Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was Romeo and Juliet written by Shakespeare?
"Romeo and Juliet" belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in "Palace of Pleasure" by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. The text of the first quarto version was of poor quality, however, and later editions corrected the text to conform more closely with Shakespeare's original.
The most notable example of frequent and common instances of courtly love occurs in the writings of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote many sonnets to young men that he admired, praising their beauty, intelligence and virility. He addressed sonnets 1-126 to "Fair Youth"—an individual who is commonly interpreted to be male—and later, in Sonnet 20, refers to the boy as the "master-mistress of [his] passion." Additional examples of Shakespeare writing of same-sex intimacy and courtly love are within his procreation sonnets. In these poems, Shakespeare encourages a young man to marry and have children to preserve his beauty, using loving and occasionally romantic language to communicate his message. Additionally, it is believed by many scholars that Shakespeare's famous Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") is also about a man, as he dedicated his book of sonnets to an unidentified "Mr. W.H."
The primary source of Shakespeare’s sonnets is a quarto published in 1609 titled "Shakespeare’s Sonnets." It contains 154 sonnets, which are followed by the long poem "A Lover's Complaint". Thirteen copies of the quarto have survived in fairly good shape from the 1609 edition, which is the only edition; there were no other printings. There is evidence in a note on the title page of one of the extant copies that the great Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn bought a copy in June 1609 for one shilling.
Sonnet 109 was originally published in 1609 with the rest of Shakespeare's sonnets as a collection dedicated to "Mr. W.H." and now referred to as the 1609 Quarto or Quarto 1. Sonnet 109 belongs to the group of sonnets (1-126) that are commonly categorized as "sonnets to a fair youth." This group of sonnets, according to Arthur F. Marotti, "consists of poems written to a younger man who is clearly treated as a patron". The identity of this young patron, who is likely the "Mr. W.H." to whom Shakespeare dedicated the sonnets, is considered by many historians and Shakespearean analysts to be Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton. Martin Green supports this hypothesis with the evidence that Shakespeare never wrote dedications in of his works to any person besides Wriothesley. Shakespeare's relationship with this young man as interpreted from this group of sonnets is not entirely clear; his words of love and affection could be a bid for more favor, or as Judith Kegan Gardiner maintains, a true love that surprised and startled Shakespeare. Even if Shakespeare's sonnets are accepted as an expression of genuine love, there is still no consensus in academia whether this love was sexual in nature. Many critics argue that Shakespeare was homosexual, while others maintain that he was heterosexual, including the noteworthy Shakespeare analyst A. L. Rowse, who has claimed "Shakespeare is the bawdiest of the Elizabethan dramatists, with the natural bawdy of the highly sexed normal heterosexual".
The poems "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece", first published in 1593 and 1594 under the name "William Shakespeare", proved highly popular for several decades – with "Venus and Adonis" published six more times before 1616, while "Lucrece" required four additional printings during this same period. By 1598, they were so famous, London poet and sonneteer Richard Barnefield wrote:
Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609 and were the last of his non-dramatic works to be composed. It is not certain when each of the sonnets were written but there is evidence to suggest that Shakespeare wrote his sonnets on a private scale. William Wordsworth even suggests that the sonnets were how Shakespeare "unlocked his heart". There are only two sonnets that Shakespeare writes that are specifically about music, and those are Sonnet 8 and Sonnet 128. No one is certain if Shakespeare wrote the sonnets in order or if they should form a complete sequence. However it is clear that they offer an insight that "Shakespeare's capacity to represent the imaginative states of other people".
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV, the play makes no pretense to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in "Henry IV, Part 1" and "Part 2". It has been adapted for the opera on several occasions. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.
Sonnet 102 is one of the 154 sonnets written by English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is one of the Fair Youth sonnets, in which Shakespeare writes of an unnamed youth with whom the poet is enamored. Sonnet 102 is among a series of seemingly connected sonnets, from Sonnet 100 to Sonnet 103, in which the poet speaks of a silence between his Muse and himself. The exact date of writing is unknown, and there is contention among scholars about when they were written. Paul Hammond among other scholars believes that sonnets 61-103 were written primarily during the early 1590s, and then being edited or added to later, during the early 1600s (decade). Regardless of date of writing, it was published later along with the rest of the sonnets of the 1609 Quarto.
Sonnet 18 is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.
The Cobhams appear to have intervened while Shakespeare was in the process of writing either "The Merry Wives of Windsor" or the second part of "Henry IV". The first part of "Henry IV" was probably written and performed in 1596, and the name Oldcastle had almost certainly been allowed by Master of the Revels Edmund Tilney. William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham may have become aware of the offensive representation after a public performance; he may also have learned of it while it was being prepared for a court performance (Cobham was at that time Lord Chamberlain). As father-in-law to the newly widowed Robert Cecil, Cobham certainly possessed the influence at court to get his complaint heard quickly. Shakespeare may have included a sly retaliation against the complaint in his play "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (published after the Henry IV series). In the play, the paranoid, jealous Master Ford uses the alias "Brook" to fool Falstaff, perhaps in reference to William Brooke. At any rate, the name is Falstaff in the "Henry IV, Part 1" quarto, of 1598, and the epilogue to the second part, published in 1600, contains this clarification:
After the theatres re-opened at the start of the Restoration era, the play was revived by Thomas Killigrew's King's Company in 1672. Charles Hart initially played Brutus, as did Thomas Betterton in later productions. "Julius Caesar" was one of the very few Shakespearean plays that was not adapted during the Restoration period or the eighteenth century.
One of the earliest cultural references to the play came in Shakespeare's own "Hamlet". Prince Hamlet asks Polonius about his career as a thespian at university, Polonius replies "I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' th' Capitol. Brutus killed me." This is a likely meta-reference, as Richard Burbage is generally accepted to have played leading men Brutus and Hamlet, and the older John Heminges to have played Caesar and Polonius.
Like all Shakespeare's works, "Shakespeare's Sonnets" have been reprinted many times. Prominent editions include:
There are sonnets written by Shakespeare that occur in his plays. They differ from the 154 sonnets published in the 1609, because they may lack the deep introspection, for example, and they are written to serve the needs of a performance, exposition or narrative.
Besides the subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester and his sons, the principal innovation Shakespeare made to this story was the death of Cordelia and Lear at the end; in the account by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cordelia restores Lear to the throne, and succeeds him as ruler after his death. During the 17th century, Shakespeare's tragic ending was much criticised and alternative versions were written by Nahum Tate, in which the leading characters survived and Edgar and Cordelia were married (despite the fact that Cordelia was previously betrothed to the King of France). As Harold Bloom states: "Tate's version held the stage for almost 150 years, until Edmund Kean reinstated the play's tragic ending in 1823."
Most critics consider "Merry Wives" to be one of Shakespeare's weakest plays, and the Falstaff of "Merry Wives" to be much inferior to the Falstaff of the two "Henry IV" plays. That Shakespeare would so stumble with one of his greatest creations is puzzling and a satisfactory reason for this remains to be found. The most obvious explanation is that it was written very quickly. Leslie Hotson wrote that "it is certain that the play bears the earmarks of hasty writing."
Sonnet 138 is one of the most famous of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Making use of frequent puns ("lie" and "lie" being the most obvious), it shows an understanding of the nature of truth and flattery in romantic relationships. The poem has also been argued to be biographical: many scholars have suggested Shakespeare used the poem to discuss his frustrating relationship with the Dark Lady, a frequent subject of many of the sonnets. (To note, the Dark Lady was definitely not Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway.) The poem emphasizes the effects of age and the associated deterioration of beauty, and its effect on a sexual or romantic relationship.
Antigone ( ; ) is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 441 BC.
The play formed the basis for an opera with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte and music by Mozart, also called "The Marriage of Figaro" (1786). In 1799, another opera based on the same play, "La pazza giornata, ovvero Il matrimonio di Figaro", was produced in Venice with libretto by Gaetano Rossi and music by Marcos Portugal.
In Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", which premiered in 1786 with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, the comic plot revolves around the successful efforts of the young bride and groom, Figaro and Susanna, to block the efforts of the unfaithful Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna. To achieve his aim, the frustrated Count threatens to reinstitute "droit du seigneur". It was based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais.
The History of King Lear is an adaptation by Nahum Tate of William Shakespeare's "King Lear". It first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, and is believed to have replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 1838.
Chapman was a prominent poet and translator of Homer. Scholars speculate that Shakespeare was familiar with his work, having read part of his translation of the "Iliad" for his own "Troilus and Cressida", a dramatic reworking of Chaucer's epic poem. Chapman wrote "Ovid's Banquet Of Sense", a metaphysical poem seen as a response to the erotic "Venus and Adonis," which incidentally features Shakespeare's most quoted poet, Ovid. In "Shakespeare and the Rival Poet", Acheson conjectures that Chapman's erotic poems were written with a view to gaining Southampton's patronage. The moral tone of "Ovid's Banquet of Sense" eschews the amatory tone of Shakespeare's, and seeks to instill spiritual seriousness in a work that takes the five senses as its Conceits. Chapman's patrons also moved in the same circles as Shakespeare's; thus Shakespeare may have felt insecure about the stability of his own income versus a talented rival. Chapman was both then and now regarded as being particularly erudite, whereas, as Ben Jonson writes, Shakespeare had "small Latine and lesse Greeke".
The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) is an anthology of 20 poems collected and published by William Jaggard that were attributed to "W. Shakespeare" on the title page, only five of which are considered authentically Shakespearean. These are two sonnets, later to be published in the 1609 collection of "Shakespeare's Sonnets", and three poems extracted from the play "Love's Labour's Lost". Internal and external evidence contradicts the title page attribution to Shakespeare. Five were attributed to other poets during his lifetime, and two were published in other collections anonymously. While most critics disqualify the rest as not Shakespearean on stylistic grounds, stylometric analysis by Ward Elliott and Robert Valenza put two blocks of the poems (4, 6, 7 and 9, and 10, 12, 13 and 15) within Shakespeare's stylistic boundaries. Jaggard later published an augmented edition with poems he knew to be by Thomas Heywood.
The play has been widely adapted for TV and film. In 1960, Peter Ustinov's cold-war stage parody, "Romanoff and Juliet" was filmed. The 1961 film of "West Side Story"—set among New York gangs–featured the Jets as white youths, equivalent to Shakespeare's Montagues, while the Sharks, equivalent to the Capulets, are Puerto Rican. In 2006, Disney's "High School Musical" made use of "Romeo and Juliet" plot, placing the two young lovers in different high school cliques instead of feuding families. Film-makers have frequently featured characters performing scenes from "Romeo and Juliet". The conceit of dramatising Shakespeare writing "Romeo and Juliet" has been used several times, including John Madden's 1998 "Shakespeare in Love", in which Shakespeare writes the play against the backdrop of his own doomed love affair. An anime series produced by Gonzo and SKY Perfect Well Think, called "Romeo x Juliet", was made in 2007 and the 2013 version is the latest English-language film based on the play. In 2013, Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed the Bollywood film "Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela", a contemporary version of the play which starred Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone in leading roles. The film was a commercial and critical success. In February 2014, BroadwayHD released a filmed version of the 2013 Broadway Revival of "Romeo and Juliet". The production starred Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad.
While not mentioned in a stage direction as such, Joseph A. Porter considers him to be "a kind of ghost character" like others in Shakespeare's plays, due to his strong connection with Mercutio that differentiates him from the other people mentioned in the guest list, and a possible significance to the plot and characters that is greater than superficially apparent. Shakespeare's immediate source in writing "Romeo and Juliet" was the narrative poem "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" (1562) by Arthur Brooke, and here Mercutio is a very minor character and is presented as a competitor to Romeus (Romeo) for Juliet's affection, rather than as his friend. Porter argues that when Shakespeare dramatised the poem and expanded Mercutio's role, he introduced a brother for him in order to suggest a more fraternal character. Shakespeare appears to be the first dramatist to have used the name Valentine prior to "Romeo and Juliet", but he himself had actually used the name previously. In "Two Gentlemen of Verona", a play about two brothers and also set in Verona, Valentine is a true and constant lover and Proteus is a fickle one. While not primarily based on it, "Two Gentlemen of Verona" adapts several incidents from Brooke's poem, and in all these instances Valentine's role is based on Romeus'. Thus, when adapting the "Mercutio—Juliet—Romeus" constellation from Brooke, by changing Mercutio from an amorous rival into a friend—brother to Romeo and a "scoffer at love", Shakespeare also rearranged the relationships into "Mercutio—Romeo—Juliet", making Romeo the focus and removing Mercutio as a threat to his courtship of Juliet.
"Romeo and Juliet" is a 1978 disco single written and recorded by Cairo-born disco producer, Alec R. Costandinos and the Syncophonic Orchestra. The single was a retelling of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and was taken from the album of the same name. The single spent one week at number one of the dance/disco chart in March 1978.
Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic forms throughout the play. He begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, spoken by a Chorus. Most of "Romeo and Juliet" is, however, written in blank verse, and much of it in strict iambic pentameter, with less rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeare's later plays. In choosing forms, Shakespeare matches the poetry to the character who uses it. Friar Laurence, for example, uses sermon and sententiae forms and the Nurse uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches colloquial speech. Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the scene the character occupies. For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were often used by men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to Juliet as a handsome man. When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan (which was becoming archaic in Shakespeare's day) to a then more contemporary sonnet form, using "pilgrims" and "saints" as metaphors. Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his love, but Juliet breaks it by saying "Dost thou love me?" By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather than a poetic exaggeration of their love. Juliet uses monosyllabic words with Romeo but uses formal language with Paris. Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris. Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio. Humour, also, is important: scholar Molly Mahood identifies at least 175 puns and wordplays in the text. Many of these jokes are sexual in nature, especially those involving Mercutio and the Nurse.