Views of Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Views of Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

1. Introduction

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has the "high profile as the

love-tragedy everybody knows"[1]. Although it is regarded as the ideal

of romantic love there are many other (quite unromantic) views

represented in the play, too. In this term paper I will try to give a

survey of the different views of love in Romeo and Juliet. First of

all there are Romeo and Juliet, the "star-cross'd lovers" (Prologue)

who "establish a quality of love, of life intensively lived, that

becomes its own value"[2]. Apart from these two main characters and

their view of love there are in general five other attitudes towards

love: to the servants of the house of Capulet, the Nurse and Mercutio

love means nothing else than sex, to Romeo's friend Benvolio the most

important thing about love is not only sex but that love makes you

happy, Juliet's parents Capulet and Lady Capulet together with the

Prince and Paris share an Elizabethan view of love and marriage,

Romeo's parents Montague and Lady Montague in contrast to Juliet's

parents have a relationship full of love, and last but not least there

is Friar Laurence who is afraid that Romeo's and Juliet's passion will

lead to a bitter end but nevertheless shows a big sympathy for the

young lovers and wants to make their love holy by marriage.

In the following part of this term paper I will have a more detailed

look on these shortly sketched views of love, dealing with them in the

order just named above and laying great stress on Romeo and Juliet and

the way they deal with their feelings.

Finally I'd like to take a short look on ...

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... 1980, 184

[9] Wilson, J. in Cole (ed.) 1970, 97

[10] Sutherland/Hurstfield 1964, 118

[11] Linnea, 1997, 21

[12] Holderness 1990, 14: "'climbing a bird's nest' (i.e. penetrating

a girl's pubic hair) was a common piece of sexual innuendo"

[13] Linnea, 1997, 21

[14] Linnea 1997, 22

[15] Günther 1998, 248 explains 'open-arse' as slang for 'vagina' and

'poperin pear' as a slang expression for an erect penis as well as a

pun on 'pop her in'

[16] Evans 1969, 91

[17] Lenz/Greene/Neely 1980, 176

[18] Lerner 1979, 72

[19] I will stick to that point again when dealing with Lady Capulet

[20] Linnea 1997, 24

[21] Linnea, 1997, 25

[22] Lerner 1979, 68

[23] Linnea 1997, 2

[24] Linnea 1997, 22

[25] Stone 1985, 70

[26] Linnea 1997, 13-14

[27] Stone 1985, 70