I. Choice or plot. - Until quite recently the generally accepted point of view has been that Shakespeare con ceived and created his plays in the same manner as modern playwrights do theirs. Even Brandes seems to imagine that his choice of certain subjects was principally conditioned by personal experience or by the suggestions derived from stories he had read. It is true that we are by no means acquainted with the genesis of all Shakespeare's dramas, and there is good reason to think that it was not the same in every case; still, we may take it for granted that our modern demand that the inspiration of the artist's work must be looked for in his own innermost experience was almost unknown in the Elizabethan era.

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