The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story

Our long travail is almost at an end. We have watched Shakespeare painting himself at various periods of his life, and at full length in twenty dramas, as the gentle, sensuous p...

Shakespeare's life seems to fall sharply into two halves. Till he met Mistress Fitton, about 1597, he must have been happy and well content, I think, in spite of his deep underl...

The conclusions we have already reached, will be borne out and strengthened in unexpected ways by the study of Hotspur--Shakespeare's master picture of the man of action. The se...

In the preceding chapters I have considered those impersonations of Shakespeare which revealed most distinctly the salient features of his character. I now regard this part of m...

“Antony and Cleopatra” is an astonishing production not yet fairly appreciated even in England, and perhaps not likely to be appreciated anywhere at its full worth for many a ye...

It is time now, I think, to test my theory by considering the converse of it. In any case, the attempt to see the other side, is pretty sure to make for enlightenment, and may t...

The most interesting question in the sonnets, the question the vital importance of which dwarfs all others, has never yet been fairly tackled and decided. As soon as English cri...

It may be well to add here a couple of portraits of Shakespeare in later life in order to establish beyond question the chief features of his character. With this purpose in min...

There is perhaps no single drama which throws such light on Shakespeare and his method of work as “Othello”: it is a long conflict between the artist in him and the man, and, in...

Shakespeare's portraits of himself are not to be mistaken; the changes in him caused by age bring into clearer light the indestructible individuality, and no difference of circu...

There is a later drama of Shakespeare's, a drama which comes between “Othello” and “Lear,” and belongs, therefore, to the topmost height of the poet's achievement, whose princip...

Now that we have found the story of the sonnets repeated three times in the plays, it may be worth our while to see if we can discover in the plays anything that throws light up...

I think it hardly necessary to extend this review of Shakespeare's historical plays by subjecting the Three Parts of “King Henry VI.” and “Richard III.” to a detailed and minute...

The wheel has swung full circle: Timon is almost as weak as “Titus Andronicus”; the pen falls from the nerveless hand. Shakespeare wrote nothing for some time. Even the critics...

Ever since Wordsworth wrote that the sonnets were the key to Shakespeare's heart, it has been taken for granted (save by those who regard even the sonnets as mere poetical exerc...

“As I passed by ... I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” This work of Paul--the discovery a...

No one, so far as I know, has yet tried to identify Antonio, the Merchant of Venice, with Shakespeare, and yet Antonio is Shakespeare himself, and Shakespeare in what to us, chi...

I. Shakespeare's early attempts to portray himself and his wife: Biron, Adriana, Valentine II. Shakespeare as Antonio the Merchant III. Shakespeare's Love-story: the Sonnets: Pa...

Shakespeare began the work of life as a lyric poet. It was to be expected therefore that when he took up playwriting he would use the play from time to time as an opportunity fo...

The play of “Julius Caesar” was written about 1600 or 1601. As “Twelfth Night” was the last of the golden comedies, so “Julius Caesar” is the first of the great tragedies, and b...

“A beautiful, pure and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor throw off; every duty is holy...

With “Hamlet” and his dreams of an impossible revenge Shakespeare got rid of some of the perilous stuff which his friend's traitorism had bred in him. In “Othello” he gave death...

Ever since Lessing and Goethe it has been the fashion to praise Shakespeare as a demi-god; whatever he wrote is taken to be the rose of perfection. This senseless hero-worship,...

“Timon” marks the extremity of Shakespeare's suffering. It is not to be called a work of art, it is hardly even a tragedy; it is the causeless ruin of a soul, a ruin insufficien...

CHAPTER I. Hamlet: Romeo-Jaques II. Hamlet-Macbeth III. Duke Vincentio-Posthumus IV. Shakespeare's Men of Action: the Bastard, Arthur, and King Richard II V. Shakespeare's Men o...