I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail. On, lusty gentlemen.
In this speech by Romeo, Shakespeare talks about how Romeo “fears” that they might arrive to the party early but that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that Romeo thinks that his fate has already been chosen by God, I think this is what he thinks due to the line that says “some consequence yet hanging in the stars”. He is talking about how he feels that something that night will lead him to his death “But he that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail. ” in this line Romeo is referring himself as a ship, he is also saying that God is steering his ship as God has already decided Romeo’s fate. Shakespeare has used this metaphor to describe Romeo’s fate.
William Shakespeare has demonstrated the idea of Romeo’s fate in many different ways. One way he did this was by the Prologue.
Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage—
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Shakespeare has already decided how this story is going to go and Romeo has already has his fate decided, the quote “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life” is saying that two deeply lovers will kill themselves. In this prologue Shakespeare has already made us know the fate of Romeo&Juliet without even telling us. He has used the prologue in a smart way to summarise this whole play.
Another way William Shakespeare has used semantic field is by using coincidence. When Capulet sent the servant to invite all the guests, the servant coincidentally saw Romeo and asked him to read the guest list as the servant could not read. This was a massive coincidence, or was it . . . . Shakespeare has used this coincidence as another way to describe Romeos fate. The servant could have asked any other person but he asked Romeo, this was the only reason why Romeo attended the party and met Juliet. This is another reason on how William Shakespeare describes fate.
Related
October 14, 2015 at 10:36 pm
Hi, Cris
You’ve got everything you need for an excellent analysis of the semantic field generated throughout the play in relation to fate. What is needed now is for the language you’re using to express these complex ideas to be developed a little.
What is good is that you’ve organised the examples and explanation well, keeping each to its own paragraph. Now look at structuring each paragraph a little more carefully:
1) Start with a topic sentence that links to the over-all point of the piece: “Shakespeare extends the reference to fate using the narrative device of co-incidence…”
2) Explain how this device is being used to communicate the idea of fate
3) Provide a clear quote to support your idea and explain what it means in the context it’s used.
Also, try to avoid pasting large chunks of quoted text into your writing, instead select the lines carefully that you want to concentrate on, and embed these into the body paragraphs themselves. Have another look at my example on the class website if you want a simple formula to follow when constructing body paragraphs.
With these matters tidied up, this is going to be a very strong analysis.
CW
February 4, 2016 at 12:51 am
You know you can still unlock this badge by taking the advice above, Cris. Let me know if you’d like help with this.
CW