Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy play written by William Shakespeare and is often mistaken as a love story.
Despite the passionate declarations of love throughout the play, Romeo and Juliet's love for each other is the reason the play veers from romance to much more violent, darker themes like death and bloodshed.
The play explores emotions but specifically love and hate, they are two sides of the same coin- you can't have one without the other.
The very first scene after the prologue being a brawl between servants shows how love and hate have fuelled character's actions and desires throughout the play - they are merely servants and yet they join the feud.
This senseless brutality and violence is one of the reasons Romeo and Juliet is popular even in modern society because the play explores how this hatred between two families has lasting consequences upon people.
The play doesn't glorify or glamorise violence and feudal wars but instead acts as a critique on the reality and ramifications that hatred and the expectation of fighting and honouring your family through bloodshed has on the youth.
Throughout the play we see a vast range of emotions such as love, hatred, joy, desperation, and grief.
All these emotions bring life and depth to the play and to the characters and emphasises how everyone has something or someone precious they could lose to the feud - it humanizes the characters.
This realness reminds us that we may be watching a play, a fictional drama, but this tragedy could happen if we encourage bloodshed.
This is what makes the play tragic - everyone in the play is vulnerable, human - characters fight, love and grieve.
The play has stayed relevant because of the very feud that caused the demise of the lovers - the violence in the play is shocking as the two young lovers lose their life to an ancient feud.
This terrible, purposeless feud ended with death, painted with Romeo and Juliet's blood - and that is the only reason it ended, it took Romeo and Juliet's demise to finally convince both families to end the feud.
Romeo and Juliet's love is tragic because it was ended too soon, whether people argue their love was merely infatuation, it was baseless or that they never knew each other at the end we'll never know and nor will Romeo and Juliet because they were never given enough time to see their love mature, or blossom.
There's something so intrinsically tragic and heart-wrenching watching Romeo and Juliet experience this newfound, pure unadulterated love for each other because we can do nothing but witness their tragedy unfold.
When they meet with no one but the moonlight as their witness, these intimate moments and scenes highlight their innocence and their youth - with each other Montague and Capulet bear no weight on their shoulders, they are simply Romeo and Juliet with each other.
It is prepossessing and bewitching - a sight for sore eyes.
