“Nothing is timeless by definition,” said Allen Michie, assistant professor of English.

Nothing but “Romeo and Juliet.” Michie says its themes of love, longing, suffering, loneliness, desire and growing up transcend time and are prevalent in society today.

Scholars have referred to Shakespeare’s literary and theatrical masterpiece, “Romeo and Juliet,” as “timeless” and “a work for the ages.” But can a composition written more than 400 years ago hold up today?

“Love is one of those things that we think of as being timeless and a key part of human nature,” Michie explained.

Pat Gouran, associate professor of music, has a simpler way of looking at it. “What’s new and what’s not going to be new about two 14-year-olds who want to get laid?” he said.

“People have always gravitated towards `Romeo and Juliet’ because it shows such an intensity of love. People who love deeply find in `Romeo and Juliet’ that idealized language that expresses what they’re feeling,” Michie explained.

“People who don’t love deeply read `Romeo and Juliet,’ and wish that they could. I think `Romeo and Juliet’ appeals to both types, those who have those feelings themselves and those who perhaps wish they could.”

One idea that’s been introduced is that instead of the play reflecting our ideals today, we may think the way we do because of “Romeo and Juliet.”

Michie noted modern critic Harold Bloom said the play helps create our modern idea of subjectivity, the idea that our world is how we see it and not how others tell us it is. Michie agreed and related his thoughts on the idea.

“Love is something that is connected with individuality and subjectivity. Those concepts are something that [are] really very modern. It’s one of the great tributes to Shakespeare that he was able to not only reflect that subjectivity but in some ways create it. `Romeo and Juliet’ is one of the key founding texts for that.

“It’s not that `Romeo and Juliet’ reflects something that’s universal. It’s that it plays a key role in creating what we think of as universal. Maybe that’s not an exaggeration,” Michie said.

Then again, social attitudes have changed a lot since Shakespeare’s time.

Gouran believes that when seeing stories like this, “most people will think `Oh, those silly kids, were they on something?’ or `Why weren’t the parents in control?’ “

Michie relates it to a story he saw a couple years ago. Two teens in Miami drowned themselves in a mutual death pact because their parents wouldn’t let them see each other.

The girl was 13 and the boy 14, ages very close to those of Shakespeare’s characters. The parents were consumed with anguish and grief over the situation.

“The parallels to Romeo and Juliet are very obvious,” Michie said. “It still is a very powerful metaphor for young love and parents’ relationship to it. Often people have such a powerful identification with the young lovers they fail to see that the drama is just as much about the parents.

“The tragedy of the play belongs to the parents. The tragedy is that the parents have to lose the very thing that’s precious to them because of their feud.”

Gouran agrees the parents have a lot to do with the application of the story today.

“The universality of `I want to protect my child, he’s not good enough for her, she’s not good enough for him’ – those things still hang around,” he said.

Michie said Shakespeare wrote about the power of love to apply across generations and demonstrated particular genius in doing so.

Shakespeare told us that “it takes a great sacrifice of love to heal the wounds of hate,” Michie explained.

“He takes a society made by grown-ups and politics infused with hatred and irrational rivalry. In the middle of that, he has two young people who don’t care anything about that, who just look into one another’s eyes, fall in love at first sight, and that’s their only reality.”

Michie thinks Shakespeare will always be as relevant as he has been in the 400-plus years since his death.

“Every indication is that he always will be our popular culture is so steeped in Shakespeare. Even if you were to drop Shakespeare out of the literary cannon, you would still have to read Shakespeare just to understand our popular culture and the way it’s evolved and the way it still works,” he said.

Michie also believes the play also has a special importance in more recent months.

“Maybe the themes can speak to us more powerfully after Sept. 11,” he said. “Sometimes the very things that consume us with hate can be healed by simple stories of love and realizing the sacrifices people make for love.”