Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy about two young lovers from feuding families in Verona, whose secret marriage and desperate plans end in both their deaths over the course of a few days.

Main characters

• Romeo, son of Montague
• Juliet, daughter of Capulet, not yet fourteen
• Mercutio, Romeo's quick-witted friend, kinsman to the Prince
• Benvolio, Romeo's cousin
• Tybalt, Juliet's hot-tempered cousin
• The Nurse, Juliet's confidante
• Friar Laurence
• Lord and Lady Capulet; Lord and Lady Montague
• Paris, a young nobleman who wishes to marry Juliet
• Prince Escalus of Verona

Plot summary

This summary gives away the ending.

A Chorus, speaking a sonnet, tells us at the start that 'a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life'. After yet another street brawl between the Montagues and Capulets, the Prince threatens death to anyone who breaks the peace again. Romeo, lovesick for Rosaline, gatecrashes a Capulet feast in a mask and falls instantly in love with Juliet. That night, in the scene beneath her balcony, they declare their love and agree to marry.

Friar Laurence marries them in secret, hoping the match will end the feud. Hours later, Tybalt challenges Romeo, who refuses to fight his new kinsman. Mercutio fights instead and is killed under Romeo's arm, cursing both houses. Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge and is banished to Mantua. He spends one night with Juliet before leaving at dawn.

Juliet's parents, unaware of her marriage, insist she marry Paris within days. Friar Laurence gives her a potion that will make her appear dead for forty-two hours; he will send word to Romeo to come and take her from the family tomb. The message never arrives. Romeo hears only that Juliet is dead, buys poison, kills Paris at the tomb and drinks the poison beside her. Juliet wakes, finds him dead and stabs herself with his dagger. Over their bodies, the two fathers are finally reconciled.

Themes

• Love and haste
• Fate and chance
• Family feud and violence
• Youth against age
• Light and darkness

Famous lines

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow.

Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

A plague o' both your houses!

Mercutio, Act 3 Scene 1

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Romeo, Act 2 Scene 2

More in our collection of famous Shakespeare quotes.

Sources

Shakespeare's main source was Arthur Brooke's long poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), itself based on Italian and French versions by Luigi da Porto and Matteo Bandello. Shakespeare compressed Brooke's nine months into less than a week and made Juliet younger.

On stage and screen

Wherefore means 'why', not 'where': Juliet is asking why Romeo has to be a Montague. The play has inspired Prokofiev's ballet (1938), Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story (1957), and films by Franco Zeffirelli (1968) and Baz Luhrmann (1996).

See where Romeo and Juliet sits in Shakespeare's career on the timeline, or read about the playhouses it was written for.