I’ve never understood Romeo and Juliet. Am I supposed to be touched and sorrowed by a love so passionate these two shortsighted children were willing to kill themselves because of its supposed end? Should I weep with the knowledge of a bond which transcends life and death, trial and tribulation? Because I’ll admit, my eyes are dry. I just don’t get what’s so heartbreaking about two fools who chose the easy way out. That’s not love; that’s cowardice. Love is taking the blade to another’s neck, tilting the poison to another’s lips, protecting that which is yours by striking out at whatever may come to claim it from you, or you from it. There’s no promise of reunion in the afterlife or blessing bestowed for the ultimate sacrifice; there is only what victory you can wrest with blood and sweat and tears in this life. If I were to lay down my life for the man I love it’d have to be because of another’s sword in my breast or another’s bullet through my temple. Nothing less will ever take me from his side.
Only Fragments
Love Letters to the Tar Pit
I guess you have to think of the story in the context of the era in which it was written. People thought differently then. Personally, I don’t think Shakespeare really holds up today. We are too far removed from his reality and can no longer relate.
I’ve never been much of a Shakespeare person, to be honest, but Romeo and Juliet has always bothered me. It’s just… a little too dramatic for my tastes, haha.
I’m with you. I think people just say they like Shakespeare because they think they should. Sort of like people who like Hemmingway and Moby Dick. (UGH.)
While R&J is not my favorite Shakespeare, I love how he “holds up today”… What wishes from our own lives are constrained my circumstance, by the trappings of our birth? By our very foolishness? The foolishness of our families or our societies?
Very true. I always like modern retellings or twists on Shakespeare.