ABSTRACT
Throughout his works, Shakespeare displays what has been called a “dramatic charity” which invests all humanity with an intense interest and significance. The concern for all sorts and conditions of men which we find in Shakespeare may be traceable ultimately to the Biblical conception of all men as equally important in the eyes of God. In the course of his career, Shakespeare created a fictional population so fully credible that many readers are tempted to treat them as living men and women. In the nineteenth century, biographies were written of Shakespeare’s characters, and there was at least one book on the girlhood of Shakespeare’s heroines, whereas in our own time certain critics have speculated at length on the reward and punishment of the characters in heaven and hell. Such excesses are ridiculous, but they demonstrate the intense sense of reality which Shakespeare was able to accord his characters.
