MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
These extracts are the second and last paragraphs of the essay.
[P. 85.] Lord, what fools. iii, 2, 115.
[P. 86.] human mortals. ii, 1, 101.
gorgons and hydras. “Paradise Lost,” II, 628.
a celebrated person, Sir Humphry Davy; see p. 342. Cf. Coleridge (Works, IV, 66): “Shakespeare was not only a great poet, but a great philosopher.”
[P. 87.] Poetry and the stage. Cf. Lamb, “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare” (ed. Lucas, I, 110): “Spirits and fairies cannot be represented, they cannot even be painted,—they can only be believed. But the elaborate and anxious provision of scenery, which the luxury of the age demands, in these cases works a quite contrary effect to what is intended. That which in comedy, or plays of familiar life, adds so much to the life of the imitation, in plays which appeal to the higher faculties, positively destroys the illusion which it is introduced to aid.”