Romeo and Juliet Theme of Transience

Romeo and Juliet's love gains its power from the play's constant reminders that life, love and beauty are ultimately fleeting. Romeo and thirteen-year-old Juliet fall in love at first sight, marry within twenty-four hours of their first meeting, and die in each others' arms only days later. Their passion for each other is so all-consuming that it seems impossible that it could have been sustained any longer. The lovers' awareness of their own transience is crucial to the intensity of their passion. In one of their early scenes, Juliet confesses she is afraid of the swiftness of their relationship. "It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden," she tells Romeo, "Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say, 'It lightens.'" Her words are prescient: their love is just as brilliant, and as brief, as a flash of lightning.

1. How do the motifs of light and darkness in the play support the theme of transience?
2. How does the play's awareness of time (and its passage) impact the way we interpret Romeo and Juliet's youthful love?
3. Does the transient nature of Romeo and Juliet's love make it more precious?
4. Do you think Romeo and Juliet's love is ultimately conquered by death, or does their love become immortal when they die together?

Romeo and Juliet's love lacks power because it is so transient. Their love ends with their death.

Romeo and Juliet make their love immortal by dying together.