GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS
Dr. Furness, by occupying the most conspicuous part of his Appendix (to Romeo and Juliet) with a formidable synopsis of the guesses concerning our runaway, shows that a certain respect is still due it, as perchance the yet-to-be-solved riddle of that Sphinx the earliest misprinter.
So, then, "can anything new be said" concerning Juliet's runaway: at least, anything new and with a savor of plausibility? As for the newness, and presuming that Dr. Furness's collation embraces the past suggestions worth regard, it seems improbable that my own has been made before. Its claim to likelihood may appeal somewhat to those who have the poetic ear, and who have that sense which is heightened by practice of style in verse or prose.
Turn, then, to "Marlowe's mighty line,"—to The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, a play written after his success with Tamburlaine, probably about 1588. Bear in mind that Shakespeare's first draft of Romeo and Juliet was written, it is believed, about 1591, and that there is no evidence that it appeared in its entirety in the printed text of 1597—which contains only a few lines of Juliet's soliloquy as put forth in the subsequent collections. Certainly it was composed at a period characterized, Verplanck says, by "the transition of Shakespeare's mind from a purely poetical to a dramatic cast of thought." There is evidence to any critic that Marlowe was Shakespeare's early dramatic "master," as far as the greater genius may be said to have had one for the rhythm of his formative period, and swiftly as he forged ahead.
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