ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

Shakespeare on Love 17376 Views


Share It!


Description:

We may all be fools when it comes to love, but thankfully none of us will accidentally switch places with our twin brother and fall in love with our sister-in-law. Probably, anyway.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:01

We speak Student! shakespeare on love

00:06

Romeo oh Romeo, wherefor art thou uh Romeo

00:10

a Ia Shmoop. Ah! love everyone has a favorite love story

00:14

and some of the greatest love stories of all time were written by Shakespeare

00:18

there's Romeo and Juliet which was all about true love

00:21

and death there's a Othello

00:25

which was also about love and jealousy and death

00:28

lots of death mixed in with love here huh

00:32

so while Shakespeare did write a lot of love stories, his love stories were not simple

00:36

formulaic

00:37

rom coms, instead they were messy complicated

00:41

and the Grim Reaper sometimes made a guest appearance

00:45

Hey guys! How's it going?

00:48

One of shakespeare's favorite things to do in his love stories was to take

00:51

characters who absolutely loathe each other

00:53

at the beginning at the play and throw them together until hey they get hitched

00:57

For example in taming of the Shrew

01:01

Petruchio of screws with the mind of headstrong stubborn Katharina

01:07

until she turns into a loving and obedient bride

01:11

Wow shakespeare you're sick man. I'm not sick

01:14

It's just written that way. Another trick the playwright liked to employ was to have

01:18

someone fall in love with completely different person halfway through the

01:21

play

01:22

take Phebe the character in As You Like It

01:25

the poor girl is in love with Ganymede whose actually Rosalind in disguise

01:29

as a guy by the end of the play however Phoebe has forgotten all

01:33

about her crush on a cross-dressing Rosalind she marries the shepherd

01:37

Silvius

01:38

and they spend the rest of their lives happily herding sheep together

01:44

or take The Comedy of Errors in which a pair of twins both named Antipholus

01:48

accidentally end up switching places

01:50

without realizing it the Antipholus who everyone thinks is married to

01:53

Adriana

01:54

falls for and Adriana's sister Luciana who was seriously concerned that a man she

01:59

thinks is her brother-in-law

02:00

is attracted to her. Got all that? Yea, we thought so

02:03

So perhaps what Shakespeare was actually trying to do was tell us

02:07

something important about love in his plays

02:09

namely that people in love tend to act foolishly

02:12

I love you Shmoopy Whoopy Cakes I Wub you to my Sappy Wappy

02:16

We've all sent text messages to a love interest that we immediately regretted

02:21

mom it just goes to show that people in love today still

02:30

act very much like people who are in love during Shakespeare's time

02:35

people have been are and always will be

02:38

fools for love

02:45

Up Next

The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
123036 Views

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

Related Videos

The Giver Summary
105891 Views

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

Invisible Man (Ellison)
1818 Views

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1255 Views

Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...

Quotes: A fool's paradise
293 Views

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."