100% bonkers but awesome. Goddard was from a very different age of criticism - one rejecting much of the criticism of the early 20th century, but also coming to terms with a move toward historical study and context rather than the slightly ignorant processes that had come from the Victorian era.

Often, his points are completely absurd, argued on a philosophical level rather than even remotely relating to form or context. And his elitism - particularly when it comes to material he believes to have been written for the so-called "groundlings" - is deeply off-putting. But when he's right, he's right. Paradoxically, for a posthumously published work, I think this second volume is better than the first, perhaps because Goddard's high-art style works better with the more complicated later works, when Shakespeare really was writing with something of a bubble, rather than the earlier works where many of Goddard's beliefs were, if conceptually tight, ill-related to any realities of Shakespeare's era.

An interesting read, but hardly in the Top 100 works on the Bard. ( )

Shakespeare Downheartedness:"The Meaning of Shakespeare" by Harold C. Goddard (2nd volume) “'King Lear is a miracle,' wrote a young woman who had just come under its incomparable spell. 'There is nothing in the whole world that is not in this play. It says everything, and if this is the last and final judgment on the world we live in, then it is a miraculous world. This is a miracle play.'
 
If you're in the mood, hop on to my webpage and the read the rest over there. ( )