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 {106}
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 fastidiousness.
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.[1] 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
{107} 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 {108} 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 Chaeronea, 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.[2] 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 {109}
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 Caesar_ 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 treasure-house 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 {110} _Tales_,
1554-1573, translated into French by Belleforest, furnished the sources
of _Much Ado About Nothing_, and perhaps _Twelfth Night_. The greatest
of these collections was the _Decameron_, c. 1353, by Giovanni
Boccaccio, one of whose stories, translated by William Painter in his
_Palace of Pleasure_, 1564, furnished the source of _All's Well That
Ends Well_. Another story of the _Decameron_ was probably the source
of the romantic part of the plot of _Cymbeline_. The _Merry Wives of
Windsor_ had a plot like the story in Straparola's _Tredici Piacevole
Notte_ (1550), _Thirteen Pleasant Evenings_; and _The Merchant of
Venice_ borrows its chief plot from Giovanni Florentine's _Il Pecorone_.
Two of Shakespeare's plays are based on English novels written somewhat
after the Italian manner--_As You Like It_ on Thomas Lodge's
novel-poem, _Rosalynde_, and _The Winter's Tale_ from Robert Greene's
_Pandosto_. The _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ is from a Spanish story in
the Italian style, the _Diana_ of Jorge de Montemayor. The _Comedy of
Errors_ from Plautus is his only play based on classical sources.
The Italian _novelle_ emphasized situation, but had little natural
dialogue and still less characterization. The Elizabethan dramatists
used them only for their plots. Never did works of higher genius
spring from less inspired sources.
+The Plays used by Shakespeare+.--Although Shakespeare made up one of
his plots, the _Comedy of Errors_, from two plays of Plautus (254-184
B.C.), the _Menaechmi_ and _Amphitruo_, the rest of the plays he used
for material were contemporary work. He borrowed from them plots and
situations, and {111} occasionally even lines. With the exception,
however, of one of the early histories, the plays he made use of are in
themselves of no value as literature. Their sole claim to notice is
that they served the need of the great playwright. None but the
student will ever read them. In practically every case Shakespeare so
developed the story that the fiction became essentially his own; while
the poetic quality of the verse, the development of character, and the
heightening of dramatic effect, which he built upon it, left no more of
the old play in sight than the statue shows of the bare metal rods upon
which the sculptor molds his clay.
Seven histories go back to the earlier plays on the kings of England.
The Second and Third Parts of _Henry VI_ are taken from two earlier
plays often called the _First and Second Contentions_ (between the two
noble houses of York and Lancaster). The First and Second parts of
_Henry IV_, and _Henry V_, are all three an expansion of a cruder
production, the _Famous Victories of Henry V_. _Richard III_ is based
upon the _True Tragedie of Richard, Duke of York; King John upon the
Troublesome Reigne of John, King of England_, the latter undoubtedly
the best of the sources of Shakespeare's Histories.
_King Leir and His Daughters_ is the only extant play which is known to
have formed the basis of a Shakespearean tragedy. Shakespeare made
additions in this case from other sources, borrowing Gloucester's story
from Sidney's _Arcadia_. The earlier play of _Hamlet_, which it is
believed Shakespeare used, is not now in existence.
Among the comedies, the _Taming of the Shrew_ is {112} directly based
upon the _Taming of a Shrew_. _Measure for Measure_ is less direct,
borrowing from George Whetstone's play in two parts, _Promos and
Cassandra_ (written before 1578).
The existence of versions in German and Dutch of plays which present
plots similar in structure to Shakespeare's, but less highly developed,
leads scholars to advance the theory that several lost plays may have
been sources for some of his dramas. Entries or mentions of plays,
with details like Shakespeare's, dated earlier than his own plays could
have been in existence, are also used to further the same view. The
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, the _Merchant of Venice_, _Romeo and
Juliet_, _Hamlet_, and, with less reason, _Timon of Athens_, and
_Twelfth Night_, are thought to have been based more or less on earlier
lost plays.
Finally, a number of plays perhaps suggested details in Shakespeare's
plays. Of plays so influenced, _Cymbeline_, _The Winter's Tale_, and
_Henry VIII_ are the chief. But the debt is negligible at best, so far
as the general student is concerned.
To conclude, what Shakespeare borrowed was the raw material of drama.
What he gave to this material was life and art. No better way of
appreciating the dramatist at his full worth could be pursued than a
patient perusal and comparison of the sources of his plays with
Shakespeare's own work.
The best books on this subject are: H. E. D. Anders, _Shakespeare's
Books_ (Berlin, 1904); _Shakespeare's Library_, ed. J. P. Collier and
W. C. Hazlitt (London, 1875); and the new _Shakespeare Library_ now
being published by Chatto and Windus, of which several volumes are out.
[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.
[2] It is not unlikely that it was the second edition published in 1595
by Richard Field (Shakespeare's printer) that the poet read.
{113}