Excerpt from Shakespeare's Plutarch: Containing the Main Sources of Antony Cleopatra and of Coriolanus

A general discussion of North's translation of Plutarch and its relation to Shakespeare's play of Julius Caesar will be found in the introduction to the first volume.

The scope of North's influence on Shakespeare. The extent and precise nature of Shakespeare's debt to North is not easily calculated. Besides the four lives here printed, it has been asserted that he drew upon the Life of Theseus for some five lines in A Midsummer Night's Dream, that he used the Life of Alcibiades for Timon of Athens, that he got a hint for Julius Caesar, namely, Caesar's fear of sleepless men, from the Life of Cato Censor. Professor Skeat, furthermore, has printed in his book, Shakespeare's Plutarch, the spurious life of Augustus Caesar, which found its way into the 1603 and later editions of North.

It is difficult to set limits to Shakespeare's possible erudition.

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