Shakespeare's Opinion of Love

In Romeo and Juliet  Shakespeare’s thoughts on relationships are represented in the relationships between Romeo and Rosaline and Romeo and Juilet.  Shakespeare shows a lot of different relationships in his play but the main relationships are filled with tragedy.  Shakespeare seems to show that relationships are not strong and healthy but full of sadness.  Whether he was writing about love between couples or love between family members or friendships they all seemed to be full of heartache and very little happiness.  In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare shows that he does not believe in happy endings.

Shakespeare’s portrayal of love in the first act shows that love is a struggle and not true and caring.  Romeo is in love with Rosaline but she does not return his love.  Romeo speaks about the pain of love as he says “being vexed, a sea nourished with lover tears”.  This shows Romeo feeling tormented by love.  Romeo also talks about how the sea levels are kept high by the tears of lovers.  This again shows Shakespeare’s opinon on love.

Shakespeare himself was only married once at the age of 18.  He married Anne Hathyway and had 3 children with her.  Their marriage did not seem like a happy marriage.  When Shapkespeare passed away he left most things to his eldest daughter to be given to her 1^st born son.  They say he left only his bed to his wife.  Many of people of Shakespeare time questioned his love for his wife as he seemed more focused on his plays and writing.  There was a lot of questions about Shakespeare's personal life.  He seemed to favor men over women by giving his belongs to his eldest daughter's 1st born son even though she did not have a boy at the time.  (www.wikipedia.com) 

Romeo and Juliet’s love is very tragic.  Shakespeare shows Juliet very much in love with Romeo but their families are in a terrible battle with each other. Their love was almost over powering and was so dramatic that it wasn’t real. "Did my heart till now forswear it, sight! for I ne'er saw true beauty till this night" Romeo and Juliet dying for each other was tragic and shows Shakespeare’s opinion that love can not have a happy ending.  "These violent delights have violent ends and in there triump, die like fire and powder, which as they kiss consume".   He could have had a different ending where Romeo and Juliet leaving the city together but he chose the tragic end which showed his opinion on love and marriage.  "Two  households, both alike in dignity in fair Verona, where we lay our scene from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood make civil hands unclean.   From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows, do with their death bury their parent's strife."  The strife between the families did end after their death as each family was building a statue for the others child.  Shakespeare was able to show some compassion between the families and that time which showed that perhaps Shakespeare wanted his own battles to be resolved.

The play Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy representing some of what Shakespeare must have believed about relationships.  Many of the relationships in the play were dysfunctional there were very few representing healthy, normal relationships.  Even their family relationships were shown as a negative which could also represent how Shakespeare might have felt about his own family.  Shakespeare wrote many plays some were humorous, some were tragedies and perhaps somewhere in between the two you could learn more about the man then by just this one play.  Did Shakespeare's plays really represent him?