Again it is likely that Shakespeare in our generation would not have written much differently from Ibsen or Hauptmann. The marriage problem interested him also, for he was unhappily married and loved another. He expressed his bitterness towards woman in his sonnets, in his characterisations of historical characters like Cleopatra and Cressida. But he wrote no special work occupied with the theme of the hard restrictions placed by society upon the lives of some unhappily married people. A work of this kind would have been almost a monstrosity in his age. Shakespeare could not have written exactly as Ibsen did, for though in their unconscious they were alike, each had different traditions and backgrounds to work on. No writer ignores totally prevailing literary fashions or tastes.
It is not my purpose to go into the causes of changes in tastes, traditions, ideas, movements. That subject has been dealt with often. Economic reasons are great factors in developing new literary periods and movements, yet also have much to do with this feeling of reaction against a preceding age. The artificiality of the eighteenth century gave way to the love of nature of the nineteenth. The demand for reason, wit and classicism in literature disappeared gradually, to be replaced by imagination, the utilisation of emotion and romanticism. Wordsworth is a reaction to Pope (even though Wordsworth's nature worship concealed his sex interest). His way was prepared by other writers of nature like Thomson, Collins, Goldsmith, Gray, Cowper, Crabbe, Blake and Burns. The immortality and exhibitionism of Congreve, Wycherly, Farquar, Van Brugh and Dryden in the Restoration period were a reaction to the Puritanism of the age of Cromwell. Bunyan, because of his early training and physical and mental condition, however, still clung to his early puritanism.
Yet Pope and Wordsworth were each men of their ages and wrote in accordance with the rising literary traditions of the time, though they also altered these. For the imitative instinct is powerful and present in the most original writers. Shakespeare's plays are much like those of Marlowe and Fletcher, though greater. His "plagiarisms," like those of Milton, were extensive. It is true that often one man sets the standard for a literary age, but he usually has predecessors. His influence is due to the fact that he strikes responsive chords in the unconscious of many people of his time, and the circle of his admirers and imitators increases, so as to make him an authority.
The realistic novels of George Eliot appeared after England wearied of the fanciful fictions of Walter Scott. A generation passed by before the reaction set in with full force. Both writers wrote as they did, largely in obedience to the tendencies of their times, upon which they reacted and were reacted upon. They wrote because of personal repressions. Their methods of expression were different, because of a desire to comply somewhat with literary traditions. Romanticism was fashionable in 1830, while realism was in the air in 1860.
Those readers who think that these views do not give sufficient credit to writers for originality in literary expression should remember that common literary forms are followed by writers who may nevertheless be original in ideas. Only the student of literary history realises the power of literary imitation.
Take the thousands of pastorals that flooded European literature from Theocrities to Pope; most of them, except Spenser's Astrophel, Milton's Lycidas, and a few others were flat and unprofitable. Note the numerous sonnets written since the form was brought over from Italy by Wyatt and Surrey. The extensive use of the sonnet proves poets are imitative.
Recall the allegories with which mediæval literature abounded. Even the great short stories of Hawthorne, who was much influenced by Bunyan and Spenser, show traces of mediæval forms. Literary tradition is certainly stronger than originality. And the thousands of authors of our day who write novels and short stories, would in mediæval times have written allegories.
The ideas and mode of expression change, and hence makes much of the old literature obsolete. But many emotions remain eternal. We can still feel with Sappho and the Troubadours, whereas we find our intellect insulted by some of the religious ideas versified by Dante and Milton; although the passages describing secular emotions win our admiration.
When we must look for an author's unconscious buried in the literary trappings of his day we weary of the task and dismiss his work. Why can we not read the thousands of pastorals and allegories of the mediæval writers? Is it not largely because of the feeble intellects, and spirit of imitation present, because of the absence of the personal note? The unconscious is buried too deeply in rigmarole. The works have a psychological and historical but not artistic value. The religious and romantic instincts in many of us are buried too deeply in our unconscious, and hence we do not sympathise with those works.
Those poets live who have been most personal. The Roman poets, Horace, Catullus, Titullus, Propertius, Ovid, Lucretius, were personal. Even the Æneid reveals the soul of Virgil in the story of Æneas and Dido.