ABSTRACT
Romeo and Juliet muted to gold. He was one of Mr C. S. Lewis's 'Drab Age' verse writers,1 yet no doubt Shakespeare enjoyed him. Brooke's poulter's measure is often dreary, but, if he lacked Bandello's racy energy, he had a homely realism, and the full picture he gives of Verona and the people concerned in the tragic history probably irritated and stimulated the dramatist to reinterpret the tale in terms of the new imagery and feeling of the nineties. A patient reading of Brooke will show how much he had to offer: the background of upper-class life, of church customs, of feud and riot; and much detail as the story progresses: the advice of Romeo's friends, Mercutio at the dance, Juliet going to church with her nurse and maid, Friar Lawrence, Tybalt, the Nurse (who helps to bring them together, recovers Juliet from her swoon, and threatens to kill herself should the girl die), the mother's depiction of Paris, the father's anger at Juliet's refusal to marry him, their joy when she agrees, the Nurse's volte-face, Juliet's subterfuge to sleep alone, and so on to the end. In Brooke Shakespeare found his subject well laid out and ready for quick d amatization, but told with a turgid emotionalism and pedestrian repetitiveness. The surprising thing is that Shakespeare preserved so much of his source in vitalizing its dead stuff.
