Abstract
There is a curious moment in the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. Thinking she speaks in solitude, Juliet says: “Romeo, doff thy name, / And, for thy name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself.” Emerging from the shadows, Romeo replies: “I take thee at thy word.” Suddenly, Juliet’s utterance has seemingly become binding: because they have been overheard by Romeo, her words have become her word. But is Juliet truly bound by her words given that she did not know they were being overheard? Using J. L. Austin’s notion of the performative, I consider the nature and status of Juliet’s utterance, its influence on the remainder of the scene, and what insight it might afford into the play as a whole.
Bio
Julian Lamb received his PhD from Cambridge University. He has published a monograph on early modern pedagogy, and his articles on Shakespeare, early modern linguistics, and English Renaissance poetry have appeared in journals such as English Literary Renaissance and Shakespeare Quarterly.