The Backstory: Did Shakespeare steal the Romeo and Juliet story?

It’s called the most famous love story of all time: William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But was it a true story or did it come completely from Shakespeare’s brilliant creative mind? Maybe neither.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, not everybody celebrates Valentine's Day, but if you do
or you don't, there's still kind of a fascination with
a story that became wildly popular well over four hundred
years ago and is still the most famous love story
ever written. It's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet starcross lovers
whose families tried to keep him apart, only to have

(00:22):
them finally get together in death. But the question is
was Romeo and Juliet based on a true story or
did it just pop out of Shakespeare's brilliant mind. Maybe
it was both or neither. I'm Patty Steele. The answer
is coming up next on the backstory. The backstory is back.

(00:45):
Romeo and Juliet was written in the fifteen nineties and
first performed on stage in fifteen ninety seven. With it,
William Shakespeare gave us a tragic romance but a little
bit of comedy thrown in. He liked to do that.
It was early in his career, and it was one
of his most popular plays while he was still alive,
and for the next four centuries continued to be a

(01:07):
fan favorite. Some say it's the most famous love story ever.
I mean who doesn't love to get misty eyed over
the misfortunes of some seemingly perfect couple. I think j
Lo and ben Affleck, or maybe not. But the thing
is Shakespeare was probably inspired to write the story after
reading earlier stories and poems about the same star cross lovers,

(01:30):
and the story of Romeo and Juliet was probably inspired
in part by some real life events and people. Going
way way back to the year eight a d. The
Roman poet Ovid wrote a tragic story that's a lot
like Romeo and Juliet. It was about two young lovers
whose fathers had an ongoing feud and said no way

(01:52):
to a wedding between the kids. The pair eventually agreed
to meet up in the woods. When the young girl
shows up, she spots a lot with a bloody mouth.
She's afraid and she runs away, but she leaves her
cloak behind. Then her sweetheart shows up. He sees the
blood and her cape, and, believing her dead, falls on
his sword, apparently a noble thing to do in those days. Finally,

(02:16):
the young girl returns to the scene. She's horrified to
find the bloody body of her dead lover, and she
decides to stab herself with the same sword, and she
dies next to him. Sounds a lot like the Romeo
and Juliet we know, And who knew that? There's a
Romeo and Juliet reference by Dante of Dante's Inferno Fame

(02:36):
from two hundred and fifty years before Shakespeare's birth. He
wrote in his epic poem about two rivaling families in Italy,
the Montagus and Capulets. He says, come and see you
who are negligent Montague's and Capulets, one lot already grieving,
the other in fear. Come you who are cruel. Come

(02:57):
and see the distress of your noble families, and cleanse
their rottenness. Wow. Dante died in thirteen twenty one, but
historians say as well known as Dante still was by
the time Shakespeare around, it's pretty clear Shakespeare, again, two
hundred and fifty years later, would have known his work.
And then there was a guy named Matteo Bandello who

(03:18):
was the biggest short story writer of his day. He
died in fifteen sixty two, just a couple of years
before Shakespeare was born. In fifteen sixty four, he had
written a story that was translated as the tragical history
of Romius and Juliet again before Shakespeare was even born.
And finally, there was Luigi de Porto, an Italian writer

(03:41):
in the early fifteen hundreds whose story was partially based
on his own sad, real life love story with a
woman named Lucina. In the true story, he and Lucina's
families hate each other, then he goes off to war.
He is wounded in battle, and he comes home a paraplegic. Sadly,
Lucina was unknow by his injuries, and she marries somebody

(04:02):
else and his kids. De Porto, trying to ease his
pain through writing, takes the basic facts of his own
story but changes it up. He calls it a novel
of two lovers and their death in Verona. He uses
the family names Capulet and Montague, which came from the
real life Italian families, the Monteci and the Capuletti. He

(04:23):
inserts most of the characters that Shakespeare used decades later,
many with the same names, the same love scenes, and
the families finally reconciling after their kids are dead. Sounds
a little like plagiarism, but actually there weren't any copyright
laws in those days. So Shakespeare had the right to
take the story and go to town on it, adding his

(04:45):
own genius style. Today you can visit Verona, Italy and
see Juliet's balcony on a thirteenth century home once owned
by the Capulet or Capelletti family. It's one of the
most visited monuments in Italy. Of people go there to
tuck notes about their own love lives into the wall,
and they also, as per tradition, rubbed the right breast

(05:08):
on a bronze statue of Juliet in the garden, leaving
that part of the statue golden from all the caressing hands.
It's supposed to bring you luck. We do know that
the balcony on the house that represents the spot where
Juliet stood to call down to Romeo was actually added
to the house in nineteen oh five, after the house
became a tourist attraction. So at the end of the day,

(05:31):
was it a true story. It's thought that Shakespeare adapted
the story from lots of other stories and maybe true
stories as well. And rewrote it as kind of a
satire about people's anger and judgment and the pain it
causes them. It's a story with a lesson and some truth.
William Shakespeare made his point with the opening line of

(05:52):
Romeo and Juliet, which reads, two households both alike in
dignity in fair Verona, where we lay our scene from
ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes
civil hands unclean. Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele.

(06:19):
I would love it if you'd subscribe or follow for
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like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
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(06:41):
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
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on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't

(07:03):
know you needed to know