ABSTRACT
Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Castiglione has been well established. Several scholars have noted Shakespeare’s debt to Cortegiano in Love’s Labour’s Lost, and others have asserted that the arguments between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing resemble the exchanges between Lady Emilia and Gasparo Pallavicino in Castiglione’s dialogue.1 Robert W. Witt has recently pointed out some interesting similarities between Shakespeare’s protagonist in the second tetralogy and Castiglione’s ideal courtier. While Witt stops short of asserting that Castiglione’s Cortegiano was a ‘major source’ for Shakespeare’s Henriad, Witt does claim that Shakespeare ‘relied on Hoby’s translation of Castiglione’s The Courtier in shaping the character’ of King Harry, and that ‘sufficient parallels exist to suggest that Shakespeare had [The Courtier] in mind while developing Prince Hal/Henry V’.2 Witt notes a host of similarities between Shakespeare’s protagonist and Castiglione’s ideal courtier, including the high standards of conduct that come with noble birth, the need to alter one’s behaviour depending on the particular situation, the importance of showing modesty in victory, rhetorical prowess, an agile wit, and the display of a certain sprezzatura in every deed.
