Case IV: At Work: Imagining Shakespeare's Textual Engagements
The mythology surrounding Shakespeare as the quintessential literary genius can blind us to a simple but important fact: his plays were consistently born out of others’ stories and narratives. Classical sources similarly shape Shakespeare’s two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, while the Sonnets, which are so intimate in their probing of the inner conscience, are similarly indebted to patterns and formulas first made famous by the fourteenth-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374).By turning to existing stories and familiar literary genres and templates,and then reworking them anew, Shakespeare adhered to a familiar European-wide cultural practice. Whether in Florence or Frankfurt, Lisbon or London, Renaissance writers privileged modelling and imitation as central to artistic creation. If Shakespeare was an exceptional writer in his day, how he approached his sources was common.
Raphael Holinshed (d.1580?). The First and Second [-third-] Volumes of Chronicles. London: Printed at the expenses of John Harison, George Bishop, Rafe Newberie, Henrie Denham, and Thomas Woodcocke, 1587.
When recounting the evil deeds of Richard III, staging the heroic feats of Henry V, or detailing the encounters of Macbeth and the Weird Sisters, Shakespeare turned to the same work as source: the second edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles. At more than 3.5 million words, Holinshed’s Chronicles was the most comprehensive history of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales available in the period. Despite the single author of its title, Holinshed’s Chronicles was overseen by a team of writers of varying religious and social standings. The beginning to volume one, shown here, begins with a large woodcut initial illustrating an Eden-like landscape.
Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes. Translated by James Amyot. London: Thomas Vautroullier and John Wight, 1579.
If Holinshed’s Chronicles was Shakespeare’s first place to turn for stories and facts from England’s medieval past, then Plutarch’s Lives formed the equivalent for his plays on Ancient Rome, including especially Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Unlike Holinshed, however, Plutarch offers a history wherein pairs of famous figures, one Greek, the other Roman, are compared. The narrative structure of Plutarch’s Lives suggests that the example of the life portrayed is as important as the historical details that surround it.
The Bible. English. Geneva version. London: By the Deputies of Christopher Barker, 1599.
Originally produced in Geneva by English Protestant exiles, the Geneva Bible would see countless editions in various formats for more than a century. While Shakespeare consulted all of the available translations of the Bible in English during his lifetime, the biblical allusions and paraphrases found in his plays and poems derive most often from the Geneva version. This opening from the Book of Revelation is typical of the edition’s mise-en-page. Its cramped extensive printed notes engulf the scripture at both the sides and foot of the page.
Henry Bull (d. 1575). Christian Praiers and Holie Meditations. London: Imprinted by H. Middleton, 1576.
Prayer books, like the one shown here, were among the popular printed genres of Shakespeare’s day. The Fisher’s copy of this rare 1576 edition is beautifully bound in contemporary gold-tooled boards with elaborate gauffered fore-edges. When assessing Shakespeare’s reading, scholars rightly look to works like Holinshed and Plutarch, but smaller works such as this prayer book, and the almanac shown in this case, were among the everyday genres that Shakespeare would have also known and consulted.
Dell’ historia naturale. Naples: Stamperia à Porta Reale, by C. Vitale, 1599.
Shown here is the earliest printed engraving of a cabinet of curiosity, a precursor to the modern natural history museum. This elaborate foldout is based on the actual room furnished by Ferrante Imperato, a Renaissance Italian apothecary. Looking at this image we might be reminded by the description of the apothecary’s shop from Romeo and Juliet:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuffed, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scattered to make up a show (5.1. 42-48)
Dove: An Almanack for the Year Since the Nativitie of our Lord 1635. Printed by the Printers to the University of Cambridge, 1635.
Printed almanacs were among the most common books to circulate in England in the seventeenth century. Printed annually between 1627 and 1709, the Jonathan Dove series of almanacs are typical of the genre. This copy of a 1635 edition includes a yearly calendar with lists of feast days, projections of lunar and other astrological occurrences, as well as various tables, measurements, and a visual of the body and its relationship to the zodiac. The Fisher’s copy also shows signs of use. The contemporary manuscript notes record costs for food, purchases of animals, lists of wages spent, and offerings to the poor. The Fisher’s almanac is one of only two surviving copies of the 1635 edition listed in the English Short-Title Catalogue.
Ovid, (43 BC-17 AD). Le Metamorfosi. Translated by Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara. Venice: Bern. Giunti, 1584.
When Shakespeare alludes to Pygmalion in The Winter's Tale, or to the stories of Procne and Philomel in Titus Andronicus, when he gives us Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the story of Acteon in Twelfth Night, he is turning to the same author: Ovid. Ovid’s Metamorphoses stands among the greatest achievements of ancient Roman poetry and was a favourite source for Renaissance painters, poets, and dramatists. Shown here is the opening to Book 2 of Giunti’s beautiful edition with high-quality engravings. Most prominent among the stories illustrated here, and one that Shakespeare would allude to in Richard II, is the fall of Phaeton.