An Analysis of the Differences between East and West and Romanticism in Romeo and Juliet

Abstract

The Chinese folk tale "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" and Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" are two poignant love stories. Although both love stories share a common melancholy theme and both aim to expose and criticise feudalism, there are many differences in their emotional expression, characterisation and tragic endings. Through a comparison of the two, this paper will analyse the inherent differences between Chinese and Western cultures and their different values, the resulting different ways in which the protagonists express their love and their different acts of resistance in the face of oppressive reality. On this basis, it will focus on the important connotations of romanticism in Shakespeare's works and the profound influence of this idealised romantic spirit on future generations. The paper will also focus on the different emphases of tragedy in China and the West, as reflected in the two works ——Western tragedy emphasises the occurrence of tragedy as a result of chance events, while Chinese tragedy emphasises the inevitable outcome due to powerful social factors. Through these comparisons, let us revisit these two classic love stories and travel back in time to re-examine the steadfastness of love.