Romeo and Juliet Group

Question:

charlee
charlee
Student
College - Senior

How might the audience react in Act 2, Scene 6 of "Romeo and Juliet"?

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Posted by charlee on Monday February 16, 2009 at 8:17 AM and tagged with act 2, audenice reaction, friar laurence, juliet, marriage, romeo, romeo and juliet, scene 6, shakespeare.

Answers:


  1. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    Well, I think they'd be happy for the couple. It's a short, but beautifully-written scene, and all three of the characters in it express themselves beautifully.

    Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more
    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both
    Receive in either by this dear encounter.

    It's a very beautiful, lightly-textured scene: the images are of "gossamer", the wind, the air, music, sweetness, and joy as something which can be heaped up on scales. I'd expect an audience to delight in the beauty of the language - and in the beauty of the moment: Romeo and Juliet are about to be married.

    Yet there is one caveat. Act 2 is very early in the play for a marraige - they usually happen at the very end of the play. So perhaps the fact that this marriage happens so early in the play - despite the fact that it is supposed to heal the feud between the Capulets and Montagues - might suggest that something ominous is to come.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/romeo-text/act-ii-scene-vi

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Monday February 16, 2009 at 9:36 AM