Vol. 23. January. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. 1908. No. 1. Leopold, M.-Die Vorsilbe ver- u. ihre Geschichte. (Germanistische Abhandlungen. Heft 27.) Breslau: M. and H. Marcus, 1907. 8vo., viii and 286 pp., M. 10.— Meisinger, 0.-Volkswörter und Volkslieder aus dem Wiesentale. Freiburg i/B.: J. Bielefeld, 1907. 8vo., 72 pp., M. 2,50, b'd M. 3. Rohde, Emil u. Otto Abshagen.-Übungsbuch für Deutsche Handschriften [i. e., Specimens of Mod. German script.] Stockholm : C. E. Fritse, [1907]. 8vo., vii and 176 pp., 1 kr. 75 öre. Schatz, J.-Altbairische Grammatik. Laut- u. Flexionslehre. (Grammatiken der althochdeutschen Dialekte. I.) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907. 8vo., vi and 183 pp., M. 4,80, b'd M. 5,40. Waag.-Einiges über die Karlsruher Mundart. (Festschrift.) Karlsruhe: J. Lang, 1907. 8vo., 12 pp., M. 0,50. Braune, W.-Althochdeutsches Lesebuch. 6. Aufl. Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer, 1907. 8vo., viii and 267 pp., M. 5.— Gottfried v. Strassburg.-Tristan. Hrsg. v. Karl Marold. I. Teil: Text. (Teutonia. Arbeiten zur german. Philologie, hrsg. v. W. Uhl. 6. Heft.) Leipzig: Ed. Avenarius, 1906. 8vo., Ixvi and 282 pp. w. 2 plates, M. 10. Nicholson, Frank C.-Old German Love Songs, translated from the Minnesingers of the 12th to 14th centuries. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1907. 8vo., lx and 196 pp.. cloth $1.50 net. Walther v. d. Vogelwelde.—Gedichte. 7. Ausg. v. K. Lachmann, besorgt v. Carl v. Kraus. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1907. 8vo., xviii and 230 pp., M. 4. —, aus dem Mhd. übertragen v. R. Zoozmann. (Die Bücher der Rose.) München-Ebenhausen: W. Langewiesche-Brandt, 1907. 8vo., x and 183 pp., M. 1,80, cloth M. 3.— Arnold, R. F.-Das moderne Drama. Strassburg: K. J. Trübner, 1908. 8vo., x and 388 pp., M. 6.—, cloth M. 7.— Meyer, R. M.-Grundriss der neueren deutschen Literaturgeschichte. 2. Aufl. Berlin: G. Bondi, 1907. 8vo., xii and 312 pp., M. 5.-, cloth M. 6.- Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker für Schule u. Haus; begründet v. W. Lindemann. 2. Ausg. v. O. Hellinghaus. 1. Klopstock's Werke. 2. Lessing u. Wieland. 3. Ausgewählte Werke v. Herder, Claudius, Bürger and J. Paul. Freiburg iB.: Herder, 1907. 8vo., xii and 630 pp., x and 653 pp., xiv and 578 pp., cloth M. 3. (each vol. ). Bode, W.-Goethes Lebenskunst. 5. Aufl. Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1908. 8vo., viii and 258 pp., w. 7 pict. and 12 plates, M. 3.-, b'd M. 4. Boucke, E. A.-Goethes Weltanschauung auf historischer Grundlage. Stuttgart: F. Frommann, 1907. 8vo., xxi and 459 pp., M. 8.—, b'd M. 9,20. Brentano, Cl.-Frühlingskranz in Briefen. Neue Ausg. m. Einleitung v. P. Ernst. 2 vols. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1907. 8vo., xx, 226 and 197 pp., M. 6.-, cloth M. 8.-, leather M. 10.Briefe v. Goethes Mutter. Auswahl, hrsg. v. A. Köster. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1907. 8vo., xxii and 244 pp. w. portr., b'd M. 2. an Wolfgang Menzel. Hrsg. v. H. Meisner und Erich Schmidt, m. Einleitung v. R. M. Meyer. Berlin: Litteraturarchiv-Gesellschaft, 1908. 8vo., xiv and 295 pp., M. 10.— Claudius, M.-Werke. Kritische Ausgabe v. G. Behrmann. Leipzig: M. Hesse, 1907. 8vo., lxxxviii and 735 pp., M. 1,50, cloth M. 2.—, half mor. M. 3.—, édition de luxe M. 4. Danton, Geo. H.-The Nature Sense in the writings of Ludwig Tieck. (Columbia University Germanic Studies. Vol. III, No. 2.) New York: The Columbia University Press, 1907. 8vo., viii and 98 pp., $1. Dilthey, W.-Das Erlebnis u. die Dichtung. Lessing, Goethe, Novalis, Hölderlin. 2. erweiterte Aufl. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907. 8vo., vii and 455 pp., M. 5.-, cloth M. 6.— SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMATIC USE OF SONGS. In the great majority of Shakespeare's plays there is some singing; and the exceptions are mainly those plays which are at least his, or are least characteristic of his genius. There is, if nothing more, a scrap of a ballad, or a stage direction for a song in every comedy but the Comedy of Errors, and in all the tragedies which are associated with the name of Shakespeare but Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, and as I believe, the true text of Macbeth,—in a word, the most stern and drastic of the plays. In the historical dramas, being of peculiar genesis and nature, there are songs only in the two parts of Henry IV, and in Henry VIII. As poems, As poems, these songs have roused delight and a delicate affection in the hearts of generations. Where is there any one with the least feeling for poetry to whom the mere repetition of the first line of "Where the bee sucks, there suck I," or "Hark! hark! the lark," or "Under the greenwood tree," is not as the breath of a spring breeze? As words for music, they have inspired literally hundreds of composers, some of them to compositions of entrancing beauty. They have been made the subject of much laudation and critical analysis. But there seems to be no general treatment of their dramatic function ;-their part in the plays and their relation to the characters singing them, It is the purpose of the present paper to discuss these topics. The great number of the songs-some forty that are more than fragments, besides stage directions for six more, and about fifty snatches of balladsimpresses a modern reader as unnatural; but as the first pages of Chappell's Popular Melodies of the Olden Time show, singing was universal in England in Elizabethan times. The meadow, the street, the barber-shop, rang with popular melodies. It is also, of course, well known that the standard of vocal accomplishment in those days was not high. We have authentic records of the No. 1. much later introduction into England of the Italian art of singing. With the advance of the art, singing has become more and more the business of specialists, who sing much better than anybody in Shakespeare's England, but who make ordinary people ashamed to sing for their own or others' pleasure in company. The stage of the present day, as a consequence, will not tolerate a song not sung with a finish and skill unknown to the actors of the Globe and the Curtain. When every gentleman, nay, every tinker and carter, sang to kill time, having neither tobacco nor newspaper, the stage naturally reflected the customs of the day. Again, as there was neither regular concert nor vaudeville in those days, the legitimate theatre was the only place where public singing could be heard; and hence an actor who sang agreeably was listened to with a patience such as no modern audience would show. The abundance of music in Shakespeare's and other Elizabethan plays is nothing individual, but was the most natural thing in the world, when England was still vocal and merry. As to the personages into whose mouths the songs are put, Mr. G. Bernard Shaw said once, at a meeting of the Browning Society in London, when someone had quoted the hackneyed lines from Twelfth Night, so often pressed into service to prove Shakespeare's surpassing love for music, that he should not like to sit down to dinner with the singers in Shakespeare. Complete songs are sung by fools, by pert pages, by men in liquor, by servants; by Autolycus the rogue, Caliban the monster, Iago the demi-devil; by Pandarus and Proteus; by Ariel and the fairies; by Ophelia, when mad, by Desdemona. In the company there is but one respectable man, Amiens, a mere walking gentleman, and but one noble woman in full possession of her intellect. Snatches of song are sung by such people as Falstaff, Petruchio, Mercutio, old Evans in the Merry Wives, the grave-digger in Hamlet, and Edgar when simulating insanity. The snatches and scraps of song, as they inter Vol. 23. January. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. 1908. No. 1. Leopold, M.-Die Vorsilbe ver- u. ihre Geschichte. (Germanistische Abhandlungen. Heft 27.) Breslau: M. and H. Marcus, 1907. 8vo., viii and 286 pp., M. 10.— Meisinger, 0.-Volkswörter und Volkslieder aus dem Wiesentale. Freiburg i/B.: J. Bielefeld, 1907. 8vo., 72 pp., M. 2,50, b'd M. 3. Rohde, Emil u. Otto Abshagen.-Übungsbuch für Deutsche Handschriften [i. e., Specimens of Mod. German script.] Stockholm : C. E. Fritse, [1907]. 8vo., vii and 176 pp., 1 kr. 75 öre. Schatz, J.-Altbairische Grammatik. Laut- u. Flexionslehre. (Grammatiken der althochdeutschen Dialekte. I.) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907. 8vo., vi and 183 pp., M. 4,80, b'd M. 5,40. Waag.-Einiges über die Karlsruher Mundart. (Festschrift.) Karlsruhe: J. Lang, 1907. 8vo., 12 pp., M. 0,50. Braune, W.-Althochdeutsches Lesebuch. 6. Aufl. Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer, 1907. 8vo., viii and 267 pp., M. 5.— Gottfried v. Strassburg.—Tristan. Hrsg. v. Karl Marold. I. Teil: Text. (Teutonia. Arbeiten zur german. Philologie, hrsg. v. W. Uhl. 6. Heft.) Leipzig: Ed. Avenarius, 1906. 8vo., Ixvi and 282 pp. w. 2 plates, M. 10. Nicholson, Frank C.-Old German Love Songs, translated from the Minnesingers of the 12th to 14th centuries. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1907. 8vo., lx and 196 pp.. cloth $1.50 Arnold, R. F.-Das moderne Drama. Strassburg: K. J. Trübner, 1908. 8vo., x and 388 pp., M. 6.—, cloth M. 7.– Meyer, R. M.-Grundriss der neueren deutschen Literaturgeschichte. 2. Aufl. Berlin: G. Bondi, 1907. 8vo., xii and 312 pp., M. 5.-, cloth M. 6. Rieser, Ferd." Des Knaben Wunderhorn" u. seine Quellen. Dortmund: F. W. Ruhfus, 1908. 8vo., viii and 560 pp., M. 16.— Zitelmann, E.-Der Rhythmus des fünffüssigen Jambus. (Aus: Neue Jahrb. f. d. Klass. Altertum, Geschichte u. deutsche Literatur.) Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907. 8vo., 62 pp., M. 1,80. Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker für Schule u. Haus; begründet v. W. Lindemann. 2. Ausg. v. O. Hellinghaus. 1. Klopstock's Werke. 2. Lessing u. Wieland. 3. Ausgewählte Werke v. Herder, Claudius, Bürger and J. Paul. Freiburg i/B.: Herder, 1907. 8vo., xii and 630 pp., x and 653 pp., xiv and 578 pp., cloth M. 3.- (each vol. ). Bode, W.-Goethes Lebenskunst. 5. Aufl. Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1908. 8vo., viii and 258 pp., w. 7 pict. and 12 plates, M. 3.-, b'd M. 4. Boucke, E. A.-Goethes Weltanschauung auf historischer Grundlage. Stuttgart: F. Frommann, 1907. 8vo., xxi and 459 pp., M. 8.-, b'd M. 9,20. Brentano, Cl.-Frühlingskranz in Briefen. Neue Ausg. m. Einleitung v. P. Ernst. 2 vols. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1907. 8vo., xx, 226 and 197 pp., M. 6.-, cloth M. 8.-, leather M. 10.Briefe v. Goethes Mutter. Auswahl, hrsg. v. A. Köster. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1907. 8vo., xxii and 244 pp. w. portr., b'd M. 2.an Wolfgang Menzel. Hrsg. v. H. Meisner und Erich Schmidt, m. Einleitung v. R. M. Meyer. Berlin: Litteraturarchiv-Gesellschaft, 1908. 8vo., xiv and 295 pp., M. 10.— Claudius, M.-Werke. Kritische Ausgabe v. G. Behrmann. Leipzig: M. Hesse, 1907. 8vo., lxxxviii and 735 pp., M. 1,50, cloth M. 2.-, half mor. M. 3.-, édition de luxe M. 4.— Danton, Geo. H.-The Nature Sense in the writings of Ludwig Tieck. (Columbia University Germanic Studies. Vol. I, No. 2.) New York: The Columbia University Press, 1907. 8vo., viii and 98 pp., $1. Dilthey, W.-Das Erlebnis u. die Dichtung. Lessing, Goethe, Novalis, Hölderlin. 2. erweiterte Aufl. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907. 8vo., vii and 455 pp., M. 5.—, cloth M. 6.— Grabiz Winkler Be 2-11-31 Request MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES VOL. XXIII. BALTIMORE, JANUARY, 1908. SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMATIC USE OF SONGS. In the great majority of Shakespeare's plays there is some singing; and the exceptions are mainly those plays which are at least his, or are least characteristic of his genius. There is, if nothing more, a scrap of a ballad, or a stage direction for a song in every comedy but the Comedy of Errors, and in all the tragedies which are associated with the name of Shakespeare but Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, and as I believe, the true text of Macbeth,-in a word, the most stern and drastic of the plays. In the historical dramas, being of peculiar genesis and nature, there are songs only in the two parts of Henry IV, and in Henry VIII. As poems, these songs have roused delight and a delicate affection in the hearts of generations. Where is there any one with the least feeling for poetry to whom the mere repetition of the first line of "Where the bee sucks, there suck I," or "Hark! hark! the lark," or "Under the greenwood tree," is not as the breath of a spring breeze? As words for music, they have inspired literally hundreds of composers, some of them to compositions of entrancing beauty. They have been made the subject of much laudation and critical analysis. But there seems to be no general treatment of their dramatic function ;-their part in the plays and their relation to the characters singing them. It is the purpose of the present paper to discuss these topics. The great number of the songs-some forty that are more than fragments, besides stage directions for six more, and about fifty snatches of balladsimpresses a modern reader as unnatural; but as the first pages of Chappell's Popular Melodies of the Olden Time show, singing was universal in England in Elizabethan times. The meadow, the street, the barber-shop, rang with popular melodies. It is also, of course, well known that the standard of vocal accomplishment in those days was not high. We have authentic records of the No. 1. When much later introduction into England of the Italian art of singing. With the advance of the art, singing has become more and more the business of specialists, who sing much better than anybody in Shakespeare's England, but who make ordinary people ashamed to sing for their own or others' pleasure in company. The stage of the present day, as a consequence, will not tolerate a song not sung with a finish and skill unknown to the actors of the Globe and the Curtain. every gentleman, nay, every tinker and carter, sang to kill time, having neither tobacco nor newspaper, the stage naturally reflected the customs of the day. Again, as there was neither regular concert nor vaudeville in those days, the legitimate theatre was the only place where public singing could be heard; and hence an actor who sang agreeably was listened to with a patience such as no modern audience would show. The abundance of music in Shakespeare's and other Elizabethan plays is nothing individual, but was the most natural thing in the world, when England was still vocal and merry. As to the personages into whose mouths the songs are put, Mr. G. Bernard Shaw said once, at a meeting of the Browning Society in London, when someone had quoted the hackneyed lines from Twelfth Night, so often pressed into service to prove Shakespeare's surpassing love for music, that he should not like to sit down to dinner with the singers in Shakespeare. Complete songs are sung by fools, by pert pages, by men in liquor, by servants; by Autolycus the rogue, Caliban the monster, Iago the demi-devil; by Pandarus and Proteus; by Ariel and the fairies; by Ophelia, when mad, by Desdemona. In the company there is but one respectable man, Amiens, a mere walking gentleman, and but one noble woman in full possession of her intellect. Snatches of song are sung by such people as Falstaff, Petruchio, Mercutio, old Evans in the Merry Wives, the grave-digger in Hamlet, and Edgar when simulating insanity. The snatches and scraps of song, as they inter |