English Literature KS3 / GCSE: Love in Shakespeare

Narrator:
Love is universal, powerful and packed with emotion. It can go from good to bad in the wink of an eye, comes in many forms and drives people to do dramatic, often foolish, things.

It’s a complex, gift of a theme for a writer and Shakespeare’s plays are loaded with it!

In Romeo and Juliet, it’s forbidden love that rules the day. The Montague and Capulet families hate each other, so when Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love, they’ve a great mountain of secrecy, desperation and defiance to climb. It’s a relationship with tragedy written all over it.

Prologue:
‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
a pair of star crossed lovers take their life;
whose misadventured piteous overthrows
doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

Narrator:
The audience can see the couple will never make it, which adds to the drama, but the lovers are naively determined and full of hope, despite the awful premonitions they spot.

Juliet:
‘O God, I have an ill divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
as one dead at the bottom of a tomb:
either my eyesight fails or thou look’st pale.’

Narrator:
They would rather die than be parted and as their parents can’t solve the warring family situation – that’s exactly what happens. Forbidden love leads to death and tragedy all round.

For Lord and Lady Macbeth it’s ambitious love, together with a large dose of greed, that’s their downfall.

They start off with a strong, loving marriage but then glimpse the chance to become king and queen – with all the glamour and privilege that goes with it. Together, their joint ambition pushes them on to kill the current king.

Lady Macbeth:
‘He that’s coming
must be provided for: and you shall put
this night’s great business into my dispatch;
which shall to all our nights and days to come
give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.’

Narrator: Having killed the king, keeping the throne gets messier still as the pair take it in turns being strong and determined while the other loses their nerve.

But as the slaughter starts sending Macbeth mad, his wife begins to back off, with her love wavering, while Macbeth keeps on a terrible path of plotting and death.

Macbeth:
‘Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,til thou applaud the deed.’

Narrator:
For these two it was their love which made them strong - and their ambitious love that broke them up,

The strong, trusting relationship enabled them to work as a team, but they pursued such self-serving ambition they killed others, their marriage and themselves in the end.

Narrator:
In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare uses two very different couples to look at what happens as we start ‘courting’ and fall in love, while poking fun at stodgy, old fashioned ways.

Claudio and Hero are a conventional, innocent and polite courting couple. Benedick and Beatrice banter with each other constantly and take the mick out of Claudio’s cheesy one-liners

Claudio:
‘Can the world buy such a jewel?’

Benedick:
‘Yea, and a case to put it into.’

Narrator:
Benedick and Beatrice, have a love/ hate relationship, denying there’s any attraction at all for ages and swapping lightning fast, funny insults and gibes.

Beatrice:
‘I wonder that you will still be talking, SigniorBenedick: nobody marks you.

Benedick:
‘My dear Lady disdain!Are you yet living?’

Narrator:
But Shakespeare’s couples are much stronger and sassier before they fall in love. Once Bendick and Beatrice admit there is something going on, they become ridiculous and Shakespeare seems to be commenting on what love does to us all - turning us into fools!

For those willing to pay the price, true love can bring long lasting happiness, like Benedick and Beatrice, but the path is rarely smooth. The forbidden love of Romeo and Juliet was doomed from the start and the Macbeths’ ambitious love was their downfall. Love runs so deep and so powerfully, it can lead to ultimate death and destruction.