The Library of Entertainment: HandbookScammell, John Chilton
General
The Library of Entertainment: Handbook
Scammell, John Chilton
Literature -- Collections
7. Why are the pansy, primrose, jessamine, violet, etc., used as
emblems of mourning?
8. Tennyson's "In Memoriam," XII, 47; Shelley's "Adonais," XI,
95; and Gray's "Elegy," VI, 106, are all laments of the same
nature. Compare the four in style, mood, etc.
FOR REFERENCE
"The World's Leading Poets."--BOYNTON.
"Story-Lives of Great Authors."--ROWBOTHAM.
"Criticisms on Paradise Lost."--ADDISON.
"Literary Studies."--BAGEHOT.
"Great Books."--FARRAR.
"Among my Books."--LOWELL.
"Essay on Milton" (VIII, 347).--MACAULAY.
"The Age of Milton" ("Handbooks of English Literature
").--MASTERMAN.
Masson's annotated edition of Milton's poems is invaluable for the
student's use.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(1564-1616)
Comparatively little is known of Shakespeare's life. His education
was slight, with but "small Latin and less Greek," as his friend Ben
Jonson puts it. There is little doubt that the financial depression
of the times brought poverty upon his family, that he was charged
with deer-stealing by a local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy, and that
he soon after went to London to seek his fortune, at the age of
twenty-one, in 1585. There he seems to have held horses at the
theater entrances, then to have served as "call-boy" for the players,
and by 1592 had begun to patch and revise plays. By 1594 he was an
actor, and made more money than by play-writing, although he is
nowhere mentioned as more than passable on the stage. Original plays
had already appeared from his pen, comedies and historical drama
first, followed by the tragedies, and ending with "A Winter's Tale,"
and "The Tempest"; the order of appearance as usually accepted is
given in X, 424. What with the success of his dramatic work, his
acting, and the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, to whom he
dedicated "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," he was able to take
shares in the Globe theater, invest in land and houses at Stratford,
and at last retire, as he long had wished, to New Place, his
Stratford residence, there to spend his last years as a prosperous
landlord. He died in 1616 and was buried in the chancel of Trinity
Church, on the banks of the Avon. On the stone floor over his grave
is the familiar inscription:
"Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare;
Blest be the man that spares thes stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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