The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0334 Monday 1 March 1999.
From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 26 Feb 1999 20:41:36 -0000
Subject: 10.0324 Re: R&J in Lust?
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0324 Re: R&J in Lust?
>>Love
>>in opposition to lust is a recurrent obsession of the tragedies, except
>>in some ways, Romeo and Juliet, though one could argue that their whole
>>death-marked love is corrupt.
>
>I write:
>
>How could one argue this?
>
>Paul S. Rhodes
While the love/lust opposition just +might+ apply to the earlier plays
(though I doubt this -- it's never as clear as the opposition between
the Dark Lady and the Young Man in the _Sonnets_, and even there it's
not as simple as a simple opposition), it collapses completely when we
come to _Antony and Cleopatra_, where we have the reductive Romans
ratting on about Antony's 'lust', while what we as audience see is much
more complex.
Robin Hamilton