Another notion of courtly love is that the woman doesn’t love the man back.
Romeo says to Benvolio:
“Out of her favour where I am in love.”
This shows that Rosaline doesn’t return Romeo’s love. Because of this the man is seen as inferior to the woman. This is contrasting to normal medieval life where men were superior the women. This makes courtly lovers seem even more pathetic to the audience.
Another decree of courtly is love that the woman that the man falls in love with can’t love him back. Benvolio asks Romeo:
“The she hath sworn that she will live chaste?”
Romeo replies:
“She hath,”
This means that Juliet will remain a virgin her entire life, as she is “foresworn to love”. Romeo still continues to love Rosaline more that ever. The more she rejects him, the more he wants her.
When Montague is discussing Romeo’s behaviour with Benvolio they are very confused about why he is acting so bizarrely. This is because Romeo has kept his love from family and friends, following another rule of courtly love. Montague says to Benvolio:
“I neither know it, nor can learn of him.”
Keeping his love a secret from family and friends is another thing that proves Romeo is a traditional courtly lover. Throughout Romeo and Benvolio’s conversation, Romeo uses oxymorons, which emphasises the fact that he is confused about his feelings for Rosaline. He says:
“Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,”
Romeo doesn’t know, whether he is happy, woeful, in love or out of love. This is due to him being a confused courtly lover. Again this backs up the fact that Romeo is a traditional courtly lover.
In Romeo’s oxymorons Shakespeare personifies the word ‘love’ by saying
“O brawling love, O loving hate,”
He could do this to symbolise Characters in the play, such as Romeo and Rosaline, because Romeo can only see his love for Rosaline through the war, hate and rivalry. Because of this Romeo is confused about his feelings, he doesn’t know whether he is happy or sad. He is happy because he loves Rosaline, but sad because she doesn’t love him back. He is undecided about how he feels.
Romeo thinks his love for Rosaline will never cease. A main feature of courtly love is that the courtly lover is devout to loving the woman. Romeo also believes that Rosaline is the one and only woman for him. Benvolio tries to convince Romeo otherwise. He says:
“Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.”
Here Benvolio contrasts two birds here. One is seen as beautiful and one as ugly. Shakespeare has chosen these birds because their imagery is contrasting. The colours of the birds have connotations. Swans are white which symbolises purity, beauty and love. Crows are black and symbolise death, ugly and evil. Although the use of symbolic language and imagery used here makes it very clear that it is a possibility that Romeo may find ‘…..other beauties…..’, Romeo still doesn’t believe in any such possibility.
Through the way Romeo responds to Benvolio’s attempts to convince him to look at other women, it is made clear that Romeo idolises Rosaline as though she is sent from God. Romeo uses Religious words to describe his devotion to Rosaline, Romeo says:
“When the devout religion of mine eye”
Romeo idolises Rosaline in a religious way. These religious words have religious connotations this shows us that Romeo thinks Rosaline is divine. Romeo worships Rosaline like she is a goddess. Here Shakespeare’s use of religious imagery emphasises Romeo’s devotion to his love Rosaline. Because Romeo is taking his feelings in a religious direction, he should be as devout to loving Rosaline as he is to his Religion. Therefore by turning his back on Rosaline would be like turning his back on the catholic religion.
After this, Romeo backs up his love and devotion for Rosaline by taking this religious imagery to another Level. Romeo says:
“Maintains such falsehood, the turn fears to fires,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fiery than my love! The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since the first world begun.”
Here, Romeo says that if he thinks another woman is beautiful his eyes would burn out because they would be liars. The religious theme is carried on here from earlier as cheating on Rosaline would be like cheating on his religion; therefore resulting in a horrible fiery end in hell. Shakespeare’s choice of language and vocabulary here emphasises the notion of courtly love that the love for the woman is undying and forever true. Again Romeo seems like an orthodox courtly lover.
All of the above points support the fact that Romeo is a true courtly lover. Meaning he should always and only love Rosaline, however when he sees Juliet for the first time his courtly lover traits are turned around from courtly lover to normal reciprocated love, therefore breaking the rules of courtly love.
The moment Romeo lays his eyes on Juliet he forgets all about Rosaline. Romeo says about Juliet:
“O she doth tech the torches to burn bright!”
Shakespeare has carried on the fire imagery to relate Romeo’s new feelings for Juliet to his old feelings for Rosaline, reminding the audience of them and how quickly they changed. The similarity of the themes emphasises the transition from to not being a courtly lover, because of the way they were used so differently.
Earlier, Benvolio tried to convince Romeo that Rosaline would look like a “crow” next to other “beauties”, but Romeo didn’t agree. Now Romeo says:
“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,”
This shows that Romeo now thinks of Rosaline as a crow, signifying Rosaline is now an ugly woman compared to Juliet. The word ‘trooping’ insinuates that Romeo now sees Rosaline as an average woman who doesn’t stand out from the rest of the ‘crows’. Because Romeo now agrees with Benvolio, he can no longer be viewed as a courtly lover, like he was earlier. Again Shakespeare uses Romeo’s old feeling about Rosaline and turned them about, representing his new stronger feelings for Juliet.
When Romeo falls in love with Juliet, although it is made clear through the sharing of the sonnet that Juliet is interested in Romeo, he still exhibits traits of a courtly lover. Romeo is following the rule that the woman is unattainable. Juliet is unattainable because she is a Capulet and is engaged to Paris. However the fact that Juliet shares Romeo’s feelings and enthusiasm is more significant, steering Romeo away from being a courtly lover.
When Romeo and Juliet have their first conversation they share a sonnet to represent the love they share for each other. By using this method Shakespeare can automatically enlighten the audience that the pair are interested in each other without any direct words.
During the sonnet religion and religious imagery is used throughout. Such words as:
“Profane” “Holy shrine” “Sin” “Pilgrims” “Saints”.
Again, Shakespeare has brought forward imagery used to describe Romeo's love for Rosaline, but turned it around to describe his new feelings for Juliet. As before, this emphasises Romeo’s transition from courtly lover to loving Juliet who loves him back, by the similarity of words and themes used. These religious words also remind the audience of the way Romeo used to idolise Rosaline, but now uses the religious themes to describe Rosaline.
Religious imagery is used throughout the sonnet masking the underlying sexual theme of the sonnet, therefore making it sound innocent. Romeo describes his lips as:
“two blushing pilgrims”
Romeo’s lips are described using a religious theme here as they are performing a sin; they are cheating on Rosaline. This sin now is made less immoral as it engulfed in a religious and innocent theme.
The language used in Romeo and Juliet show the strong influence of the Italian poet Petrach (1304 - 74). He became very popular with English poets in the time of Queen Elizabeth 1st. They drew on Petrach’s theme and style to write about courtly love. Romeo’s love for Rosaline echo’s the major theme of Petrach’s poetry: A young mans unrequited love of an unattainable woman. By Romeo and Juliet sharing a sonnet it emphasises that Romeo’s love for Juliet, is requited therefore it isn’t possible for him to be a courtly lover.
More evidence that supports Romeo not being a courtly lover is Juliet’s declaration of love for Romeo. Juliet says:
“Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enermy.”
This breaks the rule that the men fall in love with women who don’t love them back.
At the start of the play Romeo demonstrated that he was a typical courtly lover, however as the first act progressed, Romeo broke the main conventions of courtly love. Even though Romeo still portrays some traits of a courtly lover, I believe that these traits are greatly outweighed by the broken rules of courtly love. Overall I think that Romeo is not and never was an absolute courtly lover.
