They are written almost wholly
in pure and fluent rather than vigorous or various blank verse; though I
cannot discern in any of them an equality in power and passion to the
magnificent scene of abdication in Marlowe's _Edward II_. This play, I
think, must undoubtedly be regarded as the immediate model of
Shakespeare's; and the comparison is one of inexhaustible interest to all
students of dramatic poetry. To the highest height of the earlier master
I do not think that the mightier poet who was as yet in great measure his
pupil has ever risen in this the first (as I take it) of his historic
plays. Of composition and proportion he has perhaps already a somewhat
better idea. But in grasp of character, always excepting the one central
figure of the piece, we find his hand as yet the unsteadier of the two.
Even after a lifelong study of this as of all other plays of Shakespeare,
it is for me at least impossible to determine what I doubt if the poet
could himself have clearly defined--the main principle, the motive and
the meaning of such characters as York, Norfolk, and Aumerle.
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