Essay, Research Paper
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a play about two
lovers separated by their feuding families. From forth the
fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-crossed lovers
take their life.(Pro.I.6) The two foes Shakespeare speaks of
are the Montagues and the Capulets. Their hate for each
other is great and violent. The hate of the two families is
shown early with a street brawl. The hate causes the lovers
to hide their love from their families until the very end.
after Romeo and Juliet died in the Caplulet tomb the two
families see their hate and reconcile for the love of their
beloved children. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet reviled
love as a war as a religion as a malady and as a cult.
The theme of love, which he explains in other keys in
plays before and after remain central, though now it is to
idealized in all seriousness(Sauffer 29). All through the
play Shakespeare constantly held love as the basis of the
play. The actual ethical energy of the drama resides in its
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realization of the purity and intensity of ideal love. Here
there is no swerving(Stauffer 32). Stauffer believes that
Romeo and Juliet’s love was pure and intense also it is
constant ever since the they lay eyes on each other. Romeo
and Juliet’s love is a perfect blending of body and soul.
The obstacle which is a feature of the amour-passion
legend is partly external, the family feud; but is partly a
sword of the lovers’ won tempering since, unlike earlier
tellers of the story, Shakespeare leaves us with no
explanation of why Romeo did not put Juliet on his horse and
make for Manturia(Mahood 392). If Romeo would leave Verona
with his love Juliet both will live with each other and
could be in love till they are old and gray, but instead
Romeo leaves with out his love and die young with each
other.
The love of Romeo and Juliet is immediate violent and
final. In the voyage of the play they abandon themselves to
a rudderless course that must end in ship wreck(Mahood 392).
“Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the
dashing rocks, thy sea sick weary burke: He eres
my Louve.”(V.iiii 117-119)
The theme of Romeo and Juliet is love and violence and
their interactions. In it these two mightiest of mighty
opposites meet each other squarely – and one wins(Goddard
118). The whole secrete of the play is that the deaths of
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the lovers are not the result of the hatred of the houses,
nor of any other cause except love itself, which seeks death
in its own restoring cordial. Love conquers death even more
surly than it defeats hate. It sweeps aside all accidents
so that fate itself seems powerless. Time is defeated, in
that first stirring of a belief that Shakespeare came later
to trust completely: that the intensity of an emotion towers
above its temporal duration or success(Stauffer 32). What
Stauffer is trying to say is that love is very po
even in death the love continues. Romeo finds Juliet’s
sleeping body after she had drank the potion, and he
believes her to be dead. Romeo is slain when Juliet wakes
up from here sleep. Out of fear and love she inserts a
dagger into her heart with the famous line “Oh happy
dagger”. Even though the two lovers are dead their love
continues.
The love between Romeo and Juliet was forbidden by the
two families because of their hatred for each other. Most
religions say to honor your parents and if their parents new
of the love it could have been disaterious.
After Juliet marries Romeo the Nurse tries to convince
Juliet to commit bigamy. She wants here to marry Paris so
that all will be right with here father and the rest of the
Capulet family, Juliet refuses.
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At the time Romeo meets Juliet, he is infatuated with a
woman named Roseline. Romeo’s moon struck calf-love for
Rosaline must be laughed out of him by his friends Benvolio
and Mercutio, by his guide Friar Lawrence and by his own
true love. For Romeo doting upon Rosalin, love was malady
and religion; for Mercutio it is sheer lunacy or a brutal
conquest(Mahood 398).
Mercutio’s realm of love was lust, also very false
by nature. For all the bad things the be said about lust,
it is where all the jokes are and Mercutio being a joker
used it to his full advantage. In trying to call Romeo over
the wall, he tried a certain amount of discussion about
Rosline’s body and, when dealing with the nurse, sang a
rather lewd song. Today Mercutio’s song would be
considerable less appreciated and would more likely get him
slapped with sexual harassment charges. However, just
because society doesn’t like something doesn’t mean that is
doesn’t exist. Even with the progress society has made,
there are a lot of dirty jokes still out there.
The love in Verona may be a cult. After Romeo sees
Juliet at the dance he immediately falls in love with her.
He become obsessed with her. Romeo of the Monagues, after a
sentimental and unrequited languishing after one Rosaline,
falls in love at first sight with Juliet, of the Capulets,
and instantly instilled enmity of generations is dissipated
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like mist by morning sunshine and love that embraces Juliet
embraces everything that Juliet touches or that touches
her(Goddard 119). They are both filled with love and it
makes them quest for each other.
Romeo and Juliet shared a true love for one another.
Both Romeo and Juliet were willing to forsake those things
that were important to them for each other. True love is
the most powerful of all in Romeo and Juliet and in the real
world. The nature of love hasn’t changed but, with the
evolution of our society, it’s expression has changed
slightly. Of all the things is the world, love is the most
timeless and it is this which makes the story of Romeo and
Juliet timeless.