[Footnote 525: Shakespeare; or the Poet is one of seven essays on
great men in various walks of life, published in 1850 under the title
of _Representative Men_. These essays were first delivered as lectures
in Boston in the winter of 1845, and were repeated two years later
before English audiences. They must have been especially interesting
to those Englishmen who had, seven years before, heard Emerson's
friend, Carlyle, deliver his six lectures on great men whom he
selected as representative ones. These lectures were published under
the title of _Heroes and Hero-Worship_. You should read the latter
part of Carlyle's lecture on _The Hero as Poet_ and compare what he
says about Shakespeare with Emerson's words. Both Emerson and Carlyle
reverenced the great English poet as "the master of mankind." Even in
serious New England, the plays of Shakespeare were found upon the
bookshelf beside religious tracts and doctrinal treatises. There the
boy Emerson found them and learned to love them, and the man Emerson
loved them but the more. It was as a record of personal experiences
that he wrote in his journal: "Shakespeare fills us with wonder the
first time we approach him. We go away, and work and think, for years,
and come again,--he astonishes us anew. Then, having drank deeply and
saturated us with his genius, we lose sight of him for another period
of years. By and by we return, and there he stands immeasurable as at
first. We have grown wiser, but only that we should see him wiser than
ever. He resembles a high mountain which the traveler sees in the
morning and thinks he shall quickly near it and pass it and leave it
behind. But he journeys all day till noon, till night. There still is
the dim mountain close by him, having scarce altered its bearings
since the morning light."]
[Footnote 526: Genius. Here instead of speaking as in _Friendship_,
see note 286, of the genius or spirit supposed to preside over each
man's life, Emerson mentions the guardian spirit of human kind.]
[Footnote 527: Shakespeare's youth, etc. It is impossible to
appreciate or enjoy this essay without having some clear general
information about the condition of the English people and English
literature in the glorious Elizabethan age in which Shakespeare lived.
Consult, for this information, some brief history of England and a
comprehensive English literature.]
[Footnote 528: Puritans. Strict Protestants who became so powerful in
England that in the time of the Commonwealth they controlled the
political and religious affairs of the country.]
[Footnote 529: Anglican Church. The Established Church of England; the
Episcopal church.]
[Footnote 530: Punch. The chief character in a puppet show, hence the
puppet show itself.]
[Footnote 531: Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. For an account of these
dramatists consult a text book on English literature. The English
drama seems to have begun in the Middle Ages with what were called
Miracle plays, which were scenes from Bible history; about the same
time were performed the Mystery plays, which dramatized the lives of
saints. These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were
personified abstract virtues and vices. The first step in the creation
of the regular drama was taken by Heywood, who composed some farcical
plays called Interludes. The people of the sixteenth century were fond
of pageants, shows in which classical personages were introduced, and
Masques, which gradually developed from pageants into dramas
accompanied with music. About the middle of the sixteenth century,
rose the English drama,--comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. The
chief among the group of dramatists who attained fame before
Shakespeare began to write were Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. Ben
Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare among his
contemporaries, and among the other dramatists of the period were
Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger.]
[Footnote 532: At the time when, etc. Probably about 1585.]
[Footnote 533: Tale of Troy. Drama founded on the Trojan war. The
subject of famous poems by Latin and Greek poets.]
[Footnote 534: Death of Julius Cæsar. An account of the plots which
ended in the assassination of the great Roman general.]
[Footnote 535: Plutarch. See note on _Heroism_(264). Shakespeare, like
the earlier dramatists, drew freely on Plutarch's _Lives_ for
material.]
[Footnote 536: Brut. A poetical version of the legendary history of
Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of Britain.]
[Footnote 537: Arthur. A British King of the sixth century, around
whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some
historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great
cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and in
poetry in Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_.]
[Footnote 538: The royal Henries. Among the dramas popular in
Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical
plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First,
Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.]
[Footnote 539: Italian tales. Italian literature was very popular in
Shakespeare's day, and authors drew freely from it for material,
especially from the _Decameron_, a famous collection of a hundred
tales, by Boccaccio, a poet of the fourteenth century.]
[Footnote 540: Spanish voyages. In the sixteenth century, Spain was
still a power upon the high seas, and the tales of her conquests and
treasures in the New World were like tales of romance.]
[Footnote 541: Prestige. Can you give an English equivalent for this
French word?]
[Footnote 542: Which no single genius, etc. In the same way, some
critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, were
built up by a number of poets.]
[Footnote 543: Malone. An Irish critic and scholar of the eighteenth
century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.]
[Footnote 544: Wolsey's Soliloquy. See Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._
III, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England in the reign of
Henry VIII.]
[Footnote 545: Scene with Cromwell. See _Henry VIII._ III, 2. Thomas
Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; he rose to be lord high
chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry VIII., but, incurring the
King's displeasure, was executed on a charge of treason.]
[Footnote 546: Account of the coronation. See _Henry VIII._ IV, 1.]
[Footnote 547: Compliment to Queen Elizabeth. See _Henry VIII._ V, 5.]
[Footnote 548: Bad rhythm. Too much importance must not be attached to
these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree about them.]
[Footnote 549: Value his memory, etc. The Greeks, in appreciation of
the value of memory to the poet, represented the Muses as the
daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.]
[Footnote 550: Homer. A Greek poet to whom is assigned the authorship
of the two greatest Greek poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; he is
said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ.]
[Footnote 551: Chaucer. (See note 33.)]
[Footnote 552: Saadi. A Persian poet, supposed to have lived in the
thirteenth century. His best known poems are his odes.]
[Footnote 553: Presenting Thebes, etc. This quotation is from Milton's
poem, _Il Penseroso_. Milton here names the three most popular
subjects of Greek tragedy,--the story of Oedipus, the ill-fated King
of Thebes who slew his father; the tale of the descendants of Pelops,
King of Pisa, who seemed born to woe--Agamemnon was one of his
grandsons; the third subject was the tale of Troy and the heroes of
the Trojan war,--called "divine" because the Greeks represented even
the gods as taking part in the contest.]
[Footnote 554: Pope. (See note 88.)]
[Footnote 555: Dryden. (See note 35.)]
[Footnote 556: Chaucer is a huge borrower. Taine, the French critic,
says on this subject: "Chaucer was capable of seeking out in the old
common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to replant them
in his own soil and make them send out new shoots.... He has the right
and power of copying and translating because by dint of retouching he
impresses ... his original work. He recreates what he imitates."]
[Footnote 557: Lydgate. John Lydgate was an English poet who lived a
generation later than Chaucer; in his _Troy Book_ and other poems he
probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called himself
"Chaucer's disciple."]
[Footnote 558: Caxton. William Caxton, the English author, more famous
as the first English printer, was not born until after Chaucer's
death. The work from which Emerson supposes the poet to have borrowed
Caxton's translation of _Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, the first
printed English book, appeared about 1474.]
[Footnote 559: Guido di Colonna. A Sicilian poet and historian of the
thirteenth century. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ placed in his
vision "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the
Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the other
historians of the war of Troy."]
[Footnote 560: Dares Phrygius. A Latin account of the fall of Troy,
written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of
a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in
Homer's _Iliad_.]
[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ,
whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical
legends.]
[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after
Christ.]
[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.]
[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the
fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed
that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far
superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.]
[Footnote 565: Provençal poets. The poets of Provençe, a province of
the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated
for its lyric poets, called troubadours.]
[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the
Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete
and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth
century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by
William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.]
[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian
poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown
"Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is _Il
Filostrato_, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned.
Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is
entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound
knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded
the French poets.]
[Footnote 568: The Cock and the Fox. _The Nun's Priest's Tale_ in the
_Canterbury Tales_ was an original treatment of the _Roman de Renart_,
of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 569: House of Fame, etc. The plan of the _House of Fame_,
written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows the
influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the
Roman poet.]
[Footnote 570: Gower. John Gower was an English poet, Chaucer's
contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same sources for
poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's works as we
would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on his memory for facts,
and hence made mistakes, as here in the instances of Lydgate, Caxton,
and Gower.]
[Footnote 571: Westminster, Washington. What legislative body
assembles at Westminster Palace, London? What at Washington?]
[Footnote 572: Sir Robert Peel. An English statesman who died in 1850,
not long after _Representative Men_ was published.]
[Footnote 573: Webster. Daniel Webster, an American statesman and
orator who was living when this essay was written.]
[Footnote 574: Locke. John Locke. (See note 18.)]
[Footnote 575: Rousseau. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher
of the eighteenth century.]
[Footnote 576: Homer. (See note 550.)]
[Footnote 577: Menn. Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of fourteen
legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann Vaivasvata was
supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a collection made about
the second century.]
[Footnote 578: Saadi or Sadi. (See note 552.)]
[Footnote 579: Milton. Of this great English poet and prose writer of
the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named whose mind
still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and America with an
energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet Shakespeare undoubtedly
transcends and far surpasses him in his popularity with foreign
nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: who and what he was that
sang, that sings, we know not."]
[Footnote 580: Delphi. Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was a city in
Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of the oracles
of antiquity.]
[Footnote 581: Our English Bible. The version made in the reign of
King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of noble
English.]
[Footnote 582: Liturgy. An appointed form of worship used in a
Christian church,--here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal
church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and
though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read
her Episcopal prayer book.]
[Footnote 583: Grotius. Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, statesman,
theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 584: Rabbinical forms. The forms used by the rabbis, Jewish
doctors or expounders of the law.]
[Footnote 585: Common law. In a general sense, the system of law
derived from England, in general use among English-speaking people.]
[Footnote 586: Vedas. The sacred books of the Brahmins.]
[Footnote 587: Æsop's Fables. Fables ascribed to Æsop, a Greek slave
who lived in the sixth century before Christ.]
[Footnote 588: Pilpay, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were ascribed
some fables. From an Arabic translation, these passed into European
languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.]
[Footnote 589: Arabian Nights. _The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or A
Thousand and One Nights_ is a collection of Oriental tales, the plan
and name of which are very ancient.]
[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the
Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was
written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied
much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French
tragedies written later on the same subject.]
[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer,
describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view
adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many
men.]
[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English
outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by
Sir Walter Scott in 1802.]
[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded
in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society
was founded.]
[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.]
[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular
English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in
1565.]
[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English
comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.]
[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller
account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions
and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the
poet.]
[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the
English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a
prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.]
[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of
England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in
England from 1603 to 1625.]
[Footnote 601: Essexes. Walter Devereux was a brave English gentleman
whom Elizabeth made Earl of Essex in 1572. His son Robert, the second
Earl of Essex, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.]
[Footnote 602: Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, famous in
Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier,
politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 603: Burleighs or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron of
Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was
Elizabeth's chief minister.]
[Footnote 604: Buckinghams. George Villiers, the first duke of
Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of
James I. and Charles I.]
[Footnote 605: Tudor dynasty. The English dynasty of sovereigns
descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with Henry VII.
and ended with Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 606: Bacon. Consult English literature and history for an
account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the wisest,
brightest, meanest of mankind."]
[Footnote 607: Ben Jonson, etc. In his _Timber or Discoveries_, Ben
Jonson, a famous classical dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare,
says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry
as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature:
had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein
he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should
be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had
been so, too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape
laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was
ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."]
[Footnote 608: Sir Henry Wotton. An English diplomatist and author of
wide culture.]
[Footnote 609: The following persons, etc. The persons enumerated were
all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir Philip Sidney, Earl
of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane,
Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, Charles Cotton, John
Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, statesmen, and authors.
Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac Casaubon was a
French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian cardinal;
Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a French
mathematician; Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul Sarpi
was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.]
[Footnote 610: Many others whom doubtless, etc. Emerson here
enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not
mentioned in the preceeding list.]
[Footnote 611: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.]
[Footnote 612: Lessing. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German critic and
poet of the eighteenth century.]
[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German
contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of
Shakespeare's plays.]
[Footnote 614: Schlegel. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a German critic
and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century translated
some of Shakespeare's plays into classical German.]
[Footnote 615: Hamlet. The hero of Shakespeare's play of the same
name.]
[Footnote 616: Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet,
author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 617: Goethe. (See note 85.)]
[Footnote 618: Blackfriar's Theater. A famous London theater in which
nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were performed.]
[Footnote 619: Stratford. Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in
Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent
his last years.]
[Footnote 620: Macbeth. One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies,
written about 1606.]
[Footnote 621: Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier. English scholars
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the works of
Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 622: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont: The
leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.]
[Footnote 623: Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, famous
British actors of the Shakespearian parts.]
[Footnote 624: The Hamlet of a famed performer, etc. Macready. Emerson
said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy mortals who are
capable of being carried away by an actor of Shakespeare. Now,
whenever I visit the theater to witness the performance of one of his
dramas, I am carried away by the poet."]
[Footnote 625: What may this mean, etc. _Hamlet_, I. 4.]
[Footnote 626: Midsummer Night's Dream. One of Shakespeare's plays.]
[Footnote 627: The forest of Arden. In which is laid, the scene of
Shakespeare's play, _As You Like It_.]
[Footnote 628: The nimble air of Scone Castle. It was of the air of
Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly recommends
itself unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth_, I. 6.]
[Footnote 629: Portia's villa. See the moonlight scene, _Merchant of
Venice_, V. 1.]
[Footnote 630: The antres vost, etc. See _Othello_, I. 3. "Antres" is
an old word, meaning caves, caverns.]
[Footnote 631: Cyclopean architecture. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops
were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied here to the
architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic size of the
buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if it would
require giants to perform such works.]
[Footnote 632: Phidian sculpture. Phidias was a famous Greek sculptor
who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with his
works.]
[Footnote 633: Gothic minsters. Churches or cathedrals, built in the
Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed during the
Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term was
originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."]
[Footnote 634: The Italian painting. In Italy during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a degree of
perfection unknown in any other time or country.]
[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these
countries are noted for beauty and spirit.]
[Footnote 636: Tripod. Define this word, and explain its
appropriateness here.]
[Footnote 637: Aubrey. John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of the
seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the
seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 639: Timon. See note on _Gifts_, 466.]
[Footnote 640: Warwick. An English politician and commander of the
fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in
Shakespeare's plays, _Henry IV._, _V._, and _VI._]
[Footnote 641: Antonio. The Venetian Merchant in Shakespeare's play,
_The Merchant of Venice_.]
[Footnote 642: Talma. François Joseph Talma was a French tragic actor,
to whom Napoleon showed favor.]
[Footnote 643: An omnipresent humanity, etc. See what Carlyle has to
say on this subject in his _Hero as Poet_.]
[Footnote 644: Daguerre. Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French painter, one
of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means of which an
image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of light.]
[Footnote 645: Euphuism. The word here has rather the force of
euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected ornate
style of expression, so called from _Euphues_, by John Lyly, a
sixteenth century master of that style.]
[Footnote 646: Epicurus. A Greek philosopher of the third century
before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of
philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and
that the highest pleasure is freedom.]
[Footnote 647: Dante. (See note 258.)]
[Footnote 648: Master of the revels, etc. Emerson always expressed
thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had shed over
the universe." See what Carlyle says in _The Hero as Poet_, about
Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."]
[Footnote 649: Koran. The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.]
[Footnote 650: Twelfth Night, etc. The names of three bright, merry,
or serene plays by Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 651: Egyptian verdict. Emerson used Egyptian probably in the
sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the fortunes told by
the gipsies.]
[Footnote 652: Tasso. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century.]
[Footnote 653: Cervantes. A Spanish poet and romancer of the sixteenth
century, the author of _Don Quixote_.]
[Footnote 654: Israelite. Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and
Jeremiah.]
[Footnote 655: German. Such as Luther.]
[Footnote 656: Swede. Such as Swedenborg, the mystic philosopher of
the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already written in
_Representative Men_.]
[Footnote 657: A pilgrim's progress. As described by John Bunyan, the
English writer, in his famous _Pilgrim's Progress_.]
[Footnote 658: Doleful histories of Adam's fall, etc. The subject of
_Paradise Lost,_ the great poem by John Milton.]
[Footnote 659: With doomsdays and purgatorial, etc. As described by
Dante in his _Divine Commedia_, an epic about hell, purgatory, and
paradise.]