PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS - This Side Idolatry

________________________________________________
_ There is another matter which I think Mr Harris should ponder. He
says that Shakespear was but "little esteemed by his own generation."
He even describes Jonson's description of his "little Latin and less
Greek" as a sneer, whereas it occurs in an unmistakably sincere eulogy
of Shakespear, written after his death, and is clearly meant to
heighten the impression of Shakespear's prodigious natural endowments
by pointing out that they were not due to scholastic acquirements.
Now there is a sense in which it is true enough that Shakespear was
too little esteemed by his own generation, or, for the matter of that,
by any subsequent generation. The bargees on the Regent's Canal do
not chant Shakespear's verses as the gondoliers in Venice are said to
chant the verses of Tasso (a practice which was suspended for some
reason during my stay in Venice: at least no gondolier ever did it in
my hearing). Shakespear is no more a popular author than Rodin is a
popular sculptor or Richard Strauss a popular composer. But
Shakespear was certainly not such a fool as to expect the Toms, Dicks,
and Harrys of his time to be any more interested in dramatic poetry
than Newton, later on, expected them to be interested in fluxions.
And when we come to the question whether Shakespear missed that
assurance which all great men have had from the more capable and
susceptible members of their generation that they were great men, Ben
Jonson's evidence disposes of so improbable a notion at once and for
ever. "I loved the man," says Ben, "this side idolatry, as well as
any." Now why in the name of common sense should he have made that
qualification unless there had been, not only idolatry, but idolatry
fulsome enough to irritate Jonson into an express disavowal of it?
Jonson, the bricklayer, must have felt sore sometimes when Shakespear
spoke and wrote of bricklayers as his inferiors. He must have felt it
a little hard that being a better scholar, and perhaps a braver and
tougher man physically than Shakespear, he was not so successful or so
well liked. But in spite of this he praised Shakespear to the utmost
stretch of his powers of eulogy: in fact, notwithstanding his
disclaimer, he did not stop "this side idolatry." If, therefore, even
Jonson felt himself forced to clear himself of extravagance and
absurdity in his appreciation of Shakespear, there must have been many
people about who idolized Shakespear as American ladies idolize
Paderewski, and who carried Bardolatry, even in the Bard's own time,
to an extent that threatened to make his reasonable admirers
ridiculous. _

Read next: PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS: Shakespear's Pessimism

Read previous: PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS: Shakespear's Social Standing

Table of content of Dark Lady of the Sonnets


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book