Romantic Love as a Threat to Social Stability in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Anouilh’s “Romeo and Jeanette”
Romantic Love as a Threat to Social Stability in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Anouilh’s “Romeo and Jeanette”

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we focus on the comparative analysis between Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and its modern version, Anouilh’s Romeo and Jeannette. Anouilh is a representative of modern playwrights who evoke Shakespeare in their argument that a number of structures in our society are enemies of the authentic individual. What they adopt from Shakespeare is the capacity of man to relate with the world in a loving way. We argue that Anouilh’s Romeo and Jeannette fits the template of Shakespeare’s Tragic Equation – the mythical pattern present in all of the Bard’s works, the tragedy of the Lover devoid of love. These works evoke Shakespeare’s warning: that modern society is not conducive of love. On the contrary, the system is based on the suppression of genuine human affection; its re-emergence would subvert the dominant power-relations. In the introduction, we attempt to define the notion of romantic love by referring to the works of Bloom, Illouz, Vyvyan, etc. The following two segments of the paper deal with the analysis of the romantic relationship in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and its modern evocations in the work of Anouilh. In the conclusion, the destructive tendencies of the (modern) patriarchal society are yet again highlighted and linked to Shakespeare’s warning and desire to make his audience and readers perceive, judge and finally condemn them.

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