The following considerations apply to the attribution to Bacon, so far as that rests on any tangible basis: (1) Sir Tobie Matthews writes in a letter to Bacon, written some time later than January, 1621, "The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation and of this side of the sea is of your Lordship"s name, though he be known by another." The sentence probably refers to Father Thomas Southwell, a Jesuit, whose real surname was Bacon. There is nothing to connect it with Shakespeare.
(2) The parallelisms between pa.s.sages in Shakespeare and Bacon deal with phrases in common use and fail to establish any connection between the two men. (3) The few surviving examples of Bacon"s verse suggest no ability as a poet. (4) Bacon"s life is well known, and it offers no hint of connection with the theaters and no s.p.a.ce in its crowded annals for the production of Shakespeare"s plays. In fact, if we had to find an author for Shakespeare"s plays among writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bacon would be about the last person conceivable.
CHAPTER IX
SHAKESPEARE SINCE 1616
During Shakespeare"s lifetime, his plays were mentioned and imitated as often as those of any of his contemporaries. The more important doc.u.ments bearing on his growing reputation have already been noted in this volume. This popularity, however, was confined to theater-goers and the readers of the sixteen plays that had appeared before 1616. There was no opportunity for a full estimate of his plays as literature until their publication in the Folio of 1623. This is given full and worthy expression in the fine verses which Ben Jonson contributed as a preface to the Folio. He had girded at several of Shakespeare"s plays, and his own views of the principles and practices of the dramatic art were largely opposed to Shakespeare"s, but he took this opportunity to express unstinted appreciation of Shakespeare"s greatness. He notes with discrimination that Shakespeare learned his art in an earlier day, but far outshone Kyd, Lyly, and Marlowe.
Soul of the Age The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!
He may challenge comparison with the great Greek tragedians, or in comedies
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
He was not of an age but for all time!
The magnitude of Shakespeare"s achievement was thus enthusiastically proclaimed by the literary dictator of the time.
From 1623, until the closing of the theaters, the plays continued favorites on the stage, though they yielded somewhat in the current taste to the theatrical successes of Fletcher and Ma.s.singer. After 1623, they continued to be read and admired, as is shown by the publication of the second and third folios in 1632 and 1663-1664, and by many appreciations, including those of D"Avenant, Suckling, the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle, and Milton. At the Restoration many of the plays were at once revived on the stage, and Dryden"s essay _Of Dramatick Poesie_ (1668) summed up in a masterly fashion contemporary opinion on Shakespeare. He is compared with other great dramatists, and is declared less correct than Jonson and less popular and modern than Beaumont and Fletcher, yet is "the man who of all Moderns, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul."
[Page Heading: The Seventeenth Century]
The Restoration was in some doubt about Shakespeare, for while it found in him much to admire, it also found much to condemn. His plays now had the advantage of women actors for the female parts, but they encountered changed fashions in the theater. The romantic comedies were not to the taste of the time, and disappeared from the stage until toward the middle of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ was the most popular and most highly esteemed of his comedies. The tragedies attracted the genius of Betterton and were constantly acted, but these were subject to revision of various kinds.
_Hamlet_ and _Oth.e.l.lo_ held their places without alterations, but Nahum Tate"s tame version of _King Lear_ and Cibber"s version of _Richard III_ superseded the originals for many years. _Romeo and Juliet_, too, gave way to Otway"s _Caius Marius_, 1692, which kept large portions of Shakespeare"s play; and _Antony and Cleopatra_ yielded place on the stage to Dryden"s fine _All for Love_ (1678), in the style of which he professes to imitate the "divine Shakespeare." By 1692, adaptations had also been made of _Troilus and Cressida_, _The Tempest_, _Macbeth_, _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, _Timon_, _Richard II_, _Coriola.n.u.s_, _Henry VI_, _Cymbeline_, _t.i.tus Andronicus_, _Julius Caesar_. A great deal of contempt has been visited upon these revisions of Shakespeare, and their attempts to improve on him are usually feeble enough; but sufficient recognition has not been given to the testimony that these revisors bear to a great appreciation and admiration of Shakespeare. They tried to adapt him to current metrical conventions, to current literary fashions, to an idea of art quite foreign to his, but they made these efforts because they admired his genius. If they did not admire everything in his thirty-seven plays, they admired a great deal.
Further, these revisions are the outcome of critical strictures on the plays which were then common and, in essence, have been frequently repeated. Critics objected to the irregularity and confusion of their structure, to their disregard of the unities of action, their mixture of tragic and comic, their obscurity and archaism of diction, their mixed and confused figures, their occasional puns and bombast. These are substantially the criticisms that Dryden offers when under the influence of Rymer. Rymer himself (_A Short View of Tragedy_, 1693) goes much farther. He desires tragedy to give a rationalized view of life, dealing poetic justice to various typical persons, and consequently condemns Shakespeare"s persons as too individual, his plots as too irregular, and the total effect of his plays as insufficiently didactic and moral. This view of tragedy was mainly due to the rationalistic and cla.s.sical ideas which continued for a century to dominate European criticism. But before the seventeenth century was over, Shakespeare"s growing reputation had proved itself a rock against which the tendencies in criticism had broken like unavailing waves. However much they might insist on rules in art, critics were generally willing to hail Shakespeare as the great exception. Champions were ready to answer Rymer and to defend Shakespeare. _Oth.e.l.lo_, selected by Rymer for special a.n.a.lysis and condemnation, continued to hold its place on the stage and to incite dramatists to emulation. The plays continued to be read, and new editions were demanded. In the forty years from 1660 to 1700, in spite of great changes in theatrical conditions, in spite of changes of taste in readers that relegated most of Elizabethan drama to neglect, and in spite of the formation of a criticism doubtful or neglectful of the very qualities in literature that his plays present, Shakespeare continued to win admirers. By 1700 he was recognized as a dramatist and poet who was one of the great possessions of the English race.
[Page Heading: Widening Influence]
In the two centuries since, Shakespeare"s fame and influence have spread and multiplied to an extent difficult to characterize justly in a brief summary. Some important evidences of this growth may indeed be collected and a.n.a.lyzed. The position and importance of his plays on the stage, the ever increasing number of editions, the changing att.i.tudes of critics and men of letters--on these matters it is not difficult to draw conclusions as to Shakespeare"s influence at home and abroad. But it is not so easy to say what his influence was on the literature of any generation, and still less easy to summarize with certainty the effects on thought and feeling and conduct which made up his continuing power over generation after generation of readers. This much is clear, that a study of Shakespeare"s influence is in part a study of changing ideas and ideals in literature--that as he survived the Restoration taste, so he survived the new cla.s.sicism of the eighteenth and the romanticism of the early nineteenth century. It is also clear that a full record of the influence of Shakespeare on English-speaking readers would touch on almost all the varied changes of thought and conduct that have entered into the history of two centuries.
The most important of the successive editions of Shakespeare from that of Nicholas Rowe, 1709, to the present time, have been noted in the history of the text in Chapter VII. It must be observed that these various publications indicate not only progress toward establishing a sound text, but also a constantly increasing number of readers. The multiplication of editions kept pace with the vast extension of the middle-cla.s.s interest in literature. By the end of the eighteenth century, the works of Shakespeare were in the possession of everyone who had a library, and with a text and notes that left few difficulties for a person of any education.
The nineteenth century well maintained the tradition of earlier scholarship. Malone"s extensive antiquarian knowledge of Elizabethan drama and theater served as the basis for further research in these fields by Dyce, Ward, Fleay, and others. The chronological order of the plays, which Malone was the first to investigate, was determined with considerable certainty and gave a new significance to the study of Shakespeare"s work as a whole. Dyce, Sidney Walker, and Wright, Delius of the Germans, Richard Grant White of the Americans, are a few among the long list of scholars who have added notable emendations and ill.u.s.trative notes. Editions of the collected works indeed soon became almost too numerous for record, and the number of readings, notes, and ill.u.s.trations too great for collection even in the largest variorum.
To-day the task of scholarship may lie in the restriction, simplification, and final determination of certain varying editorial practices rather than in the acc.u.mulation of further ill.u.s.trative and appreciative comment. But to the work of adding new editions there can be no end so long as the number of readers increases. Volumes of all sizes, for many cla.s.ses, following various editorial methods, are likely to continue to meet the changing but ever increasing demands of English-speaking readers. At the end of the nineteenth century Shakespeare"s works were not merely a household possession, they were to be had in every possible form to suit every possible taste or convenience.
[Page Heading: On the Stage]
The extension of Shakespeare"s popularity on the stage was concurrent with this widening range of readers. In the first thirty years of the eighteenth century, which marked a revolution in the nature of the drama and the taste of the audiences, Shakespeare"s tragedies continued to be among the most frequently acted stock plays at the two patented theaters. The middle of the century saw the revival of most of the romantic comedies and the appearance of David Garrick. Some of the adaptations continued, but others were displaced by genuine Shakespeare, as in _Macbeth_, _The Merchant of Venice_, and _Romeo and Juliet_. _All"s Well That Ends Well_, _As You Like It_, _Cymbeline_, _Much Ado_, _Twelfth Night_, _The Winter"s Tale_, were all revived. In fact, if we include adaptations, every play of Shakespeare was seen on the stage during the eighteenth century, with the exceptions of _2_ and _3 Henry VI_, only parts of these appearing, and of _Love"s Labour"s Lost_, of which a version prepared for acting was published in 1762 but not produced.
The traditions of Betterton had been carried on by Wilks (1670-1732), Barton Booth (1681-1733), Colley Cibber (1671-1757), and others. But the prevailing manner was condemned as stiff and lifeless in comparison with the energy of Garrick"s presentation. From his first triumph in Richard III in 1741, to his farewell performance of Lear in 1776, he won a series of signal successes in both tragedy and comedy, in Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, Falconbridge, Romeo, Hotspur, Iago, Leontes, Posthumus, Bened.i.c.k, and Antony. Garrick"s services to Shakespeare extended beyond the parts which he impersonated. He revived many plays, and though he garbled the texts freely, yet in comparison with earlier practice he really had some right to boast that he had restored the text of Shakespeare to the stage. Further, his example led to an increased popularity of Shakespeare in the theater and afforded new incentives for other actors. Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Pritchard were among the women who acted with Garrick. Macklin, by his revival of Shylock as a tragic character, Henderson by his impersonation of Falstaff, and John Palmer in secondary characters, as Iago, Mercutio, Touchstone, and Sir Toby, were his contemporaries most famous in their day.
[Page Heading: Kemble and Kean]
Garrick"s place at the head of the English stage was taken by John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), an actor of great dignity of presence and manner, who won general admiration in the great tragic parts, especially those offering opportunities for declamation. His sister, Mrs. Sarah Siddons, was doubtless the greatest of English actresses; her Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine, and Constance overwhelmed her audiences by their majesty and pa.s.sion. Kemble"s reputation was surpa.s.sed by Edmund Kean, whose appearance as Shylock in 1819, at Drury Lane, was the first of a series of great successes in most of the tragic parts, including Hamlet, Lear, Oth.e.l.lo, and Richard III. In contrast to Kemble"s declamation, Kean"s acting was vehement and pa.s.sionate. Coleridge declared that to see him was "reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." Readers of the dramatic criticism of Hazlitt and Lamb will recall tributes to Kean and to other favorite actors, especially perhaps their praise of Mrs. Jordan"s Viola and Rosalind. Macready for forty years maintained the great traditions of English acting, and during his managements of Drury Lane sought to retain for Shakespeare"s plays their preeminence on the stage. a.s.sociated with his many impersonations were those of Mrs. Warner and Helen Faucit (Lady Martin). From Garrick"s debut to the retirement of Macready (1851) is a century of great actors and actresses who brought to the interpretation of the many characters of the plays a skill and intelligence that satisfied the most critical theater-goers and extended vastly the appreciation and knowledge of Shakespeare"s men and women.
Shakespeare"s position on the stage was, however, maintained only with difficulty against the melodramas, musical farces, and spectacles that absorbed the theaters. Yet from 1844 to 1862, Samuel Phelps, at Sadler"s Wells, presented thirty-one of the plays. Since then the stage has hardly seen an equally important revival; but the great traditions of acting have been carried on by many eminent actors: Sir Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Forbes Robertson, in England; Edwin Forrest, Edwin Booth, Junius Brutus Booth, Charlotte Cushman, Ada Rehan, Julia Marlowe, and Edward Sothern in America. Lately, successful attempts have been made to perform plays in the Elizabethan manner, and perhaps there is a tendency to pay less attention to elaborate scenic presentation than was the habit during the last of the nineteenth century. In one respect, at least, the present offers a decided improvement on the past, for there is now a strong sentiment in favor of as close an adherence as possible to an authorized text of the plays.
[Page Heading: The Eighteenth Century]
Shakespeare has held his place on the stage in spite of many and great changes in theatrical conditions and dramatic taste. He will probably survive changes greater than those which separate the picture stage with its electric lights from the projecting open-air platform of his own day, or than those which separate the dramas of Ibsen, Shaw, and Barrie from those of Marlowe and Fletcher, or the cinematograph and comic opera from the bear-baiting and jugglery which rivaled the Globe. The visitor who scans, in the Stratford Museum, the curious collection of portraits of actors and actresses in Shakespearean parts may wonder what peculiarities of costume, manner, and expression will be devised for the admired interpretations of the centuries to come. But it hardly seems possible that any actor of the future will influence as greatly the appreciation of Shakespeare"s characters and speeches as did Garrick and Mrs. Siddons in England or Edwin Booth in America.
Shakespearean criticism in the eighteenth century was, as has been noted, largely textual, but there was also a considerable discussion of Shakespeare"s learning, his art, and its violations of neo-cla.s.sical theory. John Dennis, in his _Letters_, 1711, proved a st.u.r.dy admirer, and the consensus of opinion of following writers was that of Sedley"s couplet which described Shakespeare as
The pride of Nature, and the shame of Schools, Born to Create, and not to Learn from Rules.
Voltaire"s attacks brought rejoinders from Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in 1769 and from Dr. Johnson in the preface to his edition, 1765. In fact, admiration for Shakespeare was a powerful factor in forcing the rejection of rules and standards of French criticism. Johnson"s Preface finds fault with Shakespeare"s neglect of poetic justice and dwells at length on the faults in plots and diction, but Johnson defends the violation of the unities, and his praise is a discriminating summary of the merits that the eighteenth century had found in Shakespeare. It is praise that is likely to endure.
Within another generation, however, reverence for Shakespeare had increased to an intensity that made Johnson"s admiration seem feeble and n.i.g.g.ardly. This transformation was due to many causes, but in the main it was a part of the vast changes in European literature known as the Romantic movement. This resulted in a rejection of the rules and models of neo-cla.s.sicism, a new interest in the literature and manners of the Middle Ages, a conception of poetry as the expression of individuality, attention to the individual man in all orders of society, a fresh concern for external nature, an emphasis on the emotions rather than mere reason, a desire for wonder and mystery, and an exaltation of natural instincts and intuitions as opposed to general truths or social conventions. In each of these particulars, Shakespeare seemed the complete fulfilment of the new tendencies--which indeed his growing influence had undoubtedly encouraged. More than Spenser or Milton or the old ballads, he was the inspiration and guide for new endeavors in literature. It seemed to the new age of critics and poets that they had rediscovered him, and they hastened to raise him from neglect to the throne of omniscience. He was no longer a wayward genius, he was the model from whom art and wisdom were to be learned.
[Page Heading: Appreciative Criticism]
This new criticism was esthetic and appreciative. It did not try to balance Shakespeare"s merits and faults, or to test him by codes of arts or morals. It recognized him as supreme, and its discipleship was devoted to reverent interpretation and enthusiastic admiration.
Believing in the importance of the poetic imagination in the affairs of men, it found in him a gospel and an example for its creed. Its delightful task was to find new beauties and to search out the hiding-places that revealed the G.o.d of its idolatry. If the genius of the master-poet was the source of art and wisdom, the personality of the critic gained a new refulgence through its service of reflecting the rays of glory. The interest in the study of individual characters had resulted, even in Johnson"s day, in some notable interpretive essays, as Maurice Morgann"s on Falstaff (1777). In the next generation, Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt in England, and Schlegel and Goethe in Germany, brought the keenest intelligence and most sympathetic taste to a criticism that aspired to reveal the full range and height of Shakespeare"s creative faculty.
The results of this criticism may be more specifically summarized. (1) It viewed the individual characters of the plays as if they were real persons, a.n.a.lyzing their motives and elaborating or repainting their portraits, as in the a.n.a.lyses of Hamlet by Goethe and Coleridge, or in the brilliant sketches of Hazlitt. The few hundred lines spoken by a leading character have thus been expanded by the impressions made on successive critics into volumes of biography. (2) Shakespeare"s works were studied as a whole in an effort to study the development of his art and mind. Schlegel and Coleridge gave a unity to the phenomena of the thirty-seven plays that had not been recognized hitherto; but they and their followers naturally tended to make of their author a sort of nineteenth-century romanticist. (3) Exalting the services of poetry and the creative imagination, they viewed Shakespeare"s exhibition of human nature and his incidental wisdom as profound, consistent, and immensely valuable for the human race. Hence they were ever seeking in his work for a philosophy, a synthetic ethics, and making the widest applications of his words to conduct. Believing that he could do no wrong, they inevitably came to attribute to him ideas and morals that were of their own creation.
The defects of this criticism are most apparent in critics like Ulrici and Gervinus who carry its methods to extremes. Personal, fanciful, unhistorical, idolatrous, it is yet a tremendous tribute and an amazing record of the sway that Shakespeare has exerted on the human mind. The writings of no other man have been studied so intimately by so many sympathetic readers, or have excited such different impressions.
Throughout the nineteenth century this appreciative criticism has continued, and Shakespeare has been interpreted through the personality of many critics, German and American, as well as British, more recently through the delicate sensibility of Professor Dowden, and the penetrating reflection of Professor A. C. Bradley.
[Page Heading: The Nineteenth Century]
At the end of the nineteenth century, Shakespearean criticism has become too varied for a brief survey. Textual and esthetic criticism both continue. The biography has been established on a sound basis of fact by Halliwell-Phillipps and Sidney Lee; and still new facts reward patient investigators of the legal and court doc.u.ments, almost the only records preserved that can possibly bear on Shakespeare"s life. Special studies of all sorts have been numerous, as to his reading, religion, folk-lore, and so on. More significant in its effect on our general view have been the efforts of historical criticism. As our knowledge of Elizabethan literature, drama, theater, have increased, it has been possible to see Shakespeare in relation to his time and environment. The study of Shakespeare as a sixteenth-century dramatist aims not merely at a better appreciation of his work, but also to explain his development and to account for some of the qualities of his achievement. Its att.i.tude is that of the scientific historian examining the records of any great human activity, and trying to understand its causes, results, and meaning. Somewhat allied to this has been technical dramatic criticism, which is uniting knowledge of the Elizabethan theater with interest in drama as a peculiar form, and thereby studying Shakespeare as a dramatist rather than as a poet or philosopher. In fact, Shakespeare is no longer merely man, poet, dramatist, philosopher, or genius. Jonson"s tribute, Dryden"s summary, Johnson"s judicial essay, or Coleridge"s admiring studies, all seem hopelessly inadequate to express the range of his dominion. He has become the source of the most various and extensive interests, a continent that ever expands its fields for exploration, an epoch that ever extends the years of its duration, a race that never dies, though its progeny ever multiplies.
[Page Heading: In Germany]
It is in the nineteenth century that Shakespeare"s dominance becomes international. Four of his plays were acted at Dresden and elsewhere early in the seventeenth century, but there seems to have been no literary acquaintance with the plays in Germany until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when two poor translations of _Julius Caesar_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ appeared, and J. C. Gottsched severely criticized Shakespeare"s art. In 1759, in a journal, "Litteraturbriefe," Lessing began a warm defense of Shakespeare and declared his superiority to Racine and Corneille. His _Hamburgische Dramaturgie_ (1767) went far in directing the change of taste from French cla.s.sicism and in establishing Shakespeare in German thought as the greatest of poets, whether ancient or modern. A prose translation was begun by Wieland in 1762 and completed by Eschenburg in 1789. What is perhaps the best translation of Shakespeare into any foreign tongue was begun in 1797 by A. W. von Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, two leaders of German romanticism, and finally completed in 1853. Schlegel"s lectures on _Shakespeare and the Drama_ were delivered in Vienna in 1808, and present both the romanticist"s idolizing of Shakespeare and a new kind of esthetic criticism destined to exercise great influence on Coleridge and the English critics. Meanwhile Goethe was adapting _Romeo and Juliet_ for the Weimar theater (1801) and Schiller was arranging _Macbeth_ for presentation at Stuttgart (1801). Goethe indeed was, throughout his life, an enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, and his works are full of discriminating criticism, of which perhaps the most famous pa.s.sage is the a.n.a.lysis of Hamlet in _Wilhelm Meister_. Since Lessing and Herder, German poetry and drama have felt Shakespeare"s influence, and in both textual and esthetic criticism, Germany has rivaled England and the United States. Delius and Schmidt, whose _Shakespeare-Lexicon_ (1874) is one of the great monuments of Shakespeare scholarship, are perhaps first among textual students; since 1865 the German Shakespeare Society has published yearly contributions of all kinds to Shakespeare criticism, and especially an excellent bibliography. On the stage Shakespeare has been constantly acted since the beginning of the century, and has engaged the services of some of the greatest actors, as Schroeder, the two Devrients, and Barnay. At present a large number of his plays are performed annually, in the smaller as well as the larger cities, and more frequently than in Britain or America. Twenty-six of the plays were acted in 1911, _Oth.e.l.lo_ leading with 158 performances. For the years 1909, 1910, 1911, _Hamlet_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _The Merchant of Venice_ have been the favorites, with _The Taming of the Shrew_ and _A Midsummer-Night"s Dream_ the most popular of the comedies. For over a century Shakespeare has profoundly influenced German life and letters.
Rarely, if ever, has a great people been so powerfully affected by a writer in a foreign tongue.
In France, during the eighteenth century, Shakespeare"s reputation was both aided and hindered by Voltaire. Though there are a few earlier notices of the English dramatist, Voltaire, after his visit to England, 1720-1729, was virtually the first to win attention for Shakespeare. He admired Shakespeare, acknowledged his influence, but deplored his deficiencies in taste and art, "le Corneille de Londres, grand fou d"ailleurs, mais il a des morceaux admirables." Voltaire"s criticism provoked replies in England and a defense from Diderot, who shared with Lessing the effort to emanc.i.p.ate the drama from some of its neo-cla.s.sical restriction. Translations of twelve plays by La Place (1745-1748) and all of the plays by Le Tourneur (1776-1782) gave an opportunity for greater acquaintance with his work. A version of _Hamlet_ by Ducis was acted at Paris in 1769. But even at the end of the century, French literary opinion, though partly won by Le Tourneur"s praise of Shakespeare, still sympathized with Voltaire, now engaged in an attack on Englishmen and their favorite. His last opinion (1778) declares, "Shakespeare est un sauvage avec des etincelles de genie qui brillent dans une nuit horrible."
[Page Heading: In France]
The nineteenth century saw a reaction from this criticism, indicated by the praise of Madame de Stael (_De la Litterature_, 1804), by Guizot"s essay accompanying a revision of Le Tourneur"s translation (1821), and later in the appreciation of Mezieres"s _Shakespeare ses uvres et ses Critiques_ (1860), in several translations, and in Victor Hugo"s eulogy (1869). The best of the translations is by the poet"s son, Francois Victor Hugo in prose (1859-1866). On the Paris stage, the leading English actors have appeared from time to time, and French versions of _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, and _Oth.e.l.lo_ have made a permanent place. M.
Jusserand is the chief authority for the history of Shakespeare in France and an amba.s.sador of peace between the conflicting literary tastes of the two nations.
In Italy, Holland, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, during the nineteenth century, many of the plays have been regularly acted, and from Italy have come great actors and actresses, as Ristori, Salvini, and Rossi.
Complete translations have been published in these countries and in Bohemian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and Spanish; and separate plays have been translated and acted in many other languages including those of India, j.a.pan, and China.
In music and painting Shakespeare"s influence has also been international. Books have been devoted to the history of Shakespeare"s music, and such surveys include nearly every English composer of note, and also Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Ambroise Thomas, Saint Saens, Rossini, and Verdi. In painting as well, the persons and scenes of the play have excited the efforts of English, German, and American artists.
In America, as has already been indicated, the interest in Shakespeare is hardly separable from that in Great Britain. Editors, critics, scholars, have been numerous and their contributions important, and the plays have been acted constantly and widely through the country.
Probably there is no part of the world to-day where the study of Shakespeare is so active and where the interest in his work is so widespread. In one respect, at least, the United States in recent years has carried this study and interest beyond England, in the fields of education. As the study of the mother tongue has become the basis of American education, so Shakespeare has come to play a more and more important part in the training of youth. The universities offer training in the various departments of Shakespearean scholarship, every college offers courses on his plays, a number of them are prescribed for reading and study in the high schools; a few of them are read and extracts memorized in the primary schools. The child begins his education with Ariel and the fairies, and until his schooling is completed is kept in almost daily intercourse with the poetry and persons of the dramas.
Homer was not better known in Athens. In a democracy still young and widely separated from older nations and cultures, Shakespeare has become one of the links that bind the American public not only to the common inheritances of the English-speaking races, but to the traditional culture of Europe.