William Shakespeare

Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without notice. Obvious printer errors have been corrected, and are listed at the end.

For the chapter heading, "The Second Part of King Henry IV", the Table of Contents lists it as "King Henry IV, Part II"; this was not changed. In addition other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.

HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

LONDON

WILLIAMS & NORGATE

HENRY HOLT & Co., NEW YORK CANADA: WM. BRIGGS, TORONTO INDIA: R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD.

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

OF

MODERN KNOWLEDGE

Editors:

HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.

PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.LITT., LL.D., F.B.A.

PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.

PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A. (Columbia University, U.S.A.)

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

BY

JOHN MASEFIELD

AUTHOR OF "THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY THE GREAT," "MULTITUDE AND SOLITUDE," "LOST ENDEAVOUR," "CAPTAIN MARGARET," "THE TRAGEDY OF NAN," ETC.

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

LONDON

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I THE LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 9

II THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRES 18

III THE PLAYS 23

Love's Labour's Lost 24

The Two Gentlemen of Verona 34

The Comedy of Errors 43

Titus Andronicus 49

King Henry VI, Part I 51

" " " " II 54

" " " " III 60

A Midsummer Night's Dream 63

Romeo and Juliet 67

King John 75

King Richard II 86

King Richard III 93

The Merchant of Venice 102

The Taming of the Shrew 105

King Henry IV, Part I 109

" " " " II 114

King Henry V 120

The Merry Wives of Windsor 123

As You Like It 128

Much Ado About Nothing 133

Twelfth Night 138

All's Well that Ends Well 144

Julius Cæsar 149

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 157

Troilus and Cressida 168

Measure for Measure 174

Othello, the Moor of Venice 180

King Lear 186

Macbeth 195

Antony and Cleopatra 202

Coriolanus 208

Timon of Athens 214

Pericles, Prince of Tyre 218

Cymbeline 223

The Winter's Tale 226

The Tempest 231

King Henry VIII 235

WORK ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE 238

THE POEMS:

Venus and Adonis 241

The Rape of Lucrece 242

The Passionate Pilgrim 244

The Sonnets 244

The Phoenix and the Turtle 249

AUTHOR'S NOTE 250

INDEX 253

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CHAPTER I

THE LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

Stratford-on-Avon is cleaner, better paved, and perhaps more populous than it was in Shakespeare's time. Several streets of mean red-brick houses have been built during the last half century. Hotels, tea rooms, refreshment rooms, and the shops where the tripper may buy things to remind him that he has been where greatness lived, give the place an air at once prosperous and parasitic. The town contains a few comely old buildings. The Shakespeare house, a detached double dwelling, once the home of the poet's father, stands on the north side of Henley Street. A room on the first floor, at the western end, is shown to visitors as the room in which the poet was born. There is not the slightest evidence to show that he was born there. One scanty scrap of fact exists to suggest that he was born at the eastern end. The two dwellings have now been converted into one, which serves as a museum. New Place, the house where Shakespeare died, was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. For one museum the less let us be duly thankful.