«It is too much of joy»: The Exaltation of Love in Three Shakespearean Tragedies, in “Il teatro delle emozioni: la gioia".

Abstract: Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Desdemona, Antony and Cleopatra: three memorable couples from the Shakespearean universe whose existence is brought to an end by suicide, murder, and desperation. Yet, before the tragedy, there had been the incomparable joy of feeling in love; a happiness which, in all three cases, is conveyed through precise dramatic techniques, linguistic styles oriented towards poetic exaltation, pertinent lexical choices that form veritable semantic and imaginative themes that are able to make the joyous condition of falling in love even more vivid and intense. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, the pure-hearted youths, the unstoppable force that brings them together in a sort of mutual veneration mimics the mystic joy of religious faith. The joy of love is derived from the intuition of a happiness about to arrive and their dialogues live within a dimension in which a sense of eternity becomes perceptible. As for Othello and Desdemona, the daring couple who challenged convention and authority, the path which guides them to love is paved by the zealousness and the desire to know of one who undertakes a voyage for simultaneously seductive and frightening unknown worlds. Finally, Antony and Cleopatra, in the sensuality of their mature love, embody a joy which is total and pagan. They are part of the universe, of its volatile and eternal mechanisms of creation and destruction, and their joy, in the passionate and heated disputes, is as powerful and extraordinary as the forces of nature.