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Romeo Montague INTRODUCTION Romeo Montague is the eponymous character of the play, who is initially portrayed as an archetypal Petrarchan lover. He is the self-conscious sufferer, driven by his unrequited love for Rosaline. This causes him to isolate himself from his family, relatives and friends, which is a common trope of Petrarchan poetry. His meeting with Juliet Capulet ignites a major shift in both the trajectory of the play as well as Romeo’s narrative. Coming from opposing houses, the couple are deemed as “star-crossed lovers”, as their love is challenged by arbitrary fate. Their story allegorically questions whether tragedies are created by individual choices or by fate. In the play, Romeo’s development is an important cursor for the transition from comedy to tragedy. Romeo’s narrative echoes tropes of Aristotelian Tragedy; the character’s hamartia (fatal flaw) is the inability to think rationally, choosing instead to make quick impulsive decisions, which ultimately results in his downfall. CHARACTER IN CONTEXT ● Folklore - Romeo was based on a folktale, which was translated into English for the first time in 1562 by Arthur Brooke. Brooke’s “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet,” mainly functions as a cautionary tale of how lust, one of the seven deadly sins, leads to an “unhappye deathe”. Shakespeare’s Romeo, on the contrary, questions love in soliloquies and develops as a character through his relationship with Juliet. ● Petrarchan love - Shakespeare is also conversing with Petrarchan definitions of love. Petrarch was a poet in Italy, where the sonnet form originated. Petrarch’s poems often objectified women as Romeo does with Rosaline and Juliet. The poems also presented men as tormented lovers, as Romeo is at the beginning of the play. Petrarch’s trope of unrequited and unattainable love is undermined by Romeo, this hints at Shakespeare’s own theories about love. ● Homosociality - Romeo’s bond with Mercutio and Benvolio echoes the homosociality typical of Elizabethan England. Men were often educated together, versed in drama, poetry, and the classics, occupying the public domain. They were exclusively in each other’s company, causing them to be more emotionally and psychologically attuned to www.pmt.education one another. This can be seen in Romeo’s relationship with his friends: Benvolio is asked to reach out to Romeo, and Mercutio’s death instigates his retaliation against Tybalt. The intimacy between men was often reinforced through theatre. All the players were men- the female characters such as Juliet would have been played by adolescent teenagers. Therefore, Romeo’s friendship in the text not only alludes to Elizabethan gender rules but also homosociality- an extremely close relationship between men that cannot be translated into modern society. ● Elizabethan Society - Romeo is presented, to an extent, as a dissident of the society that Shakespeare inhibited. Although the play is set in Verona, this city is a mere model of Elizabethan England as Italian society was seen through works of literature. The protagonist is unable to assimilate to the rules and customs of this society: Romeo breaks the law and returns from exile, and Romeo abandons expected behaviour of a man by denying Tybalt in a duel. It was common practice in England for men to duel one another - there was a growing fashion of Italian fencing, which features in the play (the fencing manoeuvres such as the “passado” and the “punto reverso”). ● Romeo’s purpose - Shakespeare is engaging with the idiosyncrasies of his time, with the portrayal of Romeo. However, it can be left up to debate whether the playwright’s purpose was didactic and confrontational, or if it was simply to put forward a mirror reflection of his society. KEY CHARACTERISTICS & CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ● LOVING: Romeo encourages the audience to explore different types of love and question the effect love can have on a person. Initially, he is preoccupied by the concept of love, which is embodied by his infatuation with Rosaline. As Rosaline doesn’t physically appear anywhere in the play Shakespeare allows her to represent love as an idea, a thought, an abstract concept. This kind of love makes Romeos despondent and he seeks solace in isolation. In contrast, Juliet, who is the personification of real and tangible love, causes Romeo to transcend boundaries and societal expectations. Therefore, Romeo becomes the audience’s proxy for Shakespeare’s exploration of this universal theme. ● FATEFUL: The protagonists are ultimately unable to defy the powers of fortune and fate, however, they do signify a level of self-autonomy and an assertion of the individual self. Therefore, Romeo’s trials and tribulations in the play stimulate a reading into the battle between the microcosmic individual and the macrocosmic higher powers. www.pmt.education ● RELIGIOUS: Romeo’s dialogue is imbued with religious allusions, which echoes the religious society of Shakespeare’s time. The playwright investigates the role of religion as a moral epicentre, and how love is intrinsically linked to a religious relationship, which is dictated by blind faith and devotion. ● ISOLATED: The hero of this text indicates isolation in various scenes, which refer to Petrarchan suffering, but also a detachment from the world and his individual “self”. Shakespeare attempts to question the nature of loneliness, and to what extent it is self-inflicted. Predominantly, Romeo’s scenes are with other characters such as Juliet, Benvolio, Mercutio and Friar Lawrence, which shows the conflict between external companionship, and internal solitude. ● MASCULINE: Romeo navigates the realm of masculinity in the play. He is contrasted with hyper-masculine characters such as Mercutio, who is violent and uses misogynistic bawdy humour to make fun of love. Romeo’s refusal to accept Tybalt’s duel also subverts the characteristics of stereotypical masculinity. Thus, Shakespeare presents characters who conform or confront the gender rules of their society in order to emphasise the constraints of gender. ● VIOLENT: This theme is antithetical to love. Violence is hindered by love, as Romeo refuses Tybalt due to his new maturity brought upon by his relationship with Juliet. After Juliet’s purported death, Romeo reverts to the typical masculine behaviour, by indulging in violent acts, such as threatening Balthasar and killing Paris. Juliet is the antidote to the violence presented within the text. Romeo exclaims that her love makes him “effeminate”, thus he is unable to duel Tybalt. This means that Juliet functions as the antithesis to violence. This is mainly to do with societal structures and gender constructs. Sword fighting was mainly associated with males who would take part in duels in the Elizabethan era. However, at the end of the play, Juliet is forced to take violent action against herself. It could mean that violence may be the only answer at times. Juliet’s choice to use violence ends the feud, thus technically ending all of the violence of play. To this extent, Juliet is the cure to violence. www.pmt.education RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN OTHER CHARACTERS Juliet | The two eponymous characters are immediately established as possessing the central relationship of the play; their relationship develops quickly which makes it incredibly passionate. Juliet is extremely young in comparison to Romeo and so it is highly possible that this is her first real relationship. Their initial interaction is incredibly flirtatious, which juxtaposes the terrible and debilitating tension it goes on to cause, but is also evidently pure and passionate. Their love for each other is potently strong, obviouisly demonstrated by how they both end of commiting suicide as a result. Rosaline | Although we never see Rosaline within the play, she plays an important role as she serves to show the audience the difference between lust and love. It is due to Rosaline that the audience is introduced to Romeo acting as a Petrarchan lover. Lord Montague | The Lord is Romeo’s father, and he clearly has a lot of love and respect for his son. He is a minor character in the plot and mainly serves to further the tension between the Montagues and Capulets - however, he is also the character who resolves this conflict at the end of the play as he learns about the fate of his son. Lady Montague | Also a minor character, Lady Montague also has a lot of love and affection for her son; upon finding out about his death, she eventually dies from grief. Mercutio | This is Romeo’s best friend, it is important to note that Mercutio is also a foil for Romeo. While Romeo is an emotional romantic, Mercutio is a cynical man focused on the physical parts of love. It is clear that they deeply care for each other, at first when Romeo is heartbroken after Rosaline Mercutio makes jokes making his long ‘Queen Mab’ speech in attempts to make Romeo feel better. Later in Act 3 when Mercutio dies Romeo is overcome with a murderous rage. The reaction that the audience sees from Romeo illustrates the extent of love that Romeo had for Mercutio. The only other time that the audiences see a similar reaction from Romeo is when he finds out about Juliet’s ‘death’. Tybalt | Tybalt is a Capulet, and has a fight with Romeo in the third act, which results in Romeo killing Tybalt in revenge for Mercutio’s death. He is Romeo’s main rival. The Friar | The Friar acts as a father figure for Romeo. www.pmt.education ROMEO QUOTE BANK Quote Analysis Montague: “Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,/And makes himself an artificial night:” (I.i.133-34) Action of making “himself” an “artificial night” implies self-inflicted isolation. The dichotomy set up between “daylight” and “night”, reflects Romeo’s conflicting emotions.