Two teenagers from feuding families in Verona fall in love at a feast, marry in secret, and are dead within about five days of meeting.
A short, fast tragedy you can read in an evening, and a good one to read with a calendar, because the play names Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and the rest can be counted. The verse is dense in places and the humour is bawdy, but it is free. Four and a half out of five (my opinion).
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
A full-spoiler Romeo and Juliet summary built as a day-by-day timeline from the play's own time markers, with the hours between meeting, marriage, banishment and death, eight links in the chain, and counts by act. Project Gutenberg text, counted by us.
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare in five acts and twenty-four scenes. The heirs of two feuding families in Verona meet at a masked feast, marry in secret the next day, and are caught in a chain of killings, a banishment, a forced second marriage and a sleeping potion. It is in the public domain, and we worked from the free Project Gutenberg ebook, number 1513, in the edition prepared by the Project Gutenberg Shakespeare Team volunteers. Act and scene numbers on this site follow that edition, and other editions may number scenes differently.
Below you’ll find a day-by-day timeline built from the text’s own time markers: the weekdays it names, the clock times it gives, and the places where it is vague. There is also a chain of eight moments where the tragedy could have been stopped, and counts of lines and key words by act. The page has full spoilers, since it is a classic and the whole play is covered.
A short, fast tragedy you can read in an evening, and a good one to read with a calendar, because the play names Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and the rest can be counted. The verse is dense in places and the humour is bawdy, but it is free. Four and a half out of five (my opinion). Read it if: you only know the balcony and the poison and want the play behind them; you want a classic you can finish in one sitting; you like stories where a tight timeline drives the tragedy; you are studying it and want the days, the hours and the chain of mistakes in one place. Skip it if: you dislike shakespeare's verse and want modern prose; you want a happy ending: the title pair die in the last scene; you want a slow, gradual love story: this one takes under two days to marry.
A full-spoiler Romeo and Juliet summary built as a day-by-day timeline from the play's own time markers, with the hours between meeting, marriage, banishment and death, eight links in the chain, and counts by act. Project Gutenberg text, counted by us. Summary: Romeo and Juliet →
Not yet fourteen. In act one, scene three, the nurse says she turns fourteen on Lammas Eve, and Lady Capulet says that is a fortnight and odd days away. Lammas Day is the first of August.
Friar John explains in act five, scene two that searchers shut him in a house they suspected of plague, so he could not leave for Mantua and brought the letter back. Romeo hears of Juliet's death from his servant Balthasar instead.
William Shakespeare. The play is in the public domain, and the free Project Gutenberg ebook number 1513 is the text this page was built from.
