Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews.
REVIEWS .
All Books intended for BeAriew should be addressed to the Editor of The Freemason ' s Chronicle , 67 Barbican , E . C . — : o : —
Skalcespeare Commentaries . By Dr . G . G . Gervinus , Professor at Heidelberg . Translated , under the author ' s superintendence , by F . E . Bunnett . NeAV Edition , revised by tho translator . London : Smith , Elder and Co ., 15 Waterloo-place .
FIRST NOTICE . IT is truer of Shakespeare than of any other great poot of any ago or nation that the more intently you study him , the more you find in him to study . The scholar seldom takes up one of his plays or poems but ho finds some neAV beauty dawn upon his mind , some fresh evidence of the poet ' s exalted genius to intensify his respect
and admiration . But though this truth is , and long has been recognised in England , almost a contury elapsed after Shakespeare ' s doath ere his countrymen began to obtain a clear inBight into his unrivalled powers . The unsettled times of Charles I . and tho Commoirwealth , the frivolous taste of tho period that folloAved the Restoration of Charles II ., together with the troubles of the Revolutionary
era and the dnlness of Dutch William s reign Avill in great measure account for this apathy . Truo , a complete edition of this great dramatist appeared in 1623 , seven years after he had died , and was republished in 1632 , but it was not till the time of Anne that any further attempt was made to publish a fresh edition of his works or to gather materials for his biography . To Nicholas Eowe belongs
the honour of having ventured on this task , and his example was speedily followed by others at intervals more or less frequent , the result being that , in the course of somewhat more than the next hundred years , Englishmen , by the aid of such men as Pope , Warburton , Johnson , Steevens , Chalmers , and other critics had gradually learned to admire , if not fully to appreciate the beauty and grandeur
of the greatest of their poets . Since then , the labour of criticism has gone on ever more and more assiduously . Shakespeare societies have been formed , innumerable commentaries have appeared , while ou tho stage frequent and often highly successful attempts have been mado to familiarise the British public with the best of his dramas . Yet , in spite of societies , commentators , and actors , England
owes it to the German school of critics rather than to her ovm that Shakespeare is so fully appreciated , intellectually , as he is now-a-days . With a feAT exceptions , the English commentators have limited their efforts to learned and discreet analyses of siugle characters , to able expositions of textual difficulties , or to clearing up , as far as possible , the meaning of obscure words or passages , or allusions . The labours
of German commentators have embraced a far Avider field . They have taken his plays seriatim , viewing each of them as a whole , perfect in all its parts and in the inter-relation of its several characters and incidents . They have studied these with infinite care , and have deduced from them an elaborate series of rosthotic and ethical studies Avhich are in the highest degree valuable . Lessing , Schlegel ,
aud , in the volume before us , Gervinus , each of these in turn has analysed Shakespeare in this spirit . Tho latter , indeed , in his introduction has so well expressed the different character of the German and English studies of Shakespeare—ascribing nearly if not the chief honour among the former to Schlegel—that Ave cannot do better than quote a portion of his remarks .
" With us the reverse of that which had happened in England in the eighteenth century now ensued . Wc wrote no critical notes upon the poet ; Avauting the materials , we wanted also the vocation for the task . We translated him ; and while the English possess a series of editions , we have , from Wieland and Eschenburg to Schlegel and Voss , and even doAvn to the disciples of Tieck and many subsequent stragglers , a
number of translations , over newly issued and ever neAvly read . If m the English editions the annotations almost concealed the text , these translations gave ns , for the most part , the text Avithout any notes . This has accustomed us to another manner of reading tho poet . While the Englishman lingered , perhaps , on isolated passages , AVC , on the contrary , destitute of all explanations , read rapidly on ; AVO
were careless about parts , and , compared to the English reader , we lost many separate beauties and ideas , but we enjoyed the whole more fully . For this enjoyment AVC Avere chiefly indebted to the translation of A . W . Schlegel , Avhich even Englishmen read Avith admiration . The archaisms are hero erased , the rough words of the period gently modified , yet the Avhole character is faithfully maintained . The sensibility of the German nature , the flexibility of
our language , and the taste and mind of the translator , procure for this work equally great and lasting honour . More tban any other effort on behalf of the English poet , this translation has made him our own . Admiration reached a fresh point , and this rather Avith us than in England ; for it is tome beyond a doubt ;' . at the criticism of the old Englbh editors , such r . s t \ : ? . " Courte . . ' - F r- sample , not long ago , Avonld have been quite impossible Avith , us in Germany , even in one such exception . "
And again :- - " Howover great were the merits of our llomautioists iu haA'iug arranged Shakespeare ' s works for our enjoyment , even they have only slightly contributed to the inner understanding after whieh Ave seek , and to the unfolding of the human nature of the poet and the
general value of his works . In A . W . Sehlcgol's ' Dramatic Lectures' ( 1812 ) , the plays are singly discussed . All here testifies to poetic delicacy and sensibility ; all is fair , alluring , inspiring ; a panegyric of a totally diffcreut kind to the criticising characteristics of English expositors . "
Tho author had also previously spoken of Goethe and his labours in these Avords : — "In 'Wilhelm Moister' Gootho produced that characteristic of Hamlet which is like a key to all Avorks of tho poet ; here all separate
Reviews.
beauties are rojected , and the Avhole is explained by the whole , and wo feel the soul of the outer framework and its animating breath , Avhich created and organised the immortal work . " To our own Coleridge the author refers somewhat briefly , but he clearly regards him with admiration , as "he of all Englishmen first measured the poet by a true standard . " " lie declaimed , " continues Gervinus ,
" against tho French notion that iu Shakespeare all Avas tho emanation of a genius unconscious of himself ; 'that he grew immortal , as it were , in his OAvn despite ; ' he justly contended that his judgment was commensurate with his genius ; that ho Avas no wild lusus naturcr , and that this so-called 'irregularity' Avas only the dream of a fovv pedants .
" He advanced the assertion—then a bold one in England—that not merely the splendour of different parts constituted tho greatness of Shakespeare , by compensating for the barbarous shapolessncss of tho whole , but that he considered the tusthetic form of the whole equally admirable with the matter , and the judgment of the great poet not
less deserving our Avouder than his innate genius . Ho ( and since him Campbell and many other enthusiastic admirers ) placed him quite out of comparison Avith other poets ; he declared it an absurdity to prefer him seriously to ltaeine and Corueille , or to compare him Avith Spenser and Milton ; to his mind he Avas so exalted above . all , that he could only compare him with himself . "
We have dwelt at some length on tho distinctive feature of German criticism as compared with the bulk of English criticism , in order that our readers may form a clearer judgment of the character and merits of these Commentaries . Before , however , we go further into
the work itself , it may be as well to draw attention to a very valnablo introduction which is prefixed to tho present edition . It is from the pen of Mr . J . F . Fnrnivall , Founder and Director of tho New Sbakspeare Society , the Chancer Society , & c , & c ., who , en passant , bears this testimony to the valuable labours of Gei'vinus : —
" The profound and generous ' Commentaries' of Gervinus—an honour to a German to have Avritten , a pleasure to an Englishman to read—is still the only book known to me that comes near the truo treatment and the dignity of its subject , or can be put into the hands of the student Avho wants to know tho miud of Shakspeave . "
Further on , Mr . Fnrnivall remarks : —¦ " What strikes me most in Gervinus is his breadth of culture and view , his rightness and calmness of judgment ; his fairness in looking at both sides of a question ; his noble earnest purpose ; his resolve to get at the deepest meaning of his author , and his reverence and love for Shakespeare . No one can read his book without seeing evi .
dence of a rare range of reading and study , rare indeed among Englishmen . ... No one can fail to see hoAV Gervinus , noblcnatured and earnest himself , is able to catch and echo for us the ' still small voice' of Shakspere ' s hidden meaning even iu tho lightest of his plays . No Englishman cau fail to feel pleasure in the heartfelt tribute of love and praiso that tho great historian of German literature gives to the English Shakspere , "
This introduction is also important for the remarks it contains on the value of " Metrical Tests , " in establishing tho right succession of Shakespeare ' s plays— " a condition precedent" to following tho giwvth of his mind ; on the spurious portions of plays called
Shakespearo ' s , and tho use of these tests iu detecting them ; on tho progressive changes in Shakespeare ' s language , imagery and thought -, on the succession of his plays , and ou the helps for studying them , ou the last of Avhich are mentioned the texts and commentaries which , in the opinion of Mr . Fnrnivall , are the best for tho student ' s
use . Having said this much of the character of the Avork beforo us , and having quoted valuable testimony as to its merits , it is time we plunged into the Avork itself . The chapters to Avhich AVC shall confine our further brief remarks on the present occasion aro those which treat of " Shakespeare at Stratford , " " Shakespeare ' s Descriptive
Poems , " " Shakespeare in London and on the Stage , " "Dramatic Poetry before Shakespeare , " aud "The Stage . " In tho first of these AVC have a . necessarily brief outline of tho poet ' s family and early life . So little , indeed , is known of Shakespeare ' s personal history , that the difficulty is to find any trustworthy materials for a biography . When Eowe , iu 1709 , essayed this task ,
hoping to glean something from tradition and other sources , " he found , " says our author , " that scarcely anything was kuoAvu of such a Avonderf ul man ; that even tho originals of his Avritiugs were hardly preserved , and that all that could be gathered of his life Avas a couple of nnvouched-for anecdotes , which , even at tho present day , tho most dili gent inquiry has only been able to replace by a few
authentic facts . " What little there is to say , however , has been carefully collected and noted . Of the treatment we may judge from these remarks on " tho history of the poet's youth . " " Little to be relied on has reached our knowledge , but sufficient to allow us to guess thru hi .-: earliest exj . 1 - . " . ' ¦ - ¦ ¦ : '¦ •' in his miud an abundance of deep impressions -which may navo
subsequently become rich sources for his poetic creations . A course of misfortunes befell him , and he left his home at thepei iod wheu passion sensibility , and imagination are strongest in men ; he had to eat the bitter bread of tribulation , and to pass through tho deep Avater of sorrow—that school of great uiiuds and powerful characters . From
his fourteenth year the old prosperity of his father ' s house Avas broken up , a stroke of misfortune befell his mother ' s family , tho Anions ; his own indiscretion and scll ' -ereated distress followed ; smd thus AVC see that he had not only to experience a season of adversity , but also one of indignifcy , which developed side b y fide his good aud bad qualities . " The facts avo then passed in review .
The anecdote of Shakespeare ' s deer-stealing , apart from all circumstantkl proofs , our author thinks " carries vvitn it decided marks of a most characteristic trait . " Ho thinks , -moreover , it " may easily have been tho most innocent part of his life . " To tho l > itur experiences of Shakespeare ' s married life the author gives credit .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews.
REVIEWS .
All Books intended for BeAriew should be addressed to the Editor of The Freemason ' s Chronicle , 67 Barbican , E . C . — : o : —
Skalcespeare Commentaries . By Dr . G . G . Gervinus , Professor at Heidelberg . Translated , under the author ' s superintendence , by F . E . Bunnett . NeAV Edition , revised by tho translator . London : Smith , Elder and Co ., 15 Waterloo-place .
FIRST NOTICE . IT is truer of Shakespeare than of any other great poot of any ago or nation that the more intently you study him , the more you find in him to study . The scholar seldom takes up one of his plays or poems but ho finds some neAV beauty dawn upon his mind , some fresh evidence of the poet ' s exalted genius to intensify his respect
and admiration . But though this truth is , and long has been recognised in England , almost a contury elapsed after Shakespeare ' s doath ere his countrymen began to obtain a clear inBight into his unrivalled powers . The unsettled times of Charles I . and tho Commoirwealth , the frivolous taste of tho period that folloAved the Restoration of Charles II ., together with the troubles of the Revolutionary
era and the dnlness of Dutch William s reign Avill in great measure account for this apathy . Truo , a complete edition of this great dramatist appeared in 1623 , seven years after he had died , and was republished in 1632 , but it was not till the time of Anne that any further attempt was made to publish a fresh edition of his works or to gather materials for his biography . To Nicholas Eowe belongs
the honour of having ventured on this task , and his example was speedily followed by others at intervals more or less frequent , the result being that , in the course of somewhat more than the next hundred years , Englishmen , by the aid of such men as Pope , Warburton , Johnson , Steevens , Chalmers , and other critics had gradually learned to admire , if not fully to appreciate the beauty and grandeur
of the greatest of their poets . Since then , the labour of criticism has gone on ever more and more assiduously . Shakespeare societies have been formed , innumerable commentaries have appeared , while ou tho stage frequent and often highly successful attempts have been mado to familiarise the British public with the best of his dramas . Yet , in spite of societies , commentators , and actors , England
owes it to the German school of critics rather than to her ovm that Shakespeare is so fully appreciated , intellectually , as he is now-a-days . With a feAT exceptions , the English commentators have limited their efforts to learned and discreet analyses of siugle characters , to able expositions of textual difficulties , or to clearing up , as far as possible , the meaning of obscure words or passages , or allusions . The labours
of German commentators have embraced a far Avider field . They have taken his plays seriatim , viewing each of them as a whole , perfect in all its parts and in the inter-relation of its several characters and incidents . They have studied these with infinite care , and have deduced from them an elaborate series of rosthotic and ethical studies Avhich are in the highest degree valuable . Lessing , Schlegel ,
aud , in the volume before us , Gervinus , each of these in turn has analysed Shakespeare in this spirit . Tho latter , indeed , in his introduction has so well expressed the different character of the German and English studies of Shakespeare—ascribing nearly if not the chief honour among the former to Schlegel—that Ave cannot do better than quote a portion of his remarks .
" With us the reverse of that which had happened in England in the eighteenth century now ensued . Wc wrote no critical notes upon the poet ; Avauting the materials , we wanted also the vocation for the task . We translated him ; and while the English possess a series of editions , we have , from Wieland and Eschenburg to Schlegel and Voss , and even doAvn to the disciples of Tieck and many subsequent stragglers , a
number of translations , over newly issued and ever neAvly read . If m the English editions the annotations almost concealed the text , these translations gave ns , for the most part , the text Avithout any notes . This has accustomed us to another manner of reading tho poet . While the Englishman lingered , perhaps , on isolated passages , AVC , on the contrary , destitute of all explanations , read rapidly on ; AVO
were careless about parts , and , compared to the English reader , we lost many separate beauties and ideas , but we enjoyed the whole more fully . For this enjoyment AVC Avere chiefly indebted to the translation of A . W . Schlegel , Avhich even Englishmen read Avith admiration . The archaisms are hero erased , the rough words of the period gently modified , yet the Avhole character is faithfully maintained . The sensibility of the German nature , the flexibility of
our language , and the taste and mind of the translator , procure for this work equally great and lasting honour . More tban any other effort on behalf of the English poet , this translation has made him our own . Admiration reached a fresh point , and this rather Avith us than in England ; for it is tome beyond a doubt ;' . at the criticism of the old Englbh editors , such r . s t \ : ? . " Courte . . ' - F r- sample , not long ago , Avonld have been quite impossible Avith , us in Germany , even in one such exception . "
And again :- - " Howover great were the merits of our llomautioists iu haA'iug arranged Shakespeare ' s works for our enjoyment , even they have only slightly contributed to the inner understanding after whieh Ave seek , and to the unfolding of the human nature of the poet and the
general value of his works . In A . W . Sehlcgol's ' Dramatic Lectures' ( 1812 ) , the plays are singly discussed . All here testifies to poetic delicacy and sensibility ; all is fair , alluring , inspiring ; a panegyric of a totally diffcreut kind to the criticising characteristics of English expositors . "
Tho author had also previously spoken of Goethe and his labours in these Avords : — "In 'Wilhelm Moister' Gootho produced that characteristic of Hamlet which is like a key to all Avorks of tho poet ; here all separate
Reviews.
beauties are rojected , and the Avhole is explained by the whole , and wo feel the soul of the outer framework and its animating breath , Avhich created and organised the immortal work . " To our own Coleridge the author refers somewhat briefly , but he clearly regards him with admiration , as "he of all Englishmen first measured the poet by a true standard . " " lie declaimed , " continues Gervinus ,
" against tho French notion that iu Shakespeare all Avas tho emanation of a genius unconscious of himself ; 'that he grew immortal , as it were , in his OAvn despite ; ' he justly contended that his judgment was commensurate with his genius ; that ho Avas no wild lusus naturcr , and that this so-called 'irregularity' Avas only the dream of a fovv pedants .
" He advanced the assertion—then a bold one in England—that not merely the splendour of different parts constituted tho greatness of Shakespeare , by compensating for the barbarous shapolessncss of tho whole , but that he considered the tusthetic form of the whole equally admirable with the matter , and the judgment of the great poet not
less deserving our Avouder than his innate genius . Ho ( and since him Campbell and many other enthusiastic admirers ) placed him quite out of comparison Avith other poets ; he declared it an absurdity to prefer him seriously to ltaeine and Corueille , or to compare him Avith Spenser and Milton ; to his mind he Avas so exalted above . all , that he could only compare him with himself . "
We have dwelt at some length on tho distinctive feature of German criticism as compared with the bulk of English criticism , in order that our readers may form a clearer judgment of the character and merits of these Commentaries . Before , however , we go further into
the work itself , it may be as well to draw attention to a very valnablo introduction which is prefixed to tho present edition . It is from the pen of Mr . J . F . Fnrnivall , Founder and Director of tho New Sbakspeare Society , the Chancer Society , & c , & c ., who , en passant , bears this testimony to the valuable labours of Gei'vinus : —
" The profound and generous ' Commentaries' of Gervinus—an honour to a German to have Avritten , a pleasure to an Englishman to read—is still the only book known to me that comes near the truo treatment and the dignity of its subject , or can be put into the hands of the student Avho wants to know tho miud of Shakspeave . "
Further on , Mr . Fnrnivall remarks : —¦ " What strikes me most in Gervinus is his breadth of culture and view , his rightness and calmness of judgment ; his fairness in looking at both sides of a question ; his noble earnest purpose ; his resolve to get at the deepest meaning of his author , and his reverence and love for Shakespeare . No one can read his book without seeing evi .
dence of a rare range of reading and study , rare indeed among Englishmen . ... No one can fail to see hoAV Gervinus , noblcnatured and earnest himself , is able to catch and echo for us the ' still small voice' of Shakspere ' s hidden meaning even iu tho lightest of his plays . No Englishman cau fail to feel pleasure in the heartfelt tribute of love and praiso that tho great historian of German literature gives to the English Shakspere , "
This introduction is also important for the remarks it contains on the value of " Metrical Tests , " in establishing tho right succession of Shakespeare ' s plays— " a condition precedent" to following tho giwvth of his mind ; on the spurious portions of plays called
Shakespearo ' s , and tho use of these tests iu detecting them ; on tho progressive changes in Shakespeare ' s language , imagery and thought -, on the succession of his plays , and ou the helps for studying them , ou the last of Avhich are mentioned the texts and commentaries which , in the opinion of Mr . Fnrnivall , are the best for tho student ' s
use . Having said this much of the character of the Avork beforo us , and having quoted valuable testimony as to its merits , it is time we plunged into the Avork itself . The chapters to Avhich AVC shall confine our further brief remarks on the present occasion aro those which treat of " Shakespeare at Stratford , " " Shakespeare ' s Descriptive
Poems , " " Shakespeare in London and on the Stage , " "Dramatic Poetry before Shakespeare , " aud "The Stage . " In tho first of these AVC have a . necessarily brief outline of tho poet ' s family and early life . So little , indeed , is known of Shakespeare ' s personal history , that the difficulty is to find any trustworthy materials for a biography . When Eowe , iu 1709 , essayed this task ,
hoping to glean something from tradition and other sources , " he found , " says our author , " that scarcely anything was kuoAvu of such a Avonderf ul man ; that even tho originals of his Avritiugs were hardly preserved , and that all that could be gathered of his life Avas a couple of nnvouched-for anecdotes , which , even at tho present day , tho most dili gent inquiry has only been able to replace by a few
authentic facts . " What little there is to say , however , has been carefully collected and noted . Of the treatment we may judge from these remarks on " tho history of the poet's youth . " " Little to be relied on has reached our knowledge , but sufficient to allow us to guess thru hi .-: earliest exj . 1 - . " . ' ¦ - ¦ ¦ : '¦ •' in his miud an abundance of deep impressions -which may navo
subsequently become rich sources for his poetic creations . A course of misfortunes befell him , and he left his home at thepei iod wheu passion sensibility , and imagination are strongest in men ; he had to eat the bitter bread of tribulation , and to pass through tho deep Avater of sorrow—that school of great uiiuds and powerful characters . From
his fourteenth year the old prosperity of his father ' s house Avas broken up , a stroke of misfortune befell his mother ' s family , tho Anions ; his own indiscretion and scll ' -ereated distress followed ; smd thus AVC see that he had not only to experience a season of adversity , but also one of indignifcy , which developed side b y fide his good aud bad qualities . " The facts avo then passed in review .
The anecdote of Shakespeare ' s deer-stealing , apart from all circumstantkl proofs , our author thinks " carries vvitn it decided marks of a most characteristic trait . " Ho thinks , -moreover , it " may easily have been tho most innocent part of his life . " To tho l > itur experiences of Shakespeare ' s married life the author gives credit .