Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and Empire

233 Pages·2017·14.36 MB·English

by  Paul A. Cantor

Shakespeare's Rome
REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE

with a new preface
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
chicago and london
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1976 by Paul A. Cantor
Preface to the paperback edition © 2017 by Paul A. Cantor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief
quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the
University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
First edition published in 1976 by Cornell University
Second edition published in 2017 by The University of Chicago Press
Printed in the United States of America
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-46895-2 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-46900-3 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226469003.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cantor, Paul A. (Paul Arthur), 1945– author.
Title: Shakespeare’s Rome : Republic and Empire :
with a new preface / Paul A. Cantor.
Description: Second edition. | Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago
Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Originally
published: First edition. Ithaca, New York : Cornell University Press, 1976.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016058730 | ISBN 9780226468952 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780226469003 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Criticism and interpreta-
tion. | Rome—In literature. | Historical drama, English—History and criti-
cism. | Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Coriolanus. | Shakespeare, William,
1564–1616. Antony and Cleopatra. | Coriolanus, Cnaeus Marcius—In litera-
ture. | Antonius, Marcus, 83 B.C.?–30 B.C.—In literature. |
English drama—Roman influences.
Classification: LCC PR3069.R6 C3 2017 | DDC 822.3/3--dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058730
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition 3
Preface to the First Edition 7
Acknowledgments 19
Introduction: Romanness in Shakespeare 21
Part One: Coriolanus
1. The Republican Regime 55
2. The City without a Ruler 78
3. The Man without a City 99
Part Two: Antony and Cleopatra
4. The Politics of Empire 127
5. The Liberation of Eros 155
6. Love and Tyranny 184
Notes 209
Index 227

Preface to the Paperback Edition
I was delighted when the University of Chicago Press decid-
ed to reprint my first book, Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and
Empire, to accompany their publication of my new book, Shake-
speare’s Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World. I had
long dreamed of doing a revised edition of the earlier book, to
allow me to add new observations I had developed over the
years. Finally, I realized that the true solution was to write a
whole new book on the subject. Now that I have accomplished
that, we are republishing Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and Em-
pire exactly as it appeared in 1976. My new book has given me
the chance to modify anything I said in the earlier book and
to develop at length the new thoughts I have had about Co-
riolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra in the four
decades since I wrote Shakespeare’s Rome. I hope that people
reading Shakespeare’s Rome for the first time will be motivated
to turn to Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy to see my further reflec-
tions on three of Shakespeare’s greatest works. By the same to-
ken, reading Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy will shed new light on
Shakespeare’s Rome, and in particular give new meaning to what
I discuss as “the liberation of eros” in this book. In the intro-
duction to Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy, I explain how the two
books differ and identify the ways in which the new one marks
an advance beyond the old. Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy may
be the more wide-ranging book, but Shakespeare’s Rome, with
3
4 Preface to the Paperback Edition
its focus on Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra, allows me
to analyze in greater depth the distinctive worlds of republic
and empire as Shakespeare portrays them. In this book I work
out the details of how the republican and the imperial regimes
operate, and I also do more of the kind of character analysis typ-
ical of most studies of the Roman plays, for example, discussing
the pride of Coriolanus and the love of Antony and Cleopatra
in ways that I do not in Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy. The two
books are complementary, looking at the same subject from dif-
ferent angles. Shakespeare’s genius is legendarily inexhaustible,
and even in two books I could not possibly say all that there is
to say about the Roman plays. Still, I believe that together these
two books illuminate central aspects of Shakespeare’s achieve-
ment, especially the political dimension.
When I wrote Shakespeare’s Rome back in the 1970s, I felt a
need to justify taking a political approach to the Roman plays.
After all, in the afterglow of the New Criticism, people at that
time were still writing about image patterns in the Roman plays
and treating them as lyric poetry. As it turned out, Shakespeare’s
Rome formed part of the seismic shift in literary criticism that
began in the 1970s, which brought political issues to the fore
in studying Shakespeare. In particular, this book was an early
example of what came to be known as the “Shakespeare as Po-
litical Thinker” approach (after a book with that title, edited
by John Alvis and Thomas West, which came out in 1981). I
believe that Shakespeare belongs in a long tradition of treating
Rome from the perspective of political philosophy. According-
ly, in both my books I have studied Shakespeare’s Rome in a
broader and more philosophical context than is often the case.
For understanding the distinctive nature of the ancient city (the
polis), I have gone back to Plato and Aristotle, and for analy-
sis of the Roman regime specifically, I have drawn on Polybius
and Plutarch. I have also turned to Machiavelli’s understanding
of Rome, perhaps a direct influence on Shakespeare but in any
event a major contribution to comprehending the larger signif-
Preface to the Paperback Edition 5
icance of Roman history for the modern world.
I develop the philosophical background to understanding
Shakespeare’s Rome more explicitly and fully in Shakespeare’s
Roman Trilogy. In the new book, I even extend forward the di-
alogue about Rome between Shakespeare and other thinkers to
include figures he could not have read but whom he in many
ways anticipated—philosophers such as Montesquieu, Hegel,
and Nietzsche. Rome as a philosophical problem has been at the
center of political theory from antiquity to the present day. The
history of Rome has proven to be crucial to understanding the
difference between republics and empires, and thus more gen-
erally to the study of the political regime as a formative agent
in human life. As I explain in the introduction to Shakespeare’s
Roman Trilogy, Shakespeare participates in the long and distin-
guished tradition of regarding the Roman republic as superior
to the empire in political terms.
The more I have studied the Roman plays, the more I have
become convinced that, in terms of profundity and scope,
Shakespeare’s thinking about Rome can stand comparison with
that of anyone who has ever taken up the subject. I hope that,
together, Shakespeare’s Rome and Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy
will validate this claim. In coming back repeatedly to the Ro-
man plays, I have been trying to advance our understanding of
both Shakespeare and Rome.
This republication allows me to correct a major omission in
my original acknowledgments. At the time, my editor at Cor-
nell University Press asked me not to mention him, but at this
remove, I trust that I may now say that this book would not
have been published without the firm support and generous en-
couragement of Bernhard Kendler.