Cummings Study Guide

....... William Shakespeare ranks as the most popular author in the English language. To his millions of admirers, he is also the greatest. Since his death in 1616, no other writer has surpassed his ability to capture the human soul in words, and no other writer has been more read, more written about, and more debated. Shortly after Shakespeare died, his esteemed contemporary Ben Jonson wrote of him, “He was not of an age, but for all time." In 2000 British citizens voted him the Man of the Millenium—the most important earthling since 1000 A.D.
.......Down through the ages, important essayists, poets, dramatists, and critics have acclaimed Shakespeare as a virtuoso of unparalleled creative and technical skill. Bernard D. Grebanier observed: "One might succeed in discussing individual facets of Shakespeare's unique genius, but it is utterly impossible to summarize his achievement. There is something miraculous about Shakespeare's peculiar gifts; and every sensitive reader will eventually discover the miracle for himself" (English Literature and its Backgrounds, New York: Holt, 1950, Page 242). 
.......H.M. Burton observed that Shakespeare "is as important a figure in the history of mankind as Nelson or Lincoln, Newton or Einstein. His works have become a part of us and if they had never been written our lives and our language would have been so much the poorer" (Shakespeare and His Plays, New York: Roy Publishers, 1959, Page 1). 
.......Harold Bloom said Shakespeare "is a system of northern lights, an aurora borealis visible where most of us will never go. Libraries and playhouses (and cinemas) cannot contain him; he has become a spirit or 'spell of light,' almost too vast to apprehend" (Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, New York: Riverhead, 1998, Page 3). 
.......According to drama critic John Gassner, "Shakespeare is the greatest humanitarian who ever wrote for the theatre. . . .  Shakespeare's ability to create infinitely human characters stems from a pervasive love of man which no degree of pessimism in his climactic period can obliterate. He is not such an inveterate philanthropist as to spare the lash of satire, and he could strip the mask from corrupt humanity as ruthlessly as Jonathan Swift did later" (Gassner, John. Masters of the Drama. New York: Random House, 1954, Page 220).
.......In assessing Shakespeare’s influence on the great Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, Rolf Fjelde wrote that "something of Shakespeare" is present in all of Ibsen's works (Fjelde, Rolf, ed. Ibsen: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965, Page 50).
.......American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson called Shakespeare "inconceivably wise." And English critic and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said Shakespeare was a master at depicting the humanity everyone shares. Johnson wrote:

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature: the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species. (Quoted in Ribner, Irving. William Shakespeare: An Introduction to His Life, Times and Theatre. Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell, 1969 (Page 200).

.......Shakespeare was born in April 1564 on Henley Street in Stratford, England, a bustling market town on the Upper Avon River in the county of Warwickshire, about ninety miles northwest of London. Historians cannot document the exact day of his birth, but educated speculation sets it at April 23, the feast day of Saint George, England’s patron saint. Elizabeth I was in the sixth year of her reign as Queen of England. On April 26, Shakespeare was baptized in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church with a surname that omitted the first “e": Shakspeare. He was the third of eight children (four girls and four boys) of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden Shakespeare, who married in 1557. John Shakespeare, a native of nearby Snitterfield, crafted gloves, lent money, and traded in wool, barley, timber, and leather goods in a shop next to his Henley Street home. He also served as Stratford’s official ale-taster. As a conscientious and respected citizen, he held sundry political offices, including those of constable, treasurer, and alderman. In 1567, he became the high bailiff, or mayor, of Stratford, known in modern times as Stratford-Upon-Avon. Mary Arden Shakespeare was the daughter of a prosperous farmer of good social standing in the nearby town of Wilmcote. She was a good catch for John, for she possessed the greatest feminine charm of all: money. 

.......What Shakespeare did between the middle 1580s and 1592 is unknown because no records of his activities during that period have emerged. It is possible he spent this entire period in London after leaving Stratford to escape a charge of deer poaching in a park belonging to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. However, that possibility springs from sheer speculation, because it has never been proven that Shakespeare did, in fact, commit the crime. During these ''lost years," as they have come to be called, Shakespeare might have tended horses for theatergoers or worked as a sailor, a teacher, or a coachman. Or he might have been a soldier, a law clerk, a theater page, or a moneylender. He could have held several of those jobs. He may have held none of them.
.......Shakespeare may also have spent the time traveling to distant towns or even to foreign countries. His plays suggest that he visited Italy, for more than a dozen of them—including The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Winter's Tale all have scenes set in Italy. In addition, plays not set in Italy often star characters with Italian names. For example, although The Comedy of Errors takes place in Ephesus, Turkey, the names of many of the leading characters end with the Italian o or a:—Angelo, Dromio, Adriana, Luciana. In Hamlet's Denmark are characters named Bernardo and Francisco. Most of the characters in Timon of Athens bear the names of ancient Romans with the distintive us ending—Lucullus, Flavius, Flaminius, Lucius, Sempronius, Servillius, Titus, Hortensius, Philotus. Characters in Twelfth Night, set along the Adriatic coast, include Duke Orsino, Malvolio, Curio, Maria, and Antonio. The Tempest, although set on a magical island, has a largely Italian cast, including Prospero, Miranda, Antonio, Alonso, Gonzalo, Trinculo, and Stephano. Of course, it is quite possible that Shakespeare visited Italy only in his imagination, which was boundless.

Shakespeare in London...................................................................................................................................

.......In 1592, though, there can be no doubt that he was in London, at age 28, acting and writing. Proof of his presence in London at this time appeared in a 1592 pamphlet written by dramatist Robert Greene on his deathbed. He called Shakespeare "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." When the pamphlet was published after Greene died, its preface—written by an acquaintance of Greene—apologized to Shakespeare and acknowledged his growing importance. One person who may have helped Shakespeare gain entry to literary and social London was Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated his poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. 
.......While in London, Shakespeare lived alone in rented accommodations while his wife and children remained in Stratford. Why his family did not move to London with him is unknown. There has been speculation that it was Anne's wish to live apart from her husband because of her Puritan leanings. The Puritans, dour and severely rigid in their moral outlook, regarded stage plays as a corrupting influence. Most Londoners, however, had no such scruples and exhibited avid interest in stage productions. Queen Elizabeth herself was a playgoer. Entrepreneurs built theatres and competed for audiences with the best writers of the age, including not only Shakepseare but also Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Marlowe and Jonson were worthy rivals who remain today among the giants of English literature. 
.......When an epidemic of plague closed the theatres in 1592, the resourceful Shakespeare wrote sonnets and other poetry until the theatres reopened in 1594. In that year, he joined a newly formed drama group called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, serving as writer and actor. During this time, England prospered under the reign of Elizabeth, and most of the citizens had good food, good clothes and good housing. Women as well as men could speak their minds on important issues of the day, perhaps in imitation of  their outspoken queen, and many of Shakespeare's female characters are patterned after the strong women of the day. 

.......William Shakespeare had an enormous vocabulary—far greater than that of the average writer of today. However, in a book entitled The Professor and the Madman, author Simon Winchester points out an intriguing fact: William Shakespeare and other writers of his time had no dictionary to consult. The reason? No one had ever taken the time to compile an a-to-z dictionary of English words. Thus, when Shakespeare happened across a word he did not understand or he needed a word for a particular context, he could not “look it up" because there was no dictionary in which to look it up.
.......Winchester’s book, a highly entertaining and highly educational account of the origins and development of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains Shakespeare’s predicament as follows:

The “English Dictionary," in the sense that we commonly use the phrase today—as an alphabetically arranged list of English words, together with an explanation of their meanings—is a relatively new invention. Four hundred years ago there was no such convenience available on any bookshelf. There was none available, for instance, when William Shakespeare was writing his plays. Whenever he came to use an unusual word, or to set a word in what seemed an unusual context—he had almost no way  of checking the propriety of what he was about to do. He was not able to reach into his bookshelves and select any one volume to help. He would not be able to find any book that might tell him if the word he had chosen was properly spelled, whether he had selected it correctly, or had used it in the right way in the proper place.—Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman. New York: HarperCollins, 1998 (Page 80).

.......Gaining a reputation, Shakespeare began to prosper along with his country, and he built a formidable bank account. His good fortune was not only the result of his writing; it was also the result of his wise investing, and he closely guarded his purse. Once, he even sued a Stratford resident who failed to repay a debt of 35 shillings. Shakespeare also valued his good standing in the community. To prop it up, he obtained a coat of arms that elevated his status to that of ''gentleman.'' In 1597, he bought New Place, the second-biggest house in Stratford, for himself and his family. In 1599, he became a major shareholder in the Globe Theatre, constructed by Richard and Cuthbert Burbage on the south bank of the Thames River out of timbers from a previous theatre scheduled for demolition. 
.......After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, the new monarch, King James I, decided to call Shakespeare's acting company the ''King's Company'' (often referred to as the "King's Men"). Wearing splendid apparel of the court, Shakespeare participated in the coronation of James in 1604, and Shakespeare and the other members of the company became officers of the royal household. Meanwhile, Shakespeare's plays earned wide popularity and critical acclaim. The dramas were performed at castles of nobles, as well as at the royal court, and Shakespeare himself sometimes acted in them. It is known that he enjoyed playing the Ghost in Hamlet. Other writers—such as John Donne and Sir Walter Raleigh—appreciated Shakespeare, and he appreciated them. One of the hangouts of the writers was the Mermaid Tavern in London's Cheapside district, where they met as members of the Friday Street Club. There, Shakespeare often crossed wits with a formidable opponent, the English playwright, poet, and moralist Ben Jonson, whose brain was a library of learning. In terms of education and erudition, Shakespeare was no match for Jonson. But Shakespeare's quick wit and inventiveness enabled him to win the day against Jonson again and again. 
.......While in London, Shakespeare lived for a time with a family of French Huguenots in the Cripplegate section of the city. That experience likely provided him nibbles of knowledge about continental Europe and its cultural, religious, and social currents.

In the name of God . . . I William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon . . . in perfect health and memory, God be praised, do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following—that is to say, first, I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting. Click here to read the complete will.

.+.....7Shakespeare retired from the theatre in 1610 and returned to Stratford. Six years later, in 1616, he died on the same date on which he was believed to have been born, April 23. The cause of his death is the subject of conjecture. Ironically, he pronounced himself in good health on March 25, 1616, just a month before he died. Was he a victim of an accident or a murder? Did he have a terminal illness he was hiding from the public? No one can say. According to John Ward, a Stratford vicar in the mid 1600's, Shakespeare came down with a fever after a drinking bout with Ben Jonson and John Drayton, who had come to Stratford from London to visit him. Another story suggests that Thomas Quiney, the husband of Shakespeare's daughter Judith, poisoned Shakespeare. (Shakespeare may have altered his will in 1616 to insert a condition stating that Quiney would not be entitled to Judith's inheritance.) Shakespeare was entombed in the chancel of the same church where he was baptized. His wife died in 1623 at age 67. On his tombstone in Holy Trinity Church are engraved these words which appear to have been written by Shakespeare himself: 

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

.......After Shakespeare's death, his friends and relatives placed a monument on the wall above his tomb. The Latin words inscribed on it (Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, Populus mæret, Olympus habet) praised him for having the wisdom of Nestor, the intellect of Socrates, and the writing genius of the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil). In 1623, Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare: 

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
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Authorship Question

.......Many scholars have asserted that a man of Shakespeare's ilk—a practical, down-to-earth rustic from the English outback, a businessman who tended closely to his pocketbook—lacked the sophistication, creative eccentricity, and depth of knowledge to produce a great body of brilliant work. (These assertions often fail to take into account the excellent education Shakespeare probably received at the King's New School in Stratford.) Consequently, they have concluded that a writer other than Shakespeare, a Bacon or a Marlowe, wrote Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and other plays. Only by some trick or some whim of history did Shakespeare end up with the credit. This theory gained widespread currency in the 19th Century before scholars began to dismiss it as ludicrous by the 20th Century. And with good reason. Marlowe, for example, died in 1593, years before many of Shakespeare's plays were even written.
.......As for Francis Bacon (1561-1626)—the great philosopher, politician, scientist, lawyer, and writer in the court of Queen Elizabeth—Bryan Magee writes in the Story of Philosophy (DK Publishing, 1998, Page 74):

He became a Member of Parliament at the age of 23, and eventually, in succession, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (like his father), Lord Chancellor, as well as becoming a baron and a viscount. At the age of 36 he published the collection of essays that has been his most popular book ever since. But throughout his adult life he was producing writings that were to have a historic influence on the direction taken by Western science and philosophy. Given that he had a public career so overcrowded with work and achievements, to suggest that in addition to all this he also wrote Shakespeare's plays is about as probable as that George Bernard Shaw's plays were written by Einstein.

To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there.

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