Patrick Gray - Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic

SHAKESPEARE AND THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

EDINBURGH CRITICAL STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE AND PHILOSOPHY

Series Editor: Kevin Curran

Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy takes seriously the speculative and world-making properties of Shakespeares art. Maintaining a broad view of philosophy that accommodates first-order questions of metaphysics, ethics, politics and aesthetics, the series also expands our understanding of philosophy to include the unique kinds of theoretical work carried out by performance and poetry itself. These scholarly monographs will reinvigorate Shakespeare studies by opening new interdisciplinary conversations among scholars, artists and students.

Editorial Board Members

Ewan Fernie, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham

James Kearney, University of California, Santa Barbara

Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine

Madhavi Menon, Ashoka University

Simon Palfrey, Oxford University

Tiffany Stern, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham

Henry Turner, Rutgers University

Michael Witmore, The Folger Shakespeare Library

Paul Yachnin, McGill University

Published Titles

Rethinking Shakespeares Political Philosophy: From Lear to Leviathan

Alex Schulman

Shakespeare in Hindsight: Counterfactual Thinking and Shakespearean Tragedy

Amir Khan

Second Death: Theatricalities of the Soul in Shakespeares Drama

Donovan Sherman

Shakespeares Fugitive Politics

Thomas P. Anderson

Is Shylock Jewish?: Citing Scripture and the Moral Agency of Shakespeares Jews

Sara Coodin

Chaste Value: Economic Crisis, Female Chastity and the Production of Social Difference on Shakespeares Stage

Katherine Gillen

Shakespearean Melancholy: Philosophy, Form and the Transformation of Comedy

J. F. Bernard

Shakespeares Moral Compass

Neema Parvini

Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic: Selfhood, Stoicism and Civil War

Patrick Gray

Forthcoming Titles

Making Publics in Shakespeares Playhouse

Paul Yachnin

Derrida Reads Shakespeare

Chiara Alfano

The Play and the Thing: A Phenomenology of Shakespearean Theatre

Matthew Wagner

Conceiving Desire: Metaphor, Cognition and Eros in Lyly and Shakespeare

Gillian Knoll

Shakespeare and the Truth-Teller: Confronting the Cynic Ideal

David Hershinow

Revenge Tragedy and Classical Philosophy on the Early Modern Stage

Christopher Crosbie

For further information please visit our website at edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/ecsst

SHAKESPEARE AND THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

SELFHOOD, STOICISM AND CIVIL WAR

PATRICK GRAY

EDINBURGH

University Press

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website:

edinburghuniversitypress.com

Patrick Gray, 2019

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

The Tun Holyrood Road,

12(2f) Jacksons Entry,

Edinburgh EH8 8PJ

Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by

IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and

printed and bound in Great Britain.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4744 2745 6 (hardback)

ISBN 978 1 4744 2747 0 (webready PDF)

ISBN 978 1 4744 2748 7 (epub)

The right of Patrick Gray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

CONTENTS

For Elizabeth

Liebe heit berhaupt das Bewutsein meiner Einheit mit einem anderen, so da ich fr mich nicht isoliert bin, sondern mein Selbstbewutsein nur als Aufgebung meines Frsichseins gewinne, und durch das Mich-Wissen als der Einheit meiner mit dem anderen und dem anderen mit mir.

G. W. F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my doctoral supervisors at Yale, Larry Manley and David Quint, as well as my postgraduate supervisor at Oxford, the late A. D. Nuttall, for their generosity, intellectual rigour and attention to detail. Their editorial feedback was invaluable. I would like to thank my professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jessica Wolfe, Reid Barbour, Tom Stumpf, Bill Race and the late John Headley, for their kindness, erudition and inspiring example. I would also like to thank my colleagues past and present at Providence College, Deep Springs College, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Durham University for their camaraderie and support.

This book is the product of many helpful conversations, some in print and some in person. I am grateful to Gordon Braden, Paul Cantor, Russell Hillier, James Kuzner and Leah Whittington for allowing me to read and respond to early drafts of their work on Shakespeares Rome. I would also like to thank Ewan Fernie and Peter Holbrook for their insight and encouragement, as well as John Cox and Will Hamlin for their friendship, guidance and reassurance. I am especially grateful to Peter for his hospitality during my visit to Brisbane as an Early Career International Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, 11001800.

An earlier version of an excerpt from readers at Comparative Drama, as well as Sabine Schlting and the readers at Shakespeare Jahrbuch, for their invaluable feedback on these sections of the book, and to Pascale Drouet for double-checking my French. I would like to thank Michelle Houston, Adela Rauchova and Ersev Ersoy at Edinburgh University Press for their interest in the project, as well as Kevin Curran and the readers for the Press for their enthusiasm and advice.

Above all, I would like to thank my wife, Elizabeth Baldwin Gray, my parents, Patrick Hampton Gray and Hazel Hartsoe, my brother Oliver, my sister Hazel, my extended family, and my friends both here in England and overseas. Your love, confidence and good cheer have helped to sustain me.

CLASSICAL ABBREVIATIONS