Title: In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, what are Romeo's views on love and marriage? - eNotes.com
Headings: In Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet
, what are Romeo's views on love and marriage?

Romeo and Juliet
In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, what are Romeo's views on love and marriage?
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Content: Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. mwestwood, M.A.
M.A. from The University of Alabama
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Romeo 's views on love change with the objects of his love; at first he merely imitates the Petrarchan lover, but after he sees Juliet, Romeo's passionate nature is awakened. At the start of the play, Romeo is the Petrarchan lover, suffering with great self-awareness, speaking in oxymorons and other exaggerated phrases--"O brawling love! O loving hate!" ( Act I, Scene 1, line 149)--attributing the female object of his love with great power over him, a quality unlike the real position of women in fourteenth-century Verona. Following Romeo's exclamations of love and words of despair and suffering, Benvolio tries to console his friend. After an illiterate servant of the Capulets informs them of the festivities that night, Benvolio encourages Romeo to accompany him to the Capulets' feast, where one more fair than Rosaline will be in attendance. Still suffering the sting of rejection, Romeo agrees to go only so that he might see Rosaline again: I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own ( Act I, Scene 3, lines 90-91).