performing at The Theatre, the playhouse in Shoreditch which James
Burbage, the father of the great actor, Richard Burbage, had constructed
in 1576; it abutted on the Finsbury Fields, and stood outside the City's
boundaries. The only other London playhouse then in existence--the
Curtain in Moorfields--was near at hand; its name survives in Curtain
Road, Shoreditch. But at an early date in his acting career
Shakespeare's company sought and found new quarters. While known as Lord
Strange's men, they opened on February 19, 1592, a third London theatre,
called the Rose, which Philip Henslowe, the speculative theatrical
manager, had erected on the Bankside, Southwark. At the date of the
inauguration of the Rose Theatre Shakespeare's company was temporarily
allied with another company, the Admiral's men, who numbered the great
actor Edward Alleyn among them. Alleyn for a few months undertook the
direction of the amalgamated companies, but they quickly parted, and no
further opportunity was offered Shakespeare of enjoying professional
relations with Alleyn. The Rose Theatre was doubtless the earliest scene
of Shakespeare's pronounced successes alike as actor and dramatist.
Subsequently for a short time in 1594 he frequented the stage of another
new theatre at Newington Butts, and between 1595 and 1599 the older
stages of the Curtain and of The Theatre in Shoreditch. The Curtain
remained open till the Civil Wars, although its vogue after 1600 was
eclipsed by that of younger rivals. In 1599 Richard Burbage and his
brother Cuthbert demolished the old building of The Theatre and built,
mainly out of the materials of the dismantled fabric, the famous theatre
called the Globe on the Bankside. It was octagonal in shape, and built
of wood, and doubtless Shakespeare described it (rather than the Curtain)
as 'this wooden O' in the opening chorus of 'Henry V' (1. 13). After
1599 the Globe was mainly occupied by Shakespeare's company, and in its
profits he acquired an important share. From the date of its
inauguration until the poet's retirement, the Globe--which quickly won
the first place among London theatres--seems to have been the sole
playhouse with which Shakespeare was professionally associated. The
equally familiar Blackfriars Theatre, which was created out of a
dwelling-house by James Burbage, the actor's father, at the end of 1596,
was for many years afterwards leased out to the company of boy-actors
known as 'the Queen's Children of the Chapel;' it was not occupied by
Shakespeare's company until December 1609 or January 1610, when his
acting days were nearing their end. {38a}
Place of residence in London.
In London Shakespeare resided near the theatres. According to a
memorandum by Alleyn (which Malone quoted), he lodged in 1596 near 'the
Bear Garden in Southwark.' In 1598 one William Shakespeare, who was
assessed by the collectors of a subsidy in the sum of 13s. 4d. upon goods
valued at 5 pounds, was a resident in St. Helen's parish, Bishopsgate,
but it is not certain that this taxpayer was the dramatist. {38b}
Shakespeare's alleged travels. In Scotland.
The chief differences between the methods of theatrical representation in
Shakespeare's day and our own lay in the fact that neither scenery nor
scenic costume nor women-actors were known to the Elizabethan stage. All
female _roles_ were, until the Restoration in 1660, assumed in the public
theatres by men or boys. {38c} Consequently the skill needed to rouse in
the audience the requisite illusions was far greater then than at later
periods. But the professional customs of Elizabethan actors approximated
in other respects more closely to those of their modern successors than
is usually recognised. The practice of touring in the provinces was
followed with even greater regularity then than now. Few companies
remained in London during the summer or early autumn, and every country
town with two thousand or more inhabitants could reckon on at least one
visit from travelling actors between May and October. A rapid
examination of the extant archives of some seventy municipalities
selected at random shows that Shakespeare's company between 1594 and 1614
frequently performed in such towns as Barnstaple, Bath, Bristol,
Coventry, Dover, Faversham, Folkestone, Hythe, Leicester, Maidstone,
Marlborough, New Romney, Oxford, Rye in Sussex, Saffron Walden, and
Shrewsbury. {40a} Shakespeare may be credited with faithfully fulfilling
all his professional functions, and some of the references to travel in
his sonnets were doubtless reminiscences of early acting tours. It has
been repeatedly urged, moreover, that Shakespeare's company visited
Scotland, and that he went with it. {40b} In November 1599 English
actors arrived in Scotland under the leadership of Lawrence Fletcher and
one Martin, and were welcomed with enthusiasm by the king. {41a}
Fletcher was a colleague of Shakespeare in 1603, but is not known to have
been one earlier. Shakespeare's company never included an actor named
Martin. Fletcher repeated the visit in October 1601. {41b} There is
nothing to indicate that any of his companions belonged to Shakespeare's
company. In like manner, Shakespeare's accurate reference in 'Macbeth'
to the 'nimble' but 'sweet' climate of Inverness, {41c} and the vivid
impression he conveys of the aspects of wild Highland heaths, have been
judged to be the certain fruits of a personal experience; but the
passages in question, into which a more definite significance has
possibly been read than Shakespeare intended, can be satisfactorily
accounted for by his inevitable intercourse with Scotsmen in London and
the theatres after James I's accession.
In Italy.
A few English actors in Shakespeare's day occasionally combined to make
professional tours through foreign lands, where Court society invariably
gave them a hospitable reception. In Denmark, Germany, Austria, Holland,
and France, many dramatic performances were given before royal audiences
by English actors between 1580 and 1630. {42a} That Shakespeare joined
any of these expeditions is highly improbable. Actors of small account
at home mainly took part in them, and Shakespeare's name appears in no
extant list of those who paid professional visits abroad. It is, in
fact, unlikely that Shakespeare ever set foot on the continent of Europe
in either a private or professional capacity. He repeatedly ridicules
the craze for foreign travel. {42b} To Italy, it is true, and especially
to cities of Northern Italy, like Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, and
Milan, he makes frequent and familiar reference, and he supplied many a
realistic portrayal of Italian life and sentiment. But the fact that he
represents Valentine in the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' (I. i. 71) as
travelling from Verona to Milan by sea, and Prospero in 'The Tempest' as
embarking on a ship at the gates of Milan (I. ii. 129-44), renders it
almost impossible that he could have gathered his knowledge of Northern
Italy from personal observation. {43a} He doubtless owed all to the
verbal reports of travelled friends or to books, the contents of which he
had a rare power of assimilating and vitalising.
Shakespeare's roles.
The publisher Chettle wrote in 1592 that Shakespeare was 'exelent in the
qualitie {43b} he professes,' and the old actor William Beeston asserted
in the next century that Shakespeare 'did act exceedingly well.' {43c}
But the _roles_ in which he distinguished himself are imperfectly
recorded. Few surviving documents refer directly to performances by him.
At Christmas 1594 he joined the popular actors William Kemp, the chief
comedian of the day, and Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic actor, in
'two several comedies or interludes' which were acted on St. Stephen's
Day and on Innocents' Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace before
the Queen. The players received 'xiii_li_. vj_s_. viii_d_. and by waye
of her Majesties rewarde vi_li_. xiii_s_. iiij_d_., in all xx_li_. {44a}
Neither plays nor parts are named. Shakespeare's name stands first on
the list of those who took part in the original performances of Ben
Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour' (1598). In the original edition of
Jonson's 'Sejanus' (1603) the actors' names are arranged in two columns,
and Shakespeare's name heads the second column, standing parallel with
Burbage's, which heads the first. But here again the character allotted
to each actor is not stated. Rowe identified only one of Shakespeare's
parts, 'the Ghost in his own "Hamlet,"' and Rowe asserted his assumption
of that character to be 'the top of his performance.' John Davies of
Hereford noted that he 'played some kingly parts in sport.' {44b} One of
Shakespeare's younger brothers, presumably Gilbert, often came, wrote
Oldys, to London in his younger days to see his brother act in his own
plays; and in his old age, when his memory was failing, he recalled his
brother's performance of Adam in 'As you like it.' In the 1623 folio
edition of Shakespeare's 'Works' his name heads the prefatory list 'of
the principall actors in all these playes.'
Alleged scorn of an actor's calling.
That Shakespeare chafed under some of the conditions of the actor's
calling is commonly inferred from the 'Sonnets.' There he reproaches
himself with becoming 'a motley to the view' (cx. 2), and chides fortune
for having provided for his livelihood nothing better than 'public means
that public manners breed,' whence his name received a brand (cxi. 4-5).
If such self-pity is to be literally interpreted, it only reflected an
evanescent mood. His interest in all that touched the efficiency of his
profession was permanently active. He was a keen critic of actors'
elocution, and in 'Hamlet' shrewdly denounced their common failings, but
clearly and hopefully pointed out the road to improvement. His highest
ambitions lay, it is true, elsewhere than in acting, and at an early
period of his theatrical career he undertook, with triumphant success,
the labours of a playwright. But he pursued the profession of an actor
loyally and uninterruptedly until he resigned all connection with the
theatre within a few years of his death.
V.--EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS
Dramatic work.
The whole of Shakespeare's dramatic work was probably begun and ended
within two decades (1591-1611), between his twenty-seventh and
forty-seventh year. If the works traditionally assigned to him include
some contributions from other pens, he was perhaps responsible, on the
other hand, for portions of a few plays that are traditionally claimed
for others. When the account is balanced, Shakespeare must be credited
with the production, during these twenty years, of a yearly average of
two plays, nearly all of which belong to the supreme rank of literature.
Three volumes of poems must be added to the total. Ben Jonson was often
told by the players that 'whatsoever he penned he never blotted out
(_i.e._ erased) a line.' The editors of the First Folio attested that
'what he thought he uttered with that easinesse that we have scarce
received from him a blot in his papers.' Signs of hasty workmanship are
not lacking, but they are few when it is considered how rapidly his
numerous compositions came from his pen, and they are in the aggregate
unimportant.
His borrowed plots.
By borrowing his plots he to some extent economised his energy, but he
transformed most of them, and it was not probably with the object of
conserving his strength that he systematically levied loans on popular
current literature like Holinshed's 'Chronicles,' North's translation of
'Plutarch,' widely read romances, and successful plays. In this regard
he betrayed something of the practical temperament which is traceable in
the conduct of the affairs of his later life. It was doubtless with the
calculated aim of ministering to the public taste that he unceasingly
adapted, as his genius dictated, themes which had already, in the hands
of inferior writers or dramatists, proved capable of arresting public
attention.
The revision of plays.
The professional playwrights sold their plays outright to one or other of
the acting companies, and they retained no legal interest in them after
the manuscript had passed into the hands of the theatrical manager. {47}
It was not unusual for the manager to invite extensive revision of a play
at the hands of others than its author before it was produced on the
stage, and again whenever it was revived. Shakespeare gained his
earliest experience as a dramatist by revising or rewriting behind the
scenes plays that had become the property of his manager. It is possible
that some of his labours in this direction remain unidentified. In a few
cases his alterations were slight, but as a rule his fund of originality
was too abundant to restrict him, when working as an adapter, to mere
recension, and the results of most of his labours in that capacity are
entitled to rank among original compositions.
Chronology of the plays. Metrical tests.
The determination of the exact order in which Shakespeare's plays were
written depends largely on conjecture. External evidence is accessible
in only a few cases, and, although always worthy of the utmost
consideration, is not invariably conclusive. The date of publication
rarely indicates the date of composition. Only sixteen of the
thirty-seven plays commonly assigned to Shakespeare were published in his
lifetime, and it is questionable whether any were published under his
supervision. {48} But subject-matter and metre both afford rough clues
to the period in his career to which each play may be referred. In his
early plays the spirit of comedy or tragedy appears in its simplicity; as
his powers gradually matured he depicted life in its most complex
involutions, and portrayed with masterly insight the subtle gradations of
human sentiment and the mysterious workings of human passion. Comedy and
tragedy are gradually blended; and his work finally developed a pathos
such as could only come of ripe experience. Similarly the metre
undergoes emancipation from the hampering restraints of fixed rule and
becomes flexible enough to respond to every phase of human feeling. In
the blank verse of the early plays a pause is strictly observed at the
close of each line, and rhyming couplets are frequent. Gradually the
poet overrides such artificial restrictions; rhyme largely disappears;
recourse is more frequently made to prose; the pause is varied
indefinitely; extra syllables are, contrary to strict metrical law,
introduced at the end of lines, and at times in the middle; the last word
of the line is often a weak and unemphatic conjunction or preposition.
{49} To the latest plays fantastic and punning conceits which abound in
early work are rarely accorded admission. But, while Shakespeare's
achievement from the beginning to the end of his career offers clearer
evidence than that of any other writer of genius of the steady and
orderly growth of his poetic faculty, some allowance must be made for ebb
and flow in the current of his artistic progress. Early work
occasionally anticipates features that become habitual to late work, and
late work at times embodies traits that are mainly identified with early
work. No exclusive reliance in determining the precise chronology can be
placed on the merely mechanical tests afforded by tables of metrical
statistics. The chronological order can only be deduced with any
confidence from a consideration of all the internal characteristics as
well as the known external history of each play. The premisses are often
vague and conflicting, and no chronology hitherto suggested receives at
all points universal assent.
'Love's Labour's Lost.'
There is no external evidence to prove that any piece in which
Shakespeare had a hand was produced before the spring of 1592. No play
by him was published before 1597, and none bore his name on the
title-page till 1598. But his first essays have been with confidence
allotted to 1591. To 'Love's Labour's Lost' may reasonably be assigned
priority in point of time of all Shakespeare's dramatic productions.
Internal evidence alone indicates the date of composition, and proves
that it was an early effort; but the subject-matter suggests that its
author had already enjoyed extended opportunities of surveying London
life and manners, such as were hardly open to him in the very first years
of his settlement in the metropolis. 'Love's Labour's Lost' embodies
keen observation of contemporary life in many ranks of society, both in
town and country, while the speeches of the hero Biron clothe much sound
philosophy in masterly rhetoric. Its slender plot stands almost alone
among Shakespeare's plots in that it is not known to have been borrowed,
and stands quite alone in openly travestying known traits and incidents
of current social and political life. The names of the chief characters
are drawn from the leaders in the civil war in France, which was in
progress between 1589 and 1594, and was anxiously watched by the English
public. {51} Contemporary projects of academies for disciplining young
men; fashions of speech and dress current in fashionable circles; recent
attempts on the part of Elizabeth's government to negotiate with the Tsar
of Russia; the inefficiency of rural constables and the pedantry of
village schoolmasters and curates are all satirised with good humour.
The play was revised in 1597, probably for a performance at Court. It
was first published next year, and on the title-page, which described the
piece as 'newly corrected and augmented,' Shakespeare's name first
appeared in print as that of author of a play.
'Two Gentlemen of Verona.'
Less gaiety characterised another comedy of the same date, 'The Two
Gentlemen of Verona,' which dramatises a romantic story of love and
friendship. There is every likelihood that it was an
adaptation--amounting to a reformation--of a lost 'History of Felix and
Philomena,' which had been acted at Court in 1584. The story is the same
as that of 'The Shepardess Felismena' in the Spanish pastoral romance of
'Diana' by George de Montemayor, which long enjoyed popularity in
England. No complete English translation of 'Diana' was published before
that of Bartholomew Yonge in 1598, but a manuscript version by Thomas
Wilson, which was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton in 1596, was
possibly circulated far earlier. Some verses from 'Diana' were
translated by Sir Philip Sidney and were printed with his poems as early
as 1591. Barnabe Rich's story of 'Apollonius and Silla' (from Cinthio's
'Hecatommithi'), which Shakespeare employed again in 'Twelfth Night,'
also gave him some hints. Trifling and irritating conceits abound in the
'Two Gentlemen,' but passages of high poetic spirit are not wanting, and
the speeches of the clowns, Launce and Speed--the precursors of a long
line of whimsical serving-men--overflow with farcical drollery. The 'Two
Gentlemen' was not published in Shakespeare's lifetime; it first appeared
in the folio of 1623, after having, in all probability, undergone some
revision. {53}
'Comedy of Errors.'
Shakespeare next tried his hand, in the 'Comedy of Errors' (commonly
known at the time as 'Errors'), at boisterous farce. It also was first
published in 1623. Again, as in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' allusion was
made to the civil war in France. France was described as 'making war
against her heir' (III. ii. 125). Shakespeare's farcical comedy, which
is by far the shortest of all his dramas, may have been founded on a
play, no longer extant, called 'The Historie of Error,' which was acted
in 1576 at Hampton Court. In subject-matter it resembles the 'Menaechmi'
of Plautus, and treats of mistakes of identity arising from the likeness
of twin-born children. The scene (act iii. sc. i.) in which Antipholus
of Ephesus is shut out from his own house, while his brother and wife are
at dinner within, recalls one in the 'Amphitruo' of Plautus. Shakespeare
doubtless had direct recourse to Plautus as well as to the old play, and
he may have read Plautus in English. The earliest translation of the
'Menaechmi' was not licensed for publication before June 10, 1594, and
was not published until the following year. No translation of any other
play of Plautus appeared before. But it was stated in the preface to
this first published translation of the 'Menaechmi' that the translator,
W. W., doubtless William Warner, a veteran of the Elizabethan world of
letters, had some time previously 'Englished' that and 'divers' others of
Plautus's comedies, and had circulated them in manuscript 'for the use of
and delight of his private friends, who, in Plautus's own words, are not
able to understand them.'
'Romeo and Juliet.'
Such plays as these, although each gave promise of a dramatic capacity
out of the common way, cannot be with certainty pronounced to be beyond
the ability of other men. It was in 'Romeo and Juliet,' Shakespeare's
first tragedy, that he proved himself the possessor of a poetic and
dramatic instinct of unprecedented quality. In 'Romeo and Juliet' he
turned to account a tragic romance of Italian origin, {55a} which was
already popular in English versions. Arthur Broke rendered it into
English verse from the Italian of Bandello in 1562, and William Painter
had published it in prose in his 'Palace of Pleasure' in 1567.
Shakespeare made little change in the plot as drawn from Bandello by
Broke, but he impregnated it with poetic fervour, and relieved the tragic
intensity by developing the humour of Mercutio, and by grafting on the
story the new comic character of the Nurse. {55b} The ecstasy of
youthful passion is portrayed by Shakespeare in language of the highest
lyric beauty, and although a predilection for quibbles and conceits
occasionally passes beyond the author's control, 'Romeo and Juliet,' as a
tragic poem on the theme of love, has no rival in any literature. If the
Nurse's remark, ''Tis since the earthquake now eleven years' (I. iii.
23), be taken literally, the composition of the play must be referred to
1591, for no earthquake in the sixteenth century was experienced in
England after 1580. There are a few parallelisms with Daniel's
'Complainte of Rosamond,' published in 1592, and it is probable that
Shakespeare completed the piece in that year. It was first printed
anonymously and surreptitiously by John Danter in 1597 from an imperfect
acting copy. A second quarto of 1599 (by T. Creede for Cuthbert Burbie)
was printed from an authentic version, but the piece had probably
undergone revision since its first production. {56}
Of the original representation on the stage of three other pieces of the
period we have more explicit information. These reveal Shakespeare
undisguisedly as an adapter of plays by other hands. Though they lack
the interest attaching to his unaided work, they throw invaluable light
on some of his early methods of composition and his early relations with
other dramatists.
'Henry VI.'
On March 3, 1592, a new piece, called 'Henry VI,' was acted at the Rose
Theatre by Lord Strange's men. It was no doubt the play which was
subsequently known as Shakespeare's 'The First Part of Henry VI.' On its
first performance it won a popular triumph. 'How would it have joyed
brave Talbot (the terror of the French),' wrote Nash in his 'Pierce
Pennilesse' (1592, licensed August 8), in reference to the striking
scenes of Talbot's death (act iv. sc. vi. and vii.), 'to thinke that
after he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should triumphe
againe on the Stage, and have his bones newe embalmed with the teares of
ten thousand spectators at least (at severall times) who, in the
Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh
bleeding!' There is no categorical record of the production of a second
piece in continuation of the theme, but such a play quickly followed; for
a third piece, treating of the concluding incidents of Henry VI's reign,
attracted much attention on the stage early in the following autumn.
Greene's attack. Chettle's apology.
The applause attending the completion of this historical trilogy caused
bewilderment in the theatrical profession. The older dramatists awoke to
the fact that their popularity was endangered by the young stranger who
had set up his tent in their midst, and one veteran uttered without delay
a rancorous protest. Robert Greene, who died on September 3, 1592, wrote
on his deathbed an ill-natured farewell to life, entitled 'A Groats-worth
of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance.' Addressing three brother
dramatists--Marlowe, Nash, and Peele or Lodge--he bade them beware of
puppets 'that speak from our mouths,' and of 'antics garnished in our
colours.' 'There is,' he continued, 'an upstart Crow, beautified with
our feathers, that with his _Tygers heart wrapt in a players hide_
supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of
you; and being an absolute _Johannes factotum_ is, in his owne conceit,
the only Shake-scene in a countrie. . . . Never more acquaint [those
apes] with your admired inventions, for it is pity men of such rare wits
should be subject to the pleasures of such rude groomes.' The 'only
Shake-scene' is a punning denunciation of Shakespeare. The tirade was
probably inspired by an established author's resentment at the energy of
a young actor--the theatre's factotum--in revising the dramatic work of
his seniors with such masterly effect as to imperil their hold on the
esteem of manager and playgoer. The italicised quotation travesties a
line from the third piece in the trilogy of Shakespeare's 'Henry VI:'
Oh Tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.