ABSTRACT
The distance, in Shakespearean tragedy, of ‘living’ from ‘writing’ is what gives him his complete anonymity, but it also reveals such writing to be an angelical activity. A coincidence with Renaissance idealism is conferred upon us, more or less, by our boarding the king’s ship, not to do as Ariel does, but to share in the rareness of his magic. Shakespearean tragedy depends upon the fact that angelic perceptions are too good for this life, but they are none the less what creatures who have to live this life, and live it with an unsuitably godlike apprehension, depend on. Dover cliff gives us a special awareness of such freedom; and it seems the same kind of awareness that tantalises the consciousness of Lear and Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello. No wonder that Hazlitt said that this was the play in which Shakespeare was most in earnest.
