undignified exposition, and at a servant's saying 'Do you bite 'your thumb at me, sir?' is intelligible enough; but is it not strange to find Göthe omitting such a characteristic and effective scene? He supplies its place with a chorus sung by servants: Zündet die Lampen an, and so forth! Windet auch Kränze dran Hell sei das Haus! Ehret die mächtige Feier mit Tanz und Schmaus, Capulet der Prächtige Richtet sie aus ;' - We need only allude to Göthe's thoughtful and inventive criticism on the character of Hamlet: it is known to every one. But a remark upon the Ghost is too curious and too little known, to be passed over. In the scene between Hamlet and his mother, the entrance of the Ghost was thus indicated in the first edition: Enter the Ghost, in his night 'gown!' Göthe noticing it, says: Who is not pained at first learning that? Who does not reject such an idea? And 'yet, if we think of it, we shall find it to be correct. The "Ghost is cased in armour when he first appears before the sen'tinels on the platform. But we begin to feel ashamed of 'ourselves for having so long tolerated his appearance in the 'private chamber of the queen, armed thus cap-à-pie. How 'much more homely, domestic, and terrible he now appears, in 'the same form in which he was wont to appear in this chamber, in his night dress, and unarmed!' Göthe, in further proof of the first edition being agreeable to Shakspeare's intention, adduces Hamlet's words: 'My father in his habit as he liv'd.' This seems to be conclusive. For, as Hamlet had already seen the Ghost in armour, and the armour had been specified, the remark in his habit as he lived' would have been uncalled for and out of place, unless the habit were different from that in which Hamlet had already seen him. But what would Voltaire have said to a Ghost in his night-gown! Göthe has assisted us in the appreciation of certain passages, and of one character; but he has given us no assistance towards a clearer insight into dramatic art. Tieck, whose long-promised In the print prefixed to Roscoe's Shakspeare (reprinted by Mr. Knight in his edition, where, by the way, no comment is made on this stage direction of the first edition) the ghost, even in this scene, appears in complete armour: the point is worth clearing up. VOL. XC. NO. CLXXXI. F work on Shakspeare has for some years been suspected to be a promise destined to remain unfulfilled, has in several detached criticisms thrown considerable light both on poetical and theatrical difficulties. Among the very best of his criticisms is one on Shakspeare's treatment of the supernatural (Behandlung des Wunderbaren, 1793).* Although the main idea of this essay was given by Lessing in his comparison between the ghost in Semiramis and the ghost in Hamlet, Tieck has the credit of having applied and developed the idea with felicity. The Schlegels are constantly mentioned in connexion with Shakspeare; and their merits are certainly great. It is but justice, however, to add that they, too, owe almost every thing to Lessing. All that they have done (translation apart) is but an offshoot from Lessing and Herder. When once Lessing had destroyed the reigning prejudices about art, and shown the narrowness of French principles, and the vital force and richness of Shakspeare, they who came after him had an easy task. If the Schlegels had but followed him in the spirit as well as in the novelties of his criticism, the world would have been spared a quantity of verbiage and fantastic speculation. A. W. Schlegel's Lectures' are wonderful as lectures, in which the rhetoric is always effective; but they have been singularly overrated as philosophical criticisms. Considered as rhetorical expositions, they have a clearness and an eloquence which has carried them over Europe; but we cannot compliment them on their depth or sagacity. The lecture upon Shakspeare contains a number of fine things' said about the poet; but it is rather a panegyric than a critique. The ideas, when there are ideas, have all the vagueness in which rhetoricians delight, and which philosophers condemn. Expanding an idea which is to be found in Lessing and in Morgann's Essay on Falstaff' respecting organic and mechanical forms, Schlegel tells us with much emphasis that Shakspeare was an organic artist.' But in spite of his glowing praise of the poet's 'profound art,' we defy the most acute reader to divine what the precise nature of that art actually is. It may be comforting to know that Shakspeare worked upon certain profound principles;' but we should like the teacher to have told us what those principles were, and how we are to detect their working' in the plays. Lessing, on the contrary, though less profuse in displays of philosophical language, tells us plainly and forcibly in what Shakspeare's art consists, and in what it is superior to the art of Voltaire. Schlegel speaks finely and discriminatingly upon the masterly power of characterisation which Shakspeare ex 6 Reprinted in the 'Kritische Schriften,' 1848, vol. i. hibits; but that is a topic with regard to which there never has been a dispute, from Ben Jonson downwards. In other respects, and when he descends to details, he is lost; the heights of abstraction and cloudy vagueness alone are congenial to his spirit. We cannot indeed help suspecting the value of those profound prin'ciples of criticism' which lead a man to decry Molière, to despise Racine, to place Calderon on a level with Shakspeare,—and to proclaim that Sir John Oldcastle' and 'Lord Thomas Cromwell' are not only unquestionably written by Shakspeare,' but are deserving to be classed among the best and maturest of his 'works!' Nor can we hope to fathom principles which are to prove that Shakspeare's anachronisms were for the most part com'mitted purposely, and after great consideration' — and that in Shylock we hear a sprinkling of the Jewish pronunciation in 'the mere written words-as we sometimes still find it in the 'higher classes notwithstanding their social refinement.' Dashing rhetoric carries the day throughout. You are authoritatively told that Shakspeare is an artist. So far so good. You are then further informed that the peculiarity of this Shakspearian art is 'its thorough realisation of the romantic spirit.' Here you begin to feel a haze descending; a modest misgiving steals upon your mind as to whether you clearly apprehend the nature of this same romantic spirit;' you wish to understand the distinction between classic and romantic. The wish is rational; and the philosopher is only too happy to enlighten you-in the following luminous sentences: The whole of ancient poetry and art is 'as it were a rhythmical nomos (law), an harmonious promulga'tion of the permanently established legislation of a world sub'mitted to a beautiful order, and reflecting itself in the eternal 'images of things.' This is not very clear, perhaps; but it sounds well; and as, after all, you care little, perhaps, about ancient art, you hurry on to what is said about the modernThere at any rate he may be intelligible. Let us see. The 'romantic poetry, again, is the expression of the secret attrac'tion to a chaos, which is concealed between the regulated creation, even in its very bosom, and which is perpetually striving after 'new and wonderful births; the animating spirit of original love hovers here anew over the waters.' We hope some of our readers may understand this: But for ourselves, we would only ask why, if Shakspeare is the realisation of the spirit above described, the critic has not undertaken to point out the 'secret attraction to chaos' and the love hovering over the 'waters' in Shakspeare's separate plays? But instead of this, he contents himself with meagre and somewhat common-place remarks upon the story and the characters. If we have dwelt on Schlegel's defects, and especially on the exaggerated pretensions of his philosophy, it is because the peculiar character and boast of German criticism is what it calls its Philosophy of Art.' This sounding name imposes. The application of abstract principles' to works which the artists themselves never suspected to be philosophical, gives a novel air to criticism, and seduces the unwary. But unless we are greatly deceived, this philosophy of art is a vain and misplaced employment of ingenuity; and will no more advance criticism than ontological speculations will advance human knowledge. To understand Nature, we must observe her manifestations, and trace out the laws of the coexistence and succession of phenomena. And, in the same way, to understand Art, we must patiently examine the works of art; and, from a large observation of successful efforts, deduce general conclusions respecting the laws upon which success depends. To confine ourselves for the present to Shakspeare, the drama is, as we have said, not poetry only, but poetry applied to a particular purpose. That purpose is stage-representation. In dramatic criticism, therefore, there are two departments: one treating of a play as poetry, in which case it is to be judged exactly in the same way as any other poem - epic, ode, or elegy; the other treating of a play as a theatrical work-in which case it must be judged according to the indispensable conditions and requisitions of the stage. Now we have already stated-and it will be evident to all who will examine Shakspearian criticism upon this distinction— that, while the former of these departments has been carefully studied in every direction and from every point of view, the latter has been almost entirely neglected. As a poet, Shakspeare needs little further illustration; so diligent, so sagacious, and so comprehensive has been criticism. As a dramatist, he has been by turns, absurdly enough, tested, according to classic rules, to the rules of French tragedy, and, finally, to those of German philosophy. No German, Lessing excepted, seems to have borne distinctly in mind the simple fact, that the drama is only amenable to the laws of stage representation. It has even been thought to be honouring Shakspeare to call him essentially untheatrical; and to say that the plays which he above all things meant for representation (he would not publish them himself in any other form) are really ill adapted to representation! The Germans are greatly to blame for this; and their philosophical principles' appear to be as much beside the real question, as the classic rules' which attempted to impose their arbitrary limits to the poet's wide and sweeping range. Franz Horn-whose five volumes (Shakspeare Erlaütert'), in - 18 spite of much that is questionable and a little that is decidedly fantastic, do, nevertheless, contain some solid instruction pushed to the wall and despised by his countrymen, because he is not philosophical. His minute and laborious analyses of the characters, however, are always worth reading, and are likely generally to set the reader thinking. He is a German Hazlitt. He does not unravel the tangled question of dramatic art, but he throws considerable light on the dramatic poet. Passing over a multitude of inferior writers, vying with each other in uttering obscurities, we pause at Ulrici's famous work, allured by its title and its reputation. It is entitled Shakspeare's Dramatic Art;' yet there is not a syllable in it relating to the drama, properly speaking! It is a bulky treatise of pseudophilosophy, of which Shakspeare is the text. Had Lessing been alive, how mercilessly would he have flagellated this pompous book! We can fancy his amusement on reading that elaborate chapter which explains Shakspeare's poetic theory of life (poetische Weltanschauung), in which, after a succession of dreary platitudes, the author arrives at the following conclusion:-Shakspeare was a Christian poet, and in his dramas we must learn to read Christian philosophy, just as in Sophocles we read Greek philosophy. This conclusion Ulrici is at pains to establish with great gravity and form, as if it were a novelty, and an important one. He accordingly describes at great length what was the spirit of Paganism, and what is the spirit of Christianity; and after proving that in the Christian theory of life Destiny has no place, he shows that Shakspeare did not employ Destiny as a tragic agency! 'Shakspeare's invention,' he says, 'composition, characterisa'tion, and language, in short, his dramatic style, although in 'the first instance qualified by the notion of dramatic art which lived within him, derives its most decided peculiarity from his 'particular view of that relation between God and the world, from which the nature, life, and history of humanity first ' derives its true import. We allude to his poetical apprehension ' of the universal system of things. Here is a plain assertion that Shakspeare's most decided peculiarity is derived from his taking a Christian and not a Heathen view of life. Considering that he was born, bred, and educated in a Christian country, and that he was addressing a Christian audience, the fact of his not adopting the Heathen theory of life might, we think, have been more simply accounted for; and towards the close of this chapter it does seem to have occurred to the learned author, that this peculiarity' must be shared by every other Christian poet. But he gets rid of the difficulty, in a singular passage (pp. 167-8. |
