Romeo Montecchi – the main character of the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare. Juliet’s beloved. He committed suicide when he mistakenly decided that Juliet was dead.
The first literary work, in which the characters of Juliet and Romeo appeared, is “The Newly Found History of Two Noble Lovers”, written by Italian author Luigi da Porto and published in 1530. Most likely, for Shakespeare, the main source of inspiration was the poem The Tragic History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), written by Arthur Brooke.
For the first time, Romeo appears to readers as a man who is madly in love with Rosalina, Juliet’s cousin. The girl is unavailable to him, since she gave a vow of celibacy. Suffering Romeo often walks alone before dawn. When the day comes, he locks himself in his chambers and curtains the windows. In fact, this love can not be called real. Both Romeo’s feelings and his actions seem to be fake, insincere, made-up. The young man as if revels in his sufferings.
To see Rosalina, Romeo, wearing a mask, comes to a holiday in the house of Capuleti. Before entering, he predicts his own future. The young man says that the festival will be “the beginning of unspeakable disasters” and will eventually bring him a “terrible, untimely death.” Despite such a gloomy prediction, Romeo decides to take a step towards his fate. Seeing at the festival Juliet, he instantly falls in love with her. Romeo realizes that he hasn’t seen true beauty before and sincerely disliked. There is a short conversation between young people, accompanied by a kiss.
At the risk of life, at night Romeo comes to Capulet’s garden, where Juliet confesses his love and offers to get married. He happily agrees. Romeo’s feelings are so strong that he immediately after the meeting hurries to Brother Lorenzo and persuades the monk to secretly marry them to Juliet that day. The priest agrees. Notice how decisive Romeo becomes when he falls in love with Juliet. Quite differently, he behaved, allegedly being in love with Rosalina. Then Romeo only sighed and suffered.
Combined with Juliet legal marriage, Romeo begins to take a different attitude to the relatives of the girl. Faced with Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, he does not want to conflict with him.
Then Romeo tries to separate Tybalt who has grappled with Mercutio, but he is not working. A tragedy happens: Tybalt mortally wounds Mercutio. Romeo is torn between love for Juliet and love for a friend. For the sake of Juliet, Romeo should not have avenged her relative. However, the young man makes a different choice – he follows the dictates of friendship and duty of honor. Acting under the impression of the death of Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt. The act is fatal. The enmity between the houses of Montague and Capuleti flares up with a new force, and after the wedding with Juliet Romeo sincerely wished to put an end to this war forever. In addition, the count punishes Romeo, albeit not too cruel. The young man is not executed, but sent out of the city. True, parting with Juliet is like death for Romeo.
Being in exile in Mantua, Romeo finds out about the death of Juliet, buys poison to poison himself and goes to Verona to commit suicide at her beloved’s grave. In the Capulets crypt, he meets Paris – the official fiancé of Juliet, who came to mourn her. Paris provokes Romeo. Young people are fighting with swords. Romeo kills Paris, then drinks poison and dies.
The tragedy takes place in just a few days. As noted literary critic A. A. Anikst, Romeo and Juliet are quick in their feelings. The measure of their experiences is not duration, but strength, while the passion of the lovers is great.