"Direct and unmistakable intertextual connections, broad analogues of rhetoric and character, and direct verbal echoes and allusions reveal how many variations that Shakespeare works on a single pattern, dependent entirely on the dramatic situation in a particular play. The introduction and first chapter discuss the critical history of the controversy concerning Senecan influence on the playwright and argue for the use of the Tenne Tragedies as Shakespeare's intertext. The ensuing chapters extend the idea by explaining the centrality of John Studley's Medea to Shakespeare's conception of Joan la Pucelle (1 Henry V), Margaret of Anjou (2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, Richard III), and Tamora (Titus Andronicus); the further transformations of femina furens in The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice; the strange parallels between Helena (All's Well that Ends Well) and John Studley's Phaedra; and between Cleopatra and Jasper Heywood's Juno. The last chapter suggests that Imogen and Cymbeline's Queen represent an exorcism of femina furens."--BOOK JACKET.