What are two components of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that makes it such a lasting and influential play?

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is long-lasting and influential because audiences from every generation and every nation can relate to the themes presented in the play and for the witty, artistic, and profound language used to tell the tragic story. The following is a list of themes that are still identifiable today by audiences around the world:

1.  Family Feud or Gang Violence


2.  Parent/Child Relationship Struggles


3.  Teenage Love and Teenage Suicide


4.  Spontaneous and Rash Teenage Decision-making


5.  Revenge

These are just a few of the themes that audiences can relate to 500 years after the play first debuted. The world's communities see these struggles still today, so the play is able to still be entertaining as well as worthwhile for students to learn from.

Next is the creative language that must be difficult to translate into different languages, but nonetheless, profound ideas strike truth into people's hearts no matter the translation. The following are just a few of the most famous quotes used over and over by people everywhere when alluding to universal themes of fate, love, and tolerance:

"A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows

Doth withtheir death bury their parents' strife" (Prologue. 7-9).

Whenever someone breaks up with a significant other, someone might say "it's just not meant to be," or "it wasn't written in the stars," or that the relationship was "star-crossed." This line is a great example of doomed love and it seems to help people blame fate for a failed relationship rather than themselves.

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun" (II.ii.2-3).

The above passage is Romeo's first famous lines in the balcony scene which seems to be a scene that exemplifies romantic love. And the first line bounces off of the tongue with perfect rhythm as it uses iambic pentameter.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet" (II.ii.45-46).

Juliet says this quote while contemplating the fact that Romeo is a Montague and her family's enemy. The metaphor rings true today, though people may use this as a theme for tolerance and not judging people based on the family or group they might be associated with.

Classics like Romeo and Juliet are long-lasting and influential as audiences throughout the ages are able to identify and relate to the language and themes presented in them. This play will forever be the standard for profound thematic elements and crafty language.