Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare · first published 1597
9% recommend85% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
The play explores the risks of adolescent romance and impulsive youth, and is also seen as a critique of slush romance. It is a classic worth reading, especially in school.
Common criticism: Some find the writing style hard going and feel it is overused in schools.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young Italian star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
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…sounded like the English of North Carolina! If you are interested in this, I recommend "Pronouncing Shakespeare" by David Crystal. It documents how he worked with the Globe company on an OP performance of "Romeo and Juliet".
on “When did Americans lose their British accents?” ↗SoftwareMaven says: "I'm always looking for good reading on this subject (truly guiding your kids to adulthood), so if you have any good pointers, send them on!" Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
on “Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.” ↗…more in common with Stephen King or Dan Brown, as a writer of popular, mainstream entertainment, than he does with critically acclaimed, popularly ignored capital L Literature. MacBeth and Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are great, timeless works, but Shakespeare turned out a lot of historical plays and comedies that are kind of meh. Particularly the comedies are pretty formulaic, if you read two or three of them in…
on “Teaching a Different Shakespeare Than the One I Love” ↗…(Nietzsche) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick) A Scanner Darkly (Dick) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams) Dracula (Stoker) To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas) Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) The Wind in the Willows (Grahame) A Christmas Carol (Dickens) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (Carroll) Watership Down (Adams) Gulliver's Travels (Swift)…
on “Ask HN: What book had a big impact on you as a child or teenager?” ↗My 9th grade English teacher read the Iliad to us, explaining words and phrases as he went along. It was an incredible experience. He also read Romeo and Juliet in the same way. I considered it a great gift to allow us to experience the truly great literature at that age, in a way that I think most of us could understand and appreciate.
on “Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?” ↗Romeo and Juliet is actually my favorite play to read of his. If you don't get it, it seems like slush. But his point is that adolescent romance is risky and dangerous, and that youth makes bad decisions. It's a critique…
on “Portrait of Shakespeare Unveiled, 399 Years Late” ↗I would say to myself that you must choose carefully and knowingly when it comes to books so that you do not read just anything. Classics like Romeo and Juliet are worth learning, of course. It is also curious because there are the same gender roles. At https://studydriver.com/romeo-and-juliet/ I found interesting information about this subject. I think it should…
on “Claude Shannon Invented the Future” ↗…Sea, 2001, Nothing Like It In The World, Reach For The Sky, Winnie The Pooh, The Last of the Mohicans, The Hunt for Red October, With the Old Breed, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman, Moby Dick, Shogun, Romeo and Juliet I envy anyone reading these for the first time!
on “Intellectual Loneliness” ↗Romeo and Juliet he Blue Castle: a novel by L. M. Montgomery A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
on “Ask HN: What are the best books you've ever read?” ↗…sword. Yes, Monsanto will disappear and that could be a good thing. Like lastUsername said before: if they continue their work ethic, then Bayer will become the new Monsanto. Or as Shakespeare put it in Romeo and Juliet: "’Tis but thy name that is my enemy: Thou art thyself, though not a Montague, What’s Montague? It is not hand nor foot, Nor arm nor face. O be some other name, belonging to a man! What’s in a name?…
on “Bayer to retire Monsanto name” ↗This is a not-uncommon request. The problem is that the publication date for many older books is unclear or unknown. Was Romeo and Juliet published in 1597? It certainly appeared in print, but that edition was so riddled with errors that scholars think it was pirated. Was it published in 1599? A better edition certainly appeared in print…
on “Standard Ebooks” ↗…amusing, and you have to be even more clever to understand it. A lot his wordplay is based on idioms no longer in active use. Take, for example, Act 1, Scene 1 (http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Romeo_and_Juliet/2.htm...) SAMPSON 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids, and cut off their heads. GREGORY The heads of the maids? SAMPSON…
on “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” ↗…examples of the singular "they", courtesy of Wikipedia: Eche of theym sholde ... make theymselfe redy. — Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon (c. 1489) Arise; one knocks. / ... / Hark, how they knock! — Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595) 'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech. — Shakespeare, Hamlet I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly.…
on “Forget Acquisitions: Apple control the Supply Lines” ↗There is nothing new under the sun. Nearly everything is a remix of older ideas. Even many of Shakespeare's plays were retellings of popular contemporary stories — we wouldn't have Romeo & Juliet if not for the less copyright-crazy era that he lived in. Your suggestion would work better if it were in response to "20 years isn't long enough for a copyright term."
on “Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger” ↗Yes. But Romeo and Juliet apparently borrowed heavily from works from 1562 and 1582[1]. Since he wrote the play in 1591, both works would have been under today's copyright. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_juliet
on “Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger” ↗