Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Twelve Great Actors
N the days of Shakespeare, and for a num ber of years thereafter, the feminine characters of his plays were acted by good looking youths. Rosalind, Portia, Ophelia, and their sisters, grave or gay, often re joiced, no doubt, in gruff voices and incipi ent beards. Often, too, must dramatic illusions have been destroyed. Yet Shake speare and his friends looked on contentedly at the anomaly. An actress had no place in the hearts of English audiences. How strange that seems when we think of the noble position which she now holds upon the English or American stage. In Painting, in Sculpture, in Poetry, or in the Sciences man still leads, but in the Drama, as in Opera, woman ranks as his equal. It is hard to imagine how the stage ?ourished without her presence. Surely the world has been made the richer by the stern tragedy of.
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