Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting the play's balcony scene
L'ultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeo by Francesco Hayez. Oil on canvas, 1823.
Masuccio Salernitano, author of Mariotto & Ganozza (1476), the earliest known version of Romeo & Juliet tale
Frontispiece of Giulietta e Romeo by Luigi da Porto, 1530
Shakespearean tragedy is the designation given to most tragedies written by playwright William Shakespeare. Many of his history plays share the qualifiers of a Shakespearean tragedy, but because they are based on real figures throughout the history of England, they were classified as "histories" in the First Folio. The Roman tragedies—Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus—are also based on historical figures, but because their sources were foreign and ancient, they are almost always classified as tragedies rather than histories. Shakespeare's romances were written late in his career and published originally as either tragedy or comedy. They share some elements of tragedy, insofar as they feature a high-status central character, but they end happily like Shakespearean comedies. Almost three centuries after Shakespeare's death, the scholar F. S. Boas also coined a fifth category, the "problem play," for plays that do not fit neatly into a single classification because of their subject matter, setting, or ending. Scholars continue to disagree on how to categorize some Shakespearean plays.
Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, Joshua Reynolds (1784). Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) was an esteemed performer of Shakespearean tragedy.
Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) King Lear, Cordelia's Farewell
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California
Hamlet and his Father's Ghost, William Blake (1806)