I know hes in the wrong time zone but i can't help but see pungent traces of magical realism in his works, especially Romeo and Juliet. Any thoughts?
obviously but i also think magical realism exists in there - In romeo and Juliet, one of the main themes is destiny In the play Romeo attempts to climb up to juliets balcony, but falls, and is pushed down by an unseeable force.... Another more developed example to do with language - Act 2 Scene 1 - Juliet says their relationship will be too like lightning First theme it affects is the idea of young love Lightning temporarily lights the whole sky - young love is completely self absorbed and instantly extinguished. Hilsts lightning may be jagged it always starts and finishes in the same spot - theme of destiny most importantly, thunder is heard after lightning, on of the main themes in the play is the idea of action occurin after ur death (R+Js death in church unites their families)
Magic realism as a genre/technique is really a reaction to the dominance of realism in literature, which itself is a rather recent (19th century) development. Shakespeare is not really reacting to realism and the people who went to see his plays were not expecting to see their own world reflected back at them. His plays were not set in the contemporary world of their audience--Romeo & Juliet, for example, was set in a foreign land and a couple hundred years in the past. Yes they have fantastic elements as well as realistic ones but they are more appropriately thought of as romance (in the classical not modern sense).
I think Wills was trying to illustrate that life itself is unavoidably tragic, a divine comedy, type of thing. Or how feelings, especially strong ones like love and grief, control so much of what happens, what we do and why we do it. He wrote lots of complex and interwoven (and historical) stories, to present something engaging to his audience (surprisingly much of it was directed at the 'common man', largely illiterate at the time, but thought capable of understanding the play, so therefore the idiom; today we're still figuring out what he said), but the themes he explored are much older, I believe, going back to Greek ideas, and further. Stories like Macbeth and the corrupt Richard explored what happens when people try to turn this tide of (self-inflicted, mostly) tragedy, and turn fate to their own (selfish) ends. R&J and other love-story themes (The Taming of the Shrew), explored the male-female 'dynamic; how love 'should' be the saviour -it saved the two warring families from each other, but cost two young lovers their lives: the divine sacrifice.
