Duke of Malborough is the famous English General
who said that he knew English history only as he had learnt from the histories of Shakespeare.
The Winter’s Tale is the play in which the unity of time
is flagrantly violated. The duration of the story contained in the play is sixteen years. Shakespeare observes all the unities
in The Tempest.
Coleridge, analysing the character of Hamlet remarked "I have a smack of Hamlet myself, If I may
say so". This tradition was followed by A C Bradley in his Shakespearean
Tragedies.
"Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above modern writers, the poet of nature."
This is taken from Dr. Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare. The word ‘modern’ refers to
eighteenth century and is used to exclude classical writers like Homer and Virgil and the word nature is used to indicate that his
works held a mirror up to nature.
Hartly Granville-Barker is the influential critic who examined Shakespeare’s plays for their stage worthiness.
L C Knight wrote How Many Children had Lady
Macbeth? It was an attack on Shakespearean Tragedies by A C Bradley who
dealt with each character as real men of flesh and blood instead of considering them as dramatic personage.
The term ‘objective co-relative’ was coined by T S Eliot. He stated that Shakespeare’s famous
tragedy Hamlet is an artistic failure, as it lacks ‘objective co-relative’.
Noble Richard is the Twentieth century critic who is responsible for the Christian approach to Shakespeare's plays.
Caroline Spurgeon and Wolfgang Clemen are two critics who are analysed the imagery used by Shakespeare.
Thomas Rhymer in his Short View of Tragedy has denounced Othello with the words
"A bloody face without salt or savour".
Shakespeare introduces the theme of sexual jealousy in Othello and The Winter's
Tale. In Othello, the sexual jealousy assumes the dimensions of a tragic passion whereas in The Winter's Tale,
Leontes passes through a period of purgation after having expiated his sin of sexual jealousy.
Dryden in his Essay on Dramatic Poesy has praised
Shakespeare to the skies.
The longest play of Shakespeare is
Hamlet. The shortest play is The Comedy of Errors.
The first Shakespearean society was formed in 1840 by J P Collier.
The Elizabethan masque is presented in five of Shakespeare's plays namely
Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Henry VIII, The Tempest and Timon of Athens.
Alexander Pope defended Shakespeare against the critics who raise the objection that Shakespeare did
not follow Aristotlean principles in shaping his tragedy. His argument was that "to judge
Shakespeare by Aristotle's rule is like trying a man by the laws of one country, who has acted under the rules of
another."
Voltaire is the French critic who strictured Shakespeare for ignoring the three unities in his
plays. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the English critic defended Shakespeare on this score.
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© 2005 Atanu Bhattacharya
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