Romeo & Juliet

I am beginning to question whether or not I speak English. I speak American, yes, but English? I'm not quite sure.
In my English class, we are reading Romeo & Juliet. If there is anyone who somehow doesn't know what that is, here you are: William Shakespeare wrote this play a long, long time ago (in a Galaxy far away). It is about two people (Romeo &Juliet) who fall in love, and end up dieing (along with most of the other character) in the end. It's a tragedy. Now, because Shakespeare wrote it in the 1500's, it is in very old English. Very old English indeed. Now, back then, a sign of a good writer was one who was able to write with a beat. I also believe that to be a good writer, you needed to be able to put an unnecessary amount of words into the dialogue. Some of the words mean very different things than they do know, and I have a very hard time understanding what is written on the page in front of me.
It's actually sort of a funny story. I know what you're thinking How is it funny, the lovers die in the end? I am aware that they both take their own lives in the end, but that is not why I find it slightly comical. The whole story takes place in less that a week. Romeo & Juliet meet, fall in love, get married, try to run off together, and kill themselves all in around four days. Did I mention that they aren't even fourteen? It's slight unbelievable, but an interesting story none the less.
Also, in addition to Rome & Juliet dieing, their cousins, friends, and random other people have to go down with them. Oh, Romeo, why did you have to sneak into that party and meet Juliet? His disobedience caused himself (and probably half of his and Juliet's family) to die. And Romeo didn't even go to the party to meet Juliet, he went to See the girl he was in love with before he met Juliet. In our present day slang, we would call him a 'player'. He's only thirteen!
I also learned that Shakespeare didn't actually come up with the story, he was just the first one to think of writing it down. It was a sort of folk-tale before he made it into a play. I was unaware of that. It wasn't made very clear to me previously. Shakespeare should have written that somewhere.
So, while I think it is an interesting story, I am bothered by the fact that there are so many problems with the story.
*Isabella