Term Paper Possibilities... Forbidden Love and the Beatles

Helen and Paris

Here I sit.  A rain cloud has settled over Bozeman and thoughts of term papers swirl around in my mind...but I can't quite grab a hold of one idea.  The Beatles' song "Love Me Do" is playing quite loudly over the speakers of the cafe...lately, I just can't stop asking myself about love, and of course what it means to mythology and Shakespeare.  After Thursday's class I watched The Adjustment Bureau in the movie theater ( a good flick!) and per usual, I was taken in by the characters and the tumultuous events the had to persevere through in order to be with each other, aka forbidden love.  In the end (spoiler alert!) the two characters, David and Elise, give up the opportunity to be together forever in order to be together for a few moments later.  Their seemingly unconditional love inspires the "chairman" (God, or another spiritual character) to allow them to be together because "He" recognizes that chance perpetuates free will and they have seized the opportunity to take advantage of it.  Essentially, forbidden love turns into requited love.  Perhaps that tangent was unnecessary to speak of, but the idea of forbidden love has stayed with me since and keeps bouncing around in my head.  


It's easy to see that the idea of forbidden love is prevalent in Shakespeare.  We see it portrayed in Romeo and Julie, and A Midsummer Night's Dream where such love is obvious.  The idea of forbidden love takes a completely different twist in Measure by Measure where the "love" is unwarranted and unwanted, but still plays a major role in the plot.  Basically, the theme of forbidden love takes a stance in almost every play that I've read thus far and an argument could possibly be made that is is a reoccurring theme in all of SP's plays in one way or another.  For the sake of a paper I'd probably need to narrow my scope down to just a handful of plays.


Now, forbidden love and mythology is an entire different, yet completely related subject.  Shall I suggest Helen and Paris?  For the sake of the class and our ongoing discussion of how mythology and Shakespeare relate it is probable that I need to pinpoint more specific examples of forbidden love in mythology and then where we see these examples portrayed in Shakespeare.  Iy yi yi...maybe this topic is a little more than I bargained for.  Nevertheless, I'm interested.


So, I'm going to work on narrowing my focus a bit this weekend and will try to churn out a thesis.  Comments and criticism are welcomed!