[1] The development of this passage exactly corresponds to Spinoza's classic definition of jealousy, written seventy years later. See Ethices, Pars III., Propositio XXXV., Scholium: "Præterea hoc odium erga rem amatam majus erit pro ratione Lætitiæ, qua Zelotypus ex reciproco rei amatæ. Amore solebat affici, et etiam pro ratione affectus, quo erga illum, quem sibi rem amatam jungere imaginatur, affectus erat. Nam si eum oderat, eo ipso rem amatam odio habebit, quia ipsam id, quod ipse odio habet, Lætitia afficere imaginatur; et etiam ex eo, quod rei amatæ imaginem imagini ejus, quem odit, jungere cogitur, quæ ratio plerumque locum habet in Amore erga fœminam; qui enim imaginatur mulierem, quam amat, alteri sese prostituere, non solum ex eo, quod ipsius appetitus coercetur, contristabitur, sed etiam quia rei amatæ maginem pudendis et excrementis alterius jungere cogitur, eandem aversatur."
[XXV]
KING LEAR—THE FEELING UNDERLYING IT—THE CHRONICLE—SIDNEY'S ARCADIA AND THE OLD PLAY
In King Lear, Shakespeare's vision sounded the abyss of horror to its very depths, and his spirit showed neither fear, nor giddiness, nor faintness at the sight.
On the threshold of this work, a feeling of awe comes over one, as on the threshold of the Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling-frescoes by Michael Angelo—only that the suffering here is far more intense, the wail wilder, the harmonies of beauty more definitely shattered by the discords of despair.
Othello was a noble piece of chamber-music—simple and easily apprehended, powerfully affecting though it be. This work, on the other hand, is the symphony of an enormous orchestra—all earth's instruments sound in it, and every instrument has many stops.
King Lear is the greatest task Shakespeare ever set himself, the most extensive and the most imposing;—all the suffering and horror that can arise from the relation between a father and his children expressed in five acts of moderate length.
No modern mind has dared to face such a subject; nor could any one have grappled with it. Shakespeare did so without even a trace of effort, by virtue of the overpowering mastery which he now, in the meridian of his genius, had attained over the whole of human life. He handles his theme with the easy vigour that belongs to spiritual health, though we have here scene upon scene of such intense pathos that we seem to hear the sobs of suffering humanity accompanying the action, much as one hears by the sea-shore the steady plash and sob of the waves.