eenth, but in our time it is no longer possible
to follow with interest the development of events which one knows could
not take place in the conditions which the author describes in detail.
The artificiality of the positions, not flowing from the natural course
of events, or from the nature of the characters, and their want of
conformity with time and space, is further increased by those coarse
embellishments which are continually added by Shakespeare and intended
to appear particularly touching. The extraordinary storm during which
King Lear roams about the heath, or the grass which for some reason he
puts on his head--like Ophelia in "Hamlet"--or Edgar's attire, or the
fool's speeches, or the appearance of the helmeted horseman, Edgar--all
these effects not only fail to enhance the impression, but produce an
opposite effect. "Man sieht die Absicht und man wird verstimmt," as
Goethe says. It often happens that even during these obviously
intentional efforts after effect, as, for instance, the dragging out by
the legs of half a dozen corpses, with which all Shakespeare's tragedies
terminate, instead of feeling fear and pity, one is tempted rather to
laugh.

IV

But it is not enough that Shakespeare's characters are placed in tragic
positions which are impossible, do not flow from the course of events,
are inappropriate to time and space--these personages, besides this, act
in a way which is out of keeping with their definite character, and is
quite arbitrary. It is generally asserted that in Shakespeare's dramas
the characters are specially well expressed, that, notwithstanding their
vividness, they are many-sided, like those of living people; that, while
exhibiting the characteristics of a given individual, they at the same
time wear the features of man in general; it is usual to say that the
delineation of character in Shakespeare is the height of perfection.

This is asserted with such confidence and repeated by all as
indisputable truth; but however much I endeavored to find confirmation
of this in Shakespeare's dramas, I always found the opposite. In
reading any of Shakespeare's dramas whatever, I was, from the very
first, instantly convinced that he was lacking in the most important, if
not the only, means of portraying characters: individuality of language,
_i.e._, the style of speech of every person being natural to his
character. This is absent from Shakespeare. All his characters speak,
not their own