Shakespeare's Troy

Heather James argues that Shakespeare''s use of Virgil Ovid and other classical sources demonstrates the appropriation of classical authority in the interests of developing a national myth. She goes on to distinguish Shakespeare''s deployment of the myth--notably in Troilus and Cressida Antony and Cleopatra Cymbeline and The Tempest--from official Tudor and Stuart ideology and to show how Shakespeare participates in the larger cultural project of finding historical legitimacy for Britain as a realm asserting its status as an empire.