Полезное:
Как сделать разговор полезным и приятным
Как сделать объемную звезду своими руками
Как сделать то, что делать не хочется?
Как сделать погремушку
Как сделать так чтобы женщины сами знакомились с вами
Как сделать идею коммерческой
Как сделать хорошую растяжку ног?
Как сделать наш разум здоровым?
Как сделать, чтобы люди обманывали меньше
Вопрос 4. Как сделать так, чтобы вас уважали и ценили?
Как сделать лучше себе и другим людям
Как сделать свидание интересным?
Категории:
АрхитектураАстрономияБиологияГеографияГеологияИнформатикаИскусствоИсторияКулинарияКультураМаркетингМатематикаМедицинаМенеджментОхрана трудаПравоПроизводствоПсихологияРелигияСоциологияСпортТехникаФизикаФилософияХимияЭкологияЭкономикаЭлектроника
READING. It is very different to measure the greatness of Shakespeare; but there are several external as well as internal standards with which we may compare him
|
|
It is very different to measure the greatness of Shakespeare; but there are several external as well as internal standards with which we may compare him, and we shall thus be helped to a more definite notion1 of his real power.
(a) He was one of the greatest poets that ever lived. Perhaps Homer2, who lived in a younger and more childlike time, is greater than he; but the forms of their poetry are as different and as wide apart as the times in which they lived, and it would be difficult to compare them.
(b) He was one of the greatest artists3 that ever lived. He understood how to show the beauty and poetry that lives in everything and every man that God has made. So far as polish and beauty of rhythm is concerned4, Dante is perhaps his superior, but not always.
(c) He shows a greater mastery over language than any poet or prose-writer5 that ever lived.
There are many poor uneducated persons, chiefly in the agricultural districts of England, who go through life from the cradle to the grave with a vocabulary of only 500 words. The number of words in ordinary use, for the purposes of business and communication, is 3000. The ordinary vocabulary of a writer like Thackeray6 amounts to 5000 words; while the vocabulary of Milton rises to 7000 words. But the vocabulary of Shakespeare reaches the astonishing number of 21,000.
The power of making new phrases that shall be accepted by the nation and become part of their language is a power possessed by genius7. The number of new phrases thrown by Shakespeare into the treasury of our language is estimated by hundreds. The language is saturated with them; and we speak Shakespeare and think Shakespeare, whether we will or whether we do not will8, both consciously and unconsciously.
(d) Shakespeare shows a greater knowledge of human nature than any other writer that ever lived. He seems to have known everything9. He has contributed to literature a larger number of "characters10" than any other writer. Shakespeare knew and understood character as a whole, and always works upon it and develops it from within, and never from without. The springs of action in a real person11 are infinite and infinitely complex; and Shakespeare understood this better than any other writer.
(e) He has written more good acting plays than any other dramatist.
(f) He has covered a greater extent of ground in the selection of his characters12. He has drawn them from Greece and Italy as well as from England; and he has drawn them from all periods of time.
(g) He has written in a greater variety of styles than any other writer. He has a style for every one of his great characters, by which that character is distinguished from every other.
To sum up —
(a) He was a great poet.
(b) A great artist.
(c) The greatest master of words and phrases.
(d) The most learned person in the human heart.
(e) The most fruitful in good plays.
(f) The most varied stylist.
From:A Biographical History of English Literature.
Date: 2015-12-13; view: 411; Нарушение авторских прав