Romeo speaks in rhyming couplets whereas the servants speak in prose due to their lower status and Lord Capulet speaks in iambic pentameter. Romeo speaks like this because he is very passionate. He is full of strong feelings and he rushes into whatever his feelings tell him to do. He uses lots of similes to describe his feelings, for example “As rich as a jewel in an Ethiops ear”. This displays his spontaneous love for Juliet and Rosaline is instantly forgotten. Romeo makes impetuous decisions like this one throughout the whole play, for example when Romeo hears that Juliet is dead at the start of Act V he decides to go to Verona and poison himself. The audience is made to think that perhaps if he did not follow his heart so swiftly he might not get into so many precarious situations.
Tybalt’s anger towards Romeo changes the mood in Act I scene v. This hate contrasts the love at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. This brings back the ominous feeling of fate overshadowing the two lovers. This feeling is contrasted by Lord Capulet’s welcoming attitude towards Romeo: “Verona brags of him to be a virtuous and well governed youth”. But Tybalt persists and is emphatic on the issue: “I’ll not endure him”. This displays Tybalt as being a volatile character with a fiery temper. However Capulet is insistent in his defence of Romeo and that draws an end to the issue: “He shall be endured”. “Shall” being emphatic shows that this is an imperative. This conflict mirrors the ongoing feud throughout the play.
“I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, shall convert to bitterest gall.”
These words spoken by Tybalt are implying that the happiest atmosphere may not last. It brings back the portentous sense of fate. These words echo Romeo at the end of Scene IV:
“Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this nights revels…”
What Tybalt says creates tension and suspense. It may also foreshadow the deaths of Mercutio, Tybalt, Romeo, who actually poisons himself, and Juliet at the end of the play. “Gall”, meaning poison, may not only imply physically poisoned but also the poisoning of the mind by hatred.
The mood changes again when Romeo first speaks to Juliet in a sonnet. It displays their love at first sight. A sonnet would have been a typical type of Elizabethan poetry; this would have grabbed the attention of the audience as it would have been performed on the apron of the Globe. The idea of the lovers sharing the sonnet shows the spontaneous connection and love between the pair. Romeo uses religious imagery to show his love for Juliet:
“If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”
Using “pilgrims” for lips as if they are worshipping at her “holy shrine”, her hand, Juliet replies, also using religious imagery which shows the mutual love at first sight:
“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much”.
Romeo is trying to persuade Juliet to kiss him: “To smooth this rough touch with a tender kiss” but Juliet is cautious: “For saints have hands do touch”. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony in this sonnet because the audience know they are from the feuding families but the would-be lovers do not. The kiss at the end of the sonnet is a visual symbol of love. The rhyming couplet being shared by the two lovers is a device used by Shakespeare to indicate that it is true love. The idea of Juliet being cautious shows that she is being passive. This was a typical Elizabethan attitude, for example even though she wants to kiss him she has to wait to be kissed. The sonnet stands out because it isolates Romeo and Juliet from the other characters. Their sharing of the sonnet shows the audience their true love at first sight because to Romeo and Juliet it is a very emotional and personal experience.
The intense mood of love changes when the Nurse and Juliet’s mother enter. It changes to the subject of Romeo and Juliet trying to discover each others identity and they become less isolated from the other characters. The atmosphere changes again to a darker mood when it is discovered they are the children of the heads of feuding families and this reveals Shakespeare’s use of antithesis between love and hate. These are key themes and when they are brought together it signals the intervention of fate: “My only love sprung from my only hate”. Antithesis is also used by Juliet when she says “Too early seen unknown, and known too late”.
Shakespeare’s allusion to fate foresees the lover’s own deaths later in the play: “My grave is like to be my wedding bed” and “Prodigious birth of love it is to me”. Elizabethan audiences were very superstitious and even though the audience knows Romeo and Juliet are going to die the audience would have been captivated by the way fate worked against the pair of lovers throughout the rest of the play.
This is a very powerful scene and it is essential in engaging the audience in the play as a whole. Romeo and Juliet’s use of the sonnet is an integral part of the scene. Its use of religious imagery and rhyming couplets is empowering over the audience. It centres the attention on Romeo and Juliet and isolates them from the hustle and bustle of the party. It is an intimate scene played in a crowded room. Shakespeare’s use of antithesis throughout the play is very powerful and creates the ominous feeling of fate within the audience in this scene and throughout the play.
