William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . ts rapidity of move-ment, and its dramatic interest, * Othello has longbeen one of the popular Shakespearian plays on thestage. Its chief characteristic is perhaps its pathos;the deep and penetrating appeal which the spectacleof the defeat of two noble natures by pure villanymakes to the imagination. Wordsworth declaredthat the tragedy of Othello, Platos records of thelast scenes in the career of Socrates, and IzaakWaltons Life of George Herbert are the mostpathetic of human compositions. Shakespeare was now swiftly mounting to thesublimest heigh
William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . ts rapidity of move-ment, and its dramatic interest, * Othello has longbeen one of the popular Shakespearian plays on thestage. Its chief characteristic is perhaps its pathos;the deep and penetrating appeal which the spectacleof the defeat of two noble natures by pure villanymakes to the imagination. Wordsworth declaredthat the tragedy of Othello, Platos records of thelast scenes in the career of Socrates, and IzaakWaltons Life of George Herbert are the mostpathetic of human compositions. Shakespeare was now swiftly mounting to thesublimest heights of dramatic creation, penetratingfarther and farther into the depths of the humanspirit, and steadily bringing the tragic movement 324 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE home to the soul of the tragic hero. In Romeoand Juhet the family and social forces are morepowerful than the passion and devotion of the ill-fated lovers; in Julius Ceesar the interest fast-ens upon Brutus, while the dead Imperator remainsin the background as the personification of a new. OLD CLOPTON BRIDGE. order in society; in Hamlet the time, which wasout of joint, must be taken into account if the chiefactor is to be made comprehensible. In Othello the essential movement is wholly within the circleof the character of the protagonist; the tragic actionsprings out of Othellos nature; the drama issuesout of the heart of the hero and is centred in marks the culmination of Shakespeares art THE LATER TRAGEDIES 325 as a dramatist; every element in the play — char-acter, action, incident, background — is strictly sub-ordinated to the unity and totality of the movement,and the concentrated energy and vitality of thedramatists genius bear the drama swiftly forward tothe dramatic crisis. In Macbeth, which takes rank with Hamlet, Lear, and Othello as the dramatic masterpiecesof Shakespeare, the same breadth and unity of in-terest are notable. It is one of the shortest of theplays; there is almost no relief from humou
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectshakesp, bookyear1901
