140 Ideals in the Modern World
class tired of the arrogance of nobility but still fascinated by what
is (or what might be) noble. This is a class that disdains high heroic
honor but delights to see it rendered— and undone. Shakespeare
also writes for and as a fi gure within a class that has little use for
deep religion, the religion of compassion. His audience is Christian,
but does not seem especially drawn to what Thomas à Kempis called
“the imitation of Christ.” And he writes for a class with no real use
for high thought— though Shakespeare is from time to time tempted
by the ideal of contemplation.
Bloom says that Christopher Marlowe is Shakespeare’s primary
precursor and that Shakespeare overcomes him easily. Not quite.
Shakespeare’s primary precursor is not the fl edgling genius Kit
Marlowe, who dies young, murdered (as the legend goes) over “a
great reckoning in a little room.” Shakespeare’s major inf luence
is the most accomplished prior writer in the Western tradition,
Homer. The war between the two is not primarily a war over orig-
inality. It is a war over vision. A signifi cant proportion of Shake-
speare’s work is an assault on Homer, The Iliad, and on what we
have called Homeric values. At the same time, Shakespeare derives
no little profi t from the allure of the ultimate Homeric theme, the
theme of honor. Repeatedly Shakespeare kills the Homeric hero
(or his descendant) on the stage. Then he revives that hero again
(so great is our fascination with him) for one sacrifi ce more in an-
other brilliant play.
Shakespeare, as Jonson said, had “small Latin and less Greek.”
He had not been to the university; he was no classical scholar. But
Shakespeare did have access to George Chapman’s translation of
Homer, which began appearing in 1598. He would have seen the
opening books, and would have known a great deal about Homer’s
depiction of Achilles. So too would Shakespeare have had access to
other legendary sources about the Trojan War, including Chaucer’s
Troilus and Criseyde, on which he bases his most unrelentingly