Comparing the voice of love and loss in Bryon’s “When We Two Parted” and the Balcony Scene in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
Lili Mutyambizi

From the beginning of Act 2 scene 2 it is evident that Romeo conveys a different voice of love and loss compared to Bryon. Because at this point, he knows that he has no other company and so therefore does not restrict any of his feelings or thoughts that go through his mind. So in the first part of his monologue, the language in this monologue includes phrases that are associated with subjects that are essential tot he human body as he expresses:: “It is the east and Juliet is the sun, arise far sun and kill the envious moon” this signifying that he needs Juliet to come out for him to ‘live’ and destroy the feelings he has for Rosaline ‘kill the envious moon’. This showing that Romeo’s voice of love is immature as he quickly wants to diminish his previous love of Rosaline and replace with Juliet as “kill” causes a fast action of death. However when comparing the first stanza of Byron’s “When We Two Parted” the mood of this is regretful as he reflects on past events:”Pale grew thy cheek cold colder thy kiss” as this effect is reinforced by the use of enjambment that is a common theme in the poem. This signifying that Bryon’s voice of loss is mature as he is accepting that what he thought was love was growing to be non existent which Romeo does not acknowledge as in this play he thinks that his and Juliet’s love will always be there as in this scene they quickly progress to talk about marriage. The subject of marriage would also show his voice seems to be stereotypical as he uses phrases such as Romeo continuously gives complex answers to Juliet’s request to get married: “Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow that tips thy love all these fruit tree tops-“which may suggest that he knows that he does not want to be committed