Discuss William Shakespeare's portrayal of love in 'Romeo and Juliet', focussing on character development, imagery, and dramatic presentation.

Juliet is also firstly introduced to the play by others talking about her, in this case it is her father and Paris, a friend of the family who wants her hand in marriage. From their conversation the reader gets the impression that Juliet is pure, very young, naive and vulnerable from what her father says, "my child is yet a stranger to the world, she hath not seen the change of fourteen years", from what capulet says we also get the impression that she is dadys little girl, she is special to her father, here it is the first time that Shakespeare shows a parental love, we see capulet realy being caring and protective of Juliet, "earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she, she is the hopeful lady of my earth" he claims that she is still too young and not ready to be married, "let two more summers wither in their pride, ere we may think her ripe to be a bride".

On the other hand, Juliet's relationship with her mother is very abrupt and distant. Juliet acts very formal when talking to her mother in a short and brief manner, "madam I am here what is your will", along with this it seems that lady Capulet does not feel comfortable talking to her own daughter alone when wishes the nurse to leave so she can talk to Juliet in private then abruptly asking her back in the room, "nurse give leave a while we must talk in secret, nurse come back again", the reason for this would be the fact that she left the job of raising her child to a wet nurse which would have been the fassion in those days for a women of her a class, lady capulet does not show any parental love to Juliet she feels that her only responsibility is to marry Juliet to some one on the same social level as the capulet family is, someone who would keep the family reputation high. The nurse provides the motherly figure for Juliet, in her language she shows how much she cares for Juliet, as a replacement for her dead child, she also provides a friendship for Juliet, this type of love was the only love Juliet had for any one before she met romeo so when she did it seems like she was overwhelmed with feeling that she possibly didn't comprehend. The only person that Juliet trusts enough to tell about romeo is the nurse who tried to be on her side most of time to try and work things out with romeo except at the end where she tries to persuade Juliet to marry Paris, but that was because of her rather different ideas to love and marriage.

Romeo has also got a strong friendship, his best friend is a mercutio, a play full and lively character, romeo shows a deep friendship with mercutio reflected in his anger when he was killed where he for an instant forget about his true love to go out and kill her cousin Tybalt, this shows that love in a friendship can be as powerful as the spiritual romantic love that romeo had for Juliet.

Mercutio and the nurse in many ways are very similar in character, they provide the same type of love for the star crossed lovers and their views on love are very similar in the way they only see the physical sexual side of love. Mercutio, for example throughout the play is very cynical about love and mocks those who are in love, usually Romeo. During much of this mocking he uses his vivid imagination and sexual innuendoes, he loves to use puns in his language, "if love is blind, then love can not hit the mark". The nurse also shows her view of love in a crude fun way, "Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days".

In the play, the nurse is a very important figure for Juliet, she not only is the mother figure, providing love and advice but also as a friend providing, some one can keep secrets and have fun with. For Romeo it is the friar who becomes his parental Guidant, he chooses to marry the two even though he is un clear about the pace of the love but he hoped that he would unite the families and put an end to the violence not knowing that all this would bring fate to cause more pain.

But perhaps the most influential and dominant love of all, was the true spiritual love between romeo and juliet, for Romeo it was not just realising that he had just met his perfect girl but he also found out what love really was, he totally forgets about rosaline as he fall into juliet's eyes, in romeos first love with rosaline he became melancholy negative and withdrawn from society, in this love he is happy and positive becoming more social be the day. W£hereas for Juliet it was the first time she has experienced anything to do with love all together, she loves him more than anything in the world, "My love is as deep, the more I give to thee the more I have , for both are infinite" Juliet is prepared to do anything to save this very special, pure love, even die even though they have only known each other for a few days it seems that they know exactly what each other are thinking and feeling, they have quickly become sole mates, so juliet was devastated when she found out romeo had been banished, though she hides it by telling her family that she is in grieve because of the death of tybalt.

The first time the lovers meet they speak their own biblical language, here is where Shakespeare uses the religious imagery, romeo says, "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine the gentle sins is this, my lips too blushing pilgrim ready stand to smooth that brough touch with a tender kiss", Juliet replies, "good pilgrim you do wrong your hand too much which mannerly devotion shows in this for saint have hands that pilgrims hands do touch and palm to palm is holy palmers kiss", here the religious imagery reflects the purity and uniqueness of the love they feel.

But even here there is a contrast with violence when Romeo climbed up the wall to juliets balcony he was couscous because if the guards had caught him they would of captured him and killed him.

A the play goes on after tybalts death, we see an extraudanary change in the way capulet treats Juliet, he has the idea that the marriage between paris and Juliet should be hurried to bring back happiness for the family after sadness from tybalts death. He is now not bothered about giving his only daughter away after he was very reluctant and protective in the first scene, this makes the audience feel that capulet wasn't looking out for Juliet in the first place but only wanted to delay the wedding so he can make sure that paris is really the right person to marry into his family for the good of his own social position. When Juliet refuses the parents attitudes change drastically especially capulert, lade capulet dishes out some very offensive language to Juliet, "I wish the fool were married to her grave" this quote is also ironic. And we also see the other side of Capulet, through out the play we have seen the kind happy side of capulet when things go as he wishes but as we saw before when tybalt argued with him at the party, he gets very angry and uncontrollable when people disobey him, and Juliet was doing just that by refusing to marry paris, we see his fatherly love for Juliet dissapeare as he threatens to throw her out, "never after look me in the face", he threatens to hit her, "my fingers itch" his anger gets the better of him and starts to curse her, "out you green sickness carrion, out you baggage, you tallow face".

This story is one off the greatest love stories ever written, although some one might argue that it possibly also has more hate than any other average story as well as love, it is the quote "loving hate" that the play revolves around, the concept of hate is always close when love is apparent. The play itself has indured for years, and many recent films and novels have been based on the Shakespeare version proving that one of the factors that make it such a brilliant piece of writing is its power to still be relevant today, a modern audience can, more than not, relate to the love and relationships in the play. Finally the conclusion of the story is that in the love had beaten hate at the end, even though a violent sacrifice had to made, the biggestv sacrifice proves the r + j true love.