The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1562 Tuesday, 20 September 2005
From: Jack Heller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 19 Sep 2005 08:44:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Greek Drama Available in Elizabethan/Jacobean England
Listmembers:
I don't have access to EEBO and the STC which might help in answering
this question: How readily available would translations of Sophocles,
Euripides, and Aristophanes have been to Shakespeare and his
contemporaries? I've been thinking about this after reading Oedipus at
Colonus-which has some similarities to King Lear though I don't want to
argue that it was a source or analogue for Shakespeare's play. However,
it seems more likely that names from Euripides's Hippolytus would have
become names in Midsummer Night's Dream. Of course, some dramatists,
notably George Chapman, could read Greek texts. But I'm not ready to
assume that Shakespeare's less Greek would have had him reading Eurpides
untranslated.
Your comments will be appreciated.
Jack Heller
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