In which John Green examines Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare. John delves into the world of Bill Shakespeare’s famous star-crossed lovers and examines what the play is about, its structure, and the context in which it was written. Have you ever wanted to know what iambic pentameter is? Then you should watch this video. Have you ever pondered what kind of people actually went to see a Shakespeare play in 1598? Watch this video. Were you aware that wherefore means “why?” Whether you were or not, watch this video. In Shakespeare’s time, entertainment choices ranged from taking in a play to watching a restrained bear try to fight off a pack of dogs. Today on YouTube, our entertainment choices are just as wide-ranging. So you can either choose to watch the modern equivalent of bear-baiting (another cinnamon challenge) or you can be edified and entertained by John and Crash Course. So wherefore are you reading this description instead of watching the video?
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I don't consider it's the greatest love story. And I don't think anybody really does? But it's still called the greatest love story and that says a lot about humans.
Romeo and Juliet is not a love story
It’s a tragic story
Romeo asks Juliet while they are making out, "how old are you?" Juliet answers," 13, why?",
suddenly just then a very loud group of people burge in," FBI OPEN UP!!!!!!"
Is it channel british?
"I know when we first encounter Shakespeare the language can seem difficult"
My post-medieval lit self laughs pretentiously
I am so glad someone said the truth about Aristotle
I would like to understand the significance of the footnote images shown on the extracts in the video.
Aristotle is best greek philosopher, change my mind.
8:49 | That's the best example of iambic pentameter EVER! I laughed for 23 seconds straight
I just realized he wrote the fault in our star. woah!
"Dadyyyy!! I want to go to Steak N Shake!!
Is this The John Green? Like Turtles All The Way Down and Finding Alaska, John Green?
omg you speak too fast to make me understood
Anwwww he looks so young
5:00
>authorial intent doesn’t matter
>provides the background information necessary to understand Shakespeare’s intentions better in the very next video
Why are you like this John?
how can u not talk about wuthering heights when talking about literature
This just saved my grade
We don't need no water let the… Poor William Faulkner…
I'm living for everyone who didn't connect Crash Course John Green to TFIOS John Green
hey
but it's about idealism. Romeo is this innocent idealist and Tybalt is the embodiment of evil
what is 10:36?
The time at which I am commenting this is 7 years old, wow!
Why am I the only commenter?
Teacher here! I love Crash Course, and using it my English classroom. I wish there was a whole course on Shakespeare! That would be AWESOME!
I Loved you, you are so funny and kind, and great of course.
Dude, this is awesome.
Oh ! I wasn't knowing you were john green. Though you introduce yourself as first i thought that might be another person with same name but, when you stated about hazel and augustus i was what to say. Its really fun to watch you. And thank you .
OMG! I've read the Fault in Our Stars a hundred times. And I've watched John Green's videos for a long, long time. Yet I never realized that John was the author!!
Syllable stress brings me to middle school chior
When I read Romeo and Juliet for English I found that it was far easier too understand as a play. Probably because it was written as a play. So if your confused about the language watching the movie would probably help.
9:07–9:23 is pure genius and easily my favorite part of this whole video. I had never thought of how Romeo's name disturbed the flow of the iambic pentameter that Shakespeare generally used.
I'm glad people are leaving the phase of thinking that R & J is a beautiful love story. But it's meant to be a tragedy, not a parody
Romeo and Juliet is basically Phantom Of The Opera in a way
I love how Hazel and Augustus were featured in this. Subtle flex, John. Subtle flex.
13 and she did it and got married. What is this
We are supposed to read the books and then watch these, right?
If Aristotle was 100% wrong 100% of the time, was he wrong in Poetics?
My year 8 english teacher send us all emails to this youtube channel… can anyone else relate XD
It’s really a disguise for the tragic bromance between Mercutio and Benvolio
I need this thumb nail
Yes!!! It's funny and smart!!! Congratulations!!!
Why didn't I discover this channel when I was actually studying Romeo and Juliet???????????
It’s not “the greatest love story ever” but I believe it’s a fantastic story because it perfectly captures the whirlwind and irrationality of being young and in love for the first time.
Star crossed lovers are even in the Bible.
Song of Solomon
What do you get when you place Romeo and Juliet on a cruise liner?
When i first started watching you i had no clue that you wrote the fault in our stars, i just liked how you taught and thought you were good at it. Now, what i thought was impossible, happened. I gained even more respect for you.
PLUG!
The Jackson family joke was actually a prophecy in disguise.
3:53 umm the animators must have thought it took place in Florence, not Verona. Since that's clearly Santa Maria del Fiore (or the duomo), which lies in Florence and NOT Verona
Can we say that an opinion is wrong, Sir Green? 😉
I know this video is ancient, but I'm going to say it anyway: your meter is way off! Verona, for instance, has three syllables, as in Ve-ro-na (each vowel forms a nucleus), of which two are stressed in blank verse. However, you only highlited one syllable in that line of verse, thus seemingly degrading it from a pentameter to a tetrameter.
Oh god was that Verona story true John?
'Ol Shookstick had game huh
Wait so I'm supposed to read the book before wathcing this?
Gay
Señor,lo amo
2:16 made me laugh then cry
"thralling themselves to unhonest desire" what a line.
i once read an analysis that said r&j was likely satire, not really a genuine romantic tragedy, and tbh, yeah
2:24 nice going.
One of the ways I relate to R&J is how in my teenage, I got easily swayed by temporary emotions and passions. And oftentimes failed to see how my actions and decisions effect others.
So they changed series of unfortunate events and called it Romeo and Juliet
*Uninformed Comment
i WANT to GO to STEAK and SHAKE!
YOU WROTE THE FAULT IN OUR STARS?? I JUST MADE THE CONNECTION!!
2:16 u rly just spoiled the ending to tfios there huh
you skipped over Mercurio's death
H-hey… John? “Verona” has 3 syllables… not one.
Modern English is naturally iambic (u /) or it's opposite trochee (/ u) I think if you asked Shakespeare and other of his contemporary writers, they would say not 'pentameter' but iambic is how they preferred to write. It's not the number of feet that's important, it's the beat. If you're deep into this, read "Shakespeare's Metrical Art" by George T. Wright. It was a desert between Chaucer and Shakespeare's generation.
Where I think English teachers go wrong is they say or imply that Shakespeare only and always wrote in iambic pentameter. This is completely wrong. Many times he does the opposite, completely violates it if he needs to, or feels like it. Your English teacher is hammering you over the head with this stuff and smart kids try to hear and speak the beats and admit it's impossible. Goodygoodies pretend or delude themselves that they can hear it. There are two big problems to 'hearing' the beats. First of all Shakespeare often started a line on a (/) beat, which isn't iambic; and It can be really difficult hearing the beats. The beats do work, we know this because we like things that have them; they're hard to hear. One trick is to hold a hand under your chin, when you feel your jaw drop a little that's a beat. (Practice. Driving to work, listening to the jazz station, I practiced tapping to the beat and in a matter of a couple of weeks I learned three things: how to keep the beat (more often but not always), and that for most of my life I had no clue and was almost always off-beat, and three most people also have no clue. It's worth learning to hear beats in what you write or how you sing or speak because then others find you more interesting, and often you can figure out why a sentence seems flat, it just needs a beat. I have no idea how beat or un-beat this comment is. )
What's not mentioned in this video is: Why did Shakespeare and his contemporaries write using rhyme and beats? Would Lord of the Rings (book or movies) be better rhymed? Some bits are. (I love the Elvish.) However…. I'll bet if you dig into great pop songs, great books, great movies, great speeches – you will hear beats.
"You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, Too much love drives a man insane, You broke my will, But what a thrill, Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! Shakespeare would've approved.
Or "DEcemBER SEVenth NINEteenFORTYONE, IS a DAY that WILL LIVE in INfamy." The words might not have had beats, the delivery absolutely had them. Rap, what little I know about it, is like FDR, the beats are often imposed on the text, this is why jokes about bad rap can sometimes still be catchy.
_Another interesting thing that I've noticed_… You can beat this last bit and see that it is pretty flat. (*An* oth*er interesting thing *that I've no*ticed*) This is how boring people speak. The beats are gone. I think this is something that happens to us when we become good employees, good students, boring Tolstoyholes. The whinny little kid John Green uses as an example? That's how English is naturally spoken. Kids Shakespeare knew probably talked the exact same way (and were more often beaten, by adults and their older married 14 year old siblings. "I'm an adult now you little creep." Who although now fully mature, still retained their natural iambicity (ha!))
I know this video is several years old, but our governor just grounded all of us in California. Talk about a dramatic moment. Since I returned from Hong Kong 40 days ago I've been pretty much self-quarantined anyway. I'm starting to climb the walls here.
Wait, did I just call John Green a 'whinny little kid'? (I hope my bold and italics worked)
The other day I was reading Bulfinch's Mithology for fun and found a story called Pyramus and Thisbe and I noticed that it sounded a lot like Romeo and Juliet (sorry just really wanted to tell someone that).
Steak n' Shake is indeed quite delicious
Who is here after been lockdown at home because of the COVID-19?
I hate Romeo and Juliet, but if you put up Crash Course apparently it gets played … however you guys did a great job
I did still want to down vote just because Romeo and Juliet's placement in our society pisses me off
dam I came here for an English project but never knew how big of a simp Romeo was
7:07 There is a hand on the crate for the open letter lol
2:52 well it should stay like that-
Online School Anyone?
i lost it when i saw hazel and augustus in the secret compartment
english 9 where u at
Romeo and Juliet: the original social distancers
i've seen better writing in attack of the clones
Stupid Shepherd's pie, always ruining everything…
anyone here came here coz teacher gave link to this video?
Aristotle slavery = Morden working class. The context is different but the class is the same, only different in name. The Athenian slave has better living conditions than 21st century American working class.
In an anti-Athenian democracy speech, they mentioned: what on Earth of the system that you can't distinct a slave to a person ( imply slave in Athen live too well )
Never realized he was a dad
Aristotle was absolutely not 100% wrong.
Maybe Aristotle wasn't wrong, just kinky?
Why did John Green scream and say "I should've said The Scottish Play?"
I really appreciate the fact that you guys never ask for likes and subs like this is an amazing series..
This is not a romance.
This a comedy.
Both the play and the video, Good Job!
I can’t believe he wrote The Fault in our Stars
is it wrong for people to die for love? Many people are willing to sacrifice their lives for their country (soldiers), for the community (firefighters), for their family & friends when they are in danger….so what if someone chooses to sacrifice for love??
It's nice to listen from John Green himself.
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