When it was first published, Romeo and Juliet went by a much more descriptive-and much longer- title : The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

It wasn’t always called Romeo and Juliet.īy William Shakespeare, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons Against this backdrop of ‘blacke hate,’ he tells the ‘unhappy’ tale of a beautiful youth, Romeus Montague, whose heart is entrapped by the wise and graceful Juliet Capulet.” 3.

According to the British Library, “Brooke’s poem describes the ‘deadly’ feud between two wealthy, noble families-Capulet and Montague. Much like Shakespeare’s tale, Brooke’s poem is set in Verona, Italy. The Bard based his star-crossed lovers on the main characters in Arthur Brooke’s 1562 poem “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet.” Romeo and Juliet is based on an Arthur Brooke poem.Ĭribbing ideas from other writers was a totally normal thing to do back in Shakespeare’s time, so it’s hardly surprising that the story of Romeo and Juliet isn’t exactly an original one. Come, you who are cruel, come and see the distress / Of your noble families, and cleanse their rottenness.'ĭante’s “Divine Comedy” was written more than 250 years before Shakespeare was even born. 'Come and see, you who are negligent, / Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi and Filippeschi: / One lot already grieving, the other in fear. In “Divine Comedy,” the epic poem that took Dante more than 10 years to complete, he makes the following reference: The Montagues and the Capulets-the two families at the center of the family rivalry that makes Romeo and Juliet’s love an impossible predicament-were kicking around long before William Shakespeare got a hold of them. William Shakespeare wasn’t the first person to write about the Montagues and the Capulets. What is it about this 16th-century play that has had such a lasting impression on readers and audiences? Read on to find out more about William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. While George Cukor’s 1936 film, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 movie, and Baz Luhrmann’s modern (for 1996) adaptation are some of the best known big-screen interpretations of the rivalry between the Montagues and the Capulets, West Side Story is yet another take on the tale. There have been musical versions, opera renditions, and more than 100 film and TV versions of the play. William Shakespeare's tragic story of two star-crossed lovers has been adapted hundreds-if not thousands-of times over the years, and not always exactly in the Bard’s own words. It’s safe to say that there are few people on Earth who don’t know the story of Romeo and Juliet.

William shakespeare's romeo juliet