will stand a deal of such treatment without letting much of its lifeblood. Discussion will, of course, be aided by a teacher that knows his Shakspere thoroughly. Cross references in the play and references to other plays always interest and fascinate a class; the chief danger in them is that they make a fatally easy way of appealing to the gallery. Nevertheless, any class must be interested in verbal resemblances such as those in this play and in "Hamlet." Some notion of what the commentators have said of "Julius Cæsar" is also indispensable to a teacher that would make his best effect. Moreover, the student should be encouraged to do outside reading for himself; he may well be interested in learning of the life and times of Shakspere and in comparing the work of some of the other Elizabethans-Marlowe or Ben Jonson-with Shakspere's own. Of course such extra study can be pursued by but few at best-schools, in large cities especially, are such distractingly busy places; but this is the ideal. The teacher should know enough of Shakspere to feel reasonably sure of his ground; for his own comfort he should go, say, even to the depths of the sonnet discussion. He must get a perspective; otherwise, he lives from hand to mouth, always conscious of his own shortcomings, and leaving the quick-witted student with a vague feeling of something undone. To give out the whole Shaksperian question in driblets to a class would be absurd; but the teacher who knows it all reasonably well can provide just enough to make the work attractive and inspiring beyond compare. And he will be conscious of sowing seed for the future. Perhaps the best handbook for the beginner in Shaksperian criticism is Dr. Edward Dowden's "Shakspere " in the series of Literature Primers. In this work will be found all that the average student may wish to learn of Shakspere's life, and the production of his plays; it also contains introductions to each of the plays and poems. The most interesting of recent essays on the poet is George Brandes' "William Shakspere: a Critical Study," a book which tries to build up a personality for Shakspere as well as give the best opinion, old and new, of his work. Even if one does not follow the author to the extremes of his theory, one cannot help receiving many fresh and vigorous ideas from this monumental production. It is fascinating as literature and most suggestive as a basis for further research. Other works that should be known by those who wish to go more deeply into the subject are "Outlines of the Life of Shakspere," by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, which contains in its appendix much curious and interesting information; "The Life and Work of Shakspere," by F. G. Fleay; "Shakspere His Mind and Art," by E. Dowden; "William Shakspere," by Karl Elze; by Barrett Wendell; by B. Ten Brink, and, finally, the new "Life of William Shakspere" by Sidney Lee, which is valuable for a most interesting discussion of the " Sonnet" question and for a superb bibliography. This bibliography could well be made the basis of Shaksperian study. For questions of more minute detail the scholar is referred to the papers by Spedding, Fleay, and Furnivall in the "Transactions of the New Shakspere Society." Interesting, too, though not invaluable, are Dowden's "Shakspere's Sonnets" and Gerald Massey's "The Secret Drama of Shakspere's Sonnets"as supplements to the Brandes and Sidney Lee works. The student, finally, for reference, should know how to use E. A. Abbott's "A Shaksperian Grammar," Schmidt's "A Shakspere Lexicon," and Bartlett's "A Concordance to Shakspere." Anything beyond this will lead to the realm of linguistics, the text-books for which it is obviously not the duty of this volume to suggest. So much for Shakspere in general; for special study of "Julius Cæsar" the beginner is referred to the essays by Hudson (Shakspere's Life, Art, and Characters); by Gervinus (Shakspere Commentaries); by Brandes; and by Dowden (Shakspere: His Mind and Art). It is probable that many students into whose hands this book will fall are more or less familiar with Cæsar's "Commentaries" and have some general knowledge of the outlines of Cæsar's life; to those who wish further information, however, we may recommend a study of Mr. W. Warde Fowler's " Julius Cæsar" in "The Heroes of the Nations Series" (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons), and for a graphic account of the events with which Shakspere's tragedy is concerned, a reading of the last chapters of Froude's "Cæsar: a Sketch,"-chapters which, although coloured by the author's prejudices, cannot fail to excite a lively interest. English tragedy, acted." 1562. Lope de Vega born. 1564. April 26. Baptised at Stratford-on- 1564. Marlowe born. Galileo born. Calvin Avon. died. 1586. Beaumont and Ford born. Greene's Orlando Furioso acted. Sidney killed. 1587. Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded. Marlowe's Dr. Faustus acted? 1588. The Invincible Armada defeated. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy acted? 1590. Battle of Ivry._ Lodge's Rosalind. Marlowe's Tamburlaine (both parts) printed. Sidney's Arcadia. Spenser's Faerie Queene (i-iii). 1592. By the middle of this year, a recog- 1592. Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit. nised playwright in London. 1593. Venus and Adonis published. Greene died. Presbyterianism 1593. Marlowe killed. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE-Continued SHAKSPERE'S LIFE AND WORKS. CONTEMPORARY HISTORY AND LITERA- 1596. Coat of arms applied for by his 1596. father. His only son (Hamnet) died. 1597. Bought New Place at Stratford. 1597. 1598. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, some 1598. Descartes born. Jonson's Every Edict of Nantes. Peele died. Chapman's Iliad (first part); Hakluyt's Voyages and Travels (vol. i). 1599. Became a shareholder in the Globe 1599. Cromwell born. Spenser died. The Theatre. Two sonnets and some poems from Love's Labour's 1600. Titus Globe Theatre built. Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour acted. Andronicus, Midsummer 1600. Calderon born. Night's Dream, Merchant of vancement of Learning. Jonson's Volpone acted. 1606. Lyly died. Corneille born. 1607. Virginia settled. Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois. Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy. 1608. His mother died. King Lear pub- 1608. Milton born. Beaumont and lished. Fletcher's Philaster acted. Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One. |