How are love and/or hate presented in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and a range of poetry you have studied?

Robert Browning and Shakespeare show love and hate as two similar emotions but very contrasting. Love and hate are both similar as they both are felt with strong emotion. Love and Hate are alike but are portrayed as two completely different feelings. Love is shown with positivity and hate is shown with negativity. This is presented in Julius Caesar and many of Robert Browning’s poems. In this essay I will be comparing Julius Caesar (written by William Shakespeare) and many poems written by Robert Browning to show how love and hate are portrayed. I will be using Porphyria’s Lover, The Laboratory-Ancien Regime and Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister and I will compare them with Julius Caesar to show how love and hate is presented by Robert Browning and William Shakespeare.

In The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, Robert Branning presents us with a speaker who is filled with hate. Our speaker, a monk, has such hatred for Brother Lawrence, his colleague, that he declares ‘if hate killed men brother Lawrence… would not mine kill you!’ With this line, Browning has personified the speakers hate.

Calpurnia could also be seen as someone who shows love in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare compares love with death. This could also be connoted as love being compared with hate as death is seen as something negative. In Act 2, Scene 2 she tells Caesar not to go out as she witnessed him dying in her dreams. ‘Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, yet now they fright me’. In this quote, Calpurnia talks about how she never believes what she see in her dreams, but she believes this dream. In her sleep, she saw Julius Caesar dying. She warned him and told him not to go to the Capitol. ‘Your wisdom is consumed in confidence. Do not go forth today’. In this quote Calpurnia warns Julius Caesar again not to go to the Capitol again. Shakespeare uses comparison to show love in this scene. Shakespeare uses Calpurnia to talk about how she never believed in dreams, but she believed in this dream. This could also be seen as symbolism. In the second quote Shakespeare also uses figurative language to show love in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare uses a metaphor. ‘Your wisdom is consumed in confidence’. This is a metaphor as ‘wisdom’ cannot be ‘consumed’. Shakespeare uses a lot of language techniques to show how love and hate is shown in Julius Caesar.

Love and hate are also shown as very similar emotions in the poem ‘The Laboratory-Ancien Regime’ written by poet Robert Browning. Browning also uses love to compare it with death. In this poem the speaker Pauline finds out that her lover is being unfaithful by cheating on her with another women called ‘Elise’. Her lover is also not just being unfaithful to her but is also fully aware that Pauline knows of it. Pauline decides to make a poison that will kill not just her lover, but will also kill Elise to ensure both are dead.  ‘He is sure to remember her dying face’ Robert Browning uses figurative language in this quote as once someone dies they no longer have the ability to remember recent events. This is a metaphor as the phrase ‘…remember her dying face’ shows that Pauline’s lover will remember Elise’s face. However, he will not be able to recall her looks as when someone dies they cannot do things they could do when they were alive such as recalling someone else’s looks. Robert Browning shows hate as a very powerful emotion. This is because he uses death to show how much Pauline hates her lover.

Robert Browning also shows hate as a very strong emotion in another one of his poems (Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister). In Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister the main character is a monk. The monk talks about his hate to Brother Lawrence. “If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!” Robert Browning uses figurative language to show how deep the monk’s hate is towards Brother Lawrence. Robert Browning uses personification to show this. This is because hate is given life. ‘If hate killed men…’. Hate is an emotion and cannot kill as it doesn’t have any life. This shows the reader how deep the hate is for Brother Lawrence from the monk. In the last stanza, the monk considers selling his soul to Satan to ensure Brother Lawrence encounter death. ‘Or, there’s Satan!–one might venture Pledge one’s soul to him,’. The monk shows his deep hate for Brother Lawrence by saying that he will even sell is soul, to make sure Brother Lawrence is dead.

To conclude, I believe William Shakespeare and Robert Browning use many language techniques to show what they both think of love and hate. Shakespeare shows love and hate as very confusing emotions as love can be seen as hate or vice versa. This can be seen in Act 3, Scene 2 where Brutus kills Julius Caesar as he loves Rome more than Julius Caesar. Robert Browning shows love and hate as very deep emotions. Browning shows hate as a very deep emotion as he uses death to link in with hate. In Pophyria’s lover, he links hate with death as Pophyria’s lover wants to kill Pophyria because he believes she is too beautiful for him. In ‘The Laboratory-Anciene Regime’ Pauline wants kill Elise and her lover because her lover was cheating on her with Elise, this shows the reader how deep Pauline’s hate is for Elise and her lover. In Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister, the Spanish monk is willing to sell his soul to Satan to ensure Brother Lawrence dies, this shows the reader how deep his hate is for Brother Lawrence. I also believe Shakespeare and Browning use language techniques such as figurative language to show that love and hate are both very similar emotions. This is because they are both felt with very strong emotions, however they are both very contrasting. Love is shown with positivity and hate is shown with negativity. This is why I believe love and hate can be seen as similar emotions but very contrasting emotions.