Shaksperian Studies (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916. Excerpt: ... THE LOVE-STORY IN TROILUS AND CRESSIDA" I consider 'MacbethV Shakspere'a best acting play; it shows the greatest understanding of the stage. Dut would you learn to know his unfettered spirit, read 'Troilus and Cressida.' Goethe: Corwernationt vrilh Eckermann. Coleridge, in commenting upon 'Troilus and Cressida, ' remarked that he scarcely knew what to say of it, and that "there is no one of Shakspere's plays harder to characterize." His view has been shared by the ablest modern critics. Even the great tragedies, with all their psychological subtlety, have proved far less perplexing. Perhaps we are at the present time a little nearer to a satisfactory solution of the difficulties of this play than we were a hundred years ago, but we are still far from having plucked out the heart of its mystery. The superb poetry and imaginative reach of many of its passages, which appealed so strongly to Goethe, make failure to understand it as a whole doubly annoying. Barrett Wendell has summed up the feeling of many critics of later days by concluding, "A puzzle we found 'Troilus and Cressida, ' and a puzzle we must leave it; our best comment must be guess-work." But is it possible to say nothing more definite than this? / The chief difficulty lies in explaining the repellent treatment of the main theme, in which Cressida is made the most sensual of loose women, while Pandarus is drawn with savage cynicism, and of the secondary plot, or enveloping action, which gives disagreeable pictures of the warriors contending about windy Troy, particularly of those in the Greek camp. The atmosphere of the piece is unhealthy; immorality, cowardice, rancor and boasting are always In the air. Much noble verse is stained with a pessimism hard to reconcile with the essential sanity of mo...