Romeo and Juliet: Book Summary

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Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful retelling of Shakespeare’s most famous love story. It is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. Romeo and Juliet is the world’s most famous drama of tragic young love, ending with their suicides, against the backdrop of a vicious family feud.

Romeo and Juliet has been praised for its language and dramatic effect. It was among Shakespeare’s most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypical young lovers.

Shakespeare set the scene of the play in Verona, Italy. Juliet, a Capulet, and Romeo, a Montague, fall in love at a masked ball. Because the two noble families are enemies, the couple is married secretly by Friar Laurence. After Tybalt, a Capulet, kills Romeo’s friend Mercutio in a quarrel, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished to Mantua. Juliet’s father then demands that she marry Count Paris.

When Juliet goes to Friar Laurence for advice, he gives her a potion that makes a person appear to be dead. He suggests that she take it and that Romeo rescue her; she agrees. Not knowing about the Friar’s scheme, Romeo hears of Juliet’s apparent death and returns to Verona. After killing Count Paris, he finds Juliet in a burial vault. He gives her a last kiss and kills himself with poison. Juliet awakens, sees the dead Romeo, and kills herself.

Related Post: THE 10 BEST William Shakespeare Quotes

William Shakespeare – Author of Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare, popularly known as the Bard of Avon, was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language, and all agree to acknowledge the supreme genius of Shakespeare. His works consist of 38 plays, over 150 sonnets, and several poems, many of which are considered to be the finest ever written in English.

William Shakespeare is the most-recognized playwright in the world, and his plays have been translated into over 50 languages and performed across the globe. He revolutionized the drama, enlarging the audience’s vision of human life and enriching the language. He understood human nature well and thus created characters that have meaning beyond the time and place of his plays. Shakespeare was a true master at creating characters rich in personality and traits.

Romeo and Juliet: Full Book Summary

The play “Romeo and Juliet,” set in Verona, Italy, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet servants, who, like the masters they serve, are sworn enemies. Prince Escalus of Verona intervenes and declares that any further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about marrying his daughter Juliet, but Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years and invites him to attend a planned Capulet ball.

Lady Capulet and Juliet’s Nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Paris’s courtship. Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Montague’s son, about Romeo’s recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from unrequited infatuation for a girl named Rosaline, one of Capulet’s nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline.

However, Romeo instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, is enraged at Romeo for sneaking into the ball but is stopped from killing Romeo by Juliet’s father, who does not wish to shed blood in his house. After the ball, in what is now famously known as the “balcony scene,” Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet at her window vowing her love to him in spite of her family’s hatred of the Montagues.

Romeo makes himself known to her, and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar Laurence, who hopes to reconcile the two families through their children’s union, they are secretly married the next day. Tybalt, meanwhile, still incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt’s insolence as well as Romeo’s “vile submission”, and accepts the duel on Romeo’s behalf.

Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break up the fight, and declares a curse upon both households before he dies. (“A plague o’ both your houses!”) Grief-stricken and racked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt. Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring families’ feud, exiles Romeo from Verona, under penalty of death if he ever returns. Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet’s chamber, where they consummate their marriage.

Capulet, misinterpreting Juliet’s grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she refuses to become Paris’s “joyful bride.” When she then pleads for the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her. Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a potion that will put her into a deathlike coma or catalepsy for “two and forty hours.”

The Friar promises to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan so that he can rejoin her when she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid in the family crypt. The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo, and instead, Romeo learns of Juliet’s apparent death from his servant, Balthasar.

Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris, who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him, and, in the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, discovering that Romeo is dead, stabs herself with his dagger and joins him in death.

The feuding families and the prince meet at the tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two “star-crossed lovers,” fulfilling the curse that Mercutio swore. The families are reconciled by their children’s deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the prince’s elegy for the lovers: “For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

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