The Life of Shakspeare; Enquiries Into the Originality of His Dramatic Plots and Characters and Essays on the Ancient Theatres and Theatrical Usages (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1824 Excerpt: ...it demonstrates both the force of his genius and the delicacy of his taste. He seized the romantic character of a tale in which nobles lived, "like the old Robin Hood of England, and fleeted the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world;" he embellished it with all the bewitching graces of his own poetic pen, and enriched it with the high-toned observations of his masculine understanding. Some few thoughts and expressions he adopted from Lodge into the dialogue and songs of his drama; but he entirely discarded the hyperbolical cast of feeling and taffeta phrases that pervade the novel, and substituted in their stead a strain of poetry and sentiment beautifully romantic and harmonious. Act I. sc. 1. VOL. I. Z Gerismond the rightful, and Torismond the usurping, kings of France, are produced by Shakspeare under the titles of the exiled duke, and duke Frederic, his brother. The dramatist preserved Rosalynd as the name of the daughter of the former, and called the child of the latter 'Celia, instead of Alinda. Ganymede and Aliena are the names adopted by the ladies when they retire to the forest of Arden, both in the novel and in the play. Saladyne, Fernandyne, and Rosader, the heirs of Sir John of Bourdeaux, appear in As You Like It, as Oliver, Jaques, and Orlando, the sons of Sir Rowland de Bois. In the distribution of their father's property, Shakspeare deviates entirely from the novelist; he permits not Sir Rowland de Bois to recognise, in his bequests, the superior qualities of his youngest son, but gives to Orlando only " a poor thousand crowns," and the benefit of a charge to Oliver to breed Orlando well. But in the play, as well as in the novel, the elder brother first determines to defraud the younger. He afterwards seeks his ...