78 The Future Poetry
together his characters and their action throughout, and even
that, though a strong work, falls far short of the greatness of a
masterpiece. He had too, writing for the Elizabethan stage, to
adopt a model which was too complex for the strong simplicity
of his theme and the narrow intensity of his genius. And he had,
working for that semi-barbarous public, to minister to tastes
which were quite incongruous with his purpose and which he
had not flexibility enough to bring within its scope or to elevate
towards its level. In fact, Marlowe was not a born dramatist;
his true genius was lyrical, narrative and epic. Limited by his
inborn characteristics, he succeeds in bringing out his poetic
motive only in strong detached scenes and passages or in great
culminating moments in which the lyrical cry and the epic touch
break out through the form of drama.
Shakespeare stands out alone, both in his own age when
so many were drawn to the form and circumstances were
favourable to this kind of genius, and in all English literature,
as the one great and genuine dramatic poet; but this one is
indeed equal to a host. He stands out too as quite unique in
his spirit, method and quality. For his contemporaries resemble
him only in externals; they have the same outward form and
crude materials, but not the inner dramatic method by which
he transformed and gave them a quite other meaning and value.
Later romantic drama, not only in England but elsewhere,
though it has tried hard to imitate the Shakespearian motive
and touch, has been governed by another kind of poetic mind;
its intrinsic as distinguished from its external method has been
really different. Romantic drama, in Hugo and in others, takes
hold of life, strings together its unusual effects and labours
to make it out of the way, brilliant, coloured, conspicuous.
Shakespeare does not do that, except rarely, in early imitative
work or when he is uninspired. He does not need to lay violent
hands on life and turn it into romantic pyrotechnics; for life
itself has taken hold of him in order to recreate itself in his
image, and he sits within himself at its heart and pours out
from its impulse a throng of beings, as real in the world he
creates as men are in this other world from which he takes his