RQ: How has the portrayal of love in literary works changed over time? Nicholas Sparks’s “The Notebook” vs. William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
Introduction:
For a long time, “The Song of Songs” (The Song of Salomon) from the Bible was considered the oldest poem ever written. However, a relatively recent excavation of Nineveh, an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, or modern-day Mosul in Iraq in 1846 AD uncovered a truly astonishing piece of literary work. “The Love Song for Shu-Sin”, supposedly written around 2000BC, which has taken the crown for the oldest love poem ever written.
Humans have always found love an interesting, uncontrollable phenomenon. We have always written about love in literature. Love is a powerful emotion
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Firstly, even though the play requires a high standard of education to fully appreciate it, the demographic of the people in the theater was very general. People from all social and educational classes attended the play, so we can say his target audience was the general Elizabethan population.
On the other hand, Romeo and Juliet revolves around young love and parental intrusion. Important aspects of young adults’ lives. So, we can say young adults are a second target audience for Shakespeare. o Purpose:
Romance novels with perfect loving couples have a clear purpose; entertainment. However, why would Shakespeare write such a tragic end to Romeo and Juliet? In addition to entertaining the masses of Elizabethan citizens who came to his plays, Shakespeare wanted to send a message to young lovers. Shakespeare wanted to show young lovers the worst possible situation you can get in, so you appreciate the love you are in now. What could possibly be worse than a situation like this, families of Romeo and Juliet hate each other, but the star struck lovers ignore all that to have each other. Makes you appreciate your own