Romeo and Juliet – How is love presented in the play? Preparing for your assessment Week 3 Tuesday’s lesson

Agree or disagree? Young love is not a good reason to kill yourself. In the play what we largely see is just infatuation. Romantic love is to be avoided – stick to marrying for money and status. Love should not be decided by a person’s parents. And 14 is too young for marriage. Love at first sight is possible. The use of the shared sonnet proves this. Verona has bigger problems than two silly teenagers eloping. Love is a more dignified emotion than duty and obligation. Shakespeare suggests love is better than the other options for human relationships ( brotherhood / family loyalty). The foil between Juliet & Tybalt shows this. Love leads to bad decision making and impetuous behaviour. Shakespeare is presenting us with a criticism of romantic love. The foreshadowing of death helps to show this. And it is a tragedy. When the play is finished a modern audience will most remember love as expressed in a suicide pact. This is because it resonates with the alarming recent increase in teen/couple suicides. Stauffer concludes that “this play is a tragedy [but] may fail as serious tragedy because Shakespeare blurs the focus and never makes up his mind entirely as to who is being punished, and for what reason” In this tragedy, it is not character flaws that lead to Romeo and Juliet’s deaths – it is the external pressures of the family feud and cruel fate.

Word wall Romantic love / familial love / maternal love /paternal love/ fraternal love/ comradeship / platonic love / dutiful love / sexual love / spiritual love / Obsessive love / infatuation / all consuming / unwise / blinded / delusional / devotion / attraction / self-destructive / compulsive / vulnerable / receptive / unconditional / blasphemous / unhealthy / selfless/ sensitive / emotional / loyalty / betrayal / commitment / irresponsible / reckless / unrequited / passionate / delusional / illusory / immature / noble / forbidden / pragmatic / impetuous / playful / flirtatious / carefree / tragic / damaging / short lived / transient / magical / other worldly Courtly love – a tradition of a secret love for a woman held by a man who is devoted to her and conducts himself with respectful courtesy. (Romeo’s love for Rosaline – but with Juliet, he transgresses this role, confesses his love and acts on his feelings) Shakespeare mocks Romeo’s love for Rosaline and seemingly invests more dignity in Romeo’s love for Juliet. This would subvert moral ideas at the time

How is love presented in Romeo and Juliet? Write an introduction / conclusion (they are interchangeable in terms of this exam) to this question. You won’t have time for both. You can write no more than 3 sentences. Make it sophisticated. Embed a very short quote. Make your critical voice opinionated /emotive – don’t write like a tentative student, but an arrogant scholar! Only write about Shakespeare’s intention / his attitude / he reveals to the audience ……. Show a sense of priority, don’t rattle off a list of ideas. Identify one or two key ideas/messages/lessons and frame them in order of importance for the examiner ‘whilst he shows us X,Y and Z , his most compelling message about love is….’

Wider reading https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/english- association/publications/bookmarks/shakespeare-bookmarks- 1/romeo-and-juliet

Intro/ conclusion In this tragedy, Shakespeare bears witness to the devastating consequences of forbidden love; Romeo and Juliet are sacrificial victims of their parents’ feud and used by Shakespeare to show the perils faced by those seeking romantic not dutiful love. However, Shakespeare also implies the protagonists also share some responsibility for their fate by presenting their love as obsessive, impulsive and reckless. As the Friar says ‘these violent delights have violent ends’.

Red = AO2 terms A03 context opportunity Come, night, come, Romeo,’ ‘Bring me’ Imperative verbs /command verbs / repetition / atypical female behaviour / independent and autonomous / disobeyed parents / marriage was conventionally arranged and for status and money not love – modern audience? LOVE IS ATYPICAL FOR TIME: ROMANTIC NOT DUTIFUL Thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back Colour imagery / antithesis to show his grace & beauty / ornithological imagery / contrast / symbolism of raven? LOVE IS ADMIRING / PASSIONATE When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars…he will make the face of heaven so fine modal verb / morbid, explicit language for death/ religious imagery / intensifier ‘so’ / dramatic irony – prologue told of their deaths / death is a convention of a tragedy / blasphemy is a sin again God LOVE IS OBSESSIVE / IDOLATOROUS / / DOOMED So tedious is this day…an impatient child that hath new robes/ And may not wear them adjective ‘tedious’ / simile / atypical attitude to sexual love / women expected to be chaste, pure and ionnocent / she desires Romeo / modern audience? LOVE IS IMMATURE / RECKLESS/ IMPATIENT O, here comes my nurse interjection ‘O’ / signals entrance on stage of the accomplice / soliloquy / stagecraft / signals arrival of bad news – tension LOVE IS FORBIDDEN /FATED

Quotes from across the play – Friday’s lesson