"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare

I finally have officially finished Romeo and Juliet, by, of course, Shakespeare.

Of course, this is a really famous piece of literature, and set a lot of standards, and is a super-classic, and is one the most produced pieces of theater ever.

I'm going to try to review, respond, whatever these are, to it without acknowledging this.

So first of all, I have to say that personally, I don't really like Romeo... or Juliet... Their characters, I feel, are fairly weak in the overall play. Of course, 'fate' and the 'the stars' are giant themes in this play, but I feel like they barely did anything besides die.

This is some kind of blasphemy, I know it.

But, I suppose some disbelief must be suspended. The time period this was written in was as much superstitiously believing in fate as it was believing in the Church. But still, I think that Romeo and Juliet's characters are mostly whiney and then dead the whole play. Juliet starts out fairly bearable, but gets as bad and bland as Romeo at the end. I'm not saying she didn't love Romeo, she committed suicide for him (though I do believe this was mostly due to her dislike of being controlled by her parents and not making her own decisions. Which is a little funny as the fates control her anyway the whole play.), but I think that if it would have been more interesting for me, as a character, if Juliet had been more active in trying to prevent her wedding to Paris, or more active in reuniting with Romeo. 

Some have claimed that they are the ideal representation of young love and the brashness of teenagers, but I doth protest. I know many teenagers that would have handled any situation similar to those of these Capulets and Montagues better then they would have, and smarter than they would have as well.

I think the rest of the characters were very well built, and all had clear motives and wants for their actions. This made the characters more easy to believe, even with fate intervening. I guess my biggest problem was with fate. I think that's fate hand is too much involved in Romeo and Juliet's relationship forming without enough thought from either one fo them them to make it myself really feel for their hardships or relationship.

This all is, of course, my opinion, which is clearly skewed as I live in a different time than when the play was written. Many of these behaviors were much more normal, such as quick courtships, or arranged marriages (by the stars or by parents). Just this play, to me, in my current postion as a person in this world, is just really touching the surface of what it could have been. I would have loved to see more of Juliet's struggle against marrying Paris (there's really nothing wrong with Paris, and she's known him for longer than Romeo. The only problem I see is that it seems she didn't want to do what her parents wanted her to.), and I think more of how Romeo views his and Juliet's family's quarrel. 

People kept talking about how this play has been relevant for such a long time because of it's themes when I read it with my class, but I think that some of these themes will be less and less easy to relate to as we progress in society and culture.