oe ee 
Vol. 1. No. 51 
MASTERS OF 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
William Shakespeare (Continued) 
By D. F. Lamson. 
The intelligent and thoughtful 
reader of Shakespeare has probably 
often found himself asking, “Where 
did the great poet obtain the ma- 
terial for his plays—full as they 
are of allusions to ancient and me- 
diaeval history, fiction, customs 
and life?’ This is an interesting 
question, and one that has engaged 
the attention of literary experts. 
The sum of their findings is this: 
It is admitted that there is in the 
Shakespeare dramas an amount of 
learning, the result of reading and 
observation; to which most of the 
wits and great men of his time 
were strangers. Not only did noth- 
ing in nature escape him, but he 
knew men and was familiar with 
history; his eyes missed nothing. 
In books, he was equally observant : 
every dull chronicle and fanciful 
legend fixed itself upon his memory. 
The scene, the life, the men, are 
photographed upon his mind, and 
he colors them with his own regai 
imagination. Never was there so 
delicate an instrument as Shakes- 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
A WEEKLY: JOURNAL DEVOTED-TO-THE: BEST: INTERESTS-OF- THENORTH-SHORE 
MANCHESTER, MASS., SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1905 
peate Ss sinteect,..to, Tecerve, FtO 
combine, to reproduce, to adorn. 
He drew his materials from every 
source, and by a motion of his ma- 
gician’s wand they shaped them- 
selves into forms of imperishable 
grandeur and loveliness. It has 
been said that of all his plays there 
are only two,. the germs of which 
cannot be found before his time. 
The story of Hamlet is as old as the 
twelfth century; the tragical his- 
tory of Romeo and Juliet was 
tianslated from the Italian and 
printed at Paris in 1570; in Coriola- 
nus, whole speeches are taken from 
North’s translation of Plutarch. A 
writer in the London Times has 
lately made a comparison between 
Shakespeare and Ovid, and finds 
allusions to some 75. stories or 
names in the Metamorphoses. 
The scattered folk-love, chron- 
icles and legends of many rations 
and centuries lay at the. poet’s feet, 
and some of them were very dry; 
Shakespeare prophesied over them. 
and a spirit came into them, a 
heart began to throb under the ribs 
of death, the dry bones became liv- 
ing men. His early dramas are 
often other men’s tragedies made 
over, but so wonderfully that 
their original authors had more 
EF LEPwoun, 
Three Cents 
reason for admiration than com 
plaint. There are two ways of ap- 
propriating material; one is the me- 
chanical, the other the organic 
way; Shakespeare made — other 
men’s thoughts his own; they had 
with him a regenesis, and came 
forth as if new born from his tran- 
scendent brain. 
To all men who have instructea 
and moved mankind, it can be said, 
“Other men labored, and ye have 
entered into their labors.” The 
ereatest literary productions of the 
ages are inextricably intertwined 
with each other. “Milton could: 
never have written, if Dante had 
not gone before; Dante presup- 
poses Virgil; Virgil would have 
been impossible without Homer: 
Homer himself was probably the 
interpreter and unifier of a whole 
cycle of rhapsodists who glim- 
mered like stars in the early morn- 
ing of poetry before his own great 
epic sun had risen.” So in our own 
literature. The Italian poets and 
the early chroniclers made Chauser 
possible; the same sources and 
many more are reproduced and 
made resplendent in Shakespeare, 
and so on down to Tennyson, Low- 
ell and Longfellow. Each age and 
( Continued on Page 6.) 
Courtesy Floyd, Souvenir Postals. 
MANCHESTER INNER HARBOR. 
