the_cave

I'm merely noting that he took plots, characters, and the like, directly from various works that were popular during his era--usually this sort of thing is well-documented in any critical edition of his plays or an individual play. It was a common practice during the era.

I by no means intend to imply he was not a creative genius, or immoral in any way. But I'm intrigued by your other claims--I don't see any evidence for them, but it would be interesting to hear your ideas in detail.

Amos

I did two senior Shakespeare courses and the prof made some comments towards this. According to him Coriolanus and Macbeth are often compared with each other as religious plays and so I wrote on them to identify the difference.

Coriolanus takes place just outside of Rome where it depicts salvation according to the Catholic Church and Macbeth takes place in England where it presents salvation according to the Church of England (MacBeth wanted to be "king hereafter" etc.)

The difference between them is that Coriolanus is a divine comedy and Macbeth is called a Shakspearean tragedy but really is a Senecan tragedy because, for example: "We have scorched the snake, not killed it./ She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice/ Remains in danger of her former tooth" (III.ii.13-15).

The sigificance here is that the serpent is not defeated and sin will remain part of his life. In other words, the "saved sinner complex" begins after the crisis moment that leads to the tragedy in the end. The irony is that it took place in England where Macbeth was very popular in its debute and the satire is that while enjoying the play they were actually wallowing in their own mire. Had anyone of them understood this message they would not have just rejected the play but they would have "quartered" him because it was illegal to write about religion in those days -- which was a condition for Shakespeare to remain in England.

I must tell you here that I am not a critic but we were introduced to Shakespearean criticism to get a better grip on these plays for our own benefit.

In my personal view a Senecan tragedy is a failed divine comedy but since there was nothing divine about it it cannot be called a divine tragedy and is called a Senecan tragedy. Seneca wrote some of these to be juxtaposed with Jesus' divine comedy. I actually have never studied Seneca but read about them. Titus Andronicus is the metaphysical detail of such a tragedy.