I find it something of a cultural oddity that I who lives in the bogan west of Sydney, should have a better handle on supposedly high-culture than a lot of people we work for and with. The phrase "the whys and wherefores" appeared in an email that my boss received and knowing that I'd know what this meant precisely, he asked me. I explained that this is a tautology because wherefore actually also means "why" because it is an older construction, which likely comes from oop North of England where the "wherefore" properly means "for what".
His response was: "like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet?" Already my mind was crunching gears as it attempted to go paradigm shifting without engaging the clutch pedal. "Yes, precisely," said I; knowing that this is not very precise at all.
English literature teachers have for the past century or so, thought it worthy to mine the classics as texts for English literature classes. Partly the reason for this is to do with the fact that they think it useful to give to students part of the received cultural canon of the English language for the past 500 years, and partly because generally anything called "classic" has had the copyright expire, if in fact it existed in the first place. As I live in the English speaking world and in the era of mass literacy, I am one of millions of students who was drenched in the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackery et cetera; likely as some kind of macabre vicarious punishment for the horrible things done to English teachers when they were students. If they had to suffer, then why shouldn't the next generation suffer. After all, party of the received cultural canon of the English language is the received cultural whipping with cane sticks that we have all metaphorically received (if not physically).
"Wherefore" does not mean "where" but rather, "why". Juliet's question of "wherefore art thou Romeo?" is not a question of Romeo's location but an epistemological question of why he is Romeo. Why is Romeo, Romeo? This is immediately obvious from the rest of the speech:
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
- Act 2, Scene 2, Romeo and Juliet
Or if you prefer this rewritten:
Oh Romeo, Romeo. Why are you Romeo?
If you tell your dad he's a nasty piece of work and ditch your name,
Or if you don't but still want to marry me,
Then I'll ditch my name.
- Act 2, Scene 2, Romeo and Juliet (2022 version)
This whole speech is not asking where Romeo is. This is a pretty silly thing to be asking; especially considering that only a few lines later she is understandably disturbed upon hearing someone rambling about the garden outside. It does turn out to be Romeo but even so, hearing what could potentially be a murderer and/or a rapist outside your window (remember, the opening chorus speaks of civil blood, mutiny and an ancient grudge), is going to be downright terrifying. Even I as a big person might be well advised to carry one of Kookaburra's finest blades to willow to dispatch any would be intruders to the boundary.
This among many things about this play is as daft as a squirrel caught in a mail box. It's mad. Juliet is described elsewhere in the play as being a 14 year old girl. Truth be told, I have exactly zero experience of being a 14 year old girl; I have probably spoken less than a hundred words to 14 year old girls in the past decade; memories that I might have of being a 14 year old boy and thus adjacent to any 14 year old girls are now so far behind me in the rear view mirror as to many towns ago; but I do not think that any 14 year old girl in the history of the world is likely to have said anything this eloquent. Although I have never had children and am thus personally incompetent to speak of personal experience of living with 14 year old girls, is that this is prime teenage hormone hellbeast era, and that most of this speech is unlikely to have been spoken by a 14 year old girl. Nevertheless, old Billy Bard seems to make us want to question the whole notion of how much relevance a name has to a person.
The names themselves in this play are nonsensical. This makes me question the play with a similar line of interrogation to Juliet.
Why exactly is Romeo a "Montague" and Juliet a "Capulet"? The whole naming convention of everyone in the play is bonkers hatstand monkey madness. With the possible exception of Romeo as being an acceptable name from Italy (though it should be stated that Italy is a patchwork of city states and duchies at this time), practically nobody else in the play sounds like they are from Verona.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
- Chorus, before Act 1 Scene 1, Romeo and Juliet
Montague is a French name. I have a silken necktie which states on the back Montagut of Paris. Juliet is a French name. Capulet is a French name. Tybalt is a French name. As far as I am aware, Verona was never ever French. Have I made my point yet?
Our friend the Bard, frequently has no idea about geography. He does appear to have read a lot and because he exists in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and well before the existence of any copyright laws at all, he probably feels both legally and morally entitled to steal material from everywhere.
The chain of theft and thievery probably helps to explain the bonkers hatstand monkey madness naming regime of this play. "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" is a very long narrative poem by Arthur Brooke which was published in 1562. This is about 40 years before Billy Wobblesword went on his rampages of literary larcency. However, Brooke himself is likely to have stolen if from a French novella called "Reomeo Titensus and Juliet Bibleotet" by Pierre Boaistuau. It in turn was likely stolen from Italian novella by Matteo Bandello. Shakespeare takes a slow burning narrative which was set over the course of months and condenses it into a narrative arc of four days. Why? It's fun!
Wherefore art thou Romeo? Because Shakespeare is a thief who steals material and doesn't care where it comes from but wants to make the whole thing sound exotic. To be fair, why wouldn't you want it to sound exotic? If you're charging patrons a penny to stand and watch a play, or charging them tuppence and thruppence to sit down and out of the rain, then they're going to expect tales of foreign ethnia. When we fork over our dollarpounds to see Blue Cat People, Z-People, and movies with Superheroes or Space Wizards with Laser Swords who could have solved everything with applied diplomacy and a cup of tea instead of unnecessary violence and explosions, aren't we just watching the same kind of thing with better technology?
That be wherefore Romeo. If Romeo be not Romeo, then we be not watching a play with conflict and useful narrative structure. Juliet can not no longer be a Capulet, else she be not be a working part of a play. And though she feels as if she's in a play, she is anyway.
Zounds!
Also wherefore "like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet?"
Oh dear.
The actual direction in the play reads:
[Juliet appears at the window]
I am stumped by this. There is no mention of a balcony in the so-called "balcony scene". Second to this, I am not sure when the word "balcony" entered the English language and if it is a later addition to that vulture of a language that steals from everywhere, then it would have been extremely difficult for Shakespeare to mention a "balcony", when he'd never ever heard of the word.
Wherefore art thou balcony? Because it's a great piece of staging to have the two lead characters speaking in close proximity to each other and it's also a great piece of staging to have Juliet standing in full view of the audience instead of merely being in a window.
Zounds!
Aside:
Juliet being 14 wouldn't have been particularly scandalous in the early 1600s. There was more of a sense of urgency to get on with it and marry and have children before the plague, the airs, cholera, diphtheria or a bunch of other unknown diseases came knocking at the door before darkness came and took them away. I have it on somewhat sensible authority that more than half of the humans who have ever lived, never ever saw their 20th birthday. Perhaps the deaths of these two teenagers in context, wasn't particularly statistically out of the ordinary.
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