Shakespeare and Aristotle

In comparison with some of his contemporaries, most notably Jonson, Shakespeare has often been seen as a writer who was largely unconcerned – at least on an explicit level – with dramatic theory. It is widely assumed that he can have had no knowledge of Aristotle's Poetics , since he knew little, if any, Greek. However, the Poetics would have been accessible to Shakespeare through one of the many Latin and Italian translations and commentaries which were circulating in the period. He could also have ascertained its basic premises from a variety of mediating sources such as Sidney's Defence , or through personal contact with fellow dramatists, such as Jonson and Fletcher, who were acquainted with the Poetics . Shakespeare's plays present clear evidence of at least some familiarity with Aristotelian theory, through references to catharsis and the Unities. In view of this, I argue in this paper that Shakespeare's plays do indeed engage with contemporary literary theory, and that plays such as The Tempest show Shakespeare adopting an oppositional stance to neo‐Aristotelian doctrine.