“Wherefore art thou Marius?”: Otway’s Adaptation of Romeo and Juliet

The essay is a study of Otway’s Caius Marius, which, strictly speaking, it is not an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, but an autonomous Roman tragedy in which only the subplot is taken from Shakespeare. The play mirrors the difficulties of the period and the conflict between Royalists and Protestants, after the “discovery” of the Popish Plot. The analysis highlights the binary system underlying the text: that of two elements equal in value which can be opposed in hatred or united in love. Opposition is studied at all levels, and appears as a polarity – that between the private and the public, between love and civic duties – where no choice is possible, and which is resolved only in death.