It is quite likely too that he used these experiences of
his in writing such plays as _Hamlet_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _King
Lear_, _Timon_. But it is evident that he cannot have been for any
considerable time, if, ever, overwhelmed by such feelings, and there is
no appearance of their having issued in any settled 'pessimistic'
conviction which coloured his whole imagination and expressed itself in
his works. The choice of the subject of ingratitude, for instance, in
_King Lear_ and _Timon_, and the method of handling it, may have been
due in part to personal feeling; but it does not follow that this
feeling was particularly acute at this particular time, and, even if it
was, it certainly was not so absorbing as to hinder Shakespeare from
representing in the most sympathetic manner aspects of life the very
reverse of pessimistic. Whether the total impression of _King Lear_ can
be called pessimistic is a further question, which is considered in the
text.]
[Footnote 154: _A Study of Shakespeare_, pp. 171, 172.]
[Footnote 155: A flaw, I mean, in a work of art considered not as a
moral or theological document but as a work of art,--an aesthetic flaw.
I add the word 'considerable' because we do not regard the effect in
question as a flaw in a work like a lyric or a short piece of music,
which may naturally be taken as expressions merely of a mood or a
subordinate aspect of things.
Pages:
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400