Such feelings are constantly evoked by Shakespeare's tragedies,--again
in varying degrees. Perhaps they are the very strongest of the emotions
awakened by the early tragedy of _Richard II._, where they receive a
concentrated expression in Richard's famous speech about the antic
Death, who sits in the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
grinning at his pomp, watching till his vanity and his fancied security
have wholly encased him round, and then coming and boring with a little
pin through his castle wall. And these feelings, though their
predominance is subdued in the mightiest tragedies, remain powerful
there. In the figure of the maddened Lear we see
A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,
Past speaking of in a king;
and if we would realise the truth in this matter we cannot do better
than compare with the effect of _King Lear_ the effect of Tourgenief's
parallel and remarkable tale of peasant life, _A King Lear of the
Steppes_.
2
A Shakespearean tragedy as so far considered may be called a story of
exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate. But
it is clearly much more than this, and we have now to regard it from
another side. No amount of calamity which merely befell a man,
descending from the clouds like lightning, or stealing from the darkness
like pestilence, could alone provide the substance of its story.
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