Response To Shakespeare

Response Paper 1 As we’ve been reading, I often have found myself paying particular attention to Shakespeare’s analysis and critiques of love. Occasionally it seems as if Shakespeare is holding up love as the most intensely wonderful and perfect feeling one could experience. Yet, most of the time, it seems that Shakespeare cannot describe a single couple that is actually as perfect as it appears to be. At first I thought that Shakespeare was criticizing love as an ideal, saying that it actually does not exist and is too perfect an ideal to ever be reached. The sonnets are the only clue that Shakespeare gave legitimacy to the concept of “love”. After reading several of his plays and sonnets, I have come to the conclusion that Shakespeare definitely believed that love existed; he just also recognized that it existed in various situations. Though he recognizes the depth of some love, he seems to explore just how shallow other relationships are. In each of Shakespeare’s works, he seems to explore a different type of relationship. In the first play that we read, Twelfth Night, Shakespeare shows the struggle of unrequited “love” through the interest in Olivia shown by Orsino. Orsino, who really knows little to nothing about Olivia,
Though the Shakespearean sonnets cover a variety of topics, the sonnets about love show the reality of the subject for the author. When he speaks about his love having no boundaries, even in age and beauty (sonnets 116 and 130), Shakespeare is showing that he believes that the kind of love that overlooks one’s flaws actually does exist. In these sonnets the author seems to speak from personal experience about how absolutely wonderful and rewarding love can be. He seems to be creating almost “odes” to love in establishing what a rare and beautiful thing real love is instead of criticizing it like he seems to be in all of the