Shakespeare and His Critics

conception of literature and art became more spiritual. The importation of notions from the German æsthetic school gave a new philosophic basis and added elements to criticism, which, if sometimes tending to mystic indefiniteness, were at least part of a system of thought.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the success of the scientific method applied to the material and animate world affected the tone of critical thought, and, indeed, of all reasoning. Great attention was paid to details of material form, and some remarkable discoveries resulted from exact analysis of the verse of different plays. At the same time there was a disposition to minimize the elements of wonder and reverence, and to reduce all critical considerations to rational grounds. This corrected some of the extravagancies of the romanticists, but in some instances overdid itself by sinking the aesthetic quality of the play and concentrating attention on matters that could be counted and generalized mathematically, or by accumulating a mass of historic details of slight significance and regarding the accumulation as an end. This is quite evident in the writings of Messrs. Furnival, Fleay, and Simpson. The influence of the scientific method is also apparent in a tendency towards minute subdivisions such as are properly made in botany and geology, and further in a disposition to treat the poet and his plays as ordinary phenomena, natural products to be accounted for by favorable circumstances, a view which leads to erroneous conceptions as surely as does the other extreme, that poetry is the result of a direct inspiration from some source outside the inspired individual. Many critics who may be regarded as natural-born romanticists, or perhaps influenced by the later-day æsthetes, combatted the scientific critics vigorously.

In the end, however, the scientific method was lim

ited to careful scrutiny of facts and rational deduction
therefrom, tempered by a consciousness that the ma-
terial criticised was great poetry, a product of the
imagination as well as of the reason, and dependent
on a faculty which, if not abnormal in its nature, is so
excessive in the favored individual as to be abnormal
in energy, and, therefore, creative. In Professors Brad-
.I
ley and Lounsbury we have critics to whom poetry is a
wonderful and beautiful thing, but who sift evidence
and form no conclusions not legitimately based on
evidence. They might be called rational romanticists,
combining learning and culture. They have a sub-
limated common sense and a comprehension of the
function of great art which to the mathematicians is
foolishness.

Of course men of any type may exist in any period. A romantic individualist like Mr. Swinburne may be contemporary with the most rigorous scientist like Mr. Fleay, a man of ponderous common sense like Dr. Gervinus may succeed a romanticist like Schlegel. Hallam closely follows Coleridge, instead of preceding him by a generation. Nevertheless, there is a development of thought in Shakespearean criticism. Considering the effort that has been expended on it, it would be discouraging were there not signs of more catholic views and increasing breadth of grasp.

This book considers only the principal critics. The first volume of Knight's Cabinet Edition contains a brief review of the critical writings on Shakespeare down to 1850, but is principally taken up with an account of various editions. It is out of print. The copious extracts in Dr. Furness's Variorum Edition apply to individual plays. Professor Lounsbury's volumes give a minute history of Shakespearean criticism for the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

None but professionals can read all the originals. This book, growing out of college lectures, is intended for the ordinary reader.

Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Macmillan and Company of London and the editor of the Atlantic for permission to print extracts from their publications. I wish, too, to thank the librarians of Yale, Harvard, and the Boston Public Library for lending me valuable books. C. F. JOHNSON.

HARTFORD, September, 1908.