The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??, 1956-11-29

Shakespeare is read. 1t is not
astonishing that the greatest of
world poets should be read by the
cultivated everywhere, but what
is more important is the fact that
all over the world the simplest
people, people who can read very
little of anything, know the cir
Shakespeare. In Italy, for in
stance, a laborer who would avoid
Papa Dante with appropriate re-
spect as divine but too difficult,
is likely to find himself at home
with Shakespeare in Italian trans
lation.
What do simple people find in
him? The mirror, as Professor
Bernard D. N. Grebanier has put
it, of "the hopes and defeats of
humanity, +. the wars that can
rack mems souls" One rather tao
turn business man, who has had
much tragedy in his life, might
stand as the prototype of such
Shakespeare lovers. Wherever he
IS, day or night, he has with him
small looSe-leaf notebook into
which he has carefully copied in
neat hand his favorite passages
from the plays. Sometimes he
weighs a passage for months be-
fore he includes it. The little note
book is his security. "It helps me
through the day." he has said
| When life becomes too much for
me, l find the right passage in
my notebook, and my mind is
healed" 1t is of such readers that
the great Shakespearean scholar,
A. c. Bradley, was thinking when
he said: THAT close familiarity
with the plays, that native
strength and justice of percep-
ton, and that habit of reading
with an eager mind make
many an unscholarly lover, of
Shakespeare, far better critic
than many a Shakespeare schol-
| ar"
And such has always been the
case. Shakespeare was the most
popular and the most successful
| dramatist Of his age-an age rich
in the great poets and dramatists.
! And who was his public while
he lived? Not the scholars, not the
teachers, but the ordinary London
cstizen-the proverbial butcher.
baker and candlestick maker Tu
Shakespeare went into semi-re-
tlrement from the theatre in 1911.
The records indicate that there
has since been probably not a
single year in which his plays
were not being performed some
where. And the reason for his
unceasing popularity: there is
something in Shakespeare for ev-
eryone-from the almost illiterate
to the most educated of men. Do
you like wit? gaiety? slapstick
comedy? Much Ado About Moth
ing, AS You Like It, Twelfth
Night, the Comedy of Errors, both
parts of Henry w, The Merry
Wives of Windsor, and The Tam
ing OF the Shrew abound in all of
them IN varying degrees.
Do you like romance? You will
find that too in all of them, but
notably in Romeo and Juliet.
Have you taste for tense drama
which just skirts tragedy - the
kind of story where everything
turns out all right in the end?
Then read The Merchant of Ven
ice, Measure for Measure, ALPS
Well That Ends Well, Cymber-
line, and The Winters Tale. Do
you have a zest for the machina-
tons Of politics? Richard II, Rich
ard III and julius Caesar are for
you. Do you prefer a tale of
stormy murder? Macbeth. Tragic
love? Othello and Anthony and
Cleopatra. Cosmic tragedy? Ham
let and King Lear.
Patriotic fervor? Henry v. Is
great poetry passion of yours?
You will find it in all but a very
few of the plays land those, his
earliest works. and in many of
his sonnets. Even if in verse YOU
like best the light lyric, you will
find that the songs scattered
through the plays are the best in
English-from the very early one
in Loves Labor's Lost with its
lively picture of winter:
When icicles hang by the wall
through the eternal youthfulness
of the song from Twelfth Night:
Q Mistress mine, where are you
roaming?
Oh, stay and here; your true loves
coming,
That can sing both high and
low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise mans son doth
know.
to the delicate water-m music of the
song from his last play, The
Tempest.
Full fathom five thy father lies.
OF his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his