A couple of reasons I think they find such affinity with it.

1. In Japanese feudal romance, prostitutes would swear their love to a particular man they feel devoted to by cutting off their pinky finger.

2. In Japanese history, double suicides or instances where you kill your romantic other, was seen as either duty or romance. So in certain settings and situations, a woman may ask her lover to kill her, as a testament of his and their love. This may not make much sense to modern senses, but in the days of Cleopatra, the Romans, and Japanese feudalism, being captured was seen as the ultimate dishonor/disgrace. Not to mention what people will do to you once they capture you: torture, rape, mutilation, etc.

3. The Japanese had a small, but significant tradition of samurai women, Onna Bugeisha, who trained with the naginata from birth (since they were born to the samurai class and were allowed to wield weapons. Female/Male had less to do with it given the division between class).

Because of 3, it is a slightly romantic expression for a armed retainer, a female samurai, to die for her lord. This is devotion or love.

My interpretations here based upon what little observations of Japanese culture and actions I have seen, lead me to believe that the Japanese have a more than average interest in Romeo and Juliet.

Old English is more similar to Japanese than it does to Modern English. The Japanese can be very ambiguous and indirect. Poetic.

One thing I realized recently, off topic, is why so many Germans and Japanese like to tour the world (they call it traveling, we call it tourism). I realized that German and Japanese culture share one thing in culture. An iron bound sense of order and hierarchy.

People “travel” to get away from that. They have wanderlust precisely because their home culture is so stifling at times.

“Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.”

PRINCE

And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence:
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine:
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he’s found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body and attend our will:
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

Frair to Romeo:
“Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.”

Fonteyn. Nureyev. The glorious choreography of Kenneth MacMillan, in the Royal Ballet’s 1966 production of Romeo and Juliet. Set to Prokofiev’s gorgeous music — piercingly beautiful with a saving touch of astringent melancholy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtBRN5BXt6o

Nureyev and Fonteyn broke with ballet custom in kissing at the end: both felt that the scene was so passionate that they had to finish it that way. (Rumor has it that they were lovers, though Fonteyn always denied it. Watching this, you can certainly believe it.)

Fonteyn’s port de bras is meltingly exquisite.

I also had a superb Shakespeare professor who opened the treasures of the play to me, Robert G. Hunter, at Vanderbilt. I took the full 2-semester course, and it was like being let into Aladdin’s cave.

I’m going to see Derek Jakobi in King Lear in a couple of weeks, at BAM in Brooklyn. A once in a lifetime event.

Okay, I’m off to get the link for my favorite ballet version of the balcony scene. Which I think you’ll appreciate.

How fortunate you were to have such a teacher!

“Palmers” is such fine word:

“And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
In ferne halwes, couth in sondry londes…”

as Chaucer sang…

Jamie Irons

I had a 5th-8th grade music teacher (Mrs. Lovelace) who instilled in me the same love for classical music that your teacher helped you get for literature.

A teacher like that gives society more than almost any politician one can name.

The only time I ever got an A in an English course was for a Shakespeare course. My high school teacher teacher had emphasized reading the plays and knowing the details. ” If you don’t know the details, how can you discuss the broader points?” Some years after high school, I finally followed his advice and read each play twice for that Shakespeare course in college.

As a proud mom I can’t help but share this very short video feature about this year’s show:

http://foresthills-regentsquare.patch.com/articles/st-maurice-students-perform-shakespeare-comedy#video-5839200

I’m a former English major who loves Shakespeare (thanks to one particular college professor). It’s a real gift to have that kind of teacher. Makes all the difference in the world.