For centuries, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has captivated audiences with its tale of star-crossed lovers meeting a tragic end. The image of Juliet waking only moments after Romeo has taken his poison is seared into the literary consciousness. Yet, surprisingly, the version of the play performed and printed for over a hundred years featured a distinct alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet, specifically a poignant, added deathbed conversation between the titular characters. This historical alteration challenges our modern perception of classic texts as immutable and sheds light on evolving theatrical and literary sensibilities.
Today, we often view Shakespeare’s language and plot as sacred, perhaps allowing cuts for time or concept in performance, but rarely permitting additions or significant rewrites. However, looking back through the history of Romeo and Juliet‘s publication and performance, we discover a time when such reverence was far from universal. The play’s first authorized edition was published in 1599, serving as the source for the authoritative 1623 First Folio. This text, with its famously swift and tragic conclusion, is the one most familiar to us.
Title page of the 1599 quarto, considered the original text of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
However, by the mid-18th century, theatrical tastes had shifted. David Garrick, a highly influential actor, playwright, and theatre manager, created his own version of Romeo and Juliet for performance at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane. This version, first performed in 1748 and published in 1769, introduced several changes, including reducing Mercutio’s role and, most significantly for our discussion of an alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet, adding a lengthy scene to Act 5, Scene 3.
In Garrick’s version, Juliet awakens from her potion-induced sleep before Romeo succumbs to the poison. This deviation from Shakespeare’s original text allows for a final, agonizing conversation between the doomed lovers. They recognize each other, express their undying love, and lament their cruel fate before Romeo dies in Juliet’s arms. Only then does Juliet take Romeo’s dagger to end her own life.
Title page from David Garrick's 1769 altered version of Romeo and Juliet, featuring the alternate ending.
Garrick’s alteration was immensely popular and deeply influential. Editions of Romeo and Juliet printed in 1794, 1814, 1819, and 1874 continued to feature his added deathbed scene, effectively making his alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet the standard for readers and theatergoers for generations. Editors defended these changes in their introductions, sometimes arguing that Garrick’s version was more emotionally impactful or even closer to the original source material Shakespeare himself used, such as Italian novels or English poems that told the story before Shakespeare’s play. This preference speaks volumes about the attitudes of the time towards authorship and the malleability of literary works.
The enduring nature of this famous love story continues to inspire writers today. Exploring such variations, like Garrick’s added scene, reminds us of the many layers of poems about meaning that can be found within enduring narratives and how different interpretations can shift our understanding.
It wasn’t until the late 19th century that academic and theatrical focus began to shift decisively back to Shakespeare’s original 1599 text. An 1882 edition reverted to the original ending where Juliet wakes to find Romeo already dead. By 1886, a multivolume series published a facsimile of the 1599 quarto, prioritizing textual accuracy and marking variants, a practice common in modern scholarly editions. This marked a significant turn towards the reverence for Shakespeare’s original words that characterizes modern literary study and performance.
The story of Garrick’s alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet serves as a fascinating case study in literary history. It highlights that even the most iconic works have not always been treated as untouchable artifacts.
While Garrick’s deathbed scene was ultimately superseded by a return to Shakespeare’s original, its long period of popularity demonstrates a historical appetite for a different kind of tragic climax – one that prioritized a final, direct emotional exchange between the lovers over the stark, almost simultaneous discovery and suicide of Shakespeare’s original ending.
Understanding this history enriches our appreciation of Romeo and Juliet and the dynamic life classic texts lead through the centuries, influenced by performance, publication, and cultural taste. It prompts us to consider what is gained and lost in different interpretations and endings of beloved stories. When considering the profound and often complex themes within classic works, it can lead us to reflect on larger ideas about beautiful poems of life, love, and fate.
The shift back to Shakespeare’s original highlights a changing perspective on artistic authority and textual fidelity. Our modern approach tends to value the author’s initial intent (as perceived through early reliable texts) above later adaptations, no matter how popular they once were.
Ultimately, while Shakespeare’s original tragic conclusion is now the universally accepted one, the existence and long reign of Garrick’s alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet provide a compelling glimpse into theatrical history and the evolving relationship between readers, audiences, and classic literature.