Strictly speaking, however, nothing is dramatic except that which strikes the eye as symbolic—­an important action which betokens one still more important.  That Shakespeare could attain this height too is evidenced in the scene where the son and heir takes the crown from the side of the father slumbering on his deathbed, places it on his own head, and struts off with it.[2] But these are only episodes, scattered jewels separated by much that is undramatic.  Shakespeare’s whole mode of procedure finds something unaccommodating in the actual stage; his great talent is that of an epitomist, and since poets are, on the whole, epitomists of Nature, we must here, too, acknowledge Shakespeare’s great merit; only we deny, at the same time, and that to his credit, that the stage was a worthy sphere for his genius.  It is precisely this limitation of the stage, however, which causes him to restrict himself.

But he does not, like other poets, select particular materials for particular works; he makes an idea the central point and refers the earth and the universe to it.  As he condenses ancient and modern history, he can utilize the material of every chronicle, and often adheres to it literally.  Not so conscientiously does he proceed with the tales, as Hamlet attests. Romeo and Juliet is more faithful to tradition; yet he almost destroys its tragic content by the two comic figures, Mercutio and the nurse, probably presented by two popular actors—­the nurse undoubtedly acted by a man.  If we examine the structure of the play very closely, we notice that these two figures and the elements touching them, appear only as farcical interludes, which, with our love of the logical and harmonious, must strike us as intolerable.

But Shakespeare is most marvelous when he adapts and recasts plays already in existence.  We can institute a comparison in the case of King John and Lear; for the older dramas are still extant.  But in these instances, likewise, he is again rather a poet than a dramatist.

But let us, in conclusion, proceed to the solution of the riddle.  The imperfection of the English stage has been represented to us by well-informed men.  There is not a trace of those requirements of realism to which we have gradually become used through improvements in machinery, the art of perspective, the wardrobe, and from which it would be difficult to lead us back into the infancy of those beginnings, to the days of a stage upon which little was seen, where everything was only indicated, where the public was satisfied to assume the chamber of the king lying behind a green curtain, the trumpeter who sounded the trumpet always at a certain spot, and many like things.  Who at present would permit such assumptions?  Under those conditions Shakespeare’s plays were highly interesting tales, only they were recited by a number of persons, who, in order to make somewhat more of an impression, were characteristically masked as the occasion demanded, moved about, came and went, but left it to the spectator’s imagination to fancy at will paradise and palaces on the empty stage.