Although many books have been written about the life of Shakespeare, so little is known to us, -say, he was born at Stratford in 1564, went to London, wrote plays himself or with other contemporaies, returned to his native place and died there in 1616. Considering that even these facts are questionable, it may be said that we know almost nothing about his life. As for the personality of Shakespeare, we can hardly recognize it. From some allusions of his contemporary poets and dramatists, we cannot learn his personal characteristics except his 'gentleness' or 'friendliness.' Under such circumstances scholars and critics take different views on the characteristisc of his personality. Frank Harris, author of The Man Shakespeare, maintains that many dramatis personae, such as Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth etc. reveal each some qualities of the writer himself, on the ground that it is the life-work of the artist to show his own individuality in his works. Bradley suggests, in his essay "Shakespeare the Man," that he recognizes something of Shakespeare in the plays, but that the reasonable certainty is only within narrow limits beyond which we have to trust to impressions. On the other hand, Sidney Lee says that Shakespeare's writings were written with objective attitude and they are independent of his individuality: in other words, Shakespeare expressed his age, not his own self. E. E. Stoll also seems to take this non-individualistic theory in his Shakespeare Studies. Then, how should we think about Shakespeare's personality? We cannot but think that he described all the social scenes of Elizabethan age that he saw by as much depersonalization as possible. He did not make it his object to express himself in his works, unlike such subjective writer as Goethe. But at the same time we cannot but feel that some of his charcteristics are seen among the dramatic characters, for any writer, I think, cannot be absolutely non-personal in his writings. I am led to conclude that Shakespeare had a super-individualistic individuality (if we may call) greater than any other poet or dramatist.
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