SHAKESPEARE--THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF
Shakespeare lived at a time when people, as a rule, did not write and
print the details of famous men's lives while they were living or
soon after their deaths. We know much of the daily lives of such
people as Scott and Dickens, and many others like Queen Victoria,
Napoleon, Lincoln, Disraeli, Gladstone. But we know comparatively
little about Shakespeare, partly because many people during his
lifetime thought of him only as a play actor and writer of plays, and
partly because there were at that time few books and there was little
reading. Incidents of history and in the lives of men and women were
told by older people to their children. These stories were
remembered and repeated and served instead of printed books. Such
traditional knowledge is sometimes inaccurate, but it is generally
interesting, and frequently true.
We know that Shakespeare was born April 22nd or 23rd, 1564, in
Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England. He was baptised on April
26th of that year; his baptism is on record. He died on his
birthday, April 23rd, 1616, fifty-two years later.
His father was John Shakespeare, who sold farm produce in Stratford,
and his mother was {42} Mary Arden, who came of what are called
gentlefolk. He was married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway. They had three
children, Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. Susanna later married John
Hall, a doctor of medicine; and Judith married Thomas Quiney, a
vintner, in the same year that her father died. But Hamnet died in
1596; his death was a heavy grief to Shakespeare.
Shakespeare went to London probably in 1586. The story told by
tradition is that he had been poaching on a neighbouring estate
belonging to a Sir Thomas Lucy. In any case, he left Stratford and
journeyed to London, a small London, very different from the great
city of to-day; nevertheless, it must have been an interesting place.
Shakespeare acted, and wrote plays. By 1593, he had achieved a noted
success. Four years later, 1597, he bought New Place, the finest
house in Stratford. At first, he paid a visit there only once a
year. Then he left London, and spent his later years in Stratford at
New Place. His custom was to write two of his plays each year.
We know something of Shakespeare's character from what his
contemporaries said of him. We know what interested him most, and
probably what he cared about most, from his plays. He was most
frequently called by other people the gentle Shakespeare. For a man
of great genius who was busy making wonderful plays, and who could
have met few people, if any, who were his intellectual equals, to be
called gentle by everyone who knew him is a great tribute to the
lovableness of his disposition and the sweetness of his temper. It
shows that he must have been {43} courteous, patient and considerate.
We know from his writings that he was a well-balanced man. He was
genial, and he had a great zest for life.
He seems to have been fond of many different kinds of characters.
Men of action, that is, men who do things, and men of thought, whose
philosophy and understanding take hold of the facts of life and look
deep into their meaning, were equally understood and loved by
Shakespeare. How do we know this? We know because he created such
thinkers as Hamlet, and his King Richard II, and Macbeth, and such
men of action as are in his great historical plays and especially
Othello. But we cannot help thinking that Shakespeare loved men of
action better and was more devoted to them than he was to those who
were thinkers chiefly. A critic named Hazlitt wrote of Shakespeare,
"His talent consisted in sympathy with human nature in all its
shapes, degrees, depressions and elevations." Sympathy of this kind
is not only a great gift, but it is also a very rare one. His
universal sympathy is one reason why we admire Shakespeare so much.
There are other facts about Shakespeare's life that we learn from his
plays. His youth was brilliant, full of happy exuberance and
exaltation, confident and swift. At this time, he wrote such plays
as _Romeo and Juliet_, 1592, the great historical plays, 1592-1594,
and again in 1597-1598, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, 1594-5, _As You
Like It_, 1599, _Twelfth Night_, 1600, _Julius Caesar_, 1600. You do
not need to remember these dates, but notice how rapidly one great
play follows another.
Shakespeare's full maturity, following youth, {44} begins about 1599.
Later than 1600, he wrote such plays as _Hamlet_, 1602, _Othello_,
1604, _Macbeth_, 1606, _King Lear_, 1607, _Anthony and Cleopatra_,
1608. These are generally regarded as his greatest plays.
In the last years of his life we can think of him as living at New
Place in Stratford, with peace, happiness and tranquility. His young
daughter Judith must have been his special, much-loved companion. We
imagine that possibly Miranda in _The Tempest_ is like Judith;
Shakespeare may have been thinking of himself a little when he wrote
some of Prospero's speeches. To this period belong three calm, wise
and beautiful plays which were the last that he wrote, _Cymbeline_,
1610, _The Winter's Tale_, 1611, and _The Tempest_, 1611.
Where did Shakespeare obtain his marvelous knowledge of life and
people? The answer evidently is, from life itself and from people
themselves. He studied people and understood them. His own heart
and nature taught him wonderful knowledge. From older people, he
heard stories of the Wars of the Roses. These stories undoubtedly
gave him his knowledge of warfare, soldiers, battles and politics.
He read such books as Holinshed's _Chronicles_, North's translation
of Plutarch's _Lives_ and translations of the choicest Italian novels
of the time. He probably had read Chaucer. He was familiar with all
the writings, plays, poems, and pamphlets of his contemporaries. The
time when Shakespeare lived was one of the greatest ages in the
history of the world. He himself makes any age in which he lived a
{45} great age; but there were living at that time many other great
writers, although not as great as Shakespeare. He therefore must
have read much. He almost certainly was one of the people who, as we
say, can take the whole heart out of a book at a single reading.
It would be foolish to say that it is easy to read all Shakespeare's
plays. Comparatively few people, old or young, can understand them
altogether. But to read those plays that one can understand is a
very great adventure. We find in them, even if we do not comprehend
everything, so much that is worth while, great life, beauty,
sweetness, courtesy, benignity, generosity and honour.
There were customs in Shakespeare's day, points of view, judgments
and prejudices, which the world has outgrown. We have much to learn
still, but the world to-day is a better place than it was in the
sixteenth century. We find some things in Shakespeare's plays that
grate on us harshly, such as the feeling towards Shylock, the Jew, in
_The Merchant of Venice_.
Shakespeare's greatest gift to us is that he makes us feel and know
how wonderful life is. He puts before us in his plays the whole
world, and we can look at it and see how beautiful it is. He shows
us men and women, and although he wrote long ago people who read his
plays to-day find his men and women so interesting that we think
ourselves very fortunate if we can see a great actor play Hamlet or a
great actress show us the way in which charming Rosalind may have
walked and spoken in the forest of Arden. No {46} other writer has
ever been able to create such women characters as Shakespeare.
The best and soundest knowledge of Shakespeare comes slowly. It is
good to read such speeches in his plays as Brutus' speech in _Julius
Caesar_, Act iv, scene iii, beginning at the words, "There is a tide
in the affairs of men". When we have learned that speech, we may
turn to other words, such as these in _King Henry V_:
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
Remember King Henry's saying; it contains truth which is serviceable
to us all.
Such words as these, and hundreds of other lines, are what make
Shakespeare, Shakespeare, someone wonderful and lovable who belongs
to you and to everyone else.
Here is another of his songs, a sad one this time, but very
beautiful, from _Cymbeline_.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou are past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak;
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.
{47}
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee and come to dust.
{48}