The former is very easy; for one
has only to set up in his mind any standard, any model, however narrow"
(let us say the Greeks), "and then boldly assert that the work under
review does not match with it, and therefore is good for nothing,--the
matter is settled, and one must at once deny its claim. Productive
criticism is a great deal more difficult; it asks, What did the author
propose to himself? Is what he proposes reasonable and comprehensible?
and how far has he succeeded in carrying it out?" It is in applying this
latter kind of criticism to Shakespeare that the Germans have set us an
example worthy of all commendation. If they have been sometimes
over-subtile, they at least had the merit of first looking at his works
as wholes, as something that very likely contained an idea, perhaps
conveyed a moral, if we could get at it. The illumination lent us by most
of the English commentators reminds us of the candles which guides hold
up to show us a picture in a dark place, the smoke of which gradually
makes the work of the artist invisible under its repeated layers.
Lessing, as might have been expected, opened the first glimpse in the new
direction; Goethe followed with his famous exposition of Hamlet; A.W.
Schlegel took a more comprehensive view in his Lectures, which Coleridge
worked over into English, adding many fine criticisms of his own on
single passages; and finally, Gervinus has devoted four volumes to a
comment on the plays, full of excellent matter, though pushing the moral
exegesis beyond all reasonable bounds.
Pages:
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296