Poor Romeo.
He's so innocent, loving Rosaline because she's so beautiful when he doesn't even know what love is.
Poor Romeo.
Rejected by his one and only love. The most perfect girl in the world. "The all-seeing sun ne'er saw her match since first the world begun."
Oh- but then Juliet comes along and it's goodbye Rosaline and hello Juliet!
I don't think people realize how perfect Romeo and Juliet is to read at our age. Not only is Juliet exactly our age, but it completely relates to our new feelings about love and just being a young person in the world in general. Romeo is 16 and thinks he loves one girl and one girl only. And then all of a sudden Juliet comes out of no where and all thoughts of Rosaline are lost.
Let's be honest here- how many times has this happened, and will happen to us in our adolescent lifetime? Or just our life, when you think about it.
I love how normal Romeo is. Behind all the unusually young marriages and people who are so much older than you asking to marry you and the crazy sword fights that break out, all the things that are weird for us and hard to understand, there is Romeo.
I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare intentionally created Romeo as a normal person. But what is "normal" for us? Everything else written in this play was considered "normal" back in that time period. Was Romeo supposed to be the "not normal" person? Was Shakespeare keeping in mind that times were changing and soon what was normal wouldn't be? Maybe he knew that, and knew that Romeo would change from the different person to the person who was easiest to understand and relate to? Or maybe he didn't mean anything at all.
It's quite possible.
All I know right now is that underneath all the confusion and frustration you can find Romeo. And once you translate his language into something you can understand, you can say, "Thank goodness there is some one so innocent and sweet, someone I can relate too."
And by the way... Has anyone else noticed that Romeo has been the only person who hasn't picked a fight yet? While watching the movie and class, and even again when reading I kept asking myself during the fight scene, "Where is Romeo?" Just another reason why he is so perfect.
My advice, just try to forget about how hard everything is... just for a little. And read some Romeo. He is so peaceful, so easy, Luhrmann, so cute. :)
Romeo is an excellent character... I wish he were real.
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9 months ago
It's interesting, because I think that people can find a piece of themselves in at least one of Shakespeare's characters. So interesting to think about!
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