[139] Shakespeare's R&J, by Joe Calarco, spins the classic in a modern tale of gay teenage awakening.[140] A recent comedic musical adaptation was The Second City's The Second City's Romeo and Juliet Musical: The People vs. Friar Laurence, the Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet, set in modern times.[141]

text: In the 19th and 20th century, Romeo and Juliet has often been the choice of Shakespeare plays to open a classical theatre company, beginning with Edwin Booth's inaugural production of that play in his theatre in 1869, the newly re-formed company of the Old Vic in 1929 with John Gielgud, Martita Hunt, and Margaret Webster,[142] as well as the Riverside Shakespeare Company in its founding production in New York City in 1977, which used the 1968 film of Franco Zeffirelli's production as its inspiration.[143]

text: In 2013, Romeo and Juliet ran on Broadway at Richard Rodgers Theatre from 19 September to 8 December for 93 regular performances after 27 previews starting on 24 August with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad in the starring roles.[144]

text: Ballet

text: The best-known ballet version is Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.[145] Originally commissioned by the Kirov Ballet, it was rejected by them when Prokofiev attempted a happy ending and was rejected again for the experimental nature of its music. It has subsequently attained an "immense" reputation, and has been choreographed by John Cranko (1962) and Kenneth MacMillan (1965) among others.[146]

text: In 1977, Michael Smuin's production of one of the play's most dramatic and impassioned dance interpretations was debuted in its entirety by San Francisco Ballet. This production was the first full-length ballet to be broadcast by the PBS series "Great Performances: Dance in America"; it aired in 1978.[147]

text: Dada Masilo , a South African dancer and choreographer, reinterpreted Romeo and Juliet in a new modern light. She introduced changes to the story notably that of presenting the two familes as multiracial.[148]

text: Music

text:
"Romeo loved Juliet
Juliet, she felt the same
When he put his arms around her
He said Julie, baby, you're my flame
Thou givest fever ..."

—Peggy Lee's rendition of "Fever".[149]

text: At least 27 operas have been based on Romeo and Juliet.[150] The earliest, Romeo und Julie in 1776, a Singspiel by Georg Benda, omits much of the action of the play and most of its characters and has a happy ending. It is occasionally revived. The best-known is Gounod's 1867 Roméo et Juliette (libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré), a critical triumph when first performed and frequently revived today.[151] Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi is also revived from time to time, but has sometimes been judged unfavourably because of its perceived liberties with Shakespeare; however, Bellini and his librettist, Felice Romani, worked from Italian sources—principally Romani's libretto for Giulietta e Romeo by Nicola Vaccai—rather than directly adapting Shakespeare's play.[152] Among later operas, there is Heinrich Sutermeister's 1940 work Romeo und Julia.

text: Roméo et Juliette by Berlioz is a "symphonie dramatique", a large-scale work in three parts for mixed voices, chorus, and orchestra, which premiered in 1839.[153] Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture (1869, revised 1870 and 1880) is a 15-minute symphonic poem, containing the famous melody known as the "love theme".[154] Tchaikovsky's device of repeating the same musical theme at the ball, in the balcony scene, in Juliet's bedroom and in the tomb[155] has been used by subsequent directors: for example, Nino Rota's love theme is used in a similar way in the 1968 film of the play, as is Des'ree's Kissing You in the 1996 film.[156] Other classical composers influenced by the play include Henry Hugh Pearson (Romeo and Juliet, overture for orchestra, Op. 86), Svendsen (Romeo og Julie, 1876), Delius (A Village Romeo and Juliet, 1899–1901), Stenhammar (Romeo och Julia, 1922), and Kabalevsky (Incidental Music to Romeo and Juliet, Op. 56, 1956).[157]

text: The play influenced several jazz works, including Peggy Lee's "Fever".[158] Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder contains a piece entitled "The Star-Crossed Lovers"[159] in which the pair are represented by tenor and alto saxophones: critics noted that Juliet's sax dominates the piece, rather than offering an image of equality.[160] The play has frequently influenced popular music, including works by The Supremes, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Lou Reed,[161] and Taylor Swift.[162] The most famous such track is Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet".[163]

text: The most famous musical theatre adaptation is West Side Story with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It débuted on Broadway in 1957 and in the West End in 1958 and became a popular film in 1961. This version updated the setting to mid-20th-century New York City and the warring families to ethnic gangs.[164] Other musical adaptations include Terrence Mann's 1999 rock musical William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, co-written with Jerome Korman,[165] Gérard Presgurvic's 2001 Roméo et Juliette, de la Haine à l'Amour and Riccardo Cocciante's 2007 Giulietta & Romeo.[166]

text: Literature and art

text: Romeo and Juliet had a profound influence on subsequent literature. Before then, romance had not even been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy.[167] In Harold Bloom's words, Shakespeare "invented the formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death".[168] Of Shakespeare's works, Romeo and Juliet has generated the most—and the most varied—adaptations, including prose and verse narratives, drama, opera, orchestral and choral music, ballet, film, television, and painting.[169] The word "Romeo" has even become synonymous with "male lover" in English.[170]

text: Romeo and Juliet was parodied in Shakespeare's own lifetime: Henry Porter's Two Angry Women of Abingdon (1598) and Thomas Dekker's Blurt, Master Constable (1607) both contain balcony scenes in which a virginal heroine engages in bawdy wordplay.[171] The play directly influenced later literary works. For example, the preparations for a performance form a major plot arc in Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby.[172]

text: Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most-illustrated works.[173] The first known illustration was a woodcut of the tomb scene,[174] thought to be by Elisha Kirkall, which appeared in Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of Shakespeare's plays.[175] Five paintings of the play were commissioned for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in the late 18th century, one representing each of the five acts of the play.[176] The 19th-century fashion for "pictorial" performances led to directors drawing on paintings for their inspiration, which, in turn, influenced painters to depict actors and scenes from the theatre.[177] In the 20th century, the play's most iconic visual images have derived from its popular film versions.[178]

text: In 2014, Simon & Schuster published Juliet's Nurse, a novel by historian and former college professor Lois M. Leveen imagining the fourteen years leading up to the events in the play from the point of view of the nurse. The nurse has the third largest number of lines in the original play; only the eponymous characters have more lines.[179]

text: The play was the subject of a 2017 GCSE question by the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations board that was administered to c. 14000 students. The board attracted widespread media criticism and derision after the question appeared to confuse the Capulets and the Montagues.[180] [181] [182] with Ofqual describing the error as unacceptable.[183]

text: Screen

text: Romeo and Juliet may be the most-filmed play of all time.[184] The most notable theatrical releases were George Cukor's multi-Oscar-nominated 1936 production, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet. The latter two were both, in their time, the highest-grossing Shakespeare film ever.[185] Romeo and Juliet was first filmed in the silent era, by Georges Méliès, although his film is now lost.[184] The play was first heard on film in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, in which John Gilbert recited the balcony scene opposite Norma Shearer.[186]

text: Shearer and Leslie Howard, with a combined age over 75, played the teenage lovers in George Cukor's MGM 1936 film version. Neither critics nor the public responded enthusiastically. Cinemagoers considered the film too "arty", staying away as they had from Warner's A Midsummer Night Dream a year before: leading to Hollywood abandoning the Bard for over a decade.[187] Renato Castellani won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival for his 1954 film of Romeo and Juliet.[188] His Romeo, Laurence Harvey, was already an experienced screen actor.[189] By contrast, Susan Shentall, as Juliet, was a secretarial student who was discovered by the director in a London pub and was cast for her "pale sweet skin and honey-blonde hair".[190]

text: Stephen Orgel describes Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet as being "full of beautiful young people, and the camera and the lush technicolour, make the most of their sexual energy and good looks".[191] Zeffirelli's teenage leads, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, had virtually no previous acting experience but performed capably and with great maturity.[192] Zeffirelli has been particularly praised,[193] for his presentation of the duel scene as bravado getting out-of-control.[194] The film courted controversy by including a nude wedding-night scene[195] while Olivia Hussey was only fifteen.[196]

text: Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet and its accompanying soundtrack successfully targeted the "MTV Generation": a young audience of similar age to the story's characters.[197] Far darker than Zeffirelli's version, the film is set in the "crass, violent and superficial society" of Verona Beach and Sycamore Grove.[198] Leonardo DiCaprio was Romeo and Claire Danes was Juliet.

text: The play has been widely adapted for TV and film. In 1960, Peter Ustinov's cold-war stage parody, Romanoff and Juliet was filmed.[138] The 1961 film of West Side Story—set among New York gangs–featured the Jets as white youths, equivalent to Shakespeare's Montagues while the Sharks, equivalent to the Capulets, are Puerto Rican.[199] The 1994 film The Punk uses both the rough plot outline of Romeo and Juliet and names many of the characters in ways that reflect the characters in the play. In 2006, Disney's High School Musical made use of Romeo and Juliet's plot, placing the two young lovers in different high school cliques instead of feuding families.[200] Film-makers have frequently featured characters performing scenes from Romeo and Juliet.[201] The conceit of dramatising Shakespeare writing Romeo and Juliet has been used several times,[202] including John Madden's 1998 Shakespeare in Love, in which Shakespeare writes the play against the backdrop of his own doomed love affair.[203] An anime series produced by Gonzo and SKY Perfect Well Think, called Romeo x Juliet, was made in 2007 and the 2013 version is the latest English-language film based on the play. In 2013, Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed the Bollywood film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, a contemporary version of the play which starred Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone in leading roles. The film was a commercial and critical success.[204][205] In February 2014, BroadwayHD released a filmed version of the 2013 Broadway Revival of Romeo and Juliet. The production starred Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad.[206] The film was released internationally in April 2014.[207]

text: Modern social media and virtual world productions

text: In April and May 2010, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Company presented a version of the play, entitled Such Tweet Sorrow, as an improvised, real-time series of tweets on Twitter. The production used RSC actors who engaged with the audience as well each other, performing not from a traditional script but a "Grid" developed by the Mudlark production team and writers Tim Wright and Bethan Marlow. The performers also make use of other media sites such as YouTube for pictures and video.[208]

text: Scene by scene

text:
Title page of the Second Quarto of Romeo and Juliet published in 1599

Act I prologue

Act I scene 1: Quarrel between Capulets and Montagues

Act I scene 2

Act I scene 3

Act I scene 4

Act I scene 5

Act I scene 5: Romeo's first interview with Juliet

Act II prologue

Act II scene 3

Act II scene 5: Juliet intreats her nurse

Act II scene 6

Act III scene 5: Romeo takes leave of Juliet

Act IV scene 5: Juliet's fake death

Act IV scene 5: Another depiction

Act V scene 3: Juliet awakes to find Romeo dead

tag: ul


document_title: Severus Snape

question_text: what is the meaning of the half blood prince

root

text: Severus Snape

text: Character development

text: In an interview,[3] Rowling described Snape's character as an "antihero". She has said that she drew inspiration for Snape's character from a disliked teacher from her own childhood,[4] and described Snape as a horrible teacher,[5] saying the "worst, shabbiest thing you can do as a teacher is to bully students."[6] However, she does suggest in the books that he is generally an effective teacher.[7] Although Rowling has said that Gilderoy Lockhart is her only character that she "deliberately based on a real person",[8] Snape was reportedly based, at least in part, on John Nettleship, who taught Rowling chemistry and employed her mother as an assistant at Wyedean School near Chepstow.[9][10][11] For Snape's surname, Rowling borrowed the name of the village of Snape, Suffolk.[12] In a 1999 interview[13] and again in 2004,[8] Rowling singled out Snape as one of her favourite characters to write.

tag: p

text: Rowling was less forthcoming about Snape than she was for other characters, because his true loyalties and motivations were not revealed until the final book.[14] However, she hinted numerous times at Snape's important role, suggesting that people should "keep their eye on Snape".[4][15] In 1999, answering a question regarding Snape's love life and the redemptive pattern to his character, Rowling expressed her surprise at the foresight.[16] Rowling also disclosed that after the publication of Prisoner of Azkaban, there was one female fan who guessed Snape loved Lily Potter, making Rowling wonder how she had given herself away.[17]

text: After the completion of the series, Rowling began to speak openly about Snape, discussing the contrast between his character arc and that of Albus Dumbledore.[18] Rowling said "the series is built around [the Dumbledore and Snape storylines]", and maintained that she always knew what Snape would turn out to be at the end and that she carefully plotted his storyline throughout the series. "I had to drop clues all the way through because as you know in the seventh book when you have the revelation scene where everything shifts and you realise...what Snape's motivation was. I had to plot that through the books because at the point where you see what was really going on, it would have been an absolute cheat on the reader at that point just to show a bunch of stuff you've never seen before."[17] Rowling further said in an interview that she wanted Snape to find redemption and forgiveness: "Snape is a complicated man...he was a flawed human being, like all of us. Harry forgives him...Harry really sees the good in Snape ultimately... I wanted there to be redemption."[19]

text: Appearances

text: Snape first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, shortly after Harry arrives at Hogwarts. He is the school's Potions Master, though he is widely rumoured to covet the Defence Against the Dark Arts post.[20] Snape himself confirms the rumour in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.[21] Snape is a sinister and malicious teacher who makes frequent snide and disparaging remarks at Harry's expense. He quickly becomes the primary antagonist of the book, as Harry suspects him of plotting to steal the philosopher's stone, and of attempting to kill him. Only the climax of the book reveals that Professor Quirrell, in league with Lord Voldemort, is the real enemy; Snape, suspicious of Quirrell, had been looking out for Harry throughout the book. In the final chapter, Dumbledore suggests that because Harry's father James had saved Snape's life when they were both students, even though the two detested each other, Snape felt responsible for Harry in return.[22] As the final book reveals, this is not the full story. In any case, even after Quirrell's true role is revealed, Harry retains feelings of suspicion and resentment towards Snape, and their relationship remains tense. Snape's behaviour and attitude towards Harry also remain unchanged.

text: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

text: Snape has a minor role in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where he helps Gilderoy Lockhart oversee Hogwarts' short-lived Duelling Club,[23] but he has little interaction with the main plot. It is while attending the Duelling Club that Harry learns the Expelliarmus spell, which plays a significant role in later books, by seeing Snape use it.

text: In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Snape demonstrates his expertise with potions by brewing the complex Wolfsbane potion for the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin.[24] Throughout the third book, Snape suspects that Lupin may be helping Harry's godfather Sirius Black enter Hogwarts castle; Sirius had been convicted (wrongly, as it is later revealed) of murdering Peter Pettigrew and innocent bystanders, and betraying the Potter family's hiding place to Voldemort. This suspicion stems from Lupin's friendship with Sirius and Harry's father, James, while they were all at Hogwarts as students.[25] Near the climax of the book, Snape attempts to apprehend Sirius, but Sirius escapes with Harry's aid. Snape informs Dumbledore of this circumstance, and when Harry and Lupin are not punished, Snape retaliates by revealing to the entire school that Lupin is a werewolf, forcing the latter to resign his post.[26]

text: Prisoner of Azkaban reveals more details about the connection between Snape and James. While in school together, Sirius once tricked Snape into almost entering the Shrieking Shack while Lupin was there, transformed into a werewolf. James realised the danger and stopped Snape, saving his life; this is the incident Dumbledore referred to at the end of the first book. Snape, however, believes James' actions were self-serving, to avoid being expelled.[27]

text: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

text: Snape's role in the fourth novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is not substantially different from that of the previous three books. He is apoplectic when Harry is unexpectedly entered into the Triwizard Tournament. Later Harry accidentally falls into Dumbledore's Pensieve and views memories of several Death Eater trials from years before. At one point, Snape is named as a Death Eater by Igor Karkaroff, but Dumbledore comes to Snape's defence, claiming that although Snape had indeed been a Death Eater, he changed sides before Voldemort's downfall and turned spy against him. Later, Dumbledore assures Harry that Snape's reformation is genuine, though he refuses to tell Harry how he knows this, saying the information "is a matter between Professor Snape and myself".[28]

text: At the end of the book, Dumbledore attempts to convince a disbelieving Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, that Voldemort has returned. As proof, Snape willingly shows Fudge the restored Dark Mark on his arm. He is subsequently sent on a secret mission by Dumbledore. This mission, as had been implied in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was to rejoin the Death Eaters and spy on Voldemort as a re-doubled agent, while pretending to spy on Dumbledore on behalf of Voldemort.

text: In the fifth novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Snape returns to a more prominent role. With Voldemort having returned to a fully corporeal body, Snape continues working as a re-doubled agent for Dumbledore.[29] He is seen prior to the start of school at Number 12, Grimmauld Place giving reports to the Order of the Phoenix.[30] He has a very strained relationship with Sirius, who owns Grimmauld Place and must remain there in hiding. The two trade frequent snide remarks and at one point almost begin a duel. Snape taunts Sirius about the latter's not being able to take an active role in the Order's missions because of his fugitive status. Harry feels later that this taunting contributed to Sirius' willingness to take unsafe risks.[31] Back at school, Snape's allegiance to the Order has no effect on his dislike for Harry.

text: Later in the book, Dumbledore has Snape teach Harry Occlumency, the protection of the mind from outside intrusion or influence.[31] The sessions are made difficult by their mutual hostility and end prematurely when Harry uses Dumbledore's Pensieve to view one of Snape's worst childhood memories without the latter's permission. He sees the memory of Snape being bullied by James and Sirius, and of calling Harry's mother Lily a Mudblood (a highly offensive term).[25] Only in the final book is it revealed that, prior to this confrontation, Snape and Lily had been close friends.

text: Towards the end of the novel, Dolores Umbridge – the school's politically appointed headmistress – captures Harry and interrogates him about Dumbledore's whereabouts. She sends for Snape, demanding that he provide the magical truth serum Veritaserum in order to force Harry to reveal any information he may be hiding. Snape claims that his supplies of the serum have been exhausted after Umbridge used the drug to force information about Dumbledore's Army from Cho Chang. It is later revealed that Snape had in fact supplied Umbridge with fake Veritaserum on the prior attempt. Snape then carries Harry's cryptic warning about Sirius' capture to the other Order members, allowing them to come to the rescue in the Department of Mysteries.[32] Harry still holds Snape partly responsible for Sirius' death, believing Snape's goading spurred Sirius into joining the battle.

text: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

text: In the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy visit Snape at his home in Spinner's End. Narcissa's son Draco has been given a difficult task by Voldemort, and Narcissa swears Snape to an Unbreakable Vow that he will protect Draco, help him complete Voldemort's task, and finish the task himself if Draco fails. When questioned by Bellatrix about his loyalties, Snape says he has been working for Voldemort ever since Voldemort's return, and explains his actions in the previous books in that light. He points out that gaining Dumbledore's trust and protection has kept him out of Azkaban and free to operate on Voldemort's behalf.[33]

text: At the start-of-term feast at Hogwarts, Dumbledore announces Snape as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Horace Slughorn, a retired Hogwarts teacher, replaces Snape as Potions Master. With Snape no longer teaching Potions, Harry enrolls in Slughorn's class and is lent an old textbook until his new one arrives. Harry finds marginalia, including a variety of hexes and jinxes seemingly invented by an unknown student, and substantial improvements to the book's standard potion-making instructions. The text is inscribed as being "the Property of the Half-Blood Prince". The notes greatly bolster Harry's performance in Potions, so much so that he impresses Slughorn. Snape, who maintains that he "never had the impression that [he] had been able to teach Potter anything at all", is suspicious of Harry's newfound Potions success.[34]

text: Later, during a fight with Draco, Harry casts one of the Prince's spells marked "For Enemies," and is horrified by the devastating wounds it inflicts to Draco's face and chest. Snape rushes to the scene and heals Draco, then interrogates Harry regarding the spell, using Legilimency to extract the source of Harry's knowledge (the Potions textbook) from Harry's mind. When Snape insists that Harry show him his Potions textbook, Harry hides the Prince's book and gives him Ron Weasley's book instead. As punishment for the attack and knowing Harry is lying about the textbook, Snape assigns Harry detention during the final Quidditch match of the year.[35]

text: Before leaving Hogwarts to accompany Dumbledore in locating another horcrux –part of Voldemort's soul– Harry discovers from Professor Trelawney that it was Snape who overheard the prophecy and told it to Voldemort, resulting in Voldemort hunting down Harry and his parents. Despite this and Harry's angry questions, Dumbledore avers his trust in Snape. Returning to Hogwarts after retrieving Voldemort's Horcrux, Harry and Dumbledore alight atop the school's astronomy tower. Gravely weakened by the horcrux's protective potion, Dumbledore tells Harry he must fetch Snape, but before Harry can leave, Draco suddenly arrives, intending to carry out Voldemort's order to assassinate Dumbledore, closely followed by other Death Eaters (followers of Voldemort), and Snape. Snape interrupts the planned murder, killing the headmaster himself.[36] Harry, who is paralysed under his invisibility cloak by Dumbledore for his own protection, witnesses the kill, and is released upon Dumbledore's death. Enraged, he pursues Snape, Draco, and the Death Eaters as they flee the castle. Snape easily blocks Harry's spells and jeeringly points out Harry's mistakes, but never strikes back. During the confrontation, Snape reveals himself as the eponymous "Half-Blood Prince" (being the half-blood son of Muggle Tobias Snape and pure-blood Eileen Prince). Snape passes through the school gates and Disapparates with Draco in tow at the book's end.[37] The full relationship between Dumbledore and Snape and the reason for Snape's actions remain unknown until the final book. In an interview, Rowling mentioned that at this point in the series, the Harry–Snape relationship has become "as personal, if not more so, than Harry–Voldemort."[38]

text: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

text: In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort and his Death Eaters have tightened their grip on the wizarding world. Snape is named Headmaster of Hogwarts, while Death Eaters Alecto and Amycus Carrow are appointed as Hogwarts staff. The novel focuses largely on Harry and his friends and events outside the school; therefore Snape plays a limited role at the start. In the course of the book, Harry and his friends find out that a few students attempted to steal the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, and that Snape subsequently sent it to be stored at Gringotts Wizarding Bank; however, that sword was only a copy. Later on, Harry and Ron are led to find the real sword by a Patronus taking the form of a doe.[39] (Towards the end of the book, Harry learns that this was Snape's Patronus, taking the same shape as Harry's mother Lily's Patronus, a visible sign of his lifelong love for Harry's mother, and that Dumbledore had asked Snape to ensure that Harry gained possession of the sword.[40] The novel also reveals that Snape had covertly used his position as Headmaster to protect the students and to contain the Carrows.[40])

text: Towards the end of the school year, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout force Snape to flee the school.[41] Voldemort summons Snape to the Shrieking Shack. Erroneously believing Snape is the master of the Elder Wand and that Snape's death will make him the master of the Wand, Voldemort kills Snape by having his pet snake Nagini bite him through the neck.[42] The dying Snape releases a cloud of memories and tells Harry, who has watched the entire scene from a hidden spot, to take and view them.

text: From these memories, Harry sees Snape's childhood and learns his true loyalties. In this vision, Harry learns that Snape befriended Lily as a child when they lived near each other. Upon their arrival at Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat placed Snape and Lily into Slytherin and Gryffindor Houses, respectively. They remained friends for the next few years until they were driven apart by Snape's interest in the Dark Arts; the friendship finally ended following the bullying episode that Harry had briefly seen in the fifth book, in which Snape calls Lily "Mudblood". Despite this separation and Snape's enduring animosity toward Lily's eventual husband James Potter, Snape continued to love Lily for the rest of his life.

text: The memories also show that as a Death Eater, Snape had revealed to Voldemort a prophecy made by Sybill Trelawney, causing Voldemort to attempt to prevent it by killing Harry and his parents. Snape, who had not realised until too late that the prophecy was referring to Lily and her family, asked Voldemort to spare Lily. Still in terror for her life, he also approached Dumbledore, admitted his actions, and begged him to protect the Potters. Dumbledore chided him for thinking only of himself and not of Lily's husband and child, but agreed and ensured that they were placed under the Fidelius Charm. In return, Snape secretly allied himself with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix as a double agent against Voldemort, using his powers of Occlumency to hide his betrayal from Voldemort. However, Snape demanded of Dumbledore that his love for Lily (his reason for switching sides) be kept a secret, especially from Harry, because of the deep animosity he felt towards Harry's father and his mixed feelings towards Harry (who reminded him of both his love for Lily Potter and her death, and his animosity towards James Potter). Dumbledore agreed and kept the secret throughout his life, although questioning Snape's request to "never reveal the best of you". Even with his efforts to protect her, Snape felt responsible for Lily's death at Voldemort's hands.

text: Snape's memories then reveal that Dumbledore had impetuously tried to use the Gaunt ring, which had been cursed by Voldemort, and had been suffering from a powerful curse. Snape's knowledge of the Dark Arts enabled him to slow the spread of the curse from Dumbledore's hand through his body, but he would have died within a year. Dumbledore, aware that Voldemort had ordered Draco to kill him, had asked Snape to kill him instead as a way of sparing the boy's soul and of preventing his own otherwise slow, painful death. Although Snape was reluctant, even asking about the impact of such an action on his own soul, Dumbledore implied that this kind of coup de grâce would not damage a human's soul in the same way murder would.[40] Snape agreed to do as the Headmaster requested. Snape's memories also provide Harry with the information he needs to ensure Voldemort's final defeat, in the form of conversations Snape had with Dumbledore.[40]

text: Rowling noted in an interview that because Snape abandoned his post before dying or officially retiring, a portrait of him does not immediately appear in the Headmaster's office following his death. She adds, however, that she would like to think Harry made Snape's true loyalty and heroism known in the Wizarding world, and that he lobbied to ensure that a portrait be installed in the office.[43] In a separate interview, Rowling discussed Snape's back story, saying she had planned it ever since she wrote the first book because the whole series is built around it and she considers him one of the most important characters of the seventh book.[17]

text: Epilogue

text: In the epilogue to Deathly Hallows, set nineteen years after Harry defeats Voldemort, Harry has named his second-born son Albus Severus, after Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape. As Albus is about to enter his first year at Hogwarts, he expresses concern that he will be sorted into Slytherin. Harry tells his son, "you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them [Snape] was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."[44]

text: Appearances in other material

text: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

text: When Draco and Astoria Greengrass' son Scorpius Malfoy finds himself in an alternate timeline in which Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts, killed Harry and his allies and instituted a terrible reign of terror, he desperately searches for help in restoring history to its original course. He finds that in this reality Snape is still alive and still teaches at Hogwarts, and asks for his help. At first Snape is suspicious of him, since this timeline's version of Scorpius is a bully and a Voldemort stalwart. But when Scorpius shows that he knows of Snape having been in love with Lily, Harry's mother - Snape's most closely guarded secret - Snape becomes convinced that he does indeed come from a different timeline where Harry and his friends won. Snape then reveals that he, together with the fugitive Ron and Hermione Granger, maintain the last remnants of Dumbledore's Army - still waging hopeless resistance against the all-powerful Voldemort. In talking with Scorpius, Snape had learned that Harry would name his son "Albus Severus" and would regard Snape as "probably the bravest man I ever knew" - and is deeply moved. Though having guessed that in the other timeline he would die, Snape nevertheless willingly helps Scorpius recreate this timeline - and being discovered by Dementors, Snape sacrifices himself in order to cover Scorpius' escape.

text: Portrayal in films

text: Severus Snape appears in all eight Harry Potter films,[45] portrayed by British actor Alan Rickman. Rickman was Rowling's personal choice to portray the character.[46] He had conversations with Rowling about his character and is one of the few Harry Potter actors that she spoke to prior to the completion of the book series about the future direction of the character.[47] "He knew very early on that he'd been in love with Lily," said Rowling. "He needed to understand […] where this bitterness towards this boy who's the living example of her preference for another man came from."[48]

text: Rickman used this knowledge of Snape's ultimate loyalties throughout the films to decide how to play certain scenes, deliver specific lines, or use body language to convey specific emotions.[49] When the directors of the films would ask him why he was doing a scene a certain way or delivering a line in a specific manner, Rickman would simply reply that he knew something they didn't.[49]

text: Rickman himself refrained from talking about Snape, asking readers to wait and "see what unfolds" in the course of the novels; however, he did say Snape is a complicated person, very rigid and full of himself; in an interview he went further, saying: "Snape isn't one who enjoys jokes and I strongly fear that his sense of humour is extremely limited... But in his defence, I will add that he didn't have an easy adolescence, particularly during his studies at Hogwarts."[50] He also said Snape is a fascinating character, and that he takes immense pleasure in playing such an ambiguous person.[51]

text: Rickman's performance as Snape was widely acclaimed by critics, fans and Rowling herself. Entertainment Weekly listed Rickman as one of the most popular movie stars in 2007 for his performance as Snape, saying: "As the icy, humourless magic instructor Severus Snape, Rickman may not be on screen long—but he owns every minute."[52] Rickman also noted fans' reactions; in an interview, he said he found "that people in general adore Snape. He is sarcastic, stubborn, etc, etc. But he is also fascinating. I have a lot of fun impersonating him."[51] Rickman was nominated for several awards for his portrayal of Snape, and in 2011, was elected the best character portrayal in all the Harry Potter films series.[53]

text: In 2011, Empire magazine published an open letter from Rickman to J.K. Rowling, ruminating on the ten years of working on the Potter films and thanking her for telling the story.[54]

text: In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifteen-year-old Snape (portrayed by Alec Hopkins) makes a brief appearance in a flashback to Snape’s youth. In the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, the younger Snape, perhaps ten or eleven, is played by Benedict Clarke. In 2016, a fan film prequel, Severus Snape and the Marauders, was released online and Snape was played by Mick Ignis.[55]

text: Before Alan Rickman was offered the role of Severus Snape, the role was originally offered to Tim Roth,[56] who turned the role down in favour of portraying General Thade in Planet of the Apes.[57]

text: Characterisation

text: Outward appearance

text: Snape is described as a thin man with sallow skin, a large, hooked nose, and yellow, uneven teeth. He has shoulder-length, greasy black hair which frames his face, and cold, black eyes. He wears black, flowing robes which give him the appearance of "an overgrown bat".[58] The youthful Snape had a "stringy, pallid look", being "round-shouldered yet angular", having a "twitchy" walk "that recalled a spider" and "long oily hair that jumped about his face".[25]

text: In the chapter illustrations by Mary GrandPré in the American editions of The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Order of the Phoenix, and The Half-Blood Prince, Snape is depicted with a moustache and goatee, long black hair, and a receding hairline.

text: Personality

text: Snape is generally depicted as being cold, calculating, precise, sarcastic, and bitter. He strongly dislikes Harry and often insults him by insulting his father James. As the series progresses, it is revealed that his treatment of Harry stems from Snape's bitter rivalry with James when they were in school together. In particular, James and Sirius bullied Snape, which according to Alan Rickman caused the already lonely boy to further "shut himself in".[51] Rowling further described the young Snape as insecure and vulnerable: "Given his time over again [Snape] would not have become a Death Eater, but like many insecure, vulnerable people he craved membership of something big and powerful, something impressive.[...] [He] was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought [Lily] would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater."[3]

text: The adult Snape, on the other hand, is portrayed as very self-assured and confident of his abilities, to a degree that Rickman described as "full of himself."[50] Director David Yates said Snape is a character with gravitas, authority and power.[59] Snape typically displays a very calm and collected demeanour, rarely at a loss for words or taken off guard. His temper, however, is sometimes short where Harry is concerned and positively flares when dealing with his erstwhile tormentor Sirius, or when accused of cowardice. His otherwise impassive and aloof attitude seems to stem from his belief that people who cannot control their emotions are weak.[31]

text: Like some other prominent members of Slytherin house, Snape is shown to be a clever and cunning wizard.[42][60] He is intelligent and has a keen, analytical mind. In an interview, Rowling adds that Snape is immensely brave,[19] and when asked if she considers Snape a hero, replied: "Yes, I do; though a very flawed hero. An anti-hero, perhaps. He is not a particularly likeable man in many ways. He remains rather cruel, a bully, riddled with bitterness and insecurity—and yet he loved, and showed loyalty to that love and, ultimately, laid down his life because of it. That's pretty heroic!"[3]

text: Magical abilities and skills

text: All seven novels show Snape to be a very powerful wizard and to have been outstanding while a student. He specialises in potion making and has talent and passion for the Dark Arts. Sirius claimed that Snape knew more hexes and curses as a first-year student at Hogwarts than most seventh-years knew.[60] Particularly gifted in potion making, Snape added major improvements to his Potions textbook while still a student. Also as a student, Snape shows a rare gift for discovering new spells. Lupin describes Sectumsempra as Snape's "speciality" in Deathly Hallows.[61] Snape is shown using this spell as a teenager against Harry's father James[25] and in the aerial battle in the last novel when he accidentally hits George Weasley (acting as a Potter decoy) with it while actually aiming for a Death Eater who was trying to attack Lupin, causing George's right ear to be severed off permanently. Despite Sectumsempra's deadly power, Snape can also heal the wounds it causes.[35] Snape is adept at reversing or containing fatal damage from other dark curses as well, due to his vast knowledge of Dark Arts, as he does when Dumbledore[40] and then Katie Bell[62] are cursed. Skilful in the arts of Legilimency and especially Occlumency, Snape is able to both access the minds of others and protect his own thoughts—indeed, though Snape does not care for the term himself, Harry forms the uncomfortable impression early in the series that the Potions Master is able to "read minds." Being an Occlumens, Snape is able to keep his betrayal from Voldemort, who is himself described as being "the greatest Legilimens" in history.[33] According to Rowling, Snape is the only Death Eater capable of producing a full Patronus, which, like Lily's, is a doe.[3] Snape is a talented duellist, able to hold off by himself (if only briefly) a group of three Hogwarts professors that included former duelling champion Filius Flitwick. Professor McGonagall later implies that Snape learned to fly without the use of a broom, a rare skill previously displayed only by Voldemort.[41]

text: Family

text: Snape's family background is mostly shown in flashbacks during the course of the last three novels. Snape was born to Eileen Prince, a witch, and Tobias Snape, a Muggle, making him a half-blood (hence the name, "Half-Blood Prince"). This is rare for a Death Eater, as remarked in the last book, though Voldemort himself also had a Muggle father. Snape spent his early childhood living with his parents in a small house in Spinner's End. Snape's family was a poor one and he is described as wearing ill-fitting clothes "that were so mis-matched that it looked deliberate". As a child, Snape was apparently neglected and his parents often fought with one another. Snape was very eager to leave his home to go to Hogwarts.[40] Towards the end of the last novel, Harry draws parallels between his childhood, Snape's, and Voldemort's.[63]

text: Loyalties

text: Snape's true loyalty was one of the most significant questions in the series up until the end of the final instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Although the first five novels depict him as unfair and vindictive towards Harry and his friends, he invariably ends up protecting or otherwise helping them when they or their allies are in danger. Several characters express doubts about his loyalty, but Dumbledore's trust in him is generally taken to be the final word. The sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, departs from that model. In the second chapter, Snape claims to have been working for Voldemort ever since the latter's return, and only pretending to help Dumbledore.[33] By killing Dumbledore toward the end of the novel, Snape seems to place himself firmly in Voldemort's camp.[36] Rowling maintains this impression through the early chapters of the seventh novel. However, near the climax of the book, Snape leaves Harry his dying thoughts (to be viewed in the Pensieve) and ultimately reveals to Harry that he had been loyal to Albus Dumbledore throughout the series.[40] Snape's fierce devotion to and love of his childhood friend Lily, Harry's mother, is the foundation of that loyalty.[40]

text: After Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Snape's loyalty was a matter of intense debate among the fans. The issue was given special attention in the marketing campaigns on behalf of the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. "Is Snape Good or Evil?" was one of the questions in Scholastic Inc.'s seven-question series, part of its marketing campaign for the book.[64] As part of the Waldenbooks marketing campaign, two free stickers, one that said "Trust Snape" and another that stated "Snape Is A Very Bad Man" were available with the book. Borders Group published a separate book on the topic, The Great Snape Debate, containing essays and arguments from both sides of the debate.[65][66]

text: Reception

text: The secretive attitude and gradual unfolding of Snape's character was broadly admired, with Stephen Fry, the UK audio books narrator, saying in 2003: "Most characters like Snape are hard to love but there is a sort of ambiguity—you can’t quite decide—something sad about him—lonely and it’s fascinating when you think he’s going to be the evil one..., then slowly you get this idea he’s not so bad after all."[67] David Yates, who directed the final four films of the series, also expressed his views on the character, saying: "A character like Snape, where you're not really sure if he's a good guy or a bad guy, that gives you a latent tension... I think the coolest thing you can do with an audience is deny them a little bit of information."[59] Despite being less than kind, the character quickly gained popularity within fandom to a level that surprised Rowling herself.[8] Joyce Millman suggests in her essay "To Sir with Love" in the book Mapping the World of Harry Potter, that Snape is derived from a tradition of Byronic heroes such as Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff.[68] Jenny Sawyer from The Christian Science Monitor commented on the character's development in the series.[69] She claimed that Snape is the only protagonist who genuinely has a choice to make and who struggles to do the right thing, hence the only one to face a "compelling inner crisis". She believed the popularity of the character is due to the moral journey and inner conflict that Snape undergoes within the series, as it is the hero's struggle and costly redemption that really matter: "[Snape's] character ached for resolution. And it is precisely this need for resolution—our desire to know the real Snape and to understand his choices—that makes him the most compelling character in the Potter epic."

text: The final revelation of Snape's loyalty in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was viewed positively by fans and critics alike. Daniel Radcliffe, who portrays Harry Potter in the movie series, expressed his delight, saying he was pleased to see that his theory that Snape would end up being a sort of tragic hero came through.[70] Elizabeth Hand from The Washington Post wrote, "The much-maligned loner Snape does not come onstage until the latter part of "Deathly Hallows," but when he does the book becomes his: Snape's fate, more than Voldemort's, perhaps more even than Harry's, is the most heartbreaking, surprising and satisfying of all of Rowling's achievements."[2]

text: IGN listed Snape as their 4th top Harry Potter character, saying that he makes "quite an impact in the Harry Potter series",[71] and IGN's Joe Utichi called Snape his favourite Harry Potter character and praised his character development.[72] Shortly after the release of the final film, MTV held a public poll for fans to vote for the best character in the series, and Snape was voted #1.[73] Around the same time, Empire magazine held a public poll for fans to vote for the 25 greatest characters in the series, and Snape once again came in at #1.[74] In May 2011, Snape was again voted as the #1 favourite Harry Potter character in a public poll held by the Bloomsbury publishing house.[75] In 2014, Watchmojo.com ranked him #1 on their "Top 10 Harry Potter Characters" list (beating Harry Potter; who is ranked #2) while they ranked him #3 on their "Top 10 Most Gut-Wrenching Harry Potter Deaths" list two years later.

text: In popular culture

text: The character of Severus Snape has appeared in various animated parodies of Harry Potter. He is a starring character in Neil Cicierega's online Potter Puppet Pals parodies, and has a centric episode titled Bothering Snape. Also, the video The Mysterious Ticking Noise with the chorus "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape" was the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube; it currently has over 170 million views.[76] Snape is also parodied as Professor Santory Snapekin in Sluggy Freelance's webcomic entitled Torg Potter. In the first parody, Torg defeats a plot by Professor Snapekin to achieve ultimate power.[77]

text: In a 2004 sketch on Saturday Night Live in which Lindsay Lohan appears as Hermione Granger, Snape is portrayed by Will Forte.[78] Snape has also been parodied in UK television. Comic Relief released a story called Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan, in which Snape is played by Jeremy Irons.[79][80] Alan Rickman appeared himself as Snape in a Harry Potter parody named "Louis Potter and the Philosopher's Scone" in Alistair McGowan's Big Impression show.[81] In the Harry Bladder sketches in All That, Snape appears as Professor Chafe (portrayed by Jeremy Rowley), whose legs were badly chafed, causing him to be unnecessarily mean. Many sketches feature students brewing potions that did silly things, like enlarge students' behinds, give males large breasts, or change people into bras. In a sketch comedy named "Cooking With..." on Australian TV series The Wedge, Snape catches Harry and Hermione making love.[82] In A Very Potter Musical, Snape is played by actor Joe Moses.