Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature (revised edition, 1899) and F. E. Schelling's Elizabethan Drama, both of which are rich in bibliography. For questions of language and grammar, see A. Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon; J. Bartlett's Concordance to Shakespeare, and E. A. Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar. As usual, Dr. H. H. Furness's Variorum edition of the present play is a compendium of the results of scholarship on the subject. I again wish to thank Mr. R. G. Martin for substantial assistance. W. A. N. Harvard University, August, 1909. INTRODUCTION 1. SHAKSPERE AND THE ENGLISH DRAMA The wonderful rapidity of the development of the English drama in the last quarter of the sixteenth century stands in striking contrast to the slowness of its growth before that period. The religious drama, out of which the modern dramatic forms were to spring, had dragged through centuries with comparatively little change, and was still alive when, in 1576, the first theatre was built in London. By 1600 Shakspere had written more than half his plays and stood completely master of the art which he brought to a pitch unsurpassed in any age. Much of this extraordinary later progress was due to contemporary causes; but there entered into it also certain other elements which can be understood only in the light of the attempts that had been made in the three or four preceding centuries. In England, as in Greece, the drama sprang from religious ceremonial. The Mass, the centre of the public worship of the Roman church, The Drama before contained dramatic material in the Shakspere. gestures of the officiating priests, in the narratives contained in the Lessons, and in the responsive singing and chanting. Latin, the language |