William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (Poems And Sonnets) lyrics

Our idolatry of Shakespeare (not to say our admiration) ceases with his plays. In his other productions he was a mere author, though not a common author. It was only by representing others, that he became himself. He could go out of himself, and express the soul of Cleopatra; but in his own person, he appeared to be always waiting for the prompter's cue. In expressing the thoughts of others, he seemed inspired; in expressing his own, he was a mechanic. The licence of an a**umed character was necessary to restore his genius to the privileges of nature, and to give him courage to break through the tyranny of fashion, the trammels of custom. In his plays, he was 'as broad and casing as the general air'; in his poems, on the contrary, he appears to be 'cooped, and cabined in' by all the technicalities of art, by all the petty intricacies of thought and language, which poetry had learned from the controversial jargon of the schools, where words had been made a substitute for things. There was, if we mistake not, something of modesty, and a painful sense of personal propriety at the bottom of this. Shakespeare's imagination, by identifying itself with the strongest characters in the most trying circumstances, grappled at once with nature, and trampled the littleness of art under his feet: the rapid changes of situation, the wide range of the universe, gave him life and spirit, and afforded full scope to his genius; but returned into his closet again, and having a**umed the badge of his profession, he could only labour in his vocation, and conform himself to existing models. The thoughts, the pa**ions, the words which the poet's pen, 'glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven', lent to others, shook off the fetters of pedantry and affectation; while his own thoughts and feelings, standing by themselves, were seized upon as lawful prey, and tortured to d**h according to the established rules and practice of the day. In a word, we do not like Shakespeare's poems, because we like his plays: the one, in all their excellences, are just the reverse of the other. It has been the fashion of late to cry up our author's poems, as equal to his plays: this is the desperate cant of modern criticism. We would ask, was there the slightest comparison between Shakespeare, and either Chaucer or Spenser, as mere poets? Not any.—The two poems of VENUS AND ADONIS and of TARQUIN AND LUCRECE appear to us like a couple of ice-houses. They are about as hard, as glittering, and as cold. The author seems all the time to be thinking of his verses, and not of his subject,—not of what his characters would feel, but of what he shall say; and as it must happen in all such cases, he always puts into their mouths those things which they would be the last to think of, and which it shows the greatest ingenuity in him to find out. The whole is laboured, up-hill work. The poet is perpetually singling out the difficulties of the art to make an exhibition of his strength and sk** in wrestling with them. He is making perpetual trials of them as if his mastery over them were doubted. The images, which are often striking, are generally applied to things which they are the least like: so that they do not blend with the poem, but seem stuck upon it, like splendid patchwork, or remain quite distinct from it, like detached substances, painted and varnished over. A beautiful thought is sure to be lost in an endless commentary upon it. The speakers are like persons who have both leisure and inclination to make riddles on their own situation, and to twist and turn every object or incident into acrostics and anagrams. Everything is spun out into allegory; and a digression is always preferred to the main story. Sentiment is built up upon plays of words; the hero or h**ne feels, not from the impulse of pa**ion, but from the force of dialectics. There is besides, a strange attempt to substitute the language of painting for that of poetry, to make us SEE their feelings in the faces of the persons; and again, consistently with this, in the description of the picture in TARQUIN AND LUCRECE, those circumstances are chiefly insisted on, which it would be impossible to convey except by words. The invocation to Opportunity in the TARQUIN AND LUCRECE is full of thoughts and images, but at the same time it is overloaded by them. The concluding stanza expresses all our objections to this kind of poetry: Oh! idle words, servants to shallow fools; Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators; Busy yourselves in sk**-contending schools; Debate when leisure serves with dull debaters; To trembling clients be their mediators: For me I force not argument a straw, Since that my case is past all help of law. The description of the horse in VENUS AND ADONIS has been particularly admired, and not without reason: Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs, and pa**ing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad bu*tock, tender hide: Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back. Now this inventory of perfections shows great knowledge of the horse; and is good matter-of-fact poetry. Let the reader but compare it with a speech in the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM where Theseus describes his hounds— And their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew— and he will perceive at once what we mean by the difference between Shakespeare's own poetry, and that of his plays. We prefer the PASSIONATE PILGRIM very much to the LOVER'S COMPLAINT. It has been doubted whether the latter poem is Shakespeare's. Of the Sonnets we do not well know what to say. The subject of them seems to be somewhat equivocal; but many of them are highly beautiful in themselves, and interesting as they relate to the state of the personal feelings of the author. The following are some of the most striking: CONSTANCY Let those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread, But as the marigold in the sun's eye; And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famous'd for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd: Then happy I, that love and am belov'd, Where I may not remove, nor be removed. LOVE'S CONSOLATION When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,—and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. NOVELTY My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, And stops his pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song. LIFE'S DECAY That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, d**h's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the d**h-bed whereon it must expire Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. In all these, as well as in many others, there is a mild tone of sentiment, deep, mellow, and sustained, very different from the crudeness of his earlier poems.