Carlyle would call an inarticulate poet.'
And those to whom this idea is unfamiliar, and who may suspect it at
first sight of being fanciful, will find, if they examine the play in
the light of Mr. Swinburne's exposition, that it rests on a true and
deep perception, will stand scrutiny, and might easily be illustrated.
They may observe, to take only one point, the curious analogy between
the early stages of dramatic composition and those soliloquies in which
Iago broods over his plot, drawing at first only an outline, puzzled how
to fix more than the main idea, and gradually seeing it develop and
clarify as he works upon it or lets it work. Here at any rate
Shakespeare put a good deal of himself into Iago. But the tragedian in
real life was not the equal of the tragic poet. His psychology, as we
shall see, was at fault at a critical point, as Shakespeare's never was.
And so his catastrophe came out wrong, and his piece was ruined.
Such, then, seem to be the chief ingredients of the force which,
liberated by his resentment at Cassio's promotion, drives Iago from
inactivity into action, and sustains him through it. And, to pass to a
new point, this force completely possesses him; it is his fate. It is
like the passion with which a tragic hero wholly identifies himself, and
which bears him on to his doom.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331