It's a question that comes up time and time again – why do we still study Shakespeare? Why do we put students through the torture (as some believe) of Elizabethan English? Clearly a play from hundreds of years ago can't mean anything to the teenager of today. How could it be relevant? And further, in terms of a scholarly approach, how can we take this play seriously? Two teenagers fall in love, marry, and kill themselves in a matter of days. It's hardly a serious piece of literature.