Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/260

230. It displays more of clear and various beauty, more insight, surer descriptive touches,—above all, more human life,—than that of any other poet; yes, and more art, in spite of a certain constructive disdain,—the free and prodigal art that is like nature's own. Thus he seems to require our whole attention or none, and it is as well to illustrate a special quality by some poet more dependent upon it. Yet if there is one gift which sets Shakespeare at a distance even from those who approach him on one or another side, it is that of his imagination. As he is the chief of poets, we infer that the faculty in which he is supereminent must be the greatest of poetic endowments. Yes: in his wonderland, as elsewhere, imagination is king.

There is little doubt concerning the hold of Shakespeare upon future ages. I have sometimes "Not of an age, but for all time." debated whether, in the change of dramatic ideals and of methods in life and thought, he may not become outworn and alien. But the purely creative quality of his imagination renders it likely that its structures will endure. Prehistoric Hellas is far removed from our experience; yet Homer, by force of a less affluent imagination, is a universal poet to-day,—to-day, when there is scarcely a law of physics or of art familiar to us that was not unknown to Homer's world. Shakespeare's imagination is still more independent of discovery, place, or time. It is neither early nor late, antiquated nor modern; or, rather, it is always modern