Akin
to this is the use to which Shakspere put the old Vice, or Clown, of the
moralities. The Fool in Lear, Touchstone in _As You Like It_, and
Thersites in _Troilus and Cressida_, are a sort of parody of the
function of the Greek chorus, commenting the action of the drama with
scraps of bitter, or half-crazy, philosophy, and wonderful gleams of
insight into the depths of man's nature.
The earliest of Shakspere's tragedies, unless _Titus Andronicus_ be his,
was, doubtless, _Romeo and Juliet_, which is full of the passion and
poetry of youth and of first love. It contains a large proportion of
riming lines, which is usually a sign in Shakspere of early work. He
dropped rime more and more in his later plays, and his blank verse grew
freer and more varied in its pauses and the number of its feet. _Romeo
and Juliet_ is also unique, among his tragedies, in this respect, that
the catastrophe is brought about by a fatality, as in the Greek drama.
It was Shakspere's habit to work out his tragic conclusions from within,
through character, rather than through external chances. This is true of
all the great tragedies of his middle life, _Hamlet, Othello, Lear,
Macbeth_, in every one of which the catastrophe is involved in the
character and actions of the hero.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127