{"id":36844,"date":"2018-11-07T15:51:59","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T19:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=36844"},"modified":"2018-11-07T16:50:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T20:50:28","slug":"shakespeares-source-for-romeo-and-juliet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2018\/11\/shakespeares-source-for-romeo-and-juliet\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare\u2019s Source for Romeo and Juliet"},"content":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0 Kevin Grace<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFor never was a story of more woe
\nThan this of Juliet and her Romeo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Romeo<\/a>Those are the final lines in Romeo and Juliet. <\/em>The young lovers are dead, victims of their own passion and the enmity between the Capulets and the Montagues.\u00a0 Though their story is set in Renaissance Verona, it could be a tale told in any culture around the world in any era of humankind.\u00a0 For all the literary genius of William Shakespeare, scholars have long known that many of his plays were re-workings of stories he heard and historical accounts he read during his lifetime.\u00a0 Whether it was for Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, Othello, <\/em>or others, Shakespeare adapted these accounts for his stage in the late 16th<\/sup> and early 17th<\/sup> centuries that now have been performed countless times for more than 400 years, and over those centuries his own words have been adapted time and again.\u00a0 \u00a0To see King Lear <\/em>presented in England or Ireland is not the same as seeing it performed in South Africa or India or China.\u00a0 And of course, to see it once in England or America is not the same as seeing it once again on what might be the same stage in the same year.\u00a0 William Shakespeare\u2019s plays are paragons of beautiful language, infinite interpretation, and above all, compelling stories.<\/p>\n

\"Shakespeare<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Romeo<\/a>Tracing Shakespeare\u2019s plays to the books and tales that inspired them is a fascinating endeavor, discovering the accounts from Italy or North Africa, or chronicles of ancient Rome and medieval Britain in order to understand how they would be adaptable to the stage and why they would find favor with his audiences.\u00a0 As creative an artist as he was, Shakespeare was also an astute businessman and impresario.\u00a0 He knew how to fill the theatres with groundlings and seat-sitters.\u00a0 Pennies in the box meant a profitable box office.\u00a0 And the plays have survived Shakespeare\u2019s scripts since the era of the Globe and Blackfriars, published over and over again, illustrated edition after illustrated edition.\u00a0 The Archives & Rare Books Library holds an excellent collection of Shakespeare editions, mostly 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> century printings that were part of Cincinnatian Enoch Carson\u2019s personal library.\u00a0 When William A. Procter purchased the library and presented it to the University of Cincinnati around 1900, Carson\u2019s Shakespeare holdings were one of the university\u2019s original collections of books.<\/p>\n

\"Volume<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the past century, this collection has been augmented with further editions and printings, including books about Shakespeare and his world.\u00a0 A recent purchase adds even more importance to the volumes because it is considered to be a source for Shakespeare\u2019s story of Romeo and Juliet.\u00a0 Printed in Turin, Italy, the book is XVIII histoires tragiqves \/ extraictes des \u0153uures Italiennes de \"Volumes<\/a>Bandel, & mises en langue fran\u00e7oise ; les six premieres, par Pierre Boisteau, surnomm\u00e9 Launay, natif de Bretaigne. Les douze suiuans, par Franc. de Belle Forest, Comingeois<\/em> by Matteo Bandello (1485-1561).\u00a0 First published in Lyon in 1560 and later in Paris in 1563 and 1564, this volume was issued in 1570 by printer Cesar Farine and is the fourth collected edition of fictional stories that are the source material for Romeo and Juliet.\u00a0 <\/em>It is more rare than the earlier editions.\u00a0 Bound in full vellum with an inked title on the spine, only one other copy is recorded in libraries worldwide.\u00a0 And, copies of this edition have not been on the market in four decades.\u00a0 There are only two known copies of the 1564 edition, but what makes the University of Cincinnati\u2019s copy even more special is that it is bound in a contemporary binding and is a vigesimo<\/em> size (or, \u201c20mo\u201d), 5″ x 3″.\u00a0 That is, to see this book today, to hold it in the hand and study it, is to see it and read it as it was 448 years ago.\u00a0 It is what William Shakespeare would have read, considered the storyline of \u201cstar-crossed\u201d lovers beset by feuding families, and then penned a love story for the ages.<\/p>\n

\"Capulet<\/a><\/p>\n

Bandello\u2019s book is housed in the Archives & Rare Books Library, call number SpecCol RB PQ4606.A13 1570. close to the Shakespeare volumes.\u00a0 The accompanying illustrations here are from the Romeo and Juliet <\/em>volume in the Procter-Carson extra-illustrated edition of 1900, call number SpecCol RB PR2753.K7 1839a, vol. 28.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0 Kevin Grace \u201cFor never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\u201d Those are the final lines in Romeo and Juliet. The young lovers are dead, victims of their own passion and the enmity … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,83,600,31,13],"tags":[67,742],"class_list":["post-36844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-langsam-library","category-special-collections-2","category-uc","category-uclibraries","tag-rare-books","tag-shakespeare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}