The History of English Podcast · Kevin Stroud

Episode 175: The English of Romeo and Juliet

·1 hr 33 min·5 clips

Romeo and Juliet first speak together as a sonnet before their first kiss.

1. The History of English Podcast episode 175 focuses on Romeo and Juliet and the English Shakespeare wrote for it. 2. The host frames William Shakespeare as the central figure and brings in Ben Crystal, David Crystal, and Sir John Gielgud because they help compare original pronunciation with received pronunciation. 3. The episode asks how Romeo and Juliet reflects late-1500s English and why its language still matters for Shakespeare performance. 4. The host says the play was probably composed around 1595, shortly after the London theaters reopened after the plague. 5. He points to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Pyramus and Thisbe story as evidence that Romeo and Juliet belongs to the same period. 6. He also notes that the first printed version appeared in early 1597 in quarto format and is often called the "bad quarto." 7. The episode explains that Shakespeare did not invent the story, because Luigi da Porto, Matteo Bandolo, and Arthur Brooke had already written versions of Romeo and Juliet. 8. The host identifies Arthur Brooke’s The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet as Shakespeare’s main source. 9. He then discusses the Capulet and Montague names, including the theory that "Montague" may connect to the Southampton family and Henry Risley. 10. He also reminds listeners that women were barred from the stage, so Juliet would likely have been played by a teenage boy. 11. The opening chorus is read in modern received pronunciation by Sir John Gielgud and then in original pronunciation by Ben Crystal. 12. The host uses the chorus to explain "star-crossed lovers" and the line about the lovers’ deaths ending the parents’ strife. 13. He says the original pronunciation makes rhymes like "love" and "remove" work more clearly than they do in modern speech. 14. The first meeting between Romeo and Juliet is shown as a sonnet, with iambic pentameter, rhyme, and 14 lines. 15. Ben Crystal describes Shakespeare’s speech styles as prose, poetry, rhyming poetry, sonnet, and song. 16. He argues that the more formal the structure, the more emotionally intense the speech becomes. 17. The Mercutio passage about a medlar and a poppering pear shows Shakespeare’s bawdy wordplay and the censorship of "open arse" in early printings. 18. The host then uses Shakespeare’s spelling of "popperin" to discuss dropped final G sounds in late-1500s English and their survival in dialects like Brummie. 19. Listeners who enjoy Shakespeare, historical pronunciation, and Elizabethan language will get the most out of this episode. 20. Listeners who want only plot summary or modern literary criticism may skip it.

As heard by us

Shakespeare becomes a clear lesson in how English sounded and changed.

The episode uses Romeo and Juliet to make late-1500s English feel less abstract, and that choice works. It moves from Shakespeare's language and verse into the everyday traces left in English, including words and phrases that became standard, so the discussion reaches beyond…

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Listen to hear Romeo and Juliet used as a window into the English of Shakespeare's time.

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