Everything Wrong With: 𝑅𝑜𝓂𝑒𝑜 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒥𝓊𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓉

Fun Fact: I misspelled ‘Romeo’ as ‘Romano’ a total of 57 times 👍

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake — its everything except what it is!” (Act 1, scene 1)

Ah, Romeo and Juliet, the most renown love story ever known. The tragic story of two star-cross lovers trapped in the middle of a family feud that goes back generations, only to end when they lovers choose to die than be apart…

WhERE tO beGiN!?!

For those of us who weren’t subjected to reading the story aloud in front of the ENTIRE CLASS, allow me to summerize. Romeo and Juliet was written by the renown William Shakesphere in 1597, and follows the tragic “love story” of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet as they fall in love in the middle of an ongoing feud between the two families. To make a long story short, the story ends with both Romeo and Juliet dead, choosing to die toegther then live without the other, which, in turn, ends the feud between the two families. (If thats not romance, I don’t know what is!!! … but in this scenario, I don’t think Shakesphere did either).

But what people don’t understand is that there is so much more detail in the story that is hidden under the old english and love confessions. So, let me elaborate on how much we truly over look while reading this literate masterpiece.

1. Juliet is a rebound

Yes, you read that correctly. Juliet was the rebound chick. After Romeo is friend-zoned by Rosaline (who has taken a vow of chastity), his friends decide to take him to a party so that he can forget about her and , I quote “By giving liberty unto thine eyes” (1.2.225) <– which pretty much means, check out other girls. He then meets Juliet and instantly falls in love. Even if he does actually love her, Juliet is none-the-less the rebound for Romeo to mend his broken heart.

2. Stalker-ish Romance?

When the party ends, Romeo decides the best thing for him to do is to sneak into Juilets backyard so he can see her again. When he does see her again [insert cheesy yet well known balcony scene], upon seeing someone in her backyard Juliet exclaims “What man art thou that thus bescreened in night / So stumbles on my counsel?”, which would translate roughly into…”WTF dude?!” Romeo then procceds to spout poetry, even as Juliet continuously refuses, “Although I joy in thee / I have no joy of this contract tonight; / It is too rash, to unadvised, too sudden” (2.2.116-118).  This continues until Mr. Montague pulls the senstive card and crys ““O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” and asking for “Th’ exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine”, which in results in Juliet “confessing” her own love.

Fun Fact: The famous balcony scene never even took place on a balcony (during those times balconies weren’t even a thing). The actual line quotes that Romeo saw Juliet through a window, “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun,” (Act 2, Scene 2). Making Romeo sorta like a peeping tom, in my opinion 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️😂.

3) A short lived romance…

Romeo and Juliet literally know eachother FOR A DAY! Allow me to lay out a timeline for you: Sunday night Romeo goes to the Capulet party and meets Juliet for the first time, they lock eyes and instantly fall in love! The next day they get married and then DIE a few days later… I couldn’t imagine going on a DATE with someone I have only known for a day, none the less MARRYING THEM! This is literal a love story about two teenagers whose love manages to kill six people, INCLUDING THEMSELVES!

4) Literal YOUNG Love

While many retellings of the story (movies and such), interperat Romeo and Juliet as the same age (16), Shakesphere decides to dramatise the story and makes Juliet 13 YEARS OLD! At the age of 13, Juliet has not only decided to marry Romeo, but also kill herself to be with him! Though it makes sense that Juliet represents ‘young love’, I don’t think anyone actually imagines her to be THAT young.

5) Shakesphere didn’t write Romance

Allow us to take a step away from the story and actual take into account that Shakesphere DIDN’T WRITE ROMANCE! This is a man who was notorious for stories such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar; all well known TRAGEDYS that make it an absolute shock that he would pull a ROMANCE out of nowhere. Which can also make someone wonder: is it truly a romance? A story, about two children who fell in love which resulted in the deaths of six people, including themselves? If this story was truly a romance, wouldn’t the story end after the wedding? But that didn’t happen. Instead the only thing good that happened was that the fued between the two families, (that had been begun so long that no one even knows why the fued even started), was finally over due to a pile of corpses.

Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes.

Romeo and Juliet is a story about two kids, not even of legal age, falling in love and then dying. A story that even 422 years later is the foundation for all English classes, and is still the hot topic on whether or not it should be a considered a true story of romance.

Someone who retells the story better than I ever could —> click here.