ABSTRACT
The style of the Nurse's speeches in Act I, scene iii of Romeo and Juliet makes a vivid impact on both readers and spectators. It is described by Nicholas Brooke as 'something altogether new, both in this play and, in fact, in Shakespeare's output'. He finds its 'nearest antecedent', not in verse, but in 'the prose of I,i'. While 'it goes far beyond that', nevertheless 'its characteristic is that it is close to prose, or rather to prosaic speech, developing its own rhythmic momentum'. By the time that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet he had written much dialogue that approximates to prosaic speech rather than to literary prose; and author should like to begin this essay by examining some of the characteristics of the Nurse's utterance which may account for the claim that it represents 'something altogether new'. It is easy to point to aspects of the style which create the illusion of spontaneity.
