‘Fable-World[s]' Populated by ‘Human Creatures’: Toward a Definition of the Experimental Romantic Moral Romance 1

This chapter explores the relationships between Shakespeare and his Romantic admirers, Elizabeth Inchbald and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and especially between Shakespeare's later plays and the Romantic moral romance. It examines Inchbald's and Hawthorne's extensive personal connections with Shakespeare's works to suggest that both Romantic writers sufficiently admired their Renaissance forebear that they came to borrow themes and structures from his plays. The chapter examines The Tempest, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale as they relate to Inchbald's A Simple Story and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. It emphasizes the experimental nature of all five texts to suggest that Inchbald and Hawthorne employ themes and structures similar to those of Shakespeare and to suggest a common source in Shakespeare's later plays for the Romantic moral romance. As a Shakespeare actor, Inchbald probably would have had difficulty excluding Shakespeare's influence from her own writing had she wanted to do so. In contrast, Hawthorne would not have had as much difficulty.