Charles Martindale

A. B. Taylor

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.

Shakespeare and the Classics

Ovid's great poem, Metamorphoses, was a source of life long fascination and inspiration for Shakespeare. He drew on its great myths throughout his career: in early works like Venus and Adonis and Titus Andronicus, works of the middle period like A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night, and late plays such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. This book provides a comprehensive examination of his use of Ovid's poem with contributions from international scholars. It begins by examining the use of Ovid's myth in early Elizabethan literature, a use dramatically changed by Marlowe and Shakespeare himself. It then offers detailed readings of Shakespeare's use of Ovid in a wide range of plays and poems, placing emphasis on several important but often underestimated features. The book also provides a survey of twentieth-century criticism and methodology in the field.

A. B. Taylor

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