Why Shakespeare needed to fall back literally "word by word" on a foreign translation of Thomas North?
Who was Thomas North?
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| Compare Thomas North Plutarch translation(1579) and Shakespeares Text of "Coriolanus"(1607) |
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| Thomas North's English translation of Plutarch (out of french) |
Everybody will be deeply astonished that his freely translated english lines were literally adopted in a "plagiative way(?) in Shakespeare's plays " (such as "Timon von Athen", (Video) "Coriolanus “, „Anthony and Cleopatra", "Julius Caesar", "Troilus and Cressida", a.o.)
If you accept that the precocious most eloquent poet genius Shakespeare in his 16th year of life (1579) was able to read and speak fluently greek, one is asking why Shakespeare needed to fall back literally "word by word" on a foreign translation of Thomas North (similar to the question, why Shakespeare, reading fluently french, needed John Florios french translation of Montaigne "Essayes" e.g. for The Tempest (->Blog-195).
You may also note, that North’s Plutarch translation 1579, printed by Thomas Vautrollier (His apprentice Richard Field after Vautrolliers death[1587] maried 1589 Vautrollier‘s widow) exhibits the same title emblems ("Anchor of hope") like Shakespeare’s „Firstlings „Venus und Adonis(1593)“ and „Lucrece(1594)“ and William Cecil also had Vautrollier as a printer 1588 and later Richard Field („The copie of a letter sent out of England to Don Bernardin Mendoza declaring the state of England.“) There were tight connections between North, Shakespeare and Cecil.
Who was Thomas North ?
Why even after centuries Shakespeare experts cannot explain too many of such strange connections: it must be the result of a fatal „Academic“ failure to develop a coherent Shakespeare authorship theory and to admit any serious academic authorship research.
The reason in turn for this failure, as Prof.Bates highly interesting and entertaining lectures of Shakespeare and Stratford tell us, is (I quote Bate)
