Romeo and Juliet (Vol. 33) | Michael Rustin (essay date 1985)
Michael Rustin (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "Thinking in Romeo and Juliet," in The Good Society and the Inner World: Psychoanalysis, Politics, and Culture, Verso, 1991, pp. 231-53.
[In the following essay first presented in 1985 at a seminar at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, Rustin argues that the action of Romeo and Juliet is shaped by emotional forces, particularly that of romantic sexual love, on which the characters fail to consciously reflect.]
In a selective approach to [Romeo and Juliet], I seek to show how 'thinking' (that is, the capacity or incapacity to reflect on the forces unleashed by overwhelming emotions) is a central issue, perhaps the central issue. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare explores what happens when 'modern' emotions (in this case of romantic sexual love) are experienced and seek expression in a familial and social context which is largely unprepared for them. The...
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