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The Classical Scholarship of Francis Meres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Don Cameron Allen
Don Cameron Allen*
Affiliation:
State College of Washington
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Extract

For a number of years Francis Meres, the glorifier of Shakespeare, has been puffed as a classical scholar. The translated quotations from innumerable classical authors in his Palladis Tamia as well as his references to many recondite poets of antiquity in the celebrated section on poetry have misled many scholars. One of the chief sinners in this respect is the late Sir Sidney Lee, who on at least two occasions called attention to Meres's powers as a classical scholar. Even the able American scholar, Professor C. F. Tucker Brooke, has on one occasion lumped Meres and Gosson together as puritans and classicists. Others who have attributed various epithets to Meres as “careful,” “learned,” “scholar,” “classical critic,” “Professor at Oxford,” and “Professor at Cambridge” are myriad; and one can locate these phrases through the index rerum of many works on Elizabethan literature. There are, indeed, some scholars who have had reasonable doubts; but as yet there has been no definite effort to investigate the matter for the truth. In the course of this paper, I shall point out the sources of Mere's classical allusions, and I trust that the shallowness of his knowledge in this respect will stand as a caveat regarding his evidence in general.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1933 , pp. 418 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933

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References

1 Sir Sidney Lee, William Shakespeare (1915), p. 258. Elizabethan and Other Essays (1929), pp. 124–125.

2 C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Tudor Drama (1911), pp. 233–234.

3 T. Nash, “To the Gentlemen Students of Both Universities,” G. Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays (1904), i, 314.

4 J. Seiden, The Historie of Tithes (1618), pp. i–ii.

5 R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1853), Pt. i, Sec. 2, Mem. 3, Subs. 15, p. 196.

6 C. H. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge (1852), iii, 104.

7 Cervantes, E. Ingeniose Hidalgo Don Quijote De La Mancha (Marin, 1916), i, 23–26.

8 H. De Vocht, De Invloed van Erasmus op de engelsche Tooneel literature (1908), i, 128–188.

9 F. Watson, Vives On Education (1913), pp. 150–151.

10 R. Ascham, Toxophilus (Arber, 1868), p. 83.

11 Op. cit., p. 286r.

12 Op. cit., p. 284v.

13 W. Kempe, The Education of Children in Learning (1588), Sig. D1v.

14 Publii Vergilii, Bucolica, Georgica, Aenis, cum Servii Commentaris acuratissime emendatis in quibus multa … sunt addila. Sequitur Probi in Bucolica et Georgica … comment. Ad hos Donati fragmenta Christophori Landini et Antonii Muncinelli Commentarii (1520), Sig. Asv.

15 Op. cit., p. 283v.

16 Op. cit., col. 728.

17 Op. cit., col. 725.

18 P. Crinitus, De Poetis Latinis (1598), I, ix, 650.