Juliet are of the same order. Romeo never lavishes much poetry on Rosaline herself, but rhapsodizes instead about love in general and pines over Rosaline's chastity. His first utterance upon seeing Juliet tells us that this is an altogether new kind of passion for him: "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!" (36). The play never questions the intensity of the passion shared by this quintessential couple.
Herein lies the power of Romeo and Juliet: its extraordinary poetry reawakens the adolescent experience in all of us. But to what purpose? Perhaps, in part, to assure us that this experience was more real than we may have remembered. But it also reminds us of the frailty of youthful passion. Accordingly, much is made of the power of fate in the play. In contrast to Shakespeare's later protagonists, Romeo and Juliet are not really responsible for their own doom. This particular mode of fate may really be nothing more or less than the power of passion itself. The force of romantic love puts the couple's destiny on "automatic pilot," as it were. It makes them victims of circumstance, which alone dictates their eventual deaths.
Thus Shakespeare reminds us that, one way or another, youthful passion is doomed. If it is not destroyed by harsh reality, as in the play, it burns itself out. We feel sadness for Romeo and Juliet, because they never get to learn (as we presumably have) that, at its best, young love transfigures into mature, serene devotion. We are sad that they are cheated out of this possibility. This superiority on the audience's part removes the play from the province of tragedy.
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