Background Context

Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play written by William Shakespeare between the years 1594 and 1596. It was composed around the same time as Shakespeare’s other plays such as Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Today scholars often group these plays together because they cover very similar themes such as love, loss, marriage, and courtship. In Italy, during this time there were indeed two warring and feuding families in the region that is spoken about during the play. The Montecchi of Verona and the Capelletti of Cremona were locked in a continuing political and ideological struggle. The same two families are referred to in Dante’s Alighieri’s Purgatorio, Canto VI, but there is no evidence to suggest that these families did indeed have children by the names of Romeo and Juliet. The very first performances of Romeo and Juliet took place in what is believed to be the winter of 1594 when the playhouses were first reopened after having been closed due to the break out of the plague in London in 1593. The plague was exceptionally virulent and during this period, over 10,000 people in London alone lost their lives due to the disease. The relevance of the plague during this time is reflected in the narrative of Romeo and Juliet, as it is due to the plague that the message from Friar Lawrence is prevented from reaching Romeo in Mantua.