"Male and Female Gazes: Constructing Subjectivity in the Romeo and Juliet Story"

The transmission of the Romeo and Juliet story from Italy to France and England reveals unexpected points of contact between texts not usually considered in dialogue with one another. Da Porto’s novella and Brooke’s poem, for instance, display comparable forms of masculine ambiguity, while Bandello’s adaptation refashions Da Porto’s hermaphroditic Romeo into the feminised melancholic lover later inherited by Shakespeare. These transformations point to complex processes of gender refashioning and cultural exchange that exceed linear models of influence. The same dynamic informs the representation of Juliet’s agency, particularly in relation to the masculine traits she displays in earlier versions of the story. Focusing on the notion of the gaze and the construction of subjectivity, this essay examines how the lovers’ first encounter evolves from Da Porto to Shakespeare. By tracing the shift from Juliet’s initiating gaze in Da Porto to Romeo’s in Bandello and later versions, it explores changing gender inflections and the tensions between visual and verbal forms of desire.