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The True and Most Excellet Comedie of Romeo and Juliet
It is generally agreed that Shakespeare's play about the doomed love of Romeo and Juliet took as its main inspiration the poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brook. The play, as reproduced in Quarto and Folio, closely follows the narrative of the poem, using the same character names and ending (as it well known) with the death of Romeo (when he discovers Juliet in a state of apparent death after taking a sleeping draught) and the death of Juliet (after she awakes and discovers Romeo had died). // However, it appears that under pressure from James Burbage to "make dark tragedie light" Shakespeare prepared a second version of the play ('the story as it did truly unfold, by misfortune unmarred') with a happy ending, turning the play (which is highly comic for its first three acts) into an out-and-out comedy...
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