The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04. Коллектив авторов

ironical view, without confounding the eternal line of separation between good and evil. This purpose is answered by the comic characters and scenes which are interwoven with the serious parts in most of those pieces of Shakespeare where romantic fables or historical events are made the subject of a noble and elevating exhibition. Frequently an intentional parody of the serious part is not to be mistaken in them; at other times the connection is more arbitrary and loose, and the more so, the more marvelous the invention of the whole and the more entirely it has become a light reveling of the fancy. The comic intervals everywhere serve to prevent the pastime from being converted into a business, to preserve the mind in the possession of its serenity, and to keep off that gloomy and inert seriousness which so easily steals upon the sentimental, but not tragical, drama. Most assuredly Shakespeare did not intend thereby, in defiance to his own better judgment, to humor the taste of the multitude: for in various pieces, and throughout considerable portions of others, and especially when the catastrophe is approaching, and the mind consequently is more on the stretch and no longer likely to give heed to any amusement which would distract their attention, he has abstained from all such comic intermixtures. It was also an object with him, that the clowns or buffoons should not occupy a more important place than that which he had assigned them: he expressly condemns the extemporizing with which they loved to enlarge their parts.26

      1

      Permission Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

      2

      Permission Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

      3

      Ten o'clock.

      4

      Of Jupiter Tonans.

      5

      The body in the Pantheon, the head in Saint Luke's church.

      6

      Strassburg.

      7

      The hall of

1

Permission Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

2

Permission Porter & Coates, Philadelphia.

3

Ten o'clock.

4

Of Jupiter Tonans.

5

The body in the Pantheon, the head in Saint Luke's church.

6

Strassburg.

7

The hall of the Pantheon seems too low, because a part of its steps is hidden by the rubbish.

8

This opening in the roof is twenty-seven feet in diameter.

9

The Pole-star, as well as other northern constellations, stands lower in the south.

10

The German texts read: Reben, vines. But the conjecture Raben as the correct reading may be permitted.—ED.

11

Permission The Macmillan Co., New York, and G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London.

12

This appropriate expression was, if we mistake not, first used by M. Adam Müller in his Lectures on German Science and Literature. If, however, he gives himself out as the inventor of the thing itself, he is, to use the softest word, in error. Long before him other Germans had endeavored to reconcile the contrarieties of taste of different ages and nations, and to pay due homage to all genuine poetry and art. Between good and bad, it is true, no reconciliation is possible.

13

This difficulty extends also to France; for it must not be supposed that a literal translation can ever be a faithful one. Mrs. Montague has done enough to prove how wretchedly even Voltaire, in his rhymeless Alexandrines, has translated a few passages from Hamlet and the first act of Julius Cæsar.

14

It begins with the words: A mind reflecting ages past, and is subscribed I.M.S.

15

Lessing was the first to speak of Shakespeare in a becoming tone; but he said, unfortunately, a great deal too little of him, as in the time when he wrote the Dramaturgie this poet had not yet appeared on our stage. Since that time he has been more particularly noticed by Herder in the Blätter von deutscher Art und Kunst; Goethe, in Wilhelm Meister; and Tieck, in "Letters on Shakespeare" (Poetisches Journal, 1800), which break off, however, almost at the commencement.

16

The English work with which foreigners of every country are perhaps best acquainted is Hume's History; and there we have a most unjustifiable account both of Shakespeare and his age. "Born in a rude age, and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction either from the world or from books." How could a man of Hume's acuteness suppose for a moment that a poet, whose characters display such an intimate acquaintance with life, who, as an actor and manager of a theatre, must have come in contact with all descriptions of individuals, had no instruction from the world? But this is not the worst; he goes even so far as to say, "a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold." This is nearly as offensive as Voltaire's "drunken savage."—TRANS.

17

In my lectures on The Spirit of the Age.

  O, for my sake do you with fortune chide    The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,  That did not better for my life provide    Than public means which public manners breeds.

And in the following:

Your love and pity doth the impression fill, which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow.]

18

In one of his sonnets he says:

19

  And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,  That so did take Eliza and our James!

20

This is perhaps not uncommon still in some countries.

The Venetian Director Medebach, for whose company many of Goldoni's Comedies were composed, claimed an exclusive right to them.—TRANS.

21

Twelfth Night, or What You Will—Act iii., scene 2.

22

As You Like It.

23

In one of the commendatory poems in the first folio edition:

  And on the stage at half sword parley were  Brutus and Cassius.

24

In the first volume of Charakteristiken und Kritiken, published by my brother and myself.

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In Hamlet's directions to the players. Act iii., scene 2.

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