Context

Question 1

Essays that influenced Shakespeare

Answer 1

-‘On the Affection of Fathers for Their Children’ (1580) by Michel de Montaigne

Question 2

Montaigne essays

Answer 2

-“If there be any law truly natural, the affection that the begetter bears to his offspring holds the second place”
-“On the contrary, that of children toward their parents is not so great”
-“He has lived long enough, If he be wise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed”
-“There are so many sorts of defects in old age, that the best acquisition a man can make is the kindness and affection of his own family; command and fear are no longer his weapons”

Question 3

Who is the fool based on?

Answer 3

King James’ jester, Archibald Armstrong

Question 4

Harsnett

Answer 4

Samuel Harsnett, English writer on religion and Archbishop of York.
Wrote ‘A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures’ in 1603, where he equally condemns the performative exorcisms of Catholic priests and the feigning ‘demoniacs’
-Shakespeare took inspiration from this in presenting Poor Tom, evident from his allusion to the demon ‘Flibberdigibet’, lifted from Harsnett

Question 5

Presentation of Poor Tom in relation to Harsnett

Answer 5

-Shakespeare lends much more sympathy to Poor Tom, than Harsnett does to his ‘demoniacs’.
-This is because the question of whether the possessed feign their possession is moot, Shakespeare uses possession to show the loss of identity, and frustration experienced by Edgar
-Greenblatt argues, “[t]he possessed gave voice to the rage, anxiety, and sexual frustration that built up easily in the authoritarian, patriarchal, impoverished, and plague-ridden world of early modern England.”

Question 6

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Answer 6

Wrote the History of the Kings of Britain
-Mentioned King Leir, King of the Britons around the time of the founding of Rome in the 8th century BC
-Influenced Shakespeare’s decision to set the play in pagan Britain