Cto10121 is finally doing a personalized tag masterpost!!! It’s about damn time. Anyhoo, hopefully this will make it easier to find most everything of interest in my blog.
Me, Myself, and I
Cristina Reviews: General tag for my reviews of books, movies, musicals, and TV shows.
Cristina Reads: General tag for books with text, quotes, and screenshots.
Cristina Opines: My cold takes.
Cristina Has An Unpopular Opinion: My hot takes.
Cristina Is Silly: Technically I have a sense of humor.
Cristina Memes: Badly, but she does.
Cristina Metas: General tag for my nerdy griping.
Icon Fun: I had tons with those icon memes of yore.
Ask/Reply
I Come Anon: For anonymous asks.
Books & Literature
Cristina Is An English Major: Main tag.
Popular Fandoms
Twilight Meta: Meta on Twilight.
Anti Anti Twilight: This is a pro-romance blog above all, but honestly it doesn’t deserve it.
Twilight Clownery: Tumblr’s hatred of Twilight has much to do with hate, but more with love clownery.
SAB Meta: Very critical meta on Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone. See also: Anti Malina, Mal Me Cae Muy Mal
Darling Dorkling Darkling Done Dirty: I originated this tag and don’t you lot forget it! Defense of The Darkling from Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone.
HP Clown Takes: Harry Potter clownery is real and so I eat it.
Shakespeare
R&J Meta/RJ Meta: Meta on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The Struggle Is Real for both Shakespeare and Presgurvic meta. I also did a read-through on Arthur Brooke’s version.
R&J Clown Takes: It’s a whole series by this point. See also: RJ Clown Takes, RJ Clownery, R&J Clownery.
Romeo Hate Dumb: So much material that I literally had to create my own tag for it. Thanks for nothing, world.
Hamlet Meta: Meta on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Hamlet Clownery: I foresee this will be a thing.
Shakespeare Meta: Meta on Shakespeare’s plays in general.
Shakespeare Clownery: Might as well create this tag because I know I’m going to need it.
Life of Will: Meta on Shakespeare himself and his life.
Musicals
Romeo et Juliette: General tag for Presgurvic’s musical. Also Roméo et Juliette.
RetJ Meta: I like to talk about this musical way too goddamn much.
RetJ World Domination: The whole purpose of this blog by this point.
Original French RetJ
Revival RetJ
Takarazuka RetJ
Hungarian RetJ
That Production That Must Not Be Named: You lot know exactly what I mean.
Idaho RetJ: This exists.
Notre Dame de Paris: General tag for the Plamondon/Cocciante musical.
Elisabeth: General tag for the Kunze/Lévay musical. Also with the das.
Rebecca: General tag for the Kunze/Lévay musical. Also with the das.
My Writing
That’s kind of my main thing. I still have my AO3 and Fanfiction.Net accounts, as well as a sister blog here, technically.
Lyrics and Translations
The agonies of a certain English translation of RetJ has driven me to a life of crime lyric writing, beginning with RetJ. I also uploaded whole scripts to my lyrics website; those are more or less the latest versions.
My Lyrics: My general tag for all my translations, including pop and world music.
RetJ English: English lyrics for Presgurvic’s Roméo et Juliette, de la Haine à l’Amour.
Notre Dame de Paris English: English lyrics for Cocciante’s and Plamondon’s Notre Dame de Paris.
Elisabeth English: English lyrics for Kunze and Lévay’s Elisabeth.
Starmania English: English lyrics for Plamondon and Berger’s Starmania.
Tanz der Vampire English: English lyrics for Kunze and Steinman’s Tanz der Vampire.
Currently serving coffee to customers at my part time job, I sure do hope I won't start jumping on the tables singing about the inevitable visions of doom our Empress has had after the birth of her son...
INTERNATIONAL REJ FANS: What do you mean??? Sold out??
Yes, ladies and gents and everything in between. Roméo et Juliette, the French Musical will return to France in December 2027! Something you may have missed if you're not following them on instagram.
Unfortunately, the tickets sold out so fast, me and my friends (in Europe, but not in France) missed our chance. The website in English didn't show the ticket sale yet, the French website version was down most of the day. When we finally got in, it was after being in a queue and only a few backseats were still available. Not worth the cost for a big group (who then can't sit together etc) who also needs to travel and cover other expenses to get there.
So... we're not going, but lurking.
To everyone else: keep your eyes out for new dates!
So while I was renting Teach the Torches to Burn from Libby, I found yet another piece R&J published fanfiction, Christina Dodd’s A Daughter of Fair Verona. Set in an AU where Romeo and Juliet live and have kids, it follows R&J’s 20-year-old daughter, Rosaline, as she stumbles upon the body of her dead fiancé and becomes a suspect in his murder. Meanwhile, she falls in love at first sight with Lysander Marchetti, all while having some UST with Prince Escalus Jr.
Needless to say, I have des Notes (tm), and luckily for me (but unluckily for you), I figured out how to export my notes and highlights from Kindle. Hey nonny no, and here we go!
My name is Rosie, Rosaline if I’m in trouble, and I’m the daughter of Romeo and Juliet. Yes, that Romeo and Juliet.
I don’t care what type of R&J Lives AU this is. There is no way, in any universe, that Romeo “The other did not so” Montague would ever name his daughter after Rosaline. This is, in short, bullshit. Fortunately for Dodd, I have a strong stomach and years of experience in R&J clownery, so let’s just move on.
Mom grabbed Dad’s knife out of the sheath and stabbed herself. There was a lot of blood, and she fainted, but essentially she stabbed that gold pendant necklace her family buried her with, the knife skidded sideways, and she slashed her own chest. She still has the scar, which, when I’m rolling my eyes, she insists on showing me. What with all that blood, she fainted. When she came to, still very much alive, she crawled back up on the tomb, sobbed again all over Dad’s body, and got wound up for a second self-stabbing. It was at this point Dad sat up, leaned over, and vomited all over the floor.
It’s a well-known fact you can never trust an unfamiliar
apothecary to deliver a reliable dose of poison.
R&J: *go through a horrifically traumatic near-death experience*
Their daughter, apparently: 🙄
Actually, I’m not young. My parents have been trying to marry me off to some nobleman or another since I was thirteen years old. As a proper daughter must do, I curtsy and thank them, then I go to work finding these gentlemen wives who they immediately fall in love with and adore forever.
So after almost being forced to marry someone she didn’t love, this Juliet along with Romeo has no problem forcing their daughter, beginning at 13 years old, to marry. *swigs wine* Okay.
“This is your fault, Romeo.” Mom seldom spoke sharply to him, except on this subject. “You insisted on naming her Rosaline after your first love. Rosaline, who swore to be chaste, and now we have a chaste daughter. Foreshadowing! What were you thinking?” [...]
He picked up his cue. “Rosaline the elder was not my true love, merely a foolish young man’s distraction. I have had only one true love, my Juliet.”
Then why the fuck did you name your eldest daughter after her? Jesus H. Christ, this book is dumb as rocks.
Papà thinks I’m beautiful because I resemble my mother, and that’s the problem with my parents. I convince myself that they’re the biggest frauds in the lore of romance, then Papà spouts a love sonnet to Juliet’s beauty, and Mamma smiles at him as shyly as a maiden, and the love glows between them like a fire to warm my heart. Damn it. It would be so much easier for me to be a sour old maid if they were frauds. As it is, I cherish a secret hope that I, too ... But no, they’re the only couple I have ever seen blessed with a wild, true, unwavering and eternal love. For the rest of the world, it’s a chimera.
At the very least this book has (1) braincell regarding R&J’s love. And it does make sense that it would give Rosaline high expectations. So why this R&J would be perfectly happy to wed Rosaline to another without her being in love with her suitor is even more nonsensical.
Papà looked wretched. Then, because he’s a guy, and unhappy, crying women make him uncomfortable, he lifted his leg and farted.
...Okay, fuck it, this is Romeo Hate Dumb. I don’t care if the portrayal is overall positive, this counts.
Me, Rosaline Montague, who prided myself on my good sense, loved a man who I had never formally met for the beauty of his countenance and because he saw into the depths of me, a woman of flesh and blood and spirit, and so seeing, didn’t take to his heels. It was a miracle…and I never felt so foolish in my life.
So now after sneering at love at first sight, Rosie falls in love at first sight like her parents. Does this transformative experience change her attitude toward love and her parents’ relationship? [Edit: No, it doesn’t].
I flatter myself it was not me society so enjoyed seeing flayed like a sardine on a platter, but rather my betrothed, Duke Stephano. He treated his own kin with appalling indifference, allowing his aging parents no more than a retirement in a cold country home at the foothills of the Alps. Orlando, his younger brother and heir, lived in exile, afraid for his life. His servants despised him. Three dead wives equaled three families who loathed him. If I were a gambling woman, I’d bet his horses and dogs wished him dead. Certainly every guest
and servant here rejoiced to see him dishonored.
So part of the reason why Dodd named her heroine Rosaline may be a clumsy allusion to As You Like It. Considering Shakespeare did write other Italian plays, including Two Gentleman of Verona and Petruchio of Verona, Dodd really didn’t need to dig into As You Like It, whose setting is French, anyway. If authors love As You Like It so much, why not write direct adaptations of it?
“Shhh.” I put my finger to my lips. I leaned toward him as he leaned toward me. “Speak no more, but grant me my first kiss as a memory to cherish and a warm seal of red wax on our hope for the future.”
He stopped moving forward. “You’re bad at this.”
“This?” As if I didn’t know.
“Romantic, lyrical paeons.”
I sighed. “I haven’t the knack for spouting amorous non-sense.”
“That seems as if it would be a crime in your family.”
“Amorous nonsense” and it’s a reference to fucking Shakespearean verse, some of the best-quality verse in the English language. Also, R&J speak in this romantic register only to each other. To everyone else, they are eloquent, their verse of good quality, but not amorous and certainly not nonsense. This meta commentary is misplaced here.
My father and I did not exchange glances. When my mother chose, she could be fierce in her defense of her children and should she discover that years ago, her dearest Romeo had purchased two miniature swords for his daughters and taught them and a few of their closest friends the use of them, she would be most displeased. That they were blunt would make no difference to her, and indeed when used by inexperienced hands, the edge and the point could leave a bruise. As I had discovered, both offensively and defensively.
Romeo being portrayed as a Woke Feminist Father should warm the cockles of my cold, dead heart...but alas, it doesn’t. If just because I feel Romeo would let his precious daughter anywhere near a sword. I just get Girl Dad vibes from him. At best he’d allow Rosie to learn Latin and Greek, like the other Woke Feminist noblemen of the time.
“She’ll feel better in a few months,” I assured him. “But honestly, my Lord Father, do you have no control? She’s already borne seven children!”
Romeo threw his hands into the air. “What do you want me to do? She takes seriously what I poke at her in fun.”
While large families was the norm during this time, infant mortality was high as well (in fact, it was the reason for the large families). Also, Romeo and Juliet canonically have bad luck, and even in this AU I don’t trust Fate to gift them with seven healthy children. Rosie was a product of R&J’s wedding night, which means Juliet gave birth to her first child at 14, and homegirl did this six more times!!! 🤮 Granted, it’s not as if R&J would wait to consummate their union, so unfortunately that would be the case.
I laughed. Possibly not the best response when dealing with royalty. “No, Prince Escalus, I promise there’s nothing fragile about my nurse. All of Verona knows and fears her. She carries her eating knife, and she never has to use it to protect herself or others. She’s like the spring melt on the river; if met unwarily, her slap will knock you off your feet.” I lowered my gaze so as to not seem as impertinent as I belatedly realized I sounded.
It’s not certain whether this is the same Nurse as Juliet’s, but the narrative certainly leaves me to believe it, since this Nurse remembers Juliet’s romance. If so, shame and dishonor for this blatant mischaracterization.
“Could you wait a day while I consider what this means?” With one finger, I touched the fresh wound of the walnut branch. “My father, as you know, is wont to draw his sword first and think after. In this case, let me think on all the things that have happened since the betrothal, and see if I can deduce—”
Too late. Romeo, my lord father, stormed down the path toward us, fury riding him like a snorting stallion. When he saw me, he shouted, “Do you know what they’re saying?” He groped for his sword, a sword that Mamma always insisted he leave at the door. “I’ll kill them all, one by one! Or take them as a group. No one can say those things about my daughter!”
I curtsied, as always, and in my stallion-soothing voice, I said, “Greetings, Papà. You’re known as the greatest swordsman in Verona. Everyone would run before you rather than fight.” I wasn’t strictly lying. There were younger swordsmen, probably better, but my father was known for his sly skill and his love of battle. That dedication made him, even at the age of thirty-six, a power on the field.
Romeo’s fighting skills are vastly underrated by both fans and antis alike, to be sure, but “draw his sword first and think after,” “sly skill,” and “love of battle” are phrases that should never, I mean never, be used to describe him. This is definitely an OC wearing the canon character’s flesh as a suit by this point.
Prince Escalus stepped out of the shadows. “You’ve said ‘Anon, good Nurse’ to her before?” he asked in a neutral voice.
“Not I. If I remember the story rightly”—I spoke with a humor most would not comprehend—“‘Anon, good Nurse’ was my mother’s line when she was fooling around with Papà.”
It took the prince a moment to think it through, then he gave what might in another man pass as a chuckle. “Lord Romeo and Lady Juliet are rightly famous for their true and impetuous love.”
Ah, yes, because that is a phrase that most people would recall perfectly when talking about their romance: “Just a minute, I’m coming.”
So in this AU, R&J is famous in Verona even though it is clear in the play that 1) Verona society is violent and loveless and 2) the Montagues and Capulets absolutely hate the very idea of them together. There is no way the Veronians would venerate such a couple that flouted their rules and nearly committed a grave mortal sin (suicide).
Also, this R&J still had to endure not one but two horrible botched suicides. This would be 100% traumatizing for them. If anything, they’d probably be extremely reluctant to talk about their romance to their kids, to the point where Rosie and her siblings should be ignorant of the grisly details.
Titania turned on me as if I’d slandered my family. “Lady Juliet’s parents were forcing her into marriage!”
“She could have sat down like a rational person and explained to them she was already married.”
“They would have had Lord Romeo killed!”
“Maybe. They might have tried.” Knowing them, I was doubtful. “My dad’s not easy to kill, and my grandpa loves to settle arguments over a meal and a glass of good wine. The Montagues make very fine wine.”
Titania drew a breath to object, but I didn’t give her time. “Mostly, even if they are the most melodramatic family in Verona—and late events have undermined my belief in that—after some lamenting and reproaching, they would have come around. They love Mamma, you see, and they want her to be happy.”
The Montagues and Capulets would have wanted R&J to be happy.
The Montagues and Capulets would have wanted R&J to be happy.
The Montagues and Capulets would have wanted R&J to be happy—
THE MONTAGUES AND CAPULETS WOULD HAVE WANTED R&J TO BE HAPPY—
What the fuck? How could anyone read or see this play and come to this conclusion? What part of “Lord Capulet threatened to disown Juliet if she didn’t marry Paris and almost hit her and Lady Capulet offered to poison Romeo” says that he would have been fine with Romeo and Juliet? What part of “The Montagues had to ask Benvolio to ask their own son how he was and then fucked off for the rest of the play” says they would have supported their own son instead of leaving him to his own devices? This book is the embodiment of no thoughts, head empty.
Dear God in heaven. The irony of it. Duke Stephano had been hated for murdering his three wives—and he was innocent. He had seduced a child and created a demon, a demon that had haunted him the rest of his life, killing his wives, providing unending misery to him, and destroying any chance he had for redemption. Finally, in blasphemous outrage, that demon had murdered him.
So Duke Stephano, who by all accounts was still an asshole, is exonerated by the narrative while Rosie’s friend Titania, who supposedly died by this creep’s hand, is the secret villain who wants to kill everybody. I didn’t expect such sexist writing in my R&J published fanfic.
The lip press, the tongue probe. The taste of him in my mouth, the scent of his breath. This kiss was interesting and I liked it, but the heavens still slipped slowly across the stars, time continued as it had before...and may I say how relieved I was to kiss my love and still be Rosie, plain practical Rosie. I wasn’t like my parents. Love had not blindsided me, recreated me, made me a stranger to myself.
Sounds great, Rosie. Would you like a cookie? A trophy? An award? Why are you so proud of a character trait that you didn’t choose to have anyway?
Also, why are you so ashamed of being a virgin when in your time that would have been celebrated? Why don’t you see the contradiction of being proud of not acting rashly in matters of love and being ashamed of being a virgin? Make it make sense.
Prince Escalus, the weasel, knelt before my father and with hands outstretched in supplication, said, “Lord Romeo, your daughter Rosaline is the fairest maiden in Verona. Her virtue remains intact, and what appears to be a scandal is none of her making. The chance to hold her in my arms was too much temptation for your prince—” Yeah, make sure you point out you’re the prince. That’ll make it all better. “—and her compliance is the result of trickeries on my part. Therefore I beg you grant me the hand of Fair Rosaline of the Montagues, to take to wed so that we may live happily as man and wife for all our days.”
“Um, sure.” Papà appeared to be winded by all these events.
For context, Prince Escalus Jr. overheard the plan for Lysander to compromise Rosie so that they could marry. Disguising himself as Lysander, he compromised Rosie instead without her knowledge or permission.
Naturally, as a strong, practical, no-nonsense woman, Rosie verbally bitch-slaps him for his assault-by-stealth and protested vehemently against him—lol just kidding, she does jack shit. Hell, she barely even reacts! And she is supposed to be in love with Lysander, but somehow it’s all 🤷♀️ when Escalus Jr. cops a feel? What drugs was Dodd on when she wrote this?
Also: “Um, sure.” I’m sorry, Shakespeare Romeo, how you are slandered.
Prince Escalus lowered his gaze, and when he lifted it, the glint in his dark eyes might have been described as implacable. “Quite the contrary. Duke Stephano dared to try and take what was mine, to harm what was mine, believing my intent to maintain Verona’s peace made me a coward. I’d have taught him his mistake. He’d have begged for exile.” I wanted to take issue with Prince Escalus’s claiming of me as his, but among all the issues here, that was the lesser. Moreover, I’d realized I was wrong about the glint in his eyes. That wasn’t implacability. That was danger.
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 So much for that ship or the love triangle for that matter. Prince Escalus Jr. is looking more and more like a creep.
Anyway, I also took a moment to read Dodd’s author’s note and found this horrifying tidbit:
As I wrote, I researched Romeo and Juliet, and the natural first question I googled was, When did Romeo and Juliet take place? To my astonishment, Google announced it took place somewhere in the 14th or 15th century. Two hundred years! In other words, late medieval or early Renaissance Verona.
The fact that Dodd was shocked at R&J’s medieval setting tells me all I need to know about her knowledge about the play and her overall intelligence. There are illiterate high schoolers who know at least that.
Conclusion & Takeaways
Oddly enough, this novel didn’t piss me off as much as it should, considering it is the laziest execution of an “R&J live and have kids” AU I’ve ever seen (granted, not that those are plenty). And as someone who did conceive of such an AU in my salad days, I expected something a little more substantial than this.
Nothing about this novel made an iota of sense, from Rosaline’s name to her friendship with Titania, to her two-dimensional siblings, to that sorry excuse of a love triangle with Rosie, Prince Escalus Jr., and Lysander, to a murder mystery so poorly done not even the novel can pretend to give two shits about it. R&J could have been literally any generic parents and it would have made better sense. The meta humor also falls flat, if just because Dodd clearly does not understand the play enough to joke well about it.
As for Rosie, she had no arc. She “falls in love at first sight” like her parents, but it changes nothing about her. Even Lysander doesn’t appear much in this story at all, so this whole love affair is fairly pointless. There is a clear attempt to set up Prince Escalus Jr. as the real love interest, but it fails miserably thanks to the moral dubious shit he does at the end.
There are other books in this series, but I honestly don’t think the continuing clownery is worth covering unless it gets really interesting. At least this book doesn’t fall into the trap of hating on either Romeo or Juliet or both for no good reason, but its tone of snarky satire and indulgent condescension is in some ways worse.
Me [sprinting away from the guards]: But the Notre Dame de Paris musical making Gringoire the narrator is more genius than you’d think. Because Gringoire has Quasimodo’s, Frollo’s, and Phoebus’s best qualities without any of their defects. Gringoire is humble and poor like Quasimodo, but has none of his disfigurement or bitterness. He understands politics and can hold intellectual conversation like Frollo, but has none of the latter’s entitlement, racism, or self-loathing. Like Phoebus, he is attracted to women, but he does not objectify them. Gringoire is even willing to be loyal to Esmeralda, even though he was forced to marry her. And like all three, Gringoire is attracted to Esmeralda. But unlike them, he respects Esmeralda’s disinterest in him. He accepts her rejection of him and doesn’t go further. He can truly understand all perspectives without being limited by them. He is outside the story, but also a part of it too. In a way, he is the musical’s (1) positive answer to the dark side of male het sexuality. I don’t know, does that make sense?
Guards: Esmeralda/Gringoire is not real and will never happen!
Do you have any songs that you associate with your favorite ships/pairings?
Of course I have, nonny, but if you expect any songs older than 1980 from me on this list, you will be disappointed. So consider this a warning to you and anyone else.
Okay, now here’s my list:
R&J/RetJ-Coded:
Night and Day (Cole Porter), especially with all the imagery in the play. My favorite vocal version is this one.
More (Ti guarderò nel cuore) from Mondo Cane (Riz Ortolani/Nino Oliviero). Lyrically it also fits, but I always imagine it as an instrumental, both the march version (like L’amour heureux, funnily enough), or the slower and sadder orchestral version.
Speak Softly Love from The Godfather (Nino Rota). The most directly R&J-coded song, and appropriately Italian, filled with foreboding, romance, and tragedy. The lyrics especially fit, but also the instrumental.
Bésame Mucho (Consuelo Velázquez): This is R&J during their wedding night. The doomed romance vibes are just impeccable. (Bonus: Velázquez was a teenager when she first composed this song, so it’s even more apropos.)
El Reloj (Roberto Cantoral): This also fits R&J’s lark scene to a T.
Almost any Beatles’ song during their early years would honestly fit, but specifically: I Should Have Known Better (when Romeo realizes Juliet is in love with him, yay), Here, There, and Everywhere (love song for both), And I Love Her (Romeo to himself about Juliet, but also works vice versa).
Faeyero/Fiyeraba
Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered (Rodgers & Hart). Very loosely, but yeah. This is Elphaba about Fiyero in the female POV. Also Fiyero about Elphaba in the male POV.
Romance/Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games): A classic instrumental, but someone also wrote little known and suprisingly poignant English lyrics that are apropos.
Beatrice/Benedick
People Will Say We’re in Love (Rodgers & Hammerstein): Honestly, this song fits with any enemies-to-lovers pairing, (and even non-canon pairings in a meta way) but my first thought is always Beatrice and Benedick.
Writing in essence is about what you include and what you exclude—what you include are the themes. They are the topics or ideas a story explores. To identify a given theme or themes, you should take these things into account:
The genre of a work (mystery, romance, historical)
The structure of a work (chapters, acts, etc.)
The figurative language, devices, and tropes a work uses (simile, metaphor, red herrings, enemies-to-lovers)
The protagonist(s) and conflict the work concerns itself about (what is the problem and what does the character(s) want?)
Usually the theme is intimately tied to the protagonist(s), the conflict they are dealing with and their motivations. These are revealed in the very language and structure of the work, and how the author wants us to feel about the characters and the world they inhabit. Eventually all of these aspects can coalesce into a clear picture about the themes of a given work.
R&J Clown Takes Special Edition—Is Mercutio Gay? 🌈 Round ♾️
In which an Instagram video posits this very old question by this point. The headcanon isn’t inherently clownish…but the reasoning definitely is. And so 🍽️
First, look at how he talks about Romeo. “Gentle Romeo.” “Rose-cheeked Romeo.” “Poor Romeo.” It’s surprisingly affectionate.
Capulet calls Paris “gentle Paris” once, so I guess he was secretly in love with him. 🤷♀️ Sorry, OP makes the rules, not me.
So “gentle” in Shakespeare’s time meant “the qualities of being a gentleman.” This could mean being kind, soft, and respectful, as in our modern meaning, but it was primarily as a marker of social status. A gentleman was one who was educated, did not have to work for a living, and could defend himself and fight for his honor. Mercutio is actually being a little formal in his address than is strictly warranted, given that he and Romeo are friends.
(Also, Mercutio doesn’t call Romeo “rose-cheeked”; that phrase doesn’t appear anywhere in the play.)
Then compare that to how he talks about women. Rosaline, for example. “That pale, hard-hearted wench.”
The rest of the line is: “That Rosaline / Torments him so that he is sure to run mad.” The whole point of this descriptor is to express Mercutio’s frustration and concern at seeing Romeo pining after a girl who doesn’t like him back. Move on already, Romeo!!!
Otherwise it’s Mercutio, shockingly enough, who gives this very flattering physical description of Rosaline: “I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, / By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, / By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh / And the demesnes that there adjacent lie.” This is supposedly mocking Romeo’s own (hypothetical? actual?) words for Rosaline…except he never gives such a description of Rosaline to Benvolio or anyone. Most likely Mercutio is 1) improvising or 2) actually giving what he feels is an accurate (and hot) description of Rosaline.
He mocks Romeo for chasing women throughout the play.
Mercutio mocks Romeo for mooning—not even chasing, because Romeo never pursues Rosaline in-play—after one (1) woman: Rosaline. Not even for chasing women; actually, he advises Romeo to forget Rosaline by getting laid. He doesn’t know about Juliet—no one in the play does except the Friar, the Nurse, and Balthazar.
But then Shakespeare gives Mercutio one of the filthiest monologues in the canon […] And Mercutio is obsessed, telling Romeo where he should and shouldn’t pop his bits. Even by Shakespeare’s standards, he is obsessed.
The “pop’rin pear” speech is Mercutio trying to get Romeo to respond to him and/or return to him (and, implicitly, the bro fold). Benvolio even warns him Romeo would get angry at his words, so there’s a great possibility Mercutio is doing purposeful ragebait, which is 100% within his character.
Also, ~obsession. 🤣 It is five lines in a speech, and when Romeo doesn’t respond, Mercutio drops it immediately and calls it a night. He never says anything this lewd about Romeo again after this scene.
Then there’s the invitation. “Mercutio and his brother Valentine.” Now, you could interpret this as Mercutio and his brother, Valentine. But Shakespeare loved wordplay. And what if “brother” didn’t mean biological brother, but close person, intimate friend, dare I say lover?
I checked David and Ben Crystal’s Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion, and “brother” was never used this way in Shakespeare. The closest is “sworn brother,” which does mean companion or devoted friend, which is clearly not the meaning in this context.
Nor would Shakespeare use it in this sense, frankly. On the contrary, brother relationships are almost always fraught and problematic in his plays, especially between legitimate-illegitimate brothers. It’s safe to say Valentine is Mercutio’s actual brother, as Capulet’s invitation would specify blood relations in this context, and as fandom has largely taken it.
And don’t forget, Romeo and Juliet is set in Italy, where the rules of same-sex love is very different to Renaissance England. It wasn’t quite as, like, frowned upon.
I am not an expert on 16th century Italy, so I can’t say whether the Italians were more chill about same-sex relations than the Anglos during this time (if any of you do, feel free to comment). But even if that were indeed the case, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, since Shakespeare most likely knew shit about Italy beyond the barebones (except for what he learned from John Florio maybe).
Also, while same-sex relationships between men were rarely if ever prosecuted and there was a queer culture in London, the overall medieval culture of Renaissance England was still savagely homophobic. If you were highborn enough, you could get away with anything and everything, but same-sex relations were still classified as sodomy, along with straight infidelity.
Rumor has it that Shakespeare went and lived in Italy for a few years. And he did write all those lusty sonnets about a young boy.
Shakespeare going to Italy is not a rumor—it’s a very old scholarly headcanon that is frankly outdated by now. We know now that, most likely, Shakespeare did not know much about Italy and only included some details for verisimilitude (he even thought Illyria and Vienna were Italian cities, ha). And authors of any sexuality can write characters of any sexuality or none at all.
(Also, ~lusty, lol. Tell me you haven’t read Shakespeare’s Sonnets without telling me you haven’t read Shakespeare’s Sonnets.)
His protectiveness of Romeo, his jealousy of how Romeo obsesses over women. The homoerotic banter throughout the play.
I don’t see Mercutio as particularly protective of Romeo. He shows no concern for Romeo climbing over the garden wall into the backyard of his enemy Capulet (!!) or about Tybalt possibly hurting or killing Romeo in a duel. On the contrary, he is outraged when Romeo refuses to duel Tybalt. Mercutio does show lowkey concern with how Romeo is still mooning after Rosaline, but after their battle of wits, that concern is largely gone.
The only real bro banter that could be interpreted as even the slightest bit homoerotic, in my view, is Mercutio’s and Romeo’s battle of wits before the Nurse’s arrival. Even then Romeo calls Mercutio a horndog who is only ever with him for the “goose” (prostitute). Two bros, ribbing each other for liking paid sex with women, because they’re so…gay.
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Mercutio does not speak highly of Tybalt or even his fighting style. Not even once. And no, he does not disguise any admiration through his mockery, if just because there is no underlying subtext of admiration, period.
His whole mini monologue is about how Tybalt’s dueling style is by-the-book (“he fights as you sing prick-song”) and even weak (“the very butcher of a silk button”). He then goes on another rant on how he absolutely hates duelists who are overly obsessed with the latest dueling fashions and protocol.
As for Romeo’s speech about Mercutio’s spirit, this was spoken when Romeo is challenging Tybalt to a duel: “Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again, / That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio’s soul / Is but a little way above our heads, / Staying for thine to keep him company: / Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.”
Romeo is saying that either he, Tybalt, or both will join Mercutio’s soul. In other words, this is a duel to the death. He absolutely does not mean this in a romantic sense at all, but is goading Tybalt to fight him. Because Romeo does not speak sweet nothings 24/7!!! Nor would he ever say that Mercutio’s ~destined lover is the man who killed him!!! What is this nonsense!!!!
RetJ mention! ✨ I’m guessing OP was thinking about John Eyzen, but even then the Ho Yay was chiefly with Tybalt, not with Romeo.
In your post on the timeline of "Romeo and Juliet," you described Susan, the dead girl the Nurse mentions, as Juliet's sister. But I thought Susan was the Nurse's daughter: her having been born around the same time as Juliet would explain why the Nurse had breastmilk to suckle Juliet too. By "sister," did you mean "foster sister"?
No one really knows if Susan is meant to be the Nurse’s daughter or Juliet’s sister. I think most copies of the play gloss her as the Nurse’s daughter, on the strength of “Susan and she…were of an age,” implying two separate kids instead of siblings with a natural age gap. (Also ditto the breastmilk, good point). But I’ve always suspected she was meant to be Juliet’s sister, one of the Capulet siblings that died early (“the earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she”), perhaps even a twin (!).
For one thing, “Well, Susan is with God / She was too good for me” is far too casual to refer to a long-lost daughter. It feels like something an employee would say about a charge she lost than a daughter. (Then again, the Nurse is inwardly cold, so it might not be a strong indicator). There is also the possibility that since they are so close in age, Susan and Juliet could have been treated as de facto sisters by the Nurse, especially if they grew up together for some years until Susan’s death.
Either way, the chime between Susan and Juliet and Susanna and Judith is too great to ignore, and I feel it really is no coincidence.
I learned about the YA book Teach Torches to Burn, but from its summary, I'm just like, why does this need to be a retelling of Romeo and Juliet? Romeo's love interest is now a fellow Montague, and the feud doesn't seem to be playing that big of a role. So I'm really not seeing why he cannot just marry a Montague woman and have an affair, why does he need to bring Juliet into it?
Just looked it up! Apparently in this book Romeo falls in love with Valentine, almost certainly Mercutio’s brother, so he’d be falling in love with an Escalus (unless in this version Mercutio is now a Montague? Wouldn’t be the first time, honestly). Juliet is still a character in this version, so this confirms that Valentine is meant to be Mercutio’s brother/an OC and not a genderbent Juliet. I’m guessing the author is using the historical animus against same-sex relationships as the main barrier instead of the blood feud.
Making R&J into a same sex couple makes sense and should be an easy enough undertaking...in theory. In practice, I haven’t really found any version that has either improved on Shakespeare’s play or done something new and good in its own right. Both Female Romeo/Female Juliet and Male Juliet/Male Romeo haven’t been all that satisfactory. Unfortunately, it seems this book illustrates the problems of reworking R&J into a genuinely queer narrative without changing the characters and even themes dramatically.
