What a Shakespearean play has to do with August 1

Do you know what today is? Well, I put together a little video to explain…

Now, you’re probably wondering why such a tiny little detail about Romeo and Juliet is so important. It’s not exactly pleasant nor it is within the bounds of what we consider appropriate today. All this talk of ritual sacrifice of grain, of the feminine, and of Juliet isn’t what anyone probably hears in their high school class.

So why mess with it?

My old Shakespeare professor from many moons ago argued that we are every bit as barbaric as our ancestors. We need the savagery on some basic level because it mimics the savagery of our own lives. This is why the Greeks came up with the idea of catharsis. It’s a cleansing of the emotions. This is similar to the idea of going to confession and receiving absolution, of breaking generational trauma cycles, of starting anew from the ashes of who you once were.

Tragedy is about rebirth.

When we’re in school, we have tragedy explained to us as a “downfall” of a character because of some “tragic flaw.” That is only partially true. It’s surface fact but the deep down truth is that tragedy is there to fix some deep-seated wrong that has happened. It’s more about purgation and rebirth.

Take Romeo and Juliet, for example. There is a deep-seated problem in Verona. One which neither of the leading families or even the prince is willing to address. Only when both houses have lost their heirs-apparent is there even talk of addressing the feud. Both families are perfectly willing to allow the feud to just go on without doing anything, even at the risk of the Prince’s wrath.

What’s the solution? The solution is that both Romeo and Juliet have to die. Nothing else will do. They can’t survive on their love because one house will always say the other had something to do with it. Juliet can’t just leave Romeo and Paris dead in the family crypt and go to the nunnery like the friar suggests because the Capulets will claim the Montague stole the body.

The solution is that both have to die. Specifically, Juliet has to die to consummate the resolution.

Rebirth happens when characters are forced to face the consequences of their actions.

This is perhaps most obvious in the “scapegoat” trope in tragedy like Richard III or Macbeth. In both of those cases, the main character is both the perpetrator of the original wrong and the sacrifice to fix it. Both men die for their crimes in the end and their respective kingdom are put to rights.

In Romeo and Juliet, the leaders of the two warring families finally face the consequences of their pride and unwillingness to do anything about the feud. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the consequences of their apathy involve the death of their would-be heirs.

Death in tragedy, as in most literature, isn’t senseless or purposeless. There’s always a reason behind it. For tragedy, the purpose is to ultimately allow the audience to emotionally die and then be reborn.

In Juliet’s case, Lammas isn’t just foreshadowing of her death, it’s also the beginning of a new cycle.

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