I was forced to read, lessen, and watch it all though high school super annoying.

But as story wise it was a bitter sweet story. Two family's hate each other but yet Romeo and Juliet still fall in love and plain to run away together, Juliet takes fake poison and Romeo finds out but does not know it fake so he takes real poison and dies, well Juliet wakes up finds that Romeo is really dead and she takes the rest of the poison he took. It was a true tragic story, they both died for each other, their love so strong for each other when one was dead the other could not go on. Such a sad story. But really who will believe that someone would do that, I know I wouldn't that's just stupid no one is worth dyeing for like that. I would call him a stupid son of a bitch and go on with my life. ( )

Really a 3.5
I am glad that I somehow missed this in high school since I probably would have somehow found this romantic instead of a look at how timing and and age affect people's choices. I found myself getting captivated in the actual plot line and found it to be a little bit more enjoyable than other Shakespeare plays I've read but the characters started to really annoy me. Especially Juliet's father. It seemed like he never really cared about his daughter even when she died. But I liked how this looked at the idea of parents marrying off their children for status and money instead of love and showed the extreme of what could happen in a time when no one really married for love. I just don't understand why people romanticize the relationship between Romeo and Juliet because really they are just really whiny kids who feel their parents just don't understand their love and would probably get married for 3 years, have a kid then hate each other. But glad I finally read this classic play. ( )

why is this the most celebrated of his works? Maybe I just like it least because of overexposure to it. ( )

When I first saw this play many years ago, I thought it was going to be about romantic love. What I saw instead was a play about gang warfare. Here's how it opens: "Two households, both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, / From ancient grudge break to new mutiny / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." The only reason Romeo and Juliet find it difficult to get together is because one is a Capulet and one a Montague--in other words, they're on opposite sides of the strife. Shakespeare's genius is to see that, rather than dampen love, this only spurs it on, as both Romeo and Juliet are drawn to the impossibly doomed affair. But because they're so young, they are guided more by dreams of impossible love they've read about than they are by each other--as they really don't know each other. Recall Juliet, when Romeo first kisses her: "You kiss by th' book." It's as if Romeo has learned about kissing--and about love--only from books he's read. And remember that Romeo, when he first lays eyes on Juliet, was actually pursuing someone else named Rosaline. Here's Friar Lawrence to Romeo: "Is Rosaline, that thou didn't love so dear, / So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes." Juliet might have been a passing infatuation had the relationship not been so overwrought and doomed.

With that, I'll say that Shakespeare is clearly working on many different levels here. The title characters really do feel themselves in love, and Shakespeare allows us to feel that love even as he subtly undermines it. There are also many other memorable characters here (Mercutio!) and much memorable poetry.

By the way, the somewhat recent Baz Luhrmann film of the play is brilliant, and totally gets the gang warfare aspect of the play, setting it in a stylized version of South Miami Beach. It's fantastically over-the-top, and well worth seeing, not least because of a young Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles. ( )

Thanks to the Alberta Education curriculum, this was my first Shakespeare play, and thus will always have a special place in my heart, despite not being the greatest of his works. ( )