Explore Shakespeare's Presentationof the Theme of Love in "Romeo & Juliet". Consider the Different Types of Love and the Language Used to Present These.

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Joe Rawson                5/2/2007

Explore Shakespeare’s Presentation

of the Theme of Love in “Romeo & Juliet”. Consider the Different Types of Love and

the Language Used to Present These.

        In this essay, I will illustrate the ways in which Shakespeare incorporates a cleverly blended mixture of love and death into Romeo and Juliet. I will also consider the various forms of love, alongside other emotions that make Romeo and Juliet so emotive, and the language used to present these themes.

        I will now illustrate the inextricable link between love and death. Even before the drama unfolds, Shakespeare links love and death in the prologue, where he suggests that the death of the two lovers was pre-ordained in the stars:

        “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

        A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;”    (Prologue, lines 5-6)

The phrase “star-crossed” means against fate – fate was thought to be controlled by the stars, and “star-crossed lovers” means they aren’t supposed to be together. They probably died because they went against fate.

        

After Romeo and Juliet’s marriage, Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel, but Romeo declines: Tybalt is family now. The fact that Romeo refuses to fight angers Mercutio, who ends up getting mortally wounded at the hands of Tybalt. Before Mercutio dies, he puts “a curse on both your houses.” In the Shakespearian era, a dying man’s curse was thought to be a powerful force. A conversation between Romeo and Benvolio ends:

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Benvolio:         “O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead.

That galliant spirit hath aspired the clouds,

Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.”

Romeo:        “This day’s black fate on moe days doth depend,

        This but begins the woe others must end.”

Romeo is saying here that because of Mercutio’s curse, and his inevitable death, Romeo and Juliet’s fate is sealed.

        These themes are consolidated at the end of the play when the death of the two lovers is necessary for the two families to unite:

        “O brother Montague, give me thy hand.

        This is my daughter’s jointure, for ...

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