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done. And though it would be extravagant to urge that the struggle against arbitrary limitations in which a modern critic is engaged is the same as that exhilarating contest with a stringent literary form which is the condition of some of the greatest triumphs of literature, the likeness between them is sufficient to enable the critic to feel that, on the whole, he gains more than he loses by the effort.

Shakespeare and Love

In a very interesting essay recently published Professor Herford discusses Shakespeare's attitude to love and marriage, and insists upon what he calls the profound 'normality' of the poet's conception of love. He points out that love is but seldom the substantial theme of Shakespeare's greater tragedies, and that Shakespeare conceives it as a condition which, so far from inevitably containing the seed of its own disruption, is so naturally strong that it needs the invasion of an alien power to be prevented from the bliss of perfect fulfilment. If we may translate Shakespeare's idea of love into terms he would certainly not himself have used, we may say, following out Professor Herford's view, that Shakespeare instinctively thought of love as a principle of order in the human world, which could be thwarted from its true purpose only by forces foreign to itself. Professor Herford concludes:

'Shakespeare certainly did not, so far as we can judge, regard sexual love (like some moderns) as either the clue to human life or as in any way related to the structure of the universe. But if instead of these abstract questions, we ask whether any poet has united in a like degree veracious appreciation of love in its existing conditions with apprehension of all its ideal possibilities, we shall not dispute Shakespeare's place among the foremost of the poets of love.'

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