Romeo and Juliet

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives seven definitions of love (excluding religious and sports definitions), ranging from sexual desire to warm affection. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet explores this spectrum through various characters’ attitudes toward the nebulous word. The expression, emotion, and worth varies, yet the label remains constant. Shakespeare’s greatness, perhaps, then stems from the portrayal of how apposed viewpoints of love can come from the same species--the same town or family line, even.
Romeo’s attitude toward love traces a bipolar pattern (thwarted then impassioned) as a result of his probable manic depressive disorder. “Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours? Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short” (I.i.57-58). Romeo thinks that love makes life enjoyable and makes the years pass by quickly and happily. In a wild bipolar swing, Romeo later comments of love that “It is too rough,/Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn” (I.iv.23-24). Expressing concern for Romeo’s depressed state, Benvolio says “I rather weep...At thy good heart’s oppression. Romeo: Why, such is love’s transgression” (I.ii.176-179). Romeo realizes that love is also oppressing, which he believes to be inevitable. Romeo goes on to express an attitude of explicitly agathokakological love: “What is it else? A madness most discreet,/A choking gall,/and a preserving sweet” (I.ii.187-188). Abandoning his rather hopeless opinion of love’s harsh cruelty-unattainable joy dichotomy, Romeo’s view of love changes dramatically after he meets Juliet. After falling in love with Juliet, Romeo visits Friar Laurence to arrange their secret marriage. Friar Laurence entreats Romeo to explain his visit. “Romeo: Then plainly kn...

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...asure. Friar Laurence, on the other hand, thinks about love coolly and rationally. He thinks Romeo acts foolishly, throwing himself into one love after another. He realizes that love is a commitment, not an entertainment, as it is for Mercutio, and not entirely necessary.
Shakespeare portrays men with vastly different attitudes regarding love. Romeo believes that love overrides all moral and societal rules, leading to his hasty marriage to a girl he fell in love with at first sight. Mercutio chases pleasure aimlessly. Friar Laurence lives a chaste life as a friar and calmly observes the “piteous overthrows” of those around him (The Prologue.7). Shakespeare’s strength in portraying emotions in different ways means that an audience exists for each of these men. Someone who empathizes. A way to bring Shakespeare’s sixteenth century play into the twenty first century.