oductions are most dramatic; he
wins the reader by his mode of treatment, of disclosing man's innermost
life; the demands of the stage appear unessential to him, and thus he
takes an easy course, and, in an intellectual sense, we serenely follow
him. We transport ourselves with him from one locality to another; our
imagination supplies all the intermediate actions that he omits; nay, we
are grateful to him for arousing our spiritual faculties in so worthy a
fashion. By producing everything in theatrical form, he facilitates the
activity of the imagination; for we are more familiar with the "boards
that mean the world" than with the world itself, and we may read and
hear the most singular things and yet feel that they might actually take
place before our eyes on the stage; hence the frequent failure of
dramatizations of popular novels.

Strictly speaking, however, nothing is dramatic except that which
strikes the eye as symbolic--an important action which betokens one
still more important. That Shakespeare could attain this height too is
evidenced in the scene where the son and heir takes the crown from the
side of the father slumbering on his deathbed, places it on his own
head, and struts off with it.[2] But these are only episodes, scattered
jewels separated by much that is undramatic. Shakespeare's whole mode of
procedure finds something unaccommodating in the actual stage; his great
talent is that of an epitomist, and since poets are, on the whole,
epitomists of Nature, we must here, too, acknowledge Shakespeare's great
merit; only we deny, at the same time, and that to his credit, that the
stage was a worthy sphere for his genius. It is precisely this
limitation of the stage, however, which causes him to restrict himself.

But he does not, like other poets, select particular materials for
particular works; he makes an idea the central point and refers the
earth and the universe to it. As he condenses ancient and modern
history, he can utilize the material of every chronicle, and often
adheres to it literally. Not so conscientiously does he proceed with the
tales, as _Hamlet_ attests. _Romeo and Juliet_ is more faithful to
tradition; yet he almost destroys its tragic content by the two comic
figures, Mercutio and the nurse, probably presented by two popular
actors--the nurse undoubtedly acted by a man. If we examine the
structure of the play very closely, we notice that these two figures and
the elements touching t