酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Heroes and Hero Worship-Part15_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
Shakspeare, had the Warwickshire Squire not prosecuted him for



deer-stealing, we had perhaps never heard of him as a Poet! The woods and

skies, the rustic Life of Man in Stratford there, had been enough for this



man! But indeed that strange outbudding of our whole English Existence,

which we call the Elizabethan Era, did not it too come as of its own



accord? The "Tree Igdrasil" buds and withers by its own laws,--too deep

for our scanning. Yet it does bud and wither, and every bough and leaf of



it is there, by fixed eternal laws; not a Sir Thomas Lucy but comes at the

hour fit for him. Curious, I say, and not sufficiently considered: how



everything does co-operate with all; not a leaf rotting on the highway but

is indissoluble portion of solar and stellar systems; no thought, word or



act of man but has sprungwithal out of all men, and works sooner or later,

recognizably or irrecognizable, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation



of sap and influences, mutualcommunication of every minutest leaf with the

lowest talon of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion of



the whole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the Kingdoms of

Hela and Death, and whose boughs overspread the highest Heaven!--



In some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan Era with its

Shakspeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded it, is



itself attributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The Christian

Faith, which was the theme of Dante's Song, had produced this Practical



Life which Shakspeare was to sing. For Religion then, as it now and always

is, was the soul of Practice; the primary vital fact in men's life. And



remark here, as rather curious, that Middle-Age Catholicism was abolished,

so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish it, before Shakspeare, the



noblest product of it, made his appearance. He did make his appearance

nevertheless. Nature at her own time, with Catholicism or what else might



be necessary, sent him forth; taking small thought of Acts of Parliament.

King Henrys, Queen Elizabeths go their way; and Nature too goes hers. Acts



of Parliament, on the whole, are small, notwithstanding the noise they

make. What Act of Parliament, debate at St. Stephen's, on the hustings or



elsewhere, was it that brought this Shakspeare into being? No dining at

Freemason's Tavern, opening subscription-lists, selling of shares, and



infinite other jangling and true or false endeavoring! This Elizabethan

Era, and all its nobleness and blessedness, came without proclamation,



preparation of ours. Priceless Shakspeare was the free gift of Nature;

given altogethersilently;--received altogethersilently, as if it had been



a thing of little account. And yet, very literally, it is a priceless

thing. One should look at that side of matters too.



Of this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a

little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the best



judgment not of this country only, but of Europe at large, is slowly

pointing to the conclusion, that Shakspeare is the chief of all Poets



hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left

record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I know not such



a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters

of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth; placidjoyous strength;



all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a

tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in the constructing of



Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart from all other "faculties" as they are

called, an understanding manifested, equal to that in Bacon's _Novum



Organum_ That is true; and it is not a truth that strikes every one. It

would become more apparent if we tried, any of us for himself, how, out of



Shakspeare's dramatic materials, _we_ could fashion such a result! The

built house seems all so fit,--every way as it should be, as if it came



there by its own law and the nature of things,--we forget the rude

disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The very perfection of the house, as



if Nature herself had made it, hides the builder's merit. Perfect, more

perfect than any other man, we may call Shakspeare in this: he discerns,



knows as by instinct, what condition he works under, what his materials

are, what his own force and its relation to them is. It is not a



transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is deliberate

illumination of the whole matter; it is a calmly _seeing_ eye; a great



intellect, in short. How a man, of some wide thing that he has witnessed,

will construct a narrative, what kind of picture and delineation he will






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号