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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
The readers of Shakspeare are of four classes , and these may be subdivided . The first reads , enamoured of the beauty and profusion of poetical imagery , the richness of expression , and appropriateness of language ; he gleans from his author a plenteous store of maxims , apophthegms on men ' s conduct and actions , and points of distinction in human character and human
intelligence ; or , seeing beyond these , Shakspeare ' s plays contain for him a system of moral philosophy , irradiated by the glories of poetry . Thence he garners up in his mind a theoretical knowledge of his fellow-man , and applies to this inexhaustible storehouse for his parallels and comparisons ; the more frequent are his references and examinations , the more closely he , even thus , studies the great master of the mind and heart of man , so the
more does he feel assured of the wondrous perception , the almost omniscient piercing of Shakspeare ' s soul-enkindled eye . To such an one the exhibition of a drama of Shakspeare ' s is single in its attraction . To hear a living voice shape forth those words , and in its tones and undulations mould those sentences , giving form and sound to those exquisite and airy images , and those truths of philosophy , to those maxims of human conduct , and to
those admirable moral lessons of life , is enough of dramatic realization to liim ; enough though the delivery be not the embodied conceptions of the speaker : such an auditor has not himself , perhaps , the faculty to embody them , or the discrimination to see which speaker does or which does not . With a closed eye he may sit , listen , and be delighted ; and that delig ht alone will amply compensate the cost of cash and time with which he purchased it .
Of the second class is he whose reading may be called reflective . He has not the power of creating , of embodying , of living in thoughts and emotions which he sees as he reads . He holds , marshalled under his eye , the shapes , and figures , and movements of the beings and events which are delineated in the
words . His attraction to the theatre will be the spectacular realization of his reflected images . This is the most fastidious of all auditors , if he happen to have historical or local knowledge of facts and custom to help his criticism . His disappointment or gratification will be in proportion to the degree of pictorial
realization ; an anachronism of dress , decoration , or embellishment , will swallow vip aught and all else of beauty and truth ; and he promptly condemns the players in a lump . Strictness ot costume , the illusive adjuncts , and the precision of physical action , make the sum of his enjoyment . The pantomime of Shakspeare is the all in all with him . If this be good , his sliil-
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CLASSIFICATION OF READERS OF SHAKSPEARE , WITH REMARKS ON MACREADY'S KING JOHN .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 110, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/26/
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