“Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare is one of the most iconic works of world literature, an immortal tragedy that explores the themes of love, hate, fate and destiny. Probably written around 1597, the work has captivated audiences for centuries with its powerful narrative and unforgettable characters.
The story tells of the impossible love between Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, two young people from Verona belonging to feuding families. Despite the hostility between their homes, the two young people fall madly in love and try to get married secretly. However, a series of tragic events, misunderstandings and unfortunate coincidences lead them to their tragic end.
Shakespeare’s work has inspired countless stage, film, musical and literary adaptations over the centuries, proving its enduring relevance and universal impact.
Shakespeare’s main source was a poem by the English poet Arthur Brooke entitled “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet”, published in 1562 and inspired by some Italian Renaissance novellas, a very popular genre in Europe at that time. Brooke’s was the latest telling of a well-known story that had long been enjoyed in French and Italian literature.
Because the story was written before Shakespeare’s version, and the stories are practically identical except for wording, this is known as evidence that Shakespeare was not the brilliant mastermind behind the famous tale. And because Arthur Brooke wrote his own version only thirty-five years prior to when Shakespeare wrote his, it is very likely that he used this modern piece of work to put his own spin on the tale of Romeo and Juliet.
The substantial difference is the treatment that Shakespeare and Brooke give of the two young protagonists. Brooke often judges Romeo and Juliet as two totally reckless boys, not used to listening to the advice of friends and relatives. Their love is a grave sin, because it is wicked and brings misfortune. Whoever tells the story, therefore, expresses peremptory and negative judgments on the two lovers. Finally, the fate of those who, during the story, helped the lovers will be sad: the nurse will be banished from the city and Friar Laurence will voluntarily end his days in exile to reflect on his sins.
Shakespeare, by contrast, appears to make no judgment whatsoever. Let the two young lovers describe their feelings. And it is through their words that we understand how authentic and sincere their feeling is.
For the creation of “Romeo and Juliet”, William Shakespeare also seems to have been inspired by the novella by Matteo Bandello, an Italian bishop and writer of the 1500s. His notoriety in England, therefore, has led scholars to assume that Shakespeare may have been acquainted with various translations of his novels.
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that “The unfortunate death of two unhappy lovers” (c. 1554), i.e. Novella number nine of the second part of Bandello’s “Novelle” collection, is also among the sources of inspiration for “Romeo and Juliet”. In any case, even Bandello is not the real creator of this love story, since he in turn reworked an earlier novella, written by Luigi Da Porto in 1524, “Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti” in which the vicissitudes of two young lovers of Verona are narrated.
The similarities between Shakespeare’s tragedy and the novella are in fact many. Not only in both stories the love of the two young people is thwarted by both families, but also the setting is the same: Verona. Finally, the names of the protagonists and other characters are the same: Romeo and Juliet and again Friar Lawrence, Tybalt and Paris. Even some individual situations are really similar, such as the first meeting between the two young lovers, which in both literary compositions takes place on the occasion of a masquerade party in Juliet’s family palace. Even Bandello’s Juliet, in order to escape her marriage to Paris, on the advice of Friar Lawrence, drinks a potion that will make her look dead, waiting for Romeo, once informed of the stratagem, to retrieve her from the tomb and escape with her beloved. Finally, also in Bandello’s novella, fate is adverse to Romeo and Juliet. In both versions, although the lovers do their best to make their love triumph and perhaps put an end to the hostilities between their families, fate seems to be inevitably written. And they can do nothing to escape death.
Thereanother novella, the oldest of those mentioned so far, which may have indirectly inspired the most famous love tragedy of all time. This is Novella XXXIII of the collection “Novellino” by the Italian author Masuccio Salernitano, published posthumously in 1476. “Mariotto and Ganozza”, the title of the novel in question, has in fact many similarities with the story of Romeo and Juliet. And it could be, therefore, the primary source from which Da Porto’s and Bandello’s novels were born.
Like Romeo and Juliet, Mariotto and Ganozza are two young lovers, whose love story is strongly hindered by the conflict between the two families. Masuccio’s lovers, however, seem to live a much more carnal love, compared to the tender and idealized one of Shakespeare’s lovers.
In addition, the backdrop to the story is sunny Siena. And in general, the atmosphere of the story in Masuccio is more Mediterranean. The story, in fact, is partly set in Alexandra of Egypt, the city where Mariotto flees to escape the gallows, after killing a young man during a fight.
The story of Romeo and Juliet continues to move and intrigue audiences of every generation, remaining a pillar of world culture and literature.
