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The Relation of Shakespeare to Montaigne

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Elizabeth Robbins Hooker
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Extract

That Shakespeare read Montaigne's Essays is made probable by the fact that they were well-known to his contemporaries. He was only sixteen when the first two books were published in Paris. By the end of the century, before he had begun to write his greatest tragedies, the popularity of the work had already spread to England. Of this fact there still remain many signs: “Seven or eight of great wit and worth,” Florio tells us, had made attempts to translate the Essays; two separate entries of such a translation had been made in the Stationers' Register; “divers of his peeces” in English, Cornwallis writes, were going from hand to hand in manuscript; and Bacon had published Essays, in which not only the name, but several appropriations of thought, acknowledged and unacknowledged, show the indebtedness of their author to Montaigne.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , 1902 , pp. 312 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1902

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References

Note 1 in page 312 In his To the courteous Reader, prefixed to the first edition of his translation of the Essays, 1603.

Note 2 in page 312 Volpone, Act III, sc. 2.

Note 3 in page 312 Notes and Various Readings, London, 1671, pt. iv, p. 63.

Note 1 in page 314 Samlet: ein Tendenzdrama Sheakspeare's [sic] gegen die skeptische und kosmopolitische Weltanschauung des Michael de Montaigne, Berlin, 1871.

Note 2 in page 314 Jacob Feis, Shakspere and Montaigne, London, 1884.

Note 3 in page 314 Op. cit., p. 43.

Note 4 in page 314 Op. cit., p. 90.

Note 5 in page 314 Montaigne and Shakspere, London, 1897.

Note 6 in page 314 Karl Elze, Life of Shakespeare, Berlin, 1872; and Essays on Shakespeare, 1872.

Note 7 in page 314 In preface to Routledge Florio.

Note 1 in page 315 Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, vol. II, ch. iv, sect. 1, § 6.

Note 1 in page 316 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance, London, 1893, p. 487.

Note 1 in page 317 Montaigne: études et fragments, Paris, 1899.

Note 1 in page 318 For a discusssion as to the version habitually used by Shakespeare, see Appendix A.

Note 2 in page 318 This is a mistranslation for “il n'y a pas plus de mal”; but the right sense is easily perceived.

Note 1 in page 319 See Shakespeare's Plutarch, London, 1875, p. 92.

Note 2 in page 319 Shakspere and Montaigne, London, 1884, p. 111.

Note 1 in page 321 See Plutarch's Morals, ed. W. W. Goodwin, Boston, 1870, vol. 5, p. 233.

Note 1 in page 324 Montaigne and Shakespeare, p. 66.

Note 1 in page 325 The italics are mine.

Note 1 in page 327 Montaigne and Shakspeare, p. 52.

Note 1 in page 330 Montaigne and Shakspere, pp. 53 f.

Note 1 in page 333 Shakspere and Montaigne, pp. 87 ff.

Note 2 in page 333 See Robertson, Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 49.

Note 3 in page 333 Montaigne and Shakspere, pp. 45 ff.

Note 1 in page 336 Essays on Shakespeare, 1872, p. 7.

Note 1 in page 337 See Montaigne and Shakspere, pp. 24 f, for similar passages suggested by Mr. Robertson as affording the suggestion for the lines quoted from Hamlet.

Note 1 in page 339 Westminster Review, vol. 29, p. 321.

Note 1 in page 340 Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 35.

Note 2 in page 340 See also II, xvii, p. 338.

Note 3 in page 340 In preface to Routledge Florio.

Note 1 in page 347 See Routledge edition of Furrio, glossary, under “idle.”

Note 2 in page 347 Tempest, II, 1, 155.

Note 1 in page 348 Hamlet, V, 2, 10 f.

Note 2 in page 348 Florio, IV, viii, p. 476.

Note 3 in page 348 Hamlet, I, 4, 56.

Note 4 in page 348 Florio, I, xxvi, p. 81.

Note 5 in page 348 Hamlet, III, 1, 59.

Note 6 in page 348 Florio, III, xii, p. 537.

Note 7 in page 348 Hamlet, III, 1, 63 f.

Note 8 in page 348 Florio, III, xii, p. 540.

Note 9 in page 348 Much Ado About Nothing, III, 3, 147.

Note 10 in page 348 Florio, I, xlix, p. 147

Note 1 in page 349 Essayes by Sir William Corne-waleys, the younger, Knight. Printed by Edmund Mattes at the signe of the Hand and Plough in Fleet-street, 1600.

Note 2 in page 349 See Dedication to the Essayes.

Note 1 in page 350 French version: “Il se moque de son aultre usage, le treuve inepte et insupportable.”

Note 1 in page 351 French “n'y a-t-il pas plus de mal.”

Note 1 in page 354 Suggested tentatively by Elze: Essays on Shakespeare, 1872, p. 7; and later, positively, by Mr. Feis: Shakspere and Montaigne, p. 81.

Note 1 in page 355 Pointed out by Mr. Feis: Shakspere and Montaigne, p. 87 ff. Compare, however, the following lines from Marlowe's Edward II; cited by Mr. Robertson, Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 49:

“Weep not for Mortimer

Who scorns the world, and as a traveller,

Goes to discover countries yet unknown.“

Edward II, V, last scene.

Note 1 in page 356 See also II, xiii, p. 338.

Note 1 in page 357 Quoted as one of three possible sources by Mr. Robertson: Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 35.

Note 1 in page 358 Pointed out by Mr. Henry Morley, 1885. See preface to Routledge Florio, p. viii.

Note 2 in page 358 Pointed out by Mr. Feis: Shakspere and Montaigne, p. 11.

Note 1 in page 359 Pointed out by Mr. Robertson: Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 26.

Note 2 in page 359 Pointed out by Mr. Robertson: Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 53.

Note 1 in page 361 Pointed out by Mr. Robertson: Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 53.

Note 1 in page 364 Pointed out by Mr. Robertson: Montaigne and Shakspere, p. 66.

Note 1 in page 365 In That Beasts have the use of Reason. This was not, of course, included in the North's Plutarch's Lives which Shakespeare knew.

Note 1 in page 366 Pointed out by Capell: Notes and Various Readings, 1671, Pt. iii, vol. ii, p. 63.