Shakespeare’s Authorities

Abstract

From Charlotte Lennox to Geoffrey Bullough Shakespeare’s ‘narrative’ sources have been explored at the expense of discursive texts. This chapter argues critics should talk not of ‘Shakespeare’s sources’ but of his ‘authorities’, a wide range of texts including narrative works, rhetorical treatise, and works of philosophy, which could provide the contentious seeds of thought within Shakespearean drama. This chapter explores examples from 1 H IV, which shows how Shakespeare used Cicero’s De Oratore to enhance Prince Harry’s political and rhetorical authority. It ends by arguing that in Hamlet and King Lear a hybrid mingling of ‘authorities’, ranging from Cicero to Melanchthon, and from Seneca the dramatist and Seneca the philosopher, come to the fore in speeches by characters within the drama who are themselves suffering crises of authority.