Note 9 — SHAKESPEARE—A THEORY

The idée mère of the Sapientia Veterum—allegorisation—is one which I think no notable man of science among his contemporaries would have attempted to press into the service of science as Bacon pressed it. With contemporary men of letters, poets especially, it was in high favour, partly I suppose as an exercise of ingenuity, partly as a “talking point” wherewith to capture the vulgar, and partly of course for higher reasons. Sir John Harington’s application of it to Orlando Furioso (1591), is a reductio ad absurdum of the fashion.