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Sources and Inspiration
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About the lecture
In this module, we think about the history of the story of Romeo and Juliet, including the sources that Shakespeare may have used when writing the play, as well as some of the more indirect influences on Shakespeare’s presentation of love. In particular, we think about: (i) the several incarnations of the Romeo and Juliet story in Italian, French and English, including the versions of Luigi da Porto, Pierre Boaistuau, Matteo Bandello, William Painter, and Arthur Brooke; (ii) Arthur Brooke’s attitude to the lovers, whom he criticises for their “unhonest desire”, compared to Shakespeare’s more sympathetic treatment; (iii) the portrayal of Mercutio in Brooke’s version of the story, including the strange detail that he has very cold hands; (iv) the influence of Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella (1591), on Shakespeare’s presentation of love in the play.
About the lecturer
John Roe is a professor in Renaissance literature and a member of the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (CREMS) at the University of York. He took a BA (subsequently MA) in English Literature at the University of Cambridge and an MA and PhD in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Comparative Literature, mainly English and Italian, has remained a keen interest, which shows principally in his monograph Shakespeare and Machiavelli. He has taught at York since 1973. Before that he taught at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and at Harvard. During his time at York he has enjoyed long sojourns at universities in other countries, for example, at the University of the Saarland in Germany, at Kyoto University, Doshisha University, and Kobe Jogakuin, in Japan; and most recently a year as the visiting Gillespie Professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio.
I'm John Roe, professor emeritus in English
00:00:06and Related Literature at the University of York.
00:00:08I'm going to speak today about Romeo and Juliet.
00:00:12And in this session, I'm going to talk a little bit
00:00:15about the sources that Shakespeare
00:00:18drew on, and also a bit of inspiration,
00:00:20and what might have inspired him,
00:00:23not necessarily in a source for the story of Romeo
00:00:25and Juliet itself.
00:00:29Now as it's very clear, this is an Italian theme
00:00:31if ever there was one.
00:00:36And many Italian writers treated it.
00:00:37Luigi da Porto, early 16th century writer,
00:00:41set it in Verona.
00:00:45He's possibly the first to do this.
00:00:47It was given different locations.
00:00:49Indeed, one might say that it's so
00:00:52approximate that if you take the story of the ancient families,
00:00:55the Montagues and the Capulets, first thing that scholars have
00:01:00discovered is that only the Montague actually
00:01:04lived in Verona, and the capulets lived elsewhere.
00:01:07And it's also possible that rather than being enemies,
00:01:10they were part of a larger political alliance, that
00:01:15of course wouldn't stop a little bit of rivalry and friction.
00:01:19This means, of course, that if you go and look
00:01:23at that famous balcony in Verona,
00:01:25it's hardly likely that Juliet stood on it.
00:01:29On the other hand, it's nice to go and savor the whole feeling.
00:01:33I've done it myself.
00:01:38It's most enjoyable.
00:01:39So Luigi da Porto, you can say is I'm one of the first.
00:01:41He was imitated by various other writers,
00:01:45French writer called Boaistuau, and then
00:01:48Bandello, another famous source.
00:01:52There are other plays of Shakespeare
00:01:55that can be traced to the works of Bandello.
00:01:57He, himself, was Englished by a man called
00:02:01William Painter in a collection that he
00:02:05called The Palace of Pleasure.
00:02:07But I think the work and it's a poem,
00:02:11that really did supplying Shakespeare with all he needed.
00:02:16It was a poem called "The Tragedy of Romeus and Juliet"
00:02:22by a man called Arthur Brooke.
00:02:27So we've got an English author.
00:02:30He produced this in 1562.
00:02:31It's a long narrative poem.
00:02:35And it's in what we call Poulter's measure.
00:02:37And that is alternating verses of 12 syllables and 14
00:02:41syllables.
00:02:47And this possibily approximates to the Roman elegy
00:02:48in its hexameter-pentameter alternating form.
00:02:53Although his short line, that is Brooke short line comes first,
00:02:57and the long line second.
00:03:00So this poem, if you read through it,
00:03:03I think you'll agree that there are so many places where
00:03:06Shakespeare really is taking his theme directly from Brooke,
00:03:10and maybe it's possible that's all he used.
00:03:17Although scholars, again, have looked and argued
00:03:21about the possibility there may have
00:03:24been other writers involved.
00:03:26An example of why one might say Brooke is the man his opening.
00:03:31"There is beyond the Alps, a town of ancient fame.
00:03:37Whose bright renown yet shineth clear--
00:03:42Verona men it name."
00:03:45Well, if you take the courses opening in Romeo and Juliet,
00:03:48you have those famous lines.
00:03:53Two houses, both alike in dignity.
00:03:56In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.
00:03:59So they open rather closely.
00:04:04Now, Shakespeare is highly sympathetic, I think,
00:04:09to his lovers.
00:04:13And I think so is Arthur Brooke.
00:04:16But you might be surprised if you
00:04:18read Brooke's foreword to his poem, which is really
00:04:20is a piece of kind of lectures.
00:04:26It's a bit of stern admonishment.
00:04:27I'll read it, and give you the feeling of what it's like.
00:04:30And this is Brooke.
00:04:34"And to this end, good Reader, is this tragical matter
00:04:35written, to describe to thee a couple of unfortunate lovers,
00:04:39thralling themselves to unhonest desire;
00:04:43neglecting the authority and advice of parents and friends;
00:04:48conferring their principal counsels with drunken gossips--
00:04:52could be a reference to the nurse--
00:04:57and superstitious friars, the naturally fit instruments
00:04:59of unchastity; attempting all adventures of peril."
00:05:04And it goes on like that, in that vein,
00:05:09really having a go especially at the friar.
00:05:11And in the end, it says, "Hastings
00:05:15to most unhappy deaths."
00:05:17So in other words, the way Brooke
00:05:20is playing it in his advice or in his alerting the reader is
00:05:22to say take very good care that you
00:05:28don't get into a similar kind of predicament as these people.
00:05:31So in other words, I'm giving you a moral tale.
00:05:34Now fortunately, if you read the poem, which I think
00:05:39is quite a decent poem, although largely forgotten.
00:05:41He doesn't stick to that.
00:05:45And he's very sympathetic to the characters.
00:05:46And as it plays out, he's actually
00:05:49quite generous to the friar who he denounces in those opening
00:05:52words as a very characteristically Roman
00:05:57Catholic papist priest who you would never trust.
00:06:00Now, I think that that, although Shakespeare
00:06:05had to be careful in what he wrote always,
00:06:07they all had to be careful.
00:06:10Nonetheless, by the time he wrote the Romeo and Juliet
00:06:12in the mid-50 '90s, maybe '96, things
00:06:16were a bit more relaxed in terms of what you could.
00:06:19Represent.
00:06:22And so that period of being worried about the authorities
00:06:24and as it were religious prescription,
00:06:30that it eased a bit.
00:06:36Now, a little curiosity.
00:06:40He's always struck me as rather curious.
00:06:43And that is in Arthur Brooke's version of the poem
00:06:45that we meet Mercutio.
00:06:49It's not like the Mercutio who has such a wonderful role,
00:06:52such a lively vital role in Shakespeare's play.
00:06:56And this rather strange a Mercutio.
00:06:59He's at the Capulet's feast.
00:07:02And he's just as almost like a cameo appearance.
00:07:05And what characterizes him, he's very, very brief
00:07:09entry onto the scene and disappears again,
00:07:14is that he's got frozen hands, really icy cold.
00:07:16And he sits on one side of Juliet
00:07:21in the party, Romeo on the other.
00:07:23And this is what Brooke says about Mercutio.
00:07:26"With friendly grip he seized fair Juliet's snowish hand;
00:07:30A gift he had that Nature gave him in his swathing band.
00:07:35That frozen mountain ice was never half so cold.
00:07:39As were his hands."
00:07:44So of course, poor old Juliet naturally
00:07:47she grasps Romeo's hand on the other side for warmth,
00:07:50which of course she finds.
00:07:54But why should that detail be in?
00:07:55And why does he represent Mercutio in that way?
00:07:58Well, I think, perhaps, one answer
00:08:04is you have the first rather awful foreboding of death
00:08:06that Mercutio's hand is the hand of death, the icy
00:08:12hand of death, which even at the very height of their bliss,
00:08:18whatever save the approaching bliss of the lovers.
00:08:23It makes itself felt.
00:08:27And I think that itself does have a bearing on Shakespeare's
00:08:30play because, of course, he never represents
00:08:34Mercutio like this.
00:08:36However, Mercutio dies.
00:08:38He's the first to die.
00:08:40And we are in Shakespeare's play.
00:08:42And we are very aware.
00:08:45We're always aware of the threat of death
00:08:46from the very beginning.
00:08:49I mentioned the word in my introduction,
00:08:50leave us to the German word for those
00:08:55who die for love, and love and death,
00:08:59are so involved with each other in the play.
00:09:02So much then for sources, turn slightly
00:09:06towards what might be an inspiration as opposed
00:09:12to a source.
00:09:15And that is Sir Philip Sidney's wonderful sonnet sequence,
00:09:16Astrophel and Stella, which was published
00:09:19in a pirated version in 1591.
00:09:22That is about six years, or five or six years
00:09:26before Shakespeare wrote.
00:09:28The Astrophel and Stella, it's a narrative sonnet sequence
00:09:30with a few songs interspersed.
00:09:35And it tells the story really of their love.
00:09:37And it's very Petrarchan.
00:09:40That's the point I want to make.
00:09:42It draws upon the Petrarchan sonnet form.
00:09:44Obviously, it's all in sonnets.
00:09:47And it tells of the frustrations of love, an unwilling lady,
00:09:49a chaste lady, which of course is very Petrarchan,
00:09:55a lover who is longing for her.
00:09:59And it ends badly, it ends in separation, and so forth.
00:10:02And like Romeo and Juliet, the love cannot lost.
00:10:07They don't die in Astrophel and Stella,
00:10:12but they are in a kind of mourning.
00:10:14But the thing that's really interesting about Astrophel
00:10:18and Stella is that the love finally is a reciprocated love.
00:10:20That she shows love back, although she shouldn't do it.
00:10:28She's a married lady, betrothed to a man whom she doesn't love,
00:10:33doesn't love her.
00:10:36She just possessed by him in that old troubadour way,
00:10:37if you like, where the husband is just
00:10:42a kind of presence and authority,
00:10:45but there's no love between them.
00:10:48But she loves Astrophel.
00:10:52She expresses it.
00:10:55This is why it's closer to Romeo and Juliet
00:10:56than to the original Petrarch.
00:11:00And then finally, something happens.
00:11:02We don't know, the narrative's not clear.
00:11:05But before they can consummate the love,
00:11:07and I think that's how it goes, there is a kind of rupture.
00:11:10There's a break.
00:11:13And thereafter, they have to be apart.
00:11:14So what Sidney does is he goes through the Petrarchan scheme.
00:11:16That is a lover longing for a lady who is out of reach.
00:11:21But in his case, the lady responds.
00:11:26And so you have another version of two lovers
00:11:30longing for each other.
00:11:35And yet in the end, fate intervenes.
00:11:36And they must be separated.
00:11:41Now, I think, and I'm going to go on
00:11:43to talk about this in the next session on Petrarchan love.
00:11:45I do think that it's very likely that this pairing, which
00:11:51had such a massive impact at the time,
00:11:55may well have had an influence on Shakespeare's treatment
00:11:59of love in Romeo and Juliet.
00:12:05
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Roe, J. (2020, January 23). Analysis - Sources and Inspiration [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/options/analysis-0736991e-c218-4389-88c3-af889f700f41?auth=0&lesson=2914&option=13463&type=lesson
MLA style
Roe, J. "Analysis – Sources and Inspiration." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 23 Jan 2020, https://massolit.io/options/analysis-0736991e-c218-4389-88c3-af889f700f41?auth=0&lesson=2914&option=13463&type=lesson