Shakespeare's Roman plays and their background

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                       SHAKESPEARE’S ROMAN PLAYS
                         AND THEIR BACKGROUND

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                             SHAKESPEARE’S
                              ROMAN PLAYS
                         AND THEIR BACKGROUND

                                  BY
                            M. W. MACCALLUM
                       M.A., HON. LL.D., GLASGOW
                    PROFESSOR OF MODERN LITERATURE
                      IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
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                                 1910

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                   BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.

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PREFACE


Shakespeare’s Roman plays may be regarded as forming a group by
themselves, less because they make use of practically the same
authority and deal with similar subjects, than because they follow the
same method of treatment, and that method is to a great extent peculiar
to themselves. They have points of contact with the English histories,
they have points of contact with the free tragedies, but they are not
quite on a line with either class. It seems, therefore, possible and
desirable to discuss them separately.

In doing so I have tried to keep myself abreast of the literature
on the subject; which is no easy task when one lives at so great a
distance from European libraries, and can go home only on hurried and
infrequent visits. I hope, however, that there is no serious gap in the
list of authorities I have consulted.

The particular obligations of which I am conscious I have indicated
in detail. I should like, however, to acknowledge how much I owe
throughout to the late F. A. T. Kreyssig, to my mind one of the sanest
and most suggestive expositors that Shakespeare has ever had. I am
the more pleased to avow my indebtedness, that at present in Germany
Kreyssig is hardly receiving the learned, and in England has never
received the popular, recognition that is his due. It is strange that
while Ulrici’s metaphysical lucubrations and Gervinus’s somewhat
ponderous commentaries found their translators and their public,
Kreyssig’s purely humane and literary appreciations were passed over.
I once began to translate them myself, but “habent sua fata libelli,”
the time had gone by. It is almost exactly half a century ago since his
lectures were first published; and now there is so much that he would
wish to omit, alter, or amplify, that it would be unfair to present
them after this lapse of years for the first time to the English
public. All the same he has not lost his value, and precisely in
dealing with the English and the Roman histories he seems to me to be
at his best.

One is naturally led from a consideration of the plays to a
consideration of their background; their antecedents in the drama, and
their sources, direct and indirect.

The previous treatment of Roman subjects in Latin, French, and English,
is of some interest, apart from the possible connection of this or
that tragedy with Shakespeare’s masterpieces, as showing by contrast
the originality as well as the splendour of his achievement. For this
chapter of my Introduction I therefore offer no apology.

On the other hand the sketches of the three “ancestors” of
Shakespeare’s Roman histories, and especially of Plutarch, need perhaps
to be defended against the charge of irrelevancy.

In examining the plays, one must examine their relations with their
sources, and in examining their relations with their sources, one
cannot stop short at North, who in the main contributes merely the
final form, but must go back to the author who furnished the subject
matter. Perhaps, too, some of the younger students of Shakespeare may
be glad to have a succinct account of the man but for whom the Roman
plays would never have been written. Besides, Plutarch, so far as
I know, has not before been treated exactly from the point of view
that is here adopted.