The point that Romeo and Juliet is actually close to being a comedy makes a lot of sense to me. The point was first suggested to me in my *thinks* second Shakespeare class, I think? I've had about five different ones at different ages, and they ALL looked at R+J. The fact that it's a love story is significant, the deal with the young lovers being a theme in a lot of his comedies. The tragedies? Not so much. At least not nearly as often.
But I don't think that's just because modern audiences think the characters are foolish. They might well have seemed even more foolish back at the time when marriage was closer to a contract with the bride's father rather than a commitment between equals. Hadn't thought of that, but that's another reason why the story feels so timeless--the idea of young people going off and doing things without their parents' permission (or just against their wishes) gets recycled depending on the context, but there's always an element of that around somewhere.
RE: Silent Hill--I'm not saying I was "impressed," but that I liked it despite everything so very wrong with it, the only real point in that paragraph being a thing universally (or mostly) hated by other people isn't always an indication that I'll hate it also. Still, I'm not gonna go back and take that review down just because my opinion on it has warmed somewhat--that would be silly.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-11-14 09:56 pm (UTC)The point was first suggested to me in my *thinks* second Shakespeare class, I think? I've had about five different ones at different ages, and they ALL looked at R+J. The fact that it's a love story is significant, the deal with the young lovers being a theme in a lot of his comedies. The tragedies? Not so much. At least not nearly as often.
But I don't think that's just because modern audiences think the characters are foolish. They might well have seemed even more foolish back at the time when marriage was closer to a contract with the bride's father rather than a commitment between equals.
Hadn't thought of that, but that's another reason why the story feels so timeless--the idea of young people going off and doing things without their parents' permission (or just against their wishes) gets recycled depending on the context, but there's always an element of that around somewhere.
RE: Silent Hill--I'm not saying I was "impressed," but that I liked it despite everything so very wrong with it, the only real point in that paragraph being a thing universally (or mostly) hated by other people isn't always an indication that I'll hate it also. Still, I'm not gonna go back and take that review down just because my opinion on it has warmed somewhat--that would be silly.