Romeo’s Concept of Love
Love is dark and bright, and it is also depressing and happy. A young boy named Romeo has a major change in his idea of love. Romeo starts out in love with a girl, Rosaline, but it is depressing for Romeo, because she does not return his love. But right when Romeo sets eyes on a young girl named Juliet, he forgets about Rosaline, and he is in love and filled with joy that Juliet loves him back. In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, the concept of love that Shakespeare shows at the beginning of the play is that love is heart breaking, sad, depressing, and longing for one that does not love back. But then there is a sudden break with the past, and Shakespeare shows us that true love is instant,
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Romeo’s love to Rosaline is very sad and depressing, and it is showing us that Romeo is not himself, and that is how Shakespeare shows how Romeo’s concept of love is not what many people think love is like. However, it does not stay this way for long. Even though Romeo is deeply in love with Rosaline, his love for her is depressing. But right when he sets his eyes on Juliet, he is in love. But now his love is eager and exciting. We see this change not too far from just the beginning of act two when Romeo goes to a party, because he knows that Rosaline will be there. However, right when Romeo gets to the party, he sees Juliet, and he is instantly drawn to her: “Old my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight,
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night”(1.5.59-60).
Before, Romeo was saying how, “And she’s fair I love”(1.1.214), that Rosaline is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, but he forgets that idea when he sees Juliet. When Romeo sees Juliet, it is almost like he forgot he was ever in love with Rosaline. When we first met Romeo, all he was talking about was how beautiful Rosaline is, but now he is saying how he was blind to true beauty before he saw Juliet’s beauty. So now Romeo is saying that Juliet is really his true love. Now that Romeo is in love with Juliet, it is also an immediate change in how he feels, “Oh, she doth teaches the torches to burn bright!”(1.5.51). Now Romeo thinks of
He is heartbroken that Rosaline does not return the love he has for her and prone to becoming fond of another woman. As shown in Act 1 of the play, fate manipulates Romeo and Juliet into a lovesick relationship that can only lead to a very tragic end.
Romeo is very dramatic and obsessed with love. In the beginning he is obsessed with being in love, it doesn't seem like he loves Rosaline, he just wants to be in love with someone. But by the end of the book I think he might actually love Juliet.
Romeo is portrayed as an emotional and reckless character. His friend Mercutio and Fr. Lawrence comment on Romeo’s fickle attitude when he immediately falls in love with Juliet completely forgetting about Rosaline, his first love. Romeo quotes,” Did my heart love until now? Foreswear it sight, for I never saw true beauty until this night”. His love for Rosaline was superficial. Juliet transforms Romeo’s immature and erotic infatuation to true and constant love. After meeting Juliet he matures very quickly. Maybe Romeo’s love for Juliet is so intense because unlike Rosaline, Juliet reciprocates his
Moreover, Romeo through his infatuation with Rosaline learned valuable lessons that help him come to appreciate and understand the feelings he experiences with Juliet. Romeo felt rejection, sorrow, and misery from his infatuation with Rosaline which is seen when he is talking to Benvolio, “In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman” this particular quote shows the sadness or sorrow he feels from the feelings for Rosaline (1.1.201). Also when he says “She hath forsworn to love”, the words Romeo speaks allow it to be inferred that his feelings for her have been rejected (1.1.220). “At the opening of the play [Romeo] is maundering about like an erotic woman novelist, sighing and groaning because Rosaline will not listen to his tenders of affection” revealing that Romeo’s love was rejected and was upset because of this, allowing him to learn these feelings and what it is like to be rejected by the one he had feelings for (Northwood 19). Due to having felt these emotions from his infatuation, when he finds his love for Juliet and receives love and acceptance from her. Since he went so long, feeling sorrow and rejection when he finally finds Juliet, he can fully appreciate the love and acceptance he is given which intensifies his love for her and does the opposite of weakening the credibility of his love. Through his infatuation with Rosaline, he was able to grow as a person and become able to fully commit to his love for Juliet.
Love is an important theme in most of Shakespeare’s play, including in Romeo and Juliet because love is a stronger force than all the animosity and forces of fate in Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s play, Shakespeare explores Romeo’s change in attitude to love between Rosaline and Juliet. In Act 1 Scene 1 Shakespeare introduces us to Romeo’s passionate desire towards Rosaline through the use of oxymoron, monologues and vivid imagery. In contrast, in Act 2 Scene 2, when Romeo is addressing Juliet, his language shifts through the use of light, religious and mythical imagery to reflect his newly found romantic love to Juliet.
However, at the party he meets Juliet for the first time, and immediately falls in love with her: “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! / For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” Romeo, who was in love with Rosaline until a moment ago, completely forgets about her and is now all focused on Juliet. But what is very surprising is not the fact that he is in love with his enemy’s daughter, the astonishing thing is the speed at which he falls in love with her. Soon, in fact, he and Juliet kiss each other: “Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.” However, Romeo’s characteristics to love so deeply Juliet is just a symbol of his lacking the capacity of moderation for intense feelings of all kind. Had Romeo stopped himself from being so deeply caught up by Juliet’s beauty, the tragedy would have never happened.
Love is something everyone feels, and is different for everyone. It can make people do things that they could never see themselves doing. It impacts everyone in their day to day lives. In Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, love is shown in a variety of ways and can make people do crazy things. Love can be friendly, forced, or romantic.
Romeo was in love with Rosaline a couple days before which he barely knew. And now he fell in love with Juliet in 1 day which he was with for only about a hour and a hour isn’t enough time to know someone a lot and to even love them. In Romeo and Juliet it also says “O she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear, Beauty too rich for use , for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows The measure done, I’ll watch her of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now?forswear it, sight.” This is part when Romeo crashes the Capulet party and see Juliet for the first time. Romeo in this piece of verse , Romeo was saying that he never saw anything more beautiful and he ask himself if he just fell in love which he was but he only fell in love for seeing her beauty not her personality. The two lovers would have to know each other more other than beauty and might now love each other and be happy because they would've found out who they actually were and how they act as individuals.
True love is selfless. It is prepared to sacrifice. This is the dominant theme in Shakespeare 's The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet, a play is about two rival noble families from Verona, the Capulets and Montagues. Indeed, the two families have such an ongoing hatred for each other that they are constantly feuding violently without end. Having had enough, Prince Escalus, the Prince of Verona, one day decrees the penalty of death to be upon the person who disrupts the peace again. It is against this vicious backdrop that Shakespeare by contrast, accentuates love in Romeo and Juliet. Three different types of love are depicted: the infatuation of Romeo, the son and heir of Montague, with a woman named Rosaline; the arranged love between Juliet, the daughter of Capulet, and Paris, a kinsman of Prince Escalus, whom Juliet’s parents have chosen to be her suitor; and ultimately, the true love between Romeo and Juliet, whose families are each other’s worst and greatest enemies.
The first time that love is explored during the play is when Romeo first speaks of Rosaline and his passion for her, even though he is ‘Out of her favour’ (I.i.159) which is a powerful statement as it shows that Romeo still has these feelings for Rosaline even though he knows she doesn’t feel the same. This is also the first occasion where love and hate coincide as Romeo is speaking about Rosaline when he hears of the duel and comments ‘Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love’ (I.i.166). The fact that the conversation switches from love to hate and visa versa so quickly shows that the two themes are closely linked and that one has an effect on the other. In this passage of speech Romeo speaks as a ‘Petrachan Lover’ as he elevates Rosaline in his language. He uses oxymorons such as ‘O loving hate’ (I.i.167) and ‘Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health’ (I.i.171) to add effect and drama to his speech, and his language is so exagerated it makes the audience believe that he really is in love.
The first kind of love shown in the play is teenage love through Romeo. Montague tells us that "Many a morning hath he (Romeo) been seen... adding to the clouds more clouds with his deep sighs." Romeo is often seen sighing showing that he is either depressed or in love. Romeo is both. He says he is "out of her favour where I am in love". He is "in love" with Rosaline but she has sworn herself to a life of chastity and does not return Romeo's love. Shakespeare mocks Romeo's infatuation with the
Juliet is to be married as “The valiant Paris seeks [her] for his love”(686) and Romeo feels depressed. Juliet doesn’t truly want to be married to Paris and when Romeo comes along and says he loves her, Juliet uses this as an excuse to be ineligible to Paris. At their young ages of 13 and 16 both, don’t truly know love and can’t effectively associate their feelings. The friar feels that"[Romeo’s] love did read by rote, that could not spell'"(707). Romeo is only repeating what he has heard about love, not genuinely understanding what he is saying. He acts impatient and brash, quickly jumping at any chance to say he is in love thinking it will bring him happiness. Moments before he saw Juliet, Romeo claimed that he was deeply in love with Rosaline, although when presented with someone who he deemed as more beautiful he’s questions if, "[his] heart [did] love till now?...For [he feels he has] ne'er saw true beauty till this night" (pg 692). If he had truly been in love with Rosaline then seeing another girl wouldn't have changed his mind, but as he is so young he isn't able to understand that what he felt for both, Juliet and Rosaline was lust. Teenagers act irrationally, based solely on emotion, Romeo and Juliet are too caught up in their feelings to take a step back and consider their
Romeo at the beginning of the play doesn't have the most level-headed understand of what real love is and as an example at the beginning of the play he has "fallen in love" with Rosaline and proclaimed that she is the perfect example of a women. Then later on completely forgets about her after seeing Juliet. This gives the reader the sense that Romeo is not very deep in his feelings for women and has a more superficial idea of what love is. Throughout the play though Shakespeare was able to convey how Romeo has matured in his attitude toward love from a shallow desire to a profound and intense passion. His fidelity toward Juliet is quite abstract in the sense that he loves her enough to commit suicide because he feels that he is not able to continue his lie without her which is a demonstration of his faithfulness and loyalty to her. In Romeo and Juliet Romeo is driven by his emotions a lot of the time when making decisions. Examples of him doing this are that because of anger compels him to kill Tybalt in a duel to avenge to death of his friend and despair causes him to take his own life upon hearing of Juliet's death. He also is driven many times by his love for Juliet. Love forces him to make the reckless decision to sneak into the garden of his enemy's daughter and risk death only to catch a glimpse of her. These intense depths of feeing are what drive the character in this story
Romeo and Juliet were facing many obstacles during the time they first encountered one another. Their, so-called, “love” sprung as they were both trying to escape from their present problems. Romeo was previously in love with a beautiful girl named Rosaline, although she couldn’t love him back and fulfill Romeo’s sexual desires because she was becoming a nun. He was heartbroken when he found out about this, and thus, he was left inconsolable. Once he discovered that Rosaline was attending the Capulet ball, he decided to sneak in. Minutes into the ball, Romeo sees Juliet and immediately professes his love for her. Juliet also had her own dilemmas to deal with. Some of which included being forced into marrying Paris, a man whom she did not love. Therefore, her love for Romeo was influenced by her reluctance to marry Paris. Prior to Romeo and Juliet’s encounter at the Capulet party, Juliet comments on marriage stating, “It is an honor that I dream not of,” (1.3.68). This quote shows that Juliet had no interest in getting married anytime soon, although when she meets
and he says 'the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon'