The Project Gutenberg eBook, Shakespeare and the Modern Stage, by Sir
Sidney Lee

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Title: Shakespeare and the Modern Stage
with Other Essays

Author: Sir Sidney Lee

Release Date: July 7, 2006 [eBook #18780]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE

With Other Essays

by

SIDNEY LEE

Author of "A Life of William Shakespeare"

London
Archibald Constable and Company Limited
1907

PREFACE

The eleven papers which are collected here were written between 1899
and 1905. With the exception of one, entitled "Aspects of
Shakespeare's Philosophy," which is now printed for the first time,
they were published in periodicals in the course of those six years.
The articles treat of varied aspects of Shakespearean drama, its
influences and traditions, but I think that all may be credited with
sufficient unity of intention to warrant their combination in a single
volume. Their main endeavour is to survey Shakespearean drama in
relation to modern life, and to illustrate its living force in current
affairs. Even in the papers which embody researches in sixteenth- or
seventeenth-century dramatic history, I have sought to keep in view
the bearings of the past on the present. A large portion of the book
discusses, as its title indicates, methods of representing Shakespeare
on the modern stage. The attempt is there made to define, in the light
of experience, the conditions which are best calculated to conserve or
increase Shakespeare's genuine vitality in the theatre of our own day.

In revising the work for the press, I have deemed it advisable to
submit the papers to a somewhat rigorous verbal revision. Errors have
been corrected, chronological ambiguities due to lapse of time have
been removed, passages have been excised in order to avoid repetition,
and reference to ephemeral events which deserve no permanent chronicle
have been omitted. But, substan