Shakespearean

“ And the spectacle, which others exhibit, of a purpose forming itself and, in spite of outward obstacles and often of inward resistance, forcing its way onward to a happy consummation or a terrible deed, not only gives scope to that psychological subtlety in which Shakespeare is scarcely rivalled, but is also dramatic in the highest degree. ”

“ Against such a degradation of Shakespeare’s character, or of any man’s character, it is our duty to protest. On trying to make Shakespeare more than human, the reckless panegyrist makes him considerably less than human: instead of the man whose prudence made him rich, whose affectionate nature made him loved almost to idolatry, and whose genius has been the wonder of the world, we are presented with plasticity in the abstract, an object not more interesting than a quarry of potter’s clay. ”

“ Shakespeare was not a prose diarist of the twentieth century, but a poet on the rising high tide of the most creative period of English literature, in the first fervours of poetic inspiration and romantic personal affection. ”

“ And in the broader sense of the term Shakespeare's form was precisely proportionate to his genius, though it is seen rather in the transcendence of his poetry and the management by which his persons are swept along on their own characters than in those more obvious elements of form—structure of plot, the subservience of dialogue and incident to the dramatic purpose, and all the minor probabilities and proprieties. But it is just the obvious elements which are most noticeable to those who study form in a superficial way ”

“ Our inimitable Shakespeare is a stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic, where there is not one of them violated? Shakespeare was indeed born with all the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus’s ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature, without any help from art. ”

“ The genius of Shakespeare appears to penetrate into all departments of human knowledge, and his instincts possess a universal accuracy. Whether he describes the beauties of Nature at large, or enters the haunts of busy life, high or low, royal, noble, or plebeian, or sends his all-searching glance into the depths of the human mind, or the strange intricacies of human nature, we are equally astonished at the clearness of his perceptive faculties, and the justness of his conclusions. ”

“ A great genius ought to guide, not servilely follow, the taste of his contemporaries.
POPE
Consider from how thick a darkness of barbarism the genius of Shakespeare broke forth! What were the English, and what (let me ask you) were the French dramatic performances, in the age when he flourished? The advances he made towards the highest perfection both of tragedy and comedy are amazing! In the principal points, in the power of exciting terror and pity, or raising laughter in an audience, none yet has excelled him, and very few have equalled. ”

“ Anything else is the insight of the hero, or the hypocrisy of the preacher!
Has it been realized how curiously the interpreters of Shakespeare omit the principal thing? They revel in his Grammar, his History, his Biology, his Botany, his Geography, his Psychology and his Ethics. They never speak of his Poetry. Now Shakespeare is, above everything, a poet. To poetry, over and over again, as our Puritans know well, he sacrifices Truth, Morality, Probability, nay! the very principles of Art itself. ”

“ Yet the comedies of Shakespeare are far from superficial. Those written in the middle of his career, such as "As You Like It" and "Twelfth Night," not only display with great skill many sides of human nature, but with indescribable lightness and grace introduce us to charming creations, speaking lines rich in poetry and sparkling with wit, and bring before our imaginations whole series of delightful scenes. ”

“ The vicissitudes of the celebrity of Shakespeare may form a chapter in the philosophy of literature and the history of national opinions. Shakespeare was destined to have his dramatic faculty contested by many successful rivals, to fall into neglect, to be rarely acted and less read, to appear barbarous and unintelligible, to be even discarded from the glorious file of dramatists by the anathemas of hostile criticism; and finally, in the resurrection of genius (a rare occurrence!) to emerge into universal celebrity. ”

“ How in an indifferent actor like Shakespeare was betrayed those latent dramatic faculties by which he was one day to be the delight of that stage which he could not tread, remains a secret which the poet has not told. But whether it was by accident or in some happy hour, we know not, that Shakespeare, in conning the manuscript of some wretched drama, felt the glorious impulse which prompted the pen to strike out whole passages, and to interpolate whole scenes; that moment was the obscure birth of his future genius. ”

“ Shakespeare defied at every stage in his career the laws of the classical drama. He rode roughshod over the unities of time, place, and action. There were critics in his day who zealously championed the ancient rules, and viewed with distrust any infringement of them. But the force of Shakespeare’s genius—its revelation of new methods of dramatic art—was not lost on the lovers of the ancient ways ”

“ In literary value Shakespeare’s sonnets are notably unequal. Many reach levels of lyric melody and meditative energy that are hardly to be matched elsewhere in poetry. The best examples are charged with the mellowed sweetness of rhythm and metre, the depth of thought and feeling, the vividness of imagery and the stimulating fervour of expression which are the finest fruits of poetic power. ”

“ The English tongue, a language little formed, now assists, now harms him, but everywhere the deep mind gushes forth translucent Shakespeare's drama proceeds with a kind of distracted rhythm. It is so vast that it staggers; it has and gives the vertigo; but nothing is so solid as this excited grandeur. Shakespeare, shuddering, has in himself the winds, the spirits, the philters, the vibrations, the fluctuations of transient breezes, the obscure penetration of effluvia, the great unknown sap. ”

“ Farmer closes these general testimonies of Shakespeare’s having been only indebted to Nature, by saying, ‘He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, like Pallas out of Jove’s head, at full growth and mature.’ It is whimsical enough, that this some one else, whose expression is here quoted to countenance the general notion of Shakespeare’s want of literature, should be no other than myself. ”

“ Thus rose the two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy, compositions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and considered as so little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a single writer who attempted both.
Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter. ”

“ One has taken to doubting whether Shakespeare be really the best of guides for a new generation of dramatic writers, especially when one has studied closely what the imitation of Shakespeare involves in practice. To imitate Shakespeare is to copy in the most superficial manner his locutions and turns of phrase, his complicated plots, his successions of changing scenes; to mingle prose and verse, and to indulge in puns and coups de théâtre ”

“ It is our own fault, and not the fault of the materials, if we do not know a great deal more about Shakespeare than that; if we do not realize, for example, these distinct and indubitable facts about him—his [Pg 73] special reputation among the critics of his time, as a man not so much of erudition as of prodigious natural genius; his gentleness and openness of disposition; his popular and sociable habits; his extreme ease, and, as some thought, negligence in composition; and, above all, and most characteristic of all, his excessive fluency in speech. ”

“ Instead of vindicating tragi-comedy by the success of Shakespeare, we ought perhaps to pay new honours to that transcendent and unbounded genius that could preside over the passions in sport; who, to actuate the affections, needed not the slow gradation of common means, but could fill the heart with instantaneous jollity or sorrow, and vary our disposition as he changed his scenes. ”

“ But the horizon of Shakespeare was broader than them all. There is no depth which he has not sounded, no height which he has not measured. He walked in the gardens of the intellectual gods and gathered sweets for the soul from a thousand unwithering flowers. ”

“ And yet I believe the reader will find that he has by no means decided this question, even for himself.—If then it should turn out that this difficulty has arisen out of the Art of Shakespeare, who has contrived to make secret Impressions [pg 224] upon us of Courage, and to preserve those Impressions in favour of a character which was to be held up for sport and laughter on account of actions of apparent Cowardice and dishonour, we shall have less occasion to wonder, as Shakespeare is a Name which contains All of Dramatic artifice and genius. ”

“ And so the absorbing, quickening, creative efficacy of Shakespeare's genius is best seen in this, that, taking the Drama as it came to his hand, a thing of unsouled forms and lack-lustre eyes, all brainless and meaningless, he at once put a spirit into it, tempered its elements in the proportions of truth, informed its shapes with grace and virtue, and made it all alive, a breathing, speaking, operative power. ”

“ King Lear
(d) Style. For lack of a better name we call Shakespeare’s style Shakesperian. One can instantly recognize it, even in other authors, where it is rarely visible. It is a difficult, almost an impossible, matter to define it. There is aptness and quotability in it: sheaves of Shakespeare’s expressions have passed into common speech. To a very high degree it possesses sweetness, strength, and flexibility; and above all it has a certain inevitable and final felicity that is the true mark of genius. ”

“ Shakespeare permeated his whole being, and his influence is to be detected not in a resemblance of style, for Shakespeare can have no imitators, but in a broadening view of life, and increased humanity. ”

“ Those whom [pg 140] their fame invites to the same studies, copy partly them, and partly nature, till the books of one age gain such authority, as to stand in the place of nature to another, and imitation, always deviating a little, becomes at last capricious and casual. Shakespeare, whether life or nature be his subject, shews plainly that he has seen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he receives, not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other mind; the ignorant feel his representations to be just, and the learned see that they are complete. ”

“ If Shakespeare’s genius had been cultivated, those beauties, which we so justly admire in him, would have been undisgraced by those extravagancies, and that nonsense, with which they are frequently accompanied. ”

“ And this is in reality that art in Shakespeare which, being withdrawn from our notice, we more emphatically call nature. A felt propriety and truth from causes unseen, I take to be the highest point of Poetic composition. If the characters of Shakespeare are thus whole, and as it were original, while those of almost all other writers are mere imitation, it may be fit to consider them rather as Historic than Dramatic beings; and, when occasion requires, to account for their conduct from the whole of character, from general principles, from latent motives, and from policies not avowed. ”

“ The last consideration that I urge, is that Shakespeare's works are in themselves an epitome and a summary of universal literature wrought out in endless forms of philosophic structure, and æsthetic texture, in felicities of thought and style, regrouping and refining the shapeliest features of other writers. What characteristic of universal literature is not sublimated in Shakespeare? ”

“ At all events, that Shakespeare stooped to accommodate himself to the People, is sufficiently apparent; and one of the most striking proofs of his almost omnipotent genius, is, that he could turn to such glorious purpose those materials which the prepossessions of the age compelled him to make use of. ”

“ In my endeavour to give to Shakespeare all his attributes, to enrich his poetry with scenes worthy of its interpretation, to give to his tragedies their due magnificence and to his comedies their entire brilliancy, I have set an example which is accompanied with great peril, for the public is willing to have the magnificence without the tragedy, and the poet is swallowed up in display. ”

“ But these moments in which the dramatist and his English spectators are out of sympathy are rare. Shakespeare taught them to be surprised in no way at seeing human nature sink to the lowest depths after rising to giddy heights. ”

“ By his powers of expression, in fact, Shakespeare has beggared all his posterity, and left mere practitioners of expression nothing possible to do. There is perhaps not a thought, or feeling, or situation, really common and generic to human life, on which he has not exercised his prerogative; and, wherever he has once been, woe to the man that comes after him! ”

“ This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirror of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following the phantoms which other writers raise up before him, may here be cured of his delirious ecstasies, by reading human sentiments in human language; by scenes from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of the passions.
His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of criticks, who form their judgments upon narrower principles. ”