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Rethinking Romeo and Juliet for the New School Year
Rethinking Romeo and Juliet for the New School Year
Rethinking Romeo and Juliet for the New School Year
Rethinking Romeo and Juliet for the New School Year
Rethinking Romeo and Juliet for the New School Year
As I start the school year, I realize that when I first taught Romeo and Juliet, I underestimated it. It does seem to be one of The Bard's more popular plays -- especially among the younger set. Maybe it's because of the romance between the leads. Maybe it's because of West Side Story. Or, perhaps, maybe it's because of the Leonardo Dicaprio movie. Whatever the reason for the popularity, when I taught the play in my somewhat older days, I realized that it is a lot more compelling than a tale of star crossed lovers would seemingly allow. If you ask your class to write a paper on Romeo and Juliet, don't have them write a thesis solely about the impetuousness of young love.
Yes, it is, in fact, a play about young passion. But it's a lot more than that. If you read closely (and let the iambic pentameter move you through the play), you will see a lot more to Romeo and Juliet than young romance. It's a retelling of the Felix Culpa. Check your Milton. If you've read Paradise Lost (and you should if you haven't), you will see parallels that Milton draws from Romeo and Juliet to his Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden.
Romeo is not a young hothead who foolishly sacrifices for love. Romeo is Adam. He is everyman, risking well being (orthodoxy, obedience to a Patriarch) for mortal love. Juliet is not a foolish, innocent child, swept away by Romeo's persistent wooing of her. Rather, she comes of age, comes into knowledge of her self and her womanhood, and risks the same things as Romeo in order to experience mortal love.
The Montagues and Capulets are as antagonistic as good and evil, light and dark, day and night, and hot and cold. Look at Shakespeare's words throughout the play and you will see the constant juxtaposition of these types of extremes. It's no accident. The import is to emphasize the theme that opposing forces of innocence and experience will collide into tragedy in order to create peace and self awareness to follow. The Montagues and the Capulets cannot know redemption unless Romeo and Juliet die. Mankind cannot be free from original sin until Adam and Eve fall. So it is that Romeo's banishment from the city (and, hence, Juliet's constructive banishment) is akin to our civilization as human beings forced to grow outside of Eden. To the East of Eden. (See Steinbeck for more on Adam and Eve and original sin).
When teaching the play have your students consider the character of Romeo as tragic hero: Is he really? Compare him to Hamlet, Macbeth, or Othello. There are divergent characteristics that would prevent one from characterizing him as the typical tragic hero, of the Shakespearean sort (and also the Greek sort). He is tragic, we know that because he dies and we mourn him. But the struggle is not really his own. He does not truly possess a tragic flaw apart from others in society. If anything, aren't his parents and the Capulets -- or even Tybalt and Paris more flawed than Romeo? Is his flaw really his willingness to love? Some would argue his tragic flaw is the seemingly fickle way in which he stops "loving" Rosaline in favor of Juliet. Let's consider that proposition for a moment. Do the great tragedians truly place transient love among the great tragic flaws? Even if they did, do the great tragedians typically give their tragic heroes more sympathetic tragic flaws than the other dramatis personae?
Hamlet's flaw is his inability to accept the experience thrust upon him after his father's murder. He cannot restore justice to Denmark, and therefore, Denmark suffers under the weight of the rank rule of Claudius and Gertrude. Macbeth's tragic flaw is the birth of his blind ambition and consequent guilt, the likes of which are never surfeited no matter how many murders occur to hide his deeds. Othello's tragic flaw is, perhaps the most obvious. His jealousy leads to the destruction of that which he adores the most. Are we to place Romeo's adoration of Juliet amongst these crises of conscience and conflicts of personality?
Romeo is an archetype. Not a tragic hero. The same can be said of Juliet -- although, a provocative paper would be to compare Juliet to Romeo and argue that she is the more developed of the two characters. Romeo and Juliet love and lose one another in life so that we all can understand that life is a struggle against opposites and that sometimes redemption springs forth from the wreckage. And, I suppose, it's also a very good love story.
Yes, it is, in fact, a play about young passion. But it's a lot more than that. If you read closely (and let the iambic pentameter move you through the play), you will see a lot more to Romeo and Juliet than young romance. It's a retelling of the Felix Culpa. Check your Milton. If you've read Paradise Lost (and you should if you haven't), you will see parallels that Milton draws from Romeo and Juliet to his Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden.
Romeo is not a young hothead who foolishly sacrifices for love. Romeo is Adam. He is everyman, risking well being (orthodoxy, obedience to a Patriarch) for mortal love. Juliet is not a foolish, innocent child, swept away by Romeo's persistent wooing of her. Rather, she comes of age, comes into knowledge of her self and her womanhood, and risks the same things as Romeo in order to experience mortal love.
The Montagues and Capulets are as antagonistic as good and evil, light and dark, day and night, and hot and cold. Look at Shakespeare's words throughout the play and you will see the constant juxtaposition of these types of extremes. It's no accident. The import is to emphasize the theme that opposing forces of innocence and experience will collide into tragedy in order to create peace and self awareness to follow. The Montagues and the Capulets cannot know redemption unless Romeo and Juliet die. Mankind cannot be free from original sin until Adam and Eve fall. So it is that Romeo's banishment from the city (and, hence, Juliet's constructive banishment) is akin to our civilization as human beings forced to grow outside of Eden. To the East of Eden. (See Steinbeck for more on Adam and Eve and original sin).
When teaching the play have your students consider the character of Romeo as tragic hero: Is he really? Compare him to Hamlet, Macbeth, or Othello. There are divergent characteristics that would prevent one from characterizing him as the typical tragic hero, of the Shakespearean sort (and also the Greek sort). He is tragic, we know that because he dies and we mourn him. But the struggle is not really his own. He does not truly possess a tragic flaw apart from others in society. If anything, aren't his parents and the Capulets -- or even Tybalt and Paris more flawed than Romeo? Is his flaw really his willingness to love? Some would argue his tragic flaw is the seemingly fickle way in which he stops "loving" Rosaline in favor of Juliet. Let's consider that proposition for a moment. Do the great tragedians truly place transient love among the great tragic flaws? Even if they did, do the great tragedians typically give their tragic heroes more sympathetic tragic flaws than the other dramatis personae?
Hamlet's flaw is his inability to accept the experience thrust upon him after his father's murder. He cannot restore justice to Denmark, and therefore, Denmark suffers under the weight of the rank rule of Claudius and Gertrude. Macbeth's tragic flaw is the birth of his blind ambition and consequent guilt, the likes of which are never surfeited no matter how many murders occur to hide his deeds. Othello's tragic flaw is, perhaps the most obvious. His jealousy leads to the destruction of that which he adores the most. Are we to place Romeo's adoration of Juliet amongst these crises of conscience and conflicts of personality?
Romeo is an archetype. Not a tragic hero. The same can be said of Juliet -- although, a provocative paper would be to compare Juliet to Romeo and argue that she is the more developed of the two characters. Romeo and Juliet love and lose one another in life so that we all can understand that life is a struggle against opposites and that sometimes redemption springs forth from the wreckage. And, I suppose, it's also a very good love story.
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