About the Play:

The houses of Montague and Capulet have been feuding for quite a while. Shakespeare spins a tragic and timeless story of Romeo and Juliet, two young people who fall deeply in love in spite of a bitter feud between their families. When issues come forth, the young lovers try to escape their family's feud, with unfortunate consequences. Their passion – and Juliet's courage – are eternally moving and inspiring. And today more than ever, this play about "two households alike in dignity" becomes a hopeful reminder that with the power of love, even the world's greatest divides can be healed.

Read William Shakespeare's great comedy Romeo and Juliet in all its brilliance and actually understand what it means. No Fear Shakespeare gives you Shakespeare's complete text of Romeo and Juliet on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand modern English on the right.

Shakespeare side-by-side in plain English. Each No Fear Shakespeare contains:
• The complete text of the original play
• A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into the kind of English people actually speak today
• A complete list of characters with descriptions
• Plenty of helpful commentary

First performed at the Globe Theatre in 1595, Romeo and Juliet has been subject to countless interpretations. The play has also served as inspiration for other pieces, one of the most notable of which is Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story.

About the Playwright:

William Shakespeare was a seventeenth-century writer and dramatist, and is arguably the greatest English-language playwright. Known as the Bard of Avon, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I, he penned more than 30 plays, 154 sonnets, and numerous narrative poems and short verses. Equally accomplished in histories, tragedies, comedy, and romance, Shakespeare's most famous works include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, The Taming of the Shrew, and As You Like It. Like many of his contemporaries, including Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare began his career on the stage, eventually rising to become part-owner of Lord Chamberlain's Men, a popular dramatic company of his day, and of the storied Globe Theatre in London. Extremely popular in his lifetime, Shakespeare's works continue to resonate more than three hundred years after his death. His plays are performed more often than any other playwright's, have been translated into every major language in the world, and are studied widely by scholars and students.