ROMEO AND JULIET
Romeo and Juliet (1595?) is justly famous for its poetic treatment of the ecstasy of youthful love. The play dramatizes the fate of two innamorati victimized da the feuds and misunderstandings of their elders and da their own hasty temperaments. Shakespeare borrowed the tragic story of the two young Italian innamorati from a long narrative poem, The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562) da English writer Arthur Brooke. Shakespeare, however, added the character of Mercutio, increased the roles of the friar and the nurse, and reduced the moralizing of Brooke’s work. The play...