The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1916-04-23
SHAKESPEARE.
April a.. lOlo.1o10.

thC VI IIa ltlatlUus lICy 0CCu6c
him Of "anachronisms." There are no
anachronisms On Eternity. HE lacked
proportion" There are no proportions
In the Infinite. His "clumsiness' u the
clumsiness Of . Titan compelled 70 live
In flesh.
No man VINO has ever lived has ever
realized the meaning Of tho words
tragedy" and comedy" a. did Shake
speare. He is comparable only to that
Artist who created Chaos and the hu-
man Imagination.
In Shakespeare there are mixed the
paradoxes. the e~cstasies, the invention.
the artistry. the insight and the Do
nysiac diabolism Of the Primal Artist.
He wrought stupendous distinctions
into monumental images-Prospero.
Macbeth. Caliban. His inspiration WAS
a Pegasus that swallowed stars on It's
flight through the elements Of Being.
With tho fantastic and g%rotesQue.
with laughter and tears. he contoured
4 cosmos. He spurned Reason az an
eagle would spurn q ladder. He spurned
chastity. ghostly Unity for INFINITE. an
archie Variety. He loved life like Fall
stan. For the Emperor OF Emptiness
at the heart Of life he put rebellious
observation-disclosures and Timon and
Brutus.
Shakespeare was the Grand Recorder
of Facts. He transmogrifed them. ex-
aggerated them. eternized them. His
images Tapped the horizons OF infinites.
Circumstance. which Il the sinister
crouch of Fatality, alone exists for his
characters. Before Nietzsche. before
Whitman. before Wagner. he blazoned
the Superman and climbed beyond the
ramparts Of Good and Evil. 1ago and
Shakespeare.
AS a poet he sat upon his Mount
Sinai with n golden harp. and stung
the nostrils Of the dead with the wild
music of Life.
Shakespeare was a marvellous gap
in the consciousness Of the race, a be-
tween time. a glimpse of the Valhalla
of Poets-a vista of some supramun.
dane Reality intercalated in our earth
ly illusions.
he Is Queen Nab and Prometheus.
with Nab always a-pcep from the eyes
OF the Light Bringer. Some passages
in the plays are written with a golden
pin on the wing of = fairy: others are
written with the sword Of Damoclcs
against the walls of Heaven and He'll.
The supreme of this magic
soul. moving majestlcally. triumphant
~ and impenitently alive. spilling its
fiery and fulgur1nt images as IL moves
toward its bourne like precious blood
from IN o'erbrimmng Grail. must he
like all supreme moments of passion
or ecstasy syncopc. a meaningless,
dithy rainbic relief wherein all objects
arc confused. and CONSCIOUSNESS itself
dies in ~onSCiousncs N is the Soul
tearing at the bars of matter. the tor
rent of rnages enashing at the granite
ribs OF Sequence and Space: the GER
bullying creative Essence flashing its
horizons Of brass. II is for this reason
Shakespeare is sometimes called OBJ
scure." lie was. like his Hamlet. too
much / the sun"
Never had a poet moro completely
realized the world around him. lie
was "A New Sort Of Man. a Columbus,
out Of an unimaginable West. He was
as abstract as Spinoza-a blossomy
SpInoza. "A Spinoza whose ceometrical
aNioms effioresced. whose "modalittes'
shimmered and throbbci with glorious
~images-men and women. suf~iiciencies
eternal realities.
II would have been a suhlimer cXpe-
rience to have been present at the
making Of the soul of Shakespeare
than to have been present at the fabri-
cation of a star.
His mind was dominated by Image
and Insight. The image WAS a vast
synthesis. an evolved organism. There
was "A Beethoven in Shakespeare. a
Beethoven who chung to the flying red
cape Of Mephistopheles: "A Beethoven
who concluded his Ninth symphony
with n man!acal p~iZzicato. And his
Insight vas dcfnitive.
In reading Shakespeare put all ac-
cepted ideas aside HIS meter yar.e,
With the beat OF his heart. HIS rhythm
is the rhythm OF his unique PERSONAL
ity. He glIdes from the form of poetry
TO the prose form with a beautiful non-
'~halance, as who should say, To he'll
with you professor" He had a poet.
icaI code and cipher Of his own, like
Walt Whitman. like all First Men
Shakespeare broke all metrical laws
with the same divine Grace that com
PEELED Napoleon to break all socia,
laws.
First Men are 30 completely aware
that their workaday consciousness
laps over into refcxive creations Of
themselves. II IA mirror magic. Ge.
MUS sees Of itself than ordinary
men. II has NOR being than It car
use. II has moro life. moro awareness
than it can expend IN ~procreaton. art
tstic creation. or even in that beautiful
rowdyism and FOSTERING of a Shake
speare.
Shakespeare was the supreme fatal
ist next to tho Greek tragic writer's
Fatality. Law. karna conceived as
spirits; Man the hummer and the
ghost and the highly sensit1zed wrath
OF ancestral tendencies conceived a.
a partly glorified and partly devil
damned victim-this Vas Shake
speare's superb Insight. He announced
the godhood OF Necessity.
Matter desired wings and Il invented
Shakespeare.
He was cursed-or blessed-with the
gift Of infinite simultaneity Of vision:
that is. he saw the past, present and
future. and all the forms with which
they are stuffed, simultaneously and In
all their infinite possibilities and poten.
cies. His stage was peopled with all
the characters in the Earth Drama,
He saw tho All and its content as one
terrifying vibration prolonged in Eter-