Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a classic tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" from feuding households in Verona. Along with Hamlet, the play is Shakespeare's most widely-performed and adapted. The plot is based on an Italian story, translated into verse in 1562 by Arthur Brooke as Romeus and Juliet. It was retold in prose form by William Painter in 1582 as Palace of Pleasure. Painter and Brooke's work served as Shakespeare's primary inspiration for the play.

The play has been adapted for film, ballet, opera and television. Most notably, Franco Zeffirelli directed a 1968 version starring Olivia Hussey as Juliet and Leonard Whiting as Romeo. The film was given a thoroughly postmodern retelling by Australian director Baz Luhrmann who released an amped-up, Academy Award-nominated version, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, in 1996.

Fast Facts

1. Arguably most well-known of Shakespeare's plays
2. Ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's most-performed plays
3. Written between 1591 and 1596
4. Exact date of the first performance unknown but was performed prior to 1597
5. Is a dramatisation of Arthur Brooke's narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet
6. Produced at least 51 times on TV and film alone
7. Main Characters:
   1. Romeo
   2. Juliet
   3. Mercutio
   4. Friar Lawrence
8. Famous Speeches:
   1. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
   2. "What light through yonder window breaks?"
9. Famous Quotes:
   1. "Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
   2. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
   3. "A Plague on both your houses!"
   4. "For Never was there a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo"

Balcony Scene Speech

• But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
• It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
• Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
• Who is already sick and pale with grief,
• That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
• Be not her maid, since she is envious;
• Her vestal livery is but sick and green
• And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
• It is my lady, O, it is my love!
• O, that she knew she were!
• She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
• Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
• I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
• Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
• Having some business, do entreat her eyes
• To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
• What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
• The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
• As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
• Would through the airy region stream so bright
• That birds would sing and think it were not night.
• See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
• O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
• That I might touch that cheek!

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