A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
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intended to be acted in front, while the next background was being prepared<br />
behind the balcony curtain. The lack <strong>of</strong> elaborate settings also facilitated<br />
rapidity <strong>of</strong> action, and the plays, beginning at three in the afternoon,<br />
were ordinarily over by the dinner-hour <strong>of</strong> five. Less satisfactory was the<br />
entire absence <strong>of</strong> women-actors, who did not appear on the public stage<br />
until after the Restoration <strong>of</strong> 1660. The inadequacy <strong>of</strong> the boys who took<br />
the part <strong>of</strong> the women-characters is alluded to by Shakspere and must have<br />
been a source <strong>of</strong> frequent irritation to any dramatist who was attempting to<br />
present a subtle or complex heroine.<br />
Lastly may be mentioned the picturesque but very objectionable custom <strong>of</strong><br />
the young dandies who insisted on carrying their chairs onto the sides <strong>of</strong><br />
the stage itself, where they not only made themselves conspicuous objects<br />
<strong>of</strong> attention but seriously crowded the actors and rudely abused them if the<br />
play was not to their liking. It should be added that from the latter part<br />
<strong>of</strong> Elizabeth's reign there existed within the city itself certain 'private'<br />
theaters, used by the boys' companies and others, whose structure was more<br />
like that <strong>of</strong> the theaters <strong>of</strong> our own time and where plays were given by<br />
artificial light.<br />
SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616. William Shakspere, by universal consent the<br />
greatest author <strong>of</strong> England, if not <strong>of</strong> the world, occupies chronologically a<br />
central position in the Elizabethan drama. He was born in 1564 in the<br />
good-sized village <strong>of</strong> Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, near the middle <strong>of</strong><br />
England, where the level but beautiful country furnished full external<br />
stimulus for a poet's eye and heart. His father, John Shakspere, who was a<br />
general dealer in agricultural products and other commodities, was one <strong>of</strong><br />
the chief citizens <strong>of</strong> the village, and during his son's childhood was<br />
chosen an alderman and shortly after mayor, as we should call it. But by<br />
1577 his prosperity declined, apparently through his own shiftlessness, and<br />
for many years he was harassed with legal difficulties. In the village<br />
'grammar' school William Shakspere had acquired the rudiments <strong>of</strong><br />
book-knowledge, consisting largely <strong>of</strong> Latin, but his chief education was<br />
from Nature and experience. As his father's troubles thickened he was very<br />
likely removed from school, but at the age <strong>of</strong> eighteen, under circumstances<br />
not altogether creditable to himself, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman<br />
eight years his senior, who lived in the neighboring village <strong>of</strong> Shottery.<br />
The suggestion that the marriage proved positively unhappy is supported by<br />
no real evidence, but what little is known <strong>of</strong> Shakspere's later life<br />
implies that it was not exceptionally congenial. Two girls and a boy were<br />
born from it.<br />
In his early manhood, apparently between 1586 and 1588, Shakspere left<br />
Stratford to seek his fortune in London. As to the circumstances, there is<br />
reasonable plausibility in the later tradition that he had joined in<br />
poaching raids on the deer-park <strong>of</strong> Sir Thomas Lucy, a neighboring country<br />
gentleman, and found it desirable to get beyond the bounds <strong>of</strong> that<br />
gentleman's authority. It is also likely enough that Shakspere had been<br />
fascinated by the performances <strong>of</strong> traveling dramatic companies at Stratford<br />
and by the Earl <strong>of</strong> Leicester's costly entertainment <strong>of</strong> Queen Elizabeth in<br />
1575 at the castle <strong>of</strong> Kenilworth, not many miles away. At any rate, in<br />
London he evidently soon secured mechanical employment in a theatrical<br />
company, presumably the one then known as Lord Leicester's company, with<br />
which, in that case, he was always thereafter connected. His energy and<br />
interest must soon have won him the opportunity to show his skill as actor<br />
and also reviser and collaborator in play-writing, then as independent<br />
author; and after the first few years <strong>of</strong> slow progress his rise was rapid.<br />
He became one <strong>of</strong> the leading members, later one <strong>of</strong> the chief shareholders,<br />
<strong>of</strong> the company, and evidently enjoyed a substantial reputation as a