Or, again, if _Hamlet_ is not a great tragedy it
is an uncommonly good tale. The people and the posture of affairs would
still be there even if one thought that Shakespeare's moral attitude was
wrong. Just as one could imagine all the other sides of Rembrandt's
beggar, so, with the mind's eye (Horatio), one can see all four sides of
the castle of Elsinore. One might tell the tale from the point of view
of Laertes or Claudius or Polonius or the gravedigger; and it would
still be a good tale and the same tale. But if we take a play like
_Pelleas and Melisande_, we shall find that unless we grasp the
particular fairy thread of thought the poet rather hazily flings to us,
we cannot grasp anything whatever. Except from one extreme poetic point
of view, the thing is not a play; it is not a bad play, it is a mass of
clotted nonsense. One whole act describes the lovers going to look for a
ring in a distant cave when they both know they have dropped it down a
well. Seen from some secret window on some special side of the soul's
turret, this might convey a sense of faerie futility in our human life.
But it is quite obvious that unless it called forth that one kind of
sympathy, it would call forth nothing but laughter and rotten eggs.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186