Perceptions Of Love In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet
Shakespeare 's 'Romeo and Juliet ' is a tragedy told in two language styles, prose and verse. Death, fate, disorder are all minor components of this classic story centred on a dangerous love that reaches across the barriers of family and convention. Some perceptions of love in this play are dutiful, passionate, sexual and so forth. Throughout this essay I will be exploring the different perceptions of love and how Shakespeare 's use of language and structure further emphasises each perception.
Sexual love is presented in the opening scene, and throughout the play additional references are made to it. We first encounter it through the coarse humour of the Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory, who brag about their 'attributes ' and see women …show more content…
Mercutio is often used as a contrast to Romeo in terms of character and wit. He thinks love is "drivelling" and has no patience with Romeo 's infatuation for Rosaline. '...This drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide is bauble in a hole... ' -[ii.iv.90-91] Mercutio, a very cynical young man, compares love to an idiot who runs around with his tongue hanging out desperate for sex. He is delighted to find that Romeo is his old cheerful self again, after getting over the melancholy for Rosaline. A man, Mercutio believes, should not hide away '...groaning for love... ' -[ii.iv.87-88] but rather laugh at women and at men who waste time chasing them.
Aside from Mercutio, the nurse believes that life is all about having sex and making babies. She assures Juliet that if she cant have Romeo its not so bad, just move onto Paris, men come and go.
Our first meeting with Romeo shows us a stylised conventional view of Love, sometimes called courtly love, unrequited love or Petrarchan love. Romeo is portrayed as the melancholy lover, self indulgent in his tears and groans for Rosaline, and more in love with love than anything else. It is plain that he just has a teenage crush on Rosaline; that he is simply infatuated with her. In act 1 scene 1 we are told that it is Romeo 's habit to sit beneath a grove of sycamore trees before dawn (the sycamore tree was associated with …show more content…
' ...With love 's light wings did I o 'erperch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt... ' -[66-68.2.2 Romeo] Here Romeo describes the intensity of his newly founded love for Juliet, clearly stronger than that he had for Rosaline. This is further reinforced through the use of the term 'limits ' where Romeo is prepared to cross all boundaries and limits for his Juliet. In addition, the consistent repetition of 'love ' highlights the purity of this passionate love, which Juliet
Sexual love is presented in the opening scene, and throughout the play additional references are made to it. We first encounter it through the coarse humour of the Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory, who brag about their 'attributes ' and see women …show more content…
Mercutio is often used as a contrast to Romeo in terms of character and wit. He thinks love is "drivelling" and has no patience with Romeo 's infatuation for Rosaline. '...This drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide is bauble in a hole... ' -[ii.iv.90-91] Mercutio, a very cynical young man, compares love to an idiot who runs around with his tongue hanging out desperate for sex. He is delighted to find that Romeo is his old cheerful self again, after getting over the melancholy for Rosaline. A man, Mercutio believes, should not hide away '...groaning for love... ' -[ii.iv.87-88] but rather laugh at women and at men who waste time chasing them.
Aside from Mercutio, the nurse believes that life is all about having sex and making babies. She assures Juliet that if she cant have Romeo its not so bad, just move onto Paris, men come and go.
Our first meeting with Romeo shows us a stylised conventional view of Love, sometimes called courtly love, unrequited love or Petrarchan love. Romeo is portrayed as the melancholy lover, self indulgent in his tears and groans for Rosaline, and more in love with love than anything else. It is plain that he just has a teenage crush on Rosaline; that he is simply infatuated with her. In act 1 scene 1 we are told that it is Romeo 's habit to sit beneath a grove of sycamore trees before dawn (the sycamore tree was associated with …show more content…
' ...With love 's light wings did I o 'erperch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt... ' -[66-68.2.2 Romeo] Here Romeo describes the intensity of his newly founded love for Juliet, clearly stronger than that he had for Rosaline. This is further reinforced through the use of the term 'limits ' where Romeo is prepared to cross all boundaries and limits for his Juliet. In addition, the consistent repetition of 'love ' highlights the purity of this passionate love, which Juliet