Romeo and Juliet is a play by William Shakespeare and written about 1594-96. In literature, music, dance, and theatre, the characters of Romeo and Juliet have been widely depicted as young hero and heroine whose families are unforgiving enemies. Even today, in the popular imagination, they are the representative type of star-crossed lovers. Principal source for the plot of this drama was a long narrative poem by the English poet Arthur Brooke. Scenes are set in Verona, Italy. Juliet and Romeo meet and fall instantly in love and they profess their love when Romeo, unwilling to leave, climbs the wall into the orchard garden of her family's house and fi nds her alone at her window. As their families are enemies, the two are married secretly. But their rivalry aff ects the relationship of their children. Due to their families' ongoing confl ict, they cannot be together, so they kill themselves because they cannot cope with being separated from one another. Thus, Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story.
