![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Myths like these are present in almost every culture.Īs far as scholars can tell, Shakespeare used only one source for his version of Romeo and Juliet: a narrative poem by the sixteenth-century English poet Arthur Brooke, entitled The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet. Another myth with similar themes is that of Demeter and Persephone, though it concerns a mother and daughter instead: death has kidnapped Demeter's beloved daughter Persephone, and Demeter fights him until he allows her to have Persephone back for half of every year. The themes of the story-love, death, resurrection, and death again-are clearly present in a myth like Orpheus and Eurydice: when Eurydice dies, her lover Orpheus defies Death and brings her back from the underworld, only to lose her again when he doubts his success. ![]() In some versions of the story he succeeds, though only for a time. The young woman dies, or appears to die, and her grief-stricken lover determines to win her back from death, either by his wits or by joining her in the afterlife. A man and a woman fall in love they are young and beautiful, and their love is so consuming that the world and all the people around them seem to vanish. Romeo and Juliet is in many ways a familiar story, not just because it is one of Shakespeare's best-loved plays, but because the play has thematic roots in myths as old as storytelling itself. ![]()
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