#also hamlet and romeo were both played by richard burbage

[cto10121]

R&J Clown Takes Special Edition—The Romeo-Hamlet Connection

It’s so nice to take a break from the usual clownery and get into actually reasoned clownery. But alas, clownery is still clownery, however minor. This post especially got a ridiculous lot of notes:

Sigh.

So this is all predicated on the notion that Romeo’s flaw is rashness and Hamlet’s is indecision, and so all you need to do is switch them out of their respective tragedies and—presto! Crises averted.

Hmm, no.

For one thing, Romeo and Hamlet are much more alike than many think. I was actually going to do a whole post about the similarities between Hamlet and Romeo (similarities actual critics have picked up on!). They are both prone to melancholy and passivity, both prone to spurts of bold/rash action, both highly sensitive and intuitive. But I think it is ultimately their upbringing that makes the bulk of their differences.

Hamlet is a prince and Romeo is the son of a minor lord, and that makes a big difference in how they act and react to their given situations. Romeo may not gaf when it comes to youthful shenanigans and falling in love, but he does refuse to fight Tybalt and be involved in feuding. He also had to warm up considerably into killing Tybalt as vengeance for Mercutio. So yes, while he would romance Ophelia regardless, I don’t think he’d be one to kill Claudius right away; it’s a very huge decision after all.

Hamlet, on the other hand, is reared to consider the bigger picture always. He is a prince, and whatever his feelings towards Ophelia, he can and did cut her off when he suspected she had betrayed him to her father and uncle and is now a spy for him (she had no real choice, of course, but even so…). He is also a university student and thus educated in that scholarly (and thus misogynistic) tradition. So with all that said, I doubt he would pursue Juliet.

But what if they were born into their circumstances and not just body swapped? Let’s say Romeo is a prince and Hamlet is the son of a minor lord in a destructive feud. Honestly, they would probably behave more or less the same. OP is right in that if Hamlet did go for Juliet, he would try to broker a marriage of alliance between the two families rather than relying on the Friar. But all things being equal, I don’t see Romeo behaving all that differently from Hamlet.