What if your first true love was someone you’d been told to hate?
Ripped apart by the bitter divisions of their parents, two young people will risk everything to be together.
The most famous story of love at first sight explodes with intense
passion and an irresistible desire for change. Will this spark a
revolution or will division continue to tear through generations? Romeo and Juliet will be broadcast live to cinemas on 18 July 2018 and will transfer to the Barbican as part of our London Season from October 2018 - January 2019.
When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet and the stories which inspired the play.
Dates
Romeo and Juliet was first printed in a so-called pirated
edition in 1597. No copyright law protected the rights of authors at
that time and enterprising printers quickly snapped up the chance to
sell unauthorized versions of this box office hit. Actors who had
performed in the play in question would reconstruct the text from memory
and bring their versions to the printer.
The title page of this 1597 edition describes the play as 'An
Excellent conceited tragedie…often (with great applause) plaid
publiquely'. The likeliest date of composition is 1595-6 since the play
shares the poetic, lyrical style of Love's Labours Lost, Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice, all of which were written in the mid 1590s.
Sources
In 1562 Arthur Brooke published The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet,
the first English version of the story of Romeo and Juliet. His long
poem was very popular among Elizabethan readers, enjoying several
reprints.
Brooke's was the latest telling of a well-known story that had long
been enjoyed in French and Italian literature. Italian versions, written
in the 1530s by Luigi da Porta and in the 1550s by Matteo Bandello,
told the story of Romeo and Giuletta and the feuding families of
Montecchi and Capelletti, with the details of the secret wooing and
marriage, the helpful Nurse, Romeo's escape from the punishment of
murder, the Friar's potion, the lost message and the suicides in the
tomb.
The French version, written in 1559 by Boaistuau, added more exciting
details. Interestingly, Boaistuau changed the manner of the lovers'
deaths from his Italian predecessors, where the lovers have a short time
together in the tomb before they die. Boaistuau chooses to have his
Romeo die before Juliet wakes, as Shakespeare will do in his later
version. Brooke's poem is a faithful translation from the French and
Brooke is the immediate source for Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare, of
course, makes his own changes, not least the change from a leisurely
period of several months, throughout which the lovers enjoy their
relationship, to the desperate haste and headlong energy of his action,
crammed into a few days.
Stories of the separation of lovers, unkind parents and useful
sleeping potions can be traced back to classical times. For example, the
story of Pyramus and Thisbe, the thwarted lovers who die tragically, is
one of the stories told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Shakespeare
would have read this in the original Latin as a boy at school and an
English translation was published by Arthur Golding in 1567. Shakespeare
uses this story to wonderful comic effect in his A Midsummer Night's Dream, written at the same time as Romeo and Juliet. The influence of Chaucer's great poem, Troilus and Criseyde,
(1385) can also be felt in Shakespeare's creation of a tender,
passionate intimacy between two secret lovers struggling to exist in a
hostile world.
Synopsis
This play was written in 1595-6 and
is set in Verona, Italy, at a time when a long standing feud between two
noble families - the Montagues and the Capulets - constantly breaks out
into brawling on the streets. Prince Escalus, ruler of Verona,
threatens terrible punishment on anyone who takes part in further
violence.
Young love
Romeo Montague is hopelessly in love with the unattainable Rosaline
and, in an attempt to cure his lovesick misery, his friends persuade him
to go disguised to a party at the home of his family's sworn enemies,
the Capulets. Romeo reluctantly agrees to go when he learns that
Rosaline has been invited.
At the party, he meets Juliet, only daughter of the Capulets, and not
even knowing each other's names, they fall instantly in love. Juliet's
hot-headed cousin, Tybalt, has spotted Romeo and his friends but is
prevented from challenging them by her father, Old Capulet. He does not
wish to see his party disrupted, and speaks well of Romeo's reputation
in Verona.
Marriage proposals
During the preparations for the party, however, Juliet's mother has
told her that Count Paris, a suitable young nobleman (who is also at the
party) has asked her father for permission to marry her. Even though
shocked by the discovery that their families are sworn enemies, both
Romeo and Juliet are determined to marry, and choose go-betweens to help
them arrange a secret wedding. Romeo asks his friend and mentor, Friar
Laurence, to conduct the ceremony, while Juliet sends her elderly nurse
to meet Romeo and learn the arrangements he has made.
Friar Lawrence is amazed by Romeo's sudden rejection of his love for
Rosaline but reluctantly agrees to marry them, believing that such a
marriage might bring an end to the ancient feud. As arranged, Romeo
meets the Nurse, who is instructed to make sure that Juliet arrives at
the Friar's the following morning ready to be married.
Old feuds, new casualties
Now secretly married to Juliet, Romeo encounters her aggressive
cousin, Tybalt, who challenges him to a duel. Romeo is unwilling to
fight with him for Juliet's sake, but his closest friend, Mercutio takes
up the challenge instead. When Romeo steps between them in an effort to
stop the fight, Mercutio is stabbed to death. Romeo then kills Tybalt
in a rage and is forced to fly the scene.
Angry that his laws have been broken, but accepting that Tybalt
started the fight, Prince Escalus banishes Romeo to Mantua. Romeo is
distraught and runs to the Friar for advice and help.
Alone in her room on her wedding night, Juliet, unaware of the death
of her cousin or her new husband's banishment, eagerly awaits Romeo's
arrival. When she learns what has happened, Juliet is so distraught that
the Nurse promises to arrange one night together for the newly-weds
before Romeo must leave Verona. The following morning at dawn, the
couple part sadly, promising each other that they will find a way to be
together forever and that their current problems will be solved.
Juliet's parents believe that her grief is caused by Tybalt's death
so, in attempt to cheer her, they suggest she should marry Count Paris
immediately. When she refuses, her father threatens to disown and
abandon her, so she too seeks advice from the Friar, who has also been
approached by Paris to marry him to Juliet.
Realising that she is so desperate that she might commit suicide (and
perhaps fearful of the consequences for himself if he allows her to
commit bigamy), the Friar advises her to go home and make peace with her
parents. He then gives her a potion that is guaranteed to make it
appear that she has died in her sleep. He explains that the effects will
wear off within 42 hours, by which time she will be buried in her
family's crypt.
He promises to send a letter to Romeo immediately, explaining the
situation and asking him to return in time to be with Juliet when she
awakes.
Juliet takes the potion and is discovered 'dead' when her nurse and
mother try to wake her for her marriage to Paris. Her 'corpse' is then
taken to the crypt where it is laid beside that of the dead Tybalt. The
Friar's messenger leaves to find Romeo in Mantua.
The ending
Stop reading now if you don't want to know how it ends...
The Friar's messenger is delayed on the way and, instead of learning
of the Friar's plan, Romeo's servant, Balthasar, returns to Mantua from
Verona bringing news of Juliet's supposed death. Devastated, Romeo
purchases poison with which to kill himself and hurries back to Verona,
planning to die by Juliet's side.
Love in death
Attempting to break into the crypt, he is interrupted by Paris and
they fight. Romeo kills Paris and, reaching Juliet's body at last,
embraces her and drinks the poison, kissing her as he dies.
Having learned that his messenger had not reached Romeo, the Friar
runs to the crypt, discovers Paris's body and reaches Juliet's side just
as she revives. Unable to persuade Juliet to leave her dead husband,
and fearing for himself if he is discovered there, the Friar runs away,
leaving Juliet alone with Romeo's body. Realising that all their plans
have failed, she pulls his dagger, stabs herself in the chest and dies.
Once the bodies are discovered, the Friar confesses everything he
knows and is pardoned by Prince Escalus. Knowing that their feud has
brought about the deaths of their children, the warring families are
reconciled and agree to build a monument to the young lovers.
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