Grace Regitz
Mr. Neumann
Ninth Honors Literature
9 March 2012
Reading Romeo and Juliet
There is a lot of debate about
whether or not Romeo and Juliet should be studied in high school. Some
say it's not relative to society anymore, others are like why should I study
something that was written five hundred years ago? To be honest, any type
of classical writing is still relevant to today's society and can still be
learned from no matter how long ago they were written. Romeo and
Juliet still teaches us lessons today and it also prepares us for things later
in life. Mostly everything in the play can be applied to life today.
"...Tybalt, the champion of the Capulet claims, the professional duelist
with the lore of fencing school at his finger-tips... To such a swsahbuckler
even the mild Benvolio's presence is a call to arms, and the result
is speedily a general fray swollen by partisans of either house..."
("Elements..." 38) Mostly everything in the play can be applied
to life today, especially the conflicts between the characters and the plot of
the whole play.
Still applicable to life
today, the play Romeo and Juliet has many lessons that we can learn. Just
like in the play, we still have racism, prejudice and bias in almost everything
today. In Romeo and Juliet, it was animosity between the Capulets and the
Montagues that caused prejudice and bias in Verona. An example of this
animosity can be seen in the prologue. While reading Romeo and
Juliet, students can learn about bias and prejudice because it runs rampant
through the play. We can learn to accept the people in society that we
may not approve of before something bad happens to both parties. A
perfect example, Romeo and Juliet shows us what can happen if you don't try to
accept your enemies in life. The rift between the Capulet and the
Montague families caused Romeo and Juliet's marriage to remain a secret until
their deaths. Their secret marriage caused one of the biggest
controversies about Romeo and Juliet. Many people think that they got
married too fast. "What was there to check the ardour of hope,
of faith, of constancy, just rising in her breast, but disappointment which she
had not yet felt!" ("Realism..." 34) One of the main
controversies of Romeo and Juliet is that they got married too fast.
Getting married too fast was the start of the snowballing of all the bad things
that happened in the play. Romeo and Juliet acted on impulse and not on
counsel and discussion. From their experiences, we can learn not to act
rashly or on impulses.
Reading Romeo and Juliet
also gives us preparation for things later in life. "Humors! Madman!
Passion! Lover!/Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;/Speak but one rhyme, and
I am satisfied!/Cry but "Ay me!" Pronounce but "love" and
"dove"..." (2.1 6-10) The complex language and structure
used in the play makes it difficult to read. This type of language prepares
for the more complicated papers that we will read in our adult years such as
legal documents. After you decipher Shakespearean English, almost any
legal document seems really easy to read. For some jobs or colleges you
have to write an essay to get into the college or to get the job. Studying
Romeo and Juliet can help you to understand the language more through ally than
before. This can help you to sound more intelligent because understanding
the language's most complicated structures and wording and can make you seem
that you actually know what you are doing. You can sound smarter when you
are sending emails or speaking to people. If you come across more
intelligent then you always have the advantage over someone else who also wants
that special project or job.
People say that there are
no morals in Romeo and Juliet. They say that Romeo and Juliet have sex
when they are teenagers, therefore it is teen sex. They were married
before they had sex. “Hie to your chamber, I'll find Romeo/To comfort
you. I wot well where he is./
Hark ye, your
Romeo will be here at night./I'll to him. He is hid at Friar Lawrence' cell.” (3.2 138-141)
According to some people, this can teach kids to go get married, and
then have sex. It was the custom back then to marry when you were
teenagers. Today, it is impossible to get married when you are under
eighteen, and especially without witnesses and forms. Almost all the
stuff that is inappropriate for teenagers to do in Romeo and Juliet is
impossible for teenagers to get away with today.
Romeo and Juliet should be read in high school
because it teaches us so many lessons and helps us to understand the English
language so much better. Any classical writing, such as Romeo and Juliet,
can be learned from today because humans still have relatively the same problems
and the same morals. Just because the
play may be older and not set in modern day times, doesn't mean that it still
holds some meaning for us today.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William.
“The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”. Prentice Hall Literature Georgia:
Grade
Nine. Ed. Prentice Hall. Pearson Education, Incorporation, 2011. 806-930.
Print.
Hazlitt, William. “William
Hazlitt on the Realism of Romeo and Juliet”.
Blooms Notes: A
Contemporary Literary. Ed.
Bloom. Broomall: Chelsea House, 1996.
32-34. Print.
Boas, Frederick S. “Frederick
S. Boas on Political Elements in Romeo and Juliet”. Blooms
Notes: A Contemporary Literary. Ed.
Bloom. Broomall: Chelsea House, 1996.
38-39.
Print.
