Part 23 (2/2)

[34] With the first co, Hermione's

If powers divine Behold our human actions, as they do:

with the second, Helena's

It is not so with Hiuess by shows; But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men:

followed soon after by Lafeu's remark:

They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to s supernatural and causeless

Hence it is that weknowledge, e should submit ourselves to an unknown fear

[35] It is worth noting that the reference, which appears in the First Quarto version of 'To be or not to be,' to 'an everlasting judge,' disappears in the revised versions

[36] The suggested inference, of course, is that this speech, thus out of character, and Hah that is in character), show us Shakespeare's own mind It has force, I think, but not compulsory force The topics of these speeches are, in the old sense of the word, commonplaces Shakespeare may have felt, Here is s and thoughts of supreme interest to men of all times and places and modes of belief It would not follow from this that they are not 'personal,'

but any inference to a non-acceptance of received religious ideas would be e' is a patent exaested elaboration of a commonplace)

[37] What actions in particular _his_ conscience approved and disapproved is another question and one not relevant here

[38] This does not at all imply to Shakespeare, so far as we see, that evil is never to be forcibly resisted

[39] I do not es in the _Tempest_ Shakespeare, while he wrote theht of himself It seeht in the words,

And thence retire rave;

and also in those lines about prayer and pardon which close the Epilogue, and to reat seriousness, contrasting rave and personal under- it cannot have been intended for the audience, which would take the prayer as addressed to itself

[40] It h idyllic, is not so falsely idyllic as sohly say, on a contrast between court and country; but those who inhale virtue fro virtue with them, and the country has its churlish masters and unkind or uncouth ed and fully illustrated by Mr

Harris

[42] It ue above, I should have inative 'unreality' in love referred to on p 326

But I do not see in Haen or even a Juliet, though naturally he was less clearly aware of her deficiencies than Shakespeare

I ue We do not feel that the probleic heroes could have been fatal to Shakespeare himself The immense breadth and clearness of his intellect would have saved him from the fate of Othello, Troilus, or Antony But we do feel, I think, and he himself may have felt, that he could not have coped with Hamlet's problem; and there is no improbability in the idea that he ree the melancholia of his hero

SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE AND AUDIENCE

SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE AND AUDIENCE

Why should we concern ourselves with Shakespeare's theatre and audience?

The vast majority of his readers since the Restoration have known nothing about them, and have enjoyed his plays enor, it was for want of inorance of the conditions under which his plays were produced At any rate, such ignorance does not exclude us from the _soul_ of Shakespearean drama, any edy; and it is the soul that counts and endures For the rest, we all know that Shakespeare's tiard to machinery; and so we are prepared for coarse speech and prie about the matter Antiquarians may naturally wish to know ent enjoyment of the plays?