How is love shown in Romeo and Juliet.

Authors Avatar by harry24 (student)

In this essay I am going to be comparing two love stories, Romeo and Juliet and Tony Kytes, the Arch Deceiver.

Firstly, Romeo and Juliet’s prologue introduces the play and is therefore important, it is written in sonnet form, formally seen as a love poem and written in rhyming couplets, this already shows elements of love and this is one way that love is presented in Romeo and Juliet.

Next, the genre of the prologue is very clear – romance. But, this is also juxtaposed by tragedy, this is because the prologue was traditionally read as a chorus, and this originated from Greek tragedies, in which the audience was told a brief summary of the story and what was soon to come on the stage.

An example of how the prologue tells the story, is the use of phrases such as ‘star cross’d lovers’. This is interpreted as Romeo and Juliet’s love being ‘fate’ but with a negative outcome. This is because the meaning of star cross’d is that the persons has come across ‘ill-fate’ and their destiny is written in the stars, these two youths were meant to meet each other and their love was always going to bring their deaths with it.

This would affect an audience because the juxtaposition between love and hate involved would mean a sense of confusion and alert would be created for an Elizabethan audience, they would realise that the love story they originally came to see may include more violence and negative feelings than they first thought. For example, this is shown in the penultimate couplet ‘…is now the two hours traffic of our stage’; this backs up what was previously said about the violence because this type of statement would not usually be found in a sonnet.

  Overall, I believe the prologue presents love that an Elizabethan audience would uncover and keep in their mind throughout the play, the prologue has already stated that this is a tragic love story which would increase tension for an audience.

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Love is shown in the second half of Act 1, Scene 1. Romeo feels he is in love with Rosaline, but Shakespeare presents Romeo as being a Petrarchan  lover, this term came from a poet ‘Petrach’ who wrote sonnets to his lover about his unrequited love to her. Romeo feels the love he is showing towards Rosaline is not being reciprocated and therefore this causes him to dwell on his emotional torment.

Shakespeare chooses language that reflects Romeo’s youthfulness and immaturity, alongside his idealized notions of romance. Romeo describes his mind through a set of oxymorons, putting contradictory words together ...

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