How does Shakespeare use language and dramatic devices to show Romeo's development?

How does Shakespeare use language

And dramatic devices to

Show Romeo’s development?

Shakespeare’s tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet uses a range of intricate techniques of blending in various dramatic devices to emphasize the tragic fate of the fortune-fated love that sparked chemistry between the teenage romance of Romeo and Juliet. However, in order to achieve a romantic and tragic atmosphere with the Elizabethan audience, Shakespeare had to embed a focal point to the development of Romeo’s persona from an infatuated adolescent to a full grown silhouette of a man – which leads to his brave encounter of the play’s final scene – where Romeo gets to make the decision of his own life’s worth; a final dictation to the audience as to just how much Romeo’s understanding of love – and life itself – has progressed. Could Romeo’s death have been a strike of fate or a mere path taken by the protagonist of the play? And just how much does this relate to his progression within the play?

Shakespeare seems to take into consideration a lot of aspects of the play in which he takes advantage of in order to alter its significance to Romeo’s development from a boy to a man. This changes the way the audience perceives Romeo and builds a relationship with the Elizabethan audience’s perception of Romeo’s vulnerability to life and his premature understanding of love. Shakespeare tends to take advantage of the language and dramatic devices which are usually incorporated by common play writers – this gives Shakespeare a greater intention to alter the meanings conveyed by Romeo’s feelings, thus manipulating, within his own grasp, the feelings he might be intending to achieve from the Elizabethan audience.

In some parts of the play, Shakespeare would cleverly assign the players that are involved in Romeo’s life with quotes which associate itself as growing evidence of Romeo’s development of love. For instance, throughout the play, the characters that are seen playing a big part in Romeo’s life come out with quotes that hint the audience of different phases in Romeo had gone through in his transition of love between the later insignificant Rosaline and the much involved Juliet. For example, in the first scene of the play, when Shakespeare introduces Romeo to the audience, he reveals Romeo as a heartbroken adolescent, fallen into deep depression resulting from an “unrequited love” with Rosaline. His cousin, Benvolio, then uses his own, more professionalized, opinion (due to his heightened experience in life compared to Romeo) in Romeo’s state of love by advising that “love, so gentle in his view is, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof”. In modern terms, Benvolio is explaining that love, unlike in the eyes of the lover, seen in such “gentle” view, is actually more “rough” from another, more outer perspective. Perhaps Shakespeare had decided to embed his own view of love within the play in the eyes of Benvolio in order to convey to the audience the significance of love within the play and to provide more information on how these trails of advice from each character would build up a more tragic atmosphere towards the end of the play.

However, as Romeo falls into a deep sonnet of confessions from his feelings towards his unsuccessful love situation, Benvolio bombards himself into a cacophony of laughs as Romeo finishes off his “sonnet”. Without detailed explanation of why he does so after Romeo asks, “Dost thou not laugh?”, he merely comes out with, “No, coz, I rather weep”. This can also portray that Romeo’s situation is seen, in the eyes of Benvolio, as perhaps humorous, conveying a developing idea to the audience that probably Romeo’s depressing love situation with Rosaline can actually be insignificant compared to some further events within the ...

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Although Romeo had not yet revealed who he had fallen “out of her favour, where he is in love” with to this point; he does describe, however, the “fair beauty” of her physical assets. Shakespeare had carefully placed Romeo’s words in a way that would express to the audience that he has only taken notice of her physical aspects, rather than her true inner beauty (as described in modern terms). Knowing this, perhaps in the Elizabethan times it was taken more into account that true love could occur at first sight rather than taking time to develop a close relationship with who the person really is. Acknowledging this, we will know that later on, Romeo will develop some king of attraction to Juliet which will progress onto a more sophisticated bond formed between the two after Romeo “woos” her. Nonetheless, this will be taken into more detail as the play progresses.

Though, for now, when Romeo describes to Benvolio his unsuccessful will to winning Rosaline’s heart, he mentions that Rosaline is “well arm’d” with “strong proof of chastity” from “cupid’s arrow”. In this situation, Shakespeare blends the mythology of how real love is formed with the inexperienced talk of a mistakenly in-love teenager, proving a slight bit of irony in the eyes of a modern audience, where as the more gullible Elizabethan audience would have been easily caught in the whirl-wind of the Greek mythology of true love, believing that as soon as a source of true love is used within the play, that they are caught within Romeo’s atmosphere, blending in an almost strong sense of sympathy. Perhaps Shakespeare intended on including this clever twist of words in order to experiment with the feelings of the audience, providing an opportunity for them to reveal to themselves the differences of how real love is described by someone who truly is in love (which will be revealed when Juliet is introduced to Romeo in the play) and by someone who mistakes sexual infatuation with “love at first sight”.

Although Romeo has won the audience’s sympathy through his talk of “cupid’s arrow”, Shakespeare has proved evidence that what Romeo thinks is unrequited love from Rosaline is in fact chastity. This just comes to show the immaturity of Romeo during this stage of the play, since he shows that he does not understand the differences between sex and love. If in the Elizabethan ages, sex was seen as a strong form of love, then the sympathy of the audience possibly shown at this stage would have been understandable, otherwise, Romeo would have been seen as a foolish teenager stuck between the borderline of hormonal infatuation and love. Note that he does not mention that Rosaline had rejected his love but rather gives the impression that she had rejected his invitation to “making” love. Could Shakespeare possibly have deliberately added this gap of opportunity with Romeo in order to create the plot of a “fortune fated” love with Juliet?

When Romeo meets Juliet for the first time, Shakespeare alters the mood of the play by changing the depressed and sympathetic atmosphere the audience shares with Romeo onto a more relieved and romantic aura after Shakespeare reveals a renewed love to Romeo’s life, which is Juliet. Prior to Romeo’s meeting with Juliet, the audience can already see a more mature, and if not, a maturing side of Romeo. This is witnessed when Romeo refers Juliet’s love to religion and provides a strong link between the two. At this stage, the audience can tell that Romeo’s transition in faith is finally starting to become more distinct as he relates all that he says to Juliet with religion. In the beginning of Act 1, Romeo states “When the devout religion of mine eye maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!” when speaking of Rosaline to Benvolio. At this stage, we can see that Romeo has almost lost his faith, conveying possible evidence that Romeo’s faith or religion is based on love. When we find out that Rosaline does not love him back, Romeo shows a slight disbelief in faith – hence when he says “the devout religion of mine eye maintains such falsehood”. However, when we he meets Juliet for the first time, he breaks out into a sonnet, linking a strong relation between religion and love. When Romeo first speaks to Juliet during the ball, the first words he says are: “If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss”. When Shakespeare assigns Romeo with this statement, we can reveal that Romeo is trying to recover from his lost sense of faith – he refers to his lips as “two blushing pilgrims” where pilgrims are people who are set out on a journey to seek religious devotion. Romeo, at this stage, could be saying his lips are seeking religious devotion from Juliet, adding more evidence to Romeo’s link from religion to love. Furthermore, before Romeo kisses Juliet for the first time he adds “Then move not, while my prayer’s affect I take…” – Shakespeare could be conveying the fact that the kiss that has been taken from Juliet by Romeo is an act of pilgrimage; a possible sign of Romeo’s resurrected faith.

Shakespeare’s use of medial caesuras adds greater supportive evidence towards Romeo’s transition in love, as well as religion. When we go back to when Romeo speaks to Juliet for the first time, a medial caesura is used when he quotes “My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand…”. The medial caesura in this line is “…two blushing pilgrims…”; Shakespeare withstood this part of the sentence in order to embed Shakespeare’s view of religion with his view of love and how these two contrast each other. By emphasising the topic of religion within the topic of love, Shakespeare has enhanced the way the Elizabethan audience might see Romeo. For example, at the beginning of the play, Romeo had given the impression that his misery over Rosaline were merely over an unaccepted sex invitation where as, now; Romeo compares the topic of religion with the topic of love, possibly hinting the topic of marriage within the gap of difference between love and religion. At this stage, we can see how Romeo’s understanding of love has improved from a lustful sexual desire to an everlasting commitment. This moment may possibly highlight a moment of reassurance with the audience that possibly Romeo is in fact in love this time, but there might still be some doubt amongst the audience’s mind. However, Romeo will change this feeling of doubt later on in the play when he returns for Juliet and asks her to marry him. It is only in the end, however, that the audience truly find out that Romeo was deeply in love when he decides to take his life for the sake of hers.

The whole aim of Shakespeare’s idea of the transition of Romeo’s view of love grasps onto the audience’s reaction to the cruel fate of Romeo and Juliet’s love at the end of the play. However, if Shakespeare is to claim the reaction of the audience that he might have aimed for, he should be adding small tragic events within the exploration of the love shared between Romeo and Juliet. The tragedy built also depends on Romeo’s development, since it is the development itself that builds the illusion of an expanded time frame from a mere five days span that holds the whole play together. Shakespeare builds a greater tragedy then the misery expressed by Romeo’s unreturned love in the beginning of the play when he reveals to the audience that Juliet is of an opposing family (the Capulets) to Romeo’s ancestral family feud. The emotions expressed by Romeo when this is revealed may have formed a cloud of despair over the audience and the aura of the play. However, Romeo’s development in love, life and religion is mostly shown in this part of the play when his knowledge of the fact that Juliet is a Capulet does not provoke any change of mind to his love for her. When Rosaline rejected Romeo for his “love”, Romeo gave up hope almost straight away, yet with Juliet; even the knowledge of knowing she is a sworn enemy to his family does not resist his love for her, and only temporarily builds a moment of despair for him. This can convey the build up in Romeo’s confidence from the beginning of the play, as he would severely woe over an unrequited love but shuns any thought of the fact that Juliet is a Capulet.

The greatest evidence of Romeo’s transition in love especially is the fact that Rosaline was a mere sub-plot and Juliet is a second protagonist in the play. The significance of both players to Romeo is reflected onto the significance of them as characters in the play.

The ending of the play is the highlighted tragedy of the play. Shakespeare’s use of linguistic and dramatic devices show Romeo’s development in order to build a greater time span than the actual five days and in order to create a love for Romeo’s character by the audience (which generally is the cause of despair for his and his lover’s tragic death) has successfully paid off. From an infatuated, sex-hungry adolescent to a love struck “man”, with enough courage to take his own life for his lover’s vanished existence (as so he thought); Romeo may be a teen in plot but a man at heart.

Sanyia Saidova 11G