Bearing this in mind, and also the
facts that Shakspere's early training was effected in a little country
village; that upon the verge of manhood, he came to London, where he
spent his prime in contact with the bustle and friction of busy town
life; and that the later years of his life were passed in the quiet
retirement of the home of his boyhood--there would be good ground for an
argument, _a priori_, even were there none of a more conclusive nature,
that his earlier works would be found impregnated with the country
fairy-myths with which his youth would come in contact; that the result
of the labours of his middle life would show that these earlier
reminiscenses had been gradually obliterated by the gloomier influence
of ideas that were the result of the struggle of opposed theories that
had not then ceased to rage in the towns, and that the diabolic element
and questions relating thereto would predominate; and that, finally, his
later works, written under the calmer influence of Stratford life, would
show a certain return to the fairy-lore of his earlier years.
117. But fortunately we are not left to rely upon any such hypothetical
evidence in this matter, however probable it may appear. Although the
general reading public cannot be asked to accept as infallible any
chronological order of Shakspere's plays that dogmatically asserts a
particular sequence, or to investigate the somewhat dry and specialist
arguments upon which the conclusions are founded, yet there are certain
groupings into periods which are agreed upon as accurate by nearly all
critics, and which, without the slightest danger of error, may be
asserted to be correct.
Pages:
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159