Emotional position of Shakespeare on love

[Whenangels_fall]

Was Shakespeare a fool for believing so strongly in love? It's a simple question with a yes/no answer, but the complexity of this question is one that many people would debate on and disagree about.

So was Shakespeare a fool? He wrote many sonnets and stories pertaining to love, so it was frankly obvious that he had passion, but why? He lived a full rich life, essentially devoid of pain and emptiness, so does a man that lived like that have the wisdom to believe in something as fickle and complicated as love? Without experience, is he truly someone to believe in it?

I personally believe that he was a fool for believing in love. The love that most people "give" to others is faux and without just cause, and it has been like this throughout known history. Love is used as a cover for some to hide deep seated hatred, or to falsify someone into believing it just to seek revenge for a wrong done to them. Love is used by others as a means to lure people into a false sense of safety and compassion, just to rip it out from under them, leaving them falling into a void of no return.

Shakespeare spent his life writing about a feeling he had felt upon his marriage and the birth of his children, but without feeling other opposite and equally emotional feelings as love, he didn't know the true meaning of the word or the complexities behind it. This is just my opinion, but I've stated my reasons for them, now I would like feedback on this.

[purplepinkbliss]

hey i agree with u partially

[purplepinkbliss]

Was shakespeare a fool when it came to love? I guess he was in love with love. All those sonnets were addressed to probably not just one person..... it sould have been a nobleman,a fellow actor, royalty or even a barmaid. His poems are shimmered with intense passion. He was a expert when it came to social and personal human behavior. He was an intense lover though a promiscuous one. I guess he was in love with love.

[amanda_isabel]

purplepinkbliss may have a point. shakespeare might have been in love with love. it's such a powerful force i wouldn't be surprised if shakespeare being in love with love was what fueled him. or maybe it was his imagination that wrote. maybe he had some faint idea of love and then built on that... there are many theories regearding shakespeare, even when it comes to his life. there's not too much known about it. which bags the question, who was shakespeare? is 'william shakespeare' merely a pen name? and if it is... then who was the genius behind the plays and sonnets we know today? there are many questions on shakespeare. a lot of the attempted explanations may seem pretty unbelievable, but with a genius like shakespeare, nothing is impossible.

[mono]

So was Shakespeare a fool? He wrote many sonnets and stories pertaining to love, so it was frankly obvious that he had passion, but why? He lived a full rich life, essentially devoid of pain and emptiness, so does a man that lived like that have the wisdom to believe in something as fickle and complicated as love? Without experience, is he truly someone to believe in it?
I have some difficulty agreeing with you here. He did not entirely live a life 'devoid of pain and emptiness,' but in fact lived a life of hard work, diligence, and nearly forced writing (whenever royalty requested a new play written). Nearly a decade passed before anyone recognized his writing and he gained some fame, and, even then, other writers insulted him; when he did gain recognition, he even went so far as to depart from his wife and children in Stratford - that definitely seems a life of much success attained by sacrifice and pain.
To answer your initial question, I will have to agree with purplepinkbliss and amanda that Shakespeare may have felt in love with love. Having written so much, additionally, I think such raw emotions of love, sadness, and anger in his poetry and plays seem very prominent in his work. Not finding Shakespeare's work at all unintelligent, I find his expression of emotion very relevant; when one reads literature, listens to music lyrics, etc. such untainted emotions seem most often expressed, I think, because they seem the easiest to express. One does not find poetry or music happy and joyful as often as depressing, angry, or of love primarily because few people meditate on the subject of joy and happiness, but rather the transcendent feeling of love, or the painful inflicted wounds of depression and anger.
Does this make Shakespeare ridiculous or 'faux?' It depends on one's opinion, but I only find him genius, a deep thinker, full of expression, and worthy of praise.

[Martha_L]

I find it rather amusing that you commented on how shakespeare knew of love as he was married and had children, and yet you then went on to say that he did not know of love.
I do not mean to offend but you seem rather cynical in your portrayal of love, and you could be wrong assuming that if shakespeare knew of the good side he never knew the other.
I don't particularly feel that shakespeare didn't know of true love, did you ever consider that part of being in love may be to portray it in a more bautiful light, to see all of the good in the other person. Did you not consider that it may actually have been love itself which caused shakespeare to write in the way he did? Often enough he puts love in a glorious light but i think that Shakespeare was well aware of the other side of love, of the possessiveness, jelousy and pain involved in loving someone.
Maybe to you it was not stated obviously enough but if you take 'the rape of lucrece' shakespeare explores both the obsessive and lusty form of love through Tarquinius and the possesive and glorifying love through Collatinus.
I believe that Shakespeare was a very observant man and i think that to say he had no idea of true love is rather an unobservant comment. Had shakespeare not been aware of love, had he not experienced it himself in some way, he could not have written plays which have stood up to such close inspection and criticism for hundreds of years.
If Shakespeares plays were so highly flawed, as you seem to think, i am sure they would have crumbled long ago. It is their strength, their truth and their integrity which makes them so famous.

[mono]

I find it rather amusing that you commented on how shakespeare knew of love as he was married and had children, and yet you then went on to say that he did not know of love.
I do not mean to offend but you seem rather cynical in your portrayal of love, and you could be wrong assuming that if shakespeare knew of the good side he never knew the other.
I don't particularly feel that shakespeare didn't know of true love, did you ever consider that part of being in love may be to portray it in a more bautiful light, to see all of the good in the other person. Did you not consider that it may actually have been love itself which caused shakespeare to write in the way he did? Often enough he puts love in a glorious light but i think that Shakespeare was well aware of the other side of love, of the possessiveness, jelousy and pain involved in loving someone.
Maybe to you it was not stated obviously enough but if you take 'the rape of lucrece' shakespeare explores both the obsessive and lusty form of love through Tarquinius and the possesive and glorifying love through Collatinus.
I believe that Shakespeare was a very observant man and i think that to say he had no idea of true love is rather an unobservant comment. Had shakespeare not been aware of love, had he not experienced it himself in some way, he could not have written plays which have stood up to such close inspection and criticism for hundreds of years.
I could not have said it better myself, Martha_L. Anyone who wrote that much in such little time, no doubt, must have derived much of his literature from some source of inspiration - not only in love, but also in other extreme emotions, such as sadness and anger.

If Shakespeares plays were so highly flawed, as you seem to think, i am sure they would have crumbled long ago. It is their strength, their truth and their integrity which makes them so famous.
Though I cannot claim Shakespeare's plays or poetry as necessarily 'flawed,' I must emphasize some literature in existence that many people consider 'junky,' but still persist as best-sellers. Different tastes for different people, of course, but I cannot but find cynical humor in many of those contemporary, practically-pornographic paperbacks that seem to appear every month. :lol:

[Janine]

I also agree wholeheartedly with Marth L. Will Shakespeare would have had to have known the depth of true love to know the heartache of losing it. In Hamlet he certainly knew this and you can site many instances where he felt deeply, not shallowly, as would be the other case of being strickly in love with love. Shakespeare's work is far from shallow! It contains much turmoil, love, pain, misunderstanding, and other deep emotions that sit below the surface. Thus it proved timeless and to this day strikes a deep emotional cord within us all. Is not true love universal? He definitely believed in true love; as to whether he did atain it himself, the fact remains (at least in my mind) that he did hope or believe in true love and it's power.

[andrew23]

To the OP. No one lives devoid of pain. And in fact, I believe good Will does know what love and its consequence is.

In his Romeo and Juliet. At a point, Romeo said..

With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

good Will does really know what love is, and the stages of love and its feelings. And plus, you don't really need to be sure what "love" is. One simply must be honest, for the truth and beauty to come out.

[Faith Anderson]

Ahh. I am actually writing a paper about Shakespeare and his opinion on love. I personally am not sure what to think. Was he a man obsessed with the idea of actually falling in love. Or was he a fool? I kind of have started to think that he might actually not like love very much. He never wrote a story where they had time to develop love. It was always rather irrational or at first sight. For instance in Midsummer Nights Dream, it seemed he had a foolish whimsical idea on love. Does Shakespeare really have a positive opinion on love? Or does he think it foolish and irrational?

[DanielBenoit]

Was Shakespeare a fool for believing so strongly in love? It's a simple question with a yes/no answer, but the complexity of this question is one that many people would debate on and disagree about.

So was Shakespeare a fool? He wrote many sonnets and stories pertaining to love, so it was frankly obvious that he had passion, but why? He lived a full rich life, essentially devoid of pain and emptiness, so does a man that lived like that have the wisdom to believe in something as fickle and complicated as love? Without experience, is he truly someone to believe in it?

I personally believe that he was a fool for believing in love. The love that most people "give" to others is faux and without just cause, and it has been like this throughout known history. Love is used as a cover for some to hide deep seated hatred, or to falsify someone into believing it just to seek revenge for a wrong done to them. Love is used by others as a means to lure people into a false sense of safety and compassion, just to rip it out from under them, leaving them falling into a void of no return.

Shakespeare spent his life writing about a feeling he had felt upon his marriage and the birth of his children, but without feeling other opposite and equally emotional feelings as love, he didn't know the true meaning of the word or the complexities behind it. This is just my opinion, but I've stated my reasons for them, now I would like feedback on this.


I don't mean to be rude or pretensious but, I strongly disagree on you here and from this I can derive the assumption that you haven't read much of Shakespeare, or at least haven't understood it. Shakespeare's sonnets are full of despair and darkness all derived from his feeling of love. To simply see how cynical Shakespeare was towards love and human relationships, one only has to go to Hamlet and Ophelia, or Romeo and Juliet, or Falstaff and Hal.

Shakespeare is virtually known for the darkness of his tragedys, so I don't know where you're getting this idea that Shakespeare knew nothing of the dark side of life.

[xman]

... He did not entirely live a life 'devoid of pain and emptiness,' but in fact lived a life of hard work, diligence, and nearly forced writing (whenever royalty requested a new play written). Nearly a decade passed before anyone recognized his writing and he gained some fame, and, even then, other writers insulted him; when he did gain recognition, he even went so far as to depart from his wife and children in Stratford - that definitely seems a life of much success attained by sacrifice and pain....
And you didn't even mention losing his only son at a young age most likely to plague.

Oh he knew love alright in all its majesty and travesty. Shakespeare's lovers are some of the most foolish characters in his works and among them they experience nearly all the joy, sorrow, brilliance and folly that the human heart can hold.

[Janine]

I don't mean to be rude or pretensious but, I strongly disagree on you here and from this I can derive the assumption that you haven't read much of Shakespeare, or at least haven't understood it. Shakespeare's sonnets are full of despair and darkness all derived from his feeling of love. To simply see how cynical Shakespeare was towards love and human relationships, one only has to go to Hamlet and Ophelia, or Romeo and Juliet, or Falstaff and Hal.

Shakespeare is virtually known for the darkness of his tragedys, so I don't know where you're getting this idea that Shakespeare knew nothing of the dark side of life.

I totally agree with you, DanielBenoit. Obviously, one needs to really read and absorb the plays to know that Shakespeare knew the entire scope of love.


And you didn't even mention losing his only son at a young age most likely to plague.

Oh he knew love alright in all its majesty and travesty. Shakespeare's lovers are some of the most foolish characters in his works and among them they experience nearly all the joy, sorrow, brilliance and folly that the human heart can hold.

xman, you have expressed this very well. Shakespeare expressed all of those emotions and with full depth. Also, good point about the lose of his own son, Hamnet. His name most likely inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet.

[xman]

... Also, good point about the lose of his own son, Hamnet. His name most likely inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The names Hamlet and Hamnet were used interchangeably. Whereas Will's son's name was only ever recorded twice by the same individual (a clerk), Shakespeare wrote it hundreds of times as 'Hamlet' in his play about the legendary Danish Prince Amleth, leading us to conclude that Shakespeare may have preferred 'Hamlet' as a pronunciation. Tradition compels us to refer to Will's son as Hamnet at least in order to differentiate the man's son from his play.