The inward and outward characteristics of Shakespeare are his vast and rich variety of persons and themes, with his wondrous delineation of each and all—not only limitless funds of verbal and pictorial resource, but great excess, superfœtation—mannerism, like a fine aristocratic perfume, holding a touch of musk (Euphues, his mark)—with boundless sumptuousness and adornment, real velvet and gems, not shoddy nor paste—but a good deal of bombast and fustian—(certainly some terrific mouthing in Shakespeare!).
Superb and inimitable as all is, it is mostly an objective and physiological kind of power and beauty the soul finds in Shakespeare—a style supremely grand of the sort, but in my opinion stopping short of the grandest sort, at any rate for fulfilling and satisfying modern and scientific and democratic American purposes. Think, not of growths as forests primeval, or Yellowstone geysers, or Colorado ravines, but of costly marble palaces, and palace rooms, and the noblest fixings and furniture, and noble owners and occupants to correspond—think of carefully built gardens from the beautiful but sophisticated gardening art at its best, with walks and bowers and artificial lakes, and appropriate statue groups, and the finest cultivated roses and lilies and japonicas in plenty—and you have the tally of Shakespeare. The low characters, mechanics, even the loyal henchmen—all in themselves nothing—serve as capital foils to the aristocracy. The comedies (exquisite
as they certainly are), bringing in admirably portrayed common characters, have the unmistakable hue of plays, portraits, made for the divertisement only of the élite of the castle, and from its point of view. The comedies are altogether non-acceptable to America and Democracy.
But to the deepest soul, it seems a shame to pick and choose from the riches Shakespeare has left us—to criticise his infinitely royal, multiform quality—to gauge, with optic glasses, the dazzle of his sun-like beams.
From Poet-Lore, July 1890. Complete Prose Works. Boston, Mass., 1898, p. 394.
Walt Whitman, when he says that “the comedies are altogether non-acceptable to America and Democracy,” states rather what he considers ought to be, than what actually is. In his essay, “Poetry To-day in America,” he says of Shakespeare, “In portraying mediæval European lords and barons, the arrogant poet, so dear to the inmost human heart (pride! pride! dearest, perhaps, of all—touching us, too, of the States closest of all—closer than love), he stands alone, and I do not wonder he so witches the world.”—Prose Works, Boston, 1898, p. 283.
RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 1891
(b. 1844)
“The Twenty-Third of April.”
A little English earth and breathèd air