Shakespeare the historicist

J.L. Simmons notes that Shakespeare consistently depicts Rome “as a pagan world in which the characters must perforce operate with no reference beyond the Earthly City.” As a result, “all attempts to rise above the restrictions of man and his imperfect society, are tragically affected by the absence of revelation and the real hope of glory. Implying this historical dimension, Shakespeare views his Roman world with the cosmic irony of what that world could not know.”