The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 08 (of 12)Hazlitt, William
General
The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 08 (of 12)
Hazlitt, William
English essays -- 19th century
flushed, no sigh breathed involuntary from his overcharged bosom: all
was forced and lifeless. His acting sometimes reminded us of the scene
with Lady Anne, and we cannot say a worse thing of it, considering the
difference of the two characters. Mr. Kean’s imagination appears not to
have the principles of joy, or hope, or love in it. He seems chiefly
sensible to pain, or to the passions that spring from it, and to the
terrible energies of mind or body, which are necessary to grapple with,
or to avert it. Even over the world of passion he holds but a divided
sway: he either does not feel, or seldom expresses, deep, sustained,
internal sentiment,—there is no repose in his mind: no feeling seems to
take full possession of it, that is not linked to action, and that does
not goad him on to the phrenzy of despair. Or if he ever conveys the
sublimer pathos of thought and feeling, it is after the storm of
passion, to which he has been worked up, has subsided. The tide of
feeling then at times rolls deep, majestic, and awful, like the surging
sea after a tempest, now lifted to Heaven, now laying bare the bosom of
the deep. Thus after the violence and anguish of the scene with Iago, in
the third act of Othello, his voice in the farewell apostrophe to
Content, took the deep intonation of the pealing organ, and heaved from
the heart sounds that came on the ear like the funeral dirge of years of
promised happiness. So in the midst of the extravagant and irresistible
expression of Romeo’s grief, at being banished from the object of his
love, his voice suddenly stops, and faulters, and is choaked with sobs
of tenderness, when he comes to Juliet’s name. Those persons must be
made of sterner stuff than ourselves, who are proof against Mr. Kean’s
acting, both in this scene, and in his dying convulsion at the close of
the play. But in the fine soliloquy beginning, ‘What said my man, when
my betossed soul, &c.’—and at the tomb afterwards—‘Here will I set up my
everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this
world-wearied flesh,’—in these, where the sentiment is subdued and
profound, and the passion is lost in calm, fixed despair, Mr. Kean’s
acting was comparatively ineffectual. There was nothing in his manner of
delivering this last exquisitely beautiful speech, which echoed to the
still sad music of humanity, which recalled past hopes, or reposed on
the dim shadowings of futurity.
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