"When love is not madness, it is not love."
― Pedro Calderón de la Barca
I have always thought that being in love is a feeling very similar to being mad or crazy; it is like being deeply attracted to something that makes us feel an inexplicable passion, but sometimes it happens that people tend to confuse being in love with being madly obsessed with something or someone.
To be honest, while I was reading Romeo and Juliet, I never felt or even believed that Romeo was in love with Juliet. I think that Romeo is obsessed with love and its mysteries, but he never really falls in love with anybody but LOVE itself.
When I found the quote I posted above, I immediately thought about Romeo and his love, Juliet. I have to admit that Romeo is an iconic figure for lovers around the world but from my point of view he is a representation of what being in love can do to people instead of what love really is.
Yes, love is madness but sometimes the limit is blurry and we cannot tell the difference between these two strong feelings.
Romeo loved to love and being loved by Juliet. He was in love with love itself more than with Juliet, but this is my point of view, your opinion depends on your own interpretation of the play.
I think they were just two adolescents trying to be together in a place where the people around them don’t understand how they feel, they share the same feeling of belonging for each other and both of them seem to understand love in the same way.
For me, it is a mix of love and madness, I don’t know how to describe it but, in the end, it was either madness or their love that drove them to end up together in death.
“Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Hi, Evelyn! First of all, I would like to say that I do not think Romeo really loved Juliet and vice versa. Why? Because I have always thought that you first like someone and then you may or may not fall in love with him/her (depending on this person’s characteristics, personality, etc.) In this case, Romeo and Juliet met each other and immediately fell in love, there is no way! They liked each other, but love comes after that (and they did not have the time to do so). Maybe they confused the feeling because when you like someone the first time you see him/her, your heart beats much faster than normal and you feel you want to spend the rest of your life with that person; but reality is not that way.
ResponderEliminarHowever, this is just a story. Everything can happen in a novel or in a play, and we do not really know the author’s purpose. So, let’s think that they really loved each other. I did a little research in order to know some explanation of the connection between love and madness; and I can say that you are right: this has a chemical explanation. “Love and obsessive-compulsive disorder could have a similar chemical profile: low levels of the brain chemical serotonin. Thus, love and mental illness may be hard to tell apart.” (World Science, 2006). It has to do with hormones; thus, if we feel we are acting like a crazy person when being in love, we should blame our disloyal brain.
National Geographic and World Science. “Love and madness not that different?” World Science. 20 January 2006. Web. 07 September 2014.
*http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060120_lovefrm.htm