Romeo and Juliet Love Quotes Page 1
Citations follow this format: (Act.Scene.Line). Line numbers correspond to the 2008 Norton edition of the play.
| Quote #1 BENVOLIO |
At the beginning of the play, Romeo is completely infatuated with Rosaline. We learn from his friends and family that, when he's not daydreaming about Rosaline in his room, Romeo mopes around in a grove of "sycamore" trees, where those who are sick amour tend to hang out (1.1.4). The thing is, Rosaline has absolutely no interest in Romeo, but he pursues her anyway. This suggests that Romeo isn't so much in love with Rosaline as he is obsessed with the idea of being in love.
| Quote #2 ROMEO Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; |
At the beginning of the play, Romeo describes love in abstract extremes.
| Quote #3 ROMEO Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit |
Romeo admits that Rosaline has vowed to remain "chaste" like "Diana," the goddess of virginity and hunting. In other words, Rosaline has sworn off boys and sex, which means that Romeo has no chance of winning her heart. What's interesting about this passage is that Romeo sounds a whole lot like a typical "Petrarchan lover." Petrarch, by the way, was a fourteenth-century Italian poet whose sonnets were all the rage in Renaissance England. In fact, Shakespeare's own collection of Sonnets are, in part, inspired by Petrarch's love poetry, which was written about "Laura," a figure who was as unavailable and unattainable as Romeo's current crush (Rosaline). Petrarchan poetry happens to contain a lot of metaphors that equate the pursuit of love with hunting and/or battle. In this passage, Romeo says that Rosaline is well "arm'd" against the "siege" of his love and "Cupid's arrow," which is an elaborate way to say that Rosaline is physically and emotionally impenetrable.
