Shakespeare’s View on Love
Shakespeare’s plays are very drastic with how he ties love into them. Shakespeare always adds comedy or tragedy to any romance that might be taking place. For example in Twelfth Night, As You like It and Romeo and Juliet there is romance but he also puts comedy in there so love is not that easy. In the play Othello he makes it into a tragedy which makes the love even harder to take place. Shakespeare has always found a way to make love as complicated as he can which leads me to believe that he feels that you must work for love and it should not be handed to you. Love is already complicated, but when Shakespeare is involved he makes sure at least two things come around that can make it harder for those who are in love to actually stay in love.
Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy which leads to romantic love being the main focus of the play. In this play, Shakespeare shows that love can cause pain. He does this by causing a love triangle which includes;
• Viola likes Duke but
• Duke likes Olivia and
• Olivia like Cesario who is actually Viola disguised as her twin brother.
Because of this confusing love triangle, some of the characters seem to view love as a curse. They also claim to suffer painfully from being in love or from the “pangs” of unrequited love. In Act 1 scene 5, Olivia describes love as a “plague” from which she suffers terribly. In Act 1 scene 1, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot. Another example of the characters not “liking” love is in Act 2 scene 2 when Viola says “My state is desperate for my master’s love.” This quote relates to the violence in Act 5 scene 1 when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he thin...
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...and they will go together. Clubs cannot part them.” Act 5 scene 2
• “This bud of love by summer’s ripening breath may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” Romeo and Juliet Act 2 scene 1
• “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them.” Othello Act 1 scene 3
• Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. ~Romeo and Juliet
• What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet. ~Romeo and Juliet
• But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? it is the east, and Juliet is the sun. ~Romeo and Juliet
• Good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow. ~Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet are madly in love with each other and will go to any lengths to be together.
Come, night. come, Romeo; come, thou day in night', Romeo is day & he stands out in the night.
Romeo will be remembered by one of his favorite quotes, “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” Romeo was one to express his love for Juliet and show
Understanding the Romeo and Juliet’s contrasting natures, love and hate, life and death, at last but not least, missions and reality provides greater insight into how Shakespeare dominate the history of world’s literature culture and serve as a international icon for the past 500 years. If one of the two is missing, then the other one would not exist. Vivian, “There isn’t growing without battles; there isn’t light without darkness; there isn’t freedom without chains; there isn’t happiness without sorrow. That’s life, a bittersweet melody.” March 27, 2011, Comment.
Love is ironic. It can take you anywhere in the world unexpectedly, and turn you into a person that you never were. However, love is also two-faced, having both a negative and positive view. It is what drives you to the point where you do not know who you are anymore. In Shakespeare's story, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare perceives love with the personalities and actions of the characters, Romeo and Juliet. Both Romeo and Juliet are characterized as immature and irrational due to their "love." In addition, both characters fail to realize the reality of life and go towards the path of adolescence. Even though Romeo and Juliet are doomed at the end of the journey of "love," their demise was caused by their rash and silly decisions because their belief of everlasting love blinds them from reality and shapes their lives into an unstoppable time bomb.
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/ It is the east, and Juliet is the sun/ Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon/ Who is already sick and pale with grief/ That thou her maid art far more fair than she/ Be not her maid since she is envious/ Her vestal livery is but sick and green/ And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!/ It is my lady. Oh, it is my love/ Oh, that she knew she were!” (Shakespeare II ii 2-11).
"She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, and I loved her that she did pity them" (Othello, I.iii 166-167). William Shakespeare’s tragedy "Othello," is pervaded by a dominant theme, one of love. Othello, the Moor of Venice falls madly in love with a woman named Desdemona. They marry and are very happy together. Othello and Desdemona face many trials during the course of their nine-month marriage. The most notable one occurs when Barbanzio, Desdemona’s father accuses Othello of getting his daughter with witchcraft. During a court hearing, Desdemona confesses her love for Othello and Barbanzio is forced to let her go.
Have you ever been in love before? Many would say that love is hard to come by, and even harder to maintain, while some would say the opposite. In Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet, he explores similar concepts related to love and infatuation. Although the reader never directly hears from Shakespeare, one could infer that his own thoughts are similarly mirrored in his characters, with the play serving as a warning tale of sorts, and the various roles echoing different dangers when it comes to love, which there are many. More specifically, Romeo Montague and his actions in the play are very intentional, as they help explain Shakespeare’s intentions and his own personal thoughts on the topic of love and its hazards, as well as its ups, too, which there are many.
Naturally, one of the most reoccurring themes in Shakespeare is romantic love. It is perhaps not a coincidence that he put so much emphasis on this elusive and enigmatic emotion. In the Elizabethan age when he was writing, the arts were being explored more fervently, and thus raw human emotions began to surface in the mainstream culture. In Twelfth Night, love is a confusing and fickle thing, as demonstrated in the relationships between Duke Orsino and Olivia; Olivia and Viola/Curio; Malvolio and Olivia (she certainly has an effect on men doesn't she?); Duke Orsino and Viola/Curio. However, the characters seem to have a love-hate relationship with Cupid. Within the first line of the play, it is glorified: "If music be the food of love, play on..." (Duke Orsino, I:I). And while Olivia is annoyed with Orsino's affection, she craves Curio's.
Like most fairy tales that commence with "Once upon a time," William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy where a basic conflict is eventually resolved so that all the protagonists live "happily ever after." Similar to Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, Twelfth Night not only includes conflict resolution, but also a wedding in the final act meant to signify the good fortune that is bestowed on all the central characters at the conclusion of the play. Ultimately love is supposed to conquer all things. As displayed in fairy tales, love comes complete with chirping birds and a rainbow painted sky. Shakespeare, however, mocks love in its absurdity and accuses it of imperfection because love is a truth that is not perfect and does not always triumph. By examining the characters Olivia and Orsino, a reader will recognize that love is inconsistent and unconventional, and is capable of being genuine at times and egotistical at others; in order for love to be unconditional a level of openness and honesty must first occur. This level of sincerity is evident through the theme of gender bending.
What is love? Love is the pinnacle of all emotions, it is the epicenter for life, what is the point of living if there is no love, ironically love is the cause of many a down fall. William Shakespeare has single handedly captured and embraced this necessary feeling and has allowed us to view in on it through the characters in his two masterpieces, Othello and King Lear. Three different kinds of loves explored in both Othello and King Lear, sharing both similarities and differences are a love for a significant other, the love a father holds to his children, and the love a daughter holds for her father. By looking at the outcomes of these loves one may draw a sense of loves negative and positive effects, and how the different traits of loves play into the outcomes in the fate of Shakespeare's characters. Through the analysis of love in these two plays one will become a more knowledgeable student of literature.
“O Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” (II.ii.33) In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it would make sense that love has a positive appearance in the play. However, in Romeo and Juliet, love has a negative connotation. It is implied that love is depressing, death-filled, and the play also has numerous negative metaphors about love.
Juliet shows us that she wants the darkness to come when she says. And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love. performing night ' Not only does this quote indicate to us that Juliet wishes for the night to come however, it tells us that she wishes to make love to Romeo: I am a So tedious is this day. Also, this quote tells us that she cannot wait for the day to be over.
“O Romeo, O Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” This quote from one of Shakespeare’s most well known plays “Romeo and Juliet” is probably one of the most well known quotes from the story. The tragedy of “Romeo and Juliet” starts out as a tale of two star-crossed lovers whose fate led them to meet while they each came from two families who hate each other. Throughout the play, they fall more and more in love and are so desperate to be together they end up killing themselves in the process. This may have ended the feud, but it still ended with two teenagers, one’s mother, one’s cousin, and one’s best friend dead. Romeo and Juliet may have killed themselves, but their deaths were caused by fate, and their families’ hatred toward one another.
...o he loves and he says he loves a woman “of your complexion” (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 2.4.27). Shakespeare once again uses dramatic irony to show how Cesario loves Orsino; by saying he loves a woman who looks similar to Orsino. In the last scene where the truth is revealed behind Cesario’s identity, she accepts her master’s decision saying “a thousand deaths would die” (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 5.1.128). Viola truly loves Duke Orsino and implies here she would die a thousand deaths to make him happy. Implied truths are secrets waiting to be revealed.