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Romeo And Juliet Comparative Essay

Decent Essays

Introduction: Romeo and Juliet the vigorous love story between a girl and boy whose love is separated by the long feud between their two families the Montague and Capulets. This ongoing rivalling causes tragic results for Romeo and Juliet, love, revenge and a secret marriage forces the young star-crossed lovers to grow up quickly and in the end causes the two to commit suicide in misery. There has been numerous modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ from films to songs but can theses be used to popularise classics for teen audiences to teach them about literary value and appeal to modern audiences. Paragraph 1: Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’ are clearly two of the best teen adaptations …show more content…

Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation is perfect for teens to learn about Romeo and Juliet as there is no prior knowledge of the play required as the film foregrounds everything. However a fair amount of prior knowledge is required for Taylor Swift’s version as it doesn’t provide the same as Baz’s adaptation. Luhrmann’s version foregrounds all the same themes as the original, romance, fate, love, death, love conquers all, fighting, the forcefulness of love, revenge, love as cause of violence and the inevitability of fate nothing like ‘Love Story which only focuses on romance, love and compassion. Another point that Taylor Swifts version doesn’t foreground is the use of Shakespearian language on the other hand Luhrmann’s adaptation dialogue comprises of the Shakespearian language. A said before that the original Romeo and Juliet was not formally intended for teenagers but Baz’s remake undoubtedly is, it targets manly older teenagers by involving love, romance, sex, drugs and alcohol which teens are interested in. In contrast to ‘Love Story’ which is manly targeted at young girls in their early teen years. All the themes throughout both ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Love Story’ are relevant to the modern audience as they are still involved in normal everyday life, love, fate, death and romance are part of everyone’s

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