aspiring spirit of the new Elizabethan Renaissance.
"Our souls whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
And measure every wandering planet's course
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Will us to wear ourselves and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all."[18]
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616
[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. _From the Chandos portrait in
the National Portrait Gallery_.]
Birthplace and Parents.--William Shakespeare, the greatest of the
world's writers, was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. The name
originally meant one skilled in wielding a spear. The first William
Shakespeare of whom mention is made in the records was hanged for
robbery near Stratford; but it is only fair to state that in those
days hanging was inflicted for stealing even a sheep.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON.]
The great dramatist's birthplace lies in the midst of England's
fairest rural scenery. When two Englishmen were asked to name the
finest walk in England, one chose the walk from Stratford to Coventry,
the other, the walk from Coventry to Stratford. A short distance
northeast of Stratford are Warwick with its castle, the home of the
famous king-maker, and Kenilworth Castle, whose historic associations
were romantic enough to stir the imagination of a boy like
Shakespeare.
He was the son of John Shakespeare, an influential merchant, who in
1571 was elected chief alderman of Stratford. The poet's mother was
the daughter of Robert Arden, a well-to-do farmer. We are told that
she was her father's favorite among seven children. Perhaps it was due
to her influence that he had a happy childhood. His references to
plays and sports and his later desire to return to Stratford are
indicative of pleasant boyhood days.
Probably his mother was the original of some of her son's noblest
conceptions of women. His plays have more heroines than heroes. We may
fancy that it was his mother who first pointed out to him--
"...daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes."[19]
We may imagine that from her teaching, as she walked with him over the
Stratford fields, he obtained suggestions which enabled him to hold
captive the ear of the world, when he sang of the pearl in the
cowslip's ear, of the bank where the wild thyme blows, of the
greenwood tree and the merry note of the bird. Many of the references
to nature in his plays are unsurpassed in English verse.
[Illustration: CLASSROOM IN STRATFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL[20].]
What He Learned at School.--In all probability Shakespeare entered
the Stratford Grammar School at about the age of seven and continued
there until he was nearly fourteen. The typical course in grammar
schools of that period consisted principally of various Latin authors.
One school in 1583 had twenty-five Latin books on its list of studies,
while the only required works in English were the _Catechism, Psalter,
Book of Common Prayer_, and _New Testament_. Children were required to
study Lilly's _Latin Grammar_ instead of their mother tongue. Among
the works that Shakespeare probably read in Latin, AEsop's _Fables_
and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ may be mentioned.
Although English was not taught, Shakespeare shows wonderful mastery
in the use of his mother tongue. We have the testimony of the
schoolmaster, Holofernes, in _Love's Labor's Lost_ to show that the
study of Latin led to facility in the use of English synonyms:--
"The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_, in blood, ripe as the
pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _caelo_, the
sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the
face of _terra_, the soil, the land, the earth."
Three English equivalents are here given for each of the Latin terms
_caelo_ and _terra_. The same schoolmaster uses seven synonyms in
describing the "fashion" of speech of the ignorant constable,
--"undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained,
or, rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed, fashion." When we
remember that it was really Shakespeare who wrote this, we know that
he had been led to study variety of expression. His large vocabulary
could not have been acquired by any one without hard work.
A good translation of the English _Bible_ was accessible to him.
Scriptural phrases and references appear in his plays, and volumes
have been written to show the influence of the _Bible_ on his thought.
Financial Reverses of the Shakespeare Family.--It is probable that
Shakespeare at about the age of fourteen was taken from school to
assist his father in the store. The elder Shakespeare was then
overtaken by financial reverses and compelled to mortgage his wife's
land. His affairs went from bad to worse; he was sued for debt, but
the court could not find any property to satisfy the claim. It is
possible that he was for a short time even imprisoned for debt.
Finally he was deprived of his alderman's gown.
These events must have made a deep impression on the sensitive boy,
and they may have led him to an early determination to try to master
fortune. In after years he showed a business sagacity very rare for a
poet.
Marriage and Departure from Stratford.--The most famous lovers' walk
in England is the footpath from Stratford, leading about one mile
westward through meadows to the hamlet of Shottery. Perhaps William
Shakespeare had this very walk in mind when he wrote the song:--
"Journeys end in lovers' meeting
Every wise man's son doth know."
[Illustration: ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE, SHOTTERY.]
The end of his walk led to Anne Hathaway's home in Shottery. She was
nearly eight years his senior, but in 1582 at the age of eighteen he
married her.
There is a record that Shakespeare's twin children, Hamnet and Judith,
were baptized in 1585. From this we know that before he was twenty-one
Shakespeare had a wife and family to support.
We have no positive information to tell us what he did for the next
seven years after the birth of his twins. Tradition says that he
joined a group of hunters, killed some of the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy
at Charlecote Park, and fled from Stratford to London in consequence
of threatened prosecution. There is reason to doubt the truth of this
story, and Shakespeare may have sought the metropolis merely because
it offered him more scope to provide for his rapidly increasing
family.
Connects Himself with the London Stage.--The next scene of
Shakespeare's life is laid in London. In 1592 Robert Greene, a London
poet, dramatist, and hack-writer, wrote:--
"There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with
his _Tyger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide_, supposes he is as
well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being
an absolute _Iohannes fac-totum_, is in his owne conceit the only
Shake-scene in a countrie."[21]
The best critics agree that the "upstart Crow" and "Shake-scene" refer
to Shakespeare. The allusion to "Tyger's heart" is from the third part
of _King Henry VI_. and is addressed by the Duke of York to Queen
Margaret of Anjou:--
"O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!"
Greene's satiric thrust shows that Shakespeare was becoming popular as
a playwright. We can only imagine the steps by which he rose to his
ascendancy as a dramatist. Perhaps he first served the theater in some
menial capacity, then became an actor, and assisted others in revising
or adapting plays before he acquired sufficient skill to write a play
entirely by himself.
In 1593 he published the non-dramatic poem, _Venus and Adonis_, which
he dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. This nobleman is said to have
given Shakespeare, on one occasion, "a thousand pounds to enable him
to make a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." This would show
that Shakespeare had a capacity for attracting people and making
lasting friendships. In 1597 he purchased "New Place," the stateliest
house in Stratford, and we hear no more of his father's financial
troubles.
Twentieth-century Discoveries.--In the first decade of the twentieth
century, Professor C.W. Wallace discovered in the London Record Office
a romantic story in which Shakespeare was an important figure. This
story opens in the year 1598 in the London house of a French Huguenot,
Christopher Mountjoy, wig-maker, with whom Shakespeare lived. Mountjoy
took as apprentice for six years, Stephen Bellott, a young Frenchman.
Beside him worked Mary Mountjoy, the proprietor's only daughter, who
looked with favor upon the young apprentice. At the end of his
apprenticeship Stephen left without proposing marriage to Mary; but on
his return Mrs. Mountjoy asked Shakespeare to make a match between
Stephen and Mary,--a task in which he was successful.
Seven and a half years later Shakespeare was called into court to
testify to all the facts leading to the marriage. After a family
quarrel, Mr. Mountjoy declared that he would never leave Stephen and
Mary a groat, and the son-in-law brought suit for a dowry.
Shakespeare's testimony shows that he remembered Mrs. Mountjoy's
commission and the part that he played in mating the pair, but he
forgot the amount of the dowry and when it was to be paid. The puzzled
court turned the matter over for settlement to the French church in
London, but it is not known what decision was reached.
The documents in the case show that Shakespeare was on familiar terms
with tradesmen, that they thought well of him, that he was willing to
undertake to try to make two people happy, and that he lived in the
Mountjoy house at the corner of Silver and Monkwell streets. During
the period of Stephen's apprenticeship (1598-1604), Shakespeare wrote
some of his greatest plays, such as _Hamlet_ and _Othello_. From its
connection with Shakespeare, this is the most important corner in
London for literary associations.
Wallace also found documents showing that Shakespeare owned at the
time of his death a one-seventh interest in the Blackfriars Theater
and a one-fourteenth interest in the Globe. The hitherto unknown fact
that he continued to hold to the end of his life these important
interests, requiring such skilled supervision, makes more doubtful the
former assumption that he spent the last years of his life entirely at
Stratford.
Last Years and Death.--Shakespeare probably bought New Place in
Stratford as a residence for his family and a retreat for himself out
of the theatrical season, but he doubtless continued to live in London
for the greater part of his time until a few years before his death in
1616. The Mountjoy testimony proves that he was in London in May,
1612.
We are positive, however, that he was living in Stratford at the time
of his death. He may for several years have taken only occasional
trips to London to look after his interests in his theaters. It is not
improbable that his health forced him to retire to Stratford, for it
is difficult to see how any one could have produced nearly two
Shakespearean plays a year for almost twenty years without breaking
down under the strain. He had in addition almost certainly helped to
manage the production of the plays, and tradition says that he was
also an actor. Some of the parts which he is said to have played are
the ghost in _Hamlet_, Adam in _As You Like It_, and Old Knowell in
Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humor_.
[Illustration: STRATFORD-ON-AVON, SHOWING CHURCH WHERE SHAKESPEARE IS
BURIED.]
In 1616, at the age of fifty-two, this master-singer of the world,
who, in De Quincey's phrase, was "a little lower than the angels,"
died and was buried in the parish church at Stratford. Shakespeare
knew that in the course of time graves were often opened and the bones
thrown into the charnel house. The world is thankful that he
deliberately planned to have his resting place remain unmolested. His
grave was dug seventeen feet deep and over it was placed the following
inscription, intended to frighten those who might think of moving his
bones:--
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION OVER SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.]
Publication of his Plays.--It is probable that Shakespeare himself
published only two early poems. Sixteen of his plays appeared in print
during his lifetime; but the chances are that they were taken either
from notes or from stage copies, more or less imperfect and
surreptitiously obtained. The twentieth century has seen one of these
careless reprints of a single play sell for more than three times as
much as it cost to build a leading Elizabethan theater.[22] If
Shakespeare himself had seen to the publication of his plays,
succeeding generations would have been saved much trouble in puzzling
over obscurities due to an imperfect text. We must remember, however,
that publishing a play was thought to injure its success on the stage.
One manager offered a printer a sum now equal to $100 not to publish a
copy of a play that he had secured.
The _First Folio_ edition of Shakespeare's works was published in
1623, seven years after his death, by two of his friends, John Heming
and Henry Condell. In their dedication of the plays they say:--
"We have but collected them and done an office to the dead ...
without ambition either of self profit or fame, only to keep the
memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our
Shakespeare, by humble offer of his plays."
If Shakespeare had not possessed the art of making friends, we might
to-day be without such plays as _Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The
Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Antony and
Cleopatra, and Macbeth_. These were printed for the first time in the
1623 _Folio_.
Amount and Classification of his Work.--The _First Folio_ edition
contained thirty-five plays, containing 100,120 lines. The Globe
edition, one of the best modern texts of Shakespeare, has thirty-seven
plays. Even if we give him no credit for the unknown dramas which he
assisted in fashioning, and if we further deduct all doubtful plays
from this number, the amount of dramatic work of which he is certainly
the author is only less astonishing than its excellence. His
non-dramatic poetry, comprising _Venus and Adonis, Lucrece_, 154
_Sonnets_, and some other short pieces, amounts to more than half as
many lines as Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
Mere genius without wonderful self-control and a well-ordered use of
time would not have enabled Shakespeare to leave such a legacy to the
world. The pressure for fresh plays to meet exigencies is sufficient
to explain why he did not always do his best work, even if we suppose
that his health was never "out of joint."
The _First Folio_ gives the current contemporary classification of the
plays into "Comedies," "Histories," and "Tragedies." We indicate the
following as some of the best in each class:--
Comedies: _A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night,
The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_.
Histories: _Richard III., Henry IV., Henry V., Julius Caesar_.
Tragedies: _Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet_.
Four Periods of his Life.--We may make another classification from a
different point of view, according to the period of his development at
the time of writing special plays. In order to study his growth and
changing ideals, it will assist us to divide his work into four
periods.
(1) There was the sanguine period, showing the exuberance of youthful
love and imagination. Among the plays that are typical of these years
are _The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and
Juliet, Richard II._, and _Richard III_. These were probably all
composed before 1595.
(2) The second period, from 1595 to 1601, shows progress in dramatic
art. There is less exaggeration, more real power, and a deeper insight
into human nature. There appears in his philosophy a vein of sadness,
such as we find in the sayings of Jaques in _As You Like It_, and more
appreciation of the growth of character, typified by his treatment of
Orlando and Adam in the same play. Among the plays of this period are
_The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV., Henry V.,_ and _As You Like It_.
(3) We may characterize the third period, from 1601 to 1608, as one in
which he felt that the time was out of joint, that life was a fitful
fever. His father died in 1601, after great disappointments. His best
friends suffered what he calls, in _Hamlet,_ "the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune." In 1601 Elizabeth executed the Earl of Essex for
treason, and on the same charge threw the Earl of Southampton into the
Tower. Even Shakespeare himself may have been suspected. The great
plays of this period are tragedies, among which we may instance
_Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth,_ and _King Lear_.
(4) The plays of his fourth period, 1608-1613, are remarkable for calm
strength and sweetness. The fierceness of _Othello_ and _Macbeth_ is
left behind. In 1608 Shakespeare's mother died. Her death and the
vivid recollection of her kindness and love may have been strong
factors in causing him to look on life with kindlier eyes. The
greatest plays of this period are _Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale_, and
_The Tempest_.
While the dates of the composition of these plays are not exactly
known, the foregoing classification is probably approximately correct.
It should be followed in studying the development and the changing
phases of Shakespeare's mind. (See table, pp. 188 and 189.)
Development as a Dramatist.--It is possible to study some of
Shakespeare's plays with increased interest, if we note the reasons
for assigning them to certain periods of his life. We conclude that
_Love's Labor's Lost_, for instance, is an early play, because of its
form,--excess of rime, small proportion of blank verse, lack of
mastery of poetic expression,--and also because it suffers from the
puns, conceits, and overdrawn wit and imagery of his early work.
Almost one half of the 2789 lines of _Love's Labor's Lost_ rime, while
there are only 579 lines of blank verse. Of the 2064 lines in _The
Tempest_, one of the last of his plays, 1458 are in blank verse. The
plays of his first period show less freedom in the use of verse. He
dislikes to let his meaning run over into the next line without a
pause, and he hesitates to introduce those extra syllables which give
such wonderful variety to his later work. As he grows older, he also
uses more prose. _Romeo and Juliet_ has 405 lines of prose in a total
of 3052 lines, while _Hamlet_, a tragedy of 3931 lines, has 1208 lines
of prose.
His treatment of his characters is even a more significant index to
his growth than the form of his dramas. In the earlier plays, his men
and women are more engaged with external forces than with internal
struggles. In as excellent an early tragedy as _Romeo and Juliet_, the
hero fights more with outside obstacles than with himself. In the
great later tragedies, the internal conflict is more emphasized, as in
the cases of Hamlet and Macbeth. "See thou character" became in an
increasing degree Shakespeare's watchword. He grew to care less for
mere incident, for plots based on mistaken identity, as in _The Comedy
of Errors_; but he became more and more interested in the delineation
of character, in showing the effect of evil on Macbeth and his wife,
of jealousy on Othello, of indecision on Hamlet, as well as in
exploring the ineffectual attempts of many of his characters to escape
the consequences of their acts.
Sources of his Plots.--We should have had fewer plays from
Shakespeare, if he had been compelled to take the time to invent new
plots. The sources of the plots of his plays may usually be found in
some old chronicle, novel, biography, or older play. Holinshed's
_Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, published when
Shakespeare was fourteen years old, gives the stories of Lear,
Cymbeline, Macbeth, and of all the English kings who are the heroes of
the historical plays. As Holinshed is very dry reading, if Shakespeare
had followed him closely, for instance, in _King Lear_, the play would
have lost its most impressive parts. There is not in Holinshed even a
suggestion of the Falstaff of _Henry IV_., that veritable "comic
Hamlet," who holds a unique place among the humorous characters of the
world.
North's translation of Plutarch's _Lives_, published when Shakespeare
was fifteen years old, became his textbook of ancient history and
furnished him the raw material for plays like _Julius Caesar_ and
_Antony and Cleopatra_.
TABLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS[23]
Play Total Prose Blank Penta- Rimes, Songs Publ- Supp-
of meter Short ished osed
Lines Rimes Lines Date
I.--PLAYS OF FIRST (RIMING) PERIOD
Love's Labor's 2789 1086 579 1028 54 32 1598 1588-9
Lost
Comedy of 1778 240 1150 380 --- --- 1623 1589-91
Errors [24]
Midsummer 2174 441 878 731 138 63 1600 1590-1
Night's Dream
Two Gentlemen 2294 409 1510 116 --- 15 1623 1590-2
of Verona
Romeo and 3052 405 2111 486 --- --- 1597 1591-3
Juliet
Richard II. 2756 --- 2107 537 --- --- 1597 ? 1593
Richard III. 3619 55? 3374 170 --- --- 1597 ? 1594-5
II.--HISTORIES AND COMEDIES OF SECOND PERIOD
King John 2570 --- 2403 150 --- --- 1623 1594-5
Merchant of 2660 673 1896 93 34 9 1600[24]? 1595-6
Venice
1 Henry IV. 3176 1464 1622 84 --- --- 1598 1596-7[25]
2 Henry IV. 3446 1860 1417 74 7 15 1600 1598-9
Henry V. 3380 1531 1678 101 2 8 1600 1599[25]
Merry Wives 3018 2703 227 69 --- 19 1602 1599
Much Ado, &c. 2826 2106 643 40 18 16 1600 1599-1600
As You Like It 2857 1681 925 71 130 97 1623 1599-1600[25]
Twelfth Night 2690 1741 763 120 --- 60 1623 1601[25]
All's Well 2966 1453 1234 280 2 12 1623 1601-2
(Love's Labor's Won, 1590)
III.--TRAGEDIES AND COMEDY OF THIRD PERIOD
Julius Caesar 2478 165 2241 34 --- --- 1623 1601[3]
Hamlet 3931 1208 2490 81 --- 60 1603[24]1602-3[25]
Measure for 2821 1134 1574 73 22 6 1623 ? 1603
Measure
Othello 3316 541 2672 86 --- 25 1622 ? 1604
Macbeth 2108 158 1588 118 129 --- 1623 1605-6[25]
King Lear 3334 903 2238 74 --- 83 1608[24]1605-6[25]
Antony and 3063 255 2761 42 --- 6 1623 1606-7
Cleopatra
Coriolanus 3410 829 2521 42 --- --- 1623 ? 1607-8
IV.--PLAYS OF FOURTH PERIOD
Tempest 2064 458 1458 2 --- 96 1623 1609-10
Cymbeline 3339 638 2585 107 --- 32 1623 1609-10
Winter's Tale 3075 844 1825 --- --- 57 1623 ? 1611
V.--DOUBTFUL PLAYS
Titus 2523 43 2338 144 --- --- 1594 1588-90
Andronicus
1 Henry VI. 2677 --- 2379 314 --- --- 1623 1592-4
2 Henry VI. 3162 448 2562 122 --- --- 1623 1592-4
3 Henry VI. 2904 --- 2749 155 --- --- 1623 1592-4
Contention 1952 381 1571 44 --- --- 1594 1586-8
True Tragedy 2101 --- 2035 66 --- --- 1595 1586-8
VI.--PLAYS IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE WAS NOT SOLE AUTHOR
Taming of the 2649 516 1971 169 15 --- 1623 1596-7
Shrew
Troilus and 3496 1186 2025 196 --- 16 1609 1603
Cressida
Timon of 2373 596 1560 184 18 --- 1623 1607-8
Athens
Pericles 2389 418 1436 225 89 --- 1609[23]1608-9[24]
Henry VIII. 2822 67? 2613 16 --- 12 1623 1610-12[24]
Poems published.--_Venus and Adonis_, 1593; _Lucrece_, 1594;
_Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599; _Phoenix and Turtle_ in Chester's _Loves
Martyr_, 1601; _Sonnets_, 1609, with _A Lover's Complaint_.
Shakespeare recognized the greatness of North's _Plutarch_ and paid it
the compliment of following its thought more closely than that of any
other of his sources.
Shakespeare found suggestions for _As You Like It_ in Thomas Lodge's
contemporary novel _Rosalynde_, but Touchstone and Adam are original
creations.
Our astonishment is often increased to find that the merest hint led
to an imperishable creation, such as the character of Lady Macbeth,
the reference to whom in Holinshed is confined to these twenty-eight
words, "...specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing,
as she that was very ambitious, burning in unquenchable desire to bear
the name of a queen." His plays are almost as different from the old
chronicles or tales as the rose from the soil which nourished it.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE--THE D'AVENANT BUST. _Discovered in 1845
on site of Duke's Theater_.]
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
Sympathy.---His most pronounced characteristic is the broadest
sympathy ever shown by an author. He seems to have been able to
sympathize with every kind of human soul in every emergency. He plays
with the simple rustics in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. The portrait
of the serving man Adam, in _As You Like It_, is as kindly and as
discriminating as that of king or nobleman. Though he is the scholar
and philosopher in _Hamlet_, he can afterward roam the country with
the tramp Autolycus in _The Winter's Tale_. Women have marveled at the
ease with which his sympathy crosses the barriers of sex, at his
portraits of Portia, Rosalind, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, Miranda,
Cleopatra, and Cordelia. Great actresses have testified to their
amazement at his discovery of feminine secrets which they had thought
no man could ever divine.
[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS HAMLET.]
Universality.--Shakespeare's sympathy might have been broad enough
to include all the people of his own time and their peculiar
interests, but might have lacked the power to project itself into the
universal heart of humanity. Sometimes a writer voices the ideals and
aspirations of his own day so effectively that he is called the
spokesman of his age, but he makes slight appeal to future
generations. Shakespeare was the spokesman of his own time, but he had
the genius also to speak to all ages. He loved to present the eternal
truths of the human heart and to invest them with such a touch of
nature as to reveal the kinship of the entire world.
His contemporary, the dramatist, Ben Jonson, had the penetration to
say of Shakespeare:--
"He was not of an age but for all time."
He meant that Shakespeare does not exhibit some popular conceit,
folly, or phase of thought, which is merely the fashion of the hour
and for which succeeding generations would care nothing; but that he
voices those truths which appeal to the people of all ages. The grief
of Lear over the dead Cordelia, the ambition of Lady Macbeth, the
loves of Rosalind and Juliet, the questionings of Hamlet, interest us
as much today as they did the Elizabethans. Fashions in literature may
come and go, but Shakespeare's work remains.
[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH. _From the painting by
Sargent_.]
Humor.--Shakespeare had the most comprehensive sense of humor of any
of the world's great writers,--a humor that was closely related to his
sympathy. It has been said that he saved his tragedies from the fatal
disease of absurdity, by inoculating them with his comic virus, and
that his sense of humor kept him from ever becoming shrill. This
faculty enabled him to detect incongruity, to keep from overstressing
a situation, to enter into the personality of others, to recover
quickly from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and in one
of his last plays, _The Tempest_, to welcome the "brave young world"
as if he would like to play the game of life again. It was largely
because of his humor that the tragedies and pain of life did not sour
and subdue Shakespeare.
He soon wearies of a vacant laugh. He has only one strictly farcical
play, _The Comedy of Errors_. There are few intellects keen enough to
extract all the humor from Shakespeare. For literal minds the full
comprehension of even a slight display of his humor, such as the
following dialogue affords, is better exercise than the solution of an
algebraic problem. Dogberry, a constable in _Much Ado About Nothing_,
thus instructs the Watch:--
"_Dogberry_. You shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid
any man stand in the prince's name.
"_Watch_. How if a' will not stand?
"_Dogberry_. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and
presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are
rid of a knave."
Of all Shakespeare's qualities, his humor is the hardest to describe
because of its protean forms. Falstaff is his greatest humorous
creation. So resourceful is he that even defeat enables him to rise
like Antaeus after a fall. His humor is almost a philosophy of
existence for those who love to use wit and ingenuity in trying to
evade the laws of sober, orderly living. Perhaps it was for this very
reason that Shakespeare consented to send so early to "Arthur's
bosom"[26] a character who had not a little of the complexity of
Hamlet.
[Illustration: FALSTAFF AND HIS PAGE. _From a drawing by B.
Westmacott_.]
Much of Shakespeare's humor is delicately suffused through his plays.
Many of them either ripple with the laughter of his characters or are
lighted with their smiles. We may pass pleasant hours in the company
of his joyous creations, such as Rosalind in _As You Like It_, or
Portia in _The Merchant of Venice_, or Puck as the spokesman for _A
Midsummer Night's Dream_, who good naturedly exclaims:--
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
or Viola and her companions in _Twelfth Night_, or Beatrice and
Benedict in _Much Ado About Nothing_, or Ariel in _The Tempest_
playing pranks on the bewildered mariners and singing of the joys of
life which come as a reward for service:--
"Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."
Shakespeare is also the one English author who is equally successful
in depicting the highest type of both comedy and tragedy. He has the
power to describe even a deathbed scene so as to invest it with both
humor and pathos. Dame Quickly's lines in _Henry V_., on the death of
Falstaff, show this capacity.
The next greatest English writer is lacking in this sense of humor.
John Milton could write the tragedies of a _Paradise Lost_ and a
_Samson Agonistes_, but he could not give us the humor of _A Midsummer
Night's Dream_, _The Comedy of Errors_, or _As You Like It_. We have
seen that the next greatest dramatic genius, Marlowe, has little sense
of humor. Mrs. Browning correctly describes the plays of Shakespeare
as filled--
"With tears and laughters for all time."
Moral Ideals.--To show the moral consequences of acts was the work
which most appealed to him. Banquo voiced the comprehensiveness of
moral law when he said, "In the great hand of God I stand." There is
here great divergence between the views of Shakespeare and of Bacon.
Dowden says:--
"While Bacon's sense of the presence of physical law in the universe
was for his time extraordinarily developed, he seems practically to
have acted upon the theory that the moral laws of the world are not
inexorable, but rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleverly
evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged by Shakespeare in the
minutest as well as in the greatest concerns of human life."
By employing "tactics" in sending Hamlet on a voyage to England, the
king hoped to avoid the consequences of his crime. Macbeth in vain
tried every stratagem to "trammel up the consequence." Goneril and
Regan drive their white-haired father out into the storm; but even in
_King Lear_, where the forces of evil seem to run riot, let us note
the result:--
"Throughout that stupendous Third Act the good are seen growing
better through suffering, and the bad worse through success. The
warm castle is a room in hell, the storm-swept heath a sanctuary...
The only real thing in the world is the soul with its courage,
patience, devotion. And nothing outward can touch that."[27]
Shakespeare makes no pessimists. He shows how misfortune crowns life
with new moral glory. We rise from the gloom of _King Lear_, feeling
that we would rather be like Cordelia than like either of her sisters
or any other selfish character who apparently triumphs until life's
close. And yet Cordelia lost everything, her portion of her father's
kingdom and her own life. When we realize that Shakespeare found one
hundred and ten lines in _King Lear_ sufficient not only to confer
immortality on Cordelia, but also to make us all eager to pay homage
to her, in spite of the fact that the ordinary standard of the world
has not ceased to declare such a life a failure, we may the better
understand that his greatest power consisted in revealing the moral
victories possible for this rough-hewn human life.
Shakespeare made a mistake about the seacoast of Bohemia and the
location of Milan with reference to the sea, but he was always sure of
the relative position of right and wrong and of the ultimate failure
of evil. In his greatest plays, for instance, in _Macbeth_, he sought
to impress the incalculable danger of meddling with evil, the
impossibility of forecasting the tragedy that might thereby result,
the certainty that retribution would follow, either here or beyond
"this bank and shoal of time."
Mastery of his Mother Tongue.--His wealth of expression is another
striking characteristic. In a poem on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson wrote:--
"Thou had'st small Latin and less Greek."
Shakespeare is, however, the mightiest master of the English tongue.
He uses 15,000 different words, while the second greatest writer in
our language employs only 7000. A great novelist like Thackeray has a
vocabulary of about 5000 words, while many uneducated laborers do not
use over 600 words. The combinations that Shakespeare has made with
these 15,000 words are far more striking than their mere number.
Variety of Style.--The style of Milton, Addison, Dr. Johnson, and
Macaulay has some definite peculiarities, which can easily be
classified. Shakespeare, on the contrary, in holding the mirror up to
nature, has different styles for his sailors, soldiers, courtiers,
kings, and shepherds,--for Juliet, the lover; for Mistress Quickly,
the alewife; for Hamlet, the philosopher; and for Bottom, the weaver.
To employ so many styles requires genius of a peculiar kind. In the
case of most of us, our style would soon betray our individuality.
When Dr. Samuel Johnson tried to write a drama, he made all his little
fishes talk like whales, as Goldsmith wittily remarked.
In the same play Shakespeare's style varies from the dainty lyric
touch of Ariel's song about the cowslip's bell and the blossoming
bough, to a style unsurpassed for grandeur:--
"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."
In the same passage his note immediately changes to the soft _vox
humana_ of--
"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
His Influence on Thought.--With the exception of the _Scriptures_,
Shakespeare's dramas have surpassed all other works in molding modern
English thought. If a person should master Shakespeare and the
_Bible_, he would find most that is greatest in human thought, outside
of the realm of science.
Even when we do not read him, we cannot escape the influence of others
who have been swayed by him. For generations, certain modes of thought
have crystallized about his phrases. We may instance such expressions
as these: "Brevity is the soul of wit." "What's in a name?" "The wish
was father to the thought." "The time is out of joint." "There's the
rub." "There's a divinity that shapes our ends." "Comparisons are
odorous." It would, perhaps, not be too much to say that the play of
_Hamlet_ has affected the thought of the majority of the
English-speaking race. His grip on Anglo-Saxon thought has been
increasing for more than three hundred years.
Shakespeare's influence on the thought of any individual has only two
circumscribing factors,--the extent of Shakespearean study and the
capacity of interpreting the facts of life. No intelligent person can
study Shakespeare without becoming a deeper and more varied thinker,
without securing a broader comprehension of human existence,--its
struggles, failures, and successes. If we have before viewed humanity
through a glass darkly, Shakespeare will gradually lead us where we
can see face to face the beauty and the grandeur of the mystery of
existence. His most valuable influence often consists in rendering his
students sympathetic and in making them feel a sense of kinship with
life. Shakespeare's readers more quickly realize that human nature
shows the shaping touch of divinity. They have the rare joy of
discovering the world anew and of exclaiming with Miranda:--
"How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"[28]
When we have really become acquainted with Shakespeare, our lives will
be less prosaic and restricted. After intimate companionship with him,
there will be, in the words of Ariel, hardly any common thing in
life--
"But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."[29]
BEN JONSON, 1573?-1637
[Illustration: BEN JONSON. _From the portrait by Gerard Honthorst,
National Portrait Gallery_.]
Life.--About nine years after the birth of Shakespeare his greatest
successor in the English drama was born in London. Jonson outlived
Shakespeare twenty-one years and helped to usher in the decline of the
drama.
Ben Jonson, the son of a clergyman and the stepson of a master
bricklayer, received a good education at Westminster School. Unlike
Shakespeare, Jonson learned much Latin and Greek. In one respect
Jonson's training was unfortunate for a poet. He was taught to write
prose exercises first and then to turn them into poetry. In this way
he acquired the habit of trying to express unpoetical ideas in verse.
Art could change the prose into metrical riming lines, but art could
not breathe into them the living soul of poetry. In after times Jonson
said that Shakespeare lacked art, but Jonson recognized that the
author of _Hamlet_ had the magic touch of nature. Jonson's pen rarely
felt her all-embracing touch.
If Jonson served an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, as his enemies
afterward said, he did not continue long at such work. He crossed the
Channel and enlisted for a brief time as a soldier in the Netherlands.
He soon returned to London and became a writer for the theater, and
thenceforth lived the life of an author and a student. He loved to
study and translate the classics. In fact, what a novice might think
original in Jonson's plays was often borrowed from the classics. Of
his relations to the classical writers, Dryden says, "You track him
everywhere in their snow." Jonson was known as the most learned poet
of the age, because, if his plays demanded any special knowledge, no
subject was too hard, dry, or remote from common life for him to
attempt to master it. He knew the boundaries of Bohemia, and he took
pleasure in saying to a friend: "Shakespeare in a play brought in a
number of men saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is
no sea near, by some hundred miles."
Jonson's personal characteristics partly explain why he placed himself
in opposition to the spirit of the age. He was extremely combative. It
was almost a necessity for him to quarrel with some person or with
some opinion. He killed two men in duels, and he would probably have
been hanged, if he had not pleaded benefit of clergy. For the greater
part of his life, he was often occupied with pen and ink quarrels.
When James I. ascended the throne in 1603, Jonson soon became a royal
favorite. He was often employed to write masques, a peculiar species
of drama which called for magnificent scenery and dress, and gave the
nobility the opportunity of acting the part of some distinguished or
supernatural character. Such work brought Jonson into intimate
association with the leading men of the day.
It is pleasant to think that he was a friend of Shakespeare. Jonson's
pithy volume of prose, known as _Discoveries made upon Men and
Matter_, contains his famous criticism on Shakespeare, noteworthy
because it shows how a great contemporary regarded him, "I loved the
man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any." Few
English writers have received from a great rival author such
convincing testimony in regard to lovable personality.
[Illustration: BEN JONSON'S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
In 1616, the year in which Shakespeare died, Jonson was made poet
laureate. When he died in 1637, he was buried in an upright position
in Westminster Abbey. A plain stone with the unique inscription, "O
Rare Ben Jonson," marks his grave.
Plays.--Ben Jonson's comedies are his best dramatic work. From all
his plays we may select three that will best repay reading: _Volpone,
The Alchemist_, and _The Silent Woman_. _Volpone_ is the story of an
old, childless, Venetian nobleman whose ruling passion is avarice.
Everything else in the play is made tributary to this passion. The
first three lines in the first act strike the keynote of the entire
play. Volpone says:--
"Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!--
Open the shrine, that I may see my saint.
Hail the world's soul and mine!"
_The Alchemist_ makes a strong presentation of certain forms of
credulity in human nature and of the special tricks which the
alchemists and impostors of that day adopted. One character wants to
buy the secret of the helpful influence of the stars; another parts
with his wealth to learn the alchemist's secret of turning everything
into gold and jewels. The way in which these characters are deceived
is very amusing. A study of this play adds to our knowledge of a
certain phase of the times. In point of artistic construction of plot,
_The Alchemist_ is nowhere excelled in the English drama; but the
intrusion of Jonson's learning often makes the play tedious reading,
as when he introduces the technical terms of the so-called science of
alchemy to show that he has studied it thoroughly. One character
speaks to the alchemist of--
"Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,"
and another asks:--
"Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine?
Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic,
Or what is homogene, or heterogene?"
Lines like the following show that Jonson's acute mind had grasped
something of the principle of evolution:--
"...'twere absurd
To think that nature in the earth bred gold
Perfect in the instant: something went before.
There must be remote matter."
_The Silent Woman_ is in lighter vein than either of the plays just
mentioned. The leading character is called Morose, and his special
whim or "humor" is a horror of noise. His home is on a street "so
narrow at both ends that it will receive no coaches nor carts, nor any
of these common noises." He has mattresses on the stairs, and he
dismisses the footman for wearing squeaking shoes. For a long time
Morose does not marry, fearing the noise of a wife's tongue. Finally
he commissions his nephew to find him a silent woman for a wife, and
the author uses to good advantage the opportunity for comic situations
which this turn in the action affords. Dryden preferred _The Silent
Woman_ to any of the other plays.
Besides the plays mentioned in this section, Jonson wrote during his
long life many other comedies and masques as well as some tragedies.
Marks of Decline.--A study of the decline of the drama, as shown in
Jonson's plays, will give us a better appreciation of the genius of
Shakespeare. We may change Jonson's line so that it will state one
reason for his not maintaining Shakespearean excellence:--
"He was not for all time, but of an age."
His first play, _Every Man in his Humor_, paints, not the universal
emotions of men, but some special humor. He thus defines the sense in
which he uses humor:--
"As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a Humor."
Unlike Shakespeare, Jonson gives a distorted or incomplete picture of
life. In _Volpone_ everything is subsidiary to the humor of avarice,
which receives unnatural emphasis. In _The Alchemist_ there is little
to relieve the picture of credibility and hypocrisy, while _The Silent
Woman_ has for its leading character a man whose principal "humor" or
aim in life is to avoid noise.
No drama which fails to paint the nobler side of womanhood can be
called complete. In Jonson's plays we do not find a single woman
worthy to come near the Shakespearean characters, Cordelia, Imogen,
and Desdemona. His limitations are nowhere more marked than in his
inability to portray a noble woman.
Another reason why he fails to present life completely is shown in
these lines, in which he defines his mission:--
"My strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe
Squeeze out the humor of such spongy souls
As lick up every idle vanity."
Since the world needs building up rather than tearing down, a remedy
for an ailment rather than fault-finding, the greatest of men cannot
be mere satirists. Shakespeare displays some fellow feeling for the
object of his satire, but Jonson's satire is cold and devoid of
sympathy.
Jonson deliberately took his stand in opposition to the romantic
spirit of the age. Marlowe and Shakespeare had disregarded the
classical unities and had developed the drama on romantic lines.
Jonson resolved to follow classical traditions and to adhere to unity
of time and place in the construction of his plots. The action in the
play of _The Silent Woman_, for instance, occupies only twelve hours.
General Characteristics.--Jonson's plays show the touch of a
conscientious artist with great intellectual ability. His vast
erudition is constantly apparent. He is the satiric historian of his
time, and he exhibits the follies and the humors of the age under a
powerful lens. He is also the author of dainty lyrics, and forcible
prose criticism.
Among the shortcomings of his plays, we may specially note lack of
feeling and of universality. He fails to comprehend the nature of
woman. He is not a sympathetic observer of manifold life, but presents
only what is perceived through the frosted glass of intellect. His art
is self-conscious. He defiantly opposed the romantic spirit of the age
and weakened the drama by making it bear the burden of the classical
unities.
MINOR DRAMATISTS
Beaumont and Fletcher.--Next to Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben
Jonson, the two most influential dramatists were Francis Beaumont
(1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625). They are usually mentioned
together because they collaborated in writing plays. Fletcher had the
great advantage of working with Shakespeare in producing _Henry VIII_.
Beaumont died nine years before Fletcher, and it is doubtful whether
he collaborated with Fletcher in more than fifteen of the fifty plays
published under their joint names.
Two of their greatest plays, _Philaster_ and _The Maid's Tragedy_, are
probably their joint production. _The Faithful Shepherdess_ and
_Bonduca_ are among the best of about eighteen plays supposed to have
been written by Fletcher alone. After Beaumont's death, Fletcher
sometimes collaborated with other dramatists.
[Illustration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT.]
Almost all the so-called Beaumont and Fletcher plays are well
constructed. These dramatists also have, in common with the majority
of their associates, the ability to produce occasional passages of
exquisite poetry. A character in _Philaster_ speaks of death in lines
that suggest _Hamlet_:--
"'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep,
A quiet resting from all jealousy;
A thing we all pursue; I know besides
It is but giving over of a game
That must be lost."
Beaumont and Fletcher's work is noteworthy for its pictures of
contemporary life and manners, for wealth of incident, rapidity of
movement, and variety of characters.
Not long after the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a
change in the taste of the patrons of the theater. Shakespeare
declined in popularity. The playwrights tried to solve the problem of
interesting audiences that wished only to be entertained. This attempt
led to a change in dramatic methods.
Changed Moral Ideals.--Under Elizabeth's successors the Puritan
spirit increased and the most religious part of the community seldom
attended the theater. The later dramatists pay little attention to the
moral development of character and its self-revelation through action.
They often merely describe character and paint it from the outside. We
have seen that Shakespeare's great plays are almost a demonstration in
moral geometry, but Beaumont and Fletcher are not much concerned over
the moral consequences of an action. The gravest charge against them
is that they "unknit the sequence of moral cause and effect." After
reading such plays, we do not rise with the feeling that there is a
divinity that shapes our ends.
[Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER.]
Coleridge says, "Shakespeare never renders that amiable which religion
and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb
of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher." Much of the work of their
contemporary dramatists is marred by such blemishes. Unpleasant as are
numbers of these plays, they are less insidious than many which have
appeared on the stage in modern times.
Love of Surprises.--The dramatists racked their inventive powers to
introduce surprises to interest the audience. Here was a marked
departure from Shakespeare's later method. He plans _Macbeth_ so as to
have his audience forecast the logical result. Consequences of the
most tremendous import, beside which Beaumont and Fletcher's surprises
seem trivial, follow naturally from Macbeth's actions. In his greatest
plays, Shakespeare, unlike the later dramatists, never relies on
illogical surprises to sustain the interest. The witch queen in one of
the plays of Thomas Middleton (1570-1627) suddenly exclaims:--
"...fetch three ounces of the red-haired girl
I kill'd last midnight."
Shakespeare's witches suggest only enough of the weird and the
horrible to transfix the attention and make the beholder realize the
force of the temptation that assails Macbeth. Charles Lamb truly
observes that Middleton's witches "can harm the body," but
Shakespeare's "have power over the soul."
Middleton could, however, write a passage like the following, which
probably suggested to Milton one of the finest lines in _Lycidas_:--
"Upon those lips, the sweet fresh buds of youth,
The holy dew of prayer lies, like pearl
Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn
Upon a bashful rose."
Large Number of Playwrights.--Beaumont and Fletcher were only two of
a large number of dramatists who were born in the age of Elizabeth,
and who, with few exceptions, lived into the second quarter of the
seventeenth century. Their work was the result of earlier Elizabethan
impulses, and it is rightly considered a part of the great dramatic
movement of the Elizabethan age. The popularity of the drama continued
to attract many authors who in a different age might have produced
other forms of literature.
George Chapman (1559?-1634), who is best known for his fine
translation of Homer's _Iliad_, turned dramatist in middle life, but
found it difficult to enter into the feelings of characters unlike
himself. His best two plays, _Bussy D'Ambois_ and _The Revenge of
Bussy D'Ambois_, are tragedies founded on French history. Thomas
Middleton, gifted in dramatic technique and dialogue and noted for
his comedy of domestic manners, was the author of _Michaelmas Term_,
_A Trick to Catch the Old One_, _The Changeling_ (in collaboration
with William Rowley, 1585?-1640?). John Marston (1576?-1634) wrote
_Antonio and Mellida_, a blood and thunder tragedy, and collaborated
with Jonson and Chapman to produce _Eastward Hoe_, an excellent comic
picture of contemporary life. _The Shoemaker's Holiday_ of Thomas
Dekker (1570?-1640) is also a good comedy of London life and manners.
Philip Massinger (1584-1640), a later collaborator with Fletcher,
wrote _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, a play very popular in after
times. Thomas Heywood (1572?-1650), one of the most prolific
dramatists, claimed to have had "either an entire hand or at the least
a main finger," in two hundred and twenty plays. His best work is _A
Woman Killed with Kindness_, a domestic drama that appealed to the
middle classes.
A Tragic Group.--Three dramatists: John Webster (1602-1624),
Cyril Tourneur (1575?-1626), and John Ford (1586-1640?), had a
love for the most somber tragedy. In tragic power, Webster approaches
nearest to Shakespeare. Webster's greatest play, _The Duchess of
Malfi_ (acted in 1616), and _The White Devil_, which ranks second,
show the working of a master hand, but Webster's genius comes to a
focus only in depicting the horrible. He loves such gloomy metaphors
as the following:--
"You speak as if a man
Should know what fowl is _coffined_ in a baked meat
Afore you cut it open."
Tourneur's _The Atheist's Tragedy_ is in Webster's vein, but far
inferior to _The Duchess of Malfi_.
Ford's _The Broken Heart_ is a strong, but unpleasant, tragedy. He is
so fascinated with the horrible that he introduces it even when it is
not the logical outcome of a situation. His best but least
characteristic play is _Perkin Warbeck_, which is worthy of ranking
second only to Shakespeare's historical plays.
End of the Elizabethan Drama.--James Shirley (1596-1666), "the
last of the Elizabethans," endeavored to the best of his ability to
continue the work of the earlier dramatists. _The Traitor_ and _The
Cardinal_ are two of the best of his many productions. He was hard at
work writing new plays in 1642, when the Puritans closed the theaters.
He was thus forced to abandon the profession that he enjoyed and
compelled to teach in order to earn a livelihood.
The drama has never since regained its Elizabethan ascendancy. The
coarse plays of the Restoration (1660) flourished for a while, but the
treatment of the later drama forms but a minor part of the history of
the best English literature. Few plays produced during the next two
hundred years are much read or acted to-day. _She Stoops to Conquer_
(1773), by Oliver Goldsmith, and _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School
for Scandal_ (1777), by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, are the chief
exceptions before 1890.
SUMMARY
The Elizabethan age was a period of expansion in knowledge, commerce,
religious freedom, and human opportunities. The defeat of the Armada
freed England from fear of Spanish domination and made her mistress of
the sea.
England was vivified by the combined influence of the Renaissance and
the Reformation. Knowledge was expanding in every direction and
promising to crown human effort with universal mastery. The greater
feeling of individuality was partly due to the Reformation, which
emphasized the direct responsibility of each individual for all acts
affecting the welfare of his soul.
Elizabethans were noted for their resourcefulness, their initiative,
their craving for new experiences, and their desire to realize the
utmost out of life. As they cared little for ideas that could not be
translated into action, they were particularly interested in the
drama.
Although the prose covers a wide field, it is far inferior to the
poetry. Lyly's _Euphues_ suffers from overwrought conceits and forced
antitheses, but it influenced writers to pay more attention to the
manner in which thought was expressed. The flowery prose of Sidney's
_Arcadia_ presents a pastoral world of romance. His _Apologie for
Poetrie_ is a meritorious piece of early criticism. While Hooker
indicates advance in solidity of matter and dignity of style, yet a
comparison of his heavy religious prose with the prayer of the king in
_Hamlet_ or with Portia's words about mercy in _The Merchant of
Venice_ will show the vast superiority of the poetry in dealing with
spiritual ideas. Bacon's _Essays_, celebrated for pithy condensation
of striking thoughts, is the only prose work that has stood the test
of time well enough to claim many readers to-day.
Poetry, both lyric and dramatic, is the crowning glory of the
Elizabethan age. The lyric verse is remarkable for its wide range and
for beauty of form and sentiment. The lyrics include love sonnets,
pastorals, and miscellaneous verse. Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ and the
songs in his dramas are the best in this field, but many poets wrote
exquisite artistic lyrics.
Edmund Spenser is the only great poet who was not also a dramatist.
His _Faerie Queene_ fashions an ideal world dominated by a love of
beauty and high endeavor.
The greatest literary successes of the age were won in writing plays
for the stage. In England the drama had for centuries slowly developed
through Miracle plays, Moralities, and Interludes to the plays of
Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson. These three are the greatest
Elizabethan dramatists, but they are only the central figures of a
group.
The English drama in the hands of Sackville imitated Seneca and
followed the rules of the classic stage. Marlowe and Shakespeare threw
off the restraints of the classical unities; and the romantic drama,
rejoicing in its freedom, speedily told the story of all life.
The innyards were used for the public presentation of plays before the
erection of theaters in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The
theaters were a great educational force in Shakespeare's time. They
not only furnished amusement, but they also took the place of
periodicals, lectures, and books. The actors, coming into close
contact with their audience and unable to rely on elaborate scenery as
an offset to poor acting, were equal to the task of so presenting
Shakespeare's great plays as to make them popular.
Shakespeare's plays, the greatest ever written, reveal wonderful
sympathy, universality, humor, delineation of character, high moral
ideals, mastery of expression, and strength, beauty, and variety of
poetic form.
Great as is Ben Jonson, he hampered himself by observing the classical
unities and by stressing accidental qualities. He lacks Shakespeare's
universality, broad sympathy, and emotional appeal.
Other minor dramatists, like Beaumont and Fletcher show further
decline, because they constructed their plays more from the outside,
showed less development of character in strict accordance with moral
law, and relied more for effect on sensational scenes. The drama has
never since taken up the wand that dropped from Shakespeare's hands.
REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY
HISTORICAL
In addition to the chapters on the time in the histories of Gardiner,
Green, Lingard, Walker, and Traill, see Stephenson's _The Elizabethan
People_, Creighton's _Queen Elizabeth_, Wilson's _Life in
Shakespeare's England_, Stephenson's _Shakespeare's London_, Warner's
_English History in Shakespeare's plays_.
LITERARY
General and Non-Dramatic
_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. IV., V., and VI.
Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vol. II.
Schelling's _English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare_.
Seecombe and Allen's _The Age of Shakespeare_, 2 vols.
Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_.
_Dictionary of National Biography_ for lives of Lyly, Sidney, Hooker.
Bacon, Spenser, and the minor dramatists.
Walton's _Life of Hooker_.
Church's _Life of Bacon_. (E.M.L.)
Church's _Life of Spenser_. (E.M.L.)
Mackail's _The Springs of Helicon_ (Spenser).
Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Spenser).
Lowell's _Among My Books_ (Spenser).
Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_.
The Drama[30]
Schelling's _Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642_, 2 vols. Ward's _A History
of English Dramatic Literature_, 3 vols.
Brooke's _The Tudor Drama_.
Chambers's _The Mediaeval Stage_.
Allbright's _The Shakespearean Stage_.
Lawrence's _Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies_.
Smith's _York Plays_ (Clarendon Press).
Symonds's _Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama_.
Bates's _The English Religious Drama_.
Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama_.
Wallace's _The Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare_.
Ingram's _Christopher Marlowe and his Associates_.
Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Marlowe).
Symonds's _Ben Jonson_.
Swinburne's _A Study of Ben Jonson_.
Shakespeare
Lee's _A Life of William Shakespeare_.
Furnivall and Munro's _Shakespeare: Life and Work_.
Harris's _The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life Story_.
Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_.
Raleigh's _Shakespeare_.(E.M.L.)
Baker's _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_.
MacCracken, Pierce, and Durham's _An Introduction to Shakespeare_.
Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_ (excellent).
Bradley's _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_.
Dowden's _Shakespeare, His Mind and Art_.
Coleridge's _Lectures on Shakespeare_ (pp. 21-58 of Beers's
_Selections from the Prose writings of Coleridge_).
Lowell's _Shakespeare Once More_, in _Among My Books_.
Wallace's _Shakespeare, the Globe, and Blackfriars_.
_How Shakespeare's Senses were Trained_, Chap. X. in Halleck's
_Education of the Central Nervous System_.
Rolfe's _Shakespeare the Boy_.
Boswell-Stone's _Shakespeare's Holinshed_.
Brooke's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_, 2 vols.
Madden's _The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare
and of Elizabethan Sport_.
Winter's _Shakespeare on the Stage_.
SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Elizabethan Prose.--Good selections from Ascham, Hakluyt, Raleigh,
Holinshed, Stow, Camden, North, Sidney, Foxe, Hooker, Lyly, Greene,
Lodge, and Nashe are given in Craik, I.[31] Chambers, I. and Manly,
II. also give a number of selections. Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ may
be found in the Clarendon Press edition of his _Works_. For Bacon, see
Craik, II.
These selections will give the student a broader grasp of the
Elizabethan age. The style and subject matter of Lyly's _Euphues_,
Sidney's _Arcadia_, Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_,
and Bacon's _Essays_ should be specially noted. Which one of these
authors exerted the strongest influence on his own age? Which one
makes the strongest appeal to modern times? In what respects does the
style of any Elizabethan prose writer show an improvement over that of
Mandeville and Malory?
Lyrics.--For specimens of love sonnets, read Nos. 18, 33, 73, 104,
111, and 116 of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_. Compare them with any of
Sidney's Spenser's sonnets. Other love lyrics which should be read are
Spenser's _Prothalamion_, Lodge's _Love in My Bosom Like a Bee_ and
Ben Jonson's _To Celia_. Among pastoral lyrics, read from Spenser's
_Shepherd's Calendar_ for August, 1579, Perigo and Willie's duet,
beginning:--
"It fell upon a holy eve,"
and Marlowe's _The Passionate Shepherd to His Love_. The best pastoral
lyrics from the modern point of view are Shakespeare's two songs:
"Under the Greenwood Tree" (_As you like it_) and "When Icicles Hang
by the Wall" (_Love's Labor's Lost_). The best miscellaneous lyrics
are the songs in Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_, _The Tempest_, and _As You
Like It_. Drayton's _Ballad of Agincourt_ and _Sonnet 61_ are his best
lyrical verse. Read Ben Jonson's _An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy_ and,
from his Pindaric Ode, the stanza beginning:--
"It is not growing like a tree."
From John Donne, read either _The Funeral_, _The Canonization_, or
_The Dream_.
Good selections from all varieties of Elizabethan lyrics may be found
in Bronson, II., Ward. I., _Oxford, Century_, Manly, I. Nearly all the
lyrics referred to in this list, including the best songs from the
dramatists, are given in Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_ (327 pp., 75
cents). This work, together with Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_ and
Reed's _English Lyrical Poetry from its Origins to the Present Time_,
will serve for a more exhaustive study of this fascinating subject.
From your reading, select from each class the lyric that pleases you
most, and give reasons for your choice. Which lyric seems the most
spontaneous? the most artistic? the most inspired? the most modern?
the most quaint? the most and the least instinct with feeling?
Edmund Spenser.--The _Faerie Queene_, Book I., Canto I., should be
read. Maynard's _English Classic Series_, No. 27 (12 cents) contains
the first two cantos and the _Prothalamion_. Kitchin's edition of Book
I. (Clarendon Press. 60 cents) is an excellent volume. The Globe
edition furnishes a good complete text of Spenser's work. Ample
selections are given in Bronson, II., Ward, I., and briefer ones in
Manly, I., and _Century_.
THE DRAMA
The Best Volumes of Selections.--The least expensive volume to cover
nearly the entire field with brief selections is Vol. II. of _The
Oxford Treasury of English Literature_, entitled _Growth of the Drama_
(Clarendon Press, 412 pp., 90 cents). Pollard's _English Miracle
Plays, Moralities, and Interludes_ (Clarendon Press, 250 pp., $1.90)
is the best single volume of selections from this branch of the drama.
_Everyman and Other Miracle Plays_ (Everyman's Library, 35 cents) is a
good inexpensive volume. Manly's' _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean
Drama_ (three volumes, $1.25 each) covers this field more fully.
Morley's _English Plays_ (published as Vol. III. of Cassell's _Library
of English Literature_, at eleven and one half shillings) contains
good selections from nearly all the plays mentioned below, except
those by Shakespeare and Jonson. Williams's _Specimens of the
Elizabethan Drama, from Lyly to Shirley_, 1580-1642 (Clarendon Press,
576 pp., $1.90) is excellent for a comprehensive survey of the field
covered. Lamb's _Specimens of English Poets Who Lived about the Time
of Shakespeare_ (Bohn's Library, 552 pp.) contains a large number of
good selections.
Miracle Plays.--Read the Chester Play of _Noah's Flood_,
Pollard,[32] 8-20, and the Towneley _Play of the Shepherds_, Pollard,
31-43; Manly's _Specimens_, I, 94-119; Morley's _English Plays_,
12-18. These two plays best show the germs of English comedy.
Moralities.--The best _Morality_ is that known as _Everyman_,
Pollard, 76-96; also in _Everyman's Library_. If _Everyman_ is not
accessible, _Hycke-Scorner_ may be substituted, Morley; 12-18; Manly's
_Specimens_, I., 386-420.
Court Plays, Early Comedies, and Gorboduc.--The best _Interlude_ is
_The Four P's_. Adequate selections are given in Morley, 18-20, and in
Symonds's Shakespeare's _Predecessors in the English Drama_, 188-201.
Pollard and Manly give several good selections from other
_Interludes_.
_Ralph Royster Doyster_ may be found in Arber's _Reprints_; in
Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 22-46; in Manly's _Specimens_, II.,
5-92; in _Oxford Treasury_, II., 161-174, and in _Temple Dramatists_
(35 cents).
_Gorboduc_ is given in _Oxford Treasury_, II. pp., 40-54 (selections);
Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 51-64; and, under the title of _Ferrex
and Porrex_, in Dodsley's _Old Plays_.
What were some of the purposes for which _Interludes_ were written?
How did they aid in the development of the drama?
In what different forms are _The Four-P's, Ralph Royster Doyster_, and
_Gorboduc_ written? Why would Shakespeare's plays have been impossible
if the evolution of the drama had stopped with _Gorboduc_?
Pre-Shakespearean Dramatists.--Selections from Lyly, Peele, Green,
Lodge, Nashe, and Kyd may be found in Williams's _Specimens_. Morley
and _Oxford Treasury_ also contain a number of selections. Peele's
_The Arraignment of Paris_ and Kyd's _The Spanish Tragedy_ are in
_Temple Dramatists_. Greene's best plays are in _Mermaid Series_.
What are the merits of Lyly's dialogue and comedy? What might
Shakespeare have learned from Lyly, Peele, Greene, and Kyd? In what
different form did these dramatists write? What progress do they show?
Marlowe.--Read _Dr. Faustus_, in _Masterpieces of the English Drama_
(American Book Company) or in _Everyman's Library_. This play may also
be found in Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 116-128, or in Morley's
_Universal Library_. Selections from various plays of Marlowe may be
found in _Oxford Treasury_, 61-85, 330-356; and in Williams's
_Specimens_, 25-34.
Does _Dr. Faustus_ observe the classical unities? In what way does it
show the spirit of the Elizabethan age? Was the poetic form of the
play the regular vehicle of dramatic expression? In what does the
greatness of the play consist? What are its defects? Why do young
people sometimes think Marlowe the greatest of _all_ the Elizabethan
dramatists?
Shakespeare.--The student should read in sequence one or more of the
plays in each of Shakespeare's four periods of development (pp. 185,
188), such as _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_, for
the first period; _As You Like It_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, for
the second; _Hamlet_ and _King Lear_ or _Macbeth_ or _Julius Caesar_,
for the third; and _The Winter's Tale_ and _The Tempest_, for the
fourth.
Among the many good annotated editions of separate plays are the
Clarke and Wright, Rolfe, Hudson, Arden, Temple, and Tudor editions.
Furness's _Variorum Shakespeare_ is the best for exhaustive study. The
best portable single volume edition is Craig's _Oxford Shakespeare_,
India paper, 1350 pages.
The student cannot do better than follow the advice of Dr. Johnson:
"Let him who is unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who
desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read
every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of
all his commentators... Let him read on through brightness and
obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his
comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when
the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness and
read the commentators."
Shakespeare's three greatest tragedies, _Hamlet, King Lear_, and
_Macbeth_, should be read several times. After becoming familiar with
the story, the student should next determine the general aim of the
play and analyze the personality and philosophy of each of the leading
characters.
After reading some of all classes of Shakespeare's plays, point out
his (_a_) breadth of sympathy, (_b_) humor, (_c_) moral ideals, (_d_)
mastery of English and variety of style, and (_e_) universality. What
idea of his personality can you form from his plays? If you have read
them in sequence, point out some of the characteristics of each of his
four periods. Why is Shakespeare often called a great dramatic artist?
How did his audience and manner of presentation of his plays modify
his treatment of a dramatic theme?
Ben Jonson and Minor Dramatists.--The best plays of Ben Jonson,
Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Massinger, Webster, and
Tourneur may be found in _Masterpieces of the English Drama_ edited by
Schellinq (American Book Company). Selections from all the minor
dramatists mentioned may be found in Williams's _Specimens_. The
teacher will need to exercise care in assigning readings. Most of the
minor dramatists are better suited to advanced students.
Read Jonson's _The Alchemist_ or the selection in Williams's
_Specimens_. A sufficient selection from _Philaster_ may be found in
Vol. II. of _The Oxford Treasury_, in Morley, and in Williams's
_Specimens_.
What points of difference between Shakespeare and Jonson do you
notice? What is his object in _The Alchemist_? Why is its plot called
unusually fine? Wherein does Jonson show a decline in the drama?
Who were Beaumont and Fletcher? What movement in the drama do they
illustrate? What are the characteristics of some other minor
dramatists? What are the chief reasons why the minor dramatists fail
to equal Shakespeare? When and why did this period of the drama close?
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IV:
[Footnote 1: For additional mention of Elizabethan novelists, see p.
317.]
[Footnote 2: For references to selections from all these prose
writers, see p. 215.]
[Footnote 3: _Of Youth and Age_.]
[Footnote 4: Thomas Heywood's _Matin Song_.]
[Footnote 5: Suggestions for additional study of Elizabethan lyrics
are given on p. 215.]
[Footnote 6: riding.]
[Footnote 7: _An Hymne in Honour of Beautie_.]
[Footnote 8: _Faerie Queene_, Book III., Canto 4.]
[Footnote 9: _Ibid_., Book I., Canto 3.]
[Footnote 10: Smith's _York Plays_.]
[Footnote 11: C.W. Wallace's _The Evolution of the English Drama up to
Shakespeare_.]
[Footnote 12: Wallace, _op. cit_., p.37.]
[Footnote 13: _What We Know of the Elizabethan Stage_.]
[Footnote 14: Performances were often given at night in private
theaters. From the records in a lawsuit over the second Blackfriars
Theater, we learn that there were in 1608 only three private theaters
in London,--Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and a St. Paul's Cathedral
playhouse, in which boys acted.]
[Footnote 15: This drawing of the Swan Theater, London, was probably
made near the end of the sixteenth century by van Buchell, a Dutchman,
from a description by his friend, J. de Witt. The drawing, found at
the University of Utrecht, although perhaps not accurate in details,
is valuable as a rough contemporary record of an impression
communicated to a draftsman by one who had seen an Elizabethan play.]
[Footnote 16: The lease of the building for the first Blackfriars
Theater, on Ludgate Hill, London, was taken in 1576 by Richard
Farrant, master of the boys of Windsor Chapel, and canceled in 1584.
In 1595 James Burbage bought a building for the second Blackfriars
Theater, near the site of the first. This was a private theater,
competing with the Globe, with which Shakespeare was connected. The
chief dramatists for the second Blackfriars were Ben Jonson, George
Chapman, and John Marston. James I. suppressed the second Blackfriars
in 1608 because its actors satirized him and the French king. A few
months later, Shakespeare and his associates assumed the management of
the Blackfriars and gave performances there as well as at the Globe.
These facts explain Wallace's discovery that Shakespeare at the time
of his death owned a one-seventh interest in the second Blackfriars, a
theater that had formerly been a rival to the Globe.]
[Footnote 17: _Dr. Faustus_, Scene 6.]
[Footnote 18: _Tamburlaine_, Act II., Scene 7.]
[Footnote 19: _The Winter's Tale_, Act IV., Scene 4.]
[Footnote 20: Tradition says that Shakespeare occupied the desk in the
farthest corner.]
[Footnote 21: Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, Grosart's edition of
Greene's _Works_, Vol. XII., p. 144.]
[Footnote 22: The contract price for building the Fortune Theater was
£440.]
[Footnote 23: Adapted from Furnivall.]
[Footnote 24: Entered one year before at Stationers' Hall.]
[Footnote 25: May be looked on as fairly certain.]
[Footnote 26: _Henry V_., Act II., Scene 3, line 10.]
[Footnote 27: Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_, p. 327.]
[Footnote 28: _The Tempest_, Act V., Scene 1.]
[Footnote 29: _Ibid_., Act I., Scene 2.]
[Footnote 30: For a list of books of selections from the drama, see p.
216.]
[Footnote 31: For full titles, see p. 6.]
[Footnote 32: For full titles of books of dramatic selections, see the
preceding paragraph.]