Love in Shakespeare, Essay Example

Shakespeare is not of an age but for all time. His plays are often described as timeless and endless, adorned with exceptional literary marvel and galore. A deep, critical insight shows that Shakespeare is highly motivated in love (If thou remember’st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into/Thou hast not loved). He creates nurtures and propagates love in extreme forms of voracious intense feelings: pessimism, pain, tragedy as well as comedy. Moreover he eludes tortures, kills and punishes love only to ascertain the eternal fathom of this complacent and divine virtue.

He patronized his love to be true and real beyond the aesthetics of society and human dictum; emphasizing that love may not necessarily mean culmination of physical desires. It could also assume a platonic Excalibur, beyond the cliché of being a wife and bringing up children. He did not count love as a daily chore that substitutes compliance and mediocrity. It is also alluding to realize that his experience of love had been trivial in nature, murky with verity of lust, sex, and marriage. But Shakespeare was optimistic and believed that true love had the power to blight out all else.  Love to him was beyond utopia that attaches individuals in mortal and insensible bliss of things.

Shakespeare certainly knew that love was subjugated to the restrictions of society and morality during his time, and it was difficult for true love to live in this uncertain world. So in most of his plays we find love to either take the discourse of marriage or end in virtual death or murder. Love seems to be the source of his imagination and in an abstract form conquer all his writings. Whether tragedy or comedy, love is categorically the reason of sustenance in his plays – Othello a figure of jealous love, Romeo and Juliet are ubiquitous examples of young love, Lear a paradigm of neglected old age and material love, Much Ado About Nothing’ a tale of characters in pursuit of overcoming obstacles to attain love, mystical love in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. In all these plays love takes the centre stage and characters fight with the forces of nature and society to gain blissful earthly love.

Another important feature of love in Shakespeare’s play is the countenance with death: Tybalt had seen that Romeo has crashed the feast and was determined to kill him just as Romeo catches sight of Juliet and falls instantly in love with her. From that instance they grow closer in love and death. When Juliet was asked to marry Paris, she says, “If all else fail, myself have power to die” (3.5.242). Shakespeare counteracted the inevitable theme of double suicide; a tragic and brutal decision as they realize that death can only save their love. Their love would be preserved in the arms of death, beyond the capacity of the societal acknowledgement. Thus, to the society love was immoral and true love could be materialized in the other world far from the material ethos and compulsion.

Romeo and Juliet: In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare explores the forcefulness of love. It is the most famous love story in the history of English literature. The play shows Shakespeare’s immanent attraction for love and passion. This catastrophic emotional upsurge is manifested in the portrayal of Romeo and Juliet.

Now, his protagonists were prodigal, violent, and ecstatic- with overpowering emotional transcendence as they defied society, religion, and family for the sake of love. (“Deny thy father and refuse thy name,” Juliet asks, “Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet”); friends (Romeo abandons Mercutio and Benvolio after the feast in order to go to Juliet’s garden); and ruler (Romeo returns to Verona for Juliet’s sake after being exiled by the Prince on pain of death in 2.1.76–78)

Just like Shakespearean tragedy and comedy, his romance was emancipated and virile. He wanted his readers to understand that Romeo and Juliet carved a new sense of emotional bonding, which surpasses the human contingencies of relationship. It was an intrinsic realization well above the normal affrications of just being in love and marriage. Another important factor in Romeo and Juliet had been Shakespeare’s desire to amalgam the facets of comedy, romance and tragedy in one shot- and not to embark on a prettied-up, niche expression of physical love story. He wanted to create love that was coagulant, brutal and sacrificing – emplaning on the charisma of togetherness and virtual insanity; such that his characters lived and died for each other. It does not mean, however, that Shakespeare was effervescent of painting his characters in the color of sex.

Romeo and Juliet proved that love is not built in the realms of specific moral codes of conduct; rather its foundation is spontaneous and sudden, beyond the control of obvious and external limitations. In a nutshell, Romeo and Juliet show the Shakespearean journey of love, amidst fallacies, challenges and societal skepticism.

King Lear

In this play Shakespeare is more poignant to true love or real love in opposition to sexual or physical love that can be bought. True love and loyalty are antagonistic to selfish love and treachery. The theme of love is seen in the onset when Lear in Act 1 Sc. 1 reveals that he is unaware of the traits of real love. This is proved when he sets up a verbal love test to assess the extent of his daughters love for him. He acts as an auctioneer, ready to give his entire assets to the highest bidder of love. Here, Shakespeare uses pun to show the material pilferage in the divine virtue of love. It was so selfish and cruel to measure love in arithmetical calculations, keeping in mind, the love children have for their parents.

Love was subordinated as a joke and a tangible affixation rather than a symbol of pious devotion and loyalty.  Thus, Lear divided his kingdom amongst the three daughters on the basis of verbal dialogues of love. Cordelia didn’t “pass” the verbal test of love for her father. “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty According to my bond; no more nor less” (Act I, Scene I). Cordelia states that words cannot express her true feelings. “Cordelia distinguishing between two early modern meanings of the word love: a formal obligation that involves just deserts/ and an emotional involvement or affection that cannot be reduced to such logic” (Nordlund pg, 112). This observation made by Marcus Nordlund brings together the concept of private life and kingship of Lear. He seems to king and being all in one, and forgets the distinguishing features of each role; this is why Cordelia’s statement is quite intriguing. She carefully uses her words, and addresses Lear as king first, then ends with father. She states that her love for him is not only filial, but also a duty of a devotee to the king.

Overall, the love test is childish and shows an unstable king; he needs to be told that he is loved and he isn’t certain about aspects of his life.  In reality, Regan and Goneril are the deceitful daughters, not Cordelia, but Lear doesn’t come to this conclusion until Act III.

King Lear is a play in which there is a love, but it is strange in the fact that it is between the king and a fool. The fool guides King Lear to envisage the fakeness around him. The fool acts as the voice of reason and judgment in the play and comforts the king in times of hardship; it is almost like Lear’s conscious in human form. The bond between the king and the fool is so strong that it can be seen as a love for oneself- as human nature, one must love oneself in order to love others.

Much Ado about Nothing

Aside from love within family, Shakespeare’s comedies portray love in other entangling aspects. For example, illusion is one of the most important incidences that deal with the plot in Much Ado About Nothing. These illusions play a role in bringing the two protagonists, Beatrice and Benedick together.

Here Shakespeare’s treatment of love differs from his other romantic comedies. Apart from the regular plot of the lovers finally getting back together, Shakespeare exposes the weak and superficial conventions of courtly love which was popular at the time. Although the courtly marriage of Claudio and Hero is central to the plot, their love is the least interesting thing in the play. Instead, our attention is focused on Benedick and Beatrice’s unromantic backbiting – their relationship is shown to be more believable and enduring.

Shakespeare contrasting these two forms of expressions of love manages to elucidate the conventions of romantic, courtly love. Claudio uses decorated contrived language as a manifestation when speaking of love, which is undermined by the banter of Benedick and Beatrice: “Can the world buy such a Jewel?” says Claudio to Hero while Benedick of Beatrice says “My dear Lady disdain! Are you yet living?” Thus, Shakespeare vents out his frustration with Claudio’s pompous, loud and exaggerated rhetoric of love: “His words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.”

Twelfth Night

Wooing in Shakespeare’s plays is seen through the language and the actions of the characters. Although words may be missing in conversations, the “effectively Shakespeare’s language and dramatic methods can cope with the significance of things unspoken.” (Draper pg. 93) Even looking at the opening scene of Twelfth Night, Orsino is listening to soothing music, and this use of artistic scenery is one of the main ways Shakespeare incorporated flattery with love. “…images associated with the sea, music and food all require close attention not only for their value … but also for the precise way in which they are deployed and qualified.” (Draper pg. 94-95) This quote analyzes the necessity of the dramatic scenery used throughout Twelfth Night, the situations revolving the incidents also aid in the visual aspect of the wording. For example, Viola disguised as a boy brings more to the situation of her love for Orsino than it would if she were just another female. It gives rise to misrepresentation and opens one’s mind to problematic outcomes.

Othello: Othello’s love for Desdemona seems to be an extension of his own imagery. Shakespeare had bestowed Othello by the idealized vision of Desdemona being an integral form of his exalted romantic passion. Iago made him believe that he was an alien and love of any woman would be perverse and vulnerable. Othello’s mind was tainted and he fought the internal conflict between true love and treachery. The debacle worsens when Othello tarnishes their whole and noble relationship with jealousy and hatred.

Othello finds embodied beauty and love in Desdemona- she was a embodiment of love and loyalty. In her presence, Othello realizes the sanctity of love. However, he destroys this pristine and true love only to experience that love continues to thrive.

A quite interesting viewpoint of love was discussed in Marcus Nordlund’s Shakespeare and the Nature of Love; love is an evolution of emotions. Nordlund takes into account Darwinian thought of natural selection and survival of the fittest and relates it to the modern sentiment of love. Since everything we have, as a human race, is an adaptation and evolution to preexisting structures. We all evolved from the same evolutionary tree, and many of our basic elements such as emotions can be viewed as superior adaptations. One thing to keep in mind is that there are two reasons that may bring about the feeling of love, the chance of survival and reproduction. In order for the human race to continue and pass on genetic information one must find a mate. Even in animals, there are certain characteristics the opposite sex looks for in a mate. If there is no “connection” there will be no mating, therefore decreasing the chance of reproduction, and thus is a decline in the number of progeny. Love seems to be an emotion that evolved from many generations in order to prolong the human race. It can be seen as an adaptation to the surrounding world we live in, without love, there is a hindrance in finding a mate and without a mate, there is a slight chance of risking the progeny and the reproduction of a species.

Works Cited

Draper, Ronald P. Shakespeare, the Comedies. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. Print. This book gave interesting points of the way love is portrayed in Shakespearean comedies. Many of the analyses for Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing, came from this book, as it added new points of view.

Nordlund, Marcus. Shakespeare and the Nature of Love: Literature, Culture, Evolution. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern UP, 2007. Print. This book was important in the analyzation of King Lear and the love found in this play. Also, it gave lots of varying views of love and the evolution of this emotion.

Shakespeare, William, and Jonathan V. Crewe. Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print.

Shakespeare, William, and Stephen Orgel. King Lear: the 1608 Quarto and 1623 Folio Texts. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print.

Shakespeare, William, Peter Holland, and Stephen Orgel. The Pelican Shakespeare. New York, NY [u.a.: Penguin, 1999. Print.