This is Patmore's earliest prose writing still extant; it
was written when he was 16 years old. WMR thought highly of the essay,
which makes an original argument about Shakespeare's play. (But as the
note to the essay suggests, Patmore's insight was anticipated by an
essay published in the Westminster Review 41
(March 1844) 1-37, written by the scholar George Fletcher.)
At the conclusion of the essay Patmore briefly
recapitulates some of the most important commentators on the play:
Dryden's An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668),
Johnson's Observations on Macbeth (1745),
Coleridge's 1813 Lectures on Shakespeare and
Education as well as his Notes on
Macbeth (first published in
1836 in The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, and A. W. von Schlegel's Ueber
dramatische Kunst und Literatur (1809-1811).
This collection contains 2 texts and images, including:
Germ text
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This is Patmore's earliest prose writing still extant; it was written when he was 16 years old. WMR thought highly of the essay, which makes an original argument about Shakespeare's play. (But as the note to the essay suggests, Patmore's insight was anticipated by an essay published in the Westminster Review 41 (March 1844) 1-37, written by the scholar George Fletcher.)
Printing History
It was printed in The Germ 3, pages 99-110.
Literary
At the conclusion of the essay Patmore briefly recapitulates some of the most important commentators on the play: Dryden's An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), Johnson's Observations on Macbeth (1745), Coleridge's 1813 Lectures on Shakespeare and Education as well as his Notes on Macbeth (first published in 1836 in The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and A. W. von Schlegel's Ueber dramatische Kunst und Literatur (1809-1811).