Shakespeare

5 Shakespeare BY MARGARET CALDWELL It is perfectly natural for us to be interested in the things which people around us are thinking of and talk!ng about. We have a tendency, too, to like anything which is old anything ; which has been handed down to us from generations past. This year, as you know, marks the three hundredth year since the death of Shakespeare. Because of this date many people, throughout the United States and throughout the rest of the world, have been considering Shakespeare and have been talking about him. Of course, we have all responded more or less to the throb of this interest in him and his work. There is no objection to our giving attention to him simply because other people do there is no ob- ; jection to our being interested in him simply because he is ancient but seems to me that if we are going to think of him intelliit gently, ifwe are going to get the very best that he has to give us, we must have the very strongest reasons for reading and thinking and talking of Shakespeare. In the short time I have, it will be impossible for me to say very much about Shakspeare himself, or about any of his works, but I am here to remind you that any man who studies Shakspeare is getting very much more out of life than one who does not. Tt may not be essential that one shall study Shakespeare in order to get into heaven. It is not essential, absolutely, that one shall study Shakespeare in order to be a good citizen. But the man who does know Shakespeare has an inspiration and an uplift which will help him to get into heaven, and which will help him to make a strong citizen of himself. It is said of Shakspeare that he is just as much a fact as the Alps or the Atlantic ocean, and that we who do not know of him are probably missing just as much as those of us who do not know of those great geographical places. When I say that we shoukl study Shakspeare, I do not mean that we should state what the critics have to say about him. Tf we want to know the man really, if we want to get in touch with what he was and is, we must read his works as they are given by him. The Talcs of Sliakespcarc are all very well, but they serve only to create a stepping stone to the study of the real works themselves and so I urge upon you that you go to Shakespeare ; *Remarks at the preliminary exercises of the demonstration of a ward association meeting, at the June M. I. A. Conference, 1916.

1062 IMPROVEMENT ERA and read his works as he produced them. If you are not interested now, if they do not mean much to you, then work on them until you learn to read them and until you can get from them the inspiration which they surely have to give. I said to you that it is not necessary to know what the critics have to say. It is true, of course, that there is a certain interest in knowing that Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, that he died three hundred years ago, and that his father was not a very well educated man that the boy went to the grammar ; school, where he "learned English and small Latin and less Greek," and that later on he studied French and Italian that he ; married Ann Hathaway; that he moved to London, and there wrote many of his plays, and acted upon the London stage that ; his period of writing covered about twenty years' time; that finally he returned to Stratford, and died somewhere near the age of fifty-two years. Nobody appears better perhaps for knowing this he has had no more uplift from these facts than as ; though he did not know them. It is simply interesting to us to know that the theatre of Shakespeare's time was not exactly like the theatre of today. The stage had little stage-setting, except some very, very simple furniture. The only atmosphere which the stage-setting created was that given by a blue canopy stretched above to suggest the blue sky, or black draperies to suggest the setting for a tragedy, or something of that kind. When a change of the scene was to be made, possibly somebody brought in a pencil or a pen, and put it on the crude table, to suggest that the scene had been changed to a study; or possibly a stag**, manager came out with a placard which read : "This is a throne room," or "This is a forest." We may enjoy knowing that what we now call the parquet of the theatre, in Shakespeare's time was known as a pit, people sat there who could afford to pay only one or two or three pennies to see the play, and that the people who occupied the pit were the lower classes, and that those who really wanted to see the play for the real advantages of it were the people who went up higher, and paid higher prices for their seats. It may be interesting for us to know that during the play the clown capered all around the side of the stage in order to create amusement for those people in the pit. It may be interesting for us to know that the women's parts in Shakespeare were played by young boys before their voices became harsh and hard, and that no woman who considered herself respectable went upon the stage at all, and that as a matter of fact many women who attended the theatre sat in their boxes with their faces masked. All these facts have a certain interest but they are not the ; things for which we study Shakespeare. Wewant the uplift which comes to us, the inspiration, and the help which we get

SHAKESPEARE 1063 from reading an author who is an authority capable of interpreting life. We certainly need to get from our study standards for our own existence, power which will help us conquer in hours of trial, for, it seems to me, this is the big thing for which we study all literature. Shakespeare's time was not particularly unlike our present period. In a way, at least, it was not, for England had just conquered in war, her people were traveling, they were wealthy, and they were interested in life. Many men were writing plays at that period, just as many men today are writing plays, occasioned by the great wars, occasioned because of the amount of travel which people are permitted to take, and because of other unusual opportunities they had. Of course, people were in the frame of mind which made them interested in humanity, and so we find Shakespeare writing primarily about people, not people of a particular age but people who could live from generation to generation and as we read of Shakespeare's men today, we say, ; "How like the man who lives next door, how like that woman 1 know." Sometimes we feel a blow which has been given to us, ourselves, and we feel that we have been hit very hard by the thing which Shakespeare has his characters do. In other words, his characters are thoroughly human, and are working out the real problems of life in ways that they can be worked out, and ways that they must of necessity be worked out. Because Shakespeare dealt with humanity in all its classes, his plays appeal to all classes of people. Certainly we can look for more than the study of character and human problems in Shakespeare. If one is interested merely in the story, he finds something from this great writer. There could not possibly be any more charming story than the story of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," or "Twelfth Night ;" or, if one wants heavier themes, the story of "Othello," or "Lear," or "MacBeth.' So if you want just a story, go to Shakespeare for it. If you want philosophy, a deep insight into life, and into the hearts of people, go to Shakespeare for it. If you want description of landscapes, of the seasons, of skies and seas, and of court life, go to Shakespeare for it. If you want humor of the keenest type, go to Shakespeare for it. You may not in his later writings find material which will make you laugh heartily, but you certainly will find material which will make you smile, and smile, and smile a quiet, sweet, serene smile for days to come. It is said of Shakespeare that his humor, like murder, will out and it seems to me ; that this is one of the saving things about him, that he sees the funny side of life. Even in his most serious stories there is relief action which makes the play wake up and live. If you want a picture of out door life, if you want to breathe fresh air and feel real sunshine in your souls, go to Shakespeare

1064 IMPROVEMENT ERA and read some of his plays which have a forest setting. If you want facts, if you want knowledge, go to Shakespeare for historical fads. If you want to understand the allusions in tales you read every day, go to Shakespeare and learn from the allusions there many, many things which ycu can apply to all your reading. If you want to know English words, go to Shakespeare, for he has used 15,000 different English words. After all, however, it seems to me that the big thing to go to Shakespeare for is not knowledge, is not a story, but is rather the manner in which Shakespeare expresses his wonderful thoughts. The poetry and the charm of what he has to say is, to my mind at least, one of the biggest things in Shakespeare. If you lose the poetry in his lines, you "put his whole creation out of tune." He has somehow put himself into his writing, and only by reading him aloud can one feel the thrill and the glory of his works. Now, if I have just one word to leave with you, it is this, that you read Shakespeare aloud. You cannot appreciate the difference between his rather boisterous "Merry Wives of Windsor" and his finer humor in the "Tempest ;" you cannot appreciate the difference between tragedy such as we get in "Hamlet" and such as we get in "Othello" and "MacBeth" until you have hear Ma-- 1 Beth and the Moore and other characters talk. No matter how poorly you may read Shakespeare, no matter how poorly you may know Shakespeare theatricals, my advice is to rea 1 aloud, aloud, and constantly read aloud. A MOUNTAIN FIRE On their annual "hike" over the Pioneer Trail this year, the M. I. A. Scouts assisted in successfully quenching this fire which vras creating havoc on one of the hills. Through their efforts hundreds of acres were saved. Hon. Anthony W. Tvins, National Committeeman, took his place on the fire line with the boys.