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Courtly Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Essay

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Courtly Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

In the Elizabethan era men would go to all extremes to show women how much they loved them. This was called Courtly love. Around this time, men were expected to declare their love for a woman like this, and the women enjoyed the men telling them how beautiful they were. Men who wished for a woman to love them back would carry on wooing their mistresses until necessary or until their mistress's fell in love with them. Although the thought of this sounds like a good idea for a women, because receiving attention is a nice thing, but there were rules and consequences. The men had to look for a lady of an unattainable status, for example women who …show more content…

He puts his faith in god to make her like him more. The consequences were not being able to sleep as if it were some sort of virus. This is shortly followed by a burst of jealousy.

In the play "Romeo and Juliet" there are numerous examples of courtly love. It is first shown in Act One Scene One where Romeo is explaining how much he loves Rosaline to his friend Benvolio:

"Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,

Should without eyes pathways to his will."

Here Romeo is cursing cupid for making him fall in love with Rosaline. He later goes on to tell Benvolio that he thinks she is the most beautiful creature alive and that he hasn't slept in days or eaten because he is miserable without her and he sees no point in living, if it's not with her. Here he is showing all the signs of courtly love because he is suffering dearly, yet they are clearly not together. I do not think this is genuine love to me as he later falls in love with someone else.

The reader is led to believe this because when he attends the Capulet's party, he sees Juliet and we never hear the name Rosaline mentioned again in the book. When Romeo first sees Juliet he says; "My lips two blushing pilgrims ready stand/ To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." However this also suggests that he wants to kiss Juliet and forget all of the rules of

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