Romeo and Juliet is Terribly Misunderstood by Popular Perception

[Iti oj]

Why is the op applying modern sensibilities to an old play? That's silly.

 

[Riverwolf]

Why is the op applying modern sensibilities to an old play? That's silly.

Only if the play has no contemporary relevance.

However, Romeo and Juliet is not old. It's timeless. My own problems with it aside, it's one of Shakespeare's best. It's also one of his most popular. Everyone in the English-speaking world (I'm sure) knows the basic story, even if they haven't seen any iteration of the actual play, and it's very, very well known in other parts of the world. "Romeo" is shorthand for "young man in love". It's been told and retold countless times, from direct adaptations of the play, to retellings in Modern English (such as West Side Story ... which I haven't seen, yet).

This play has not diminished in significance or relevance with age. THAT's why I'm applying "modern" sensibilities to it.

 

[Iti oj]

Only if the play has no contemporary relevance.

However, Romeo and Juliet is not old. It's timeless. My own problems with it aside, it's one of Shakespeare's best. It's also one of his most popular. Everyone in the English-speaking world (I'm sure) knows the basic story, even if they haven't seen any iteration of the actual play, and it's very, very well known in other parts of the world. "Romeo" is shorthand for "young man in love". It's been told and retold countless times, from direct adaptations of the play, to retellings in Modern English (such as West Side Story ... which I haven't seen, yet).

This play has not diminished in significance or relevance with age. THAT's why I'm applying "modern" sensibilities to it.

Doesn't change the intent it was written with.

 

[Riverwolf]

Doesn't change the intent it was written with.

Authorial intent doesn't matter a whole lot in determining the relevance of a piece, unless it's supposed to be some kind of allegory.

We don't know exactly what the intent was, anyway, since Shakespeare never told us. All we have is the play itself.

Far as I'm concerned, that's how it should be.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

So, leading from an off-topic discussion in another thread, I believe that the common perception of Romeo and Juliet is completely wrong.

The story is commonly regarded as a highly romantic story, with the love that these two people share for each other being the absolute epitome of love itself.

I find that this perception is highly inaccurate to the actual play's content, and possibly even to what Shakespeare was trying to say. It's often forgotten that the two leads are teenagers, roughly 15-16 years of age. That means, because of raging, unfamiliar hormones combined with a complete lack of proper education and training at that time to control them, they're probably not thinking very rationally, but rather almost solely based on their emotional desires.

Their "love", furthermore, when compared to the components necessary for a good, solid relationship, turns out to be severely lacking. They never really "talk" to each other, and so have no idea what common interests they share, what the other person is truly like, and whether they could commit to a lifelong relationship. Sure, they kill themselves when life tries to pull them apart, but that's not as special as one would think: living a full lifetime in a single committed relationship is far harder, far more rewarding, and far more indicative of what might be called "True Love", than suicide because of being disallowed one's desire.

In truth, their "love" turns out to not be love at all. It's extreme obsession, to the point that it got both of them killed.

Now, I don't mean to say that Romeo and Juliet is overrated. I don't particularly "like" it, myself (I prefer Shakespeare's comedies, particularly A Midsummer Night's Dream), but it does have a ton of layers to it, no less than others. I just think that the common conception is mistaken; it's not an example of True Love, or anything like that. There are other stories, before and since, that are far better "love stories". This misconception leads it to be studied improperly in school, which could be a big reason why it's so loathed by kids.

That's a big reason why I think it's important to properly understand the story, and work to undue the damage it's caused. I don't think Shakespeare would say that, in the grand scheme of things, their relationship was ultimately bad (after all, "Doth with their death bury their parents' strife."), but I don't think he would have thought of it as an "ideal romance", either.

I thought in ancient Rome teenagers were pretty much adult-like.

 

[paragon]

Why is the op applying modern sensibilities to an old play? That's silly.

Why analyze any old piece of literature in a modern light? Why analyze anything at all?

 

[Riverwolf]

I thought in ancient Rome teenagers were pretty much adult-like.

Considering that humanity as a species hasn't changed a whole lot since well before ancient Rome, I rather doubt that.

Unless ancient Roman adults were much like modern-day teenagers.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWYhMoDTN0[/youtube]

 

[paragon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWYhMoDTN0

I think you're off by a millennium or so.

 

[Riverwolf]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWYhMoDTN0[/youtube]

A black screen isn't helpful.

And neither, by the way, is an unwanted video with unwanted sounds and visuals. If you have a counter-argument, make it yourself.

 

[Estro Felino]

Considering that humanity as a species hasn't changed a whole lot since well before ancient Rome, I rather doubt that.

Unless ancient Roman adults were much like modern-day teenagers.

hem...the tragedy is set in the Middle Ages...(maybe XIII century to be precise).

They never really "talk" to each other, and so have no idea what common interests they share, what the other person is truly like, and whether they could commit to a lifelong relationship.

what's wrong with that? don't you think that love at first sight is the most romantic thing ever?
I think that external beauty sums up what you really are inside, so talking becomes useless.
A short talk suffices

 

[Riverwolf]

hem...the tragedy is set in the Middle Ages...(maybe XIII century to be precise).

Fair point.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I honestly can't tell if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me.

Neither, really (or perhaps both). First, Shakespeare's spoiler in the prologue was at least in part due to how widely known the story was:

"When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet sometime in the 1590s, he dramatized a story well-known to his audience through popular sources for at least a generation.' The events of the play's famous narrative perfectly suit the requirements of tragic theatre, meeting Aristotle's qualifications: "the plot ought to be constructed in such a way that anyone, by merely hearing an account of the incidents and without seeing them, will be filled with horror and pity at what occurs." Through popularization, however, this series of events had acquired a particular fictional context: the sixteenth-century novella, a genre which conceives incidents in realistic detail but formalizes emotion through rhetoric as well as stock literary devices."
Levenson, J. L. (1984). Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare. Studies in Philology, 325-347.


Most of Shakespeare's material came from Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. By the time of Brooke's poem, an entire generation had elapsed since the form of the story known to Shakespeare and his audience was first put together in Luigi da Porto's Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti. Translations, adaptions, adoptions, etc., of this story were by no means limited to Shakespeare's play. This is very much in the tradition of Greek theater, in which the audience was told a story they were already well familiar with but cast in a particular way and/or with some novelties included. However, there is another (more important) connection to Greek drama.

Shakespeare's title (First Quarto/Q1) is given as "an excellent conceited tragedie of Romeo and Juliet", and we are dealing with a time in which Aristotle's categorization of genre as sacrosanct. Aristotle, the authority rivaled only by the Church, tells us that tragic drama must evoke pity and horror in the audience (and let us not forget that challenging Aristotle played no small role in Galileo's fate). Not long before Aristotle drama (plays) were tragedies- period. Comedy grew out of "satyr plays", and even in Shakespeare's time love, romance, etc., was not considered appropriate subject matter for tragedy or "serious" drama.

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet was quite novel (and indeed is frequently referred to as a kind of "experimental" tragedy). Shakespeare's audience would almost certainly find his solemn, sober treatment of "two star-cross'd lovers" rather confusing, if not downright scandalous.

I find that this perception is highly inaccurate to the actual play's content, and possibly even to what Shakespeare was trying to say. It's often forgotten that the two leads are teenagers, roughly 15-16 years of age.

For centuries before and long after Shakespeare, turning 12 or 13 in most cultures meant being an adult (hence the Bar Mitzvah tradition). So while you are absolutely correct that theses were two immature teenagers, they wouldn't have been thought of as such in Shakespeare's time.

More importantly, a key part of the tragedy is that their love is doomed from the start thanks to a senseless feud and their doom sealed by misfortune (Romeo kills himself because the message never reached him).

To crudely summarize, we have on the one hand a love that is deliberately portrayed as youthful because of the association with such love and innocence & purity. On the other, we have the families (the "adults" or heads of the houses) whose immature, needless feuding causes violent bloodshed.

Perhaps the most well-known line in the entire play, Juliet's rhetorical "wherefore art thou Romeo?", is actually part of an extremely mature, sophisticated exposition. She is able to do what the families are not by recognizing that the mutual hatred between the two families is a hatred not of actual people but of a classification (their respective family names).

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd"

The recognition that Romeo is "Romeo" only because that is what he is called and that therefore to hate "Romeo" because one is supposed to hate any "Montague" is to hate a word/name, and thus meaningless. She doesn't simply run off with Romeo due to uncontrollable hormones, but picks apart the underlying logic of this particular component of her familial loyalties & duties. Time (and individualistic culture) has made the following seem far less shocking than it was:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

To deny one's family was essentially to deny much of one's identity. But her love for Romeo has provided not just a reason to question this identity but the basis for a new one. A key part of the tragedy, found both in the prologue and the plays end, is that the families aren't able to question the basis for their enmity until they realize it has (indirectly) caused not death but the meaningless destruction of a pure, innocent love (this isn't the first death of family members, as e.g., Tybalt is Capulet's nephew).

That was a cautionary tale against this sort of obsessive romance.

"At length, so mighty Jove it would, by pity they are won.
And lest that length of time might from our minds remove
The memory of so perfect, sound, and so approvéd love"
-Brooke

 

[Riverwolf]

Neither, really (or perhaps both). First, Shakespeare's spoiler in the prologue was at least in part due to how widely known the story was:

"When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet sometime in the 1590s, he dramatized a story well-known to his audience through popular sources for at least a generation.' The events of the play's famous narrative perfectly suit the requirements of tragic theatre, meeting Aristotle's qualifications: "the plot ought to be constructed in such a way that anyone, by merely hearing an account of the incidents and without seeing them, will be filled with horror and pity at what occurs." Through popularization, however, this series of events had acquired a particular fictional context: the sixteenth-century novella, a genre which conceives incidents in realistic detail but formalizes emotion through rhetoric as well as stock literary devices."
Levenson, J. L. (1984). Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare. Studies in Philology, 325-347.


Most of Shakespeare's material came from Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. By the time of Brooke's poem, an entire generation had elapsed since the form of the story known to Shakespeare and his audience was first put together in Luigi da Porto's Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti. Translations, adaptions, adoptions, etc., of this story were by no means limited to Shakespeare's play. This is very much in the tradition of Greek theater, in which the audience was told a story they were already well familiar with but cast in a particular way and/or with some novelties included. However, there is another (more important) connection to Greek drama.

Shakespeare's title (First Quarto/Q1) is given as "an excellent conceited tragedie of Romeo and Juliet", and we are dealing with a time in which Aristotle's categorization of genre as sacrosanct. Aristotle, the authority rivaled only by the Church, tells us that tragic drama must evoke pity and horror in the audience (and let us not forget that challenging Aristotle played no small role in Galileo's fate). Not long before Aristotle drama (plays) were tragedies- period. Comedy grew out of "satyr plays", and even in Shakespeare's time love, romance, etc., was not considered appropriate subject matter for tragedy or "serious" drama.

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet was quite novel (and indeed is frequently referred to as a kind of "experimental" tragedy). Shakespeare's audience would almost certainly find his solemn, sober treatment of "two star-cross'd lovers" rather confusing, if not downright scandalous.




For centuries before and long after Shakespeare, turning 12 or 13 in most cultures meant being an adult (hence the Bar Mitzvah tradition). So while you are absolutely correct that theses were two immature teenagers, they wouldn't have been thought of as such in Shakespeare's time.

More importantly, a key part of the tragedy is that their love is doomed from the start thanks to a senseless feud and their doom sealed by misfortune (Romeo kills himself because the message never reached him).

To crudely summarize, we have on the one hand a love that is deliberately portrayed as youthful because of the association with such love and innocence & purity. On the other, we have the families (the "adults" or heads of the houses) whose immature, needless feuding causes violent bloodshed.

Perhaps the most well-known line in the entire play, Juliet's rhetorical "wherefore art thou Romeo?", is actually part of an extremely mature, sophisticated exposition. She is able to do what the families are not by recognizing that the mutual hatred between the two families is a hatred not of actual people but of a classification (their respective family names).

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd"

The recognition that Romeo is "Romeo" only because that is what he is called and that therefore to hate "Romeo" because one is supposed to hate any "Montague" is to hate a word/name, and thus meaningless. She doesn't simply run off with Romeo due to uncontrollable hormones, but picks apart the underlying logic of this particular component of her familial loyalties & duties. Time (and individualistic culture) has made the following seem far less shocking than it was:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

To deny one's family was essentially to deny much of one's identity. But her love for Romeo has provided not just a reason to question this identity but the basis for a new one. A key part of the tragedy, found both in the prologue and the plays end, is that the families aren't able to question the basis for their enmity until they realize it has (indirectly) caused not death but the meaningless destruction of a pure, innocent love (this isn't the first death of family members, as e.g., Tybalt is Capulet's nephew).

One of the reasons I do still appreciate the play is because of this sort of interpretation.

It's been brought to my attention recently that there was an adaptation of the story, in which Romeo was Christian, and Juliet Muslim.

It's definitely a lot deeper than even perhaps I had given it credit for when I initially made my OP. I do still stand by my opinion that it's dreadfully misunderstood by popular conception; however, I basically consider that to also be that the play is woefully under-appreciated in terms of the full implications Shakespeare presented us with. Perhaps the popular conception isn't "wrong", per se, but... over-simplified.

I fully admit here that I had not fully appreciated it when I wrote the OP. But that's fine; I present my opinions and arguments hoping that they will be challenged and corrected if, well, incorrect.

"At length, so mighty Jove it would, by pity they are won.
And lest that length of time might from our minds remove
The memory of so perfect, sound, and so approvéd love"
-Brooke

Interesting. And yet I can be pretty sure that the critic who described it the way I have relayed is well-versed in this topic.

In which case, it would behoove me to examine Brooke's version for myself, to see what I can find.

 

[Sapiens]

I love the tragedies, especially Hamlet and Macbeth, not so much Romeo and Juliet, but I think the OP is spot on and that is the weakness of the play ... but the strength of the writing makes up for the paucity of plot.

 

[Riverwolf]

what's wrong with that? don't you think that love at first sight is the most romantic thing ever?

No, I do not.

I think that external beauty sums up what you really are inside, so talking becomes useless.

And I do not. External beauty can hide massive internal ugliness, while external ugliness can hide internal beauty.

Hence why I prefer the technically "incorrect" version of The Frog Prince where the princess kisses the frog.

 

[Riverwolf]

I love the tragedies, especially Hamlet and Macbeth, not so much Romeo and Juliet, but I think the OP is spot on and that is the weakness of the play ... but the strength of the writing makes up for the paucity of plot.

It is some of the finest love poetry in existence.

 

[Sapiens]

It is some of the finest love poetry in existence.

I couldn't agree more ... but does it move you as much as Saint Crispin's Day ?

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

 

[Riverwolf]

I couldn't agree more ... but does it move you as much as Saint Crispin's Day ?

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Hm....

Yeah, it does. Not really feeling the Battle Blood, here.

 

[Sapiens]

It's not the battle, it's the absolute shared equality derived from shared tribulation. Unabashed "love" of fellowship vs. teen angst.