So much with respect to the spirit of the age in which Shakespeare
lived, and his peculiar mental culture and knowledge. To me he appears
a profound artist, and not a blind and wildly luxuriant genius. I
consider, generally speaking, all that has been said on the subject a
mere fable, a blind and extravagant error. In other arts the assertion
refutes itself; for in them acquired knowledge is an indispensable
condition of clever execution. But even in such poets as are usually
given out as careless pupils of nature, devoid of art or school
discipline, I have always found, on a nearer consideration of the
works of real excellence they may have produced, even a high
cultivation of the mental powers, practice in art, and views both
worthy in themselves and maturely considered. This applies to Homer as
well as to Dante. The activity of genius is, it is true, natural to
it, and, in a certain sense, unconscious; and, consequently, the
person who possesses it is not always at the moment able to render an
account of the course which he may have pursued; but it by no means
follows that the thinking power had not a great share in it. It is
from the very rapidity and certainty of the mental process, from the
utmost clearness of understanding, that thinking in a poet is not
perceived as something abstracted, does not wear the appearance of
reflex meditation. That notion of poetical inspiration, which many
lyrical poets have brought into circulation, as if they were not in
their senses, and, like Pythia when possessed by the divinity,
delivered oracles unintelligible to themselves--this notion (a mere
lyrical invention) is least of all applicable to dramatic composition,
one of the most thoughtful productions of the human mind. It is
admitted that Shakespeare has reflected, and deeply reflected, on
character and passion, on the progress of events and human destinies,
on the human constitution, on all the things and relations of the