Romeo and Juliet

ROMEO AND JULIET

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is generally acknowledgement as the world's greatest English language playwright. He and his works have been loves and accepted by scholars, actors and everyday people for hundreds of years.' Romeo and Juliet' was published in 1623. It was written by William Shakespeare in 1589-1595.

In this essay I am going to look at the different ways in which Shakespeare put across love in his play "Romeo and Juliet". There are many different types of love, for example, our love to our family, our friends and even our belongings. Shakespeare conveys many of these types of love in his play. We see paternal and maternal love from both replacement and birth parents; we see brotherly love between real brothers; we see real love between friends; we see lust and infatuation and we see love at first sight. Although the word love is often misused there positively is no one meaning of love.

In 'Romeo and Juliet' there are many different types of love expressed between characters. The audience witnesses sexual, parental, friendship and formal love between Shakespeare's characters. The main love story line is of a 'true' love from Romeo and Juliet. The play also contains other smaller story lines between other individuals who share a love for one another.

The first type of love I am going to look at is infatuation, more specifically Romeo's infatuation with Rosaline. This type of love is not real just, the idea of love. In the beginning of the story, Romeo claims to be so in love with Rosaline, but the times when he says how in love with her he is he always says how beautiful she is. ‘For beauty starv'd with her severity', he focuses on her appearance when declaring his love for her. This shows that he is not really in love with her just infatuated by her looks. Romeo does not know what real love is as he claims to be in love with Rosaline and when she decides to become a celibate nun he claims he will never love again. The fact that, that night he falls in love with Juliet shows how fickle he is. ‘Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget', he is saying that he won't forget about her, though that night, ‘For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night', this is how he describes Juliet.

There is also romantic love in the play. The romantic love is between Romeo and Juliet. Romantic love is a more true type of love. It is a longer more significant type of love in comparison to courtly love. When Romeo talks about Rosaline it is different to when he is talking about Juliet; Shakespeare uses different types of imagery. When he talks about Rosaline he is talking about the way she looks:

"O, she is rich in beauty, only poor

That when she dies, with beauty dies her store"

This shows that Romeo does not love Rosaline in a romantic way, instead has feelings of courtly love towards her. Romeo talks about Juliet in a different way:

" This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,

My lips, are two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss"

Romeo talks about Juliet in a very different way to Rosaline. When Romeo is talking about Rosaline it is mainly about the way she looks. In contrast, when he talks about Juliet he refers to religious imagery. This is because Romeo only has courtly love towards Rosaline, whereas he has a truer, romantic love towards Juliet. Shakespeare is showing the existence of romantic love by making this contrast. Shakespeare uses references to religion for example; "holy shrine" and "blushing pilgrims". By doing this Shakespeare is emphasising the trueness of the love between Romeo and Juliet. By making references to religion the audience associate Juliet with purity, goodness, and truthfulness. This contrasts with the description of Rosaline, who is only described for her beauty. This shows that the type of love between Romeo and Rosaline was shallow love, not true.

The next type of love is arranged