Those readers who have followed me so far in
examining his plays will hardly need to be told that I do not agree with
this assumption. The author whose personality is rich and complex enough
to create and vitalize a dozen characters, reveals himself more fully in
his creations than he can in his proper person. It was natural enough
that Wordsworth, a great lyric poet, should catch Shakespeare's accent
better in his sonnets than in his dramas; but that is owing to
Wordsworth's limitations. And if the majority of later English critics
have agreed with Wordsworth, it only shows that Englishmen in general
are better judges of lyric than of dramatic work. We have the greatest
lyrics in the world; but our dramas, with the exception of
Shakespeare's, are not remarkable. And in that modern extension of the
drama, the novel, we are distinctly inferior to the French and Russians.
This inferiority must be ascribed to the new-fangled prudery of language
and thought which emasculates all our later fiction; but as that prudery
is not found in our lyric verse it is evident that here alone the
inspiration is full and rich enough to overflow the limits of epicene
convention.
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