ABSTRACT
The history of Romeo and Juliet in Germany during the second half of the eighteenth century begins in London and, perhaps fittingly, not with Shakespeare but with David Garrick. In 1750 Romeo and Juliet kindled a remarkable theatrical confrontation on the London stage. His text influenced nearly all the German translations and adaptations of Romeo and Juliet published during the next quarter century. Christian Felix Weisse's Romeo und Julie, ein burgerliches Trauerspiel is as much a work for his own age as Shakespeare's was for his. Although Weisse was acquainted with the literary history of his subject, he draws on the story's various versions only to serve his own ideals, the spirit of bourgeois sentimentality framed by the constructive rules of French classical tragedy. In Romeo und Julie, F. W. Gotter knew, the success or failure of the piece would depend principally on Benda's music, and thus the roles were reversed.
