Shakespeare & Love

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One of Shakespeare's most prominent themes is that of love and relationships. Specifically, his plays quite often demonstrate this theme. Though Shakespeare may present situations that an audience may consider to be fairly realistic, the manner in which he has these situations unfold reveals his idealized perspective of love.

First, many of Shakespeare's characters are flat characters: characters who only possess one prominent character trait. As this is the case, these characters are already unrealistic. Thus, when they engage with other flat characters, their interactions and subsequent relationships are overly simplistic. For example, in "The Taming of the Shrew," Katherina is a flat character whose most prominent character trait is her headstrong shrewishness. When ...