WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20691, 13 April 1929, Page 10

WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

literature class. • ' i ' The literature class of the Workers’/ Educational Association opened its 1929. session on Monday evening with an address by Miss King. There was a good attendance of students. The programme now set before the members provides variety in “Julius Caesar,” “As You Like It,” Ruskin, Goldsmith, Galsworthy, and Meredith. If ther" *8 time 1 left after this .the study of American ' literature from 1850 will be taken up and continued into the session of 1930. Before opening on the subject of “ Julius Caesar” Mifes King-had something to say regarding the cultivation of a true approciation of Shakespeare. This was hot shown by being able to quote him or by being, able to trace the historical development and derivation of his playn, although it helped in the appreciation. ’ The lecturer had met students who had been quite successful in examination, and had taken Shakespeare, yet had missed a two appreciation of his work. Speaking for herself, it was hot till she had studied six plays that she recognised the spirit of . fun in Shakespeare. Speaking of the earliest representation of the plays in Elizabethan times, the lecturer was successful in portraying the very crude surroundings of the theatre in which these were produced. There was the roofless theatre, the stage of which projected some distance into the pit The pit was , strewn withy rushes, on which the “ groundlings ’V sat while on rough wooden benches the upper classes took up their position. The lighting arrangements consisted of sconces in the walls, wherein torches were struck. In the presentation of the plays then there was no division into acts and scenes. . These did not appear till 1623. The difficulties, therefore, were such that the dramatist had to appeal to the imagination of his audience, and in this connection one must be struck by the dexterity with which Shakespeare contrived to carry on sometimes by the use of the double plot. At this stage in the lecture i Miss King gave some very interesting * matter regarding the Coventry and Chester cycles; the miracle play, the stage for which was often set in the court of an inn or the middle of a market place; the mystery play, an invention of the author to illustrate the dogmas of the church; the morality play, which was intended to set forth some moral teaching; and the use of the interlude for interspersing farcical stuff through the serious. It was to be noted that Shakespearean drama was shot through and' through with scraps of its origin and development, and therefore provided a great study. The genius of .the Greek mind in influencing that great movement of . the Renaissance and through that our own literature ancT stage was commented upon. “ Julia Caesar ” when first pro- ■- duced was far from being historically , . accurate in costume, furniture, 1 or ■ scenery. It was a highly specular play, and was built out of Plutarch’s descriptions. Reverting to an earlier remark, Miss King showed h°*v “■ Julius Caesar ” opened with comedy. She illustrated this by a rendering of the conversation which took place between the nobles and some tradesmen, particularly the answers of the cobbler. The reciting of this provoked great merriment in the class, and proved the lecturer to possess more than ordinary histrionic ability. One of the questions to be answered by the class she thought would he: What light does this play throw on our modem problemsT