|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 5
Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults
sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall shew
them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious
malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more
innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and
little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher than
truth.
His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil
in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is
so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to
write without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system
of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably
must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from
him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always
careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he
carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at
the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their
examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his
age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the
world better, and justice is a virtue independant on time or place.
The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight consideration
may improve them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not
always fully to comprehend his own design. He omits opportunities
of instructing or delighting which the train of his story seems
to force upon him, and apparently rejects those exhibitions which
would be more affecting, for the sake of those which are more easy.
It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part
is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his
work, and, in view of his reward, he shortened the labour, to snatch
the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most
vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced
or imperfectly represented.
He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to
one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and
opinions of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but
of possibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal
than judgment, to transfer to his imagined in interpolators. We
need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the
loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothic mythology
of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of
chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages
of learning, has, in his "Arcadia", confounded the pastoral with
the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet and security, with
those of turbulence, violence and adventure.
In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages
his characters in reciprocations of smartness and contest of sarcasm;
their jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious;
neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are
sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of
refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his
time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly
supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and reserve,
yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant.
There must, however, have been always some modes of gayety preferable
to others, and a writer ought to chuse the best.
In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his
labour is more. The effusions of passion which exigence forces
out are for the most part striking and energetick; but whenever he
solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of
his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity.
In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a
wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly
in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in
few. Narration in dramatick poetry is, naturally tedious, as it is
unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action;
it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent
interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of
lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity
and splendour.
His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for
his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other
tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and
instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to show how much
his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes without
the pity or resentment of his reader.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|