A Comparative Study of Romantic Love in Three Literary Texts

Love is a universal language that can unite two or more persons. It becomes romantic when it finds itself in the wrong context, a rigid situation, an unrealistic relationship, and an uncertain situation. The study examines romantic love literarily in three languages and cultures (Yorùbá, English & French) of three different centuries – the sixteenth century (England), the nineteenth century (France), and the twentieth century (Nigeria). The paper specifically analyses Romanticism in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas, and Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá’s Ó Le Kú through the adoption of Hebert’s Architextual and Intertextual comparative methods. Contrary to popular opinion, which limits Romanticism to 19th-century literary activities, this study argues that Romanticism had existed even before the 19th century and still exists in different forms in this modern epoch. This is why the 17th-century Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 19th-century Hugo’s Ruy Blas, and the 20th-century Ìṣọ̀lá’s Ó Le Kú are captured as romantic works spanning different countries, centuries, geographical locations, cultures, and situations.