SHAKESPEARE'S STYLE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 770, 19 March 1910, Page 9

SHAKESPEARE'S STYLE.

An address on "Shakepearo and the Grand /Style" was delivered before the English Association, at University College, by the retiring president, Professor .George Saintsbury, on Jonuary 14. Professor Saintsbury disclaimed any intention of direct controversy, although he did not share the views of Matthew Arnold, who could only accord to Shakespeare a sort . of uneovenanted grand style, chequered—not checkmated' —by styles without reference to grand. For his part, it appeared lo him that Shakespeare- held Hie grand style in the hollow of. his hand. His definition was wider than Arnold's. Whenever the perfection of expression acquired such force that it transmuted tho subject and transported tho hearer or reader, then and there the grand style.was exhibited. If. they limited the definition to the continual exercise of .such a transforming , force, it seemed to him that they were making an excessive and unnatural restriction, while, as a consequence, they were preparing for themselves endless pitfaUs. After giving a 'number of. passages from Shakespeare, the professor asked what it was in them which, in spite of .the evident novitiate of their author, claimed for them grandeur of

style. It was not ono thing. The sources of tho sublime in style were many, ami whenever nno of the qualities\vras. displayed in a transmuting and transporting decree, - there was the grand style. The son Dots were grand style throughout, and the grandest example of tho grand style in all literature was to be found in the words of Prospcro to Ferdinand when tho revels were ended. If the last words of Othello were not in tho grand style, where were they to look for iff In his plays Shakespeare suited his style to his subject, and so. alternated the p-and stylo with that which was not grand. ' Tho übiquity of his style was one of its most notable characteristics, and was connected in the closest decree with the absence of mannerism,-which, had been noted. Tho difficulty of: dascribing his style had been the despair of the commentator. He seemed to have determined that no recipe should be capable of being pointed'out as his source, or one of his sources, for obtaining grandeur. Grand style was not easily tracked or discovered by - observation; it appealed to the complementary gift or faculty in tho person who read it.