AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Paper 1
Revise: LoveThe speech is an epithalamium, a wedding song, here spoken by the bride herself as she anticipates her wedding night. Juliet imagines consummation as an intimate fulfilment of their marriage, not a rejection of emotional or spiritual love. Her repeated calls for night give her desire an answering voice, unlike the silent beloved of conventional Petrarchan poetry.