Love, the simplest and most complicated thing in world. What is love? Why do we love? Is who we love written in destiny? All these questions and more pop up when we think of the world of love. `Romeo and Juliet' reveals many things we did not know in ourselves and make us think about love. There are many ways the theme of love is displayed in this play. The scenes I will be focusing on are Act1 Scene5 and Act2 Scene2. These scenes are where there is a predominant role of love. There are many types of love and many will be explained.
`Romeo and Juliet' is a play known for its knowledge of love. It was written by Shakespeare in Elizabethan times. It is widely known around the world. Even though it is not an original, Shakespeare's refreshing coat of paint on the subject of love and destiny is what gives him the respect of being a genius. `Romeo and Juliet' was performed in the Globe Theatre. It was round with the stage on one side. The stage had a trap door and a balcony. People were seated on the floor in front of the stage or on the edges of the theatre were two floors for seating. On the ceiling of the theatre there were stars painted on. This was to show they were always in presence of fate.
Sonnets were usually used for love poetry, although this sonnet is used as a prologue. A prologue is very strange thing that Shakespeare has done. He has not done this on any other play that he has written. There are many reasons for this. One probably being to make sure that everyone in the audience knows what is going to happen. This leads me to the second point. Destiny. Many people in the audience believed that their lives were destined and written in stone. He wanted to show how God sees the world with the paths he has created. And there is no control over what can happen as we are only viewers of our own lives. "A pair of star crossed lovers take their life" shows that Romeo and Juliet were made to fall in love. It was in the stars. But that same love would be destroyed by the hate between their families. This creates dramatic irony as throughout the performance as we always knew any happiness created will be destroyed. A modern audience is more believing in the control in their own life. So even through knowing what is going to happen they will think the decisions they made resulted in what happened.
There are many types of love in act 1 scene 5. This including parental love, brotherly love and courtly love. In the Bas Luhrmans production of the piece it is filled with symbolic references to what is meant to be. The element of parental love is very confusing from Shakespeare's view as the reasoning for the ball is very simply to let Juliet decide whether or not she wants to marry Paris. The shear idea of this is crazy to an Elizabethan audience. This is because to them daughters were to be given as the fathers wished. But letting Juliet have that option shows that he loves her so much...