How Is Love Presented in Romeo and Juliet and Two Poems from the Shakespeare Literary Heritage Essay

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How is Love presented in Romeo and Juliet and two poems from the Shakespeare Literary Heritage

Love is presented in a variety of different ways in Romeo and Juliet and my chosen poems from the Literary Heritage: Stop All the Clocks and Sonnet 130. For instance, in Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare is attempting to challenge the tradition of courtly love that was prominent in the Elizabethan era. He is suggesting that the tradition of courtly love is artificial and essentially false. Courtly love was a hidden love between the nobility in medieval times. In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare has a different goal; he is attempting to challenge the traditional Petrarchan sonnet that was popular at the time. These sonnets were grand declarations of …show more content…
Shakespeare uses Romeo’s hyperbole and Romeo’s quick switch from Rosaline to Juliet to question how real courtly love is. Furthermore, this over the top dramatic presentation of love continues through Romeo’s description of Juliet’s beauty. Shakespeare switches to using a simile to continue this trend. For example, he continues his description of Juliet by saying “It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night, Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear.” Again, this shows that Romeo feels that Juliet beauty stands out from the crowd just like an shiny earring would stand out in an African person’s ear. This encourages the audience to further doubt how real Romeo’s love for Juliet is as his language becomes more and more over the top. If Romeo can so quickly forget Rosaline is his love for Juliet genuine or just another infatuation? Shakespeare is attempting to drive his point home that courtly love is a false and unrealistic version of love through his depiction of Romeo’s descriptions of Juliet. This over the top overly dramatic depiction of love is continued before Romeo and Juliet kiss for the first time. Shakespeare uses the sonnet form to show their conversation leading to their first kiss as this was the traditional form of exaggerated love poetry at the time. Within the sonnet he uses extended
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