Atlantic Monthly | Page 8

pen and begin a tragedy; or, to drop the
fancy, we have made it real to ourselves in what manner Shakspeare's
writing evidences that he wrought as an artist,--one who has an idea in
his mind of an effect he desires to produce, and elaborates it with
careful skill, not in a trance or ecstasy, but "in clear dream and solemn
vision." The subtile tone of feeling to be struck is as much a matter of
art as the action or argument to be opened. And it is no less proper to
judge (as we have done) of the presence of art by its result in this
respect than in respect to what relates to the form or story. An
introduction is before us, a dramatic scene, in which characters are
brought forward and a dialogue is given, apparently concerning a
picture and poem that have been made, but having a more important
reference to a character yet to be unfolded. Along with this there is also
expressed, in the person of a professed panegyrist, a certain lofty and
free opinion of his own work, in a confident declamatory style of
description,--
"Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill Feigned Fortune to be
throned," etc.,--
that is levelled with exquisite tact just on the verge of bombast. This is
not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is never
heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall him, and
to create a melodic effect upon the hearer's sense which shall put him in
a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece.
It is not possible to conceive Shakspeare reviewing his lines and
thinking to himself, "That is well done; my genius has not deserted me;
I could not have written anything more to my liking, if I had set about it
deliberately!" But it is easy to see him running it over with a sensation
of "This will serve; my poet will open their eyes and ears; and now for
the hall and banquet scene."
The sense of fitness and relation operates among thoughts and feelings
as well as among fancies, and its results cannot be mistaken for
accident. Ariel and his harpies could not interrupt a scene with a more
discordant action than the phase of feeling or the poetic atmosphere
pervading it would be interrupted by, if a cloud of distraction came

across the poet and the faculties of his mind rioted out of his control.
For he not only feels, but sees his feeling; he takes it up as an object
and holds it before him,--a feeling to be conveyed. Just as a sculptor
holds in his mind a form and models it out of clay, undiverted by other
forms thronging into his vision, or by the accidental forms that the
plastic substance takes upon itself in the course of his work, till it
stands forth the image of his ideal,--so the poet works out his states of
poetic feeling. He grasps and holds and sustains them amidst the
multiplicity of upflying thoughts and thick-coming fancies;--no matter
how subtile or how aspiring they may be, he fastens them in the
chamber of his imagination until his distant purpose is accomplished,
and he has found a language for them which the world will understand.
And this is where Shakspeare's art is so noble,--in that he conquers the
entire universe of thought, sentiment, feeling, and passion,--goes into
the whole and takes up and portrays characters the most extreme and
diverse, passions the most wild, sentiment the most refined, feelings the
most delicate,--and does this by an art in which he must make his
characters appear real and we looking on, though he cannot use, to
develop his dramas, a hundred-thousandth part of the words that would
be used in real life,--that is, in Nature. He also always approaches us
upon the level of our common sense and experience, and never requires
us to yield it,--never breaks in or jars upon our judgment, or shocks or
alarms any natural sensibility. After enlarging our souls with the stir of
whatever can move us through poetry, he leaves us where he found us,
refreshed by new thoughts, new scenes, and new knowledge of
ourselves and our kind, more capable, and, if we choose to be so, more
wise. His art is so great that we almost forget its presence,--almost
forget that the Macbeth and Othello we have seen and heard were
Shakspeare's, and that he MADE them; we can scarce conceive how he
could feign as if felt, and retain and reproduce such a play of emotions
and passions from the position of spectator, his own soul remaining,
with its sovereign reason, and all its powers natural