Good day to you all. Now you may be wondering why I’m writing in a British accent. Well, I wasn’t until I just pointed it out, but very well we may continue. What you are probably wondering is why I am writing like this, well one word for you all: Bridgerton. That may mean probably nothing to many people, so let me explain. I shall explain in my regular writing style (this British stuff is hard man!). Bridgerton is a show on Netflix, about many characters, the main being Daphne Bridgerton and of course its set in 1813 London, which means 2 things: very old english, and really bad British accents. I’ve been literally binging it this past weekend, and have just realized that old english is really surrounding my life right now!
Currently in class, we’re studying Shakespeare, and his play Romeo & Juliet, which is first, is written all in iambic pentameter (which is insanely amazing, how do you think like that???), and consists of all old english. It wouldn’t be surprising if I, all of a sudden, started just speaking like them. Pretty sure I told my mum to “make haste” this weekend, and the look she gave me was…well, lets leave it at that.
In this interesting time of studying Romeo and Juliet, I am constantly learning new things about english itself, and the characters themselves. I was sitting down at the dinner table with my parents the other day, and I brought up the topic of Romeo and Juliet, and how we are learning about it in class. My dad and I started talking and he brought up that you could actually mail letters to Juliet. At first I was like “what the heck is he talking about, Juliet is not a real person”, but then I started thinking, and decided to do some research, and what I found was really shocking.
Turns out he was right! You can actually mail your love issues, problems and any obstacles you have with your partner to a so-called “Juliet”. The directions simply state to write your letter, and address it to ‘Juliet, Verona, Italy’, and off it will go to the secrecies of whoever “Juliet” is. On the letter though, you have to include your home address, otherwise the letter won’t come back to you.
The amazing part is, people actually do it and get advice back, it works! People even place sticky-notes on wall in places in Verona, Italy, hoping who ever is a secretary of “Juliet” will find and reply. So yes, this is very very interesting and I would say exciting, I mean you can write to the tragic lover who was famous for falling in love at first sight, but I think its amazing how people, even of todays world, have chosen to keep Shakespeare, to keep Juliet, to keep the concept of true love and falling in love, alive. Shakespeare didn’t write these plays to have a secret service of “Juliet” respond to peoples’ love problems 400 years later, but his plays made such an impact on his audience that it was carried down to our generations and made into something memorable.
This all started when people started mailing and putting letters at Juliet’s so-called graveyard. The graveyard-keeper would come to clean and inspect, and saw these letters, and started reading them. Some put their mailing address on there, and he started answering the letters, as Juliet, himself. Over time he got overwhelmed with all the letters flooding in, that he started an entire team to help. As the process continued on, we have an entire task force working to respond to peoples’ love problems, as Juliet.
On my podcast episode (yep, episode 4!!), we talked about what makes William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo & Juliet, a classic. We talked about the popularity of it, we talked about the relatability of it, we even talked about how he uses literary like iambic pentameter, and similes in lines, but I think this can sufficiently be added to the list. Having a whole secret service based on one of your characters is enough to show that the story of Romeo & Juliet, cannot be forgotten, and in my perspective, I think that makes a classic.
If you would like to check out my fourth podcast episode, featuring two special co-hosting guests, Emily McGee and Liam Owen, wait no longer!
Let me know what you think about the episode, or about what I talked about today! Have you written your letter to Juliet yet? Are you thinking about it? Let’s talk in the comments!
For now, I bid you farewell, now go to, go to! We all have places to be, tasks to accomplish, and many people to see!
January 17, 2021 at 1:55 am
I think it is great you surrounded yourself with historical literature (and I suppose you can count “Bridgerton”!). There is even a movie about sending letters to Juliet – it is pretty cheesy, but worth a look. It’s called “Letters to Juliet”.