Free Sample Essays > Shakespeare
Analyse the Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet
of courtly love and arranged marriage whereas nowadays modern audiences find the concept of courtly love and arranged marriage controversial.
On the whole many attitudes towards love have changed since then: love or infatuation of a person at a distance is less public now, respect for parents is often challenged, people chose their partners for love – not just family convenience, possibly because the age of consent for marriage is higher now and the independence of choice increases with maturity. In some cultures the values that Shakespeare encompassed in his play are still respected and acted upon. Arranged marriages still take place and the belief is fate and destiny rule people’s lives.
Shakespeare gives different views on love to each of the characters that reflect the different views of people from his day. Sometimes the characters views get developed or changed throughout the play
For example Romeo starts the play with his courtly love for Rosaline. He knows that she is well out of his reach because she basically just ignores him and does not return his love. This is just an infatuation.
“Out of her favour where I am in love” A 1 Sc 1 L167
Romeo also sounds very confused about his emotions for Rosaline and as this was socially accepted at the time he talked about it and made a big fuss. To make his point and show that he is confused he uses a technique which was being used by a lot of poets who wrote about love at the time, he uses oxymorons. These are contradictions within sentences. For example:
“o brawling love, o loving hate” A1 S1 L175
“O heavy lightness, serious vanity” A1 S1 L177
“She is fair, too wise; wisely too fair”
Romeo’s attitude towards Rosaline possibly has a sexual element to it
“Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold” A1 S1 L213
This could be because he does not know her any better and all he can see are her physical attractions which means he only wants her for her body.
Romeo also compares his love towards Rosaline with night time, blindness and darkness, creating an image of darkness and negative thoughts.
“Being black…blind…forgot…The precious treasure of his eyesight lost” A1 S1 L230-234
From this we see that Romeo, at this point, sees love as a pain and as a bad thing that is more like an illness than anything else. Later on in the play Romeo still compares love to darkness and night when he has met Juliet and he has gone to her house but he contradicts the images of darkness:
“It is the east, and Juliet is the Sun
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief” A2 S2 L3
This shows that Romeo sees Juliet as the opposite to Rosaline, she is within his grasp although she is on the opposite side and [next page]