ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an extract from an article published in The Authorship of Shakespeare. New York, 1866. Shakespeare has long been considered by all that speak the English tongue, and by the learned of other nations likewise, as the greatest of dramatic poets. The plays of Shakespeare have been understood and appreciated rather according to existing standards of judgment. For the most part, all that has been seen in Shakespeare has been considered as the product of some kind of spontaneous inspiration. The reason has been nearly this, that since Bacon, if Berkeley be excepted, England, or the English language, has never had a philosophy at all. Being translated into German, Shakespeare became “the father of German literature,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson. But parts of him, which have been more especially quoted as the basis of this German appreciation, are those which have been least noticed at home, or appreciated on quite other grounds.
