ABSTRACT
PREFACE UN TIL a late stage in collecting material on the later plays of Shakespeare I hoped to get an adequate amount of it into one volume, but (as wiser friends forewarned me) this proved almost impossible, and it was decided, rather than 'scamp' the 'great' tragedies, to devote this volume to them and a final volume to the 'romances'. Consequently I am able to include here not only the obvious pieces but a number of minor analogues which may help to throw light on the plays and the conditions in which they were written. A particular feature of this volume, and of the next, is the suggestion that the plays were rather more topical than has sometimes been supposed, e.g. that the Ur-Hamlet may have been affected, ifnot prompted, by the negotiations for the marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark, and that Shakespeare may have taken advantage of current political issues in his references to England and Poland as well as in Hamlet's adventure with the pirates. Moreover, I have ventured to supplement a suggestion made many years ago that the play-within-the-play contained elements originally derived from some account of the murder of Francesco Maria I, Duke ofUrbino.
