The true explanation of
Shakespeare's caricatures of Greek life, whether Homeric or Athenian, is
to be found in the fact that he was not only entirely ignorant of it but
prejudiced against it. And this prejudice in him had an obvious root.
Chapman had just translated and published the first books of his Iliad,
and Chapman was the poet whom Shakespeare speaks of as his rival in
Sonnets 78-86. He cannot help smiling at the "strained touches" of
Chapman's rhetoric and his heavy learning. Those who care to remember
the first scene of "Love's Labour's Lost" will recall how Shakespeare in
that early work mocked at learning and derided study. When he first
reached London he was no doubt despised for his ignorance of Greek and
Latin; he had had to bear the sneers and flouts of the many who
appraised learning, an university training and gentility above genius.
He took the first opportunity of answering his critics:
"Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save bare authority from others' books."
But the taunts rankled, and when the bitter days came of disappointment
and disillusion he took up that Greek life which his rival had tried to
depict in its fairest colours, and showed what he thought was the seamy
side of it.
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