Anger, Tears and Chaos”” are a couple of great examples that capture a good portion of the emotion and chaos of the series. This album is an interesting listen in and of itself. It stands on its own pretty well and it’s worth a listen if you’re at all a fan of the series.
What’s In A Name?
There is a lot of debate over the accuracy of names in this novel. I’m going to come out and say yes, the names were quite a bit out of order and/or just stupid. You’re a smart one for doing so, if you even picked up on that point at all.
Why is this worth noting? Well, this novel could actually be seen as a parody of Shakespearean tragedies. “Shakespearean Parody?” I know. I had to say it to myself, too. Anyway, the tragedy in the story is that Juliet and Romeo have been in love for some time, but that love is forbidden because Romeo has ties to a nobleman in Verona. That and the whole reason he is there is so Juliet could find some comfort after her father was killed.
It is a tragedy because they end up “killing themselves” after Juliet hears about Romeo’s death and she dies shortly after. But that’s actually not the point. The point is that Romeo did not die in the story. He is the one that brings Juliet to her fate, which is why he was killed by the Capulets. So they did “kill themselves” as a result of his actions, but that was the point. It’s kind of like how a lot of the plot for the movie Titanic is very similar to that of Romeo and Juliet, where they end up on a ship sinking and die from the ship crashing on top of them.
The title of the story comes from this play-within-a-play that Shakespeare supposedly wrote, “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”.
Overall Thoughts
While Romeo and Juliet: Restored is, in a lot of ways, the best play-within-a-play ever written, it’s not exactly the best story you’ll ever listen to. It has a lot of good things in it, but it’s not going to be the next Game of Thrones. Or the next The Lord of the Rings. Or The Beatles. Or Avatar: The Last Airbender. You get the idea. However, the real-life story behind the play might actually be worth listening to, in itself. Of course, that also means that you would have to get yourself a copy of the first play to even enjoy it fully. But hey, there’s no reason to sit around if you can listen to it and enjoy the other material on its own without having to read.
When Romeo Was Born
Naked Romeo from when he was born
The Birth of Romeo
By William Shakespeare
[Note: a lot of this part will probably be hard for a lot of you to read without wanting to skip ahead, but I think it’s very important for us to read for a moment or two. This information comes from a book, by the way, so I do not claim it to be fact. We’ll get to some of the “interesting” stuff in a few paragraphs. I warn you, though, the rest of this will be a bit more sensationalist than I would prefer.]
Let’s get the most important thing out of the way. Romeo is not a monster, a killer, or a rapist. However, some people may label him as being all of these things. He is also no innocent bystander to his actions. While this is a fairly recent discovery, it’s not new information to his family. In fact, we learn early on that “the two families” (Capulets and Montagues) have been fighting off and on for generations. Romeo’s father, even before Romeo’s birth, lived in mortal fear that his son would grow up and fight on the wrong side of the families feud, or, much worse, be a rapist.
Even as a child, he was a daredevil. A reckless sort of daredevil, to be specific. When he was 12 years old, he climbed a fence to get into his cousin’s bedroom. This was to try to find some girls to have sex with him. He made that effort pretty well known that night as well, by waking his parents up. His parents put a stop to that foolish behavior and threw him out of the house. He was then sent to a relative named Muleteer, who was Romeo’s guardian while he was out roaming the streets to try to find a woman to bed down with him. This same Muleteer was also the father of Romeo’s first love, Rosaline. This led to a long and very complicated feud, all as a result of Romeo’s actions.
To be fair, though, he didn’t even try to have sex with her. He tried to seduce her, after sneaking into her home while she was sleeping to see her, and was then discovered by Muleteer. Muleteer beat him and sent him away. He tried to find her again and, when that failed, he tried to commit suicide by hanging himself. That was when Romeo decided to make his way to Mantua to become a soldier. It’s implied that his desire to do this is, in part, a reaction to this event with Rosaline.
His best friend, Mercutio, however, does his part to protect Romeo from this fate. I don’t have a whole lot to say here, as he wasn’t as much a hero as he was just a friend to Romeo. At this point, Romeo was starting to be a good friend and a cool person to hang out with. In fact, much of his best, and most memorable, scenes in the novel come from his scenes with Mercutio. The scene that I’ll leave you with, though, was when they get into a fight that becomes so out of hand that it ends in the death of Romeo’s cousin, Tybalt.
Let’s dig deeper into Romeo and the main events of the novel. Before Romeo arrives in Verona to find love in the arms of Juliet, he has a few things to overcome before he gets to that point. The first thing is how he was actually a murderer, not just accused of being one. He and his best friend, Mercutio, go out drinking one day, just as they normally do every day. When they go to buy some wine, they pick up the wrong bottle, with poison in it. Of course, he and Mercutio don’t know this and, before you know it, Mercutio is dead.
The second thing is that he has the love of a woman that he does not deserve. This isn’t an actual woman, per se. She’s the kind of love interest that a Romeo could get, but no one else would have a chance of knowing about, so we’re talking more of an ideal or metaphorical love interest in this case. She’s a kind of person that loves Romeo purely because of what Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio, meant to her, and the kind of guy that Romeo was at this point. This Romeo is even called “the true Romeo” by Juliet in the beginning of the story. Romeo has to prove himself, though, to prove that he’s really the same Romeo from before. In other words, he has to prove himself to the world.
The third and final thing, which we’ll deal with shortly, is that he has to prove that he’s not a rapist. Romeo is not innocent in this case. He did try to have sex with Rosaline, for instance. But the part of him that he’s fighting was the part that made it seem like he wasn’t trying to rape Rosaline, which he actually was at the time. It’s a similar case to what the main character in Gone Girl is trying to do to their love interest.
We all know that we’re not supposed to judge people. At least, we’re not supposed to judge people very much. We should, however, be allowed to question why they did something, as this allows us to understand how and why certain things happened. While this story is about the “tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,” though, this is not a tragedy in the same way most people would call a tragedy. It’s a drama and a romance. It doesn’t have the usual elements of a tragedy. The worst part of the novel, by the way, is still Mercutio’s death.
Things to Note
Many historians are uncertain as to the accuracy of events that take place in the novel. Some events, while not too much of a surprise, could actually have been a case of historical fact. For instance, it’s mentioned that Romeo is 14 years old when he makes his move on Rosaline. Some scholars have said this is incorrect, because he would have been too young to be allowed to leave his home without his father. But, it’s possible that, for some time, his dad was away or, maybe more likely, was simply too drunk to even notice. This
