Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name
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Daniela Carpi
Abstract
This paper focuses on the creative or de-creative function of names in Romeo and Juliet. The dialectics between name and existence (or non-existence) is constant in the text. Let us consider “What’s in a name?” uttered by Juliet in 2.2; or the repetition of “banished” (3.2) where Romeo declares that death is in that word; or “Art thou a man?” (Friar, 3.3) that expands the meaning of man from legal to illegal entity; or also, and foremost, when Capulet threatens Juliet “I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee” (3.5), thus depriving her of legal personhood. Names can create a human being into a social being or they can deprive him of social existence. In addition to this we have Capulet’s power over Juliet which entails the problem of patria potestas: in his wish to deprive Juliet of the family name he de-creates her as a social being but also prevents her from becoming an independent adult.
©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Focus: Shakespeare and the Law
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- Free Will and Folly in As You Like It
- Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name
- Unreliable Sources for Law: Dying Declarations in Shakespeare’s King John, Othello & King Lear
- Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s Othello
- Research
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- Power and the Trial: The Tension Between Voices and Silence
- Voice, Authority and the Law in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
- Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
- Celsus and Chatwin go Walkabout
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- Book Reviews
- Gary Watt: Dress, Law and Naked Truth. A Cultural Study of Fashion and Form
- José Calvo González: Direito curvo
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Focus: Shakespeare and the Law
- Weak Kings and Perverted Symbolism. How Shakespeare Treats the Doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies
- Free Will and Folly in As You Like It
- Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name
- Unreliable Sources for Law: Dying Declarations in Shakespeare’s King John, Othello & King Lear
- Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s Othello
- Research
- Illegal Search and Seizure, Due Process, and the Rights of the Accused: The Voices of Power in the Rhetoric of Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker
- The Judge’s Voice: Literary and Legal Emblemata
- Power and the Trial: The Tension Between Voices and Silence
- Voice, Authority and the Law in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
- Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
- Celsus and Chatwin go Walkabout
- Representing the Unrepresentable: Making Law Anyway?
- Book Reviews
- Gary Watt: Dress, Law and Naked Truth. A Cultural Study of Fashion and Form
- José Calvo González: Direito curvo
