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Violence in Verona and England According to Shakespeare The main theme in Romeo and Juliet is love. And love is followed by violence. Violence strikes not only families like in Romeo and Juliet but also entire kingdoms like in Henry IV. In Shakespeare's play Henry IV uses his army to fight citizens of his own country. Shakespeare's plays full of violence were the most popular during his lifetime. Like all Shakespeare's tragedies, both plays postulate a natural order which is cyclical as well as dialectical.
Terrible the violence which has been unleashed and however muted and qualified the hint of reintegration and renewal, these plays intimate that pure tragedy, like pure comedy, is an image of the world only half made up. As we shall see, that suggestion is more conspicuous in Romeo and Juliet and Henry IV than in any other of Shakespeare's plays. We see Romeo possessed by love and a spirit of universal forgiveness. From this he falls, first to reason and an appeal to law, then to violence -- but violence in a negative or preventive sense. Finally, following Mercutios death, he passes under the control of passion and fury, abetted by honor, and thence to vengeance and offensive violence. Violence is shocking in Capulets attitude to Juliet hang, beg, starve, die in the street (III.
v. 204). Essentially Juliets suffering is the realization of loneliness and isolation. In Verona love and passion was the cause for violence. In contrast, in the play Henry IV violence is presented as the usual directorial flaws. Violence of political man transforms the executioner into a victim, and the victim into an executioner. Hence the production emphasized the intrigues, the violence, and the duplicity of leaders who invent sanctions to justify their power lusts.
Shakespeare is critical of both Hotspur and Falstaff, but does not challenge the normative core of chivalry and its ideals. Once stripped of its extreme and artificial rituals, Shakespeare's normative chivalry represents a noble and honorable code of behavior that controls manifestations of violence through civilized behavior. For example, a prince cannot live securely in a state as long as those whom he has deposed survive. It is therefore dangerous to deprive a ruler of his kingdom and yet leave him his life, requiring the new leader to resort to violence. There is the continuing vendetta, or violent rivalry, between two families in Romeo and Juliet. This civil disturbance in Verona concludes abruptly with an ambiguous peace after only about five days.
England during the rule of Henry IV was full violence and aggression. The violence was caused by war. Shakespeare shows in Henry IV that characters violence is influenced by times destructive action. Bibliography: Patricia Parker. Shakespeare and the Question of Theory.
Geoffrey Hartman; Methuen, 1995
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