For
this end all those studies that were mentioned just now, of literary
history and the like, are useful and even in various degrees necessary.
But an overt pursuit of them is not necessary here, nor is any one of
them so indispensable to our object as that close familiarity with the
plays, that native strength and justice of perception, and that habit of
reading with an eager mind, which make many an unscholarly lover of
Shakespeare a far better critic than many a Shakespeare scholar.
Such lovers read a play more or less as if they were actors who had to
study all the parts. They do not need, of course, to imagine whereabouts
the persons are to stand, or what gestures they ought to use; but they
want to realise fully and exactly the inner movements which produced
these words and no other, these deeds and no other, at each particular
moment. This, carried through a drama, is the right way to read the
dramatist Shakespeare; and the prime requisite here is therefore a vivid
and intent imagination. But this alone will hardly suffice. It is
necessary also, especially to a true conception of the whole, to
compare, to analyse, to dissect. And such readers often shrink from this
task, which seems to them prosaic or even a desecration. They
misunderstand, I believe.
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