“Well, but the profound utterances and sayings delivered by Shakespeare’s characters?” Shakespeare’s eulogists will exclaim. “Lear’s monologue on punishment, Kent’s on vengeance, Edgar’s on his former life, Gloucester’s reflections on the perversity of fate, and in other dramas the famous monologues of Hamlet, Antony and others?”

Thoughts and sayings may be appreciated, I reply, in prose works, in essays, in collections of aphorisms, but not in artistic dramatic works the aim of which is to elicit sympathy with what is represented. And therefore the monologues and sayings of Shakespeare, even if they contained many very profound and fresh thoughts, which is not the case, cannot constitute the excellence of an artistic and poetic work. On the contrary, these speeches, uttered in unnatural conditions, can only spoil artistic works.

An artistic poetic work, especially a drama, should first of all evoke in reader or spectator the illusion that what the persons represented are living through and experiencing, is being lived through and experienced by himself. And for this purpose it is not more important for the dramatist to know precisely what he should make his acting characters do and say, than it is to know what he should not make them say and do so as not to infringe the reader’s or spectator’s illusion. However eloquent and profound they may be, speeches put into the mouths of acting characters if they are superfluous and do not accord with the situation and the characters, infringe the main condition of dramatic work--the illusion causing the reader or spectator to experience the feelings of the persons represented. One may without infringing the illusion leave much unsaid: the reader or spectator will himself supply what is needed and sometimes as a result of this his illusion is even increased; but to say what is superfluous is like jerking and scattering a statue made up of small pieces, or taking the lamp out of a magic lantern. The reader’s or spectator’s attention is distracted, the reader sees the author, the spectator sees the actor, the illusion is lost, and to recreate it is sometimes impossible. And therefore without a sense of proportion there cannot be an artist, especially a dramatist. And Shakespeare is entirely devoid of this feeling.

Shakespeare’s characters continually do and say what is not merely unnatural to them but quite unnecessary. I will not cite examples of this, for I think that a man who does not himself perceive this striking defect in all Shakespeare’s dramas will not be convinced by any possible examples or proofs. It is sufficient to read _King Lear_ alone, with the madness, the murders, the plucking out of eyes, Gloucester’s jump, the poisonings, and the torrents of abuse--not to mention _Pericles_, _A Winter’s Tale_--or _The Tempest_, to convince oneself of this. Only a man quite devoid of the sense of proportion and taste could produce the types of _Titus Andronicus_ and _Troilus and Cressida_, and so mercilessly distort the old drama of _King Leir_.

Gervinus tries to prove that Shakespeare possessed a feeling of beauty, _Schönheit’s Sinn_, but all Gervinus’s proofs only show that he himself, Gervinus, completely lacked it. In Shakespeare everything is exaggerated: the actions are exaggerated, so are their consequences, the speeches of the characters are exaggerated, and therefore at every step the possibility of artistic impression is infringed.

Whatever people may say, however they may be enraptured by Shakespeare’s works, whatever merits they may attribute to them, it is certain that he was not an artist, and that his works are not artistic productions. Without a sense of proportion there never was or could be an artist, just as without a sense of rhythm there cannot be a musician. And Shakespeare may be anything you like--only not an artist.

“But one must not forget the times in which Shakespeare wrote,” says his belauders. “It was a time of cruel and coarse manners, a time of the then fashionable euphuism, that is, an artificial manner of speech--a time of forms of life strange to us, and therefore to judge Shakespeare one must keep in view the times when he wrote. In Homer, as in Shakespeare, there is much that is strange to us, but this does not prevent our valuing the beauties of Homer,” say the belauders. But when one compares Shakespeare with Homer, as Gervinus does, the infinite distance separating true poetry from its imitation emerges with special vividness. However distant Homer is from us, we can without the slightest effort transport ourselves into the life he describes. And we are thus transported chiefly because, however alien to us may be the events Homer describes, he believes in what he says and speaks seriously of what he is describing, and therefore he never exaggerates and the sense of measure never deserts him. And therefore it happens that, not to speak of the wonderfully distinct, life-like, and excellent characters of Achilles, Hector, Priam, Odysseus, and the eternally touching scenes of Hector’s farewell, of Priam’s embassy, of the return of Odysseus, and so forth, the whole of the _Iliad_ and particularly the _Odyssey_, is as naturally close to us all as if we had lived and were now living among the gods and heroes. But it is not so with Shakespeare. From his first words exaggeration is seen: exaggeration of events, exaggeration of feeling, and exaggeration of expressions. It is at once evident that he does not believe in what he is saying, that he doesn’t need it, that he is inventing the occurrences he describes, is indifferent to his characters, and has devised them merely for the stage, and therefore makes them do and say what may strike his public; and so we do not believe either in the events, or in the actions, or in the sufferings of his characters. Nothing so clearly shows the complete absence of esthetic feeling in Shakespeare, as a comparison between him and Homer. The works which we call the works of Homer, are artistic, poetic, original works, lived through by their author or authors.

But Shakespeare’s works are compositions devised for a particular purpose and having absolutely nothing in common with art or poetry.