Language of Extremes in Romeo and Juliet :: Free Essay Writer

Language of Extremes in Romeo and JulietI have no joy of this contract tonight.It is too rash, too sudden,Too like the lightning which doth leave to beEre one can say it lightens. (2.1.159-162)Juliet prophesies her own doom from her balcony, an consultation that does nonhing to curb the rashness she identifies in their twenty-four hour meeting, engagement, and marriage. It is of manakin impossible to gauge Shakespeares personal interpretations of his characters actions, and since the action of the story comes flat from a long narrative poem by Arthur Broke, and Broke got his corporeal from a French story, which was adapted from an Italian work by Bandello, who was functional from earlier texts, Shakespeare cannot exactly be looked to as the final authority for the lesson worth of Romeo and Juliets actions anyway.Since Shakespeares feeling cannot be evaluated, theories about Romeo and Juliets actions can be weighed without worrying about original intent. One dividing line is that Romeo and Juliet were actually quite misled in their actions, that instead of a celebration of unwieldy passion, the play should be seen as a condemnation of rashness. Toward this, Juliets admittance on the balcony is very important. The line betrays not only a sharp apprehension of the impetuousness of their acts, scarcely a supernatural misgiving, a presage of impending doom, which Romeo also betrays before the Capulet party ...My mind misgivesSome importation yet hanging in the starsShall bitterly begin his fearful see to itWith this nights revels, and expire the termOf a despised life, closed in my breast,By some vile forfeit of untimely death. (1.4.106-111)The theme of fate is hard to pin down in this play. Fate as a fact of life or a deity is not found in the Italian context like it would be in Greek tragedy or Greek and ancient Roman settings, but these lines from the two young heroes show that fate is there, undefined, but present and mortal still.Friar Laurenc e, at once both a religious trope and a humanistic one, seems to dispute the supernatural power of fate These godforsaken delights have violent ends,And in their triumph die like excitement and powder,Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honeyIs loathsome in his own deliciousness,And in the taste confounds the appetite.Therefore, love moderately. Long love doth so. (2.5.9-14)His speech throws the responsibility of moderation on the lovers, not to fate or heaven (as the Prince will in the final scene of the play).