As shown in Thomas North’s 1555 Travel Journal: From Italy to Shakespeare, the experiences that the young dramatist documented during his journey to Rome are most relevant to what would become two of North’s first plays: Henry VIII and The Winter’s Tale. But we also find the impressions that North wrote about the various ItalianContinue reading “11. The Garden of Lombardy, 100 Milch Kine to the Pail, and 6 Score Fat Oxen in a Stable”
Category Archives: Smoking Guns
7. Coriolanus’s Belly-Fable Conflates 3 Fables, All Written by North
In an earlier example, we noted that the playwright of Julius Caesar was able to recall passages from North’s Dial while copying passages from North’s Plutarch. In this example, he intertwines stories from three of North’s translations. As is well known, in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Menenius’s fable, in which “all the body’s members / Rebelled againstContinue reading “7. Coriolanus’s Belly-Fable Conflates 3 Fables, All Written by North”
North’s Handwritten Notes in his “Dial” Mark the Passages He Used for his Plays
On March 29, 1591, Thomas North purchased a used, 1582-edition of his Dial of Princes for 5 shillings, signing the back and dating the purchase—a copy now kept at the Cambridge University Library. Then he began rereading or skimming certain sections, skipping from here to there, underscoring certain lines and passages, and adding various notesContinue reading “North’s Handwritten Notes in his “Dial” Mark the Passages He Used for his Plays”