William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . ory, King John serves as a prelude,with Richard H., the two parts of Henry IV., Henry V„, the three parts of Henry VI., andRichard III, as a chronicle play on a great THE HISTORICAL PLAYS 231 scale; while Henry VIII. may be taken as anepilogue. The plays were not, however, writtenin historical sequence, nor did Shakespeare haveany intention at the start of making a connectedtreatment of a stirring and dramatic period inEnglish his-tory. He foundthe old playsdealing withHenry to hishand, as hasbeen noted, andused them asmaterial, touch-in
William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . ory, King John serves as a prelude,with Richard H., the two parts of Henry IV., Henry V„, the three parts of Henry VI., andRichard III, as a chronicle play on a great THE HISTORICAL PLAYS 231 scale; while Henry VIII. may be taken as anepilogue. The plays were not, however, writtenin historical sequence, nor did Shakespeare haveany intention at the start of making a connectedtreatment of a stirring and dramatic period inEnglish his-tory. He foundthe old playsdealing withHenry to hishand, as hasbeen noted, andused them asmaterial, touch-ing HenryVI. very light-ly and probablyonly in the wayof adaptationand revision,and the inter-polation of afew characteristic scenes and passages. RichardIII. came a little later in time, and is so evidentlymodelled after Marlowe that its Shakespearian au-thorship has been questioned by very competentcritics. It is full of echoes and reminiscences ofMarlowes manner; it is tempestuous, turbulent,and violent; it is history dramatized rather than. JOHN a picture in the possession of the Earl of Clarendon. 232 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE a true historical drama; but the figure of Richard,which dominates the play and charges it with vital-it3% is as clearly realized and as superbly drawn asany character in the whole range of the plays. Thelack of artistic coherence in the play is due to theinharmonious elements in it — the attempt to com-bine the method of Marlowe and the spirit of Shake-speare. The framework of the play was conven-tional even in Shakespeares time; the manneris so lyrical that it is a tragic poem rather thana dramatic tragedy; nevertheless, Richard is drawnwith a hand so firm, a realism so modern, thata play of very inferior construction becomesimmensely effective for stage purposes, and hasbeen almost continuously popular from its firstrepresentation. Shakespeare followed Holinshedand Marlowe in writing Richard III.; but heput into the play that element of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectshakesp, bookyear1901
