A Wild Pursuit (31 page)

Authors: Eloisa James

A Note on Shakespeare and his Wilder Brethren

T
he last words of
A Wild Pursuit
were written by Shakespeare, and spoken by Romeo. I decided to close the novel with Romeo's farewell to his bride because Renaissance poetry is so important to this book as a whole. Bea uses
Romeo and Juliet
to propose to Stephen Fairfax-Lacy; Esme uses the King James version of
The Song of Solomon
to propose to Sebastian Bonnington.

But the book is also punctuated by works far less known than these two famed pieces of love poetry. Richard Barnfield published only two books of verse, which appeared in 1594 and 1595, precisely when
Romeo and Juliet
was likely first performed. For their time, both Shakespeare's play and Barnfield's poetry were shockingly original. Juliet's proposal to Romeo, not to mention the speech in which she longs for their wedding night to begin, both startled and delighted London audiences.
Romeo and Juliet
was a howling success; ten years later, young courtiers were still quoting the play to each other on the street. Its popularity is attested to by the fact that in 1607 a company of boys put on the stage a play called
The Puritan
, which contains a riotous parody of Juliet's balcony scene. Some lines from that play are used by Esme to poke fun at
Romeo and Juliet
, precisely as the original boy actors did back in 1607.

Richard Barnfield's poetry was, in a different fashion, as shocking as Shakespeare's portrayal of Juliet. The book that Bea brings with her to Esme's house party was an odd amalgam of love poetry and narrative verse. Amongst the various odes and lyrics Barnfield wrote are some of the most beautiful, sensual, and explicit poems written before the twentieth century. As you can perhaps tell from the reaction Helene has to reading aloud a Barnfield poem, neither Renaissance nor Regency readers were accustomed to expressing in public a wish that
My lips were honey, and thy mouth a bee.
I sometimes receive letters from readers contending that aristocrats living in the Regency period would have acted with propriety at all times, even in the privacy of their own bedchambers. I thought it well to present some poetry written over two hundred years before the Regent took the throne. Barnfield may have been one of the first Englishmen to put this desire in print; he was neither the first, nor the last, to express it.

About the Author

Author of seven award-winning romances, Eloisa James is a professor of English literature who lives with her family in New Jersey. All her books must have been written in her sleep, because her days are taken up by caring for two children with advanced degrees in whining, a demanding guinea pig, a smelly frog, and a tumbledown house. Letters from readers provide a great escape! Write Eloisa at [email protected] or visit her website at www.eloisajames.com.

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Books by
Eloisa James

A W
ILD
P
URSUIT

F
OOL
F
OR
L
OVE

D
UCHESS IN
L
OVE

Y
OUR
W
ICKED
W
AYS

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A WILD PURSUIT.
Copyright Â© 2004 by Eloisa James. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition Â© SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061801952

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