julius caesar ignatius critical editions william shakespeare

The two lovers deny the love of God in their deification of each other, with disastrous consequences, and their respective families deny the love of neighbor in their vengeful feuding. In some ways, Romeo and Juliet can be seen as a cautionary commentary on the two great commandments of Christ that we love the Lord our God and that we love our neighbor. Love, like faith, must be subject to reason a love that denies or defies reason is illicit and is not really love at all. Shakespeare and Dante are well aware of the danger of separating love from reason. Their love is headless and therefore heedless of the bad consequences of the bad choices being made. Embracing their madness and blindness, their “love” has surrendered to the force of feeling. Like Paolo and Francesca in the Inferno, Shakespeare’s lovers have overthrown reason in pursuit of passion. In Dante’s Inferno the lustful are described as “those who make reason slave to appetite” or as those who let their erotic passions “master reason and good sense”. It is for this reason that he chooses this “heaven” even when it becomes his hell.

She is the goddess to which he owes the sum of all his worship.

Juliet is Romeo’s alpha and omega, his beginning and his end. This is evident in Romeo’s blasphemous exclamation that “heaven is here / Where Juliet lives”. rational and irrational love, is highlighted. In Romeo and Juliet the difference between true and false love, i.e. Here are a few of the timeless truths in Shakespeare that are also and always timely. Last week, to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, I focused on the “eternal Shakespeare,” arguing that Shakespeare is timeless and therefore, and paradoxically, that he is also timely.

Julius caesar ignatius critical editions william shakespeare