- McElroy, Bernard. Shakespeare's Mature Tragedies.
- Princeton: Princeton U P, 1973.
Thesis: McElroy's book concerns Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. Romeo and Juliet is mentioned only for purposes of comparison. McElroy says, "In earlier works such as Romeo and Juliet or Richard III, the protagonists try to alter the circumstances of reality; in the mature works they try to impose a vision on its very substance" (28). He also says,
In Romeo and Juliet the issues are completely different from the preoccupations of the mature tragedies. Beauty and love are destroyed by a combination of adult malice, youthful impetuosity, and bad luck, but the values involved are always clear and unambiguous, and the lovers' struggle is with their circumstances, not with their views of themselves or the world. (240)
Bottom Line: A good book, but not about Romeo and Juliet.