William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . ics of the Englishrace; he so exalted liberty as represented by theEnglish temper and institutions that, more thanany statesman, he has made patriotism the deepestpassion in the hearts of Englishmen. No otherpoet has stood so close to the English people oraffected them so deeply; and from the days whenthe earliest popular applause welcomed HenryVI. on the stage of The Theatre, The Rose, andThe Globe, to these later times when IrvingsWolsey crowds the stalls of the Lyceum, Shake- 244 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE speare has been the foremost teacher of Engl
William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . ics of the Englishrace; he so exalted liberty as represented by theEnglish temper and institutions that, more thanany statesman, he has made patriotism the deepestpassion in the hearts of Englishmen. No otherpoet has stood so close to the English people oraffected them so deeply; and from the days whenthe earliest popular applause welcomed HenryVI. on the stage of The Theatre, The Rose, andThe Globe, to these later times when IrvingsWolsey crowds the stalls of the Lyceum, Shake- 244 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE speare has been the foremost teacher of Englishhistory. There are many who, if they wereas frank as Chatham, would confess that theylearned their history chiefly from him. In these plays,moreover, theyoung poet trainedhimself to be adramatist by deal-ing with men underhistorical condi-tions ; with men inaction. The es-sence of the dramaas distinguishedfrom other literaryforms is action, andin the historicalplays action isthrown into themost striking re-lief; sometimes atthe sacrifice of. SEAL OF THE ROYAL DRAMATIC COLLEGE. the complete devel-opment of the actors. Before taking up the pro-foundest problems of individual destiny or enteringinto the world of pure ideality, Shakespeare studiedwell the world of actuality. On a narrower stage,but in a higher light, he dealt with the relation ofthe individual to the political order, and showed THE HISTORICAL PLAYS 245 on a great scale the development of character inrelation to practical ends. The depths of hisspiritual insight and the heights of his art are tobe found in the Tragedies; but the breadth, com-prehensiveness, and full human sympathy of hisgenius are to be found in the historical plays; andin these plays, at the very beginning of his career,appeared that marvellous sanity which kept himpoised in essential harmony between the divergentactivities and aspects of life, gave him clearness ofvision and steadiness of will, and made him themaster of the secrets of character
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectshakesp, bookyear1901
