The Importance of the Sonnet in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Although Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of two young lovers caught in the whirlpool of their own youthful passion, it is also a tragedy of two young people at the mercy of a feud not of their making and of fateful events over which they have no control. Regardless of our individual response to this play, we have a common response of deep sadness over the senseless deaths of the two young lovers. Regardless of the cause of the tragic events, we are on their side.

There are several ways to think about Romeo and Juliet, but recent discussions of the play look at the form and language of love that Shakespeare uses and how his use of one particular form, the sonnet, enhances our sense of the play. By directing our attention to the sonnet qualities in Romeo and Juliet, we are able to discern a growing maturity in these two characters, one which, especially in the case of Juliet, belies their untried youth. This article will examine how the sonnet conventions found in Romeo and Juliet reflect the play's stance on young love as well as how Juliet's resistance to the sonnet reveals a character that allows her to endure the desertion of virtually everyone around her.

The sonnet is a fourteen-line love poem. Perfected by the Italian Petrarch in the fifteenth century, the form followed certain conventions. The subject matter was that of unrequited love. The sonneteer would write a cycle of sonnets dedicated to a woman, his "sonnet lady," whom he knew only from afar, who was unavailable, whose very presence changed one's earthly existence into heaven. The fourteen-line sequence was often marked by a reversal, a "turn" between the first eight and the last six lines. Frequently, the turn would move from the ph...

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...m to abandon Juliet in the tomb of her dead ancestors with the body of Romeo. Throughout the chaos that occurs when the tragedy in the tomb is discovered by the outside world, Juliet remains firm and resolute, a stark contrast to the confusion that even spills into the streets of Verona: "For I will not away" (5.3.160). Preferring death to the hostile world around her, she stabs herself with Romeo's dagger.

Although we see the chastened adults receive their greatest punishment, the deaths of their children, it seems far too great a price to pay for the settling of a feud. Our hearts remain with Romeo and Juliet, who found passion in love rather than in hatred and who matured far beyond their adult role models.

"This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong

To love that well, which thou must leave ere long."

-- Sonnet 73