Shakespeare in Love - Inaccuracies

Inaccuracies

The film is "not constrained by worries about literary or historical accuracy" and includes anachronisms such as a reference to Virginia tobacco plantations, when there was no Virginia. The most apparent deviation from the actual literary history is the made-up play title "Romeo and Ethel" allegedly preceding the present version. In fact, the story of Romeo and Juliet had been invented before Shakespeare. It was well-known from Arthur Brooke's 1562 narrative poem "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet", which itself was rooted in an Italian original).