Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... But while the historical dramas, from this aspect, form a whole, there are aesthetic considerations which mark off the group which we have now reached, and give it exceptional significance. Shakspere's share in the three Parts of Henry VI can only be surmised by the aid of plausible, but never quite conclusive, internal evidence, and in Richard III the special nature of the theme, and the dominating influence of Marlowe's method, led to a treatment bordering upon the purely tragic. For King John and the Lancastrian tetralogy Shakspere partly used old plays as models, but he was no longer overshadoued by a mighty personality, and his individual genius had full scope. It is therefore this group that gives the clearest evidence of the mode in which he considered that historical material could be used for artistic purposes. He never confounded the functions of the poet and the annalist. He accepted the traditions given in Holinshed's Chronicle without any inquiry into their truth, and he did not scruple to add or alter in matters of secondary importance. Schlegel therefore was far from accurate when he asserted that 'in Shakspere's Histories the leading features of events were so faithfully conceived, their causes and even their secret motives so clearly penetrated, that the truth of history might be learned from them.' In order to disprove such a statement it is only necessary to contrast Shakspere's Henry V, overflowing with gracious bonhommie, the Tudor type of monarch lovingly idealized, with the actual historical prototype whose orthodox zeal in sending Lollards to the stake had won a cordial encomium from the contemporary poet, Occleve, in his De Regimine Principum. On the other hand, Shakspere, with characteristic sobriety and respect...
