Identifier: williamshakespea01mabi (find matches)
Title: William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 1846-1916
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 Dramatists, English
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company London, Macmillan & co., ltd.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Text Appearing Before Image:
ever afterwards called the 'Night of Errors. The
main, although not the only, source of the plot was
the Menaechmi of Plautus, in which the Latin come-
dian develops the almost unlimited possibility of
blunders which lies in mistakes of identity — then
as now a popular device with playwrights and story-
tellers. Shakespeare may have read the comedy in
the original, or in a translation by William Warner,
which was not published until the year following the
presentation of the "Comedy of Errors", but which
was probably in existence in manuscript much ear-
lier. In this form many pieces of prose and verse
which later became famous were passed from hand
to hand; writing was practised chiefly for the pleas-
ure of the writer and his friends, and publication was
secondary, and usually an afterthought.
In turning to Plautus, Shakespeare paid tribute
to the classical tradition which dominated Italy and
was never without witnesses in England; a tradi-
tion which cannot be disregarded without serious
loss of artistic education, nor accepted without
Text Appearing After Image:

THE MEMORIAL THEATRE, STRATFORD
From Clopton Bridge.

THE FIRST FRUITS 173

sacrifice of original power. Whenever the classical
tradition has secured complete possession of the
stage, a new and vital drama has been impossible;
whenever it has been entirely discarded, unregu-
lated individualism has degenerated into all manner
of eccentricities of plot and form. With character-
istic insight, Shakespeare escaped both dangers;
he knew the classical manner, and was not unre-
sponsive to its order, balance, and genius for pro-
portion, but he refused to be enslaved or hampered
by it. English tragedy had secured complete free-
dom, and was fast becoming the richest and most
adequate expression of the English genius; Eng-
lish comedy had been fighting the same battle, and
"The Comedy of Errors" marks the decisive tri-
umph of the national genius. In this play Shake-
speare conformed to the ancient requirements that
the action should take place in a single day and
within the limits of a single locality — the time-
honoured unities; but he changed the classical into

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