Different Types of Love in Romeo & Juliet

Remember to never copy any material on the internet such as this when writing your own essay.

'Romeo and Juliet' is a very famous play by William Shakespeare and is still extremely popular in theatre today because if you can understand the way that Shakespeare writes then the play is timeless and many teenagers can relate to dilemmas of Romeo and Juliet.

During act 1 scene 1, Sampson, of the Capulet household is joking with Gregory about taking Montague’s woman’s virginity or ‘Maidenheads’ as Shakespeare put it.  These sorts of jokes would have been perfectly acceptable during the Elizabethan era as women were treated like property.

Another example of this ‘bawdy’ love is shown in act 1 scene 5 where, at the Capulet masquerade, Capulet is slightly intoxicated and exclaims that if any woman refuses to dance with him, he will tell everyone that she has corns (hard skin on her feet.) This nowadays is blackmail and is just a method of making people do things they don’t want to do which is also illegal.

During the Elizabethan era it was totally conventional for the parents of the family to arrange marriages for their children and they would hardly ever consult the girl before arranging the marriage.  This is shown in act 1 scene 2 where a marriage is arranged between Juliet and Count Paris within a couple of minutes, however Capulet first disagrees with the proposal for he feels that Juliet is too young to become a bride at the age of 13.  However, Paris manages to change Capulets mind and before they knew it a marriage was been arranged and Juliet is completely ignorant to the fact that she is now engaged to Paris.

At the masquerade, Lady Capulet tells Juliet to ‘check Paris out’ as if trying to force a connection between them.  Later on, when Lady Capulet reveals to Juliet that she is to marry Paris (p48) Juliet tries to go against the Contract that Capulet has made with Paris which angers her father immensely, he even goes as far as to call her a disobedient wretch, all the while Juliet’s nurse is caught in the middle of it all but ends up just basically telling Juliet to go along with it all – Juliet finds this advice incredibly un useful.

Juliet and her nurse had a much more meaningful relationship with each other than Juliet and her mother.  This is shown in a very well put manner in the film when Juliet and her mother have the talk about her marrying Count Paris.  When Juliet reacts badly to the situation her mother has no idea what to do so therefore she calls in Juliet’s nurse to sort out the situation.  This is also shown on page 9 when her mother asks the nurse to stay whilst discussing Paris with Juliet.

Juliet trusts her nurse very much as she also helped to arrange the secret ‘forbidden’ marriage with Romeo and she also seems more upset when Juliet appears to be dead.

As for the Montague family, you can see that they share a lot of family love as Benvolio comforts Romeo at the beginning of the play when he is depressed over the unrequited love that he feels for Rosaline, giving him advice such as ‘There’s plenty more fish in the sea’.  Also, even though Mercutio is not family he sticks up for Romeo immensely during the fight between Romeo and Tybalt – even giving up his life for Romeo.

Infatuation is a big part of Romeo and Juliet and the beginning.  The main part of the play that includes infatuation is when Romeo is lovesick for Rosaline and he experienced unrequited love for her.  This makes Romeo depressed and he usually only comes out at night, only going back inside when he sees the sun come up.  Romeo is confused about his feelings as shown on page 5 when he uses a number of oxymorons to explain his confused state, such as ‘feather of lead’, ‘cold fire’ and ‘heavy lightness’ etc.

Also, the fact that he can be talking about being obsessed with Rosaline and then suddenly switching his emotions almost automatically to being completely and utterly in love with Juliet, this concludes that he is really just in love with the thought of being in love.

Finally, I would like to mention what I think is the most important kind of love shown in Romeo and Juliet – the pure love between Romeo and Juliet.

The actions between Romeo and Juliet usually take place under the cover of nightfall because their love is forbidden therefore it should be unseen, however when they are together they can be themselves and they show their true feelings for each other.

During Romeo’s soliloquy on page 14 he describes Juliet as three different metaphors; a dove, a torch and a jewel. By comparing her to a dove he means that she is pure and peaceful and she brings joy to people. The second metaphor (the torch) says “O she doth teach the torches to burn bright” by this he is saying that she lights up the room and makes his life brighter and clearer, which is a really nice way of describing somebody as he is almost saying he wouldn’t be able to see clearly without her in his life which shows how important she is to him. The final metaphor (the jewel) says “a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear” I have read this a couple of times and I think that its means more than what you might think when you first read it. Imagine an Ethiopian and you think of third world, poverty, poorness, etc. Now imagine an Ethiopian with an enormous jewel in their ear. This means that Romeo is calling Juliet unique, special and completely irreplaceable. Romeos soliloquy is a very important part of the play as it is the first time where Romeo truly expresses his full emotions for Juliet.

At the actual meeting of Romeo and Juliet they both share a sonnet. In the sonnet Romeo uses lots of holy imagery to describe Juliet – showing that his love for Juliet is pure and true.

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine... my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.” This means that he is describing Juliet as a shrine and himself as a pilgrim, ready to worship her. Juliet readily catches on to Romeos metaphor and starts to joke around with Romeo “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much…/ for saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch.” By which she means to string Romeo along and mess around with him a bit, This metaphor carries on through lines 99-105 which is when their sonnet is finished and they kiss. Romeo then says “Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.” Which Juliet responds with “then have my lips the sin that they have took?” This is her way of trying to get him to kiss her again. Romeo replies with “Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again” at which point he kisses her again.

Juliet tries to continue their sonnet by saying ‘You kiss by th’book’ by which she means that he is a good kisser but they could not continue their sonnet because they are interrupted by Juliet’s nurse who tells her that her mother would like to speak with her, thus ending the sonnet. This is also the point that they both find out that they are from rival families.

The sonnet is in the perfect position in the play as it is just after the rant from Tybalt expressing his hate for Romeo and the fact that he gate crashed their party.

Often, these sorts of expressions of love seem ‘cheesy’ but this was the normal way o express love in those times and most of the visions are of purity and lightness and this highlights the truth about their marriage and love for each other.

Overall, I believe Shakespeare’s message about the two lovers is that two families have been basically warring with each other for an incredibly long time have to had to suffer the tragedy of two of their children dying to bring them together so I think he is trying to say that families or anyone shouldn’t war over something they can’t even remember because it could all end up in a mess. Even though the two star cross’d lover had to die, the two families were brought together so it is really what I would call a bittersweet ending.