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94 a wealth of theatrical beauty; but the success of the acted play has been most conspicuous when the scenic embellishment has been reduced to the simplicity of what is known as the 'Elizabethan manner.' The effectiveness of such a simple presentation was well illustrated by the performance at the Century Theatre, New York, in 1915. Here the attention was not for ever diverted from the action and the poetry of the drama by the gorgeousness of its setting.

One of the most interesting evidences of the vitality of Shakespeare's subject is afforded by the numerous works based upon or suggested by it. The material has fascinated the creative imagination from the days of Dryden down to our own time. Mr. Mackaye has been scarcely more successful than the Restoration dramatists in recapturing the delicate charm of the original. Those authors have succeeded best who have deliberately employed the material for purposes wholly different from Shakespeare's. Thus Renan, in Caliban, a 'drame philosophique,' used the situation created by Shakespeare as the vehicle for the most brilliant political and social satire. Browning, in Caliban upon Setebos, a dramatic monologue, uses Caliban's religion as an interpretation of primitive anthropomorphism.

 

S. T. Coleridge, 'Notes on the Tempest,' in Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare (1849).

J. R. Lowell, 'Shakespeare once more,' in Among my Books, First Series (1870).

Stopford A. Brooke, On Ten Plays of Shakespeare, chapter 10, 'The Tempest.' (1905.)

