“Statist Though I am None”

Abstract

The two plays which have been discussed dealt with Athens, in its decline and at its foundation. Shakespeare’s interest in antiquity, however, was obviously broader than any concern with the Athenian polis. He stood at the beginning of modernity. No doubt he knew something of the new men who had made or were making modernity, like Machiavelli, perhaps Bacon. But his problem was less to affirm a classical teaching in contrast with Machiavelli than to affirm a classical teaching in contrast with Christianity. With that contrast in mind, we must turn to some of the plays which deal with the end of antiquity in a broader sense, not simply with the rise and fall of Athens. True, we have not yet exhausted Athens. The crucial scene in Antony and Cleopatra takes place there. If Shakespeare wrote all or part of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the Crete and Athens of Palemon and Arcite might be contrasted with their own Christian chivalry. Yet to see Shakespeare’s teaching regarding antiquity we must go beyond the Athenian plays as such and turn to those works where the teaching regarding antiquity is, for whatever reason, rather thinly veiled.