THE MEfAMORPHOSIS OF A LOVE STORY: A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY COMPARISON OF ROMEO AND JULIET by Elizabeth Conn A SENIOR THESIS m GENERAL STUDIES Submitted to the General Studies Council in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Tech University in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of BACHELOR OF GENERAL STUDIES . ~moved 1• DR~KENNETHDA-V'Is Honors College Chauperson of Thesis Committee DR. RICHARD WAMj@ER Department of Family Studies Accepted DR.MICHAELSCHOENECKE Director of General Studies December 2001 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Kenneth Davis and Dr. Richard Wampler, for their continuing support and scholarly leadership. I would also like to Dr. Michael Schoenecke for providing help and advice whenever it was needed. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................... 11 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION....................................................... 1 II. SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIEf... ... 3 The Montagues and the Capulets and the Manifestation Hostility. ... 3 Giovanni Boccaccio and the Rise of the Romeo and Juliet Legend in Italy...................................................... 4 The Legend of Romeo and Juliet Reaches England............ 5 III. A CHARACTER AND PLOT COMPARISON BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY AND GOUNOD'S OPERA....... 7 Romeo.................................................................. 8 Juliet..... ..... ................................................. ......... 9 The N urse/Gertrude. 11 Friar I...aurence. .. 13 Tybalt and Mercutio.................................................. 14 Secondary Characters..... ............... .... .... ............ ........ 15 IV. A COMPARISON OF BERNSTEIN'S WEST SIDE STORY AND SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JUUET............... 17 Dueling Families........ .......................................... ..... 17 Young Lovers........................................................... 19 Death..................................................................... 20 V. CONCLUSION ..................................................... .. 22 1ll Gains and Losses When the Medium Changes.................. 22 Romance Versus Sexuality........................... ....... ...... 25 In Conclusion..... ........ ........ .... ..... .............. ..... .... ..... 26 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................... 28 IV CHAPTER I INTRODUCfION Two households both alike in dignity, In fair Verona where we lay our scene From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean: From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life: Whose misadventured piteous overthrows, Doth with their death bury their parents' strife, The fearful passage of their death-marked love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which but their children's end nought could remove, [s now the two hours' traffic of our stage. The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. (Romeo and Juliet Prologue. 1-14) William Shakespeare was not the first to give the story of Romeo and Juliet to the world, but his work, above all others, survives generation through generation as a symbol of innocence and true love. Shakespeare's words are crafted into perfection; each line is a perfect poem. Such magnificence can in no way be duplicated, but the story behind the art has often been borrowed, rewritten, reworked and modernized. Many attempts have been made to set the Romeo and Juliet story in a musical genre. Two such pieces are the romantic opera Romeo et Juliette by Charles Gounod and the Broadway musical West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein. The elements of Shakespeare's 16th Century play are important issues for the people of any era, as evidenced by the popularity of Gounod's 18th Century opera and Bernstein's 20th Century musical, and therefore provide the perfect storyline for a dramatic musical text. Going even further, Gounod's and Bernstein's works are more than musical compositions: they 1 are musical dramas, intended to absorb a viewing audience. "It is possible to deny music a dramatic role, then, only if one insists that drama is a product of words alone" (Swain 4); therefore, a comparison of Shakespeare's and Gounod's and Bernstein's interpretations reveals how the drama of Romeo and Juliet is transformed throughout various artistic disciplines. 2 CHAPTER II SOURCES OF SHAKESPFARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET The Monta~ues and the Capulets and the Manifestation of Hostility It is undeniable that Shakespeare's play was fed by pre-existing works and legends. The first reference to a Romeo and Juliet-type story is found in the third century A. D. in Ephesiaca of Xenophon of Ephesus (Narrative 269). Anthia, separated from her husband, is rescued from robbers by Perilaus. To avoid marrying the man she does not love (and in consideration of her first marriage), Anthia obtains a potion from a physician that she thinks to be poison, but is merely a sleeping tonic. She awakes inside a tomb and is "rescued" by another band of tomb robbers (Brooke 269). Though suicidal lovers and misrepresented deaths are found in the earliest of literature, the "traditional conception of the Montecchi (Montagues) and the Cappelletti (Capulets) ... begins with an obscure passage in Dante's Purgatorio where, in one verse, the names of the factions are found for the first time in juxtaposition" (Moore 4). In fact, evidence shows the families of Montague and Capulet that eventually play into Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet "never resided in Verona, and in fact, never existed at all" (Moore 3). Therefore, the Shakespearian versions of the Montagues and the Capulets were based on political factions. As Moore further points out, the Cappelletti, "far from being a family living in Verona, were a faction associated with the political affairs of Cremona" and were apparently named for the small caps they wore as an insignia (9). The first Dante commentator to refer to the Cappelletti's and the Montecchi's as families in Verona was "the influential Benvenuto da Imola" in 1379 (Moore 20). But "the notion of enmity 3 between the Montecchi and the Cappelletti seems to have originated with Fransisco da Bute" in 1380 (Moore 20). Giovanni Boccaccio and the Rise of the Romeo and Juliet Legend in Italy The rise of the Romeo and Juliet legend in Italy occurs with the publication of Giovanni Boccacio's romances Filostrato and Filocolo. Bocaccio's novelles are considered to be a "dominant stylistic influence" (Moore 21) on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, not to mention Boccacio's "vaguer influence on the Romeo plot" (Moore 21). Evidence suggests that Shakespeare took many of his plot characteristics from Luigi da Porto, an Italian writer of the early 1500s (Muir 21). Da Porto's novella Giulietta e Romeo (Moore 43) is the forefront of two particular Shakespearean subplots, the balcony scene and Juliet's emerging independence as she approaches her nuptials. As Muir points out, "da Porto tells us that Romeo used to climb Giullietta's balcony and listen to her discourse" and that "Giullietta goes alone to the Friar's cell for her wedding; in all the other versions she is accompanied" (22). The "first important (Italian) imitator of Luigi da Porto's masterpiece was the Caliere Gerardo Boldieri, who adopted the feminine pseudonym of 'Clizia'" (Moore 67). Boldieri's novella was written in 1553, twenty-four years after the death of Luigi da Porto (Moore 67), and it brings several plot innovations to Romeo and Juliet which "relate principally to the character of the friar; the flowery speeches of the hero and his duel with Tebaldo; and the psychology of the heroine" (Moore 67). 4 The Le&end of Romeo and Juliet Reaches England Pierre Boaistau's Histories tragiques was published in 1559 and is responsible for bringing the Romeo and Juliet legend to England. The two English predecessors of Shakespeare to tackle Romeo and Juliet were Arthure Brooke and William Painter, the former publishing Romeus and luliet in 1562 and the latter publishing Rhomeo and Iulietta in 1566. While Brooke's version is considered the greatest influence by far on Shakespeare's play, Painter's work was "faithful to (Boastau's) original" but showed little in the way of original thought or idea (Moore 95). Brooke's poem, however, laid a solid foundation for the play that would later become William Shakespeare's most famous work. Parallels exist throughout Brooke's poem and Shakespeare's play. From the beginning, like Brooke, Shakespeare opens with a sonnet, but while Brooke gives the "main details of his plot, Shakespeare presents the general 'public' outline and the tone of of his story" (Narrative 278). Brooke goes into deep detail during his Chorus Prologue, describing the enmity between the Montagues and the Capulets and Prince Escalus's attempt to form a peace between the two families (Muir 23). But the genius of Shakespeare overshadows Brooke's attempt at every tum. In Brooke Shakespeare "found his subject well laid out and ready for quick dramatization, hut told with a turgid emotionalism and pedestrian repetitiveness" (Moore 21). "The surprising thing is that Shakespeare preserved so mush of his source in vitalizing its dead stuff" (Narrative 278). Lastly, Shakespeare developed Paris, Capulet and Montague almost entirely from Brooke's characters, but Shakespeare's characters were "made more real and effective" (Muir 25) especially Mercutio