[Gervinus was a noted exponent of "philosophical criticism," a critical school developed in Germany in the mid-nineteenth century, who discussed Shakespeare's works as expressions of a rational ethical system independent of any religion. In the excerpt below, he examines the ways in which actors should approach the roles of Helena and Bertram.]

In few plays do we feel, so much as in All's Well that Ends Well, what excessive scope the poet leaves open to the actor's art. Few readers, and still fewer female readers, will believe in Helena's womanly nature, even after they have read our explanations and have found them indisputable. The subject has at once repelled them; and so far would we gladly make allowance for this feeling, that we grant that Shakespeare might better have bestowed his psychological art upon more agreeable matter, and that he has often done so. But even he who, by the aid of our remarks, may have overcome his repugnance to the subject, will seldom find himself able by reflection to imagine it possible that such bold and masculine steps could be taken in a thoroughly feminine manner. Only by seeing this work of art and by trusting the eye, can we be sensible of its full and harmonious effect. But that even the eye may be convinced, a great actress is required. Bertram also demands a good actor, if the spectator is to perceive that this is a man capable of rewarding efforts so great on the part of a woman, a man whose painful wooing promises a grateful possession. That this unsentimental youth has a heart, this corrupted libertine a good heart, that this scorner can ever love the scorned, this is indeed read in his scanty words, but few readers of the present day are free enough from sentimentality to believe such things on the credit of a few words. The case is entirely different when, in the acted Bertram, they see the noble nature, the ruin of his character at Florence, and the contrition which his sins and his simplicity call forth; when, from the whole bearing of the brusque man, they perceive what the one word 'pardon' signified in his mouth, when they see his breast heave at the last appearance of Helena bringing ease to his conscience. Credence is then given to his last words; for the great change in his nature—of which now only a forlorn word or two is read and overlooked—would then have been witnessed. Seldom has a task so independent as the character of Bertram been left to the art of the actor; but still more seldom is the actor to be found, who knows how to execute it. To Richard Burbage this part must have been a dainty feast. About the time when it received its present form (1605-8), Shakespeare had prepared for him also Pericles and Petruchio [in The Taming of the Shrew] as equally attractive tasks. Thus arrived at the height of their respective arts, both the actor and the poet seem to have delighted in mutually craving and affording these faint sketches of character, as if for the sake of practising their common work, of drawing outlines and finishing them, or of supplying riddles and solving them.