Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art

Dowden has pictured the rich life of the Elizabethans, overflowing with energy and endowed with a capacity for perceiving, for enjoying, and for reproducing facts and facts of as great variety as possible. Bacon realized the presence of physical law in the world, but failed to realize the inexorableness of the moral law; Shakspere, on the other hand, recognized the supremacy of the moral law in the minutest particular. Springing from the same soil, Bacon, Hooker, and Shakspere shared one character istic in common, a rich feeling for positive concrete fact. Proceeding then from the first poems and dramas, Professor Dowden has traced in a most interesting and sympathetic manner the growth of Shakspere step by step through the early tragedies and comedies, through the later tragedies and comedies, through the history plays and Roman plays to the romances of the later years, con cluding with a most discriminating chapter on Shakspere's humor. The book avoids the discussion of purely scholastic questions, but is rather an attempt to conceive of characters chiefly with reference to action in their respective spheres. Accepting the latest findings of re search in the sources of plays and their chronology, Professor Dowden assumes a sympathetic attitude toward philosophical criticism and shows how Shakspere leads his disciple away from the thin abstractions of the in tellect, from mere contemplative wisdom and directs him toward the world of human character, action and passion.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art

In the present edition, I have made such corrections as appeared needful, and have brought my statements on some doubtful points into harmony with the latest results of Shaksperian scholarship.

I wish to insist upon the statement made on p.246 that Julius Gcesar lies in point of time beside Hamlet Both are tragedies of thought rather than of passion; both present, in their chief characters, the spectacle of noble natures which fail through some weakness or deficiency rather than through crime. Upon Brutus as upon Hamlet a burden is laid which he is not able to bear; neither Brutus nor Hamlet is fitted for action, yet both are called to act in dangerous and difficult affairs. Julius Cæsar was probably complete before Hamlet assumed its latest form, perhaps before Hamlet was written. Still, giving the reader a caution, as I did in the case of The Tempest I am not unwilling to speak of Hamlet as the second of Shakspere's tragedies. Hamlet seems to have its roots so deep in Shakspere's nature, it was so much a subject of special predilection, it is so closely connected with older dramatic work. We acquire the same feeling with reference to Hamlet which we have for Goethe's Faust - that it has to do with almost the whole of the deeper part of the poets life up to the date of its creation.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.