Part 17 (2/2)

'A Winter's Tale' was seen by Dr Forman at the Globe on May 15, 1611, and it appears to have been acted at court on Nove

{251a} It is based upon Greene's popular romance which was called 'Pandosto' in the first edition of 1588, and in numerous later editions, but was ultimately in 1648 re-christened 'Dorastus and Fawnia'

Shakespeare followed Greene, his early foe, in allotting a seashore to Bohemia--an error over which Ben Jonson and many later critics have made merry {251b} A few lines were obviously drawn from that story of Boccaccio hich Shakespeare had dealt just before in 'Cyh-spirited Paulina and the thievish pedlar Autolycus, whose seductive roguery has become proverbial, and he invented the reconciliation of Leontes, the irrationally jealous husband, with Hernation and forbearance lend the story its intense pathos In the boy Mauise, while the courtshi+p of Florizel and Perdita is the perfection of gentle romance The freshness of the pastoral incident surpasses that of all Shakespeare's presentations of country life

'Tempest'

'The Tempest' was probably the latest drama that Shakespeare coinia, under the coe Somers, was overtaken by a storm off the West Indies, and the admiral's shi+p, the 'Sea-Venture,' was driven on the coast of the hitherto unknown Bermuda Isles There they remained ten months, pleasurably impressed by the s which overran the island and by ine that spirits and devils had iven up for lost, but they escaped froinia in May 1610, and the news of their adventures and of their safety was carried to England by some of the seamen in September 1610 The sailors' arrival created vast public excitement in London At least five accounts were soon published of the shi+pwreck and of the mysterious island, previously uninhabited by man, which had proved the salvation of the expedition 'A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Ile of Divels,' written by Sylvester Jourdain or Jourdan, one of the survivors, appeared as early as October

A second pa the disaster was issued by the Council of the Virginia Company in December, and a third by one of the leaders of the expedition, Sir Thomas Gates Shakespeare, who mentions the 'still vexed Bermoothes' (I i 229), incorporated in 'The Tempest' many hints from Jourdain, Gates, and the other paentle climate of the island on which Prospero is cast away, and to the spirits and devils that infested it, seem to render its identification with the newly discovered Bermudas unquestionable But Shakespeare incorporated the result of study of other books of travel The name of the God Setebos whoellan's 'Voyage to the South Pole' (in the 'Historie of Travell,'

1577), where the giants of Patagonia are described as worshi+pping a 'great devil they call Setebos' No source for the complete plot has been discovered, but the German writer, Jacob Ayrer, who died in 1605, dramatised a somewhat similar story in 'Die schone Sidea,' where the adventures of Prospero, Ferdinand, Ariel, and Miranda are roughly anticipated {253a} English actors were perfor, where Ayrer lived, in 1604 and 1606, and ht reports of the piece to Shakespeare Or perhaps both English and Gerin in some novel that has not yet been traced Gonzalo's description of an ideal commonwealth (II i 147 seq) is derived frone's essays (1603), while into Prospero's great speech renouncing his practice of ht re's translation of Medea's invocation in Ovid's 'Meta of Ovid had been one of Shakespeare's best-loved books in youth

A highly ingenious theory, first suggested by Tieck, represents 'The Te the 'The Comedy of Errors,' is the shortest of Shakespeare's plays) as a e of Princess Elizabeth (like Miranda, an island-princess) with the Elector Frederick This e took place on February 14, 1612-13, and 'The Tempest' formed one of a series of nineteen plays which were performed at the nuptial festivities in May 1613 But none of the other plays produced seem to have been new; they were all apparently chosen because they were established favourites at Court and on the public stage, and neither in subject-e bore obviously specific relation to the joyous occasion But 1613 is, in fact, on round far too late a date to which to assign the co to infor and a name' in the autumn of 1611, and was no doubt written some months before {254} The plot, which revolves about the forcible expulsion of a ruler fro by the son of the usurper's chief ally, is, ht would deliberately choose as the setting of an official epithalahter of a monarch so sensitive about his title to the crown as James I {255a}

In the theatre and at court the early representations of 'The Tempest'

evoked un to the beautiful lyrics which were dispersed through the play and had been set to h repute {255b} Like its predecessor 'A Winter's Tale,' 'The Te ue of the two pieces drew a passing sneer from Ben Jonson In the Induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, he wrote: 'If there be never a servant-monster in the Fair, who can help it he [_ie_ the author] says? nor a nest of Antics He is loth to et Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries' The 'servant-monster' was an obvious allusion to Caliban, and 'the nest of Antics' was a glance at the satyrs who figure in the sheepshearing feast in 'A Winter's Tale'

Fanciful interpretations of 'The Teination witheffect than in 'The Teical or supernatural agencies are the s of the plot But the tone is ht and senti in the early comedy The serious atmosphere has led critics, without much reason, to detect in the sche more than the irresponsible play of poetic fancy

Many of the characters have been represented as the outco the least soluble problems of human existence

Little reliance should be placed on such interpretations The creation of Miranda is the apotheosis in literature of tender, ingenuous girlhood unsophisticated by social intercourse, but Shakespeare had already sketched the outlines of the portrait in Marina and Perdita, the youthful heroines respectively of 'Pericles' and 'A Winter's Tale,' and these two characters were directly developed froirl-princesses, cast by misfortune on the mercies of nature, to which Shakespeare had recourse for the plots of the two plays It is by accident, and not by design, that in Ariel appear to be discernible the capabilities of human intellect when detached fros to the sah he is delineated in the severer colours that were habitual to Shakespeare's fully developed art

Caliban--Ariel's antithesis--did not owe his existence to any conscious endeavour on Shakespeare's part to typify human nature before the evolution of inary portrait, conceived with e of the New World, descriptions of whos, and universally excited the liveliest curiosity {257b} In Prospero, the guiding providence of the ro scene, traces have been sought of the lineaments of the dramatist himself, who in this play probably bade farewell to the enchanted work of his life Prospero is in the story a scholar-prince of rare intellectual attain study of the iven hinaniical faculty as soon as by its exercise he has restored his shattered fortunes is in perfect accord with the general conception of his just and philosophical temper

Any other justification of his final act is superfluous

Unfinished plays The lost play of 'Cardenio'

While there is every indication that in 1611 Shakespeare abandoned dramatic composition, there seeer of his company unfinished drafts of more than one play which others were summoned at a later date to complete His place at the head of the active dramatists was at once filled by John Fletcher, and Fletcher, with soer, undertook the working up of Shakespeare's unfinished sketches On September 9, 1653, the publisher Humphrey Moseley obtained a license for the publication of a play which he described as 'History of Cardenio, by Fletcher and Shakespeare' This was probably identical with the lost play, 'Cardenno,' or 'Cardenna,' which ice acted at Court by Shakespeare's coe festivities, and on June 8 before the Duke of Savoy's ambassador {258a} Moseley, whose description may have been fraudulent, {258b} failed to publish the piece, and nothing is otherwise known of it with certainty; but it was no doubt a dramatic version of the adventures of the lovelorn Cardenio which are related in the first part of 'Don Quixote' (ch xxiii-xxxvii) Cervantes's alish in Thomas Shelton's translation in 1612, offers much incident in Fletcher's vein When Lewis Theobald, the Shakespearean critic, brought out his 'Double Falshood, or the Distrest Lovers,' in 1727, he mysteriously represented that the play was based on an unfinished and unpublished draft of a play by Shakespeare The story of Theobald's piece is the story of Cardenio, although the characters are rena in the play as published by Theobald to suggest Shakespeare's hand, {259a} but Theobald doubtless took advantage of a tradition that Shakespeare and Fletcher had combined to dramatise the Cervantic theme

'Two noble Kinsmen'