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Romeo and Juliet

William shakespeare, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Romeo and Juliet: Introduction

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Historical Context of Romeo and Juliet

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• Full Title: Romeo and Juliet
• When Written: Likely 1591-1595
• Where Written: London, England
• When Published: “Bad quarto” (incomplete manuscript) printed in 1597; Second, more complete quarto printed in 1599; First folio, with clarifications and corrections, printed in 1623
• Literary Period: Renaissance
• Genre: Tragic play
• Setting: Verona, Italy
• Climax: Mistakenly believing that Juliet is dead, Romeo kills himself on her funeral bier by drinking poison. Juliet wakes up, finds Romeo dead, and fatally stabs herself with his dagger.
• Antagonist: Capulet, Lady Capulet, Montague, Lady Montague, Tybalt

Extra Credit for Romeo and Juliet

Tourist Trap. Casa di Giulietta, a 12-century villa in Verona, is located just off the Via Capello (the possible origin of the anglicized surname “Capulet”) and has become a major tourist attraction over the years because of its distinctive balcony. The house, purchased by the city of Verona in 1905 from private holdings, has been transformed into a kind of museum dedicated to the history of Romeo and Juliet , where tourists can view set pieces from some of the major film adaptations of the play and even leave letters to their loved ones. Never mind that “the balcony scene,” one of the most famous scenes in English literature, may never have existed—the word “balcony” never appears in the play, and balconies were not an architectural feature of Shakespeare’s England—tourists flock from all over to glimpse Juliet’s famous veranda.

Love Language. While much of Shakespeare’s later work is written in a combination of verse and prose (used mostly to offer distinction between social classes, with nobility speaking in verse and commoners speaking in prose), Romeo and Juliet is notable for its heady blend of poetic forms. The play’s prologue is written in the form of a sonnet, while most of the dialogue adheres strictly to the rhythm of iambic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet alter their cadences when speaking to each another, using more casual, naturalistic speech. When they talk about other potential lovers, such as Rosaline and Paris, their speech is much more formal (to reflect the emotional falsity of those dalliances.) Friar Laurence speaks largely in sermons and aphorisms, while the nurse speaks in blank verse.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 6 )

Shakespeare, more than any other author, has instructed the West in the catastrophes of sexuality, and has invented the formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death. There had to be one high song of the erotic by Shakespeare, one lyrical and tragi-comical paean celebrating an unmixed love and lamenting its inevitable destruction. Romeo and Juliet is unmatched, in Shakespeare and in the world’s literature, as a vision of an uncompromising mutual love that perishes of its own idealism and intensity.

—Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

Romeo and Juliet, regarded by many as William Shakespeare’s first great play, is generally thought to have been written around 1595. Shakespeare was then 31 years old, married for 12 years and the father of three children. He had been acting and writing in London for five years. His stage credits included mainly histories—the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III —and comedies— The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. Shakespeare’s first tragedy, modeled on Seneca, Titus Andronicus , was written around 1592. From that year through 1595 Shakespeare had also composed 154 sonnets and two long narrative poems in the erotic tradition— Venus  and  Adonis   and  The  Rape  of  Lucrece.  Both  his  dramatic  and  nondramatic  writing  show  Shakespeare  mastering  Elizabethan  literary  conventions.  Then,  around 1595, Shakespeare composed three extraordinary plays—R ichard II, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet —in three different genres—history, comedy, and tragedy—signalling a new mastery, originality, and excellence.  With  these  three  plays  Shakespeare  emerged  from  the  shadows  of  his  influences and initiated a period of unexcelled accomplishment. The two parts of Henry IV and Julius Caesar would follow, along with the romantic comedies The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night and the great tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra . The three plays  of  1595,  therefore,  serve  as  an  important  bridge  between  Shakespeare’s  apprenticeship and his mature achievements. Romeo and Juliet, in particular, is a crucial play in the evolution of Shakespeare’s tragic vision, in his integration of poetry and drama, and in his initial exploration of the connection between love and tragedy that he would continue in Troilus and Cressida, Othello, and Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Romeo  and  Juliet   is  not  only  one  of  the  greatest  love  stories in all literature, considering its stage history and the musicals, opera, music, ballet, literary works, and films that it has inspired; it is quite possibly the most popular play of all time. There is simply no more famous pair of lovers than Romeo and Juliet, and their story has become an inescapable central myth in our understanding of romantic love.

Despite  the  play’s  persistence,  cultural  saturation,  and  popular  appeal,  Romeo and Juliet has fared less well with scholars and critics, who have generally judged it inferior to the great tragedies that followed. Instead of the later tragedies of character Romeo and Juliet has been downgraded as a tragedy of chance, and, in the words of critic James Calderwood, the star-crossed lovers are “insufficiently endowed with complexity” to become tragic heroes. Instead “they  become  a  study  of  victimage  and  sacrifice,  not  tragedy.”  What  is  too  often missing in a consideration of the shortcomings of Romeo and Juliet by contrast with the later tragedies is the radical departure the play represented when compared to what preceded it. Having relied on Senecan horror for his first tragedy, Titus  Andronicus,  Shakespeare  located  his  next  in  the  world  of  comedy and romance. Romeo and Juliet is set not in antiquity, as Elizabethan convention dictated for a tragic subject, but in 16th-century Verona, Italy. His tragic protagonists are neither royal nor noble, as Aristotle advised, but two teenagers caught up in the petty disputes of their families. The plight of young lovers pitted against parental or societal opposition was the expected subject, since  Roman  times,  of  comedy,  not  tragedy.  By  showing  not  the  eventual  triumph  but  the  death  of  the  two  young  lovers  Shakespeare  violated  comic  conventions,  while  making  a  case  that  love  and  its  consequences  could  be  treated with an unprecedented tragic seriousness. As critic Harry Levin has observed, Shakespeare’s contemporaries “would have been surprised, and possibly shocked at seeing lovers taken so seriously. Legend, it had been hereto-fore taken for granted, was the proper matter for serious drama; romance was the stuff of the comic stage.”

Shakespeare’s innovations are further evident in comparison to his source material.  The  plot  was  a  well-known  story  in  Italian,  French,  and  English  versions. Shakespeare’s direct source was Arthur Brooke’s poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562). This moralistic work was intended as  a  warning  to  youth  against  “dishonest  desire”  and  disobeying  parental  authority. Shakespeare, by contrast, purifies and ennobles the lovers’ passion, intensifies  the  pathos,  and  underscores  the  injustice  of  the  lovers’  destruction.  Compressing  the  action  from  Brooke’s  many  months  into  a  five-day crescendo, Shakespeare also expands the roles of secondary characters such as  Mercutio  and  Juliet’s  nurse  into  vivid  portraits  that  contrast  the  lovers’ elevated lyricism with a bawdy earthiness and worldly cynicism. Shakespeare transforms Brooke’s plodding verse into a tour de force verbal display that is supremely witty, if at times over elaborate, and, at its best, movingly expressive. If the poet and the dramatist are not yet seamlessly joined in Romeo and Juliet, the play still displays a considerable advance in Shakespeare’s orchestration of verse, image, and incident that would become the hallmark of his greatest achievements.

The play’s theme and outcome are announced in the Prologue:

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

Suspense over the lovers’ fate is eliminated at the outset as Shakespeare emphasizes the forces that will destroy them. The initial scene makes this clear as a public brawl between servants of the feuding Montagues and Capulets escalates to involve kinsmen and the patriarchs on both sides, ended only when the Prince of Verona enforces a cease-fire under penalty of death for future offenders of the peace. Romeo, Montague’s young son, does not participate in the scuffle since he is totally absorbed by a hopeless passion for a young, unresponsive beauty named Rosaline. Initially Romeo appears as a figure of mockery, the embodiment of the hypersensitive, melancholy adolescent lover, who  is  urged  by  his  kinsman  Benvolio  to  resist  sinking  “under  love’s  heavy  burden”  and  seek  another  more  worthy  of  his  affection.  Another  kinsman,  Mercutio, for whom love is more a game of easy conquest, urges Romeo to “be  rough  with  love”  and  master  his  circumstances.  When  by  chance  it  is  learned that Rosaline is to attend a party at the Capulets, Benvolio suggests that they should go as well for Romeo to compare Rosaline’s charms with the other beauties at the party and thereby cure his infatuation. There Romeo sees Juliet, Capulet’s not-yet 14-year-old daughter. Her parents are encouraging her  to  accept  a  match  with  Count  Paris  for  the  social  benefit  of  the  family.  Love  as  affectation  and  love  as  advantage  are  transformed  into  love  as  all-consuming, mutual passion at first sight. Romeo claims that he “ne’er saw true beauty till this night,” and by the force of that beauty, he casts off his former melancholic  self-absorption.  Juliet is  no  less  smitten.  Sending her nurse  to  learn the stranger’s identity, she worries, “If he be married, / My grave is like to be my wedding bed.” Both are shocked to learn that they are on either side of the family feud, and their risk is underscored when the Capulet kinsman, Tybalt, recognizes Romeo and, though prevented by Capulet from violence at the party, swears future vengeance. Tybalt’s threat underscores that this is a play as much about hate as about love, in which Romeo and Juliet’s passion is  increasingly  challenged  by  the  public  and  family  forces  that  deny  love’s  authority.

The  first  of  the  couple’s  two  great  private  moments  in  which  love’s  redemptive and transformative power works its magic follows in possibly the most famous single scene in all of drama, set in the Capulets’ orchard, over-looked by Juliet’s bedroom window. In some of the most impassioned, lyrical, and famous verses Shakespeare ever wrote, the lovers’ dialogue perfectly captures the ecstasy of love and love’s capacity to remake the world. Seeing Juliet above at her window, Romeo says:

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou her maid art far more fair than she.

He overhears Juliet’s declaration of her love for him and the rejection of what is implied if a Capulet should love a Montague:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name! Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. . . . ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet .So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.

In  a  beautifully  modulated  scene  the  lovers  freely  admit  their  passion  and  exchange vows of love that become a marriage proposal. As Juliet continues to be called back to her room and all that is implied as Capulet’s daughter, time and space become the barriers to love’s transcendent power to unite.

With the assistance of Friar Lawrence, who regards the union of a Montague and a Capulet as an opportunity “To turn your households’ rancour to pure  love,”  Romeo  and  Juliet  are  secretly  married.  Before  nightfall  and  the  anticipated consummation of their union Romeo is set upon by Tybalt, who is by Romeo’s marriage, his new kinsman. Romeo accordingly refuses his challenge, but it is answered by Mercutio. Romeo tries to separate the two, but in the  process  Mercutio  is  mortally  wounded.  This  is  the  tragic  turn  of  the  play  as  Romeo,  enraged,  rejects  the  principle  of  love  forged  with  Juliet  for  the claims of reputation, the demand for vengeance, and an identifi cation of masculinity with violent retribution:

My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt In my behalf; my reputation stain’d With Tybalt’s slander—Tybalt, that an hour Hath been my kinsman. O sweet Juliet, Thy beauty hath made me effeminate And in my temper soft’ned valour’s steel!

After killing Tybalt, Romeo declares, “O, I am fortune’s fool!” He may blame circumstances for his predicament, but he is clearly culpable in capitulating to the values of society he had challenged in his love for Juliet.

The lovers are given one final moment of privacy before the catastrophe. Juliet, awaiting Romeo’s return, gives one of the play’s most moving speeches, balancing sublimity with an intimation of mortality that increasingly accompanies the lovers:

Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow’d night; Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Learning the terrible news of Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment, Juliet wins her own battle between hate and love and sends word to Romeo to keep their appointed night together before they are parted.

As Romeo is away in Mantua Juliet’s parents push ahead with her wedding to Paris. The solution to Juliet’s predicament is offered by Friar Lawrence who gives her a drug that will make it appear she has died. The Friar is to summon Romeo,  who  will  rescue  her  when  she  awakes  in  the  Capulet  family  tomb.  The Friar’s message to Romeo fails to reach him, and Romeo learns of Juliet’s death. Reversing his earlier claim of being “fortune’s fool,” Romeo reacts by declaring, “Then I defy you, stars,” rushing to his wife and breaking society’s rules by acquiring the poison to join her in death. Reaching the tomb Romeo is surprised to find Paris on hand, weeping for his lost bride. Outraged by the intrusion  on  his  grief  Paris  confronts  Romeo.  They  fight,  and  after  killing  Paris, Romeo fi nally recognizes him and mourns him as “Mercutio’s kinsman.” Inside the tomb Romeo sees Tybalt’s corpse and asks forgiveness before taking leave of Juliet with a kiss:

. . . O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh.

Juliet  awakes  to  see  Romeo  dead  beside  her.  Realizing  what  has  happened,  she responds by taking his dagger and plunges it into her breast: “This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.”

Montagues, Capulets, and the Prince arrive, and the Friar explains what has happened and why. His account of Romeo and Juliet’s tender passion and devotion shames the two families into ending their feud. The Prince provides the final eulogy:

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 punished; For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

The  sense  of  loss  Verona  and  the  audience  feels  at  the  lovers’  deaths  is  a  direct  result  of  Shakespeare’s  remarkable  ability  to  conjure  love  in  all  its  transcendent power, along with its lethal risks. Set on a collision course with the values bent on denying love’s sway, Romeo and Juliet manage to create a dreamlike, alternative, private world that is so touching because it is so brief and perishable. Shakespeare’s triumph here is to make us care that adolescent romance matters—emotionally,  psychologically,  and  socially—and  that  the  premature and unjust death of lovers rival in profundity and significance the fall of kings.

Romeo and Juliet Oxford Lecture by Emma Smith

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

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10 Activities for Teaching Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is one of those classic pieces of literature I think everyone has read. Even students who haven’t read the Shakespeare play have probably heard of the story or will relate to the plot as it has been retold in various films and literature. If you need some fresh ideas before you start this unit, read on. 

Here are 10 activities for teaching Romeo and Juliet

1. relatable bell ringers.

If you’re going to focus on a Shakespeare play, you must go all in. Immersing students into a unit from start to finish is such a perfect way to help students understand a topic in-depth. Start off each class with these Shakespeare Bell Ringers . Each one includes a famous Shakespearean quote and a quick writing prompt. Students will explore various writing styles based on the quote.

2. Character Focus

Help your students identify and organize characters with these graphic organizers . This resource has two sets for almost every character in the play. Students will identify characters as round or flat, static or dynamic, and other basic qualities. This will also require them to provide textual evidence. The second organizer focuses on tracing emotions and motivations throughout the play. It’s a creative way for students to organize the play’s characters and is also a great resource for ESL students and struggling readers. 

3. Get Interactive

I can remember interactive notebooks becoming all the rage. And while the paper notebooks are creative, a motivator for some students, and it’s generally pretty easy to put an interactive spin on old ideas already at hand. Having a digital version is just one more layer to add something unique to the interactive notebook. My digital notebook resource can work as its own unit and includes analysis activities covering characters, symbols, major events, writing tasks, and response questions. Digital notebooks are great for classrooms trying to limit paper use, use more technology, prepare students for tech demands, and for any classes that need to work with mobile options.

4. Engaging Writing Tasks

Help students understand and analyze the play by giving them unique writing assignments. Have students explore different writing styles, analyze universal themes, and study character development. My Writing Tasks resource does all this and more. Each act has its own unique writing assignment, and I’ve included brainstorming organizers for each. You’ll be able to use this with differentiated instruction, and there are several additional resources and organizers included. 

5. Read “Cloze”ly

Prep passages for students to summarize to help them understand events from the play. This is an ideal activity for review, comprehension, or even assessment. Cloze reading is an ideal way to help students understand what is happening. Cut your prep time down by using this resource, with 6 passages ready to use AND written in modern-day English. Use as an individual assignment or collaborative activity. 

6. Use Office Supplies

Increase student engagement with hands-on activities using sticky notes. You can use various colors to coordinate different aspects of study (literary elements, major events, character development, etc). It’s an easy and quick way for students to organize thoughts and notes, and the bits of information can be manipulated and moved around for different assignments. Students can gather relevant information for various essays, or can organize their sticky notes in a way that makes sense to them (by topic, or chronologically, as an example). Check out my Sticky Note Literary Analysis activity that includes 12 sticky note organizers. 

7. Make Use of Bookmarks

There are many creative avenues when it comes to bookmarks. Have an activity where students pick a favorite quote, draw a scene, or draw what they know about the play prior to reading (they can use the back to draw after reading the play). Consider a foldable version like this one where you can jam-pack a variety of questions, vocabulary, literary analysis and more. These are foldable, interactive, fun, engaging – and it saves you time passing out one activity to be used throughout the play. 

8. Plan an Escape 

Escape rooms live up to the hype. Challenge your students with a fun and engaging review escape challenge. Have students work together in groups to complete collaboratively and spark authentic discussion. This escape room activity includes 40 timeline events to sort from the play correctly.

9. Don’t Forget Vocabulary

Vocabulary is an important aspect of understanding any work, but Shakespeare is on a whole other level. In addition to reading an older version of English in poetic form, students must grasp key vocabulary to understand the play more deeply. Engage your students with hands-on activities to learn vocabulary, whether that be through graphic organizers, visual dictionaries, or word puzzles. Check out my ready-to-print vocabulary packet that includes word lists, puzzles, organizers and quizzes for the entire play. 

10. Practice Annotations

Start at the very beginning with an engaging activity for the prologue. This will allow students to explore the Shakespearean language and the set-up to the drama that is Romeo and Juliet’s tragedy. Using this resource , students will read and annotate the prologue, be introduced to Elizabethan English, and have context and background information before reading the play. Students then will rewrite the prologue in modern-day English following the same sonnet form. I love having students explore language, and this activity fits perfectly into the unit. 

If you’re starting fresh with activities to fill a unit, or you’re looking to refresh your tried-and-true activities, check out my 5-week unit plan for Romeo and Juliet here . It’s full of goodies including a pacing guide, pre-reading activities, bookmarks, vocabulary, passages, writing tasks, essays, review activities, and more. 

Put a new spin on the classic tragedy by refreshing your activities and finding new ways to present to students. Just a few simple updates and changes can keep students engaged and help them relate to the material. I love seeing what others do in their classrooms, so please share your favorite ideas in the comments below. 

Is Teaching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Still Revelant?

In an earlier blog post , I discuss if teaching Shakespeare is still relevant.

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School of Undergraduate Studies

The university of texas, romeo and juliet edition.

This ongoing research project is aimed at completing a contracted edition of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Research tasks include working closely with the language of Shakespeare's text, including the glossing (defining) of its words and phrases, investigations relating to its performance history (stage and film alike), and careful proofing of critical prose from the editor's Introduction. Student researchers will be introduced to various protocols and strategies in search engines dedicated to early modern (1500-1700) texts and their language.

interest in Shakespeare, drama, reading

This project is ongoing, and will likely stretch across several semesters. Students are welcome to participate for as long as they wish.

Online research into the language of "Romeo and Juliet," and/or its performance history

Douglas Bruster

I'M INTERESTED IN THIS PROJECT. WHAT SHOULD I DO NEXT?

The Office of Undergraduate Research recommends that you attend an info session  or advising before contacting faculty members or project contacts about research opportunities. We'll cover the steps to get involved, tips for contacting faculty, funding possibilities, and options for course credit. Once you have attended an Office of Undergraduate Research info session or spoken to an advisor, you can use the "Who to contact" details for this project to get in touch with the project leader and express your interest in getting involved.

Have you tried contacting professors and need more help? Schedule an appointment for additional support.

Please report broken links to [email protected] .

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Learning Resources

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Discover teaching ideas and lesson planning inspiration through our range of resources, activities and other supporting materials on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

About the play

• Past productions and play history
• Merchandise

First Encounters

We're going on tour with our new First Encounters: Romeo and Juliet production. This 90-minute version of Romeo and Juliet uses an edited version of the original language to create the perfect first introduction for young people aged 7-13 and their families.

Find our tour venues

Book a two hour workshop in our Clore Learning Centre, on Romeo and Juliet. Available for students in Key Stage 2 and above. A workshop is the perfect introduction to the play and can also be tailored to explore the play in more depth for students who are studying it. 

FIND OUT MORE

Resources and Activites

Romeo and Juliet  is the tragic story of two young people from two different households who fall in love. Despite the fighting between their families the two central characters do everything they can to remain together. 

For young people of all ages, this play is a fantastic way to explore the concepts of family and loyalty as well as looking at a range of themes including:

• Family Relationships
• Fate and Destiny

You can discover more about these themes and where they appear in the text as well as others in our Themes Resource . 

Download Free Resources

• Romeo and Juliet School Synopsis 
• Romeo and Juliet Teacher Pack 2024
• Romeo and Juliet Teacher Pack 2018 (Key Stage 3 - 4)
• Creative Writing Teacher Pack 2021 (Key Stage 1 - 3)

LIVE LESSON

You can re-watch our Live Lesson on  Romeo and Juliet  featuring RSC Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman and actors Karen Fishwick (Juliet) and Andrew French (Friar Laurence). The lesson explores Act 4 Scene 1 and Act 3.

WATCH Live Lesson

Shakespeare Learning Zone

Students will find many resources on Romeo and Juliet  in our  Shakespeare Learning Zone , including scene by scene analysis, activities on character relationships, in depth scene studies and PEE grids. These resources are also perfect to be used by teachers in the classroom.

Studying Shakespeare? Then you'll love our  SHAKESPEARE LEARNING ZONE! Discover loads of facts, videos and in-depth information about Shakespeare's plays.

Really get to grips with the stories, settings and characters of Shakespeare's plays. Unlock his language using the same techniques our actors use in rehearsals.

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In This Section

Romeo and Juliet on the Shakespeare Learning Zone

Studying Romeo and Juliet? Visit the SHAKESPEARE LEARNING ZONE to discover loads of facts, videos and info about the play

A 90-minute re-imagining of the star-crossed lovers, directed by Philip J Morris for 7-13 year olds and their families

More Information for Teachers

Student workshops.

Teacher Professional Development

Shakespeare's Globe

Romeo & Juliet: Themes KS3

In these lessons, students will engage with the themes and ideas at the heart of the text, including fate, love and violence. Tasks include: a close reading of Romeo and Juliet's sonnet in Act 1 Scene 5; exploring the idea of words as weapons and how characters like Tybalt wield them; and a card game which will help connect themes to characters and the text.

In order to benefit fully from these lesson plans, we recommend you use them in the following order:

• Text in Performance

If students are new to the play, we suggest you start with these introductory KS3 Lesson Plans. If you would like to teach the play in greater detail, use the advanced  KS4/5 Lesson Plans .

These lesson plans are available in the Downloads section at the bottom of this page.   To download resources, you must be logged in.  Sign up   for free  to access this and other exclusive features .  Activities mentioned in these resources are available in a separate downloadable 'Student Booklet', also at the bottom of this page. The 'Teachers' Guide' download explains how best to use Teach Shakespeare and also contains a bibliography and appendices referencing the resources used throughout.

Key Questions for Student:

Can I explain what is meant by ‘theme’?

Can I list some of the key themes of Romeo and Juliet ?

Key words: beauty, concealment, conflict, death, fate, family, friendship, love, secrecy, symbolism, theme, truth

Prologue: Opening Discussion

Display the ‘Props’ PowerPoint, which shows a montage of images connected to the plot of Romeo and Juliet . This is available in the Downloads section at the bottom of this page. Students should first of all identify as many items as they can from the montage (e.g. heart, rose, dagger, vial of poison). They should then pick out as many ideas, themes and issues as they that are suggested by the images (e.g. love, violence, war). 

Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) Theme statues

Students are given pieces of paper which represent plaques for statues. They should write down the key themes of the play on these plaques, e.g. conflict, family, love, fate, time, beauty, death, friendship, etc. Imagine that Prince Escalus wants to erect statues around Verona for citizens to look at and learn from. Students should work in pairs or threes to sculpt themselves into thematic statues. Which statues would Prince Escalus choose? You could play the role of Escalus, selecting the statues and justifying ‘his’ choices. As an extension activity, students could embellish the plaques by having an appropriate quotation from the play engraved onto each plaque. There is a page to create some theme ‘plaques’ in the Student Booklet.

2) Text detectives: beauty and love at first sight

Romeo frequently comments on Juliet’s beauty. Explore with students Romeo’s first words when he sets eyes on Juliet, which can be found in the Student Booklet:

ROMEO: [to a Servingman] What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight?  

SERVINGMAN:    I know not, sir.

ROMEO:    O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright. It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear, Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o’er her fellow shows. The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Discussion points include:

• the immediacy and drama of Romeo’s reaction to seeing Juliet
• imagery of riches, jewels, etc.
• references to the sense of touch as well as the sense of sight
• the effect of Romeo’s use of rhyming couplets
• the idea that Juliet’s beauty is superior to all others
• how Romeo’s ‘love’ for Rosaline is eclipsed by Juliet, as seen in the last rhyming couplet

Now ask students to look for more quotations where Juliet’s beauty is described by Romeo. You could use an online concordance to begin with and search for the word ‘beauty’. You could also focus on scenes of courtship, such as Act 1 Scene 5 and Act 2 Scene 2. Also look at how Juliet praises Romeo and describes her attraction to him.

3) Pick a card...

Themes are important throughout a work of literature. To be able to write well about a theme in Romeo and Juliet , students need to track its importance at different points in the play. Have students randomly select a card from each pile: a character, a theme, and a section of the play. The template for these cards can be found in the downloadable Lesson Plans at the bottom of this page. This game could be used in the following ways:

• to support students in becoming more familiar with the play, and in moving more confidently around it and making quick connections
• as a revision tool without the text
• as the basis for detailed small group discussion involving close analysis of a specific passage, through the lenses of particular characters and themes
• to prepare students for exam questions which ask them to write about one part of the play in the context of the whole text

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

What would I say are the main themes in the Romeo and Juliet ?

What kinds of connections can I make between these themes?

How might a director draw out these themes on stage?

Suggested plenary activity…

In small groups, prepare a performance of the Prologue to Romeo and Juliet  accompanied by actions. How many of the play’s themes can students include in their performance?

Asides: Further Resources

• Students could make Valentine’s cards or love letters for Rosaline and Juliet, in the character of Romeo. Use some of Romeo’s quotations about attraction and beauty, and make a display of them. How do Romeo’s feelings for the two women compare?
• Students could also research the theme of beauty in other plays by Shakespeare.

Epilogue: Teacher's Note

Each of the themes mentioned in this suggested learning sequence has a dedicated lesson within these materials. In depth activities linked to ‘Conflict and violence’ and ‘Romantic Love’ follow here within the Key Stage 3 materials. Within the Key Stage 4 materials , there are activities linked to ‘Truth and secrecy, ‘Family’, ‘Age and Time’ and ‘Death, fate and tragedy’. You will also find detailed guidance on writing about themes. 

Key Questions for Students:

Can I investigate how Shakespeare establishes and develops the themes of conflict and violence in Romeo and Juliet ?

Key words: action, conflict, cue script, feud, insults, mindmap, opposites, prologue, reaction, theme, violence, war, weapons

In fan fiction, people create their own stories based on characters and locations from a well-known fictional world. Stories set at Hogwarts or in Middle Earth are popular examples! Give students a few minutes to brainstorm ideas about how they think the feud between the Capulets and Montagues might have started and share ideas. 

1) Insult generator

The Student Booklet provides students with copies of Rex Gibson’s Insult generator, from p. 199 of his book Teaching Shakespeare . Students could warm up by producing single insults and if they have time, they could prepare and rehearse a brief dialogue. Remind students that all the insults are Shakespeare’s. Can they identify which ones come from Romeo and Juliet ?

2) Words as weapons

This particular version of this activity was devised by Bill Buckhurst when he was directing Romeo and Juliet  in 2008 at the Globe. Pairs of students label themselves A and B and stand facing each other, so that all students are arranged in two lines. They pretend to send a weapon to their ‘enemy’, possibly adding a sound effect. Students take it in turns to hurl imaginary weapons - and to react to the weapons that hit or miss them - for no more than a minute. Students could then apply this technique to a piece of text and to the character who is most vocal in that conflict, e.g. Tybalt in Act 3 Scene 1. Assign a line from this character to each student, and then ask the students to identify the most hurtful or damaging word in that line. Students should now hurl that word to their opponent and vice versa. Discuss afterwards which words were the most effective weapons and why.

3) The brawl: working with a cue script

Sitting in groups of nine, students should be assigned a character from Act 3 Scene 1. They should also be given a ‘cue script’ for that part. This consists of only the lines that character speaks (in the order in which they are spoken), and the three cue words spoken by another character before each of their lines. students could even construct their own cue scripts using an online version of the play text that they can cut and paste as needed. Students should work together – without a director - to develop their understanding of and confidence with this scene. Every time they read their lines they should think more about how they should speak, how they should move and why, using the clues in the text itself.

To what extent is  Romeo and Juliet  a play about conflict and its consequences? 

How would you present the conflict in the play to audiences? 

Which non-violent scenes contain conflict? 

Can all of the violence of the play be explained by the conflict between the Montagues and the Capulets, or are there other causes?

Students should create a colourful, illustrated mindmap with the word ‘conflict’ or  ‘violence’ in the middle. As they read the play, they should add ideas relating the ideas of conflict and violence to the play’s characters, their situations and problems, their relationships and their motivations.

Aside: Further Resource

• At the time Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet ,  England was divided following Henry VIII’s split from the Catholic Church in 1533. Bitter feuding between Protestants and Catholics would have been an everyday reality for young men like Shakespeare.

Students could develop their ideas about how the feud began into a piece of creative writing.

Can I investigate how Shakespeare establishes and develops the theme of romantic love in Romeo and Juliet ?

Key words: imagery, marriage, motifs, passion, romantic love, sonnet, staging, storyboard, tragic, youth

The video to Des’ree’s ‘Kissing You’ song from Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo + Juliet  could be playing as students enter the classroom for a lesson on this topic. Students could make a note of motifs and symbols that are associated with love in the video. Take feedback.

1) Text detectives: Romeo and Juliet’s sonnet

Elicit from students what they already know about the sonnet form: its length, iambic pentameter, rhyme scheme, association with love, Shakespeare’s own famous sonnet sequence. Explore closely the first words Romeo and Juliet exchange with each other in Act 1 Scene 5 lines 92-109, which can be found in the S tudent Booklet:

ROMEO:   If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET:      Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this, For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO:   Have not saints lips and holy palmers too?

JULIET:    Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO:   O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do – They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET:    Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO:   Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take. Give me my sin again.  [Kisses her.]

JULIET:     You kiss by th’ book.

Students could annotate these lines. Support them in their note taking, so that the following structural and language features are drawn in the discussion:

• the 14 line structure
• the rhyme scheme (ABABCBCBDEDEFF)
• religious imagery such as ‘pilgrims’, ‘saints’ and ‘sin’
• the physicality of the language (‘lips’, ‘hands’, ‘touch’)
• repeated words such as ‘prayer’, ‘hand’/’hands’ and ‘palm’/’palmers’
• the poem’s conclusion with a rhyming couplet and a kiss

Discuss with students the effect of Romeo and Juliet’s first words together forming a sonnet.

( Students  could also watch footage of this sonnet in the link below, as performed by Jade Anouka and Will Featherstone.)

2) Staging the balcony scene

As an introduction to this task, students could watch this scene in the Zeffirelli and/or the Lurhmann version. Take some brief feedback from students about what they have noticed and what they enjoyed. Then watch the footage of this scene below from the 2013 Globe production, starring Will Featherstone and Jade Anouka. Students could make notes in the Student Booklet about different ways in which the scene has been staged, how it could be staged, and the effects of different choices.

3) Marriage

In Act 3 Scene 5 lines 1-64, Shakespeare presents Romeo and Juliet’s short-lived happiness together as a married couple. Students could then discuss their own ideas about staging this scene and the effect they want this scene to have on the audience. Students should create either a storyboard with speech bubbles for quotations, or an annotated script to indicate their ideas about directing this scene. Students can draw on interests in drawing, collage, photography, dance, etc. to develop their personal responses to this task. There is a page for students on writing a commentary linked to their storyboards in the Student Booklet.

(One version of how to stage this scene can be viewed in the link below. Students could compare this with the version from the Globe DVD and/or from other film versions too).

How does Shakespeare convey the intensity and sincerity of Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other?

What are the factors that prevent Romeo and Juliet’s love story from having a happy ending? 

In Shakespeare’s comic play  A Midsummer Night’s Dream – written at around the same time as  Romeo and Juliet , and seen by many as a companion play to it – Lysander says ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’. Discuss the truth of this quotation in relation to  Romeo and Juliet  and, if students are sufficiently familiar with it, to  A Midsummer Night’s Dream  too. What do the two plays have in common?

• Shakespeare and his contemporaries often wrote action for the upper level of the stage. The use of the upper level in this scene means that Juliet is both safe at home and at the same time visible to Romeo, allowing for an extended moment of intimacy.
• The word ‘balcony’ might have been unknown to Shakespeare. Our first record of it in writing dates from two years after the play was written. Although Shakespeare says that Juliet appears ‘aloft’, the convention of Juliet appearing on a balcony only became commonplace after David Garrick used a balcony in his adaptation in the eighteenth century.

The storyboard/annotated script activity on Act 3 Scene 5 lines 1-64 could be accompanied by a commentary and used as an assessment piece.

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The prologue of Romeo and Juliet calls the title characters “star-crossed lovers”—and the stars do seem to conspire against these young lovers.

Romeo is a Montague, and Juliet a Capulet. Their families are enmeshed in a feud, but the moment they meet—when Romeo and his friends attend a party at Juliet’s house in disguise—the two fall in love and quickly decide that they want to be married.

A friar secretly marries them, hoping to end the feud. Romeo and his companions almost immediately encounter Juliet’s cousin Tybalt, who challenges Romeo. When Romeo refuses to fight, Romeo’s friend Mercutio accepts the challenge and is killed. Romeo then kills Tybalt and is banished. He spends that night with Juliet and then leaves for Mantua.

Juliet’s father forces her into a marriage with Count Paris. To avoid this marriage, Juliet takes a potion, given her by the friar, that makes her appear dead. The friar will send Romeo word to be at her family tomb when she awakes. The plan goes awry, and Romeo learns instead that she is dead. In the tomb, Romeo kills himself. Juliet wakes, sees his body, and commits suicide. Their deaths appear finally to end the feud.

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Getting Started With Romeo and Juliet

For many students, Romeo and Juliet is the first experience they have with Shakespeare. And it’s a huge leap for them from what they’ve read in school before. The language is difficult, the cultural context is foreign, and the material looks indecipherable.

However, as a teacher, there are steps you can take before reading Romeo and Juliet that will help them get through the play a little easier. When I teach the play, here are a few things I do.

A few weeks before

There’s no reason you can’t start prepping students for Shakespeare’s language ahead of time. I like to use the first five or ten minutes of each class a few weeks before we start reading to do bell ringers that build awareness of a few things that they’ll find with Shakespeare’s language: contractions, inverted words, allusions, iambic pentameter, and the other things they’ll encounter from day one. That way they’ll be more familiar with the language way before we start the play. 

Right before you read

You’ll want to go over Shakespeare’s life and times , of course. Perhaps you also want to do a quick study of the time period in which Shakespeare wrote. I like to have my students do a mini-research project on the Elizabethan Era in which they answer the following question: How was life harder during the time of Shakespeare. I assign them different topics: food and cooking, marriage, medicine, sanitation, and have them present in small groups to each other. Here’s a link to the instructions I use for this assignment. 

Go over just the basics

Before you begin reading, don’t overwhelm the students with everything about the play. Here are the basics that they need to know before they start reading Act One:

-The Capulets and Montagues are fighting. No one knows why, but this has gone on for a while. Romeo is a Montague, Juliet is a Capulet (Juliet and Capulet rhyme – that’s how I keep them straight.)

-At the beginning when Romeo is upset about a girl who doesn’t love him, he’s actually talking about Rosaline, not Juliet. My students get confused about this.

I like to give them a brief character list that doesn’t give too much away. Here’s the one I use.  

You might want to give them a brief outline of what happens in each act – but not too much to give away everything! You still want them to read the play!

When you start the play 

I never start with the prologue. Sometimes I skip it completely (you don’t have to read the whole thing.) And we never read the fight that begins Act One. Act One begins with a bunch of puns and difficult language, which immediately tells the students “There’s no way I’m going to get this.” 

So instead I show them the opening fight scene in the Zefferelli movie (which I think is now only available to rent on Amazon Prime ) and we talk about what they noticed. They get a good introduction to Benvolio, Tybalt and the two families, and much of the dialogue is cut out. And I ALWAYS turn on the subtitles any time we watch the play so they can see the language twice. 

I want to put in a quick plug here for the Globe Theatre production of Romeo and Juliet . I  have started showing this instead of the Zefferelli film. For one thing, it’s a filmed production of the play, so students can see what it would look like in a performance. Also, the entire play is performed. Most importantly, the cast is multicultural. It’s a bit pricey, but worth every penny. Check it out here , if for no other reason than you can use parts of it to show students what the play would look like to Shakespeare’s audience.

Occasionally, I start with the balcony scene before I begin reading the play. Read this blog post to see how I do it. 

As You Read

You’ll definitely want to keep things fun and entertaining! Shakespeare is perfect for that. And I have the perfect way to achieve this with my Romeo and Juliet Comics and Activities . You’ll get a comic summary of each act that will help students interact with the play. There are even Easter eggs in each comic of images and metaphors from the play, like “a snowy dove trooping with crows.” In addition, there are warm up activities you can use before or after each act that get students diving into the language in creative ways.  Click here to check out Romeo and Juliet Comics and Activities.  

Or you can get it bundled with some other great Shakespeare resources in the Romeo and Juliet Bundle . You’ll get the comic set as well as a comic biography of Shakespeare , comic lessons on Sonnet 18 and iambic pentameter , and a set of bell ringers you can use to get students familiar with the language as I mentioned above. 

I know you’re the kind of teacher that makes their classroom a fun, engaging learning environment. I have a series of lessons done as comics that address various ELA topics like grammar , poetry, editing , and Shakespeare , all of which will make your students glad they came to class that day. All the fun is there for you, and your kids will love studying any of these topics because they’ll get a new comic every day! Please check out my resources and let the learning begin!

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Writing the wrongs

This resource offers a selection of writing tasks for students to complete, based on key events from Romeo and Juliet . The resource asks them to write either a front-page newspaper article describing a fight between the Montagues and Capulets, an article for a magazine covering the Capulet party or obituaries for Mercutio and Tybalt. 

There are pointers to help students with purpose, structure and language. 

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Romeo & Juliet: List of Homework Task Ideas

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

7 February 2015

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Empty reply does not make any sense for the end user

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Rosiebaldieri.

Great resource and wonderful ideas for engaging pupils with SEN ...thank you

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