Romeo and Juliet

Studied for Junior Cycle English exam years 2028, 2029, 2030.

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenagers from feuding families who marry in secret and die for it. This page is where to start if the play is one of your studied texts for Junior Cycle English. It covers the facts, the story in order, the people who matter, and what the exam wants from you.

Quick facts

• Written by: William Shakespeare, in the 1590s
• Setting: Verona, a city in northern Italy
• Kind of play: a tragedy, so the main characters are dead by the end
• Length: five acts
• The situation: two wealthy families, the Capulets and the Montagues, stuck in a long-running feud
• Studied at: Higher Level and Ordinary Level

Three things to know before you start Romeo and Juliet

1. The ending is announced before the play begins. A Chorus walks on and tells you flatly that both lovers will die. Shakespeare is not hiding the plot. The tension is in how it happens, not in what happens.

“A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”
Chorus, opening the play, in the Prologue.

2. The whole thing takes about four days. They meet at a party on the first night and marry the next morning. Nothing has time to settle or be checked. That is why every decision feels rushed, and why the one adult who preaches patience is ignored by everybody, himself included.

“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
Friar Lawrence, sending Romeo off to the wedding, in Act 2, Scene 3.

3. The feud is the engine, not the romance. The love story only exists because of the hatred around it. Take the feud away and there is no secret wedding, no banishment and no tomb. Notice who pays for it. Mercutio is neither a Capulet nor a Montague, and he dies in their quarrel.

“A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.”
Mercutio, dying after Tybalt wounds him, in Act 3, Scene 1.

What happens, act by act

Act 1. A street brawl between Capulet and Montague servants opens the play, and the Prince bans fighting on pain of death. Juliet’s mother asks how she feels about marrying Paris, and she answers like a dutiful child. That night Romeo gatecrashes the Capulet party and meets her. They fall in love before either learns the other’s surname.

“It is an honour that I dream not of.”
Juliet, asked about marrying Paris, in Act 1, Scene 3.

Act 2. Romeo comes back to the Capulet garden that night and they agree to marry. Friar Lawrence performs the wedding in secret, hoping it will force the two families to make peace.

Act 3. Tybalt picks a fight in the street and kills Mercutio. Romeo kills Tybalt, and the Prince banishes him from Verona. Juliet’s father, knowing none of this, orders her to marry Paris on Thursday.

“O, I am fortune’s fool!”
Romeo, straight after killing Tybalt, in Act 3, Scene 1.

Act 4. Friar Lawrence gives Juliet a drug that will make her seem dead for about two days. She drinks it. Her family find her body, and the wedding turns into a funeral.

Act 5. The Friar’s letter never reaches Romeo. He hears only that Juliet is dead, buys poison and drinks it beside her. She wakes, finds him, and kills herself with his dagger. The two fathers end the feud over the bodies of their children.

Who matters

• Romeo. A teenager in love with being in love. He acts first and thinks afterwards, and that habit kills him.
• Juliet. Thirteen years old. She begins as an obedient daughter and ends up outthinking every adult around her.
• Mercutio. Romeo’s friend, all jokes and provocation. His death is the hinge of the play, because the comedy stops there.
• Tybalt. Juliet’s cousin. He treats family honour as a thing worth killing for, and he takes Mercutio down with him.
• The Nurse. Juliet’s carer since birth and her go-between with Romeo. She abandons her advice the moment the plan turns dangerous.
• Friar Lawrence. The adult who tries to fix things and makes them worse. Every plan he makes depends on luck holding.
• Lord and Lady Capulet. Juliet’s parents. Her father swings from protective to threatening in two scenes, and her mother offers her nothing when she begs for help.
• Lord and Lady Montague. Romeo’s parents. They barely appear, and that absence is part of the point.

How Shakespeare shows up in the Junior Cycle exam

Your studied play is examined in Section C, Responding Imaginatively, worth 70 of the 180 marks on the final written paper. That paper runs for two hours and carries 90 percent of your grade. The Assessment Task, worth 10 percent, is done separately.

Section C questions on a studied text usually ask you to write about one of these:

• a moment that stayed with you
• a character you admired or could not stand
• a relationship that mattered
• a theme the text deals with

Romeo and Juliet gives you good material for all four shapes. At Ordinary Level the questions come in plainer wording, with more guidance built into the question itself.

Where to start

Read the Prologue first, out loud if you can. It is fourteen lines long and it hands you the whole plot, so nothing later can catch you out. Then read Act 1 in one sitting instead of scene by scene. The play moves fast, and the shape only shows at speed.

Keep a page in your copy for quotes as you go. Five short ones you can spell are worth more in Section C than twenty you half remember. Note the speaker and the act and scene beside each one.

Every page for this play

Act by act, in order:

• Act 1 summary, the feud, the party and the meeting.
• Act 2 summary, the balcony and the secret wedding.
• Act 3 summary, the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, and the banishment.
• Act 4 summary, Juliet alone, and the sleeping potion.
• Act 5 summary, the letter that never arrives, and the tomb.

The people and the ideas:

• Romeo, and how he changes from Rosaline to the tomb.
• Juliet, who grows up faster than anyone else in the play.
• Mercutio, the funniest character, and the one whose death turns the play.
• Love, the several kinds of it, not just the balcony.
• Conflict and fate, the feud, and how much was really written in the stars.
• Quotes, short lines you can learn, with who says them and when.

Read next

• Junior Cycle drama, the other plays on the course.
• Junior Cycle English, everything on the course.
• Of Mice and Men, another studied text.
• The Outsiders, another studied text.