A Study of Shakespeare

Study of Shakespeare, A

The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Study of Shakespeare, by Algernon
Charles Swinburne, Edited by Edmund Gosse
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Title: A Study of Shakespeare
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Editor: Edmund Gosse
Release Date: August 1, 2005 [eBook #16412]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY
OF SHAKESPEARE***

This eBook was prepared by Les Bowler.

A STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE BY ALGERNON CHARLES
SWINBURNE.
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

Begun in the winter of 1874, a first instalment of "A Study of
Shakespeare" appeared in the Fortnightly Review for May 1875, and a
second in the number for June 1876, but the completed work was not
issued in book form until June 1880. In a letter to me (January 31,
1875), Swinburne said:
"I am now at work on my long-designed essay or study on the metrical
progress or development of Shakespeare, as traceable by ear and not by
finger, and the general changes of tone and stages of mind expressed or
involved in this change or progress of style."
The book was produced at the moment when controversy with regard to
the internal evidence of composition in the writings attributed to
Shakespeare was raging high, and the amusing appendices were added
at the last moment that they might infuriate the pedants of the New
Shakespeare Society. They amply fulfilled that amiable purpose.
EDMUND GOSSE
September 1918
CONTENTS A STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE I. FIRST PERIOD:
LYRIC AND FANTASTIC II. SECOND PERIOD: COMIC AND
HISTORIC III. THIRD PERIOD: TRAGIC AND ROMANTIC
APPENDIX I. NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL PLAY OF KING
EDWARD III. II. REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS ON THIS
FIRST ANNIVERSARY SESSION OF THE NEWEST
SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY III. ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS

A STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE.
I.
The greatest poet of our age has drawn a parallel of elaborate eloquence
between Shakespeare and the sea; and the likeness holds good in many
points of less significance than those which have been set down by the
master-hand. For two hundred years at least have students of every kind

put forth in every sort of boat on a longer or a shorter voyage of
research across the waters of that unsounded sea. From the paltriest
fishing-craft to such majestic galleys as were steered by Coleridge and
by Goethe, each division of the fleet has done or has essayed its turn of
work; some busied in dredging alongshore, some taking surveys of this
or that gulf or headland, some putting forth through shine and shadow
into the darkness of the great deep. Nor does it seem as if there would
sooner be an end to men's labour on this than on the other sea. But here
a difference is perceptible. The material ocean has been so far mastered
by the wisdom and the heroism of man that we may look for a time to
come when the mystery shall be manifest of its furthest north and south,
and men resolve the secret of the uttermost parts of the sea: the poles
also may find their Columbus. But the limits of that other ocean, the
laws of its tides, the motive of its forces, the mystery of its unity and
the secret of its change, no seafarer of us all may ever think thoroughly
to know. No wind-gauge will help us to the science of its storms, no
lead- line sound for us the depth of its divine and terrible serenity.
As, however, each generation for some two centuries now or more has
witnessed fresh attempts at pilotage and fresh expeditions of discovery
undertaken in the seas of Shakespeare, it may be well to study a little
the laws of navigation in such waters as these, and look well to
compass and rudder before we accept the guidance of a strange
helmsman or make proffer for trial of our own. There are shoals and
quicksands on which many a seafarer has run his craft aground in time
past, and others of more special peril to adventurers of the present day.
The chances of shipwreck vary in a certain degree with each new
change of vessel and each fresh muster of hands. At one time a main
rock of offence on which the stoutest ships of discovery were wont to
split was the narrow and slippery reef of verbal emendation; and upon
this our native pilots were too many of them prone to steer. Others fell
becalmed offshore in a German fog of philosophic theories, and would
not be persuaded that the house of