an exception. In this respect, more than one of his pieces has the intention of combating the new and of defending the old, but always only as a secondary object. The actual poetical intention invariably rises far above it, and possesses an entirely general interest, as may be seen in Troilus and Cressida,' which play I have principally had in view, in making these remarks. Thus in this respect, also, his poems retain the quiet, virgin purity, the pleasing absence of all design, and the lofty, ideal independence, which, from all we know of Shakspeare, also distinguished his personal character.

BOOK III.

SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMATIC STYLE IN RELATION TO THAT OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

CHAPTER I.

THE GREENE-MARLOWE OR SHAKSPEARIAN SCHOOL.

A. Munday, H. Chettle, Thomas Heywood, Dekker, Haughton and Day.

THE character of a poet is historically dependent partly upon the state of the development of the art upon which he enters, partly upon the character of his nation and century. In the preceding portion of my work, I have endeavoured to characterise Shakspeare from both points of view. And yet in the case of a genuine poet these influence his poetic peculiarity only in so far as they are the conditions and levers of the development of his human individuality. As a man, like every other organic member of his nation, and its history as a whole, he is subject to the conditions of every human existence. As a poet, on the other hand, the greater he is, the more independent he will appear of the special, one-sided interests, tendencies, and ideas of his age, the higher he will soar above the special development of art which he found existing, and the more clearly will the eternal idea of beauty, the general nature of art and poetry be reflected in his works. The great artist belongs to all times and to all nations: this imperishableness and general truth of his creationsthe sign of his greatness-is, so to say, the actual kernel

of his works, and accordingly, if it is to be correctly perceived and correctly estimated, must be specially brought forward and separated from the perishable shell which encloses it. The manner in which Shakspeare--in accordance with his individuality-conceives the spirit and nature of poetry as opposed to the character of the sixteenth century, of the English people, and of the prevailing conditions of art, the peculiar form in which the idea of beauty, and the conception of dramatic art is expressed in himself, and in his works-this he is in his inmost nature, this is the poetical genius of Shakspeare.

He is out-and-out a dramatic poet, as is proved even by the few non-dramatic works of his, which we possess. For in his lyric pieces, the 154 Sonnets, and the small collection under the title of The Passionate Pilgrim,' he not merely unfolds his own personal character, he not merely depicts the state of his own heart, but as distinctly the character of those (real or fictitious) persons to whom the poems are addressed; it is only in describing his relation to them, that his own individuality is set forth. These Sonnets, moreover, are to a certain extent of an epigrammatical nature, rich in play upon words and antitheses, in wit and humour, are also, it is true, distinguished by the pure poetical effusions of sentiment and the harmonious echo of external life in the susceptible nature of the poetof which the essence of lyrical poetry consists—but still more by a fulness and depth of thought and reflection. The poems argue so much and so often, that many of them are more like speeches than lyrical Sonnets; nay, most of them might be called dialogical, in so far as the remarks and counter-remarks, the maxims and opinions, as well as the whole peculiarity of the person to whom they are addressed, are invariably heard with the rest. Hence they can be understood only in the internal connection by which they are linked together; taken singly, most of them would appear obscure. His other smaller poems, 'Venus and Adonis,' The Rape of Lucrece,' and 'A Lover's Complaint,' which have unjustly been termed epical-they might far more properly be called idyllic (i.e., eidyllion, in the ancient and original sense of the word, a small poetical picture in narrative verse)—are so dramatic in design,

colour, and composition, that they seem to require nothing but dialogue, to be transferred into another domain of poetry. Lastly the fourteen strophes of four and six lines recently discovered by Collier among the MSS. at Bridgewater House,*—which are subscribed with the initials W. Sh., and probably intended as a kind of lottery-and the two epitaphs upon Sir Thom. Stanley-which, according to Dugdale, were written by Shakspeare,† and which to judge from form and character were probably written by him-may be reckoned among the small gems, which occasionally issued from his great poetical laboratory. Now in order correctly to estimate Shakspeare's style, that is, the manner in which he conceived and carried out his ideas of dramatic art, and the peculiar form in which his works present it to us, we must, in the first place, understand the problem which the condition of art in his day placed before him, and then ascertain the position which his associates and fellow-labourers occupied in regard to the common goal; further we shall have to explain the manner in which he himself endeavoured to solve the great problem, and, lastly measure his artistic activity by the highest standard of all art, thus ascertaining how much art was promoted by his solution of the problem. It is only after having done this, that we shall be able to decide whether Shakspeare was more than a mere talented man, even though ever so great. For mere talent can be estimated only in connection with the historical development from which it arose, only by being compared with what others accomplished contemporaneously, that is, only by a relative standard; otherwise we should be doing it an injustice. Genius, on the other hand, has the right to demand that it shall not be judged only by the standard of its day and the natural state of art, but also by the external ideal of all art, and the right to demand that it shall be classed with the greatest heroes of all times and of all nations.

The problem which was set before the poets of the Shakspearian age, i.e., before the successors of Peele,

* New Particulars regarding the Works of Shakespeare. London, 1836, pp. 61, 64 f.

t Dyce, ., p. 109.

Greene, and Marlowe, we have become acquainted with from the historical part of our first Book. What we there said, may be repeated here in a few words: their task was to blend the romantico-fantastico-idealistic character which still clung to art from the Middle Ages, with the rational realistic, historical spirit of modern times into one organic whole, and to find for this subject, its adequate dramatic form of art. For if the drama is the poetical delineation of the historical life of man, then poetry could no longer, as in the Middle Ages, be allowed to move in an ideal world beyond this-whether it were in that of the past which belongs to the epos, or in that of the future which is tangible only in a lyrical form; it was the present, that is, actual, natural and historical life in its internal, poetical character, that had to be grasped and raised into its ideal, that had to be brought into its appropriate, artistic form. History, however, can as little be poetically reflected unless, with the prophetic eye of fancy, it is found to contain an ideal object and an ideal agent for its movements, as it can be described in a really historical form, unless it is regarded with the eye of sober realistic understanding, and exhibits the common, natural forces which are at work in it. The artistic form which was to correspond with a subject poetical as well as historical, i.e., with the true conception of the drama, had accordingly not merely to fulfil all the demands of art and of the idea of beauty, but at the same time also to realize all the claims of history, of real historical truth. This form could be discovered only by a mind which not merely bore within itself the full wealth of a truly poetic, ideal conception of the world, but also the true understanding of actual, historical life. Our whole enquiry, accordingly, reduces itself to the simple question: in how far did the poets of the Shakspearian age succeed in laying hold of this form, and how near, or how far, were they from this goal?

In order to answer this question we must distinguish well between two diverging tendencies, or Schools among the poets of Shakspeare's time: the one attached itself more closely to the traditional form of art and hence held