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Aspects of Love in Romeo And Juliet
The aspect of love in the play is most memorable. “Romeo and Juliet” is said to be one of the greatest love stories ever told because it has various aspects of love. The prologue is full of violent and negative language e.g. ancient grudge, civil blood, fatal lions, death- marked, rage. But also has words to do with love e.g. star crossed lovers. You can already tell that this is going to be a love story with trouble, worry and violence in it.
The first two characters that the audience is introduced to are Sampson and Gregory. They make many sexual references. They do not see love as involving emotions or desires, but as a purely physical thing, sexual not emotional. Both Sampson and Gregory have petty and narrow perceptions of 'love'. Neither of them appears to have ever experienced true love. They talk in a crude and coarse manner and see women as objects not people.
Romeo's behavior at the start characterizes courtly love as he mopes over the unattainable Rosaline. Romeo thinks he is in love with her "Out of her favor where I am in love." Romeo presents Rosaline as having wit and being strong, as she will not be hit by Cupid's arrow, she lives unharmed and she is rich in beauty. All of these characteristics show a woman out of Romeo's league. As Shakespeare never lets us meet her we are left to think what kind of woman she really is?
When we first meet Juliet she acts like 'A good girl', she always does what she is told and always acts with great courtesy "Madam, I am here. What is your will?" But her attitude changes when she meets Romeo because it is love at first sight and she doesn't act like her normal self. Shakespeare's attitude to this is that she has been good all her life and now that she has met Romeo a power has over come her. It was usual in Elizabethan plays for the forced husband character, in this case Paris, to be mean. But he is particularly nice and Shakespeare complicates things like this because he becomes a worthy love rival.
All sorts of people would come to Shakespeare's plays, and he had to keep them all happy. Bawdiness, bawdy love is basically lust, was for the lower classes. Sampson, Gregory and the Nurse all use bawdy humor, but Mercutio is the most obvious example " This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage. This is she-." He is constantly punning. Mercutio doesn't provide much help to the love of Romeo and Juliet because he doesn't know about it. In today's society family and marital love is considered the strongest form of love, but in this play this is a very complex issue.
The friar and nurse effectively act as substitute parents by comforting and advising the lovers. The Montagues and Capulets are prepared to fight, even [next page]