How is shakespeare version of romeo and Juliet different from the origin?

Answer 1

It's hard to say, because it's hard to say which actually is the original. Shakespeare used as his source a poem by Arthur Brooke, but Brooke took the story from someone else, who took it from someone else, and so on and so on for generations. The origins of the story may be folk-tales or Ovid's tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, centuries before.

We can compare Shakespeare's version with Brooke's. The time-line in Brooke's poem is much less compressed. Brooke does not give the name of Romeo's inamorata at the beginning of the story; Shakespeare invented the name Rosaline. Having given up on Rosaline, Romeo (whose name in Brooke is Romeus) spends some time looking around before he encounters Juliet at a Christmas party. Tybalt is not there and Mercutio is not a friend of Romeus. Although Romeus greets her at her window the next day, he actually spends several weeks mooning around her window before the balcony scene happens. The couple get married and have several months of connubial bliss before Romeus runs into Tybalt in a brawl. Although Romeus pleads for Tybalt to make peace, Tybalt forces Romeus to defend himself and Tybalt is killed. The Mercutio complication was totally Shakespeare's invention.

Romeus is banished and Juliet's first thought is that she can leave with Romeus in disguise. But he asks her to wait four months while he is in Mantua to see if the Prince will relent, and if he doesn't he promises that at that time they will leave Verona together.

But the Paris thing happens in the same way as it does in the play, and events unfold in the same way up to the deaths of the lovers. Then after the Friar tells the story, and Romeus's letter he left with his servant (called Peter not Balthazar) make everything clear. The results are a little bit more harsh than in Shakespeare. The apothecary is hanged, the nurse is banished, and the Friar voluntarily retreats into a monastery where he shortly dies.