Thomas North
Sir Thomas North | |
---|---|
Born | 28 May 1535 London |
Died | 1604 (aged 68–69) London |
Nationality | English |
Alma mater | Peterhouse, Cambridge |
Occupation(s) | Justice of the Peace, author and translator |
Known for | Translating Plutarch's Lives into English |
Parent(s) | Edward North, 1st Baron North, Alice Brockenden |
Relatives | Roger North, 2nd Baron North (brother); Christina North, Mary North (sisters) |
Sir Thomas North (28 May 1535 – c. 1604) was an English translator, military officer, lawyer, and justice of the peace. His translation into English of Plutarch's Parallel Lives is notable for being the main source text used by William Shakespeare for his Roman plays.
Life
Thomas North was born between 9 and 10 o'clock at night on Friday, 28 May 1535, in the parish of St Alban, Wood Street, in the City of London. He was the second son of the Edward North, 1st Baron North.[1]
He is supposed to have been a student of
His name is on the roll of
Translations
Guevara
He translated, in 1557, Guevara's Reloj de Principes (commonly known as Libro áureo), a compendium of moral counsels chiefly compiled from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, under the title of Diall of Princes. The English of this work is one of the earliest specimens of the ornate, copious and pointed style for which educated young Englishmen had acquired a taste in their Continental travels and studies.[2]
North translated from a French copy of Guevara, but seems to have been well acquainted with the Spanish version. Marcus Aurelius had already been translated by
Eastern fables
His next work was The Morall Philosophie of Doni (1570), a translation of an Italian language version of originally Indian fables,[2] popularly known as The Fables of Bidpai which had come to Europe primarily through Arabic translations.
Plutarch's Lives
North published his translation of Plutarch in 1580, basing it on the French version by
North's Plutarch was reprinted for the Tudor Translations (1895), with an introduction by George Wyndham.[2]
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "[i]t is almost impossible to overestimate the influence of North's vigorous English on contemporary writers, and some critics have called him the first master of English prose".[2]
Shakespeare and North
The Lives translation formed the source from which Shakespeare drew the materials for his Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, and Antony and Cleopatra. It is in the last-named play that he follows the Lives most closely, whole speeches being taken directly from North.[2] New-found documents, manuscripts, and marginal notes written by Thomas North and other North-family members also indicate that North wrote plays for the Earl of Leicester's Men and that Shakespeare adapted some of North's plays for the public theatre.[7][8][9][10][11]
Notes
- ISSN 0013-8266.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Chisholm 1911, p. 759.
- ^ "North, Thomas (NRT555T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ISBN 978-1683933052.
- JSTOR 3816099.
- ^ Acts of the Privy Council, 1600-1601. p. 238.
- ISBN 978-0316493246.
- ^ McCarthy, Dennis. "Thomas North: The Original Author of Shakespeare's Plays". Retrieved 23 October 2023 – via Amazon.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
- ^ Alberge, Dalya (24 April 2022). "New evidence suggests Shakespeare may have stolen the plot of Cymbeline". Retrieved 23 October 2023 – via The Guardian.
- ^ Mccarthy, Dennis; Schlueter, June (23 October 2014). Holland, Peter (ed.). Shakespeare Survey: Volume 67: Shakespeare's Collaborative Work. Vol. 67. Cambridge University Press. pp. 85–101. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "North, Sir Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 759. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Lockwood, Tom (2008) [2004]. "North, Sir Thomas (1535–1603?)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20315. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- McCarthy, Dennis (2014). "A Shakespeare/North Collaboration: 'Titus Andronicus' and 'Titus and Vespasian'". Shakespeare Survey. 67: 85–101. ISBN 9781107775572.
- Quinn, K. A. (2000). "Sir Thomas North's marginalia in his Dial of Princes". Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 94 (2): 283–7. S2CID 163336002.
External links
- The Perseus Project contains some of Thomas North's translations
- North's Plutarch, pdf document scanned from the 1910, Dent edition of North.
- First edition of North's Plutarch at the British Library (photographs of title page and selected pages).