Romeo And Juliet Attitudes To Love Analysis

Romeo and Juliet- Attitudes to Love

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by english playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is about “a pair of star crossed lovers” from feuding families that end up dying for each other. In the prologue of the play, it states they take their lives, revealing the ending. Structurally, Shakespeare revealing this tragic end at the start would make it more suspenseful for the audience as they don’t know when they die, who or in what order anyone dies. It would also make the audience feel more sympathy for Romeo and Juliet when they are together because the audience know that they are two of the people that will die. Throughout Romeo and Juliet, there is a theme of opposing forces, such as love and hate. This is shown in the prologue when it is stated “from ancient grudge break mutiny”. The opposition of the families

Shakespeare shows different types of love in the play, such as true love, lust and platonic love. He also wrote poetry about love, like in Sonnet 116 and Sonnet 18 which can be linked to Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare shows the first type of non-platonic love in Act 1 Scene 1 when Romeo speaks about Rosaline. It is often argued that Romeo’s love for Rosaline was lust, not true love as it is not presented in this way. Romeo states “did my heart love till now?” later in the play when he sees Juliet for the first time. This could be Shakespeare trying to show that you do not know what love actually is until you are in love. This suggests he did not actually love Rosaline and has only just realised this. It also suggests that he is questioning his