'You Kiss by the Book': Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Introduction

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet presents "star-cross'd" lovers whose plight has become the subject of many of today's novels, plays, films, and television dramas. Explore with your students the techniques that Shakespeare uses to capture the magic of the couple's first meeting and to make that meeting so memorable. This lesson plan complements the study of plot and characterization in Romeo and Juliet in its focus on lyrical form and convention that heighten the impact of the action on the stage. Students look first at the sonnet in which Romeo and Juliet meet, analyzing the imagery to gain insight into the way Shakespeare's use of love sonnet conventions characterizes the moment and the relationship between the lovers. Then students act the passage to notice Shakespeare's stage managing of this moment and to consider what perspective his making the lovers almost literally "kiss by the book" lends to our perception of their characters. Finally, students enact the scene in which this moment occurs in order to notice how Shakespeare's juxtaposition of poetic forms, ranging from the almost-prose of Capulet and the Nurse to the melodramatic style of Tybalt, further highlights the sonnet of the lovers. To conclude, students work in groups to find and examine similar moments in the play (e.g., the balcony scene or the tomb scene) where Shakespeare spotlights the action through lyric form and at the same time invites us to explore and question the idealization of lyric conventions by having the characters act out these conceits on stage.

Guiding Questions

• How does Shakespeare's use of different lyric forms and conventions heighten the action in Romeo and Juliet?
• How do these lyric forms and conventions differentiate and strengthen characterization in Romeo and Juliet?

Learning Objectives

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Recognize and understand Shakespeare's use of poetic conventions as a principle of dramatic structure in Romeo and Juliet
• Recount and explain the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet as an enactment of figurative language in a context of competing poetic styles
• Identify and explain the use of poetic forms to impart perspective in later episodes of the play
• Examine other Shakespearean plays, using close reading techniques, including analysis of verse structure and imagery

Background Information for Teachers

The EDSITEment-reviewed Teaching Shakespeare website, published by the Folger Shakespeare Library, offers the following textual history of Romeo and Juliet, situating its writing, performance, and publication in the last years of the 16th-century:

Scholars generally date the writing of Romeo and Juliet to 1595-96, near in time to the composition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare based the plot on several sources, including Arthur Brooke's Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet was published as a quarto in 1597. A fuller text of the play, which has served as the basis of all subsequent editions, appeared in quarto in 1599.

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Though he was born and died in the town Stratford-upon-Avon, much of his life was spent in London where he staged his plays. For biographical information, see Teaching Shakespeare's Biography, which begins with a brief overview and offers more detail through links in the sidebar. Additionally, for a timeline of Shakespeare's life and works in context, see "A Shakespeare Timeline Summary Chart" available via the EDSITEment-reviewed Shakespeare and the Internet.

For information about the play, its history, its staging, Shakespeare, and more lesson plans, explore the EDSITEment-reviewed Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet's Shakespeare in Education website and the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Teachers" website for Romeo and Juliet, available via the EDSITEment-reviewed British Academy Portal.

The sonnet form, explored in the lesson activities below, was popularized by the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch, who established the custom of presenting a problem, situation, or incident in the octave, followed by a resolution in the sestet. In Petrarch's work, these were usually problems, situations, and incidents arising from his love for the unattainable Laura. When English poets began imitating Petrarch's sonnets in the early 16th century, they continued this thematic focus on the pleasures and frustrations of love. But English poets eventually developed a more flexible sonnet form which could be divided into octave and sestet, in the manner of Petrarch, or into three quatrain-length variations on a theme followed by an epigrammatic couplet. More information about the Petrarchan and English sonnet forms is provided in "Poetic Form: Sonnet" via the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets.

Preparing to Teach this Lesson

• Review the lesson plan and the websites used throughout. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Students can access the primary source materials and some of the activity materials via the EDSITEment LaunchPad.
• An online full e-text of Romeo and Juliet, is available through the EDSITEment-reviewed Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet .
• Review "Sonnet I" in Samuel Daniel's sonnet sequence, "Delia," which was published in 1592 and is available through the EDSITEment-reviewed Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet.

Suggested Activities

1. Analyzing the Text

2. Staging the Text

3. Contextualizing the Text

4. Extending the Text

1. Analyzing the Text

Begin this lesson by having students turn to the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet at the Capulet ball, in Act I, Scene 5 (lines 95-112 in the Signet edition). An online full e-text of Romeo and Juliet is available through the EDSITEment-reviewed Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet.

Have students count the lines and examine the rhyme scheme; ask them if it looks familiar. Point out to students that these lines make up a sonnet, followed by a sonnet quatrain. Review briefly the distinction between a Shakespearean or English sonnet, which divides its 14 lines into three quatrains and a couplet, with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg; and a Petrarchan sonnet, which divides its 14 lines into an eight line octave and a six line sestet, with the rhyme scheme abbaabba cdecde. Discuss briefly with students the history of the sonnet form (detailed in Background, above) or have them research the form at the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets.

For practice understanding the sonnet form, teachers can assign either (or both) of the following activities:

• Sonnet Unscrambler, which is available as an Online Interactive or a PDF worksheet. In this activity, students attempt to put the sonnet back in its proper order (best assigned in class to prevent students from simply using a search engine to discover the answer).
• Parts of a Sonnet, which is available as a PDF worksheet. In this activity, students use the hints from the "Bank" to fill in the rhyme scheme, names, and other parts of both forms of the sonnet.

When students are finished with any of the above activities, ask them:

• Why is a sonnet an appropriate poetic form with which to bring the two lovers together in Shakespeare's play?
• What did poets typically use sonnets for at the time when Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet, in the early 1590s?

Now have students look at what Shakespeare has made of these conventions in his play. First ask students to explain Romeo's conceit of pilgrimage, and then to consider other aspects of the poem. Consider breaking students into groups to discuss the following questions:

• What is a pilgrimage?
• Who is the pilgrim here?
• Who is the holy saint?
• How does the conceit characterize the relationship between the two soon-to-be-lovers?
• How does the wittiness and word-play with which they develop the conceit play off against their metaphoric roles?
• To what extent is Romeo really the unworthy suitor of the sonnet tradition?
• To what extent is Juliet really the idealized paragon of virtue?
• How are the lines divided between the two speakers in the sonnet?
• How does this compare with the speaker addressing his unresponsive lady in "Delia"?
• Whose sonnet is this, in the end?

• How does the playful exchange of "sins" here look forward to the tragic outcome of the play?
• How does Juliet's closing, "You kiss by the book," reflect on this little episode? What does she mean?

2. The Text Alive

As usual, Shakespeare's poetic artistry in this passage is only half the story. To explore the drama he has built into these lines, have two student volunteers act this episode, taking direction from members of the class.

Ask students what actions fit these words. For example, what is Romeo doing as he speaks his first four lines? Perhaps more importantly, what is Juliet doing? How does Romeo catch and hold her attention? How does she react? What is the exchange of gestures in this first moment of their relationship? Have students experiment to find a way of playing Romeo's first lines that sets the stage for Juliet to enter into the conceit and extend it with her answering quatrain.

Proceed in this detailed way through the remaining fourteen lines of the scene, encouraging students to experiment with various deliveries of the lines and to draw from Shakespeare's verse the implicit stage directions for this key moment of his drama. How does he bring the relationship of the imagery and word-play of his poetry to life on the stage? Are the lovers caught up in their conceit, or do they speak with a tone of self-awareness, using the conceit as a way of signaling their intentions to one another? Focus especially on the dynamics of the two kisses in the episode, the first marked by stillness ("Then move not"), the second by impulse ("Give me my sin again"). How far has the relationship moved between these two moments? How does this "extra" kiss reflect on the elaborate build-up to the first one? How does it look forward to the impulsiveness that will lead to tragedy later in the play?

Acting this episode brings out the importance of Juliet's closing line, "You kiss by the book." In the text, this can seem a throwaway; on stage, it is clearly the clincher. Have students experiment with a variety of ways Juliet might deliver the line, in order to notice how it characterizes her relationship with and her attitude toward Romeo. (Her tone and manner might be anything from a dreamy "You really know how to kiss!" to a sarcastic "You've got a lot to learn about kissing.") Help students notice, too, that by giving her this last line, Shakespeare has effectively given her control over the episode, made her step out of their charade and comment on it. What does this suggest about her character as compared to Romeo's? What does it suggest about the tone and manner in which she should speak the line?

3. The Text in Context

To gauge the full dramatic effect of the sonnet Shakespeare created for the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet, it is necessary to see it in the context of the action surrounding it at the Capulet ball. Have student volunteers take the roles of Capulet, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, and the Nurse, and read the scene from Capulet's "Go to, go to!" through Romeo's couplet, "Is she a Capulet?/ O dear account! My life is my foe's debt" (Act I, Scene 5, lines 84-120 in the Signet edition).

Call attention to the fact that, while all these characters speak in verse, each speaks in a distinctive poetic style. Have students describe each style and explain how Shakespeare achieves it.

• What makes Capulet's speech seem naturalistic and near to prose?
• What makes Tybalt's pair of couplets seem exceptionally formal, almost posed, like a stage villain's aside?
• What gives the Nurse's short speech an informal, chatty, prose-like tone?

As your student volunteers read through the scene, ask the class to note the effect of the shifts in tone that Shakespeare has built into it.

• How do the formal verse forms of Tybalt and the lovers stand out against the more naturalistic verse of Capulet and the Nurse?
• How do the verse forms of these younger characters in the scene stand out against one another?
• In what sense do the characters who speak in formal poetry stand out because of their words?
• To what degree does the extended formality of Romeo and Juliet's meeting—and their action within that formality—deepen the poetic lighting of their moment together?

4. The Text Extended

Conclude this lesson by having students work individually or in groups to find other moments in Romeo and Juliet where Shakespeare spotlights the action through poetic form and language. Students might look at the balcony scene (Act II, Scene 2), the bedroom scene (Act III, Scene 5, which is modeled on the aubade, a lyric of dawn-parting), the tomb scene (Act V, Scene 3), and so on. Have students prepare production notes for their chosen scene, explaining how they would direct the action, with special attention to how they would have their actors perform the richly poetic language Shakespeare gives them. Should the characters seem exalted by this language? Should they always seem not quite able to measure up to their high-flown words? Should they seem, like Juliet leaving Romeo at the ball, somehow independent of this poetic language, as if endowed with a life of their own?

Assessment

To evaluate students' understanding of the text in context, assess the thoroughness of their production notes created in their groups as they analyzed the language of their selected scenes and explained their direction of the action.

To evaluate students' skills in applying their knowledge of the text in a new context, give them (individually or in groups) a cutting they have not analyzed earlier, such as a portion of the duel scene (Act III, Scene 1, lines 35-90), explaining to them the Elizabethan uses of "thee" and "thou." Have them examine the dialogue for that usage, explaining its impact on action and characterizations in the scene.

Extending the Lesson

• Romeo and Juliet is an effective play with which to introduce students to Shakespeare's stage and stagecraft. For background, visit "Shakespeare's Globe," available via the EDSITEment-reviewed Teaching Shakespeare. This website details the New Globe Theatre in London, an exacting reconstruction of the playhouse Shakespeare's company constructed in December 1598.

The following EDSITEment lesson plans, both of which take sonnets as their subject matter, have activities that would prove useful in the first activity of this lesson:

• Listening to Poetry: Sounds of the Sonnet
• Preparing for Poetry: A Reader's First Steps

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• Mr. Shakespeare and the Internet
  [http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/]
  • MIT Shakespeare Homepage
    [http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html]
  • Renascence Editions: Samuel Daniel: "Delia"
    [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/delia.html]
• British Academy Portal
  • Royal Shakespeare Company's "Teachers" website for Romeo and Juliet
    [http://www.rsc.org.uk/romeo/teachers/resources.html]
  • Teaching Shakespeare
    [http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=618]
  • Shakespeare's Globe
    [http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/]
• The Academy of American Poets: Sonnets
  [http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5791]