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/f
aq.htm
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_J
uliet
 http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/ful
l.html