William Shakespeare's tragedy, Romeo and Juliet is a popular study for various themes, including love. The five types of love include unrequited love, romantic love, parental love, friendship and love of family honor. Love is an overpowering force that takes over all other values, loyalties and emotions.The ones I will be elaborating is romantic love and love of family honor. I find these the direct cause of the eventual ending of the plot- the death of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. The romantic love of Romeo and Juliet has become very popular and is the ideal example of star-crossed lovers.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth Barrett Browning advocates that the strength of love can help overcome the obstacles. In contrast, F. Scott Fitzgerald sees the world dissolved in excessive corruption shown through The Great Gatsby as it exemplifies the failure of the American Dream as well as the broken world where love struggles to exist. Love through the two texts is shown to be powerful and necessary for fulfilment. The love presented through the Sonnets from the Portuguese suggests that her life was completely changed as a result of the dominance of love. Prior to this her life was shown as dark and deathly through the personification of the “mystic shape” that moves behind her.
They both explore the theme of love or rather painful love. the poet revels the link between the two poems’s through a verity of techniques which is done very effectively but also shows the difference between the obsessive love in “Havisham” and the possessive love of “Valentine”. The pain of love is evident from the beginning in both poems. “Carol Ann Duffy” uses the tone in the first couple of stanzas to show the unorthodox nature of the love. “Not a day since then I haven’t whished him dead”-Havisham This is very effective as the aggressive tone shows “Havisham” has been rejected and her love is causing her pain.
Larkin portrays this sense of objectification in his poem with regards to woman as he describes a woman as a ‘bosomy English rose’ and then follows on to call her ‘beautiful’ throughout the poem portraying the sexual lust involved with love. In Larkin’s poem the male would seem he is not bothered about the unfortunate break up between him and the girl he is dating as he avoids mentioning the facts of how their relationship ended and seemed pleased she returned what is believed to be an engagement ring. Abse on the other hand is describing the atmosphere of Valentines day where he does include a sense of sexual desire however he is still hoping to fall in love as he did once before. The position both characters are in are similar. In
“Reason versus passion” is one of the main pillars of the literary movement known as Neoclassicism and Racine’s Phaedra is one of the most famous and representative works that came out during this period (17th century and beginning of 18th) for it explains how love and passion can be dangerous for the life of human beings. The play shows evidence that Phaedra looses her reason when hit by Eros’ curse, and falls in love with Hippolytus, her stepson. When thinking ‘passionately’ she can’t see ‘the truth’, namely, that being in love with Theseus’ son is wrong. This unreciprocated love leads to Phaedra’s irrational behavior, such as to convince Oenone, her nurse, to accuse Hippolytus of abusing her, to prevent Theseus from finding out about her love for his son. This ultimately leads to Hippolytus’ death, because he doesn’t want to put shame on his father for having abused his wife.
Poe’s famous poem, “The Raven,” is about a man’s descent into madness. Whereas, Hawthorne had a family and seemed to enjoy his life, he believed that man had the ability to overcome the very worst of itself. Hawthorne’s, “The Scarlet Letter,” is about one woman over-coming and sticking it to the system. Edgar Allen Poe is seen more as an idealist due to his psychological issues relating to his writings. The realist of the two would be Nathaniel Hawthorne, his intentions for writing was to eliminate degradation and to retain morality.
The play is set in a violent, male dominated era where men were expected to be strong, brave and able to take control while women were kind, nurturing and feminine. However these roles are subverted in particular to Lady Macbeth, as she is manipulative, strong and persuasive while Macbeth is portrayed as weak and easily manipulated by his wife. Porphyria’s Lover and Laboratory are both poems, which deal with the crimes of passion. One of Browning’s earliest dramatic monologues in Porphyria’s Lover centers on the delusions of an obsessive and emotionally
Gatsby’s Fairy Dream In the early 19th century, at the end of the “Romantic Period”, an English poet named John Keats composed a poetic masterpiece called La Belle Dame sans Merci. The Romantic writers, along with Mr. Keats, created a political, social, and literary movement that explored how much love defined the human nature. La Belle Dame sans Merci, on the surface, may seem to be just another Romantic poem revolving around the tale of courtly love, but in truth, there is a deeper meaning and story associated to the love that the knight feels for his fair lady. The romantic encounter that the knight and the beautiful fairy have in the story abruptly ends in tragedy for the smitten, young man as he becomes so enraptured with the mythical,
The poem’s theme appears to be about unrequited love and a man wooing his “coy mistress” to sleep with him, but this poem does has a deeper meaning, which is really impressive and therefore is striking. The theme of mortality is highlighted in this poem through word choice and by using imagery which reinforces the idea of death. Words relating to death such as “ ashes” and “grave” are used to emphasise the lack of time that we have and the stark contrast between the slow, idyllic first stanza and the sped up, heavier second stanza shows the difference between the idealistic eternity and the reality that we are all mortal and have to die at some point. Another deeper theme introduced is the idea of “carpe diem” which is shown through the lustier language in the poem, word choice such as “time devour”, and also through the quickened pace of the second stanza. The speaker is not simply asking the “coy mistress” to sleep with him, what he is saying is if there was all the time in the world then life would be ideal but there is not so they have to live for the moment.
“Romeo and Juliet” is considered by many one of the greatest love stories to have ever been written. However, the tale is not one of love but a story of a young girl whose whims led her to be manipulated by a boy who was seeking out sex. The scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet demonstrates how fickle their infatuation is. The story begins with Romeo wailing over his lost love Rosaline, saying “And, in strong proof of chastity well-armed, from love’s weak childish bow, she lives uncharmed.” He continues his outburst by saying how useless Rosaline is if she is not willing to sleep with him. Benvoilo feels sympathy for the young brokenhearted man and encourages him to go to the Capulet’s party so he will forget the girl.