here is peace, not merely filth and doubt. There
is even a sense of a greater power--calm and immovable as history
itself. Ibsen's plays are nervous, hectic, and unbelieving. In the words
of Rosmer: "Since there is no judge over us, we must hold a judgment day
for ourselves." Contrast this with Hamlet's soliloquy. And, finally,
one feels sure in Shakespeare that the play means something. It has a
beginning and an end. "What shall we say of plays like Ibsen's, in which
Act I and Act II give no clue to Act III, and where both question and
answer are hurled at us in the same speech?"

In the same year, 1895, Georg Brandes published in _Samtiden_,[15] at
that time issued in Bergen, two articles on _Shakespeare's Work in his
Period of Gloom_ (Shakespeare i hans Digtnings morke Periode) which
embody in compact form that thesis since elaborated in his big work.
Shakespeare's tragedies were the outcome of a deep pessimism that had
grown for years and culminated when he was about forty. He was tired of
the vice, the hollowness, the ungratefulness, of life. The immediate
cause must remain unknown, but the fact of his melancholy seems clear
enough. His comedy days were over and he began to portray a side of life
which he had hitherto kept hidden. _Julius Caesar_ marks the transition.
In Brutus we are reminded that high-mindedness in the presence of a
practical situation often fails, and that practical mistakes are often
as fatal as moral ones. From Brutus, Shakespeare came to Hamlet, a
character in transition from fine youth, full of illusions, to a manhood
whose faith is broken by the hard facts of the world. This is distinctly
autobiographical. _Hamlet_ and Sonnet 66 are of one piece. Shakespeare
was disillusioned. Add to this his struggle against his enemy,
Puritanism, and a growing conviction that the miseries of life bottom
in ignorance, and the reason for his growing pessimism becomes clear.
From Hamlet, whom the world crushes, to Macbeth, who faces it with its
own weapons, yet is haunted and terrified by what he does, the step is
easy. He knew Macbeth as he knew Hamlet.

[15. Vol. VI, pp. 49 ff.]

The scheming Iago, too, he must have known, for he has portrayed
him with matchless art. "But _Othello_ was a mere monograph; _Lear_
is a cosmic picture. Shakespeare turns from _Othello_ to _Lear_ in
consequence of the necessity which the poet feels to supplement and
round out his beginning." _Othello_ is noble chamber music