Chapter I: Preface

The true title of this work should be, "Apropos to Shakespeare." The desire of introducing, as they say in England, before the public, the new translation of Shakespeare, has been the first motive of the author. The feeling which interests him so profoundly in the translator should not deprive him of the right to recommend the translation. However, his conscience has been solicited on the other part, and in a more binding way still, by the subject itself. In reference to Shakespeare all questions which touch art are presented to his mind. To treat these questions, is to explain the mission of art; to treat these questions, is to explain the duty of human thought toward man. Such an occasion for speaking truths imposes a duty, and he is not permitted, above all at such an epoch as ours, to evade it. The author has comprehended this. He has not hesitated to turn the complex questions of art and civilization on their several faces, multiplying the horizons every time that the perspective has displaced itself, and accepting every indication that the subject, in its rigorous necessity, has offered to him. This expansion of the point of view has given rise to this book.

Hauteville House, 1864.

CONTENTS

PART I.

Book

I. Shakespeare.--His Life 1

II. Men of Genius.--Homer, Job, Æschylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, St. John, St. Paul, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare 28

III. Art and Science 78

IV. The Ancient Shakespeare 102

V. The Souls 146

PART II.

I. Shakespeare.--His Genius 161

II. Shakespeare.--His Work.--The Culminating Points 187

III. Zoilus as Eternal as Homer 215

IV. Criticism 238

V. The Minds and the Masses 256

VI. The Beautiful tub Servant of the True 274

PART III.--CONCLUSION.

I. After Death.--Shakespeare.--England 298

II. The Nineteenth Century 325

III. True History.--Every one put in his Right Place 337

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait op Victor Hugo Frontispiece

"In order to gain a Livelihood, he sought to take Care of Horses at the Doors of the Theatres"

Shakespeare in his Garden

Anne Hathaway's Cottage

Portrait of Shakespeare [not included]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.