- eight years, we have seen, from thirty-six to fortyfour, he had been constantly producing great tragic poems, unsurpassed for range and power, and at their height full of overwrought spontaneous intensity. All along this intensity had been accompanied by a growing power both of philosophic thought and of verbal expression. Intellectually, Shakspere had never been more powerfully active than he shows himself in Coriolanus. As the intensity of emotional impulse weakened, then, while the full power of vigorous thought remained, we may imagine Shakspere himself to have felt conscious rather of increasing self-mastery than of any loss. Coriolanus, indeed, is such work as an artist, with what seems perversity, is apt to deem his best. The very weakening of spontaneous power which puts an end to merits of which an artist is normally unconscious, emphasizes the more deliberate merits of which, above any spectator or reader, an artist is aware. In these eight years, from 1600 to 1608, then, the years when Shakspere surely did the work which makes him supremely great, we may believe him at last to have been actuated by a really profound series of emotional impulses which forced him to express them with every engine of his art. At the height of this tremendous artistic experience came an overwrought intensity of mind which carried the inherent misery of tragic conception almost to the verge of madness. Then, slowly, came growing self-control, increasing vigor of concentrated thought, finally what should seem fresh certainty of mastery. Unwittingly to the master, however, this very self-mastery meant that his great power of spontaneous imagination, which for thirteen years, from the Midsummer Night's Dream to Antony and Cleopatra, had been constant, was at last deserting him. In view of this, we may now well turn to the other records of English Literature during these eight years.1 In 1601 were published Bacon's account of the Treasons of the Earl of Essex, and Jonson's Poetaster; in 1602 came Campion's Art of English Poetry, Davidson's Poetical Rhapsody, Dekker's Satiromastix, Marston's Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge, and Middleton's Randall, Earl of Chester, and Blurt, Master Constable; in 1603 came Bacon's Apology concerning the late Earl of Essex, Florio's Montaigne, Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness, and Jonson's Sejanus. This, we remember, was the year when Queen Elizabeth died and King James came to the throne. In 1604 were published King James's Counterblast to Tobacco, and Marston's Malcontent; in 1605, came Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Camden's Remains, Chapman's All Fools, and plays by Jonson and Marston, Jonson's Volpone, too, was acted; in 1606 were published plays by Chapman and by Marston, and Stowe's Chronicle; in 1607, the Woman Hater - the first play of Beaumont and Fletcher - was acted, and among the publications were Chapman's Bussy d'Am 1 As before, we may conveniently rely on Ryland's Chronological Outlines, which suggests enough for our purpose. bois, Dekker and Webster's Westward Ho, Marston's What You Will, and Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy. In 1608 the year when Clarendon, Fuller, and Milton were born Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster was perhaps acted; and among the publications were Hall's Characters of Virtues and Vices, and plays by Chapman and by Middleton. Hasty and incomplete though the list be, it is enough for our purpose. A mere glance at it will show that, in comparison with either of the earlier periods of publication which we considered,1 the preponderance of dramatic work is marked; and what is more, that this work includes not such archaic plays as those which Shakspere found on the stage in 1587, but the ripest work of Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, Marston, and Middleton; and good work by Beaumont and Fletcher, Tourneur, and Webster. It was during the period of Shakspere's great tragic plays, in short, that what we now think of as the Elizabethan drama came into existence; and in 1608, when at last Shakspere's creative energy showed symptoms of exhaustion, he was surrounded on every side by rival dramatists, of great inventive as well as poetic power, whose work was so good that no contemporary criticism could surely have ranked it below his own. 1 See pp. 97, 210. X TIMON OF ATHENS, AND PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE [Timon of Athens was first entered in 1623 and published in the folio. Its sources are Paynter's Palace of Pleasure and a passage from the Life of Antony in North's Plutarch. On internal evidence it has been conjecturally assigned to the period we have now reached, about 1607. Pericles was published in quarto, with Shakspere's name, in 1609. It was republished in 1611 and in 1619, but was not included in the folio of 1623. It was not added to Shakspere's collected works until the third folio, -1663-4. Among the seven plays then added to the old collection this is the only one not generally thought spurious. Its sources are Lawrence Twine's Patterne of Painefull Adventures, and Gower's Confessio Amantis. Parts of the story may be traced back to the fifth or sixth century. On internal evidence, Pericles has been conjecturally assigned to 1608 or thereabouts. In both Timon and Pericles there is much matter believed not to be by Shakspere. In the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society for 18741 appear conjectural selections of what passages in these plays are believed to be genuine. Just what part Shakspere had in these plays, – whether he planned, or retouched, or collaborated, — nobody has determined.] BEFORE this we have seen work by Shakspere which is comparatively weak. Even after his experimental period, at the time when his imagination was beginning to display its utmost vigor, we found that when 1 Pages 130, 253. his attention was concentrated on anything, something else was apt to suffer. Since Titus Andronicus itself, though, we have found nothing so palpably weak as the two plays which we here consider together. In total effect, neither of them seems anywhere near worthy of Shakspere. This weakness, of course, is partly due to the generally admitted fact that considerable portions of these plays are by other hands. This does not cover the matter, however, The Taming of the Shrew is said to be largely by other hands; yet the Taming of the Shrew never seems, like Timon and Pericles, essentially unworthy of a place in Shakspere's work. To appreciate why these plays are given such a place, we must for the moment abandon our habit of considering plays as complete works, and attend only to details. Take, for example, Timon's speech to Apemantus : 1 "Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded To such as may the passive drugs of it Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself Or again, take Timon's better-known last speech: "Come not to me again: but say to Athens, 1 2 |