Shakespeare, Harry Potter and Me, Gehayi

[gehayi]

I looked over the Shakespeare meme that's going around, but the problem with that is that it presumes that you've seen the plays both on stage and in the movies. I have never seen a Shakespeare play on stage or in the movies. The only adaptation of a Shakespeare play that I know I've seen is West Side Story. I've only ever read two plays for

Comments

[gehayi]

I hate Shakespeare, and can back up my hatred citing many quotes.

I don't hate Shakespeare. If I did, I wouldn't have written about Lady Macbeth for femgenficathon.

But I will admit to an abiding hatred for Romeo and Juliet. I have two issues with that play:

1) The kids don't know each other. They meet at a party, talk for long enough to recite a sonnet, talk to each other after the party (her on the balcony, him in the garden, and probably every neighbor in Verona yelling, "Would you shut UP, we're trying to sleep!"), and the next day Romeo is tearing off to Friar Lawrence's telling him that he wants to marry this girl he met the night before. And they get married the same day. And they have sex that night. That's it. The sum total of the time they know each other breaks down to less than twenty-four hours.

Now, I don't believe you can love anyone in so little time. Be infatuated as hell, yes. Be in love, no.

2) Everyone and their brother claims this story is about true love. And I see no evidence of this. Romeo blathers about Rosaline exactly the way he later blathers about Juliet. Which is why I heart Rosaline so much. She had enough sense to tell Romeo "No." And as far as I'm concerned, she got the best part of the deal. She lived, and the melodramatic idiots didn't.

Moreover, I'm certain that if Romeo and Juliet had survived, in three weeks he would have been spouting poetry about some Maria Lucia or Annunciata or Giovanna and sighing after her. When he wasn't shtupping Mercutio, that is.

So yeah. The Capulets would have had the marriage annulled in a matter of months.

I like that ending better.

I would love to hear the quotes that back up your hatred, though. I really really would.

[lovefromgirl]

You'd still love the RSC. Trust me on this one. :-)

[gehayi]

Are you talking about the Royal Shakespeare Company version or the Reduced Shakespeare Company version?

[lovefromgirl]

Latter. Am lazy at 2am.

[terrie01]

I strongly believe that R&J is about how romance makes you a moron.

[gehayi]

I'll buy that!

[furikku]

I share your hatred of R&J. Although I read somewhere someone advancing the idea that it ISN'T supposed to be so much "OMG TRU LUV 4EVER!!!!" as "Yep, horny teenagers sure can be stupid. Often fatally so."

[gehayi]

I read somewhere someone advancing the idea that it ISN'T supposed to be so much "OMG TRU LUV 4EVER!!!!" as "Yep, horny teenagers sure can be stupid. Often fatally so."

Which would make a hell of a lot more sense.

[furikku]

I remember the first time I read/watched that play my chief reaction was, "OK why are they doing this harebrained scheme there are more sensible ways of doing this."

I was about the same age as them, possibly a bit younger.

Yeah.

[gehayi]

I remember the first time I read/watched that play my chief reaction was, "OK why are they doing this harebrained scheme there are more sensible ways of doing this."

I was about the same age as them, possibly a bit younger.

I was about a year older, and I thought that scheme was the dumbest thing ever.

I was also furious at Romeo for hearing that Juliet was dead and deciding, "Woe is me, I guess I'd better go buy poison." Dude, it's a RUMOR. Go get confirmation! Disguise yourself and sneak back into Verona. Talk to your herbalist monk friend about whether she's dead or in a coma. Talk to Benvolio. Send a message to Rosaline--Juliet is her cousin, after all, so she might know what had happened. Find out what is going on! You can always kill yourself later. There's no rush.

[aikaterini]

I was annoyed, too. I usually don't like stories like that - where a character learns one thing, immediately jumps to conclusions, and then rushes off to do something stupid without bothering to check if it's true. The idea that Romeo wouldn't even check to make sure that Juliet was dead - that he bought the poison *before* he got into her tomb to see her - just seemed really ridiculous to me.

[sunnyskywalker]

I am baffled how so many people read R&J as being "true love." I see it totally differently, probably due to early exposure to an essay on the play by Isaac Asimov. Iirc, his argument something like this:

- R&J are quite obviously horny teenagers, and moreover (I think he mentioned this), in the source material Shakespeare was using, the whole point was that rebellious children are going to get themselves killed. Plus Romeo is also quite obviously fickle.

- The servants seem happy to brawl, and Tybalt takes the feud seriously (and by extension Juliet, since it's mentioned later that they were close and she probably believes what he tells her). But Montague and Capulet themselves don't seem that into it, to the point where when Romeo crashes the Capulet party, Capulet's response is basically, "Oh, I heard he's a good kid. Chill." Which suggests that the feud is winding down, and a timely marriage proposal might actually go over well and allow everyone to save face. But Juliet thinks her father would never go for it because OMG FEUD!!1! and Romeo is willing to indulge her romantic fantasies of secret marriage, because they're kids. (And it might not have worked out, but Capulet didn't know that at the time.)

- Friar Lawrence had several opportunities to say, "You know what? Maybe we should float this by your parents, I think they'd go for it." Or he could have gone to Prince Escalus before or after the marriage to explain the situation and have him try to sort it out. Or he could have kept Romeo in sanctuary instead of sending him out of reliable mail range. Or he could have stayed in that tomb and kept Juliet from stabbing herself.

- So basically, the kids are stupid, but it didn't need to end in multiple deaths if all the adults hadn't taught them they were supposed to be deadly enemies and then ignored all the brawling and such that made the kids think that sort of thing was normal. (Tybalt included.) They created a culture of casual violence, and it came back to bite them. And that's why the play ends with Escalus and the parents reconciling and saying, "Damn, this is all our fault. Let's be friends now" instead of stopping when R&J die.

In that light, it's a much more interesting play.

[gehayi]

Geez, I wish my teacher had presented it that way. Instead, she was all, "This is the epitome of romance and True Love!" Which I didn't believe, but at fourteen, I knew that teachers don't want to hear your opinion--they want to hear their own opinion echoed back. Preferably in their own words.

Yeah, I was rather cynical as a teenager.

Asimov's essay sounds familiar. I probably read it, as I read almost everything the man ever wrote. (Never could get through the Foundation Trilogy, though.)

[sunnyskywalker]

Like I said, it was good luck. I've heard more stories about your kind of English class, and I don't think my parents' English teachers taught much of anything.

I think I got through the trilogy when I was twelve or so, but don't remember much of it. Some of his short stories and essays are much more memorable to me.

[aikaterini]

You are absolutely right on both points. Even while I was reading it for the first time, I wondered how they could be so in love after meeting each other just once at a party. And I did notice that Romeo's lamentations about Rosaline were not all that different from his praises of Juliet, which made me wonder if he was really serious or if Shakespeare was pulling my leg. Funny how hardly anybody brings up Rosaline when talking about "Romeo and Juliet." Before I read the play, I didn't even that Romeo had liked somebody before Juliet.

The reason why I don't hate Romeo and Juliet, I think, is because of the beauty of Shakespeare's language. Oh, sure, you can say that in the end, it's all fluff because Romeo and Juliet don't know each other very well and therefore aren't really in love, but the imagery and poetry of the play is beautiful. Even Mercutio's ironic soliloquy about Queen Mab is particularly vivid and striking.

/(her on the balcony, him in the garden, and probably every neighbor in Verona yelling, "Would you shut UP, we're trying to sleep!")/

Ha, I never thought of that! It would make a funny scene for a parody. :)

[gehayi]

the imagery and poetry of the play is beautiful. Even Mercutio's ironic soliloquy about Queen Mab is particularly vivid and striking.

I agree. The language is fantastic. The characters are carrying the idiot ball, but the language is gorgeous.

My English teacher--the same one who thought that this was the most romantic thing EVER--had us write scenes that didn't happen in the story but that we thought should have happened.

Everyone else wrote continuations of the balcony scene or more tragic endings for R & J.

I wrote a scene where the Nurse talks Friar Laurence out of drugging Juliet and into helping her escape from Verona dressed as a boy. As I recall, Juliet ended up posing as a newly tonsured Franciscan novice, and Romeo freaked out because his wife was partly bald. And Juliet yelled at him for being so shallow. The story ended with Romeo wasn't any too sure that he wanted to be married now that more was being expected of him than pretty words. (Also, he hadn't been expecting a strong, decisive wife.) Friar Laurence was admonishing him to accept marriage and not merely the idea of marriage when the curtain fell. (I forget what Juliet was doing. Reading a papal dispensation for their marriage, I think. And still being rather miffed at Romeo.)

I got a B-.

The teacher said that I'd missed what the play was all about.