Brooke's 'Romeus and Juliet,' Being the Original of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. E-book. Formato PDF Arthur Brooke   -  Forgotten Books, 2017  - 

Chiarinii and Keightley2 are two of those who are apt to press the connexion too much, in considering Pyramus ana' Tnz'sée as the ultimate source Of the Romeo legend. This theory Of absolute relationship with one ancient story is hardly tenable in the light of evidence which we subsequently adduce, and the fact that the simple theme of two distressed lovers would call forth the same type of story in different minds, may explain some of the similarity.

Romeus and Juliet. E-book. Formato EPUB Arthur Brooke   -  E-Bookarama, 2023  - 

The tragic plot of Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" (1595-96) was by no means original. It was based on a famous folktale which appeared in many different versions in 15th- and 16th-century Europe. Written in 1562, Arthur Brooke’s 3,020 line poem, "Romeus and Juliet" (AKA The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet), is the first English translation of that tale, and it served as a key source for Shakespeare.Set in the ‘fruitfull hilles’ of Verona, Brooke’s poem describes the ‘deadly’ feud between two wealthy, noble families – Capulet and Montague. Against this backdrop of ‘blacke hate’, he tells the ‘unhappy’ tale of a beautiful youth, Romeus Montague, whose heart is entrapped by the wise and graceful Juliet Capulet. On the title page, Brooke claims to have based his work on Matteo Bandello’s Italian "Novelle" (1554), though he actually seems to have used a French translation by Boaistuau (1559). In his letter ‘To the Reader’, Brooke also says he had seen a similar tale ‘lately set foorth on stage’, perhaps referring to an earlier play about Romeo and Juliet, which has not been discovered.