Shakespeare could never have desired to possess the ideal of beauty, which visited the soul of the hirsute and unfortunate Platen, the social or humanitarian ideals of the Schillers and Tourgueneffs. But he had no need whatever of these things to attain the infinite, which every poet attains, reaching the centre of the circle from any point of the periphery. For this reason, no poet, whatever the historical period at which he was born and by which he is limited, is the poet of only one historical epoch. Shakespeare formed himself during the period of the Renaissance, which he surpasses, not with his practical personality, but with his poetry. There is nothing, then, for these limiters to do, save to manifest their dissatisfaction with poetry itself, which is always limited-unlimited. This, I think, was also the case with Emerson, who lamented that Shakespeare (whom he nevertheless placed in the good company of Homer and of Dante) "rested in the beauty of things and never took the step of investigating the virtue that resides in symbols," which seemed to be inevitable for such a genius, and that "he converted the elements awaiting his commands," into a diversion, and gave "half truths to half men": whereas, according to Emerson, the entire truth for entire men could only be given by a personage whom the world still awaits. To Emerson, this personage seemed most attractive, but to others he may possibly perhaps seem as little amiable as Antichrist: he called him "the poet-priest." CHAPTER XI SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM Criticism of Shakespeare, like every criticism, has followed and expressed the progress and alternations of the philosophy of art, or aesthetic; it has been strong or weak, profound or superficial, well-balanced or one-sided, according to the doctrines that have there been realised. Their history would form an excellent History of Aesthetic, because the fame of Shakespeare became widespread, concurrently with the spread of aesthetic theory, with its liberation from external norms and concepts, and its penetration to the heart of its subject. Shakespeare's poetry in its turn stimulated this deepening of the theory of aesthetic, by its revelation of a poetic world, for emotion and admiration, in appearance at least, very different from what had previously passed as its sole and perfect example. But since we are occupied at the present moment with Shakespeare and not with aesthetic theory, we shall touch only upon certain points of this criticism, in order the more firmly to establish by indirect proof the judgment expressed above, and to indicate certain obstacles, which the student of Shakespeare will meet with in critical literature relating to that poet. Our description and definition of them may render avoidable certain of the most common errors.