Shakespeare's Message About Love

Love can come in many different ways, especially in William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. For example, love between/for family members, love for friends, love for self, love of an idea/cause, and, of course, romantic love. It has never been completely clear what type of love Shakespeare is trying to teach us about during his play, or, better yet what he is trying to persuade us about it. In real life, Shakespeare does not seem like a big fan of love. He married a woman named Anne Hathaway, but after a while moved to a different place and never saw her again. In his will, he only left her his bedclothes. This made people come up with different theories, one of which is that he simply fell out of love, and could never look at Anne again. That is why through his play, Shakespeare aims to show the reader that passionate love can lead to destruction. It is based on how dangerous it is to be obsessed with love and to love a person too much. This becomes evident through the actions and words of Friar Lawrence, the priest, Juliet the girl who fell in love with Romeo, and Mercutio, Romeo’s best friend.

When an individual loves a person too much, they tend to push their friends, family, and everything else in their life, aside. Juliet is a strong example of that, since after falling in love with Romeo she started disobeying her family and the Nurse. During the famous balcony scene, after talking to Romeo a little, she says, “It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say ‘It lightens.’” Translating this quote into modern English, it says that she thinks it is too crazy, that they have not thought about it enough, that is it too sudden, and that it is much like lightning, whi...

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...o. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.” Translated, the quote means that sudden joys have sudden endings. They die in victor like fire and gunpowder. When they meet, as in a kiss, they explode. Too much honey is delicious, but makes you sick. Therefore, love in moderation. Love for a long time, but too fast is just as bad as too slow. Shakespeare specifically used the word “confounds” because it means to baffle, or cause surprise or confusion by acting against expectations. He used the word “moderately” to give the specific instructions of what he wants to persuade us about love, and the words somewhat, reasonably, to a certain extent, and not too much come to mind. The significance is basically that too much of a good thing, like love, can surprisingly turn bad. Shakespeare could not be more specific in telling us to love moderately, or else there will be chaos.