Who is Romeo?
Romeo Montague (Italian: Romeo Montecchi) is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest named Friar Laurence. Forced into exile after slaying Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, in a duel, Romeo dies by suicide upon hearing falsely of Juliet's death. The character's origins can be traced as far back as Pyramus, who appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, but the first modern incarnation of Romeo is Mariotto in the 33rd of Masuccio Salernitano's Il Novellino (1476). This story was reworked in 1524 by Luigi da Porto as Giulietta e Romeo (published posthumously in 1531). Da Porto named the character Romeo Montecchi, and the storyline is nearly the same as Shakespeare's adaptation. Since no 16th-century direct English translation of Giulietta e Romeo is known, Shakespeare's main source is thought to be Arthur Brooke's English verse...
