The dispute was occasioned by Merriman’s assertion that Shakespeare is “the greatest poet of all time.” When asked to “name a better poet,” Meiklejohn had retorted, “Racine.” Magnus responds:That dull, pedantical schoolroom exercise! That prosy, plodding, weary, unimaginative padding for a deserted library! That’s not poetry: that’s route marching to Parnassus with a full pack and a sergeant alongside to see that you keep step.Though they did not use this as their defense the next morning, their contretemps enacted cultural assumptions that stretched back 150 years. Praising Shakespeare over Racine was a convenient shorthand for any number of political or aesthetic debates. Johann Gottfried von Herder thundered, “Woe betide the frivolous Frenchman who arrives in time for Shakespeare’s fifth act, expecting it will provide him with the quintessence of the play’s touching sentiment.” William Hazlitt denounced the “didactic” Racine, saying, “tragedy is human nature tried in the crucible of affliction, not exhibited in the vague theorems of speculation.”An easy method of extolling the northern, natural passion of Shakespeare was to set it in invidious comparison with the perceived courtly froideur of Racine.
What do You think about The Book Of Lost Books (2007)?
