_HOW TO STUDY SHAKSPERE._
The best way to study Shakspere is to go to see his plays at the
theatre, especially when they are presented as Edwin Booth or Henry
Irving have played them. What a change from the way in which they were
presented in Shakspere’s own time! Then the scenery was so crude that
they had to put out a sign on the stage saying, “This is a Forest,”
etc. And all the women’s parts were played by boys or young men. There
were no Mrs. Siddonses or Ellen Terrys in those days. It is said that
Beethoven himself was not a very good piano player, and probably never
heard some of his most beautiful sonatas played as Paderewski plays
them today. Shakspere probably never saw his plays acted so well as
they have been acted many times since his day.
The first great actor to make Shakspere classic was David Garrick, a
friend of Sam Johnson. He was graceful, light, airy, and gay, yet made
an instant success by the naturalness with which he played Richard
III, and then Lear, and then Macbeth. Garrick was not an ideal Hamlet,
but he gave good support to the famous Peg Woffington, who made her
fame in Ophelia on the same stage with Garrick. The most seductive of
Woffington’s characters was Rosalind in As You Like It, and she played
Portia in the Merchant of Venice with only less charm.
The stage mantle of Garrick fell on John Philip Kemble, who brought to
Shakspere’s plays accurate and truthful scenery and costumes. Hamlet
was his favourite part--and as he was a meditative and scholarly rather
than a fiery actor, he made a deep impression with it. Sarah Siddons
was his sister. She was called the Queen of Tragedy, and was indeed an
ideal Roman matron in her impassioned acting of great parts, coupled
with a dignified, almost commonplace everyday life. In a famous picture
Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as the tragic muse. She played Lady
Macbeth as probably no one else has ever played it, indeed it is said
when she was studying the part she became so frightened at her own
impersonation that she rushed up stairs and jumped into bed with her
clothes on. In Queen Katharine (Henry VIII), she played the part so
realistically that the Surveyor, to whom she had said, “You were the
Duke’s Surveyor, and lost your office on complaint of the tenants,”
came off the stage perspiring with emotion and said, “That woman plays
as if the thing were in earnest. She looked me so through and through
with her black eyes that I would not for the world meet her on the
stage again!”
Edmund Kean was a little man, but he played Shylock in the Merchant
of Venice and Richard III as they had never been played before. Iago,
too, was a famous character of his. He was admired by the aged widow of
David Garrick, who called him David’s successor, and he was praised by
Byron.
Each age seems to have had its actor. Garrick was Johnson’s friend.
Kean belonged to Byron’s day, and the actor of Dickens’s time was
Macready. The great American actor was Edwin Booth, who made us
familiar with the whole line of Shaksperean tragic characters during
nearly the whole of the last half of the nineteenth century. Who that
has seen him slip on to the stage as the hunchback Richard III, or walk
in the calm dignity of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, attired all in black
velvet, can ever imagine those characters in any other personation!
The great tragedies seem to be the plays in which great actors have
become most famous; but no play of Shakspere’s, not even the Merchant
of Venice, has been more popular than Romeo and Juliet. In the time of
Garrick a certain Barry Spanger was said to be the ideal Romeo. Charles
Kemble, son of Philip, played it with great success. And his daughter
Fanny Kemble was brought out as Juliet, much against her wish, to save
her father’s fortunes. She had had no training for the stage; but the
play ran for one hundred and twenty nights with the greatest success.
There have been other great actors and actresses, all of whom (if
English) have been famous in Shaksperean roles--Adelaide Neilson,
Charlotte Cushman, and the American Edwin Forrest--and even many
foreigners have tried Shakspere. Salvini was the greatest of Othellos,
and Adelaide Ristori was famous as Lady Macbeth. Even Bernhardt has
taken the part of Hamlet. In our own time Henry Irving and Ellen Terry
have been the best known performers of Shakspere’s characters; but it
would seem that all talented actors and actresses sooner or later test
their greatness by attempting these roles.
The true way to study Shakspere is by becoming fond of his characters;
and this can be done most successfully only by seeing them on the
stage. But we can learn to picture in our minds the parts they played
in the great human drama, fashioning from imagination the scenes and
personalities.
Children should be introduced to Shakspere in the delightful “Tales
from Shakspere” by Charles and Mary Lamb. The first thing is to get the
stories and the great characters, and the poetic antique language of
Shakspere himself may make this a little difficult at first.
Then we may read such a book as Mrs. Jameson’s “Heroines of Shakspere,”
in which we find the women of Shakspere’s plays described in simple
modern language.
Then let us read the plays themselves, without thought of notes or
comments, for the mere human interest of the story and the characters.
Probably the best play to begin with is the Merchant of Venice. Read
it rapidly, passing lightly over the more commonplace portions. First
you will come to the scene at Portia’s house, when the wooers are
opening the caskets in the hope that they may be lucky enough to win
the wealthy lady. But Portia really loves Bassanio and wants him to
choose aright, as he does, and she is charmingly happy because he is
successful.
But the great scene of the play is in the fourth act, when Shylock
brings Antonio before the court, demanding his pound of flesh. Portia,
disguised as a lawyer, appears to save his life. How graciously she
does it! How much a man and woman too she is! How beautiful her speech
about mercy, “dropping as the rain from heaven”!
Once having read the play through like this, for the story and the
characters, lay it aside and at some future time read it again more
thoroughly, stopping to enjoy Launcelot Gobbo, the clown, and the
talkative Gratiano.
So with each rereading the interest in the play will grow, till you
have become very fond not only of Portia and her friends, but of
Shakspere, too.
Next to the Merchant of Venice the most popular of Shakspere’s plays
is Romeo and Juliet. In this the balcony scene is the most famous, in
which Romeo comes to woo Juliet; but among the characters the most
interesting will perhaps be Mercutio, Romeo’s talkative and jolly
friend, and Juliet’s queer old nurse.
Of the tragedies, Hamlet is undoubtedly the greatest, but it is the
hardest to read, and must be read many times to be fully appreciated.
We are struck in the very first scene by the personality of the ghost,
and of Hamlet’s friend, Horatio, that quiet, calm gentleman who looks
sympathetically on throughout the play, and lives to tell the story of
Hamlet’s infirm will. Polonius is a conventional old fool, but full of
worldly wisdom, and the father of the brave Laertes and the sweet and
pathetic Ophelia. How unhappy a girl she is! She is not very strong,
not very brave; but we are sorry indeed for her, and in mere reading
really shed tears when she sings her sweetly crazy songs. How strange
and interesting, too, is Hamlet’s mother, and his scene with her
toward the end of the play! And who can forget the conversation with
the grave-diggers! Throughout we feel the atmosphere of philosophy and
thought. Hamlet is indeed a very great and interesting play, but one
requiring much time and leisurely thought. It is impossible to hurry in
reading Hamlet.
Next in greatness to Hamlet is, perhaps, Lear. In the very first act
we are struck with the beautiful nature of Cordelia, though she utters
very few words. She does not appear again until the end; yet the poor
interesting Fool is always talking about her to Lear. We detest the two
ungrateful daughters, Goneril and Regan, and sympathize with Edgar,
the outcast son of Gloucester. How strange it seems that this fool,
this insane old man, this homeless son pretending to be crazy, and this
absent daughter, should hold our interest so perfectly!
More romantic, more polished, more correct in stage-craft, so that many
call it Shakspere’s greatest play, is Othello. Yet we have no such
love for the beautiful Desdemona as we had for Cordelia, or Juliet,
or Portia. Iago is a masterpiece of scheming treachery, and we are
somewhat sorry for the handsome and abused Moor Othello; but we can
never like him quite as well as some of the others.
Macbeth is another great tragedy, and Lady Macbeth is a marvellous
portrayal of a bad woman. We are interested in the witches and their
prophecies, and we know how true is Macbeth’s ambition, and the greater
ambition of his wife who drives him on. But in Macbeth there is no one
to love, as there is in others of the plays.
In Julius Caesar it is the patriotic fervour of Brutus, mistaken though
it may be, that interests us most, though we like to declaim the speech
of Antony at Caesar’s funeral.
Antony and Cleopatra makes an excellent play to read, for Cleopatra
is so well known as a character that we already have a point of
familiarity to start with. We feel that we are reading history, and
these great Roman plays of Shakspere’s are probably the best history we
shall ever get. With Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra we should
also include Coriolanus, to be studied third in the series.
If we do not care for tragedy we shall have passed from Romeo and
Juliet or the Merchant of Venice to As You Like It, one of the best of
Shakspere’s lighter comedies. It is less deep, but not less charming
than the heavier plays. The delightful Rosalind, disguised as a
young man in the woods, the melancholy Jaques, and the amusing clown
Touchstone, create an atmosphere of refinement which we will find
nowhere else.
I myself like Much Ado About Nothing as well as any of the comedies.
It tells the story of Benedick and Beatrice, who were never going to
marry, they were such wits both of them! Yet they were tricked into it,
and apparently enjoyed it after all. Where else will you find a woman
joker?
The Taming of the Shrew is an interesting play if you admire a wilful,
stubborn, pretty woman such as Kate was, and would like to know how
her husband brought her into charming subjection. It is a very pretty
play, and not less interesting for being somewhat out of date among our
modern ideas of women.
But of all Shakspere’s comic characters, none is more original or
famous than Falstaff. We meet him first in Henry V, perhaps the best of
Shakspere’s historical plays. He is a wit, a coward, and a blow-hard,
but Shakspere never makes him overdo any of these traits, and so we
cannot but find him intensely amusing. He reappears in the Merry Wives
of Windsor, which Shakspere is said to have written in order to please
Queen Elizabeth.
The most intensely dramatic of the histories, and the first to read is
Richard III. Richard is a scheming, daring fellow; and our love for the
little princes put to death in the tower gives us a point of affection.
Besides, this is the drama all the great tragic actors have been
especially fond of playing.
Next to Richard III is Henry VIII, which is said to be only partly
Shakspere’s. In it is Henry’s great minister Wolsey, whose fall from
power we witness as an event more tragic than death.
Last of all let us read the Tempest, that romantic play which Shakspere
probably wrote at the end of his career, as a sort of calm retrospect;
for we may think of Prospero as Shakspere himself.
There are other good plays of Shakspere’s; but if we have not time to
read all, these are the best to begin with.
The two poems, Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, are not the best of
reading; but the sonnets are the very highest form of lyric poetry.
They are entirely different from the plays, and those who like the
plays often do not care at all for the sonnets, while many not familiar
with the plays read the sonnets with admiration. Many believe they
tell Shakspere’s own story of love for a man friend, and, in the last
division from No. 126 on, for a dark woman. The sonnets to the man are
the better, and if one reads them over a few times and feels the poet’s
reflection on change, time, and human love, he will certainly not doubt
that here we really do come face to face with Shakspere in his own
proper character. These sonnets help us to a knowledge of the man and a
personal liking for him such as we get for his characters when we read
his plays.