h elaborate notes of the usual text-book
sort. In addition to these there is, at the back, an admirable series
of notes on the language of Shakespeare. Wiesener explains in simple,
compact fashion some of the differences between Elizabethan and modern
English and traces these phenomena back to their origins in Anglo-Saxon
and Middle English. Inadequate as they are, these linguistic notes
cannot be too highly praised for the conviction of which they bear
evidence--that a complete knowledge of Shakespeare without a knowledge
of his language is impossible. To the student of that day these notes
must have been a revelation.

The second text edition of a Shakespearean play in Norway was Collin's
_The Merchant of Venice_.[25] His introduction covers much the same
ground as Wiesener's, but he offers no sketch of the Elizabethan drama,
of Shakespeare's life, or of his development as a dramatic artist. On
the other hand, his critical analysis of the play is fuller and, instead
of a mere summary, he gives an elaborate exposition of Shakespeare's
versification.

[25. _The Merchant of Venice_. Med Indledning og Anmaerkninger ved
Chr. Collin. Kristiania. 1902.]

Collin is a critic of rare insight. Accordingly, although he says
nothing new in his discussion of the purport and content of the play,
he makes the old story live anew. He images Shakespeare in the midst of
his materials--how he found them, how he gave them life and being. The
section on Shakespeare's language is not so solid and scientific as
Wiesener's, but his discussion of Shakespeare's versification is
both longer and more valuable than Wiesener's fragmentary essay, and
Shakespeare's relation to his sources is treated much more suggestively.

He points out, first of all, that in Shakespeare's "classical" plays the
characters of high rank commonly use verse and those of low rank, prose.
This is, however, not a law. The real principle of the interchange of
prose and verse is in the emotions to be conveyed. Where these are
tense, passionate, exalted, they are communicated in verse; where they
are ordinary, commonplace, they are expressed in prose. This rule will
hold both for characters of high station and for the most humble. In Act
I, for example, Portia speaks in prose to her maid "obviously because
Shakespeare would lower the pitch and reduce the suspense. In the
following scene, the conversation between Shylock and Bassanio begins in
prose. But as soon as