Romeo

• Eponymous character


  The main character of the play
• Petrarchan lover


  An archetypal character in poetry who suffers from unrequited love
• Self-conscious sufferer


  A character who isolates themselves due to their unrequited love
• Romeo and Juliet


  They are "star-crossed lovers" whose love is challenged by fate
• Romeo's development


  • An important cursor for the transition from comedy to tragedy
  • His hamartia (fatal flaw) is the inability to think rationally, choosing instead to make quick impulsive decisions
• Romeo was based on a folktale translated into English in 1562
• Petrarchan love


  Poems that often objectified women and presented men as tormented lovers
• Homosociality


  The extremely close relationship between men that was common in Elizabethan England
• Romeo breaks the law and returns from exile, and Romeo abandons expected behaviour of a man by denying Tybalt in a duel
• Romeo's purpose


  Shakespeare is engaging with the idiosyncrasies of his time, but it is debatable whether his purpose was didactic and confrontational or simply to put forward a mirror reflection of his society
• Romeo


  • Loving - explores different types of love and questions the effect love can have on a person
  • Fateful - unable to defy the powers of fortune and fate, but signifies self-autonomy and assertion of the individual self
  • Religious - his dialogue is imbued with religious allusions
  • Isolated - indicates isolation which refers to Petrarchan suffering and detachment from the world
  • Masculine - navigates the realm of masculinity, contrasted with hyper-masculine characters
  • Violent - violence is hindered by love, but he reverts to violence after Juliet's purported death
• Romeo and Juliet


  Their relationship develops quickly and is incredibly passionate, but also causes terrible tension
• Romeo and Rosaline


  Rosaline serves to show the audience the difference between lust and love
• Romeo and Lord Montague


  Lord Montague has a lot of love and respect for his son, and resolves the conflict between the Montagues and Capulets at the end
• Romeo and Lady Montague


  Also has a lot of love and affection for her son, and dies from grief upon learning of his death
• Romeo and Mercutio


  Mercutio is a foil for Romeo, but they deeply care for each other
• Romeo and Tybalt


  Tybalt is Romeo's main rival
• Romeo and the Friar


  The Friar acts as a father figure for Romeo
• Montague: '"Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,/And makes himself an artificial night:"'
• Romeo: '"...Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,/ O any thing of nothing first create!..."'
• Romeo: '"O, she is rich in beauty, only poor/ That when she dies, with beauty dies her store".'
• Romeo: '"Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars./One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun/ Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun."'
• Irregular rhyming couplets


  Indicates the unpredictable nature of love
• Petrarchan lover


  Suffers from unrequited love
• Poetry personified


  Made more visible, as Romeo is shown writing his dialogue
• Caesura


  Interjects the line, much like how death interrupts her "beauty"
• Repetition of "dies"


  Emphasises the indomitable transience of her "beauty" and "store"
• Adjectives concerning wealth "rich" and "poor"


  Implies that women are commodities measured by their beauty and fertility
• Romeo: '"Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars./One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun/ Ne'er saw her match since first the world began".'
• "Heretics"


  Individuals with unorthodox religious beliefs, who were often burned to death in the Elizabethan era
• Romeo's infatuation


  Analogous to faith and religion: Rosaline is portrayed as the perfect being, like God, and Romeo as a devout follower
• "Sun" and "light"


  Lexically cohesive motif associated with beauty and love
• Romeo: '"Some consequence yet hanging in the stars…But He hath the steerage of my course."'
• "...the stars"


  Indicate the heavens, and the idea that life on earth is dictated by that macrocosm
• Shakespeare allegorically represents Romeo

  As a ship and God as the captain- "...He hath steerage of [Romeo's] course", signifying lack of self-autonomy and the character's passivity to higher power
• Regular rhyming couplets


  Add energy to the dialogue, reinforcing the excitement and intense emotions of Romeo
• Couplets


  Heighten the feeling of love - they are two lines fit together as a singular unit/ anatomy
• Juliet


  Metaphorically portrayed as transcendental
• Lexically cohesive conflict between light and dark

  Alludes to the "artificial night" in scene 1, which emphasises the weight of Juliet's presence in the character's narrative arc
• Metaphor "As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear-"


  Portrays the objectification of Juliet