The commentary on the tragedy is based on the interlinear translation of the variant of the text, which was published in the First Folio (1623). The text of the word-for-word translation is compared with the 20th century Soviet translations, which were marked by censorship and aesthetic restrictions so inherent in Soviet literary criticism. The guidebook aims to bring the reader closer to the understanding of Shakespeare's phraseology, the idioms and jokes of his comic characters that live in Verona but speak the language of Elizabethan London.