William Shakespeare e … Celine Dion

L’amore nella letteratura inglese

di Nicola Diomaiuto

Important and famous authors of English literature wrote about love.

Love is a recurrent theme in literature for two main reasons:

• it is usually an important ingredient” of a writers literary production because it is a source of inspiration, an element that can influence his character s experience, or the plot of a literary work;

• Moreover love, like death, is considered eternal and readers like it because strong emotions make them dream.

We may consider this feeling from different points of view. In the Meddle Age love for God deeply influenced mans life and behaviour. Woman was appreciated for her spiritual virtue and values rather than for her sensuality . In many poems of the time she was described as an angel who could lead man to God since eternal salvation was mans final aim. Dante and Petrarch became the models for all European Renaissance poets. William Shakespeare broke the Petrarchan courtly tradition, He described love as an eternal bond between a man and a woman; it may cause a great deal of suffering and sometimes it may lead to death since it is better to die like Romeo and Juliet rather than living without true love. The courtly convention is evident in Romeo and Juliet”, even though the character of Juliet shows clear tendency to realism and unconventionality.Shakespeare wrote many sonnets (from CXXVII to the end) addressed to a dark lady” or black woman” who, in spite of her physical aspect, is extremely desirable. This is a novelty ,since the woman is not loved and desired for her beauty, but for what she really is. In this way Shakespeare breaks with the Petrarchan courtly tradition. The woman described in these sonnets is a concrete and real woman who has got also defects, which make her different from the angelic woman of the Petrarchan poetry, but she appears alive. In the sonnet My mistress eyes”, Shakespeare describes his womans physical apperance (lips, breasts, hair, cheeks) her sounds and actions (breath, words, gait) that make her special although shes not beautiful and her voice is not music. In conclusion ,Shakespeare is aware of the complexity of the feeling of love, which is something more important than beauty. Love can survive through the time and be immortal, while beauty is bound to die. I think that Shakespeare ‘s idea of love is universal because according to him love follows no rules but simply what heart suggests. We all should obey our heart rather than our mind when we are in love, since our heart sometimes feels what our mind cant see. Love gives as emotions and as we read in the famous song by Celine Dion My heart will go on”: Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime, and never let go till were gone”. I agree with this statement: true love is so precious and rare that it can touch us just once in our lifetime. The problem is that sometimes we dont recognize true love and after losing it we will go on thinking that person and this makes us suffer because we are aware that we have lost true love forever.

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