Why Romeo & Juliet has the ultimate spoiler in storytelling

Shakespeare begins Romeo and Juliet with a Prologue summarizing the entire play:

Chorus. Two households both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

The fearful passage of their death-marked love,

And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,

Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

This prologue must rank as one of the ultimate spoilers in storytelling. We learn, even before the characters appear, that the two lovers take their own lives. If the play is purely for entertainment, with no intended meaning (as some critics contend), why does Shakespeare ruin the suspense of the ending even before the tale begins? This prologue is therefore evidence that Shakespeare does intend a deeper meaning.

The prologue reveals the ending because Shakespeare does not want us to focus on what will happen at the end. He directs us to focus, instead, on the reason for this tragic end. That is where the meaning of the play resides. The purpose of the Prologue is expressed in its closing lines: “The which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.” It informs us that the cause of the tragedy will be elaborated in the play and directs us to focus on this cause. The reason for the spoiler in the Prologue is thus to help direct our attention onto the central meaning of the play which concerns how the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets led to the tragic end of the young lovers.

It is here, in the cause of the tragic ending in Romeo and Juliet, that Shakespeare’s messages—conveyed in Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew—are artistically honed to an astounding emotional intensity. For it is in Romeo and Juliet, that the dire consequences of our misperceptions of reality (as portrayed in Much Ado About Nothing), our error in mistaking labels as being inherently real (as demonstrated in The Comedy of Errors), and our flawed thinking that the roles we play define our identity (as illustrated in The Taming of the Shrew), are most keenly felt in a dramatic intensity that leaves a deep impression on our inner psyche.

The power of the emotional experience in Romeo and Juliet in conveying its profound meaning is astonishing, and—consciously or subconsciously—the play has already left a lasting archetypal impact upon us. It is nonetheless important that we also consciously acknowledge the meaning Shakespeare conveys through the play, for it is a message that the world, at this critical time, needs to understand. 

Romeo & Juliet is perhaps the greatest piece of literature every written that denounces conflict between factions. Shakespeare makes us experience the agony and suffering that arises from such a conflict. It is akin to learning by direct personal experience. This is the profound nature of Shakespeare’s art. In our world of nuclear weaponry, Shakespeare’s plea for us to realize our spiritual unity, and not be deluded by our misperceptions and our labels, may help to save us from a nuclear catastrophe.