William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a story about a family feud between the Montague and Capulet families causing tragedy between the two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. The main theme of this Shakespearean tragedy is love which is portrayed through literary techniques.
Romeo’s speech in Act I, Scene I is an instance of Shakespeare portraying the theme of love using literary devices. Montague and his wife discuss Romeo’s melancholy behaviour and ask Benvolio to discover the cause. It is revealed that the cause of Romeo’s behaviour is due to his unrequited love, Rosaline in which “Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs”. Here, Shakespeare utilises a metaphor to state that love can be both happiness and pain. This is important as Romeo states that ‘love is a smoke’ meaning that love can make you blind in comparison with a ‘fume of sighs’ indicating frustration due to loving someone or sighing at another’s beauty which is the unrequited love between Romeo and Rosaline. Shakespeare employs imagery in “Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes”, stating that love is fire in a way that it is warm and heartfelt. This is also an instance for “Being vexed,
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In this scene, Romeo and his friends gather at the Capulet feast. Shakespeare uses repetition in order to emphasise how violent love is in which it is “too rough,” “too rude” and too boisterous”. A simile is also utilised as love also “pricks like thorn”, accentuating on how love is violent. Here, Mercutio is also using a pun where “prick” can be referred as to pierce, as well as known as the male genitalia. Overall, as Romeo is describing his love for Rosaline, he envisions the image of love as a rose. However, this causes Mercutio to turn this vision into violence. This is particularly important as it conveys the theme of love, as well as depicting that Mercutio is not