Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe,
left no heirs either to the form or mode of their expression; while
Milton, Sterne, and Wordsworth left behind them whole regiments uniformed
with all their external characteristics. We do not mean that great poetic
geniuses may not have influenced thought, (though we think it would be
difficult to show how Shakespeare had done so, directly and wilfully,)
but that they have not infected contemporaries or followers with
mannerism. The quality in him which makes him at once so thoroughly
English and so thoroughly cosmopolitan is that aeration of the
understanding by the imagination which he has in common with all the
greater poets, and which is the privilege of genius. The modern school,
which mistakes violence for intensity, seems to catch its breath when it
finds itself on the verge of natural expression, and to say to itself,
"Good heavens! I had almost forgotten I was inspired!" But of Shakespeare
we do not even suspect that he ever remembered it. He does not always
speak in that intense way that flames up in Lear and Macbeth through the
rifts of a soil volcanic with passion. He allows us here and there the
repose of a commonplace character, the consoling distraction of a
humorous one. He knows how to be equable and grand without effort, so
that we forget the altitude of thought to which he has led us, because
the slowly receding slope of a mountain stretching downward by ample
gradations gives a less startling impression of height than to look over
the edge of a ravine that makes but a wrinkle in its flank.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266