The world's most famous love story … retold in modern English verse.
The complete Romeo and Juliet study guide – every line translated; every rhythm kept; every scene, character and theme explored – free for students, teachers, actors, and theatregoers.
Romeo and Juliet Overview
Romeo and Juliet Deep Dive
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ACT 1
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 Prologue
Fourteen lines that tell you how it ends
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Prologue retold in modern English verse: the sonnet that tells the whole story first.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 Scene 1
A street brawl and a lovesick Romeo
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 1 retold in modern English verse: the feud erupts and the Prince decrees death.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 Scene 2
A proposal and a gatecrashed guest list
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 2 retold in modern English verse: a feast, a guest list, and a fateful invitation. -
Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 Scene 3
Juliet hears of marriage for the first time
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 3 retold in modern English verse: the Nurse reminisces and Paris is proposed.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 Scene 4
Masks, Queen Mab, and a dark foreboding
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 4 retold in modern English verse: Mercutio's Queen Mab speech on the way to the feast.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 Scene 5
Love at first sight beneath an enemy roof
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 5 retold in modern English verse: Romeo and Juliet meet, kiss, and learn the truth.
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ACT 2
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Prologue
A dead infatuation and a dangerous new love
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Prologue retold in modern English verse: the Chorus weighs the lovers' new peril.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Scene 1
Romeo vanishes and Mercutio conjures in vain
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 1 retold in modern English verse: Romeo hides in the orchard from his friends.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Scene 2
The balcony scene – vows made by moonlight
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 2 retold in modern English verse: Romeo and Juliet plan their secret marriage.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Scene 3
A friar sees a cure for the feud in a wedding
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 3 retold in modern English verse: Romeo asks Friar Laurence to perform the marriage.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Scene 4
A battle of wits and a message for Juliet
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 4 retold in modern English verse: Mercutio teases and the Nurse carries the plan. -
Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Scene 5
The Nurse takes her time with golden news
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 5 retold in modern English verse: Juliet waits three hours for word from Romeo.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 2 Scene 6
A secret wedding in the Friar's cell
Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 6 retold in modern English verse: Friar Laurence marries Romeo and Juliet at last.
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ACT 3
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 3 Scene 1
Mercutio falls, Tybalt dies, Romeo is banished
Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 1 retold in modern English verse: the duel that turns the play to tragedy.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 3 Scene 2
News that turns a wedding day to mourning
Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 2 retold in modern English verse: Juliet hears of Tybalt's death and Romeo's exile.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 3 Scene 3
For Romeo, banishment is worse than death
Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 3 retold in modern English verse: Romeo despairs until the Friar makes a plan.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 3 Scene 4
A wedding promised in a heartbeat
Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 4 retold in modern English verse: Capulet promises Juliet to Paris on Thursday.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 3 Scene 5
A dawn parting and a father's fury
Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 5 retold in modern English verse: the lovers part and Capulet turns tyrant.
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ACT 4
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 4 Scene 1
The Friar's potion and a desperate plan
Romeo and Juliet Act 4, Scene 1 retold in modern English verse: Juliet accepts a potion that counterfeits death.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 4 Scene 2
Juliet plays the dutiful daughter too well
Romeo and Juliet Act 4, Scene 2 retold in modern English verse: Capulet brings the wedding forward a day.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 4 Scene 3
Juliet faces her terrors and drinks
Romeo and Juliet Act 4, Scene 3 retold in modern English verse: alone at night, Juliet takes the potion.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 4 Scene 4
A sleepless house prepares for a wedding
Romeo and Juliet Act 4, Scene 4 retold in modern English verse: the Capulets bustle as Paris's music sounds.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 4 Scene 5
A bride found dead on her wedding morning
Romeo and Juliet Act 4, Scene 5 retold in modern English verse: the household mourns; only the Friar knows the truth.
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ACT 5
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 5 Scene 1
Dreadful news and a dram of poison
Romeo and Juliet Act 5, Scene 1 retold in modern English verse: Romeo hears Juliet is dead and buys poison.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 5 Scene 2
The letter that never reached Mantua
Romeo and Juliet Act 5, Scene 2 retold in modern English verse: plague quarantine wrecks Friar Laurence's plan.
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Romeo and Juliet – Act 5 Scene 3
Three deaths in the tomb end an ancient feud
Romeo and Juliet Act 5, Scene 3 retold in modern English verse: the final scene at the Capulet tomb.
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Frequently asked questions about Romeo and Juliet
What is Romeo and Juliet about?
Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare's great tragedy of young love, written in the mid-1590s. In Verona, two teenagers from feuding families – Romeo, a Montague, and Juliet, a Capulet – fall in love at a party and marry in secret the next day. A street brawl leaves Mercutio and Tybalt dead and Romeo banished, and Friar Laurence's desperate plan to reunite the lovers goes wrong: each, believing the other dead, dies by suicide. Over their bodies, the two families finally end their feud.
When was Romeo and Juliet written?
Romeo and Juliet was written around 1594–1596, in the same burst of lyrical writing that produced A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was first printed in a short, unreliable quarto (Q1) in 1597, then in a fuller authorised quarto (Q2) in 1599, which is the basis of most modern editions. Shakespeare's direct source was Arthur Brooke's long narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), itself drawn from Italian novellas.
What genre is Romeo and Juliet?
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy – but an unusual one. Its first two acts play like a romantic comedy: wordplay, disguise, a masked ball, young lovers outwitting their parents. Mercutio's death in Act 3 snaps the play into tragedy, and the Prologue has already told us the ending – the lovers are "star-crossed" from the opening fourteen lines, a sonnet that frames the whole play as fate working itself out.
Did Shakespeare invent the story of Romeo and Juliet?
No – the story was already well known. Shakespeare's main source was Arthur Brooke's poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which drew on earlier Italian novellas by Luigi da Porto and Matteo Bandello. What Shakespeare changed is what makes the play his: he compressed Brooke's nine months into four breathless days, deepened Juliet into the play's cleverest and most courageous character, and invented much of Mercutio and the Nurse as we know them.
What level is Romeo and Juliet studied at?
Romeo and Juliet is often the first full Shakespeare play students meet – it is a staple at Key Stage 3 and GCSE, and it also appears at A-Level (UK), AP English Literature (US), the IB Diploma, and on undergraduate Shakespeare courses worldwide. This study guide is written to support all of these levels, with modern English translation, scene-by-scene analysis, character profiles, theme guides, and key quotes.
What are the most famous lines in Romeo and Juliet?
Romeo and Juliet may be the most quoted love story ever written. Among its most famous lines: "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?", "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?", "What's in a name? That which we call a rose", "A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life", "Parting is such sweet sorrow", and "A plague o' both your houses!". Each is analysed in depth on the key quotes page.