SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM
Criticism of Shakespeare, like every criticism, has followed and
expressed the progress and alternations of the philosophy of art,
or aesthetic; it has been strong or weak, profound or superficial,
well-balanced or one-sided, according to the doctrines that have
there been realised. Their history would form an excellent History
of Aesthetic, because the fame of Shakespeare became widespread,
concurrently with the spread of aesthetic theory, with its liberation
from external norms and concepts, and its penetration to the heart of
its subject. Shakespeare's poetry in its turn stimulated this deepening
of the theory of aesthetic, by its revelation of a poetic world, for
emotion and admiration, in appearance at least, very different from
what had previously passed as its sole and perfect example. But since
we are occupied at the present moment with Shakespeare and not with
aesthetic theory, we shall touch only upon certain points of this
criticism, in order the more firmly to establish by indirect proof the
judgment expressed above, and to indicate certain obstacles, which the
student of Shakespeare will meet with in critical literature relating
to that poet. Our description and definition of them may render
avoidable certain of the most common errors.
Among these must be included (not in the seat of criticism, but in
the entrance-hall and at the gates) what may be called _exclamatory_
criticism, which instead of understanding a poet in his particularity,
his finite-infinity, drowns him beneath a flood of superlatives. This
is the method employed by English writers towards Shakespeare (I am
bound to admit that the Italians do the same as regards Dante). An
example of this habit, selected from innumerable others, is Swinburne's
book, from which we learn that "it would be better that the world
should lose all the books it contains rather than the plays of
Shakespeare"; that Shakespeare is "the supreme creator of men"; that
he "stands alone," and at the most might admit "Homer on his right and
Dante on his left hand"; then, as to individual plays, we learn that
the trilogy of _Henry IV-V_ suffices to reveal him as "the greatest
playwright of the world," that the _Dream_ stands "without and above
any possible or imaginable criticism." Thus he continues, puffing out
his cheeks to find hyperboles, which themselves finally turn out to be
inferior to hyperbolic requirements. Sometimes such exclamations not
only border on the ridiculous, but fall right into it, as is the case
with Carlyle, who stood in perplexity before the hypothetical dilemma,
as to whether England could better afford to lose "the empire of India
or Shakespeare." Victor Hugo, more generous, and an admirer of the
ocean, constituted a series of _hommes océans,_ where the tragic poet
of Albion found a place alongside of Aeschylus, Dante, Michael-Angelo,
Isaiah and Juvenal.
Another style of criticism, _by images_ to be found in works that
are estimable in other respects, is somewhat akin to this criticism
without criticism, besides being far more justifiable, because, if it
does not explain, it tries at least to give, as though in a poetical
translation, a synthetic impression of Shakespeare's art and of the
physiognomy of his various works. It describes the works of Shakespeare
by means of landscapes and other pictures, as Herder and other writers
of the _Sturm and Drang_ period delighted in doing. Coleridge too did
likewise and Hazlitt even more often, as may be shown by an extract
from the letter of a certain Miss Florence O'Brien, on _King Lear,_
to be found in well-nigh all books that deal with this tragedy. She
begins: "This play is like a tempestuous night: the first scene is like
a wild sunset, grandiose and terrible, with gusts of wind and rumblings
of thunder, which announce the imminence of the hurricane: then comes a
furious tempest of madness and folly, through which we see darkly the
monstrous and unnatural figures of Goneril and Regan"; et cetera. The
danger of such poetical variations is that of superimposing one art on
another, and of leading astray or of distracting the attention from the
genuine features of the original to be enjoyed and understood, in the
attempt to render its effect.
Let us pass over _biographical-aesthetic_ criticism: its fundamental
error and the arbitrary judgments with which it disturbs both biography
and the criticism of art have already been sufficiently illustrated;
and let us also pass over the _aesthetic_ criticism of _philologists,_
who imagine themselves to be interpreting and judging poetry, when
they are talking mere philology and uttering ineptitudes prepared with
infinite pains. Being confined to citing but one example of their
method, I would select for that purpose Furnivall's introduction to
the _Leopold Shakespeare._ I fail to understand why this introduction
is so highly esteemed and reverenced. Furnivall too, when he contrives
not to lose himself in exclamations and attempts poetry, ("who could
praise Falstaff sufficiently?" "who could fail to love Percy?" "the
countess mother in _All's Well_ resembles one of Titian's old ladies;"
etc.), amuses himself by establishing links between the plays. These he
discovers in the situations, in the action and elsewhere, regarding the
works externally and from a general point of view. Thus he discovers
a connection between _Julius Caesar_ and _Hamlet,_ in the repetition
of the name of "Caesar," which is found thrice in the latter play, in
the mouth of Horatio, of Polonius and of Hamlet, on the occasion of
both seeing a ghost, in Hamlet's feeling that he must avenge his father
like Antonius Caesar, and in the likeness of character between Brutus
and Hamlet's father. Thus he attains to the ridiculous, as Carlyle and
Swinburne by another route, when, for instance, he affirms that "in a
certain sense Hotspur (the fiery Hotspur of _Henry IV_) is Kate (that
is to say, the shrew in the _Taming of the Shrew,_) become a man and
bearing armour!"
We shall also not dwell upon _rhetorical_ criticism, which employs the
method of "styles." This method, after having rejected Shakespeare,
because he does not pay attention to the different styles of writing
(French criticism), and having then proceeded to reconcile him with
styles as explained by Aristotle in his _Poetics,_ when these are well
understood (Lessing), having sung his praises as the "genius of the
drama," the "Homer of dramatic style" (Gervinus), is still seeking for
what is "his alone and individually" in "the treatment" of the "drama."
This it will never find, because such a thing as a "dramatic style"
does not exist in the world of poetry: what does exist is simply and
solely "poetry." These questions of literary style are now rather out
of date: they survive rather in the lazy repetition of words and forms
than in actual substance. It is certainly surprising to know that there
still exist persons who examine what are called the "historical plays,"
and because they are "historical," compare them with history books,
blaming the poet for not having given to Caesar the part that should
have been his in _Julius Caesar,_ and quoting in support of their
argument (like Brandes) the histories of Mommsen and of Boissier. And
there are also fossils who discuss in the language of the sixteenth
century, verisimilitude, incongruity or multiplicity of plot, congruity
or reverse of characters, crudeness of expression, and observation or
failure to observe by Shakespeare the rules of dramatic composition. To
German criticism of the speculative period and to the vast monographs
that it produced upon Shakespeare must be given the credit of having
tried to discover and determine the _soul_ of Shakespeare's poetry.
We must also admit, as a general quality of scientific German books
on literature, even when these are of the heaviest and most full of
mistakes, that they do make us feel the presence of problems not
yet solved, whereas other books, more easy to read, better written
and perhaps less full of mistakes, are less fruitful of thoughts
that arise by repercussion or reaction. Unfortunately, these German
writers imagined that soul to reside in a sort of _philosophical,
moral, political and historical teaching,_ upon which Shakespeare
was supposed to have woven his plays. This was a flagrant offence
against all sense of poetry, for not only did they forget the poetical
in favour of the non-poetical; and attributed equal value to all of
Shakespeare's widely differing works, whatever their real value, but
also, since this non-poetical teaching had no existence, they set
about creating it on their own account by means of various subtleties,
and of a sort of allegorical exegesis. Thus in Ulrici, Gervinus,
Kreyssig, Vischer and others like them, we read with astonishment,
that in _Richard III_ (to take a historical play) Shakespeare wished
to impart "an immortal doctrine upon the divine right of kings and
their intangibility," and at the same time to give warning that it does
not suffice a king to be conscious of his right divine, unless he be
prepared to maintain it with force against force. These writers have an
almost prophetic vision that Germany will need this lesson in the case
of its romantic king, Frederick William IV of Prussia! In the _Tempest_
again (to take an imaginative play) Shakespeare is supposed by them to
have desired to give his opinion upon the great question, common to
our time and his, as to the right of Europeans to colonise and the
need of subjecting the native savage by means of whip and sword, free
of any scruple dictated by false sentiment. Finally (to take a last
example from the great tragedies), they held that the ideal teaching
of _Othello_ is that punishment awaits unequal marriages, marriage
between persons of different race, or different social condition, or
of different age; and that Desdemona deserved her cruel fate, for she
was weighed down with sin, having disobeyed her old father, imprudently
and over-warmly supported the cause of Cassio, and shown negligence and
lack of care in handling the famous handkerchief, which she let fall at
her feet! We can only reply to all this in the witty words of Riimelin,
_à propos_ of such incredible interpretations of Shakespeare's
catastrophes, to the effect that this "dramatic justice," so dear to
German aestheticians, is "like Draco's sanguinary code, which decreed a
single penalty for all misdeeds: death."
Numberless are the shocks that the artistic consciousness receives
from such a method as this. Gervinus, who professed "an even firmer
belief in Shakespeare's infallibility in matters of morality than in
his lack of aesthetic defects," is indignant with readers disposed to
find hard and cruel Prince Henry's repulse on coming to the throne,
of his old friend Falstaff, the companion of his merry adventures. He
gravely declares that this proves modern readers to be "far inferior
both to Prince Henry and to Shakespeare in nobility and ethical
fervour"; whereas it is evident that the poor readers are right,
because we have to deal here with poetical images, not with practical
and moral acts, and readers justly feel that Shakespeare was on this
occasion obeying certain ends outside the province of art. Falstaff is
sympathetic to every reader: even Gervinus does not dare to declare
him antipathetic, but sets about finding plausible explanations for
this illicit attractiveness. He produces three: the artistic perfection
of the representation, the logical perfection of the type, and the
struggle between the will for pleasure that always stimulates Falstaff,
and his old age and his paunch, which hinder or make him impotent,
and according to Gervinus, are bestowed upon him, in order to appease
or mitigate our shocked sense of ethical severity. But the only and
obvious explanation of Falstaff's sympathetic attractiveness is the
sympathy which the poet himself felt in his genial way for him as
a human force. In like manner, what we have held to be an error of
composition, such as the story of Gloucester and his sons forming a
parallel with that of Lear, is held to be a miracle by the professors
aforesaid, because, as says Ulrici, the poet wished to teach us that
"moral corruption is not isolated, but diffused among the most noble
families, representative of all the others." Vischer holds a similar
view, to the effect that Shakespeare "intended to show that, if impiety
is widely diffused, society becomes impossible, and the world rocks to
its foundation; but one instance of this did not suffice, so he had to
accumulate the most terrifying confirmation of the fact."
These professors are also unanimous in rejecting the interpretation of
the words: "He has no sons!" uttered by Macduff, when he learns that
Macbeth has caused his wife and little son to be murdered, as they are
understood by the ingenuous reader, namely, that Macduff thus expresses
his rage at not being able to take an equal vengeance upon Macbeth,
by slaying his sons. Their reason for this is that such a thing would
be unworthy of so upright and honourable a man as Macduff. As though
such honourable men as Macduff are not subject to the impulse of anger
and capable of at least momentary blindness; as though the eyes, even
of Manzoni's Father Christopher did not sometimes blaze "with a sudden
vivacity," though he kept them as a rule fixed on the ground, as if
(in the word of the author), they were two queer-tempered horses,
driven by a coachman, whom they know to be their master, yet they
will nevertheless indulge in an occasional frolic, for which they
immediately atone with a good pull on the bit.
That is what happens to Macduff, who assumes possession of himself when
he hears Malcolm's words that immediately follow. "Dispute it like a
man,"--and says: "I shall do so; but I must also feel it like a man."
Quitting psychology and returning to poetry, nothing short of Malcolm's
savage outburst can express his torment, in the climax of the dialogue.
Were Shakespeare himself to come forward and declare that he meant what
those insipid, moralising professors declare that he meant, Shakespeare
would be wrong, and whoever said that he was wrong, would be in better
accordance with his genius than he himself, for he was a genius; only
upon condition of remaining true to the logic of poetry.
We could fill a large volume with the misinterpretations of moralising
and philosophising Shakespearean critics, but it is hoped that having
here demonstrated the absurdity of the principle, readers should be
able to recognise it for themselves, in its sources and methods of
approach.
But it would need a series of volumes to catalogue all the absurdities
of another form of Shakespearean criticism, which differs from the
preceding, in being in full flower and vigour to-day: we refer to
_objectivistic_ criticism. The reason for this is that few are yet
fully aware that every kind and example of art is only successful to
the extent that it is irradiated with a sentiment, which determines
and controls it in all its parts. This used to be denied of certain
forms of poetry, particularly of the dramatic; hence the false, but
extremely logical deduction, of Leopardi, that the dramatic was the
lowest and least noble kind of poetry, because it was the most remote
and alien from pure form, which is the lyric. Shakespeare's objectivity
of "representation" and the perfect "reality" of his characters, which
live their own lives independently are often praised. This can be
said in a certain sense, but must not be taken literally, for it is
metaphorical; because, when we would reach and handle those images of
the poet's sentiment, there may not be an "explosion" (as happened when
Faust threw himself upon the phantom of Helen), but in any case they
will lose their shape, fall into shreds and vanish before our eyes.
In their place will appear an infinite number of insoluble questions
as to the manner of understanding or reestablishing their solidity
and coherence. What is known as the _Hamlet-Litteratur_ is the most
appalling of all these manifestations and it is daily on the increase.
Historians, psychologists, lovers of amorous adventures, gossips,
police-spies, criminologists investigate the character, the intentions,
the thoughts, the affections, the temperament, the previous life, the
tricks they played, the secrets they hid, their family and social
relations, and so on, and crowd, without any real claim to do so, round
the "characters of Shakespeare," detaching them from the creative
centre of the play and transferring them into a pretended objective
field, as though they were made of flesh and blood.
Among those inclined to such realistic and antipoetical investigation,
some there are, who see in Hamlet a pleasure-seeker, called to the
achievement of an undertaking beyond his powers; others find in him
a scrupulous person, who struggles between the call to vengeance and
his better moral conscience, or one who studies vengeance, but without
staining his conscience. For others again, he is an artistic genius,
inclined to contemplation, but ill-adapted to action, or a partial
genius not adapted to artistic creation, or a pure soul, or an impure
and diseased soul, or a decadent, or a sexual psychopath, obsessed with
lust and incest. We find others able to discover that he inherited
the characteristics of a father, who was tyrannical, vicious and a
bad husband, and of an uncle possessed of a lofty soul and capacity
for governing a kingdom. Finally, some have even suspected him of not
being a man, but a woman, daughter of the king, disguised as a man,
and for that reason and for no other, rejecting the beautiful Ophelia
and seeking Horatio, with whom she (Hamlet) was secretly in love. And
what kind of maiden was Ophelia? Was she naïve and innocent, or was
she not rather a malicious little court lady? Perhaps she too had
her secret, which would explain her strange relations with Hamlet. An
English enquirer has arrived at the conclusion that Ophelia was not
chaste, that she had given birth to a baby, and what is more, to a baby
whose father was not Hamlet, and that this was the reason why Hamlet
advised her to get her to a nunnery, and the priest refused to give
her body Christian burial. Her brother, Laertes, had lived in Paris,
and having there learned French customs, was for this reason so ready
to accept the advice of the king to use a poisoned sword. According
to some, Macbeth was so powerfully restrained by his own conscience,
that, save for his wife, he would never have satisfied his ambition
and slain King Duncan. But according to others, he had meditated
regicide for some time and had deferred his design, because he hoped
to succeed in a legitimate manner, were the king to die without an
heir. But he broke truce, when the king contemplated bestowing upon
his son the title of Duke of Cumberland, that is to say, Crown Prince.
For many, Lady Macbeth is a cold, pitiless woman, but for others she
is tender and sweet by nature; for some, she is madly in love with her
husband, for others, madly incensed with him, because, judging by his
undoubted military prowess, she had at first believed him to possess
the great soul of a conqueror, and then, when she found him vile with
human mildness, sensible of scruples and remorse perturbed at the
results of his own deeds, to the extent of experiencing hallucinations
and behaving rashly, she is consumed with scorn and dies of a broken
heart, on the fall of that idol and which she had aspired, the perfect
criminal.
Othello has been by some identified with a Moor, a Berber, a
Mauritanian, for others he is without doubt a bestial negro, boiling
with African blood. Iago is generally characterised as amoral and
Machiavellian, a true Italian; but others deem him worthy the name
of "honest Iago," because he was good, amiable, serviceable in all
things--when his personal ambition was not at stake.
By some, Desdemona has been held to be desirable as a wife (others, on
the other hand, would be ready to marry Cordelia or Ophelia, others
Imogen or Hermione, others the nun Isabel, and finally there are some
who would prefer Portia, as "an ideal woman," and a "perfect wife");
but as regards this, there are some who have divined the secret
tendencies of Desdemona and have had no hesitation in defining her as
"a virtual courtesan."
Then again: what was the difference of age between Othello and
Desdemona? Had Othello seen the wonderful things existing in other
countries of which he speaks, or had he imagined them, or had he been
told of them? Perhaps he had enjoyed the wife of Iago, which would
explain the regard he has for the husband?
Brutus, until lately, passed for an idealist tormented with ideals;
but more accurate investigations have revealed him to be a hypocrite
in the Puritan manner, who, by means of repeated lies, ends by himself
believing the noble motives to be found on his lips; however, things
turn out badly and he finally receives the punishment he deserves.
Falstaff's religious origin has been discovered: he was a Lollard,
and thus a declared eudemonist, convinced of the nullity of the world
and of the inutility of life, living from minute to minute. He is not
really a liar and a boaster, but an imaginative person; nor is he vile,
save in appearance; he should be regarded rather as an opportunist.
We read these and an infinity of other not less astonishing statements
in the volumes, opuscules and articles which are published every year
upon the characters of Shakespeare. The effect of such discussions,
even where most sensibly written, is never to clear up or decide
anything, but on the contrary, to darken what appeared perfectly
certain, and gave no reason for any difficulty, to render uncertain
what was clearly determined. Such works give rise further to the doubt
that Shakespeare was perhaps so inexpert a writer as not to be able to
represent his own conceptions, nor express his own thoughts.
But when we do not allow ourselves to be caught in the meshes of these
fictitious problems, of which we indicated the _proton pseudos,_
when we resolutely banish them from the mind, and read and reread
Shakespeare's plays without more ado, everything remains or becomes
clear again, everything, that is to say, which should (as is natural)
be clear for the ends of poetry, in a poetical work. As Grillparzer
remarked in his time, that very Hamlet, whom Goethe took such trouble
to explain psychologically, and over whom so many hundreds of
interpreters have so diligently toiled, "is understood with perfect
ease by the tailor or the bootmaker sitting in the gallery, who
understands the whole of the play by raising his own feelings to its
level."
From this derives another consequence: Shakespeare has been loudly
praised for his portentous fidelity to nature and reality, but at
the same time the critics, as quoted above, have placed obstacles of
various sorts in the way of those who would understand him so it has
been freely stated that Shakespeare is certainly a great poet, but that
his method is not that of "fidelity," to nature, on the contrary, he
violates "reality" at every turn, creating characters and situation,
"which are not found in nature." It would be better to say simply
that Shakespeare, like every poet, is neither in accordance nor in
disaccordance with external reality (which for that matter is what each
one of us likes to make and to imagine in his own way), for the reason
that he has nothing to do with it, being intent upon the creation of
his own spiritual reality.
The third great misadventure that has befallen Shakespeare, after those
of the moralising and psychological-objectivistic critics, is his
transference, we will not call it his promotion, to the position of a
_German,_ opposed to that of a _Latin_ or neo-Latin poet. It is not
difficult to trace the origin of this transference, when we remember
that Shakespeare was looked upon, both by his contemporaries and yet
more so when rediscovered in the eighteenth century, as a spontaneous,
rough, natural, popular poet, just the opposite of the cultured,
mannered school, in which, however, he had shown evidence of prowess
with the lesser poems and the sonnets.
This conception of his as a natural poet is found in the first school
of the new German literature, known as the _Sturm und Drang,_ which
cultivated the idea of "genius"; and from this arose the idea of
Shakespeare as the expression of "pure virgin genius, ignorant of rules
and limits, a force as irresistible as those of nature" (Gerstenberg).
And since the new German poets and men of letters greatly admired him,
and as has been said, the new Aesthetic understood him much better
than the old Poetic had done or been able to do, instead of this
better sympathy and intelligence being attributed to the spiritual
dispositions of the Germans of that period and to the progress that
they were effecting in the life of thought, it was attributed to
affinity and relationship, which was supposed to connect the German
spirit with that of Shakespeare. It is true that this theory was soon
found to lack foundation, because the best German critics, among whom
were August William Schlegel, proved that there was as much art and
regularity in Shakespeare as in any other poet, although they were
not the same in him as in others, and he did not obey contingent and
arbitrary rules.
It is also true that to a Frenchman was due the first revelation
of Shakespeare outside his own country: Voltaire, with his _odi et
amo,_ has always been blamed and held up to ridicule for the negative
side of his criticism, but the positive side of it, the mental
courage, the freshness of mental impressions, which his interest in
Shakespeare, his admiration for his sublimity, deserved, have not
been sufficiently remarked. But it is likewise true that France has
never understood Shakespeare well, owing to her classical tradition
in literature and her intellectualist tradition in philosophy, though
we do not forget her fugitive enthusiasms for the poet. Even to-day,
Maeterlinck notes "la profonde ignorance" that still reigns "de
l'œuvre shakespearienne," even among "les plus lettrés." This afforded
an opportunity for underlining the antithesis between "German" and
"French" taste, which was soon, but without any justification, expanded
into "Latin" taste.
The English of that period, both in speech and literature, were almost
as indifferent to Shakespeare as were the French. This was observed
and commented upon in a lively manner, among others by Schlegel,
Tieck, Platen and Heine. However, the new methods of German criticism
soon made their influence felt in England (Coleridge, Hazlitt), and
it seemed to the Germans that these writers had preserved the true
tradition of the race and had reillumined the fire that was languishing
or had been altogether extinguished among their brethren of the same
race, and that they had dissipated the heavy cloud of classical,
French and Latin taste, which was hanging over England. To their real
merit in recognising the fame of Shakespeare and their profound study
of the poet, and to the false interpretation that they gave of these
merits by attributing them to the virtue of their race, were added,
for well known political reasons, German pride and self-conceit, which
did the rest. All the moralising critics, to whom we have referred,
were also critics imbued with the German spirit. They united the
austere morality, which they discovered in Shakespeare and his heroes,
to celebration of the German nature of these qualities and of the
poet. They set in opposition the genuine, rude, realistic quality of
Shakespeare's poetry, to the artificial, cold, schematic poetry of the
Latins. They celebrated the Germanism of a Henry IV (his wild youth is
just that of a German youth, says Gervinus; it is the genius of the
German race, with its incorruptible health, its strength of marrow, its
infinite depths of feeling, beneath a hard and angular exterior, its
childlike humility, its wealth of humour, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,
says Kreyssig), of a Hamlet (naturally, because he is represented
as a student of Wittenberg) and so on, through the Ophelias and the
Cordelias, and even the characters of the comedies, such as Benedick
and Biron (this last "possessing a character entirely German," "with
the harshness of a Saxon," humorous, remote from sentimentality and
affectation, and therefore "out of place among the gallantries of Latin
society"--all the above is taken from Gervinus).
Shakespeare's place "is in the Pantheon of the Germanic people, in the
sanctuary richly adorned with all the gods and demons of this race,
the most vigorous in life, the best capable of development, the most
widely diffused of all races." He stands, either beside Durer and
Rembrandt, or on a spur of Parnassus, facing Homer and Aeschylus on
another spur, sometimes permitting Dante to stand at his side--Dante
was of German origin--, while the impotent crowd of the poets of Latin
race seethes at his feet. For Carrière, he is the mouthpiece of the
German spirit in England, while for another, he is England's permanent
ambassador to Germany, accredited to the whole German people.
Both French and Italian critics also gave credence to this boasting,
sometimes echoing the theory of difference between the two different
arts, that of the north and that of the south, romantic and classic,
realistic and idealistic or abstract, passionate or rhetorical,
while others bowed reverently before the superiority of the former.
In the recent war took place a rapid change of style, but not of
mental assumptions. Both French and Italians mocked and expressed
their contempt for the rough and violent poetry of Germany, and even
Shakespeare did not have _une bonne presse_ on the occasion of his
centenary, which took place during the second year.
But return to serious matters, it seems undeniable that the historical
origin of Shakespeare is to be found in the Renaissance, which
is generally admitted to have been chiefly an Italian movement.
Shakespeare got from Italy, not only a great part, both of his form
and of his material, but what is of greater moment, many thoughts that
went to form his vision of reality. In addition to this, he obtained
from Italy that literary education, to which all English writers of
his time submitted. One may think, however, what one likes as to the
historical derivation of Shakespeare's poetical material and of his
literary education: the essential point to remember is that the poetry
had its origin solely in himself; he did not receive it from without,
either from his nation, his race, or from any other source. For this
reason, divisions and counter-divisions of it, into Germanic and Latin
poetry, and similar dyads, based upon material criteria, are without
any foundation whatever. Shakespeare cannot be a Germanic poet, for
the simple reason that in so far as he is a poet, he is nothing but a
poet and does not obey the law of his race, whether it be _lex salica,
wisigothica, langobardica, anglica_ or any other _barbarorum,_ nor
does he obey the _romana--_he obeys only the universally human _lex
poetica._
That a more profound and a better understanding of Shakespeare should
have been formed and be steadily increasing, in the midst of and
because of these and other errors, is a thing that we are so ready to
admit as indubitable and obvious that we take it as understood, because
it always happens thus, in every circle of thought and in literary
history and criticism in general, and so in the particular history and
criticism of Shakespeare.
Our object has not been, however, to give the history of that
criticism, but rather to select those points in it, which it was
advisable to clear up, in order to confirm the judgment that we
propose and defend. If erroneous positions of criticism serve by their
opposition to arouse correct thoughts relating to the poet, others,
which are not erroneous, lead directly to them. In addition to the
pages of older writers, always worthy of perusal (though devoted
to problems of different times), such as those of Herder, Goethe,
Schlegel, Coleridge and Manzoni, the student will find among those
with whom he will like to think among the Dowdens, the Bradleys, the
Raleighs of to-day. These will inspire in him the wish to continue
thinking on his own account about the nature of the great poetry of
Shakespeare.