Romeo and Juilet

• “I am fortunes fool” / “unhappy fortune!” / “sour misfortune’s book”


  FATE

  Analysis:

  • Romeo’s actions are pre-determined and doomed for death hence control is merely an illusion
  • ”fortune!” - exclamative shows his frustration at his fruitless attempts to avoid his fate.
  • juxtaposition of melancholy and the true definition of ‘fortune’
  • “Misfortune” - surmises that his bad luck is a product of fate ——> uses fate as an excuse for his misfortune
• “for beauty, starved with her severity” A1 


  Analysis:

  • He is forlorn and despondent - emphasis on Rosalines beauty shows romeo to be materialistic and vain - his depthless, ornamental view of women depicts him as childlike and rash in his perception of love
  • iambic pentameter and ryming couplets that shakespeare employs establishes him to be self-involved in his disposition
• 
  

  Romeo exemplifies the quintessential Petrarchan lover in that he is in a constant state of self-involved melancholy ——> petrarchan lover = love is always unrequited
• “Did my heart love till now?… i ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”


  Analysis:

  • fate drawing both lovers together rises theories of free will and determinism
  • Elizabethan's believed that celestial bodies could determine ones destiny “star-crossed lovers”
  • beauty is a perception only seen my romeos eyes
• “Give me my sin again” / “let my lips have the sin again”


  Analysis:

  • subverts the excitingly seductive connotations of a kiss, turning it into a grim enactment of Romeos fate
  • 2 - metaphor should be romantic however the romance is dampened by the impending sense of doom
• Shakespeare communicates a plethora of morals through romeos harmartia of impulsivity and tendency towards violence.


  Romeos actions are viewed objectively rather than a character flaw