" It stands on the dividing line
between his light, joyous comedies and the great tragedies; it was all
done at the topmost height of happy hours, but there are hints in it
which we shall have to notice later, which show that when writing it
Shakespeare had already looked into the valley of disillusion which he
was about to tread. But "Twelfth Night" is written in the spirit of "As
You Like It" or "Much Ado," only it is still more personal-ingenuous and
less dramatic than these; it is, indeed, a lyric of love and the joy of
living.
There is no intenser delight to a lover of letters than to find
Shakespeare singing, with happy unconcern, of the things he loved
best--not the Shakespeare of Hamlet or Macbeth, whose intellect speaks
in critical judgements of men and of life, and whose heart we are fain
to divine from slight indications; nor Shakespeare the dramatist, who
tried now and again to give life to puppets like Coriolanus and Iago,
with whom he had little sympathy; but Shakespeare the poet, Shakespeare
the lover, Shakespeare whom Ben Jonson called "the gentle," Shakespeare
the sweet-hearted singer, as he lived and suffered and enjoyed.
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