Due to the recent interest in this site, and seeing as how the publication of THE MASTER OF VERONA is upon us, it seems appropriate to explain how the book (and, in turn, the blog) came about.
Early in 1999 I was directing Romeo & Juliet at the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre (a great space that to my everlasting regret has since become a church). It was my fourth or fifth encounter with the play, but my first as director.
Getting ready to direct Shakespeare for the first time became an event. I read and re-read the script, watched other productions, even visited Verona as a lark – not that Shakespeare ever went there, but for the past hundred years or so the city has become, at least partially, an industry town for the play.
As an actor, you focus on your role and leave the overall play to the director. But as a novice director, I was forced to explore the play as a whole for the first time since ninth grade English class. I looked at all the questions, including the perennial ‘What caused the feud?’
The cause is never actually mentioned in the play, and it’s not vital to either an actor’s or audience’s understanding of the show. At the top of Act One, the ‘ancient grudge’ is already an established fact. But still, I pondered it for a time, then set it aside for more immediate concerns.
Today when I direct, cutting a script is my least favorite chore. Back then it was murder – what to take out, what to keep? In Shakespeare there are many seeming repetitions, but it was impossible not to hear each one in my head as the best expression of a certain thought.
At last I made it to the final scene – Paris is slain, Romeo and Juliet are both dead, we’re firmly into the denouement. It was then that a line jumped out at me. Capulet and his wife find their daughter’s bleeding body. Romeo’s father, Lord Montague, enters to tomb, and the Prince addresses him: ‘Come, Montague, for thou art early up / To see thy son and heir now early down.’
Montague replies:
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight;
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath.
What further woe conspires against my age?
These lines baffled me. Realize, I’d been looking at the show for days thinking about actors entering and exiting, who I could double-cast and so forth. I clearly didn’t need Lady Montague for the final scene – her husband just told us she’s dead. I flipped back to find her last scene. She’s listed as entering in Act Three, Scene Four, when Mercutio and Tybalt both buy it – but she’s strangely quiet in that scene. Lord Capulet, too, but at least people talk to him. No one addresses Romeo’s mom, even when her son is banished. In fact, looking at it harder, Lady Montague hasn’t been heard from since Act One, Scene One, in which she uttered a mere two lines!
So this was my quandary – do I cut Montague’s lines at the end of the show? Why not? Here we are, the play is basically over. We’ve just watched the two romantic leads die pitiably, and young, kind, noble Paris just croaked it as well. Why do we care if some woman we barely remember is dead?
But it continued to bother me. There had to be a reason she was dead.
Of course, in Shakespeare’s day, there was a very good reason. The actor who played Lady Montague was probably needed in another role – the exigencies of the stage.
Even realizing this, I couldn’t let go of the line. My wife is dead tonight. The rules of dramatic structure nagged at me. An off-stage death like that is supposed to be symbolic. But of what? Clueless, I left the line in, hoping my actors could figure it out.
In the event, they didn’t have to. I was going about my business later that week when it hit me – the feud! The thing that gets closure at the end of the show is the feud! Montague and Capulet bury the hatchet. ‘Brother Montague,’ Capulet calls him. They’re even going to build statues to honor their dead kids.
Could Lady Montague’s death be symbolic of the end of the feud? The only way that could work would be –
If she were the cause of the feud.
I remember a heart-stopping moment as the idea formed – a love triangle a generation earlier, between the parents! Romeo’s mother, engaged to a young Capulet, runs off with a young Montague instead. That’s certainly cause for a feud, especially if young Capulet and Montague were friends. Best friends, childhood friends, torn apart by their love for a woman. A feud, born of love, dies with love.
This explains so much in the play – Lord Capulet, Juliet’s doting father, suddenly threatening to kill her for refusing to marry the man he’s chosen for her. He tells her to ‘hang, beg, starve, die in the streets’ – this from a man who has called her ‘the hopeful lady of my earth.’ His fury seems to come out of nowhere and is brutally excessive. But if his own bride-to-be had jilted him and run off with his best friend instead, of course Juliet’s similar behavior would press his buttons.
This notion also goes on to inform much of Capulet’s relationship with his wife – a younger wife, we know from the script, not well content in her match, married to a man who thinks she is ‘marred.’ It hints, in turn, at her relationship with Tybalt. In fact, the behavior of both families is wonderfully colored by this single, simple idea. Romeo’s mom jilted Juliet’s dad.
Oddly enough, all this doesn’t affect the actual performance of the show overmuch. It’s fun for the actors to play, and there are moments when it can be very clear, but the play stands, as it always has, on its action and language. The backstory ends up being superfluous.
But it was an idea that had its hooks in me and wouldn’t let go.
So I wrote a book
– DB
I think Lady Montague dies because Shakespeare wanted the body count to be even between the two families. Romeo balances Juliet, Lady Montague balances Tybalt.
Thus, the two families may be united in grief with each side carrying an equal share of woe.
I’ve only newly discovered your blog, and I’m enjoying it a great deal!
Welcome! Glad you’re enjoying the site.
I like the notion of balance. But, for my money, if that was the intent, Shakespeare would have offed Benvolio instead. Benvolio for Tybalt, Romeo for Juliet, with Mercutio and Paris on the side – that would be true balance. In fact, in the second quarto edition of the play, Benvolio does die. I have a post about that, way back in the archives. Maybe in my rash of re-posting important entries in the ramp-up to publication, I’ll put that up too.
Cheers, and again, welcome.
DB
Perhaps Shakespeare was going for what my graphic designer friends refer to as “balance without symmetry.”
Proof positive that Shakespeare must have been a graphic designer.
As the son of a former graphic designer, I find I have no problem with that notion.
Hey, I found this very helpful. Im in ninth grade and our class jus finished reading Romeo and Juliet. Our teacher gave us an open project to do on the play and i was curious about how the feud started. Ur idea is awesome. It realy does make sense. thanks
–chrissy
Hey Chrissy. Glad this was helpful – man, I hated Shakespeare in the 9th grade. It wasn’t until I was a senior that it connected with me.
If you like, I’m happy to talk to your teacher about the book and the show. Just pass my information along. And if you need any information for your project, let me know – I can direct you to a few helpful sites.
Cheers, and thanks for stopping by!
DB
Hey. This really helped me as well. I’m also in ninth grade, and we are currently reading the play. I was supposed to do some research to see if I could find any information on the origin of the feud and your ideas on it really intrigued me. I thought it was great how you went deep into the play to try and figure out the feud’s origin. My teacher has wanted us to do similar things with the play. I have a feeling he will enjoy hearing your views on the origin of the feud. However, in class, he keeps bringing up how the feud had been going on for generations before Romeo and Juliet’s time. If this were the case, Lady Montague could not have been the cause of the feud. It also seems as if some of the family members and servants do not know why they are feuding with the opposite family. Just something to think about.
Dear A. –
Believe me, I’ve thought about it. I actually deal with the generational thing at length in the novel. Your teacher’s objections are covered in, oh, I think Chapter 20 or thereabouts. When Gargano Montecchio tells the story of his duel with the last of the Capelletti.
As for the length of the feud as it stands in the play, who can say? Ancient is the term used, but since the Nurse is also referred to as ancient there’s a little leeway in the term. And I could make a strong argument based on the Prince’s opening and closing speeches to Capulet and Montague that the feud started with them. I’m not sure that it’s right, but the argument is there. It is also more dramatically satisfying than if they had inherited a quarrell. Then they are not as guilty of their children’s deaths as they would be if they started the feud.
There was an historic feud, mentioned by Dante, but those Capulets and Montagues were ironically feuding in Cremona, not Verona. Shakespeare is referencing a story by Luigi da Porto, who set the tale in Verona, and who said only that the families had hated each other for a long time.
On a side-note, I disagree with the notion that the servants don’t know what the feud is about. It’s an amusing choice, though unplayable because it’s not supported by the text. Not that there’s evidence the other way, that they do know. It just doesn’t come up. But if your teacher is proposing it as something more than an opinion, I cannot concur.
In the play the feud is merely a fact to set the stage. The cause doesn’t actually matter. As fun as it was to write the novel, and as passionate as I am about it, the play stands as it always has, on its own text.
There. That was way too long-winded a response. Glad the post was helpful. Hope some of these ramblings are,too.
Cheers,
DB
I like to look at and take apart sections of the story I agree to disagree about the servants not knowing what the feud is about. As the two growing up the parents did not spend as much time raising them as the servants did. So any story of their true history would have to come from a servant who would only fill in the missing parts that the parents would leave out or twist. If you would think about it they did the shoping so and would go to the local tavern and talk with the other servents about the fued so they had the info from both sides. Now after that being said you could “assume” the servants keep the fued going by not giving any more info as to what they see or hear to romeo or juliet’s elder sibling and cousin’s who now get all info and history from mum and dad. So i can see where this would make Tybalt & Mercutio the agressor’s and first to die!
I appreciate you stopping by to chat, Juan. I have to confess, though, I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying here.
If I read your text right, there are quite a few assumptions, and a great deal of invented off-stage action that is simply not supported by the text. Shopping? Taverns? Older siblings to R&J? We know that, yes, Juliet had siblings, but they were younger, and are all dead. Romeo is Montague’s only son. These are lines in the show.
Now, there’s no harm in creating a story between the cracks of the text – it’s the basis for my novel. But it’s harder for me to fill in gaps with details that contradict the text.
As far as who raised R&J, I do get the feeling that the Nurse knows Juliet much better than Lady Cap, but I don’t have a similar feeling about Romeo’s upbringing. Of course he’s older, and a boy, so we can’t be sure. But his estrangement from his parents at the top of the show seems recent – recent enough to worry them. So I don’t think he was raised by servants. At least, there’s no evidence of this.
Again, thanks for stopping by. I hope you can take the time and clear up my misconceptions of your last post.
Thank you for the fast responce and this site.
Ok i’m not a writer so my grammer is bad I had to read my post again and laughed at my self yes lot’s of assumptions. So being a RPG Gamer always looking for a good freeform game to start up and after reading the story and seeing the play several times I went in search for more story and character history and found this blog. Now I started reading post and looking around the site thinking to my self this story could have many more twist and as a rpg it could go deep. Then reading the post by DB I kinda latched on to one part of this post the role of the servant. Ok to clear up some of my assumptions.
Benvolio his cousin and friend who was raised with him or atleast with him most of the time but clearly was jelous of Mercutio, So could he be in Mercutio’s ear to push him to keep the feud going.
Romeo trusted his servent Balthasar as he informed and led him to the tomb!
I also see the Friar L (like a servent but still a friend) would have lots to do with Romeo’s raising .
Friar J(a friend to the kensmen and serving romeo) is more intune with the group.
Sorry for the confusion this was more to get opinion and help my direction of thought.
Thanks in advance
JC
I just read this again, and am still puzzled. Friar John as a servant/kinsmen to Romeo?Benvolio pushing Mercutio to keep the feud going? That last is the most perplexing, as it flies directly in the face of the text. Benvolio is the voice of moderation throughout. He is the one trying to end the violence in the beginning, and also urging Mercutio to go inside and cool down at the top of 3.1.
The one point I can agree with is Romeo’s trusting Balthasar. That is clear and unambiguous.
Again, I’m all for giving the characters life that is not on the page. It’s what actors do. But let’s make a distinction between a choice and a fact. Facts are what is in the text, the hard information that Shakespeare gives us. Choices are the inferences we make between those facts.
My theory for the feud is a choice, not a fact. That it can be supported by the evidence in the play, and the dramatic structure as well, is nice. But as it is something I inferred, and is not explicit, I do not claim it was Shakespeare’s intention. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s merely in the realm of the possible.
How far does the book cover? Does it include the woman who would eventually be Juliet’s mother?
Thanks for the question – it’s the first time that one has been asked.
The future Lady Cap is mentioned in passing, but does not appear, as she is only one year old at the time of the novel (I chose to believe her comment about her age in the play). She has a much larger role in the sequel, VOICE OF THE FALCONER, due sometime next year. And from there her role only grows.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for the prompt reply! I’ll keep an eye out for your books, particularly that sequel. I find the adults in R&J, particularly Lady C, fascinating and I’ll be glad to see your take.
Hey,
I found this post extremely interesting! I’m in the 9th grade, just finishing Romeo and Juliet in class. We have an open-ended essay where we are allowed to analyze any aspect of the play; I chose to try and find possible reasons for the feud. I love this explanation and I’m wondering if you could possibly direct me to any other websites or posts you may have done concerning an explanation for the feud?
Hi, Megan. The best thing to do is to go the “Categories” section of this page, and hit the word FEUD. That should bring up all the feud-related stuff. Otherwise, just type in my name into Google along with the word feud and lots of pages should come up. I’ve been talking about this for a decade, and writing about it online for the last four years or so. So there should be plenty of stuff out there.
However, if you have a specific question, I’m happy to field it. My reponse might not be prompt, but I promise to respond.
Maybe you can help me with this. Can you tell me what you think the differences are between Lord Caplet and Romeo. I know age is one that differs but how do their behaviors and personalities differ. Are they alike in any way as far as the feud goes.
I found your notion of why the fued had started very intersting. I am writing a paper on the reason why the fued was so influential to the play. I feel as though the play has substantial evidence that it is based upon the fued. I was wondering because you are so interested in this topic of the fued if you could pin point me to a few sites or books that explain the reasons why the fued had started
im in ninth grade and i just reading Romeo and Juliet, this website was very hepful and it had a lot of good ideas. My teacher just assigned me a project and i thought this might be a good topic. Thanks
-cornelius
hey Mr. Blixt i just absolutely love your idea of the origin of the capulet-montague feud. After reading what you wrote the play makes so much more sense:) im happy there are people in the world like you…ps. ur picture is really cute;)
-Alyssa<3
Excuse me, umm… i hv been given an assignment on the atmosphere of verona in act 1 scene 1, in which i need to write an essay. can anyone help me on what points i should include?
Hello Mr. Blixt,
I am Capulet in our production in the park of Romeo and Juliet. I enjoy the idea of the origin and will use it as fuel. Thanks for the blog and I am ordering your book!
Hello, Frank! Thanks for dropping by. Glad you enjoy the concept, and have fun exploring it. It’s almost impossible to play overtly, but I’d love to hear how it informs your choices. Enjoy MV, and let me know the details of the show – if I’m near, I’d love to come see it. My second time playing Mercutio was outdoors, and I remember it fondly.
You know I actually thought about this and I always thought it was possible. Yet Romeo and Juliet are the same age (or around there) so if Lady Montague/Capulet (could be either) were to leave Lord Capulet/Montague (Could be either) for the other then the heartbroken man must’ve met the now Lady Montague/Capulet only a few weeks later. That led me to think the betrayal was in the grandparents generation because the two sons (Lord M or C) might’ve seen how his father was crushed by his best friend so they starting hating each other and Lady M or C was close friends with the boys and chose one over the other crushing that one even further. I know it’s improbable but I think it’s an alright guess.
Hello, David.
I am doing an extra credit assighnment in my freshman english class.we just finished reading romeo and juliet and we have to write how we think the feud started.i was wondering if u had any other ideas on how it may have started.
thx
Well, there’s history. Dante mentions the two families. One was Guelph, supporting the Pope, while the other was Ghibbeline, supporting the Emperor. That certainly makes it an ‘ancient grudge.’