The Mystery of the New as Exemplified in the Shakespeare’s Play “Romeo and Juliet”. I. Sources and Prerequisites

What is the new and how it comes into being? To elucidate the point the author subjects to a detailed and systematic analysis the material of “Romeo and Juliet”. Though Shakespeare has almost entirely borrowed it from literary sources, the play is a quite original writing towering above all its “prototypes”. For, newness manifests itself, foremost and mainly, in the ideas the work is charged with. The Shakespeare’s play is at once a hymn to young love and a lament for its tragic fate in the “down-to-earth” world of maturity. He adjusts the material derived from the forerunners to his own intent: the parts get rearranged, the individual elements worked up, the key link marked out round which another structure arises interfit with the idea the work has been done for. It is just the junction of this idea with the material reconfigured that makes the framework of the new. In the first part, the prehistory of the play is traced. The change of emphases in the authors’ purports and the organization of the material of the previous versions of the story show up. The origin of the Shakespeare’s intent and the ripening of its prerequisites in the age of Renaissance are revealed.

Keywords: the new, originality, creativity, love, Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”.