Can One Define Love?

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous plays in English history. What makes it so significant is the idea of love that it displays. To think that loving someone so passionately, that even one's own life would not matter more, is not easy to comprehend. Juliet says "If all else fail, myself have power to die." That, plus the illusion that the love was strong after the first sighting. The idea of love at first sight was derived from this great play, but it seems that it could be understood in many other kinds of ways- ways that argue that love was not the only significant emotion that wrapped up the tragic phenomena.

It is clear in the play that Juliet is awfully young at the time, when she meets Romeo. Capulet explains it, "My child is yet a stranger in the world, she hath not seen the change of fourteen years." She also hadn't been married, which means she was new to the idea of love and affection. That is a big detail to keep in mind, since one can argue that the "love" at first sight was actually lust, and that Romeo wooed her before he actually had her fallen in love with him. As a young teenager, being exposed to that feeling of lust for the first time is extremely intense. Another way to define the reality, is that perhaps Shakespeare has shown fate, or destiny to be a greater force than love, as it ultimately succeeds in keeping the lovers apart. The obstacles that it creates. Their love is disallowed by the Capulet and Montagne families, and Juliet is yet to be married to Paris- but they're still inevitably drawn to each other. It had to be a form of love, as the violent empowering force led them to defy all other values, loyalties and emotions.

The play also portrays other kinds of love. The close relationship between Nurse and Juliet, and Mercutio and Benvolio are both as heartfelt and sincere as Romeo and Juliet's. Shakespeare shows that there are other forms of love. There's no saying whether a type is "realer" than the other but some are much more vulnerable. Juliet couldn't stand being separated from Romeo during the time of his banishment- at the time they had both been emotionally invested.

Whether committing suicide is romantic or not, depends on how one would like to interpret it. One can look at it in a way that Juliet had realized that Romeo is no more, and now she'd have to face disgrace from her family and have to live through it alone, and that she'd jeopardized her family's reputation. Also, that she'd worsen matters between the Capulets and Montagues. Or it could've been that Juliet was so passionate about Romeo, that the thought of never being able to see him again made her think it would be wiser to end her life. 

"The learned and the experienced know that love at first sight is not true at all, it is merely a strong desire for each other nourished by mutual physical attraction, sexual desire and magnified passion without reasoning all bonded together and disguised as love." -anon. This quote provides the understanding of one possible form Shakespeare was trying to portray. Even if the love were real, there is no guarantee that it would've lasted, as it progressed very quickly. After all, is physical attraction enough to last a life time? "Strictly speaking- and certainly if we take Shakespeare's other tragedies as a criterion- we cannot admit Romeo and Juliet as a tragedy at all, for the catastrophe depends on chance, the undelivered letter of Friar Lawrence. Without this accident, all might have been well"- E.C. Pettet. 

Sukhleen Bachra

Sources:
http://mathawaada.blogspot.ca/2008/06/romeo-and-juliet-how-real-is-love.html