SOURCE: "Shakespeare & the Metamorphoses of Art and Life," in The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis & the Pursuit of Paganism, Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 243-7.

In the following excerpt, Barkan probes the influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses on Titus Andronicus.

1. Reading the Book of Ovid

Shakespeare's characters do not read many books. Romeo can help out a poor analphabetic servant with what turns out to be a fatal list of names; Polonius forces Ophelia to pretend to read a prayer-book, and he gets rewarded later with an account from Hamlet of the cynical volume the young prince is (supposedly?) reading; young Simple in Merry Wives wishes he had his copy of Tottel's Miscellany; and, of course, dozens of characters read letters, poems written by or to themselves, proclamations, and so on. Very few read a book which is clearly identifiable. Of these few readings, two are from the same book (in...