Romeus and Juliet

The tragic plot of Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" (1595-96) was by no means original. It was based on a famous folktale which appeared in many different versions in 15th- and 16th-century Europe. Written in 1562, Arthur Brooke’s 3,020 line poem, "Romeus and Juliet" (AKA The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet), is the first English translation of that tale, and it served as a key source for Shakespeare.

Set in the ‘fruitfull hilles’ of Verona, Brooke’s poem describes the ‘deadly’ feud between two wealthy, noble families – Capulet and Montague. Against this backdrop of ‘blacke hate’, he tells the ‘unhappy’ tale of a beautiful youth, Romeus Montague, whose heart is entrapped by the wise and graceful Juliet Capulet. 

On the title page, Brooke claims to have based his work on Matteo Bandello’s Italian "Novelle" (1554), though he actually seems to have used a French translation by Boaistuau (1559). In his letter ‘To the Reader’, Brooke also says he had seen a similar tale ‘lately set foorth on stage’, perhaps referring to an earlier play about Romeo and Juliet, which has not been discovered.