Courtly Love in 'Romeo and Juliet'

‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a play written by William Shakespeare in the 1590s which was performed at the Globe theatre. It explores two lovers who come from feuding families and their lives together are controlled by fate. The idea of fate was very prevalent at this time in Tudor England, with many rich families paying for horoscopes for their children. The play whilst following two main characters (Romeo and Juliet), it also follows the theme of violence’s power to defeat love and break apart families. Moreover, the whole play is filled with foreboding as the audience eagerly waits for the tragedy that is controlled by destiny. The central female character is Juliet, she is perceived as a girl who stands on the border of youth and adulthood, independence and dependence. She is at the age where the Tudor society would have hung an expectation of marriage over her head. It may be the case that because of the point in life that she is in in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ this explains why her identity changes. Nonetheless, it is very apparent that throughout the play she changes in her behavior and maturity, and with this, her control of situations also changes.

Shakespeare presents Juliet as a character whose behavior towards her family and authoritarian figures changes over time. In the very first interaction with Juliet, she replies to her mother, ‘Madam, I am here, what is your will?’. Juliet uses formal language to address her mother; this implies to the audience that she has respect for her mother and the hierarchical system within their family, but it also portrays that respect brings slight fear. This fear is further revealed in the fragmented sentence structure as Juliet speaks and also through the use of the question conveys fear in Juliet's voice. Moreover, the absence of a personal tone infers there is a distance between them and this distance brings a lack of emotion into their connection. This shortage of emotion perhaps suggests to the audience why their relationship was easily shattered as it was already fragmented. In Tudor England household relationships provided structure; William Perkins wrote in 1600, ‘A family is a body’ this metaphor conveys that each individual is a separate entity but they require each other to operate properly. These ideas of the family make Juliet’s lack of love in her bond with her mother all the more tragic, but it is crucial that she still yearns for her mother's admiration, and whilst there is a clear absence of emotion there is not an absence of love. Furthermore, much later in the play, Lord Capulet attempts to assist Juliet's grief for the loss of Tybalt, which is really grief for Romeo, by moving the date of her and Paris’ wedding forward. Juliet immediately opposes this idea causing uproar and an outpouring of passion. In her father's fury, he declares, ‘You shall not house with me.’ The use of authoritative and forceful language in the word ‘shall’ depicts to the audience that he holds power and he now believes that Juliet is no longer a sweet, loyal, and loving father. He concludes that her behavior has become so despicable that she deserves to be denied the comfort and safety of her own home. Whilst father figures were supposed to embody power and authority, they were still supposed to be loving. Matthew Griffin wrote in 1633 that a father should ‘represent the Majesty of God, at home.’ This indicates that fathers were considered to be figures that represent God’s, perfect love. Therefore this scene creates a conflict for the audience as Lord Capulet is not behaving lovingly but he is also illustrating his power and his strong belief in what is right. A more specific example of the shift of Juliet’s relationship with her mother is within this same feud Juliet addresses her mother when she says, ‘O sweet mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage, a month, a week.’ Juliet now addresses her mother with more personal dialect as she now says ‘mother’, this demonstrates that she is desperate for love and it is now a necessity she can no longer afford to use formal language as the circumstance is too desperate so she turns to personal language to compel her mother to show affection. She also uses time phrases to once again show her desperation for emotion from her parents. Juliet also uses exclamatives to establish emotion, which presents a change from her fear and preservation of emotion. Her mother sides with Juliet’s father, this provokes the audience to see the powerlessness of Lady Capulet against Lord Capulet. This is also reflective of the absence of rights or authority women had in the law at that time; they could not own property or money. All of these quotations present Juliet's transformation in character as the play goes on. It also suggests to the audience that perhaps her reckless desire for love arises from the inadequate love her family shows her.

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Moreover, Juliet’s concept of love changes and becomes more romantically mature after meeting and falling in love with Romeo. Juliet’s sexual purity and youth are shown as the nurse makes sexual jokes about Juliet Juliet seems overwhelmed and her uneasiness is obvious to the audience. The audience can see that Juliet does not yet conform to society's expectations of her, she responds to this verbal onslaught from her mother and the nurse by attempting to resist with her inner strength. Likewise, in the same scene when submitted to the idea of Paris, Juliet retorts to both her mother and the nurse ‘I’ll look to like, if liking move.’ The ‘l’ alliteration streams off the tongue of the performer, establishing a flow to Juliet’s words and perhaps revealing that whilst she is not yet interested in love nor marriage she still carries power in her capacity to have an individual opinion. This quotation also portrays how she is sheltered from reality and as reality is introduced her immediate response is to resist it. Moreover, this initial discussion of marriage is comparable to the expectations of women at this time. A book was written called ‘Instruction of a Christian Women’, this book gave guidance on how women should behave from infancy to widowhood, it is also composed from a male perspective, which clarifies the little agency women had in their lives. The fact that Juliet had little agency in her love life makes her decision to whole-heartedly love Romeo all the more bold and this also explains the other character's urgent tone. In contrast, later in the play after her affection for Romeo is communicated Juliet presents a completely different tone as she is now presented as a character who exposes every part of her emotion to establish her capacity for love. She says ‘I have bought the mansion of a love’, this communicates to the audience that she is now embracing urgency and is not discomforted by this anymore. Likewise, she quantifies her love when saying ‘mansion’ the use of this noun evokes the idea that not only is her love for Romeo vast but she also wishes for permanency and comfort in their love, which we know they will never get until possibly when they are united in death. Moreover, In Act 1 Scene 5, Romeo and Juliet form a sonnet together which conveys their blossoming romance and whilst Romeo has always been obsessed with love and has always allowed it to possess his thoughts. Now Juliet also takes this mentality, and they form a symbiotic relationship as they rely on each other’s words to fulfill their love and create harmony. In the 1590’s it was speculated that courtly love should be polite whilst also incorporating ideas such as love at first sight and dying for true love, this was a medieval belief but the notion still held significant influence in Tudor society at the time Shakespeare wrote ‘Romeo and Juliet’. As the performance continues it becomes very apparent that Juliet matures in her views on love, it is also evident that Romeo enables the shift from a more pragmatic view to a view based upon idealism and fantasy. This further reflects her change in character and her desire for love even if this love is controlled by fate.

Additionally, this argument of love being governed by fate does not benefit Juliet's want to maintain agency but it does possibly imply why she struggles to control situations at the end of the play. When Juliet and Romeo first meet it is incredibly evident that she has agency in the relationship, this is further proved when she says ‘Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake.’ The religious and heavenly imagery suggests that her love is so passionate and vast it is angelic. This semantic field of religious words also introduces the concept of fate which the audience will see becomes quickly harder to control. Juliet using the noun ‘saint’, characterizes how she nonetheless maintains agency as she holds herself as a powerful character. She also depicts love as calm and steady in this line, which heavily differs from the fast pace of the play and the rapid growth of their love. Perhaps inferring that love is blinding as Juliet is not able to see how fast their love is developing. We begin to see fate seize control in the balcony scene. The balcony scene is particularly poignant as this is when the power of their love begins to become evident. Shakespeare uses staging to establish a slight distance between the two characters; they reach for each other’s hands but they cannot quite reach. This illustrates a sense of tragic foreboding as we know that fate will keep them apart and force them to never unify entirely. However, Juliet is still situated on the balcony and Romeo is placed below her showing that she still holds some agency. This agency that Juliet holds is comparable to the position of power she would hold within society’s eyes as a young unmarried woman. An example of this in Tudor society would be Queen Elizabeth, she was constantly surrounded by suitors and she was highly romanticized by the people of her nation. However, at the end of the play, we see fate forcing Juliet out of control, this is implied as she says, ‘I long to die if thou not speak of a remedy’. This indicates that she cannot maintain agency over death showing her lack of control. Furthermore, as she loses power she turns to death to lessen her pain and she sees this as her only choice as she will no longer require control if she perishes. The personification of death evokes in the audience that it is as if Juliet is asking a concept to speak, she also gives death more power as she personifies it. Moreover, the play is ended with half a sonnet that echoes how their love lost control and their passion can no longer help them. In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth had Boethius’ consolation of philosophy translated into modern English, this depicted fortune as a controller of human destiny. Also, Shakespeare illustrates the common Elizabethan view that certain elements of life are beyond human control; in this case love, whilst it is powerful, fate is more powerful. This Elizabethan view helps construct the notion that love is hard to influence especially when fate is involved, inferring why Juliet changes in her proficiency to control her life when she becomes involved with love.

In conclusion, Juliet is presented by Shakespeare as a character that is susceptible to change. Her susceptibility is shown in a multitude of ways. Firstly, her change in behavior towards her family; we can conclude that her personal tone which we are introduced to towards the end of the performance, arises from her desperation to cease her isolation. However, despite Juliet's endeavors, due to her not being able to facilitate her parents' wishes they merely induce more isolation for Juliet. Moreover, Juliet evolves in her ability to love, this passionate love rapidly becomes obsessive as she offers everything for her love (even death). As she devotes all of her being to love, the audience sees her life becoming more vulnerable to fate. Similarly, she is depicted as a character who often holds agency, therefore, when her control begins to be taken away from her, her solution to this is death. Juliet believes that at least death will allow her to have control and it will also allow her to possess eternal love for Romeo that cannot be disrupted. Overall, Juliet is a loving, independent character and her exposure to change can both be recognized by the audience as positive and negative.