SHAKSPERE'S CHOICE OF OLD STORIES FOR HIS PLOTS. 65 6 Plays of Shakwell-known spere founded on stories. former Plays. at the time. Most of his plots founded on fanciful subjects, whether derived from novels or other sources, can be shewn to have been previously familiar to the people. The story of 'Measure for Measure' had been previously told; that of 'As you Like It', he might have had from either of two popular collections of tales; the fable of 'Much Ado about Nothing' seems to have been widely spread, and those of 'All's Well that Ends Well', and 'The Winter's Tale'; 'Romeo and Juliet' appears in at least one collection of English novels, and in a poem which enjoyed much popularity. These are sufficient as examples; but a still more remarkable circumstance is this. In repeated instances, about twelve in all, Shakspeare has 12 on subjects of chosen subjects on which plays had been previously written; nay more, on the sub'jects which he has so re-written, he has produced ['page 67] some of his best dramas, and one his very masterpiece. 'Julius Cæsar' belongs to this list ; ' Lear' does so likewise; and 'HAMLET.' Is not that a singular fact? I can use it at present only as a most valuable proof that the view which I take is an accurate one. Shakspeare has also, oftener than once, applied to the chivalrous class of subjects, which was exclusively peculiar to the older school. Its tales indeed bore a strong likeness to his own most esteemed subjects of study; for, amidst all their extravagancies and inconsistencies, the Gothic romances and poems, the older of them at all events, professed in form to be chronicles of fact, and in principle to assume historical truth as their groundwork. 'Pericles' is founded on one of the most popular romances of the middle ages, which had been also versified by Gower, the second father of the English poetical school. The characters in The Midsummer Night's Dream' are classical, but the costume is strictly Gothic, and shews that it was through the medium of romance that he drew the knowledge of them; and the 'Troilus and Cressida' presents another classical and chivalrous subject, which Chaucer had handled at great length, also invested with the richness of the romantic garb and decoration. But Fletcher and Shakspeare being thus opposed to each other in their choice of subjects, what qualities are there in the Plot of The Two Noble Kinsmen, which may appropriate the choice of it to either? In the first place, it is a chivalrous subject,—a classical SPALDING. 5 3 on Classical subjects turnd into romances. Shakspere chose the story of the Two Noble Kinsmen. Fletcher would neither have chosen Chaucer's classical story for his plot, 66 FLETCHER DIDN'T CHOOSE THE SUBJECT OF THE TWO N. K. story which had already been told in the Gothic style. The nature of the story then could have been no recommendation of it to Fletcher. He has not a single other subject of the sort; he has even written one play in ridicule of chivalrous observances; and the sarcasm of that humorous piece1, both in the general design and the particular references, is aimed solely at the prose romances of knighterrantry, a diseased and posthumous off-shoot from the parent-root, whose legitimate and ancient offspring, the metrical chronicles and nor an old story, tales, he seems neither to have known nor cared for. Secondly, this story must have been unacceptable to Fletcher, because it was a familiar one in England. This fact is perhaps sufficiently proved by its being the subject of that animated and admirable poem of Chaucer, which Dryden has pronounced little inferior to the Iliad or Æneid; but it is still more distinctly shewn by a third fact, which completely clenches the argument against Fletcher's choice nor one on which of it as a subject. No fewer than two plays had been written on this story before the end of the sixteenth century; the earlier of the two, the Palamon and Arcite of Edwards, acted in 1566, and printed in 1585, and another play called by the same name, brought on the stage in 1594.3 (2 page 68] two 16th-century plays had been written. Fletcher didn't choose the subject of The Two Noble Kinsmen. Shakspere's study of chivalrous poetry. It is thus, I think, proved almost to demonstration, that the person who chose this subject was not Fletcher; and what has been already said, even without the specific evidence of individual passages, creates a strong probability that the choice was made by Shakspeare rather than by any other dramatic poet of his time. If the question be merely one between the two writers,—if, assuming it to be proved that Shakspeare wrote parts of the play, we have only to ask which of the two it was that chose the subject,—we can surely be at no loss to decide. But the presumption in Shakspeare's favour may be elevated almost into absolute certainty, while, at the same time, some important qualities of his will be illustrated,-if we inquire what was the real extent to which he attached himself to the study of the chivalrous poetry, from which this subject is taken, and 1 The Knight of the Burning Pestle. 3 Weber's Beaumont and Fletcher. Henslowe MSS. published by Malone : -Boswell's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 303. [See Appx. I. to my Harrison Forewords.] SHAKSPERE'S FIRST TEACHERS, OUR OLD NARRATIVE POETS. 67 the influence which that study was likely to have had, and did actually exercise on his writings. tain to have first studi'd, and been influenct by, our old nar rative poets, If, being told that a dramatic poet was born in England in the latter half of the sixteenth century, whose studies, for all effectual benefit which they could have afforded him, were limited to his own tongue, we were asked to say what course his acquisitions were likely to have taken, our reply would be ready and unhesitating. English literature was of narrow extent before the time in question, Shakspere cerand, according to the invariable progress of mental culture, had been evolved first in those finer branches which issue primarily from the ima1gination and affections, and appeal for their effect to the 'page 691 principles in which they have their source. Poetry had reached a vigorous youth, history was in its infancy, philosophy had not come into being. Had the field of study been wider, it was to poetry in an especial manner that a poet had to betake himself for an experience and skill in his art, and in the language which was to be its instrument. And it was almost solely to the narrative poets that Shakspeare had to appeal for aid and guidance; for preceding writers in the dramatic walk could teach him little. They could serve as beacons only, and not examples, and he had to search in other mines for the materials to rear his palace of thought. But the English poetical writers who preceded him are all more or less impressed with the seal of the Gothic school, and the most noted who were of the among them belong to it essentially. Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, to more than one of whom Shakspeare is materially indebted, were the heads of a sect whose subjects and form of composition were varied only as the various forms and subjects of the foreign romantic writers. The rhymed romance, the metrical vision, the sustained allegorical narrative or dialogue, were but differing results of the same principle, and forms too of its original development; for Britain was the mother and nurse of much of the finest chivalrous poetry, as well as the scene where some of its most fascinating tales are laid. It is true that English poetry before the time of Elizabeth presents but few distinguished names; but there is a world of unappropriated treasures of the chivalrous class of poetry, which are still the delight of those who possess the key to their secret cham Gothic school. Britain the mother of much fine chivalrous poetry. Spenser belongs to the Gothic school. Shakspere too. ['page 70] [N.B. The Gower choruses in Pericles are NOT Shakspere's.-F.] 68 SHAKSPERE BELONGS TO THE GOTHIC OR ROMANTIC SCHOOL. bers, and were the archetypes of the earlier poets of that prolific age. It is important to recollect, that among the poets who adorn. that epoch, the narrative preceded the dramatic. Spenser belongs, in every view, to the romantic or Gothic school; the heroic Mort d'Arthur was the rule of his poetical faith; and it was that school, headed by him, which Shakspeare, on commencing his course and choosing his path, found in possession of all the popularity of the day. Every thing proves that he allowed himself to be guided by the prevailing taste. His early poems belong in design to Spenser's school, and their style is 1often imitative of his. In his dramas he has many points of resemblance to the older chivalrous poets, besides his occasional adoption of their subjects. His respect for Gower is shewn by the repeated introduction of his shade as the speaker in his choruses; and particular allusions and images, borrowed from Gothic usages and chivalrous facts, occur at the first blush to the recollection of every one. But there is a more widely spread influence than all this. Many of his most faulty peculiarities are directly drawn from this source, and his innumerable misrepresentations or mistakes are not so truly the fruit of his own ignorance, as the necessary qualities of the class of poets to which he belonged, shared with him by some of the greatest poetical names which modern anomalies, those Europe can cite. In this situation are indeed almost all the irregularities and anomalies which have furnished the unbelievers in the divinity of his genius with objects of contemptuous abuse ;-his creation of geographies wholly fictitious,—his anachronisms in facts and customs, his misstatements of historical detail,—his dukes and kings in republics,-his harbours in the heart of continents, and his journies over land to remote islands,—his heathenism in Christian lands and times, and his bishops, and priests, and masses, in partibus infidelium. We may censure him for these irregularities if we will; but it is incumbent on us to recollect that Chaucer and Spenser must bear the same sentence: and if the faults are considered so weighty as to shut out from our notice the works in which they are found, the early literature, not of our own country only, but of the whole of continental Europe, must be thrown aside as one mass of unworthy fable. Shakspere's mistakes and of his Gothic school. Chaucer and Spenser had the like. THE QUALITIES OF EARLY POETRY. 69 In truth, Shakspeare, in throwing himself on a style of thought and a track of study which exposed him to such errors, did no more than retire towards those principles which not only were the sources of poetry in his own country, but are the fountains from which, in every nation, her first draughts of inspiration are drunk. Poetry in Poetry is first a falsifying of its earlier stages is universally neither more nor less than a falsifying History, of history. The decoration of the Real is an exertion of the fancy which marks an age elder than the creation of the purely Ideal; it Cathay is an older and fitter seat ance as her ally. (With Know ledge comes the retreat to In vention.) is an effort more successful than the 'attempt which follows it, and ['page 71] the wholly fictitious has always the appearance of being resorted to from necessity rather than choice. of romance than Utopia; and the historical paladins and soldans are characters more poetical than the creatures of pure imagination who displaced them. But this walk of poetry is one in which she never can permanently linger; her citadel indeed is real existence partially comprehended, but she is unable to defend the fortress after knowledge has begun to sap its outworks; she needs ignorance for and has Ignorher ally while she occupies the domain of history, and when that companion deserts her, she unwillingly retreats on the Possible and Invented, where she has no enemy to contest her possession of the ground. While however she does continue in her older haunt, she must sometimes wander out of her imperfectly defined path, and her errors will depend, both in kind and in amount, on the amount and kind of her knowledge. That the qualities of poetical literature, in every nation, are dependent on the number and species of those experiences from which in each particular case the art receives its materials, is indeed too evident to need illustration; but some curious inferences are deducible from an application of this truth to the contrast which is found between the poetical literature of modern Europe, and that older school which has been called the classical. The inherent excellencies of the ancient Greek poetry may yet remain to be accounted for from other causes; but this one principle was adequate to produce the most distinguishing qualities of the pagan literature, while it is distinctly the very same principle, acting in different circumstances, which has given birth to the opposite character of the modern school of invention. During the period Her errors depend on the kind of her small knowledge. And hence come distinctive qualities of the Greek and Modern School. |