Love and death in Shakespeare

Abstract

This work is focused on the importance of introducing the concepts of love and death in William Shakespeare’s literature. William Shakespeare was, and is still, one of the most influential and well – known writers in the world. As a result, in this paper I will analyse two plays by Shakespeare focusing on the relations of love and death, taking into consideration what he considered essential in order to understand both concepts. Therefore, one of the motivations to analyse Romeo and Juliet and Othello is that both plays must have some meaning or message behind all their romances and deaths. Besides, both plays are very similar in the obstacles they had to face and how did they face them. We will analyse the concept of the tragic hero because it has an essential role in both stories, where both couples will fall from happiness to utter despair. Both couples will attempt to stay together no matter what, but the society will cruelly separate them. Society’s fixation on honour, disgrace and austere social roles have crucial functions in both plays. This is due to the fact that society plants toxic doctrines into the minds of the characters, creating a vicious cycle of unnecessary sorrow. Furthermore, I will discuss whether these two plays must be considered as romantic plays or not.