Excerpt from Shakespeare's Plots: A Study in Dramatic Construction The less cultivated mind, says Sir William Hamilton, lingers over the parts, the multifarious details; the more educated combines these in unity. My efiort in the study of these Shake speare plays is to preserve the rhetorical perspective, the balance between the minor parts and the plays as complete and perfect Works of dramatic Art. The method by which I attain this result is simply resolving the play into its constituent patts, and then following Shakespeare, step by step, in his construction of the drama. The play is divided into the five parts of which every perfectly con structed drama is composed, visa, Introduction, Growth, Climax, Fall, Catastrophe. The Main and sub-actions are clearly defined. The various, and numerous, parts of which the play is composed are reduced to order. Out of Variety - Variety of Character, of Passion, of Action - there is developed Unity. The multifarious details are seen to be, not heterogeneous, but homogeneous; not unre lated, but correlated. The connection and harmony of all parts of the play become apparent, and the play becomes aesthetically intelligible. As an ulti mate result of this critical study, which I have tried to make both interpretative and vivifying, the reader will have a comprehensive and clear concep tion of the play as a complete, perfect, organic Art product; and will be enabled to read and study in telligently any drama, ancient or modern, to have a lucid perception, a lively appreciation thereof. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.