Perhaps it detracts a little from our interest in the
Lady Beatrice, that after all she should wish to live, and should seek
to preserve her life by a denial of her crime. She, however, evidently
justifies the denial to herself on the ground that, the deed being
absolutely right, although regarded as most criminal by her judges, the
only way to get true justice is to deny the fact, which, there being no
guilt, she might consider as only a verbal lie. Her very purity of
conscience enables her to utter this with the most absolute innocence of
look, and word, and tone. This is probably a historical fact, and
Shelley had to make the best of it. In the drama there is great
tenderness, as well as terror; but for a full effect, one feels it
desirable to be brought better acquainted with the individuals than the
drama, from its want of graduation, permits. Shelley, however, was only
six-and-twenty when he wrote it. He must have been attracted to the
subject by its embodying the concentration of tyranny, lawlessness, and
brutality in old Cenci, as opposed to, and exercised upon, an ideal
loveliness and nobleness in the person of Beatrice.
Pages:
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350