CHAPTER VIII

THE CHIEF SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

Shakespeare and Plagiarism. Among the curious. alterations in public sentiment that have come in the last century or two, none is more striking than the change of attitude in regard to what is called "plagiarism." Plagiarism may be defined as the appropriation for one's own use of the literary ideas of another. The laws of patent and of copyright have led us into thinking that the ideas of a play must not be borrowed in any degree, but must originate in every detail with the writer. This is as if we should say to an inventor, "Yes, you may have invented a safety trigger for revolvers, but you must not apply it to revolvers until you have invented a completely new type of revolver from the original matchlock."

But the playwright of to-day cannot help plagiarizing his technique, many of his situations, and even his plots from earlier plays; consequently, he tries to conceal his borrowings, to placate public opinion by changing the names and the environment of his characters.

The Elizabethan audiences were less exacting. If a play about King Lear were written and acted with some success, they thought it perfectly honest for another dramatist to use this material in building up a new and better play on the story of King Lear. They cared

even less when the dramatist went to other dramas for hints on minor details. The modern audience, if not the modern world at large, holds the same view. So long as the mind of the borrower transforms and makes his own whatever he borrows, so long will his work be applauded by his audience, whatever be the existing state of the copyright laws or of public fastidious

ness.

Hence we do not to-day hunt up the sources of Shakespeare's plots and characters in order to prove plagiarism, but in order to understand just how great was the power of his genius in transmuting common elements into his fine gold.

It is customary to say: "Shakespeare did not invent his plots. He was not interested in plots." So far is this from the truth that the amount of pains and skill spent by him in working over any one of his best comedies or tragedies would more than suffice for the construction of a very good modern plot. It is more true to say of most of his work, "Shakespeare did not waste his time in inventing stories. He took stories where he found them, realized their dramatic possibilities, and spent infinite pains in weaving them together into a harmonious whole."

There is one other point to remember. The sources of Shakespeare's plays were no better literary material than the sources of most Elizabethan plays. Shakespeare's practice in adapting older plays was

1 There are two plays at least which have plots probably original with Shakespeare-Love's Labour's Lost and The Tempest. Both of these draw largely, however, from contemporary history and adventure, and the central idea is directly borrowed from actual

events.

the common practice of the time. We can measure, therefore, the greatness of Shakespeare's achievement by a comparison with what others have made out of similar material.

Just as Shakespeare's plays fall into the groups of history, tragedy, and comedy, so his chief sources are three in number: biography, as found in the Chronicle of Holinshed and Plutarch's Lives; romance, as found in the novels of the period, which were most of them translations from Italian novelle; and dramatic material from other plays.

Holinshed. Raphael Holinshed (died 1580?) published in 1578 a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland, usually known as Holinshed's Chronicle. The two immense folio volumes contain an account of Britain "from its first inhabiting" up to his own day, largely made up by combining the works of previous historians. The Chronicle bears evidence, however, of enormous and painstaking research which makes it valuable even now. Holinshed's style was clear, but not possessed of any distinctly literary quality. Much of what Shakespeare used was indeed. but a paraphrase of an earlier chronicler, Edward Hall. Holinshed was uncritical, too, since he made no attempt to separate the legendary from the truly historical material. So far as drama is concerned, however, this was rather a help than a hindrance, since legend often crystallizes most truly the spirit of a career in an act or a saying which never had basis in fact. The work is notable chiefly for its patriotic tone, of which there is certainly more than an echo in Shakespeare's historical plays. But the effects of

steadfast continuity of national purpose, of a belief in the greatness of England, and of an insistent appeal to patriotism, which are such important elements in Shakespeare's histories, are totally wanting in Holinshed.

Not only are all of the histories of Shakespeare based either directly or through the medium of other plays upon Holinshed, but his two great tragedies, Macbeth and King Lear (the latter through an earlier play), and his comedy Cymbeline are also chiefly indebted to it. The work was, moreover, the source of many plays by other dramatists.

Plutarch. - Plutarch of Chæronea, a Greek author of the first century A.D., wrote forty-six "parallel " Lives, of famous Greeks and Romans. Each famous Greek was contrasted with a famous Roman whose career was somewhat similar to his own. The Lives have been ever since among the most popular of the classics, for they are more than mere biographies. They are the interpretation of two worlds, with all their tragic history, by one who felt the fatal force of a resistless destiny.

A scholarly French translation of Plutarch's Lives was published in 1559 by Jacques Amyot, Bishop of Bellozane. Twenty years after (1579) Thomas North, later Sir Thomas, published his magnificent English version.1 The vigor and spirit which he flung into his work can only be compared to that of William Tyndale in his translation of the New Testament. Here was very different material for drama from the

1 It is not unlikely that it was the second edition published in 1595 by Richard Field (Shakespeare's printer) that the poet read.

dry bones of history offered by Holinshed. Shakespeare paid North the sincerest compliment by borrowing, particularly in Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, not only the general story, but whole speeches with only those changes necessary for making blank verse out of prose. The last speeches of Antony and Cleopatra are indeed nearly as impressive in North's narrative form as in Shakespeare's play.

In addition to the tragedies already named, Julius Cæsar and almost certainly the suggestion of Timon of Athens, though not the play as a whole, were taken from Plutarch's Lives. Other Elizabethans were not slow to avail themselves of this unequaled treasurehouse of story.

Italian and Other Fiction.-Except for Geoffrey Chaucer (1338-1400), whose Troilus and Criseyde Shakespeare dramatized, and John Gower (died 1408), whose Confessio Amantis is one of the books out of which the plot of Pericles may have come, there was little good English fiction read in the Elizabethan period. Educated people read, instead, Italian novelle, or short tales, which were usually gathered into some collection of a hundred or so. Many of these were translated into English before Shakespeare's time; and a number of similar collections had been made by English authors, who had translated good stories whenever they found them.

One of these was Gli Heccatommithi, 1565 (The Hundred Tales), by Giovanni Giraldi, surnamed Cinthio, which was later translated into French and was the source of Measure for Measure and Othello. Another collection was that of Matteo Bandello, whose