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Untitled Article
HOt very instructive , it will be at least very c < curiou ? " to see them fairly placed in battle array before us . I . Shakspeare , in his writings , proceeded on an essentially
wrong plan . II ,. This essentially wrong plan consisted in the use of an unnatural and absurd style . IH . Diction is an accidental acquirement ; but style is a part of character . { Therefore part of the character of Shak * speare was unnatural and absurd . ) IV . The faults and defects of the old dramatists of Shakspeare ' s time , arose from the depraved taste of the period . V , The essence of these faults , and the depraved taste
which induced them , was redundancy of diction . ( Hence fhe srror in the taste of the time , and of these writers , consisted in the quantity \ and not the quality , of the words employed ? Ths essentially wrong plan of Shakspeare was the result of a part of his character—which was unnatural and absurd ; the essentially wrong plan of his contemporaries , was in the use of too many words . )
VI . What the admirers and students of the old dramatists consider as profound problems of human passion solved by action , are , in reality , nothing better than the nursery tales of a bonne ; and what the said admirers consider as rich and powerful imagery , is , in truth , the mere exhaustion of common * place thoughts by repeating them in various Terbal forms ,
producing variety of sound . ( The reviewer gives abundant instances of the fact . ) VII . Most of the old dramatists , being unquestionably men of no common talents , could not fail to strike out ( from their flinty natures ?) passages of considerable beauty . Habitual negligence enabled them to write so much , and , owing to the quantity , they sometimes stumbled upon some affecting
exhibition of passion . ( If this be the cause , how very extraordinary that so many others , before and ever since , should have written so much in the dramatic shape—and all sorts of shapes- —who have never once stumbled upon anything of the kind ! It in not accident that generates true power . We will defy anybody to produce one original thought or image of the
highest power , either in intellect , imagination , or a compound of both , from all the works of all the mass of minor poets that have ever lived ?) VIII . Great power is the amplification of language .
IX . Great power is only admired in the infancy of society . Those who enjoy the blessings of a confirmed literary taste , are too refined to endure it . X . The scene from the Spanish Tragedy , in all of which there is great power , derives its merit , and conveys pleasure , from the mere sound of flowing and varied phrases , or the mere display of elocution .
Untitled Article
8 £ 4 Th $ London JRevw v . The British Drama .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 254, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/62/
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