Tuesday, 16 December 2014

What is Romeo a lover of?

Romeo is a lover of love.  And maybe drama.  It seems that he didn't really love Rosaline, the first woman in the play to have been the recipient of his affections, because he is able to forget her incredibly quickly when he meets Juliet.  Or, rather, when he sees Juliet.  However, as his father tells it, Romeo would dramatically shut all his curtains so that his room remained black, even in the daytime, and he...

Romeo is a lover of love.  And maybe drama.  It seems that he didn't really love Rosaline, the first woman in the play to have been the recipient of his affections, because he is able to forget her incredibly quickly when he meets Juliet.  Or, rather, when he sees Juliet.  However, as his father tells it, Romeo would dramatically shut all his curtains so that his room remained black, even in the daytime, and he refused to talk to anyone about why he was so sad.  Then, as soon as he meets Juliet, he swears that he would rather die in her garden at the hands of her kinsmen, loved by her, than to live a long life without her love.  He runs, first thing the next morning, to find out if and when Friar Lawrence will marry them, and even the friar is shocked at how quickly Romeo has thrown Rosaline over.  Romeo says that Juliet is a better love than Rosaline because she actually returns his feelings, unlike Rosaline, but Romeo's willingness and ability to cast aside one whom he claimed to love so completely for another who he has only just met makes it look like he is more in love with the idea of being in love than any actual woman.  He seems to long to feel an intensity of emotion, no matter what.

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