A lot of reviews here are missing one small fact. You are judging the twos age by today’s standards and mentality. But in the lifespan in their time was much shorter and times harder. So many of their age would be considered adults and a good portion of their life’s already spent.

I have come to accept that there will never be any redemption or love in your stories; however, in this story I relish in it. Romeo and Juliet actually deserve this fate. They threw away literally everything and for what: shallow infatuation, meaningless and naive. They never realized that love demands more than shitty poetry and fornication and suicide, and for that I hated them. Love should be more than that even if love that is more doesn't exist in this world.

So true. Both the story and the A/N.

Romeo and Juliet represent the passion, the uncontrollable force that seems to draw two souls together despite everythign the world seems to do to keep them apart.

We know, of course, that in real life love is not perfect, that people change, and a relationship won't always work out perfectly without the two partners having to lift a finger. One has to make sacrifices, to compromise, and in the end, and if in the end he will feel that it had been worth it, then he will know that he had truly loved the woman stiing beside him for all his life.

Romeo and Juliet are young, they lack experience of how the world works. Even a twenty years old would never be able to guarantee that the person he is going out with today will be his wife thirty years from now, despite his claims of loving her with all his heart.

Romeo and Juliet represent the poetic part of love, not the pragmatic, every-day part, that is what, after all, guarantees the success of a long term relationship.

A great story. Very good.

I must say, you are much kinder to Romeo and Juliet than I would have been. Whenever I imagine the scenario in which they live it's more a grotesque nightmarish cartoon than anything else. But you've kept it realistic with just the right kind of melancholy and resignation. This is what I've always thought the real tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and I'm sure that Shakespeare knew it as well. It was either to kill their love or the lovers themselves. In killing off the lovers Shakespeare granted them eternal youth and immortality - though of course you know that.

So I profess myself to love the story of Romeo and Juliet despite its weak spots (though I don't quite see it that way). But I suppose I'm the only one who sees their deaths as more a happy ending than anything else (besides you, of course). I'm glad that at least one person shares my view and you did a marvelous job in protraying the true tragedy in such a poignant, eloquent way. I tip my hat off to you.

I've just been writing something along the same lines of this - five years on they grow apart and miserable and, just for poetic justice, at the end of mine they're going to commit suicide anyway.

I absolutely agree with everything you've written at the end, my coursework piece ranted on for four pages about how their love had brought Verona together and how nothing could compete with the purity of their relationship etc. but I just think they should have got a grip on their hormones and got over themselves. Seriously.

Anyway, really good piece.

Interesting twist, especially with them growing distant.

I too have always thought that Romeo and Juliet being the greatest love story is illogical. Two young, impulsive teens meet, get married, are seperated, and commit suicide due to miscommunication. All within the span of one week. Maybe if they had been in secret, forbidden courtship for a long time, it would be more reasonable...but a 15 and a 13 year old would in and out of love really easily. I think one of the main reasons that Romeo 'loves' her so much is that Juliet 'loved' him back, as opposed to Rosaline, who spurned him.

I read your author's note, and I agree with you. I've never seen why Romeo and Juliet was such a love story. It's about naive teenagers, who believe in love.

This was good, for me. I liked the story. ;)

I definitly agree with you. Romeo and Juliet's love was purely physical and we've already seen how easily Romeo changes the object of his love (with Rosaline).

That was very interesting. I've never thought of the ending of Romeo and Juliet in this way- you do have a point here.

Your writing is excellent.

I never thought it was the greatest love story ever just because they die for love and Shakespear wrote it. I actually thought they were a bit stupid even when I was Juliet's age (we did it in English that year). But I agree that dying was the only viable option for them - had they not died they would have been seperated or grown old and unhappy together as they do in your story. Also their family's would never have become reconciled had they lived.

I like the pathos you manage to impart, that neither of them really sound bad, just unhappy and betrayed by circumstances.