Thinking today about Anais Nin’s statement, which she attributed to the Talmud–“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are”–I decided to write about how the idea applies to the way I read Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti mystery series. Then I remembered a post I wrote for Telling the Truth, Mainly, which serves as a lead-in. It isn’t really about R&J.
I’ll get to Brunetti next time.
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One play. Twenty years.
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When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book
than you did before;
you see more in you than was there before. ~ Clifton Fadiman
The first years I studied Romeo and Juliet with my high school freshmen, when I was in my early twenties, I followed the Star-Cross’d Lovers school of literary criticism: Romeo and Juliet, two innocents, their eyes meeting across a crowded room, she teaches the torches to burn bright, he’s the god of her idolatry, he wants to be a glove upon her hand, she wants to cut him out in little stars—but the cruel world conspires to bring them down.
The way Juliet’s father tells her to thank him no thankings nor proud him no prouds but get to that church on Thursday next and marry Paris or he’ll drag her thither on a hurdle—what kind of father says that to a thirteen-year-old girl? Parents don’t understand. They don’t listen.
The kids might be a little quick to act, and goodness knows Romeo should have waited to talk to Friar Laurence before buying that poison. But who can expect patience of teenagers in love?
When I hit thirty, and had several years of teaching (and consorting with teenagers) under my belt, I shifted to the What Can You Expect When Teenagers Behave Like Brats? philosophy: Romeo and Juliet, a couple of kids in a hurry. He doesn’t even bother to drop in on his family, just runs off to crash Capulet’s party, proposes to a girl before the first date, insists on a jumped-up wedding, then gets himself kicked out of the city, and he still hasn’t been home for dinner.
She mouths off to her father, tells him what she will and will not do, and he’s just told her what a nice, rich husband–Paris, whom the Nurse says is handsome, “a man of wax”–he’s picked out for her. It’s no wonder he tells her to fettle her fine joints ‘gainst Thursday next or he’ll drag her to church on a hurdle. I mean, if you were a parent and your daughter spoke to you in that tone of voice, would you pat her hand and ask what’s wrong, or would you remind her who’s boss here?
If Romeo had just gone home in the first place, like any decent boy would have, instead of running off with his friends and crashing that party, this mess wouldn’t have occurred.
In fact, since Old Montague and Old Capulet had that very afternoon been sworn to keep the peace, they might have arranged a marriage between Romeo and Juliet—formed an alliance that way—and the whole of Verona would have lived happily ever after, and Montague would have been spared the expense of erecting a gold Juliet statue to honor her memory. Paris might have been a little put out at being jilted, but he’d have gotten over it. Kids! They don’t think.
Approaching forty, however, I detached a bit and developed the dogma of the Meddlesome Priest. Friar Laurence has no business performing a secret marriage between two minors without parental consent. He says he wants to promote peace, but he isn’t a diplomat. His field is pharmacology.
Furthermore, when Juliet informs him she’s about to acquire an extra husband, why doesn’t he go right then to her father and tell the man she’s married? Capulet wouldn’t have been pleased, but he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of dragging Juliet on a hurdle thither. And he’d have gotten over it.
Instead, the Friar gives Juliet a sedative and stuffs her into a tomb with a passel of her relatives in varying stages of disrepair.
The Friar appears to mean well, but it’s also possible he intends to take credit for being the brains behind the peace accords.
Bunglesome or corrupt—the end is the same. With role models like this–a priest of all things–are we surprised that children run amok?
Soon after the last epiphany, I ended my stint as a classroom teacher. But I’ve wondered what would have happened if I’d continued studying Romeo and Juliet with students year after year.
Would I have had new insights? Developed new interpretations? Uncovered new layers of meaning?
How much more would I have shared with my students? Would I have continued to teach them respect and reverence? Would I have led them down the primrose path of dalliance and left them mired in levity?
How much more would I have seen in myself?
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This post first appeared on Telling the Truth, Mainly on April 22, 2019, under the title “T Is for Time: #atozchallenge.” Later it was reposted under the title “AtoZ Challenge: R Is for Romeo, et al.”
Remarkable how a stolid, stick-like, straightforward
can, in a only a year, evolve into a curving, curling, growling dog’s name.***
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***Nurse.
Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
Romeo.
Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.
Nurse.
Ah, mocker! that’s the dog’s name. R is for the dog: no; I
know it begins with some other letter:–and she hath the
prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would
do you good to hear it.
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene iv
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In Hamlet, rosemary takes on a darker tone.
Ophelia.
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.
Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies,
that’s for thoughts.
Laertes.
A document in madness: thoughts and remembrance
fitted.
#
Ophelia is a sweet, innocent girl. The men in her life drive her to madness. The older I get, the sadder I feel for her.
Just thought I’d throw that in.
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Kathy (M. K.) Waller’s stories appear in Murder on Wheels: 11 Tales of Crime on the Move, Lone Star Lawless: 14 Texas Tales of Crime, and Day of the Dark: Stories of Eclipse, and on Mysterical-E. She’s still working on a novel set in a town very much like her minuscule hometown of Fentress, Texas.
She belongs to Austin Mystery Writers, Sisters in Crime, and Sisters in Crime Heart of Texas Chapter.
She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband.
Currently, she looks forward to viewing the annular eclipse this October and the total eclipse next April.
Ink-Stained Wretches 