Romeo and Juliet

• Romeo: '"O brawling love, O loving hate!"'
• Oxymoron

  Conflicting words - ambiguity and confusion
• The love creates conflicting emotions

  Love brings extreme joy, but also unbearable pain
• Foreshadows future, violence and pain is true love will bring him later
• Repetition of poetic apostrophe reveals his intensity of emotion with metaphorical lyrical language. Suggest he is self indulged, perhaps bathing in agony of love
• Negative vocabulary


  • Reflects how Romeo abhors conflict indicating he is a peaceloving young man, but suggests love will create chaos
• Romeo: '"She'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit"'
• Romeo uses Petrarchan language of courtly love
• Objectification of women- sexual gratification of men
• Rhyming couplets - "hit" and "wit" seem contrived and artificial, much like his love for Rosaline at the play's exposition
• Audience sees his immaturity - love is based on a passion for a woman he barely knows- his hamartial weakness/ flaw- he can't help falling in love intensely
• Hyperbolic language - amuses audience - melodramatic language is on Romeo's part is very cliche of a love-struck young man
• Unrequited love, sexual tension, psychological frustration
• Romeo: '"O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!"'
• Metaphor- spontaneous outburst of passion - heightened view of love at first sight
• Contrasts with earlier artificial declarations of love for Rosaline - more honest and original reflecting that he is maturing from the opening of the play (he is still a Petrarchan lover)
• Plosive 'b' - Captures Romeo's enthusiasm and passion
• Light imagery- compares Juliet to a heavenly, celestial image, idealizing her beauty - could be seen as shallow but the intensity convinces the audience of the genuine love at first sight and their connection
• Rich, luxuriant imagery - highly stylised and elevated language through rhyming couplets
• Association with light is also negative - connects Juliet with star/ cosmic imagery, reminding us that she is a 'star-cross'd lover' destined to die
• Romeo: ''Holy shrine' dear saint' 'blushing pilgrims''
• Semantic of religion


  Sanctifies/ purifies their love - makes them seem innocent. The hyperbolic extended metaphor for the importance of religion enables the audience to believe that their love is pure, deep and true
• Romeo is still behaving as courtly lover - but we believe his love this time - elevates Juliet to a saint/ Goddess/ Deity- highlighted by religious imagery
• Validates their love to the original audience - Christianity was a fundamental aspect of Elizabethan life
• Foreshadowing - religion will be a contributing factor to the lovers' demise
• Romeo has been transformed - from the lovesick youth at the beginning
• No longer personification of misery - he is youthful, high- spirited, free and liberated
• Quick witted aphorisms and good humored tone - showcases their close friendship and the sexual banter shows Romeo to be intelligent and god humored
• Romeo: '"fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now"'
• Motivated by grief and revenge - portrays Romeo to be loyal and brave
• Metaphor - cosmic and hellish imagery indicates that he still behaves irrationally
• Fricative phonology 'f' - reveals his anger and portrays how his vengeance will follow- elevated, stylised language emphasises this
• 'Fire' - captures heat of Romeo's temper and how destructive it will be
• Elizabethans believed that love made men effeminate - here Romeo is portrayed as aggressive, fearless but reckless, putting the love that makes him weak to one side to avenge his friend's death
• Romeo: '"tell me, that I may sack The hateful mansion"'
• Shakespeare reveals Romeo's exaggerated level of love
• Metaphorical language - extremely emotional and irrational
• Repetition of imperative ' tell me ' - exposes his desperation, seeks FL advice, guidance; depends on the friar, hes out of his depth in the unique, unprecedented situation - reveals his youthfulness
• Visceral imagery 'mansion' - blames his body for actions committed- shows his impulsivity rather than his rationality
• Suicidal despair at situation - no other way out other than to kill himself