Of course it
is easy for a critic to gain the credit of common-sense at the same time
that he saves himself the trouble of doing what he too frequently shows
himself incapable of doing to any good purpose--we mean _thinking_--by
classing all such passages together as bombastical nonsense; but even in
the matter of poetry and bombast, a wise reader will recognize that
extremes so entirely meet, without being in the least identical, that
they are capable of a sort of chemico-literary admixture, if not of
combination. Goethe himself need not have been ashamed to have written
one or two of the scenes in Marlowe's "Faust;" not that we mean to imply
that they in the least resemble Goethe's handiwork. His verse is, for
dramatic purposes, far inferior to Shakspere's; but it was a great
matter for Shakspere that Marlowe preceded him, and helped to prepare to
his hand the tools and fashions he needed. The provision of blank verse
for Shakspere's use seems to us worthy of being called providential,
even in a system in which we cannot believe that there is any chance.
For as the stage itself is elevated a few feet above the ordinary level,
because it is the scene of a _representation_, just so the speech of the
drama, dealing not with unreal but with ideal persons, the fool being a
worthy fool, and the villain a worthy villain, needs to be elevated some
tones above that of ordinary life, which is generally flavoured with so
much of the _commonplace_.
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