With close reference to Act 1 scene 5 show how Shakespeare presents love at first sight and young love in "Romeo and Juliet"? Consider how these ideas are presented in different interpretations of the scene.

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Romeo and Juliet Coursework                Kerry Hammond 10N

        With close reference to Act 1 scene 5 show how Shakespeare presents love at first sight and young love in “Romeo and Juliet”? Consider how these ideas are presented in different interpretations of the scene.

                Shakespeare displays his ideas of love at first sight and young love in “Romeo and Juliet”. William Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan era where love was mostly influenced by the Courtly Love tradition. Courtly love is from the Middle ages and is much different to now. In Courtly love is where a man is supposed to fall in love with a woman who is or acts unavailable. The woman is supposed to refuse the man’s offers and total ignore him and play hard to get. The man goes in to depression and he starts to do things to gain his fair lady’s attention. She still turns him down and he starts to get jealous of her and anyone she is seen with. The woman is normally of a higher status, married or from the wrong family. Shakespeare uses the ideas of courtly love and goes against the rules. In the play Juliet returns Romeo’s love when they meet at the Capulet’s ball. She doesn’t brush him aside and shows her love. The Elizabethans also believed strongly in the laws of marriage. A woman is only owned by first her father then her husband so she was not able to make her own decisions about her life. Her parents would have chosen her husband. In the play Paris was chosen to wed Juliet by her parents. But by this time Juliet had fallen in love with Romeo and did not want marry Paris.

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                In Act 1 scene 1 Romeo is not in love with Juliet to start the play. Romeo is or thinks he is in love with Rosaline. Romeo’s love is more to do with Courtly love even though he seems to be infatuated instead of real love. He is the typical lonely depressed person that courtly love rules say. We know this because Benvoilo and Romeo’s brother tells Lady Montague that he shuts himself up in his room and is dissolved in great thought, mainly about Rosaline. Shakespeare begins in this way to show how a typical person should act in ...

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