Good Turns in Romeo and Juliet

Abstract

The plot of Romeo and Juliet is shaped by the turns of exchanges. Retributive returns fuel cycles of vengeance that lead to the tragic ending. The prologue notoriously gives this ending away, portraying the tragedy as inevitable, even suggesting that the deaths of Romeo and Juliet were the necessary price of peace. In contrast to these tragic returns, the play also portrays benevolent and liberating kinds of turning. Drawing on civic and religious notions of gracious exchange found in Seneca’s On Benefits and in the Homilies, Shakespeare creates a counterpoint to tragic retribution. These gracious returns offer the liberating possibility of turning aside from a tragic trajectory that is only apparently inevitable.