| Show l i 4 f t t i t t t t tI t 1 I a ThE i I Home tudy of tC by Seymour Eaten 4 t I Directed by Prof Saymour Eaton 44 4 tJ 4 I i POPULAR o STUDIES IK IN SPEAKS Contributors to this course Dr Ed Dr William J Rolfe Dr Ur Hamilton n W Mabie MaMe Dr Albert AlbertS S 8 Cook Dr Hirr Corson Dr Isaac N Dr Vida D Scudder and Others X NUS The Date pf pi Composition There Them Is 1 no external at evidence as to fib the date nate of but we know from the th proportion pf of f light ight endings enel and from the t e characteristics cs of f diction and style that th t it Is ia one of later lator plays plaS it is evidently one of that group of tragedies in which the drama d dramatist j went deeper than ever eVe did plummet sound into the human buman heart anus the man is a a companion of Ham Rant Hamlet Hamlet let Macbeth th Othello and Antony Com Corn are aie warranted in placing this play next to Antony and Cleopatra Cleo tra 1 t t I 1 1 I or of the tite by In year when they executed a deed CO conveying ther In in houses hi ft SaI I by reason ree of the Roman Reman background baek and its general characteristics It is the last of or the Ute great t tragedies for of or t of later Jat fata tO do not deserve d to rank with the I h g W may maye y then say y with Dow ow Dowden Dowden den that the date dalel lot j o the play is Js 1 08 or perhaps a little later liter I Souro df of th the Plot Lowell said aid of Chaucer that whenever he ho found anything Addressed to Geoffrey Geoffrey frey he ho took it and made the themo most moat of t It It Shakespeare must have found a ti great gat many things addressed add ed In Norths translation of Pint Lives published in 1579 1519 for fOl forout forout out of It he sot got the material for Julius J lua Caesar Antony and Cleopatra of nd He yaa not lOt at t all careful c TE ul about adopt adopting tog ing i the Che scenes and In Incidents some sometimes times time he even used the very language of Plutarch It would be a profitable for a student of to take down his Norths Plutarch and compare it with the play He would bo be struck by byth the th decided similarity of ther two and if It he has fine ears and whet De Dc Quincey calls caUs an understand understanding ing he would have a valuable lesson losson In distinguishing dl between the tile dramatist and the historian between the s of Shakespeare and the th limited range of Plutarch Mistake As to the tha Play who was at times a die dis cr critic of Shakespeare was wn very wide of the mark when he said with his characteristically revolution revolutionary ary any spirit The whole dramatic moral of ot is that those who have little shall have nave less and that those who have much shall all take all that others othen have left The people are poor therefore they ought to be starved They are slaves therefore they ought to be beaten They work hard there thero o o they ought to be treated like beasts of burde When Hazlitt wrote this he must have had in mind the tra of or the French revolution of ot which he was one of the belated prophets eta ets He might ml ht have come from a 8 meet big Ing at or a conversation conver Uon with Shelley Such personal criticism Is ie of ot ofa ota a 51 kind with s criticism of Hamlet It t i 1 Ia too much ouch after the order of early German criticism that sought to reduce all 11 of ef Shake e plays to toI certain moral mora truths troths that the dramatist I tried to inculcate are many striking things said in this play about the mobs just as there th re are in Julius Caesar Cae 1 But I doubt If Shakespeare himself under understood understood understood stood fully the tha nature of the struggle ruggle between the tha plebeians and the patti patri patricians I I clans He certainly does not make as I clear olear in the play as one might expect the tha issue between them which shows that Shakespeare ShAke did not care much himself for local coloring and evidently did ld not wish to teach certain facts about t ttY plebeians It is always dangerous to say MY that Shakespeare teaches anything certainly he does not identify Jd nUb himself with in this pray play He Ile looks loob at him from the same absolute abol te standpoint from which he views populace The Character of No in this play we ie do not have a 8 a study of political parties in Rome the study If It we may use that term in inan Inan Inan an sense ese is him himself himself self lt a Itis It is his figure that dominates every overy scene seene ne In the play He is a char character actor acter of heroic proportions The oftener ona one reads s the play the more he h f feels that 4 that here is one Ofte of most imposing characters He is a man of ot power and in every way is the protagonist protagoniSt onist of the t drama Hamlet is not more essential to the play that bears his nama name than Is I to Coriolan us ua One Ona On may not admire him hint in many ways and anti no one is drawn to him as a friend but bur b t there thee Is something about him ihn that Iii Is gigantic and wonderful He Hes HeIs Heis Is s a character of the early Roman world not Weakened a Caesar was by personal Infirmities or as Antony was wasby wasby by Jy love Iov and lust lust or as Brutus by an to cope with practical affairs J anus is a tower of cf strength His body X dy is of gigantic proportions prof he can ca cati Ight against an entire army when once within the e walls of the tho enemy his vol Is L th so 0 that liB his enemies I shako shak If U the world were I and did breathe One knows the sound I of tongue from every meaner man His HIa will is imperious to warn to threat and to command He carries about with him the badge of his strength even When disguised ed edas as ae a 8 pennant peasant The servants of recognize zo him as n no common m ms My mind gave ge me his clothes and made a a false report of Mat h What an arm he hut haM He tI me m about with his I finger and anti his h hi thumb Ulu as one would set et seta seta a 8 top ur I kS ki w rb by 4 thee face that there vas was something In him He lie is simply the rarest man In the world Whether talking with the mob lighting fighting battles or speaking to his soldiers he is al always 1 ways the same s heroic He Hi i Ie ia r god g gd them like Uke a thing Mae Made by acme seme other di ty then than nature That shapes shap man Itten One thinks of him In connection with Swift whose ran fall to quote the words of f Thackeray was wa like Ike that of an em empire empire pire pine He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne In InThe InThe The Central Point t In th the Tragedy Now in what does the tragedy con eon slat tet In there we 1st Is a a passage Pu a 6 that might bt be taken a as the keynote to many of s tragedies L 1 L I 0 So oft elI it IL chances hr particular men That for tor souse some vicious mote mole of or nature in hem un th tha a C 5 Shall ShaHin hi in tIie t general cere take take C p thin tion From that particular fault the dram of eale Doth att the Bolle c ef cC f a doubt To Ma his hi own scandal I knew k there has beep a decided re re reactIon reaction action in recent against t the ten dency doncy to treat tragedies from an altogether so subjective stand point Especial y is ha this true of Ham let and Romeo u and auci Juliet We are believing more anti and more wore that the tragedy consists in Iii the one case cane in the Ute conflict between Hamlet and his en and in the other play to View Romeo and Juliet ae as as k loVers vera or whose Who e happiness happ is blasted by the fury of or their two houses And yet there is Js something else iff the old clam cism too somehow oo iv Hamlet R cant ad I Just himself to circumstances with ith A a I greater will a saner er Judgment j t and a J more fixed faith ha he could do M otherwise e After Attu all there is the dram diana of or eale In lu his lite nature when viewed from the ab solute standpoint lt and that to Je Shake standpoint for fac f he ho was waa I t one of or Gods Gears spies awl am as Meredith suggests the recording angel Ulel Himself might have token taken hie ide pen The tragedy tr edy Jn in arises from the dram of eale ele eal in nature Shakespeare re does es not express his hia own views through as thought With all his power and aDd many man magnificent nt qualities of mind ho stands as if j man iran n were W e author of himself and bad bed no kin He tacks lacks the touch of nature that makes makee the whole world akin that sympathy that so charms uis ize in Brows Broths has much undoubtedly un ly to vex him him one almost sympathises with Mm Isbn as he thinks of the world into which he is thrown a world that will win but aggra I vate rate his faults The fickle populace i j that h had ones once hailed halli hint him s thA th nn I of his country and now iw curses him the avaricious army that In Ia the war against the seeks k to plunder I before the battle bat e is over above all that brace of demagogues d ee the tribunes I these are enough eDO u h to call forth into greater gr prominence his hie natural t cism chits aid aul misanthropy Hamlet finds the world out of J the very worst possible pohle world for him Romeo and Juliet with their Intensely J passionate natures come face to face with a cold conventional worN worM and must be brought in contact with the common comm n people whom he loathes and this the tribunes tribu whom he detests d te ts The tragedy is due partly Uty to this stubborn conflict between the people and him himself himself himself I self but more especially to the inner nature of et the hero In act 2 scene 2 the officers dl cuSit Carl lanus In hi a very VeT interesting way and front from the proper point of 0 view One of them says that there ther have been many great men that have luwe flattered flattened the people who neer loved thorn thus thue Un the Ute indifference and scorn of OC 1 MarCIUS TM The other answers with rare ire wisdom am and aad insight He seeks their hate bate with greater devotion than they can cart render reDder It him and leavell nothing undone ne that may fUlly discover him their opposite ite Now to seem to affect the malice and aud displeasure ure of the people is as bad as that which he lie to flatter them for love lore C ha has haM the con tempt for the the mob moo that thae all thinking people have have but he is apt to consider that all people bo 00 are not patricians are lUO beneath benth bis notice and worthy of contumely Men has no use u for them either hat but he laughs and jests with them IB In his hearty good f humor treats them with cold indifference but loses his dignity in his hie hl blind rage race against them For once he is Ia like a child chili he who ho is generally n a giant One won ro if the same man ninn exit can be at once so 30 powerful and so weak To this thI pride and passionate pa tonate hatred of the people he sacrifices the happiness ha of 0 his hie family aad ad the prosperity of 0 his pis is country and finally is 18 willing to lead iea an army against the walls wails cf et Rome It Is ia this weakness w s this thia rift within the lute that causes CAUSeS the tragedy of ot the t play playa the Uthe of et a 4 great gre t soul to O cog g nine the bonds bon him to other Othet men man menAn An Important Scene I There are few mor more i scenes 5 f in Shakespeare ar than act E 6 scene 3 2 3 of has h ith Au Auf i fidius f dius led the army into the i ivery very gates of Rome has his pleaded with only to be beCIa die missed with th his speechless hand and aDd then thea his most moet faithful friend has conjured him hint to pardon Rome and ind d his countrymen but is told that he speaks to no par pur purpose pose At last Virgilia Virgilla and Volumnia and the little Ht e son of come to his hl tent with hatred toward the tile populace still in his soul and awl with the th desire tre de for revenge burning within him says YB as he ees them coming coining Bat out eat rr o All bond bead and of nature bre br k kHe He cannot but feel the ties of o the old love lore and antI kneefe s before belen them Then be begins begins begins gins the dialogue between and anus the former rising to the height h t of eg motherly m love and the most ardent m she is Indeed liaised i ithe the Roman n of them all the latter strongly maintaining his point for tot a while awhile cab to give wy way wa heirs before the j final appeals of at hiD bin mother U p Then oA nO sooner J March to tv assault ault It thy country than to treed tread I Trust to ft IL thou not noton on thy moth neth m th j ors ere er wends woo That brought tt thee to this world wOrldS S S S C S S j Come lot hit us ue go TIllS This fellow had bad a to his mother I His wife is 1 in and his bt child Like him by Chance yet give sive us our CIa dis dispatch patch I am hd bU until unta our city be afire anre And ADd then m rn speak spi a a nul little He cannot stand in the face of or that and arranges arrange a peace between the two ne only to meet inset his fate at the bands nandi of the treacherous He Heia Heis ia is grand Jn lib death deeth the neat most mo t noble come corse oo e that ever herald h did follow to tG hie his urn It is a pity pit that one cannot hear along with the dead deed sTarch march a no eulogy by one nobler than a one ona as Antony pronounced upon or I Horatio upon Hamlet t tk k coie lege |
