Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare

“Romeo and Juliet” is often read as both a tragedy and a great celebration of romantic love, but it clearly throws out some difficult questions about the nature of love; questions which are rendered even more pressing when we consider the headlong nature of the play’s action and the fact that “Romeo” and “Juliet” meet, marry, and die all within the space of a few days. Interestingly, two families known as the “Montagues” and “Capulets” appear to have actually existed in medieval Italy: the first reference to ‘Montagues and Capulets’ is, curiously, in the poetry of “Dante” (1265-1321), not “Shakespeare”. In the fourteenth-century epic poem of “Dante”, “the Divine Comedy”, he makes reference to two warring Italian families: ‘Come and see, you who are negligent, / Montagues and Capulets, …’

So, what sets “Romeo and Juliet” apart and makes it the definitive tragic love story? In a nutshell, the play is the real thing. Like all the Shakespearean plays, it captures eternal themes about human experience something that most romance novels try to grasp, but can only imitate.

It’s a story where things almost worked out for the characters that we loved and identified with. There were many chances for things to turn out differently. But whether you call it fate, chance, bad decisions, or immaturity, the story ended with the worst possible outcome.

We’re left agonizing over how close “Romeo” and “Juliet” came to getting their happy ending. Just like when things go wrong in real life, we’re haunted by what could have been. The play makes us feel the incredible romance that we all hope to have in our lives, but also the horrible experience of that romance going wrong. It’s exaggerated, yet it rings true and resonates with us.