Shakespeare's Classical Heroes
Abstract
Despite Jonson's famous dictum that Shakespeare knew "small Latine
and lesse Greeke", classical material can be found throughout the canon
of his works. The sources of this material is not my concern. The relation
of it to Shakespeare's value system is. This topic tor a paper
was suggested to me by Dr. Walter Waring and has tied in well with the
larger question of the morality of classical heroes which has interested
me. Hence, the form of this paper was arrived at from two directions
and its limitations to an analysis of Caesar and Coriolanus, Shakespeare's
two greatest classical heroes, were set. For this study I have used
the Globe Edition of Shakespeare and the Nonesuch edition or Plutarch.