Compare to others of Shakespeare's plays. Take a look at A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labours Lost, and Twelfth Night for examples of how romances go right in the Shakespearean canon, and for some more tragic romance turn to Othello or Antony and Cleopatra.
Romeo and Juliet has served as the inspiration for many other works, including Sondheim, Laurents, and Bernstein's musical West Side Story and Sharon M. Draper's young adult novel Romiette and Julio. The Fantasticks is another musical with close thematic ties. Students will probably be able to think of many other contemporary examples of works inspired by Romeo and Juliet, from individual episodes of television shows to the...