Complete Plays, The (73 page)

Theobald's edition was followed in 1744 by Thomes Hanmer's edition in six volumes. Hanmer was a country gentleman, but not much of a scholar.

Warburton's edition followed in 1747. In 1765 appeared  Samuel Johnson's long-delayed edition in eight volumes. Aside from a few common-sense explanations, the edition is not of much merit.

Tyrwhitt's edition in 1766 was followed by a reprint of twenty of the early quartos by George Steevens in the same year. Two years later came the edition of Edward Capell, the greatest scholarly work since Theobald's. In this edition was the first rigorous comparison between the readings of the folios and the quartos. His quartos, now in the British Museum, are of the greatest value to Shakespeare scholars. With his edition begins the tendency to get back to the earliest form of the text and not to try to improve Shakespeare to the ideal of what the editor thinks Shakespeare should have said.

In 1773 Johnson's edition was revised by Steevens, and
Pericles
was readmitted. This was a valuable but crotchety edition. In 1790 Edmund Malone published his famous edition in ten volumes. No Shakespearean scholar ranks higher than he in reputation. Numerous editions followed up to 1865, of which the most important is James Boswell's so-called Third
Variorum
in twenty-one volumes. In 1855-1861 was published J. O. Halliwell's edition in fifteen volumes, which contains enormous masses of antiquarian material.

In 1853 appeared the forgeries of J. P. Collier, to which reference is made elsewhere.

In 1854-1861 appeared the edition in Germany of N. Delius. The Leopold Shakespeare, 1876, used Delius's text.

In 1857-1865 appeared the first good American edition of R. G. White. It contained many original suggestions. Between 1863 and 1866 appeared the edition of Clark and Wright, known as the Cambridge edition. Mr. W. Aldis Wright, now the dean of living Shakespearean scholars, is chiefly responsible for this text. It was reprinted with a few changes into the Globe edition, and is still the chief popular text.

Prof. W. A. Neilson's single volume in the Cambridge series, 1906, is the latest scholarly edition in America. It follows in most cases the positions taken by Clark and Wright.

Within the last few years there has been an enormous  stimulus to Shakespeare study. The chief work of modern Shakespearean scholarship is the still incomplete
Variorum
edition of Dr. H. H. Furness and his son.

Other aids to study are reprints of the books used by Shakespeare, facsimile reprints of the original quartos of the plays, and, perhaps as useful as any one thing, the facsimile reproduction of the First Folio. The few perplexing problems that the scholar still finds in the text of Shakespeare will probably never be solved.

On the subject of this chapter, consult A. W. Pollard,
Shakespeare Folios and Quartos
, Methuen, London, 1910; Sidney Lee, Introduction to the facsimile reproduction of the First Folio by the Oxford University Press; T. R. Lounsbury,
The Text of Shakespeare
, New York, Scribners, 1906. For the remarks of critics and editors, the
Variorum
edition of Dr. H. H. Furness is invaluable.

[
1
] A quarto volume, or quarto, is a book which is the size of a fourth of a sheet of printing paper. The sheets are folded twice to make four leaves or eight pages, and the usual size is about 6x9 in. A folio is a volume of the size of a half sheet of printing paper. The paper is folded once and bound in the middle, the usual size being about 9 x 12 in. The divisions of the book made by thus folding sheets of paper are called quires, and may consist of four or eight leaves.

[
2
] This view of the Pavier-Jaggard collection is held by A. W. Pollard of the British Museum and W. W. Greg of Trinity College Library, Cambridge. The writers of this volume incline to accord it complete recognition.

[
3
] It was evidently designed to fit in between
Romeo and Juliet
and
Julius Caesar
; but the owner of the publishing rights holding out till that part of the book was ready, the editors "ran in"
Timon of Athens
to fill up. When
Troilus and Cressida
was finally arranged for, it had to be inserted between the Histories and Tragedies.

CHAPTER X

THE PLAYS OF THE FIRST PERIOD—IMITATION AND EXPERIMENT

1587 (?)-1594

The first period of Shakespeare's work carries him from the youthful efforts at dramatic construction to such mastery of dramatic technique and of original portrayal of life as raise him, when aided by his supreme poetic art, above all other living dramatists. It was chiefly a period in which the young poet, full of ambition, curious of his own talents, and eager for success, was feeling his way among the different types of drama which he saw reaching success on the London stage.

The longest period of experiment was in the writing of chronicle histories. The experience acquired in these six plays, all derived in some measure from earlier work by others, made Shakespeare a master of this type. Next in importance was comedy, chiefly romantic with four plays of widely different aim and merit. These two types are brought to the highest development in the dramatist's second period. Tragedy was to wait for a fuller and riper experience. What the complete earlier version of
Romeo and Juliet
was like, we have only a faint idea; it was obviously, while  intensely appealing, the work of a young and immature poet.
Titus Andronicus
led nowhere in development.

Christopher Marlowe remained Shakespeare's master in the drama throughout the chronicle plays of the period. John Lyly's court comedies contained most of the types of character which are to be found in
Love's Labour's Lost
. Throughout the period Shakespeare grows in mastery of plot and of his dramatic verse; but his chief growth is away from this imitation of others into his own creative portraiture of character. The growth from the bluff soldier, Talbot, in
Henry VI
to the weak but appealing Richard II is no less marked than is that from the fantastic Armado in
Love's Labour's Lost
to the unconsciously ridiculous Bottom.

Shakespeare's greatest achievements in this period, aside from
Romeo and Juliet
in the unknown first draft, are the characters of Richard II and Richard III, the former a portrait of vanity and vacillation mingled with more agreeable traits, lovable gentleness and traces at least of kingliness, the latter a Titanic figure possessed by an overmastering passion.

It is impossible to draw a satisfactory line of division between the experimental period of Shakespeare's work and the period of comedy which follows. Two plays,
A Midsummer Night's Dream
and
The Merchant of Venice
, lie really between the two. The chief arguments for an early grouping seem to be that the former is in some measure an artificial court comedy, and is full of riming speech and end-stopped lines; the latter derives some help from Marlowe's treatment of
The Jew of Malta
. But, on the other hand, the  mastery of original characterization in such groups as the delicate fairies of the
Dream
, or those who gather at the trial of
The Merchant
, might justify their position in the second period rather than in the first. On the whole, it is perhaps wisest to let metrical differences govern, and so to put
Midsummer Night's Dream
, at the end of Imitation and Experiment; while
The Merchant of Venice
may safely usher in the great period of comedy.

The three plays known as
The Three Parts of Henry VI
, together with
Richard the Third
, constitute the history of the Wars of the Roses, in which the House of York fought the House of Lancaster through the best part of the fifteenth century, and lost the fight and the English crown in 1485, a hundred years before Shakespeare came to London. Although these plays have but slight appeal to us as readers, they must have been highly popular among Elizabethan playgoers.

The First Part of Henry the Sixth
deals chiefly with the wars of England and France which center about the figures of Talbot, the English commander, and Joan of Arc, called Joan la Pucelle (the maiden). The former is a hero of battle, who dies fighting for England. The latter is painted according to the traditional English view, which lasted long after Shakespeare's time, as a wicked and impure woman, in league with devils, who fight for her against the righteous power of England. We are glad to think that while the Talbot scenes are probably Shakespeare's, the portrait of La Pucelle is not from his hand, as we shall see. The deaths of these protagonists prepares the way for the peace which Suffolk concludes, and the marriage  which he arranges between Margaret of Anjou and King Henry.

The Second Part of Henry the Sixth
concerns the outbreak of strife between York and Lancaster, but chiefly the overthrow of the uncle of the king, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, as Protector of the Realm, and the destruction of his opponent, the Duke of Suffolk, in his turn. The play ends with the first battle of St. Albans (1455), resulting in the complete triumph of Duke Richard of York, in open rebellion against King Henry.

The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
tells of the further wars of York and Lancaster, in the course of which Richard of York is murdered, and his sons, Edward and Richard, keep up the struggle, while Warwick, styled the "Kingmaker," transfers his power to Lancaster. In the end York is triumphant; and while Henry VI and his son are murdered, and Warwick slain in battle at Barnet, Edward is crowned as Edward IV, and Richard becomes the Duke of Gloucester.

Authorship
.—The Three Parts of
Henry the Sixth
were first printed in the First Folio, 1623. Two earlier plays,
The First Part of the Contention between the two Noble Houses of York and Lancaster
(sometimes called
1 Contention
), and
The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York... with the whole Contention between the two Houses of Lancaster and York
(2
Contention
), appeared in quarto in 1594 and 1595 respectively. These are to be regarded as earlier versions of
II
and
III Henry VI
.[
1
] For the
First Part of Henry VI
no dramatic source exists. The ultimate source is, of course, Holinshed's
Chronicles
.

The authorship of these plays is not ascribed to any dramatist, until 1623, although, as we have seen,[
2
] Robert Greene accuses  Shakespeare of authorship in a stolen play, by applying to him a line from
III Henry VI
which had appeared earlier in 2
Contention
. Internal study of the three plays, however, has reduced the problem to about this state:—

The First Part of Henry VI
is thought to have been written by Greene, with George Peele and Marlowe to help. To this Shakespeare was allowed to add a few scenes on a later revival of the play. Some critics give to him the Talbot scenes and the quarrel in the Temple; but Professor Neilson warns us that the grounds for this and other assignments of authorship in the play "are in the highest degree precarious."

The two
Contentions
are thought to have been chiefly the work of Marlowe, with Greene to help him. Others are suggested as assistants, such as Lodge, Peele, and Shakespeare. In the revival of the two
Contentions
, Shakespeare's work amounted to a close revision, though the older material remained in larger part, both in text and plot. In this revision, Marlowe is thought to have aided, and Greene's bitter attack on Shakespeare may have been caused by the fact that Shakespeare had so supplanted him as collaborator with Marlowe, then the greatest dramatist of England. It hardly seems likely that this attack would have been made if Shakespeare had had any share in the first versions,
The Contentions
.

Date
.—
The First Part of Henry VI
is thought to have been the play at the Rose Theatre on March 3, 1591-1692, by Lord Strange's company, since a reference by Nash about this time refers to Talbot as a stage figure. The
Second and Third Parts
have no evidence other than that of style, but are usually assigned to the period 1590-1592.

Richard the Third
is best treated at this point, although in the date of composition
King John
may intervene between it and
III Henry VI
. It is the tale of a tyrant, who, by murdering everybody who stands in his way, including his two nephews, his brother, and his friend, wins the crown of England, only to be swept by  irresistible popular wrath into ruin and death on Bosworth Field. This tyrant is scarcely human, but rather the impersonation of a great passion of ambition. In this respect, as well as in lack of humor, lack of development of character, and in other ways less easy to grasp, Shakespeare is here distinctly imitative of Marlowe's method in plays like
Tamburlaine
.

Date
.—
Richard the Third
was very popular among Elizabethans, for quartos appeared in 1597, 1598 (then first ascribed to Shakespeare), 1602, 1605, 1612, 1629, 1622, and 1634. The First Folio version is quite different in detail from the Quarto, and is thought to have been a good copy of an acting version. The date of writing can hardly be later than 1598.

Source
.—An anonymous play called
The True Tragedie of Richard III
had appeared before Shakespeare's; just when is uncertain. A still earlier play, a tragedy in Latin called
Richardus Tertius
, also told the story. Shakespeare's chief source was, however, Holinshed's
Chronicles
, which learned the tradition of Richard's wickedness from a life of that king written in Henry VII's time, and ascribed to Sir Thomas More. In the
Chronicles
was but a bare outline of the character which the dramatist so powerfully developed.