(2) On the other side, and over against these facts, we have to set the
multitudinousness of Shakespeare's genius, and his almost unlimited
power of conceiving and expressing human experience of all kinds. And we
have to set more. Apparently during this period of years he never ceased
to write busily, or to exhibit in his writings the greatest mental
activity. He wrote also either nothing or very little (_Troilus and
Cressida_ and his part of _Timon_ are the possible exceptions) in which
there is any appearance of personal feeling overcoming or seriously
endangering the self-control or 'objectivity' of the artist. And finally
it is not possible to make out any continuously deepening _personal_
note: for although _Othello_ is darker than _Hamlet_ it surely strikes
one as about as impersonal as a play can be; and, on grounds of style
and versification, it appears (to me, at least) impossible to bring
_Troilus and Cressida_ chronologically close to _King Lear_ and _Timon_;
even if parts of it are later than others, the late parts must be
decidedly earlier than those plays.
The conclusion we may very tentatively draw from these sets of facts
would seem to be as follows. Shakespeare during these years was probably
not a happy man, and it is quite likely that he felt at times even an
intense melancholy, bitterness, contempt, anger, possibly even loathing
and despair.
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