Main Entry: love
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: person who is loved by another
Synonyms: Juliet, Romeo, admirer, angel, beau, beloved, boyfriend, courter, darling, dear, dear one, dearest, flame, girlfriend, honey, inamorata, inamorato, loved one, lover, paramour, passion, spark, suitor, swain, sweet, sweetheart, truelove, valentine
So being the person that I am, I get on dictionary.com or thesaurus.com looking up synonyms for words, looking up the real definition of that word, learning new words, etc. I decided, what better way to know something better than to look up what the real definition is? I stumbled across something kind of interesting. Romeo and Juliet is synonymous with Love. Now, I get that this is the "noun" version, and Romeo & Juliet is one of the greatest love stories ever told, but I have to start questioning, why? Let me make one thing perfectly clear before I even begin. I love William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite books. I love the complexity of it and I love the forbidden nature of it all, but why does it take two people killing themselves to be considered one of the greatest love stories of all time? Why has it become so well known that it is now placed as a synonym to the word, "Love"?
Stumbling across this this morning has left me dazed and confused.
It's not the killing themselves that's important, it's everything leading up to it.
ReplyDeletebut yet that is what makes it a true "love story" in most people's eyes. It's what sets it apart from the rest.
ReplyDeleteI think it is more of why they killed themselves. He thought she was dead and couldn't live in a world without her, so he killed himself. Then upon finding him dead, she realized that she couldn't live in a world without him so she took her life. I don't think it is the act of killing themselves that makes it the greatest love story of all time, but the principle behind the act.
ReplyDeleteTake for instance Wuthering Heights, the only reason it is considered a great love story is because both Heathcliff's and Catherine's only redeeming quality is that they love the other one. It's not because of the actions that they do.
I'm with CJ on this one. Everyone wants to feel that all-consuming can't-live-without-each-other love and Romeo and Juliet embody that quite literally. They commit suicide in hopes that death would unite them in a way the world wouldn't allow, and while none of us really *want* to commit suicide, doesn't some part of us want to love someone enough that we'd do it if necessary? I know I'd like to believe that if I fell that head-over-heels in love, I'd do anything to be with him, even die.
ReplyDeleteI just hate the feeling that people are now thinking that to love is to be miserable. It shouldn't be like that. The Romeo and Juliet is about how they were constantly miserable. Do you ever wonder that if their parents hadn't forbidden them to see each other, they would've actually "fallen in love"? The whole story is based off of two teenagers (14 yrs old). I know when I was 14, if my parents told me not to do something, I wanted it even more. What if they simply suffered from "I want what I can't have"?
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression they fell in love and then later found out that Romeo was a Montague, Juliet a Capulet.
ReplyDeleteLove at first sight...it doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteI mean, that seems like a totally different argument entirely. By saying that, you're taking away the whole love element, rendering the story entirely useless. I think we have to just accept that R&J fell in love, maybe at first sight, maybe not, on faith and go from there. That's what authors expect from their readers a lot of the time -- a leap of faith. Otherwise there wouldn't be a single good story out there.
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