Shakespeare’s Contrasting Treatment of Love

Shakespeare’s Contrasting Treatment of Love
William Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew and The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet chooses to write about love from significantly different viewpoints. A few of the literary aspects of his writing that can be compared and contrasted are plot, characters, and themes. Throughout The Shrew, love is treated comically, thereby provoking laughter. In The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, such aspects are taken more seriously, and love is treated with more respect. Weddings in The Shrew are based more often than not by how large the dowry is, rather than true love, as seen in Romeo and Juliet. The Shrew also reveals a male dominated relationship that in Romeo and Juliet is anything but the case. Shakespeare treats the concept of love in two dramatically different ways between these two plays.
Shakespeare’s treatment of love throughout each of the two plays is clearly illustrated. In the period during which The Shrew was written—the late 16th or early 17th century—it was common for many marriages not to be based solely on love, but rather the amount of money that was to be made from such a union. The Shrew illustrates how money easily became of great concern to the upper class families of Shakespeare’s time. Fathers has a social duty to marry off their daughters to wealthy gentlemen, thereby assuring their daughters an affluent and comfortable lifestyle. The father usually negotiates the terms of a potential marriage without the daughter present. This is seen in both of the plays at hand; Juliet’s father negotiates with Paris, Kate’s father with Petruchio, and Bianca’s father with Lucentio and Gremio. “Content you, gentlemen. I will compound this strife/ ‘Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both/ That can assure my daughter greatest dower/ Shall have my Bianca’s love,” proclaims Baptista, speaking to Gremio and Tranio (The Taming of the Shrew, II, i, 361-365). He says that whoever can produce the greatest dowry for his daughter Bianca, shall have her hand in marriage. This illustrates the characters’ shallowness and the fact that marriages are often based somewhat, if not wholly, on monetary conditions. Although Juliet’s father arranges for his daughter’s marriage to Paris, a rich citizen of the town, Juliet refuses to cooperate with this tradition of marriage under false pretenses. Juliet falls in love with Romeo, not Paris, despite the fact that Romeo was poor, and had no way of guaranteeing a secure financial future. Although socially deviant from the norms of the time, Juliet refused to marry anyone for their money. This contrasts with Petruchio’s views on marriage, as seen in The Shrew. “I come to wive it wealthily in Padua/ If wealthily, then happily in Padua…” (TTotS, I, ii, 76-77). Petruchio expresses his motives for coming to Padua in the first place- to marry a rich woman for her money. The theme of marrying for money is best exemplified by Petruchio, and the theme of marrying as a result of true love is demonstrated by the marriage between Romeo and Juliet. Without regard to financial standing, Romeo and Juliet experience love at first sight, and they marry out of their mutual feelings for each another.
Shakespeare first construes love as a confusing expression, later transforming it into comic relief. After conferring with Baptista about the amount of money his daughter’s dowry was to be, Petruchio informs Kate of the marriage plans, and less than a week later the two are wed. After marrying Kate, Petruchio proceeds to implement his ‘Taming’ plan. Through his various games and games, Petruchio provides excellent comic relief for the audience. His determination to subdue the ill-tempered Kate and make her love him are what make this Shakespearean work a comedy. Kate grows to love Petruchio as time goes on though, contrary to Romeo and Juliet in which the two lovers fall passionately in love at first sight. Romeo proclaims: “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!/ For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night” (The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, I, v, 53-54). What Romeo and Juliet feel for each other is true love from the very beginning, not the gradual attraction that Kate and Petruchio experience. It is clear that love is treated differently through the characters, as love is treated as comic relief in The Shrew and as true love, the complete devotion of both partners, in Romeo and Juliet.
The treatment of love in the plot of each of these plays also varies substantially. With love ultimately portrayed from a comical standpoint in The Shrew, Petruchio quite literally “tames” Kate and establishes his dominance in the relationship. As Kate says “Forward, I pray, since we have come so far/ And be it moon, or sun, or what you please/ And if you please to call it a rush candle/ Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me,” she reaffirms her willingness to agree to do anything Petruchio says (TTotS, IV, v, 14-17). In Romeo and Juliet however, both Romeo and Juliet love each other to the greatest extent possible. Neither spouse holds superiority over the other, and both end up committing suicide because they believe the other is dead. Love, therefore, takes control of its victims in this plot. “And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before” (R+J, V, iii, 196). These two dying for each other essentially depicts the foundation of true love. While the love between Romeo and Juliet is felt instantly by both characters, the same does not hold true for Kate and Petruchio, whose relationship develops into a patriarchal entity.
Throughout Romeo and Juliet and The Shrew, Shakespeare treats the notion of love in two increasingly dissimilar ways. The concept of love in relation to the themes of the two plays in question yields several differences between how certain characters fell in love. In Romeo and Juliet, it was love at first sight; in The Shrew, it was marry for the money first, love later. Through the characters of both plays, Shakespeare illustrates love as an increasingly whimsical and sundry phenomenon. In The Shrew, love provides comic relief, as seen in Petruchio’s taming of Kate. As for Romeo and Juliet, love is expressed as the deep, heartfelt emotion it is truly meant to be. Finally, the plots are composed differently as well, for the outcomes of each play are considerably disparate. True love in Romeo and Juliet leads the two to commit suicide for each other, while the comical love Petruchio presents causes Kate to become the “best Elizabethan wife”. Although the foundation behind the emotion of love is ubiquitous, Shakespeare utilizes myriad methods by which to analyze such an emotion.