If you are reading this and don't know what Romeo and Juliet is, my condolences. You must not understand the many media and literary references to this story. It is a quintessential work taught in most American English classes as well. Here is where I get to be a stereotypical (not really) teen girl and gush about the importance of Romeo and Juliet, the genius that IS Shakespeare, the analysis and thoughts deeper into the story and connections, and the tragic beauty of the plot itself.
“Romeo and
Juliet” was written in 1595
or 1596 and is often called the greatest love story of all time. I always
thought it was very strange because the play features 1 off stage sex scene and
like 7 on stage fatalities. Knowing that we consider this romance says quite a
lot about humans.
To begin I’ll start with my quick review of the plot:
Romeo goes to a party trying to get over a girl he is
completely obsessed with but then meets another girl Juliet and becomes
obsessed with her. Their families hate each other but despite that (or possibly
because of it) they fall madly in love and get married the next day. Immediately
after that their families fight resulting in several fatalities, including Juliet’s
cousin killed by Romeo. Romeo has to flee. Juliet takes a sleeping potion to
avoid another marriage. Romeo returns, finds her sleeping, thinks she’s dead,
and proceeds to kill himself via poison. She wakes up and then kills herself
after whining that Romeo didn’t leave enough poison to kill her too. She dies
in his (dead) arms and then the families end their feud. No wonder Disney
hasn’t copied this yet.
Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet in Verona, Italy and most
of his plays were set outside of England. I mean would English lovers act like
this? No, they would be too busy being pale and avoiding the rain and eating Sheppard’s
pie and whatnot but apparently this is just what those Italians would do… Wink
wink. If you're going to talk about morality and values, it’s much safer to set
in faraway Italy. The stereotype of Italians as passionate and impulsive goes
back a long way to well before Shakespeare and it justifies Romeo and Juliet’s
actions.
Romeo and Juliet is a love story but it’s also a political
story. The Montague and Capulet’s consistently ignore the proclamations of the
prince of Verona. Arguably Romeo’s biggest hurdle to marrying Juliet is that
the prince exiles him and promises to execute him should he return. Should you
be loyal first to your own feelings or to your family or to your faith or your
prince? These are not just questions of will
that hot girl go out with me? they are in fact questions that were central
to Elizabethan England at that time.
Most people don’t know this but Shakespeare didn’t actually
invent the plot of Romeo and Juliet; BUT he made really important changes to it.
The immediate source was a 3,000 line narrative poem called The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet,
Written by Arthur Brook in 1562. Shakespeare changed a lot of the names but
more importantly he introduced a lot of narrative complexity. Brook called
Romeus and Juliet a ‘couple of unfortunate lovers, thrilling themselves to
unhonest desire, neglecting the authority and advice of parents and friends
attempting all that the dangers of peril for the attaining of their wished
lust… abusing the honourable name of lawful marriage’.
Basically it was an ordinary story about naughty teens
receiving the standard punishment for their naughtiness. That punishment of
course is death; even now if you live in any contemporary horror movie and
you're a woman and you want to live to the end, you better be a virgin. Shakespeare
however offers a much more compassionate portrait of Romeo and Juliet and
encourages us to empathize with them. I mean Romeo and Juliet are obviously hot
for each other but they’re really kind of polite about it. Also Shakespeare’s
Juliet is much younger; in other versions she’s 16 or 18 but Shakespeare’s she’s
only 13. It’s hard even in a profoundly misogynistic age it’s hard to see a 13
year old stab herself and be like ‘yeah! That floozy totally got what was
coming to her!’
I know that the language is difficult but the slow pace of
reading allows us to pay attention to the genius of Shakespeare’s language. If
you stick with it you find yourself in Shakespeare’s world. Of course it had to
be genius and enthralling because the performances were often over packed, hard
to hear and see, and the guests often ate and drank and even taunted actors
during the scenes. There was nothing to focus attention to the stage except the
play itself. Shakespeare knew how to navigate between high and low culture. He
knew how to amuse and entertain us while also grappling with big questions
about honor and fate and duty and human frailty and the idea that something can
be both fun and smart still resonates today. For example: Star-crossed lovers
go all the way back in literature and they are very helpful for thinking about
faith and free will; but also kind of sexy.
Does real love benefit from or maybe even require these
kinds of obstacles to feel real? The play isn’t like a Yolo endorsement of following
your heart because following your heart does get Romeo and Juliet killed in the
end. The speed of the marriage is critiqued a lot in Romeo and Juliet but
Shakespeare indicates that they really are in love at least in his mind. In their
first conversation, they speak a total of 14 lines to each other which when
combined, form a perfect Shakespearian sonnet.
It isn’t some random party hook-up. Romeo meets Juliet and
they literally create instant poetry.
It’s worth paying attention to the ways Shakespeare messes
around with iambic pentameter. The language has this underlying heartbeat and it’s
a way of reflecting the natural rhythms of human speech and English while also
heightening it. Shakespeare also uses inconsistencies in it to emphasize what
he wants. Take for example the famous “Oh Romeo! Romeo where for art thou Romeo”
It should be iambic pentameter but something keeps messing
it up: specifically Romeo’s name. If he were not named Romeo Montague there
would be no issue in the line OR the play. Shakespeare literally subliminally
indicates the issues with Romeo and Juliet’s love every time someone utters his
name.
It’s also a tragedy of time. How little there is and how
passion drives our youth to its death. In your life are you going to listen to
what you want or your parents when they tell you what to want or the government
when they tell you what you can't want? Romeo and Juliet ultimately die because
they try to please all these forces in their lives. If they just did the nasty
without marrying OR if they ran away together they might have survived. Their
death is an over the top response to the unjust world in which they live and
the patriarchal authority that controls them. They can never fully abandon or
reject that authority and this is still a challenge for teenagers. They have to
balance the intensity of their feeling against the expectations of the world
around them.
If you have ever been young you know that feeling of being
pulled in multiple directions while trying to find any kind of stable ground to
stand. And you know what it’s like to want to live freely and fearlessly and
maybe even a little rushed and foolishly. The really tragic thing is that you
are just grown up enough for that kind of thinking to get you killed. Shakespeare’s
gift to us gives voice to those embarrassing and maddening feelings and
obstacles we all recognize.
(I haven't really edited this so I apologize for the lack of flow and multiple awkwardly worded parts.)
