What Is an Oxymoron?

6. Oxymoron in Drama

There can be no discussion of an oxymoron in drama without quoting from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

“Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh?”

This section drips in oxymoronic phrasings including “hating love,” “heavy lightness,” “bright smoke,” “cold fire,” and “sick health.”

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