Professor MacCracken;
chapters V, VI, VII, XII, and XIV are by Professor Pierce; and chapters
II, III, IV, and XI are by Dr. Durham. The authors have, however,
united in the criticism and the revision of every chapter.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE

AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER II

ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

CHAPTER III

THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

CHAPTER IV

ELIZABETHAN LONDON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

CHAPTER V

SHAKESPEARE'S NONDRAMATIC WORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

CHAPTER VI

THE SEQUENCE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

CHAPTER VII

SHAKESPEARE'S DEVELOPMENT AS A DRAMATIST . . . . . . . . . . . 85

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHIEF SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS . . . . . . . . . . . 105

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CHAPTER IX

HOW SHAKESPEARE GOT INTO PRINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

CHAPTER X

THE PLAYS OF THE FIRST PERIOD--IMITATION AND EXPERIMENT . . . 131

CHAPTER XI

THE PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD--COMEDY AND HISTORY . . . . . . 153

CHAPTER XII

THE PLAYS OF THE THIRD PERIOD--TRAGEDY . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

CHAPTER XIII

THE PLAYS OF THE FOURTH PERIOD--ROMANCE . . . . . . . . . . . 196

CHAPTER XIV

SOME FAMOUS MISTAKES AND DELUSIONS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE . . . . . 210

{1}

AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

CHAPTER I

AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE

+Our Knowledge of Shakespeare+.--No one in Shakespeare's day seems to
have been interested in learning about the private lives of the
dramatists. The profession of play writing had scarcely begun to be
distinguished from that of play acting, and the times were not wholly
gone by when all actors had been classed in public estimation as
vagabonds. While the London citizens were constant theatergoers, and
immensely proud of their fine plays, they were content to learn of the
writers of plays merely from town gossip, which passed from lip to lip
and found no resting place in memoirs. There were other lives which
made far more exciting reading. English sea-men were penetrating every
ocean, and bringing back wonderful tales. English soldiers were aiding
the Dutch nation towards freedom, and coming back full of