JULIET AND HER ROMEO

"Then I defy you, stars!" Welcome to my Romeo and Juliet blog! I ramble about the star-crossed lovers non-stop. My ask box is always open to discuss the play!

[laceyauandromedus]

Romeo & Juliet🥀 (1968)

[honeylemonntea]

[storyofmorewhoa]

Mellendraws fanart of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 Romeo and Juliet starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting

[romeojulietverona]

Love this!♥️

[hydigen]

still mad at that big illustration so heres a complementary set.

[noshitshakespeare]

Hi! What’s your stance on ecocriticism Shakespeare-wise?

I don't have a set stance on ecocriticism, and ecocriticism isn't a significant aspect of my scholarship. Still, I’ve read some excellent ecocriticial scholarship on Shakespeare, and I think it can be a very useful way of highlighting some aspects of the play that were not as evident to traditional criticism, which tended to focus on character and personality.

It's true, of course, that Shakespeare can't offer as much on questions about the Anthropocene as later literature, especially those written during and after the industrial revolution. But he does use a lot of nature imagery, and, more importantly, often registers the kind of instrumentalist thinking that led to later attempts to subjugate the natural world under human control. After all, in his plays, nature is often depicted as hostile and threatening to human life. A great example is, of course, the storm in King Lear. It seems to me that he shows how thinking of the natural world can lead either to a desire to control or to a recognition of the uncontrollable power of nature which remains oblivious to human suffering. Lear's initial attempts are to give himself the illusion of control by ordering the elements to do what they're already doing: 'Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!' (3.2.1), but whatever Lear may think, the play shows nature as a power beyond human control and understanding. Insofar as Shakespeare is constantly interested in the way people attempt to divorce themselves from the wider social and natural world, all his works deal, to some extent, with the kind of thinking that led to what is happening in the world today.

So yes, looking at Shakespeare through an ecocritical lens -- whether the focus is on nature, weather, waste, or human conduct in the face of the forces of nature -- can be very rewarding. But even without the potential richness of such a study, I think we're at a point where literary studies more broadly, and indeed the world in general, can't afford not to think in ecological terms. Whether we want it to be that way or not, our effect on the natural world is one of the fundamental questions of human existence today, and it's difficult for it not to be at the forefront of our experience of works of art.

[noshitshakespeare]

Not exactly ecocriticism, but here’s a timely and related (free) event organised by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. It’s next Wednesday, 8th December 2021:

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/visit/whats-on/introducing-shakespeare-saving-planet/

[elizabethan-memes]

I need to rant about this Bustle article's stone cold take on Romeo and Juliet.

I'm not quote mining, I've included every part of the section on Romeo and Juliet.

'Nothing says “toxic” like “joint suicide.”'

Well of course, when you put it like that. But 'joint suicide' is misleading af.

1) they did not commit suicide at the same time

2) they did not plan to commit suicide: they made no suicide pact*

3) at no point did they encourage the other to commit suicide

They only committed suicide when they believed/knew the other to already be dead. They impulsively committed suicide because they were young and traumatised. Being traumatised by the very sudden death of a loved one does not mean the original relationship was toxic.

*at one point iirc juliet is like "I'll kill myself rather than marry Paris" but that's external stress- because her father is unintentionally about to make her commit bigamy!- not her relationship with Romeo.

'Even setting aside Romeo’s fickle ways (remember Rosaline?), a relationship that involves running away and/or faking your own death is probably not that healthy.'

They didn't do it for shits and giggles! They weren't doing mind games on each other, it was a desperate plan caused by external circumstances. They HAD to run away from Verona because Romeo was banished to Mantua ON PAIN OF DEATH. It was NOT their original plan, but Capulet pulled the rug from under Juliet by demanding she marry Paris THE NEXT DAY. They didn't even come up with the idea, it was Friar Laurence's plan! How on earth did Shaun Fitzpatrick forget that their families hate each other which keeps them from being honest about their relationship, which drives them to desperate measures! It's in the opening lines of the fucking play!

'Plus, these two were never great at communicating with each other, as their particularly dark ending shows.'

*inhales* THEY TRIED. They were living in different cities! What were they supposed to do, text each other? The letter to tell Romeo of the plan went astray because of the plague! That's like saying someone's a bad communicator because their mobile phone signal cut out! And they had no time to talk because Capulet suddenly decided to marry Juliet to Paris with next to no warning! They could maybe have predicted Capulet might try to marry Juliet to Paris eventually but everything happened so fast.

I'm not saying the relationship is perfect. The point about Rosaline is fair, but if you're going to criticise Romeo and Juliet's relationship, don't blame things that the TEXT ITSELF TELLS YOU are caused by the feud.

[giuliettaluce]

THIS...

[apfel-strudelz]

Romeo and Juliet (1968) dir. Franco Zeffirelli

[arisefairsun]

Hello. I'm Hüseyin. I'm psychological counselor and i wanna share some posts on Instagram on my page. And i wanna use your photo about Romeo and juliet. Can you help me about permission?

Of course! Please, feel free to use as many pictures as you wish.

[writterings]

me thinking about shakespeare normally: mercutio was gay

me thinking about shakespeare at 3 am: romeo and juliet is underrated as a story. why? because everyone treats it as a love story when they should be treating it as a commentary on how children are too afraid to come to their parents with a problem or even voice their opinions on things without fear of facing repercussions. juliet didn’t want to marry paris, some old guy she didn’t know. so OF COURSE she was going to choose romeo, some hot young thing that talked nice and looked nicer and probably made her feel special. she had had at least a conversation with the guy. but no. she can’t tell her father that she doesn’t want to marry and would rather try to get to know that nice montague boy that was chatting her up while crashing her party. but of course she can’t. both of because societal expectations and because of the whole blood feud. and then there’s romeo. we all call him an emo fuck but the fact remains that it is highly hinted that he had depression and while finding someone “to love” doesn’t automatically fix that in a person, him “loving” juliet definitely did seem to improve his mood while his parents just brushed him off. and in the end of the story, they’d both rather kill themselves then tell their parents that they’re going to be disappointing them by telling them who they “love” and that’s just fucked up. these were teenagers. and while this may have not been old billy shakes’ original message, it stands that this interpretation could benefit being taught to a lot of students and even some parents. 

[bloomngloom]

I’m so sick and fucking tired of people removing mentions of Mercutio being gay and citing “there’s no evidence in the text” as their reason. Romeo and Juliet is not just literature, it is a play. It is theatre. And theatre is not at all about the text. Theatre is about the ambiguity; the room for every actor and director from high school to Broadway to make their own interpretation. And there is a history that you cannot deny of Mercutio being interpreted as gay. Baz Lurrman’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet just being the tip of the iceberg. Mercutio’s character almost always has a level of flamboyance that LGBT+ people recognize in themselves and that lends itself well to this interpretation. To see Shakespeare only through the lens of the text (of which practically every line could be debated, and translations vary depending on location, time period, and the positioning of the stars) is to see less than half of it. If William “Bill the Bisexual” Shakespeare wanted us to think like that he would have published his work as epic poems or something.

[slashingshakespeare]

I have yet to meet a performance of romeo and juliet that makes mercutio in any way straight

[noshitshakespeare]

Hi! I currently cannot buy any physical copies of Shakespeare's work, so do you know any online (preferably free) places where I can read his plays, as well as footnotes? I'm not too savvy with his English and I want to understand the works to the fullest extent.

Hi there! 

That’s a really good question. Many of the best Shakespeare editions do have digital editions (including the Arden, accessible through drama online and the Oxford Shakespeares, accessible through the Oxford Scholarly Editions online), but unfortunately these are behind incredibly expensive paywalls as they operate on a subscription model designed for big institutions rather than personal access. 

Most free online editions (like open-source Shakespeare or the MIT complete works) don’t have footnotes because, well, footnotes are someone’s work and tend to be in copyright. So when a free online edition does have footnotes, they tend to be a little outdated or old fashioned. 

Having said that, there is Shakespeare’s Words, which would be my top recommendation for a super accessible, well-designed website made by two extremely respectable Shakespeareans and linguists (Ben and David Crystal). It’s got all sorts of tools and resources that are brilliant for beginners and more advanced people alike, and especially those who aren’t confident about the language. The only thing is that you can only view up to 20 pages of the plays for free. But the subscription is very affordable and, I think, worthwhile if you like the way they present the information. 

Honourable Mentions:

Internet Shakespeare Editions is a great free scholarly resource and a labour of love. They’re slowly adding fully edited fully footnoted copies of the texts, but unfortunately, they’ve only fully finished six plays so far (as far as I know) and it’s a little hard to navigate. Still, if you want to read As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Henry IV Part 1 or Winter’s Tale or access any free scholarly essays then you can do so here. They have all the other plays as well, but they don’t have notes.

The Shakespeare Online pages are a free online resource for Shakespeare beginners who don’t want to spend any money. It’s a little fiddly to navigate, but all the plays have footnotes at the bottom of the page, and it comes with pages of critical material that might aid the reading process. But, as I’ve already said, because they rely on out-of-copyright material, a lot of the criticism is quite old, and I would only use this with the knowledge that the scholarship it’s based on is famous but pretty outdated.

The Norton Shakespeare has an online edition you can buy if you’re in the US, but otherwise you have to buy a physical copy which comes with an access code that allows you to use the digital copy too. Unfortunately, you only get four years of access, and it’s not cheap, though it is very good quality material, and slightly more high level than Shakespeare’s Words.

[enchantedbook]

Ophelia from ‘The Illustrated Library Shakespeare ’ illustration by Sir John Gilbert, 1890

[timotaychalamet]

Romeo and Juliet (1968) dir. Franco Zeffirelli

[newlyorange]

Okay so a production of Hamlet that ends with “Goodnight, sweet prince,” etc. and then Horatio looks up and sees the audience for the first time and is both shocked and furious, because his world is falling apart and you sat there and watched.

[devilsss-dyke-deactivated202202]

This idea would go fantastically well with my director’s idea that Hamlet knows the whole time that he’s in a play. He had me (when I played Hamlet) interact with the audience, exchange looks with people in the front row, deliver my soliloquies to people in the first few rows casually like I was just talking to them, and I even had the idea to not freeze and just walk about the stage when other characters had their little ‘asides,’ which he allowed me to keep in.

Basically, if Hamlet continuously acknowledges the audience unnoticed by all the other characters (almost Fleabag-style) and then suddenly he’s gone, and obviously he knew he’d have to be gone at the end, and then poor Horatio is left all alone to finally realize there was someone else there the entire time, now that would make it all the more devastating.

[wisteria-lodge]

There’s no difference between the Danish courtiers, who showed up because they wanted to see the Mad Prince get his butt kicked in a staged sword-fight, and us the audience (who… also showed up to watch Hamlet loose a sword fight.) 

I want to see a production where Horatio just stares at us, and screams “Now cracks a noble heart!” with the subtext “You fucking fuckers. He was better than all of you, you watched him die, and you just stood there.

Then, he just silently cries over the body. For like FIVE MINUTES. And the courtiers peel away into the wings, one by one, until Horatio is alone on stage with a lot of dead bodies. It starts getting uncomfortable. You’re thinking… is the play over? Am I supposed to go? (hamlet is just about the *only* play where the final scene is cut about 50% time, so use that uncertainty, use that ambiguity.) Maybe some people do get up to go. There’s definitely muttering. And then there’s smashing sounds coming from the direction of the box office, and Horatio looks up, with an expression like something’s gone wrong. 

But then he says, “Why do the drums come hither?” Fortinbras enters though the audience, and the play continues. 

(I *also* think it would be really cool to cut for intermission right after Claudius freaks out and breaks up the play-within-a-play. Just imagine it: king yells “Lights! Lights! Lights!” And the houselights come up.) 

[giuliettaluce]

Supposed calendar of Romeo and Juliet (Circa 1302) Maybe…

1)      17 of July (Sunday?!) – The fight in the streets, the preparation of the feast, the meeting of the lovers at the feast and the balcony.

2)      18 of July (Monday?!) – Romeo and Juliet remained together on the balcony until sunrise, Romeo did not sleep and goes directly to Friar Lawrence to grant him to wed Juliet, the wedding, the killing of Mercutio and Tybalt, Romeo is banished, Romeo and Juliet consumed their marriage, the officialization of Juliet’s marriage to Paris on a Thursday.

3)      19 of July (Tuesday?!) – Last farewell of the lovers, the fight, Juliet goes to the Friar for help, Friar gives Juliet the sleeping potion to drink and to awake within 42 hours. Lord Capulet changes the date from Thursday to Wednesday, The preparation of the wedding, Juliet drinks the potion.

4)      20 of July (Wednesday?!) – Day of the wedding and the discovery of Juliet’s dead body, the funeral.

5)      21 of July (Thursday?!) – Romeo arrives to Juliet’s tomb, Juliet awakes and kills herself.

6)      22 of July (Friday?!) – Double funeral for Romeo and Juliet.

Other info:

Juliet’s birthday: 16 of September according to Da Porto and Bandello she was 18 years old. In Shakespeare: she was born on July 31st, 1284 and dies on July 21st, 1302.

Romeo’s birthday, 1282 (16 years old) dies on July 21st, 1302.

Other info!!! from PBS

On March 17th, 1302, Romeo and Juliet were married, according to Shakespeare. A real couple named Romeo Montocchio and Juliet Capelletto were married in the walled city of Cittadella in Italy. (In Cittadella, Padua?! WTF?!)

[ludmilachaibemachado]

Behind the scenes🎬

[macbcth]

i like to believe that ophelia’s madness gave her a kind of meta knowledge of the plot— that she saw the tragic ending coming, knew that hamlet’s indecision would be his hamartia, that she realised gertrude and claudius were both poisoned with corruption from the beginning and instead of the customary funeral goers laying flowers at a grave, it was Ophelia— mad, at death’s door, about to die in less than 2 scenes— who handed flowers to the king, queen and protagonist as if the dead girl was mourning the living