William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet is a tragic romance in which Romeo, a member of the House of Montague, secretly falls in love and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet.
Shakespeare lifted his plot from Luigi da Porto's 1530 Italian novella Giulietta e Romeo. The bard's main source was a 1562 English verse translation of this text by Arthur Brooke titled The Tragical History of Romeus & Juliet.
According to citations, Romeo Monteveccio and Juliet Cappelleto were married in Citadela, Italy on March 11, 1302. This real life wedding may have had an influence on Shakespeare's sources.
Written sometime between 1591 and 1595, Romeo and Juliet was first published in a quarto version in 1597. The First Quarto states that "it hath been often (and with great applause) plaid publiquely", setting the first performance before its 1597 publication.
Shakespeare did not include a balcony in Romeo and Juliet, instead writing that Juliet was wooed by Romeo at a window. (There were no balconies in Elizabethan England.) The ‘balcony scene’ was the brainchild of a playwright called Thomas Otway (1652–85), who rearranged the play. His version, The History And Fall Of Caius Marius, was far more popular than Romeo And Juliet in his era.
Shakespeare popularized the idiom "Wild Goose Chase" in Romeo and Juliet. The phrase features in a scene where Mercutio expresses his inability to understand and keep up with Romeo's mind, saying, "Nay, if thy wits run the wild goose chase, I have done."
In Shakespeare's day, female roles were played by teenage boys, as women and young girls were not allowed on the stage. By the 1660s, however, the laws in England had changed, allowing females to act professionally. English actress Mary Saunderson (1637- 1712) was the first female actress to portray Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.
The first version of Tchaikovsky's orchestral fantasy Romeo and Juliet received its première performance on March 16, 1870. It was the Russian pianist, conductor and composer Mily Balakiev who suggested he wrote a work based on Shakespeare's tale about the tragic lovers. Balakirev was a much more senior composer at the time and a leading member of ‘The Five’, a group of high-profile Russian Nationalist composers that also included Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Cui and Borodin. Tchaikovsky was just 29-years-old. He’d had some modest success but was struggling for musical inspiration when Balakirev pressed the idea on him.
When Tchaikovsky showed his mentor the famous love theme Balakirev wrote: “I very much want to hug you for it.”
The great French actress Sarah Bernhardt played the young Juliet in several productions of the play. She was a mere 70 years old the last time she took on this role.
Shakespeare lifted his plot from Luigi da Porto's 1530 Italian novella Giulietta e Romeo. The bard's main source was a 1562 English verse translation of this text by Arthur Brooke titled The Tragical History of Romeus & Juliet.
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| Title page of Arthur Brooke's poem, Romeus and Juliet. |
According to citations, Romeo Monteveccio and Juliet Cappelleto were married in Citadela, Italy on March 11, 1302. This real life wedding may have had an influence on Shakespeare's sources.
Written sometime between 1591 and 1595, Romeo and Juliet was first published in a quarto version in 1597. The First Quarto states that "it hath been often (and with great applause) plaid publiquely", setting the first performance before its 1597 publication.
Shakespeare did not include a balcony in Romeo and Juliet, instead writing that Juliet was wooed by Romeo at a window. (There were no balconies in Elizabethan England.) The ‘balcony scene’ was the brainchild of a playwright called Thomas Otway (1652–85), who rearranged the play. His version, The History And Fall Of Caius Marius, was far more popular than Romeo And Juliet in his era.
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| An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting the play's famous balcony scene |
Shakespeare popularized the idiom "Wild Goose Chase" in Romeo and Juliet. The phrase features in a scene where Mercutio expresses his inability to understand and keep up with Romeo's mind, saying, "Nay, if thy wits run the wild goose chase, I have done."
In Shakespeare's day, female roles were played by teenage boys, as women and young girls were not allowed on the stage. By the 1660s, however, the laws in England had changed, allowing females to act professionally. English actress Mary Saunderson (1637- 1712) was the first female actress to portray Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.
The first version of Tchaikovsky's orchestral fantasy Romeo and Juliet received its première performance on March 16, 1870. It was the Russian pianist, conductor and composer Mily Balakiev who suggested he wrote a work based on Shakespeare's tale about the tragic lovers. Balakirev was a much more senior composer at the time and a leading member of ‘The Five’, a group of high-profile Russian Nationalist composers that also included Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Cui and Borodin. Tchaikovsky was just 29-years-old. He’d had some modest success but was struggling for musical inspiration when Balakirev pressed the idea on him.
When Tchaikovsky showed his mentor the famous love theme Balakirev wrote: “I very much want to hug you for it.”
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| Tchaikovsky at the time he wrote Romeo and Juliet |
The great French actress Sarah Bernhardt played the young Juliet in several productions of the play. She was a mere 70 years old the last time she took on this role.
On January 19, 1994, the headmistress of Kingsmead Primary School in Hackney, East London, Jane Brown, refused to allow her pupils to attend a performance of the ballet of Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Opera House. The reason given was that the ballet was “too heterosexual.”
The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day.
Source QI: The Third Book Of General Ignorance by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray
The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day.
Source QI: The Third Book Of General Ignorance by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray
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