Imagining theatrical London as it exists in Shakespeare's time; Shakespeare's fundamental intent to hold the mirror up to nature to imitate the real world; the milieu of Elizabethan theater; the playwright creates theatrical reality through language.

Exploring key principles for understanding and appreciating Shakespeare's comedies; the thematic elements of a shift from friendship to romantic love; the three-part structure of the comedies leads inevitably to reconciliation and regeneration.

Shakespeare's primary tool as a playwright is words themselves as dramatic expressions of character and meaning; In "Romeo and Juliet", Shakespeare ingeniously uses language to distinguish class and personality; he uses the poetic form of the sonnet.