For although we cannot agree with
Hallam's general criticism, either for or against Sackville, and
although we admire Spenser, we hope, as much as that writer could have
admired him, we yet venture to say that not only may some of Sackville's
personifications "fairly be compared with some of the most poetical
passages in Spenser," but that there is in this kind in Sackville a
strength and simplicity of representation which surpasses that of
Spenser in passages in which the latter probably imitated the former. We
refer to the allegorical personages in Sackville's "Induction to the
Mirrour of Magistrates," and in Spenser's description of the "House of
Pride."
Mr. Collier judges that the play in blank verse first represented on the
public stage was the "Tamburlaine" of Christopher Marlowe, and that it
was acted before 1587, at which date Shakspere would be twenty-three.
This was followed by other and better plays by the same author. Although
we cannot say much for the dramatic art of Marlowe, he has far surpassed
every one that went before him in dramatic _poetry_. The passages that
might worthily be quoted from Marlowe's writings for the sake of their
poetry are innumerable, notwithstanding that there are many others which
occupy a border land between poetry and bombast, and are such that it is
to us impossible to say to which class they rather belong.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136