Class And Agency In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Class and agency are arguably some of the most important factors in Shakespeare's plays. For example, because the capulets and the montagues are both noble houses, they are able to have enough interaction with each other that they have a strong hatred. Class and agency influence the characters’ education and actions in shakespeare's romeo and juliet because many of the events would not have happened without class and class affected much of who the person was during the renaissance. Romeo and Juliet would not have even met if they had different classes, let alone get married and die for eachother. For example, in act I scene II in Shakespeare’s romeo and Juliet, a Capulet servant asks Romeo “Perhaps you learned it without book ,but I pray, can you read?”. If the montagues were of a lower class, Romeo would not have the proper education to read and if the capulets were not nobles they would not have servants and masquerades. If women and men had the same agency, Romeo and Juliet probably would not have died. In Romeo and Juliet, Capulet said “O’Thursday let it be, - O’Thursday, tell her, she shall be married to this noble earl.”

How the characters spoke was largely dependent on what class they were in. “According to Berkeley, Shakespeare subtly employs the scheme of humors to ennoble his characters of aristocratic birth and to vilify the baseborn.” (enotes 1). We we this a lot in Shakespeare plays. The characters of nobility often talk about philosophy and use more scholarly language while the servant talk mostly about serving their masters and fighting. Shakespeare’s class probably affected his work. According to Biography.com, Shakespeare was born into middle class and made quite a lot of money from the theater. So, being in the middle class he most likely associated with people from his class thus impacting his