Shakespearean genre “on the countercurrent”. Regarding the dynamics of genre modifications in Romeo and Juliet: text and film adaptations

Fate or chance? Tragedy or melodrama? These questions are inevitable when discussing the genre of Romeo and Juliet. This article proposes a new approach to defining the play’s genre, based on Alexander Veselovsky’s concept of “countercurrent” and his definition of drama, which is fundamentally opposed to that of Aristotle and his school. The article analyzes the interaction between the characters and external forces in accordance with Veselovsky’s concept of the role of the internal element in drama. From this perspective, the unique features of Romeo and Juliet become apparent, as one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays that occupies an intermediate position between tragedy and comedy, thus giving rise to modern drama. Within the framework of the “countercurrent” concept, the “interplay” between speech and dramatic genres is also considered at the level of incorporating sonnet-like language into the play, as demonstrated in Igor Shaytanov’s innovative interpretation. The article concludes with an analysis of the two most popular film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet — Franco Zeffirelli’s (1968) and Baz Luhrmann’s (1996), made in different genres according to how each director perceived the trends of their time. While Zeffirelli seems to be a proponent of the Renaissance, Luhrmann’s screen version reveals that there are no proper acoustics for such values in modern society. 

1. Ackoff, R. (1981). Creating the corporate future: Plan or be planned for. John Wiley and Sons.

2. Berkovskii, N. A. (1969). “Romeo i Dzhul’etta”, tragediia Shekspira [Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s tragedy]. In N. A. Berkovskii. Literatura i teatr: Stat’ʹi raznykh let (pp. 11– 47). Iskusstvo. (In Russian).

3. Bowie, A. M. (1993). Aristophanes: Myth, ritual and comedy. Cambridge Univ. Press.

4. Herrick, M. T. (1962). Tragicomedy: Its origin and development in Italy, France, and England. Univ. of Illinois Press.

5. Jensen, E. J. (1991). Shakespeare and the ends of comedy. Indiana Univ. Press.

6. Lutsenko, E. M. (2025). Tragediia U. Shekspira “Romeo i Dzhul’etta” v angliiskoi i russkoi retseptsii: poetika adaptatsii i perevodov [William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet in English and Russian reception: The poetics of adaptations and translations] (Dr. Sci. (Philology) Diss., A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences). (In Russian).

7. Olson, E. (1968). The theory of comedy. Indiana Univ. Press. Prendergast, Ch. (1978). Balzac: Fiction and melodrama. E. Arnold.

8. Shaytanov, I. (2010). Komparativistika i/ili poetika: Angliiskie siuzhety glazami istoricheskoi poetiki [Comparative studies and/or poetics: English literature through the eyes of historical poetics]. RGGU. (In Russian).

9. Shaytanov, I. (2011a). Dve “neudachi”: “Mera za meru” i “Andzhelo” [Two “failures”: Measure for Measure and Angelo]. In E. Lutsenko, & I. Shaytanov (Eds.). Problemy sovremennoy komparativistiki (pp. 111–135). Zhurnal “Voprosy literatury”. (In Russian).

10. Shaytanov, I. O. (2011b). Klassicheskaia poetika neklassicheskoi epokhi [Classical poetry of a non-classical epoch]. In A. N. Veselovskii. Izbrannoe: Istoricheskaia poetika (I. O. Shaytanov. Ed., Intro., Foreword, & Comment.) (pp. 5–50). Universitetskaia kniga. (In Russian).

11. Shaytanov, I. O. (2022). Rechevoi zhanr na lingvisticheskom povorote [Speech genre at the linguistic turn]. In E. E. Dmitrieva, & S. V. Sapozhkov (Eds.). Revnitel’ Prosveshcheniia: Sbornik statei k 90-letiiu pochetnogo professora MPGU Valentina Ivanovocha Korovina (pp. 11–22). Litfakt. (In Russian).

12. Shaytanov, I. O. (2023). Shekspirovskii zhanr: Opyt istoricheskoi poetiki [The Shakespearean genre: An experiment in historical poetics]. RGGU. (In Russian).

13. Simon, R. K. (1985). The labyrinth of the comic: Theory and practice from Fielding to Freud. Univ. Press of Florida.

14. Ulea [Zubareva], V. (2002). A concept of dramatic genre and the comedy of a new type: Chess, literature, and film. Southern Illinois Univ. Press.

15. Veselovskii, A. N. (1889). Razyskaniia v oblasti russkogo dukhovnogo stikha [Research in the field of Russian spiritual poetry] (Vol. 5). Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk. (In Russian).

16. Veselovskii, A. N. (2010). Izbrannoe: Na puti k istoricheskoi poetike [Selected works: On the way to historical poetics] (I. O. Shaytanov. Ed., Intro., Foreword, & Comment.). Avtokniga. (In Russian).

17. Zubareva, V. K. (2011). Chekhov — osnovatel’ komedii novogo tipa [Chekhov as the founder of a comedy of a new type]. Voprosy literatury, 2011(4), 92–123. (In Russian).

18. Zubareva, V. K. (2013). Perechityvaia A. Veselovskogo v XXI veke [Rereading A. Veselovsky in the 21st century]. Voprosy literatury, 2013(5), 47–82. (In Russian).

19. Zubareva, V. K. (2015). Sud’ba [Fate]. In I. O. Shaytanov (Ed.). Uil’iam Shekspir: Entsiklopediia (pp. 348–349). Prosveshchenie. (In Russian).

20. Zubareva, V. K. (2024). “Na vstrechnom techenii”: Pushkin skvoz’ prizmu Veselovskogo [“Against the current”: Pushkin through the prism of Veselovsky]. Izdatel’skii Dom IaSK. (In Russian).