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

Robert Browning shows us there is a thin line between love and hate in the ‘Laboratory-Ancien Regime’. I will be exploring this theme and the relationship between three people, two women and one man, who are in love with each other. The poem is told to us through the voice of a woman, who is now jealous and obsessed with her ex-lover. In the poem we discover why she now has very strong feelings of jealousy and hatred for the man she once loved so much. These feelings have been caused by her ex-lover cheating on her with another woman while they were in a relationship.’while they laugh, at me,at me fled to dear empty church , to pray god in for them i am here. This qoute indicates to me that she is overthinking about killing her ex’s lovers lover, as she is saying this she is repeating herself using words that start with the same letter and ryhme with the previous word. She comes across as a calculated killer who is a mischievous women.

Whilst we are reading the poem we realize she is in A Lab making a poison and chanting a spell while she prepares the ‘potion’ which she hopes will kill her rival that took her ex-lover away from her. Her love has turned into a revengeful and bitter hatred for her ex-lover. In stanza two the bitter women tells us that she believes the couple think she is crying ‘they believe my tears flow while they laugh, laugh at me’ and is praying for them but  she is not. She is having revengeful and hateful thoughts towards the couple and planning to poison the woman who in her eyes stole her ex-lover ‘I am not in haste…I am here…to carry pure death’.  She is not in a hurry to kill her ex-lovers lover she is taking her time to make this poison because she knows she is going to kill her regardless.

In Porphyria’s Lover the man is obsessed with the woman. When she walks into the room the atmosphere changes, ‘she shut the cold out and the storm’. This shows that she changed the mood and the feeling and mood in the room for him implying that she lit up the room with her beauty, ‘the cheerless grate Blaze up’ this quaotation shows how passionately in love he was with his lover sating that she even when she wallked in she made the fire blaze up which shows his deep intreest to her by using a metaphorical language to describe the way she changed the atmosphere of the room.

She tells him she loves him, ‘she too weak for all her heart’s endeavor’, which leaves her no strength to resist her feeling towards him. The man then realizes she is deeply in love with him ‘at last I knew Porphyria worshiped me’ and that she is dependent on him and gives her life to him ‘that moment she was mine, mine’. He doesn’t want her to experience this deep love about anybody else and be obsessed with another man. So the man decides to kill her ‘I found a thing to do’ he says and strangles her with her ‘long yellow string’. ‘i wound three times her little throat around’ which means he wrapped her hair around her neck three times before he strangled her just to make sure he was going to kill her.  ‘. He feels like he has given her a wish to be with him forever ‘and thus we sit here together’ because of her passion he had to kill her so they can be together forever and forever she will belong to him only, because she is dead she cannot love anyone else making the man her last lover.

Robert browning presents that love can make you commit violent acts in this poem The story is about two lovers who are deeply in love and obsessed with each other . The man is mentally ill and is so obsessed with his lover that he kills his lover by strangling her with her own hair. In both browning’s poems we see similarities of how strong feelings of love make you commit hateful and violent acts towards your lover. In both poems In ‘Porphyria Lover’ the man is deeply obsessed with his lover which is similar to the ‘Laboratory-Ancien Regime as the woman is obsessed with her ex-lover but feels he has been taken from her and plans to kill her ex-lover’s lover in a fit of jealousy.

In Julius Caesar Shakespeare also shows there is a thin line between love and hate. Love can make you commit violent acts which is presented by the relationship between Brutus and Julius Caesar. I believe love and hate changes depending on the situation. In act 3 scene 1 Julius Caesar is killed by the group of conspirators. Brutus gives Caesar the fatal blow even though Brutus saw Caesar as a fatherly figure and Caesar saw him as his son. Brutus killed Caesar because he and the conspirators hated the fact Julius Caesar was getting this power and the believed he would have become too ambitions and arrogant because of the power he was going to get. Cassius has jealousy towards Caesar which leads him hate Caesar as he is jealous of the position and respect that he has in Rome. Cassius believes Caesar is seen as a god and others are slaves to his command ‘this man has now become a god, and Cassius is a wretched creature and must bend his back If Caesar carelessly but nod on him” Cassius doesn’t want Julius Caesar to be more powerful than he is, and believes Caesar’s name should not be more loved or respected than his or Brutus’s ‘Why should that name be more sounded more than yours.’  this quotation states how Brutus began to show signs of hatred for Julius Caesar “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more”.

Shakespeare presents Cassius’ relationship with Julius Caesar to be jealous of Caesar because of his status and power. Cassius strongly  believe that his name should not be spoken more highly than he’s or Brutus ‘what should that name be sounded more than yours’? ‘ weigh them, it is as heavy’ Cassius is trying to manipulate Brutus by trying to show him that Caesar is not above him and deserves the same amount of respect and status as Julius Caesar receives. Cassius dislikes the fact that Julius Caesar has he’s own statute ‘walk under his legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves’

Shakespeare presents Julius Caesar relationship with Cassius to be a lack of respect for Cassius as he embarrassed him in-front of his peers.’youn Cassius has a lean and hungry look, he thinks too much:such men are dangerous’ this shows Julius Caesar he has not a single fragment of respect for Cassius as he states what he feels about Cassius openly. Anthony disagrees with Caesar then tries to be polite and defends Cassius saying ‘ fear him not, Caesar he’s not dangerous.’ he is a noble Roman and well given.’ Cassius is very manipulative this is show frequently in the beginning of the play. ‘ i see thy honorable metal may be wrought… for who some firm cannot be suduc’d?’ Cassius justifies the murder by saying that he is stopping a tyrant taking control of Rome but infact we see lots of evidence that he is ambitions for power himself ‘ the fault is not in our stars but in our self’s that we are underlings.’ Cassius is jealous of ceasar and uses the language of seduction to get Brutus to join in his sin full plot.