SHAKESPEARE AS A TEACHER.

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 88

SHAKESPEARE AS A TEACHER.

The genius and influence of William Shakespeare has been much discussed. In fact every phase of Shakespeare's life, real or imaginary, has been fiercely analysed. His existence has been challenged in so far as his literary work is concerned. Once again in the Old Land there is a revival in Shakespeare, and many articles in the reviews discuss his many-sidedness and his transcendent genius. The Nineteenth Century for April publishes an article from the pen of the Rev. Canon Beeching on "Shakespeare as a Teacher." The thesis maintained in the article is that "Shakespeare has .teaching to offer about human life which can most simply be described as spiritual." The writer fully understands that this conjection will be controverted, first by those who contend that Shakespeare was a playwright and an actor, and secondly by those who declare that he was a dramatist, and the drama 's an art—and art has nothing to do with religion, or even with morality;—indeed, he was far too great an artist to care about teaching.

Canon Beeching first answers his own question as to " What is the real ground of the Puritan horror of the drama?" The drama depends for its existence upon the representation of passion, and the passions represented on a good many stages have been immoral. " There are plays of Beaumont and Fletcher which would justify the severest Puritan strictui*es : and the plays of the Restoration stage are now, tor the most part, unreadable. The passion most easily delineated is the passion of love; and the temptation always is to make the situation striking by making it abnormal." This temptation did not oome to Shakespeare because he was not wholly dependent on the single passion of love. The plays of his chief strength—" Ham-» Ipti," " Macbeth," " Julius Caesar." " Coriolanus," "King Lear," and the English history plays, hardly deal with love at all; "and in no one of them 13 love the motive of the action." On the other hand, the writer agrees that the function of poetic art is not to teach, but to interest and charm. But any good collection of lyrics " gives a beautiful and satisfying expression to the best human feelings and sentiments." Then, "if lyrial poetry has this influence on us, which is really a spiritual influence, must we not anticipate a still greater influence from the serious drama, which is altogether concerned with human character ?" It is urged to-day that modern dramatists are the real instructors of the i people in modern morality. So, if it be true that Shakespeare was " free in his manners and his morals," what sort of teacher could he be ? The writer ably champions Shakespeare against the two most recent assailants of his personal character. For instance, Mr Frank Harris, in " The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story," represents Shakespeare as a man who ruined himself, body and soul, by sensuality. "Mr Harris .affects to trace the poet's decline and, fall through these great tragedies; hub considering that these tragedies, in all qualities of poetic force rise in an ascending scale from ' Julius Caesar ' to ' King Lear' and ' Antony and Cleopatra,' that part of his case cannot be taken seriously. The one grain of possible fact behind his theory is found in an incident of the ' Sonnets,' and it will not be difficult to show that there is no ground whatever for carrying on that story into the period of the tragedies." Canon Beeching does not accept the story o£ the " Sonnets " as literary make-believe. " I should accept them as evidence that at an early period in his career Shakespeare found himself in the toils of a woman, whom he did not respect, but who fascinated him." The writer dates the " Sonnets " 1597, and the great tragedies from 1601 to 1608. So that '' what Mr Harris has done is to extend, on no evidence at all; through a whole decade, in order to support an outrageous theory of the poet's ' tragic life-story,' a liaison which, supposing it to have existed at all (a point undetermined, though I think it probable), may from all the evidence we possess, have only lasted a few months." It is contended that the very meaning of the " Sonnets " is that they trace the growth of the poet's affection, from the first attraction to youthful grace and distinction, through wrong and forgiveness, and jealousy, and disappointment and separation, to a firm friendship, which, because it had become independent of what was merely outward, was set beyond the risks of time and change. This is the note on which the " Sonnets " conclude: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: Oh, no; it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is neves shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though ro6y lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compaea come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. "I contend, therefore, that all the evidence that Shakespeare was a person either uninterested in ideals of life, or of vicious character, so as to be incapable of spiritual teaching, entirely breaks down." And then Canon Beeching analyses the tragedies in the manner of ,a master, and essays to prove his case that " Shakespeare has teaching to offer about hunian life which can most simply be described as spiritual."