ashion of speaking peculiar to the time, make somewhat obscure at
first, will in almost every case yield to the unassisted cogitation of any
ordinarily intelligent person; and the results so reached are far more
likely to be the true results than the elaborate emendations which delight
a certain class of editors. A certain amount of mere glossary is of course
necessary, but otherwise the fewer corks and bladders the swimmer takes
with him when he ventures into "the ocean which is Shakespere," the better.
There are, however, certain common errors, some of which have survived even
the last century of Shakespere-study and Shakespere-worship, which must
perhaps be discussed. For in the case of the greatest writers, the business
of the critic is much more to shovel away the rubbish of his predecessors
than to attempt any accumulation of his own. The chief of these errors--or
rather that error which practically swallows up all the others and can
produce them again at any time--is that Shakespere was, if not exactly an
inspired idiot, at any rate a mainly tentative if not purely unconscious
artist, much of whose work is only not bad as art, while most, if not all
of it, was originally produced with a minimum of artistic consciousness and
design. This enormous error, which is protean in form, has naturally
induced the counter error of a too great insistence on the consciousness
and elaboration of Shakespere's art. The most elaborate theories of this
art have been framed--theories involving the construction of perhaps as
much baseless fabric as anything else connected with the subject, which is
saying a great deal. It appears to me in the highest degree improbable that
Shakespere had before him consciously more than three purposes; but these
three I think that he constantly had, and that he was completely successful
in achieving them. The first was to tell in every play a dramatically
complete story; the second was to work that story out by the means of
purely human and probable characters; and the third was to give such form
and ornaments to the working out as might please the playgoers of his day.
In pursuing the first two he was the poet or dramatist of all time. In
pursuing the third he was the intelligent playwright. But (and here is the
source of the common error) it by no means follows that his attention, and
his successful attention, to his third purpose in any way interferes with,
or degrades, his excellence as a pursuer of