I keep learning more about Shakespeare's technical treatment of time with every play that I re-visit. In Romeo and Juliet, time is particularly important in several different ways, and over the next few posts I'll be summarizing some of what I've learned recently. For today, the first thing that must considered in this regard is the way the story has been collapsed from several months in Brooke's narrative poem (which was Shakespeare's primary and perhaps sole source) to four days in the play. But somehow it still feels entirely believable. Perhaps it's due to the fact that our memories tend to work this way as well, because when we look back on our own lives, we tend to remember the big events, the ones that changed things, rather than the cups of coffee and so forth. And many years can get turned into recollections that might take only a few moments to re-live mentally. Tomorrow, I'll write about how the play is influenced both technically and thematically by a particular time of day.