A Daniel come to judgement! yea, a Daniel!
The ebb comes, and his enemies catch up the cry and turn it against him:
iv. i. 313, 317, 323, 333, 340.
A Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
Such then is the Story of the Jew, and so it exhibits nemesis clashing with nemesis, the nemesis of surprise with the nemesis of equality and intense satisfaction.
The Caskets Story.
In the Caskets Story, which Shakespeare has associated with the Story of the Jew, the dramatic capabilities are of a totally different kind. In the artist's armoury one of the most effective weapons is Idealisation: Idealisation:inexplicable touches throwing an attractiveness over the repulsive, uncovering the truth and beauty which lie hidden in the commonplace, and showing how much can be brought out of how little with how little change. the exhibition of a commonplace experience in a glorified form.A story will be excellent material, then, for dramatic handling which contains at once some experience of ordinary life, and also the surroundings which can be made to exhibit this experience in a glorified form: the more commonplace the experience, the greater the triumph of art if it can be idealised. The point of the Caskets Story to the eye of an artist in Drama is the opportunity it affords for such an idealisation of the commonest problem in everyday experience—what may be called the Problem of Judgment by Appearances.
Problem of Judgment by Appearances.