Abstract  In Shakespeare’s plays, the topic about love is involved in most of his works. He puts forward that human should be freed from the religion, the ethical tradition and also the feudal society. This thesis makes an analysis of Shakespeare’s humanistic love in his comedies in terms of its features, like “the love at the first sight”, “happy endings” and the advocating of gender equality. Then the writer tries to explain the limitations of Shakespeare’s humanistic love, such as character’s blind imagination to love, their escaping from reality and the farfetched happy ending in his works.53640

Keywords: Shakespeare’s comedies；humanistic love；characteristics；limitations 

摘要莎士比亚的戏剧中，爱情的主题萦绕在他大部分的作品里。他提出人类应从宗教，伦理传统和封建社会中解放出来。本文从他的人文主义观点入手，分析了莎士比亚喜剧作品当中人文主义爱情观的主要特点及表现，如在作品中表现出的莎翁剧中一见钟情式的爱情，皆大欢喜的结局，对于封建传统的反抗及男女平等思想的提倡等。经过分析，作者指出，莎士比亚的人文主义爱情观也因他所处时代背景而表现出了一定的局限性，如对爱情的盲目，逃离现实的行为及作品结尾牵强的大结局等。

毕业论文关键词：莎式喜剧；人文主义爱情；特点；局限性 

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 An Introduction to Shakespeare and his Comedies 1

1.2 Shakespeare’s Humanistic Love 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. The Features of Shakespeare’s Humanistic love 3

3.1 Love and Marriage 3

3.2 Human Right and Asceticism 4

3.3 Thoughts on the Emancipation of Women 6

4. The limitations of Shakespeare’s Humanistic love in his Comedies 8

4.1 Blind Imagination to Love 8

4.2 Escaping from Reality 9

4.3 Farfetched Happy Ending 9

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

 1. Introduction

1.1 An Introduction to Shakespeare and his Comedies

     At Shakespeare’s times, Renaissance has swept the whole Europe, during which, the Europe is transforming from the feudal society of medieval period to the modern capitalism. Anti-feudal, anti-religion, and anti- thearchy are the keywords in literature works. In that case, Humanism has its great popularity among people and becomes the typical weapon to spout humanists’ slogans. Needless to say, Humanism is especially characterized through Shakespeare’s plays. To some degree, There’s no denying the fact that it is him who develops this topic to peak at the aspect of whether thoughts or artistic methods. Thus, Shakespeare himself has been recognized as the leader of the British Drama during the Renaissance in Europe. As mentioned above, the appreciation to love is one of the topics in his plays. The development of the relationship of men and women in plays catches our attention in its way all the time.

Shakespeare has written 14 comedies, but the real comedies in the strict sense are created in the first period of his life. Before 1600, the topic of humanism is presented in another broad way, mostly because in which period, the development of the society of Elizabeth takes place in its peak. Shakespeare has the idea that his dream of humanism can come true at his age. We will mainly talk about the humanistic love in terms of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Merchant of Venice, the Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It.