Shakespeare's Ovid and the Spectre of the Medieval.

Author / Editor
Reid, Lindsay Ann.

Title
Shakespeare's Ovid and the Spectre of the Medieval.

Published
Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2018.

Physical Description
xiv, 271 pp.

Description
Argues that Shakespeare's uses of Ovid in his plays and poems was largely mediated by medieval works, specifically ones by Chaucer and John Gower. Shows that the dream frame of BD influenced "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Cymbeline," that Chaucer’s (LGW) and Gower’s versions of Ariadne underlie Julia of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," that the dawn-songs in TC and those in Gower influence "The Rape of Lucrece" and "Romeo and Juliet," and that Gower's Narcissus of "Confessio Amantis" influenced "Twelfth Night" and other early modern works. Also discusses the seventeenth-century "Chaucers Ghoast" as an amalgamation of Gowerian versions of Ovidian material, presented in faux Middle English.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion
Book of the Duchess
Legend of Good Women
Troilus and Criseyde