ABSTRACT
Romeo and Juliet, written the same year, is a tragedy, although it contains conflicts. The Merchant of Venice is a curious play in that it has not entirely sustained itself as it was written. In Romeo and Juliet the shift is not the move from Verona to Mantua but rather the move from the public realm to the interpersonal and private intrapsychic domain. Romeo’s father describes him as if he is a young, depressed Hamlet. In love with Rosaline, Romeo views love as tyrannical; in love with Juliet, he will see the world as tyrannical. While there is fighting on the streets, Romeo takes no notice. It begins with Romeo’s depressive “artificial night,” then picked up by Capulet who says: "At my poor house look to behold this night Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light". Mercutio prescribes the remedy for Romeo’s neurasthenia, namely to find willing women and discharge his sexual tension.
