This is so, in a special sense, in
_Hamlet_, the subtlest of all Shakspere's plays, and, if not his
masterpiece, at any rate the one which has most attracted and puzzled
the greatest minds. It is observable that in Shakspere's comedies there
is no one central figure, but that, in passing into tragedy, he
intensified and concentrated the attention upon a single character. This
difference is seen even in the naming of the plays; the tragedies always
take their titles from their heroes, the comedies never.
Somewhat later, probably, than the tragedies already mentioned were the
three Roman plays, _Julius Caesar, Coriolanus,_ and _Anthony and
Cleopatra_. It is characteristic of Shakspere that he invented the plot
of none of his plays, but took material that he found at hand. In these
Roman tragedies he followed Plutarch closely, and yet, even in so doing,
gave, if possible, a greater evidence of real creative power than when
he borrowed a mere outline of a story from some Italian novelist. It is
most instructive to compare _Julius Caesar_ with Ben Jonson's _Catiline_
and _Sejanus_. Jonson was careful not to go beyond his text. In
_Catiline_ he translates almost literally the whole of Cicero's first
oration against Catiline. _Sejanus_ is a mosaic of passages from Tacitus
and Suetonius.
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