His treatment of his characters is even a more significant index to his growth than the form of his dramas. In the earlier plays, his men and women are more engaged with external forces than with internal struggles. In as excellent an early tragedy as _Romeo and Juliet_, the hero fights more with outside obstacles than with himself. In the great later tragedies, the internal conflict is more emphasized, as in the cases of Hamlet and Macbeth. "See thou character" became in an increasing degree Shakespeare's watchword. He grew to care less for mere incident, for plots based on mistaken identity, as in _The Comedy of Errors_; but he became more and more interested in the delineation of character, in showing the effect of evil on Macbeth and his wife, of jealousy on Othello, of indecision on Hamlet, as well as in exploring the ineffectual attempts of many of his characters to escape the consequences of their acts.
Sources of his Plots.--We should have had fewer plays from Shakespeare, if he had been compelled to take the time to invent new plots. The sources of the plots of his plays may usually be found in some old chronicle, novel, biography, or older play. Holinshed's _Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, published when Shakespeare was fourteen years old, gives the stories of Lear, Cymbeline, Macbeth, and of all the English kings who are the heroes of the historical plays. As Holinshed is very dry reading, if Shakespeare had followed him closely, for instance, in _King Lear_, the play would have lost its most impressive parts. There is not in Holinshed even a suggestion of the Falstaff of _Henry IV_., that veritable "comic Hamlet," who holds a unique place among the humorous characters of the world.
North's translation of Plutarch's _Lives_, published when Shakespeare was fifteen years old, became his textbook of ancient history and furnished him the raw material for plays like _Julius Caesar_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_.
Play Total Prose Blank Penta- Rimes, Songs Publ- Supp- of meter Short ished osed Lines Rimes Lines Date
Love's Labor's 2789 1086 579 1028 54 32 1598 1588-9 Lost Comedy of 1778 240 1150 380 --- --- 1623 1589-91 Errors [24] Midsummer 2174 441 878 731 138 63 1600 1590-1 Night's Dream Two Gentlemen 2294 409 1510 116 --- 15 1623 1590-2 of Verona Romeo and 3052 405 2111 486 --- --- 1597 1591-3 Juliet Richard II. 2756 --- 2107 537 --- --- 1597 ? 1593 Richard III. 3619 55? 3374 170 --- --- 1597 ? 1594-5