Romeo and Juliet

By William Shakespeare
 Setting
The story is set in the late
1500’s mostly in the town
of Verona, Italy. However,
there are a few acts set in
Mantua, Italy a smaller
town just a few miles away.
Timeline

Sunday – Act One

Monday – Act Two
Tuesday – Act Three
Wednesday – Act Four
Thursday – Act Five
 Comedy and Tragedy
Romeo and Juliet begins as a comedy but ends as a
tragedy
Elements of a tragedy
Elements of a comedy
•A struggle of young •Must have a tragic
lovers to overcome hero/heroine
difficulty that is often •Ends in the death of many
presented by elders of the main characters
•Separation and
unification
•Heightened tensions, The shift from comedy to tragedy is
often within a family what sets Romeo and Juliet apart from
the rest of Shakespeare’s plays
 Themes
Love
•The power of love
•Love as a cause for
violence
Hate
•Hate as a forced emotion

Fate
•The inevitability of fate
 Plagiarism!?
Shakespeare did not invent the story
of Romeo and Juliet. A poet named
Arthur Brooks wrote the story of
Romeus and Juliet as a long poem that
was itself not original, but rather an
adaptation of adaptations that
stretched across nearly a hundred
years and two languages. Many of
the details of Shakespeare’s plot are
taken directly from Brooks’ poem,
including the meeting of Romeo and
Juliet at the ball, their secret
marriage, Romeo’s fight with Tybalt,
the sleeping potion, and the timing
of their suicides.
 Verona Today
Today, Verona has an
incredible amount of graffiti,
which is legal, provided that
you are writing about your love
for someone.
 Summary
Romeo and Juliet is a story about two
teenagers who fall in love but are forbidden
to see each other by their parents. They
meet one night at a party (Romeo is
actually there to check out another girl,
Rosaline) and quickly fall in love.
Unfortunately, Juliet’s parents already have
a husband picked out for her. So, the two
decide to get married and enlist the help of
Juliet’s nurse to act as a messenger between
the two and Friar Laurence who agrees to
marry them. However, plans go awry after
Romeo is banished from Verona and
doesn’t get filled in on the plans that Juliet
has for them to live happily ever after…
 The Feud
Romeo’s family, the
Montagues, have a long
standing feud with
Juliet’s family, the
Capulets. While the
audience never learns
about the source of the
ancient quarrel, we do
learn that it has recently
grown stronger.