I believe that no writer can write without expressing his personal life and experiences. Majority of the literary works are thinly veiled autobiographies. Modern critics argue for objective writings.How can one write without being subjective, or expressing his personal feelings? At least one character will be a representative of the writer himself.
The Legendary English dramatist, William Shakespeare
expresses what Keats called “Negative Capability” in his plays. I believe that
he could do so, because he expressed his self without any veil in his Sonnets.
He might have derived pleasure in such self expression. So he could make his
plays objective. The innumerable characters in Shakespeare plays are different
or they are typical. The true greatness of Shakespeare is that the dialogue of
one character can never be put in to the mouth of any of his other characters.
Only a great writer like Shakespeare can do that. I believe he could do that
because of his keen observation of society and study of the psychology of
people around him.
I admire him greatly for this aspect. His works are wild forests
when compared to the writings of other great writers which can be compared to
beautiful, well trimmed gardens, according to Samuel Johnson, the great English
critic.
Even John Milton, who took the theme of his epic from
the”Bible”, where we think there is no space for self expression, expressed his
revolutionary spirit through Satan. He made Satan his mouth piece. This really
astonished me.
In ordinary works we can
see more than one representative of the writer and there we can see that the
dialogue of one character can easily be put in to the mouth of others.
My belief is that William Shakespeare is so objective in his plays, because he
derived the great pleasure of self expression or subjectivity in his great
Sonnets.
