The play moves to its end, to the fading out of the shadow that Lady Macbeth has become. She killed herself, it could have needed little doing. The nemesis of her clarity of vision, of her seeing things just as they were, a spot of blood but as a spot of blood, no more, is that nightly in the sleep that should be a little salvation to her, she wanders, pitifully rubbing the blood of Duncan from her hands in vain. And Macbeth, selfdamned, cannot even weep for her death, shrugs at the news and turns away. How do we first see him? Coming from victory, to be greeted by Duncan's generous gratitude. What is his end? The end of a beast tied to a stake and baited to death. § 7 He I will make no attempt to sum up the virtues of Shakespeare, to pass æsthetic judgment on him. That is a task that has been well done and ill done and on the whole overdone. is a great dramatist, a great poet, so great that we can all of us find something that we want in him. And the search-if as aforesaid we will take a little trouble to learn his language and the method of his art-need not be a hard one. For For open the book, make ready, and his plays leap to life from its pages. BIBLIOGRAPHY For more careful study and for wider knowledge of the plays, these few books will be found useful. The Life of Shakespeare, by Sir Sidney Lee, comprehends all that is certainly known, and shows this to be much more than is usually supposed. William Shakespeare, by Georg Brandes, is a somewhat more imaginative and sympathetic biography, which should be read to counteract Sir Sidney Lee's matter-of-fact point of view. William Shakespeare as Dramatist, by Brander Matthews, is the best study of the playwright as a craftsman for the stage. For the content of the plays as literature, the best aids are Edward Dowden's Shakespere, a Critical Study of His Mind and Art, and A. C. Bradley's Shakesperean Tragedy. Shakespeare's England. 2 vols.: edited by Sir Walter Raleigh. This pictures the times he lived in, the people he wrote for, and is a veritable dictionary of the terms he uses. Shakespeare's Theatre, by Ashley H. Thorndike. An excellent description of the technical means by which he worked. For a modern edition of the plays, with fairly comprehensive notes, the Arden Edition, now edited by R. H. Case, each play in a separate volume, is recommended, or the Tudor Shakespeare, edited by W. A. Neilson and A. H. Thorndike. While for detailed textual study, Horace Howard Furness's Variorum should be used. The vast array of notes which this edition contains retail every comment of consequence that has been made upon the text since Shakespeare came to be edited. |