SOURCE: "The First Meeting of the Lovers in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,'" in English Studies, Vol. 67, No. 1, February, 1986, pp. 2-13.

In the following essay, Stamm analyzes the suggestive words and gestures of Romeo and Juliet's first meeting, which he sees as "an unique combination of formality and spontaneity, of elegance and intensity, of wit and passion. "

No observer of Shakespeare's tragedy can fail to notice the importance of the first meeting of the lovers. It constitutes the climax prepared by the preceding scenes of Act I, and, in the structure of the whole play, it is—like Romeo's fateful duel with Tybalt and the death scene—one of the turning points. It is the event that changes Romeo's and Juliet's lives, bringing them intense happiness at first and suffering and death in consequence. Shakespeare used all the resources of his rapidly developing art to provide this decisive...