So in keeping with the character of our Romeo. And she, our Juliet, hurries up the stairs... and then twists Romeo around her finger b/c she seems to know EXACTLY what he wants. With teasing and coy modesty she gets him to a boiling point so that he will marry within a day - heck, within one act after meeting they are man & wife. That's not love, that's lunatic lust: "an expense of spirit in a waste of shame" as sonnets 147 & 129 reveal. She has him like a spider has a fly; or a child has a bird on a string (the origin of "bird on a wire" & I'm sure the (sick) origin of the game of paddle-ball). Act II, scene 2:
I think they take advantage of each other in different ways. It’s an inversion of the medieval romance in that wise. Can’t but think that the play is dramatizing “lust in action” (as the sonnet says); a vice which is at heart about domination of the world, and only peripherally about getting it on.
As always, perceptive and persecutory. Perceptive in the analysis that Romeo and Juliet was always meant to be approached as satire, and persecutory in calling out the many analysts of this work, suffering such cognitive dissonance that they historically and now are unable to admit, or even see, past their romantic perspective. This would be laughable if the repercussions were not so grave. Such distortion, as reading this work as romantic rather than satirical, as how to be in relationship, rather than what to avoid in relationship, lays a framework for the many works built upon this ground since. Such a quicksand of a foundation, in opposition to mature love, cannot carry a healthy society forward. Just look around.
My read of Will's work is that he is rubbish at love/affection/tenderness but focused at hormonal lust of guys, some gals. Look at his poetry and Sonnets, is there really tenderness/care and consideration/kindness...? Was that lust an experience of Will's personal life...what was working in plays at the time. I am not a fan of biographical interpolation but....who knows?
To me, Romeo is just a(nother) very shallow S-speare, dude character - and, of course, exclusively driven by his hormones/lust. He's written to be another S-speare dope.* Also, like most (all?) of Will's guy characters - mainly harmful to himself and others. Juliet, even at 13 is a strong contrast.
The book linked below helped me understand how smutty the play is written to be. Best way to get, paying, "butts in seats" we can assume.
* To me, strongly written and more dimensional guy characters are the basis of Marlowe and other EM playwrights work; Barnfield does beautiful love poetry.
Thank you, John, for the interesting article. I don't argue with the insinuation, but the joke might be that Romeo would be disappointed in what he ogled from below. After all, though gendered, angels didn't have genitalia, being immortal and in no need of generation. At least, that was the common understanding. I think his boggling eyes and her skywalk are more devolved from Counter-Reformation religious imagery of enskied saints and the pious raising their devout thoughts heavenwards. But that doesn't diminish the idea of Shakespeare sending up the excesses of Romeo's sudden longing.
Thanks Francis! Interesting point, though there are dozens of comparable sexual jokes in the play, and thus in context it seems to me the primary significance is bawdy. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
Have no disagreement with Mercutio, for he was right, right up to the moment when Romeo speaks, in amazement and befuddlement, "It is my lady." followed quickly by an assertion, of new and intrusive knowledge, enlightening him, in more ways than one, "It is my love." At that point the story turns from basically a horny 14 year old, out after his family's mortal enemy, and becomes love.
Blows the poor fool away.
Leaving him unsatisfied, may well be a come on for sex, but not in the house of his deadly foe. Even love struck, Romeo is not that much of a fool.
R- is written to end up dead in a pool of his own blood, after stabbing 2 guys and getting his BFF - accidentally. Gang fights, BTW. With his love dead in a pool of her own vomit.
Like so many of Will's guy characters - are their any lines written where the dude isn't dangerous, unprincipled, hormonal to compete for power/sex, impulsive, etc....? Remember Hamlet is written as a killer - accidentally, again.
Is this play about "love" or (tribal/clan/family) hate? Because hate sure wins in the end....
While am less familiar with the Comedies, would seem they have their fair share of non-killers. It was a time, when violence was quick to erupt, and blood to be spilled. That was daily life. Those in positions of authority, well, power were not necessarily kind and generous souls.
The chance to enlarge one’s realm, by taking over a neighboring city, county, etc., was based on the possibility of getting away with it. Law was present, order, not so much.
Have been convinced that Romeo’s initial character was shallow, at best. Having played the part, in the balcony scene, have become convinced, that once he realized, she was his love, that he had as a madcap, but himself at his most violent enemies center, he woke up, as it were.
Granted it takes one to discover love, to realize that all the prancing, the fancy words, required by the time, are just facades, once he saw her, in that light, he changed. His problem then was, nothing else amongst his friends, family, or neighbors had. Alas.
I suspect the story/play is a set of, largely smutty, puzzles, perhaps a "bed trick." It always surprises me with it's blood-tribal gang violence violence and weak-tea "love." Maybe West Side Story got is right. BTW, WSS started as a queer love story - irish and catholic boys....
I am never sure if Juliet - who does have some perternatural lines - is really in love with R-. I suspect just just wants out of the blood feuding. Will tells us how that works out for the next generation.
Beautiful writing, brilliant stagecraft, but, for me, I learn more from Marlowe, etc.
It's also hard to unravel the 20th century pop culture film versions from folks notions of "S-speare" and "world's greatest love story." Since no one reads anymore, let alone close reading or study/appreciation....we are left with largely warmed over 20th century pop tropes for this play and story......on TikTok....
I appreciate the exchange. It, largely subconsciously, gets me "thinking" (mainly feeling) what about Will's works is so compelling to me. I gripe and pick them apart - don't get me started on the Sonnets - but still am deeply drawn to them, over and over.
I have learned to close read - from uni class auditing - which has been a real gift. I appreciate this blogs' doing the same. Learning to close read has also boosted my feeling in other art forms and science I follow. Big fun.
I feel like what intrigues me about Will is the stories often seem deeply ironic and puzzle to unpack. For example, is R&J about teen love or blood/tribal feuding?
I would also argue that Will is prescient - his female characters anticipate modern female autonomy; Merchant of Venice anti-semitism (of course he was borrowing from Marlowe; etc. With tribal-ethnic hatred dominating world politics now, (I live in Trumpland) the blood(shed) in R&J (from the very first lines!) seems remarkably modern.
Tribalism has been with the human race for at least the last ten thousand years. Love, sex, desire, and all the rest, have always been strong forces for literature.
Tribalism has never stopped either love or lust from muddling the genetics, as it were. Not likely to today either. It is my contention, that human nature has not changed in over five thousand years. It is why we can read, translations of ancient Egyptian warriors, of their letters home. The Iliad and the Odyssey are at least three thousand years old, and still read. The characters in both are well known to us, if not in exact likenesses.
You tell me. In auditing uni classes and some Fakebook discussion groups, I notice no one really engages with the text but the movies have everyone a flutter....
In fairness, my brain doesn't respond to visual story telling - movies/TV/visual art leave me cold. My brain/genome is all about words and music - why I love the works of Will.
As Will taught us, and a lyric said, “Words are all I have, to take your heart away.” A movie without a good script, is a bad movie. As Rod Serling pointed out, “Once Hollywood paid directors and actors more than script writers, the whole industry went down hill.”. Everything begins and ends with words.
So in keeping with the character of our Romeo. And she, our Juliet, hurries up the stairs... and then twists Romeo around her finger b/c she seems to know EXACTLY what he wants. With teasing and coy modesty she gets him to a boiling point so that he will marry within a day - heck, within one act after meeting they are man & wife. That's not love, that's lunatic lust: "an expense of spirit in a waste of shame" as sonnets 147 & 129 reveal. She has him like a spider has a fly; or a child has a bird on a string (the origin of "bird on a wire" & I'm sure the (sick) origin of the game of paddle-ball). Act II, scene 2:
JULIET
'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton's bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
ROMEO
I would I were thy bird.
Interesting point. Because of her age, I mostly see R as taking advantage of J, but can totally see how you get there based on the passage above
I think they take advantage of each other in different ways. It’s an inversion of the medieval romance in that wise. Can’t but think that the play is dramatizing “lust in action” (as the sonnet says); a vice which is at heart about domination of the world, and only peripherally about getting it on.
Peter Paul Rubens "Boy with bird" 1616 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rubens,_Peter_Paul_-_A_child_with_bird_-_c._1616.jpg
So good
As always, perceptive and persecutory. Perceptive in the analysis that Romeo and Juliet was always meant to be approached as satire, and persecutory in calling out the many analysts of this work, suffering such cognitive dissonance that they historically and now are unable to admit, or even see, past their romantic perspective. This would be laughable if the repercussions were not so grave. Such distortion, as reading this work as romantic rather than satirical, as how to be in relationship, rather than what to avoid in relationship, lays a framework for the many works built upon this ground since. Such a quicksand of a foundation, in opposition to mature love, cannot carry a healthy society forward. Just look around.
Thank you Donna!
Another good analysis and close reading.
My read of Will's work is that he is rubbish at love/affection/tenderness but focused at hormonal lust of guys, some gals. Look at his poetry and Sonnets, is there really tenderness/care and consideration/kindness...? Was that lust an experience of Will's personal life...what was working in plays at the time. I am not a fan of biographical interpolation but....who knows?
To me, Romeo is just a(nother) very shallow S-speare, dude character - and, of course, exclusively driven by his hormones/lust. He's written to be another S-speare dope.* Also, like most (all?) of Will's guy characters - mainly harmful to himself and others. Juliet, even at 13 is a strong contrast.
The book linked below helped me understand how smutty the play is written to be. Best way to get, paying, "butts in seats" we can assume.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786447486/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
* To me, strongly written and more dimensional guy characters are the basis of Marlowe and other EM playwrights work; Barnfield does beautiful love poetry.
Thanks KR!
Thank you, John, for the interesting article. I don't argue with the insinuation, but the joke might be that Romeo would be disappointed in what he ogled from below. After all, though gendered, angels didn't have genitalia, being immortal and in no need of generation. At least, that was the common understanding. I think his boggling eyes and her skywalk are more devolved from Counter-Reformation religious imagery of enskied saints and the pious raising their devout thoughts heavenwards. But that doesn't diminish the idea of Shakespeare sending up the excesses of Romeo's sudden longing.
Thanks Francis! Interesting point, though there are dozens of comparable sexual jokes in the play, and thus in context it seems to me the primary significance is bawdy. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
Have no disagreement with Mercutio, for he was right, right up to the moment when Romeo speaks, in amazement and befuddlement, "It is my lady." followed quickly by an assertion, of new and intrusive knowledge, enlightening him, in more ways than one, "It is my love." At that point the story turns from basically a horny 14 year old, out after his family's mortal enemy, and becomes love.
Blows the poor fool away.
Leaving him unsatisfied, may well be a come on for sex, but not in the house of his deadly foe. Even love struck, Romeo is not that much of a fool.
Thanks for your thoughts Michael. Can't say I agree but happy to hear your view.
R- is written to end up dead in a pool of his own blood, after stabbing 2 guys and getting his BFF - accidentally. Gang fights, BTW. With his love dead in a pool of her own vomit.
Like so many of Will's guy characters - are their any lines written where the dude isn't dangerous, unprincipled, hormonal to compete for power/sex, impulsive, etc....? Remember Hamlet is written as a killer - accidentally, again.
Is this play about "love" or (tribal/clan/family) hate? Because hate sure wins in the end....
While am less familiar with the Comedies, would seem they have their fair share of non-killers. It was a time, when violence was quick to erupt, and blood to be spilled. That was daily life. Those in positions of authority, well, power were not necessarily kind and generous souls.
The chance to enlarge one’s realm, by taking over a neighboring city, county, etc., was based on the possibility of getting away with it. Law was present, order, not so much.
Have been convinced that Romeo’s initial character was shallow, at best. Having played the part, in the balcony scene, have become convinced, that once he realized, she was his love, that he had as a madcap, but himself at his most violent enemies center, he woke up, as it were.
Granted it takes one to discover love, to realize that all the prancing, the fancy words, required by the time, are just facades, once he saw her, in that light, he changed. His problem then was, nothing else amongst his friends, family, or neighbors had. Alas.
I suspect the story/play is a set of, largely smutty, puzzles, perhaps a "bed trick." It always surprises me with it's blood-tribal gang violence violence and weak-tea "love." Maybe West Side Story got is right. BTW, WSS started as a queer love story - irish and catholic boys....
I am never sure if Juliet - who does have some perternatural lines - is really in love with R-. I suspect just just wants out of the blood feuding. Will tells us how that works out for the next generation.
Beautiful writing, brilliant stagecraft, but, for me, I learn more from Marlowe, etc.
It's also hard to unravel the 20th century pop culture film versions from folks notions of "S-speare" and "world's greatest love story." Since no one reads anymore, let alone close reading or study/appreciation....we are left with largely warmed over 20th century pop tropes for this play and story......on TikTok....
There are a number of 20th century movie versions, which one or ones are you referring to?
I appreciate the exchange. It, largely subconsciously, gets me "thinking" (mainly feeling) what about Will's works is so compelling to me. I gripe and pick them apart - don't get me started on the Sonnets - but still am deeply drawn to them, over and over.
I have learned to close read - from uni class auditing - which has been a real gift. I appreciate this blogs' doing the same. Learning to close read has also boosted my feeling in other art forms and science I follow. Big fun.
I feel like what intrigues me about Will is the stories often seem deeply ironic and puzzle to unpack. For example, is R&J about teen love or blood/tribal feuding?
I would also argue that Will is prescient - his female characters anticipate modern female autonomy; Merchant of Venice anti-semitism (of course he was borrowing from Marlowe; etc. With tribal-ethnic hatred dominating world politics now, (I live in Trumpland) the blood(shed) in R&J (from the very first lines!) seems remarkably modern.
What say you?
Tribalism has been with the human race for at least the last ten thousand years. Love, sex, desire, and all the rest, have always been strong forces for literature.
Tribalism has never stopped either love or lust from muddling the genetics, as it were. Not likely to today either. It is my contention, that human nature has not changed in over five thousand years. It is why we can read, translations of ancient Egyptian warriors, of their letters home. The Iliad and the Odyssey are at least three thousand years old, and still read. The characters in both are well known to us, if not in exact likenesses.
Keep on reading and enjoy.
You tell me. In auditing uni classes and some Fakebook discussion groups, I notice no one really engages with the text but the movies have everyone a flutter....
In fairness, my brain doesn't respond to visual story telling - movies/TV/visual art leave me cold. My brain/genome is all about words and music - why I love the works of Will.
As Will taught us, and a lyric said, “Words are all I have, to take your heart away.” A movie without a good script, is a bad movie. As Rod Serling pointed out, “Once Hollywood paid directors and actors more than script writers, the whole industry went down hill.”. Everything begins and ends with words.