A Book for Shakespeare Plays and Pageants

Christi celebration as a whole,- the difference being that here it is applied to a Shakespeare celebration. In this sense the variations of a Shakespeare pageant are countless. Music, dancing, and a procession without formal dramatic performances may be called a pageant, if the festival spirit expresses itself among a group in colour and motion; so may a simultaneous presentation of several plays of Shakespeare's if they are given in the same spirit, and especially if they are given outdoors, where the opportunity for space and spectacle are larger. There is, however, no thought of limiting the term to even so comprehensive a use as is followed in this book.

Indebtedness in a book such as this, both to Elizabethan documents and to the researches of modern scholars is naturally very great. The effort has been to make all due acknowledgment even for intermediate sources. Occasionally material has been available from more than one source and in such instances acknowledgments have been attempted only to the one actually used. Of more personal acknowledgments there are also several. I owe to Mr. Winthrop Ames, of the Little Theatre, New York City, encouragement in the decision to undertake the book; to Mrs. Otis Skinner much counsel and in certain sections of Part II, a practical collaboration. Many of her suggestions have been embodied in this second part, and all of it has felt her influence, although its faults are entirely my own. I am indebted to Miss Margaret Haskell, one of my students

in the Drama in Bryn Mawr College, both for valuable assistance in collecting material and for helpful suggestions at various points. To Mrs. A. B. McMahan I owe here, as in every task of my pen, encouragement and help in a score of ways. Finally I offer grateful recollection to Mrs. Frederick W. Boatwright for help not to be clearly defined but of the sort which went far towards making the book possible.

O. L. H.