I do not wish to rail at my forerunners
as Carlyle railed at the historians of Cromwell, or I should talk, as he
talked, about "libraries of inanities...conceited dilettantism and
pedantry...prurient stupidity," and so forth. The fact is, I found all
this, and worse; I waded through tons of talk to no result. Without a
single exception the commentators have all missed the man and the story;
they have turned the poet into a tradesman, and the unimaginable tragedy
of his life into the commonplace record of a successful tradesman's
career. Even to explain this astounding misadventure of the host of
critics is a little difficult. The mistake, of course, arose from the
fact that his contemporaries told very little about Shakespeare; they
left his appearance and even the incidents of his life rather vague.
Being without a guide, and having no clear idea of Shakespeare's
character, the critics created him in their own image, and, whenever
they were in doubt, idealized him according to the national type.
Still, there was at least one exception.
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