Shakespeare's Characters

A critical analysis of the characters in Romeo and Juliet.
Peculiar details and relations between characters

The universality of Shakespeare is built on the universality of his characters that he created; and we cannot say that he built human types or coppied exactly the reality with its individual cases. The shakespearean heros have become universal characters because Shakespeare just felt the human nature in its depth and identified himself with his characters.
On the other hand, a critical opinion says: “Shakespeare takes character types from the comic tradition – the tyrannical father, the bawdy servant, the meddling friar, the witty and cynical friend – and transformes them into such complex, many-layered beings as old Capulet, the Nurse, friar Lawrence and Mercutio.”
It also must be owned that Shakespeare drew men better, than women, to whom indeed he has seldom given any considerable place in his plays; but in Romeo and Juliet he made a surprising change in this matter or at least he tried, outlining Juliet’s appearance.
We could have a look to Shakespeare’s characters from another side. If we detach a little from the technical aspects we could draw near the characters in their nature and discover them deep inside their own story. Though not all his characters are immortal trough their spiritual structure, we are simply fascinated in front of beauty and poetry of some moments in their short life, sincere emotions of innocent youth, broil of passions, all of these surrounded by an atmosphere of endless love. In this background persists though a bad feeling, a premonition of an unavoidable catastrophe.
So, we have a number of characters in Romeo and Juliet and we can identify major, secondary and episodic characters. We shall take them each one apart and try to understand their position in the play, their features from all point of views and relations established between characters.

 Romeo

The name Romeo, in popular culture, has become...