Shakespeare's Representation of Love and Hate in Romeo and Juliet

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Shakespeare's Representation of Love and Hate in Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare's representation of love and hate is an important theme

that runs throughout the play. Shakespeare's contrast of love and hate

when Romeo first lays eyes on Juliet, and hatred when Tybalt wants to

kill Romeo after realising that he has come to Capulet's mansion for

the party. Love and hate is the theme that I hope to deal with in this

essay and

One of the most important way that Shakespeare shows love in this

scene is when the sonnet is said by Romeo and Juliet, this is very

unusual and unique sonnet because it was normal for male's to express

their love in form of a sonnet but in this Juliet also expresses her

love for Romeo.

In this scene Romeo sees Juliet and forgets Rosaline entirely; Juliet

meets Romeo and falls just as deeply in love. The meeting of Romeo and

Juliet dominates the scene, and, with extraordinary language that

captures both the excitement and wonder that the two protagonists

feel, Shakespeare proves equal to the expectations he has set up by

delaying the meeting for an entire act.

The first conversation between Romeo and Juliet is an extended

Christian metaphor. Using this metaphor, Romeo ingeniously manages to

convince Juliet to let him kiss her. But the metaphor holds many

further functions. The religious overtones of the conversation clearly

implies that their love can be described only through the vocabulary

of religion, that pure association with God. In this way, their love

becomes associated with the purity and passion of the divine. But

there is another side to this association of personal love and

religion. In using religious language to describe their burgeoning

feelings for each other, Romeo and Juliet tiptoe on the edge of

blasphemy.

Romeo compares Juliet to an image of a saint that should be worshiped,

a role that Juliet is willing to play. Whereas the Catholic church

held that the worship of saint's images was acceptable, the Anglican

church of Elizabethan times saw it as blasphemy, a kind of idol

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