Romeo and Juliet

By: Stephanie Goss, Yvette Gonzalez, Jonathan Wilson,

and Aaron Cumins

William Shakespeare

Nobody knows the real birth date of William Shakespeare, we know it was in 1564, but only have record of his baptism.

He was baptized April 26, 1564 at The Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Died April 23, 1616 at the age of 52 years old.

William Shakespeare

He married Anne Hathaway at age 18. They were married until he died in 1616

He had 8 children. 37 plays and 154 Sonnets have been

written by him. He was an actor as well as a writer. He invented words such as

“assassination”

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is said to have had a vocabulary of 29,066 words. The average person today only uses about 2,000 words in everyday conversation.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet was based on the life of two real lovers who both died for each other and lived in Verona, Italy in 1303. The Capulets and Montagues existed in Verona at this time and Shakespeare is reckoned to have discovered this tragic love story in Arthur Brooke's 1562 poem entitled "The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet" .

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet was believed to be written between 1591 and 1595.

The play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. This text was of poor quality. Later editions corrected it, bringing it more in line with Shakespeare's original text .

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet have seen many adaptations over the years for movies, musicals, operas, and stage. One of the opera versions by Georg Benda’s even had an alternate, happy ending.

Costumes

Romeo and Juliet took place in the fourteenth century in a city of Italy named Verona. A beautiful city in which some of the famous works of Romanesque architecture reside. The costume styles reflected of the plays time period.

Romeo’s Costume

Romeo’s costume would most likely include knee breeches, or well fitted pants, a white long sleeve shirt, lace up, or ruffled poet shirt.

Juliet’s Costume

Juliet’s gown would be a beautiful, lovely dress, yet would be very simple to suit her age. There are many different colors that would be suitable for this time period.

Theatre History

The theatre was relatively new at this point in time and was mainly centered around The Theatre and later The Globe Theatre.

Theatre History

The most common plays were largely centered around current events. Later they were comedies and then tragedies became hugely popular.

Theatre History

The theatre was the main source of entertainment second to the traditional animal fights and executions. Everyone from Paupers to Princes would watch the plays.

Food

Italians did not eat tomatoes at that time because they believed they were poisonous, they did not drink beer because that was considered too German/too English and they were looked down on, and lots of bread and pasta (which became huge starting around 13th century, though not because Marco Polo brought them back from China as is often claimed).

Food

Lots & lots of olive oil and wine (Italian staples) and olives and grapes. Basically, kind of like an Italian restaurant today, but with lots of poultry (chicken, duck, geese) and NO tomatoes (which means no ravioli/lasagna/pizza [which was invented in America actually] or spaghetti as we know it.

Food

Poorer people would have eaten very little meat and most of what they ate would have been beef and pork sausages (it's the cheapest), but Romeo and Juliet were from rich families so they'd have been able to afford foul and beef and goat and occasionally pork. (Hogs are nasty and take lots of work and lots of room, and you can raise a dozen goats on the land it takes for 1 or 2 cows and goats give tons of milk that make great cheese, so goat's meat was popular then; sheep not as much because they're terrible for the grass and it's too hot for them in most of Italy.)

Sources Used

http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/faq/faq.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html