 benvolio is a fictional character in william shakespeare's drama romeo and juliet. benvolio is montague's nephew and romeo's cousin. benvolio serves as an unsuccessful peacemaker in the play, attempting to prevent violence between the capulet and montague families. ==sources== in 1554, matteo bandello published the second volume of his novelle which included his version of giuletta e romeo.moore (1937: 38â44). bandello emphasises romeo's initial depression and the feud between the families, and introduces the nurse and benvolio. bandello's story was translated into french by pierre boaistuau in 1559 in the second volume of his histoires tragiques. boaistuau adds much moralizing and sentiment, and the characters indulge in rhetorical outbursts.gibbons (1980: 35â36). ===etymology=== the name benvolio means "good-will" or "well-wisher" or "peacemaker" which is a role he fills, to some degree, as a peace-maker and romeo's friend. (for comparison, see the derivation of malvolio - ill-will - in twelfth night.) ==role in the play==  benvolio is lord montague's nephew and romeo's cousin, with a distant relation with paris on the part of his father's divorced wife. he is usually portrayed by shakespeare as a kind and thoughtful person who attempts to look out for his cousin. he and romeo are both close friends with mercutio, a kinsman to the prince. benvolio tries to lessen romeo's sentence after attempting to prevent the duels that end in mercutio and tybalt's death, leaving romeo only with a banishment and not a death sentence. benvolio spends most of act i attempting to distract his cousin from his infatuation with rosaline as he himself is secretly infatuated with her, but following the first appearance of mercutio in i.iv, he and mercutio become more closely aligned until iii.i. in that scene, he drags the fatally wounded mercutio offstage, before returning to inform romeo of mercutio's death and the prince of the course of mercutio's and tybalt's deaths. benvolio then disappears from the play (though, as a montague, he may implicitly be included in the stage direction in the final scene "enter lord montague and others", and he is sometimes doubled with balthasar). benvolio is key to the play because he encourages romeo to go to the party, where he falls in love with juliet. ==role in the book== benvolio is romeo's cousin and the nephew of montague. benvolio wants to try to help romeo out of his
Characters_in_Romeo_and_Juliet Fictional_Italian_people_in_literature Fictional_characters_introduced_in_1597 Male_Shakespearean_characters