New Shakspere Society (Great Britain); Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation
Not only the exquisite grace of this charming last couplet, but the
smooth sound strength, the fluency and clarity of the whole passage, may
serve to show that the original suggestion of Capell, if (as I think)
untenable, was not (we must admit) unpardonable. The very oversight
perceptible to any eye and painful to any ear not sealed up by stepdame
nature from all perception of pleasure or of pain derivable from good
verse or bad--the reckless reiteration of the same rhyme with but one
poor couplet intervening--suggests rather the oversight of an unfledged
poet than the obtuseness of a full-grown poeticule or poetaster.
But of how many among the servile or semi-servile throng of imitators in
every generation may not as much as this be said by tolerant or kindly
judges! Among the herd of such diminutives as swarm after the heel or
fawn upon the hand of Mr. Tennyson, more than one, more than two or
three, have come as close as his poor little viceregal or vice-imperial
parasite to the very touch and action of the master's hand which feeds
them unawares from his platter as they fawn; as close as this nameless
and short-winded satellite to the gesture and the stroke of
Shakespeare's. For this also must be noted; that the resemblance here is
but of stray words, of single lines, of separable passages. The whole
tone of the text, the whole build of the play, the whole scheme of the
poem, is far enough from any such resemblance. The structure, the
composition, is feeble, incongruous, inadequate, effete. Any student
will remark at a first glance what a short-breathed runner, what a broken-
winded athlete in the lists of tragic verse, is the indiscoverable author
of this play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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