Romeo and Juliet Aspects of love

Emma Watton

ROMEO AND JULIET

Aspects of Love

How does Shakespeare use language in Romeo and Juliet to depict love? Shakespeare portrays scenes of a love through language all throughout the play, even in the prologue of act one, with its fourteen lines of rhyming known as English sonnet the narrative verse conveys the feeling of love with its romantic rhythm. The prologue gives the plot of the story away which I think is an advantage as the intricate wording that lasts the duration of the play can be confusing. Shakespeare had the foundations of a beautiful love story, with the focus on the “Pair of star-cross’d lovers” But instead of flowing poetry and scenes of adoration he chose to manipulate the powerful emotion of love by introducing contradictive elements such as hatred and tragedy, he added to this by using powerful text in questioning whether, “The fearful passage of their death-marked love” will end the “Continuance of their parents rage”.

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Romeo spent the whole time that he thought he was in love with Rosaline declining to think he may have it wrong, even when his relatives tried to make him see sense, he showed the stubbornness of a man in love but he wasn’t consistent as it weren’t long before Shakespeare was portraying Romeo's love for Rosaline as a pain which was weighing him down, he speaks of cupid’s arrow as if he had been injured buy it, “I am too sore enpierced with his shaft” And “Under loves heavy burden do I sink.” Also in the early scenes Romeo had shown such feelings of sorrow and his speech portrayed the gloominess as he was always so negative, Shakespeare instigates this with his use of oxymoron’s, like when Romeo was speaking of his feelings for Rosaline, he referred to: “Heavy lightness, serious vanity” And, “Bright smoke and sick health” These conflicting words all represented Romeo having mixed feeling, maybe even doubting his love for Rosaline and this made me think twice about whether he was infatuated by the idea of being in love rather than actually being in love.

On the instant of him seeing Juliet my theory was proven as Romeo's feelings for Rosaline were no longer significant and unfortunately love is not a tap that can be turned off, this made me think Romeo may be fickle and I was weary of his proclaimed love for Juliet at first, until I realised the different structure in which the play was written. Shakespeare had written in blank verse for each of the parts that Romeo spoke of Rosaline, which is a form of iambic pentameter but without the rhyming and doesn’t give a sense of romance, but then when speaking of Juliet after their introduction Shakespeare resorted back to sonnet form with rhyme which instantly brings back that feeling of adoration and restored my faith that this time Romeo was feeling genuine love.

To the mix which to the credit of the play introduced a great deal of passion.

Which is structured? Inconsistent

Abandon romance