stunt_muppet

Does it really make me that much of a bitter, cynical human being if I thought Romeo and Juliet worked better as a black comedy than as a tragedy?

I mean, it's a problematic reading, since some of the scenes are actually genuinely sad, but even by the standards of Shakespearean theater both the protagonists are ridiculously over the top, flinging themselves on the ground and threatening to kill themselves at the slightest provocation. The Nurse doesn't take Juliet seriously. The Friar doesn't take Romeo seriously except when he's trying to get him to not off himself. The proposition that Juliet marry Paris while her dead cousin's body's still cooling is so abrupt as to be absurd, as are the Rube Goldberg machinations of coincidence that lead to their deaths. The first time Romeo and Juliet meet, there's this very teasing romantic sonnet, followed by two passionate kisses - and then Juliet effectively saying "eh, that was okay, I guess." I tend to read that as her teasing him, but after the romantic language Romeo's just been talking it's quite funny. Even during the balcony scene, Romeo engages in this comically fancy language while Juliet is basically trying to get him to calm down and go away.

I don't think this means I'm dead to romance or anything. I mean, look at me, I write shipfic. Though tallying them up now I think I only wrote straight-up shipfic that ends with the two romantic leads still together, like, once. I adore Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It; I think the romance between Orlando and Rosalind is stirring, as is the one between Benedick and Beatrice. Heck, I've been tempted to fic both Rosalind/Orlando and Rosalind/Celia. I squee over coupley cuteness and love happy endings as much as anyone, posibly more so. So why do I come off as such a cynic compared to the rest of the class?

There was some talk about how pure their affection was, and how despite all the hate in their families they were still capable of this passionate love. Which there is a point to, I suppose, but I always think back to James Joyce's The Dead - of course their affection is pure, they've known each other for like three days. They're still in the butterflies-in-the-stomach stage, and in most mature relationships you do actually grow out of that. But because they die before they can form a mature relationship, we see them in the feverish 'purity' of young, heady love. What real relationship can live up that kind of thrill, implied to be permanent since that's the last we see of it? What real person can live up to a dead man (which is where the short story comes in)? Frankly, I find it more romantic when I think two characters' relationship might last, like they might be friends in addition to being lovers, when they fight and squabble and get back to each other and actually talk to each other. Why is that so cynical?

I'm just puzzled, is all.