The truth behind Romeo and Juliet tragedy

The Truth behind the Romeo and Juliet Tragedy

Hello, I am from Verona, Italy, the city where the world famous English playwright, William Shakespeare, set one of his well-known tragedies, Romeo and Juliet. I, personally, have toured Juliet’s famous home several times through school outings, with friends, on dates with girls, etc., yet, every single time I have been there, the vast hordes of people from around over the world has simply never failed to amaze me. Queuing as they do, at the entrance of the tight and dark passageway that grants access to a little, yet strikingly crowded, squared yard, and then, the palace, itself, has likely turned it into the most famous tourist attractions in this city.

The passageway’s ceiling and walls, literally, have become so plastered with the names of couples who wanted to leave proof of their own eternal love, that some late-coming, yet, imaginative visitors have even stuck Band-Aids to the walls in order to gain a tiny space for their names too! While there remain many serious doubts about the truth of this story, I will share with you the few things that I know regarding the origin of this legend.

First, a fact in support of the truth of this play is that both families really existed--Dante named them in his Divine Comedy as “sad families”, because of their feud against the Sambonifacio family, and Juliet’s house really belonged to Capuleti (originally Cappelletti) family. On the other hand, that existence seems to be the only relationship with reality as there is simply no mention at all of this love story; neither in Dante’s Comedy nor on other ancient documents treasured in the prestigious library, “the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona.” Furthermore, the basic plot, that of forbidden love was not new to Italian literature, however, it is only in other writings located in a nearby city, Siena, which reported about a couple that found their death after a forbidden marriage.

A later version of the tragedy, and one more similar to Shakespeare’s tale, moved the action from Siena to Verona and, for the first time, the lovers’ names became Romeo and Juliet.Translations in French, then English, helped the tragedy to become even more widespread and popular, but is the Shakespearean version that managed to forever seal Romeo and Juliet’s story as the epitome of the perfect, yet, forbidden love, with Verona as the eternal stage of it. My apologies if this information ruins your beliefs created by the often required academic reading, and greater still, if you had intended to see Juliet’s house someday; even so, I would still hope that you visit this place, not for the history, but for the dream--a dream about an eternal love that manages to survive beyond both time and death.*

Hi, Paolo. Good job! The changes that I have made were to allow your sentences to sound better to my native ears, to clarify your ideas, and for ease of reading. I hope that this helps you. J. 

*And thanks for the interesting and informative post!