ABSTRACT
On casting, the eye over the rich extent of William Shakespeare's works, the attention is at once drawn to certain of them, whose fresh, smiling colours indicate that their principal and proper theme is love. One conspicuous aspect of Shakespeare’s genius corresponds to what are known as the “historical plays.” The chapter examines the similarity between Shakespeare and Ariosto, for both painted the eternal comedy of love. “In his men, as in his women,” says Heine, with his accustomed grace, when talking of the Shakespearean comedy, “passion is altogether without that fearful seriousness, that fatalistic necessity, which it manifests in the tragedies. Love does in truth wear there, as ever, a bandage over his eyes and bears a quiver full of darts. In Shakespeare is nothing of the cold literary exercise; he takes a vivid interest even in the play of fancy, in the bringing about of marvellous coincidences, of unexpected meetings, in the romantic and the idyllic.
