Welcome to this in-depth analysis of Romeo's character in Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. In this deck, we will trace Romeo's journey from a heartbroken teenager to a tragic hero. We will explore his passionate and impulsive nature, master his most important quotations, and analyse how Shakespeare uses language and imagery to present his complex relationship with love, violence, and fate. By the end, you will have the key evidence and analysis needed to write a high-grade exam essay on Romeo.

At the beginning of the play, Romeo is presented as a 'Petrarchan lover'. This is a stock character from poetry who is in love with a distant, unattainable woman and spends his time in misery, writing sad poems and sighing. Romeo's love for Rosaline is not presented as genuine, but as a performance of sadness. He uses artificial, contradictory language to show his inner turmoil, which is a key feature of this archetype.

To express his confused feelings for Rosaline, Romeo uses oxymorons, which are phrases that combine two opposite ideas. For example, he talks of 'loving hate' and 'heavy lightness'. This shows his love is based on poetic ideas rather than real emotion. In an exam, you can argue that Shakespeare uses this artificial language to contrast with the sincere, beautiful language Romeo later uses for Juliet.