Romeo and Juliet is a tragic story about romance and tragedy.
It was originally written as a play, to be acted out on the stage of the Globe Theatre. But nowadays, we often see it's
movie version. The author, whom I'm sure you know of, William Shakespeare, was brilliant.
Just to get gist of the story of Romeo
and Juliet, I'll give a brief summary of it. To begin with, the two belonged to two different families who were feuding
at the time, the Montague and the Capulet. They met at a party that Juliet's father, Capulet, was throwing for the entire
town. Romeo's best friend, Mercutio, got an invitation that said "For Mercutio and friends." Romeo's "crew," Benvolio,
Mercutio, and the other Montague boys ended up going. There, the star-crossed lovers met, not knowing that they were
the offspring of feuding families. They meet, and talk, and fall in love at first sight. At the end of the party,
when everyone is leaving, Romeo goes to Juliet's balcony, and there, they arrange to be wed by Friar Lawrence. Juliet
is to send a message to Romeo by her Nurse, to set up a place and time.
Being married now, they cannot tell
their friends or family. Only the nurse and friar knows. Later on in the story, Mercutio, and Juliet's cousin,
Tybalt, get into a brawl on the open street, this leading to Mercutio's . Keep in mind that Mercutio is not only Romeo's
best friend, but he's also related to the Prince of Verona. After Tybalt killed Mercutio, Romeo went after Tybalt, him,
too. But instead of being executed, the Prince decides just to banish Romeo out of Verona and to nearby Mantua.
This is because Tybalt would've been put to anyways for Mercutio.
Now Juliet is upset that she can't
even see her own husband, and not only that, but her father decides that she is to marry the County Paris. She refuses,
and her Capulet threatens to disown her, so instead, she agrees. Not really.
One day, Juliet finds a way to get
out of the house by telling her parents that she's going to Lawrence's cell to make confession. When really, she wants
him to help her with her ordeal. She threatens to kill herself, but instead, the Friar thinks up a plan. It is
to mix up a potion that Juliet will take. The potion will make her fall asleep for 42 hours, but appear , so when her
parents wake her up for her wedding, she won't get up. And Friar Lawrence will send a message to Romeo in Mantua explaining
the plan. He will go to the tomb, where she will lay, and she will awaken, and they will live happily ever after.
Something was bound to mess up, and
it did. Juliet's father was so pleased with Juliet agreeing to marry Paris, that he bumped up the wedding date to the
next day, so Juliet had to drink the concoction that night, meaning that Romeo's message was sent a day late. So in
stead of a message from the Friar, Romeo got one from one of his friends back in Verona saying that he saw Juliet, and she
was .
Romeo sets off to go see for himself,
and that's as far as I know of the actual play, instead of the modern-day movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
Now about William Shakespeare.
He was born on April 23, 1564 to a less-than-fortunate family durign Queen Elizabeth's reign. The name of the city was
Stratford-Upon-Avon, Britain. As a boy, he was one of the few who were allowed to go to school. He learned Latin
and Greek, but ended up dropping out to help out his father at work. Even when he was young, William wanted to be a
poet. He deserves all the glory and respect he had and still has because he worked hard to become what
he did. His father wasn't very supportive, but he always had his mother's consent. She died when Shakespeare
was just a child.
In his later years, Shakespeare married.
His wife's name was Anne Hathaway. She was 26 at the time, while William was only 18. She was pregnant at the
time they got married. In all, they had 3 children (Susanna, the oldest, and Judith and Hamnet, who were twins.)
Hamnet was, in a way, Shakespeare's favorite, mainly because he was the only boy, so he would be the one to carry out
his family's last name. Sadly, Hamnet died at a very young age.
Durring work, Shakespeare went to London, to progress on his
writing, of course, when he got there, his main audience was mostly just common folk, or the poorer of the community.
He did most of his writing in bars, or pubs because of the free lighting. Eventually he acquired a Patron, Earl of Southhampton,
who paid Shakespeare to write about whatever it was he wanted.
In his writing, he wrote mostly to his Patron, but also to
a mysterious character, the Dark Lady. He was the partial owner of the Globe Theatre, which was an eight-sided building
with a big courtyard in the center of it.
When plays were being performed there, few props were
used, and the most plays were performed during the afternoon. The Old Globe Theatre came to an end when it burned down
during the performance of Henry VIII.
Towards the end of his life, Shakespeare became a gentleman.
This was during the 1600's. He died at the age of 52, in the year 1616 and left everything to his oldest daughter, Susanna,
and nothing but his second best bed to his wife, this as a sort of insult to her because Shakespeare didn't like her very
much.
