Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid--seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non--commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal

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... ntent at http://about.jstor.org/participate--jstor/individuals/early-journal--content. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not--for--profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. XII.-THE EPISODES IN SHAKESPEARE'S I. HENRY VI. The present paper is drawn from a number of notes gradually collected and is intended to be one of a series of studies upon those plays of Shakespeare belonging to his earliest dramatic period. It is a period of vital interest in Shakespeare's work, because artistically it is his formative one and historically it connects our greatest dramatist with his predecessors and with characteristic contemporary fashions and productions. Whatever may be the exact date on which Shakespeare came to town or began his dramatic career, as is well known, there were three sorts of plays current and fashionable at the time. There was the English history or chronicle play; the Senecan tragedy of blood; and the Plautean comedy of dialogue and situation,-both of these last formed upon classic models. Shakespeare is at first no innovator, but in his beginning work is connected with all these and other modes. I. Henry. VI is an illustration of the history or chronicle play, closely followed by the Second and Third Parts and by Richard III. The example of the tragedy of blood based on Senecan models is Titus Andronicus, which, from certain points of view, is a necessary link in the chain of structural and character development from the crude Senecan imitation, through Marlowe's vehement creations and Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, to the masterful Hamlet and Lear. And thirdly, the Comedy of Errors is an adaptation of the bustle and wit of the Plautean comedy of sparkling dialogue and equivocal situation. But comedy was very close to the native English genius. It had perked itself up long before in the face of the sacred background in the Noah's Wife and the Shepherds of the Miracle Plays; and it could not be expected now that a made-to-order pseudo-classic type should pre-290