A Study Of The Four Types Of Love In Romeo And Juliet

Romeo and Juliet has been receiving much arguable attention since its first publishing in 1594.The play is based on an old folk story widely known in Arthur Brooke’s Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet(1526).Romeo and Juliet is usually regarded as a romantic love story between two young lovers.However,as one of the most complex and controversial concept in literature and history of human civilization,the love theme in Romeo and Juliet cannot be defined by one system of idea.The present thesis aims to argue that Romeo and Juliet reflects some of the qualities which were mentioned in Ovidian love,Lucretius love,Courtly love and Christian love and explore how Shakespeare values love by locating the ideas of love into the Renaissance historical context.This thesis consists of six parts: an introduction,four main chapters and a conclusion.The introduction briefly introduces Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet and reviews the related researches on this play at abroad and at home then puts forward the main argument,research methods and significance.Chapter one first introduces the main characters of Ovidian love which encourages people enjoy the passion of love,and explores how it is reflected in the play.Chapter two discusses the opposite side of Ovidian love-Lucretius love,which warns people to pay attention to the madness of love,and how this idea is contained in the play.Chapter three analyzes the love in Christian,which is a kind of divine virtue and has inseparable relationship with death and how Shakespeare describes this kind of love in the play.Chapter four explores the opposite side of Christian love-Courtly love which regards love as a religion itself and how this idea of love is reflected in the play.The conclusion reiterates that Romeo and Juliet is a presentation of the different types of love rather than a simple tragedy of romantic love.The various facets of love and different attitudes towards love shown in the play are still relevant today.