shake spare

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INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in Stratford- upon-Avon, England. From roughly 1594 onward he was an important member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of theatrical players. Written records give little indication of the way in which Shakespeare’s professional life molded his artistry. All that can be deduced is that over the course of 20 years, Shakespeare wrote plays that capture the complete range of human emotion and conflict. Known throughout the world, the works of William Shakespeare have been performed in countless hamlets, villages, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery. There are two primary sources that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. One source is his work—the plays, poems and sonnets— and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these only provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the person who experienced those events. Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed

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Page 1: Shake Spare

INTRODUCTION

William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. From

roughly 1594 onward he was an important member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of

theatrical players. Written records give little indication of the way in which Shakespeare’s

professional life molded his artistry. All that can be deduced is that over the course of 20 years,

Shakespeare wrote plays that capture the complete range of human emotion and conflict.

Known throughout the world, the works of William Shakespeare have been performed in

countless hamlets, villages, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years. And yet, the

personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery. There are two primary sources

that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. One source is his work—the plays, poems

and sonnets—and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However,

these only provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the person

who experienced those events.

Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized

at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he

was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William

Shakespeare's birthday.

Located 103 miles west of London, during Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a

market town bisected with a country road and the River Avon. William was the third child of

John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. William had two

older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before

William's birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman

and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's fortunes declined

sometime in the late 1570s.

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Scant records exist of William's childhood, and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars

have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught

reading, writing and the classics. Being a public official's child, William would have

undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some

to raise questions about the authorship of his work and even about whether or not William

Shakespeare ever existed.

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in

Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford.

William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their first child, a daughter they

named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet

and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

After the birth of the twins, there are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no records

exist. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was

doing during this period. One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game

from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been

working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. It is generally believed he arrived in London

in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's

finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights

in Hollywood and Broadway.

By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in

London and possibly had several plays produced. The September 20, 1592 edition of

the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert

Greene that takes a few jabs at William Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified

with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well

able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is

in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

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Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of

saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated

playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord

Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London. After the crowning of King James I, in 1603,

the company changed its name to the King's Men. From all accounts, the King's Men company

was very popular, and records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular

literature. The theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high

rank. However, many of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the

actors. Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley,

the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first- and second-published poems: "Venus

and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, 15 of the 37 plays written by William Shakespeare were published. Civil records show

that at this time he purchased the second largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his

family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it is believed that

Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year

during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south

bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases

of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a

year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments

gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with

elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot

or characters. However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his

own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of variation,

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Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic

pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the

plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

With the exception of Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories

written in the early 1590s. Richard II, Henry VI (parts 1, 2 and 3) and Henry V dramatize the

destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers, and have been interpreted by drama historians as

Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the witty romance A

Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado

About Nothing, the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Other plays, possibly written

before 1600, include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, King

Lear, Othello and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of

human temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays

is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures

often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these

are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies,

they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and

forgiveness.

Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his birthday, April 23, 1616, though many

scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April

5, 1616.

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In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to

a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his

"second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple

was not close. However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other

scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's

master and mistres—the marital bed—and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.

Controversy and Literary Legacy

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of William Shakespeare's

plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de

Vere and Francis Bacon—men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration

—as the true authors of the plays. Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of

Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the

Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a William

Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual

perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries,

several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for

Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding

William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who

married young and became successful in real estate. Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society

(founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of

Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare." The Oxfordians

cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural

similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They

contend that William Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such

eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

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However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that William Shakespeare wrote

all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and

came from modest backgrounds. They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum

of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters

of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean

his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published

poems and plays. Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging William

Shakespeare as author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of

Errors and King John. Royal records from 1601 show that William Shakespeare was recognized

as a member of the King's Men theater company (formally known as the Chamberlain's Men)

and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven

of Shakespeare's plays. There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by

contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who

wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a

dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century. Beginning with the Romantic period of

the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for William

Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship

and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances

with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are

that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their

origins in Elizabethan England.

Shakespeare's playsSir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of Shakespeare, containing scenes and characters

from several of William Shakespeare's plays.

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William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English

language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the 37 plays are divided into the genres

of tragedy, history, comedy and tragic comedy; they have been translated into every

major living language, in addition to being continually performed all around the world.

Many of his plays appeared in print as a series of quartos, but approximately half of them

remained unpublished until 1623, when the posthumous First Folio was published. The

traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies and histories follows the categories used

in the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labeled some of these plays "problem plays"

that elude easy categorization, or perhaps purposely break generic conventions, and has

introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies.

When Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s, dramatists writing for

London's new commercial playhouses (such as The Curtain) were combining two different

strands of dramatic tradition into a new and distinctively Elizabethan synthesis. Previously, the

most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays,

celebrating piety generally, use personified moral attributes to urge or instruct the protagonist to

choose the virtuous life over Evil. The characters and plot situations are largely symbolic rather

than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have seen this type of play (along with,

perhaps, mystery plays and miracle plays).

The other strand of dramatic tradition was classical aesthetic theory. This theory was derived

ultimately from Aristotle; in Renaissance England, however, the theory was better known

through its Roman interpreters and practitioners. At the universities, plays were staged in a more

academic form as Roman closet dramas. These plays, usually performed in Latin, adhered to

classical ideas of unity and decorum, but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches

over physical action. Shakespeare would have learned this theory at grammar school,

where Plautus and especially Terence were key parts of the curriculum and were taught in

editions with lengthy theoretical introductions.

Theatre and stage setup

Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the Globe in the late twentieth

century showed that all London English Renaissance theatres were built around similar general

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plans. Despite individual differences, the public theatres were three stories high, and built around

an open space at the centre. Usually polygonal in plan to give an overall rounded effect, three

levels of inward-facing galleries overlooked the open centre into which jutted the stage

essentially a platform surrounded on three sides by the audience, only the rear being restricted

for the entrances and exits of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind the

stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo, or as a position for a character to harangue a

crowd, as in Julius Caesar.

Usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were

vulnerable to fire, and gradually were replaced (when necessary) with stronger structures. When

the Globe burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a tile roof.

A different model was developed with the Black friars Theatre, which came into regular use on a

long term basis in 1599. The Black friar was small in comparison to the earlier theatres and

roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors

did not.

Elizabethan Shakespeare

For Shakespeare as he began to write, both traditions were alive; they were, moreover, filtered

through the recent success of the University Wits on the London stage. By the late 16th century,

the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as the English Renaissance took hold, and

playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe revolutionized theatre. Their plays

blended the old morality drama with classical theory to produce a new secular form. The new

drama combined the rhetorical complexity of the academic play with the bawdy energy of the

moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned

with simple allegory. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare continued these artistic

strategies, creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also

explored and debated the basic elements of what it means to be human. What Marlowe and Kyd

did for tragedy, John Lyly and George Peele, among others, did for comedy: they offered models

of witty dialogue, romantic action, and exotic, often pastoral location that formed the basis of

Shakespeare's comedic mode throughout his career.

Shakespeare's Elizabethan tragedies (including the history plays with tragic designs, such

as Richard II) demonstrate his relative independence from classical models. He takes from

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Aristotle and Horace the notion of decorum; with few exceptions, he focuses on high-born

characters and national affairs as the subject of tragedy. In most other respects, though, the early

tragedies are far closer to the spirit and style of moralities. They are episodic, packed with

character and incident; they are loosely unified by a theme or character. In this respect, they

reflect clearly the influence of Marlowe, particularly of Tamburlaine. Even in his early work,

however, Shakespeare generally shows more restraint than Marlowe; he resorts to grandiloquent

rhetoric less frequently, and his attitude towards his heroes is more nuanced, and sometimes

more skeptical, than Marlowe's. By the turn of the century, the bombast of Titus Andronicus had

vanished, replaced by the subtlety of Hamlet.

In comedy, Shakespeare strayed even further from classical models. The Comedy of Errors, an

adaptation of Menaechmi, follows the model of new comedy closely. Shakespeare's other

Elizabethan comedies are more romantic. Like Lyly, he often makes romantic intrigue (a

secondary feature in Latin new comedy) the main plot element even this romantic plot is

sometimes given less attention than witty dialogue, deceit, and jests. The "reform of manners,"

which Horace considered the main function of comedy, survives in such episodes as the gulling

of Malvolio.

Jacobean Shakespeare

Shakespeare reached maturity as a dramatist at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and in the first years

of the reign of James. In these years, he responded to a deep shift in popular tastes, both in

subject matter and approach. At the turn of the decade, he responded to the vogue for dramatic

satire initiated by the boy players at Black friars and St. Paul's. At the end of the decade, he

seems to have attempted to capitalize on the new fashion for tragicomedy, even collaborating

with John Fletcher, the writer who had popularized the genre in England.

The influence of younger dramatists such as John Marston and Ben Jonson is seen not only in the

problem plays, which dramatis intractable human problems of greed and lust, but also in the

darker tone of the Jacobean tragedies. The Monrovian, heroic mode of the Elizabethan tragedies

is gone, replaced by a darker vision of heroic natures caught in environments of pervasive

corruption. As a share in both the Globe and in the King's Men, Shakespeare never wrote for the

boys' companies; however, his early Jacobean work is markedly influenced by the techniques of

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the new, satiric dramatists. One play, Troilus and Cressida, may even have been inspired by

the War of the Theatres.

Shakespeare's final plays hearken back to his Elizabethan comedies in their use of romantic

situation and incident. In these plays, however, the somber elements that are largely glossed over

in the earlier plays are brought to the fore and often rendered dramatically vivid. This change is

related to the success of tragicomedies such as Phil aster, although the uncertainty of dates makes

the nature and direction of the influence unclear. From the evidence of the title-page to The Two

Noble Kinsmen and from analysis it is believed by some editors that Shakespeare ended his

career in collaboration with Fletcher, who succeeded him as house playwright for the King's

Men. These last plays resemble Fletcher's tragicomedies in their attempt to find a comedic mode

capable of dramatizing more serious events than had his earlier comedies.

STYLE

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "drama became the ideal means to capture and convey the

diverse interests of the time." Stories of various genres were enacted for audiences consisting of

both the wealthy and educated and the poor and illiterate. Shakespeare served his dramatic

apprenticeship at the height of the Elizabethan period, in the years following the defeat of

the Spanish Armada; he retired at the height of the Jacobean period, not long before the start of

the Thirty Years' War. His verse style, his choice of subjects, and his stagecraft all bear the

marks of both periods. His style changed not only in accordance with his own tastes and

developing mastery, but also in accord with the tastes of the audiences for whom he wrote.

While many passages in Shakespeare's plays are written in prose, he almost always wrote a large

proportion of his plays and poems in iambic pentameter. In some of his early works (like Romeo

and Juliet), he even added punctuation at the end of these iambic pentameter lines to make the

rhythm even stronger. He and many dramatists of this period used the form of blank

verse extensively in character dialogue, thus heightening poetic effects.

To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet to give a sense of conclusion, or

completion. A typical example is provided in Macbeth: as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder

Duncan (to the sound of a chiming clock), he says,

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Shakespeare's writing (especially his plays) also feature extensive wordplay in which double

entendres and clever rhetorical flourishes are repeatedly used. Humor is a key element in all of

Shakespeare's plays. Although a large amount of his comical talent is evident in his comedies,

some of the most entertaining scenes and characters are found in tragedies such as Hamlet and

histories such as Henry IV, Part 1. Shakespeare's humor was largely influenced by Plautus.

SOLILOQUIES IN PLAYS

Shakespeare's plays are also notable for their use of soliloquies, in which a character makes a

speech to him- or herself so the audience can understand the character's inner motivations and

conflict.

In his book Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies, James Hirsh defines the convention of a

Shakespearean soliloquy in early modern drama. He argues that when a person on the stage

speaks to himself or herself, they are characters in a fiction speaking in character; this is an

occasion of self-address. Furthermore, Hirsh points out that Shakespearian soliloquies and

"asides" are audible in the fiction of the play, bound to be overheard by any other character in the

scene unless certain elements confirm that the speech is protected. Therefore, a Renaissance

playgoer who was familiar with this dramatic convention would have been alert to Hamlet's

expectation that his soliloquy be overheard by the other characters in the scene. Moreover, Hirsh

asserts that in soliloquies in other Shakespearian plays, the speaker is entirely in character within

the play's fiction. Saying that addressing the audience was outmoded by the time Shakespeare

was alive, he acknowledges few occasions when a Shakespearean speech might involve the

audience in recognizing the simultaneous reality of the stage and the world the stage is

representing. Other than 29 speeches delivered by choruses or characters who revert to that

condition as epilogues "Hirsh recognizes only three instances of audience address in

Shakespeare's plays, 'all in very early comedies, in which audience address is introduced

specifically to ridicule the practice as antiquated and amateurish.

SOURCE MATERIAL OF THE PLAYS

As was common in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other

playwrights and recycled older stories and historical material. His dependence on earlier sources

was a natural consequence of the speed at which playwrights of his era wrote; in addition, plays

based on already popular stories appear to have been seen as more likely to draw large crowds.

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There were also aesthetic reasons: Renaissance aesthetic theory took seriously the dictum that

tragic plots should be grounded in history. This stricture did not apply to comedy, and those of

Shakespeare's plays for which no clear source has been established, such as Love's Labors’

lost and The Tempest, are comedies. Even these plays, however, rely heavily on generic

commonplaces. For example, Hamlet (c.1601) may be a reworking of an older, lost play (the so-

called Ur-Hamlet), and King Lear is likely an adaptation of an older play, King Leir. For plays

on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and

Greek plays are based on Plutarch Parallel Lives (from the 1579 English translation by Sir

Thomas North, and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed's

1587Chronicles.

While there is much dispute about the exact Chronology of Shakespeare plays, as well as

the Shakespeare Authorship Question, the plays tend to fall into three main stylistic groupings.

The first major grouping of his plays begins with his histories and comedies of the 1590s.

Shakespeare's earliest plays tended to be adaptations of other playwright's works and employed

blank verse and little variation in rhythm. However, after the plague forced Shakespeare and his

company of actors to leave London for periods between 1592 and 1594, Shakespeare began to

use rhymed couplets in his plays, along with more dramatic dialogue. These elements showed up

in The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Almost all of the plays written

after the plague hit London are comedies, perhaps reflecting the public's desire at the time for

light-hearted fare. Other comedies from Shakespeare during this period include Much Ado about

Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like It.

The middle grouping of Shakespeare's plays begins in 1599 with Julius Caesar. For the next few

years, Shakespeare would produce his most famous dramas,

including Macbeth,Hamlet, and King Lear. The plays during this period are in many ways the

darkest of Shakespeare's career and address issues such as betrayal, murder, lust, power and

egoism.

The final grouping of plays, called Shakespeare's late romances, include Pericles, Prince of

Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. The romances are so called because they

bear similarities to medieval romance literature. Among the features of these plays are a

redemptive plotline with a happy ending, and magic and other fantastic elements.

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Canonical plays

Except where noted, the plays below are listed, for the thirty-six plays included in the First

Folio of 1623, according to the order in which they appear there, with the two plays which were

not included (Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The Two Noble Kinsmen) being added at the end of

the list of comedies.

SUPERNATURAL IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

In the time of William Shakespeare there was a strong belief in the existence of the supernatural.

Thus, the supernatural is a recurring aspect in many of Mr. Shakespeare plays. In two such plays,

Hamlet and Macbeth, the supernatural is an integral part of the structure of the plot. It provides a

catalyst for action, an insight into character, and augments the impact of many key scenes. The

supernatural appears to the audience in many varied forms. In Hamlet there appears perhaps the

most notable of the supernatural forms, the ghost. However, in Macbeth, not only does a ghost

appear but a floating dagger, witches, and prophetic apparitions make appearances. The role of

the supernatural is very important in Hamlet and Macbeth. A ghost, appearing in the form of

Hamlets father, makes several appearances in the play. It first appears to the watchmen,

Marcellus and Bernardo, along with Horatio near the guardsmen’s post. The ghost says nothing

to them and is perceived with fear and apprehension; it harrows me with fear and wonder. It is

not until the appearance of Hamlet that the ghost speaks, and only then after Horatio has

expressed his fears about Hamlet following it, What if it tempts you toward the flood, my lord, or

to the dreadful summit of the cliff. The conversation between the ghost and Hamlet serves as a

catalyst for Hamlets later actions and provides insight into Hamlets character. The information

the ghost reveals incites Hamlet into action against a situation he was already uncomfortable

with, and now even more so. Hamlet is not quick to believe the ghost, the spirit that I have seen

may be a devil... and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy. Abuses me to damn me,

and thus an aspect of Hamlets character is revealed. Hamlet, having no suspicion of the ghost

after the production by the players, encounters the ghost next in his mother’s room. In this scene

the ghost makes an appearance to whet Hamlets almost blunted purpose. Hamlet is now

convinced of the ghost and he no longer harbors any suspicion. He now listens to it, Speak to

her, Hamlet. In Hamlet, the supernatural is the guiding force behind Hamlet. The ghosts ask

Hamlet to seek revenge for the Kings death and Hamlet is thus propelled to set into action a

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series of events that ends in Hamlets death. The supernatural occurs four times during the course

of Macbeth. It occurs in all the appearances of the witches, in the appearance of Banquos ghost,

in the apparitions with their prophesies, and in the air-drawn dagger that guides Macbeth towards

his victim. Of the supernatural phenomenon evident in Macbeth the witches are perhaps the most

important. The witches represent Macbeths evil ambitions. They are the catalyst which unleash

Macbeths evil aspirations. Macbeth believes the witches and wishes to know more about the

future so after the banquet he seeks them out at their cave. He wants to know the answers to his

questions regardless of whether the consequence be violent and destructive to nature. The

witches promise to answer and at Macbeths choice they add further unnatural ingredients to the

cauldron and call up their masters. This is where the prophetic apparitions appear. The first

apparition is Macbeths own head (later to be cut off by Macduff) confirming his fears of

Macduff. The second apparition tells Macbeth that he cannot be harmed by anyone born of

woman. This knowledge gives Macbeth a false sense of security because he believes that he

cannot be harmed, yet Macduff was not of woman born, his mother was dead and a corpse when

Macduff was born. This leads to Macbeth¹s downfall. A child with a crown on his head, the third

apparition, represents Malcolm, Duncans son. This apparition also gives Macbeth a false sense of

security because of the Birnam Wood prophesies. The appearance of Banquos ghost provides

insight into Macbeths character. It shows the level that Macbeths mind has recessed to. When he

sees the ghost he reacts with horror and upsets the guests. Macbeth wonders why murder had

taken place many times in the past before it was prevented by law -statute purged the gentle

weal- and yet the dead are coming back. The final form of the supernatural is the air-drawn

dagger which leads Macbeth to his victim. When the dagger appears to him, Macbeth finally

becomes victim to the delusions of his fevered brain. The dagger points to Duncans room and

appears to be covered in blood. The dagger buttresses the impact of this key scene in which

Macbeth slays King Duncan. The supernatural is a recurring aspect in many of the plays by

William Shakespeare. In Hamlet and Macbeth the supernatural is an integral part of the structure

of the plot. In these plays the supernatural provides a catalyst for action by the characters. It

supplies insight into the major players and it augments the impact of many key scenes. The

supernatural appeals to the audience’s curiosity of the mysterious and thus strengthens their

interest.

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"Supernatural Soliciting" in Shakespeare

There are two methods of using the supernatural in literature. It may be used to work out results

impossible to natural agencies, or it may be employed simply as a human belief, becoming a

motive power and leading to results reached by purely natural means. The first may be fitly

called the poetical method and examples of its use may be found in most of the great poets,

conspicuously in Tasso, Milton, and Spenser. The second may be justly called the dramatic

method. In this Shakespeare stands alone and it is thus used by him only in the two great dramas

Of "Hamlet" and "Macbeth." 

A fair illustration of the poetic method is found in Goethe's "Faust," his great dramatic poem,

where Mephistopheles, by supernatural power, turns back the tide of life, makes young again the

aging Faust, and fills the new-made man with all the fire and quick-speeding wine of a new life.  

If a spirits medium should tell one that a certain very stable stock would suddenly and greatly

fluctuate, and he should act upon that statement, moved neither by knowledge of the market, nor

by his own judgment, but solely by superstitious confidence in the spiritistic power and

knowledge of the medium, it would afford a fair example of what I have called the dramatic

method of using the supernatural. While Shakespeare has also made use of the supernatural as a

subtitle and mysterious poetical atmosphere, cast like a spell-working autumn haze about his two

greatest dramas, yet, viewing it from the purely dramatic standpoint, as a motive force to human

action, he has used it precisely and only as in the example just given. 

In dealing with this element after the first method, creative genius is chiefly employed in

construction of the supernatural machinery. That once wrought, the master may work out what

results he will. Having once transcended the bounds of natural life and means, he is limited only

by his own taste and judgment. In the use of the second method, the creator works within the

realm of the human soul, dealing with desires, thought, will, motive, beliefs and their

consequences, working out into action. In the first case, the poet brings the forces of another

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world to bear upon this world; in the second, he deals strictly with the forces of this world,

including man's beliefs respecting another world, without regard to whether such beliefs are true

or false. 

Shakespeare, in two groups of two plays each, has exhibited marvelous skill in the use of both

methods. This is so apparent that one is almost tempted to believe that the dramatist intended a

contrast which is so patent. [

In "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," while seeming to tread upon the very boundaries of an unknown

and unfathomable world, he has really confined himself rigidly to the phenomena of superstitious

beliefs working out to solution purely moral and psychological problems. Discounting poetical

illusions and waving aside the delicious spell of mystery, there is nothing left in "Hamlet" and

"Macbeth" but human beliefs translated into human action. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream,"

and in "The Tempest," where he ascends to the heights of almost pure poetry, he gives the

imagination full scope in the creation of supernatural agencies and a free, but firm-held rein in

driving on to grotesque results impossible to natural agencies. 

In "Macbeth" the witches hail the returning warrior as Glam is and the thane of Cawdor and king

that shall be. Banquet they hail as father to a line of kings. Of the "two truths" told as "prologue

to the swelling act of the imperial theme," Macbeth knows that he is thane of Glam is and the

spectator knows, although Macbeth does not, that he is thane of Cawdor. Banquet’s wholesome

soul, believing with mind as superstitious and ear as credulous as Macbeth's, hears and heeds not.

The darkly brooding soul of Macbeth hears, heeds and acts. Through a complicated train of

causation, moral, psychological and external, first, his own black desires and dream of murder,

and afterward the witch suggestion and the powerful aid of his wife, acting upon a weak nature,

culminating in assassination — Macbeth becomes king. Again, the witches tell him that he need

not fear till Barman wood shall come to Dunsinane, nor then until he shall be assailed by one not

of woman born. Barman wood never does come to Dunsinane and he is never assailed by one not

of woman born, and yet he perishes miserably. This, briefly and meagerly told, is the sole part of

the apparent supernatural in "Macbeth." It plays a far other and more important part as a poetical

agency and it serves to suggest the profoundest problems that have ever vexed human

philosophy, including the great problem of free-will and fixed fate — two worlds "twixt which

life hovers like a star." Considered from a purely dramatic standpoint, it is merely superstitious

belief acting upon a weak, wicked and waling soul, moving to results. Considered from the

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poetic standpoint, it enchains, charms and appals the spectator. 

It is true that there is a further prophecy by the witches which deserves consideration. They hail

Banquet father to a line of kings and actually show that royal line to the anxious Macbeth. If this

be taken for actual prophecy, it much be remembered that its part in the drama is still solely the

effect it has upon the mind of Macbeth, driving him to seek safety in further wrong-doing, and

thus impelling him more swiftly and more surely to ruin. Within the bounds, however, of that

little world for which it exists, the drama itself, it is not prophecy, for it is not fulfilled within the

limits of the action. 

The temptation of Macbeth by the weird sisters is very like the temptation of Eve by the serpent,

in Genesis. It is merely suggested to our first parents that they make the delights of the Garden of

Eden complete by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The witches only

suggest to the soldier, flushed with victory and hurrying home in the hey-day of success, a

glittering prize, fitted to round off and complete his glory and power. It is merely, in both cases,

shining bait cast out to free moral agents. There is no supernatural power or constraint in either

case. 

Two classical instances are identical with the use of this element in "Macbeth." When the people

of Eira consulted the oracle as to their fate, they were told that their city would fall when a he-

goat drank of the waters of the Neda. In the Messenian dialect the same word means a he-goat

and a wild fig tree. When a wild fig tree, growing upon Neda's banks, had grown down until its

branches drank of the river's waters, a soothsayer announced the oracle fulfilled. The Spartans

attacked and the disheartened inhabitants fell easy prey, not because of any truth in the oracle,

but because of their own superstitious beliefs and fears. 

When the people of the Messenia town of It home appealed to the oracle, they were told that

whichever of the contending powers — Messenia or Sparta — should first lay before the shrine

of Jove in It home a hundred tripods, would be conqueror in the pending strife. For lack of

means, the means were hindered in preparing such tripods as they deemed a suitable offering.

The Spartans, being of a practical turn of mind, hastily prepared a hundred small tripods, stole

into it home by night, and laid them before Jove's altar. As soon as this was noised abroad in it

home, the Spartans assaulted and took the town. The means yielded to their own superstitious

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fears, scarcely resisting. 

In "Hamlet," the dramatist is at great pains to give his ghost thorough verification. It appears

thrice to three persons, and the third time also to Hamlet, to whom it makes ghostly impartment

of the manner of his father's death. Equal pains are taken to surround the ghost and its

appearance with all that is ordinarily circumstantial to superstitious beliefs and ghostly

appearances in popular legend. The ghost walks at midnight, and starts like a guilty thing at

cock-crow. The talk of the guard is of old-time ghostly visitations, when the "sheeted dead did

squeak and gibber in the Roman streets," and of the superstitions concerning the crowing of

cocks all night long near the time of our Savior’s birth. When it appears to the guard upon the

post of martial watch, the ghost is fitly clad in soldier's garb. When it appears to Hamlet, and to

him alone, in his mother's chamber, it is becomingly clad in night robes — "My father in his

habit as he lived !" The stage direction in the quarto is, "Enter ghost in his night-gown."  

This thorough verification was meant to enthrall the spectator with ghostly environment; but

enough of the usual concomitants of superstitious appearances are suggested to preserve it from

suspicion of actual supernatural power or knowledge. As in "Macbeth," it was intended that the

drama should run its course under a subtitle canopy of the weird and mysterious. Thus each is

made, not only a rigidly practical drama of human life, motive and action, strictly governed by

natural laws of daily force and operation, but each is also invested with a rare poetic charm such

as no dramatist save Shakespeare has ever been able to cast about his work, with the single

exception of Goethe, in "Faust," in which, however, the purely poetic supernatural element is

employed. The poet's warrant for thus surrounding his two great dramas with a subtitle

atmosphere of the occult, the mysterious, the supernatural, is found in the fact that human life

itself is so invested. Man's life is lived out with the physical eye guiding his way through this

natural world, and with the mind's eye fixed upon and ever glancing fearfully at the thick-

crowding shadows of an unknown world around him. 

For all the witness that may testify to the appearance of the ghost, the suggestive point is that it is

of no importance to any but Hamlet. With the rest, merely some strange apparition, like many

strange appearances, accounted for or unaccountable, all thought of it would have faded utterly

within a brief time. To Hamlet, already brooding over his father's death, already more than

suspecting his uncle, it is revelation. To him it can speak. What is more, to him it can speak truly,

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because he needs no ghostly messenger to tell him how his father died. His exclamation, "Oh !

my prophetic soul, mine uncle !" is conclusive of his belief in murder. What would have been to

Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio the wonder of an hour, to Hamlet imparts the manner of his

father's death — nothing more. Wonderful as is the complete investment of the entire drama with

a very "Sleepy-Hollow" spell of enchantment, the ghost actually comes from the other world

merely to tell Hamlet, that, instead of having been stung by a serpent while sleeping in his

orchard, the king was slain by a subtile poison poured into his ear. Place, circumstances, and the

agent, Hamlet knew and suspected already. The ghostly disclosure is of the slightest. It is enough

for the dramatist's purpose, which was chiefly to invest the drama with a mysterious spell of

supernaturalism, also using the superstitious beliefs of Hamlet as dramatic forces creating human

action. 

Thence on the ghost works only through Hamlet's belief. Even that is not without some mingling

of doubt. Hamlet's mind, suspicious and darkly brooding, treading upon the border line between

sanity and madness, is not wholly given up to hallucinations. He doubts it may be a foul fiend he

has seen. The play within the play, framed and acted before the court, whether like the scene of

his father's death or not, is near enough to "catch the conscience of a king." "I'll take the ghost's

word for a thousand pound." From the end of the third act on to the end Hamlet is wholly

absorbed in the fact of murder and the duty of vengeance, and forgets the ghost entirely. 

The ghost appears twice to Hamlet and the second time to him alone. When he is wrought to

passion's highest tension in the terrific scene with the queen mother, it comes again for the sole

purpose of reminding him of his duty. His mother sees nothing although her attention is

especially called to it. It appears as it appeared in the first scene, as a ghost of the mind should

appear, clad fitly with time and place. The dramatist's purpose in the second introduction was for

its effect upon the spectator, to continue the spell of mystery, for it really plays no other part.  

The ghost is introduced, fulfills its part as a motive power conducive to action, and its far larger

and subtiler poetical part — comes again merely as a passing reminder to the spectator that it

was, and then fades out entirely and is seen no more, heard of no more. While it still

mysteriously affects the spectator to the very close of the drama, it has no other or further effect

upon Hamlet, or part in the play. Curiously, it is not even mentioned in the two concluding acts,

not when Hamlet is alone, when the over-wrought mind would have given out some note of it, if

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it were still remembered, not even in the friendly communing of Hamlet and Horatio, not even in

the suggestive graveyard scene. There is in "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" neither veritable ghost nor

witch, but only a semblance of these; there is a subtitle working out of results through human

belief in such agencies and in their presence and potency. 

In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and in "The Tempest," pitched far above the ordinary

dramatic plane, in the realm of almost pure poetry, Shakespeare draws nearer to the method of

the great poets, in their purely poetical works, at the same time keeping a carefully drawn

dramatic line between his supernatural forces and his unfolding dramatic facts. Where he might

have allowed the supernatural to run riot in results impossible to natural agencies, he yet

preserved temperance and a moderation which are remarkable, when we consider the character

of his creations and how a man of meaner mould might have been tempted to revel in

supernatural results. In "Jerusalem Delivered," in "Paradise Lost," and in the "Fairy Queen," we

are not shocked as the spectator of a drama would be — and the reader of a novel ought to be —

by monstrous creations producing monstrous results. In these two dramas, in which Shakespeare

has most wrought with supernatural agencies, he has been considerately careful about the manner

of their use. His supernatural agencies are so filmy and insubstantial, or so grotesque, that the

spectator almost feels that he has dozed, nodded and dreamed some light airy dream — when

Puck has flitted across the stage — when Caliban has crawled into the scene, during some

momentary nightmare — when the senses were benumbed by summer drowsiness, leaving the

eyes yet open and the brain still conscious. 

In "The Tempest" the dramatist weaves a delicious web of magic about a solid tissue of fact. The

play opens with a bit of practical navigation no expert can find flaw in. In the next scene

Prospero appears in wizard robes with magic wand. Thence on the drama runs its course under

the spell of a weird and pervasive charm that fills us with all the delights of dreamland. Prospero

raises and lays the storm, calls spirits from the vasty deep, sends his minions to plague Caliban,

to lead the shipwrecked mariners hither and thither about the enchanted isle, to bring prince and

maid together, to confound treason, to daze and mislead Caliban and his drunken companions, to

provide celestial music, serve celestial feasts, summon gods and goddesses, and to call nymphs

and naiads to featly dance upon the yellow sands of the shelving shore. Magical events upon a

magic island! All magic and mystery! And yet for all the sweet haze of an overhanging spirit of

incantation, investing the entire drama, through which we see every event distorted, at bottom

lies a firm, well-constructed substratum of dramatic fact, a practical chain of unfolding human

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life relations, about which all this magic is thinnest gossamer web of mere delightful frill and

fringe. 

In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," there is more of magic and less of dramatic fact; in "The

Tempest," there is more of dramatic fact and less of magical result. While events shape

themselves which Prospero assigns directly to his occult powers, yet there is no event of any

great dramatic importance that might not have fallen out in due course of nature. The usurpation

of Antonio, the banishment of Prospero and Miranda and their landing upon a desert island, the

hymeneal voyage of the king of Naples, the storm, the shipwreck, the escape, the dispersal upon

the island, the conspiracies of Antonio and Caliban, the sweet and natural courtship of Ferdinand

and Miranda, and the denouement, romantic in themselves, are but ordinary facts of life that

might well have run the same course without magical intervention. Although the events are in

themselves romantic, how dry and barren they would seem if now divested of all the exquisite

poetry of that magic ! Prospero invests the facts with a subtitle charm and then blows it away

with a breath at the end— into air, into thin air — leaving a solid basis of fact. It is like the

making of the ring in "The Ring and the Book:" 

The train of human motive, desires, purpose, and action has all the time worked itself out just as

these might have done in ordinary life. Except as a poetic investiture none of that wondrous

supernatural, with its weird creations, from the light, delicate Ariel down to the grotesque and

earthy Caliban, is absolutely necessary to the dramatic results sought of natural creations,

running from the pure and graceful Miranda down to the swinish Trinculo and Stephano. 

In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the dramatist revels in a wild, poetic debauch, a very

midsummer nightmare, beginning m the capital and ending in the capital, leading the bewildered

and enchanted spectator, meantime, through wild wood and tangled grove, by moonlit bank, into

fairy bower shadowed with lithe vine, rank weeds and lush grass, dewy and fragrant beneath the

starlight, to repose upon flowery meads, or in leafy forest, listening to the music of hound and

horn. An exuberance of magic about a thin dramatic thread ! From the time we leave the suburbs

of Athens with the lovers until we return to Athens with the merry royal hunting and bridal party,

we are in an enchanted land, where all is grotesque and distorted, wild and extravagant. Not

merely the atmosphere and setting is magical as in "The Tempest," all is spell, charm and

incantation. The most essential parts of the meagre plot are worked out by actual supernatural

means. When we awake upon the clear morrow of all this enchantment, we rub our eyes and look

about us to find it all vanished — Bottom merely an ass without the ass's head, the lovers, who

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left Athens all at cross purposes, now sweetly congenial and agreed, but no fairy king, queen, nor

court, nor sportive Puck anywhere. There is this difference, however, between "A Midsummer

Night's Dream " and "The Tempest." 

When Prospero had blown off the iridescent bubbles of his magic and drowned his wizard arts

with his book, magic robe and staff, the fact-fabric was left just like any ordinary fact-fabric of

this world of intermingling men and women. When the spectator wakes upon the morrow after a

midsummer night's dream in fairyland, with Oberon, Titania and sportive Puck, where men and

women wander exposed to strange metamorphoses, due to the kindly or jealous fancies of the

royal fairy, or to the malicious mirth of fun-loving Puck, all in a land of dewy, sweet-smelling

flower and shrub, one essential fact — the love of Demetrius and Helena — remains as an effect

due solely to supernatural power. In both plays there is an exuberance of fancy and imagination.

In both the dramatist leans strongly towards a highly poetical use of the supernatural. The

differences between them, with respect to this element, are chiefly differences of degree. 

In other plays Shakespeare makes minor use of the supernatural. In two cases the denouement is

made to depend upon the prophecy or vision and pregnant disclosures. Even in these the

supernatural plays but small part in the drama. Except in the four plays mentioned there is no

investing atmosphere of supernaturalism such as is actual in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and

"The Tempest," and only apparent in "Hamlet" and "Macbeth." 

I. In "A Winter's Tale," III, 2, an oracle tells what the spectator already knows, its chief part

being its effect upon the mind of Leones, furnishing also a reason for his sudden conversion after

the death of his son. 

II. In "Henry VI," Part I, V. 3, the English and the prevailing French view of the demoniac

character of Joan's power is indicated by fiends, which appear to her upon the field of battle.

Except to enfeeble her powers, they play no part. 

III. In "Henry VI," Part II, I, 4, Eleanor, of Gloster, consults witches and dabbles in magic. The

incident is brief and plays but little part. 

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IV. In "Richard III," V., 3, ghosts appear to both Richard and Richmond. In both cases the

supernaturalism is merely a convenient stage expedient for representing the dreams of good and

bad men upon the eve of battle. 

V. In "Henry VIII," IV, 3, Catherine's dream of peace is presented in the form of a vision. This is

a mere stage expedient. 

VI. In "Cymbeline," V, 4, a vision of gods and mortals appears to Posthumus, and a written

tablet is left, upon whose interpretation depends the denouement. While this is otherwise one of

the most delightful dramas the master has left us, both the vision and the interpretation are

unworthy the great dramatist, apparently a mere clumsy invention to get the play ended. It is pure

supernaturalism of the poetic kind. 

VII. In "Troilus and Cressida," Cassandra prophesies in II, 2, and in V, 3. 

VIII. In "Julius Caesar, IV, 3, the ghost of Caesar appears to Brutus. This is such stage expedient

as we have in "Richard III." It is mere personification of the inner thoughts and sentiments.  

IX. Diana appears to Pericles, V, 2, and gives him such directions as bring about the

denouement. 

X. The ghost of Banquet, "blood-bolstered," appears to Macbeth. This is mere personification,

for stage purposes, of the diseased fancies of Macbeth. It is presentable and is sometimes

presented, without the actual appearance, although not best presented so to any modern audience.

It differs in no essential way from the dagger soliloquy, which is giving, in words and actions,

the assassin's thoughts and feelings upon the threshold of murder. No man ever speaks as Hamlet

and Macbeth speak in their two great soliloquies; but the dramatist therein unfolds with fine art

their inmost selves.

I know of no other writer who has made such use of man's belief in the supernatural as

Shakespeare has done in "Macbeth" and "Hamlet." Bulwer has dealt in it suggestively and

effectively, but he was merely dealing with the spirits problems of the day, rather than using the

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supernatural for its artistic value after either the poetical or dramatic method; while Shakespeare,

strangely, as rigidly practical as he was profoundly poetical, was merely dealing with humanity

in another of the many phases he touched in such infinite and picturesque variety. Latter day

novels, and especially many of third, fourth and fifth rate — none of first rate — are full of

theosophy, spirits, mesmerism, and especially of hypnotism.