One fact that often surprises people when they start studying Romeo and Juliet (originally known as The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet) is that Juliet is only almost fourteen years old. This we learn in I,ii.9 when her father, the head of the Capulet family, says, "she has not seen the change of fourteen years."
(Top) Olivia Hussey in Zefferelli's 1968 film.
(Below) Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film.
By the way, Juliet becomes a nearly eighteen year-old in Dr. Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), the (in)famous The Family Shakespeare. The physician, who together with his sister, Henrietta Maria, edited and censored WS's plays so that could be read out to the whole family, including the young children. In this edition he adds four more years onto her age so that it does not appear that she is rushing to lose her virginal status.
The other time factor that must be taken into account is that the whole play takes place within five days. Apart from this very short period which adds to the intensity of the plot, it also means that the sweet, young and innocent Juliet, who has "affections and warm youthful blood" has to grow up and mature very quickly!
As a character, she is vivacious, lively and witty. When she first meets Romeo, she tells him that he kisses her "by the book" in contrast to the passion he feels. She is also more down to earth than Romeo and when he claims he loves her with a poetic speech, she interrupts him and says:
Well do not swear. Although I joy in thee;
I have no joy of this contract tonight,
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like lightening, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say, it lightens. (II.ii).
Even though she may seem to appear timid due to her young age, she is headstrong and intelligent in contrast to the more impulsive Romeo. She is the one who tells him when he can kiss her and she is the one who pledges herself to him first and she is the one who suggests that they get married.
In addition to this, she goes against her family's wishes when she agrees to secretly marry Romeo instead of her parents' planned marriage for her to Paris and all in all, despite the innocent impression we first have of her, she is the more devious of this pair of lovers.
Anthony Burgess wrote that this play 'of all works of literature eternises the ardour of young love and youth's aggressive spirit.' This aspect of passionate love can easily be seen in Juliet's language.'
As I noted earlier, despite her young age, Juliet is witty and her speeches contain several double-entendres as when she sighs,"Come night, come Romeo" (III.ii), i.e. she not only wants to see Romeo; she also wants to feel him. In the same scrne she says, "...learn me how to lose a winning match" i.e. by losing her virginity, she will win Romeo for herself. For a very young teenager, the depth of her language and passion are truly precocious!
(Top-bottom) the 13+ yr old Juliet by
Frank Dicksee, George Dawe and Philip H. Calderon.
In addition, in III.ii she aches for Romeo, saying,
Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
When reading the above, it should be taken into account, that for Shakespeare's audiences, the night she is wishing for is associated with death and sex. To 'die' was an Elizabethan euphemism for an orgasm and so this speech may be seen as a precursor of their future sexual activities and death.
Next time: A personal view of Juliet.
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