Philosophy, History and Literature
GA 51
6 May 1902, Berlin
Translated by Frank Thomas Smith
William Shakespeare
According to a remark by the famous writer Georg Brandes, we should include Shakespeare in the German classics. And if we consider the enormous influence Shakespeare has had on Goethe, Schiller and the development of German literature in general since he was rediscovered in the middle of the eighteenth century, especially through Lessing, we must agree with that remark – especially in view of the excellent translations of his work by Schlegel and Tieck. 1NOTE: Friends who heard that there existed notes of a lecture on Shakespeare given by Dr. Steiner in 1902 at the Workmen's School in Berlin, expressed the wish to read these notes. They were taken down by Frl. Johanna Mücke, who did not know shorthand, so that they do not claim to be complete. Their 7 pages of typescript may correspond to about 25 typescript pages of the original text of the lecture. But important points emerge even from these incomplete notes. —Marie Steiner
A legend has arisen about Shakespeare and whole libraries have been written about each of his works. Academics have given many interpretations of his plays, and finally a number of writers have decided that an uneducated actor could not have produced all the thoughts which they discovered in Shakespeare's works, and they became addicted to the hypothesis that not William Shakespeare, the actor of the Globe Theatre, could have written the plays which bear his name, but some other highly learned man, for example Lord Francis Bacon of Verulam, who in view of the low estimation of literary activity at that time, borrowed the actor's name. These suppositions are based on the fact that no manuscripts written by Shakespeare's hand have ever been found; they are also based upon a notebook discovered in a London library with single passages in it which are supposed to correspond with certain passages in Shakespeare's plays. But Shakespeare's own works bear witness that he is their author. His plays reveal that they were written by a man who had a thorough knowledge of the theatre and the deepest understanding for theatrical effects.
That Shakespeare himself did not publish his plays was simply in keeping with the general custom at his time. Not one of his plays was printed during his lifetime. They were carefully kept under wraps; people were to come to the theatre and see the plays there, not read them at home. Prints which appeared at that time were pirated editions, based on notes taken during the performances, so that the texts did not completely correspond to the original versions, but were full of errors and mutilations.
These partial omissions and mistakes led certain researchers to claim that Shakespeare's plays, as they were then available, were not works of art of any special value and that originally they must have existed in quite a different form. One of these researchers is Eugen Reichel, who thinks that the author of Shakespeare's plays was a man with a certain definite worldview. But such opinions are contradicted by the fact that the plays, in the form in which they now exist, exercise such an extraordinary influence. We see this great effect in plays that have undoubtedly been mutilated, for example in Macbeth. The hold of Shakespeare's plays on his audience was proved by a performance of Henry V under the direction of Neuman-Hofer at the inauguration of the Lessing Theatre. It did not fail to produce a powerful impression in spite of an extremely bad translation and poor acting.
Shakespeare's plays are above all character dramas. The great interest which they arouse does not so much lie in the action, as in the wonderful development of the individual characters. The poet conjures up before us a human character and unfolds his thoughts and feelings in the presentation of an individual personality.
This artistic development, which culminated in Shakespeare, was made possible by the preceding phase of cultural development: the Renaissance. Shakespeare's character-dramas could only arise as a result of the higher estimation of the individual during the Renaissance. During the early middle ages we find, even in Dante and in spite of his strong personality, the basic expression of the Christian ideas of that time. The Christian type of his time, not the individual human personality, appeared in the foreground. This was the general conception. The Christian principle had no interest in the individual personality. But little by little a new worldview aroused interest in the Individual human being. Only gradually did a new interest in the individual arise by means of the different viewpoint.
The fact that Shakespeare's fame spread so quickly proves that he found an audience keenly interested in the theatre, that is to say, with a certain understanding for the representation of the personality as offered by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's chief aim was to describe individual characters, and he was far from presenting to his audience an ethical or moral idea. For example, the idea of tragic guilt, as found in Schiller's dramas, who thought that he had to encumber his hero with it in order to justify his downfall, does not exist in Shakespeare's plays. He simply allows the events to take their course consistently, uninfluenced by the idea of guilt and atonement. It would be difficult to find a concept of guilt in this sense in any of his plays.
Shakespeare also did not intend to present a certain idea, not jealousy in Othello or ambition in Macbeth, no, simply the definite characters of Othello, Macbeth, or Hamlet. Just because he did not burden his characters with theories was he able to create such great ones. He was thoroughly acquainted with the stage, and this practical knowledge enabled him to develop his action in such a way as to thrill an audience. In the whole literature of the world there are no plays which are so completely conceived from the standpoint of the actor. This is a clear proof that Shakespeare, the actor, has the merit of having written these plays.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. His father was in fairly good circumstances, so that his son was able to attend the Latin grammar school in his hometown. There are many legends about Shakespeare's youth. Some say that he was a poacher and led an adventurous life. These things have been adduced against his authorship, yet these very experiences could only enrich his dramatic creation. Even the fact that in spite of his good education he was not encumbered with higher academic study, gave him the possibility to face things more freely and in a far more unprejudiced way. The poet's adventurous nature explains to some extent some of the greatest qualities in his plays: the bold flight of his fantasy, his sudden transformations in the action, his passion and daring, all bear witness to a life full of movement and color.
In 1585, when Shakespeare's financial conditions were no longer in a flourishing state, he went to London. There he began his theatrical career in the most menial way, by holding the horses of the visitors while they were enjoying the performance. He then became supervisor of a number of such boys who had to hold the horses' reins, and was at last admitted to the stage. In 1592 he played his first important role.
His fame soon began to spread—both as an actor and as a dramatist—and his conditions improved, so that in 1597 he was able to buy a house in Stratford. After he became part-owner of the Globe Theatre he was a wealthy man.
The plays written during Shakespeare's first period: Love's Labour Lost, As You Like It, etc., do not differ so greatly from the plays of his contemporaries, of Marlowe and others; their expressive power, their purity and naturalness were moreover impaired by a certain artificial note which was the fashion in those days. The great character-plays, which were to establish his fame for all time, followed: Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar.
Some of Shakespeare's biographers and commentators wish to deduce from certain of his later plays troubled experiences which embittered him. But in Shakespeare's case this is difficult to establish, because his identity withdraws behind his characters. They do not voice his thoughts, but they all think and act in accordance with their own disposition and character.
It is consequently useless to ask what Shakespeare's own standpoint may have been on certain difficult questions. For it is not Shakespeare, but Hamlet who broods over the problem of “to be, or not to be”, who recoils from his father's ghost, just as Macbeth recoils from the witches. Whether Shakespeare believed in ghosts and witches, whether he was a churchgoer or a freethinker, is not the point at all: He simply asked himself: how should a ghost or a witch appear on the stage so as to produce a strong effect upon the audience? The fact that this effect is undiminished today proves that Shakespeare was able to answer this question.
We should not forget that the modern stage is not favourable to the effect which Shakespeare's plays can produce. The importance which is now attributed to props, costumes, the frequent changes of scenery, etc. diminish the effect which is to be produced by the characters in the plays—for this remains the chief thing. In Shakespeare's time when a change of scenery was simply indicated by a notice-board, when a table and a chair sufficed for the furniture of a royal palace, the effect produced by the characters must have been much greater than today.
Whereas in the modern theater so much depends on scenery, props, etc., when the playwright usually gives a detailed description of the scenery so that the effect of his plays may be handicapped by bad staging, Shakespeare's plays leave a strong impression, even when performed badly.
And when a times comes in which we again see the essential more than is the case today, will the effect of Shakespeare's art be ever greater: through the power of characterization which remains alive and unequaled through the centuries.
William Shakespeare
Einem Ausspruch des berühmten Schriftstellers Georg Brandes gemäß muß man Shakespeare den deutschen Klassikern hinzurechnen. Und wenn man den außerordentlichen Einfluß bedenkt, den Shakespeare, nachdem er in der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, besonders durch Lessing wieder bekanntgeworden war, auf Goethe, Schiller, auf die ganze Entwickelung der deutschen Literatur genommen hat — besonders nach der ausgezeichneten Übertragung seiner Werke durch Schlegel und Tieck —, muß man diesem Ausspruche zustimmen.
Es hat sich über Shakespeare eine ganze Legende gebildet; über jedes einzelne seiner Werke sind ganze Bibliotheken geschrieben worden. Die Gelehrten haben alles mögliche in seine Werke hineingelegt und herausgelesen. Schließlich ist eine Anzahl von Schriftstellern, die den nicht gelehrt gebildeten Schauspieler für unfähig hielten, alle die Gedanken zu erzeugen, die sie in den Werken Shakespeares fanden, auf die Hypothese verfallen, daß nicht der Schauspieler vom Globe-Theater, William Shakespeare, die Werke geschrieben habe, die seinen Namen tragen, sondern irgendein bedeutender hochgelehrter Mann, etwa Lord Francis Bacon von Verulam, sei der Dichter, der — bei der niedrigen Schätzung der literarischen Tätigkeit in damaliger Zeit — den Namen des Schauspielers geborgt habe. Diese Annahmen stützen sich darauf, daß man keine Manuskripte von Shakespeares Hand gefunden habe; dann auf ein in einer Londoner Bibliothek entdecktes Notizheft, in dem man einzelne Stellen finden wollte, die gewissen Stellen in Shakespeares Werken entsprechen und so weiter.
Ein Zeugnis aber für die Autorschaft Shakespeares sind seine Werke selbst. Seine Dramen sprechen davon, daß sie von einem Manne geschrieben sind, der das Theater auf das genaueste kannte, für die schauspielerische Wirkung das feinste Verständnis hatte.
Es entsprach nur einer allgemeinen Sitte der damaligen Zeit, wenn Shakespeare selbst keine Ausgabe seiner Werke veranstaltete. Kein einziges seiner Dramen ist bei seinen Lebzeiten gedruckt. Die Stücke wurden ängstlich gehütet vor dem Bekanntwerden durch den Druck; die Leute sollten ins Theater kommen, um dort die Stücke zu sehen, nicht sie zu Hause lesen. Alles, was etwa damals entstehen konnte, waren Raubdrucke, die mit Hilfe der damals aufkommenden Stenographie während der Vorstellung nachgeschrieben wurden, und so nicht den authentischen Text, sondern mannigfache Verstümmelungen und Fehler enthielten.
Diese teilweisen Lücken und Fehler haben einzelne Forscher dazu geführt, zu behaupten, daß die Werke Shakespeares, so wie sie vorlägen, gar keine besonderen Kunstwerke seien, sondern daß sie ursprünglich ganz anders zusammengestellt gewesen seien. Ein Vertreter dieser Ansicht ist Eugen Reichel, der in dem Dichter der Shakespeare-Dramen den Vertreter einer bestimmten Weltanschauung glaubt sehen zu dürfen. Demgegenüber bleibt aber doch bestehen, daß diese Dramen, so wie sie sind, solch außerordentlichen Eindruck machen. Bei Werken, von denen wir bestimmt wissen, daß sie verstümmelt sind, wie zum Beispiel bei «Macbeth», sehen wir diese hinreißende Wirkung. Einen Beweis dafür bot die Aufführung von «Heinrich V.» bei der Eröffnung des Lessing-Theaters unter der Direktion Neumann-Hofer, die trotz spottschlechter Übersetzung und nicht guter Aufführung einen gewaltigen Eindruck hervorrief.
Die Dramen Shakespeares sind in erster Linie Charakterdramen. Nicht hauptsächlich in der Handlung, sondern in der großartigen Entwickelung der einzelnen Charaktere liegt das gewaltig Interessierende dieser Dichtungen. Gerade darin, daß der Dichter einen menschlichen Charakter vor uns hinstellt, ihn sich vor uns ausleben läßt, ihn schildert in all seinem Denken, seinem Empfinden, in dem Darstellen einer einzelnen Persönlichkeit.
Diese Kunstentwickelung, die in Shakespeare ihre Vollendung erreichte, war erst möglich durch die vorhergegangene Kulturentwickelung der Renaissanceperiode. Erst durch die aus dieser Renaissancekultur sich ergebende höhere Bewertung der Einzelpersönlichkeit, war das Charakterdrama Shakespeares möglich. Im früheren Mittelalter sehen wir selbst bei Dante, trotz all seiner starken Persönlichkeit, doch im Grunde den Ausdruck der christlichen Ideen, wie sie sich damals darstellten. Der christliche Typus seiner Zeit trat in den Vordergrund gegenüber dem Einzelpersönlichen. Es lag dies eben in der allgemeinen Auffassung. Das christliche Prinzip hatte kein Interesse an der einzelnen Persönlichkeit. Erst allmählich bildete sich unter der neuen Anschauungsweise das Interesse am einzelnen Menschen heraus.
Der Umstand, daß Shakespeares Ruhm sich so bald verbreitete, beweist, daß er eine Zuhörerschaft fand, die ein großes Theaterinteresse besaß, also Sinn und Verständnis in reichem Maße mitbrachte für die Darstellung der Persönlichkeit, wie sie Shakespeare ihnen bot. Es ist Shakespeare eben auf diese Charakterdarstellung angekommen; ihm lag es fern, seinen Zuhörern eine ethische oder moralische Idee zu entwickeln. Die Idee einer tragischen Schuld beispielsweise, mit der Schiller glaubte seinen Helden belasten zu müssen, um seinen Untergang zu rechtfertigen, lag Shakespeare vollständig fern. Er läßt die Ereignisse sich entwickeln, so wie sich Naturvorgänge abspielen, folgerichtig eines aus dem anderen hervorgehend, doch nicht von dem Gedanken an Schuld und Sühne beeinflußt. Es würde schwer sein, einen Schuldbegriff in diesem Sinne bei einem der Shakespeare-Dramen nachzuweisen.
Auch nicht um die Darstellung einer Idee war es Shakespeare zu tun, nicht die Eifersucht im «Othello», nicht den Ehrgeiz im «Macbeth», nein, den bestimmten Charakter des Othello, des Hamlet, des Macbeth wollte er darstellen. Dadurch gerade konnte er so große Charaktere schaffen, weil er seine Gestalten nicht mit einer Theorie beschwerte. Er kannte die Bühne von Grund aus, er wußte, wie ein Vorgang sich wirksam darstellte, und gerade er als Praktiker konnte den Vorgang so entwickeln, daß er die Hörer mit sich fortriß. — Es gibt keine Dramen in der ganzen Weltliteratur, die so sehr vom schauspielerischen Standpunkt aus gedacht sind. Das sichert dem Schauspieler Shakespeare den Ruhm, diese Dramen gedichtet zu haben.
Shakespeare wurde im Jahre 1564 in Stratford geboren, sein Vater war ein wohlhabender Bürger, und er besuchte die Lateinschule seiner Heimatstadt. Um sein Jugendleben haben sich vielfach Legenden gebildet; man behauptet, er sei ein Wilddieb gewesen und habe ein Abenteurerleben geführt. All das ist auch gegen die Autorschaft Shakespeares geltend gemacht worden, und doch ist all das gerade seiner Dichtung zugute gekommen. Schon der Umstand, daß er, zwar mit einer guten Bildung ausgerüstet, doch von dem eigentlichen Studium verschont geblieben war, sicherte ihm die Möglichkeit, den Dingen viel freier und unbefangener gegenüberzustehen, sie unbeschwert von dem Wust der Büchergelehrsamkeit zu sehen. Und gerade aus der Abenteurernatur des Dichters erklären sich einige der größten Vorzüge seiner Werke. Der kühne Flug der Phantasie, der jähe Wechsel der Begebenheiten, die Leidenschaft und Kühnheit, all das spricht für einen Menschen, der auch im Leben viel herumgeworfen worden war, der selbst ein bewegtes Leben geführt haben mußte.
Nachdem die Vermögensverhältnisse von Shakespeares Vater sich verschlechtert hatten, kam Shakespeare im Jahre 1585 nach London. In der denkbar untergeordnetsten Tätigkeit begann er seine Laufbahn beim Theater; er hielt die Pferde der Theaterbesucher, während diese der Vorstellung beiwohnten. Später rückte er zum Aufseher einer Anzahl solcher Pferdejungen auf, bis er endlich auf der Bühne selbst Verwendung fand und im Jahre 1592 seine erste größere Rolle spielen durfte.
Nun breitete sich sein Ruhm bald aus: als Schauspieler, als Theaterdichter; mit ihm wuchs sein Wohlstand, so daß er im Jahre 1597 schon ein Haus in Stratford kaufen konnte. Besonders, nachdem er Mitbesitzer des Globe-Theaters geworden ‚war, wurde er zu einem sehr wohlhabenden Mann.
Die Dramen der ersten Periode Shakespeares «Verlorene Liebesmüh», «Wie es euch gefällt», einige der Königsdramen sind noch nicht so wesentlich verschieden von anderen Dramen der gleichen Zeit, wie sie von Marlowe und anderen geschaffen wurden; auch wurde noch die Kraft des Ausdrucks, die Reinheit und Natürlichkeit durch eine der damaligen Mode entsprechende gewisse Künstlichkeit der Sprache beeinträchtigt. Erst allmählich folgten dann die großen Charakterdramen: «Othello», «Hamlet», «Macbeth», «König Lear», «Julius Cäsar», «Coriolan», die für alle Zeiten den Ruhm Shakespeares begründen sollten. Aus einer Anzahl seiner letzten Werke wollen dann einige seiner Biographen und Schilderer auf trübe Erfahrungen und Erlebnisse schließen, die der Dichter in jener Zeit gehabt, und die ihn zu einer bitteren Lebensauffassung geführt hätten. Doch ist eine solche Folgerung bei Shakespeare gerade sehr schwer zu begründen, da er wie kein anderer Dichter hinter seinen Figuren zurücktritt. Nicht was er über eine Sache denkt, bringt er durch den Murtd seiner Gestalten zum Ausdruck, sondern er läßt jede einzelne ihrem Charakter gemäß denken und handeln.
Müßig erscheint daher auch die Frage, welchen Standpunkt Shakespeare selbst den verschiedenen Fragen gegenüber einnahm. Nicht Shakespeare... Hamlet grübelt über Sein oder Nichtsein; er erschrickt vor dem Geiste des Vaters, wie Macbeth vor den Hexen auf der Heide. Ob Shakespeare an Hexen, an Geister geglaubt, ob er ein Gläubiger, ein Freigeist gewesen, es kommt hierbei gar nicht in Betracht. Er stellte sich die Frage: Wie muß ein Geist, eine Hexe auf der Bühne sich darstellen, um die Wirkung auf den Zuhörer auszuüben, die er beabsichtigte. Und daß die Wirkung der Shakespeareschen Gestalten bis heute die gleich große geblieben ist, beweist eben, wie er sich diese Frage beantwortete.
Dabei darf nicht vergessen werden, daß eigentlich die Verhältnisse unserer heutigen Bühne der Wirkung der Shakespeareschen Dramen nicht besonders günstig sind. Der Wert, der heute auf die Ausstattung, auf allerlei Beiwerk gelegt wird, der häufige Szenenwechsel, all das beeinträchtigt die Wirkung der Charakterschilderung, die eben die Hauptsache bleibt. Zu Shakespeares Zeiten, als man eine Änderung der Szene einfach durch eine ausgehängte Tafel andeutete, als ein Stuhl und Tisch für die Ausstattung eines königlichen Palastes genügten, mußte in dieser Hinsicht die Wirkung eine noch bedeutend größere sein.
Während aber bei einem heutigen Dichter so unendlich vieles in der Aufführung von all dem Beiwerk abhängt — wie ja auch heute die Dichter meist ganz genau die Ausstattung der Räume und so weiter bis in alle Details vorschreiben, so daß bei einer schlechten Aufführung die Wirkung vollständig versagt —, wirken Shakespeares Dramen gewaltig auch in der mangelhaftesten Aufführung.
Und wenn eine Zeit kommt, in der wir wieder mehr auf das Wesentliche sehen, als es heute der Fall ist, dann wird die Wirkung von Shakespeares Kunst eine immer gewaltigere werden: durch die Kraft der Charakterschilderung, in der sie durch die Jahrhunderte lebendig und unerreicht geblieben ist.
William Shakespeare
According to a statement by the renowned writer Georg Brandes, Shakespeare must be counted among the German classics. And when one considers the extraordinary influence that Shakespeare had on Goethe, Schiller, and the entire development of German literature after he became known again in Germany in the mid-18th century, especially through Lessing—particularly after the excellent translation of his works by Schlegel and Tieck—one must agree with this statement.
A whole legend has grown up around Shakespeare; entire libraries have been written about each of his works. Scholars have read and interpreted all kinds of things into his works. Ultimately, a number of writers who considered the uneducated actor incapable of producing all the ideas they found in Shakespeare's works came to the conclusion that it was not the actor from the Globe Theater, William Shakespeare who wrote the works that bear his name, but that some eminent, highly educated man, such as Lord Francis Bacon of Verulam, was the poet who—given the low esteem in which literary activity was held at that time—borrowed the actor's name. These assumptions are based on the fact that no manuscripts written by Shakespeare have been found, and on a notebook discovered in a London library, in which individual passages were found that correspond to certain passages in Shakespeare's works, and so on.
However, Shakespeare's works themselves are testimony to his authorship. His plays reveal that they were written by a man who knew the theater inside out and had a keen understanding of the dramatic effect.
It was simply in keeping with the general custom of the time that Shakespeare himself did not publish his works. Not a single one of his plays was printed during his lifetime. The plays were jealously guarded from becoming known through print; people were supposed to come to the theater to see the plays, not read them at home. All that could be produced at that time were pirated copies, which were transcribed during the performance with the help of the then emerging stenography, and thus did not contain the authentic text, but manifold mutilations and errors.
These partial gaps and errors have led some researchers to claim that Shakespeare's works, as they exist today, are not special works of art at all, but that they were originally composed quite differently. One proponent of this view is Eugen Reichel, who believes he can see the poet of Shakespeare's plays as the representative of a certain worldview. On the other hand, however, it remains true that these dramas, as they are, make such an extraordinary impression. In works that we know for certain to be mutilated, such as “Macbeth,” we see this captivating effect. Proof of this was provided by the performance of “Henry V” at the opening of the Lessing Theater under the direction of Neumann-Hofer, which, despite a poor translation and a less than stellar performance, made a tremendous impression.Shakespeare's plays are primarily character dramas. It is not mainly the plot, but the magnificent development of the individual characters that makes these poems so fascinating. It is precisely in the fact that the poet presents a human character to us, lets him live out his life before us, describes him in all his thoughts and feelings, in the portrayal of an individual personality.
This artistic development, which reached its peak in Shakespeare, was only made possible by the preceding cultural development of the Renaissance period. It was only through the higher valuation of the individual personality that resulted from this Renaissance culture that Shakespeare's character drama was possible. In the earlier Middle Ages, even in Dante, despite all his strong personality, we still see basically the expression of Christian ideas as they were presented at that time. The Christian type of his time came to the fore over the individual personality. This was simply the general view. The Christian principle had no interest in the individual personality. Only gradually did interest in the individual human being develop under the new way of thinking.
The fact that Shakespeare's fame spread so quickly proves that he found an audience that had a great interest in theater, and thus brought with it a rich sense and understanding of the portrayal of personality that Shakespeare offered them. It was precisely this character portrayal that Shakespeare was interested in; he was far from developing an ethical or moral idea for his audience. The idea of tragic guilt, for example, with which Schiller believed he had to burden his heroes in order to justify their downfall, was completely foreign to Shakespeare. He allows events to unfold as natural processes unfold, logically one arising from the other, but not influenced by the idea of guilt and atonement. It would be difficult to find evidence of guilt in this sense in any of Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare was not concerned with presenting an idea, either, not jealousy in “Othello,” not ambition in “Macbeth,” no, he wanted to portray the specific character of Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth. It was precisely this that enabled him to create such great characters, because he did not burden his figures with theory. He knew the stage from the ground up, he knew how to present an event effectively, and it was precisely he, as a practitioner, who was able to develop the event in such a way that it carried the audience along with it. There are no dramas in all of world literature that are so conceived from the actor's point of view. This ensures Shakespeare's fame as the author of these dramas.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. His father was a wealthy citizen, and he attended the Latin school in his hometown. Many legends have grown up around his youth; it is claimed that he was a poacher and led an adventurous life. All of this has been used to argue against Shakespeare's authorship, and yet it has all benefited his poetry. The very fact that, although well educated, he was spared from actual study, gave him the opportunity to approach things much more freely and impartially, to see them unencumbered by the jumble of book learning. And it is precisely the poet's adventurous nature that explains some of the greatest merits of his works. The bold flight of imagination, the sudden change of events, the passion and audacity—all this speaks for a man who had also been tossed about in life, who must have led an eventful life himself.
After Shakespeare's father's financial circumstances deteriorated, Shakespeare came to London in 1585. He began his career in the theater in the most menial of jobs, looking after the horses of theatergoers while they attended performances. Later, he rose to become the supervisor of a number of such horse boys, until he finally found employment on stage himself and was allowed to play his first major role in 1592.
His fame soon spread: as an actor, as a playwright; his prosperity grew with it, so that by 1597 he was already able to buy a house in Stratford. Especially after he became a co-owner of the Globe Theater, he became a very wealthy man.
The plays of Shakespeare's early period, “Love's Labour's Lost,” “As You Like It,” and some of the royal dramas, are not yet so different from other plays of the same period, such as those written by Marlowe and others; moreover, the power of expression, purity, and naturalness were still impaired by a certain artificiality of language in keeping with the fashion of the time. Only gradually did the great character dramas follow: Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus, which were to establish Shakespeare's fame for all time. From a number of his last works, some of his biographers and chroniclers conclude that the poet had had unpleasant experiences and encounters during that period, which led him to a bitter view of life. However, such a conclusion is very difficult to justify in Shakespeare's case, since he, like no other poet, takes a back seat to his characters. He does not express his own thoughts on a matter through the mouths of his characters, but lets each of them think and act according to their own character.
It therefore seems pointless to ask what Shakespeare's own position was on the various issues. It is not Shakespeare... Hamlet ponders to be or not to be; he is frightened by the ghost of his father, just as Macbeth is frightened by the witches on the heath. Whether Shakespeare believed in witches and ghosts, whether he was a believer or a free spirit, is irrelevant here. He asked himself the question: How must a ghost or a witch be portrayed on stage in order to have the effect on the audience that he intended? And the fact that the effect of Shakespeare's characters has remained the same to this day proves how he answered this question.
It should not be forgotten that the conditions of our stage today are not particularly conducive to the effect of Shakespeare's dramas. The value placed today on scenery, on all kinds of accessories, the frequent scene changes, all this detracts from the effect of the character portrayal, which remains the main thing. In Shakespeare's time, when a change of scene was simply indicated by a sign hung up, when a chair and table were sufficient to furnish a royal palace, the effect must have been even greater in this respect.
But while for a modern playwright so much depends on all these accessories in a performance—just as today's playwrights usually prescribe the set design and so on in great detail, so that a poor performance completely fails to have the desired effect—Shakespeare's plays have a powerful impact even in the most inadequate performances.
And when a time comes in which we once again focus more on the essentials than is the case today, the impact of Shakespeare's art will become ever more powerful: through the power of character portrayal, in which it has remained alive and unmatched throughout the centuries.