Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

What different types of love are represented in the play, and how is

Shakespeare and drawing on historical, social and cultural features of

Medieval and Elizabethan England in the ways that he represents these

types of love?

The theme of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet is love. The main

love in the play is between Romeo and Juliet who belong to families

that are feuding. There are many different types of love in the play

including unrequited love, love in friendship, parental love and

tragic love.

At the beginning of the play the most obvious love is unrequited love.

This is Romeo's unreturned infatuation for Rosaline. He is suffering

from depression and is cutting himself off from friends and family.

Benvolio records: "So early walking did I see your son /towards him I

made, but he was ware of me, / and stole into the covert of the wood"

(Act 1 scene 1) and Romeo's father agrees that Romeo is reclusive:

"Away from light steals home my heavy son, / shuts up his windows

locks fair daylight out" (Act 1 scene 1). When he makes Romeo behave

like this Shakespeare is using a popular convention where love was

thought to be an illness or a sudden attack of sickness. In the middle

Ages knights were meant to pine for the love of a lady they beyond

their reach and this is the idea that Chaucer uses in the knights

tale. There are two knights called Palamon and Archita in prison.

Through the bars of their prison cell they can see a Rose garden and

one day Palamon sees a lady doing her embroidery in the Rose garden.

Her name is Emilia. Palamon reacts by looking ill: "As though he had

been stab...

... middle of paper ...

...ne 1 Tybalt kills

Romeo's friend, mercutio because he, Benvolio and Romeo attended the

Capulet family party in Act 1 scene 5. Mercutio is not even a member

of the Montague family but is happy to fight for their honour. In a

revenge attack Romeo kills Tybalt. Benvolio says: "There lies that

Tybalt" (Act 3 scene 1).

It is all because of pride that these tragic events occur and the

majority of the young people die because of their love for family

honour either directly like Mercutio or Tybalt or indirectly like

Romeo and Juliet.

There are many different forms of love presented in the play, and in

the ways he represents the types of love, Shakespeare is drawing on

the social culture of the time in which he lived, and the ideas and

themes of popular art, poetry and literature in Medieval and

Elizabethan England.