Just as Ophelia
turned "thought and affliction, passion, hell itself" to "favour and to
prettiness," so Shakespeare's genius turned the afflictions and passions
of man to pathos and to pity.
CHAPTER VII
SHAKESPEARE AS LYRIC POET: "TWELFTH NIGHT"
Shakespeare began the work of life as a lyric poet. It was to be
expected therefore that when he took up playwriting he would use the
play from time to time as an opportunity for a lyric, and in fact this
was his constant habit. From the beginning to the end of his career he
was as much a lyric poet as a dramatist. His first comedies are feeble
and thin in character-drawing and the lyrical sweetness is everywhere
predominant. His apprenticeship period may be said to have closed with
his first tragedy, "Romeo and Juliet." I am usually content to follow
Mr. Furnival's "Trial Table of the order of Shakspere's Plays," in which
"Richard II.," "Richard III.," and "King John" are all placed later than
"Romeo and Juliet," and yet included in the first period that stretches
from 1585 to 1595.
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