Shakespeare's 6

Is still true in the study of Shakespeare that the dispersion of

error is the first step in the discovery of truth'. The scholarly

criticism of his plays, which found but casual expression in his life-

time and took systematic shape only in the eighteenth century when

, men of letters and scholars found the editing of his works a source of

profit or reputation, began by remarking that he ignored the Rules.

These rules or laws of the drama were generalizations from the practice

of the Greek dramatists; and Renaissance critics and their eighteenth

century disciples regarded plays that failed to conform to these Laws

as deficient in Art. Shakespeare ignored the Rules so constantly that

his critics, however much they admired his natural powers, could not

accept him as a great Artist. This opinion is still maintained to-day by

men of distinction in letters ; but it is an opinion born of a fashion in

European thought that has passed away, and it survives only as a

prejudice that will no longer bear critical examination.

It is now realised that this demand for the scholarly imitation of the

external or accidental features of classical masterpieces is an appeal to

the letter not to the spirit of Art. No one to-day will argue that

Westminster Abbey is inferior as a work of art to St. Paul's because the

Gothic builders were not so familiar as Wren with the four regular

orders of Greece!. Indeed, the complete revolution wrought by the

progress of European criticism is best seen in the attitude of the French,

who were the most jealous guardians of what they considered classical

form. The French were in this phase of their culture as severe in their

*To spare the reader a succession of footnotes, I mention here some of the

studies I should otherwise have to refer him to in passing. J. S. Smart's

Shakespeare: Truth and Tradition, 'a new landmark in Shakespeare scholarship

is the best introduction to a study of A Life of Shakespeare by J. Quincy Adams;

the student will then be in a position to profit by Shakespeare: A Study of Facts

and Problems by Sir Edmund Chambers. The best idea of the structure of

Shakespeare's theatre is given by The Globe Playhouse by John C. Adams, of

Shakespeare's Audience by Alfred Harbage's Shakespeare's

Audience. On dramatic

questions Granville-Barker's Prefaces are most helpful. Bradley's Shakespearean

Tragedy is still an important guide in interpretation, and those who fancy that

recent historical or objective criticism has outmoded his method should read

Alfred Harbage's As They. Liked It. Dr. Tillyard's Shakespeare's History Plays

is a valuable study of Shakespeare's attitude to his material and of the implications

it suggests; and in Dr. Ivor Brown's Shakespeare can be seen the reactions to

academic opinion of one familiar with the modern theatre. All Dr. Hotson's works

have added valuable touches to the social background of Shakespeare's life and

his Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated makes further apology for the dates here suggested

for Shakespeare's First Period' unnecessary. Pollard's Shakespeare's Fight with

the Pirates is the ideal preparation for Sir Walter Greg's The Editorial Problem in

Shakespeare, an authoritative review that will enable the reader to study with

advantage Professor Dover Wilson's Introductions to the Cambridge New

Shakespeare'. The views summarized in the introduction now before the reader

will be found argued in some detail in the writer's Shakespeare's Life and Art.