Romeo and Juliet (Vol. 33) | Philip Edwards (essay date 1980)
Philip Edwards (essay date 1980)
SOURCE: "The Declaration of Love," in Shakespeare's Styles: Essays in Honour of Kenneth Muir, Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. 39-50.
[In the following excerpt, Edwards examines the inadequacy of words to express love and the central characters' distrust of language.]
Romeo. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be
more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music's
tongue
Unfold the imagined happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
Juliet. Conceit, more rich in matter than in
words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their
worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.
...
[The entire page is 1858 words long]
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