Vulgar words in The Age of Shakespeare (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 102 ~ ~ ~
It is alike incredible and certain that the writer of such exquisite and blameless verse as that in which the finer scenes of "Old Fortunatus" and "The Honest Whore" are so smoothly and simply and naturally written should have been capable of writing whole plays in this headlong and halting fashion, as helpless and graceless as the action of a spavined horse or a cripple who should attempt to run.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 278 ~ ~ ~
Flamineo especially, the ardent pimp, the enthusiastic pandar, who prostitutes his sister and assassinates his brother with such earnest and single-hearted devotion to his own straightforward self-interest, has in him a sublime fervor of rascality which recalls rather the man of Brumaire and of Waterloo than the man of December and of Sedan.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 281 ~ ~ ~
As it is, we see him only in the stage of parasite and pimp--more like the hired husband of a cast-off Creole than the resplendent rogue who fascinated even history for a time by the clamor and glitter of his triumphs.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 415 ~ ~ ~
Of all Dekker's works, "The Honest Whore" comes nearest to some reasonable degree of unity and harmony in conception and construction; his besetting vice of reckless and sluttish incoherence has here done less than usual to deform the proportions and deface the impression of his design.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 443 ~ ~ ~
In style and versification the patriotic and anti-Catholic drama which bears the Protestant and apocalyptic title of "The Whore of Babylon" is still, upon the whole, very tolerably spirited and fluent, with gleams of fugitive poetry and glimpses of animated action; but the construction is ponderous and puerile, the declamation vacuous and vehement.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 497 ~ ~ ~
There are times when we are tempted to denounce the Muse of Dekker as the most shiftless and shameless of slovens or of sluts; but when we consider the quantity of work which she managed to struggle or shuffle through with such occasionally admirable and memorable results, we are once more inclined to reclaim for her a place of honor among her more generally respectable or reputable sisters.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 867 ~ ~ ~
This comedy in which we first find him associated with Middleton is well written and well contrived, and fairly diverting--especially to an idle or an uncritical reader: though even such an one may suspect that the heroine here represented as a virginal virago must have been in fact rather like Dr. Johnson's fair friend Bet Flint; of whom the Great Lexicographer "used to say that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally whore and thief" (Boswell, May 8, 1781).
~ ~ ~ Sentence 901 ~ ~ ~
The lazy, slovenly, impatient genius of Dekker flashes out by fits and starts on the reader of the play in which he has expressed his English hatred of Spain and Popery, his English pride in the rout of the Armada, and his English gratitude for the part played by Queen Elizabeth in the crowning struggle of the time: but his most cordial admirer can hardly consider "The Whore of Babylon" a shining or satisfactory example of dramatic art.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 966 ~ ~ ~
The subordinate part taken by Middleton in Dekker's play of "The Honest Whore" is difficult to discern from the context or to verify by inner evidence: though some likeness to his realistic or photographic method may be admitted as perceptible in the admirable picture of Bellafront's morning reception at the opening of the second act of the first part.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,660 ~ ~ ~
"Honest Whore, The," Webster's part in, 21; Dekker's, 74, 75; Middleton's and Rowley's, 183.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,921 ~ ~ ~
"Whore of Babylon, The," 168.