Evening star., 1940-04-24
Professor RidicuIes
Modern Interpreters
on Shakespeare
Leslie Hotson Speoks
At FoIger Librury on
Anniversary Celebration
BY JAMES WALDO FAWCErT,

BY JAMES WALDO FAWCETT.
Interpreters who would apply the
tests of modern times to william
Shakespeare and his works were
rid!culed by Prof. Leslie Hotson o.
Haverford College in an address to
capacity audience at the little
theater of the Folger Library last
night.
The occasion was the celebration
of the 376th anniversary of the
poets birth and the 324th ami
versary of his death.
Prof. Hotson was particularly
sharp in his criticism of psyche
analysts who have endeavored TO
explain" Shakespeare according TO
the theories of the late DR.. Sig
mund Freud. Rash heads he de.
clared, have distorted his mean
ings."
The speaker also held up to
scorn the practice of "praising in
Shakespeare only those qualities
which We admire in ourselves" In
sisting that there are many differ
enceS between Elizabethan points
of view and our own," he cited
the skill with which Shakespeare
and his contemporary authors mar
ried lyric poetry and musician
art lost to u.s.
Intelligent saturation in the work
OF Shakespeare is not enough" Prot.
Hotson told his hearers. "A good
Elizabethan play is one which was
a good Elizabethan play in Eliza
bethan times. Only by long ap-
premiership to the Renaissance can
Shakespeare be accurately under
stood. Dramatic poetry Is not
merely Shakespearean power. It
likewise Is an EliZabethan power.
To know Shakespeare we must
know him all, and not isolated from
his age and its people. It is dan
gerouse to try to separate Shakes
peare from his time and place.
Was Understood by His Audience.
Shakespeare wrote to be under
stood, and he was understood by all
three classes of his audience. His
Hamlet pleased the nobility, the
merchants, the groundlings. The
playwrights of his day were en-
couraged by their public to improve
their art, and they did improve it,"
Prof. Hotson quoted a modern
theorist to the effect that Shake
speare's auditors" brought scratch
pads and pencils to the theater to
copy down the phrases beyond their
comprehension for further study.
The speed of presentation of his
dramas contradicted such notion,
he suggested. Whatever difficulty
there may be about believing that
Shakespeare's audience could fol-
low his text as it was recited by his
actors may be disposed of by con-
ceding that "the Elizabethans were
more intelligent than we are. It is
horrible, perhaps, but it is true.
They had more words and more
wits than we. have. Humility is
novelty for us, but a touch OF II
will do no harm. Elizabethan life
was more vast in experience than
ours We could have understood
Shakespeare we'll enough If we were
living when he was"
Simplest Facts Mangled.
To illustrate how latter-day in
terpreters have "mangled" the SIM
plest facts of the poets life, Prof.
Hotson referred to the explanations
offered by half dozen biographers
for the occupation of Shakespeare's
landlord in London in the years
between 1902 and 1912. This man
was "a tiremaker," phase which
has been made to signify wig
maker" Actually he was an artist
craftsman working in gold, silver
and precious stones-a creator of
ornaments worn in their hair by
ladies of the court and other women
of wealth and distinction. His pa
irons included Queen Anne, wife of
King James I. While Shakespeare
was writing Othello, his great
Venetian tragedy, upstairs, Christo-
pher Mountjoy was making Venetian
cloth of gold and tissue of pure gold
downstairs. He was a kind of
Cellini, never a manufacturer of
perwigs and perukes.
Earlier in the day DR.. James G.
McManaway, executive assistant to
DR.. Joseph Quincy Adams, director
OF the Folger Library, and Henry D.
Fruit, president of the National
Shakespeare Federation, partici-
pated in a Shakespeare birthday
program broadcast from Station
WRC,