Shakespearean Polyglot Performance

Abstract

Generally considered monoglot, Shakespeare’s dramatic works are nonetheless inscribed with traces of polyglot practice due to the openness of his English to other languages and histories.... Shakespeare’s grammar school and subsequent reading, especially in translation, would have given him a thorough grounding in Latin texts, stories that would remain available to him as source texts and more generalized influences throughout his career even if he did not reach the same standards as Jonson. This article seeks to tease out the implications of polyglot association for a playwright who has been made into the pinnacle of literary accomplishment, with its concomitant privileging of the text as the principal repository of meaning. Following the work of Robert Weimann and Andrew Gurr on Renaissance staging and audience composition, the article discusses alternative ways of looking at Shakespeare in performance that restore some of the importance of the theatrical moment to the production of meaning. The discussion focuses on the representation of the Tribunes in Shakespeare’s Roman plays, as a test case for the procedure, starting with Titus Andronicus before moving on to Coriolanus via Brecht, followed by some observations about emblematic staging in Julius Caesar.