The theme of love in William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”

Introduction. In the work of the great playwright, several periods are traditionally distinguished: early tragedies, in which faith in justice and hope for happiness are still heard, the transition period and the dark period of later tragedies.

Shakespeare's tragic worldview was formed gradually. The turning point in his mindset, which was clearly marked in “Julius Caesar” and “Hamlet”, was brewing in the 90s. The tragic motives that sometimes sound in funny comedies convince us. The new moods were even more expressed in “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Merchant of Venice”. Life is in full swing, good people defeat the forces of evil, but in both plays, inhumanity is not at all as unarmed as in the comedies “Much Ado about Nothing” and “Twelfth Night, or What You Will”.

Main body. “Romeo and Juliet” marks the beginning of a new, Shakespearean stage in the development of English and world literature. The historical significance of the play about Romeo and Juliet lies primarily in the fact that social problems have now become the basis of tragedy. Elements of the social characterization of characters before Shakespeare were characteristic of the best works of English drama; one cannot but agree, for example, with A. Parfenov, who states that only in “|Romeo and Juliet” did social issues become a factor determining the pathos of the tragedy.

Having made a man the hero of a tragedy, Shakespeare first turned to the depiction of the greatest human feeling. If in “Titus Andronicus” the voice of love attraction, barely audible at the beginning of the play, was drowned out by screams of inhuman hatred, then in “Romeo and Juliet” the poetry of love, which permeates the entire work, becomes more and more powerful as the final tragedy approaches. “The pathos of Shakespeare's drama “Romeo and Juliet”, – wrote in 1844 V.G. Belinsky, – is the idea of love, – and therefore, in fiery waves, sparkling with the bright light of the stars, enthusiastic pathetic speeches pour from the lips of lovers… 

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