Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:35:44.185Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Shakespeare and Virgil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Charles Martindale
Affiliation:
Professor of Latin University of Bristol
Charles Martindale
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Get access

Summary

J. W. Velz's claim that a full study of Virgil and Shakespeare is a key desideratum is … misplaced; we at least would rather be spared it.

This interdiction, overly dogmatic and itself perhaps misplaced, sprang from an irritation with the excesses and lack of rigour of much current source-hunting. Leonard Digges' assertion ‘look thorough / This whole book, thou shalt find he doth not borrow / One phrase from Greeks, nor Latins imitate’, even if we regard it as false or misleading, must at least have seemed plausible to many of Shakespeare's early readers (Dr Johnson later made a not dissimilar claim). Still, there can be no reasonable doubt that Shakespeare read some Virgil in Latin at school, and that allusions and references to Virgil are found throughout his work. No one has undermined the demonstration by Root, made more than a century ago, that Shakespeare's classical mythology derives primarily from Ovid and Virgil, Ovid's influence being four times greater than Virgil's. The main focus of Shakespeare's interest in Virgil was in three episodes from the Aeneid, the tragedy of Dido, the sack of Troy, and Aeneas' visit to the Underworld (episodes that have been favourites throughout history, from St Augustine in his Confessions onwards). Whether Shakespeare read the second half of the poem, either in Latin or in the translation of Phaer and Twyne (1584), cannot be proved, though it is likely enough.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×