STUDY VI William Shakespeare-Dramatist COMMENT FOR THE WEEK "If Shakespeare were less than Shakespeare, the world would weary of his oft-repeated praises. As subject for essayist, poet, or orator, he is unequaled among men-save only Jesus of Nazareth."-Burgess. William Shakespeare lived, and for us still lives, in the creations of his own brain—in that unrivaled galaxy of saints and sinners, kings and courtiers, knights and fair ladies, princes, paupers, and publicans, with which he has enriched literature for all ages. And let us remember that there was no trait of any of these characters that did not germinate in his fertile brain-that is to say, no trait which he himself was incapable of expressing, not merely in words but in his own life. Thus we see the wideness of his genius and the richness of his personality. Yet of his actual life but little is known, and that little, we are not surprised to find, is a strangely human mixture of good and ill. He was born in 1564, at Stratford-on-Avon, England, the son of a shopkeeper and alderman. His father was a glover -tradition says for a time also a butcher, and that William had the slaughtering to do. At any rate, William had but little schooling, and at seventeen married a woman eight years older than himself. At twenty-two he went to London as an actor, and soon after began writing sonnets and plays. He had quick success, for we know that within five years he was a partner of the Blackfriars Theater, and soon after was one of "The King's Players." In 1597 he bought a home in Stratford, where he lived in ease, and died in 1616, at the age of fifty-two. He was buried in the parish church, where his statue and his tomb remain to this day. Certain it is that he was wild during his younger days, and that he lived to regret much of the evil that he had done, a fact which we can easily gather from some of his sonnets. No one ever lived, except our Lord Himself, about whom so many books have been written as about Shakespeare, and yet practically all the facts that are known concerning his life are put down here. Many scholars have indeed claimed that he never lived at all; or at least that if he lived, he was only a dummy, and did not write the plays attributed to him. The fact remains that we have the plays, and that some one wrote them whom we call Shakespeare-all of which goes to show how little there is in a name and fame. The important thing is that one should do a work that is worthy to live and bless humanity; it does not much matter what name, if any, is attached to it. Shakespeare's understanding of human nature is unsurpassed, and he was a past master in showing up the shams, foibles, and follies of his characters. We may say that his mind was simply a mirror, which reflected the world which it saw, and that he had no opinion of his own. But this is a shallow judgment, and all who read him understandingly see that there is alike beneath his buffoonery and his grim tragedy a deep and consistent philosophy of ultimate victory for right, honor, and truth. This philosophy is based on a belief in God, as taught by Jesus Christ, and while he seldom misses an opportunity of taking a shot at hypocrisy in the garb of religion, his ultimate point of view is thoroughly Christian. As Strong says in his "Great Poets and Their Theology," "Shakespeare has dug down through superficial formula to the bed rock of Christian doctrine. He held the truths which belong in common to all ages of the Church. If any deny the personality of God or the deity of Christ, they have a controversy with Shakespeare. If any think it irrational to believe in man's depravity, guilt, and need of supernatural redemption, they must also be prepared to say that Shakespeare did not understand human nature." "Thus unto thee, O sweet Shakespeare sole, Which frights away that sleep he invocates; ... But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of Time, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,- What rumor, tattled by an enemy, Of influence loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp or sleep's or death's,— Jesus, good Paragon, Thou Crystal Christ?" -Sidney Lanier, "The Crystal." DAILY READINGS Sixth Week, First Day: Shakespeare and Humanity Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.—Matt. 11:28-30. And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.-Matt. 10:28. Each human life is a drama in five acts-of birth, of youth, of love, of struggle, and of death. Shakespeare took the stories of real people who had lived and struggled, stories which had come down either in history or literature, of lives which illustrated the great elemental passions of humanity, and laid them before us so that all can see their meaning. Like all great dramatists from Sophocles and Eschylus down to our own day, he pictured the struggle of the spirit against the flesh, ending in the death of the body and victory or defeat for the soul. The life of Jesus Christ is the greatest drama ever enacted -a drama lived out in real life, culminating in the fierce struggle for the soul of humanity in Gethsemane and on the Cross, and ending in the glory of the resurrection morning. That life was too sacred for the genius of even a Shakespeare, and it had already been pictured in the gospels in a way that no dramatist could improve upon. The peasants of Oberammergau have taken it almost exactly as it stands, and for four hundred years have been enacting it as a religious vow. It has there been witnessed by more people and has brought deeper lessons to their hearts than any play of Shakespeare's. But wherever else it has been enacted, either for art or for gain, the attempt has been treated as a sacrilege. Yet although Shakespeare did not attempt to portray this greatest drama of history, the plays that he did write were written from the point of view of the Cross, that selfishness and pride bring death and destruction, while unselfish service brings life and victory. In Shakespeare's characters we find the great truth illustrated that "it is neither a man's worldly fortunes, nor the adherence of his friends, nor the fidelity of his wife, nor the time nor manner of his death, but the tenor of his life, which determines whether he is properly an object of envy or of pity."" "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 1 Eaton, "Shakespeare and the Bible." And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Sixth Week, Second Day: Shakespeare and Manhood Doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name.-Phil. 2: 3-9. Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.—Rom. 15:1. Jesus of Nazareth, with the endowment of perfect manhood that would have made the fulfilment of any ambition possible to Him, proved His greatness and fulfilled His ambition by emptying Himself and becoming the servant of mankind. And for this cause God has exalted Him above all others, and humanity rejoices to call Him Lord. Shakespeare nowhere attempts to show us the ideal man. He takes life as he finds it. His major characters are, therefore, men of great qualities, but each with some fatal flaw which in the end makes a tragedy of his life. In most of these cases it is ambition, another name for selfishness, which brings about the wreckage. We find Macbeth led into sin and murder through ambition; Cæsar was ambitious; and |