Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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The first volume of the New Shakeopere Society's Transactions,
published in 1874, included a copy of the Society's prospectus:
Dramatic poet though ohakc-pere is, bound to lose
himself in his wondrous and manifold creationsj
taciturn "as the secrets of nature 1* though he be;
yot in this Victorian time, when our geniuses of
Science are so wresting her aecrets from W;..ture as
to make our days memorable for ever, the faithful
student of Shakerpere need not fear that he will
be unable to pierce through the crowds of forms
that exhibit Shakespere s nind, to the mind itself,
the man himself, and soe hin as he was; while in
the effort, in the enjoyment of his new gain, the
worker will find his own reward.
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OK
The scientific optairisnr of the Society is scarcely reflected in
the English criticism surveyed in this chapter? Pater's
impartial Shakespeare partakes of that Negative Capability
which iCents described, and which sorted ill with i-'urnivall's
preoccupations -
...I mean Negative Capability;, that ic when
man is capable of being in uncertainties,
Ly^terien, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after Tact and rerson.^g
Pator modifies tho quality and Wilde accepts it implicitlygoing
so far as to quote Keato without c clcnowlodccnont in
"The rruth of /laskG" - whilst Swinburne glories in uncertain-
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ties, pausiny occasionally to attack the scientists* ' Helen
$(.:ucit does not concern herself with such natters, but takes
up the romantic actress's posture before the ehrine of the
national Poet*
In 1£S9 John Addin^ton Symonds's "Co:.rp:iricon of Eli .r.bethan
with Victorian Poetry" was rubliched in The Fortnightly
Heviow. tiymonds see., tho sixteenth century as rn age of o ptiniG:.i
and happy eclecticism - the Continental °en,i: ranee had
accornpliched "tho hard work of aocinilatin;^ the hum nities" n>:-c!
the English "had only to survey and enjoy, to feel rind to
express, to lay themselvec open to delightful influence;:;, to
con -the noble lessons of the past, to thrill beneath the beauty
and the awe of an caithentic revelation" (XLV (1889) i55-79; 7).57).
Thus the Elicacethnns, described as pc.scivc co'iioceenti arc ncicle
devotees of art for its own cakes