After the opening scenes that establish the rowdiness and rivalry between Verona’s youth, Romeo enters. He is in many ways a contrast or a foil to his companions, especially Mercutio, who displays the energy usually associated with adolescents whereas Romeo is sad and melancholy. Romeo is a Petrarchan lover, while Mercutio displays the second type of love, Sexual or Bawdy love.
In contrast to the innocence of sexuality that Romeo and Juliet show, the other characters in the play threat sex as a joke, and something to make fun of in an obscene and derogatory manner. Mercutio is one character who does this a lot during the play, and his lines are full of witty, sexual innuendo, especially in the Queen Mab speech (Act I Scene IV), where he speaks of sexual love and its imagery: O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream (Act I Scene IV, line 74)
Many critics, such as Evelyn Gajowski, say that Shakespeare is suggesting that it is to this that `love’ can come if it is not based on true passion, as opposed to the pursuit of mere beauty and sexuality.
Sex is also seen as something that has to be ‘endured’ at an early age, as both the Nurse and Lady Capulet make clear. Sex is for having children - Women grow by men – says the Nurse, and Lady Capulet tells that she had her first child when she was the same age as Juliet is in the play.
Sexuality is presented as a threat in the play. Juliet is to be married to Paris without her consent, and her Father arranges everything for her. Juliet is already married to Romeo (even if her parents do not know this) yet she is faced with the prospect of having to take up the role of wife and, potentially mother, with a man she does not love. Faced with this added complication it is not surprising that Juliet chooses death over life, O happy dagger...let me die. (Act V Scene III, line 169-71)
The bawdy world of sex is very much a part of life on the streets of Verona and in private conversations of the Capulets. Against this is placed the unrivalled sexual ‘awakening’ of the inexperienced Romeo and Juliet- a relationship shrouded in innocence and intensity. Romeo and Juliet’s relationship represents the third type of love: True love.
True love could be defined as being ‘in love with love.’ As the critic, Jill Houghton puts it; this suggests being in love with a notion or concept rather than with a person with a person. She goes on to add that a more modern interpretation would see true love as unfulfilled sexual desire, devoid of any substance or actuality or an abstraction rather than a reality.
Up until Romeo meets Juliet, he has been in love with Rosaline, and portrays the Petrarchan type of love. This all changes at the Capulet ball when he meets the only daughter of his gravest enemy, and the love of his life – Juliet. Once he meets her his idyllic view of love changes and he completely forgets Rosaline; showing Romeos immature, irrational behaviour. Now, for the first time, he is aware of the depth and passion that goes to make up true love. He is in love with Juliet, the person, rather than that of the idea of what love should be. He confronts the reality of true love during the course of the play, maturing and gaining new independence. By the end of the play he is prepared to sacrifice his life rather than live without Juliet.
Juliet also makes an early commitment to Romeo when she proposes marriage during the balcony scene. Once she has pledged herself to Romeo this is the only way to go for her, and as Friar Lawrence says Holy Church incorporates two in one (Act III Scene VI, line 37)
This could show that Romeo and Juliet’s love is also holy. This is shown when they first meet and compare each other to pilgrims and saints.
Shakespeare makes Romeo and Juliet’s relationship a fusion of True and Holy love in a marriage that will withstand all the tribulations of time, and sex is the natural outcome of their love, which could also show their commitment to one another. Critics have said that this idea is one to do with being forever bound together in love and death, and that is how the play ends.
It has been said that Paris is connected with this romantic love, but I would argue that he shows all the signs of ‘arranged’ love, and therefore he does not really love her as deeply as Romeo. Paris deals with Juliet and the coming marriage with the utmost formality and correctness, observing all the ceremony necessary at the time for an engaged man. His behaviour in his brief meeting with Juliet outside Friar Lawrence’s cell shows this when he starts his speech with the formal greeting: Happily met, my lady and my wife. (Act IV Scene I, line 18)
Paris’ formality does not match Romeos passionate words.
Later in the play, when faced with Juliet’s untimely death, Paris mourns in his formal stylised and far too ‘romantic’ manner: Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, and slain. (Act IV Scene V, line 55)
Compared to Romeos outpouring of true and unselfish grief with this to see that Romeo has greater emotions for Juliet. Formality does not compare with the raw emotions of a man driven to suicide by the death of his beloved wife.
As with so much else in this ‘play of contrasts’, Paris’ formal and romantic love is placed in sharp opposition with the reality of Romeo and Juliet’s true love. The point that Shakespeare is trying to make is that it is true love that gives Romeo and Juliet a special and almost magical relationship, and in the end it is their intense longing to be together that makes them united in death.
I feel the best kind of love is true love. As Romeo and Juliet’s relationship shows, it is the only ‘real’ kind of love: Paris’ formal and romantic love is the most false and the Sexual love, as shown by the Nurse and Mercutio, is too shallow. Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is blessed by Friar Lawrence, showing it is holy. There relationship also shows that it should not matter who the person is or where they come from. The fact that the two lovers are meant to be enemies is irrelevant in their eyes, and this is how all love should be. The fact that both Romeo and Juliet were willing to give up their lives for one another symbolizes the pureness and deepness of their love
I will kiss thy lips; Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative. (Act V Scene III, line 164-66)
