New Shakspere Society (Great Britain); Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation
There is another point which the Neo-Shakespearean synagogue will by no
man be expected to appreciate; for to apprehend it requires some
knowledge and some understanding of the poetry of the Shakespearean
age--so surely we now should call it, rather than Elizabethan or
Jacobean, for the sake of verbal convenience, if not for the sake of
literary decency; and such knowledge or understanding no sane man will
expect to find in any such quarter. Even in the broad coarse comedy of
the period we find here and there the same sweet and simple echoes of the
very cradle-song (so to call it) of our drama: so like Shakespeare, they
might say who knew nothing of Shakespeare's fellows, that we cannot
choose but recognise his hand. Here as always first in the field--the
genuine and golden harvest-field of Shakespearean criticism, Charles Lamb
has cited a passage from _Green's Tu Quoque_--a comedy miserably
misreprinted in Dodsley's Old Plays--on which he observes that "this is
so like Shakespeare, that we seem to remember it," being as it is a
girl's gentle lamentation over the selfish, exacting, suspicious and
trustless love of man, as contrasted with the swift simple surrender of a
woman's love at the first heartfelt appeal to her pity--"we seem to
remember it," says Lamb, as a speech of Desdemona uttered on a first
perception or suspicion of jealousy or alienation in Othello. This
lovely passage, if I dare say so in contravention to the authority of
Lamb, is indeed as like the manner of Shakespeare as it can be--to eyes
ignorant of what his fellows can do; but it is not like the manner of the
Shakespeare who wrote _Othello_. This, however, is beside the question.
It is very like the Shakespeare who wrote the _Comedy of Errors--Love's
Labour's Lost--Romeo and Juliet_. It is so like that had we fallen upon
it in any of these plays it would long since have been a household word
in all men's mouths for sweetness, truth, simplicity, perfect and
instinctive accuracy of touch. It is very much liker the first manner of
Shakespeare than any passage in _King Edward III_. And no Sham
Shakespearean critic that I know of has yet assigned to the hapless
object of his howling homage the authorship of _Green's Tu Quoque_.
Returning to our text, we find in the short speech of the King with which
the first act is wound up yet another couplet which has the very ring in
it of Shakespeare's early notes--the catch at words rather than play on
words which his tripping tongue in youth could never resist:
Countess, albeit my business urgeth me,
It shall attend while I attend on thee.
And with this pretty little instance of courtly and courteous euphuism we
pass from the first to the second and most important act in the play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account