Hazlitt on English Literature
Paperback
Currently unavailable to order
ISBN10: 1231208066
ISBN13: 9781231208069
Publisher: General Books
Pages: 74
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.15 Width: 7.44 Depth: 9.69
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781231208069
Publisher: General Books
Pages: 74
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.15 Width: 7.44 Depth: 9.69
Language: English
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 Excerpt: ...than comedy. His female characters, which have been found fault with as insipid, are the finest in the world. Lastly. Shakspeare was the least of a coxcomb of any one that ever lived, and much of a gentleman. THE CHARACTERS OF SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS Cymbeline Cymbeline is one of the most delightful of Shakspeare's historical plays. It may be considered as a dramatic romance, in which the most striking parts of the story are thrown into the form of a dialogue, and the intermediate circumstances are explained by the different speakers, as occasion renders necessary. The action is less concentrated in consequence; but the interest becomes more aerial and refined from the principle of perspective introduced into the subject by the imaginary changes of scene, as well as by the length of time it occupies. The reading of this play is like going a journey with some uncertain object at the end of it, and in which the suspense is kept up and heightened by the long intervals between each action. Though the events are scattered over such an extent of surface, and relate to such a variety of characters, yet the links which bind the different interests of the story together are never entirely broken. The most straggling and seemingly casual incidents are contrived in such a manner as to lead at last to the most complete developement of the catastrophe. The ease and conscious unconcern with which this is effected only makes the skill more wonderful. The business of the plot evidently thickens in the last act: the story moves forward with increasing rapidity at every step; its various ramifications are drawn from the most distant points to the same centre; the principal characters are SO brought together, and placed in very critical situations; and the fate of almost every per...