Shakspeare and His Times

Nashe, the intimate friend of Greene, would probably not have spoken in such terms of one of Shakspeare's plays, and perhaps the success achieved by this drama may have induced...

In Othello there are two individualities: in the first place, there is the savage, who has for a long time remained alone; who has for a long time lived the life of a brute, and...

After this great moral painting comes the second of Shakspeare's superior beauties, dramatic effect. This is nowhere more complete and more striking than in "Hamlet," for the tw...

Strolling players were accustomed to give their performances in the court-yards of inns. The stage was erected in one corner, while the spectators occupied the remainder of the...

Pass now from the substance to the form, and from the feeling itself to the language in which it is clothed by the poet; and observe the contrast! In proportion as the feeling i...

[Transcriber's note: This work is derived from https://archive.org/details/shakspearehistim00guizrich/page/n11/mode/2up. Pages 132 and 133 are missing from this copy. The replac...

One common character is manifested in all Shakspeare's historical dramas, and that is, the profoundly national and popular feeling which animates the poet. Upon the events and p...

But now is the time for the approach of ratiocinative mediocrity; it advances with lofty assumption, bearing the staff of office, availing itself of these expositions in order t...

In presence of such a new condition of men and things, that which was formerly denominated the great world must consent that its star should decline. It has finished as the mona...

According to his custom, while borrowing whatever he pleased from Rowley, Shakspeare has added great beauties to his original, and has retained nearly all its errors. {301} Thus...

The vicissitudes experienced by the religious establishment of England, during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, tended to maintain this disposition. Anxiety for martyrdom had...

The reason of this is, that the habits of England, being formed by the influence of the same causes that led to the establishment of her political institutions, early assumed th...

Beside these national histories, some few incidents from ancient histories, or the annals of other nations, took their place, commonly disfigured by the mixture of fabulous even...

Alas for the feebleness of human foresight! This so decisive day has passed, and, on the whole, we remain in very nearly the same position as before. The work of the great Briti...

In true tragedy, every circumstance assumes another character and another aspect; no incident is isolated, or alien to the very substance of the drama; no link is slight or fort...

That, after this, the spectacle of the soul of Brutus should he, to Johnson, less touching and dramatic than the display of any particular passion, or of any particular position...

Words of simple sublimity, which Mademoiselle Mars renders with an accent of corresponding simplicity and sublimity; those cries from without which hasten the fatal stroke, and,...

Such are the exploits of Macbeth and Banquo, of which Shakspeare, following Holinshed, has made use in his tragedy. A short time afterward, Macbeth and Banquo were traveling to...

Thus, in Shakspeare's comedy, the whole of human life passes before the eyes of the spectator, reduced to a sort of phantasmagoria--a brilliant and uncertain reflection of the r...

Of these three pieces, the first has been absolutely denied to Shakspeare; and it is, in my opinion, equally difficult to believe that it is entirely his composition, and that t...

Though easily attained among the Greeks, whose life and feelings might be summed up in a few large and simple features, this ideal did not present itself to modern nations under...

Meanwhile, amid these grotesque follies, a serious event took place, and that was the marriage of Shakspeare. At the time when he contracted this important engagement, Shakspear...

If material illusion were the aim of the arts, the wax-figures of Curtius would surpass all the statues of antiquity, and a panorama would be the ultimate effort of painting. If...

Born to move in good society, Falstaff has not yet renounced all his pretensions of this kind; he has not adopted the coarseness of the positions to which he is degraded by his...

Thus the poet creates, and such is poetical genius. Events, and even positions, are not what he deems most important, or what he takes delight in inventing; his power aims at ex...

To constancy of character, feelings, and resolutions exclusively belongs that moral unity which, braving time and distance, includes all the parts of an event in a compact actio...

It is not from the death of Shakspeare that we must date, in England, that worship, the devotedness of which, after having been maintained with such fervor for sixty years, seem...

Johnson is of a contrary opinion; but, supposing the tradition to be authentic, the authority of Johnson would not be sufficient to invalidate that of Lord Falkland, a man of em...