SHAKESPEARE’S “LESSE GREEK”

Andrew Werth

THE OXFORDIAN Volume V 2002

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ESPITE important evidence, orthodox scholars have ruled out Shakespeare’s ability to read Greek. Implying the matter is closed, they tell us Shakespeare relied on few translated Greek writers, and read none in the original. We suggest that, on the contrary, the Greek classics were important to Shakespeare, and that he read them in Greek.
Let’s begin with the conclusions of two popular orthodox works on the subject. One was written for the last generation: J.A.K. Thomson’s Shakespeare and the Classics; the other is more recent and popular with today’s readers: Charles and Michelle Martindale’s Shakespeare
and the Uses of Antiquity. These are appropriate springboards for our discussion, not because they are thorough examinations of Shakespeare’s sources (as are the multi-volume works by T.W. Baldwin, Geoffrey Bullough, and Kenneth Muir) but because they are widely read by teachers and students, and thus are influential in shaping popular thought. They also neatly summarize the orthodox opinions of those longer works; as the Martindales confirm, “[W]e have lived long in [Baldwin’s] company while writing this book” (6). The Martindales’ newer book is both an update and a response to Thomson’s classic.

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