Discussion Topic
Oxymorons in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Summary:
In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, oxymorons are used to portray the complex and conflicting emotions of the characters. Examples include "loving hate," "heavy lightness," and "cold fire." These contradictory phrases highlight the tumultuous and passionate nature of love and the intense, often opposing feelings experienced by the characters.
What are some oxymorons in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?
There are dozens of oxymorons in William Shakespeare’s tragedyRomeo and Juliet. An oxymoron is a rhetorical device that combines two words that appear contradictory. In his plays, William Shakespeare frequently employs oxymorons to reveal conflicting or complex emotions in his characters. Here are some of the more famous examples from the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.
When Benvolio advises Romeo to abort his relationship with Rosalind, Romeo melodramatically replies,
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate . . .
Shakespeare’s use of oxymoron here reveals the raging infatuation Romeo feels for his crush. The strength of Romeo’s infatuation is emphasized by pairing hate, one of the strongest negative emotions, with the positive emotion of love.
Later, when Romeo is rejected by Rosalind, he again uses several back to back oxymorons to express his tortured emotional...
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Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!
One final example of oxymoron is uttered by Juliet in Act III when she learns that Romeo has killed her cousin Tybalt. Attempting to process the fact that the man she loves has murdered a family member, she exclaims,
A damnèd saint, an honorable villain!
Juliet uses oxymoron to mirror her conflicting emotions of sadness and anger at the death of her cousin and the love she feels for Romeo. In this moment of distress, Juliet cannot decide whether to curse or honor her lover, nor can she determine whether Romeo is a saint or a villain.
These are just a few of the oxymorons in Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Good luck finding more for yourself as you study the play!
Can you list metaphors and oxymorons in Romeo and Juliet?
Shakespeare was a dramatist and poet who was a master at using the English language in a way hard to be found with any other writer.
In Romeo and Juliet, his metaphors abound (along with the use of similes, hyperbole, personification, etc.); there are oxymorons as well.
A metaphor is the comparison between two dissimilar things as if they were the same—they are similar because they share similar characteristics.
Juliet offers a metaphor in Act Two, scene two, as she compares their new love to a young flower:
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. (127-128)
Juliet is saying that their new love (a "bud") may have grown even more beautiful (grown stronger and more fully) when they next meet. Romeo uses a metaphor in Act Two, scene two:
I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes (79)
He is comparing the darkness to a dark cloak. This form of imagery is pointing out that darkness and a cloak have similar characteristics in that they are both able to cover so that things cannot been seen as they might be in the light.
eNotes defines an oxymoron as...
...a figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox.
One example of an oxymoron is found in Act Two, scene two:
Therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered. (108-110)
The oxymoron is "dark night hath so discovered." The question that presents itself is how can anything be discovered in the dark?
Another oxymoron in Act Two, scene two is:
...the more I give to thee,
The more I have... (140-141)
It seems impossible to give more and have more...reason tells us that when we give more, we have less.
There is another as Juliet says...
And yet I wish but for the thing I have. (II.ii.137)
Why would one wish for something he or she already has?
Shakespeare's use of figurative language, which includes metaphors and oxymorons, makes what is said and depicted that much more beautiful and explicit (precise); his writing seems to go beyond mere description by conveying crystal clear imagery, which evokes in us a more powerfully emotional response to what he is trying to impart with the written word. We can see much of this in a play, but the words are still very impactful even if we only read his dramatic works.