New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1909-05-08
SH4KESPEARES EDUCATION.
4 Fec Words of Common Sense on Much
abused Theme.
from The London Nation

From The London Nation
The controversy. indeed. seems an intolerably
idle and unfruitful matter. 1t is interesting.
however at one point, when II turns on the
question of Shakes peare's education" If we
accept Jonson's account of the author of the
plays, we must take il that roughly speaking
he was man who could make sense OF Latin
author without being a critical scholar while
his Greek elementary to begin with had become
vanishing quantity. And it is extraordinary
that everybody should not see that such
"smattering" was amply suficient-for a man
Of genius. Keats could not read a line OF Greek;
and who has written more exquisitely Of things
Greek than the author of the sonnet "On first
looking INTO Chapmans Homer OF the ode
a Grecian Urn of the Hymn to Pam
What did Keats know critically of the romantic
spirit of the Middle Ages? And who has en-
bodied that spirit more wonderfully than the
author OF La Belle Dame sans Nercf"? What
did Keats understand of 'Provencal song? He
had probably some vague recollection of having
read some vague passage about troubadOurs. 1t
seems that it must be stated-not surely for the
first time-that genius is in itself education.
nay, that il is the only true education, for which
the scholastic training is the pale and feeble
substitute. BY infinite pains, by many years OF
labor. with daily drudgery, We who have not
genius, may, If we have some degree of perCep-
tiOn, arrive at a shadow of the knowledge which
Keats, by a mystic and intuitive process. gained
from a little Virgil and a good deal of Lem
priere And seeing that it is granted on all
sides that Shakespeare, the playwright, was not
only a man of genius but the man of genius
of all ages, ii Will be seen at once that all queS-
lions as to whether Mr.. Roche one of the STRAIT
ford schoolmasters. was not Walter
ROcne, OF corpus ChrlStl, FELLOW 1893, B-A- 1853.
and presumably MA. IN 1852 are utterly beside
the mark
FalstaT Shallow, Romeo. Hamlet Othello are
not matter Of the sChools-high- grade or low
grade; they are works of the supreme creative
Imagination. transmitting legend. tradition, fact.
fable, into immortal masterpieces The case of
Shakespeare is the case of all men of genius. ex-
allied to the highest power; in him emnently. in
his fellows in less degree it may be said that
there is no ratio no relation, proportion be-
tween scholastic information and the accom-
plished work Venus and AdOnis' owes, in all
probability. nothing whatever TO Mr.. Roche or
TO his tribe; the materials may have been gained
in the chance conversation of afternoon:
from casual phrase two overheard in the
theatre or in the tavern. The Ancient Mariner"
according 10 De Quincy, had dry and insult
licient origin enough from passage in a book
of voyages and perhaps If Colerdge had been
less educated" should have had many
splendid and completed poems instead Of frag-
mentary. misty and incomplete philosophy. And.
finally, it must be remembered that Shakespeare
an EliZabethan and he who breathed the.
EZabethan air received eT Opere operate thes
most liberal of all educatons.