William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . STRATFORD FROM THE MEMORIAL THEATRE ncher-- thi n;ucn c.u : tliDUte it: seriouscepted without>i1 aaOHT.. THE FIRST FRUITS I 73 sacrifice of original power. Whenever the classicaltradition has secured complete possession of thestage, a new and vital drama has been impossible;whenever it has been entirely discarded, unregu-lated individualism has degenerated into all mannerof eccentricities of plot and form. With character-istic insight, Shakespeare escaped both dangers;he knew the classical manner, and was not unre-sponsive to its order, balanc

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William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . STRATFORD FROM THE MEMORIAL THEATRE ncher-- thi n;ucn c.u : tliDUte it: seriouscepted without>i1 aaOHT.. THE FIRST FRUITS I 73 sacrifice of original power. Whenever the classicaltradition has secured complete possession of thestage, a new and vital drama has been impossible;whenever it has been entirely discarded, unregu-lated individualism has degenerated into all mannerof eccentricities of plot and form. With character-istic insight, Shakespeare escaped both dangers;he knew the classical manner, and was not unre-sponsive to its order, balance, and genius for pro-portion, but he refused to be enslaved or hamperedby it. English tragedy had secured complete free-dom, and was fast becoming the richest and mostadequate expression of the English genius; Eng-lish comedy had been fighting the same battle, and The Comedy of Errors marks the decisive tri-umph of the national genius. In this play Shake-speare conformed to the ancient requirements thatthe action should take place in a single day andwithin the limits of a single locality — the time-honoured unities; but he changed the classical i