ABSTRACT
Attempting to sort out and isolate the specific continental and classical works which contributed materially to the Byron plays would perhaps be a life-long venture. For the story line of the Byron plays George Chapman obviously relied upon the 1607 edition of Edward Grimeston’s General Inventory, fully entitled, “A General Inventorie of the Historie of France, from the beginning of that Monarchic, unto the Treatie of Vervins, in the Yeare 1598. Chapman’s commonplace book is not extant, but we can hazard a controlled guess as to its contents and its practical value for Chapman the dramatist. Grimeston’s account of Biron’s conspiracy provided Chapman with the raw materials for the double-play, but he presumably culled his commonplace book for phraseology and amplificatory materials. Chapman had a “missionary complex,” that is a strong sense of duty that he must exercise his “divine right” as a vatic artist to clarify and interpret the moral and political ambiguities of man’s complex sublunary life.
