Shakespeare and the classics / edited by Charles Martindale and A.B. Taylor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Martindale, Charles.

Taylor, A. B. (Albert Booth)

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Knowledge and learning--Literature.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Literature.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Knowledge and learning--Greece.

Greece.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Knowledge and learning--Rome.

Classicism--England--History--16th century.

Classicism.

England.

History.

Classical literature--Appreciation--England.

Classical literature.

Classical literature--Appreciation.

English literature--Classical influences.

English literature.

Physical Description:

xiii, 319 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge, 2004.

Summary:

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 such crucial areas of human experience 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 the most rounded and comprehensive treatment of Shakespeare's classicism currently available and will be a useful first port of call for students and others approaching the subject.

Contents:

Part I An Initial Perspective

1 Shakespeare and humanistic culture / Colin Burrow 9

Part II 'Small Latine'

Ovid

2 Petruchio is 'Kated': The Taming of the Shrew and Ovid / Vanda Zajko 33

3 Ovid's myths and the unsmooth course of love in A Midsummer Night's Dream / A. B. Taylor 49

4 Shakespeare's learned heroines in Ovid's schoolroom / Heather James 66

Virgil

5 Shakespeare and Virgil / Charles Martindale 89

Plautus and Terence

6 Shakespeare's reception of Plautus reconsidered / Wolfgang Riehle 109

7 Shakespeare, Plautus, and the discovery of New Comic space / Raphael Lyne 122

Seneca

8 'Confusion now hath made his masterpiece': Senecan resonances in Macbeth / Yves Peyre 141

9 'These are the only men': Seneca and monopoly in Hamlet 2.2 / Erica Sheen 156

Part III 'Lesse Greek'

Plutarch

10 'Character' in Plutarch and Shakespeare: Brutus, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony / John Roe 173

11 Plutarch, Shakespeare, and the alpha males / Gordon Braden 188

12 Action at a Distance: Shakespeare and the Greeks / A. D. Nuttall 209

Greek Romances

13 Shakespeare and Greek romance: 'Like an old tale still' / Stuart Gillespie 225

Greek Tragedy

14 Shakespeare and Greek tragedy: strange relationship / Michael Silk 241

Part IV The Reception of Shakespeare's Classicism

15 'The English Homer': Shakespeare, Longinus, and English 'neo-classicism' / David Hopkins 261

16 'There is no end but addition': the later reception of Shakespeare's classicism / Sarah Annes Brown 277.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 294-310) and index.

ISBN:

0521823455

OCLC:

54081543

Online:

Publisher description