Middletown transcript., 1912-03-30
NEW CENTURY CLUB
AlTalk About Shakespeare And
His UnequeaIed Works

On Tuesday after a little formal bust
ness had been disposed Of the afternoons
program in the New Century ClIb, wal
an address by Mr.. William E. Wright on
Shakespeare a8d his Contemporaries
with readings illustrative of the subject
taken from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson,
The Jew of Malta, by christopher Mar
lowe, The Duchess of Maif, by John
Webster, and The Two Noble Kinsmen,
by Shakespeare and Fletcher.
The speakers argument was that we
moderns can best appreciate the greatness
of Shakespeare as poet and dramatist,
by comparing him with his predecessors,
his contemporaries aud his successors.
"Would you understand how surprising
Iy great and glorious are his works as
compared with any of those-read their
writingS. Lily's pedantic wordplays, bis
absurd and tiresOme euphues; Jonson's
biting caricatures and comic satires, with
hardly decent man or woman in all bis
plays; or Marlowe's grandiose, impossible
cbaracterizations of monsters instead of
men; or Webster's abnormal, bloody SEN
sationalsms and the rest of like kidney.
OF all these writers, some of them like
Marlowe, Webster and johnson gifted
with talent or even something like genius
at tfmes-not one survives, while the i'm
mortal Shakespeare lives forever on the
tongues and in the hearts of humanity.
No one, save for antiquarian interest or
as student of literature, reads Marlowe's
bombasIic sanguinary "Tamburlaine" or
the scarcely less bloody Jew of Malta"
or the chalnel house drama of the 'Du-
chess of Malti" etc. But the lovely crea-
tions OF SEakespeare's brain, that never
"o'erstep The modesty Of nature" are i'm
mortal, more-and more with the lapse of
the centuries, become human natures
daily food, as their author is the Poet and
Dramatist for all time-aye, and for all
the world! For the German and French
critics-indeed those of all Europe unite
in acknowledging his literary kingship.
A happy illustration of this measure
less distance between Shakespeare and bic
contemporaries, as Professor Beers puts
it, is found in the treatment by Marlowe
and him Of the well worn character of the
Jew, as shown in the Jew vf Nal b, the
first and Shyock. in the Merchant of
Venice, by Shakespeare.
Marlowe's creations are impossible
monsters, gigantic-Tietanic even in their
size and strength, in their energy and
fierce pay of passion, but quite wanting
in, those human attributes aud actions
that in all Of Sbakespeard's grandest, most
tragic figures, ever appeal to our kindred |
human nature, arousing our feelings, ex-
citing our sympathies and compelling US
even when their characters be evil, to |
share in their fates-in their SORROWS, and |
in their joys. In a word, we find our
selves coerced to enter iuto their lives as
this master mind that knew SO well all /
the deeper springs Of human nature, little
by little, unfolds their tale, until we. res-
lie, as the counterfeit panorama of Life
passes before Us in the play, hat these crea-
tions of his are indeed men and women
bone of our bone and flesh OF our feshP'
Let the memory dwell moment upon the
tragic characters of Lear, Othello, Brutus,
Hamlet, Macbeth or Timon; or on those
softer natures of Rosalind, Cordelia, OPP
bella, Beatrice or Juliet, and you feel that
this is so.
But Marlowe's impersonal ''supermen"
exist only in goblin tales; his furious Tam
ourIaine OIL, his gory-ninded Barabas
move US not, arouse no real appreciation
lar less sympathy with their deeds and
ates. The mind can neither understand
nor feel these colossal hates, these whole.
Iale revenges that slay scores at a blow
rs meaningless as Nero's wild wish that
Rome had but one neck which he might
lew off with a single bloWl
What meaning can there be in the false
picture of this fend Barabas who bids his
lave Ithsmore, to be void of compassion,
owe, hope.
BE moved at nothing, see thou pity none
And smile when the Christians moan"
Or when he boasts of his own murders
hat he walks abroad o'nights ana
ills sick people groaning under walls,
nd goes about poisoning wells."
Then tells how he practiced physic in
taly, aud
Enriched the priests with burials
"Always kept the sections in use,
digging graves and ringing dead mems
knells." !,
Or as an engineer, "sleW friend and !,
nemy"; ;then as usurer "with tricks be-
ongihg&o brokery" filled the jaiIs with
hospitals with young Or
hans" Then Ithamore tells how he had
ct Christian villages on ire-cut travellers
hloats etcl
In the play Barabas poisons his own
laughter, strsngles friar, blows up gar
ison aad does many more hOrrid
rimes till the pages reek like slaughter
Ioustl The story is only fitted for the
aVage Roman populacs that could joyful
y turn their thumbs down, and seal the :
ate of some gasping gladiator in the are
ia.
Then turn from all this Charnel house
ale to the natural, truthful portraiture of
be character of Shyiock as Shakespeare
. the Merchant of Venice, minuitely >un-
bids it, that touches our feelings in many
Iays, and even moves our hearts at last
, pity for the broken Jew. Q
Note the whole play of passion from
be first act where he cunningly dickers
18th Bassanio over the 5000 dueats to the I
nd of the trial scene, where in pitiful
admission he moans''I pray you give me
ave to go hence, am not we'll" !
His heartless plot of revenge on An
,nio; bis eloquent anger at the insults
ffered him aud bis race; his passionate I
utbuists at the loss of bis gold and Jewels; e