Shakesperean Criticism

Recent Shakespearean Criticism
Author(s): Pierce Butler

Source: The Sewanee Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Oct., 1910), pp. 490-502
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27532408
Accessed: 19-10-2019 07:16 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to The Sewanee Review
This content downloaded from 103.55.108.245 on Sat, 19 Oct 2019 07:16:01 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
RECENT SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM *
In spite of the solemn injunction upon that famous slab in the
chancel of Stratford Church, men will continue to "dig the dust
enclosed here," and some of them raise much dust, nothing but
dust, in doing so. But the general tone of recent publications
about Shakespeare, both in volumes and in brief articles and
reviews, convinces us that the world is growing less sympathetic
with the man who ventures upon Shakespearean criticism with
out adequate information or merely for the sake of making a
saleable volume. The public would not endure, for example,
another Mrs. Jameson; and text editions for schools, which are
the index of popular feeling in the matter, seem to be giving
less and less space to mere impressionist criticism, more or less
hysterical in manner, with increased attention to the questions
of dramatic structure, and with greater frankness in discussing
the plays not as sacrosanct but as plays produced by a practical
playwright for the Elizabethan stage. The interest in pro
ducing a correct text is as keen as ever, but has been taught
wise restraint. There is less disposition than formerly to accept
conjectural emendations and give them place in the text; indeed,
though it is by no means certain we may not yet be able to find
correct solutions for some of the corrupt passages that have per
plexed us, no such solution has been generally accepted in recent
years, and the tendency seems manifestly in favor of an accurate
reproduction of the Folio texts as against even the conservative
emendations of the Cambridge editors.
*The following books and articles have been considered: The Shake
spearean Stage, by Victor E. Albright, Ph.D., Columbia University
Press, New York, 1909; Shakespeare and His Critics, by Charles F.
Johnson, Litt.D., Houghton, Mifrlin & Co., Boston, 1909; Was William
Shakespeare a Gentleman! by Samuel A. Tannenbaum, The Tenny Press,
New York, 1909; The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars, 1597-1603, by
Charles William Wallace, Ph.D., University of Nebraska Studies, 1908;
Newly Discovered Shakespeare Documents, by the same, 1905 (also in
Englische Studien, 1905-1906, and fahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare
Gesellschaft) ; articles by the same in the London Times, October 2 and 4,
1909, and in Harper's Magazine, March, 1910; The Man Shakespeare and
His Tragic Life-Story, by Frank Harris, Mitchell Kennerly, New York, 1909.
Recent Shakespearean Criticism 491
Among the recent volumes which will prove of real help to

the student of Shakespeare, I should mention Dr. Albright's
Shakesperean Stage.
Time was when our knowledge of the stage and stage methods
in the days of Shakespeare was so limited that editors of school
texts, as well as authors of the more pretentious works upon the
subject, were fairly free to indulge their own fancies when they
undertook to tell us how one of Shakespeare's plays was staged
at the Globe. Strange to say, that fancy, instead of rioting
through unchecked profusion of detail, pictured the stage of the
time as little more than a bare platform with a more or less un
steadily placed balcony above it, guiltless even of a curtain,
with no scenery, no properties except of the meanest, no cos
tumes except of the most incongruous tawdriness. There was
no change of the setting to indicate that we had been in the street
before Shylock's house in Venice, and were now to be at Bel
mont to witness the choice of caskets within Portia's home.
Some writers, more indulgent to us or to their fancy, would say
that placards, marked respectively, "a street in Venice," and "a
room at Belmont," were "thrust forth" (like the tub of Diog
enes in Lyly's Campaspe), and explain that the vivid im
agination of the Elizabethan audience pictured the rest.
From such empirical statements the patient study of recent
scholars has delivered us. After such volumes as those of
Chambers on The Medi val Stage had made it clear that
even the miracle plays were presented with scenery and proper
ties by no means scanty, however crude, and after the realization
that the Elizabethan drama grew up while miracle plays were
still being presented, we could have no warrant for assuming
that the patrons of the Theatre, the Fortune, and the Globe,
would be content with a stage almost as bare as the cart of
Thespis. Within the last few years many excellent books, such
as Ordish's Early London Theatres, Baker's Development
of Shakespeare as a Dramatist, and Schelling's Elizabethan
Drama, basing their statements not upon previous books but
upon careful investigation of facts, have seriously modified our
conceptions.
Dr. Albright's volume is not the least valuable of the
492 The Sewanee Review
several recent contributions to our knowledge of the subject.

The excellence of his method of investigation is the thing that
chiefly commends his work; for his study is lacking in thor
oughness, in that he has not yet examined all the plays that are
preserved, nor has he attempted any research for documentary
evidence that might affect the validity of his conclusions. It is
but just to say, however, that a complete examination of all the
evidence seems rather likely to add to the mass of facts he has
accumulated than to affect their essential reliability. Like a
sensible man, he studies the conditions known to have existed
on the stage of the miracle plays, and on the stage after the Res
toration, endeavoring from this and from the evidence in the
Elizabethan plays themselves to discover what were the true
conditions in Shakespeare's time. And to the consideration of
these conditions he brings no preconceived theories, but common
sense and a practical knowledge of stagecraft to-day. With the
literature of the subject he seems familiar, though hardly atten
tive enough to the work Professor Wallace is doing, to which
we shall allude later. He sifts his evidence with c?re, rejecting,
for example, Van Buchell's drawing of the stage of the Swan, re
produced in many books as typical of Shakespeare's stage, on
the well-established ground that "It is a picture drawn on
hearsay evidence by a man unacquainted with the art of acting,
and, as a result, is impracticable, self-contradictory, and lacks
some of the necessary parts" (p. 40).
Much of what Dr. Albright presents to us has, of course,
already been made familiar by other scholars, such as Baker,
Schelling, and William Archer. But no work that we know is so
complete and so painstaking, and none applies with such excel
lent results the test of present-day stage methods. It is in this
respect, in particular, that he excels the careful dissertation of
Richard Wegener, Die B?hneneinrichtung des Shakespeare
schen Theaters, which he criticises in some detail (appendix, p.
160). In general, Dr. Albright shows from actual pictures and
drawings, as well as from other evidence, that the Shake
spearean theatre had an outer stage, extending some distance
out into the auditory and entered by two proscenium doors; an
inner stage, of about the same dimensions, separated from the
outer stage by curtains at the proscenium arch; a gallery or

balcony above the inner stage; and a structure called the 'hut/
used for machinery and for scenic devices that can easily be
imagined, over the inner stage. Scenes representing a street,
a public place, or any location requiring few properties or none,
were presented on the outer stage. Scenes representing a room,
such as the court in the Merchant of Venice, might occupy
the inner stage, or the entire stage, so that when the curtains were
closed upon the court the scene became 'a street' without interrup
tion to the action. It is not safe to push too far the theory of an
alternation of 'inner' and 'outer' scenes ; but there is sufficient evi
dence to show that in general there is such an alternation in
the plays, namely a scene with properties succeeded by one
wihout properties. Just as at present, the setting upon the
inner stage was often prepared during the action upon the outer
stage. We can assure ourselves that the wondrous forest of
Arden, with its oaks and palms and olives, was not planted in
the sight of Elizabethan spectators by hurrying 'supers,' but
grew under their ministrations behind the curtains. Dr.
Albright admits, of course, that the scenic setting was meagre;
elaborately painted scenery was not introduced until after the
Restoration; "the stage of Shakespeare. . . . was plain and
simple, but fully equipped with all the apparatus necessary to
bring out the best that was in his plays" (p. 148). We leave
Dr. Albright's study well satisfied with the soundness of the
general principle: "The deeper the scholar is grounded in the
stage of to-day, the better he is qualified to study the stage of
yesterday" (p. 162).
Of the literary quality of the work it is not possible to
speak with such approval. The author is rather intent upon
maintaining his thesis than solicitous for literary finish or even
interest, and there is an unpleasant repetition of formulas, of
conclusions from facts, nothing to relieve the strain of attention
as one reads the book. With the general accuracy of the work
there is no fault to find; but one might note one curious slip :
"As Hamlet felt his end drawing near, he made his way to the
throne and there died in the arms of his faithful friend, Laertes"
(sic, p. 149). It might also be noted that the index is not
complete, and that in the bibliography there is no mention of

Chambers' Medi val Stage, to which the author frequently
acknowledges his indebtedness. The valuable plates in the vol
ume are especially well chosen and carefully explained.
The immense mass of contradictory criticism upon Shake
speare furnishes forth another volume only less interesting than
this one, Professor Johnson's Shakespeare and his Critics.
Here we have materials that could be gathered with difficulty
only in certain libraries, tracing the progress of Shakespearean
criticism, both esthetic and textual, from Meres and Johnson to
Bradley and Furness. The earlier criticisms, being brief and
infrequent, are generally given in extenso; but the sheaf is not
full enough to satisfy the requirements of one who would have
all contemporary references. Indeed, in this earlier part of
the volume one feels some disappointment ; for it is neither so
full nor so careful as several books of no great cost that might
be mentioned. In the later periods the criticism of Shakespeare
becomes so voluminous that a library could not contain it,?and
would contain much trash if it did. Here the compiler has
exercised a wise judgment, selecting those criticisms that are of
most significance, and giving such analysis of them as will
enable the reader to find his way safely. There is no startling
novelty in what Professor Johnson has collected ; but there is a
very great deal that is not merely curious but informing. And
it is in dealing with the less known critics of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries that he is most successful ; for example,
what he has to say of Dryden seems inadequate in the space
allotted to it as well as in the matter : one can find a clearer and
more helpful study in several earlier publications, such as Pro
fessor Strunk's ; but what is said of Rymer, Gildon, and John
Dennis is quite worth while. In passing, we note what seems a
curious misquotation,? unless it be intended to represent an
actual misquotation,?in a phrase from some of Dryden's criti
cisms that I have not come upon : Dryden, he says, writes a fine
appreciation of Shakespeare, but mistakenly speaks "as if here
were an exceptional person taught to write above a mental
pitch by some * affable, familiar ghost that mighty [sic] gulls him
with intelligence'" (p. 61). Again, commenting upon As
You Like It, III, iv, 15, "He hath bought a pair of cast lips
of Diana," Professor Johnson is severe upon Theobald : "Theo
bald says 'cast' means 'cast off,' or second-hand. The word is
so plainly the Latin form of 'chaste'?castus,? that it is incon
ceivable that a scholar like Theobald should fail to perceive it"
(p. 100). And yet there are many who remain as obtuse as
Theobald, among whom I note Rolfe and the editor of the new
Hudson ; presumably, these editors fancy that if Orlando bought
the lips they were bought at second-hand, whether chaste or not.
And finally, it is to be regretted that in a work presumably in
tended for the class-room the references are not fuller. There
is no formal bibliography, and in a book of this kind perhaps
none is needed ; but the references in the text or in footnotes
are sorely needed. As an illustration, let us refer once more to
the passage on Dryden, where it is impossible to determine
whether a quotation of great importance (p. 60) is taken from the
Essay of Dramatic Poesy, or the Defense of an Essay of
Dramatic Poesy, both of which are of considerable length ; or
in the very illuminating analysis of Maurice Morgann's criticism
of Falstaff, what could be more discouraging to the student
who would like to pursue the study somewhat beyond Mr.
Johnson's book than the statement: "Mr. Morgann is not
mentioned in the encyclopaedias. . . . Some extension is given
to the extract because his book is not easy to come at" ? (p. 162).
Though thus deficient in critical apparatus, the book is a
useful one. Professor Johnson's taste and judgment are gen
erally quite sound enough to encourage the reader to trust him.
And his style is often delightful, filled with humorous suggestion
that relieves the tedium of the journey through so many pages
of criticism that the world has, for the most part, quite forgotten.
Not all the scorn of Carlyle for "gigmanity" quite convinces
us that he would not have been, as the satirist has said, proud to
be seen walking down Piccadilly arm in arm with two dukes.
And in the same manner, not all the contempt with which
Americans affirm that every Englishman loves a lord can quite
assure us that Americans themselves are not, for the most part,
just as fond of titles and honors quite as empty; only, not being
allowed titles of nobility, we manufacture countless brummagem
titles, martial and professional. This is not extraordinary, nor

even harmful ; it merely goes to show that we are as refreshingly
inconsistent as the rest of mankind. But unless we recognize
this pleasant weakness in ourselves, we shall be prone to sniff at
the snobbishness of a little study of Mr. Samuel Tannenbaum :
Was Shakspere a Gentleman? At first we fortify ourselves
by a paternoster derived from the Declaration of Independence
and then recall certain noble sentiments about "true gentilesse"
ascribed to the Wife of Bath, or found in Piers Plowman, and
dismiss Mr. Tannenbaume query as an impertinence to the
memory of Jack Falstaff. But upon examination we find that
Mr. Tannenbaum really has something to say, and we reflect
that, after all, there was no great harm in Shakespeare's desire
to parade a coat of arms. The point of the book is to show
that Mr. Lee and other biographers of Shakespeare are wrong
in conveying the impression that the College of Heralds did not
grant him a coat of arms and the right to the title of "gentle
man" in 1596, but that Shakespeare fraudulently assumed these
dignities. The evidence presented by Mr. Tannenbaum,
gathered from documents long well known, as well as from a
fresh examination of the records of the College of Heraldry, is
conclusive. No new document is produced ; but one very
effective point may be noted. Guillim's Display of Heraldry
(London, 1724, p. 338) describes the Shakespeare arms, and
says they were given by William Dethick, Garter King-at-Arms,
to William Shakespeare. Guillim must have based his statement
upon first-hand knowledge of the documents, since Rowe's
Life, the only one then written, says nothing about the coat of
arms. It is but a small point, but one is glad to have the facts
set in the right light. One might remind Mr. Tannenbaum, how
ever, that biographers of Shakespeare are not in a conspiracy to
blacken his memory ; they merely read into the scanty facts the
best meaning they can get ; and they are, of course, fallible, as
is Mr. Tannenbaum when, on page eight he confounds Franken
stein with the monster produced by Frankenstein's ingenuity.
Of a value not yet to be safely estimated are the results of the
researches now being conducted by Professor Charles Wallace,
of the University of Nebraska, For several years Mr. Wallace
has been engaged in a painstaking search for documents con

cerning the Elizabethan drama, in various parts of Europe, and
especially in the Public Record Office, London. When these
researches are completed, he proposes to publish the results and
his conclusions, with the documents substantiating them, in a
work which will doubtless fill several volumes.
Though the most sensational of his discoveries have been
announced from time to time in the newspapers and in periodicals,
the only part of the work so far in a state anything like com
pleteness is his conscientious history of The Children of the
Chapel at Blackfriars. The work bears every evidence of a
sincerity and capacity of which Americans may be justly proud.
Whether we agree in all things with his conclusions or not, we
cannot dispute the authority of the documents upon which they
are based, which are often printed in extenso in the elaborate
footnotes, and wdiich have in many cases never been printed
before. It is, to my mind, beyond question that Mr. Wallace
establishes certain essential facts that have been heretofore in
doubt or quite unknown. The most important points seem to
me these : the Children of the Chapel were not mere oc
casional rivals of the professional players, as has been assumed,
but were regularly trained for dramatic performances, and gave
such performances during a considerable period. They were
licensed to do this under royal authority, and were to a certain
extent sustained by the sovereign. Their performances exerted
a salutary influence upon the public stage. So much is written
plain upon the documents unearthed by Mr. Wallace. But I
cannot go so far as he does in claiming that this Blackfriars
theatre amounted practically to a State theatre ? he does not
assert this in so many words, but such is the inference?heartily
patronized by the sovereign and, indeed, actually established by
Elizabeth with deliberate purpose. His evidence as to her
attendance at the performances and as to the payments made in
support of the child actors is insufficient ; it is possible that he
may produce something more satisfying. In his pardonable
enthusiasm over what has already been discovered he seems to
claim a little too much. For example, in a chapter seeking to
make good the contention that Elizabeth was actuated by a
33
fixed purpose in establishing the Children, Mr. Wallace notes

the number of Orders of the Privy Council against players and
playhouses between 1597 and 1603, commonly understood as a
manifestation of the increasing influence of Puritanism. "But,"
he says (p. 150), "the causes of the Queen's official attitude toward
the theatres lay not in Puritanism but in her own purposes."
Weighty evidence is called for to sustain this view ; for most of
us have rather firmly rooted opinions that Queen Bess was a
very accomplished deceiver of the public, a most barefaced
time-server. Mr. Wallace marshals a great array of evidence ;
but it is not enough to convince ; and he does not allow suffi
ciently for the very suspicious circumstance that many of the
Orders in Council appear to have been dead letters, which would
seem to us to show that Elizabeth and her crafty advisers were
content with having made a pretence of complying with the Puritan
outcry.
The work is so full of valuable fact, and of suggestion for
new investigations that may materially alter our notions of the
Elizabethan stage, that one knows not where to stop. But we
must content ourselves with noting the wide scope such a study
may take, by referring to the very satisfactory explanation of
the reference to the Children in the first Quarto of Hamlet, a
reference which is omitted in the later Quartos. The omission
is due to the fact, says Mr. Wallace (p. 183), that with the
ascension of James the royal patronage of the Children as
against the public players ceased: "The cause of grievance to
the public theatres being thus removed, the continuance of
Shakespeare's attack thereafter would have been pointless and
absurd. Hence it was omitted from the 1604 edition ....
and was never printed until the 1623 folio, which aims to pre
serve to literature and history the plays of Shakespeare from
their most authentic source."
It is safe to say that the results of Mr. Wallace's investigations
are likely to be more important than any we have had for a
generation. In many minor points the data he supplies will
furnish corrections for biographers of Shakespeare. And the
world already knows of two discoveries that have occasioned no
little excitement. In the first place, certain estimable brewers
in London took pride not in the fine water at their disposal, as

another famous firm does, but in the fact that their brewery stood
upon the site of the Globe Theatre. Accordingly, preparations
were made to mark the site with a tablet Though, in the vol
ume we have been considering, Mr. Wallace announced important
documents concerning the Globe, the committee in charge of
the celebration apparently took no heed, until, one wreek before
the published date for the unveiling of the tablet, the London
Times (October 2 and 4, 1909) printed an article by Mr. Wallace
giving documents to prove his statement that the true site of
the Globe was not where the tablet was to be, but on the other
side of the street. Though there was much indignation, we
have not seen any convincing refutation of Mr. Wallace's
argument, much less of his records ? and the tablet was duly
placed where it was wanted. It will do no manner of harm in
this position. Meanwhile, we shall leave Mr. Wallace and his
friends in England to thresh out the truth.
Of greater interest to us is the substance of Mr. Wallace's
article in the March number of Harper's Magazine. Though
here, as in his volume, the author shows a disposition to claim too
much, and in his haste falls into an actual error that he might
easily have escaped, it is not too much to say that his publica
tion brings one, somehow, closer to the real Shakespeare than
anything yet published. It is not the new signature of Shakes
peare that he has there given us, interesting as that is, it is the
glimpse we get of Shakespeare in intimate private life that is
worth whole libraries of surmise about the Dark Lady of the
Sonnets. The actual facts revealed are slight enough ; but they
are yet something?to know that Shakespeare was actually a
lodger with a respectable family in a quarter of the town where
roisterers were not found, that he continued to live in the
same place at least for several years, and that he was sufficiently
human and lovable to appear as the friend of all parties in a
family quarrel,? this is well worth the labor of finding the record
among the tons of documents handled by Mr. Wallace. Yet
fancy would have it more, and fancy proceeds to build upon this
slight foundation, and "give to airy nothing a local habitation
and a name." In spite of the temptation to discover in Shake*
speare's apparent intimacy with this burgher family of French

provenance some influence upon his work, or even some hint of
his religious leanings, one must remember that there is really no
warrant for such imaginings. At most, I should say the facts
show only that Shakespeare was not spoiled by his prosperity,
that he continued to live with simple folk of about his own
social standing, in spite of his probable English predilection for
lords. But did not Shakespeare write the Merry Wives
while he was domiciled with Christopher Mountjoy, in Silver
Street? And is not that farce, from one point of view, a
wholesome counter-satire upon the conventional satirical pre
sentation of "citizens' wives," showing the would-be court
gallant made a laughing stock by Mistress Page and Mistress
Ford? From his own acquaintance Shakespeare found material
to laugh at a silly and stale stage convention. But we must
cry, holla, lest we fall into Mr. Wallace's error, identifying this
Mountjoy and his family with other folk who are not of their
kin.
We shall look forward with the keenest interest to the publi
cation of other finds announced by Mr. Wallace, rejoicing in
the patient skill with which he is pursuing his task. Mean
while, "angels and ministers of grace defend us" from more
books of the class we shall take up next.
Mr. Frank Harris, not content with reasonable success in
downright fiction, essays, in The Man Shakespeare, to con
struct a figure, which he would have to be Shakespeare, out of
sundry personages in the plays who discover, in his belief, the
true thought, character, and morals of the author. Frankly,
one is haunted by a certain melody in reading this book ; it is
not such an one as 'stole o'er the senses' of the Duke in
Twelfth Night ; it is accompanied by words that seem to con
vey some hint of what Mr. Harris's idea of Shakespeare might be:
" O, I am a cook, and a Captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a mid?hipmite,
And the crew of the Captain's gig."
In effect, he contrives to convince himself that the real

Shakespeare was a sort of composite of Hamlet, Jaques, Macbeth,
Romeo, and Posthumus, "and plenty more beside." How

absolutely he is obsessed by the idea he has evolved may appear
from this sentence on page 4 (it might be matched almost at
random in the volume): "Shakespeare's purpose is surely the
same as Montaigne's, to reveal himself to us, and it would be
hasty to decide that his skill is inferior." There is no reasoning
with one so far gone as this ; not "if reasons were as plentiful as
blackberries" would I give you a reason. Of course, the
Sonnets furnish materials in which Mr. Harris fairly revels ; and
Mary Fitton is credited not only with all the iniquities of the
Dark Lady, but with all that looks off-color in other heroines of
dark complexion, and with all that might look off-color in
Shakespeare's life, if we knew all about it. Moreover, from a
discovery of certain tell-tale lines in the Two Gentlemen of
Verona,?at least Mr. Harris italicizes them for us,?we find
that Mary Fitton must have begun her amorous adventures
before she was fairly out of pinafores.
"Thou common friend, that's without faith or love,?
For such is a friend now,"
exclaims Valentine to the false Proteus. Whereupon: "The

first lines I have italicised are too plain to be misread ; when they
were written Shakespeare had just been cheated by his friend"
(p. 204). One might remark that, accepting, as Mr. Harris
does (p. 127), the early date of the play in which these lines
occur, William Herbert, the supposedly false friend, was possibly
twelve years of age ! Hardly Byron in his most theatric mo
ments could have desired a reputation of more precocious de
pravity than this "false friend" of Shakespeare's,?
" Mature in vileness from his tender years."
Of course, the fact that certain themes in the Sonnets are

closely akin to passages in the Two Ge?itlemen of Verona is
nothing new; but this has nothing whatever to do with William
Herbert.
It would be easy, were the thing worth the trouble, to discover
absurdities equally as gross on page after page of Mr. Harris's
volume ; but we find this instance enough to indicate the gen
eral character of his scholarship. The book is one of the many
monuments of misdirected ingenuity. And the only pity is that

it will doubtless do some share of harm through falling into the
hands of uncritical readers. The idea that certain characters in
the plays are treated more subjectively than others is not at
all a new one, and not at all to be questioned ; but we beg
leave to decline to accept a reductio ad absurdum. And we
resent an attempt to depict Shakespeare as a selfish voluptuary
upon any such evidence. He may have been very much of a
libertine, or he may have been a Puritan ; no man knows, for
the record is blank. And the revulsion of feeling after pe
rusing such a book as Mr. Harris's almost carries us to the ex
treme position assumed by Browning in At The Mermaid.
Pierce Butler.
Tulane University.

Shakesperean Criticism

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Shakesperean Criticism

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Shakesperean Criticism

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Recent Shakespearean Criticism

Author(s): Pierce Butler

Among the recent volumes which will prove of real help to

several recent contributions to our knowledge of the subject.

outer stage by curtains at the proscenium arch; a gallery or

complete, and that in the bibliography there is no mention of

titles, martial and professional. This is not extraordinary, nor

has been engaged in a painstaking search for documents con

fixed purpose in establishing the Children, Mr. Wallace notes

in London took pride not in the fine water at their disposal, as

speare's apparent intimacy with this burgher family of French

In effect, he contrives to convince himself that the real

Romeo, and Posthumus, "and plenty more beside." How

exclaims Valentine to the false Proteus. Whereupon: "The

Of course, the fact that certain themes in the Sonnets are

monuments of misdirected ingenuity. And the only pity is that

You might also like