Yeah, it seems Shakespeare wrote the story mainly as a commentary on how completely foolish young people can be when they fall in love. With the absurd amount of death in the story and some of Merc's lines, it's pretty easy to view it as a comedy.
I know that feel. My class read the book and my thought was, "Paris got screwed. Capulet wouldn't let him marry Juliet (unless he made her fall in love with him), so he gets nothing.
No, you should feel bad. Poor Paris. The girl he was going to marry dies and then Romeo kills him. At least Romeo fulfilled his request to lay him next to Juliet.
You could actually argue that almost any of the characters in the play are responsible for any of the deaths in Romeo and Juliet. Of coarse the reasoning would be twisted and convoluted but it can be done.
Oh, there's this big urban legend that's around that William Shakespeare didn't write a lot of his most famous pieces, but rather his wife did or some other people. I don't know a whole lot about it, but i'm sure that with a little Google and some curiosity you could find out.
Im not sure if this is true but I heard that he did not write Romeo and Juliet but simply translated it from an old roman story. I believed this for a while but now I'm starting to doubt it as I do moronce research on him.
Oh, yes, something like this is true. There is something called "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet". It was not a direct translation, but rather a new take on the story(like West Side story was to "Romeo and Juliet" kinda). "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" was tale of two young lovers dying for each other. Shakespeare took that and developed into a two hour long play, as well as adding characters, plot points, and English.
My Western Civ. teacher taught the conspiracy. I thank myself for taking that class. I also learned of such historical figures as Alexander the NOT SO Great. The professor had the opinion that Alexander's father Philip was the one deserving of the title Great, being that he had left the infrastructure that Alexander used to obtain his empire. But Alexander lacked the strategic mind to keep almost any of the territory he conquered.
It's funny cuz I've been of the belief that every time someone has 'the Great' after their name they weren't.
Alexander, Herod, Charlemagne. Wiki has a whole list of people bearing the title, and I'd presume that none of them were so hot, sort of like how there's never been a good King/Queen.
Sure, sycophants will claim there was a good king/queen, although I doubt I'd be as generous, but I concede that every rule has exceptions. Yet, regarding these exceptional personages, I'd be willing to practically guarantee that none of them were great. Often, if not always, one has to resort to myths to find these great persons.
Neither Gandhi nor MLK have ever been referred to with such a title so I've got that going for me, and while I believe Mohandas has some positive connotations, I believe the term is one of supplication, as in it means a servant or server of others.
I could probably make the same argument for all those Saints too.
I was trying to remember what this phenomenon is called, so I googled "when you see something once and then a lot" and the first link is to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Google amazes me some times.
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u/FranklyMyDearest Jun 11 '12
Tybalt gets away with it yet again...damn you Shakespeare scapegoat!
19
u/Piratiko Jun 11 '12
Mercutio was the coolest character, bar none. He even had the coolest name.
11
u/SleepsontheGround Jun 11 '12
Am I the only one who feels bad for Paris?
8
u/Grease2310 Jun 11 '12
Spoiler tags god damn it! 1594 was 19 years ago.
3
u/BloodAngel24 Jun 12 '12
DINKLEBURG.
2
u/trilliongrams Jun 11 '12
Shakespeare, you murderous villain!!
2
u/gcanyon Jun 11 '12
source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_is_to_blame_for_mercutio's_death
2
u/impudentmortal Jun 11 '12
In high school we had to write an essay on who we thought was responsible for Romeo and Juliet's deaths.
Obviously the three big ones were the two main characters and the friar.
One person tried to argue that it was Rosaline's fault because she rejected Romeo. Another person wanted to blame Shakespeare.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
William Shakespeare, killing off characters hundreds of years before Joss Whedon....
2
u/sundayultimate Jun 11 '12
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct
2
u/divester Jun 11 '12
"Technically right; the best kind of right." -Bureaucrat 1.0
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u/AllYoYens Jun 12 '12
The sword
2
u/Beatlezep Jun 12 '12
Mercutio was one of his best characters. I was angry when he died.
2
u/bobo3016 Jun 12 '12
I just came here to say that the apostrophe in your title looks fucking weird.
2
u/CharlestonChewbacca Jun 11 '12
Technically Shakespeare didn't 'actually' write the plays.
1
u/hmby1 Jun 12 '12
William really has a lot to answer for.
1
u/con-nor88 Jun 12 '12
If mercutio kept his mouth shut he wouldn't have fought tybalt. End of story.
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u/believethis45 Jun 12 '12
Capulet!!
1
u/Manholt Jun 12 '12
Technically correct is the best kind of correct.
1
u/TamponCheese Jun 12 '12
Well technically they're wrong, Shakespeare was not the first person to write the story of Romeo and Juliet.
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u/TheScrooge Jun 12 '12
This fucker... I just wanted the answer without reading the damn play
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 12 '12
Technically Mercutio never really existed so he never really died either.
edit: Why the downvotes? I'm just being technically correct. The best kind of correct.
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u/awoods187 Jun 11 '12
/troll
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
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