Who is most responsible for the continued knowledgeable existence of Romeo and Juliet? The English teacher. If it was not for the Shakespearean language and the reputation afforded by it because it was written by Shakespeare it would be nothing but another cheap romance novel sold in the isles of a grocery store. But, instead every year thousands of school children read the outdated play.
It is unfair to request us to read a book written in another dialect that today is nothing but an obscure dialect of English. Most great works including Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey are always read in the vernacular of area. In America that language is English in one of the many American dialects. But, instead we are reading a book written in an old European dialect of English. The language also hinders our attempts to derive theme and meaning from this play, further decreasing the minimal increase in knowledge that this book affords.
In todays editions of Romeo and Juliet it is impossible to understand what Shakespeare's intentions were. This play is often edited, and parts of it rewritten. In our edition we must consider the intentions of Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The latter two people have reconstructed Romeo and Juliet from eight previous editions that included other editors work. The question “What was Shakespeare's intentions” becomes irrelevant. Possibly he had different intentions with each edition of his work, fine tuning each to a specific audience or performing group, and by combining these editions we have destroyed his intent and replaced it with the intent of the editors.
Romeo and Juliet is not entirely Shakespeare's work, much of this work is based on oral stories told by minstrels of his day. This fact would make this play an act of plagiarism. If this were done today Shakespeare would be a nobody with possibly a few lewd jokes mentioned about him. Is this what we want to teach our children? That to make a masterpiece we must plagiarize other's works? Of course not.
Romeo and Juliet is nothing but an outdated play from another time, kept alive by the wish for English teachers to provide some guide to adolescence, something that it fails to do because of its outdated nature.