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Shakespeare and the Uses of Antiquity: An Introductory Essay
Author(s): Michelle Martindale (Author)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: March 3, 1994
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 244 pages
- ISBN-10: 0415104262
- ISBN-13: 9780415104265
Book Description
Although a third of his plays are set in the ancient world and he constantly used classical mythology, history, and ideas, Shakespeare received a simple grammar school education and did not have a scholar’s knowledge of the classics. The critical implications of this are the subject of Shakespeare and the Uses of Antiquity . Against a recent academic tendency to exaggerate Shakespeare’s learning, the authors investigate how he used his comparatively restricted knowledge to create, for example, an unusually convincing picture of Rome, and analyse, by presenting us with careful readings of specific passages, the styles Shakespeare employed under the influence of classical writers, especially Ovid, Seneca, and (in translation) Homer and Plutarch.
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Shakespeare’s knowledge of the Classics was based on a simple grammar school education, yet a third of his plays are set in the ancient world and he constantly used classical mythology, history and ideas. Shakespeare & The Uses Of Antiquity shows how he made the most of his reading of writers such as Ovid, Seneca, and (in translation) Homer and Plutarch, to give convincing life to his historical and fictional characters from antiquity.
About the Author
Charles Michelle Martindale
