to Montegut, Caliban stands for Marlowe, Ariel for the English Genius which Shakespeare frees from its barbaric prison.  Dowden (’Mind and Art of Shakespeare’) fancies Prospero as the great artist lacking at first in practical faculty, cast out therefore from practical worldly success; but bearing with him Art in her infancy, the child Miranda, finds at last an enchanted country where his arts can work their magic, subduing the grosser appetites and passions (Caliban), and commanding the offices of the imaginative genius of poetry (Ariel).  He supposes Ferdinand to be Shakespeare’s heir as a playwright (Fletcher).  Lowell (’Among my Books’) considers that the characters do not illustrate a class of persons, but belong to universal nature,—­Imagination embodied in Prospero; Fancy in Ariel; brute understanding in Caliban, who, with his wits liquor-warmed, plots against his natural lord, the higher reason; Miranda, abstract Womanhood; Ferdinand, Youth, compelled to drudge till sacrifice of will and self win him the ideal in Miranda.  Browning makes an incidentally interesting contribution to this subject by symbolizing in Caliban rudimentary theologizing man, in his poem ‘Caliban.’ (See Poet Lore, Vol.  V, p. 562, November, 1893.)

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is ‘The Tempest’ an allegory?  Is it in any sense an autobiographical play?  Does its symbolism have much in common with that of modern symbolistic plays, such as Maeterlinck’s ‘Joyzelle,’ for example?  In what respects may it be said, do you think, as Maeterlinck himself has informed us, that ‘Joyzelle’ grew from ‘The Tempest?’

THE WINTER’S TALE

CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH GREENE’S ‘PANDOSTO’ AND THE ‘ALKESTIS’ OF EURIPIDES

I

SHAKESPEARE’S INDEBTEDNESS TO GREENE

The story of ‘Pandosto’ falls into two distinct divisions; first, the story of Pandosto and Bellaria; second, the story of Dorastus and Fawnia.  Compare each of these two stories with the two stories interwoven in the play, noting all the analogous passages and the use Shakespeare has made of them. (For Greene’s ‘Pandosto’ or ’History of Dorastus and Fawnia’ see ‘Shakespeare’s Library,’ or pp. 118-125 and Notes in First Folio Edition.)

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Do Shakespeare’s borrowed and additional archaisms and his confusion of names and places show carelessness?  Is his continuation of the story merely a playwright’s device to join the two parts of the plot and make a good stage piece end happily? (As to Coast of Bohemia see Poet Lore, April, 1894), also in “First Folio Edition,” pp. 176-177.

II

THE RESEMBLANCES TO THE ‘ALKESTIS’ OF EURIPIDES