Читать книгу The Shakespeare-Expositor - Thomas Keightley - Страница 18

Editions. 4to, 1602; 4to, 1619; in the folio, 1623.

Date. It was entered in the Stationers' Registers 18th January 1601–02, and was, consequently, written between 1597 (it is not in Meres's list) and that date; but we have no means of ascertaining the exact time. Mr. Dyce thinks it was written before 1600. It may be observed that, though some of the characters are the same as those in Henry IV. and Henry V., it is quite independent of these plays. I must here remark that the play is so brief, and, as it were, elementary, in the 4tos as compared with the folio, that it seems quite clear that the poet revised and augmented it some time after its first appearance; and this gives some probability to the tradition of its having been written at the command of the Queen, and in a few days, possibly in 1598 or 1599. Further, as in the 4tos there is no allusion whatever to the Lucy coat of arms, it is highly improbable that the poet showed in it any ill feeling towards that family. Lastly, the occurrence in the 4tos of numerous riming couplets which are not in the folio, completely upsets Mr. Collier's theory of that edition having been made up from memory, and from notes taken at the theatre. The expression "king's English" (I. 4) might seem to indicate that the enlargement of the play was not made till after the accession of James. The change, however, of queen to king may have been made by the Editors; but surely Shakespeare must have been aware that Falstaff lived in the time of the Henries.

Origin. Though some Italian and English tales are referred to as the possible sources of the plot, we may, I think, regard it as, at least in the greater part, Shakespeare's own invention. There is, however, a strong resemblance in part of it to a German play by Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick, who died in 1611. See on The Tempest.