“A Sea Nourished with Loving Tears”
Young Love in Romeo and Juliet and the Music of Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen
Love is what holds the world together, however it is also what tears it apart. This is evidenced by William Shakespeare’s famous play Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is a tale of two young kids who are convinced they are in love, despite the fact that their families are in the midst of a massive, age-old feud. According to conventional thinking, the two teens are blinded by a passionate love which leads them to make a series of mistakes, ultimately resulting in their deaths. But a clue to this destructive relationship comes from Romeo’s earlier “love” for another character — Rosaline, who broke Romeo’s heart. The theme of destructive young love in the play is also explored in many pop culture songs, including songs by music legends Taylor Swift, who experienced many mistakes through young love aswell as Bruce Springsteen . Both of these pieces of writing, written hundreds of years apart, show that immature love can blind people, and result in making potentially deadly mistakes as acts of rebellion.
In Act 1, Scene 1, of Romeo and Juliet, readers discover that Romeo has fallen in love and has had his heart broken by a girl named Rosaline. Because we never actually see Rosaline, and her character has minimal involvement in the main storyline of the play, Rosaline is not often viewed as an important part in the play. Yet Rosaline is actually a major piece to the key theme of the play. Rosaline represents Romeo’s true inabilities to properly handle a young relationship, and serves as a warning sign to the audience that young love, eventually that between Romeo and Juliet will not have a happy ending. Romeo defines love as, “Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!”(1,1,184), meaning that he is confused about his own feelings, and really doesn’t really know what it means to be in love. In Act Two, Friar Lawrence is shocked to hear that Romeo has so quickly forgotten Rosaline after meeting Juliet: “Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken?” (2,3,69–71) The Friar warns Romeo that young love is often superficial and may not be real: “Young men’s love then lies, Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes”(2,3,71–72) The theme of young, love often comes up in pop culture in the 21st century. Taylor Swift, for instance, wrote the song called “Fifteen” about her Freshman year in high school. One of the relationships which Swift highlights in her song involves her best friend Abigail. Swift sings, “And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind, and we both cried.” This demonstrates that when people are young and believe they are in love, they give away their hearts too quickly, and become vulnerable. If the boy was able to reject her, and it made her cry, then we can tell that she gave him too much power. If he didn’t love her back, then clearly their love and connection wasn’t as real as she believed it was. This ties back to Romeo and Rosaline’s relationship, because Romeo experiences the same kind of pain. As Romeo puts it, unrequited love is, “a sea nourished with loving tears. . . A choking gall”(1,1,199–201) Romeo was a victim of the same young mistakes as Abigail; Romeo rushed into a relationship without truly developing a sense of real love and connection. Taylor Swift explains this immature tendency to fall too easily in love when she sings, “Cause when you’re fifteen Somebody tells you they love you You’re gonna believe them” These lines are a very direct way of saying that when you are young, you are especially vulnerable to getting hurt. “You’re gonna believe them” means that at 15, you don’t have enough experience and knowledge to be cautious about what someone says to you. You are gullible, believing everything you hear. The fact that Shakespeare wrote of this very modern theme 400 years ago displays the beauty of his plays, and to his ability to write about themes that relate to people no matter the time period or place.
Romeo and Juliet’s rush to fall in love may have actually been based on their resentments towards their families, and their desire to rebel. Juliet starts to feel anger towards her family when her parents push her toward Paris, someone she does not feel ready to marry. She tells her nurse, “pray you, tell my lord and father, madam, I will not marry yet. And when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo,” (act 3, 5, 125–127 )Despite this quote being after she had met Romeo, it still indicated that she was not ready for marriage to paris, and her parents pushing her towards her made her feel as though she was an outsider from her family. She mentions this feeling in the balcony scene by saying
“Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”(2,2,37–39)
This shows that Juliet has resentment towards her family, and does not take pride in being a Capulet. This hatred towards her family is just strengthened when her dad threatens physical violence if she continues to refuse to marry paris, “But fettle your fine joints ‘gainst Thursday next To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green sickness, carrion! (3,5, 158–161) When Juliet tries to reason with him he cuts her off,
“Hang thee, young baggage, Disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.” (3,5, 166–168)
Faced with the prospect of marrying someone she doesn’t love, it’s entirely believable that Juliet ran to the arms of Romeo to escape her father’s anger and abuse, which she likely knew he had because it is unlikely that his yelling at her about the marriage was the first time he had abused But this does not necessarily mean that she was truly in love with Romeo. Romeo’s rebellion has more to do with defying the age-old Montague-Capulet feud, “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”. (Prologue 3–4). For generations, the families have fought one another as a matter of family pride, but Romeo is willing to reject that family tradition by marrying Juliet. Is this true love, or is Romeo just tired of carrying on a fight that he didn’t start? He even rejects his own name when talking to Juliet,
“By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am.
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee” (2,2,58–61)
This could be seen as a pledge of true love, but it is more likely that Romeo is driven by a need to break away from the pressures of being a Montague. One clue is that both Romeo and Juliet had already begun to feel like outsiders from their families and friends, even before the two lovers met one another. For instance, it is established very early that Romeo is unable, or unwilling, to confide in his parents about his break with Rosaline. His father says,
“But he, his own affections’ counselor,
Is to himself — I will not say how true,
But to himself so secret and so close, (1.1.150–152)
This shows that even before Romeo meets Juliet, he was an outsider from his own family, perhaps ready for rebellion. What better way for Romeo and Juliet to express their rejection of their families than to marry their family’s mortal enemies? This desire for teenagers to break away from difficult parents and hurtful family traditions has been the subject of many popular songs over the years. One song, called “Born to Run” by music legend Bruce Springsteen, captures the feeling of having to break away that both Romeo and Juliet must have felt. Springsteen first sings about the oppressive nature of the town they come from: “baby this town rips the bones from your back It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap We gotta get out while we’re young.” The lyrics could be about Verona, where the violent family feud is a “death trap”, and the pressure for Juliet to marry Paris is a “suicide rap”. Then, like many popular rebellion songs, the couple dreams of breaking away together, “Together we could break this trap We’ll run till we drop, baby we’ll never go back.” It’s not know how things worked out for the characters in the song “Born to Run”, but for Romeo and Juliet, the desire to break away from family traditions ended the same way that most cases of young love do, in flames.
Abstract
The question which i attempted to figure out was how would famous artists like taylor swift relate to Romeo and Juliet. I looked for a trend by looking at the play, and looking for themes that were common. The theme that i noticed had a strong connection in the play and within taylor swift’s music there was alot of stories about young love. I immediately wrote down what i could about the areas of how young love allows people to fall in love too quickly, such as evidenced both in romeo and Juliet and taylor swift’s song fifteen. I also noticed how this “love” can be deceving and when you believe your in love its often time a form of rebellion, from here i attempted to make changes and add quotes to strengthen my case. However in my attempt to strengthen my case i realized that Taylor swift did not have enough songs about rebellion to make a strong case so i decided to switch to bruce springsteen’s famous song born to run which better represented my idea of rebellion.
