WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Arrows of the Chace, vol. 2/2 / being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly in the daily newspapers 1840-1880 cover

Arrows of the Chace, vol. 2/2 / being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly in the daily newspapers 1840-1880

Chapter 162: FOOTNOTES:
By John Ruskin
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

British LiteratureEssays, Letters & SpeechesHistory - Modern (1750+)Politics

About This Book

A collected set of public letters offers sustained commentary on political, economic, and cultural questions of the era. Subjects include foreign policy, war, and imperial unrest, as well as economic issues such as currency, supply and demand, wages, strikes, and the nature of wealth and property. Other pieces discuss infrastructure and industry, domestic service and housing, education, art and literary criticism, dress and women's work, and proposals for social and institutional reform. The epistolary form combines moral argument, practical policy suggestions, and cultural observation addressed to newspapers, public figures, and civic audiences.

[From "The Theatre," March, 1880, p. 169.]
"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE."[163]
6th Feb., 1880.

I have no doubt that whatever Mr. Irving has stated that I said, I did say. But in personal address to an artist, to whom one is introduced for the first time, one does not usually say all that may be in one's mind. And if expressions, limited, if not even somewhat exaggerated, by courtesy, be afterwards quoted as a total and carefully-expressed criticism, the general reader will be—or may be easily—much misled. I did and do much admire Mr. Irving's own acting of Shylock. But I entirely dissent (and indignantly as well as entirely) from his general reading and treatment of the play. And I think that a modern audience will invariably be not only wrong, but diametrically and with polar accuracy opposite to the real view of any great author in the moulding of his work. So far as I could in kindness venture, I expressed my feelings to that effect, in a letter which I wrote to Mr. Irving on the day after I saw the play; and I should be sincerely obliged to him, under the existing circumstances, if he would publish the whole of that letter.

FOOTNOTES:

[163] The circumstances connected with the present letter, or rather extract from one, are as follows: After witnessing the performance of "The Merchant of Venice" at the Lyceum Theatre, Mr. Ruskin had some conversation with Mr. Irving on the subject. In the Theatre of January 1880—p. 63—appeared a paragraph which stated that at the interview named Mr. Ruskin had declared Mr. Irving's "Shylock" to be "noble, tender, and true," and it is to that statement that the present letter, which appeared in the March number of the Theatre, relates. With reference to the letter privately addressed to Mr. Irving, the Theatre of April (p. 249) had a note to the effect that Mr. Irving had, for excellent and commendable reasons, preferred it not being made public. For a full statement of Mr. Ruskin's views of "The Merchant of Venice," see "Munera Pulveris," p. 102.