Comparing Romantic Crushes In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Teenage crushes are categorized into two different groups; romantic and identity, both of which are concerned more with fantasy than they are reality. While in both cases, the admirer wants to be liked by the object of their affections, the romantic crush is more often associated with love and deep affection. Romantic crushes, though intensely felt, are frequently dismissed as silly or childish, because teeenagers and adolescents are thought to be the ones to most often develop these crushes. Adolescents have been stereotyped with this idea of “being too young to know what love is” due to young couples, both fictional and non-fictional, that are written about in literature. One couple that displays the perfect romantic crush is Shakespeare’s

The reason for these short lived romances is, according to “Adolescence and the Teenage Crush”, “because once the object of the crush becomes better known, magic of the other person soon wear off and the ideal falls away” (Pickhardt). While someone may be in love with the idea of this perfect person, once they get to known their personality, the love could fade and disappear because the relationship is not what they thought it would be. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet’s famous romance is especially known for their short lasting relationship and it’s tragic end. During the couple’s second encounter in the balcony scene, Romeo says that his “life were better ended by their hate, than death prolonged, wanting of thy love” (2.2.30). He would rather die than go without Juliet’s love, and this foreshadows to the tragic ending of the play. This confession, that is dramatically stated by Romeo on the same day he met Juliet, corroborates the assertion that Romeo is not attracted to Juliet’s personality in this short amount of time, but her

Romantic crushes are very intensely felt, and as stated in “Adolescence and the Teenage Crush, “romantic crushes are formed by finding someone whom they find powerfully attractive” (Pickhardt) and these feelings may be a result of a “superficial impression, which can be provocative enough” (Pickhardt). While the person of affection is found attractive by the admirer, that first impression is just be superficial, and their personality could be completely different. Attractions based on the appearance of the admired move faster, and can easier turn into a fixation. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo sees Juliet for the first time and talks, out loud, about her beauty in great detail. He becomes fixated on the spot, expressing that “she doth teaches the torches to burn bright” (1.5.20) and that her “beauty is too rich for use” (1.5.20). Romeo’s first impression of Juliet is solely focussed on her beauty, and while simply ignoring to wonder what her personality might be like, he develops a romantic crush. Relationships that are built off of “appearance based attraction” are often thought to be childish, as they are stereotyped as the relationships that teenagers and adolescents partake