Focusing on Oxymorons in Romeo’s Initial Speech

Noboru Fukushima

This paper posits that a central theme of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is contained in Romeo’s initial speech. This theme can be gleaned from the study of the rhetorical aspect of oxymorons, such as “O loving hate!...that is not what it is!” (1.1.176-81) This paper clarifies how oxymorons produce powerful meanings as well as demonstrates how fruitful they are in discovering the unity of love and hate, and that of external appearance and the real state of affairs.

Shakespeare’s reason for using oxymorons is his desire not to display a one-sided definition, but to leave the defining interpretation an uncertainty, a mystery. Shakespeare makes it clear that love and hate, external appearance and the real state of affairs, are not antinomical just because they are placed back to back ─ they are left open for relative interpretation. Only those who suffer deeply throughout the play, such as Romeo and Juliet, can truly experience love and delight. One-sided viewpoints are not accepted in the great tragedy Romeo and Juliet. It is apparent from Shakespeare’s use of oxymorons that the world that Romeo and Juliet at first hate is transformed into one of love.

Shakespeare thinks, then, that love and hate, life and death, are ultimately one.