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The Man Shakespeare

F >> Frank Harris >> The Man Shakespeare




It appears, too, from the Stratford records, and is therefore certain,
that as early as the year 1614 a preacher was entertained at New
Place--"Item, one quart of sack, and one quart of claret wine, given to
a preacher at the New Place, twenty pence." The Reverend John Ward, who
was vicar of Stratford, in a manuscript memorandum book written in the
year 1664, asserts that "Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Johnson had a
merie meeting, and itt seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a
feavour there contracted."

Shakespeare, as we have seen from "The Tempest," retired to
Stratford--"where every third thought shall be my grave"--in broken
health and in a mood of despairing penitence. I do not suppose the mood
lasted long; but the ill-health and persistent weakness explain to me as
nothing else could his retirement to Stratford. It is incredible to me
that Shakespeare should leave London at forty-seven or forty-eight years
of age, in good health, and retire to Stratford to live as a "prosperous
country gentleman"! What had Stratford to offer Shakespeare--village
Stratford with a midden in the chief street and the charms of the
village usurer's companionship tempered by the ministrations of a
wandering tub-thumper?

There is abundant evidence, even in "The Winter's Tale" and "Cymbeline,"
to prove that the storm which wrecked Shakespeare's life had not blown
itself out even when these last works were written in 1611-12; the
jealousy of Leontes is as wild and sensual as the jealousy of Othello;
the attitude of Posthumus towards women as bitter as anything to be
found in "Troilus and Cressida":

"Could I find out
The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man but I affirm
It is the woman's part: be it lying, note it,
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
Nice longing, slanders, mutability,
All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows,
Why, hers, in part or all, but rather all;
For even to vice
They are not constant, but are changing still
One vice, but of a minute old, for one
Not half so old as that."

The truth is, that the passions of lust and jealousy and rage had at
length worn out Shakespeare's strength, and after trying in vain to win
to serenity in "The Tempest," he crept home to Stratford to die.

In his native air, I imagine, his health gradually improved; but he was
never strong enough to venture back to residence in London. He probably
returned once or twice for a short visit, and during his absence his
pious daughter, Mrs. Hall, entertained the wandering preacher in New
Place.

As Shakespeare grew stronger he no doubt talked with Combe, the usurer,
for want of any one better.

It is probable, too, that on one of his visits to London he took up
Fletcher's "Henry VIII." and wrote in some scenes for him and touched up
others, or Fletcher may have visited him in Stratford and there have
begged his help.

His youngest daughter, Judith, was married early in 1616; it seems
probable to me that this was the occasion of the visit of Jonson and
Drayton to Stratford. No doubt Shakespeare was delighted to meet them,
talked as few men ever talked before or since, and probably drank too
much with those "poor unhappy brains for drinking" which his Cassius
deplored. Thus fanned, the weak flame of his life wasted quickly and
guttered out. It is all comprehensible enough, and more than likely,
that the greatest man in the world, after the boredom of solitary years
spent in Stratford, died through a merry meeting with his friends; in
his joy and excitement he drank a glass or so of wine, which brought on
a fever. It is all true, true to character, and pitiful beyond words.

Shakespeare to me is the perfect type of the artist, and the artist is
gradually coming to his proper place in the world's esteem. In the
introduction to one of his "Lives," Plutarch apologizes for writing
about a painter, a mere artist, instead of about some statesman or
general, who would be a worthy object of ambition for a well-born youth.
But since Plutarch's time our view of the relative merits of men has
changed and developed: to-day we put the artist higher even than the
saint. Indeed, it seems to us that the hero or statesman, or saint, only
ranks in proportion to the artist-faculty he may possess. The winning of
a battle is not enough to engage all our admiration; it must be won by
an artist. In every department of life this faculty is beginning to be
appreciated as the finest possession of humanity, and Shakespeare was an
almost perfect example of the self-conscious artist.

People talk as if his masterpieces were produced at haphazard or by
unconscious fruition; but masterpieces are not brought forth in this
happy-go-lucky fashion. They are of the sort that only come to
flower with perfect tendance. Even if we did not know that Shakespeare
corrected his finest verses again and again with critical care, we
should have to assume it. But we know that he spared no pains to better
his finer inspirations, and he has told us in a sonnet how anxiously he
thought about his art and the art of his rivals:

"Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope
With what I most enjoy contented least."

He has all the qualities and all the shortcomings of the reflective,
humane, sensuous artist temperament, intensified by the fact that he had
not had the advantage of a middle-class training.

In a dozen ways our Puritan discipline and the rubs and buffets one gets
in this work-a-day world where money is more highly esteemed than birth
or sainthood or genius, have brought us beyond Shakespeare in knowledge
of men and things. The courage of the Puritan, his self-denial and
self-control, have taught us invaluable lessons; Puritanism tempered
character as steel is tempered with fire and ice, and the necessity of
getting one's bread not as a parasite, but as a fighter, has had just as
important results on character. Shakespeare is no longer an ideal to us;
no single man can now fill our mental horizon; we can see around and
above the greatest of the past: the overman of to-day is only on the
next round of the ladder, and our children will smile at the fatuity of
his conceit.

But if we can no longer worship Shakespeare, it is impossible not to
honour him, impossible not to love him. All men--Spenser as well as
Jonson--found him gentle and witty, gay and generous. He was always
willing to touch up this man's play or write in an act for that one. He
never said a bitter or cruel word about any man. Compare him with Dante
or even with Goethe, and you shall find him vastly superior to either of
them in loving kindness. He was more contemptuously treated in life than
even Dante, and yet he never fell away to bitterness as Dante did: he
complained, it is true; but he never allowed his fairness to be warped;
he was of the noblest intellectual temper.

It is impossible not to honour him, for the truth is he had more virtue
in him than any other son of man. "By their fruits ye shall know them."
He produced more masterpieces than any other writer, and the finest
sayings in the world's literature are his. Think of it: Goethe was
perfectly equipped; he had a magnificent mind and body and temperament:
he was born in the better middle classes; he was well off; splendidly
handsome; thoroughly educated; his genius was recognized on all hands
when he was in his teens; and it was developed by travel and princely
patronage. Yet what did Goethe do in proof of his advantages? "Faust" is
the only play he ever wrote that can rank at all with a dozen of
Shakespeare's. Poor Shakespeare brought it further in the sixteenth
century than even Goethe at full strain could bring it in the
nineteenth. I find Shakespeare of surpassing virtue. Cervantes ranks
with the greatest because he created Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; but
Hamlet and Falstaff are more significant figures, and take Hamlet and
Falstaff away from Shakespeare's achievement, and more is left than any
other poet ever produced.

Harvest after harvest Shakespeare brought forth of astounding quality.
Yet he was never strong, and he died at fifty-two, and the last six
years of his life were wasted with weakness and ill-health. No braver
spirit has ever lived. After "Hamlet" and "Antony and Cleopatra" and
"Lear" and "Timon" he broke down: yet as soon as he struggled back to
sanity, he came to the collar again and dug "The Winter's Tale" out of
himself, and "Cymbeline," and seeing they were not his best, took
breath, and brought forth "The Tempest"--another masterpiece,
though written with a heart of lead and with the death-sweat dank on his
forehead. Think of it; the noblest autumn fruit ever produced; all
kindly-sweet and warm, bathed so to speak in love's golden sunshine; his
last word to men:

"The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance...."

And then the master of many styles, including the simple, wins to a
childlike simplicity, and touches the source of tears:

"We are such stuff as dreams are made of,
And our little life is rounded with a sleep."

True, Shakespeare was not the kind of man Englishmen are accustomed to
admire. By a curious irony of fate Jesus was sent to the Jews, the most
unworldly soul to the most material of peoples, and Shakespeare to
Englishmen, the most gentle sensuous charmer to a masculine, rude race.
It may be well for us to learn what infinite virtue lay in that frail,
sensual singer.

This dumb struggling world, all in travail between Thought and Being,
longs above everything to realize itself and become articulate, and
never has it found such width of understanding, such melody of speech,
as in this Shakespeare. "I have often said, and will often repeat,"
writes Goethe, "that the final cause and consummation of all natural and
human activity is dramatic poetry." Englishmen do not appear yet to
understand what arrogance and what profound wisdom there is in this
saying; but in a dull, half-conscious way they are beginning dimly to
realize that the biggest thing they have done in the world yet is to
produce Shakespeare. When I think of his paltry education, his limiting
circumstances, the scanty appreciation of his contemporaries, his
indifferent health, and recall his stupendous achievement, I am fain to
apply to him, as most appropriate, the words he gave to his alter
ego, Antony, Antony who, like himself, was world-worn and
passion-weary:

"A rarer spirit never
Did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us
Some faults to make us men."


THE END.



INDEX

Abbess
Academe
Achilles
Actium
Adam
Adonis
Adriana
Aegeon
Aeneas
Agamemnon
Agincourt
Agrippa
Ajax
Albany, The Duke of (in "Lear")
Aleppo
Alexander
Angelo
Anne, Lady
Antigone
Antipholus
Antonio
Antonio (Duke in the "Tempest"),
Antony, Marc
"Antony and Cleopatra"
Apelles
Apemantus
"Arabian Nights' Entertainment"
Archbishop of Canterbury
Arden, Mary
Arden, the family of
Argus
Ariel
Armado
Arnold, Matthew
Arthur, Prince
Arviragus
Asbies
"As You Like It"
Aubrey
Aufidius
Aumerle
Austin, Alfred
Autolycus

"Babes in a Wood"
Bacon
Bagot
Balzac
Bankside
Banquo
Bardolph
Barnardine
Bartholomew Fair
Bassanio
Bastard (the)
Bazarof
Beatrice
Beaumont
Beckett, Ernest, dedication.
Belarius
Belch, Sir Toby
Bellario
Benedick
Benvolio
Berowne
Bertillon
Betterton
Bevis, Geo.
Bianca
Birnam Wood
Biron
Bishop of Worcester
Blackfriars
Blount, Sir Walter
Boaden
Bolingbroke
Borachio
Bottom
Bourbon
Boyet
Brabant
Brabantio
Brandes
Bright
Browning
Brutus
Bullen, Anne
Bunyan
Burbage
Bushey
Byron

Cade
Caesar
Caliban
Camden, William
Campaspe
Capulet
Carlyle, Thomas
Cassio
Cassius
Cecil, Sir Robert
Cervantes
Cesario
Chamberlain, the Lord
Chapel Lane
Chapman
Charlecot
Charmian
Chesterfield
Chettle
Chief Justice
Chus
Cinna
Cinthio
Clarenceux (King of Arms)
Clarendon
Claudio
Claudius, King of Denmark
Cleopatra
Clifford
Cloten
"Colbourn's Magazine"
Coleridge
College of Heralds
Combe, John
"Comedy of Errors"
Comic Muse
Condell "Confessio Amantis"
Constance
Cordelia
"Coriolanus"
Cressida
Crichton, Admiral
Cromwell
Cupid
"Cymbeline"

Damon
Dante
Dark Lady (of the Sonnets)
Dauphin
D'Avenant, John
D'Avenant, Mrs.
D'Avenant, Sir William
Dekker
Desdemona
Diana and Dian
Dido
Diomedes
Dogberry
Don John
Don Pedro
Don Quixote
Douglas
Dowden, Prof.
Drake
Drayton
Dryasdust
Duke (the Exiled in "As You Like It")
Duke of York
Duke of Milan ("Two Gentlemen of Verona")
Duke of Venice ("The Merchant of Venice")
Duke of Venice ("Othello ")
Dumas
Duncan, King

Eachin
Eastcheap, tavern
Ecclesiastes
Edgar
Egypt, Queen of
Egypt,
Elizabeth, Queen
Ely, Bishop of
Elysium
Emilia
Emerson
"Encyclopedia Britannica"
England
Enobarbus
Ephesus
Erebus
Eros
Escalus
Esmond
Essex, Earl of
Evans, Hugh
"Every Man in his Humour"

Fair Maid of Perth, the
Falstaff
"Famous Victories of Henry V., The"
Fauconbridge, Philip
Faust
Ferdinand
First Gentleman
First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and
Lancaster
Fitton, Mistress Mary
Flavius
Fleance
Fleet prison
Fletcher (the poet)
Ford, Mrs.
Forman's Diary
Fortinbras
France
Frederick the Great
Fuller
Furnival, Mr.

Gadshill
Gauls
Gaunt, John of
Germany
Gertrude (Queen: "Hamlet")
Gill, Sir David
Gladstone
Glendower
Globe Theatre
Gloster
Glostershire
Gloucester
Goethe
Gollancz, Israel
Gonzalo
"Gorgias"
Goneril ("Lear")
Gower
Gratiano
Greece
Green ("Richard II")
Greene, Robert (the playwright)
Greenhill Street
"Groatsworth of Wit, The"
Guildenstern

Hal, Prince
Hall, Susann
Hallam
Halliwell-Phillipps
Hamlet
Hamnet
Harfleur
Haroun-al-Raschid
Harrison, Rev. W. A.
Hathaway, Anne
Hathaway
Richard
Hazlitt
Hector
Heine
Helen
Hellicon
Henley Street
Heminge
Henry IV., King
----First Part
----Second Part
Henry V., King
Henry VI., King
----First Part
----Second Part
----Third Part
Henry VIII.
Henry, Prince
Herbert, Lord William
Hermione
Hero
"Hero and Leander"
Holland, John
Holofernes
Homer
Horace
Hotspur, Harry
Hubert
Humphrey, Duke of Gloster
Hyperion

Iachimo
Iago
Imogen
Iras
Ironsides
Irving, Sir Henry
Isabella
Isis
Ismene
Italy

Jack
Jack-a-Lent
Jacob
James
Jaques
Jeanne d'Arc
Jena
Jessica
Jesus
Jews
John (Prince: "Henry IV.")
John, King
Johnson, Dr.
Jonson, Ben
Joubert
Jove
Judas
Judith
Julia
Juliet
Julius Caesar
Juno

Kate
Katherine
Keats
Kemp
Kent
King
King's Council
King of Naples
King of Navarre (Ferdinand)
King James
"Knight's Conjuring, A"

Laban
Laertes
Lamb
Langland, William
Launce
Lear
Leatherhead
Lee, Sidney
Leicester, Lord
Leontes
Lessing
Leveson, Sir Richard
Lieutenant of the Tower
"Lives" (Plutarch)
"Lives of the Poets, The"
Lodge
Lodovico
London
Longaville
Lope de Vega
Lord Governor of England
Lord of Comedy
Lord of Humour
Lorenzo
"Love's Labour's Lost"
Lucetta
Luciana
Lucifer
Lucio
Lucius ("Julius Caesar")
Lucrece
Lucy, Sir Thomas
Luther
Lyly

Macbeth
Macbeth, Lady
Macduff
Malcolm
Malvolio
Mamillius
Marcus, Brutus
Marcus ("Titus Andronicus")
Mardian ("Antony and Cleopatra")
Margaret
Maria
Mariana
Marie
Marina
Marlowe
Mars,
Marston
Master of the Revels
Masque
May Queen
"Measure for Measure"
"Merchant of Venice"
Mercury
Mercutio,
Meredith, George
Meres
"Merry Wives of Windsor, The"
"Midsummer Night's Dream"
Milan
Milton
Miranda
Moliere
Montaigne
Mortimer
Motley
"Much Ado"
Naples
Neptune
Nerissa
Nessus
Nestor
New Place
Northumberland
Nurse

Oberon
Octavia
Olivia
Ophelia
Orlando
Orsino, Duke (in "Twelfth Night")
Othello
Otterbourne
Old Lady ("Henry VIII.")
Oxford

Padua
Page, Mrs.
Palace
Pandarus
Paris
Parolles
Paul
Pedro (Prince: "Much Ado"),
Pembroke,
Percy, Lady,
Perdita,
Pericles,
Phidias,
Philario,
Philippan,
Philippi,
Phoebus,
Pinero,
Pisanio,
Pistol,
Pity(?),
Plantaginet,
Plato,
Plutarch,
Poet Laureate,
Poins,
Polixenes,
Polonius,
Pompey,
Portia,
Posthumus,
Princess of France (in "Love's Labour's Lost"),
Proculeius,
Prospero, Duke,
Proteus,
Pythias,

Queen Margaret
Queen to King Richard II.,
Quickly, Dame,

Raleigh,
Regan,
Rembrandt,
Renascence,
Renaissance,
Rialto,
Richard Coeur de Lion,
Richard II., King,
Richard III.,
Richardson, John,
Roman,
Rome,
Romeo,
"Romeo and Juliet,"
Rosaline,
Rosalind,
Rosalynde,
Rosencrantz,
Rubicon,
Rowe,

Salarino,
Salique,
Salisbury,
Salvini,
Sandells, Fulk,
Sappho,
Satan,
Satiromastix,
Sancho Panza,
"Saturday Review, The,"
Saturn,
Schiller,
Scoop,
Scott, Walter,
Second Gentleman,
Seleucus,
Senate,
"Sententiae Pueriles,"
Sidney,
Severn,
Shallow, Justice
Shottery
Shylock
Silvia
Slender, Master
Snitterfield
Solinus (Duke in "Comedy of Errors")
Sophocles
Southampton, Earl of
Socrates Spalding
Spencer, Herbert
Spenser
Star Chamber
Stephanio
Stratford
Stratford Parish Church
Suffolk
Susanna
Swinburne
Sycorax
Syracuse
Sonnets: [Footnote 1]
[36 and 37]
[140]
[40]
[127]
[104]
[142]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[22]
[23]
[33]
[144]
[133]
[41]
[105]
[136]
[122]
[78]
[86]
[131]
[135]
[88]
[129]
[37]
Shakespeare

[Footnote 1: Sonnets in brackets are mentioned especially on the pages
marked
opposite.]

Shakespeare, John
Shake-scene

Talbot
"Taming of the Shrew"
Tamora
Tearsheet, Doll
"Tempest, The"
Temple Gardens
Temple Grafton
Tennyson
Thackeray
Thames
Thane of Cawdor
Thersites
Thurio
Thyreus
Timbuctoo
Timon
Titania
Titian
Titus
"Titus Andronicus"
Tolstoi
Tourgenief
Toussaint l'Ouverture
Tower of London
Tree, Beerbohm
Trial Table of the order of Shakespeare's Plays
Trinculo
Triton
Troilus
Trojans
"Troilus and Cressida"
"Troublesome Raigne of King John, The"
Troy
"True Tragedie of Richard, The"
Tubal
"Twelfth Night"
"Two Gentlemen of Verona, The"
"Two Noble Kinsmen, The"
Tyler, Mr.

Ulysses

Valentine
Valiant-for-Truth
"Venus and Adonis"
Vernon
Veronese
Vienna
Villon
Vincentio, Duke
Viola
Virgil
"Vision of Piers Plowman"
Venice
Venus
Voltaire

Ward, Rev. John
Warwickshire
Watts-Dunton, Theodore
Westminster
Westmoreland
Whately, Anne
Whittington, Thomas
William the Conqueror
Wilmcote
Wilmscote
"Winter's Tale"
"Wit's Commonwealth"
Wittenberg
Worcester
Wordsworth
"Worthies," (Fuller's)

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