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Article WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. ← Page 11 of 17 →
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William Shakspere.
comprise the whole dimensions of our poetical Hercules , have busied themselves in measuring and spanning him muscle by muscle , till they fancied they had discovered some disproportion . There are two answers applicable to most of such remarks . First , that Shakspeare understood the true language and external workings of passion better than his critics . He had a higher , a more ideal , and consequently a more methodical sense of harmony than they . A sliht knowled of music will enable one to
very g ge any detect discords in the exquisite harmonies of Haydn or Mozart ; and Bentley has found more false grammar in the ' Paradise Lost' than ever poor boy was whipped for through all the forms of Eton or Westminster ; but to know why the minor note is introduced into the major key , or the nominative case left to seek for its verb , requires an acquaintance with some preliminary steps ofthe methodical scale , at tho top of which sits tho author , and at the bottom the critic . The second answer is , that Shakspeare
was pursuing two methods at once ; and , besides the ps } 'chological method , he had also to attend to the poetical . Now the poetical method requires , above all things , a preponderance of pleasurable feeling ; and where the interest of the events , and characters , and passions is too strong to be continuous without becoming painful , there poetical method requires that there should be what Schlegel calls' a musical alleviation of our sympathy . ' The Lydian mode must temper the Doric . "
Dr . Johnson , one of the most respectable of these critics , did not study his author deeply , nor endeavour to make himself thorough master of his works . No doubt auy man is liable to mistake , but such a mistake as the one we are about to point out by Dr . Johnson is unpardonable . Even had the exact meaning or wording of a passage escaped his memory , reference
to the poet ' s Avorks would have soon put him right . In the folio edition of the "Rambler , " Oct . 26 , 1751 , the folloAving passage occurs : — " When Macbeth is confirming himself in his horrid purpose , he breaks into ( sic ) the violence of his emotions , into a wish natural to a murderer' Come , thick night !
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell , That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ; Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark , To cry , Hold , hold !' In this passage is exerted all the force of poetry , —that force which calls new powers into being , —which embodies sentiment , and animates lifeless matter yetperhapsscai-ce any man ever perused it without some
dis-, , , turbance of his attention from the counteraction of the words to the ideas . What can be more dreadful than to implore the presence of night , invested not in common obscurity , but in the smoke of hell F Yet the force of this invocation is destroyed by the insertion of an epithet now seldom heard but in the stable , and dun night may come or go without any other notice than contempt . " *
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
William Shakspere.
comprise the whole dimensions of our poetical Hercules , have busied themselves in measuring and spanning him muscle by muscle , till they fancied they had discovered some disproportion . There are two answers applicable to most of such remarks . First , that Shakspeare understood the true language and external workings of passion better than his critics . He had a higher , a more ideal , and consequently a more methodical sense of harmony than they . A sliht knowled of music will enable one to
very g ge any detect discords in the exquisite harmonies of Haydn or Mozart ; and Bentley has found more false grammar in the ' Paradise Lost' than ever poor boy was whipped for through all the forms of Eton or Westminster ; but to know why the minor note is introduced into the major key , or the nominative case left to seek for its verb , requires an acquaintance with some preliminary steps ofthe methodical scale , at tho top of which sits tho author , and at the bottom the critic . The second answer is , that Shakspeare
was pursuing two methods at once ; and , besides the ps } 'chological method , he had also to attend to the poetical . Now the poetical method requires , above all things , a preponderance of pleasurable feeling ; and where the interest of the events , and characters , and passions is too strong to be continuous without becoming painful , there poetical method requires that there should be what Schlegel calls' a musical alleviation of our sympathy . ' The Lydian mode must temper the Doric . "
Dr . Johnson , one of the most respectable of these critics , did not study his author deeply , nor endeavour to make himself thorough master of his works . No doubt auy man is liable to mistake , but such a mistake as the one we are about to point out by Dr . Johnson is unpardonable . Even had the exact meaning or wording of a passage escaped his memory , reference
to the poet ' s Avorks would have soon put him right . In the folio edition of the "Rambler , " Oct . 26 , 1751 , the folloAving passage occurs : — " When Macbeth is confirming himself in his horrid purpose , he breaks into ( sic ) the violence of his emotions , into a wish natural to a murderer' Come , thick night !
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell , That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ; Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark , To cry , Hold , hold !' In this passage is exerted all the force of poetry , —that force which calls new powers into being , —which embodies sentiment , and animates lifeless matter yetperhapsscai-ce any man ever perused it without some
dis-, , , turbance of his attention from the counteraction of the words to the ideas . What can be more dreadful than to implore the presence of night , invested not in common obscurity , but in the smoke of hell F Yet the force of this invocation is destroyed by the insertion of an epithet now seldom heard but in the stable , and dun night may come or go without any other notice than contempt . " *