Ariosto, Shakespeare and Corneille

by Benedetto Croce

But when we do not allow ourselves to be caught in the meshes of these fictitious problems, of which we indicated the proton pseudos, when we resolutely banish them from the mind, and read and reread Shakespeare's plays without more ado, everything remains or becomes clear again, everything, that is to say, which should (as is natural) be clear for the ends of poetry, in a poetical work. As Grillparzer remarked in his time, that very Hamlet, whom Goethe took such trouble to explain psychologically, and over whom so many hundreds of interpreters have so diligently toiled, "is understood with perfect ease by the tailor or the bootmaker sitting in the gallery, who understands the whole of the play by raising his own feelings to its level."

From this derives another consequence: Shakespeare has been loudly praised for his portentous fidelity to nature and reality, but at the same time the critics, as quoted above, have placed obstacles of various sorts in the way of those who would understand him so it has been freely stated that Shakespeare is certainly a great poet, but that his method is not that of "fidelity," to nature, on the contrary, he violates "reality" at every turn, creating characters and situation, "which are not found in nature." It would be better to say simply that Shakespeare, like every poet, is neither in accordance nor in disaccordance with external reality (which for that matter is what each one of us likes to make and to imagine in his own way), for the reason that he has nothing to do with it, being intent upon the creation of his own spiritual reality.

The third great misadventure that has befallen Shakespeare, after those of the moralising and psychological-objectivistic critics, is his transference, we will not call it his promotion, to the position of a German, opposed to that of a Latin or neo-Latin poet. It is not difficult to trace the origin of this transference, when we remember that Shakespeare was looked upon, both by his contemporaries and yet more so when rediscovered in the eighteenth century, as a spontaneous, rough, natural, popular poet, just the opposite of the cultured, mannered school, in which, however, he had shown evidence of prowess with the lesser poems and the sonnets.

This conception of his as a natural poet is found in the first school of the new German literature, known as the Sturm und Drang, which cultivated the idea of "genius"; and from this arose the idea of Shakespeare as the expression of "pure virgin genius, ignorant of rules and limits, a force as irresistible as those of nature" (Gerstenberg). And since the new German poets and men of letters greatly admired him, and as has been said, the new Aesthetic understood him much better than the old Poetic had done or been able to do, instead of this better sympathy and intelligence being attributed to the spiritual dispositions of the Germans of that period and to the progress that they were effecting in the life of thought, it was attributed to affinity and relationship, which was supposed to connect the German spirit with that of Shakespeare. It is true that this theory was soon found to lack foundation, because the best German critics, among whom were August William Schlegel, proved that there was as much art and regularity in Shakespeare as in any other poet, although they were not the same in him as in others, and he did not obey contingent and arbitrary rules.

It is also true that to a Frenchman was due the first revelation of Shakespeare outside his own country: Voltaire, with his odi et amo, has always been blamed and held up to ridicule for the negative side of his criticism, but the positive side of it, the mental courage, the freshness of mental impressions, which his interest in Shakespeare, his admiration for his sublimity, deserved, have not been sufficiently remarked. But it is likewise true that France has never understood Shakespeare well, owing to her classical tradition in literature and her intellectualist tradition in philosophy, though we do not forget her fugitive enthusiasms for the poet. Even to-day, Maeterlinck notes "la profonde ignorance" that still reigns "de l'œuvre shakespearienne," even among "les plus lettrés." This afforded an opportunity for underlining the antithesis between "German" and "French" taste, which was soon, but without any justification, expanded into "Latin" taste.

The English of that period, both in speech and literature, were almost as indifferent to Shakespeare as were the French. This was observed and commented upon in a lively manner, among others by Schlegel, Tieck, Platen and Heine. However, the new methods of German criticism soon made their influence felt in England (Coleridge, Hazlitt), and it seemed to the Germans that these writers had preserved the true tradition of the race and had reillumined the fire that was languishing or had been altogether extinguished among their brethren of the same race, and that they had dissipated the heavy cloud of classical, French and Latin taste, which was hanging over England. To their real merit in recognising the fame of Shakespeare and their profound study of the poet, and to the false interpretation that they gave of these merits by attributing them to the virtue of their race, were added, for well known political reasons, German pride and self-conceit, which did the rest. All the moralising critics, to whom we have referred, were also critics imbued with the German spirit. They united the austere morality, which they discovered in Shakespeare and his heroes, to celebration of the German nature of these qualities and of the poet. They set in opposition the genuine, rude, realistic quality of Shakespeare's poetry, to the artificial, cold, schematic poetry of the Latins. They celebrated the Germanism of a Henry IV (his wild youth is just that of a German youth, says Gervinus; it is the genius of the German race, with its incorruptible health, its strength of marrow, its infinite depths of feeling, beneath a hard and angular exterior, its childlike humility, its wealth of humour, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, says Kreyssig), of a Hamlet (naturally, because he is represented as a student of Wittenberg) and so on, through the Ophelias and the Cordelias, and even the characters of the comedies, such as Benedick and Biron (this last "possessing a character entirely German," "with the harshness of a Saxon," humorous, remote from sentimentality and affectation, and therefore "out of place among the gallantries of Latin society"—all the above is taken from Gervinus).

Shakespeare's place "is in the Pantheon of the Germanic people, in the sanctuary richly adorned with all the gods and demons of this race, the most vigorous in life, the best capable of development, the most widely diffused of all races." He stands, either beside Durer and Rembrandt, or on a spur of Parnassus, facing Homer and Aeschylus on another spur, sometimes permitting Dante to stand at his side—Dante was of German origin—, while the impotent crowd of the poets of Latin race seethes at his feet. For Carrière, he is the mouthpiece of the German spirit in England, while for another, he is England's permanent ambassador to Germany, accredited to the whole German people.

Both French and Italian critics also gave credence to this boasting, sometimes echoing the theory of difference between the two different arts, that of the north and that of the south, romantic and classic, realistic and idealistic or abstract, passionate or rhetorical, while others bowed reverently before the superiority of the former. In the recent war took place a rapid change of style, but not of mental assumptions. Both French and Italians mocked and expressed their contempt for the rough and violent poetry of Germany, and even Shakespeare did not have une bonne presse on the occasion of his centenary, which took place during the second year.

But return to serious matters, it seems undeniable that the historical origin of Shakespeare is to be found in the Renaissance, which is generally admitted to have been chiefly an Italian movement. Shakespeare got from Italy, not only a great part, both of his form and of his material, but what is of greater moment, many thoughts that went to form his vision of reality. In addition to this, he obtained from Italy that literary education, to which all English writers of his time submitted. One may think, however, what one likes as to the historical derivation of Shakespeare's poetical material and of his literary education: the essential point to remember is that the poetry had its origin solely in himself; he did not receive it from without, either from his nation, his race, or from any other source. For this reason, divisions and counter-divisions of it, into Germanic and Latin poetry, and similar dyads, based upon material criteria, are without any foundation whatever. Shakespeare cannot be a Germanic poet, for the simple reason that in so far as he is a poet, he is nothing but a poet and does not obey the law of his race, whether it be lex salica, wisigothica, langobardica, anglica or any other barbarorum, nor does he obey the romana—he obeys only the universally human lex poetica.

That a more profound and a better understanding of Shakespeare should have been formed and be steadily increasing, in the midst of and because of these and other errors, is a thing that we are so ready to admit as indubitable and obvious that we take it as understood, because it always happens thus, in every circle of thought and in literary history and criticism in general, and so in the particular history and criticism of Shakespeare.