Six types of love in Play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare
In this essay I have examined the six types of love throughout Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare; the types of love are love at first sight, unrequited love, and ideal love. Parental love, religious love and friendship love. In each paragraph I will explain the historical context and the important things about the certain love throughout the play. These types of love are shown in the play by these characters Romeo, Juliet, Rosaline, Paris, friar Lawrence, the nurse, lord and lady Montague, lord and lady Capulet and Mercutio.
The first type of love I have identified is love at first sight, love at first sight is shown by Romeo and Juliet as when they first meet at the Capulet’s party they both deeply fell in love and couldn’t have one another .This is portrayed by Romeo and Juliet because Romeo confess his love to Juliet
” If I profane with my unworthiness hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, my lips two blushing pilgrims’ ready stab to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
”
They talk to one another in a sonnet from this is a suitable format because a sonnet is a form of love poetry. the religious imagery used was that they use words like pilgrim, sin, saint , faith, holy palms, pray and prayers this shows that during the time of Romeo and Juliet that there was a lot of belief in religions and people were commit to there religion.
Secondly the second type of love I have looked at is unrequited love, this type of love is where you love them but they don’t love you back.
In the play this is shown by Romeo to Rosaline but we never see her and this makes there love seem more distant. Meanwhile in the play Romeo says in despair
” A sick man in sadness”.
The word sick is illness, by all the talk about love which is gentle actually turns out apprehensive and cruel. But Romeo becomes confused because he says
”oh loving hate”.
This is an example of an oxymoron which is like a feather of lead, bright smoke and cold fire, which us very confusing which is why you can see that Romeo is love sick and confused.
Thirdly, Ideal love is the love that parents would like to see for there children. This is shown by Paris he shows this love because he is rich, handsome and in a higher class role. Arranged marriages were chosen for al daughters and son’s by there mother’s and father’s, there parents chose this because they wanted to see that there children were in wealth and good community class. Nowadays this is not as common but is normal in such religions like the Muslim culture, but this is the only known culture to agree with arranged marriages. The nurse describes Paris as a
”Man of wax”.
This means that
Paris’s view off love is to make Juliet a happy married woman and be part of her father’s Capulet Empire of Verona Italy.
Furthermore, the next type of love I have identified is parental love. Parental love is shown throughout the play by lord and lady Montague and lord and lady Capulet. Throughout the play this shows that there parents show no consideration or concern towards there children so therefore that’s why Romeo and Juliet were aloud to get together and get married without anyone knowing a part from the nurse and friar Lawrence, and Juliet has to turn to the nurse for advice rather than her mother and Romeo has to turn to Mercutio and Benvolio to help him .The nurse is so close too Juliet because she was hired as a wet nurse to feed and clothe her this showed that the Capulet family were not poor at all actually they were rich , the historical context to wet nurses was it was a disgrace in them time to breast feed and look after you’re own child so they hired wet nurses to help them out and do all there jobs with the children this showed that the family had money. It way wrong in those days to say no to your parents during this play Juliet express’s her unhappiness due to the fact her father says she has to marry Paris but unfortunately she can’t because she was already married to Romeo, after she told her father no here is the quote of what lord Capulet said to her
”speak not, reply not, do not answer me, my fingers itch”.
This tells us that he does not want anything to do with her and wants her out of his site and because his fingers itch he wants to hit her.
But at the start off the play he shows concern for Juliet and Paris
”But woo her gentle Paris, get her heart, my will to her consent is but a part ”.
This soft rhyme smooth’s the situation showing lord Capulet’s calm side.
In this paragraph I am going to review religious love throughout the play of Romeo and Juliet, in the play religious love is shown by Friar Lawrence. What is meant by religious love is the friar showing Romeo and Juliet that god is with them in every way they step in the right direction. The friar’s religious love colours his views about Romeo and Juliet this shows that the friar isn’t bothered about the conflict going on between the two families if they both want to get married they should and not let the conflict get to them the friar shows this by saying
”for this alliance may so happy prove to turn your households, rancour to pure love”.
This shows that the friar believes Romeo and Juliet’s relationship will bring together the 2 families. The views on marriage in those days was if you marry then it’s for life as divorce was not common at all and it was considered disgracing your religion it you did divorce, the prophetic view that love might end in tragedy
”these violent delights have violent ends”.
This shows that there will be big consequences due to the Romeo and Juliet getting married also friar Lawrence shows his views about young men’s love
”young men love the lies not truly in their ages”.
This shows what he thinks about young men’s love in those days.
Finally the last type of love I have looked at is friendship love, in the play it is demonstrated by Mercutio unto Romeo. Friendship love means that you would stick by your friend’s side through thick and thin, and who would die for you if you were in trouble. Mercutio shows this by staying with him and listening to his views about women. Mercutio advises Romeo that real love only exists in dreams during his speech about Queen Mab
” O’er courtier’s knees, that dream on curtsies straight o’er ladies’ lips, who straight kisses dream.”
Later on in the play Mercutio dies this is because of the on going feud between the Capulet’s and the Montague’s because Tybalt has a fight with Romeo, Romeo then kills him and then you see Mercutio with a stab wound in his spleen and then he explains that he has died to stop the on going trouble it Verona between the Montague’s and the Capulet’s
In conclusion to this having identified all the types of love throughout Romeo and Juliet I think that some of the examples of love are shown today but not all of them, I think that love at first sight is still used nowadays but isn’t as common as it was during the time of Shakespeare’s life. In addition to this parental and unrequited love is still quite common in this century because most parents really love there children and want to see them marry the right person not someone who treats them wrong, unrequited love because not every person who loves someone loves them back and it is most common that it’s a ”love hate relationship”.
On the other hand friendship, ideal and religious aren’t as common as they were in those days because no many people go to church to have religious love of the own vicar because not many people go to church. Ideal love isn’t as common but is found sometimes because not many parents try to push there children into marrying into rich or high class men or women because it doesn’t matter to them as much as it did then. Finally friendship love is still used sometimes but not as often as it was back those days it is not used as often today because people tend to make new friends all the time so they end up losing some as well so therefore they are always making new ones so they don’t often have friends who would risk there life’s for them as they did do in the Shakespearean times.
