Note 229 — INTRODUCCIÓN X (continued 4)
Reading edition
«In any case it is scarce an exaggeration to say that, after the creation of Calisto and Melibea, the appearance of Romeo and Juliet was but a question of time. Where in the Plautine and Terentian comedy there was appetite, where in their late derivatives there was rank lubricity, where in the writers who immediately preceded Rojas there were symbolism and mystical transport, the Celestina strikes the note of rapture, passion, the love of love...». (Fitzmaurice-Kelly, en el prólogo ya citado, p. XVIII).
«If we did not know of the Italian origin of Romeo and Julieta, we might think that Shakespeare had been inspired by Celestina; and, indeed, it is likely that he knew of Mabbe's translation of it in manuscript from Mabbe's friend Ben Jonson». (Martin Hume, Spanish influence on English Literature... Londres, 1905, pág. 126).