R&J Love at first sight

Is it possible to fall in love with someone after a quick glance? 

After reading R&J you would say it is completely possible, but why?

Regardless their names, their families, their past, everything indeed; since Romeo looked into Juliet eyes in the Capulet's party, he knew she was the love of his life as well as Juliet.

"Romeo: Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight.

                              For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

(Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene 5, 46)

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, he uses the sight as a mean to get to the heart and soul, which I would state is the purest way of knowing someone truly. Just by looking into someone's eyes, you are able to see the true identity of someone in spite of the appearances, specially between these two families of Verona that disguise each other; as can be seen through the play, 

"Capulet: It is my will, the which if thou respect,

                    Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,

                              An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast." 

(Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene 5, 47)

In the quote given, we are able to see how important were appearances during Elizabethan times because the play was written in that era, Capulet´s intent was not to call the attention of all of his guests during the party, so that he did not care about Romeo -a Montague- being at his party and enjoying his music, his food.

Even though this couple died at the end of the play, they gave up all of their background in order to create a new church, the church of love. 

"Juliet: My only love, sprung from my only hate.

           Too early seen unknown, and known too late.

             Prodigious birth of love it is to me 

             That I must love a loathéd enemy."

                               (Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene 5, 52)

For me, the most important scene in the play is the balcony scene, because both reduces their names, give up their last names, and they are only Romeo and Juliet, no matter who your parents are, where you come from, the only thing that really matter is that they are they, the true they, in spite of the appearances society imposed on them. 

Love at first sight is essentially intense love, so that these two characters decided to go for it, live it, nd of course die for it at the very end. But, they died for each other, showing one of the basis that love implies that is sacrifice for the other, if you are not willing to do some sort of sacrifice for your beloved one, you do not love profoundly. In the end, both show love to each other for they committed suicide once they figured out his/her behalf was not in the world of the living anymore.

William Shakespeare comes back to the theme of love at first sight in Twelfth Night, "Whoever loves, loves at first sight." 

Also, the idea of living the present time is very important in this play because they prefer to live a three-day long romance intensively rather than living a life full of lies, a life in which they wouldn´t be able to be the person they really were. They sacrificed for their love, they made their love unforgettable, intense, and mythical.

"I don´t live in either my past or my future. I´m interested only in the present, because life is the moment we´re living right now."

(Paulo Cohelo, "The Alchemist") 

All in all, I invite you to live the life you want to live, to be the person you feel more comfortable being, the one that possess your true identity; that one is YOU. 

CARPE DIEM my classmates.

References:

Cohelo, Paulo. The Alchemist. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. United States of America: R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 2004.