Saturday, February 26, 2011

Classic Story or Classic Idea?

Everyone knows the story of Romeo and Juliet: a classic tale about forbidden love and mixed messages leading to the death of the star-crossed lovers. This very plotline has lead to innumerable novels, short stories and films all on that same basic idea of the power of love. But was William Shakespear the first to think of this? Many would be surprised to hear that the answer is, in fact, no. In Edith Hamilton's MYTHOLOGY, I came across a section called Eight Brief Tales of Lovers (sounds slightly cheesy, I know). The very first tale in this section is called Pyramus and Thisbe (pg. 101). This story follows an identical plotline to that of Shakespear's classic Romeo and Juliet:

1. Pyramus and Thisbe notice each other after living beside each other all their lives
    - Romeo and Juliet meet after living in the same city as members of the two most prestigious families
2. Pyramus and Thisbe, after being forbade to see each other as their families hated each other, find a chink in the wall between their properties and through it, they whispered to each other without their families' knowledge
   - Romeo and Juliet, after being torn apart by feuding families, talk in the seclusion of Juliet's balcony (very famous and influential scene)
3. Pyramus and Thisbe plan to escape the confines of their restrictive families after growing tired of yearning to do more than simply talk
  - Romeo and Juliet, too, plan their escape and part ways
4. Thisbe shows up at the clearing that was to be their meeting place, and waits for Pyramus to come. A lioness stalks into the clearing after making a kill, with blood in its teeth. Thisbe flees, but not before dropping her cloak, which the lioness "mouths" and tears, leaving a bloody torn mess.
  - Juliet is set to be married, so she arranges a plan, and with the help of Friar Laurence, she fakes her own death using a sleeping solution
5. Pyramus comes to the clearing and finds Thisbe's cloak bloody and torn and, under the assumption that she is dead, takes a sword and plunges it through his own heart
  - Romeo sees Juliet "dead" and after visiting her tomb, drinks a poision, also killing himself
6. Thisbe comes back to the clearing to find Pyramus dead and his blood shed everywhere, so she too takes his sword and kills herself with it
  - Juliet wakes to find Romeo dead next to her and, finding the loss of love unbearable, she takes a dagger and plunges it into her own chest
7. The gods and Thisbe and Pyramus's families were pitiful in the end, finally seeing what could have prevented such a tragedy in the first place
  -The Montagues and Capulets begin to mend their differences after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet

After seeing this nearly identical story of star-crossed lovers, it is very difficult to see if one influenced the other. Do you think that Shakespear heard of this tale before composing his own play, or is it simply because he was human that he came up with his own story based on the same idea? Are there other ancient tales that bring upon an idea that is fundamental in more modern literature? What ideas can be seen throughout many authors' work because of this idea that humans have similar ideas because they are human? Do you think that this idea is possible?

2 comments:

  1. This makes me wonder if any idea is actually true and genuinely unique. I mean, maybe Shakespeare thought he had been unique (or not, I don't know), but had heard the story long before. I personally find that a lot.

    I don't think that humans necessarily think alike due to the sheer similarity of being human, but rather that you are always influenced by the other people around you. I think that if humans all thought alike we would either have a very unified world, or an even more messed up one. For examples, if all the world were anti racist, we wouldn't have that problem, but if everyone had racist thoughts, well, that'd be unfortunate. However, different people do have different mindsets, and that is what I think makes humans unique.

    Just a thought :)

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  2. What you're saying really makes sense because obviously not all humans think alike. What I was thinking though is that maybe certain plot lines or ideas are like archetypes, and humans think along these as a guideline for their own imagination because they are human. The characters and whatnot in the plots may be completely different, but subconsciously share the kind of character that they are (hero, etc.) because of the specific qualities that they possess.

    But you're right that maybe some stories have been passed down from generation to generation for so long that maybe they get to a point that people start to wonder if they didn't come up with it themselves. I guess we'll never know...

    Thanks for your input :)

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