NOTE. The publishers of the "Henry Irving Shakespeare" having decided to issue the General Introduction to that edition in a separate form, I have taken the opportunity to revise what was written, to add some paragraphs on the great tragedies, and to compile, from sources easily accessible, a brief notice of the interpretations of Shakespeare by great actors from Burbage to Macready. If, in this little volume, there be anything of useful guidance or suggestion, I desire to connect it with the memory of my wife. E. D. 1. Shakespeare's Life at Stratford and in London, I II. The Poetical Creations of his Intellect and III. The Pseudo-Shakespearian Plays, IV. Influence of Shakespeare's Works on the Portrait of Shakespeare, after Droeshout, 888 Sketch of the Interior of the Swan Theatre, by Johannes de Witt, 51 INTRODUCTION ΤΟ SHAKESPEARE. §1. THE life of Shakespeare has been threefold: first, the external life of good and evil fortune which he / lived as a youth in Stratford, as a player and play2 wright in London, and again as an honoured inhabi3, tant of his native town; secondly, the inner life of his spirit, the wide-orbing movement of his intellect and imagination of which we can read something in his marvellous series of poetical creations, and can conjecture more; and last, the life which he has lived during three hundred years in the history of the national mind of England, or rather we should say the mind of humanity, the life of posthumous influence which he has exercised, and exercises at the present day, on the generations of mankind. Of each of these it will be our endeavour to speak. I. §2. "All that is known with any degree of certainty concerning Shakespeare is that he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon-married and had children. there went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays-returned to Stratford, made his will, died and was buried." So wrote Steevens a century ago, and De Quincey at a much 2 |