Outlines of English and American Literature Part 12

Following is a list of Shakespeare's thirty-four plays (or thirty-seven, counting the different parts of _Henry IV_ and _Henry VI_) arranged according to the periods in which they were probably written. The dates are approximate, not exact, and the chronological order is open to question:

FIRST PERIOD, EARLY EXPERIMENT (1590-1595). _t.i.tus Andronicus_, _Henry VI_, _Love's Labor's Lost_, _Comedy of Errors_, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _Richard III_, _Richard II_, _King John._

SECOND PERIOD, DEVELOPMENT (1595-1600). _Romeo and Juliet_, _Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Merchant of Venice_, _Henry IV_, _Henry V_, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, _Much Ado About Nothing_, _As You Like It._

THIRD PERIOD, MATURITY AND TROUBLE (1600-1610). _Twelfth Night_, _Taming of the Shrew_, _Julius Caesar_, _Hamlet_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _All's Well that Ends Well_, _Measure for Measure_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Timon of Athens._

FOURTH PERIOD, LATER EXPERIMENT (1610-1616). _Coriola.n.u.s_, _Pericles_, _Cymbeline_, _The Winter's Tale_, _The Tempest_, _Henry VIII_ (left unfinished, completed probably by Fletcher).

[Sidenote: TRAGEDY AND COMEDY]

The most convenient arrangement of these plays appears in the First Folio (1623) [Footnote: This was the first edition of Shakespeare's plays. It was prepared seven years after the poet's death by two of his fellow actors, Heminge and Condell. It contained all the plays now attributed to Shakespeare with the exception of _Pericles_.] where they are grouped in three cla.s.ses called tragedies, comedies and historical plays. The tragedy is a drama in which the characters are the victims of unhappy pa.s.sions, or are involved in desperate circ.u.mstances. The style is grave and dignified, the movement stately; the ending is disastrous to individuals, but ill.u.s.trates the triumph of a moral principle. These rules of true tragedy are repeatedly set aside by Shakespeare, who introduces elements of buffoonery, and who contrives an ending that may stand for the triumph of a principle but that is quite likely to be the result of accident or madness. His best tragedies are _Macbeth_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Hamlet_, _King Lear_ and _Oth.e.l.lo_.

Comedy is a type of drama in which the elements of fun and humor predominate. The style is gay; the action abounds in unexpected incidents; the ending brings ridicule or punishment to the villains in the plot, and satisfaction to all worthy characters. Among the best of Shakespeare's comedies, in which he is apt to introduce serious or tragic elements, are _As You Like It_, _Merchant of Venice_, _Midsummer Night's Dream_, _The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAWDOR CASTLE, SCOTLAND, a.s.sOCIATED WITH MACBETH]

Strictly speaking there are only two dramatic types, all others, such as farce, melodrama, tragi-comedy, lyric drama, or opera, and chronicle play, being modifications of comedy or tragedy. The historical play, to which Elizabethans were devoted, aimed to present great scenes or characters from a past age, and were generally made up of both tragic and comic elements.

The best of Shakespeare's historical plays are _Julius Caesar_, _Henry IV_, _Henry V_, _Richard III_ and _Coriola.n.u.s_.

[Sidenote: WHAT TO READ]

There is no better way to feel the power of Shakespeare than to read in succession three different types of plays, such as the comedy of _As You Like It_, the tragedy of _Macbeth_ and the historical play of _Julius Caesar_. Another excellent trio is _The Merchant of Venice_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Henry IV_; and the reading of these typical plays might well be concluded with _The Tempest_, which was probably Shakespeare's last word to his Elizabethan audience.

THE QUALITY OF SHAKESPEARE. As the thousand details of a Gothic cathedral receive character and meaning from its towering spire, so all the works of Shakespeare are dominated by his imagination. That imagination of his was both sympathetic and creative. It was sympathetic in that it understood without conscious effort all kinds of men, from clowns to kings, and all human emotions that lie between the extremes of joy and sorrow; it was creative in that, from any given emotion or motive, it could form a human character who should be completely governed by that motive. Ambition in Macbeth, pride in Coriola.n.u.s, wit in Mercutio, broad humor in Falstaff, indecision in Hamlet, pure fancy in Ariel, brutality in Richard, a pa.s.sionate love in Juliet, a merry love in Rosalind, an ideal love in Perdita,--such characters reveal Shakespeare's power to create living men and women from a single motive or emotion.

Or take a single play, _Oth.e.l.lo_, and disregarding all minor characters, fix attention on the pure devotion of Desdemona, the jealousy of Oth.e.l.lo, the villainy of Iago. The genius that in a single hour can make us understand these contrasting characters as if we had met them in the flesh, and make our hearts ache as we enter into their joy, their anguish, their dishonor, is beyond all ordinary standards of measurement. And _Oth.e.l.lo_ must be multiplied many times before we reach the limit of Shakespeare's creative imagination. He is like the genii of the _Arabian Nights_, who produce new marvels while we wonder at the old.

Such an overpowering imagination must have created wildly, fancifully, had it not been guided by other qualities: by an observation almost as keen as that of Chaucer, and by the saving grace of humor. We need only mention the latter qualities, for if the reader will examine any great play of Shakespeare, he will surely find them in evidence: the observation keeping the characters of the poet's imagination true to the world of men and women, and the humor preventing some scene of terror or despair from overwhelming us by its terrible reality.

[Sidenote: HIS FAULTS]

In view of these and other qualities it has become almost a fas.h.i.+on to speak of the "perfection" of Shakespeare's art; but in truth no word could be more out of place in such a connection. As Ben Jonson wrote in his _Timber_:

"I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare that in his writing, whatever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, 'Would he had blotted a thousand.'"

Even in his best work Shakespeare has more faults than any other poet of England. He is in turn careless, extravagant, profuse, tedious, sensational; his wit grows stale or coa.r.s.e; his patriotism turns to bombast; he mars even such pathetic scenes as the burial of Ophelia by buffoonery and brawling; and all to please a public that was given to bull-baiting.

These certainly are imperfections; yet the astonis.h.i.+ng thing is that they pa.s.s almost unnoticed in Shakespeare. He reflected his age, the evil and the good of it, just as it appeared to him; and the splendor of his representation is such that even his faults have their proper place, like shadows in a sunlit landscape.

[Sidenote: HIS VIEW OF LIFE]

Of Shakespeare's philosophy we may say that it reflected equally well the views of his hearers and of the hundred characters whom he created for their pleasure. Of his personal views it is impossible to say more than this, with truth: that he seems to have been in full sympathy with the older writers whose stories he used as the sources of his drama. [Footnote: The chief sources of Shakespeare's plays are: (1) Older plays, from which he made half of his dramas, such as _Richard III_, _Hamlet_, _King John_. (2) Holinshed's _Chronicles_, from which he obtained material for his English historical plays. (3) Plutarch's _Lives_, translated by North, which furnished him material for _Caesar_, _Coriola.n.u.s_, _Antony and Cleopatra_. (4) French, Italian and Spanish romances, in translations, from which he obtained the stories of _The Merchant of Venice_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _Twelfth Night_ and _As You Like It_.] Now these stories commonly reflected three things besides the main narrative: a problem, its solution, and the consequent moral or lesson. The problem was a form of evil; its solution depended on goodness in some form; the moral was that goodness triumphs finally and inevitably over evil.

Many such stories were cherished by the Elizabethans, the old tale of "Gammelyn" for example (from which came _As You Like It_); and just as in our own day popular novels are dramatized, so three centuries ago audiences demanded to see familiar stories in vigorous action. That is why Shakespeare held to the old tales, and pleased his audience, instead of inventing new plots. But however much he changed the characters or the action of the story, he remained always true to the old moral:

That goodness is the rule of life, And its glory and its triumph.

Shakespeare's women are his finest characters, and he often portrays the love of a n.o.ble woman as triumphing over the sin or weakness of men. He has little regard for abnormal or degenerate types, such as appear in the later Elizabethan drama; he prefers vigorous men and pure women, precisely as the old story-tellers did; and if Richard or some other villain overruns his stage for an hour, such men are finally overwhelmed by the very evil which they had planned for others. If they drag the innocent down to a common destruction, these pure characters never seem to us to perish; they live forever in our thought as the true emblems of humanity.

[Sidenote: MORAL EMPHASIS]

It was Charles Lamb who referred to a copy of Shakespeare's plays as "this manly book." The expression is a good one, and epitomizes the judgment of a world which has found that, though Shakespeare introduces evil or vulgar elements into his plays, his emphasis is always upon the right man and the right action. This may seem a trite thing to say in praise of a great genius; but when you reflect that Shakespeare is read throughout the civilized world, the simple fact that the splendor of his poetry is balanced by the rightness of his message becomes significant and impressive. It speaks not only for Shakespeare but for the moral quality of the mult.i.tudes who acknowledge his mastery. Wherever his plays are read, on land or sea, in the crowded cities of men or the far silent places of the earth, there the solitary man finds himself face to face with the unchanging ideals of his race, with honor, duty, courtesy, and the moral imperative,

This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AFTER SHAKESPEARE

The drama began to decline during Shakespeare's lifetime. Even before his retirement to Stratford other popular dramatists appeared who catered to a vulgar taste by introducing more sensational elements into the stage spectacle. In consequence the drama degenerated so rapidly that in 1642, only twenty-six years after the master dramatist had pa.s.sed away, Parliament closed the theaters as evil and degrading places. This closing is charged to the zeal of the Puritans, who were rapidly rising into power, and the charge is probably well founded. So also was the Puritan zeal. One who was compelled to read the plays of the period, to say nothing of witnessing them, must thank these stern old Roundheads for their insistence on public decency and morality. In the drama of all ages there seems to be a terrible fatality which turns the stage first to levity, then to wickedness, and which sooner or later calls for reformation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT]

Among those who played their parts in the rise and fall of the drama, the chief names are Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Middleton, Webster, Heywood, Dekker, Ma.s.singer, Ford and s.h.i.+rley. Concerning the work of these dramatists there is wide diversity of opinion. Lamb regards them, Beaumont and Fletcher especially, as "an inferior sort of Sidneys and Shakespeares."

Landor writes of them poetically:

They stood around The throne of Shakespeare, st.u.r.dy but unclean.

Lowell finds some small things to praise in a large collection of their plays. Hazlitt regards them as "a race of giants, a common and n.o.ble brood, of whom Shakespeare was simply the tallest." Dyce, who had an extraordinary knowledge of all these dramatists, regards such praise as absurd, saying that "Shakespeare is not only immeasurably superior to the dramatists of his time, but is utterly unlike them in almost every respect."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN FLETCHER From the engraving by Philip Oudinet published 1811]

We shall not attempt to decide where such doctors disagree. It may not be amiss, however, to record this personal opinion: that these playwrights added little to the drama and still less to literature, and that it is hardly worth while to search out their good pa.s.sages amid a welter of repulsive details. If they are to be read at all, the student will find enough of their work for comparison with the Shakespearean drama in a book of selections, such as Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poetry_ or Thayer's _The Best Elizabethan Plays_.

BEN JONSON (1573?-1637). The greatest figure among these dramatists was Jonson,--"O rare Ben Jonson" as his epitaph describes him, "O rough Ben Jonson" as he was known to the playwrights with whom he waged literary warfare. His first notable play, _Every Man in His Humour_, satirizing the fads or humors of London, was acted by Shakespeare's company, and Shakespeare played one of the parts. Then Jonson fell out with his fellow actors, and wrote _The Poetaster_ (acted by a rival company) to ridicule them and their work. Shakespeare was silent, but the cudgels were taken up by Marston and Dekker, the latter of whom wrote, among other and better plays, _Satiromastix_, which was played by Shakespeare's company as a counter attack on Jonson.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEN JONSON]

The value of Jonson's plays is that they give us vivid pictures of Elizabethan society, its speech, fas.h.i.+ons, amus.e.m.e.nts, such as no other dramatist has drawn. Shakespeare pictures men and women as they might be in any age; but Jonson is content to picture the men and women of London as they appeared superficially in the year 1600. His chief comedies, which satirize the shams of his age, are: _Volpone, or the Fox_, a merciless exposure of greed and avarice; _The Alchemist_, a study of quackery as it was practiced in Elizabethan days; _Bartholomew Fair_, a riot of folly; and _Epicoene, or the Silent Woman_, which would now be called a roaring farce. His chief tragedies are _Seja.n.u.s_ and _Catiline_.

In later life Jonson was appointed poet laureate, and wrote many masques, such as the _Masque of Beauty_ and the unfinished _Sad Shepherd_.

These and a few lyrics, such as the "Triumph of Charis" and the song beginning, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," are the pleasantest of Jonson's works. At the end he abandoned the drama, as Shakespeare had done, and lashed it as severely as any Puritan in the ode beginning, "Come leave the loathed stage."

THE PROSE WRITERS

Unless one have antiquarian tastes, there is little in Elizabethan prose to reward the reader. Strange to say, the most tedious part of it was written by literary men in what was supposed to be a very fine style; while the small part that still attracts us (such as Bacon's _Essays_ or Hakluyt's _Voyages_) was mostly written by practical men with no thought for literary effect.

This curious result came about in the following way. In the sixteenth century poetry was old, but English prose was new; for in the two centuries that had elapsed since Mandeville wrote his _Travels_, Malory's _Morte d' Arthur_ (1475) and Ascham's _Scholemaster_ (1563) are about the only two books that can be said to have a prose style. Then, just as the Elizabethans were turning to literature, John Lyly appeared with his _Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit_ (1578), an alleged novel made up of rambling conversations upon love, education, fas.h.i.+on,--everything that came into the author's head. The style was involved, artificial, tortured; it was loaded with conceits, ant.i.theses and decorations:

"I perceive, Camilla, that be your cloth never so bad it will take some colour, and your cause never so false it will bear some show of probability; wherein you manifest the right nature of a woman, who, having no way to win, thinketh to overcome with words.... Take heed, Camilla, that seeking all the wood for a straight stick you choose not at the last a crooked staff, or prescribing a good counsel to others thou thyself follow the worst much like to Chius, who selling the best wine to others drank himself of the lees."

[Sidenote: THE FAD OF EUPHUISM]

This "high fantastical" style, ever since called euphuistic, created a sensation. The age was given over to extravagance and the artificial elegance of _Euphues_ seemed to match the other fas.h.i.+ons. Just as Elizabethan men and women began to wear grotesque ruffs about their necks as soon as they learned the art of starching from the Dutch, so now they began to decorate their writing with the conceits of Lyly. [Footnote: Lyly did not invent the fas.h.i.+on; he carried to an extreme a tendency towards artificial writing which was prevalent in England and on the Continent. As is often the case, it was the extreme of fas.h.i.+on that became fas.h.i.+onable.]

Only a year after _Euphues_ appeared, Spenser published _The Shepherd's Calendar_, and his prose notes show how quickly the style, like a bad habit, had taken possession of the literary world. Shakespeare ridicules the fas.h.i.+on in the character of Holofernes, in _Love's Labor's Lost_, yet he follows it as slavishly as the rest. He could write good prose when he would, as is shown by a part of Hamlet's speech; but as a rule he makes his characters speak as if the art of prose were like walking a tight rope, which must be done with a balancing pole and some contortions. The scholars who produced the translation of the Scriptures known as the Authorized Version could certainly write well; yet if you examine their Dedication, in which, uninfluenced by the n.o.ble sincerity of the Bible's style, they were free to follow the fas.h.i.+on, you may find there the two faults of Elizabethan prose; namely, the habit of servile flattery and the sham of euphuism.