Shakespeare’S Essays: Testing and Trying Montaigne, from Hamlet to the Tempest

Argues that the Essais of Montaigne were a crucial factor in the composition of later Shakespearean drama

A new way of accounting for the different sorts of plays that Shakespeare wrote later in his career A detailed history of the literary-critical interest in the Montaigne-Shakespeare connection, from the eighteenth century to the present day Case studies that, through sustained close-readings of Montaigne’s essays and Shakespeare’s plays, shows the shared concerns of the authors A new approach that differs from the more typical method of looking merely for verbal echoes, resulting in a deeper, richer sense of the way that Shakespeare’s reading of Montaigne shaped his writing

In this revisionist study, Peter G. Platt provides a detailed history of the literary-critical interest in the Montaigne-Shakespeare connection from the eighteenth century to the present day. Through sustained close-readings of Montaigne’s essays and Shakespeare’s plays, Platt explores both authors’ approaches to self, knowledge and form that stress fractures, interruptions and alternatives. While the change in monarchy, the revived interest in judicial rhetoric and the alterations in Shakespeare’s acting company helped shape plays such as Measure for Measure, King Lear and The Tempest, this book contends that Shakespeare’s reading of Montaigne is an under-recognised driving force in these later plays.