ROMEO AND JULIET ADAPTATIONS

Adaptations
There have been many adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, created for many media.

[edit] Plays
Other versions of the Romeo and Juliet play have been made, which had the "culture" of where the play was made as the "setting". For instance, a version of the play which had Romeo as a Palestinian and Juliet as a Jew in Israel and the Palestinian territories were made, which criticizes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[citation needed] Similarly, versions have also been devised dealing with apartheid in South Africa, in which Romeo is black and Juliet is white.
A Native American version called "Kino and Teresa" was first produced in 2005 by Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles. Written by James Lujan, the historical play was set in 17th Century Santa Fe, seventeen years after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and revolved around the conflict between the Pueblo Indians and Spanish colonists.[citation needed]
An updated version of Romeo and Juliet called Romeo/Juliet Remixed (or R0M30/JUL137 R3M1X3D) is set to a rave dance floor background with a kick-boxing Juliet and an Ecstasy-taking Romeo. Before the play begins, this interactive show features a choice of glowsticks (pink if one chooses to be a Montague, yellow if one chooses to be a Capulet,) an escort to a mock dance club called "Club Verona" where "theater"-goers dance and mingle with the cast and other audience members, as well as the chance to cheer on a crew of breakdancing Montagues or Capulets, and a chance to be on the venue's big screen. Romeo and Juliet communicate via cell phone and text messaging.

[edit] Opera
The story was converted into the opera Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod in 1867 with a libretto written by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré.
The Romeo and Juliet story was also the subject of Vincenzo Bellini's opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi, although Bellini and his librettist, Felice Romani, worked from Italian sources, and these were only distantly related to Shakespeare's work.
In 2004 American composer Lee Hoiby also adapted "Romeo and Juliet" to write an opera of the same name.

[edit] Ballet
Several ballet adaptations of the story have been made, the first written in the 18th century. The best known feature music by Sergei Prokofiev, and a variety of choreographers have used this music. The first version featuring Prokofiev's music was performed in 1938. See: Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev)

[edit] Musical
The musical West Side Story, by Leonard Bernstein and librettist Stephen Sondheim, also made into a film, is based on Romeo and Juliet, updating the story to mid-20th century New York City and the warring families to ethnic gangs.
In 1999, Terrence Mann's rock musical William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, co-written with Jerome Korman, premiered at the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was not a critical success.
Roméo et Juliette, de la Haine à l'Amour, a musical by Gérard Presgurvic, premiered on January 19, 2001 in the Palais de Congrès in Paris, France. By 2005, it had already attracted some six million people.
The song "Exit Music (For a Film)" by Radiohead was made for the 1996 movie version (see below) of Romeo and Juliet and is sung from the point of view of someone waking up his lover and inviting them to join them in escaping from the oppression of their respective families through suicide.
Romeo and Juliet is also the name of a song by the British rock band Dire Straits.
The Reflections reached #6 on the pop charts in the summer of 1964 with the song "(Just Like) Romeo & Juliet".

[edit] Instrumental music
Among the instrumental pieces inspired by the play are Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy and Hector Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette "Symphonie dramatique", although the latter does have substantial vocal parts. Prokofiev also created three orchestra suites and a piano suite, Romeo and Juliet: Ten Pieces for Piano, based on the music from his ballet.

[edit] Film versions
See also Shakespeare on screen (Romeo and Juliet)
There have been over forty movie versions of the tale, with the first made in France in 1900. Some of the more notable adaptations include:
1908 - Romeo and Juliet, a silent film made by Vitagraph Studios.
The first American production, it was directed by J. Stuart Blackton, the film starred Paul Panzer as Romeo and Florence Lawrence as Juliet.
1936 - Romeo and Juliet, produced by Irving Thalberg and directed by George Cukor
The 1936 screen version was one of the more notable of Classical Hollywood. Thalberg spared no expense, and showcased his wife, Norma Shearer, in the lead role. Romeo was played by Leslie Howard, John Barrymore was Mercutio, and Andy Devine was Peter, the servant to Juliet's nurse. However, the film was criticized because Howard and Shearer were both considerably older than the scripted roles.
Academy Awards nominations:
Best Picture - Irving Thalberg, producer
Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Basil Rathbone - as Tybalt
Best Actress - Norma Shearer
Best Art Direction - Cedric Gibbons, Fredric Hope and Edwin B. Willis
1954 - Romeo and Juliet directed by Renato Castellani.
A notable British/Italian production with a colourful setting. The cast includes Laurence Harvey as Romeo, Susan Shentall as Juliet, Flora Robson as the Nurse and Mervyn Johns as Friar Laurence.
1968 - Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli
Filmed in Italy, the performance of the young Olivia Hussey as Juliet is a defining feature. It won Oscars for best cinematography and best costume design, and was nominated for Best Director and Best Picture. It also starred Leonard Whiting as Romeo - he was seen as 'the next big thing' in film at the time, but his career did not match up to expectations.
1978 - Romeo and Juliet, directed by Alvin Rakoff
for the BBC Television Shakespeare series. This production is generally unregarded due to its inexperienced stars and low production values, although Alan Rickman's Tybalt is notable.
1983 - Romeo and Juliet, directed by William Woodman
This film features an excellent set of costumes. The cast includes Alex Hyde-White, Blanche Baker, Esther Rolle, Dan Hamilton, and Frederic Hehne.
1996 - Romeo + Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles, Luhrmann gave the famous tale a modern setting. The production uses Luhrmann's signature flamboyant color and stylization. Besides the modernization it is notable for significantly tweaking the ending, so that Romeo and Juliet get a final scene alive together.
At the Berlin International Film Festival 1997, it won:
Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Alfred Bauer Prize
Academy Awards 1996 nominations:
Best Art Direction and Set Decoration (Catherine Martin and Brigitte Broch)
1996 - Tromeo and Juliet, directed by Lloyd Kaufman
The Troma team put their own inimitable spin on the story, setting it in Manhattan in a punk milieu. Lemmy from Motörhead narrates.
2000 - Romeo Must Die, directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
With Jet Li as Han Ling (the Romeo of the story) who is out to avenge his brother's murder. He meets and eventually falls in love with Trish O'Day (the Juliet of the story, played by Aaliyah) who is the daughter of a rival American mob boss. Apart from the main characters being the son and daughter of bitter rivals, the plot has practically nothing to do with Romeo and Juliet the play.
2005 - Romeo & Juliet directed by Dave LaChapelle
Featuring Tamyra Gray as Juliet, Gus Carr as Romeo, and Mary J. Blige, this is a 10-minute promotional advertisement for the H&M clothing company. Released in September 2005, this commercial was shown online (H&M website) and during the trailers of certain theatrical films, and featured the new "&denim" selection. In this musical remake which features background music provided by Tamyra Gray and Mary J. Blige (both songs are from the musical Dreamgirls), Romeo is gunned down in a drive-by shooting and Juliet sings over his body while he bleeds to death on the street. Due to complaints that the commercial glamorized gang violence and was H&M's attempt to use gun culture to sell their jeans to teenagers, H&M subsequently withdrew the ad from Canadian & U.S. markets and issued an apology.
2005 - O Casamento de Romeu e Julieta, directed by Bruno Barreto.
This is a Brazilian adaptation of the text that is actually a romantic comedy set amid a bitter soccer rivalry.
2006 - Romeo and Juliet, directed by Yves Desgagnés.
This is a Canadian, québecois adaptation. The two principal roles are played by the newly discovered actors Thomas Lalonde and Charlotte Aubin, whose were both chosen during auditions. It was due for release on 15 December 2006.
The film West Side Story set in 1960s New York City was loosely based on the story of Romeo and Juliet, with the Montagues becoming the Jets and the Capulets becoming the Sharks.
The film Shakespeare in Love is a fictional account of how Shakespeare writes the play against the clock inspired by his love for a noble woman. The movie also describes the start of Twelfth Night, inspired by the same woman's ultimate fate.

[edit] Television
The Canadian-produced animated television special Romie-0 and Julie-8 (1979), is a science fiction adaptation of the play, recasting the lead characters as robots.

ROMOE AND JULIET STYLE AND THEME:

Commentary

This section may contain original research or unverified claims.Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.
Like most of Shakespeare's plays, the greater part of Romeo and Juliet is written in iambic pentameter. However, the play is also notable for its copious use of rhymed verse, notably in the sonnet contained in Romeo and Juliet's dialogue in the scene where they first meet (Act I, Scene v, Lines 95-108). This sonnet figures Romeo as a blushing pilgrim (palmer) praying before an image of the Virgin Mary, as many people in early-sixteenth-century England did at shrines such as the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.[1] Because of its use of rhyme, its extravagant expressions of love, its Italian theme, and its implausible plot, Romeo and Juliet is considered to belong to Shakespeare's "lyrical period", along with the similarly poetic plays A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard II.
Romeo and Juliet is one of the earlier works in the Shakespearean canon, and while it is often classified as a tragedy, it does not bear the hallmarks of the 'great tragedies' like Hamlet and Macbeth. Some argue that Romeo and Juliet's demise does not stem from their own individual flaws, but from the actions of others or from accidents. Unlike the great tragedies, Romeo and Juliet is more a tragedy of mistiming and ill fate. Other commentators, such as Isaac Asimov, consider rashness and youth to be the tragic flaws of Romeo and Juliet, compounded by the ineffectuality of Friar Lawrence.
In a major change from his source, Shakespeare put the sympathies with the young lovers. Matteo Bandello described the reasons for the play in his prologue:
And to this end, good Reader, is this tragical matter written, to describe unto thee a couple of unfortunate lovers, thralling themselves to unhonest desire; neglecting the authority and advice of parents and friends; conferring their principal counsels with drunken gossips and superstitious friars (the naturally fit instruments of unchastity); attempting all adventures of peril for th' attaining of their wished lust; using auricular confession the key of whoredom and treason, for furtherance of their purpose; abusing the honourable name of lawful marriage to cloak the shame of stolen contracts; finally by all means of unhonest life hasting to most unhappy death.
The legitimacy of marrying without parental consent was in fact fiercely debated at the time. The Catholic Church had, at the Council of Trent, ended centuries of debate by not including parental consent among the requirements for a valid marriage, but Protestant churches did not accept such unions, and in civil law, only England and Spain permitted marriage without parental consent.

[edit] Style and themes

This section may contain original research or unverified claims.Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.
It has been noted that the plot of Romeo and Juliet is more that of a farce or Comedy of Errors than a tragedy, except that it lacks the vital last-minute save and that the main characters die at the end instead of "living happily ever after." In fact, it is crucial to an understanding of the play as a whole to compare it to traditional comedies of its day, such as Much Ado About Nothing, in that most of the characters, especially Romeo and Mercutio, would be recognized by the audience as comedic. Were it not for the prologue, which explicitly states that the play will end in death, Elizabethan audiences would have thought they were watching a comedy until Act III, Scene i. As a reader or audience member, one should note the differences before and after this critical scene (the intermission is often put at the end of III.i., which unfortunately robs the play of the excruciating contrast between Act III, Scene i and Act III, Scene ii). Shakespeare often experiments with dramatic convention in this way - Romeo and Juliet could be called a "tragic comedy", just as many of the romances do not fit easily into conventional ideas about drama.
While a long-running feud is ended, although at the price of not only the two lovers' lives but those of an entire generation: Romeo, Mercutio, Tybalt, Juliet, Paris. The problem with this argument is that one must wonder how remorseful the families truly are. Throughout the play, Montague, Capulet, and the Prince speak of punishment in monetary terms (remember that the families were fined for Tybalt and Mercutio's deaths). At the end, the competition to see who can build a richer statue of the other's child seems petty, especially by comparison to Romeo and Juliet, who had found a love that does not rely on money.
While on a surface level the play is about love, the underlying theme of Romeo and Juliet is the fight for power, which results in the death of all the young members of Montagues (except for Benvolio), Capulets and the Prince's House. The play shows a system which imposes its beliefs on the individual, preventing him or her from reaching happiness and leaving death as the only escape.

ROMEO AND JULIET: PLOT

Performance
The first printed edition appeared in 1597, a "bad quarto" printed by John Danter. The superior Q2 followed in 1599, published by Cuthbert Burby and printed by Thomas Creede; Q2 contains 800 lines missing from Q1. (Q2 also has an interestingly defective stage direction: it reads "Enter Will Kempe" instead of "Enter Peter" in IV,v,102.) Q3, a reprint of Q2, followed in 1609; there was also an undated Q4. The play next appeared in print in the First Folio in 1623.
After the theatres re-opened at the Restoration, Sir William Davenant staged a 1662 production in which Henry Harris played Romeo, Thomas Betterton was Mercutio, and Betterton's wife Mary Saunderson played Juliet. Thomas Otway's adaptation Caius Marius, one of the more extreme of the Restoration versions of Shakespeare, debuted in 1679. The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient Rome; Romeo is Marius, Juliet is Lavinia, the feud is between patricians and plebians; Juliet/Lavina wakes from her potion before Romeo/Marius dies. Somewhat amazingly, Otway's version was a hit, and was acted for the next seventy years. Theophilus Cibber mounted his own adaptation in 1744, followed by David Garrick's in 1748. In 1750 came the so-called "Romeo and Juliet War," with Spranger Barry and Susannah Maria Arne (Mrs. Theophilus Cibber) at Covent Garden versus Garrick and Anne Bellamy at Drury Lane. Shakespeare's original returned to the stage in 1845 in the United States (with the sisters Charlotte and Susan Cushman as Romeo and Juliet),[1] and in 1847 in Britain (Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells).[2]

[edit] Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The play begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. The chorus explains to the audience that the story concerns two noble families of Verona, the Capulets and the Montagues, that have feuded for generations. The prologue also explains that the lovers' tragic suicides "[bury] their parents' strife."

[edit] Act I

Romeo and Juliet statue in Central Park in New York City.
The action starts with a street-battle between the two families, started by their servants and put down by the Prince of Verona, Escalus. The Prince declares that the heads of the two families (known simply as "Montague" and "Capulet") will be held personally accountable (with their lives) for any further breach of the peace, and disperses the crowd.
Count Paris, a young nobleman, talks to Capulet about marrying his thirteen-year-old daughter, Juliet. Capulet demurs, citing the girl's tender age, and invites him to attract the attention of Juliet during a ball that the family is to hold that night. Meanwhile Juliet's mother tries to persuade her young daughter to accept Paris' wooing during their coming ball. Juliet is not inspired by the idea of marrying Paris — in fact, she admits to not really having considered marriage at all. But, being a dutiful daughter, she accedes to her mother's wishes. This scene also introduces Juliet's nurse, the comic relief of the play, who recounts a bawdy anecdote about Juliet at great length and with much repetition.
In the meantime, Montague and his wife fret to their nephew Benvolio about their son Romeo, who has long been moping for reasons unknown to them. Benvolio promises Montague that he will try to determine the cause. Benvolio queries Romeo and finds that his melancholy has its roots in his unrequited love for a girl named Rosaline (an unseen character). Romeo is infatuated but laments that she will not "ope her lap to saint-seducing gold." Perhaps most frustrating to Romeo is the fact that Rosaline "will not be hit with Cupid's arrow/ She hath Diane's wit". In other words, it's not that she finds Romeo himself objectionable, but that she has foresworn to marry at all (she has vowed not to fall in love, and to die a virgin). Despite the good-natured taunts of his fellows, including the witty nobleman Mercutio (who gives his well known Queen Mab speech), Romeo resolves to attend the masquerade at the Capulet house, relying on not being spotted in his costume, in the hopes of meeting up with Rosaline.
Romeo attends the ball as planned, but falls for Juliet as soon as he sees her and quickly forgets Rosaline. Juliet is instantly taken by Romeo, and the two youths proclaim their love for one another with their "love sonnet" in which Romeo compares himself to a pilgrim and Juliet to the saint which is the object of his pilgrimage.
Tybalt, Juliet's hot-blooded cousin, recognizes Romeo under his disguise and calls for his sword. Capulet, however, speaks kindly of Romeo and, having resolved that his family will not be first to violate the Prince's decree, sternly forbids Tybalt from confronting Romeo. Tybalt stalks off in a huff. Before the ball ends, the Nurse identifies Juliet for Romeo, and (separately) identifies Romeo for Juliet.

[edit] Act II
Emboldened, Romeo risks his life by remaining on the Capulet estate after the party breaks up, to catch another glimpse of Juliet at her room, and in the famous balcony scene, the two eloquently declare their love for each other. This scene contains arguably the most famous line of Romeo and Juliet, "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" spoken by Juliet to the darkness ("wherefore" means "why" — Juliet is lamenting that Romeo is a Montague, and thus her enemy). The young lovers decide to marry without informing their parents, because they would obviously disallow it due to the planned union between Paris and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet by Ford Madox Brown
Juliet sends the nurse to find Romeo. Accompanied by one Peter, who carries her fan, the nurse exchanges some spicy insults with the bawdy Mercutio.
With the help of Juliet's Nurse and the Franciscan Friar Lawrence, the two are married that day. The Friar performs the ceremony, hoping to bring the two families to peace with each other through their mutual union.

[edit] Act III
Events take a darker turn after that. Tybalt, still smarting from the incident at the Capulets' ball, had previously sent a letter to the Montagues challenging Romeo to a duel. Meeting Romeo by happenstance, he attempts to provoke a fight. Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt because they are now kinsmen — although Tybalt doesn't know it, as he doesn't yet know that Romeo has married Juliet. Mercutio, who is also unaware of the marriage, is angered by Tybalt's insolence – and Romeo's seeming indifference – and takes up the challenges himself. Benvolio tries to make peace and reminds us of the Prince's decree. In the ensuing swordplay, Romeo attempts to allay Mercutio's anger, momentarily placing his arm around him. By doing so, however, Romeo inadvertently pulls Mercutio into Tybalt's rapier, fatally wounding him. Mercutio dies, wishing "a plague a'both your houses," before he passes. Romeo, in his anger, pursues and slays Tybalt. Although under the Prince of Verona's proclamation Romeo (and Montague and Capulet, as well) would be subject to the death penalty, the Prince instead fines the head of each house, and reduces Romeo's punishment to exile in recognition that Tybalt had killed Mercutio, who had not only been Romeo's friend but a kinsman of the Prince. Romeo is then exiled to Mantua after attempting to see Juliet one last time.
Just after Romeo leaves Juliet's bedroom unseen, Capulet enters to tell the news to his daughter that he has arranged for her to marry Paris in three days' time, to console her perceived mourning for Tybalt, although it is in fact Romeo's exile that she mourns. Juliet is unwilling to enter this arranged marriage, telling her parents that she will not marry, and when she does, "it shall be Romeo, whom I know you hate." Capulet flies into a rage and threatens to disown her if she refuses the marriage.

[edit] Act IV
Juliet visits Lawrence and tells him to either find a solution to her problem or she will commit suicide. Friar Lawrence, being a dabbler in herbal medicines and potions, gives Juliet a potion and a plan: the potion will put her into a death-like coma for "two and forty hours" (Act IV. Scene I); she is to take it and when discovered apparently dead, she will be laid in the family crypt. Meanwhile, the Friar will send a messenger to inform Romeo, so that he can rejoin her when she awakes. The two can then leave for Mantua and live happily ever after. Juliet is at first suspicious of the potion, thinking the Friar may be trying to kill her, but eventually takes it and falls 'asleep'.

[edit] Act V

Romeo at Juliet's Deathbed, by Johann Heinrich Füssli
The messenger of Friar Lawrence does not reach Romeo, due to a quarantine. Instead, Romeo learns of Juliet's supposed "death" from his manservant Balthasar. Grief-stricken, he buys strong poison, sometimes held to be aconite, from an Apothecary, returns to Verona in secret, and goes to the crypt, determined to join Juliet in death. There he encounters Paris, who has also come to mourn privately for his lost love. Paris assumes that Romeo has come to defile the Capulets' crypt and challenges him to a duel. Romeo kills Paris, and then drinks the poison after seeing Juliet one last time, exclaiming: " O true Apothecary! Thy drugs are quick! Thus with a kiss I die."
At this point Juliet awakes and, seeing the dead, seeks answers. Friar Lawrence arrives, and tries to convince Juliet to come with him, but she refuses. He is frightened by a noise, and leaves Juliet alone in the crypt. The pain and shock of Romeo's death is too much for Juliet, and she stabs herself with his dagger. The two lovers lie dead together.
The two feuding families (except Lady Montague, who had died of grief over her son's banishment) and the Prince converge upon the tomb and are horrified to find Romeo, Juliet, and Paris all lying dead. Friar Lawrence reveals the love and secret marriage of Romeo and Juliet. The families are reconciled by their children's deaths and agree to end their violent feud, as foretold by the prologue. The play ends with the Prince's elegiac lamentation:
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punishèd;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

ROMEO AND JULIET: CHARACTERS AND TEXT

Cast of characters

[edit] Ruling house of Verona
Prince Escalus: Prince of Verona.
Count Paris: Kin of Prince Escalus; desires to marry Juliet. Is killed by Romeo at the end of the play.
Mercutio: Kinsman of Prince Escalus and friend of Romeo; killed by Tybalt when Romeo interrupts their duel. His name derives from Mercury.

The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets (1854) by Frederic Leighton

[edit] Capulets
Lord Capulet: Head of the house of Capulet; very wealthy.
Lady Capulet: Wife of Lord Capulet; wishes Juliet to marry Paris.
Juliet: Thirteen-year-old daughter of the Capulets; loves and marries Romeo.
Tybalt: Cousin of Juliet; angry and pugnacious; killed by Romeo, as vengeance for killing Mercutio. His nickname of "the Prince of Cats" may refer to the quarrelsome and vicious character of Tybalt the Cat in the fable cycle Reynard the Fox, which would have been well-known to Shakespeare's audience. Name derived from tyrant.

[edit] Servants
Nurse: Juliet's personal attendant and confidante: assists Juliet in her secret betrothal to Romeo.
Peter: Capulet servant, assistant of the nurse.
Sampson: Capulet servant; eager to fight the Montagues.
Gregory: Capulet servant.

[edit] Montagues
Montague: Head of the house of Montague.
Lady Montague: Wife of Lord Montague
Romeo: Son of the Montagues; loves and marries Juliet. Name comes from the word romance.
Benvolio: Cousin of Romeo. His name means "good will".

[edit] Servants
Abram: Montague servant.
Balthasar: Romeo's personal servant.

[edit] Others
Friar Laurence: Franciscan friar and Romeo's confidant; he marries Romeo and Juliet. He gives Juliet the sleeping potion that prevents her marriage to Count Paris.
Friar John: Another friar sent by Friar Lawrence to tell Romeo that Juliet awaits him; fails in this mission.
Apothecary: Druggist who reluctantly sells Romeo the poison.

[edit] Text of the play
Romeo and Juliet was published in two distinct quarto editions prior to the publication of the First Folio of 1623. These are referred to as Q1 and Q2.
Q1 was published in 1597. Because its text contains numerous differences from the later editions, it is labelled a 'Bad Quarto' composited from actors' memories of their lines, rather than on Shakespeare's manuscript or theatre text. It may have been put together by the actors who had played the roles of Romeo and Paris, since their lines are reasonably complete and uncorrupted in comparison to the rest of the play. Modern people would consider this a "pirate" edition, but the practice was far from unusual at the time.
Q2, a much more complete and reliable text, was first published in 1599, and reprinted in 1609, 1623 and 1637. Its title page describes it as "Newly corrected, augmented and amended". Scholars believe that this text was based on Shakespeare's pre-performance draft, since there are textual oddities such as variable tags for characters and "false starts" for speeches that were presumably struck through by the author but erroneously preserved by the typesetter.
The First Folio text of 1623 seems to be based primarily on the 1609 reprint of Q2, with some clarifications and corrections possibly coming from a theatrical promptbook

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S RELIGION AND SEXULAITY:

Religion
In 1559, five years before Shakespeare's birth, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement finally severed the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church after decades of uncertainty. In the ensuing years, extreme pressure was placed on England's Catholics to convert to the Protestant Church of England, and recusancy laws made Catholicism illegal. Some historians maintain that in Shakespeare's lifetime there was a substantial and widespread quiet resistance to the newly imposed faith.[24] Some scholars, using both historical and literary evidence, have argued that Shakespeare was one of these recusants, but this cannot be proven absolutely.
There is evidence that members of Shakespeare's family were recusant Catholics. The strongest evidence is a tract professing secret Catholicism signed by John Shakespeare, father of the poet. The tract was found in the rafters of Shakespeare's birthplace in the 18th century, and was seen and described by the reputable scholar Edmond Malone. However, the tract has since been lost, and its authenticity cannot therefore be proven. John Shakespeare was also listed as one who did not attend church services, but this was "for feare of processe for Debtte", according to the commissioners, not because he was a recusant.[25] Then again, avoiding creditors may have merely been a convenient pretext for a recusant's avoidance of the established church's services.
Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was a member of a conspicuous and determinedly Catholic family in Warwickshire.[26] In 1606, William's daughter Susanna was listed as one of the residents of Stratford refusing to take Holy Communion, which may suggest Catholic sympathies.[27] Archdeacon Richard Davies, an 18th century Anglican cleric, allegedly wrote of Shakespeare: "He dyed a Papyst".[28] Four of the six schoolmasters at the grammar school during Shakespeare's youth were Catholic sympathisers,[29] and Simon Hunt, likely one of Shakespeare’s teachers, later became a Jesuit.[30]
While none of this evidence proves Shakespeare's own Catholic sympathies, one historian, Clare Asquith, has claimed that those sympathies are detectable in his writing. Asquith claims that Shakespeare uses terms such as "high" when referring to Catholic characters and "low" when referring to Protestants (the terms refer to their altars) and "light" or "fair" to refer to Catholic and "dark" to refer to Protestant, a reference to certain clerical garbs. Asquith also detects in Shakespeare's work the use of a simple code used by the Jesuit underground in England which took the form of a mercantile terminology wherein priests were 'merchants' and souls were 'jewels', the people pursuing them were 'creditors', and the Tyburn gallows where the members of the underground died was called 'the place of much trading'.[31] The Jesuit underground used this code so their correspondences looked like innocuous commercial letters, and Asquith claims that Shakespeare also used this code.[32]
Needless to say, Shakespeare’s Catholicism is by no means universally accepted. The Catholic Encyclopedia questions not only his Catholicism, but whether "Shakespeare was not infected with the atheism, which... was rampant in the more cultured society of the Elizabethan age."[33] Stephen Greenblatt, of Harvard, suspects Catholic sympathies of some kind or another in Shakespeare and his family but considers the writer to be a less than pious person with essentially worldly motives.[citation needed] An increasing number of scholars do look to matters biographical and evidence from Shakespeare’s work such as the placement of young Hamlet as a student at Wittenberg while old Hamlet’s ghost is in purgatory, the sympathetic view of religious life ("thrice blessed"), scholastic theology in The Phoenix and the Turtle, and sympathetic allusions to martyred English Jesuit St. Edmund Campion in Twelfth Night[34] and many other matters as suggestive of a Catholic worldview. However, these may have been continuations of old literary conventions rather than determined Catholicism just as the Robin Hood ballads continued to have friars in them after the Reformation.
On the other hand, the Porter's speech in Macbeth has been read by some as a criticism of the equivocation of Father Henry Garnet after it became topical in 1606 due to his execution.[35]

Sexuality
Main article: Sexuality of William Shakespeare
As with many aspects of Shakespeare's life, there is little direct evidence with regards to Shakespeare's sexuality aside from the fact that he was married to Anne Hathaway and fathered three children. Circumstantial evidence suggests Shakespeare's wedding to Hathaway was hurried because she was already pregnant. Evidence for this is that their first child, Susanna, was born six months after the marriage ceremony on May 26, 1583. In addition, a marriage license was issued for the couple after only one reading of their intent to marry (the reading was normally done three times in order to give local residents a chance to voice any legal or other objection to the marriage).[36]
It is possible that Shakespeare felt trapped by this marriage, speculation supported by the fact that he left his family and moved to London after only three years of marriage.[37]
While in London, Shakespeare may have had affairs with different women. One anecdote along these lines is provided by a law student named John Manningham, who wrote in his diary that Shakespeare had a brief affair with a woman during a performance of Richard III.[38] While this is one of the few surviving contemporary accounts about Shakespeare, scholars are not convinced it is true[39] (although the story may have helped inspire the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love). Possible evidence of other affairs are that twenty-six of Shakespeare's Sonnets are love poems addressed to a married woman (the so-called "Dark Lady").
In recent decades some scholars have taken another view of Shakespeare's sexuality, stating that possible homoerotic allusions in a number of his works suggest that Shakespeare was bisexuality. While twenty-six of Shakespeare's Sonnets are addressed to his Dark Lady, one hundred and twenty-six are addressed to a young man (known as the "Fair Lord"). The amorous tone of the latter group, which focuses on the young man's beauty and the writer's devotion, has been interpreted as suggestive evidence for Shakespeare's being bisexual. For example, in 1954, C.S. Lewis wrote that the sonnets are "too lover-like for ordinary male friendship" (although he added that they are not the poetry of "full-blown pederasty") and that he "found no real parallel to such language between friends in the sixteenth-century literature."[40] Nonetheless, others interpret them as referring to intense friendship rather than sexual love.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STYLE, REPUTATION & AUTHORSHIP:

Style

Detail from statue of Shakespeare in Leicester Square, London.
Shakespeare's works have been a major influence on subsequent theatre. Not only did Shakespeare create some of the most admired plays in Western literature, he also transformed English theatre by expanding expectations about what could be accomplished through characterisation, plot, action, language, and genre.[22] His poetic artistry helped raise the status of popular theatre, permitting it to be admired by intellectuals as well as by those seeking pure entertainment.
Theatre was changing when Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s. Previously, the most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays, which blend piety with farce and slapstick, were allegories in which the characters are personified moral attributes who validate the virtues of Godly life by prompting the protagonist to choose such a life over evil. The characters and plot situations are symbolic rather than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have been exposed to this type of play (along with mystery plays and miracle plays).[23] Meanwhile, at the universities, academic plays were being staged based on Roman closet dramas. These plays, often performed in Latin, used a more exact and academically respectable poetic style than the morality plays, but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches over physical action.
By the late 16th century, the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as the English Renaissance took hold, and playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe began to revolutionise theatre. Their plays blended the old morality drama with academic theatre to produce a new secular form. The new drama had the poetic grandeur and philosophical depth of the academic play and the bawdy populism of the moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned with simple moral allegories. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare took these changes to a new level, creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also explored and debated the basic elements of what it means to be human.

Reputation
Main article: Shakespeare's reputation
Shakespeare's reputation has grown considerably since his own time. During his lifetime and shortly after his death, Shakespeare was well-regarded but not considered the supreme poet of his age. He was included in some contemporary lists of leading poets, but he lacked the stature of Edmund Spenser or Philip Sidney. After the Interregnum stage ban of 1642–1660, the new Restoration theatre companies had the previous generation of playwrights as the mainstay of their repertory, most of all the phenomenally popular Beaumont and Fletcher team, but also Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. As with other older playwrights, Shakespeare's plays were mercilessly adapted by later dramatists for the Restoration stage with little of the reverence that would later develop.
Beginning in the late 17th century, Shakespeare began to be considered the supreme English-language playwright (and, to a lesser extent, poet). Initially this reputation focused on Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre. By the early 19th century, though, Shakespeare began hitting peaks of fame and popularity. During this time, theatrical productions of Shakespeare provided spectacle and melodrama for the masses and were extremely popular. Romantic critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge then raised admiration for Shakespeare to adulation or bardolatry (from bard + idolatry), in line with the Romantic reverence for the poet as prophet and genius. In the middle to late 19th century, Shakespeare also became an emblem of English pride and a "rallying-sign", as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, for the whole British Empire.
This reverence has provoked an unforeseen negative reaction in the youth. In the 21st century most people in the English-speaking world encounter Shakespeare at school at a young age, and there is an association by some students of his work with boredom beyond comprehension and of "high art" not easily appreciated by popular culture; an ironic fate considering the social mix of Shakespeare's audience. Nonetheless, Shakespeare's plays remain more frequently staged than the works of any other playwright and are frequently adapted into film—including Hollywood movies specifically marketed to broad teenage audiences, though many simply take credit for his plots rather than his narrative. Famously, Shakespeare's plays are often transferred to a different environment even when retaining his dialogue.
On another level, many modern English words and phrases that are taken for granted were introduced by Shakespeare.
See also: Timeline of Shakespeare criticism

Speculations about Shakespeare

Authorship
Main article: Shakespearean authorship
Around one hundred and fifty years after Shakespeare's death in 1616, doubts began to be expressed by some researchers about the authorship of the plays and poetry attributed to him. The terms Shakespearean authorship, and the Shakespeare Authorship Question normally refer to the debates inspired by these researchers, who consider the works to have been written by another playwright using either William Shakespeare, or the hyphenated "Shake-speare", as a pen-name.
Admirers of Shakespeare's works are often disappointed by the lack of available information about the author. In "Who Wrote Shakespeare" (1996), John Mitchell notes "The known facts about Shakespeare's life ... can be written down on one side of a sheet of notepaper." He cites Mark Twain's satirical expression of the same point in the section "Facts" in "Is Shakespeare Dead" (1909).
Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, an English nobleman and intimate of Queen Elizabeth, remains the most prominent alternative candidate for authorship of the Shakespeare canon, having been identified in the 1920s and further researched in the 1980's. Oxford partisans note his literary reputation, education and travels, as well as striking similarities between the Earl's life, and events depicted in the plays and sonnets. The principal hurdle for the Oxfordian theory is the conventional theory that many of the Shakespeare plays were written after Oxford's death (1604), but well within the lifespan of William Shakespeare. Oxfordians counter this argument by citing research that suggests "Shakespeare" actually stopped writing in 1604, the same year that regular publication of Shakespeare's plays stopped. Christopher Marlowe is considered by some to be the most highly qualified to have written the works of Shakespeare. It has been speculated that Marlowe's recorded death in 1593 was faked for various reasons and that Marlowe went into hiding, subsequently writing under the name of William Shakespeare; this is called the Marlovian theory. Sir Francis Bacon is another proposed author for the Shakespeare works. Besides having travelled to some of the countries in which the plays are set, he could also have read the Shakespeare sources in their original Greek, Italian, Hebrew, or French. He described himself as a "Concealed Poet" and was alive at the time of the publication of the First Folio in 1623. Arguments against Bacon include the suggestion that he had no time to write so many plays, and that his style is different from Shakespeare's.
A question in mainstream academia addresses whether Shakespeare himself wrote every word of his commonly accepted plays, given that collaboration between dramatists routinely occurred in the Elizabethan theatre. Serious academic work continues to attempt to ascertain the authorship of plays and poems of the time, both those attributed to Shakespeare and others.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS:

Works

Plays
Main article: Shakespeare's plays
A number of Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. He wrote tragedies, histories, comedies and romances, which have been translated into every major living language [citation needed], in addition to being continually performed around the world.
As was normal in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other playwrights and reworked earlier stories and historical material. For example, Hamlet (c. 1601) is probably a reworking of an older, lost play (the so-called Ur-Hamlet), and King Lear is an adaptation of an earlier play, also called King Lear. For plays on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and Greek plays are based on Plutarch's Parallel Lives (from the 1579 English translation by Sir Thomas North[17]), and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed's 1587 edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (which provided material for Macbeth and King Lear).[18] Shakespeare also possibly borrowed stylistic elements from contemporary playwrights like Christopher Marlowe.[19] One of Shakespeare's most original plays--at least in terms of writing, themes, and setting--was The Tempest.[20]
Shakespeare's plays tend to be placed into three main stylistic groups:
early romantic comedies and histories (such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry IV, Part 1)
middle period romantic comedies and histories (which includes his most famous tragedies, Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear, as well as "problem plays" such as Troilus and Cressida)
later romances (such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest).
The earlier plays range from broad comedy to historical nostalgia, while the middle-period plays tend to be grander in terms of theme, addressing such issues as betrayal, murder, lust, power, and ambition. By contrast, his late romances feature redemptive plotlines with ambiguous endings and the use of magic and other fantastical elements. However, the borders between these genres are never clear.

Image of Shakespeare from the First Folio (1623), the first collected edition of his plays
Some of Shakespeare's plays first appeared in print as a series of quartos, but most remained unpublished until 1623 when the posthumous First Folio was published by two actors who had been in Shakespeare's company: John Heminges and Henry Condell. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the logic of the First Folio. It is at this point that stage directions, punctuation and act divisions enter his plays, setting the trend for further future editorial decisions. Modern criticism has also labelled some of his plays "problem plays" or tragi-comedies, as they elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposefully break generic conventions. The term "romances" has also been preferred for the later comedies.
There are many controversies about the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays. In addition, the fact that Shakespeare did not produce an authoritative print version of his plays during his life accounts for part of the textual problem often noted with his plays, which means that for several of the plays there are different textual versions. As a result, the problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote became a major concern for most modern editions. Textual corruptions also stem from printers' errors, compositors' misreadings, or wrongly scanned lines from the source material. Additionally, in an age before standardised spelling, Shakespeare often wrote a word several times in a different spelling, contributing further to the transcribers' confusions. Modern scholars also believe Shakespeare revised his plays throughout the years, sometimes leading to two existing versions of one play.

Sonnets
Main article: Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 poems that deal with such themes as love, beauty, and mortality. All but two first appeared in the 1609 publication entitled Shakespeare's Sonnets; numbers 138 ("When my love swears that she is made of truth") and 144 ("Two loves have I, of comfort and despair") had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim. The Sonnets were written over a number of years, probably beginning in the early 1590s.
The conditions under which the sonnets were published are unclear. The 1609 text is dedicated to one "Mr. W.H.", who is described as "the only begetter" of the poems in the dedication. It is unknown if the dedication was written by Shakespeare or Thomas Thorpe, the publisher. It is also unknown who this man was, although there are many theories, including those who believe him to be the young man featured in the sonnets.[21] In addition, it is not known whether the publication of the sonnets was even authorised by Shakespeare.

Other poems
In addition to his sonnets, Shakespeare also wrote three known longer poems: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and A Lover's Complaint. These poems appear to have been written either in an attempt to win the patronage of a rich benefactor (as was common at the time) or as the result of such patronage. For example, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis were both dedicated to Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.
In addition, Shakespeare wrote the short poem The Phoenix and the Turtle. The anthology The Passionate Pilgrim was attributed to him upon its first publication in 1599, but in fact only five of its poems are by Shakespeare and the attribution was withdrawn in the second edition.

SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE

Early life
William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, Shaxper, and Shake-speare, due to the fact that spelling in Elizabethan times was not fixed and absolute[9]) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman from Snitterfield, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. His birth is assumed to have occurred at the family house on Henley Street. Shakespeare's christening record dates to April 26 of that year. Because christenings were performed within a few days of birth, tradition has settled on April 23 as his birthday. This date provides a convenient symmetry because Shakespeare died on the same day, April 23 (May 3 on the Gregorian calendar), in 1616.
Shakespeare probably attended King Edward VI Grammar School in central Stratford.[10] While the quality of Elizabethan-era grammar schools was uneven, the school probably would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. It is presumed that the young Shakespeare attended this school, since as the son of a prominent town official he was entitled to do so for free[11] (although his attendance cannot be confirmed because the school's records have not survived). At the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six, on November 28, 1582. One document identified her as being "of Temple Grafton," near Stratford, and the marriage may have taken place there. Two neighbours of Hathaway posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony, presumably because Anne was three months pregnant.
On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptised at Stratford. Twin children, a son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptised on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died in 1596.

Shakespeare's signature, from his will: By me William Shakespeare
After his marriage, Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London theatrical scene. Indeed, the period from 1585 (when his Twin children were born) until 1592 (When Robert Greene called him an "upstart crow") are known as Shakespeare's "lost years" because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London.[12] A number of stories are given to account for Shakespeare's life during this time, including that Shakespeare got in trouble for poaching deer, that he worked as a country school teacher, and that he minded the horses of theatre patrons in London. There is no direct evidence to support any of these stories and they all appeared to have started after Shakespeare's death.[13]

London and theatrical career
By 1592, Shakespeare was a playwright in London; he had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicised line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" which Shakespeare wrote in Henry VI, part 3.)
By late 1594, Shakespeare was an actor, writer and part-owner of a playing company, known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men — like others of the period, the company took its name from its aristocratic sponsor, in this case the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as the King's Men. Shakespeare's writing shows him to indeed be an actor, with many phrases, words, and references to acting, but there isn't an academic approach to the art of theatre that might be expected.[14]
By 1596, Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and by 1598 he appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every Man in His Humour written by Ben Jonson. Also by 1598, his name began to appear on the title pages of his plays, presumably as a selling point.
There is a tradition that Shakespeare, in addition to writing many of the plays his company enacted, and being concerned as part-owner of the company with business and financial details, continued to act in various parts, such as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Adam in As You Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V.[15]
He appears to have moved across the River Thames to Southwark sometime around 1599. By 1604, he had moved again, north of the river, where he lodged just north of St Paul's Cathedral with a Huguenot family named Mountjoy. His residence there is worth noting because he helped arrange a marriage between the Mountjoys' daughter and their apprentice Stephen Bellott. Bellott later sued his father-in-law for defaulting on part of the promised dowry, and Shakespeare was called as a witness.
Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew rich enough during his stay in London to buy a property in Blackfriars, London and own the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place.

Later years

Shakespeare's funerary monument

Shakespeare's House in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Now home of the Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust
Shakespeare appears to have retired to Stratford in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616 at the age of 52. Supposedly Shakespeare died on his birthday, if the tradition that he was born on April 23 is correct. He was married to Anne Hathaway until his death and was survived by his two daughters, Susanna and Judith. His son Hamnet had died in 1596. Susanna married Dr John Hall, but there are no direct descendants of the poet and playwright alive today.
Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honour of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). A monument on the wall nearest his grave, probably placed by his family, [16] features a bust showing Shakespeare posed in the act of writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust. He is believed to have written the epitaph on his tombstone:
“
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosèd here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
”