Shakespeare and the Modern Stage; with Other Essays. Sir Sidney Lee
situation. My aim is to deal with dominant principles which underlie the past and present situation, rather than with particular episodes or personalities, the real value of which the future has yet to determine.
My best thanks are due to my friend Sir James Knowles, the proprietor and editor of The Nineteenth Century and After, for permission to reproduce the four articles, entitled respectively, "Shakespeare and the Modern Stage," "Shakespeare in Oral Tradition," "Shakespeare in France," and "The Commemoration of Shakespeare in London." To Messrs Smith, Elder, & Co., I am indebted for permission to print here the articles on "Mr. Benson and Shakespearean Drama," and "Shakespeare and Patriotism," both of which originally appeared in The Cornhill Magazine. The paper on "Pepys and Shakespeare" was first printed in the Fortnightly Review; that on "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Playgoer" in "An English Miscellany, presented to Dr. Furnivall in honour of his seventy-fifth birthday" (1901); that on "The Municipal Theatre" in the New Liberal Review; and that on "A Peril of Shakespearean Research" in The Author. The proprietors of these publications have courteously given me permission to include the articles in this volume. The essay on "Aspects of Shakespeare's Philosophy" was prepared for the purposes of a popular lecture, and has not been in type before.
In a note at the foot of the opening page of each essay, I mention the date when it was originally published. An analytical list of contents and an index will, I hope, increase any utility which may attach to the volume.
SIDNEY LEE.
1st October 1906.
Shakespeare and the Modern Stage
| I. | The Perils of the Spectacular Method of Production | 1 |
| II. | The Need for Simplifying Scenic Appliances | 4 |
| III. | Consequences of Simplification. The Attitude of the Shakespearean Student | 7 |
| IV. | The Pecuniary Experiences of Charles Kean and Sir Henry Irving | 9 |
| V. | The Experiment of Samuel Phelps | 11 |
| VI. | The Rightful Supremacy of the Actor | 12 |
| VII. | The Example of the French and German Stage | 16 |
| VIII. | Shakespeare's Reliance on the "Imaginary Forces" of the Audience | 18 |
| IX. | The Patriotic Argument for the Production of Shakespeare's Plays constantly and in their variety on the English Stage | 23 |
Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Playgoer
| I. | An Imaginary Discovery of Shakespeare's Journal | 25 |
| II. | Shakespeare in the rôle of the Ghost on the First Production of Hamlet in 1602 | 27 |
| III. | Shakespeare's Popularity in the Elizabethan Theatre | 29 |
| IV. | At Court in 1594 | 31 |
| V. | The Theatre an Innovation in Elizabethan England | 36 |
| VI. | Elizabethan Methods of Production | 38 |
| VII. | The Contrast between the Elizabethan and the Modern Methods | 43 |
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VIII.
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