4 Examples of Oxymora in Romeo and Juliet – a study guide
The main theme of [amazon asin=0743477111&text=Romeo and Juliet] is of course love – but there are so many levels of depth in the play that it would be near impossible to go through all of them without embarking on a journey to madness of sorts. Just like [amazon asin=0743477103&text=Macbeth] that I discussed previously, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet too is filled with contradictory and paradoxical statements. Given my interest in paradoxes, I will focus only on this particular theme, though any thorough study of the play should take into account at least the following aspect: language of different classes, characters as ‘foils’ (opposites), explicit and implicit sexual undertones in dialogues, recklessness and care, life and death, beauty and ugliness, etc. In explaining the paradoxes below, I will touch on some of these themes, but it should be borne in mind what my primary interest is, and therefore that these themes are not treated exhaustively here.
Definitions of paradox and oxymoron
In case you are unfamiliar with what precisely a paradox is, here is a brief explanation. A paradox is a seemingly contradictory statement that is contrary to established opinions and beliefs. Particularly in literature, it is used as a rhetorical device to emphasise the impossibility of a particular emotion or feeling that nevertheless captures the audience. You can find a more detailed explanation, including etymology, in one of my previous posts.
An #oxymoron is #Greek for 'sharp fool', which is itself an oxymoron. Click To TweetIn case of Romeo and Juliet it is more appropriate to speak of oxymora rather than paradoxes. An oxymoron also has its roots in the Ancient Greek language and is typically considered to be a contradictory notion. It is a derivative of ὀξύς (oxys) – which means ‘sharp’ or ‘pointed’; and μωρός (moros) – which means ‘stupid’ or ‘foolish’. An oxymoron is a rhetorical device that joins contradictory terms in order to emphasise a particular expression or feeling. As you would note, a ‘sharp fool’ is itself an oxymoron.1
A framework for analysis of oxymora in Romeo and Juliet
Back to [amazon asin=0743477111&text=Romeo and Juliet]: the play is filled with all kinds of contradictions. It is possible that Shakespeare’s intent was precisely to show us how life itself is full of contradictory tendencies, and indeed how individuals act following contradictory drives. In a way, the play can be seen as the less theoretical and philosophical explication of Nietzsche’s [amazon asin=0521639875&text=The Birth of Tragedy]. I do not mean to diminish Shakespeare’s endeavour in any way, theoretical and philosophical are meant to be taken quite strictly – Shakespeare was neither a theoretician nor a philosopher, though of course the philosophical undertone is present in his plays. For Nietzsche, both Apollo and Dionysus that are discussed in The Birth of Tragedy are not absolute moral positions,2 but precisely embodiments of two contradictory drives. Both drives are present in any expression of art, and they are both necessary. Nevertheless, there is a conflict between them which lead to contradictory sentiments. As Nietzsche writes in [amazon asin=0521599636&text=Daybreak] II.109:
What is clearly the case is that in this entire procedure our intellect is only the blind instrument of another drive which is a rival of the drive whose vehemence is tormenting us . . . While ‘we’ believe we are complaining about the vehemence of a drive, at bottom it is one drive which is complaining about another; that is to say: for us to become aware that we are suffering from the vehemence of a drive presupposes the existence of another equally vehement or even more vehement drive, and that a struggle is in prospect in which our intellect is going to have to take sides.
Shakespeare’s characters more often than not express this kind of ‘struggle’. Take this particular passage in Act 3.2, when Juliet hears that Romeo has killed her cousin Tybalt:
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
So what we encounter in the play is precisely the contradictory drives that result to internal struggles of Romeo and Juliet. My main claim is that the struggle is not only one of loyalty towards family ties, but a psychological struggle where the intellect of each character takes sides (and often shifts back). This, I hope, sets the framework of analysis of the paradoxes in Romeo and Juliet, both the play as well as its characters.
1. “My only love sprung from my only hate”
This statement by Juliet (in Act 1.5) is somewhat mocking. Note in particular the way Shakespeare utilises the term ‘only’ – where in this one sentence it is used in two different meanings: the ‘only’ love sprung up in the sense of eventuality, or perhaps even finality; while it also sprung from the ‘only’ hate in the sense of the sole and exclusive origin. There is, of course, a paradoxical relation between love and hate; but what is more, Shakespeare seems to say that the sole/only possibility of love is through rejection of a tradition as a norm. It is only by rejecting the tradition of hatred of the other, that love can manifest itself; and in that sense it could be the only/final love. This is to say that Juliet’s love for Romeo is not a simple rebellion towards the family, in the form of childish adolescence. Quite the opposite, the rejection of the tradition of family feud makes love, even true love, possible.
So we should be very careful in assigning to Juliet that role of conflict that goes on between the families without further analysis. Instead, the conflict could be read as purely internal in the form of the drives according to the framework mentioned above. Juliet’s love for Romeo is, in other words, driven by the opposite ‘equally vehement or even more vehement’ internal drive – hatred. But where does this hatred stem from? The familial loyalty, certainly. But there is more, Juliet points out a little earlier that her “grave is like to be my wedding bed”. This is of course a very sexual reference. But what it primarily signifies is the internal conflict that Juliet feels (i.e. sexual tension) and not the established relations that coordinate the social relations and customs (i.e. family feud). We can safely assume this because Juliet only just now asked of who Romeo was – he only becomes “a loathed enemy” for the reason of internal conflicts between the drives (in this case, not only love and hate, but especially, the sexual tension that a ‘forbidden fruit’ brings with it).
What is more, the paradoxical relation between love and hate intensifies further precisely because Juliet in this instance remains trapped between love and hate. The sexual tension that Juliet experiences – the forbidden fruit that is Romeo – both enriches her desire for him (love) as well as repulsion towards the unanswered call (hate). The pretence that follows “A rhyme I learn’d even now / Of one I danced withal” is thus not only a cover for the nurse to hear that she fell in love with ‘the enemy’, but also a cover for the sexual desire. What teenager – remember that Juliet is but 13 years old: “She hath not seen the change of fourteen years” – admits to their nurse of their sexuality?
2. “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. / Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!”
Next to the paradoxical relation between love and hate, the expressions themselves are presented by Shakespeare as ‘Euphuistic contrasts’ – after the main character of John Lyly’s plays: [amazon asin=B009500N1M&text=Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit] and [amazon asin=B009500N1M&text=Euphues and His England]. An Euphuistic contrast is a style that Shakespeare adopted from Lyly, which was, and for some still is, quite fashionable at the time. If you consider the passages quoted above (Act 3.2) and what is to follow below, it should become clear that a series of contradictory notions very much characterise this style. These contradictory notions are an exemplification of the meaning of oxymoron; or to put it differently, Euphuistic contrasts are an extended and continuous depiction of oxymora.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. / Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! #romeoandjuliet Click To TweetWe can observe, next to Juliet’s brief lament in Act 1.5, a series of such oxymora in the way Romeo describes his love for Rosaline in Act 1.1: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. / Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!”. Romeo continues with a series of oxymora: “heavy lightness”, “Feather of lead”, “bright smoke”, “cold fire”, “sick health”.
This declaration of love of Romeo, I propose, could be read in a similar light as that of Juliet towards him later in Act 1.5. This is indeed to say that I am not of the opinion that Rosaline’s role in the play is to emphasise the different kind of love between Romeo and Juliet, and that between Romeo and Rosaline – where the latter is some manifestation of loneliness, as ‘being love-sick’, while the former is some kind of pure/true love, as ‘being in love’.3 Such contrast is wholly unnecessary and to some extent even problematic. It seems more plausible to take the relation between love and hate to be an internal conflict of drives, rather than that of familial loyalty. After all, recall that both Rosaline and Juliet are both Capulets; Romeo’s internal conflict could thus very easily be conformed to that of Juliet’s. Both internal conflicts have as their source the realisation of restrictions on sexual explicitness.
Juliet thus stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger as a symbolic gesture of final copulation. #romeoandjuliet Click To TweetTo put some weight to my proposal, it is noteworthy in particular that both Romeo and Juliet speak of the duality between love and hate; but also that the relation between love and hate is not a contradictory one. Instead, the two coexist; and the struggle that they experience is one of an internal struggle between the desire for another and the constraints set upon that desire. To reiterate, this constraint is not simply by means of a family feud, but an internal constraint of the sexual drive that is not satisfied. To put some more force onto this, hear Juliet’s last words: “I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! / This is thy sheath; / there rust, and let me die”. Juliet thus stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger as a symbolic gesture of final copulation.
3. “Within the infant rind of this small flower / Poison hath residence and medicine power”
Another common set of oxymora is that between sickness and health – and more explicitly between poison and medicine. The citation above is from Friar Lawrence (Act 2.3) who muses on the possibility of life and death from but an “infant rind of this small flower”.4 The flower itself is of course of little importance; it is but a symbol of something greater that Shakespeare alludes to through the Friar’s mouthpiece. Namely, that the duality of drives is present in nature itself, and thus by extension is also present in human conduct. While the flower can be used as medicine as well as poison, so too the contradictory tendency is present in human beings as vehement internal drives. A little further, Friar Lawrence notes this quite explicitly: “Two such opposed kings encamp them still / In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will”.
We are thus presented with the drive of mankind to do both good and bad. It would be a folly to consider there to be in Shakespeare a battle between good and bad/evil. There is, in fact, no explicit mention of ‘evil’ in the play, while the term ‘good’ is utilised dozens of times in a variety of manners by Shakespeare: “good friend”, “good cousin”, “good friar”, “good fellow”, “good heart”, etc. The point is that we should not consider the struggle between good and bad to be on a moral landscape. My claim here is, once again, that the struggle between good and bad in Romeo and Juliet is but an internal struggle between the drives. As mentioned above, both drives are a necessary component of being human – the struggle itself is what defines being human as such. Shakespeare’s insight is that the possibility of death is immanent were one to dominate the other: “And where the worser is predominant, / Full soon the canker death eats up that plant”. While the domination of the ‘worser’ drive leads to death, Shakespeare does not imply that it is possible for the ‘good’ drive to dominate at all times. His claim seems to be fundamentally different: what should dominate is the struggle itself – the internal conflict of the drives.
4. “Was ever book containing such vile matter so fairly bound”
The framework of analysis of oxymora does not stop with Romeo, Juliet, or mankind in general; it can be extended further into other fields that I mentioned in the introduction. With this fourth examples, let us have a look at how this framework fits with aesthetics. A careful reader will note that I have already used this passage (from Act 3.2) before in setting up the framework; we have come a full circle. There is, of course, a set of Euphuistic contrasts pertaining to aesthetics in that particular passage:
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
In these oxymora there is, next to the already mentioned moral judgments, a definite aesthetic judgment on the part of Juliet. The contrast is between what is beautiful and ugly; though beauty and ugliness should not be restricted to a physical appearance only. The aesthetic judgment is in fact on another level of duality between the outer and inner beauty, between the physical and the mental, psychological, emotional, etc. beauty.
This is most clear in the depiction of Romeo as a “dove-feather’d raven”. Romeo is seen by Juliet comprising of a dual appearance – a disguise that further intensifies her internal struggle. Ravens are of course dark, following a deep contrast to doves which are white. So Shakespeare seems to play with this duality of darkness and brightness of Romeo that Juliet perceives: she sees him as a dove that very well may be a raven. What this tells us in particular is that Juliet’s perception of Romeo is both on the physical appearance (“beautiful”, “angelical”) as well as an insight into his inner workings (“tyrant”, “fiend”) – disputing the notion that ‘love is blind’ that is often attributed to Romeo and Juliet.5 Quite the opposite, Juliet is fully aware of Romeo’s misgivings and reading her lines closely, by focusing on oxymora present, it is quite clear that there is a tremendous amount of internal struggle (albeit often mixed with tremendous ambivalence).
There is more to Shakespeare’s “Was ever book containing such vile matter so fairly bound?” Does this phrase not sound a lot like a more recent one: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover!’ Most media6 find the origin of this phrase to date to the 1860s. I think it safe to assume that despite the precision of the phrase, the sentiment behind it is much older. Certainly in Shakespeare, this sentiment is equally on the distinction between the outer and the inner.
It is equally safe to assume that next to ‘the vile content of a fairly bound book’, the Euphuistic contrasts preceding it testify to Juliet’s internal struggles. It should be recalled that this particular passage comes after Juliet hears the news of Romeo killing her cousin (by this time they have agree to get married). So what Juliet undergoes is a deeply internal struggle between the aesthetically/externally beautiful Romeo whom she loves, and the mentally/internally vile Romeo that she hates – an internal struggle between her desire for Romeo and her repulsion towards his acts. Once again, familial loyalty only plays a secondary role.7
Conclusion
To briefly conclude, it is my view that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet can be analysed by following a particular framework of internal struggles of its characters. These internal struggles are the result of internally opposing drives that Shakespeare so eloquently presented by the frequent use of oxymora. It is my claim that the result of these struggles is ultimately irrelevant to Shakespeare. What Shakespeare seems to emphasise is the importance of the struggle itself – the moment the struggle is abandoned to whichever drive, though Shakespeare is more strongly emphasising the ‘worser’ drive, so too comes death. And is this not the end of Romeo and Juliet when they decide to abandon the struggles that they were facing?
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- This is in fact quite a common way of denoting contradictory expressions in antiquity. You have a similar background in Chinese folklore on the term contradiction 矛盾 (máo dùn), where 矛 (máo) means a spear and 盾 (dùn) means shield. The folklore is that a merchant was selling spears and shields, and he claimed that his spears could pierce through anything in the world and his shields could not be broken by anything in the world. The obvious question is, of course, what would happen if someone were to use the spear on the shield. Hence the contradictory claims of the merchant.
- And indeed, later in Nietzsche’s life both slave and master morality are not to be viewed as absolute moral positions either.
- I am of course well aware that I am not the first to propose this line of thought, cf. Gray, H.D. (1914). Romeo, Rosaline, and Juliet. Modern Language Notes, Vol. 29, No. 7, pp. 209-212. (pdf)
- Note that this is not an oxymoron, but rather a kind of pleonasm; the infant is small.
- And with good reason too, after all, Romeo’s friends are laughing at his expense in Act 2.1 for his blind love.
- The often cited first record of the phrase is of the June 1867 issue in the newspaper Piqua Democrat that reads as follows: “Don’t judge a book by its cover, see a man by his cloth, as there is often a good deal of solid worth and superior skill underneath” (source). George Eliot supposedly says something to that effect in her The Mill on the Floss (1860), though I have not read that book (source).
- There is a wholly different approach possible, while maintaining the same framework – namely the contrast between the aesthetic judgment as an everlasting experience and the fleeting moments of active life that cannot be reduced to aesthetics. Indeed, I am saying here that one can construct a certain basis for political theory on this play. But that is a wholly different and a more difficult matter to accomplish than I set out to do.