Act 2, Scene 2

1, Summary

Romeo stands in the shadows beneath Juliet's bedroom window. Juliet appears on the balcony and thinking she's alone, reveals in a soliloquy her love for Romeo. She despairs over the feud between the two families and the problems the feud presents. Romeo listens and when Juliet calls on him to "doff" his name, he steps from the darkness saying, "call me but love."

After the two exchange expressions of devotion, the Nurse calls Juliet from the balcony. Juliet leaves, but returns momentarily. They agree to marry. Juliet promises to send a messenger the next day so that Romeo can tell her what wedding arrangements he has made. The scene concludes as day breaks and Romeo leaves to seek the advice of Friar Laurence. 

2, Analysis

The scene contains some of the more recognizable and memorable passages in all of Shakespeare. Here, in the famous balcony scene, Romeo and Juliet reveal their love to each other, and at Juliet's suggestion, they plan to marry.

Shakespeare uses light and dark imagery in this scene to describe the blossoming of Romeo and Juliet's romance. As Romeo stands in the shadows, he looks to the balcony and compares Juliet to the sun. He then asks the sun to rise and kill the envious moon. Romeo had always compared Rosaline to the moon, and now, his love for Juliet has outshone the moon. Thus, as Romeo steps from the moonlit darkness into the light from Juliet's balcony, he has left behind his melodramatic woes and moved toward a more genuine, mature understanding of love.

The scene takes place at nighttime, illustrating the way Romeo and Juliet's love exists in a world quite distinct from the violence of the feud. Throughout the play, their love flourishes at night — an allusion to the forbidden nature of their relationship. As night ends and dawn breaks, the two are forced to part to avoid being discovered by the Capulet kinsmen. Romeo and Juliet fear that they might be exposed — that the artificial light of discovery might be shone upon them, thereby forcing their permanent separation.

Shakespeare describes the natural quality of their love by juxtaposing the balcony scene with Mercutio's lewd sexual jokes in the previous scene. Romeo returns to the religious imagery used between the lovers in their sonnets at the feast when he describes Juliet as, "a bright angel" and "dear saint." The recurring use of religious imagery emphasizes the purity of Romeo and Juliet's love — as distinguished from the Nurse and Mercutio's understanding of love that is constituted in the physical, sexual aspects.

Romeo begins to display signs of increasing maturity in this scene. His speeches are now in blank verse rather than the rhymed iambic pentameter evident in his earlier sonnets and couplets. Romeo is no longer the melancholy lover of Act I. Up to this point; Romeo has expressed his emotions in a traditional, colloquial style. His behavior has been notably antisocial — he preferred to submit to the misery of his own amorous failures.

Although Romeo has matured in the brief time since the beginning of the play, he remains somewhat immature when compared with Juliet — a pattern that recurs throughout their relationship. Although Juliet is only 13, she considers the world with striking maturity. As later acts reveal, her parents do not provide an emotionally rich and stable environment, possibly forcing Juliet to mature beyond her years.

Juliet shows the beginnings of increasing self-possession and confidence that ultimately lead her to seek her own fate rather than a destiny imposed upon her by her parents. Juliet introduces the idea of marriage to Romeo. She makes the practical arrangements for sending a messenger to Romeo the next day. Juliet stops Romeo from swearing his love on the moon as it is too "inconstant" and "variable." She stops him from using traditional, colloquial poetic forms in expressing his affection. She encourages him to be genuine and to invest himself in a less traditional, more spiritual concept of love.

Juliet's soliloquy examines another of the play's themes — the importance of words and names. Juliet compares Romeo to a rose and reasons that if a rose were given another name, it would still be a rose in its essence. If Romeo abandoned his family name, he would still be Romeo. Juliet calls into the night for Romeo to "refuse thy name" and in return, she will "no longer be a Capulet." Therein lies one of the great conflicts of the play — the protagonists' family names operate against their love. While their love blossoms in oblivion to any barriers, the people who affect their lives use their familial battles to impose separation upon the two young lovers.

Juliet's promise to Romeo to "follow thee my lord throughout the world" is full of dramatic irony and foreshadows the final scene of the play, when Juliet follows Romeo into death. Interruptions from the Nurse add to the atmosphere of intense urgency as the lovers frantically say good-bye. The heightened anticipation of their forthcoming marriage continues to build further tension and increase the pace of the play.

Analysis of Major Characters

Romeo

The name Romeo, in popular culture, has become nearly synonymous with “lover.” Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, does indeed experience a love of such purity and passion that he kills himself when he believes that the object of his love, Juliet, has died. The power of Romeo’s love, however, often obscures a clear vision of Romeo’s character, which is far more complex.

Even Romeo’s relation to love is not so simple. At the beginning of the play, Romeo pines for Rosaline, proclaiming her the paragon of women and despairing at her indifference toward him. Taken together, Romeo’s Rosaline-induced histrionics seem rather juvenile. Romeo is a great reader of love poetry, and the portrayal of his love for Rosaline suggests he is trying to re-create the feelings that he has read about. After first kissing Juliet, she tells him “you kiss by th’ book,” meaning that he kisses according to the rules, and implying that while proficient, his kissing lacks originality (1.5.107). In reference to Rosaline, it seems, Romeo loves by the book. Rosaline, of course, slips from Romeo’s mind at first sight of Juliet. But Juliet is no mere replacement. The love she shares with Romeo is far deeper, more authentic and unique than the clichéd puppy love Romeo felt for Rosaline. Romeo’s love matures over the course of the play from the shallow desire to be in love to a profound and intense passion. One must ascribe Romeo’s development at least in part to Juliet. Her level-headed observations, such as the one about Romeo’s kissing, seem just the thing to snap Romeo from his superficial idea of love and to inspire him to begin to speak some of the most beautiful and intense love poetry ever written.

Yet Romeo’s deep capacity for love is merely a part of his larger capacity for intense feeling of all kinds. Put another way, it is possible to describe Romeo as lacking the capacity for moderation. Love compels him to sneak into the garden of his enemy’s daughter, risking death simply to catch a glimpse of her. Anger compels him to kill his wife’s cousin in a reckless duel to avenge the death of his friend. Despair compels him to suicide upon hearing of Juliet’s death. Such extreme behavior dominates Romeo’s character throughout the play and contributes to the ultimate tragedy that befalls the lovers. Had Romeo restrained himself from killing Tybalt, or waited even one day before killing himself after hearing the news of Juliet’s death, matters might have ended happily. Of course, though, had Romeo not had such depths of feeling, the love he shared with Juliet would never have existed in the first place.

Among his friends, especially while bantering with Mercutio, Romeo shows glimpses of his social persona. He is intelligent, quick-witted, fond of verbal jousting (particularly about sex), loyal, and unafraid of danger.

Juliet

Having not quite reached her fourteenth birthday, Juliet is of an age that stands on the border between immaturity and maturity. At the play’s beginning however she seems merely an obedient, sheltered, naïve child. Though many girls her age—including her mother—get married, Juliet has not given the subject any thought. When Lady Capulet mentions Paris’s interest in marrying Juliet, Juliet dutifully responds that she will try to see if she can love him, a response that seems childish in its obedience and in its immature conception of love. Juliet seems to have no friends her own age, and she is not comfortable talking about sex (as seen in her discomfort when the Nurse goes on and on about a sexual joke at Juliet’s expense in Act 1, scene 3).

Juliet gives glimpses of her determination, strength, and sober-mindedness, in her earliest scenes, and offers a preview of the woman she will become during the four-day span of Romeo and Juliet. While Lady Capulet proves unable to quiet the Nurse, Juliet succeeds with one word (also in Act 1, scene 3). In addition, even in Juliet’s dutiful acquiescence to try to love Paris, there is some seed of steely determination. Juliet promises to consider Paris as a possible husband to the precise degree her mother desires. While an outward show of obedience, such a statement can also be read as a refusal through passivity. Juliet will accede to her mother’s wishes, but she will not go out of her way to fall in love with Paris.

Juliet’s first meeting with Romeo propels her full-force toward adulthood. Though profoundly in love with him, Juliet is able to see and criticize Romeo’s rash decisions and his tendency to romanticize things. After Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished, Juliet does not follow him blindly. She makes a logical and heartfelt decision that her loyalty and love for Romeo must be her guiding priorities. Essentially, Juliet cuts herself loose from her prior social moorings—her nurse, her parents, and her social position in Verona—in order to try to reunite with Romeo. When she wakes in the tomb to find Romeo dead, she does not kill herself out of feminine weakness, but rather out of an intensity of love, just as Romeo did. Juliet’s suicide actually requires more nerve than Romeo’s: while he swallows poison, she stabs herself through the heart with a dagger.

Juliet’s development from a wide-eyed girl into a self-assured, loyal, and capable woman is one of Shakespeare’s early triumphs of characterization. It also marks one of his most confident and rounded treatments of a female character.

B, the Daffodils

His poem 'Daffodils' is also known by the title 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud', a lyrical poem written by William Wordsworth in 1804. It was published in 1815 in 'Collected Poems' with four stanzas. William Wordsworth is a well-known romantic poet who believed in conveying simple and creative expressions through his poems. He had quoted, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility". Thus, Daffodils is one of the most popular poems of the Romantic Age, unfolding the poet's excitement, love and praise for a field blossoming with daffodils.

William Wordsworth was one of the major poets of his time honored as England's Poet Laureate. He was a nature poet who helped to coin the term 'Romanticism' in English Literature along with I.A. Richards in 1798, by the publication of 'Lyrical Ballads'.

Daffodils or 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' Poem

William Wordsworth wrote Daffodils on a stormy day in spring, while walking along with his sister Dorothy near UllswaterLake, in England. He imagined that the daffodils were dancing and invoking him to join and enjoy the breezy nature of the fields. Dorothy Wordsworth, the younger sister of William Wordsworth, found the poem so interesting that she took 'Daffodils' as the subject for her journal. The poem contains six lines in four stanzas, as an appreciation of daffodils.

Analysis of Daffodils

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vale and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils:

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Rhyming Scheme

The 'Daffodils' has a rhyming scheme throughout the poem. The rhyming scheme of the above stanza is ABAB ( A - cloud and crowd; B - hills and daffodils) and ending with a rhyming couplet CC (C - trees and breeze). The above stanza makes use of 'Enjambment' which converts the poem into a continuous flow of expressions without a pause.

Figures of Speech Used in the Poem

I wander'd lonely as a cloud - The first line makes nice use of personification and simile. The poet assumes himself to be a cloud (simile) floating in the sky. When Wordsworth says in the second line 'I' (poet as a cloud) look down at the valleys and mountains and appreciate the daffodils; it's the personification, where an inanimate object (cloud) possesses the quality of a human enabling it to see the daffodils. The line "Ten thousand saw I at a glance" is an exaggeration and a hyperbole, describing the scene of ten thousand daffodils, all together. Alliteration is the repetition of similar sounds, is applied for the word 'h', in the words - high and hills.

Title and Theme of the Poem

The title, 'Daffodils' is a simple word that reminds us about the arrival of the spring season, when the field is full of daffodils. Daffodils are yellow flowers, having an amazing shape and beautiful fragrance. A bunch of daffodils symbolize the joys and happiness of life.

The theme of the poem 'Daffodils' is a collection of human emotions inspired by nature that we may have neglected due to our busy lives. The daffodils imply beginning or rebirth for human beings, blessed with the grace of nature. The arrival of daffodils in the month of March is welcome and an enjoyable time to appreciate them!

Imagery

The poem paints images of lakes, fields, trees, stars in Ullswater. Wordsworth continuously praises the daffodils, comparing them to the Milky Way galaxy (in the second stanza), their dance (in the third stanza) and in the concluding stanza, dreams to join the daffodils in their dance.

The poem uses descriptive language throughout the stanzas. The poet cannot resist himself from participating in the dance of the daffodils. The wording is simple and melodious. Isn't Daffodils, a great gift idea of William Wordsworth that celebrates happiness of nature amongst us?

Analysis

"I wandered lonely as a cloud" takes place in the Lake District of Northern England. The area is famous for its hundreds of lakes, gorgeous expanses of springtime daffodils, and for being home to the "Lakeland Poets": William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, and Robert Southey.

This poem, obviously inspired by Wordsworth's stomping grounds, is well-loved because of its simple yet beautiful rhythms and rhymes, and its rather sentimental topic. The poem consists of four six-line stanzas, each of which follow an ababcc rhyme scheme and are written in iambic tetrameter, giving the poem a subtle back-and-forth motion that recalls swaying daffodils.

By comparing himself to a cloud in the first line of the poem, the speaker signifies his close identification with the nature that surrounds him. He also demonstrates this connection by personifying the daffodils several times, even calling them a "crowd" as if they are a group of people.

The idea of remembering the beauty of nature even when not in its presence appears in several of Wordsworth's later poems, including "Tintern Abbey," "Ode; Intimations of Immortality," and "The Solitary Reaper." Even though the speaker is unable to appreciate the memory he is creating as he stands in the field, he later realizes the worth that it takes on in sad and lonely moments.

The Foundation of William Wordsworth's Poems

Of all the famous poems of Wordsworth, none is more famous than "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". To fully understand the poem and any William Wordsworth poetry analysis, a brief look at the tenets of British Romanticism is in order. British Romantics emphasized the following.

1.     The Beauty of the Supernatural - a William Wordsworth poetry analysis will invariably identify a connection between nature and the supernatural. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is no exception.

2.     The Importance of Nature - The obvious theme of the poem is the beauty of nature and its ability to allow one to connect with God.

3.     Championing the Individual - The narrator's experience in the meadow is personal and individual.

4.     The Dangers of Technology - There is no overt reference to technology. Romantics however feared that man's ability to connect with nature was being compromised by technological advances.