A DOUBLE LUSTRE
I came across this quotation in Jonathan Bate's review of Stanley Wells' Shakespeare and Co this Sunday
" The sweetness of Dekker, the thought of Marston, the gravity of Chapman, the grace of Fletcher and his young-eyed wit, Jonson's learned sock*, the flowing vein of Middleton, Heywood's ease, the pathos of Webster, and Marlow's deep designs, add a double lustre to the sweetness, thought, gravity, grace, wit, artless nature, copiousness, ease, pathos, and sublime conceptions of Shakespeare's Muse. They are indeed the scale by which we can best ascend to the true knowledge and love of him. " Shakespeare's Contemporaries, William Hazlitt.
* OED definition - a light shoe worn by comic actors on the ancient Greek and Roman stage; hence allus. comedy or the comic muse 1597
Now I'm off on holiday to the far North of Scotland for 2 weeks, with Wells and Hazlitt in my baggage. Back for a three play weekend at the end of August.
I came across this quotation in Jonathan Bate's review of Stanley Wells' Shakespeare and Co this Sunday
" The sweetness of Dekker, the thought of Marston, the gravity of Chapman, the grace of Fletcher and his young-eyed wit, Jonson's learned sock*, the flowing vein of Middleton, Heywood's ease, the pathos of Webster, and Marlow's deep designs, add a double lustre to the sweetness, thought, gravity, grace, wit, artless nature, copiousness, ease, pathos, and sublime conceptions of Shakespeare's Muse. They are indeed the scale by which we can best ascend to the true knowledge and love of him. " Shakespeare's Contemporaries, William Hazlitt.
* OED definition - a light shoe worn by comic actors on the ancient Greek and Roman stage; hence allus. comedy or the comic muse 1597
Now I'm off on holiday to the far North of Scotland for 2 weeks, with Wells and Hazlitt in my baggage. Back for a three play weekend at the end of August.
posted by christopher bland at 6:47 AM
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