Note toothat in the sacrifices made by the lovers, the societies of each play get something back:civil peace in the case of Romeo and Juliet, the plays of Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Loveand in both plays, the affirmation that love is central to deeper reflections about life's meaning and purpose.Ģ. Perhaps those answers are related to the different genres of each: tragedy and comedy. Both plays show that true love involves testing and self-sacrifice, though they find quite different resolutions despite the common theme of loss. (b) The question: 'can a play show us the very truth and nature of love?' The script is built around the twin problems noted above, and as such presents Romeo and Juliet as the play that answers the question in the affirmative yet the foregrounded plot of Will and Violaand by extension, Shakespeare in Love itselfalso answer the question affirmatively. Finally, the amount becomes one of the signifiers of Will's success. The £50 crops up later, when 'Wilhelmina' takes the bet that a play can show 'the very truth and nature of love,' and again when Wessex needs this amount to pay his dockside debtsand of course, when Queen Elizabeth determines that Will's play has won the bet, Viola must take that purse from Wessex and give it to Will. (a) The bet for £50: Beyond the problem of writer's block, Shakespeare's initial worryis how to get £50to free himself from Henslowe and buy into Burbage's company. In Romeo and Juliet, the price was their lives here, the price is more elusive, involving not simply their parting and loss of each other.

What, ultimately, will their love mean, and will a play be able to capture the truth of love itself? In connection with this plot, one might ask what each of the lovers ultimately has to give up, what sacrifices they must make, for their love to be true in the highest sense. (b) the romance plot: will the deserving 'poor player' get the love of his life? Will she free herself from a life where her value is chiefly a commodity to be bargained for by fa-ther and future husband? When the lovers come together, will it only be a 'stolen sea-son,' or what will give their romance a meaning beyond the time they have together? (a) the problem of mounting a production: will the company get funding? Will they find the right actors? Will the company 'gel,' and will those in charge defuse the pro-blems inherent with actors' egos ? Will they run afoul of the Master of Revels? What unforeseen problems could wreck their project? Will they, at last, properly entertain and instruct their audience, and be able to meaningfully say that 'it's a mystery'?

David Cope: Teaching 'Shakespeare in Love' Shakespeare in Love : Notesīy David Cope English Departments: Western Michigan University and Grand Rapids Community College 27 November 1999

Theme of shakespeare in love