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; and to Julius Caesar in Philaster , The Maid's Tragedy, The Captain , The Chances (1616–25), Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt , The Little French Lawyer , The Double Marriage , The Lovers’ Progress (1619–24, rev. Massinger 1634), and possibly Henry VIII . 3 As significant as these echoes are, however, in this chapter I will focus exclusively on Fletcher's reuse of building materials from Shakespeare's Rome for the construction of his own. While this exploration will concentrate at greater length on Fletcher
Introduction In Bellum Ciuile 5, Julius Caesar – who has already cut a swathe through Italy and conducted a destructive campaign in Spain – finally ends up battling with nature itself, when he attempts to sail from Brundisium to Dyrrachium. In the confident expectation that with Fortune on his side a storm will prove no obstacle to his desires, he embarks upon the sea in a tiny boat, amidst the protests of the owner, the lowly Amyclas ( BC .5.476–721). Before setting off, however, he attempts to impress and bribe the humble sailor: Expecta uotis
mound of rank sweat and bad breath in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar : the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar – for he swooned and fell down at it. And for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air. 2
deployment of Henry Savile's essay ‘The End of Nero and the Beginning of Galba’ as a source. I have also brought attention to the implications of his depiction of Roman women as exceptionally passive in the play, argued for a negative portrayal of stoicism, and illuminated the play's relationship with Shakespeare's Julius Caesar , especially as regards the construction of the character of Maximus as oddly reminiscent of the example of Brutus. As for Bonduca , I have brought new elements to the discussion of the play's sceptical attitude to colonial
arouse at a gathering of early modernists would be with Shakespeare and his Titus Andronicus (1584–94), Julius Caesar (1599), Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07), Coriolanus (1607–09), and Cymbeline (1609–11). Then, someone would be likely to think of Jonson and his Poetaster, or His Arraignment (1601), Sejanus His Fall (1603), and Catiline His Conspiracy (1611). Very few people, if any, would think of Fletcher. As it happens, his name has very infrequently appeared in print in connection with said phrase. 2
plays (Lavinia in Titus Andronicus ; Portia and Calpurnia in Julius Caesar ; Octavia in Antony and Cleopatra ; Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria in Coriolanus ). Yet Shakespeare's Roman women are not only more evenly distributed across the different tragedies; they also generally seem to have more relevance – at least plot-wise – in the plays in which they appear than their Fletcherian counterparts: four of these have (very) minor roles (Ardelia, Phorba, Claudia, and Marcellina in Valentinian ); two may be described as supporting characters with a limited influence
dialogue between Hiero and the poet Simonides set in 474 BCE, is the first literary work ever to investigate the tyrant's inner life. Cf. Robert S. Miola, ‘ Julius Caesar and the Tyrannicide Debate’, Renaissance Quarterly 38 (1985), 271–89 (280 n.23); William A. Armstrong, ‘The Elizabethan Conception of the Tyrant’, Review of English Studies 22 (1946), 161–81 (174–6). See also Silvia Bigliazzi, ‘Introduction: The Tyrant's Fear’, Comparative Drama 51 (2017), 434–54; Francesco Dall’Olio, ‘Xenophon and Plato in Elizabethan Culture: The Tyrant's Fear Before Macbeth
Ralph Knevet's Supplement of the Faery Queene (1635) is a narrative and allegorical work, which weaves together a complex collection of tales and episodes, featuring knights, ladies, sorcerers, monsters, vertiginous fortresses and deadly battles – a chivalric romp in Spenser's cod medieval style. The poem shadows recent English history, and the major military and political events of the Thirty Years War. But the Supplement is also an ambitiously intertextual poem, weaving together materials from mythic, literary, historical, scientific, theological, and many other kinds of written sources. Its encyclopaedic ambitions combine with Knevet's historical focus to produce an allegorical epic poem of considerable interest and power.
This new edition of Knevet's Supplement, the first scholarly text of the poem ever published, situates it in its literary, historical, biographical, and intellectual contexts. An extensive introduction and copious critical commentary, positioned at the back of the book, will enable students and scholars alike to access Knevet's complicated and enigmatic meanings, structures, and allusions.
, of which this Cheiftaine has none. 44.1 phantasmes] illusions. 44.7 vnbridled] unrestrained. 44.8-9] This one more bold may suggest the stabbing of Julius Caesar in 44BC by Marcus Junius Brutus, leader of the conspiracy against him. 45.5 represse] put down. 45.6 pinch] corner, surround; or perhaps bite. 45.6 embosted] exhausted. 45.7 haunches] legs, loins. 45.9 start] jump back. 46.3 dismay] daunt. 46.5 Lethes streames] the River Lethe, one of the rivers of Hell, the waters of which induced forgetfulness of life. 46.6 balefull stoure] dreadful battle (or period of
, especially, I’m going to claim here, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra (although also Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus , as well as Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard III … of which more elsewhere). 2 This is a negotiation undertaken by a ‘strong reader’ with his own political and related religious preoccupations, concerns which centre on notions of oratory, identity, death and immortality. These are addressed not least through the question of suicide, classical and otherwise, Samson being ‘self-killed/Not willingly but tangled in the fold/Of dire necessity’ ( SA