SOURCE: McGugan, Ruth. Introduction to Nahum Tate and the Coriolanus Tradition in English Drama, with a Critical Edition of Tate's The Ingratitude of a Common-Wealth, pp. v-cvii. New York: Garland Publishing, 1987.

In the following excerpt, McGugan comments on Tate's life and reputation, and discusses his adaptations and scholarly responses to his works.

Nahum Tate's Life and Reputation

Perhaps the most striking similarity between Tate and Shakespeare is the paucity of intimate biographical details that historians can provide for either man. Official documents contain some vital statistics, and their publications testify to how they spent their working time, but of their private lives, little is known. The popular conjecture is that anyone whose literary work is as vital as Shakespeare's must have been a lively personality, and the process of reconstructing it has been a fascinating and creatively fruitful project for such researchers as Spurgeon. The case is quite...