# Romeo and Juliet is a Black Comedy, Not a Romantic Tragedy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2006, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romeo-and-juliet-is-a-black-comedy-not-a-romantic-tragedy/350397 "2006-03-29T14:46:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romeo-and-juliet-is-a-black-comedy-not-a-romantic-tragedy/350397/21 "2006-03-29T21:46:38Z")
Right. It was only reading it as an adult that I realized Rosalind wouldn’t sleep with him so he hied his blue balls off to Juliet’s house. They must have glossed over that part in Catholic school. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romeo-and-juliet-is-a-black-comedy-not-a-romantic-tragedy/350397/22 "2006-03-30T00:51:25Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Right. It was only reading it as an adult that I realized Rosalind wouldn’t sleep with him so he hied his blue balls off to Juliet’s house. They must have glossed over that part in Catholic school. 😉 To be fair, it’s Benvolio that leads him into it. Romeo’s all, “Oh, woe, I am sad. Rosaline hates me. :(” Benvolio tells him to check out some other ladies. And then Mercutio basically says, “Psst. Whatever. Let’s go get drunk and get some tail!” Of course, Mercutio also later tells Romeo that he reeks of, um, lady-crotch, so he’s not the most delicate of men. > [@Cervaise](#): > > **RickJay** ’s point warrants your attention. If Shakespeare intended this to be a pure comedy, there would be no body count. I think this is especially important when you consider who is killed in the play. Nobody is killed just because it’s convenient for the plot; their deaths all serve a purpose in building meaning. (Except maybe Paris. I’m at a loss as to what his death means. It’s always struck me as a very stupid death – Paris isn’t a bad sort. Unless it serves to show the triumph of romantic love over arranged marriage? But then R & J bite it, so not much triumph there.) The two principal deaths, after R & J, are Mercutio and Tybalt. Mercutio is the funny-man, and after he dies, humor dies. There’s not a lot of funny stuff after his death; even Nurse calms down. The next “funny” scene is when Juliet fakes her death and her parents mourn her, but that is decidedly dark humor and is all in the delivery. It’s very easy to read it as sincere grief, but there’s just too much mourning for it to be sincere. When Tybalt dies, the main objector to the relationship between R & J dies, but after Romeo kills him, there is suddenly a lot more to object to. That’s all plot, though. The meaning of his death is, I think, ultimately the death of the quarrel between the families. The next time Lady Capulet talks to Juliet, she berates her daughter for mourning her cousin too much, when he has just been killed the night before. They plan for Juliet to wed Paris that week. That seems unusual to me – a bit of the funeral meats being used for the wedding feast. > [@Cervaise](#): > > Likewise, **lissener** is correct that a deconstruction or reinterpretation of a given narrative is not the same story as the original, and analysis of the new version may provide, at best, tangential illumination of its source. Just because Andy Griffith made an unalloyed comedy out of the material doesn’t mean Shakespeare’s play is also a comedy. Consider too that Shakespeare (re?)visited the basic story of Romeo and Juliet with the play-within-a-play in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. Pyramus and Thisbe is most probably the classical inspiration for _R&J_.\* The presentation of the story in Pyramus and Thisbe in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ is definitely done in a humorous manner. The full text of the scene is [here](http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/midsummer/midsummer.5.1.html). Theseus introduces it by saying, _‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.’ Merry and tragical! tedious and brief! **That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord?**_ Emphasis mine. What could Shakespeare possibly be saying about the story with this? _R&J_ and _MND_ were written around the same time, so it would be unsurprising he were meditating upon the same thoughts during the writing of both. Of course, it would also be unsurprising if he were presenting the same story in two different ways. The great question about this is whether or not it’s the play itself that’s being ridiculed or the players. The players who present _P&T_ are the rustics in the play – the comic relief. The other characters in the play certainly ridicule the players and occasionally venture to ridicule the characters they play. A more complete analysis of _P&T_ is left to the reader, though. If the question could be answered definitively, then we could know what was intended with _R&J_, or at least be a hop, skip, and a jump closer to it. > [@Cervaise](#): > > That said, I do agree that there is a lot of merit in considering the comedic and satiric elements of the original material, and that the play stands up solidly to such analysis. _R&J_ is a better play than people give it credit for, as long as you’re willing to entertain the depth and complexity that I think it contains. I agree completely. Shakespeare’s plays haven’t lasted just because they were written by Shakespeare. They’ve lasted because the plays themselves have merit. The beauty of critical analysis is that you never can know absolutely what is intended by a text. There can be a consensus, but they come and go. Some ideas are more possible than others, but any idea that can be supported is possible. The possibilities approach infinity. \*A brief summary for those that are curious. Their families won’t allow them to marry, so they agree to run away together, after communicating chiefly through a hole in the wall surrounding Thisbe’s garden. Their agreed upon meeting place is by a lion’s den. Thisbe gets there first, and the lion attacks her. She hides, but leaves her scarf/veil behind. Pyramus gets there, sees that the scarf is torn, and assumes Thisbe is dead because of the lion tracks all around it. He stabs himself in the heart with his sword. Thisbe discovers his dead body, and falls weeping all over it. She then stabs herself in the heart with his sword and dies. They are buried to together in one tomb. (Incidentally, Pyramus’ blood stains the white mulberries, and that’s why mulberries are the color they are today.) ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romeo-and-juliet-is-a-black-comedy-not-a-romantic-tragedy/350397/23 "2006-03-30T01:11:16Z")
It seems to be at the Itunes Music Store. “Romeo and Juliet, Pt. 1 & 2” on “American Originals” by Andy Griffith. I’m buying it now. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romeo-and-juliet-is-a-black-comedy-not-a-romantic-tragedy/350397/24 "2006-03-30T01:40:34Z")
You should try ‘Hamlet’ sometime. Man, that guy sure can deliver. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romeo-and-juliet-is-a-black-comedy-not-a-romantic-tragedy/350397.md?page=1)