Different Types Of Love In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

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Romeo and Juliet Essay
“There are no simple love stories. If it’s simple, it’s not love. If it’s love, it’ll get complicated.”(Unknown). In Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, there are many different kinds of love; those loves include conventional, affected, sensual and true love. Shakespeare portrays each kind of love through characters. By doing so he teaches his readers about love and the many forms it appears in. Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a study of the many types of love that exist.
The first type of love is conventional love. This is a love which is arranged, typically by parents. The first example of conventional love in the play, is Lady Capulet’s marriage. We can only assume her marriage was arranged. Lady Capulet mentions …show more content…
Affected love is infatuation disguised as love. The first example of affected love is Romeo’s ‘love’ for Rosaline. In Romeo’s state of depression he mentioned that his love, Rosaline, “hath sworn that she will live chaste… and in that sparing makes huge waste; /…/she is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair.” (1.1.214-218) Romeo’s love for Rosaline was solely based on appearance making it affected love. The second example of affected love was pushed upon Juliet. This occurred when Lady Capulet informs Juliet of her marriage with Paris. In regards to Paris, she tells Juliet, “he’s a man of wax…read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face/and find delight writ there with beauty’s pen… and what obscured in this fair volume lies/find written in the margent of his eyes.” (1.3.77-87) In simpler words, Lady Capulet instructs Juliet to examine Paris’ face, and see the beauty that is there. Whatever Juliet finds obscure about Paris, she can find the answer within his eyes. The last example of affected love is when Romeo first sees Juliet at the Capulet party. This love blossoms into true love, but is first seen as affected love. When Romeo first saw Juliet he said, “Did my heart love till now? .../for I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” (1.5.52-53) This is clearly affected love because Romeo hadn’t properly met Juliet at this point. He was only in love with what he saw. Affected love is purely based on appearance and is rather …show more content…
True love is the most famous type of love in this novel. It is the kind of love that has to be felt. True love makes you do crazy things and is often shown with sacrifice. The first example of true love occurs when Juliet is willing to sacrifice her family name for Romeo. Juliet confides into the night, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; / or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”(2.2.33-37) In Verona this was a major sacrifice because of the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. The second example where true was shown is when Juliet was willing to end her life because she couldn’t be with Romeo. After receiving news of Romeo’s banishment and her marriage to Paris Juliet seeks help from the Friar, “Tell me not, friar, that thou hears’t of this/unless thou tell me how I may prevent it…Do thou but call my resolution wise, /and with this knife I’ll help it presently… Be not so long to speak; I long to die/ If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.”(4.1.50-67) Juliet’s love for Romeo is so strong that she is willing to die rather than be married to someone else. The last example of true love is when Romeo takes his own life. Romeo believed that Juliet was dead and in turn killed himself because he couldn’t live without her. Moments before Romeo takes his last breath he says, “Dear Juliet, / why art thou yet
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