ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author admires of Shakspeare, as a profound delineator of human nature and a sublime poet, is but little short of idolatry. There are several of the most admired plays of Shakspeare which give much more pleasure to read than to see performed upon the stage. Shakspeare, with his intuitive sagacity, has also marked the characteristics of the change between these two of his ’seven ages.’ For instance, ’Othello’ and ’Lear’; both of which abound in beauty of detail, in poetical passages, in highly-wrought and consistently preserved characters. The chief import of these objections to the manner in which Shakspeare’s plays are represented upon the stage, is to vindicate the great ’master of the drama’ from the liberties taken by stage-managers with his text.
