Book Review: Romeo & Juliet

 ‘These Violent Delights have Violent Ends, and in their Triumph, Die.’

Good morrow chaps and chapettes. Welcome to the long-anticipated review of Romeo and Juliet. I say long anticipated, rather I’ve mentioned this so many bloody times that it’s about time I did a review on the damned play. 

So why have I mentioned this. A lot. Well because it’s incredibly problematic, and no. It not because it’s a love story between a 13year old and a 21-year-old over the course of 3 days and 5 people die. Nope. There are other issues here to digest as well. But that is the main one. And we will get into it. But not now. We have other fish to fry first. 

In a nutshell. What happens? There is a big rivalry. Big. Huge. Catastrophic. Between the Capulets and the Montagues, like it’s bad. People are dying. It gets to a point where the Prince of Verona issues an order that if there are anymore city brawls then those who instigate it do so on pain of death. Hmm. Someone has not had their morning coffee. Anyway, Romeo is in love with Rosaline, and he decided to gatecrash the Capulet’s party with a bunch of others because she’ll be there etc. Ya di da do yah. But he falls head over heels in love-at-first-sight with our Juliet. Awww nice. (It’s not she’s 13) anyways they fall in love and there’s this bit by on the balcony, something about ‘parting in such sweet sorrow’ and they agree to get married. Juliets nurse comes to confirm that they adore each other. And thus, get married by friar Lawrence who thinks that this union will end the feud. It doesn’t end the feud. But that’s because Romeo goes and does some sketchy shit. Gets himself banished. Juliet madly upset, her dad decides to marry her off to this Paris, so she decides to die. Of course. Yikes that’s a lot for a 13year old. And although she fakes it (ladies, who hasn’t) Romeo, oh poor sweet Romeo thinks she actually is dead and kills himself at her “grave”. And THAT ends their parent’s strife. 

So, let’s get into this. What is so damn problematic about R&J? First of all, I have issues with the whole ‘greatest love story ever told’. There are better ones, funnily enough all the couples don’t end up dead. Much Ado About Nothing, terrific. Jane Eyre, what a journey! Pride and Prejudice, a classic. And nobody dies! (okay not strictly true in Jane Eyre, but Jane and Mr Rochester don’t die and that’s my point) 

However, Let’s begin with Paris, yikes. So, at the start of the play, we see him making a proposition to Juliets father. He wishes to marry her, that’s nice. But she is very young, and her father wishes for his daughter to enjoy more of her childhood. Which is the one good thing I think her father does throughout this damned play. But Paris goes “younger than she are happy mothers made!” which is a pretty dire thing to say. Because nowadays that’s illegal. The thing about Paris, is that he means well. Some may say he’s the good guy in all of this, but he’s conventional and boring whereas Romeo is passionate, exciting, impulsive.  And what 14-year-old girl wouldn’t want that. Everybody loves a bad boy. But the thing with impulsive passionate people is that they aren’t rational people. Like when Romeo gets the message that Juliet is dead and misses the letter from the friar telling him she’s actually alive and, in that moment, he decides to kill himself. As much as this whole be-all-and-end-all is endearing and dramatic. I think I’m just a bit too cynical for all of this. 

Now let’s talk about Juliet and her nurse and maybe her mother. Lady Capulet is very excited about Paris, a little too excited and Juliet, bless he says ‘meh’… “I look to like if looking liking please” which I have to say is a boss move. But she too is impulsive, this love at first sight, this be all and end all for a young girl is apt for a girl her age. My question is whether she actually loves Romeo or loves the idea of loving Romeo. That’s not to say that there isn’t an instant connection, because there is. obviously, be a pretty lame play is there wasn’t. the nurse is more of a mother to Juliet than Lady Capulet. I think Lady Capulet is one of those women who probably didn’t want to have children but had them because it was what’s expected of her. which, I might add is the worst reason to have a child.

Now let’s talk about the blood feud. What I love about this is that no one can remember what this feud is all about. No one. Because it’s gone on too damn long and its caused havoc in the streets of Verona. We see bits of it ‘do you bite your thumb at me sir?’ at the beginning and with the impulsive death of Tybalt and Mercutio ‘A plague on both your houses! You have made worms meat of me!’ is what Mercutio yells at the onlookers because this feud has killed him.

To end this long soliloquy on Romeo and Juliet, I will say this for it. it is full of stunning language and imagery ‘my love is a boundless as the sea’. This play has inspired so many authors, actors, playwrights around the world. There is now a musical about Juliet, the fantastic author Malorie Blackman took the theme of ‘star-crossed lovers’ and turned it into a conversation about race. However problematic this play may be, the bard is a damned genius.