Abstract :
This essay argues that Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Troilus and Cressida were strongly influenced by the early plays of John Marston, particularly Antonio and Mellida. Because Shakespeare's debts in these plays are both ideological and formal, attention to his borrowings can help critics understand how Shakespeare positioned himself in the era's theatrical marketplace even as they reveal the range of forms in which Shakespeare read, thought, and wrote, and that were constitutive elements of his drama. KEYWORDS: Shakespeare, Marston, Jonson, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Antonio and Melkda, Jack Drum's Entertainment, form