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THE SWAN THEATRE.

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a covered balcony or row of boxes occupied by spectators, but available at need for the actors.

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Ex offeruationibus Londinensibus

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Sketch of the Interior of the Swan Theatre.

The trumpeter is seen at the door of a covered chamber near the gallery-roof, and from its summit floats a flag having upon it the figure of a swan.

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The form of the building is oval. No other drawing of the interior of an Elizabethan theatre is known to exist.

§ 25. Assuming that Shakespeare, after the alleged deer-stealing adventure, left Stratford for London in 1586 or 1587, we can hardly suppose that any of the work which has come down to us was written before 1589. He had much to learn, which could not be learnt in a day. At a considerably later date he was still a workman in his apprenticeship to the dramatic craft, engaged in rehandling the work of Greene and Marlowe. He continued to write for the stage until 1611 or perhaps 1613. Thus his entire career as a dramatist covers some twenty or at most five-and-twenty years. Various attempts have been made by Shakespeare scholars to distinguish the successive stages in the development of his genius, and to classify his plays in a series of chronological groups. The latest attempt is that of a learned French Orientalist, who is also a well-informed student of English literature, M. James Darmesteter. It is substantially identical with that which I had myself proposed, a division of the total twenty or twentyfive years of Shakespeare's authorship into four periods of unequal length, to which I had given names intended to lay hold of the student's memory, names which, without being fanciful, should be striking and easy to bear in mind. The earliest period I called "In the Workshop ", meaning by this the term of apprenticeship and tentative effort. The years which immediately followed, during which Shakespeare, though a master of his art,

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS.

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dwelt much on the broad surface of human life, years represented by the best English histories and some of the brightest comedies, I named "In the World". To indicate the third period, that of the serious, dark, or bitter comedies, and those great tragedies in which the poet makes his searching inquisition into evil, the title "Out of the Depths served sufficiently well. Finally, for the closing period, when the romantic comedies, at once grave and glad-Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest-were written, I chose the name "On the Heights", signifying thereby that in these exquisite plays Shakespeare had attained an altitude from which he saw human life in a clear and solemn vision, looking down through a pellucid atmosphere upon human joys and sorrows with a certain aloofness or disengagement, yet at the same time with a tender and pathetic interest. The names adopted by M. Darmesteter may, if the reader chooses, replace those which I ventured to offer, only the reader should be on his guard against the notion that at any time either what we now term "pessimism" or what we term "optimism" formed the creed, or any portion of the creed, of Shakespeare. According to M. Darmesteter the first period extends from 1588 to 1593; he names it "Les Années d'Apprentissage"; it is succeeded by the "Période d'Épanouissement" (1593-1601); upon which follows the "Période Pessimiste" (1601-8); and the great career closes with the rolling away of clouds and the outbeaming of a serene sun in the "Période Optimiste" (1608-13).

§ 26. In the study of the chronology of Shake

speare's plays the larger results may be considered as certain. Much was done long since to determine the order of the plays by Malone. The dates of the publication of the early quartos, the dates of the entries of plays in the registers of the Stationers' Company, mention of the plays, or allusion to them or quotations from them, in contemporary writings, references in the plays themselves to recent historical events or incidents of the day, quotations made by Shakespeare from books of known date-evidence of these various kinds had accumulated long since in the hands of students of the drama, and had sufficed to ascertain the Shakespearian chronology at least in outline. The internal evidence derived from the changes of the dramatist's style and diction, passing from the studious elaborateness of such a play as The Two Gentlemen of Verona to the subtlety in swiftness of utterance in such a play as The Tempest, came to the aid of evidence that was wholly or in part external. If classical allusions were crowded and often inappropriate, if puns and forced conceits were frequent, if the expression of strong feeling swelled into bombast, it was easy to perceive that the play must be of an early or comparatively early date. If the structure of the play and the grouping of the characters were stiff and symmetrical, it could hardly belong to the later stages of Shakespeare's authorship. If the characterization was faint or over-broad, if the thoughts on human life were slight and superficial, if the wit was verbal and shallow, if the humour was unmingled with pathos, again we might infer that the work was one of the poet's earlier years.

DEVELOPMENT OF STYLE.

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No one who read the Comedy of Errors and Measure for Measure could suppose that they lay near one another in point of time; no one could suppose that Romeo and Juliet, full of true passion and beauty as it is, could be followed without a great interval by Antony and Cleopatra. In recent years the study of changes which Shakespeare's versification underwent has in a striking manner confirmed the results previously attained, and perhaps has added something to them. As he grew to be a master of his craft the poet came to feel that rhyme rather interrupted than aided the expression of dramatic feeling; having employed rhyme at first freely, and then with reserve, he finally dis. carded it altogether. At the same time his blank verse underwent various changes, which may all be summed up in the general statement that it became less mechanical and more vital, less formally regular and more swift, subtle and complex-complex not with the intricacy of mechanical arrangement but with the mystery and the movement of life. The flow of the verse became freer; it paused less frequently at the close of the line; it ran into subtly modulated periods; it adapted itself to the expression of every varying mood of feeling; it overleaped the allotted ten syllables, or gathered itself up into a narrower space as the movement of passion required; it was no longer the decorated raiment but rather the living body of the idea.

$27. Shakespeare's years of apprenticeship produced tentative work of the most various kinds, and constantly growing in excellence of handling. Although himself no classical scholar, in the

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