ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author considers a realist, at a time when realism was supposed to apply mainly to modern drama. The Shakespearean Drama of those days had become so pseudo-traditional that realism shocked the audience. Shakespeare’s view of life was reasserted: the criminal was once more human. As one explores Shakespeare’s plays, and feels their immensity of sympathy and understanding of human life, and that wilful, indescribable bundle of nonsense called human nature, one’s amazement grows. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Britain had the choice between the Way of Shakespeare and the Way of Bacon. Shakespeare showed us the Way of the Intuition, that mode of Reason which awakens the spiritual life, deep understanding, real feeling, and increased perception, a greater livingness, and nobler service in craftsmanship and art. Thanks to Shakespeare, and to nobody else, the foundations of the Drama are secure, and on that strength the building has been steady.
