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An essay by George MacDonald |
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The Art Of Shakspere, As Revealed By Himself |
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Title: The Art Of Shakspere, As Revealed By Himself Author: George MacDonald [More Titles by MacDonald] [Footnote: 1863.]
No artist can have such a claim to the high title of _creator_, as that he invents for himself the forms, by means of which he produces his new result; and all the forms of man and nature which he modifies and combines to make a new region in his world of art, have their own original life and meaning. The laws likewise of their various combinations are natural laws, harmonious with each other. While, therefore, the artist employs many or few of their original aspects for his immediate purpose, he does not and cannot thereby deprive them of the many more which are essential to their vitality, and the vitality likewise of his presentation of them, although they form only the background from which his peculiar use of them stands out. The objects presented must therefore fall, to the eye of the observant reader, into many different combinations and harmonies of operation and result, which are indubitably there, whether the writer saw them or not. These latent combinations and relations will be numerous and true, in proportion to the scope and the truth of the representation; and the greater the number of meanings, harmonious with each other, which any work of art presents, the greater claim it has to be considered a work of genius. It must, therefore, be granted, and that joyfully, that there may be meanings in Shakspere's writings which Shakspere himself did not see, and to which therefore his art, as art, does not point. But the probability, notwithstanding, must surely be allowed as well, that, in great artists, the amount of conscious art will bear some proportion to the amount of unconscious truth: the visible volcanic light will bear a true relation to the hidden fire of the globe; so that it will not seem likely that, in such a writer as Shakspere, we should find many indications of present and operative _art_, of which he was himself unaware. Some truths may be revealed through him, which he himself knew only potentially; but it is not likely that marks of work, bearing upon the results of the play, should be fortuitous, or that the work thus indicated should be unconscious work. A stroke of the mallet may be more effective than the sculptor had hoped; but it was intended. In the drama it is easier to discover individual marks of the chisel, than in the marble whence all signs of such are removed: in the drama the lines themselves fall into the general finish, without necessary obliteration as lines: Still, the reader cannot help being fearful, lest, not as regards truth only, but as regards art as well, he be sometimes clothing the idol of his intellect with the weavings of his fancy. My conviction is, that it is the very consummateness of Shakspere's art, that exposes his work to the doubt that springs from loving anxiety for his honour; the dramatist, like the sculptor, avoiding every avoidable hint of the process, in order to render the result a vital whole. But, fortunately, we are not left to argue entirely from probabilities. He has himself given us a peep into his studio--let me call it _workshop_, as more comprehensive. It is not, of course, in the shape of _literary_ criticism, that we should expect to meet such a revelation; for to use art even consciously, and to regard it as an object of contemplation, or to theorize about it, are two very different mental operations. The productive and critical faculties are rarely found in equal combination; and even where they are, they cannot operate equally in regard to the same object. There is a perfect satisfaction in producing, which does not demand a re-presentation to the critical faculty. In other words, the criticism which a great writer brings to bear upon his own work, is from within, regarding it upon the hidden side, namely, in relation to his own idea; whereas criticism, commonly understood, has reference to the side turned to the public gaze. Neither could we expect one so prolific as Shakspere to find time for the criticism of the works of other men, except in such moments of relaxation as those in which the friends at the Mermaid Tavern sat silent beneath the flow of his wisdom and humour, or made the street ring with the overflow of their own enjoyment. But if the artist proceed to speculate upon the nature or productions of another art than his own, we may then expect the principles upon which he operates in his own, to take outward and visible form--a form modified by the difference of the art to which he now applies them. In one of Shakspere's poems, we have the description of an imagined production of a sister-art--that of Painting--a description so brilliant that the light reflected from the poet-picture illumines the art of the Poet himself, revealing the principles which he held with regard to representative art generally, and suggesting many thoughts with regard to detail and harmony, finish, pregnancy, and scope. This description is found in "The Rape of Lucrece." Apology will hardly be necessary for making a long quotation, seeing that, besides the convenience it will afford of easy reference to the ground of my argument, one of the greatest helps which even the artist can give to us, is to isolate peculiar beauties, and so compel us to perceive them. Lucrece has sent a messenger to beg the immediate presence of her husband. Awaiting his return, and worn out with weeping, she looks about for some variation of her misery. At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece 2. A thousand lamentable objects there, 3. There might you see the labouring pioneer 4. In great commanders, grace and majesty 5. In Ajax and Ulysses, O what art 6. There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand, 7. About him were a press of gaping faces, 8. Here one man's hand leaned on another's head, 9. For much imaginary work was there; 10. And, from the walls of strong-besieged Troy, 11. And from the strond of Dardan, where they fought,
The scope and variety of the whole picture, in which mass is effected by the accumulation of individuality; in which, on the one hand, Troy stands as the impersonation of the aim and object of the whole; and on the other, the Simois flows in foaming rivalry of the strife of men,--the pictorial form of that sympathy of nature with human effort and passion, which he so often introduces in his plays,--is like nothing else so much as one of the works of his own art. But to take a portion as a more condensed representation of his art in combining all varieties into one harmonious whole: his genius is like the oratory of Nestor as described by its effects in the seventh and eighth stanzas. Every variety of attitude and countenance and action is harmonized by the influence which is at once the occasion of debate, and the charm which restrains by the fear of its own loss: the eloquence and the listening form the one bond of the unruly mass. So the dramatic genius that harmonizes his play, is visible only in its effects; so ethereal in its own essence that it refuses to be submitted to the analysis of the ruder intellect, it is like the words of Nestor, for which in the picture there stands but "thin winding breath which purled up to the sky." Take, for an instance of this, the reconciling power by which, in the mysterious midnight of the summer-wood, he brings together in one harmony the graceful passions of childish elves, and the fierce passions of men and women, with the ludicrous reflection of those passions in the little convex mirror of the artisan's drama; while the mischievous Puck revels in things that fall out preposterously, and the Elf-Queen is in love with ass-headed Bottom, from the hollows of whose long hairy ears--strange bouquet-holders--bloom and breathe the musk-roses, the characteristic odour-founts of the play; and the philosophy of the unbelieving Theseus, with the candour of Hippolyta, lifts the whole into relation with the realities of human life. Or take, as another instance, the pretended madman Edgar, the court-fool, and the rugged old king going grandly mad, sheltered in one hut, and lapped in the roar of a thunderstorm. My object, then, in respect to this poem, is to produce, from many instances, a few examples of the metamorphosis of such excellences as he describes in the picture, into the corresponding forms of the drama; in the hope that it will not then be necessary to urge the probability that the presence of those artistic virtues in his own practice, upon which he expatiates in his representation of another man's art, were accompanied by the corresponding consciousness--that, namely, of the artist as differing from that of the critic, its objects being regarded from the concave side of the hammered relief. If this probability be granted, I would, from it, advance to a higher and far more important conclusion--how unlikely it is that if the writer was conscious of such fitnesses, he should be unconscious of those grand embodiments of truth, which are indubitably present in his plays, whether he knew it or not. This portion of my argument will be strengthened by an instance to show that Shakspere was himself quite at home in the contemplation of such truths. Let me adduce, then, some of those corresponding embodiments in words instead of in forms; in which colours yield to tones, lines to phrases. I will begin with the lowest kind, in which the art has to do with matters so small, that it is difficult to believe that _unconscious_ art could have any relation to them. They can hardly have proceeded directly from the great inspiration of the whole. Their very minuteness is an argument for their presence to the poet's consciousness; while belonging, as they do, only to the _construction_ of the play, no such independent existence can be accorded to them, as to _truths_, which, being in themselves realities, _are_ there, whether Shakspere saw them or not. If he did not intend them, the most that can be said for them is, that such is the naturalness of Shakspere's representations, that there is room in his plays, as in life, for those wonderful coincidences which are reducible to no law. Perhaps every one of the examples I adduce will be found open to dispute. This is a kind in which direct proof can have no share; nor should I have dared thus to combine them in argument, but for the ninth stanza of those quoted above, to which I beg my readers to revert. Its _imaginary work_ means--work hinted at, and then left to the imagination of the reader. Of course, in dramatic representation, such work must exist on a great scale; but the minute particularization of the "conceit deceitful" in the rest of the stanza, will surely justify us in thinking it possible that Shakspere intended many, if not all, of the _little_ fitnesses which a careful reader discovers in his plays. That such are not oftener discovered comes from this: that, like life itself, he so blends into vital beauty, that there are no salient points. To use a homely simile: he is not like the barn-door fowl, that always runs out cackling when she has laid an egg; and often when she has not. In the tone of an ordinary drama, you may know when something is coming; and the tone itself declares--_I have done it_. But Shakspere will not spoil his art to show his art. It is there, and does its part: that is enough. If you can discover it, good and well; if not, pass on, and take what you can find. He can afford not to be fathomed for every little pearl that lies at the bottom of his ocean. If I succeed in showing that such art may exist where it is not readily discovered, this may give some additional probability to its existence in places where it is harder to isolate and define. To produce a few instances, then: In "Much Ado about Nothing," seeing the very nature of the play is expressed in its name, is it not likely that Shakspere named the two constables, Dogberry (_a poisonous berry_) and Verjuice (_the juice of crab-apples_); those names having absolutely nothing to do with the stupid innocuousness of their characters, and so corresponding to their way of turning things upside down, and saying the very opposite of what they mean? In the same play we find Margaret objecting to her mistress's wearing a certain rebato (_a large plaited ruff_), on the morning of her wedding: may not this be intended to relate to the fact that Margaret had dressed in her mistress's clothes the night before? She might have rumpled or soiled it, and so feared discovery. In "King Henry IV.," Part I., we find, in the last scene, that the Prince kills Hotspur. This is not recorded in history: the conqueror of Percy is unknown. Had it been a fact, history would certainly have recorded it; and the silence of history in regard to a deed of such mark, is equivalent to its contradiction. But Shakspere requires, for his play's sake, to identify the slayer of Hotspur with his rival the Prince. Yet Shakspere will not contradict history, even in its silence. What is he to do? He will account for history _not knowing_ the fact.--Falstaff claiming the honour, the Prince says to him:
In the second part of the same play, act i. scene 2, we find Falstaff toweringly indignant with Mr. Dombledon, the silk mercer, that he will stand upon security with a gentleman for a short cloak and slops of satin. In the first scene of the second act, the hostess mentions that Sir John is going to dine with Master Smooth, the silkman. Foiled with Mr. Dombledon, he has already made himself so agreeable to Master Smooth, that he is "indited to dinner" with him. This is, by the bye, as to the action of the play; but as to the character of Sir John, is it not "Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind"--_kinned--natural_? The _conceit deceitful_ in the painting, is the imagination that means more than its says. So the words of the speakers in the play, stand for more than the speakers mean. They are _Shakspere's_ in their relation to his whole. To Achilles, his spear is but his spear: to the painter and his company, the spear of Achilles stands for Achilles himself. Coleridge remarks upon _James Gurney_, in "King John:" "How individual and comical he is with the four words allowed to his dramatic life!" These words are those with which he answers the Bastard's request to leave the room. He has been lingering with all the inquisitiveness and privilege of an old servant; when Faulconbridge says: "James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?" with strained politeness. With marked condescension to the request of the second son, whom he has known and served from infancy, James Gurney replies: "Good leave, good Philip;" giving occasion to Faulconbridge to show his ambition, and scorn of his present standing, in the contempt with which he treats even the Christian name he is so soon to exchange with his surname for _Sir Richard_ and _Plantagenet; Philip_ being the name for a sparrow in those days, when ladies made pets of them. Surely in these words of the serving-man, we have an outcome of the same art by which
In "Macbeth," act ii. scene 4, why is the old man, who has nothing to do with the conduct of the play, introduced?--That, in conversation with Rosse, he may, as an old man, bear testimony to the exceptionally terrific nature of that storm, which, we find--from the words of Banquo:
"_Lady M._ Donalbain.
Associate with this the end of the third scene of the fourth act of "Julius Caesar;" where we find that the attendants of Brutus all cry out in their sleep, as the ghost of Caesar leaves their master's tent. This outcry is not given in Plutarch. To return to "Macbeth:" Why is the doctor of medicine introduced in the scene at the English court? He has nothing to do with the progress of the play itself, any more than the old man already alluded to.--He is introduced for a precisely similar reason.--As a doctor, he is the best testimony that could be adduced to the fact, that the English King Edward the Confessor, is a fountain of health to his people, gifted for his goodness with the sacred privilege of curing _The King's Evil_, by the touch of his holy hands. The English King himself is thus introduced, for the sake of contrast with the Scotch King, who is a raging bear amongst his subjects. In the "Winter's Tale," to which he gives the name because of the altogether extraordinary character of the occurrences (referring to it in the play itself, in the words: "_a sad tale's best for winter: I have one of sprites and goblins_") Antigonus has a remarkable dream or vision, in which Hermione appears to him, and commands the exposure of her child in a place to all appearance the most unsuitable and dangerous. Convinced of the reality of the vision, Antigonus obeys; and the whole marvellous result depends upon this obedience. Therefore the vision must be intended for a genuine one. But how could it be such, if Hermione was not dead, as, from her appearance to him, Antigonus firmly believed she was? I should feel this to be an objection to the art of the play, but for the following answer:--At the time she appeared to him, she was still lying in that deathlike swoon, into which she fell when the news of the loss of her son reached her as she stood before the judgment-seat of her husband, at a time when she ought not to have been out of her chamber. Note likewise, in the first scene of the second act of the same play, the changefulness of Hermione's mood with regard to her boy, as indicative of her condition at the time. If we do not regard this fact, we shall think the words introduced only for the sake of filling up the business of the play. In "Twelfth Night," both ladies make the first advances in love. Is it not worthy of notice that one of them has lost her brother, and that the other believes she has lost hers? In this respect, they may be placed with Phoebe, in "As You Like It," who, having suddenly lost her love by the discovery that its object was a woman, immediately and heartily accepts the devotion of her rejected lover, Silvius. Along with these may be classed Romeo, who, rejected and, as he believes, inconsolable, falls in love with Juliet the moment he sees her. That his love for Rosaline, however, was but a kind of _calf-love_ compared with his love for Juliet, may be found indicated in the differing tones of his speech under the differing conditions. Compare what he says in his conversation with Benvolio, in the first scene of the first act, with any of his many speeches afterwards, and, while _conceit_ will be found prominent enough in both, the one will be found to be ruled by the fancy, the other by the imagination. In this same play, there is another similar point which I should like to notice. In Arthur Brook's story, from which Shakspere took his, there is no mention of any communication from Lady Capulet to Juliet of their intention of marrying her to Count Paris. Why does Shakspere insert this?--to explain her falling in love with Romeo so suddenly. Her mother has set her mind moving in that direction. She has never seen Paris. She is looking about her, wondering which may be he, and whether she shall be able to like him, when she meets the love-filled eyes of Romeo fixed upon her, and is at once overcome. What a significant speech is that given to Paulina in the "Winter's Tale," act v. scene 1: "How? Not women?" Paulina is a thorough partisan, siding with women against men, and strengthened in this by the treatment her mistress has received from her husband. One has just said to her, that, if Perdita would begin a sect, she might "make proselytes of who she bid but follow." "How? Not women?" Paulina rejoins. Having received assurance that "women will love her," she has no more to say. I had the following explanation of a line in "Twelfth Night" from a stranger I met in an old book-shop:--Malvolio, having built his castle in the air, proceeds to inhabit it. Describing his own behaviour in a supposed case, he says (act ii. scene 5): "I frown the while; and perchance, wind up my watch, or play with my some rich jewel"--A dash ought to come after _my_. Malvolio was about to say _chain_; but remembering that his chain was the badge of his office of steward, and therefore of his servitude, he alters the word to "_some rich jewel_" uttered with pretended carelessness. In "Hamlet," act iii. scene 1, did not Shakspere intend the passionate soliloquy of Ophelia--a soliloquy which no maiden knowing that she was overheard would have uttered,--coupled with the words of her father:
Next, let me request my reader to refer once more to the poem; and having considered the physiognomy of Ajax and Ulysses, as described in the fifth stanza, to turn then to the play of "Troilus and Cressida," and there contemplate that description as metamorphosed into the higher form of revelation in speech. Then, if he will associate the general principles in that stanza with the third, especially the last two lines, I will apply this to the character of Lady Macbeth. Of course, Shakspere does not mean that one regarding that portion of the picture alone, could see the eyes looking sad; but that the _sweet observance_ of the whole so roused the imagination that it supplied what distance had concealed, keeping the far-off likewise in sweet observance with the whole: the rest pointed that way.--In a manner something like this are we conducted to a right understanding of the character of Lady Macbeth. First put together these her utterances: "Get some water, "The sleeping and the dead "A little water clears us of this deed." "When all's done, "You lack the season of all natures, sleep."--
"Had he not resembled "These deeds must not be thought
First, then, I would request my reader to think how comparatively seldom Shakspere uses poetry in his plays. The whole play is a poem in the highest sense; but truth forbids him to make it the rule for his characters to speak poetically. Their speech is poetic in relation to the whole and the end, not in relation to the speaker, or in the immediate utterance. And even although their speech is immediately poetic, in this sense, that every character is idealized; yet it is idealized _after its kind_; and poetry certainly would not be the ideal speech of most of the characters. This granted, let us look at the exceptions: we shall find that such passages not only glow with poetic loveliness and fervour, but are very jewels of _sweet observance_, whose setting allows them their force as lawful, and their prominence as natural. I will mention a few of such. In "Julius Caesar," act i. scene 3, we are inclined to think the way _Casca_ speaks, quite inconsistent with the "sour fashion" which _Cassius_ very justly attributes to him; till we remember that he is speaking in the midst of an almost supernatural thunder-storm: the hidden electricity of the man's nature comes out in poetic forms and words, in response to the wild outburst of the overcharged heavens and earth. Shakspere invariably makes the dying speak poetically, and generally prophetically, recognizing the identity of the poetic and prophetic moods, in their highest development, and the justice that gives them the same name. Even _Sir John_, poor ruined gentleman, _babbles of green fields_. Every one knows that the passage is disputed: I believe that if this be not the restoration of the original reading, Shakspere himself would justify it, and wish that he had so written it. _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ talk poetry as a matter of course. In "King John," act v. scenes 4 and 5, see how differently the dying _Melun_ and the living and victorious _Lewis_ regard the same sunset: . . . . . this night, whose black contagious breath _Lewis_. The sun in heaven, methought, was loath to set;
Let us turn now to some instances of sweet observance in other kinds. There is observance, more true than sweet, in the character of _Jacques_, in "As You Like It:" the fault-finder in age was the fault-doer in youth and manhood. _Jacques_ patronizing the fool, is one of the rarest shows of self-ignorance. In the same play, when _Rosalind_ hears that _Orlando_ is in the wood, she cries out, "Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?" And when _Orlando_ asks her, "Where dwell you, pretty youth?" she answers, tripping in her role, "Here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat." In the second part of "King Henry IV.," act iv. scene 3, _Falstaff_ says of _Prince John_: "Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;--but that's no marvel: he drinks no wine." This is the _Prince John_ who betrays the insurgents afterwards by the falsest of quibbles, and gains his revenge through their good faith. In "King Henry IV," act i. scene 2, _Poins_ does not say _Falstaff_ is a coward like the other two; but only--"If he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms." Associate this with _Falstaff's_ soliloquy about _honour_ in the same play, act v. scene 1, and the true character of his courage or cowardice--for it may bear either name--comes out. Is there not conscious art in representing the hospitable face of the castle of _Macbeth_, bearing on it a homely welcome in the multitude of the nests of _the temple-haunting martlet_ (Psalm lxxxiv. 3), just as _Lady Macbeth_, the fiend-soul of the house, steps from the door, like the speech of the building, with her falsely smiled welcome? Is there not _observance_ in it? But the production of such instances might be endless, as the work of Shakspere is infinite. I confine myself to two more, taken from "The Merchant of Venice." Shakspere requires a character capable of the magnificent devotion of friendship which the old story attributes to _Antonio_. He therefore introduces us to a man sober even to sadness, thoughtful even to melancholy. The first words of the play unveil this characteristic. He holds "the world but as the world,"--
Into the original story upon which this play is founded, Shakspere has, among other variations, introduced the story of _Jessica_ and _Lorenzo_, apparently altogether of his own invention. What was his object in doing so? Surely there were characters and interests enough already!--It seems to me that Shakspere doubted whether the Jew would have actually proceeded to carry out his fell design against _Antonio_, upon the original ground of his hatred, without the further incitement to revenge afforded by another passion, second only to his love of gold--his affection for his daughter; for in the Jew having reference to his own property, it had risen to a passion. Shakspere therefore invents her, that he may send a dog of a Christian to steal her, and, yet worse, to tempt her to steal her father's stones and ducats. I suspect Shakspere sends the old villain off the stage at the last with more of the pity of the audience than any of the other dramatists of the time would have ventured to rouse, had they been capable of doing so. I suspect he is the only human Jew of the English drama up to that time. I have now arrived at the last and most important stage of my argument. It is this: If Shakspere was so well aware of the artistic relations of the parts of his drama, is it likely that the grand meanings involved in the whole were unperceived by him, and conveyed to us without any intention on his part--had their origin only in the fact that he dealt with human nature so truly, that his representations must involve whatever lessons human life itself involves? Is there no intention, for instance, in placing _Prospero_, who forsook the duties of his dukedom for the study of magic, in a desert island, with just three subjects; one, a monster below humanity; the second, a creature etherealized beyond it; and the third a complete embodiment of human perfection? Is it not that he may learn how to rule, and, having learned, return, by the aid of his magic wisely directed, to the home and duties from which exclusive devotion to that magic had driven him? In "Julius Caesar," the death of _Brutus_, while following as the consequence of his murder of _Caesar_, is yet as much distinguished in character from that death, as the character of _Brutus_ is different from that of _Caesar_. _Caesar's_ last words were _Et tu Brute? Brutus_, when resolved to lay violent hands on himself, takes leave of his friends with these words:
Is the final catastrophe in "Hamlet" such, because Shakspere could do no better?--It is: he could do no better than the best. Where but in the regions beyond could such questionings as _Hamlet's_ be put to rest? It would have been a fine thing indeed for the most nobly perplexed of thinkers to be left--his love in the grave; the memory of his father a torment, of his mother a blot; with innocent blood on his innocent hands, and but half understood by his best friend--to ascend in desolate dreariness the contemptible height of the degraded throne, and shine the first in a drunken court! Before bringing forward my last instance, I will direct the attention of my readers to a passage, in another play, in which the lesson of the play I am about to speak of, is _directly_ taught: the first speech in the second act of "As You Like It," might be made a text for the exposition of the whole play of "King Lear." The banished duke is seeking to bring his courtiers to regard their exile as a part of their moral training. I am aware that I point the passage differently, while I revert to the old text.
Now let us turn to _Lear_. We find in him an old man with a large heart, hungry for love, and yet not knowing what love is; an old man as ignorant as a child in all matters of high import; with a temper so unsubdued, and therefore so unkingly, that he storms because his dinner is not ready by the clock of his hunger; a child, in short, in everything but his grey hairs and wrinkled face, but his failing, instead of growing, strength. If a life end so, let the success of that life be otherwise what it may, it is a wretched and unworthy end. But let _Lear_ be blown by the winds and beaten by the rains of heaven, till he pities "poor naked wretches;" till he feels that he has "ta'en too little care of" such; till pomp no longer conceals from him what "a poor, bare, forked animal" he is; and the old king has risen higher in the real social scale--the scale of that country to which he is bound--far higher than he stood while he still held his kingdom undivided to his thankless daughters. Then let him learn at last that "love is the only good in the world;" let him find his _Cordelia_, and plot with her how they will in their dungeon _singing like birds i' the cage_, and, dwelling in the secret place of peace, look abroad on the world like _God's spies_; and then let the generous great old heart swell till it breaks at last--not with rage and hate and vengeance, but with love; and all is well: it is time the man should go to overtake his daughter; henceforth to dwell with her in the home of the true, the eternal, the unchangeable. All his suffering came from his own fault; but from the suffering has sprung another crop, not of evil but of good; the seeds of which had lain unfruitful in the soil, but were brought within the blessed influences of the air of heaven by the sharp tortures of the ploughshare of ill. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |