SHAKESPEARE'S The Merchant of Venice WITH NOTES BY MARGARET HILL MCCARTER Formerly Teacher of English and American Literature, CRANE & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS INTRODUCTION. I. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. William Shakespeare: Born April 23, 1564; Died April 23, 1616. "Men without some great motive lying at the basis of their action, and giving color to their endeavor, can have no interest for us." It was more than three hundred years ago, down in the quiet town of Stratford, England, that William Shakespeare first opened his baby eyes to the light of an April day. Fifty-two years later, on the anniversary of that same April day, they were closed, for him to be opened on earth no more forever. His life ran parallel with the latter half of the sixteenth century, whose events helped to shape his career, and upon whose history, as well as upon all subsequent history, he exerted a wide and ever-increasing influence. It was the era of "Good Queen Bess," the last and most powerful of the powerful house of Tudor. Within its limits, briefly told, Protestantism, whose great attributes are freedom of thought and freedom of conscience, became liberated to the English people. The supremacy of the English sovereign over papal dictation was established. The force and fear of Spain as a naval enemy was destroyed. It was a time of daring adventure, of exploration, and of civil progress; and above all, it was a golden age of literature. Through such an era as this, William Shakespeare lived his halfcentury of life. His parents, John and Mary Arden Shakespeare, were of families something above the yeomanry, and were, for a 156428 part of their lives, possessed of comfortable means. In the education of their eldest son, William, various elements combined. The free grammar school of Stratford furnished him with classical learning. The influence of the Protestant Church into which he was baptized had its bearing upon his intellectual development. The many old English chronicles and legends that formed a large part of the reading of that day supplied him with the material out of which in later years he wove his most powerful and charming dramas. Lastly, the character of the country in which Shakespeare passed the first twenty years of his life, and to which he returned to spend his sunset days, after wealth and reputation were his in large possession, the quiet charm of his surroundings, must have shaped his mental unfolding and helped to put into his writings that element of beauty with which they are illuminated. For in the Warwickshire landscape up and down the winding Avon there is a serenity and harmony and rich coloring, overhung with a soft, dreamy atmosphere, that all in all appeals to the heart of the poet. Something of its rare loveliness must have become a part of Shakespeare's being, and so controlled the shaping of his thought to the exquisite beauty of its expression. At the age of eighteen Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway, a woman several years older than himself. To them were born three children,- Suzanna, Hamnet, and Judith. At the age of twenty-two, Shakespeare left Warwickshire for London. Here for some twenty years as play actor, and especially as play-writer, his success grew steadily. His family meanwhile made their home in Stratford, and thither, once a year, he returned to visit them. In fact, he seems always to have regarded Stratford and not London as his home. Six or eight years before his death he retired from the stage, rich and renowned, to spend the remainder of his life in Warwickshire. Here, surrounded by his family, his day's work done, he lived in serene enjoyment until, on the 23d day of April, 1616, the opening day of his fifty-third year, he passed out of this life, henceforth to "belong to the ages." Two days later the Holy Trinity Church of Stratford received his mortal remains, where undisturbed they lie to-day, making sacred ground of a bit of English soil. Not without reason may the name of William Shakespeare top the list of the world's great men of literature. His works show him to have possessed the diplomacy of the politician, the knowledge of the ripe scholar, the wisdom of the historian, the calm insight of the philosopher, the artistic intuition of the poet, and the deep and genial sympathies of the Christian. More and more, with the coming-on of time, will the student follow Shakespeare in loving reverence. Because"With the pen of a ready writer And an artist's hand to guide the pen, And a poet's soul to smooth the measure," he has portrayed human life in its wide and varied relations, and. has set forth human responsibility and human duty that know no distinction of time and place, he has bound himself to the universal heart, and must always stand in literature "The foremost man of all this world." |