Like many victims of the American education system, I had a dislike for Shakespeare years before I got my hands on anything he had written. His name was a password to be profaned by 12-year-olds whose voices had started to change and who therefore had to act tough and cynical and, especially at 12, anti-intellectual. But part of the problem came later, in the classroom, where we inched through ' and ' at a velocity of ten lines an hour. It was impossible to read Shakespeare as slowly as we did and remember anything from the first three acts by the time we got to the murders. 'Who's this Brutus guy?' We whispered.
Mar 05, 1968 Watch video Shakespeare's classic tale of romance and tragedy. Two families of Verona, the Montagues and the Capulets, have been feuding with each other for years. Young Romeo Montague goes out with his friends to make trouble at a party the Capulets are hosting, but while there he spies the Capulet's daughter Juliet, and falls hopelessly in love with her.