d is personified, for it _breathes_ instead of _blows_ on the bank
of violets, and it steals their odor and gives it to him,--the music
is so sweet that it seems as if its sounds came laden with the scent
of violets to his ear. Here sound is personified at first as merely
breathing, then it takes on moral attributes and steals and gives.
Pick out and explain other figures in the same way. Which of the
characters use the most beautiful imagery? Are there any who use none
at all?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is there any special fitness in the imagery used to the character
using it? Does the imagery used help you to form an opinion of the
characters?

VIII

THE WIT OF THE PLAY

What are the main causes of amusement in the play? The audience,
notice, is not kept in the dark one instant about any of the
characters. Thus one of the sources of amusement lies in the fact that
while the audience occupies somewhat the attitude of omnipotence, it
has the pleasure of observing the characters of the play living their
lives in the purblind way usual to mortals. Lessing said that a comedy
should make us laugh at vices, but the vices must be those of
characters who have good qualities also. Does 'Twelfe Night' answer to
this description? Analyze the causes why the fun of the play is funny.

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Which of the characters cause amusement as the result of circumstances
over which they have no control? How do each of these cause amusement
unconsciously? Which of the characters cause amusement through a
conscious intention of making fun?

THE TEMPEST

Until a few years ago no one had succeeded in finding the Play or
Novel on which the European part of the plot of "The Tempest" was
founded.

An early German Play, "The Fair Sidea" had been brought forward on
account of some resemblances to "The Tempest." Yet it is obviously not
its source but rather an imitation or variant indirectly drawn from a
similar foundation story.

Edmund Dorer, a special student of Spanish Literature first called
attention (Jan. 31, 1885,) to the story more closely resembling "The
Tempest" than any other, as it occurs in a collection of tales by
Antonio de Eslava, called _Las Noches de Invierno_, or "Winter
Nights," published in Madrid in 1609.

Like other such collections of stories, such as the Italian collection
of Bandello, and the French of Belleforest, used by Shakespeare,
Eslava's collection was translated, and, in de