Although it was first performed in the 1590s, the commencementdocumented performance of Romeo and Juliet is from 1662. The diarist Samuel Pepys was in the audition, and recorded that he 'saw "Romeo and Juliet," the first time information technology was e'er acted; merely it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do.'

Despite Pepys' dislike, the play is one of Shakespeare's best-loved and most famous, and the story of Romeo and Juliet is well known. However, the play has become so embedded in the pop psyche that Shakespeare'due south considerably more circuitous play has been reduced to a few fundamental aspects: 'star-cross'd lovers', a teenage love story, and the suicide of the ii protagonists. In the summary and analysis that follow, nosotros realise that Romeo and Juliet is much more than a tragic love story.

Romeo and Juliet : brief summary

Afterwards the Prologue has fix the scene – nosotros have two feuding households, Montagues and Capulets, in the city-land of Verona; and young Romeo is a Montague while Juliet, with whom Romeo is destined to fall in beloved, is from the Capulet family unit, sworn enemies of the Montagues – the play proper begins with servants of the two feuding households taunting each other in the street.

When Benvolio, a member of house Montague, arrives and clashes with Tybalt of business firm Capulet, a scuffle breaks out, and it is only when Capulet himself and his wife, Lady Capulet, appear that the fighting stops. Old Montague and his wife and then show upwards, and the Prince of Verona, Escalus, arrives and chastises the people for fighting. Anybody leaves except Quondam Montague, his wife, and Benvolio, Montague's nephew. Benvolio tells them that Romeo has locked himself away, just he doesn't know why.

Romeo appears and Benvolio asks his cousin what is wrong, and Romeo starts speaking in paradoxes, a certain sign that he's in love. He claims he loves Rosaline, merely will not return any human'south beloved. A servant appears with a note, and Romeo and Benvolio learn that the Capulets are holding a masked ball. Benvolio tells Romeo he should attend, even though he is a Montague, as he will find more than beautiful women than Rosaline to autumn in dearest with. Meanwhile, Lady Capulet asks her girl Juliet whether she has given any thought to marriage, and tells Juliet that a man named Paris would brand an splendid married man for her.

Romeo attends the Capulets' masked ball, with his friend Mercutio. Mercutio tells Romeo well-nigh a fairy named Queen Mab who enters young men's minds as they dream, and makes them dream of honey and romance. At the masked ball, Romeo spies Juliet and instantly falls in love with her; she likewise falls for him.

They kiss, but and then Tybalt, Juliet's kinsman, spots Romeo and recognising him as a Montague, plans to face up him. Onetime Capulet tells him not to do so, and Tybalt reluctantly agrees. When Juliet enquires after who Romeo is, she is distraught to acquire that he is a Montague and thus a member of the family that is her family's sworn enemies.

Romeo breaks into the gardens of Juliet's parents' house and speaks to her at her sleeping accommodation window. The 2 of them pledge their dear for each other, and arrange to be secretly married the following nighttime. Romeo goes to run into a churchman, Friar Laurence, who agrees to ally Romeo and Juliet.

After the wedding, the feud betwixt the two families becomes fierce again: Tybalt kills Mercutio in a fight, and Romeo kills Tybalt in retaliation. The Prince banishes Romeo from Verona for his crime.

Juliet is told by her male parent that she will marry Paris, so Juliet goes to seek Friar Laurence's assist in getting out of it. He tells her to accept a sleeping potion which volition make her appear to exist expressionless for two nights; she will be laid to balance in the family unit vault, and Romeo (who will exist informed of the plan) tin secretly come to her at that place.

Yet, although that part of the plan goes fine, the message to Romeo doesn't get in; instead, he hears that Juliet has actually died. He secretly visits her at the family vault, only his grieving is interrupted past the arrival of Paris, who is there to lay flowers. The two of them fight, and Romeo kills him. Convinced that Juliet is really dead, Romeo drinks toxicant in order to join Juliet in death. Juliet wakes from her slumber induced by the sleeping draught to find Romeo dead at her side. She stabs herself.

The play ends with Friar Laurence telling the story to the 2 feuding families. The Prince tells them to put their rivalry backside them and live in peace.

Romeo and Juliet : analysis

How should we analyse Romeo and Juliet, i of Shakespeare's near famous and frequently studied, performed, and adapted plays? Is Romeo and Juliet the great beloved story that information technology'southward often interpreted as, and what does it say about the play – if information technology is a celebration of young love – that information technology ends with the deaths of both romantic leads?

Information technology's worth bearing in mind that Romeo and Juliet do non kill themselves specifically because they are forbidden to be together, but rather considering a concatenation of events (of which their families' ongoing feud with each other is but one) and a message that never arrives lead to a misunderstanding which results in their suicides.

Romeo and Juliet is ofttimes read as both a tragedy and a nifty celebration of romantic love, only it conspicuously throws out some difficult questions about the nature of honey, questions which are rendered even more than pressing when we consider the headlong nature of the play's action and the fact that Romeo and Juliet meet, marry, and die all within the space of a few days. Below, we offering some notes towards an analysis of this archetype Shakespeare play and explore some of the play's nearly salient themes.

It's worth starting with a consideration of just what Shakespeare did with his source material. Interestingly, two families known equally the Montagues and Capulets appear to accept really existed in medieval Italia: the first reference to 'Montagues and Capulets' is, curiously, in the poetry of Dante (1265-1321), not Shakespeare.

In Dante'south early fourteenth-century epic verse form, theDivine Comedy, he makes reference to two warring Italian families: 'Come and run into, you who are negligent, / Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi and Filippeschi / One lot already grieving, the other in fear' (Purgatorio, canto Six). Precisely why the families are in a feud with 1 another is never revealed in Shakespeare's play, so we are encouraged to accept this at face value.

The play'south most famous line references the feud between the two families, which ways Romeo and Juliet cannot be together. And the line, when we stop and consider it, is more than a piddling inexplainable. The line is spoken past Juliet: 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art chiliad Romeo?' Of grade, 'wherefore' doesn't mean 'where' – it means 'why'.

Just that doesn't exactly clear up the whys and the wherefores. The question still doesn't announced to make any sense: Romeo's problem isn't his beginning name, merely his family name, Montague. Surely, since she fancies him, Juliet is quite pleased with 'Romeo' as he is – it's his family that are the trouble. Solutions have been proposed to this conundrum, but none is completely satisfying.

There are a number of notable things Shakespeare did with his source textile. The Italian story 'Mariotto and Gianozza', printed in 1476, contained many of the plot elements of Shakespeare'southRomeo and Juliet. Shakespeare'south source for the play'due south story was Arthur Brooke'sThe Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet(1562), an English poetry translation of this Italian tale.

The moral of Brooke's tale is that young beloved ends in disaster for their elders, and is all-time reined in; Shakespeare inverse that. In Romeo and Juliet, the headlong passion and excitement of immature love is celebrated, even though confusion leads to the deaths of the young lovers. Simply through their deaths, and the case their dearest ready for their parents, the two families vow to be reconciled to each other.

Shakespeare as well makes Juliet a thirteen-twelvemonth-old girl in his play, which is odd for a number of reasons. Nosotros know thatRomeo and Julietis well-nigh young honey – the 'pair of star-cross'd lovers', who belong to rival families in Verona – but what is odd nearly Shakespeare's play is how immature he makes Juliet. In Brooke'southward verse rendition of the story, Juliet is sixteen. Just when Shakespeare dramatised the story, he made Juliet several years younger, with Romeo's historic period unspecified. As Lady Capulet reveals, Juliet is 'non [yet] xiv', and this point is fabricated to united states of america several times, every bit if Shakespeare wishes to depict attention to it and brand sure we don't forget it.

This makes sense in and then far as Juliet represents young dearest, only what makes it unsettling – particularly for modern audiences – is the fact that this makes Juliet a girl of thirteen when she enjoys her night of wedded bliss with Romeo. As John Sutherland puts information technology in his (and Cedric Watts') engagingOxford World's Classics: Henry V, State of war Criminal?: and Other Shakespeare Puzzles, 'In a contemporary court of law [Romeo] would receive a longer sentence for what he does to Juliet than for what he does to Tybalt.'

There appears to be no satisfactory answer to this question, only one possible caption lies in 1 of the play'due south recurring themes: bawdiness and sexual familiarity. Perhaps surprisingly given the youthfulness of its tragic heroine, Romeo and Juliet is shot through with bawdy jokes, double entendres, and allusions to sex, made by a number of the characters.

These references to concrete love serve to brand Juliet's innocence, and subsequent passionate romance with Romeo, even more noticeable: the journeying both Romeo and Juliet undertake is one from innocence (Romeo pointlessly and naively pursuing Rosaline; Juliet unversed in the ways of love) to experience.

In the last analysis, Romeo and Juliet is a classic depiction of forbidden love, simply information technology is also far more than sexually aware, more 'adult', than many people realise.