Views of Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

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Views of Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Works Cited Missing Romeo and Juliet is a play about love and hate. During the course of

the play Shakespeare conveys his views on different types of love

portrayed by each of the different characters throughout the play. The

types of love that Shakespeare explores are true love, fashionable

love, practical love, bawdy love, unromantic love and moderate love.

In this essay I am going to explain these different views of love that

the characters have.

At the beginning of the play Romeo loves a woman named Rosaline. The

love that Romeo feels for her is full of lust and longing. It seems as

though Romeo is using Rosaline as an object of affection to satisfy

his own longing for love. Romeo's interpretation of love is

'fashionable love'. Through this fashionable love Romeo has made

himself believe that he is in true love with Rosaline and therefore

lusts and longs for her. Romeo constantly talks about Rosaline being

'rich in beauty', 'fair', and being 'the all seeing sun' and says that

that she 'ne'er saw her match since first the world began'(Act 1 scene

1 line 14) and refuses to believe that there is anybody 'fairer than

[his] love'(Act 1 scene 2 line 94). Romeo's view of love is very

shallow and lacks emotion. Romeo is in a confused state in act 1 scene

1 as he has been rejected by Rosaline 'out of her favor when I am in

l...

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... this is

when he says 'wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast'(Act 2 Scene

3 line 94), when he is talking to Romeo. The Friar strikes a balance

with Romeo's impetuous nature.

In conclusion we can see that the characters each have their own view

of love based on their own personal circumstances. And Shakespeare

attempts to show his views through all of them. The point that

Shakespeare tries to make is that love cannot survive in a place full

of hatred no matter what type of love it is. Shakespeare is probably

commenting on the types of love that were circulating in his own time

and those that he had experienced. It shows us that Shakespeare is

skeptical of love but he believes that he it is eternal. As well as

this Shakespeare may be trying to send out the message that if love is

rushed then it will not work.

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