The secret of Shakespeare has been missed until now!

1. The Secret of
Shakespeare
“..the secret of Shakespeare has been
missed” --page 353, The Art of Memory by
Frances Yates

2. Romeo and Juliet was the start of a
scientific investigation conducted and
performed through drama!
•

3. There is a secret play in
Romeo and Juliet!
It concerns the historical
relationship between Man and the
Sun

4. The secret play is an allegory
• The secret play is revealed
primarily through the way that
Romeo and Juliet interact with
each other. If you will review the
play, you will notice that when
they are together they do not
interact functionally and fully with
other characters.

5. Thus we are left with 4 scenes they
share, and these are the most famous
scenes in the play
1) The Party scene
2) The Balcony scene
3) The Farewell scene
4) The Tomb scene

6. Act I, scene v
At the House of the Capulets,
Romeo meets Juliet
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss

7. The first scene is a rough schematic
allegory for Pre-Historical or Antique
Man, who worshipped the Sun.
– When Romeo first sees Juliet, there is a
sense of her as a source of light---”O,
she doth teach the torches to burn
bright!”
– They use the language of worship when
they meet, and their speech is crowded
with words of worship “profane”, “sin”,
“pilgrims”, “saints”, “holy palmers”,
“pray’r”, “faith”

8. Romeo meets Juliet
• It’s human’s pagan past. We worshipped the
sun and felt close to the sun.
• Probably, nature rituals were outside, not in
churches, so we were close to nature for
religious practice.

9. Act II, scene ii: The Balcony
scene
Romeo: But soft, what light through yonder
window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is
the sun.
Shakespeare has given away the secret identity of Juliet here!
Shortly thereafter, in the same speech, Romeo uses words like
“lamp” “daylight”, “stars”, “heaven”, “airy region” and “bright” to
further describe Juliet and subtly imprint upon the minds of listeners
her identity in the parallel play.
Romeo is Man embracing an agricultural era. In such an economy,
everything is from the sun in one way or another; fish, grain,
baskets, cotton, meat, leather, feathers, linen, wood, and more.

10. Act II, scene ii, continued
–Juliet: My bounty is as boundless as
the sea, my love as deep; the more I
give to thee The more I have, for
both are infinite.
In a sun economy, everything comes from the sun. All
the flows of matter and energy that we need to stay
alive and keep warm, our food, our water, shoes,
clothes and the tools to make them…..all comes from
the sun. People did have this sort of lifestyle 1000 years
ago.

11. On the balcony, Juliet is now a bit
removed from Romeo
• Juliet is removed. Christianity moved worship
into churches and direct sun worship was
also, obviously, not part of the plan.
• So Juliet, on the balcony, is away from
Romeo now. He can see her. But there is a
separation.

12. Between the Balcony scene and the Farewell Scene, there
is one very brief scene where Romeo and Juliet interact
with the only character fully permitted into their “magic
circle”.
This character is Friar Lawrence, the stand-in (allegorical
figure) for Shakespeare himself.
Friar Lawrence performs the wedding. (This is not shown)
Friar Lawrence says he will
“incorporate two in one”.

13. Friar Lawrence gives away Romeo’s identity as
“Man”, just as Romeo gives away Juliet’s identity
as the sun.
• In Act III, scene iii, Friar Lawrence says,
“Romeo, come forth, thou fearful man;
affliction is enamor’d of thy parts, And thou
art wedded to calamity.”

14. (side note here)
• When Friar Lawrence says that Romeo (man)
is subject to affliction and calamity, I think that
Shakespeare doesn’t mean there is no hope
for us. He simply means that Mankind is
oriented around solving problems, but our
solutions are not always without further
problems…..(look at Fukushima for one
example!)

15. Friar Lawrence is called “ghostly confessor” and
“ghostly father” by Romeo and Juliet. Why is he
ghostly? Because he can pass through the boundaries
of the secret play and speak to them when they are
together. No other character can do this, but one
other one comes close!
• Juliet’s nurse comes near to penetrating the
walls separating Romeo and Juliet from the
others. She is often calling “Juliet! Juliet!”
from a little way away while Juliet is
together with Romeo.

16. Why does the Nurse have this special
power to almost break into the “magic
circle” where Romeo and Juliet conduct
their secret play??
• She is a Clown/Fool figure. The Clown or Fool
character is one with a very old dramatic ancestry. The
Clown/Fool figure used to lead the processions/parades
in seasonal rituals and festivals which were conducted
and celebrated in honor of the sun. Therefore the Nurse
is “close to the sun” in her dramatic lineage. Indeed,
she is close to Juliet, the sun figure, too, as her
caretaker.

17. The Nurse calls Juliet onto the stage in Act I, scene iii,
after Juliet’s mother says “call her forth to me”(Older plays
often used calling onto the stage as a way to reveal
characters).
• Nurse: Now by my maidenhead at twelve year
old, I bade her come. What lamb! What ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
• Lambs and ladybirds are some creatures you might see in the
countryside of England at this time----around 1596----but you would
not see them in London, which was smoky and crowded. The
countryside of England was still sun-powered. Not London.
• “God forbid”---the Nurse accidentally reveals something about
Juliet’s real identity, that is to say, there is a spiritual component in
the Sun. This is not to say that Shakespeare advocates sun-worship,
by the way! (More on this later!)

18. Clowns and Fool figures are always telling the truth but
because they speak in nonsensical ways, no one ever
believes them.
• The Nurse tells a story about her late husband
talking to baby Juliet : “dost thou fall upon thy
face? Thou wilt fall backward when thy hast
more wit, wilt not thou, Jule?”
• The sun goes to its zenith then ‘falls backward’
(back down) and the sun is often said to have a
“face”.

19. Act III, scene v
Romeo bids farewell to Juliet
Juliet: Wilt thou be gone?......
Romeo: I must be gone and live---or stay
and die.
,
Ahh, yes....The problem in a nutshell!

20. Romeo and Juliet
Act 1, scene 1, lines 1-2
Sampson: Gregory, on my word, we’ll not
carry coals.
Gregory: No, for then we should be
colliers.

21. Coal vs. the Sun
• Coal can be mined and sold.
• Coal can produce heat when burned; it is
denser in energy than wood.
• Using coal can give people a chance to use a
wood forest for something else, like food.
• Coal depletes, the sun doesn’t
• England had a lot of coal, but not always a lot
of sun!

22. Coal started to be burned in England around 1100,
but that was in a very limited way.
• Coal production and consumption grew until
around 1600, when coal overtook wood as the
main source of fuel in England.
• In effect, during Shakespeare’s lifetime, England
had said “Good-bye” to the sun, just as Romeo
had to say “good-bye” to Juliet.
• England was the first country to “leave the sun”
as its main source of fuel.
• I guess Shakespeare noticed it and got a bit
concerned.

23. Once you start using fossil fuels, it is hard to
stop, of course.
• People and economies become very
dependent on them.
• Fossil fuels are very powerful and offer many
advantages.
• Of course, they have some disadvantages too.

24. The tomb scene, Act 5, scene iii
• Romeo keeps saying that Juliet looks like she is
alive. “Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so
fair?”
• The sun shines just as brightly, but we have
gotten away from the economic connection
with the sun, so it doesn’t function for us.

25. The tomb means some sort of
economic change, probably.
I am not quite sure exactly what it means.
An end of one economic paradigm for mankind
and the start of another?
It looks a bit scary but this kind of change would
happen over centuries or millennia, so it’s not as
bad as it seems at first.

26. The opening quote, in full:
• “I would also suggest that the two native
Hermetic philosophers, John Dee and Robert
Fludd, ought not to be excluded from the
attentions of those interested in the English
Renaissance. It may be because they have
been excluded that the secret of Shakespeare
has been missed.”-----page 353, The Art of
Memory by Frances Yates

27. How did I come up with this idea?
I got this idea about Juliet really being really the
sun when I made a decision to investigate the
imagery of fossil fuels in literature a few years
ago. I noticed the first 2 lines of “Romeo and
Juliet” and I spent about 8 months wondering
why he opened the play with 2 people talking
about coal. It looked so strange!

28. Not being able to find anymore direct references to “coal” in “Romeo and
Juliet”, I spent about 8 or 9 months WONDERING about the first two lines.
Finally I read Barbara Freese’s Coal: A Human History and I found out the
QUEEN ELIZABETH had complained about coal smoke in London in the late
1500s! Coal smoke is intensely thick, sooty, and black. We don’t get to see it
as the Elizabethans saw it because our modern power plants have scrubbers
and filters.
Then I checked the play for words like “fume” “smoke” “black” etc. BINGO!
They were there! All clustered around Rosaline, the cold dark woman who
can never satisfy Romeo!!
Shakespeare was a master at allegory; I knew that from the sonnets.
If Rosaline is coal, I wondered aloud, then WHO is Juliet??

29. The answer hit me!
“JULIET IS THE SUN”
I am an obscure but working professional in the field of literature. I have a B.A.
from Harvard University and an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and both
of my degrees are in English Literature.
I have published a handful of papers. I have always enjoyed my work.
BUT IN ALL MY YEARS OF INTERPRETIVE WORK, I HAD NEVER EVER
EXPERIENCED ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE! IT WAS A JOLT OR A SHOCK, A
FLASH. I ALMOST FELL ONTO THE FLOOR!

30. A brief note:
• My husband suggested that “we’ll not carry
coals” means a Hermetic (secret, veiled)
statement to the effect that someday we won’t
use them economically anymore. Also, maybe
Shakespeare didn’t totally approve of coal.
• I confess that I had not thought of that, and
had just assumed the topic of coal was
introduced by these 2 lines.

31. Thank you to my dear husband!
• You had the brilliant idea to interpret “we’ll
not carry coals” as a Hermetic statement.
• You ordered Barbara Freese’s Coal: A Human
History for me!
• You listened to me when I couldn’t figure the
puzzle out.
• You read my paper and offered suggestions
• You even asked me to turn my idea into a
novel! (Gasp!)

32. The End
• And “Thank you” to Mr. William Shakespeare,
a fascinating, ghostly, mysterious,
scientifically-aware, dramatically-minded
inventive genius.
• I have been able to spend many happy hours
wandering through the hallways of his mind,
as I think his works can be called that.
• Juliet is the sun