Bell Ringers

Bell Ringer: Shakespeare and Loss

William Shakespeare in Politics

Robert Kennedy quotes William Shakespeare to eulogize his brother, John F. Kennedy, at the Democratic National Convention of 1964.

Description

Robert Kennedy used lines from Romeo and Juliet when eulogizing his brother, President John F. Kennedy, at the Democratic Convention following Kennedy’s assassination. Dr. Witmore says that Robert Kennedy’s use of Shakespeare to speak about the death of his brother takes the death from a political and historic event and makes it a cosmic event.

Bell Ringer Assignment

  • What relationship so you see between President Kennedy’s assassination and Romeo and Juliet?
  • How does Robert Kennedy’s use of Shakespeare’s language change the nature of the event?
  • Robert Kennedy was not the first person to use Shakespeare to mark a national tragedy. After the assassination of President Lincoln, posters were created that quoted Macbeth in memory of the late president. Review the online materials from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s exhibition America’s Shakespeare. What connections do you see between the national reaction to these two significant deaths?

Participants

    Topics

    English & Literature