SHAKESPEARE AND THE ELIZABETHANS.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 November 1923, Page 4

SHAKESPEARE AND THE ELIZABETHANS.

In "Shakespeare, llie Man and his Stage,” Air E. A. G. Lamborn and Mr (!. li. Harrison, have .summarised the information available with regard to Shakespeare’s career and theatrical activities. Some people imagine that it is a remarkable and rather a .suspicions circumstance that we know so little about the personal history of the world's greatest dramatist. Tint there is really nothing strange about it. .Many of his contemporaries admired him—as witness lien Jon.son > tribute. Hut there is no reason to suppose that they foresaw the position which he would occupy in literature, and in tlio.se days, when printing was still a relatively new art. and hooks were comparatively rare, it was not the fashion to compile biographies of popular playwrights. Writing for the stage was, after all. still a practice of dubious respectability. Apart from Hen .Tonson, who has told his own story, the only men of letters about whom we know lunch were those who were of high rank or were prominent in other walks of life--as were Spenser. Bacon, Baleigh, Sidney. What, for example, do we know of Marlowe, or half-a-dozen other leading Elizabethans? With Shakes, penre, as with them, we have to lie eon-

| ient with mere scraps, entries in regi-- | tors, and so forth, eon temporary allu- | ion o of which there are a number [ some i emplimeni ary. some very milch I the opposite. However, healing nil the question oi authorship, we Ltimt enough to make it cl>-:ir that there is nothing inberenilv improbable in Shakespeare having wiitieii the plays .“Unbilled to him, and that it is vcy i improbable that anyone 01-o did. I The book contain-, some chapters on Elizabethan life generally, which shoiil • correct the illusion cherished by some that the Elizabethan.-, were a. race of intellectual .supermen. Highly intelligent they were, but their interests were nut chiefly intellectual. It is quite likely that the Elizabethan drama owed its popularity to its brisk action as much its to its poetry. The exuberant Elizabethan quite frankly enjoyed the tilings «,f the llf.-sii. It was an age oi luxury in dress and personal adornment. (treat store was set on lino physique and personal comeliness. There I. ample evidence of the regard for bodily perfection, "the delight of the eye, and the pride of life.” Thus a worthy yeoman asked Raleigh to enlist his son in her -Majesty’s guard. "I putt, in no l.’oyes,” said Raleigh, hilt the lather prevailed on him to have a look at the lad. The latter, though only t*'or IK. "was -ueh a goodly proper voting Icllow, the tallest oi all the goatd.” that Raleigh broke his rule and swore him in there and then. At dinner that night the recruit set the lir-.t dish before the queen, who beheld him with admiration, "as if a young giant had stalked in with the .service. - ’ I'lilh r, in the next generation, remembered that, "such people, ceteris paribus, ,nx sometimes ceteris imparihtis, were preferred by the queen.” It was an age when men took an undisguised pleasure iti the delights of the table, ami in the reign of James 1. prodigality degenor ated into downright grossne-s. fn slant, although the Elizabethans produced magnificent poetry, it is quite a mistake to suppose that they were ‘■‘highbrows.’-' Their feet were plarta'. linnly on the satisfying earth. Tints the hero of his time was Si. Philip Sidney, whom 1 radii ion represents as the beau ideal of chivalry. Yet from fcitte'iiporar', rel'ctcur- s we gather that he was admired quite as much he cause he was a line all-round athlete as for 111., knightly qualities. Spouse* write, of him : In wrestling nimble and in riinniuc swift. In shooting si'fidie and in swimming si roug ; Well made to -trike, to throw, to lea pc to lif!. And idi : iia -.ports Rial shophofii'd" am among; And I his preux chevalier |md a decidedly ring'll edge to hi., tongue, \Ye quoi a letter addressed by Sidney to hiI’nlher’s secretary ; Mr Moiincaux.— Ecu words are hosto. My lollies i, my I’a I Iter have come to the oys of some; neither can I enndeume any hut vow for it. ! assure vow before God ih.-i! il ever I known vow to do so niuehr as reede ally leliv T wyrte to mv father, without his commandment, or my eonsente, I will thrusio my dagger info yow : and tniste to it, for | speake it in earnest. In the meaiif. lime faivwell. Fly me. PHH.iPPK SIDNEY.