Allusions In Romeo And Juliet

Throughout literature and novels we can find authors who will reference history, other authors works and most often the Bible. One may ask themselves the reasoning behind allusions and how it can affect our perspective and the authors meaning when reading the novel. In the late sixties, Julia Kristeve, who studied the elements of literature and other communication systems, introduced the word “Intertextuality”. In Kristave’s essay “Word, Dialogue, and Novel” she went into deep analysis of an authors work and its text, “A literary work, then, is not simply the product of a single author, but of its relationship to other texts and to the strucutures of language itself. Any text," she argues, "is constructed of a mosaic of quotations; any text

In Act I, Scene I of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is sulking around and his cousin Benvolio has guessed that the reason of such sadness was because of unreturned love. Although Benvolio knew that Romeo’s love for someone wasn’t mutual, he didn’t know who it was that Romeo had been sobbing for. Romeo explains his love interest’s preference for chastity, as he emphasises, “With Cupid‘s arrow; she hath Dian‘s wit And, in strong proof of chastity well arm’d, From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharm’d…” ( Shakespeare, Act I, Scene I) Shakespeare has alluded to Greek Mythologies Cupid and Dian, Cupid is the God of love, he is often shown as being blindfolded and with a bow and arrow in hand and Dian’s wit in this quote is referring to the huntress of the Gods who is known to be mysterious. She was also known to be a virgin Goddess, which leads to the reason for why Cupid’s bow wasn’t able to struck her. When Romeo emphasizes that his love has interest in chastity, this creates an allusion to mythology because in this case chastity meaning being pure in both thought and actions, and it refers back to the huntress of gods, Dian, who was very careful with protecting her pureness. This is reflecting the character of Romeo’s love who like Dian, respects her pure innocence. Cupids character is reflecting that of Romeo as he can’t get the same love he portray

One scene in particular is in the beginning of Act I, Scene I, the scene opens to the Capulet’s servant Sampson and Gregory, who are insulting and joking about the Montagose family, Sampson says, “: ‘Tis true, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall; therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall…” ( Shakespeare, Act I, Scene I). Sampson is describing women as “the weaker vessels”. This alludes to a verse from the Bible, Peter 3:7, which can be interpreted as a verse to the husbands. According to the Bible it states , “… dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to what the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be…” (Peter 3:7) When they talk about “taking the wall” they refer to the position of a woman when she is walking, she is supposed to walk inside the sidewalk. It can be inferred that the verse of Peter does not clearly state that women are inferior to men but it does find that the wives are usually weaker than their husbands, which is why husbands must protect their wives as they are perceived as more fragile. In this scene Shakespeare is alluding to the Bible verse to contradict what the capulets and their actual reasoning behind joking about the