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"The critic.

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will, indeed, require, as the spirit and substance of a work, something true in human nature itself, and independent of all circumstances; but in the mode of applying it he will estimate genius and judgment according to the felicity with which the imperishable soul of intellect shall have adapted itself to the age, the place, and the existing manners."-Coleridge.

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Copyright, 1922, by
DUFFIELD & COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

SHAKESPEARE. First of all an Elizabethan

and a child of the Renaissance. As dramatist unoriginal

in both material and method. His comedy characterized

chiefly by the union of the comic and, romantic spirits.

His tragedy Elizabethan in form, but akin to Sophocles in

its sombre irony and profound sympathy. His dramatic

interest primarily in personality; his characters normally

created for a given story. The fallacy of viewing them as

existing independently of their setting, due to their vivid

individualization. This vitality sometimes apparently the

cause of a distortion of the author's dramatic purpose. In

the realm of ideas Shakespeare also unoriginal. The oppo-

site impression due chiefly to the vitality and intensity

with which his ideas grow to expression. His view of moral

evil and individual responsibility, of the tragic fault and

poetic justice; both sides recognized. His moral effects

characteristically sound. Emphasis on courage, serenity,

faithful friendship, readiness, kindness. His view of so-

ciety representative rather than personal, and so impartial

as to be debatable; neither democrat nor feudalist. His

treatment of love touched by Renaissance platonism, but

realistic rather than mystical; plain-spoken, but idealistic.

The permanence of true love especially emphasized. No sys-

tem of philosophy to be inferred from his works. The greater

tragedies in a sense both pessimistic and optimistic. Shake-

speare's religion not definable theologically; his attitude

predominantly reverent but not other-worldly.
His per-

sonality but slightly revealed in detail. A humanist, more

concerned with men and things than with his art. Com-

bined wit and poetry, high seriousness and the comic spirit,

objective keensightedness and subjective sympathy. His

greatness due chiefly to his comprehensive thinking in

terms of personality and conduct, and to his supremely

poetic interpretation of action.

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