Theme Of Love In Romeo And Juliet

In this essay I will be exploring how Shakespeare illustrates the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet with particular reference to Act one scene five and Act two scene two. The play has multiple types of love shown throughout, however in this piece I will be focusing on Romantic love, more specifically, the love between Romeo and Juliet. I find this category of love to often be more vividly expressed in writing, with the use of additional poetic techniques. Act one begins with Romeo seeing Juliet for the first time. He, almost comedically, forgets about Rosaline entirely. As soon as Juliet meets Romeo it is made very clear that she is deeply in love. Shakespeare elongates the meeting of the two protagonists to create …show more content…
At this point, Juliet is unaware of his name and demands that the nurse tells her. ‘His name is Romeo, and a Montague, The only son of your enemy’ Juliet is clearly quite distraught and replies with a very emotional line, ‘My only love sprung from my only hate’. The contrast of love/hate is very powerful. It illustrates Juliet’s raw emotions and feelings for Romeo. She continues to add, ‘Too early seen unknown, and known too late’. Juliet is telling the nurse that she saw him and fell in love before she knew who he was. Love at first sight. ‘Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy’. This sentence is very important as it shows an emotion that we have yet to see from Juliet, anger. Juliet refers to love as a monster for making her fall in love with an enemy. Juliet’s love for Romeo is so strong that the possibility of not being with him makes even one of the most timid of people burst out in …show more content…
It is nor hand, nor foot,’ Juliet explains that it is his name that is her enemy, not him. After all, what is the name Montague? It’s not any part of Romeo, (hand or foot). Juliet clearly feels that their name is not as important as who they are or their love for one another. Later in the scene, Romeo says, ‘With love light wings did I overperch these walls for stony limits cannot hold lover out, and what love can do, that love attempt. Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.’ Romeo is saying that he flew over the walls with the ‘light wings’ of love and that stonewalls cannot keep out his love. He also states that love will make him do anything and that relatives are no obstacle. Romeo is expressing his feelings strongly through the use of potent