INTRODUCTION
accessible after 1567 even to writers not versed in Latin, for in that year Golding's translation of Ovid appeared.
An admirable study of the influence of classic myth on the writings of Shakespeare has been made,[1] in which the author finds that Shakespeare was thoroughly familiar with the myths, and makes very free use of them. We read: "Though the number of definite allusions in Shakespeare is smaller than that of the vague ones, they are yet sufficiently numerous to admit of satisfactory conclusions. Of these allusions, for which a definite source can be assigned, it will be found that an overwhelming majority are directly due to Ovid, while the remainder, with few exceptions, are from Vergil.… Throughout, the influence of Ovid is at least four times as great as that of Vergil; the whole character of Shakespeare's mythology is essentially Ovidian."
What is true of Shakespeare is still more true of numerous other English poets in respect to their use of classical mythology. They do not always, indeed, use the myths in Ovid's manner, which is that of one whose sole attention is on the story, which he tells with eager interest, simply for the sake of telling; and yet such earlier classicists as Spenser and Milton[2] have so thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the classics that they deal with the classic stories quite as subjectively as Ovid himself. But among later English poets we find a tendency to objectify the myths, to rationalize them, to philosophize upon them, draw
- ↑ Classical Mythology in Shakespeare. By Robert Kilburn Root. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1903.
- ↑ See The Classical Mythology of Milton's English Poems. By Charles Grosvenor Osgood. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1900.
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