frequently or into a greater number of languages than the works of
Shakespeare. The progress of his reputation in Germany, France, Italy,
and Russia was somewhat slow at the outset. But in Germany the poet has
received for nearly a century and a half a recognition scarcely less
pronounced than that accorded him in America and in his own country.
Three of Shakespeare's plays, now in the Zurich Library, were brought
thither by J. R. Hess from England in 1614. As early as 1626 'Hamlet,'
'King Lear,' and 'Romeo and Juliet' were acted at Dresden, and a version
of the 'Taming of The Shrew' was played there and elsewhere at the end of
the seventeenth century. But such mention of Shakespeare as is found in
German literature between 1640 and 1740 only indicates a knowledge on the
part of German readers either of Dryden's criticisms or of the accounts
of him printed in English encyclopaedias. {342} The earliest sign of a
direct acquaintance with the plays is a poor translation of 'Julius
Caesar' into German by Baron C. W. von Borck, formerly Prussian minister
in London, which was published at Berlin in 1741. A worse rendering of
'Romeo and Juliet' followed in 1758. Meanwhile J. C. Gottsched
(1700-66), an influential man of letters, warmly denounced Shakespeare in
a review of Von Borck's effort in 'Beitrage zur deutschen Sprache' and
elsewhere. Lessing came without delay to Shakespeare's rescue, and set
his reputation, in the estimation of the German public, on that exalted
pedestal which it has not ceased to occupy. It was in 1759, in a journal
entitled 'Litteraturbriefe,' that Lessing first claimed for Shakespeare
superiority, not only to the French dramatists Racine and Corneille, who
hitherto had dominated European taste, but to all ancient or modern
poets. Lessing's doctrine, which he developed in his 'Hamburgische
Dramaturgie' (Hamburg, 1767, 2 vols. 8vo), was at once accepted by the
poet Johann Gottfried Herder in the 'Blatter von deutschen Art and
Kunst,' 1771. Christopher Martin Wieland (1733-1813) in 1762 began a
prose translation which Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1743-1820) completed
(Zurich, 13 vols., 1775-84). Between 1797 and 1833 there appeared at
intervals the classical German rendering by August Wilhelm von Schlegel
and Ludwig Tieck, leaders of the romantic school of German literature,
whose creed embodied, as one of its first articles, an unwavering
veneration for Shakespeare. Schlegel translated only seventeen plays,
and his workmanship excels that of the rest of the translation. Tieck's
part in the undertaking was mainly confined to editing translations by
various hands. Many other German translations in verse were undertaken
during the same period--by J. H. Voss and his sons (Leipzig, 1818-29), by
J. W. O. Benda (Leipzig, 1825-6), by J. Korner (Vienna, 1836), by A.
Bottger (Leipzig, 1836-7), by E. Ortlepp (Stuttgart, 1838-9), and by A.
Keller and M. Rapp (Stuttgart, 1843-6). The best of more recent German
translations is that by a band of poets and eminent men of letters
including Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Ferdinand von Freiligrath, and Paul
Heyse (Leipzig, 1867-71, 38 vols.) Most of these versions have been many
times reissued, but, despite the high merits of von Bodenstedt and his
companions' performance, Schlegel and Tieck's achievement still holds the
field. Schlegel's lectures on 'Shakespeare and the Drama,' which were
delivered at Vienna in 1808, and were translated into English in 1815,
are worthy of comparison with those of Coleridge, who owed much to their
influence. Wordsworth in 1815 declared that Schlegel and his disciples
first marked out the right road in aesthetic criticism, and enjoyed at
the moment superiority over all English aesthetic critics of Shakespeare.
{344} Subsequently Goethe poured forth, in his voluminous writings, a
mass of criticism even more illuminating and appreciative than
Schlegel's. {345} Although Goethe deemed Shakespeare's works unsuited to
the stage, he adapted 'Romeo and Juliet' for the Weimar Theatre, while
Schiller prepared 'Macbeth' (Stuttgart, 1801). Heine published in 1838
charming studies of Shakespeare's heroines (English translation 1895),
and acknowledged only one defect in Shakespeare--that he was an
Englishman.
Modern German writers on Shakespeare.
During the last half-century textual, aesthetic, and biographical
criticism has been pursued in Germany with unflagging industry and
energy; and although laboured and supersubtle theorising characterises
much German aesthetic criticism, its mass and variety testify to the
impressiveness of the appeal that Shakespeare's work has made to the
German intellect. The efforts to stem the current of Shakespearean
worship made by the realistic critic, Gustav Rumelin, in his
'Shakespearestudien' (Stuttgart, 1866), and subsequently by the
dramatist, J. R. Benedix, in 'Die Shakespearomanie' (Stuttgart, 1873,
8vo), proved of no effect. In studies of the text and metre Nikolaus
Delius (1813-1888) should, among recent German writers, be accorded the
first place; in studies of the biography and stage history Friedrich Karl
Elze (1821-1889); in aesthetic studies Friedrich Alexander Theodor
Kreyssig (1818-1879), author of 'Vorlesungen uber Shakespeare' (Berlin,
1858 and 1874), and 'Shakespeare-Fragen' (Leipzig, 1871). Ulrici's
'Shakespeare's Dramatic Art' (first published at Halle in 1839) and
Gervinus's Commentaries (first published at Leipzig in 1848-9), both of
which are familiar in English translations, are suggestive but
unconvincing aesthetic interpretations. The German Shakespeare Society,
which was founded at Weimar in 1865, has published thirty-four year-books
(edited successively by von Bodenstedt, Delius, Elze, and F. A. Leo);
each contains useful contributions to Shakespearean study.
On the German stage.
Shakespeare has been no less effectually nationalised on the German
stage. The three great actors--Frederick Ulrich Ludwig Schroeder
(1744-1816) of Hamburg, Ludwig Devrient (1784-1832), and his nephew
Gustav Emil Devrient (1803-1872)--largely derived their fame from their
successful assumptions of Shakespearean characters. Another of Ludwig
Devrient's nephews, Eduard (1801-1877), also an actor, prepared, with his
son Otto, an acting German edition (Leipzig, 1873 and following years).
An acting edition by Wilhelm Oechelhaeuser appeared previously at Berlin
in 1871. Twenty-eight of the thirty-seven plays assigned to Shakespeare
are now on recognised lists of German acting plays, including all the
histories. {346a} In 1895 as many as 706 performances of twenty-five of
Shakespeare's plays were given in German theatres. {346b} In 1896 no
fewer than 910 performances were given of twenty-three plays. In 1897
performances of twenty-four plays reached a total of 930--an average of
nearly three Shakespearean representations a day in the German-speaking
districts of Europe. {347} It is not only in capitals like Berlin and
Vienna that the representations are frequent and popular. In towns like
Altona, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Hamburg, Magdeburg, and Rostock,
Shakespeare is acted constantly and the greater number of his dramas is
regularly kept in rehearsal. 'Othello,' 'Hamlet,' 'Romeo and Juliet,'
and 'The Taming of the Shrew' usually prove most attractive. Of the many
German musical composers who have worked on Shakespearean themes,
Mendelssohn (in 'Midsummer Night's Dream'), Schumann, and Franz Schubert
(in setting separate songs) have achieved the greatest success.
In France. Voltaire's strictures.
In France Shakespeare won recognition after a longer struggle than in
Germany. Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) plagiarised 'Cymbeline,'
'Hamlet,' and 'The Merchant of Venice' in his 'Agrippina.' About 1680
Nicolas Clement, Louis XIV's librarian, allowed Shakespeare imagination,
natural thoughts, and ingenious expression, but deplored his obscenity.
{348a} Half a century elapsed before public attention in France was
again directed to Shakespeare. {348b} The Abbe Prevost, in his
periodical 'Le Pour et Contre' (1733 et seq.), acknowledged his power.
But it is to Voltaire that his countrymen owe, as he himself boasted,
their first effective introduction to Shakespeare. Voltaire studied
Shakespeare thoroughly on his visit to England between 1726 and 1729, and
his influence is visible in his own dramas. In his 'Lettres
Philosophiques' (1731), afterwards reissued as 'Lettres sur les Anglais,'
1734 (Nos. xviii. and xix.), and in his 'Lettre sur la Tragedie' (1731),
he expressed admiration for Shakespeare's genius, but attacked his want
of taste and art. He described him as 'le Corneille de Londres, grand
fou d'ailleurs mais il a des morceaux admirables.' Writing to the Abbe
des Fontaines in November 1735, Voltaire admitted many merits in 'Julius
Caesar,' on which he published 'Observations' in 1764. Johnson replied
to Voltaire's general criticism in the preface to his edition (1765), and
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in 1769 in a separate volume, which was translated
into French in 1777. Diderot made, in his 'Encylopedie,' the first stand
in France against the Voltairean position, and increased opportunities of
studying Shakespeare's works increased the poet's vogue. Twelve plays
were translated in De la Place's 'Theatre Anglais' (1745-8).
Jean-Francois Ducis (1733-1816) adapted without much insight six plays
for the French stage, beginning in 1769 with 'Hamlet,' his version of
which was acted with applause. In 1776 Pierre Le Tourneur began a bad
prose translation (completed in 1782) of all Shakespeare's plays, and
declared him to be 'the god of the theatre.' Voltaire protested against
this estimate in a new remonstrance consisting of two letters, of which
the first was read before the French Academy on August 25, 1776. Here
Shakespeare was described as a barbarian, whose works--'a huge
dunghill'--concealed some pearls.
French critics' gradual emancipation from Voltairean influence.
Although Voltaire's censure was rejected by the majority of later French
critics, it expressed a sentiment born of the genius of the nation, and
made an impression that was only gradually effaced. Marmontel, La Harpe,
Marie-Joseph Chenier, and Chateaubriand, in his 'Essai sur Shakespeare,'
1801, inclined to Voltaire's view; but Madame de Stael wrote effectively
on the other side in her 'De la Litterature, 1804 (i. caps. 13, 14, ii.
5.) 'At this day,' wrote Wordsworth in 1815, 'the French critics have
abated nothing of their aversion to "this darling of our nation." "The
English with their bouffon de Shakespeare" is as familiar an expression
among them as in the time of Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French
writer who seems to have perceived his infinite superiority to the first
names of the French theatre; an advantage which the Parisian critic owed
to his German blood and German education.' {350a} The revision of Le
Tourneur's translation by Francois Guizot and A. Pichot in 1821 gave
Shakespeare a fresh advantage. Paul Duport, in 'Essais Litteraires sur
Shakespeare' (Paris, 1828, 2 vols.), was the last French critic of repute
to repeat Voltaire's censure unreservedly. Guizot, in his discourse 'Sur
la Vie et les OEuvres de Shakespeare' (reprinted separately from the
translation of 1821), as well as in his 'Shakespeare et son Temps'
(1852), Villemain in a general essay, {350b} and Barante in a study of
'Hamlet,' {350c} acknowledge the mightiness of Shakespeare's genius with
comparatively few qualifications. Other complete translations
followed--by Francisque Michel (1839), by Benjamin Laroche (1851), and by
Emil Montegut (1867), but the best is that in prose by Francois Victor
Hugo (1859-66), whose father, Victor Hugo the poet, published a
rhapsodical eulogy in 1864. Alfred Mezieres's 'Shakespeare, ses OEuvres
et ses Critiques' (Paris, 1860), is a saner appreciation.
On the French stage.
Meanwhile 'Hamlet' and 'Macbeth,' 'Othello,' and a few other
Shakespearean plays, became stock pieces on the French stage. A powerful
impetus to theatrical representation of Shakespeare in France was given
by the performance in Paris of the chief plays by a strong company of
English actors in the autumn of 1827. 'Hamlet' and 'Othello' were acted
successively by Charles Kemble and Macready; Edmund Kean appeared as
Richard III, Othello, and Shylock; Miss Smithson, who became the wife of
Hector Berlioz the musician, filled the _roles_ of Ophelia, Juliet,
Desdemona, Cordelia, and Portia. French critics were divided as to the
merits of the performers, but most of them were enthusiastic in their
commendations of the plays. {351a} Alfred de Vigny prepared a version of
'Othello' for the Theatre-Francais in 1829 with eminent success. An
adaptation of 'Hamlet' by Alexandre Dumas was first performed in 1847,
and a rendering by the Chevalier de Chatelain (1864) was often repeated.
George Sand translated 'As You Like It' (Paris, 1856) for representation
by the Comedie Francaise on April 12, 1856. 'Lady Macbeth' has been
represented in recent years by Madame Sarah Bernhardt, and 'Hamlet' by M.
Mounet Sully of the Theatre-Francais. {351b} Four French
musicians--Berlioz in his symphony of 'Romeo and Juliet,' Gounod in his
opera of 'Romeo and Juliet,' Ambroise Thomas in his opera of 'Hamlet,'
and Saint-Saens in his opera of 'Henry VIII'--have sought with public
approval to interpret musically portions of Shakespeare's work.
In Italy.
In Italy Shakespeare was little known before the present century. Such
references as eighteenth-century Italian writers made to him were based
on remarks by Voltaire. {352} The French adaptation of 'Hamlet' by Ducis
was issued in Italian blank verse (Venice, 1774, 8vo). Complete
translations of all the plays made direct from the English were issued by
Michele Leoni in verse at Verona in 1819-22, and by Carlo Rusconi in
prose at Padua in 1831 (new edit. Turin, 1858-9). 'Othello' and 'Romeo
and Juliet' have been very often translated into Italian separately. The
Italian actors, Madame Ristori (as Lady Macbeth), Salvini (as Othello),
and Rossi rank among Shakespeare's most effective interpreters. Verdi's
operas on Macbeth, Othello, and Falstaff (the last two with libretti by
Boito), manifest close and appreciative study of Shakespeare.
In Holland.
Two complete translations have been published in Dutch; one in prose by
A. S. Kok (Amsterdam 1873-1880), the other in verse by Dr. L. A. J.
Burgersdijk (Leyden, 1884-8, 12 vols.)
In Russia.
In Eastern Europe, Shakespeare first became known through French and
German translations. Into Russian 'Romeo and Juliet' was translated in
1772, 'Richard III' in 1783, and 'Julius Caesar' in 1786. Sumarakow
translated Ducis' version of 'Hamlet' in 1784 for stage purposes, while
the Empress Catherine II adapted the 'Merry Wives' and 'King John.'
Numerous versions of all the chief plays followed; and in 1865 there
appeared at St. Petersburg the best translation in verse (direct from the
English), by Nekrasow and Gerbel. A prose translation, by N. Ketzcher,
begun in 1862, was completed in 1879. Gerbel issued a Russian
translation of the 'Sonnets' in 1880, and many critical essays in the
language, original or translated, have been published. Almost every play
has been represented in Russian on the Russian stage. {353a}
In Poland.
A Polish version of 'Hamlet' was acted at Lemberg in 1797; and as many as
sixteen plays now hold a recognised place among Polish acting plays. The
standard Polish translation of Shakespeare's collected works appeared at
Warsaw in 1875 (edited by the Polish poet Kraszewski), and is reckoned
among the most successful renderings in a foreign tongue.
In Hungary.
In Hungary, Shakespeare's greatest works have since the beginning of the
century been highly appreciated by students and by playgoers. A complete
translation into Hungarian appeared at Kaschau in 1824. At the National
Theatre at Budapest no fewer than twenty-two plays have been of late
years included in the actors' repertory. {353b}
In other countries.
Other complete translations have been published in Bohemian (Prague
1874), in Swedish (Lund, 1847-1851), in Danish (1845-1850), and Finnish
(Helsingfors, 1892-5). In Spanish a complete translation is in course of
publication (Madrid, 1885 et seq.), and the eminent Spanish critic
Menendez y Pelayo has set Shakespeare above Calderon. In Armenian,
although only three plays ('Hamlet,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' and 'As You Like
It') have been issued, the translation of the whole is ready for the
press. Separate plays have appeared in Welsh, Portuguese, Friesic,
Flemish, Servian, Roumanian, Maltese, Ukrainian, Wallachian, Croatian,
modern Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Japanese; while a few have been rendered
into Bengali, Hindustani, Marathi, {354} Gujarati, Urdu, Kanarese, and
other languages of India, and have been acted in native theatres.
XXI--GENERAL ESTIMATE
General estimate.
No estimate of Shakespeare's genius can be adequate. In knowledge of
human character, in wealth of humour, in depth of passion, in fertility
of fancy, and in soundness of judgment, he has no rival. It is true of
him, as of no other writer, that his language and versification adapt
themselves to every phase of sentiment, and sound every note in the scale
of felicity. Some defects are to be acknowledged, but they sink into
insignificance when measured by the magnitude of his achievement. Sudden
transitions, elliptical expressions, mixed metaphors, indefensible verbal
quibbles, and fantastic conceits at times create an atmosphere of
obscurity. The student is perplexed, too, by obsolete words and by some
hopelessly corrupt readings. But when the whole of Shakespeare's vast
work is scrutinised with due attention, the glow of his magination is
seen to leave few passages wholly unillumined. Some of his plots are
hastily constructed and inconsistently developed, but the intensity of
the interest with which he contrives to invest the personality of his
heroes and heroines triumphs over halting or digressive treatment of the
story in which they have their being. Although he was versed in the
technicalities of stagecraft, he occasionally disregarded its elementary
conditions. But the success of his presentments of human life and
character depended little on his manipulation of theatrical machinery.
His unassailable supremacy springs from the versatile working of his
insight and intellect, by virtue of which his pen limned with unerring
precision almost every gradation of thought and emotion that animates the
living stage of the world.
Character of Shakespeare's achievement.
Shakespeare's mind, as Hazlitt suggested, contained within itself the
germs of all faculty and feeling. He knew intuitively how every faculty
and feeling would develop in any conceivable change of fortune. Men and
women--good or bad, old or young, wise or foolish, merry or sad, rich or
poor--yielded their secrets to him, and his genius enabled him to give
being in his pages to all the shapes of humanity that present themselves
on the highway of life. Each of his characters gives voice to thought or
passion with an individuality and a naturalness that rouse in the
intelligent playgoer and reader the illusion that they are overhearing
men and women speak unpremeditatingly among themselves, rather than that
they are reading written speeches or hearing written speeches recited.
The more closely the words are studied, the completer the illusion grows.
Creatures of the imagination--fairies, ghosts, witches--are delineated
with a like potency, and the reader or spectator feels instinctively that
these supernatural entities could not speak, feel, or act otherwise than
Shakespeare represents them. The creative power of poetry was never
manifested to such effect as in the corporeal semblances in which
Shakespeare clad the spirits of the air.
Its universal recognition.
So mighty a faculty sets at naught the common limitations of nationality,
and in every quarter of the globe to which civilised life has penetrated
Shakespeare's power is recognised. All the world over, language is
applied to his creations that ordinarily applies to beings of flesh and
blood. Hamlet and Othello, Lear and Macbeth, Falstaff and Shylock,
Brutus and Romeo, Ariel and Caliban are studied in almost every civilised
tongue as if they were historic personalities, and the chief of the
impressive phrases that fall from their lips are rooted in the speech of
civilised humanity. To Shakespeare the intellect of the world, speaking
in divers accents, applies with one accord his own words: 'How noble in
reason! how infinite in faculty! in apprehension how like a god!'
APPENDIX
I.--THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.
Contemporary records abundant.
The scantiness of contemporary records of Shakespeare's career has been
much exaggerated. An investigation extending over two centuries has
brought together a mass of detail which far exceeds that accessible in
the case of any other contemporary professional writer. Nevertheless,
some important links are missing, and at some critical points appeal to
conjecture is inevitable. But the fully ascertained facts are numerous
enough to define sharply the general direction that Shakespeare's career
followed. Although the clues are in some places faint, the trail never
altogether eludes the patient investigator.
First efforts in biography.
Fuller, in his 'Worthies' (1662), attempted the first biographical notice
of Shakespeare, with poor results. Aubrey, in his gossiping 'Lives of
Eminent Men,' {361} based his ampler information on reports communicated
to him by William Beeston (_d._ 1682), an aged actor, whom Dryden called
'the chronicle of the stage,' and who was doubtless in the main a
trustworthy witness. A few additional details were recorded in the
seventeenth century by the Rev. John Ward (1629-1681), vicar of
Stratford-on-Avon from 1662 to 1668, in a diary and memorandum-book
written between 1661 and 1663 (ed. C. A. Severn, 1839); by the Rev.
William Fulman, whose manuscripts are at Corpus Christi College, Oxford
(with valuable interpolations made before 1708 by the Rev. Richard
Davies, vicar of Saperton, Gloucestershire); by John Dowdall, who
recorded his experiences of travel through Warwickshire in 1693 (London,
1838); and by William Hall, who described a visit to Stratford in 1694
(London, 1884, from Hall's letter among the Bodleian MSS.) Phillips in
his 'Theatrum Poetarum' (1675), and Langbaine in his 'English Dramatick
Poets' (1691), confined themselves to elementary criticism. In 1709
Nicholas Rowe prefixed to his edition of the plays a more ambitious
memoir than had yet been attempted, and embodied some hitherto unrecorded
Stratford and London traditions with which the actor Thomas Betterton
supplied him. A little fresh gossip was collected by William Oldys, and
was printed from his manuscript 'Adversaria' (now in the British Museum)
as an appendix to Yeowell's 'Memoir of Oldys,' 1862. Pope, Johnson, and
Steevens, in the biographical prefaces to their editions, mainly repeated
the narratives of their predecessor, Rowe.
Biographers of the nineteenth century. Stratford topography.
In the Prolegomena to the Variorum editions of 1803, 1813, and especially
in that of 1821, there was embodied a mass of fresh information derived
by Edmund Malone from systematic researches among the parochial records
of Stratford, the manuscripts accumulated by the actor Alleyn at Dulwich,
and official papers of state preserved in the public offices in London
(now collected in the Public Record Office). The available knowledge of
Elizabethan stage history, as well as of Shakespeare's biography, was
thus greatly extended. John Payne Collier, in his 'History of English
Dramatic Poetry' (1831), in his 'New Facts' about Shakespeare (1835), his
'New Particulars' (1836), and his 'Further Particulars' (1839), and in
his editions of Henslowe's 'Diary' and the 'Alleyn Papers' for the
Shakespeare Society, while occasionally throwing some further light on
obscure places, foisted on Shakespeare's biography a series of
ingeniously forged documents which have greatly perplexed succeeding
biographers. {362} Joseph Hunter in 'New Illustrations of Shakespeare'
(1845) and George Russell French's 'Shakespeareana Genealogica' (1869)
occasionally supplemented Malone's researches. James Orchard Halliwell
(afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps) printed separately, between 1850 and
1884, in various privately issued publications, all the Stratford
archives and extant legal documents bearing on Shakespeare's career, many
of them for the first time. In 1881 Halliwell-Phillipps began the
collective publication of materials for a full biography in his 'Outlines
of the Life of Shakespeare;' this work was generously enlarged in
successive editions until it acquired massive proportions; in the seventh
and last edition of 1887 it numbered near 1,000 pages. Mr. Frederick
Gard Fleay, in his 'Shakespeare Manual' (1876), in his 'Life of
Shakespeare' (1886), in his 'History of the Stage' (1890), and his
'Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama' (1891), adds much useful
information respecting stage history and Shakespeare's relations with his
fellow-dramatists, mainly derived from a study of the original editions
of the plays of Shakespeare and of his contemporaries; but unfortunately
many of Mr. Fleay's statements and conjectures are unauthenticated. For
notices of Stratford, R. B. Wheler's 'History and Antiquities' (1806),
John R. Wise's 'Shakespere, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood' (1861),
the present writer's 'Stratford-on-Avon to the Death of Shakespeare'
(1890), and Mrs. C. C. Stopes's 'Shakespeare's Warwickshire
Contemporaries' (1897), may be consulted. Wise appends to his volume a
tentative 'glossary of words still used in Warwickshire to be found in
Shakspere.' The parish registers of Stratford have been edited by Mr.
Richard Savage for the Parish Registers Society (1898-9). Nathan Drake's
'Shakespeare and his Times' (1817) and G. W. Thornbury's 'Shakespeare's
England' (1856) collect much material respecting Shakespeare's social
environment.
Specialised studies in biography. Useful epitomes.