Body Language: Making Love in Lyric in Romeo and Juliet.

This essay analyzes how Shakespeare transforms lyric poetry—particularly sonnets, epithalamia, and aubades—into embodied theatrical forms to portray desire and intimacy in *Romeo and Juliet*. Focusing on key scenes between the lovers, it explores how Shakespeare adapts sources such as Sidney's *Astrophil and Stella*, Marlowe's *Hero and Leander*, and Brooke's *Romeus and Juliet* to create a dramatic space where bodies and language interact intimately on stage. The essay highlights the play's use of lyric forms not only as poetic devices but as "affective technologies" that shape the lovers' physical and emotional connection, emphasizing bodily particularity and presence within theatrical time and space. It also examines how Shakespeare's dramatization of lyric poetry enables a nuanced expression of adolescent passion, mutual recognition, and the tension between unity and separation, culminating in the embodied and poetic intensity of the lovers' final scenes.