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MONTAIGNE AND SHAKSPERE

BY

JOHN M. ROBERTSON

LONDON
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LIMITED
16, JOHN STREET, BEDFORD ROW, W.C.
1897


THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

MONTAIGNE AND SHAKSPERE


For a good many years past the anatomic study of Shakspere, of which a
revival seems now on foot, has been somewhat out of fashion, as compared
with its vogue in the palmy days of the New Shakspere Society in
England, and the years of the battle between the iconoclasts and the
worshippers in Germany. When Mr. Fleay and Mr. Spedding were hard at
work on the metrical tests; when Mr. Spedding was subtly undoing the
chronological psychology of Dr. Furnivall; when the latter student was
on his part undoing in quite another style some of the judgments of Mr.
Swinburne; and when Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps was with natural wrath
calling on Mr. Browning, as President of the Society, to keep Dr.
Furnivall in order, we (then) younger onlookers felt that literary
history was verily being made. Our sensations, it seemed, might be as
those of our elders had been over Mr. Collier's emendated folio, and
the tragical end thereof. Then came a period of lull in things
Shaksperean, partly to be accounted for by the protrusion of the
Browning Society and kindred undertakings. It seemed as if once more men
had come to the attitude of 1850, when Mr. Phillipps had written: "An
opinion has been gaining ground, and has been encouraged by writers
whose judgment is entitled to respectful consideration, that almost if
not all the commentary on the works of Shakspere of a necessary and
desirable kind has already been given to the world."[1] And, indeed, so
much need was there for time to digest the new criticism that it may be
doubted whether among the general cultured public the process is even
now accomplished.

To this literary phase in particular, and to our occupation with other
studies in general, may be attributed the opportunity which still exists
for the discussion of one of the most interesting of all problems
concerning Shakspere. Mr. Browning, Mr. Meredith, Ibsen, Tolstoi--a host
of peculiarly modern problem-makers have been exorcising our not
inexhaustible taste for the problematic, so that there was no very
violent excitement over even the series of new "Keys" to the sonnets
which came forth in the lull of the analysis of the plays; and yet, even
with all the problems of modernity in view, it seems as if it must be
rather by accident of oversight than for lack of interest in new
developments of Shakspere-study that so little attention has been given
among us to a question which, once raised, has a very peculiar literary
and psychological attraction of its own--the subject, namely, of the
influence which the plays show their author to have undergone from the
Essays of Montaigne.

As to the bare fact of the influence, there can be little question. That
Shakspere in one scene in the TEMPEST versifies a passage from the prose
of Florio's translation of Montaigne's chapter OF THE CANNIBALS has been
recognised by all the commentators since Capell (1767), who detected the
transcript from a reading of the French only, not having compared the
translation. The first thought of students was to connect the passage
with Ben Johnson's allusion in VOLPONE[2] to frequent "stealings from
Montaigne" by contemporary writers; and though VOLPONE dates from 1605,
and the TEMPEST from 1610-1613, there has been no systematic attempt to
apply the clue chronologically. Still, it has been recognised or
surmised by a series of writers that the influence of the essayist on
the dramatist went further than the passage in question. John Sterling,
writing on Montaigne in 1838 (when Sir Frederick Madden's pamphlet on
the autograph of Shakspere in a copy of Florio had called special
attention to the Essays), remarked that "on the whole, the celebrated
soliloquy in HAMLET presents a more characteristic and expressive
resemblance to much of Montaigne's writings than any other portion of
the plays of the great dramatist which we at present remember"; and
further threw out the germ of a thesis which has since been disastrously
developed, to the effect that "the Prince of Denmark is very nearly a
Montaigne, lifted to a higher eminence, and agitated by more striking
circumstances and a severer destiny, and altogether a somewhat more
passionate structure of man."[3] In 1846, again, Philarete Chasles, an
acute and original critic, citing the passage in the TEMPEST, went on to
declare that "once on the track of the studies and tastes of Shakspere,
we find Montaigne at every corner, in HAMLET, in OTHELLO, in CORIOLANUS.
Even the composite style of Shakspere, so animated, so vivid, so new, so
incisive, so, so hardy, offers a multitude of striking
analogies to the admirable and free manner of Montaigne."[4] The
suggestion as to the "To be or not to be" soliloquy has been taken up by
some critics, but rejected by others; and the propositions of M.
Chasles, so far as I am aware, have never been supported by evidence.
Nevertheless, the general fact of a frequent reproduction or
manipulation of Montaigne's ideas in some of Shakspere's later plays
has, I think, since been established.

Twelve years ago I incidentally