The Man Shakespeare | Page 3

of the same age were
more interested in Lope de Vega than in Cervantes, and have left a
better picture of the second-rate playwright than of the world-poet.
Attempting to solve this problem Emerson coolly assumed that the men
of the Elizabethan age were so great that Shakespeare himself walked
about among them unnoticed as a giant among giants. This reading of
the riddle is purely transcendental. We know that Shakespeare's worst
plays were far oftener acted than his best; that "Titus Andronicus" by
popular favour was more esteemed than "Hamlet." The majority of
contemporary poets and critics regarded Shakespeare rather as a singer
of "sugred" verses than as a dramatist. The truth is that Shakespeare
passed through life unnoticed because he was so much greater than his
contemporaries that they could not see him at all in his true proportions.
It was Jonson, the nearest to him in greatness, who alone saw him at all
fairly and appreciated his astonishing genius.
Nothing illustrates more perfectly the unconscious wisdom of the
English race than the old saying that "a man must be judged by his
peers." One's peers, in fact, are the only persons capable of judging one,
and the truth seems to be that three centuries have only produced three
men at all capable of judging Shakespeare. The jury is still being
collected. But from the quality of the first three, and of their praise, it is
already plain that his place will be among the highest. From various
indications, too, it looks as if the time for judging him had come:
"Hamlet" is perhaps his most characteristic creation, and Hamlet, in his
intellectual unrest, morbid brooding, cynical self-analysis and dislike of
bloodshed, is much more typical of the nineteenth or twentieth century
than of the sixteenth. Evidently the time for classifying the creator of
Hamlet is at hand.
And this work of description and classification should be done as a
scientist would do it: for criticism itself has at length bent to the

Time-spirit and become scientific. And just as in science, analysis for
the moment has yielded pride of place to synthesis, so the critical
movement in literature has in our time become creative. The chemist,
who resolves any substance into its elements, is not satisfied till by
synthesis he can re-create the substance out of its elements: this is the
final proof that his knowledge is complete. And so we care little or
nothing to-day for critical analyses or appreciations which are not
creative presentments of the person. "Paint him for us," we say, "in his
habit as he lived, and we will take it that you know something about
him."
One of the chief attempts at creative criticism in English literature, or,
perhaps it would be fairer to say, the only memorable attempt, is
Carlyle's Cromwell. He has managed to build up the man for us quite
credibly out of Cromwell's letters and speeches, showing us the
underlying sincerity and passionate resolution of the great Puritan once
for all. But unfortunately Carlyle was too romantic an artist, too
persuaded in his hero-worship to discover for us Cromwell's faults and
failings. In his book we find nothing of the fanatic who ordered the
Irish massacres, nothing of the neuropath who lived in hourly dread of
assassination. Carlyle has painted his subject all in lights, so to speak;
the shadows are not even indicated, and yet he ought to have known
that in proportion to the brilliancy of the light the shadows must of
necessity be dark. It is not for me to point out that this romantic
painting of great men, like all other make-believes and hypocrisies, has
its drawbacks and shortcomings: it is enough that it has had its day and
produced its pictures of giant-heroes and their worshippers for those
who love such childish toys.
The wonderful age in which we live--this twentieth century with its
X-rays that enable us to see through the skin and flesh of men, and to
study the working of their organs and muscles and nerves--has brought
a new spirit into the world, a spirit of fidelity to fact, and with it a new
and higher ideal of life and of art, which must of necessity change and
transform all the conditions of existence, and in time modify the almost
immutable nature of man. For this new spirit, this love of the fact and
of truth, this passion for reality will do away with the foolish fears and

futile hopes which have fretted the childhood of our race, and will
slowly but surely establish on broad foundations the Kingdom of Man
upon Earth. For that is the meaning and purpose of the change which is
now coming over the world. The faiths and convictions of twenty
centuries are passing away and