Arthur Brooke (poet)

Arthur Brooke (died 19 March 1563) was an English poet who wrote and created various works including The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), considered to be William Shakespeare's chief source for his tragedy Romeo and Juliet (1597).

Arthur Brooke
Died19 March 1563
NationalityEnglish
Occupationpoet
Notable work
The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet

Life

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests that Brooke may have been a son of Thomaz Broke.[1]

Brooke was admitted to the Inner Temple, at the request of Gorboduc's authors, Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. He may have written the masque that accompanied the play.[2]

On 19 March 1563, Brooke died in the shipwreck that also killed Sir Thomas Finch, bound for Le Havre, besieged in the French Wars of Religion.[2] In 1567 George Turberville published a collection of poetry entitled, Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets; it included An Epitaph on the Death of Master Arthur Brooke Drownde in Passing to New Haven.[3]

The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet
Main article: The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet

Though ostensibly a translation from the Italian of Bandello, Brooke's poem is derived from a French version by Pierre Boaistuau. The work was published by Richard Tottell.[2]

Bernard Garter published The Tragicall and True Historie which Happened betweene Two English Lovers (1565), which imitated Brooke's work in a ballad metre.[4] A prose version of Romeo and Juliet (1567) was printed in The Palace of Pleasure, a collection of tales edited by William Painter. Shakespeare stuck quite closely to the version by Brooke.[5]

References
  1. Grummitt, David. "Broke, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3498. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. King, Andrew. "Brooke, Arthur". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3494. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. William Shakespeare; Henry Norman Hudson (1871). The Works of Shakespeare: The Text Carefully Restored According to the First Editions, with Introductions, Notes Original and Selected, and a Life of the Poet by H. N. Hudson. Estes & Lauriat. p. 6. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  4. Steggle, Matthew. "Garter, Bernard". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10412. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. John Doherty (4 January 2012). The Ignorance Of Shakespeare. Strategic Book Publishing. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-61204-839-0. Retrieved 27 June 2013.

Further reading
  • Munro, J. J. (1908), Brooke's ’Romeus and Juliet,’ being the original of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", London, Chatto and Windus; New York, Duffield and Company.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.


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