The fairies are almost entirely Shakespeare's creation. Titania was
one of Ovid's names for Diana; Oberon was a common name for the fairy
king, both in the _Faerie Queene_ and elsewhere. Robin Goodfellow was
a favorite character among the common folks. But fairies, as we all
know them, are like the Twins in _Through the Looking-glass_, things of
the fancy of one man, and that man Shakespeare.

There is the atmosphere of a wedding about the whole play, and this
fact has led most scholars to think that the play was written for some
particular wedding,--just whose has never been settled. The flattery
of the virgin Queen (II, i, 157 f.) and other references to purity
might show that Queen Elizabeth was one of the wedding guests.

[1] Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_ I, 264.

[2] See p. 8.

{153}

CHAPTER XI

THE PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD--COMEDY AND HISTORY

It is difficult for us of to-day to realize that Shakespeare was ever
less than the greatest dramatist of his time, to think of him as the
pupil and imitator of other dramatists. He did, indeed, pass through
this stage of his development with extraordinary rapidity, so that its
traces are barely perceptible in the later plays of his First Period.
In the plays of his Second Period even these traces disappear. If his
portrayal of Shylock shows the influence of Marlowe's Jew of Malta, it
is in no sense derivative, and it is the last appearance in
Shakespeare's work of characterization clearly dependent upon the plays
of his predecessors. However much Shakespeare's choice of themes may
have been determined by the public taste or by the work of his fellows,
in the creation of character he is henceforth his own master. Having
acquired this mastery, he uses it to depict life in its most joyous
aspect. For the time being he dwells little upon men's failures and
sorrows. He does not ignore life's darker side,--he loved life too
well for that,--but he uses it merely as a background for pictures of
youth and happiness and success. Although among the comedies of this
period he wrote also three historical plays, they {154} have not the
tragic character of the earlier histories. They deal with youth and
hope instead of crime, weakness, and failure. In the two parts of
_Henry IV_ there is quite as much comedy as there is history; in _Henry
V_, even though the comic interest is slighter, the theme is still one
of youth and joy as personified in the fig