Identifier: shakespeareonsta01wint (find matches)
Title: Shakespeare on the stage
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Winter, William, 1836-1917
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 Actors Actresses
Publisher: New York, Moffat, Yard and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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vio-lently precipitated into perpetration of crime by anoverwhelming demoniacal power. Upon any othertheory, meantime, Macbeth is a mere monster, a sortof mediaeval, romantically glossed, blank-verse BillSikes, and utterly abhorrent. It should be observed,as illuminative on this point, that Macbeth is nevershown as exultant in crime, but always, before andafter, as tortured on the borders of it, and ultimatelyas in a delirium of desperation. Edwin Booth took ahigh, poetic view of the character, and, as his geniuswas tragic, his appearance romantic, his action superb,and his elocution perfect, he gave a magnificent per-formance. His acute comprehension of Macbethsnature and of the spirit of the tragedy was particularlyexhibited in his thrilling utterance of those expressivespeeches which abound with weird, imaginative figuresand phrases,—nights yawning peal, the blanket of thedark, the dunnest smoke of hell, the rooky wood, theshard-borne beetle, the sentinel wolf, the silent horror.
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Courtesy of Evert Janseii Wendell EDWIN BOOTH AS MACBETH FROM A DRAWING BY \V. J. HENNESSEY MACBETH 479 the walking shadow, the winds that fight against thechurches,—figures and phrases that denote an atmos-phere of baleful omen and shuddering dread, envelop-ing and permeating the whole play and making itinexpressibly awful. The passages beginning Had Ibut died an hour before this chance and She shouldhave died hereafter can never have been spoken withdeeper feeling or more exquisite beauty of elocution,conveying their message of grief and despair straightto the heart, than were evinced in his delivery of them.When he said Now oer the one half world Natureseems dead he appeared the authentic image ofdemoniac obsession. His tremulous absorption andelectrical frenzy when gazing on the vacant chairin which Macbeth sees the Ghost of Banquo were soterrific that it made the phantom a reality to thespectator. His conflict with Macduff at the close wasfrightful in its maniacal vitality, exp

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