108 ROMEO AND JULIET
form of poem in 14 lines, which had
originated with the 14th-century
Italian poet Petrarch. By the time
Shakespeare was writing, sonnets
had become the standard literary
form for expressions of love,
especially unrequited love—
although Shakespeare was soon
to invigorate the form himself with
his own verses. Sonnets employed
a range of rhetorical devices
including oxymoron—the putting
together of contradictory words
such as “cold fire” and “loving
hate.” Romeo’s sonnet to Rosaline
is stuffed with conventional
oxymorons: “Why, then, O
brawling love, O loving hate, /
O anything of nothing first create; /
O heavy lightness, serious vanity, /
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming
forms, / Feather of lead, bright
smoke, cold fire, sick health,”
(1.1.173–177).
Romeo has yet to learn that
love, too, must break from these
conventions to find something more
truthful. Even when he sees Juliet
for the first time, he speaks of her in
formal couplets: “Did my heart love
till now? Forswear it, sight, / For I
ne’er saw true beauty till this night”
(1.5.51–52).Breaking convention
When Romeo and Juliet speak
to each other for the first time,
remarkably, they share the lines of
a sonnet with breathless intensity,
and the sonnet, conventionally
the most personal and unspoken
of verses, becomes a tender
conversation. The final couplet isshared between the two of them,
as if to emphasize their miraculous
connection and linked destiny:
“Juliet: Saints do not move,
though grant for prayers’ sake.
Romeo: Then move not while
my prayer’s effect I take.
[He kisses her.]” (1.5.104–105).
From this point on, Romeo
largely abandons rhyme when
speaking to Juliet, and they both
now speak mostly in blank verse,
finding a new and more truthful
way of interacting. It is the young
Juliet who matures into this newer
expression of love first, and Romeo
is drawn in her wake.The balcony scene
In the balcony scene, a stage
metaphor for separated love, Romeo
speaks to Juliet from the orchard
below her balcony. The device of
separating them on stage by the
height of the balcony allows them
to talk with a passion that would be
impossible if they were together,
as it could only lead to physicality.Parting is such
sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night
till it be morrow.
Juliet
Act 2, Scene 1The balcony of a 14th-century
building in Verona has been dubbed
Juliet’s balcony. The building may have
belonged to the Capuleti family on
whom the Capulets are based.A plague o’ both
your houses.
They have made worms’
meat of me.
Mercutio
Act 3, Scene 1