Topic: Fighting over genre in Romeo and Juliet

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In his essay ‘Shakespeare tragedies’, Michael Neil argues that by juxtaposing the comic with the tragic, Shakespeare ‘contrives to increase the audience’s sense of shock and distress at the lovers’ suicides’.

Drawing on Neils chapter and on your own reading of the play, discuss the importance of comic elements in Romeo and Juliet. Are they central, or peripheral, to the play’s meaning? Do they detract from the play’s darker moments or do they throw them into stark relief, as Neil suggests? Then choose a production of an adaption of the play that you consider particularly effective and discuss its use of the play’s comic potential.