Shakespeare 4 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

Wise,2

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

Wise,3

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 powerful and

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.

Wise,4

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

Wise,5

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.