E-text prepared bu Ted Garvin, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
by
CHARLOTTE PORTER & HELEN A. CLARKE
Authors of The TragediesEditors of the Pembroke Shakespeare, the First Folio Shakespeare,Poet Lore, etc.
Boston: Richard G. Badger
Toronto: The Copp Clark Co., Limited
The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.
[Illustration: ARTI et VERITATI]
The Shakespeare Study Programs appeared originally in Poet Lore.They have met with marked favor, and have been reprinted as the backnumbers went out of print. The steady demand for these programsprompts the present issue in book-form. Several new programs have beenadded, and those reprinted have been revised.
The references in this volume are to the "First Folio Edition" of
Shakespeare, edited by Charlotte Porter.
"Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommendnot only the best, but all the good that has been known and thoughtand written in the world. … It shows how to grasp and how toenjoy;… it helps the ear to listen when the horns of England blow."
—GEORGE SAINTSBURY, "History of Criticism."
The Comedie of Errors
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Taming of the Shrew
Love's Labour's Lost
Much Adoe About Nothing
A Midsommer Nights Dreame
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
As You Like It
Twelfe Night
The Tempest
The Winter's Tale
In the Summer of 1594 a translation of a Latin Farce by the RomanDramatist, Plautus, was made ready for publication in London. It mayeven have been published then, for, although the title page date is1595, then, as often now, the issue was made in advance of date.Circulation in MS., moreover, now unusual, was then common.
This translation was registered, at any rate, for publication, June16, 1594, as "A Booke entitled Menæchmi, being a pleasant and fineconceited comedy taken out of the most wittie poet Plautus, chosenpurposely from out the rest as being the least harmful and mostdelightful."
Six months later, Shakespeare had made an English Farce out of thisLatin one. He invented several new characters, arranged many newsituations, and put a good deal more life-likeness in the relations ofthe characters, while yet it may be seen that, his new play, "TheComedie of Errors," was directly drawn from the old one by Plautus.
The first record we have of Shakespeare as an actor before QueenElizabeth relates to the performance in Christmas week of this sameyear of "twoe severall comedies." This record in the Accounts of theTreasurer who paid out the money for the Plays acted before the Queen,runs as follows:
"To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage, servauntsto the Lord Chamberleyn upon the Councelles warrant dated at Whitehallxv. die. Marcij 1594 [1595], for twoe severall comedies or enterludes,shewed by them before her Majestie in C