Introduction

Hamlin’s introduction traces the history of critical debate on literary connections between Shakespeare and Montaigne from its beginnings in the late eighteenth century up through important recent discussions by Terence Cave, Peter Mack, Lars Engle, Warren Boutcher, Stephen Greenblatt, Peter Platt, and Colin Burrow. Examining the multiple forms of evidence used to support claims of literary influence, Hamlin asks what ‘source study’, ‘verbal borrowing’, and ‘conceptual indebtedness’ might mean and summarizes many instances of Shakespearean interpretation which hinge on the assumption that the English playwright acquired significant familiarity with the writings of the French essayist. Hamlin also discusses John Florio’s English translation of Montaigne’s Essays , first published in 1603, and he touches on early references to Montaigne by Sir William Cornwallis which bear on the question of whether there might have been translations other than Florio’s that aided the dissemination of Montaignian thought in early modern England.

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