Creación de Base de Datos (Citadel) [28]

It is possible to estimate w ith a reasonable degree of certainty from the evidence of the num bers and frequency of translations and publications, the range of books read by the average educated Englishman d uring the

Renaissance. According to a similar determ ination of the prevalence of their works, an analysis can be m ade as to whether, and which specific authors w ere generally known. It w ould then be a short and logical step from a general survey of which books and authors were popular d uring

Shakespeare's lifetime, to a m ore specific consideration of the works he could have known. In the absence of the irrefutable evidence of authorial notes or statem ents about such reading or knowledge, relevant docum entation and data about the prevalence of translations and publications of Sophoclean tragedy m ust suffice to support and strengthen a claim that Shakespeare could have know n the tragedies in translation.

There is m uch evidence that the trium phs of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were not at this time lying in 'brow n Greek m anuscripts silent, unacted, little read, u n k n o w n ' , ^ 2 they had been in previous centuries.

A lthough some opinion has inclined tow ards the view that the Greek tragedians were 'too little know n and too little available' to m ake any

comparison w ith Shakespeare 'intelligent',^^ it appears certain, however, that Ben Jonson understood and m eant the implication of his tribute to

Shakespeare in the Folio of 1623. Jonson juxtaposed Shakespeare's nam e w ith those of the Greek tragedians in the sure know ledge of the prestige and popularity of the Attic dram atists, and w ith determ ined intent to honour Shakespeare in the illustrious company, rather than to cast a slur on his intellectual reputation, as has generally been inferred:

A nd though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse GREEKE, From thence to honour thee, I w ould not seeke

For name; b u t call forth thund'ring Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles to u s . . . ^

A general survey of the num bers of translators and translations of Sophoclean tragedy in the sixteenth century yields two significant facts: the translators were m en not specifically of the intelligentsia, b u t from every w alk of life, and the plays were obviously widely and generally acclaimed in order to w arrant such frequent publications and translations.^ The

translations present reliable, unam biguous, and historically substantiated evidence that the works w hich w ere translated and recurrently printed, significantly perm eated the general Zeitgeist

In order to establish that the tragedies of Sophocles were available during Shakespeare's lifetime, that he could therefore have had access to those tragedies, the Ajax and the Antigone, which are relevant to this particular perception of Coriolanus, authoritative docum entation is subm itted in

A ppendix I. From the data presented, the num erous and frequent translations and editions of the tragedies of Sophocles confirm that the Ajax and the

Antigone were his m ost adm ired plays during the Renaissance. The evidence

cited is only a representative - b u t nevertheless a conclusive - selection of translations and publications of the specific tragedies under consideration during the sixteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth century.

as detailed in various libraries, collections, catalogues and bibliographical commentary. The translations and editions of those Sophoclean tragedies other than the Ajax and the Antigone have not been noted, w ith the

exception of those observed in Appendix I, d.ii, as they are not particularly relevant to this investigation, although such additional evidence w ould

necessarily add considerable w eight to the contention th at Sophoclean tragedy in general was know n and popular during Shakespeare’s lifetime.

The lists and analyses presented in A ppendix I, c and d, are compiled from the data subm itted in A ppendix I, a and b. The analyses indicate determinable trends in the popularity of Sophoclean tragedy, and provide significant

inform ation about the countries and the languages in w hich the editions were published. Inferences draw n are based on classification w hich includes some suppositional data. Conclusions cannot therefore be exact, b u t for the purposes of this particular study the trends noted concerning the translations of Sophoclean tragedy are adequate for the confirmation of the popularity of the Ajax and the Antigone during the relevant period.

An interesting phenom enon noted in A ppendix I, c, is the publication in clusters of several editions in the same year, of the same or different plays. Four editions of the seven tragedies were published in Italy in 1518 in Greek; there w ere three published in 1530, of which tw o were editions of the Ajax, and one of the seven tragedies, and there were tw o in 1533, of the Ajax and

the Antigone. There were four editions in 1545, from Paris and Rome,

including one of the Ajax, three of the seven tragedies in 1555, four in 1558, four in 1567, including one of only three plays, and four in 1568 from Geneva and Paris. In 1574 there w ere three editions of the Ajax, and in 1603 tw o editions of collections and one of the Ajax. The appearance of these groups of plays in the same y e a r/s could be accounted for by the fact that the same editions m ight have been listed differently in various references.

Alternatively, these cluster publications may reflect an increased local or general interest in a play or plays, initiated by the first editions, w ith further editions published in response to popular dem and. W hatever the

interpretation m ay be, the num bers and frequency of translations, the num erous cities and countries of origin, and the continual publication of

Sophoclean tragedy in the period under review, are facts w hich credibly attest to the w idespread popularity and availability of the plays.

Examination of the analysis of the num bers and frequency of the editions published, as presented in Appendix I, d.i, reveals a noticeable peak in the m iddle three decades, from 1540-1569, w ith thirty-four editions, as compared w ith fourteen in the previous three decades, 1510-1539, and seventeen in the following three decades, 1570-1599. This feature w ould be even m ore striking if the fact w ere taken into account that the eight editions published from 1560-1569 w ere actually published in only tw o years, 1567 and 1568. This observation suggests that there could have been even m ore publications than have been discovered, in the earlier years of the decade, 1560-1567. It is notew orthy too, that the popularity of the works, although slightly dim inished, continued at least into the first decade of the seventeenth century, w ith six editions, three of which were of the Ajax, betw een 1600-1608.

Of the seventy-two editions of the works under review betw een 1502 and 1608, at least seventy were published prior to the m ost commonly accepted date of composition of Coriolanus. Of these, some fifty were entire collections of extant plays, selections and commentaries, some sixteen were

predom inantly single editions of the Ajax, and seven were of the Antigone, The discrepancy betw een the apparent total of these editions, seventy-three, and the recorded seventy-two publications noted in A ppendix I, d, can be accounted for by the fact that the 1567 edition of these tragedies includes both the Ajax and the Antigone. It is notable that the Ajax, the m ost popular of the single plays published - and thus arguably the m ost popular Sophoclean tragedy - w as first translated and published as an individual play as early as 1530 in Greek and in Latin separately. There w ere four single editions of the play in 1573 and 1574, and it continued to be popular at least into the first decade of the seventeenth century. The Antigone, the second m ost popular Sophoclean tragedy, w ith seven editions as an individual play published over the period studied, appears to have been m ost acclaimed in the early years of the 1540s. The first single edition w as published in 1533, in Italian, an

In addition, there were ten separate editions of individual Sophoclean tragedies not particularly germ ane to this study w hich w ere published in the specific time period (Appendix I, d.ii). These are of interest only inasm uch as they further em phasize the prevalence of Sophoclean tragedy in general, and the comparative pre-eminence of the Ajax and the Antigone in particular.

The analysis of the num bers and frequency of the various translations detailed in Appendix I, d.iii, shows a discrepancy betw een the total of sixty-six, and the total of seventy-two noted in the chronological list A ppendix I, c: this is due to the fact that six editions, 1530,1545,1547,1558,1567, and 1568, are listed in the authorities consulted w ithout specification of the language of translation. From the analysis of the language of translation, it appears that ten editions w ere published betw een 1502 and 1530 exclusively in Greek, w ith no evidence of any other language of translation during these early years. From 1534 Greek editions appeared interm ingled w ith translations in parallel Greek-and-Latin, and Latin only. The num bers of Greek editions peaked betw een 1518 and 1530, and then again betw een 1540 and 1556, w ith nine and ten publications respectively. O f the total twenty-six Greek editions, ten were published in the first thirty years of the century and sixteen in the next

sixty-three years. The fifteen editions of parallel Greek-and-Latin translations appear to have been published fairly regularly from 1533-1608, reaching a high point w ith four editions in the years 1567-1568, a decade or m ore later than the climax of the exclusively Greek editions.

Twenty-tw o Latin translations were published betw een 1530-1600, including four betw een 1541-1549, six betw een 1552(?)-1558, five betw een 1570-1576, and three betw een 1581-1587. There is no available evidence of Latin-only translations of Sophoclean tragedy in the 1560s, the apogee of the parallel Greek-and-Latin translations. As w ith the Greek translations, the m ajority of Latin editions published appeared during the 1550s, b u t the Latin translations seem to have been alm ost as popular in the 1570s as they w ere in the earlier decades. They w ere, significantly, m uch more evident during the latter half of the century than either the Greek or the Greek-and-Latin translations, w ith seventeen Latin editions published from 1550 onw ards, com pared w ith nine Greek and eleven Greek-and-Latin. From this analysis it

appears th at Greek translations were m ost popular at an earlier stage in the century, betw een 1518-1530 and 1540-1556, the parallel Greek-and-Latin translations slightly later, in the 1560s, and the Latin translations even later, betw een 1550-1576, b u t continuing in popularity into the last tw o decades of the century. This could be attributed either to a greater familiarity w ith and preference for Latin later in the century, as w ould be expected, or to the increased overall popularity of the plays, as attested to by the fact that twenty-seven editions were published betw een 1500-1549 and thirty-nine betw een 1550-1599.

W ith the exception of the rem arkably early Italian version of the Antigone w hich w as published in 1533, the chronological pattern of the frequency of m odern language translations appears to parallel the progression noted above, of Greek to Greek-and-Latin to Latin translations through the

sixteenth century. The majority of vernacular translations w ere published in the latter p art of the century: in 1573,1603, and 1608. This is consistent w ith an expected general progression in the popularity of Greek, to Latin, to

vernacular languages. M odern language translations of those Sophoclean tragedies not specifically relevant to this study have also been considered, and a similar trend is seen to be significantly emphasized: of the total six

vernacular translations published from 1531, four w ere published in the 1580s, in Italian (Appendix I, d.ii). The upsurge in the num bers of translations into the vernacular further confirms the continued and general popularity of Sophoclean tragedy in the latter decades of the sixteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth century.

An analysis of the num bers of plays published in different countries

(Appendix I, d.iv), is presented in a chronological progression w hich has been derived from the date of the first edition from each county: from Italy (1502), to Germany (1522), to France (1528), to Switzerland (1533), then the

N etherlands (1541), Belgium (1570), and England (1581). The total num bers of editions published in each country reveals an interesting m ovem ent in an alm ost symmetrical parabolic curve, which peaks w ith the twenty-five editions published in France, from 1528 onw ards. W hen the language of translation of these editions is taken into account (Appendix I, d.v), it is

significant that there is a similar progression through each separate country chronologically, as has been noted in the am algam ated chronological table. A ppendix I, c, and as w ould be expected: from Greek, to Greek-and-Latin, to Latin, to vernacular translations.

Thus Italy, the first recorded country to publish Sophoclean tragedy, published nine editions, which were predom inantly in Greek. Germany, w hich commenced tw enty years later, in 1522, shows an increase in the total num ber of publications - twelve - although only eleven have the language of translation recorded. There is a continued preponderance of Greek editions from G ermany, b u t there is, too, a slight increase in the num bers of

Greek-and-Latin and Latin translations. From France, commencing in 1528, the total num ber of editions increases substantially to twenty-five, doubling those published in both Germany and Switzerland. The languages of

translation from France show a definite trend from Greek, to

Greek-and-Latin, w ith the majority of translations appearing in Latin. In Switzerland, w here the tragedies were published from 1533, there is a m arked decrease in the num ber of Greek editions. Of the total eleven Swiss editions, only ten have been noted w ith language of translation. C om pared w ith the eleven Germ an editions recorded w ith the language of translation, w hich commenced earlier in the century, the sw ing in the Swiss editions from Greek to Greek-and-Latin translations is noticeable. For the rest, the N etherlands, Belgium and England, the majority of translations recorded w ere in Latin, w hich accords w ith previous observations.

A lthough data presented in A ppendix I confirms the availability - and thus the popularity - of the Ajax and the Antigone of Sophocles during the latter half of the sixteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth century, there is, as yet, no evidence to prove conclusively that Shakespeare read or knew Sophocles; there is, too, no evidence to prove that he did not. The data, therefore, constitutes a tenable foundation upon w hich to base the thesis that Coriolanus can reasonably be show n to have significant affinities w ith Sophoclean tragedy, specifically w ith the Ajax and the Antigone.