Prefaces to Shakespeare, Vol. 1 (Hardbound - 2007)

Harley Granville-Barker’s Prefaces to Shakespeare originally published in five series between 1927 and 1947 covering ten plays are collected in four volumes: Volume I (Hamlet), Volume II (King Lear, Cymbeline, Julius Caesar), Volume III (Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus) and Volume IV (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello).

An actor, dramatist, producer and a profound Shakespearean scholar, Granville-Barker brought about a revolution in his Shakespearean productions in the first decade of the twentieth century by recapturing, with his experience and expertise, the spirit and vitality of the plays as they were produced on the Elizabethan stage. He saw Shakespeare as a man of the theatre and gave a lie to Lamb that the plays of Shakespeare ‘were less calculated for performance on a stage than those of any dramatist whatsoever.’ About the productions G.B. Harrison remarks that they were ‘the most important productions for a hundred years not only because they were beautiful in themselves, but because for the first time since the seventeenth century Shakespeare’s plays were played just as they were written, and not cut and rearranged to suit the scene-shifter.’

The Prefaces are elaborate explications of what shape the productions, and how and why Granville-Barker’s alert attention to the minutiae of a text and threadbare discussions of various aspects of the plays reveal the dramatic wealth of a Shakespearean play. The Prefaces with their focus on the integrity and vitality of a play have become a landmark in Shakespearean criticism. T.S. Eliot has rightly remarked: ‘Perhaps more than any other single writer, H. Granville-Barker by his prefaces, illuminating the plays with the understanding of the producer, has suggested the need for a synthesis of the several points of view from which Shakespeare can be studied.’

Any teacher and student of Shakespeare will find these books immensely valuable.

English actor, director, dramatist, producer and Shakespearean scholar, Harley Granville-Barker was born in Kensington, London on November 25, 1877. He made his first stage appearance at the age of 14, and made his London debut in 1892. At 17 he joined the Ben Greet players and because of his handsome appearance, Italianate good looks, fine histrionic qualities and total dedication soon attained popularity. He joined the Stage Society in 1900 where his performance of Marchbanks in Candida was a great success. Over the next two years Granville-Barker appeared in productions both by Ben Greet and William Poel. In 1904 he produced and also acted in The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Court Theatre. His productions at the Savoy (1912-14) of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and Twelfth Night with continuous action on an open stage and rapid lightly stressed speech brought about a revolution in Shakespearean productions. During the First World War Granville-Barker served in the Red Cross Society and produced among other plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in New York. After the War he divided his time between Britain, continental Europe and the United States. Twice he visited Canada for theatrical purposes, adjudicated the Dominion Drama Festival in Ottawa in 1936, and lectured on Shakespeare at the University of Toronto in 1942. He settled in Paris with his second wife, an American, and began writing the famous Prefaces to Shakespeare. In 1937 he became Director of the British Institute of the University of Paris. He fled to Spain during the Second World War in 1940 and then went to the United States where he worked for the British Information Services and lectured at Harvard University. He returned to Paris in 1946 and died there on August 31, 1946.