Juliet thinks that dropping “Capulet” is the same action as Romeo renouncing his name. At the simplest level we can make the inference that when she says “refuse thy name”, she’s taking “Romeo Montague” as a complete package, or in other words saying he should change his whole name in one go, to adopt an entirely new identity. It’s a bit subtle, but the idea of a first name that is “yours” and a last name that is “your family’s” is a fairly modern one. It was not so long ago that your “first name” was your “given name”, a name given to you by your family (probably the patriarch). So it’s quite natural in that sense to see “Romeo Montague” as a whole package identity (“Romeo, the son of the family Montague”), whereas for us “Romeo” the personal identifier is separate from “Montague” the family identifier. For an example of familial name-giving used as a joke, you can look at a novel like Tristram Shandy, although that was published much later.
Note: this is not a universal historical tradition, and actually names are very messy things whose use and form changed a lot even in one country throughout history. For example, you could have a patronymic i.e. “Romeo, son of Leo”, which in English can be seen in last names like “Johnson” or “MacDonald”. Then you have names that correspond to occupations i.e. “Harry Potter”, “John Smith”. You can also have location based names like “John of York” or “Leonardo Da Vinci”. The family last name and given name thing solidifies during the mediaeval period around 1400, according to wikipedia. And of course having the given name system makes a lot of sense in a story about the power of families. For a Shakespeare play where the naming conventions are different, see Timon of Athens or Julius Caesar.
If I had to rationalise what “doffing” his name would imply as a concrete course of action, the implied action here would be to and run away with her, to start a new life somewhere else. You can’t really change your name in Verona and just cut your family off, not when your family is powerful and you yourself are well known as a quasi-public figure.
After Romeo is banished for killing Tybalt, Friar Laurence comes up with the same basic idea of changing their names and running away to start a new life, as circumstances have forced their hand:
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
I don’t have much quarrel with the idea that some of “the classics” can be dumb, this is just my gloss on the closest authorial meaning.
I don’t know how to make progress on this dialectic. I think you’re obviously wrong, and either “Shakespeare wanting to sacrifice reasonableness for a better sound in that line” or “Juliet was supposed to be going a little bit crazy in that scene” are more reasonable hypotheses than a galaxy-brained take that the whole soliloquy actually makes sense on a literal level. You think I’m obviously wrong. I don’t know if there’s enough textual evidence to differentiate our hypotheses given that what I think of as overwhelming evidence for my position you somehow are updating in the opposite direction of, and think I’m being unreasonable for not seeing your side. The question also doesn’t matter.
The only real piece of empirical evidence I can imagine updating people here is historical evidence, actors’ instructions, etc, which I doubt we have access to. I’d love there to be a good answer to this conundrum, but I don’t see it. So I think I’m tapping out.
Hey, I’m not the original commenter that you were replying to, sorry. For what its worth I do think “Romeo” sounds better than “Montague” in that line.
Juliet thinks that dropping “Capulet” is the same action as Romeo renouncing his name. At the simplest level we can make the inference that when she says “refuse thy name”, she’s taking “Romeo Montague” as a complete package, or in other words saying he should change his whole name in one go, to adopt an entirely new identity. It’s a bit subtle, but the idea of a first name that is “yours” and a last name that is “your family’s” is a fairly modern one. It was not so long ago that your “first name” was your “given name”, a name given to you by your family (probably the patriarch). So it’s quite natural in that sense to see “Romeo Montague” as a whole package identity (“Romeo, the son of the family Montague”), whereas for us “Romeo” the personal identifier is separate from “Montague” the family identifier. For an example of familial name-giving used as a joke, you can look at a novel like Tristram Shandy, although that was published much later.
Note: this is not a universal historical tradition, and actually names are very messy things whose use and form changed a lot even in one country throughout history. For example, you could have a patronymic i.e. “Romeo, son of Leo”, which in English can be seen in last names like “Johnson” or “MacDonald”. Then you have names that correspond to occupations i.e. “Harry Potter”, “John Smith”. You can also have location based names like “John of York” or “Leonardo Da Vinci”. The family last name and given name thing solidifies during the mediaeval period around 1400, according to wikipedia. And of course having the given name system makes a lot of sense in a story about the power of families. For a Shakespeare play where the naming conventions are different, see Timon of Athens or Julius Caesar.
If I had to rationalise what “doffing” his name would imply as a concrete course of action, the implied action here would be to and run away with her, to start a new life somewhere else. You can’t really change your name in Verona and just cut your family off, not when your family is powerful and you yourself are well known as a quasi-public figure.
After Romeo is banished for killing Tybalt, Friar Laurence comes up with the same basic idea of changing their names and running away to start a new life, as circumstances have forced their hand:
I don’t have much quarrel with the idea that some of “the classics” can be dumb, this is just my gloss on the closest authorial meaning.
I don’t know how to make progress on this dialectic. I think you’re obviously wrong, and either “Shakespeare wanting to sacrifice reasonableness for a better sound in that line” or “Juliet was supposed to be going a little bit crazy in that scene” are more reasonable hypotheses than a galaxy-brained take that the whole soliloquy actually makes sense on a literal level. You think I’m obviously wrong. I don’t know if there’s enough textual evidence to differentiate our hypotheses given that what I think of as overwhelming evidence for my position you somehow are updating in the opposite direction of, and think I’m being unreasonable for not seeing your side. The question also doesn’t matter.The only real piece of empirical evidence I can imagine updating people here is historical evidence, actors’ instructions, etc, which I doubt we have access to. I’d love there to be a good answer to this conundrum, but I don’t see it. So I think I’m tapping out.Hey, I’m not the original commenter that you were replying to, sorry. For what its worth I do think “Romeo” sounds better than “Montague” in that line.
Wow I’m a moron.