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Romeo and Juliet: Love Story
This is a short paper on why Romeo and Juliet is not the wonderful classic everyone says it is.
From when I was a little kid to now, I have always thought that Romeo and Juliet was the classic love story. Everyone knows the story. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, Romeo kills himself right as Juliet wakes up, then Juliet kills herself. Sounds somewhat romantic right?
I finally read the entire story for my English class. It was probably the WORST book I have ever read. Now, I am sure that some of the humor and romance was aimed more for Shakespeare’s period, but most classic literature is still respectable today. Romeo and Juliet is not like that. It is not an epic love story. They knew each other for TWO day!! Count ‘em 1,2. Right before that Romeo was in “love” with another girl just as passionatley. This sounds much more like it has to do with Hormones than teenage love. Romeo rushes to get married, (They have a nice wedding night) and then they kill themselves for each other.
Yeah really romantic. NOT
Press the like button if you agree ROMEO AND JULIET IS A STORY ABOUT TEENAGE HORMONES!!
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I disagree, absolutely.
Romeo and Juliet is about true love, a love worth dying for and the very fact that it spans so few a days (the lovers are dead by the 5th day of their acquaintance) shows how explosive this passion is.
You say that this play must be about fickle teenage hormones because Romeo’s ‘love’ takes a direct U turn, moving so swiftly from Rosaline to Juliet that the audience cannot help but think he is fickle. In the first few moments of this change, perhaps. But we soon find out that, as a character, Romeo’s relation to love is not so simple. At the beginning of the play Romeo yearns for Rosaline, proclaiming her the paragon of women and despairing at her wise indifference toward him (wise because his love is, as she suggests an attempt as he tries to re-create the feelings that he has read about). Which, when taken together, makes Romeo’s Rosaline-induced histrionics seem rather juvenile. So you are right to say that this love is teenagish. Your thought that this ‘love’ was based on hormones however is utterly wrong and does a great injustice to the entire meaning of the play.
In fact, I wonder if you understood the play at all. Understood the language, the beauty and above all the idealism. You have to understand, before you even begin to contemplate this plays meaning or message, that it is clearly unrealistic. Realism is a comparatively recent literary convention. Living in the twenty-first century, accustomed to reading novels, we tend to suppose that literature has always tried to represent everyday life as it really is. This is not the case and only by recognizing that Shakespeare’s plays are not realistic that we can understand how they work.
In a way their very love is subject to this unrealism. After all, even if we could allow that two young people could fall so completely so suddenly as Romeo and Juliet do, can we also allow that they would change completely to do so? Over the five days they, as is common knowledge, mature from child to fully fledged adult. And by keeping the sequence of events clearly before the audience Shakespeare makes the tragedy the more pitiful simply because of the swiftness with which events occur. In Act 2, Scene 3 (if I remember correctly) Romeo says ‘I stand on sudden haste’ and he does seem to be engages in a race against time. Everything in the play happens at great speed; it is as though it has to happen so.
Anyway I was talking about realism. Even if we can accept that two people would change so completely, can we really believe that any friar would concoct such an elaborate plan as Friar Lawrence does, involving a potion which is almost magical in its effecT? On top of these central elements in the plot there is an extraordinary amount of coincidence in the play. A few coincidences could happen to anyone, but can we believe that as many as are in this play (and all unfortunate, at that) could happen in so few a days?
‘Romeo rushes to get married.’ As I have already said the rush of the play appears to be what gives it such passion. Their growth together is because of their love. Before Juliet (this characterization continues even when he is with Juliet – because it is a natural characteristic which sprouts from the intensity of any emotion he feels – but to a lesser extent) he had been living in a world borne entirely upon ideals. It is only under her instructions that he arranges the marriage, if she had not reminded him it would be unlikely that they would have been married anytime soon. After the balcony scene his exhalations at having won her affections is sufficient for the present and he is about to leave when she calls him back to arrange the practical details of their relationship thereon after.
Juliet, on the other hand, I can hardly bear to hear you reproach. Harold Bloom wrote perfectly of Shakespeare’s intent for her, so instead of me giving you my rough opinion I’ll quote him:
“Juliet, although unprecedented in literature, does not precisely transcend the human heroine. Whether Shakespeare reinvents the representation of a very young women in love, or perhaps does even more than that it is difficult to detect. How can one distance Juliet from her love?”
Furthermore you fail to understand the depth of their love, believing that it is founded on the time they have already spent together. If this were the case, their love would be so disturbingly flawed that it would not have reached the heights of popularity as it has in history. Hazlitt caught better than any critic (in my belief) the exact temper of their love:
“He has founded the passion of the two lovers not in the pleasures they had experiences, but on all the pleasures they had not experienced.”
As for the difference in Romeo’s character when you compare him during his infatuation for Rosaline and his adoring devotion to Juliet, it is hard to grasp how you could even suggest that Romeo was seriously fickle. Rosaline dulled him whereas Romeo’s love for Juliet reveals his true liveliness, as Mercutio points out in Act 2, Scene 4. “Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo.” It is testimony to the truth of his feelings for Juliet that when he has arranged his marriage to her, that he is like his old self.
It isn’t the death that’s romantic. It’s the lengths they’re willing to go for each other, the way they mature with each other. The change in them both is even evident in their language. Juliet’s spontaneous eloquent speeches in the balcony scene (some of which is considered the most beautiful, romantic love poetry ever written) drastically contrast with her earlier short, simple answers to her mother. Romeo’s first meeting with Juliet discards all further formality in speech, speaking henceforth from his heart, rhyme disappears and he enters into the highest poetic beautify of blank verse.
So Romeo and Juliet is not, as you would desire it to be, a story about teenage hormones. It is a beautiful journey through love where teenage hormones are abjectly shed in the lovers growth to maturity, this growth allowing them to survive as long as they possibly good in such tragic and fateful circumstances.
You have not understood the play but misjudged it even before you read it. So go back and instead of reading it, watch it in a theater (or the 1968 film version – which is amazing
).
If you have any more questions or misinformed opinions on Shakespeare feel free to point me in their direction.
Sincerely,
Caroline (16 on May 19th 2009)
P.s Juliet wakes up after Romeo is dead, proclaiming that his lips are still warm which means he died recently. She doesn’t wake up just as he dies.
I disagree, absolutely.
Romeo and Juliet is about true love, a love worth dying for and the very fact that it spans so few a days (the lovers are dead by the 5th day of their acquaintance) shows how explosive this passion is.
You say that this play must be about fickle teenage hormones because Romeo\’s \’love\’ takes a direct U turn, moving so swiftly from Rosaline to Juliet that the audience cannot help but think he is fickle. In the first few moments of this change, perhaps. But we soon find out that, as a character, Romeo’s relation to love is not so simple. At the beginning of the play Romeo yearns for Rosaline, proclaiming her the paragon of women and despairing at her wise indifference toward him (wise because his love is, as she suggests an attempt as he tries to re-create the feelings that he has read about). Which, when taken together, makes Romeo’s Rosaline-induced histrionics seem rather juvenile. So you are right to say that this love is teenagish. Your thought that this \’love\’ was based on hormones however is utterly wrong and does a great injustice to the entire meaning of the play.
In fact, I wonder if you understood the play at all. Understood the language, the beauty and above all the idealism. You have to understand, before you even begin to contemplate this plays meaning or message, that it is clearly unrealistic. Realism is a comparatively recent literary convention. Living in the twenty-first century, accustomed to reading novels, we tend to suppose that literature has always tried to represent everyday life as it really is. This is not the case and only by recognizing that Shakespeare\’s plays are not realistic that we can understand how they work.
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Sorry, it posted twice.
Hi, I was just wondering if anyone could give me a few ideas on a question I was given to answer for a piece of homework.
The question was, “How does Romeo’s language change when he first meets Juliet, from what it was when he was “in love” with Rosaline, or something like that.
Does anyone have any ideas?
The only thing which I can think of, is that Romeo has found someone he likes, who likes him back, and also, this love for Juliet is absolutely genuine, unlike his love for Rosaline, which makes him much more happier and uplifted.