Transcriber's note.
Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. Variablespelling has been retained. A list of the changes made can be found atthe end of the book.
SHAKESPEAREAS A DRAMATIC ARTIST
MOULTON
London
HENRY FROWDE
Oxford University Press Warehouse
Amen Corner, E.C.
SHAKESPEARE
AS
A DRAMATIC ARTIST
A POPULAR ILLUSTRATION OF
THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM
BY
RICHARD G. MOULTON, M.A.
LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY (EXTENSION) LECTURER IN LITERATURE
Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1885
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE.
I have had three objects before me in writing this book.The first concerns the general reader. 'No one needs assistancein order to perceive Shakespeare's greatness; but animpression is not uncommonly to be found, especiallyamongst English readers, that Shakespeare's greatness liesmainly in his deep knowledge of human nature, while, as tothe technicalities of Dramatic Art, he is at once careless ofthem and too great to need them. I have endeavoured tocombat this impression by a series of Studies of Shakespeareas a Dramatic Artist. They are chiefly occupied with afew master-strokes of art, sufficient to illustrate the revolutionShakespeare created in the Drama of the world—a revolutionnot at once perceived simply because it had carried theDrama at a bound so far beyond Dramatic Criticism that theappreciation of Shakespeare's plays was left to the uninstructedpublic, while the trained criticism that ought to haverecognised the new departure was engaged in clamouring forother views of dramatic treatment, which it failed to perceivethat Shakespeare had rendered obsolete.
While the earlier chapters are taken up with these Studies,ivthe rest of the work is an attempt, in very brief form, to presentDramatic Criticism as a regular Inductive Science. IfI speak of this as a new branch of Science I am not ignoringthe great works on Shakespeare-Criticism which alreadyexist, the later of which have treated their subject in aninductive spirit. What these still leave wanting is a recognitionof method in application to the study of the Drama: mypurpose is to claim for Criticism a position amongst theInductive Sciences, and to sketch in outline a plan for theDramatic side of such a Critical Science.
A third purpose has been to make the work of use as aneducational manual. Shakespeare now enters into everyscheme of liberal education; but the annotated editions ofhis works give the student little assist