QUERY FOR DISCUSSION

Does Shakespeare’s remodelling of Greene’s story show chiefly a higher ideal than Greene’s of womanhood and of love?

IV

THE ALKESTIS STORIES IN LITERATURE

The sacrifice of the Queen to ease her husband, and the final restoration, being the two main points of contact with Euripides’ version of the story, compare with these the stories of Alkestis told by William Morris in ‘The Earthly Paradise,’—­’June’; ’The Love of Alcestis,’ by Emma Lazarus, in ‘Admetos,’—­’Poems,’ vol. i.; by Robert Browning in ‘Balustion’s Adventure;’ by Longfellow in ’The Golden Legend.’  See also articles in Poet-lore,—­’The Alkestis of Euripides and of Browning,’ July, 1890; ‘Old and New Ideals of Womanhood’; ’The Iphigenia’ and ‘Alkestis Stories,’ May, 1891; ’Longfellow’s Golden Legend and its Analogues,’ February, 1892.  In comparing, note first general resemblances, then slighter points of resemblance and of difference.

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is development in literature of the ideal of womanhood away from self-sacrifice and toward self-development?

Is woman’s task for the future a reconciliation of them?

V

THE OUTCAST CHILD IN CULTURE-LORE AND FOLK-LORE

A few of the outcast children in culture-lore are Krishna, Zeus, Paris, Oedipus, King Arthur, Claribel’s child in the ‘Faerie Queene’ (canto xii.), etc.  For the stories in folk-lore, see the English Folk-lore Journal.  For the solar theory of the origin of this story, see Cox, ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations.’

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Collier says that Shakespeare changed Greene’s pretty description of turning Fawnia adrift in a boat because he had used much the same incident in “The Tempest.”  Does Shakespeare’s new treatment of Greene’s “pretty incident” add dramatic force and moral purpose to the play?

VI

CHARACTER STUDIES

1.  PAULINA; LEONTES; HERMIONE

Note Paulina’s likeness to Emilia in “Othello.”  Jealousy in Shakespeare:  Resemblances in Leontes to Posthumus ("Cymbeline”) and to Othello.  “The jealousy of Leontes,” says Dowden, “is not a detailed dramatic study like the love and jealousy of Othello.  It is a gross madness, which mounts to the brain and turns his whole nature into unreasoning passion.”  Is Hermione more highly developed than others of Shakespeare’s suspected wives,—­Desdemona, Imogen?  Likeness or superiority to Alkestis, Compare with Queen Katharine in ‘Henry VIII.’  Is she hard, having made her husband do penance for sixteen years?  “Deep and even quick feeling never renders Hermione incapable of an admirable justice,” writes Dowden, “nor deprives her of a true sense of pity for him who so gravely wrongs both her and himself.”