Romeo Flashcards
Rough essay plan
Opening - melancholic, Petrarchan lover
Middle - enamoured
End - reckless, impulsive
Opening quotes
‘For beauty, starv’d with her severity/ Cuts beauty off from all posterity’
‘O brawling love, O loving hate’
‘Kept without my food’
Opening - intentions
Shakespeare draws parallels between the sexual innuendo of Samson and Gregory as well as Romeo’s lustful desires (which ostensibly seem opposite) to highlight the extremely flawed, lustful views of love by men influenced by the patriarchal society which they were raised in.
Middle quotes
‘Did my heart love til now? Forswear it, sight!’/ For I ne’er saw true beaty til this night’
‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’
‘Thy beauty hath made me effeminate’
‘For exile hath more terror in his look’,
Middle - intentions
Shakespeare may be indicting the patriarchal society which forces men to act in a violent ways as otherwise there would be detrimental effects.
Shakespeare uses Romeo’s overly passionate, unrealistic love to expose the folly of the youth in love, which eventually ends in tragic outcomes
End - quotes
‘I defy you, stars!’
‘Why art thou so fair?’
‘Will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars’
End - intentions
Shakespeare shows the fundamental issues inherent in love and courtship of the time, in that often it is impossible to possess true love without causing violence because of political and social factors
Shakespeare demonstrates the significance trauma has on one, as the violence Tybalt spurred by slewing Mercution, culminates in this scene in Romeo’s killing of Paris. It shows him to have been irrevocably changed from that moment.
Shakespeare shows fate to be triumphant and powerful, as the words of the prologue are echoed at the end of the play creating a cyclical structure. However, he also makes it seem didactic, correcting a long lasting feud
‘For beauty, starv’d with her severity/ Cuts beauty off from all posterity’
- in state of despondency and melancholy experiencing this unrequited love
- has a depthless, ornamental view on women through repetition of ‘beauty’ depicts him as immature and lustful
- noun ‘posterity’ demonstrates mainstream view on women as vessels for childbearing
- Sampson & Gregory portray message of love being sex through their sexual innuendo whilst we expect different from Romeo, we understand how widespread this objectification of women is
‘O brawling love, O loving hate’
- repetition of ‘O’, embodies conventions of Petrarchan lover being overwhelmed by effects of unrequited love
- oxymoronic language demonstrates power of love to disorientate and warp minds
- part of incomplete sonnet mirroring incomplete, unrequited love & fractured state of mind
‘Kept without my food’
- hyperbolic language where Romeo positions himself as victim of unrequited love
- verb ‘food’ shows this love to be vital as food is necessary to carry on living
- however this could indicate women are used as objects for pleasure, resonating with Renaissance audience
‘Did my heart love til now? Forswear it, sight!’/ For I ne’er saw true beaty til this night’
- instantly infatuated with Juliet demonstrating his fickle, mercurial nature as he moves swiftly from state of despondency
- hyperbolic statement
- almost seems fake, perhaps showing the power of fate and determinism
‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’
- in soliloquy, uses metaphor of ‘sun’ symbolising how she is a light herself and gives light to those around her
- sun is essential for life showing how he needs her
- earth orbits around the sun, likewise Romeo places her at his centre
- ‘east’ represents dawn which associates her as rising in the East
- Shakespeare criticised this language of blason in his Sonnet 130 emphasising unrealistic, idealistic feelings
‘Thy beauty hath made me effeminate’
- so enamoured that he has acted in a socially unconventional way to the patriarchal norm
- shows violence to be viewed as an inherently masculine trait, implying femininity to be inferior
- perhaps shows dangers of love, or dangers of patriarchal society which threatens true love
- has a desire to avenge Mercutio
‘For exile hath more terror in his look’,
- personifies ‘exile’ making it more palpable and seeming more horrifying
- would rather die than be without Juliet
- likens exile to ‘purgatory’ which he claims is like ‘hell itself’, so Juliet is heaven to him and without her it is hell
- frenzied at the thought of a lost love
‘I defy you, stars!’
- under impression that fate is trying to keep him and Juliet apart
- mental state of disintegration as he addresses it directly
- almost feels like a tangible force
- belief that he can avoid fate which is dramatically ironic
‘Why art thou so fair?’
- question enforces the impression he is ruled by emotion
- seems illogical recognising Juliet looks to good to be dead
- clouded judgement when it comes to love
‘Will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars’
- believes death with Juliet to be peaceful through verb ‘rest’ and adj ‘everlasting’
- union of love and violence through this death
- could portray concept that humans are multifaceted creatures
- acts as a catalyst for parents to realise detrimental consequences of generational feud as it takes death for peace to come
- cyclical ending
Overview
Shakespeare uses the character of Romeo as a vehicle to expose the folly of the youth, through exploring the dangers of love pursued with such haste. Romeo is initially presented as extremely melancholic, being left to navigate the repercussions of his unrequited love for Rosaline. Upon encountering Juliet, he very quickly becomes enamoured with her. This overwhelming emotion of love leads to him become more reckless in his actions resulting in his untimely and tragic death.
