R&J - LOVE Flashcards
Key Quotes
“O brawling love…”
“…O loving hate”
Shows Romeo’s ambivalent attitude toward the families’ animosity. He also uses oxymorons to describe how out-of-sorts he feels in his love toward Rosaline. This is an example of Romeo’s internal conflict and accentuates the intertwining of love and hate in the play itself.
He clearly recited all these lines, and is playing at being a Petrachan lover, his hyperbolic and over the top nature on show - he feels conflicted within, as he grieves his unrequited ‘love’ although it is false love - it is purely lust.
The use of juxtaposition highlights the force between Romeo and Rosaline, which contrasts his change in perception of love after he meets Juliet - true love vs. false love.
Act 1 Scene 1
“My only ____ sprung from my only ____…”
“…Too early seen _____, and known too late!”
Insists that opposites, since they are the opposite of each other, are actually inevitably always intertwined - Love and Hate are the polar ends of the same line… The lovers will never be able to forget that they are enemies.
“Too early” - Juliet blames herself for seeing Romeo too early - everything in the play happens too early: we learn what will happen in the prologue, Juliet is ‘married too young’, and Romeo kills himself right before Juliet wakes up.
Love is a fast that can, does, move too fast in Romeo and Juliet, causing chaos and confusion.
Act 1 Scene 5
“With love’s light _____ did I o’er perch these walls…”
“…for stony limits cannot hold love out”
rue love liberates Romeo, rather than hurts him like his unrequited love for Rosaline.
Contrast to when he was still ‘in love’ with Rosaline:
Romeo: “I have a soul of lead”
Mercutio: “You are a lover, borrow Cupid’s wings”
Romeo: “I am to enpierced with his shaft to soar with his light feathers”
Love gives him wings to ‘fly’ - bird imagery
He’s free, and light-souled, when with Juliet, their love breaking the barriers between them (their families’ feud) - the walls are metaphorical for the forces between them.
Juliet tells Romeo that if he were to be caught crossing the walls, he would be killed - he wasn’t killed because he was caught but it foreshadows that they could close the space in between them for only some time before it led to their deaths, proving the inevitability of their end, and the fact that they had to die for the feud to resolve.
Act 2 Scene 2
“My ____ is as boundless as the sea…”
“…my love as deep”
Her love for Romeo can reach anywhere and it is infinite… Her love is a deep feeling from within her -> different view on marriage than Lady C. and the Nurse -> love is important to Juliet, as she is not looking for riches or a protective husband but rather for happiness and love.
Juliet’s language in these lines is original and striking, which reflects her inexperience, and shows her sincerity.
Juliet is always more in touch with the practicalities of love—sex and marriage—than Romeo, who is less realistic and impulsive.
Act 2 Scene 2
“Young men’s love then lies not truly in their _____…”
“…but in their eyes”
Friar Lawrence criticises Romeo’s rush into falling in love: doesn’t believe that Romeo is really in love, but yet again lustful - men pay more attention to sexual desire rather than their emotions.
Act 2 Scene 3
“Thy love did read by ____…”
“…that could not spell”
He’s learnt how to fall in love by heart and “copied” and “rehearsed” it like an act - Petrach - poetic, hyperbolic language.
Act 2 Scene 3
“If love be rough with you,…”
“…be rough with love: _____ love for pricking”
Sexual innuendo - prick = penis - he’s telling Romeo to go sleep with other women - making fun of Romeo’s words - knows that Romeo’s love for Rosaline isn’t real and can easily be replaced by lust for another woman.
Mercutio’s approach to love as something that can be fought and defeated foreshadows his own fate. His combative attitude toward life’s challenges, including love, eventually leads to his confrontation with Tybalt, which results in his death.
Mercutio’s perspective contrasts sharply with Romeo’s romantic idealism. Mercutio sees love more as a game or a challenge, rather than a lofty, unattainable ideal. This line reflects his pragmatic, somewhat jaded view of love, suggesting that one should not let love’s difficulties dominate their life - since Mercutio stands for Shakespeare’s own beliefs, this is equally representative of Shakespeare’s own view on love.
Act 1 Scene 4
“Thus with a ____…”
“…I die”
Love aligned with death. Romeo spent his entire life obssessing over love and his final line in the play is him dying in and for love. Anchors the depth that love and death are connected. Romeo simply dies for his love - even in death both Romeo and Juliet find happiness because it means that they can be together.
Romeo’s love transcends even death - this connection emphasises the tragic nature of their love, where love pulls them to their untimely deaths - this is further accentuated through the juxtaposition of the kiss and the act of taking the poison.
Romeo’s decision to die with a kiss reflects his passionate and impulsive nature. Throughout the play, his actions are driven by intense emotions - his romantic idealism and deep affection for Juliet.
Iambic Pentameter: the rhythm lends a solemn and rhythmic finality to Romeo’s words.
The tenderness of a kiss is juxtaposed with the finality of death evokes a powerful emotional response from the audience, highlighting the play’s tragic beauty.
Act 5 Scene 3
“O sweet Juliet…”
“…thy beauty hath made me effeminate!”
His love for Juliet has softened and made more feminine - could be Shakespeare’s criticism of male perspectives of the time on falling in love.
The line also highlights the internal conflict Romeo faces between his love for Juliet and the violent feud between their families - underscores the play’s broader theme of the destructive nature of feuds and the way they corrupt personal relationships.
Romeo’s reluctance to due Tybalt demonstrates his internal transformation due to his love for Juliet. However, Mercutio’s death and Romeo’s subsequent rage-driven decision to fight Tybalt shows how the societal pressures and expectations of masculinity ultimately override his initial pacifism.
IRONY: Romeo considers himself ‘effeminate’ due to his love for Juliet, which is actually one of his greatest strengths. His tenderness and capacity for deep emotional connection stand in stark contrast to the destructive masculinity that leads to violence and death throughout the play.
Act 3 Scene 1
“I have bought the ______…”
“….of love, but not yet possessed it”
- She’s a woman + child so she wouldn’t really be able to own property - shows how naive and childish she is - believes she has power + control.
- She’s fallen in love with Romeo yet hasn’t enjoyed him yet - boldly suggesting that she wants to have sex with him - subverts gender stereotypes as men were typically open about sexual desire whereas women were not.
Act 3 Scene 2
“God of my ______”
+ “pilgrim” “saint”
Religious imagery - she worships him with love and Romeo her, which is considered blasphemous - subverting society’s expectations.
Act 2 Scene 2
“Star-crossed…”
“…lovers take their life”
Fated to die due to their love - they have innate bad luck - adds a sense of inevitability to the tragedy, and creates dramatic tension as the audience knows the lovers’ fate from the outset.
Also has romantic connotations as it suggests that Romeo and Juliet’s love is extraordinary and transcendent, set apart from ordinary love by the very fact that it is doomed.
FATE VS. FREE-WILL: The lovers’ destiny seems dictated by the stars, suggesting a lack of control over their own lives.
ALTERNATIVE: During Shakespearean times, astrology was commonly believed to influence human affairs. Perhaps, Shakespeare was criticising this outlook on fate and life overall by immediately labelling Romeo and Juliet as “star-crossed lovers” before showing all of the mistakes they make along the way that lead to their untimely death, ultimately demonstrating their own faults. He does this also when Romeo claims that he’s “fortune’s fool” ironically: he thinks that fate is in control of him, however, by killing Tybalt, he actually plays into fate’s hands.
PROLOGUE
“You are a _____…”
“…borrow cupid’s wings”
Unlike Romeo’s confliction and grief due to love, Mercutio sees things for what they are - he knows that real love is happiness, rather than heavy, Romeo should, if in love, feel light with love.
Act 1 Scene 4
“Love is a _____…”
“…made with the fume of sighs”
Metaphor - unclear, suffocating, intangible - petrarchan love - perhaps suggesting that it is simultaneously beautiful yet potentially suffocating, and difficult to hold onto.
Smoke dissipates quickly, much like the fleeting moments of passion in Petrarchan love, in this case, Romeo’s love for Rosaline.
Love is both beautiful and suffocating, desirable yet elusive.
Smoke is airy, it cannot be physically held, mirroring Romeo’s unrequited love for Rosaline - he cannot, at this stage, own his love.
Act 1 Scene 1
“Turn your households’ _____….”
“…to pure love”
Friar Lawrence agrees to marry R and J because he believes that this will turn the feud into love instead… this does happen although with the death of Romeo and Juliet.
Love overpowers hate?
Act 2 Scene 3
