Language and Wordplay Theme Analysis

Shakespearean scholars have identified upwards of 175 instances of puns and wordplay throughout the text of Romeo and Juliet. Though the play is, perhaps, Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, there is no shortage of comic relief throughout the action—and the play’s comedy often comes from Shakespeare’s free dispensation of double entendre, homonyms, puns, and sexually explicit twists of phrase. Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses language and wordplay to radical ends: language is a tool of rebellion, and in allowing his characters to rebel against formality, honor, and the status quo through the things they say to one another, he suggests that language is an eternal means of freedom. Even when one is trapped behind a high orchard wall, bound by the cloth of religion, or stuck in an immobile social station, Shakespeare argues, language is humanity’s great equalizer, and allows those constrained by circumstance to experience a different kind of freedom.

Language and wordplay are, in the world of Romeo and Juliet, not just for the wealthy leisure class—the servants, musicians, and other tertiary members of the noble clans of Montague and Capulet are the primary pun-makers throughout the play. Extended bouts of ribaldry, punning, and plays on words (often featuring sexually explicit double entendre) dominate the first half of the play. Gregory and Sampson, two men of the house of Capulet, trade insults with Abraham and Benvolio, men of the house of Montague, leading the two clans to brawl in the street. Mercutio and Romeo trade sexually tinged barbs about being “rough with love.” Juliet’s nurse, in trying to remember Juliet’s age, launches into an inappropriate yet comical reverie about her late husband’s crude remarks concerning Juliet’s sexual coming-of-age. A Capulet servingman, Peter, jokes with a group of musicians who have come to play at Juliet and Paris’s wedding only to realize they’re out of a job when Juliet is found dead—until Peter suggests they play at her funeral instead. Mercutio’s rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness pun-making is contrasted against the nurse’s rambling, embarrassing, and all-too-possibly accidental reminiscences, while the sneaky, sly insults traded by the younger, lesser members of the houses of Montague and Capulet are designed to offend while just barely toeing the line of what’s acceptable to say in order to transgress without causing actual bloodshed.

As Shakespeare revels in the plays countless twists of the tongue, designing verbal fencing-matches for his noble and common characters alike, his purpose in so doing becomes clear. Juliet’s nurse, a common woman who has been forced to give up her duties to her own family in order to serve the Capulets, has just as quick a tongue as a nobleman of house Montague. Peter, a lowly and put-upon servingman, uses his wits—unappreciated and overlooked by his haughty, self-concerned employers—to wheedle favors out of a group of musicians. Romeo and Benvolio, friends and kinsman since a time before they can even remember, make boyish quips in an attempt to keep up with their fleet-tongued friend Mercutio, whose rambling, dense, sexually provocative jokes and stories unite his friends and family even in times of danger and social tumult. Language, Shakespeare posits through all of these master jokesters, is a force for equality in places of unfairly stratified social orders—a way of creating joy and levity in times of darkness. It is the means by which men and women of all backgrounds, ages, and social, sexual, and political leanings can connect over a good laugh. Language is humanity’s equalizer, and a means of asserting one’s freedom, autonomy, and nonconformity even in the face of the most rigid, unforgiving social structures.

Ultimately, Shakespeare uses language and wordplay to even the playing field, so to speak, for his characters, and even out their disparate social backgrounds. In so doing, he suggests that language and humor are ways for individuals from every social stratum to come together. Though the nobility of Shakespeare’s day may have kept wealth and power consolidated amongst themselves, Shakespeare acknowledges that there are other kinds of social currency that are important, too—and argues that language is a means of honoring street-smarts, cunning, and wit, even if the tongue cracking the jokes is not a noble one at all.