1. Introduction 1.1 Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare(1564-1616),is a world-renowned literary giant. Known as Britain's national poet and "the Bard of Avon", Shakespeare lived at the time when Italy and many European countries were carrying out the ideological and cultural movement named the Renaissance movement in which the feudal society of Europe gradually disintegrated and the capitalist mode of production was born. He agreed with the viewpoint of humanists and his works were full of the light of humanism. Shakespeare's works that reserve up to now include 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems and other poems. Shakespeare's plays have been translated into all major languages and performed almost all around the world. His works are the outstanding representative of humanism literature and occupy a very significant position in the history of world literature. His works are still popular today, performed and interpreted in different cultural and political forms all over the world. In fact, he expanded many aspects of dramatic characterization, plot narration, language expression and literary genre. For example, it was not until Romeo and Juliet that romances were considered worthy subjects of tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is a love tragedy with anti-feudal consciousness in the Renaissance and it is often regarded as one of the four tragedies of Shakespeare. The play describes a love story of the daughter of Italian aristocrat Capulet--Juliet and the son of Montague--Romeo who vow to get together and love each other forever, but the family feud separates them and stops their sincere love. Their final death is tragic but their spirit is positive because they not only fall in love with each other bravely, but also boldly pursue their love, even being willing to fight to death. The power of love makes them dare to face the family hatred, dare to challenge the obstacles of life. They are in pursuit of a new mode of life and not afraid of anything. After their death, the family feud is finally reconciled, from this point，their death can be seen as a good ending to some degree. In this sense, many scholars and critics call the play the tragedy of optimism, so it is also known as a tragicomedy. 1.2 Yuefu Poem and A Pair of Peacocks Southeast Fly A Pair of Peacocks Southeast Fly is the first long narrative poem in the history of Chinese literature. It tells the story of a civil marriage tragedy in the eastern Han dynasty, and it is the peak of Yuefu poetry in the history. The poem contains more than 350 sentences and 1,700 words, depicting a story in Lujiang county about a couple called Jiao Zhongqing and Liu Lanzhi who were persecuted by feudal ethics and were forced to separate from each other. In the story, the heroine called Liu Lanzhi who is beautiful, kind, smart and hard-working married to the hero named Jiao Zhongqing. After their marriage, they respected and loved each other, but Jiao#8217;s mother who is bigoted and stubborn regarded Liu as a bad daughter-in-law and is not pleasing to her eyes, sparing no efforts to force her own son to divorce Liu. Jiao Zhongqing had no choice but to persuade Liu to leave for a short time, for himself to try to pick her up later. At the moment of their parting, they promised each other that they would never part. However, after Lanzhi returned home, her elder brother forced her to marry the son of Taishou. Jiao heard of this and rushed to his beloved, they made an appointment to meet each other in the paradise and commited suicide together finally. The whole poem praises the rebellious spirit of the two protagonists. It also showed that the feudal ethics of the old society of cannibalism constrained people's thoughts and emotions in order to inspire people's sympathy and social thinking. 1.3 Need for the study Practically speaking, there are great similarities between the love tragedies. However, due to the differences between eastern and western cultures, there still exist certain differences between those works. There are countless love stories in the world, but A Pair of Peacocks Southeast Fly and Romeo and Juliet can stand out and be sung for years, it#8217;s not only because they let the vast number of readers see the great power of love, but also let people understand the desire for freedom and love of people in that era. There are many similarities and differences between the two works which is attractive and valuable to study, so it is well worth conducting a comparative study of them. 2. Literature review 2.1 Previous views on defining the tragedy ”Tragedy is a special art”(Poetics, p. 203). Tragedy, as a category of aesthetics, is completely different from the misery and sorrow in our daily life. It cannot be made only by rendering the tragic experience of the tragic protagonist. The tragic experience of people who are not real, not good, and of no value can hardly constitute a tragedy. Chernyshevsky, a Russian philosopher and literary critic, believed that "tragedy is a terrible thing in life". Bellinsky, a Russian literary critic, once said, "tragedy is the sublime aspect of dramatic poetry." (Selections of bellinsky, vol. 2, p. 122) Throughout the ancient and modern Chinese and foreign countries, all those stirring classic works that win universal praise are mostly not comedies, but tragedies. In a broad sense, China's four great classical works, Shakespeare's major works and so on are mostly tragedies. Tragedy has always been regarded as the most noble and profound art. There are quite a lot of scholars show great interest in the analysis of tragedy, especially the love tragedy because love and death are the eternal themes of human literature. Since love became a theme of human life, it has changed the value structure of human society. Love is one of the most sincere and sacred feeling in the world, it is beyond the age, beyond the region, even beyond life and death. However, in the long course of history, countless young generations finally lost their love. There exists countless literary works of love tragedy in modern and ancient times，in China and abroad. Song Nian（1988）studies and compares the death in the tragedies written by Willam Shakespeare and Eugene O#8217;Neill. Song views that most of characters in Shakespeare#8217;s and O#8217;Neill#8217;s works harbor the death wish, and the physical death carries the spiritual values.The death is so striking and valuable that most of characters desire and seek it. The tragedies end with death are not real tragic because death is the price paying for love and the value of life. Clark,Albert E （1974）pays high attention to speculating on the playwright's personal attitude towards love. Love in the mature tragedies is illusory. The emotions which characters identify as love cannot stand the test of love in terms of realism, awareness, and objectivity. Love is not their tragedy, but when ambition, jealousy, and lust corrupted their lives, the promise of love was forfeited. With the vitiation of love's creative and restorative function, the lovers enter different worlds. Isolation--the essence of tragedy--is the nemesis of love and life. Liu Chen（2014），in his paper，divides the study of tragedy on the aesthetic sense into three parts: tragedy analysis of content, tragedy analysis of emotion, tragedy and life, and he summarizes that the emotional analysis of tragedy is abundant and changeable. Then, the study of the pleasure of tragedy will inevitably lead to the study of the subjective aspect. Liu agrees that the tragedy comes from existing and is reflected in consciousness. Tragedy is our understanding of the world and life. Tragedy presents the great, basic, serious problems of life, such as life and death, freedom and submission. It can happens to everyone, and can appeal to and affect everyone without exception. Tragedies show suffering, but not all of them are purely miserable, tragedies show destruction, but not all of them are absolute denials of freedom and happiness, life and soul, human dignity and subjectivity. In a tragedy, happiness and sadness, freedom and bondage are always alternate. Tragedy itself is not a simple sad mood or a situation, it is also a spirit of life. Jiang Lijuan(2011)focuses the study on the aesthetic implication of Chinese classical love tragedy. Through the study of Chinese love tragedy, she highlights the brave and tenacious tragic spirit of the characters in the Chinese classical love tragedy, thus arousing the contemporary people's consciousness of love and life. 2.2 Previous Studies on Romeo and Juliet and A Pair of peacocks southeast fly Romeo and Juliet（1594）is almost the most famous love tragedy of Shakespeare, and it has attracted a great number of domestic and foreign scholars to study it . There are thousands of papers focusing on this work. He Ali（2008）pays close attention to the study of the fortuity and necessity of this tragedy. After studying every word of the lines, she concludes that the formation of tragedy is the result of fortuity and coincidence of fate. A series of accidents lead to the final death, and their fate of being born in two hostile families also determines that their love is doomed to be a tragedy. Gao Hui（2013）studies the character of the protagonists, and concludes that the happening of the tragic ending is partly caused by Romeo#8217;s integrity and impulse and Juliet#8217;s innocence and kindness. If two young people have a rational thinking, perhaps their love will not be so tragic. Li Jingyao（2001）points that although Romeo and Juliet exposed and attacked the ancient feudal marriage system and made a shock on the world，the main theme of the work is to praise honesty and faithfulness of love. In addition, the work that eulogized the truth, goodness and beauty explains the noble theme of peace and harmony of relations. A Pair of peacocks southeast fly, praised as ancient first long poem, is a touching love tragedy. There have been many tragedies in the history of Chinese literature. The reason why it can be so famous and stand out among the numerous Yuefu poems is that the story it describes is a love tragedy full of the spirit of resistance. Therefore, many famous scholars have made several comments on it. The study from the perspective of tragedy of A Pair of peacocks southeast fly is a relatively deeper topic in the whole study of it, because this topic is related to how to evaluate the value of this Yuefu ancient poetry, and there are also various opinions. Ma Jigao and Huang Jun（1992） believes that the tragedy of A Pair of peacocks southeast fly is caused by the rebellion of Liu Lanzhi and Jiao Zhongqing. According to the work, the most valuable characteristic of Liu Lanzhi is her strong will to resist the feudal patriarchal rule. She could not bear the abuse of Jiao's mother and would rather sacrifice her personal happiness to leave Jiao's home. In addition, She refused to submit to her elder brother's order to remarry others and was not moved by wealth and glory, so that she finally chose death to show her resistance, which made her a typical woman against feudal patriarchal system in ancient times. Jiao Zhongqing was loyal to love and fought against his mother together with Liu Lanzhi. At last, they recognized the irreconcilability of the struggle and finally committed suicide to object to the society. Tian Ye（2018）points out that A Pair of peacocks southeast fly is full of tragic conflicts. She reveals the gradual destruction of the tragic protagonists by showing these conflicts, such as the conflicts between the young lovers and the feudal autocratic parents, and the conflicts within the character of the tragic hero. Tian also indicates that A Pair of peacocks southeast fly still had the important enlightenment to the modern society: Modern women should learn to be self-respect and self-reliant; when dealing with family affairs, both parties should not only consider their own feelings, but also consider the problems from the perspective of families, trying to find the most appropriate way. Jiang Jinging（2001） indicates that A Pair of peacocks southeast fly reflects the essence of beauty from the perspective of aesthetics and summarizes the process of the destruction of the tragic characters in it: the destruction of ideals, hopes, and spirits；a contest between good and evil, beauty and ugliness；aesthetic image and emotional resonance. Romeo and Juliet and A Pair of peacocks southeast fly are often compared as the classic love tragedy of eastern and western literature. Xi Xinlei（2018） uses the theory of comparative literature to compare and analyze the two representative works of Chinese and western love tragedies, and explores the similarities and differences in the causes behind them as well as the differences and connections of love views between Chinese and western countries under different cultural environments. Qiu Limei（2014）points out that the two works shows great dissimilarity in the concept of tragedy, the aesthetics of tragedy and the root of tragedy. The Chinese concept of tragedy is internalized, while the western concept of tragedy is explicit and theoretical; Chinese tragedies are introverted and implicit, while western tragedies show outward aesthetic characteristics; the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet was caused by family hatred and a series of accidental events, but the tragedy of A Pair of peacocks southeast fly was not only the result of the suppression of social system and feudal thoughts, but also a tragedy caused by the heros#8217; personality. Wu Wenchao（2011）compares the tragic beauty of Romeo and Juliet and A Pair of peacocks southeast fly and points out the similarities and differences between the two tragic works. Wang Wei（2009）makes a detailed comparative analysis of Romeo and Juliet and A Pair of peacocks southeast fly from three aspects: analysing the cultural and historical context of them in the first part; the second part focuses on the interaction between culture and civil society;the last part mainly discussed the writing arts of them. In his paper, using method of data collection and comparative analysis, Wang Wei tries to examine the specific historical culture and artistic deposits of Romeo and Juliet and A Pair of peacocks southeast fly. 2.3 Deficiency in previous studies It is necessary to study the literary value of the two works from the perspective of tragedy. Predecessors mostly compared Romeo and Juliet and A Pair of peacocks southeast fly from the aspect of the story itself and ideological significance without emphasizing the word ”tragedy”. Therefore, it#8217;s vital to conduct the two works from the perspective of tragedy, the social background and tragic character and personality traits, respectively explaining the similarities and differences to achieve historical dialogue of two classic love tragedy works. Works Cited Whyte, Tamara Lynn. Shakespeare in love Appropriation of Shakespeare in popular romance novels. Dissertation Abstracts International, 2014 Eskew, Douglas Wayne. Shakespeare on the verge: Rhetoric, Tragedy, and the Paradox of Place. Dissertation Abstracts International, 2009 Clark, Albert E. Shakespear#8217;s Treatment of Love:the mature Tragedies. Master#8217;s Thesis, 1974 Susan, Snyder. Romeo and Juliet：Comedy into Tragedy. Essays in Criticism, 1970 Link, Frederick M. Romeo and Juliet：Character and Tragedy. Boston University Studies in English, 1955 William，Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. Sterling Signature, 2012 Song，Nina. Death in the Tragedies of William Shakespeare and Eugene O#8217;Neill. 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