Alright, this is something that’s bothered me for a long time. I love Shakespeare, really, I do, and I love “Romeo and Juliet” as story, but what I don’t love is the way that I constantly see it treated, and the way that arm chair critics and pretend literary experts react when anyone tries to kick it out of what people believe to be its place in the natural order of things.
“Romeo and Juliet” is not the greatest love story in the history of human fiction. It’s not even a love story.
There, I said it. I have my spot on the internet to say crazy crackpot things, and I’m doing it.
I hear you out there beyond the ethernet cables, and the tiny demons pushing electrons hither and yon, saying “but what do you mean, surely you are crazy.”
Let’s look at some facts. the entire Story takes place over 4 days. Romeo is 17, and Juliet is 14. They spend almost no time together.
“Ah, but what about love at first sight! How unromantic, you don’t believe in love at first sight?”
Alright, let me be clear on this point - I was a 17 year old boy. I have been in love. I know what love at first sight is for a 17 year old boy, and honestly, while I believe it’s possible to fall in love with someone on first sight, I don’t believe it has ever happened to a 17 year old boy, no matter what he thinks. Hormone addled minds are not, I repeat not, qualified to determine that they are in love upon just seeing another person who strikes their fancy.
The story of “Romeo and Juliet” is a story of passion, which is a beautiful thing, do not get me wrong, but it is a lust story, not a love story. It is a story about the danger of young passion, which floods one with a resolve to do things for the first time - as if they are coming alive for the first time.
We all want to remember that amazing feeling, so this does not diminish the beauty of the story.
What does that, is the 9 people who die within 4 days directly because of these two sex crazed youths (including the young lovers themselves). You see, Shakespeare didn’t want a love story, he wanted a tragedy.
Shakespeare never talked purely about love, because he was interested in circumstances rather than feelings. People who were swept up into something bigger than themselves. Be it a comedy of errors in “Much Ado about Nothing,” or an over the top tragedy like “Romeo and Juliet.”
I read something by Roger Ebert who was discussing “Romeo + Juliet” [NOTE: Remember, Romeo + Juliet = 9 dead people; also I read this review years ago, and it galled me then, but I didn't have a blog then, so I suppressed my rage until now -- unfortunately, this means I don't have a link to it], in which he mentioned that Claire Danes had referred to Juliet, as something to the effect of “a girl who just had a lot of bad stuff happen to her in a short amount of time.” He then tore into her for not understanding the story, and etc.
Really, though, what separates us from people from hundreds of years ago? Is it beautiful for 9 people to have died hundreds of years ago because of unbridled passion? I feel like this obsession with the tragic tale as a love story cheapens its impact. But I guess it does sell tickets.
In the end, the lesson of “Romeo and Juliet” is that timing is everything. If they had patience, there would have been no problem. In fact, it’s likely, given politics of the day, that their marriage may have even been used to stifle the feud. If anything in the play happened a minute sooner or later, the end result would have been happier for all involved. The younger you are, the less you respect time, and there are great dangers to be had for those who do not respect time.
Shakespeare crafted a cautionary tale, and the world views it as a thing of beauty. It is beautiful for its language, and the feeling it captures, but in the end it is only tragedy.