The Effects that Love Has on Romeo in Act One and Two and Comparing the Ways that Romeo and Juliet Speak of Love

The Effects that Love Has on Romeo in Act One and Two and Comparing the Ways that Romeo and Juliet Speak of Love

When Romeo first enters, he is suffering from lovesickness for

Rosaline. He displays typical signs of Petrarchan love, and throughout

Act One and Act Two, we watch as he suddenly loses his obsession with

Rosaline and develops a passionate desire for Juliet. This is shown by

the way he communicates with the other characters, and by the way the

other characters speak of Romeo in his absence There is evidence in

the language that suggests that Juliet has different ideas about love

than Romeo.

While Lady Montague, Montague and Benvolio are talking of Romeo’s

recent behaviour, from lines 109 – 148, Benvolio speaks of Romeo being

“underneath the grove of sycamore” (line 114), and in Shakespearian

times the sycamore tree represented disappointed lovers. Shakespeare

uses it here to show how upset Romeo was, because his love for

Rosaline wasn’t being returned. When Montague next speaks (lines 124 –

135), he speaks of how Romeo has been seen “Many a morning” in the

woods “With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew”. He is talking

about how Romeo was hides himself away in the woods, where he can cry

alone. He carries on to say that when dawn breaks (comparing

dawn-break to the Roman goddess of dawn – Aurora, line 129), Romeo

hides himself away in his room “making himself an artificial night”

(line 133), clearly manifesting his heartache. From this, Romeo could

be said to be very immature still because by hiding away in the woods

during the early mornings, and by creating an “artificial night”

during the day he is being very mel...

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..., seems to be marrying for pure love because she says

that she cannot express how happy she is. The last fourteen lines of

that scene amount to an exchange of vows, and are only lacking the

rhyming scheme of a sonnet, although the last couplet is given to the

Friar as he whisks them away to get married.

To conclude, I believe Romeo is affected greatly by love in Act One

and Act Two. He changes from being very miserable and suffering from

Petrarchan love for Rosaline, to obsessive love for Juliet. Romeo

expresses his love with very ornamental language throughout the play,

and it could be said he is making rash, immature decisions. Juliet,

however, expresses her love for Romeo in a far more sensible, down to

earth way. I believe Romeo’s idea of love is more airy-fairy compared

with Juliet’s sensible, more mature ideas.