SOURCE: Moisan, Thomas. “‘O Any Thing, of Nothing First Create!’: Gender and Patriarchy and the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.” In In Another Country: Feminist Perspectives on Renaissance Drama, edited by Dorothea Kehler and Susan Baker, pp. 113-36. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1991.

In the essay that follows, Moisan maintains that an in-depth study of the way in which Romeo and Juliet depicts gender reveals the tragic forces at work in the play. The critic also highlights the play's shortcomings as a tragedy.

I

“Somehow or in some respects,” H. B. Charlton ever so inclusively suggested, “Romeo and Juliet fails to fulfill the function of tragedy, or rather it gives less of the pleasure peculiar to tragedy than do Shakespeare's greater tragic plays.”¹ Although something less than succinct, Charlton's remark aptly reflects what had been oft said, more oft presumed: that Romeo and Juliet, an “early...