Shakespeare and the Classics

This book demonstrates that the classics are of central importance in Shakespeare's plays and in the structure of his imagination.

Charles Martindale (Edited by), A. B. Taylor (Edited by)

9780521175012, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 February 2011

334 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.53 kg

'Charles Martindale and A. B. Taylor's new collection of essays on Shakespeare and the classics is a welcome contribution to this new wave of scholarship by a group of critics well-known in the field … The essays … help capture the truly original characteristic of Shakespeare's imagination as it interacts with the past that nourished it. The tradition that emerges through these essays is itself a living and growing force, a conversation that continues today.' Maggie Kilgour, International Journal of the Classical Tradition

Shakespeare and the Classics demonstrates that the classics are of central importance in Shakespeare's plays and in the structure of his imagination. Written by an international team of Shakespeareans and classicists, this book investigates Shakespeare's classicism and shows how he used a variety of classical books to explore crucial areas of human experience such as love, politics, ethics and history. The book focuses on Shakespeare's favourite classical authors, especially Ovid, Virgil, Seneca, Plautus and Terence, and, in translation only, Plutarch. Attention is also paid to the humanist background and to Shakespeare's knowledge of Greek literature and culture. The final section, from the perspective of reception, examines how Shakespeare's classicism was seen and used by later writers. This accessible book offers a rounded and comprehensive treatment of Shakespeare's classicism and will be a useful first port of call for students and others approaching the subject.

Introduction
Part I. An Initial Perspective: 1. Shakespeare and humanistic culture Colin Burrow
Part II. 'Small Latine': 2. 'Petruchio is 'Kated'': The Taming of the Shrew and Ovid Vanda Zajko
3. Ovid's myths and the unsmooth course of love in A Midsummer Night's Dream A. B. Taylor
4. Shakespeare's learned heroines in Ovid's schoolroom Heather James
5. Shakespeare and Virgil Charles Martindale
6. Shakespeare's reception of Plautus reconsidered Wolfgang Riehle
7. Shakespeare, Plautus, and the discovery of new comic space Raphael Lyne
8. 'Confusion now hath made his masterpiece': Senecan resonances in Macbeth Yves Peyre
9. 'These are the only men': Seneca and monopoly in Hamlet 2.2 Erica Sheen
Part III. 'Lesse Greeke': 10. 'Character' in Plutarch and Shakespeare: Brutus, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony John Roe
11. Plutarch, Shakespeare, and the alpha males Gordon Braden
12. Action at a distance: Shakespeare and the Greeks A. D. Nuttall
13. Shakespeare and Greek romance: 'Like an old tale still' Stuart Gillespie
14. Shakespeare and Greek tragedy: strange relationship Michael Silk
Part IV. The Reception of Shakespeare's Classicism: 15. 'The English Homer': Shakespeare, Longinus, and English 'Neoclassicism' David Hopkins
16. 'There is no end but addition': the later reception of Shakespeare's classicism Sarah Brown.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Shakespeare plays [DDS]