The club members could add interest to this meeting by recalling the famous actresses they may have seen, and comparing their presentations of Shakespeare's women. For example, Mary Anderson as Juliet, Ada Rehan as Katharine, Ellen Terry as Portia, Modjeska as Rosalind, and Julia Marlowe as Ophelia.
IX—SHAKESPEREAN PROBLEMS
1. His Personality—How much education had Shakespeare? Did he reveal himself in his plays? What were his personal characteristics?
2. Characteristics of His Work—Did he plagiarize? If so, was he justified? Was his meaning always clear to himself? See Richard Grant White on this point. Is his broad humor defensible? Discuss Taine's criticism on this point.
3. Estimate of Shakespeare in His Own and Later Times—What did his contemporaries think of him? Why was he ignored in the later seventeenth century? Quote from great writers on Shakespeare: Coleridge, Goethe, Swinburne, etc.
4. The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy—Origin: story of Delia Bacon's life. Is there a cipher in Shakespeare? Quotation of learned opinion on both sides.
Books to Consult—Emerson: Essays. E. Dowden: Essays, Modern and Elizabethan. Arthur Gilman: Shakespeare's Morals. Ignatius Donnelly: The Great Cryptogram. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes: Bacon-Shakespeare Question Answered.
Have a talk on Shakespeare the historian. Is he trustworthy? Does he give an accurate account of events or only reproduce general color? Have a discussion on the character of Hamlet. Was he really mad? Did Shakespeare intend so to represent him, or to leave the matter in doubt? For those interested in such things, the subject of the early editions of Shakespeare, and their relation to one another, is one of great fascination. A description of the immensely costly collection recently presented to the Elizabethan Club at Yale might be given.
X—FAMOUS PRESENTATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
1. English—Garrick, Charles Kean, Siddons, Charles Kemble, Lady Faucit, Irving, Terry, Tree, Benson. Descriptions and anecdotes from Boswell's Johnson, Charles Lamb's Essays, Fanny Burney's Diary, and Ellen Terry's life.