/lit/ - Literature

>>14347839
How can an Esl begin to.understand this ? Is this prose ? Is this poetry ? What does it even mean ?
Should i get a dictionary of intend to read this ?

Sorry OP can't answer your question.

>>14347839
Maybe both. Great thread and selection. <3

>>14347871
actually I'm an esl trying to translate Romeo and Juliet right now. There is absolutely no decent translation in my native language. What bugs me even more is that when I browse a few 'modern english translations' they seem to give various meanings to this verse (and some others).

>>14347963
What's your native tongue ?

Neither.
>I am in love, which by its very nature is pleasant and unpleasant at the same time, and I am not in love with being in love

>>14347963
into what language?

>>14347839
From what I gather, your first hypothesis seems to be correct, OP. Romeo is despondent because he is in love with Rosaline and expects that she will never love him back. He begins lamenting on a bunch of oxymorons:

>heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-waking sleep

in order, I think, to emphasize the paradox of the contradiction between the elation of being in love and the despondency of it seemingly not being reciprocated. It looks like all of this was just a long (but still beautiful) collection of metaphors used to emphasize the juxtaposition, and make an even broader rumination on the wholeness of opposites in the universe. Great thread, by the way. Wish we had more of these.

>>14347988
>>14348065
french

>>14348058
thank you kind sir. So the word 'that' refers to 'I', right? while 'this' refers to [I being in love]?

>>O anything of nothing first created!
What does this mean ?

>>14348101
I guess there's several relevant aspects
>the feud between Montaigu and Capulet came out of nothing (a few silly words)
>mainly: love (and its opposite) was the first thing created (therefore created out of nothing)
it kinda reminds of Heraclitus

>>14347963

Even many English scholars have a poor understanding of our classic poets, unfortunately. There is too much time spent in applying Marxist or other silly "critiques" to them, as opposed to actually endeavouring to understand them.

>>14347839

The antecedent of the word "this," in both cases, is everything the speaker was just talking about, the nature of the kind of love he feels. That is, everything from "O brawling love," to "still-waking sleep, that is not what it is." Reducing the words to an analytical order:

"I, that feel this [kind of] love, feel no love [while I am] in this [sort of love].

There is also a play on words (paronomasia). The first "feel" means to experience--he experiences this sort of love. But the second "feel" means "receive"--he does not receive any love in the act of experiencing this sort of love. In other words:

"I, that feel that kind of love which I have just described, do not, even while I feel the sort of love which I have just described, receive love from the woman whom I love."

>>14348065
fuck off and die

Hang in there, ESL-anons
https://www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translations/romeo-and-juliet

decent thread. will be lurking for any insight I can find understanding the texts. is there a good heavily annotated version for understanding Shakespeare? or perhaps something that helps to make the grammar more easily understood? i've got a Pelican's of R&J and Oxford's King Lear - secondhand, since I like em cheap

is Shakespeare the ultimate ESL filter?

fucking take a high school English class

>>14349799
suck my cock

It's supposed to show contradictions and oxymorons that arise due to love and the confusion it causes. For example, "loving hate" is an oxymoron, and it shows all of the emotions that arise because of love.

Also, he is describing Juliet if I remember correctly. He is saying that even though she is beautiful, she is also ugly because she is the daughter of his mortal enemy. So Romeo is now conflicted in his love for her. That's why he can't decide what to make of her and just lists a bunch of ironic things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kt8EzPxNeA

Listen to BBC Radio plays to help you understand Shakespeare. Even if you don't know what a word or phrase means (as many native modern English speakers don't) the way it's said will help you understand the intention.

OP here, thank you guys esp. >>14348291

there's something else I was wondering, even if it's a detail. Would you say that thse 2 verses rhyme?
>Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
>This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

>>14347963
>esl trying to translate Romeo and Juliet right now

It's beyond you. You're not at that level.

>>14348088
This is right. The last lines are to underscore the fact that he is in love but it doesn't feel like love. The oxymorons are to underscore the fact that the feeling doesn't match what it is supposed to be.

>>14348139
>the feud between Montaigu and Capulet came out of nothing (a few silly words)

A stupid answer, because at this point in the play Romeo hasn't even met Juliet and is still pining for Rosalind.

>>14350274

>>14348291 here. This is well observed: yes, "is" and "this" are capable of making a rhyme in the English language. You can find it also in Shakespeare's seventy-second sonnet:

"O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you."

Shakespeare not unfrequently puts a rhyme at the climax of a scene, or complex discourse. He especially likes doing this in Romeo and Juliet; I suppose because of the connotation between rhyme and love-poetry.

>>14350297

I don't think this is accurate. I would still maintain that "feel" is used by way of paronomasia, and that Romeo says that he both feels love in one way (experiencing it), and does not feel it in another (receiving it).

>>14350307
Rosalind is a Capulet. Romeo hasn't even met Juliet at the time. But at the moment he's talking about the brawl that just happened between Capulet and Montaigu men.

>>14350316
damn, thank you. It makes the translation really hard (most translators don't even try) but the quote from the sonnet makes it clear that there should be a rhyme, like several other passages from R&J as you say.