It shows itself by the gradual
breaking-up of the blank-verse in the later plays, by the predominance
given to prose, and by the over-importance assigned to characterisation.
The passages in Shakespeare--and they are many--where the language is
uncouth, vulgar, exaggerated, fantastic, obscene even, are entirely due
to Life calling for an echo of her own voice, and rejecting the
intervention of beautiful style, through which alone should life be
suffered to find expression. Shakespeare is not by any means a flawless
artist. He is too fond of going directly to life, and borrowing life's
natural utterance. He forgets that when Art surrenders her imaginative
medium she surrenders everything.--_The Decay of Lying_.
LIFE THE DISCIPLE
We have all seen in our own day in England how a certain curious and
fascinating type of beauty, invented and emphasised by two imaginative
painters, has so influenced Life that whenever one goes to a private view
or to an artistic salon one sees, here the mystic eyes of Rossetti's
dream, the long ivory throat, the strange square-cut jaw, the loosened
shadowy hair that he so ardently loved, there the sweet maidenhood of
'The Golden Stair,' the blossom-like mouth and weary loveliness of the
'Laus Amoris,' the passion-pale face of Andromeda, the thin hands and
lithe beauty of the Vivian in 'Merlin's Dream.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26