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How Great was Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Alice Harmon
Alice Harmon*
Affiliation:
Montana State College
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Extract

Edward Capell in his Notes and Various Readings (1781) pointed out a parallel between Montaigne's essay “Of the Caniballes” (Florio's translation) and The Tempest, II, 1, 148, ff., where Shakespeare follows the wording of Florio so closely that his indebtedness is unmistakable. Since this discovery various attempts have been made to prove further the influence of Montaigne upon Shakespeare. In 1871, G. F. Stedefeld published the first extended study of the relationship between the two writers, and from that time on there have appeared from time to time books and articles on the subject, some of which make extravagant assertions in regard to the extent of Montaigne's influence upon the dramatist. For example, J. M. Robertson in Montaigne and Shakespeare (1897), after gathering numerous parallels from the Essays and from Shakespeare, made the sweeping claim that much of the growth of Shakespeare's mind was due to the influence of Montaigne. G. C. Taylor in Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne (1925) makes almost as large claims as this. He “proposes to demonstrate” by means of parallel passages “that Shakespeare was beyond any doubt, profoundly and extensively influenced by Montaigne; definitely influenced in regard to vocabulary, phrases, short and long passages, and, after a fashion, influenced also in thought.” In an article published shortly after Robertson's book appeared, Miss Elizabeth Hooker, after citing numerous parallels, comes to the more guarded conclusion that Shakespeare used the Essays as a store-house of material only. Conservative students of the literature of the Renaissance have questioned the soundness of assigning definite sources, especially for material of common knowledge, on the basis of parallel passages. A. Brandl, in his review of Robertson's Montaigne and Shakespeare, warns against assigning to Montaigne sources which were common to both writers, such as Plutarch, and C. R. Baskervill, in his review of Taylor's Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne, states the same objection, and says that most of the parallels cited by Taylor may be due to a common inheritance of Renaissance thought shared by the two writers. Pierre Villey believes the passage in The Tempest is the only instance of Shakespeare's borrowing from Montaigne. After reading the exhaustive parallels cited by Robertson and others, he concludes that “cent zéros additionnés ensemble ne font toujours que zéro.” Yet, in spite of the skepticism of the more conservative scholars, parallels are still cited to prove a direct relation between the two writers. Miss Suzanne Türck has brought together numerous passages which she believes show unmistakable influence of the Essais on Hamlet. J. Dover Wilson cites Montaigne frequently in his notes to his recent edition of Hamlet. And Joseph E. Baker, in his essay “The Philosophy of Hamlet,” says that in Hamlet “direct echoing [of Montaigne] seems very probable.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1942 , pp. 988 - 1008
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Note 1 in page 988 I have not had access to this work. A. H. Upham, The French Influence in English Literature (New York, 1908), p. 282, cites the parallel as pointed out by Edward Capell, Notes and Various Readings (1781), pt. iv, p. 63.

Note 2 in page 988 Hamlet: ein Tendenz-drama Shakespeares (Berlin, 1871).

Note 3 in page 988 This reference is to the edition of 1909, Montaigne and Shakespeare, p. 37.

Note 4 in page 988 Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne, p. 5.

Note 5 in page 988 “The Relation of Shakespeare to Montaigne,” PMLA, x (1902), 347.

Note 6 in page 988 Shakespeare Jahrbuch, xxxv (1899), 313–314.

Note 7 in page 989 Modern Philology, xxiii (1925–26), 499–500.

Note 8 in page 989 “Montaigne et les poètes dramatiques anglais du temps de Shakespeare,” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, xxiv (1917) 390.

Note 9 in page 989 Shakespeare und Montaigne: ein Beitrag zur Hamlet-Frage. (Berlin, 1931).

Note 10 in page 989 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Cambridge: The University Press, 1934).

Note 11 in page 989 Essays in Dramatic Literature (Princeton University Press, 1935), p. 468.

Note 12 in page 990 My citations from Baldwin are from the edition of 1564, representing Paulfreyman's third revision. I cite from the 1630 edition of Ling, and from the 1634 edition of Meres. My citations from Elyot, Bankette of sapience (1539) and from Whittinton's translations from St. Martin—The Forme and Rule of honest lyvynge and The Myrour or Glasse of maners—are from photostat copies of the originals in the British Museum. Of the Polyanthea i cite the edition of 1608, of the Adagia the Froben edition, 1533. My citations from E.A.'s The Defence of Death are from a film reproduction of the original in the British Museum.

Note 13 in page 991 Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne, pp. 15 and 24–25.

Note 14 in page 991 References to Montaigne are to The Essays of Montaigne done into English by John Florio, The Tudor Translations (London, 1892).

Note 15 in page 992 Cf. II. Henry IV, iv, iv. 54–56, where the King, lamenting over the riotous life of Prince Hal, says,

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds,
And he, the noble image of my youth,
Is overspread with them.

Note 16 in page 993 Taylor, op. cit., p. 14.

Note 17 in page 993 The comparison between transitory and vain things and a shadow seen in sleep is frequently met in the literature of the Renaissance. Montaigne here quotes Tasso. The figure is to be found in Pindar (Pythian Hymns viii), where it is used to describe the slightness and evanescence of man's life. Erasmus' quotation of the similitude from Pindar (Adagia, ii, iii, 48, under “Homo bulla”) no doubt gave currency to this figure. I cite part of Erasmus' paraphrase from Pindar below, for the Duke's speech in Measure for Measure.

Note 18 in page 993 Cf. Seneca Ep. cxxiii, 16:

Gloria vanum et volucre quiddam est auraque mobilius.

Note 19 in page 994 … ad quam [i.e., populari gloriam] fertur optimus quisque, veramque illam honestatem expetens, quam unam natura maxime inquirit, in summa inanitate versatur consecta-turque nullam eminentem effigiem virtutis, sed adumbratam imaginem gloriae. Est enim gloria solida quaedam res et expressa, non adumbrata …

Note 20 in page 994 I have not traced this quotation in the Moralia.

Note 21 in page 994 Cawdrey gives a reference to 1 Cor., 4. 7; but he is probably following Plutarch here, not St. Paul.

Note 22 in page 994 Other English versions of this similitude may be found in Meres under “Wisdome,” and in Cawdrey under “Vertue.”

Note 23 in page 995 Feis, Shakespeare and Montaigne, pp. 81, ff., J. M. Robertson, op. cit., p. 53, Miss Türck, op. cit., p. 50, and J. Dover Wilson, as noted below, all cite this parallel.

Note 24 in page 995 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, ed. by J. Dover Wilson (1934), p. 175. Professor Wilson refers here to Florio's Montaigne, Bk. iii, ch. 12—no doubt an error for Bk. ii, ch. 12, in which the passage in question occurs.

Note 25 in page 995 See De natura deorum, Bk. ii, sections 4, 15, 90, 98, ff., etc., especially the elaborate account of the beauty and order of the world in sections 98 ff. For one passage (ii, 95), which argues from the perfection of the universe that the gods exist, Cicero quotes Aristotle, the lost dialogue, De Philosophia. In Plato's Timaeus the contemplation of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies is described as the highest function of the soul of man (paragraphs 47 and 90, Jowett's translation). Quite possibly these passages in Plato were a main source of the various descriptions in later classical writers of the response of man's soul to the ordered beauty of the universe.

Note 26 in page 996 Cf. Seneca De otio, v, 4:

[Natura] in media nos sui parti constituit et circumspectum omnium nobis dedit; nec erexit tantummodo hominem, sed etiam habilem contemplationi factura, ut ab ortu sidera in occasum labentia prosequi posset et vultum suum circumferre cum toto, sublime fecit illi caput et collo flexili imposuit….

Note 27 in page 997 Cf. with the Senecan passage in the preceding footnote and with the lines from Twyne's translation of Petrarch, the latter part of Hamlet's speech on the beauty of the universe:

What a piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! How infinite in faculty ! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!

—Hamlet, ii. iii. 315–320

Note 28 in page 998 Feis, p. 111, Hooker, p. 320, Türck, pp. 61–62.

Note 29 in page 998 Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Cambridge University Press, 1934), p. 249.

Note 30 in page 998 The French Influence in English Literature, p. 283.

Note 31 in page 998 See citations of Montaigne's sources for “que philosophre c'est apprendre a mourir,” i, xx (in Florio, i, xix), Les Essais de Michel Montaigne (Bordeaux, 1920), tome 4 (by Pierre Villey), pp. 41–47. See also comment on the sources of this essay, ibid. p. 45: “On remarquera que bien souvent les sentences en français qui séparent les citations latines ne sont guère que des commentaires de ces citations.”

Note 32 in page 999 Quid autem stultius quam mirari id ullo die factum, quod omni potest fieri? Stat quidem terminus nobis, ubi ilium inexorabilis fatorum necessitas fixit, sed nemo scit nostrum, quam prope versetur terminum. Sic itaque formemus animum, tamquam ad extrema ventum sit. Nihil differamus…. Qui cotiche vitae suae summam manum imposuit, non indiget tempore. —Ep. ci, 7–8

Note 33 in page 999 [Excutienda vitae cupido est discendumque] nihil interesse, quando patiaris, quod quandoque patiendum est. Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu; saepe autem in hoc est bene, ne diu.

—Ep. ci, 15.

Note 34 in page 999 … proinde intrepidus horam illam decretoriam prospice…. Quidquid circa te iacet rerum tamquam hospitalis loci sarcinas specta; transeundum est. Excutit redeuntem natura sicut intrantem. Non licet plus efferre quam intuleris….

—Ep. cii, 24–5.

Note 35 in page 999 Depone onus; quid cunctaris….

—Ep. cii, 26.

Note 36 in page 999 Op. cit., p. 182.

Note 37 in page 999 Ibid., p. 87.

Note 38 in page 1000 Ibid., p. 274.

Note 39 in page 1000 Ibid., pp. 87–91.

Note 40 in page 1000 J. Churton Collins, Studies in Shakespeare (London, 1904), p. 291.

Note 41 in page 1000 “The Relation of Shakespeare to Montaigne,” PMLA, x (1902), 326.

Note 42 in page 1000 Lucretius' great poem may have been quite frequently the source of consolatory precepts among the commonplaces, especially Book iii, the Discourse of Nature. He is less frequently quoted for commonplaces of consolation, however, than other classical writers, especially Cicero and Seneca; the reason being no doubt largely that the definite rejection of the doctrine of personal immortality in his poem (iii, 417 ff.) is in direct conflict with Christian teaching.

Note 43 in page 1001 Hooker, op. cit., p. 328.

Note 44 in page 1002 My forth-coming monograph, Shakespeare's Treatment of Passion, analyzes in some detail the Stoic doctrine which undoubtedly influenced Shakespeare.

Note 45 in page 1002 Quod numquam magis divinum est, quam ubi mortalilatem suam cogitat et scit in hoc natum hominem, ut vita defungeretur, nec domum esse hoc corpus, sed hospitium, et quidem breve hospitium, quod relinquendum est….

—Ep. cxx, 14–15.

Note 46 in page 1003 Hiems frigora adducit: algendum est. Aestas calores refert: aestuandum est. Intemperies caeli valitudinem temptat: aegrotandum est.

—Ep. cvii, 7.

Note 47 in page 1003 Maximum … argumentum est animi ab altiore sede venientis, si haec, in quibus versatur, humilia iudicat et angusta, si exire non metuit. Scit enim, quo exiturus sit, qui unde venerit meminit.

—Ep. cxx, 15.

Note 48 in page 1003 Montaigne and Shakespeare, p. 89.

Note 49 in page 1003 Compare with these lines citations from the Epistles below, especially the passages from Ep. cxx, 16, cited in the next two footnotes.

Note 50 in page 1004 Non videmus quam multa nos incommoda exagitent, quam male nobis conveniat hoc corpus? Nunc de capite, nunc de ventre, nunc de pectore ac faucibus querimur. Alias nervi nos, alias pedes vexant, nunc deiectio, nunc destillatio….

—Ep. cxx, 15–16.

Note 51 in page 1004 … aliquando superest sanguis, aliquando deest; hinc atque illinc temptamur et expellimur; hoc evenire solet in alieno habitantibus.

—Ep. cxx, 16.

Note 52 in page 1005 At nos corpus taro putre sortiti nihilominus aeterna proponimus et in quantum potest aetas humana protendi, tantum spe occupamus, nulla contenti pecunia, nulla potentia. Quid hac re fieri impudentius? Quid stultius potest?

—Ep. cxx, 17.

Note 53 in page 1005 Nihil satis est morituris, immo morientibus; cotiche enim propius ab ultimo stamus, et illo, unde nobis cadendum est, hora nos omnis impellit. Vide in quanta caecitate mens nostra sit!

—Ep. cxx, 17, 18.

Note 54 in page 1005 Robertson, op. cit., p. 88; Hooker, op. cit., p. 330.

Note 55 in page 1006 The negative is an error in translation.

Note 56 in page 1006 … in spem viventibus proximum quodque tempus elabitur subitque aviditas et miserrimus ac miserrima omnia efficiens metus mortis. There follows the prayer of Maecenas, which Seneca calls “the most debased of prayers”—“turpissimum votum”—and which E.A. translates in part. I cite the part which he adapts:

Debilem facito manu, debilem pede coxo,
Tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes;
Vita dum superest, benest

Usque adeone mori miserum est?

Optat ultima malorum, et quae pati gravissimum est extendi ac sustineri cupit; qua mercede? Scilicet vitae longioris. Quod autem vivere est diu mori? Invenitur aliquis, qui velit inter supplicia tabescere et perire membratim et totiens per stilicidia emittere animam quam semel exhalare?

Nega nunc magnum beneficium esse naturae, quod necesse est mori.

—Ep. ci, 10–14.

Note 57 in page 1007 This passage probably depends not only upon the Senecan commonplaces cited above from Epistle cxx, 16 and Epistle ci, 10 f., but for the charge that old people who fear to die prefer to cling to life even though they lose their “senses, moovings, & actions,” upon a much-quoted commonplace in Pliny which describes the miseries of old age:

… tot periculorum genera, tot morbi, tot metus, tot curae, toties invocata morte, ut nullum frequentius sit votum…. Hebescunt sensus, membra torpent, praemoritur visus, auditus, incessus; dentes etiam ac ciborum instrumenta. Et tarnen vitae hoc tempus annumeratur,—Pliny, Nat. hist. lib. vii, Cap. 50 (51)

This commonplace was given wide currency by Erasmus' inclusion of it among the quotations under “Homo bulla,” Adagia, ii, iii. 48. It is constantly adapted in the literature of the English Renaissance. Jonson translates it literally in a passage in Volpone (i, v. 144 ff.):

So many cares, so many maladies,
So many fears attending on old age,
Yea, death so often call'd on, as no wish
Can be more frequent with 'em. Their limbs faint,
Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing, going
All dead before them; yea, their very teeth,
Their instruments of eating, failing them:
Yet this is reckon'd life.

Probably the closing lines of Jaques' description of the last age in the seven ages of man

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
—As You Like It, ii, vii. 163–166,

owes something to this popular commonplace. But the description of old age in the Duke's speech is clearly Senecan for the most part.