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Friar Lawrence, The Renaissance Man

© Jon Blackstock

          I rediscover the new internet's limits every time I attempt to find relevant internet sites for my literature classes (and by "new internet," I mean the change of focus from trying to circulate information to the current focus of trying to sell stuff.) No matter how many devices I download from Ziff Davis that promise faster, better, or easier "research tools," the keyword searches that accommodate everyone's fifteen megabyte of fame affords a success ratio of approximately one useful site to twenty worthless ones on a good day. A search for "Dionysus" might bring one of these good days with a few sites of mythology or theatre, but even then, these sites are mingled with other sites trying to sell either wine or pornography. (Please insert the politically correct term for pornography.)
          A search for information on Romeo and Juliet is not a good way to start your day, unless you are a Di'Capprio fan. If you can limit your search and avoid reviews or fanzines of either the 1996 or 1968 film, you may get lucky enough to find free essays targeted at high school students who, as one site boasts, have better things to do than go to class. My search for Friar Lawrence brought the profound introductory sentence in one of these essays that Romeo and Juliet is "about tragedy." (Please allow me to remind students, who know everything, that your teachers, who are too stupid too know why malls are important, are not too stupid to use the internet and are literate enough to have read the same essay that you have cut and pasted to your Word document with the intention to turn in.)

          I have to admit that the essay I found seems to have as much insight into the play as either of the films. While never mentioning the historical implications that the Friar has on the play, the free essay does seem to understand that this is one of the vital characters of the play. Other sites do admit that the character is important, even if the role is relatively small. I suspect that when those sites notice the role's size, they refer to the films, as Shakespeare's Friar has comparable line numbers to the other supporting characters, and this shows both a failure in internet literacy and in the dramaturgy of the directors who leave many of the Friar's best lines out of the films. When Friar Lawrence's lines are left in tact, they may be spoken by the most important character to Shakespeare's theme in Romeo and Juliet.