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Title: Tragedy
Author: Ashley H. Thorndike
Release Date: January 29, 2012 [EBook #38711]
Language: English
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The Types of English Literature
EDITED BY
WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON
TRAGEDY
BY
ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE
TRAGEDY
BY ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF "THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUMONT
AND FLETCHER ON SHAKSPERE"
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
COPYRIGHT 1908 BY ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
_Published May 1908_
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
Transcriber's Note: Underscores indicate italics and tildes (~) indicate
bold in this text.
PREFACE
This book attempts to trace the course of English tragedy from its
beginnings to the middle of the nineteenth century, and to indicate the
part which it has played in the history both of the theatre and of
literature. All tragedies of the sixteenth century are noticed, because of
their historical interest and their close relationship to Shakespeare, but
after 1600 only representative plays have been considered. The aim of this
series has been kept in view, and the discussion, whether of individual
plays or of dramatic conditions, has been determined by their importance in
the study of a literary type. Tragedy in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries has attracted very little critical attention, and in those fields
the book is something of a pioneer. The Elizabethan drama, on the contrary,
has been the subject of a vast amount of antiquarian, biographical, and
literary research, without which such a treatment as I have attempted would
be almost impossible. In order, however, to keep the main purpose in view,
it has been necessary to omit nearly all notice of the processes of
research or the debates of criticism, and to give only what seem to me the
results. To indicate at every point my reliance on my own investigations or
my indebtedness to the researches of others would, indeed, necessitate
doubling the size of the book. Its readers will not require an apology for
its brevity, but I regret that I can offer only this inadequate
acknowledgment of the great assistance I have received not merely from the
studies mentioned in the Bibliographical Notes, but also from many others
that have directly or indirectly contributed to my discussion.
I am indebted to Dr. Ernest Bernbaum, who very kindly read chapters viii
and ix, and made a number of suggestions. I have also the pleasure of
expressing my great obligations to Professors Brander Matthews, Jefferson
B. Fletcher, and William A. Neilson, who have read both the manuscript and
the proof-sheets and given me the generous benefit of their most helpful
criticism.
A. H. T.
NEW YORK, March, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. DEFINITIONS 1
CHAPTER II. THE MEDIEVAL AND THE CLASSICAL INFLUENCES 21
CHAPTER III. THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAGEDY 48
CHAPTER IV. MARLOWE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 77
CHAPTER V. SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 136
CHAPTER VI. SHAKESPEARE 181
CHAPTER VII. THE LATER ELIZABETHANS 196
CHAPTER VIII. THE RESTORATION 243
CHAPTER IX. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 281
CHAPTER X. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT 326
CHAPTER XI. CONCLUSION 366
INDEX 379
TRAGEDY
CHAPTER I
DEFINITIONS
There is little difficulty in selecting the plays that should be included
in a history of English tragedy. Since the middle of the sixteenth century
there have always been plays commonly received as tragedies, and others so
closely resembling these that they require consideration in any
comprehensive study. How far these plays present the common characteristics
of a type, how far they constitute a clearly defined form of the drama, and
how far they may be connected from one period to another in a continuous
development--are questions better answered at the book's end than at its
beginning. Some questions of the definition of tragedy, however, may well
be preliminary to a study of its history. The very term "English tragedy"
involves two precarious abstractions. It separates tragedy from the drama
of which it is a part, and it separates English tragedies from those of
other languages to which they are related in character and origin. In
attempting a definition, we may question the reality of these abstract
separations by which our later discussions are to be conveniently limited;
for a definition can be attained only through the distinction of tragedy
from other forms of the drama, and through a consideration of the varying
conceptions of tragedy in different periods and nations.
We may begin very empirically with an element common to all tragedies and
roughly distinguishing them from other forms of drama; noticed, indeed, in
all theoretical definitions, though its importance is often blurred and it
receives only scant attention from Aristotle. He refers to the third part
of the plot as "the tragic incident, a destructive or painful action, such
as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds, and the like." If his meaning
of "a destructive or painful action" is extended to include mental as well
as physical suffering, we have a definition of an indispensable element in
tragedy and a conspicuous distinction from comedy.
This definition has had ample recognition in practice and in popular
opinion, as in the sixteenth-century idea of a tragedy as a play involving
deaths, and in the present common conception of tragedy as requiring an
unhappy ending. These uncritical opinions, however, introduce amendments
that are not quite corollaries. The happy ending has never been completely
excluded. Aristotle, while pronouncing in favor of the unhappy ending as
best suited to producing tragic effect, recognized the possibility and
popularity of a conclusion that limited punishment to the vicious. In
modern times the salvation of the virtuous in tragedy has had warm
defenders, including Racine and Dr. Johnson; and the essentiality of either
an unhappy ending or of deaths has been generally denied. Evidently either
is a natural but not inevitable accompaniment of suffering and disaster. A
tragedy may permit of relief or even recovery for the good, or it may
minimize the external and physical elements of suffering; but its action
must be largely unhappy though its end is not, and destructive even if it
does not lead to deaths.
Our working definition, however, does not attempt to indicate the qualities
necessary to excellence in tragedy or to particularize in respect to the
treatment of the action. It offers no distinction, where recent critics
have been careful to make one, between tragedy and what we to-day call
melodrama.[1] The relation between the two is similar to that between
comedy and farce. Melodrama is more sensational, less serious; it attains
its effects by spectacles, machines, externals, while tragedy deals with
character and motive; it reaches its conclusions through accidents and
surprises, while tragedy seeks to show the cause of every effect. But the
distinction is general and relative rather than specific and absolute. The
use of witches to foretell actions and characters would of itself be a
melodramatic device, and so it is in Middleton's "Witch," but not in
"Macbeth." Congreve's "Mourning Bride" is a melodrama, judged by our
standards at present, but for many years it was considered one of the great
tragedies in the language. A stage presentation, in fact, almost
presupposes external, spectacular, and sensational effects, which must
vary according to the theatrical conditions and the taste of the day, as
well as in response to the artistic purpose and treatment. The distinction
between melodrama and tragedy, in short, is hardly more than between bad
tragedy and good, or between a lower and a higher type. So far as a
separation of the two has been made, it has been the result of centuries of
experience. It cannot readily be fixed by rule or definition; it requires
historical treatment.
Our definition, again, affords a rough rather than an exact separation from
comedy. The two species cannot, indeed, be absolutely distinguished. In the
theatre to-day there are many plays which one hesitates to classify as
either tragedy or comedy. And there have always been, even in the Greek
theatre, classes of plays recognized as neither the one nor the other.
Again, a play presenting various persons and incidents is necessarily
complex in material and emotional effect, and may mingle suffering and ruin
with happiness and success, so that whether its main effect is tragic or
comic may depend on its point of view or its general tone. The divisions of
tragedy and comedy are neither mutually exclusive, nor are they together
inclusive of all drama. Theoretically, there is perhaps ground for doubting
whether other divisions might not be established more essential and more
comprehensive. Comedy in particular comprises plays differing so widely in
every respect that almost no common characteristics can be found. Yet
tragedy and comedy have long been, and still are, accepted as the main
divisions of the drama. The very names of the other forms, "tragicomedy,"
"_Schauspiel_" "emotional drama," "social drama," "_drame_," or merely
"play," by their lack of distinctiveness, testify to the significance of
the division of dramatic action and effects into the two classes, tragic
and comic. From merely a theoretical point of view, indeed, we may
recognize that a dramatic action, through its brevity and its stage
presentation, if for no other reasons, has a suitability for these effects
not possessed by other forms of literature. But the importance and
definition of the two forms, and especially that of tragedy, depend less on
theory than on historical origins and development.
If we attempt to fortify our working definition so that it may more
effectively separate tragedy on the one hand from melodrama and on the
other from comedy and the more or less neutral species, we are driven to
consider the numerous and shifting conceptions that have marked the
progress of the classical tradition in modern Europe. Although some
approach to the tragic may have been manifest from the beginnings of the
drama in the mimetic ceremonies of primitive culture, our present
distinction between tragedy and comedy traces back to Athens, where tragedy
as a form of literature had its first great development and where it
received its first critical definition. Nothing closely corresponding to
the two forms, as there developed and defined, is to be found in the dramas
of China, India, or medieval Europe. Tragedy is an inheritance from Greece
and Rome, not received by Western Europe until the Renaissance. There was,
to be sure, much that was tragical in the widespread religious drama of the
Middle Ages; and there were a number of plays that in content and effect
might claim a place with later tragedies; but it was not until the revival
of the classics that the revelation of a highly developed form of drama led
to the creation of a distinct species called tragedy, in the vernacular
literatures of Spain, Italy, France, and England.
The classical tradition in the beginning was affected by the mistaken
theories of medieval encyclopedists and by humanistic misinterpretations of
the classics. In every nation it came into conflict with the traditions of
the medieval drama, and underwent great modifications; in England an
amalgamation of the two traditions resulting in a tragedy widely different
from either. During four centuries the changing theatrical conditions, the
changing social conditions, the diversity of national peculiarities, have
resulted in ideas of tragedy at variance with one another and with the
classics. Shakespeare's conception of tragedy was very different from
Aristotle's, and very different from Brunetière's or Ibsen's. Indeed, the
conceptions formed by various of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Sidney,
Marlowe, Jonson, Chapman, and Fletcher, so far as we can determine, have
pronounced differences though they have common resemblances. It would
require a larger book than the present one to consider adequately the
differences and agreements merely of critical theory and dogma in modern
Europe. Yet the literary tradition, in spite of all these changes and
variations, has remained continuous. Whether fixed in the form of rules, or
discernible only in the general resemblances of current practices, or
represented by the great models of Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Racine, it
has influenced every playwright. He has striven to write more or less in
accord with some critical theory, in imitation of some author, or in
conformity to some fashion; or he has written in opposition to theory,
example, or fashion.
It is the purpose of this book to trace the course of this tradition in the
English drama, to appraise the inheritance of each age from the preceding
ages, its borrowings from other national inheritances, and the profit and
loss due to its own invention or industry. All that may be attempted here
by way of preliminary definition is a glance at the main European course of
the classical tradition to see what have been from time to time considered
the essentials of tragedy and to ask how far there has been any agreement
in regard to these essentials.
The basis for much of modern theorizing has been Aristotle's tentative yet
searching analysis of Athenian tragedy. Many of the peculiarities of
Athenian tragedy--its structure without acts but with a chorus, its
limitation of three actors on the stage at once, its narrow range of
mythological subjects--are evidently not essential to securing tragic
effect. Even the unities, whether as observed in the Greek theatre or as
defined by French and Italian critics, may, after generations of debate, be
safely relegated as nonessential. Omitting, then, what no one would now
insist upon as requisite, we may derive from the "Poetics" something like
the following:--
Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the emotions of pity and fear. Its
action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune,
involving persons renowned and of superior attainments, and it should be
written in poetry embellished with every kind of artistic expression.
Much more than this has been derived from Aristotle by modern theorists,
but this much of the classical conception has generally survived in modern
tragedy. If the meaning of "a single and complete action" be stretched a
little, this definition includes the plays of Shakespeare as well as those
of Racine, and nearly all tragedies from the Renaissance to the present.
In one important respect, however, this definition falls short of
describing Greek tragedy, and is still more inadequate for modern.
Aristotle emphasized the action above the characterization, and devoted
much attention to the requirements of the plot. He did not, moreover,
recognize the importance of the element of conflict, whether between man
and circumstance, or between men, or within the mind of man. The Greek
tragedies themselves had not failed to exhibit such conflicts; the medieval
drama, notably in the moralities, emphasized moral conflict; and
Renaissance tragedy, wherever it showed any independence, particularly in
England and Shakespeare, took for its theme the conflict of human will with
other forces. The importance of this modification of the Aristotelian view
received only slow critical recognition. But it was everywhere exemplified
in practice, in French classical drama as well as in Shakespeare, in plays
imitating the Greeks as well as in plays revolting from their models. After
a time this modification of the classical tradition came to have a distinct
place in literary theory. Hegel gave it philosophical elaboration, and, in
the romantic movement, when dramatists in different languages turned to
Shakespeare for a model, they naturally assumed what may be called the
Shakespearean definition. This important amendment to the tragic tradition
may be briefly stated:--
The action of a tragedy should represent a conflict of wills, or of will
with circumstance, or will with itself, and should therefore be based on
the characters of the persons involved. A typical tragedy is concerned with
a great personality engaged in a struggle that ends disastrously.
In the Aristotelian tradition thus amended by the Shakespearean or modern
conception we have a definition of tragedy that, in spite of differences of
theorists and variations in practice, is extraordinarily comprehensive.
This will appear if we consider briefly the separate elements of the
definition. First: Though the range of emotions has been greatly widened in
modern tragedy in comparison with classical, and though the importance
given to love and the admission of comedy and even farce have complicated
emotional effect in a way that Sophocles could hardly have conceived, yet
"pity and fear" still serve as well as any other terms to describe the
emotional appeal peculiar to tragedy. The word [Greek: phobos], however,
hardly indicates the emotions of admiration, awe, hate, horror, terror,
despair, and dismay, which belong to tragedy, and modern tragedy has
appealed more largely than classical to pity and sympathy. Second: The
reversal of fortune has been usually found in tragedy, though in the sense
of a fall of the mighty, long the favorite theme, it cannot be regarded as
the essential kernel of a tragic action. Third: Though the action of modern
tragedies has usually been less simple than that of the Greeks, and though
double plots and many complications have been common, yet, after the
Elizabethans and the Romanticists, the tendency to-day seems to be toward a
return to the simplicity that Aristotle had in mind. Only in rare
instances, as in "The Doll's House," has a dramatist ventured to leave the
action in a state that might be called incomplete. Fourth: Though themes
have changed and widened in range, still the great majority have been
confined to extraordinary events and illustrious persons. Renaissance and
pseudo-classical theorists interpreted Aristotle to limit the persons of
tragedy to princes or men of the highest rank; and tragedy, even in
England, long adhered to this superficial restriction. But already in the
sixteenth century there were authors who wrote tragedies of ordinary men
and contemporary events; and realism has broken away from the literary
tradition in every generation since. Fifth: Tragedy has generally been
reserved for poetry, and often for poetry of the most embellished kind; but
here again realism has resorted to a bare style, and, particularly in the
last century, to prose.
On examination, then, the particulars of the classical tradition have shown
extraordinary powers of survival, but not one of them has gone without
protest and violation. The thousands of tragedies written during four
centuries have all had marked resemblances, and all important developments
have preserved relationships to the classical species; yet it is impossible
to insist on any one quality of that species as essential, without
encountering examples of great tragedies that lack it. The close
relationships among these many plays forbid the separation of a few,
distinguished by certain qualities, to be named as tragedies, and the rest
as something else; and the great variations forbid the confident selection
of any qualities as essential in the future development of tragedy. The
modern amendments, though represented by nearly universal practice, have
not saved the classical tradition, and are themselves coming under
question. The plays of Ibsen, which seem to have instituted the most
important development in tragedy for two centuries, return to something of
the simplicity of action required by Aristotle, and present the struggle of
individual wills as did Shakespeare, but are in prose and deal with
contemporary bourgeois life,--a combination of relationships to the
tradition wholly new. While idealization in some degree must be exercised
in tragedy as in all forms of literature, it is impossible, in the light of
realistic plays, to maintain that tragic effects can be secured only
through the stories of exceptional persons. Tragic greatness, in the sense
demanded by the theorists, is, indeed, scarcely more manifest in the
persons of "Romeo and Juliet" than in those of "Hedda Gabler." While
conflict of some kind is essential to a dramatic action, yet it may
evidently be minimized without destroying the artistic impressiveness of
suffering and disaster. Even the requirement that tragedy deal with the
characters of individual men is being questioned. It is conceivable that
plays in the future may, like Hauptmann's "The Weavers," turn from the
emotions of the individual to those of a class, or may find their
destructive and painful actions in the oppression, disaster, or mere unrest
of the mass.
Any precise and compact definition is sure to lack in comprehensiveness and
veracity. It cannot sum up the facts of the past and present, much less set
rules for the future. We seem forced to reject the possibility of any exact
limitations for the dramatic species, to include as tragedies all plays
presenting painful or destructive actions, to accept the leading elements
of a literary tradition derived from the Greeks as indicating the common
bonds between such plays in the past, but to admit that this tradition,
while still powerful, is variable, uncertain, and unauthoritative.
But besides this literary tradition there has been a hardly less powerful
theatrical tradition. Tragedy has always owed a double allegiance, to
literature and to the theatre. A tragedy is a play, not merely a dialogue
in poetry or prose, but a play to be interpreted by actors before an
audience in a theatre. To these three factors it has had first of all to
suit itself. And these factors have constituted conditions and standards,
different and not less variable and transient than those of the literary
tradition. The plays of Æschylus, of Shakespeare, of Calderon, and of
Racine, for example, were planned for widely different conditions, and for
conditions also widely different from those now present in the theatres.
Excepting Shakespeare's, no English tragedies of the sixteenth,
seventeenth, eighteenth, or, one might almost say, nineteenth century, are
acted in our theatres to-day. The effect of the acted drama is consequently
not only different from that of the drama when read, it is also subject to
other and variable artistic standards. It aims at some effects not at all
literary and at some likely to be limited by its own day and theatre. A
history of tragedy must take into account the differences of the theatre of
one nation from that of another, and of one period from another period. It
must remember that to those temporary conditions each dramatist necessarily
conformed and that by them his achievement was directed. It may find some
hostile to the best dramatic art, tending to promote melodramatic rather
than tragic effects. It may find others that are divorced from any
permanent meaning for the drama or literature. But the fact that such
conditions are temporary should not breed contempt, for much great
literature has been aimed not at the world or posterity but at the audience
of the day. Out of temporary and varying theatrical conditions have arisen
the permanent criteria for dramatic excellence.
In fact, the theatre has been a conservative influence, tending to oppose
innovation and to maintain the integrity of the form of tragedy. The
essentials of its literary form, its length conditioned by the time of the
performance, the division into acts, scenes, or parts, and the growing
importance of dialogue, have all been dependent on theatrical conditions.
The characteristic qualities of national dramas have been in some measure
the products of the national theatres, and only through the growing
similarity of stage conditions are we likely to attain agreement in regard
to the forms of drama. While there have been a multitude of tragedies that
have never been acted, and some that have never been intended for acting,
the attempt to write tragedy for the closet rather than for the stage has
resulted either in adopting the supposed conditions of the Greek or some
other foreign theatre, or in breaking away from the strict limits defined
by the stage and writing lyrical medleys or dramatic monologues or
imaginary conversations. As soon as tragedy has left the theatre, it has
reverted to old forms or developed new and strange hybrids. Milton's
"Samson Agonistes" and Swinburne's "Bothwell" are tragedies, if you will,
but they have no place in the development of a national drama. Shelley's
"Prometheus Unbound," Browning's "The Ring and the Book," and Landor's
"Marcellus and Hannibal" are all dramatic, but they cannot be included in
any definition of the species of tragedy. Object as tragedy rightly may at
times to the limitations and trivialities of the theatre, it cannot safely
leave its precincts without losing its own identity.
In the past nearly all tragedies of any effect on the drama's development
have not only been planned for the stage but have succeeded when acted.
This seems likely to be the case in the future. For the reader of a play is
confronted by difficulties not found in other fiction; and, in general,
only a play suited to presentation on the stage is likely to secure for a
reader the visualization, the impersonations, the illusion of actuality,
similar to those experienced in the theatre. The fact that the drama
requires the services of theatre and actors as well as author need not
lessen our recognition of the responsibility and opportunities of the one
or the other. The stage affords the first test of a play's emotional
appeal, and perhaps the best test of its dramatic power. The consummation
of tragedy has been attained only when the dramatist has availed himself of
all the aids that the theatre has offered.
Thus far our attempt at definition has had to do with what tragedy is or
has been or is likely to be, rather than with what it ought to be. The more
difficult question has not been shunned by criticism, and perhaps even our
brief discussion ought not to omit a consideration of tragedy's function
and opportunities. These certainly extend beyond the theatre and include
whatever is possible for literature. As a form of literature, tragedy
fulfills in general the same functions as other forms, especially as
fiction, of which it is one division. It has similar opportunities and its
effects are similar in kind. It must be judged by the same standards, by
the nature and power of its emotional effect, and by the lasting meaning of
its portrayal of life; and the census of the centuries will be necessary to
establish its greatness.
Special qualities have, however, been assumed for the emotional effect of
tragedy altogether apart from its peculiarities as drama or fiction. A
peculiar function, a special effect, differing from other forms of
literature, have been ascribed to it. Aristotle declared its effect to be
the purging of the emotions, a somewhat obscure expression, surely
incorrect if taken in the literal sense that Aristotle seems to have
intended, but variously interpreted as referring to moral or æsthetic
reactions. Modern theories have too often regarded tragedy as a sort of
exposition of the moral law, illustrating the ways of providence. To-day we
require of tragedy a probing into human motive, an especial devotion to the
study of character under great emotional stress. But has it a special
function? Tragedy deals with pain, yet seeks to give us pleasure:--this
crux has been greatly emphasized by the false antithesis between pain and
pleasure. As a matter of fact, though our knowledge of the æsthetic
emotions is scanty, a description of the effect of tragedy is hardly more
obscure than that of any other form of literature or of any other of the
fine arts. In life we are enormously interested in grief and suffering and
disaster, as we are also in joy, pleasure, and success. Our newspapers
abound in narratives of both sorts, and so do our novels. We are stirred by
the painful emotions of our fellows as readily as by their pleasurable
ones. The tragic plays a large part in many forms of literature and in
sculpture, music, and painting. And tragedy, dedicated to painful actions,
also interests, fascinates, absorbs us. It is not diverting, amusing; it is
not for daily food or recreation, but no less it ministers to an active
normal human interest.
Does it carry an antidote to offset its demand upon our sympathies? Is
there a katharsis that somehow transforms our pity and fear into relief and
pleasure? There is something of the sort in the mere exercise of violent
emotion, which in a measure carries its own relief and cure. There is
something also of egotistical satisfaction, of self-congratulation that
comes with the exercise of sympathy, a certain exaltation that virtue has
gone out of us. There is something again of æsthetic delight in the
artistic mastery which we feel in any great work of art. The harmony of the
argument, the splendor of the verse, the grandeur of conception and
expression may counterbalance the painfulness of the story. Yet more,
tragedy may bring the inspiration of greatness and endurance, of purity and
unselfishness of spirit. Its idealization of character, its revelation of
beauty and power even in distress and downfall, may bring a reassurance
that turns pity to exhilaration. In drama as in life there may come in
moments of trial and ruin the visions of the eternities to console and
exalt us.
But is it true that these elements of relief are always felt, or are always
triumphant over our depression and dismay? May not the impressions of pain
and destruction be unrelieved and overwhelming? What relief or exaltation
is there in the first impression from "Oedipus," "Lear," or "Ghosts"? We
are filled with confusion, dismay, and pity. We cannot separate ourselves
from the misery. We feel the intolerable burden of the world's woe. Our
sympathies struggle beneath it, vainly, despairingly. How far such emotions
have any potency for actual accomplishment in deed may be doubtful to the
psychologists; but surely our recognition of tragedy as one of the greatest
imaginative achievements needs no other warrant than our faith that virtue
lies in human sympathy, in the only atonement that we can offer, the
vicarious response of our emotions to share in suffering and defeat.
From the nature of its subjects, tragedy may claim a certain preëminence in
literature. If it be not truer, as is sometimes asserted, than comedy or
other fiction, it has the opportunity to be more intense, more profound,
more permeating in its emotional effect. As of all forms of literature, we
ask for truth to life in incident, character, and word; of tragedy we ask
for truth in regard to those things that affect us most deeply,--pain,
disaster, failure, death. Like other forms, it may stimulate and excite,
give pleasure and profit, convey new ideas and recall old, arouse questions
of life and philosophy, excite multitudinous emotions; more exclusively
than any other, it brings home to us the images of our own sorrows, and
chastens the spirit through the outpouring of our sympathies, even our
horror and despair, for the misfortunes of our fellows.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
The student of the theory of tragedy may extend his reading through most
books dealing at all with the theatre or drama, works of literary history
and criticism, treatments of æsthetics in psychology and philosophy, as
well as the tragedies themselves. Only the briefest direction for such
reading can be given here. Among recent works closely connected with the
matter of the chapter, are: W. L. Courtney, _The Idea of Tragedy in Ancient
and Modern Drama_ (1900); Lewis Campbell, _Tragic Drama in Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Shakespeare_ (1904); Ferdinand Brunetière, _L'évolution
littéraire de la tragédie_ (1903) (in vol. 7 of _Etudes critiques_); and
_Melodrame ou Tragédie_ (_Variétés Littéraires_ 1904); Elizabeth
Woodbridge, _The Drama, its Law and its Technique_ (1898), with
bibliography. Several recent books on Shakespeare are concerned with
dramatic theory: A. C. Bradley, _Shakespearean Tragedy_ (1905); T. R.
Lounsbury, _Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_ (1901); G. P. Baker, _The
Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_ (1907). A book now out of date
and never sound, but of wide influence still, is Freytag's _Technik des
Dramas_ (1881), translated as _The Technique of the Drama_, Chicago (3d ed.
1900). For a study of literary criticism in reference to dramatic theory,
Saintsbury's _History of Criticism_, 3 vols. (1900-04), furnishes a
compendious directory and discussion. _An Introduction to the Methods and
Materials of Literary Criticism_, by C. M. Gayley and F. N. Scott (1899),
furnishes full bibliographical references with comment and direction. Of
great value in their special fields are Butcher's edition of Aristotle's
_Poetics_ (3d ed. 1902); W. Cloetta's _Beitrãge zur Litteraturgeschichte
des Mittelalters und der Renaissance_, Halle (1890), vol. i; and J. E.
Spingarn's _Literary Criticism in the Renaissance_ (1899). English critical
discussions of tragedy will be noted in the chapters on the various
historical periods. For tragedy in relation to æsthetic theory, full
references are given in Gayley and Scott; and Volkelt's _Æsthetik des
Tragischen_, Munich (2d ed. 1906), supplies a valuable and comprehensive
discussion and a directory and criticism of nearly all æsthetic theories
since Kant. Especial mention should be made of A. W. Schlegel's
_Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Litteratur_ (1817), translated into
English in the Bohn edition; and to Hegel's _Vorlesungen über die
Æsthetik_, which closes with a discussion of dramatic poetry that has been
suggestive of much later theorizing.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For a discussion of an earlier meaning of the term "melodrama" and the
origin of its present use, see chap. x.
CHAPTER II
THE MEDIEVAL AND THE CLASSICAL INFLUENCES
English tragedy makes its appearance at the very beginning of Elizabeth's
reign. In the Middle Ages nearly all knowledge of the drama of the Greeks
and Romans was lost, and the medieval drama developed without aid from
classical precedents or models. It resulted in various forms, of which the
miracles and the moralities were the most important, but it produced
nothing either in form or matter closely resembling classical tragedy or
comedy, and manifested no evolution toward corresponding divisions of the
drama. The Renaissance gave to the world the plays of Seneca, Plautus, and
the Athenian dramatists, and, after a time, some knowledge of the classical
theatre and dramatic art; then, through the imitation of these models and
also through the innovations and experiments which they suggested, the
influence of humanism came in conflict with that of medievalism throughout
Europe, in the drama as in other fields of literature. In England this
conflict was still active at the middle of the sixteenth century. Miracle
plays were still performed after long established fashion, and moralities
continued the most important and numerous species of drama; but in Latin
imitations of the classical drama, in the theatrical activity of the
schools and universities, and in the various developments of moralities,
interludes, school-plays, and pageants, there were signs of a breaking away
from old courses and of the adoption of new models, of the emergence of
English comedy and tragedy as definite dramatic forms. Tragedy in England
as elsewhere developed later and more slowly than comedy, but two years
after Elizabeth's accession the first English tragedy that has been
preserved was performed, and "Gorboduc" thus becomes the starting-point for
a history of English tragedy.
Modern tragedy, born in the Renaissance, the product of the germinating
conflict of medieval and humanistic ideas and models, has never altogether
lost the marks of its heritage from both lines of ancestry. Elizabethan
tragedy, in particular, reveals in every lineament, in its scenic
presentation, its methods of acting, its themes, structure, characters,
style, theory, and artistic impulses, the influences both of the long
centuries of medieval drama and also of the inspiration of the classics and
the freer opportunity for individual effort which resulted from humanism.
At the beginning we must attempt to separate and define these dominant
influences.
The contribution from the Middle Ages came largely from the religious
drama. The folk games and plays and the performances of entertainers of
various sorts contributed to the development of the drama principally on
the side of comedy, and only incidentally to tragedy. Nor need the early
centuries of the religious drama detain us. Its origin in the church
service, its early liturgical forms, its growth and service in the hands of
the church, and its gradual secularization are of importance for us only as
leading to its culmination in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; in
England notably in the great cycles of vernacular plays performed by the
guilds. It should be remembered, however, that the miracle plays never felt
the least influence from the drama of the Greeks and Romans. Knowledge of
the classic drama was long confined mainly to the plays of Terence, and
suggested even to the most learned no idea of relationship to the familiar
miracle plays; and, on the other hand, the medieval stage gave no clue to a
conception of the classical theatre. As late as Erasmus the curious notion
survived that the classic plays were read by the author or a "recitator"
from a pulpit above, while below the actors illustrated his lines by
pantomime. Almost to the middle of the fifteenth century the miracle plays
comprised all that was known of stage presentation in connection with
serious drama. They were still performed through the sixteenth century; the
boy Shakespeare may have been a spectator at a performance by the guilds;
his father and grandfather and remoter forebears had seen them or perchance
taken part in them. It was this abundant dramatic practice and ancient
dramatic tradition that gave to Elizabethan England its fondness for
play-acting, its recourse to the theatre for both amusement and
edification, and the acceptance of the drama as an important factor in its
daily life.
A glance at some of the most notable differences of the miracles from
classical plays reveals traits that remained potent in later drama. The
miracles took their material from the Bible or from some saint's life, and
their purpose was to make this material significant and impressive. They
were, in fact, essentially translations of prose narratives into dramatic
dialogue. Renaissance drama sought different material, but it found
classical authority for basing tragedies on history, and so gave support to
the medieval method of translation. In the Elizabethan period, dramatists
rarely attempted the invention of their plots, but adopted and adhered to
narrative sources. While they never suffered from the narrow
conventionality imposed upon the authors of the miracles by the authority
of the holy writ, yet something of the medieval subjection to sources was
long manifest both in form and content. It is necessary to view the dramas
of Shakespeare and all his predecessors as translations into dramatic form
of stories already told in verse or prose.
Because of their close adherence to sources and their distinctly expository
purpose, the medieval dramatists made little or no distinction between what
was suited for the stage and what was not. Their duty was primarily to
present the narrative; and, though individual initiative might add
something interesting or amusing, nothing in the Bible seemed unsuitable to
presentation on the stage, and nothing that would aid its meaning seemed
unsuitable for a drama. There was no thought of restricting a play to the
presentation of one crisis or a single action, and there was consequently
no possibility of an approach to anything like the structure of classical
tragedy. The dramatist might take advantage of the dramatic value of a
given situation like the sacrifice of Isaac, or he might make a series of
plays lead up to the great events of the redemption, but he was blind to
any opportunity to abstract from the narrative the events that dealt with
an emotional crisis and to focus them upon that as the centre of a dramatic
structure. There was no notion whatever of the difference between a
narrative fable and a dramatic fable. Dramatic unity and values in a
miracle play, on the tragic side at least, were usually the direct results
of the narrative; unity on a larger scale in the cycle was the unity of
history or of exposition, not of the drama. Such was the form which the
Elizabethan drama inherited, and to the end the form of Elizabethan tragedy
continued a development from medieval tradition and practice, not only in
its failure to adopt the unities, the chorus, and other peculiarities of
classical structure, but, more essentially, in its continued inability to
restrict the story provided by a narrative source to the limits of a
dramatic fable. Its final attainment of an organic structure, though
promoted in part by the regularizing influence of classical theory and
example, was in the main conditioned by the absence of dramaturgical
restrictions, permitting an epic variety of events, the lack of which
Aristotle had lamented in Greek tragedy, and by the consequent opportunity
for a free and characteristic development.
From the medieval drama the Elizabethans inherited not only dramatic form,
but an entire method of stage presentation different from the classical.
The typical medieval stage, whether in the form of the procession of
pageants or the inclosed place with the stations for the various actors,
had, indeed, given way to something much more like the modern platform,
even before the production of "Gorboduc"; but in most particulars, in the
importance placed upon costume, the historical anachronisms, the crudity
but frequency of spectacle, and especially in the entire liberty as to what
should be presented, medieval ideas still prevailed. In the miracle plays,
heaven, hell, God, the devil, Noah's flood, the fall of Lucifer, and the
Maries at the cross were all acted. The Elizabethan theatre showed scarcely
less temerity.
Another far-reaching inheritance from the miracle plays was derived from
their treatment of tragic themes and situations and from their pervading
seriousness of purpose. Their purpose was ethical and religious
edification; their theme the tragedy of sin; their situations were derived
from the stories of Cain, Lucifer, Judas, John the Baptist, the Slaughter
of the Innocents, and the Crucifixion. If no formal tragedy resulted, and
if in inculcating the triumph of righteousness the stories of the worthies
and the martyrdoms of the saints took rather the cast of tragicomedy, it
was nevertheless of great significance for later tragedy that, generations
before Seneca became known with his bloody stories and sententious
philosophy, the drama had been the vehicle for ethical instruction and for
the presentation of the most terrible and pitiful events. The miracle plays
had long familiarized men with tragic action, tragic conceptions in the
drama, and tragic power in the treatment of situation.
The tragic was often mingled with the comic. The dramatists mixed
edification with amusement. The restraints of the sacred narrative were
thrown aside for a moment, and in Herod, or Noah's wife, or the shepherds
awaiting the announcement of the birth of the Messiah, opportunities were
taken for the introduction of realistic portraiture of contemporary life.
Horse-play and buffoonery or racy comedy often contrasted incongruously
with events of momentous importance. This mixture of the comic and tragic
survived in the popular drama despite the opposition of the humanists. It
was indeed characteristic of medieval and Elizabethan manners and taste,
and marks another important departure from classical precedent. We to-day
are perhaps as near to the Athenians as to the Elizabethans in this
respect. At all events, for the appreciation of Elizabethan tragedy, we
sometimes need to reassert a childish and uncultivated disregard for the
rapid changes of emotional tone, a liking for tears and laughter close
together; or, perhaps there is ground for saying, we need to recognize the
validity of the medieval taste for a comic contrast and relief in tragedy,
and to accept in art the incongruities and grotesqueness of actual life.
To the moralities, the second important species of drama in the later
Middle Ages, the debt of English tragedy is more explicit than to the
miracles, but not more essential. It is not more essential, because the
moralities were in a way the successors and the substitutes for the
miracles and contributed largely to the same effects. They were devoted to
a serious purpose and presented tragic situations with a free admixture of
comedy, and they continued many of the older traditions of stage
performance and undramatic form. They differed from the miracles chiefly in
that, like so much of medieval literature, they offered not a direct but a
symbolic presentation of life. Instead of the Bible narrative, they
presented the strife of vices and virtues; instead of real persons,
personified abstractions. This change from individual characters to
abstract qualities has usually been regarded as a retrogression by modern
students, who deem the study of the motives of individual men and women as
essential to the drama. But we have lately been reminded that on the stage
it makes little difference whether an actor is called William or Everyman;
and the attempt at the symbolization of life offered an opportunity for
freedom of invention and freshness of emotional effect that in the miracles
had been smothered by the stereotyped repetition of the Bible narrative.
The temptation and suffering of the good, the temporary triumph of the
evil, and the punishment that overtakes even the mighty were themes which
the miracle had confused with many others. The morality gave them dramatic
isolation and emphasis.
Moreover, in substituting for a translation of the Bible narrative the
symbolization of life as a conflict between folly and wisdom, or the vices
and virtues, or the body and the soul, the moralities gave importance to
one of the most essential elements in tragedy, that of moral strife. The
world is a battlefield, the soul is beleaguered, the play is a conflict;
and with this element of conflict there arises the opportunity for dramatic
structure. If the story is of strife, there is likely to be a moment when
the victory hangs in the balance; a reversal of fortune is implied; there
is a chance for a rise and fall, a definite beginning, middle, and end. The
moral conflict, moreover, encourages a study of human motive, of cause and
effect in human action. In some of these plays, as "The Pride of Life,"
"Everyman," "The Nice Wanton," the consequences of evil are clearly traced,
and the action is representative not only of the conflict of good and evil
in the universe, but of the battle of will in the individual. Evidently
such plays are near relations of tragedy. They at least made plain to their
successors the importance of the conflict of good and evil as a dramatic
theme. Their text, the wages of sin are death, has continued to be an
essential part of the conception of tragedy.
The moralities, however, on the whole, made little advance, either in
escape from conventionality, or in creation of structure, or in dramatic
expression of the conflicts of will. They clung in the main to the dominant
and already conventionalized allegory of the Middle Ages, the presentation
of life as a conflict of body and soul, although they made interesting
excursions into the fields of pedagogy and religious controversy. This
allegory they treated with intense didacticism, sacrificing all dramatic
interest to enforce the lesson, though in their later days the sermons were
very generously mixed with farce. Their importance and explicit
contribution to English tragedy arose from their historical position just
at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.
They then served as a transition species, conforming, by a reduction in
length and in the number of actors, to the conditions of performance which
marked the change from the medieval stage to the Elizabethan theatre;
amalgamating under humanistic influence now with this type of play, now
with that; and imposing for a time their distinctive form and methods on
the emerging types of comedy and tragedy. Some of the earliest tragedies,
as we shall see, were direct developments from the moralities, and the
influence of the peculiarities of the morality was for a while definite and
considerable. But it soon disappeared under the demands of a new theatre
and the innovations of a new art.
The inheritance of tragedy from the Middle Ages includes an important
legacy from literature entirely apart from the drama. In the separation of
the medieval world from the classic, the terms tragedy and comedy ceased to
be connected with scenic presentation, and were extended to cover all forms
of narrative, whether in dialogue or not. The distinction between the two,
though varying somewhat in the different lexicographers and
encyclopedists, gradually arrived at an agreement which continued to affect
ideas throughout the Renaissance. There was some insistence on the
restrictions that tragedy dealt with history, and comedy with fiction;
tragedy with exiles, murders, important and horrible deeds, and comedy with
more domestic themes or with love and seduction. There was more general
agreement that tragedy dealt with persons of rank and importance, kings or
great leaders, and comedy with persons of low or middle rank, and that
tragedy required a more elevated and ornamented style than comedy. The most
important difference, however, was held to lie in the distinction that
comedy begins unhappily and proceeds to a happy conclusion, while tragedy
begins prosperously and ends miserably and terribly. Thus Dante's poem was
a Divine Comedy, and Chaucer in the Monk's Prologue summed up the accepted
opinion of the scholarship of his day.
"Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,
As olde bokes maken us memorie,
Of him that stood in greet prosperitee
And is y-fallen out of heigh degree
Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly."
These criteria for tragedy were fixed in the consciousness of the sixteenth
century; and, though gradually correlated and amalgamated with criticism
based on the newly found "Poetics," they continued to influence the theory
and practice of the drama. Fitting these definitions and greatly increasing
their importance and vogue, collections of tragedies attained wide
popularity during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
Boccaccio's "De Casibus Illustrium Virorum et Feminarum," Chaucer's "Monk's
Tale," and Lydgate's "Falls of Princes" are examples, and, far the most
influential on English tragedy, "The Mirror for Magistrates." This
collection, first printed in 1559 and later frequently re-edited and
enlarged, suggested many themes for the historical drama. Elizabethan
playwrights seeking for tragic stories turned naturally to this most famous
collection of "tragedies" in the medieval sense. Consequently, the very
idea of tragedy continued to carry the connotation of a sudden reversal of
fortune, the fall of princes. Tragedy, indeed, has always remained very
largely devoted to themes "de casibus illustrium virorum et feminarum."
Turning now from the influence of medievalism to that of humanism, we may
remember that in the drama even more than elsewhere humanism denotes a
revolution in the spirit of the age, an emancipation of the individual mind
from the fetters that had bound intellect and imagination through the
Middle Ages. But we must deal first with one of the factors in
accomplishing this emancipation, the reawakened knowledge of classical
literature. There was some slight acquaintance with the Attic drama from
the time that Greek was first taught at Oxford; the doughty Roger Ascham
learned from his master Sir John Cheke to prefer Euripides to Seneca; and
at the time when the study of Sophocles and Euripides was occupying the
Italian dramatists, there must have been some similar response in England.
Specific instances of this, however, are few and uncertain. The Greek
dramatists seem to have exercised no appreciable direct influence on
English tragedy of the sixteenth century; nor can their influence at any
time during the seventeenth be said to have been considerable. For England,
even more exclusively than for the Continent, the classical influence on
the origin and early development of tragedy was confined to the ten plays
which Renaissance scholarship attributed to the philosopher Seneca.
Seneca's plays, probably not intended for stage presentation, were literary
exercises following the models of Greek tragedy and more especially of
Euripides. By the humanist, after he had acquired some slight knowledge of
the classical theatre, they were naturally accepted as plays actually
performed, and their artificial and elaborate diction, which is their most
conscious departure from Attic standards, was eagerly appraised as a merit.
Their themes, with the exception of that of the pseudo-Senecan "Octavia,"
are borrowed from Greek mythology, with a strong preference for the most
sensational and bloody stories of adultery, incest, the murder of parents
by their children or of children by their parents. Whatever the revolting
and bloody details, crime and its retribution make up the burden of each
story. The plays present only the last phase of an action, and consequently
open with lengthy exposition of preceding events. Much happens behind the
scenes, little on the stage; there are many narrative and lyrical scenes,
comparatively few dramatic. In comparison with the Athenian tragedies, they
seem like prolonged rhetorical discussions of the familiar legends. Their
structure involves a division into five acts, which had probably been
earlier adopted in Latin tragedy and is noted in the "Ars Poetica," and the
exclusion of the chorus from any participation in the action. It appears
usually after each of the first four acts and indulges in philosophical
reflections, hymns in praise of some deity, or lamentations. In each play a
chief person or hero can be distinguished in conflict with one or more
chief opponents; and each of the leading persons is accompanied by an
adviser or confidant, usually a faithful friend for a hero and a nurse for
the heroine. In addition to mortals, supernatural visitants, furies, gods,
and especially ghosts, have a prominence that stirred Elizabethans to
imitation. Though the presentation of character is not humanly vital, the
long speeches and soliloquies display an elaborate analysis of moods of
passion, with an absence of Athenian religion, a pagan cosmopolitanism, and
an almost modern introspection. The style and philosophy were the chief
recommendation of the plays to the Renaissance taste. Artificial, with
constant use of antithesis, stichomythia, and hyperbole, oratorical,
sonorous, bombastic, and thickly sprinkled with aphorisms and sentiments,
the style seemed to the humanists to reach the height of tragic elevation
and philosophic sententiousness.
The reasons for the almost exclusive adoption of Seneca as a model seem to
have been not only the comparative ignorance of Greek, but also the
preference of Renaissance taste for the qualities just enumerated.
Moreover, these lifeless and undramatic mixtures of rhetorical verbiage,
melodramatic situations, and endless declamations had the advantage of
being easy to imitate. In their encouragement to imitation and their
absorption of interest away from the models of Greek tragedy, there was a
danger of humanistic endeavor resulting in mere copying, a danger not
altogether escaped in Italy and France, but happily averted in England.
When, on the other hand, the characteristics of these unpromising models
are considered in comparison with the conventionality of the miracles and
moralities, they clearly offered much provocative of literary endeavor and
the development of the _genre_ of tragedy. Through them secular stories,
real persons, and dramatic plots took the place of the allegories and the
abstractions. While they encouraged the selection of such stories as
resembled the sensational myths favored by Seneca, they opened the door to
history, romance, and the whole world of classical fable. Though their
particular structure proved in the end impossible on the English stage,
they enforced the division into acts already familiarized in comedy, and
suggested the possibility of a dramatic fable in distinction from the
miracles' adherence to a narrative one. Again, their presentation of
character brought new persons, new motives, and new methods, calling
attention to drama not as an exposition of events or as an allegory of
life, but as a field for the study of human emotion. Their brilliant if
bombastic rhetoric aroused enthusiasm for the drama as literature and
poetry; and their reflective and aphoristic style encouraged an effort to
elevate tragedy above its too familiar converse with comedy into the realm
of austere philosophy. These influences, however, were general. Every
particular of Seneca's plays had its sixteenth century imitators.
The first signs of an intelligent interest in these plays appeared almost
simultaneously at the very beginning of the fourteenth century in the
commentary of the English Dominican, Nicholas Treveth, and in the study of
the circle gathered about Lovato di Lovati at Padua. One of this school,
Albertino Mussato, about 1314, wrote his "Eccerinis" on the fate of the
Paduan tyrant, Ezzelino, of the preceding century. This first of the Latin
tragedies of modern times aroused the admiration of scholars, and was
followed by many other neo-Latin imitations of Seneca. These, while keeping
to the Senecan form, often went beyond the stories of classical mythology
and chose their subjects from the Bible or from ancient or modern history.
Meanwhile neo-Latin comedy had had a beginning and was largely stimulated
by the discovery, in 1427, of twelve hitherto unknown comedies of Plautus.
All these neo-Latin plays were read and not acted; and the actual acting,
either of the classical plays or their humanistic imitations, was not
established until the close of the fifteenth century.
The knowledge of the classical drama spread after a time across the Alps,
and Terentian comedy in particular exercised a wide influence upon the
drama. Of especial interest in relation to tragedy is the new school of
neo-Latin comedy which arose about 1530 in Holland and spread over Germany
and into France. It applied Terentian style and structure to many of the
stories in the Old Testament and to the parable of the prodigal son. To its
original purpose of substituting for Terentian immorality themes edifying
for youth, it soon added a Protestant tone, and in Kirchmayer's
"Pammachius" (1538) entered the field of violent religious controversy. As
the number of these plays rapidly increased, there resulted a
secularization of treatment and the admission of Senecan as well as
Terentian influence. The stories of Judith, Susannah, Goliath, and others
gave opportunities for recourse to Senecan imitation; and in the "Jephthes"
and "Baptistes," which about 1540 George Buchanan wrote at Bordeaux for his
students to act, we have the first tragedies north of the Alps written in
distinctly classical form,--a form, it should be said, derived from his
study and translation of Euripides as well as from Seneca.
Seneca's preëminence as a model for tragedy, however, was in general not
contested, but rather increased by the growing knowledge of Euripides and
Sophocles. By the end of the fifteenth century there had been many
translations of his plays in Italy; they were studied in the schools, and
some had been given stage presentation. But the idea of a vernacular
tragedy on the Senecan model was not put into effect until Trissino's
"Sophonisba," written in 1515. This was followed by others, until by the
time of "Gorboduc" Senecan tragedy in Italian was an established form, and
Jodelle's "Cléopatre Captive" (1552) had marked the beginning of the
Senecan _genre_ in France. The Italian tragedy had also introduced some
departures, in the choice of romantic material and in the innovation of
"tragicomedy," which supplied the Senecan model with a happy ending. But
all these writers of tragedy worked with a common purpose, to revive
Senecan drama in their own day, and their plays adapted their themes and
methods to the Senecan model with the faithfulness of disciples. These
Senecan imitations, it should be noted, were designed for special
performances under academic or courtly auspices, and not for the popular
theatre.
In England during the first half of the sixteenth century there was a
repetition of the inter-influence between the still flourishing forms of
medieval drama and the new classical models which we have noted on the
Continent. The early Renaissance in the reign of Henry VIII awakened an
interest in Seneca; and the fragment of an English play introducing Lucrece
has suggested to Mr. Chambers the possibility of an essay at Senecan
tragedy thirty years before "Gorboduc." The main force of the humanistic
influence seems, however, to have been in the direction of comedy. The
drama was no longer confined to popular open-air presentations, but found a
place at court, in the halls of noblemen, and especially at the schools
and universities, where the comedies of Plautus and Terence and imitations
both in Latin and English were frequently acted. The influence of the
classical plays themselves and of the neo-Latin school and the
controversial dramas of the Continent upon English moralities and
interludes was extensive and distinct. This led to a multiplication and
confusion of dramatic types out of which comedy emerged in such plays as
"Gammer Gurton's Needle" and "Ralph Roister Doister." In Latin, but not in
English, we can trace a similar movement toward tragedy. We hear of a
"Dido" written by Ritwyse, master of St. Paul's, and performed by his
pupils some time in the decade preceding 1532. "Absalon," written by Thomas
Watson probably in the following decade, was highly praised by Roger
Ascham, and, if it be identical with the play now in manuscript in the
British Museum, is an example of biblical drama along Senecan lines. A
non-extant "Jephthes" by Christopherson (1546), the "Archipropheta," with a
romantic love episode and a clown, written by Grimald and acted at Oxford
in 1547, and his "Christus Redivivus" published in 1543 as a "comoedia
tragica," all belong to the same mixed species. A representative of the
controversial drama appears in John Foxe's "Christus Triumphans" about
1550, which drew much from the famous "Pammachius," already translated by
Bale and acted at Oxford to the great scandal of Gardiner. Of plays in the
vernacular we hear of a few called tragedies, but the term was used without
any exactness, and no extant play has any just claim to the title. Ten
tragedies and comedies are attributed by Bale to Ralph Radcliffe, a
pedagogue, who in 1538 opened a theatre in his schoolhouse and gave plays
before the 'plebs.' Some of these were certainly in Latin, but some may
have been in English, and the titles are interesting as emphasizing again
the prevailing humanistic influences. Of the tragedies, two, "The Burning
of Sodom" and "The Delivery of Susannah," are on biblical themes evidently
chosen for the purpose of edification; the third, "The Condemnation of John
Huss," suggests the controversial type. Of the comedies, four have biblical
themes, while three, "Patient Griselda," "Meliboeus," and "Titus and
Gisippus," indicate the growing search for secular and even romantic
themes. In this confusion of many species of drama, created by a mixture of
medieval and humanistic influences, there is at least no clear evidence of
any English tragedy on Senecan lines before "Gorboduc." Of the development
of the moralities toward tragedy, of which signs are not lacking, we get
the clearest examples in plays a little later, which will be treated in the
next chapter.
Special notice, however, must here be paid to one morality and the dramatic
activity of its author. John Bale, born 1495, a converted Carmelite who
became bishop under Edward VI and an exile during the reign of Mary, and
who died not long after the accession of Elizabeth, was one of the most
vigorous of Protestant controversialists and apparently the leader of what
may be called the Protestant drama. His forty-six plays "in idiomate
materno" seem to have been intended for presentation, and, while exhibiting
classical influence, doubtless in the main followed medieval models. Of the
five extant, written presumably about 1538, three, "God's Promises," "John
the Baptist," and "The Temptation of our Lord," are miracle plays; one,
"The Three Laws," is a morality. The fifth, "King John," inspired in its
satirical and Protestant elements by "Pammachius" and perhaps also by
Lindsay's "Three Estates," is the first example of a morality showing an
approach to the later historical drama. It is in form a controversial
morality, divided into two long parts or acts, but it follows roughly a
chronological outline, and among its abstractions presents the king himself
as the champion of Protestantism against the pope and Pandulph. Although
the direct influence of the play on later drama cannot be traced, it is a
notable advance, of which there were perhaps other examples, toward the
treatment of English history and of individual persons rather than
abstractions in the popular drama.
The humanistic activities of the sixty years before "Gorboduc" thus
resulted in a breaking away of allegiance to medieval models and the
introduction of new types, rather than in any direct contribution to the
form or matter of tragedy. The vernacular play approaching nearest to the
field of tragedy is still a controversial morality exhibiting all the
traits of medieval drama, and in its innovations pointing not toward
classical models, but rather to a new extension of the morality toward the
presentation of national history and real persons. During this time,
however, the influence of Seneca's plays had been constantly extending and
had been augmented by that of the imitations in Latin, French, and Italian.
The interest of Seneca in the universities seems to have increased during
the reigns of Edward and Mary and to have supplanted in a measure that in
Latin comedy. In 1559 the appearance of the first English translation, that
of the "Troades" by Jasper Heywood, opened the way to a wider interest and
to the possibility of domiciling the Senecan drama on the English stage. By
1561 translations of four other plays had been published; and, before the
collected edition of 1581, all of the ten had appeared and attained a
greater popularity with the reading public than they have ever since
experienced.
The first English tragedy was not a modification of current forms, but a
direct imitation of Seneca. The production of "Gorboduc," however, only
marked another stage in that conflict between medievalism and humanism
which we have been tracing. In the next chapter we shall consider the
conflict between Senecan imitations and popular tragedies that still kept
to the morality form, a conflict that resulted in the discarding of both
Senecan and morality incumbrances and the attainment in Marlowe and his
followers of a form of tragedy very different from either, though
inheriting bountifully from both.
One source of classical influence other than Seneca's plays and their
imitations was of enough importance to require special mention, that of
Aristotle's "Poetics." First printed in 1508, it reinforced the dogmas
derived from the "Ars Poetica," and became the basis of a rapidly
increasing amount of dramatic criticism. This criticism, mostly Italian,
interpreted Aristotle by means of the Senecan tragedies and so reinforced
their influence; but it was also greatly modified by the medieval ideas of
tragedy which we have already noticed. The resultant theory of tragedy,
with special regard to its misinterpretations of Aristotle, may be briefly
summarized. His dictum that tragedy is the imitation of a serious action
was interpreted to mean an action illustrious because the actors are
persons of the highest rank, thus adopting the medieval restriction of
tragedy to princes. There was less agreement in the restriction of tragedy
to history rather than fiction; and over the question of the propriety of a
happy ending there was considerable debate. Tragi-comedies were written and
defended, but critics in general recognized tragedy as restricted to an
unhappy ending, which was universally interpreted to mean deaths. In regard
to the function of tragedy there was great difference of opinion over the
meaning of [Greek: katharsis], the weight of opinion inclining to emphasize
the ethical aim of tragedy, that is, the reward of virtue and punishment of
vice and the inculcation of morality by means of frequent precepts. From
Aristotle's discussion of character there was derived the curious idea of
"decorum," so important in later theories of the drama, that every
character should represent a class and should always have the same
characteristics,--the kings all acting after one prescribed fashion, the
soldiers after another, the old men after another, and so on. From
Aristotle's mention of the restriction of time to one revolution of the sun
came the unities of time and place, confining the action to one city and
twenty-four hours, which were soon made predominant over the third unity of
action. These distinctions became fixed in Italian criticism and were given
their first full expression in English in Sidney's "Apology for Poetry,"
written about 1580; but before that they were more or less comprehended by
most English students of Seneca. Although even a scholar in 1561 would have
been unable to define the unities or decorum, he would have had some
confused notion of them. The scope and function of tragedy were by that
time assuming in the general literary consciousness a definition approved
by both medieval and classical theory and later formulated by Puttenham:
"Tragedy deals with doleful falls of unfortunate and afflicted princes, for
the purpose of reminding men of the mutability of fortune and of God's just
punishment of a vicious life."
Such definition of medieval and classical influences as we have been
attempting necessitates a somewhat unreal separation of the two forces.
Evidently, in the mind of any playwright, the two combined in a confusion
of impulses, of the sources of many of which he must have been unaware.
Absolute restriction to the old tradition or to the new inspiration is
hardly to be expected in any English dramatist attempting tragedy in the
neighborhood of 1562. Such an author would have open for his choice a
wealth of stories, classical, medieval, or Italian, as yet untouched by
drama; and, though he might choose a story whose events paralleled some
Senecan plot, he would be likely to adhere closely to his narrative source
after the medieval fashion. Even if he strove loyally after the Senecan
form, his knowledge would be hardly sufficient to prevent departures from
strict classical standards. Seneca does not always clearly observe the
unities or remove violent action from the stage, and his Elizabethan
follower would naturally err on the side in accord with popular dramatic
tradition. Of the chorus, reduced in importance by Seneca, he would find it
difficult to make much use. On the other hand, the adapter of the morality
structure to tragic purpose would perhaps fail to derive anything from
Seneca except his bombast and sensationalism. For whatever audience the
dramatist was writing, he would have many spectators demanding the fun,
horse-play, and crude horror of medieval tradition, while his own literary
aspirations might lead him to prefer lofty declamation and aphoristic
phrasing. But, whether his knowledge was large or small, he was likely to
combine in his conception of tragedy, as did Puttenham, both the Christian
idea of evil, thwarting good and meeting punishment, and the Senecan idea
of a crime followed by retribution or revenge. And, whether he catered to
popular taste or to literary ambition, he must have contemplated the
presentation of a reversal of fortune, persons of royal or distinguished
rank, and a catastrophe involving deaths.
It is, after all, the main contribution of humanism that through the study
of the classics there had come new impetus and authority for individual
effort. Art was to be based on classic precedents, but it was forbidden by
the spirit of the new age to remain after medieval fashion satisfied with
repetitions and translations. For the dramatist there were not only new
models, but a circulation of ideas, free opportunity, and the incentive of
fame. For him, too, there was a public long habituated to the drama and now
well tutored in novelties and variations of the old forms, a public that no
longer expected a conventionalized stage, but was possessed of what the
apostle Paul deemed the chief characteristic of the classical spirit, the
desire to hear some new thing.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
The authorities on their respective subjects are: W. Creizenach,
_Geschichte des neuren Dramas_, Halle, 1893-1903 (3 vols. and index,
extending to 1570, have appeared); A. W. Ward, _A History of English
Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne_, 1899, new and revised
edition, 3 vols.; E. K. Chambers, _The Mediæval Stage_, Oxford, 1903. These
all cover the matter of the present chapter and contain bibliographies.
Ward gives full bibliographical notes to editions and monographs;
Creizenach's index is substantially complete for all European plays;
Chambers's Appendix X contains references to editions and descriptions of
all English plays up to Elizabeth's accession. Klein, _Geschichte des
Dramas_, 13 vols., 1865-76, and Collier, _History of English Dramatic
Poetry_, new edition, 1879, are both somewhat out of date, though the
latter contains much useful material. R. Pröloss, _Geschichte des neueren
Dramas_ (1881-83), and K. Mantzius, _The History of Theatric Art_, 3 vols.
(1904), are slighter. The only rapid and readable survey of European drama
is by Brander Matthews, _The Development of the Drama_ (1906). For France,
the authority for medieval drama is L. Petit de Julleville, _Histoire du
Théâtre en France au Moyen Age_, 1880-86, 4 vols.; for Germany, R. Froning,
_Das Drama des Mittelalters_, 1891; for Italy, A. Ancona, _Origini del
Teatro italiano_, 1891, 2d edition. J. J. Jusserand, _Le Théâtre en
Angleterre_ (1881, 2d ed.); J. A. Symonds, _Shakespeare's Predecessors in
the English Drama_ (1884); G. Gregory Smith, _The Transition Period_ (1900,
in _Periods of European Literature_); Gayley, _Plays of Our Forefathers_
(1907), are of value. Dealing more specifically with matters discussed in
this chapter are the volumes of Cloetta and Spingarn cited in the last
chapter, C. H. Herford's _The Literary Relations of England and Germany in
the Sixteenth Century_, Cambridge, 1886, J. W. Cunliffe's _The Influence of
Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy_, Manchester, 1893, and R. Fischer's _Zur
Kunstentwickelung der Englischen Tragödie von ihren ersten Anfangen bis zu
Shakespeare_, 1893. The Elizabethan translations of Seneca have been
reprinted by the Spenser Society (1887). Within the last few years three
new translations have appeared: by Watson Bradshaw, in prose (1902); by
Miss E. A. Harris, in verse, two tragedies 1899, the remaining eight 1904;
by F. J. Miller, in verse, with introduction on Seneca's Influence on
English Drama by J. M. Manly (Chicago, 1907). Text and discussions of plays
are presented by A. W. Pollard, _English Miracle Plays_, Oxford, 4th ed.,
1904; A. Brandl, _Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England_, 1898; J. M.
Manly, _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama_, 1897 (2 vols., the third
to contain notes and discussion). Dodsley's _Old Plays_, ed. W. C. Hazlitt,
15 vols., 1874-76, also contains texts. The matter of this and subsequent
chapters also receives treatment in the general histories of literature. J.
J. Jusserand, _Literary History of the English People_, 2 vols., 1895-, is
especially valuable in its account of the drama. The new _Cambridge History
of English Literature_ (now in progress) will contain valuable monographs
on the matter of this and subsequent chapters. _The Dictionary of National
Biography_ is, of course, most valuable for individual writers. F. E.
Schelling's _Elizabethan Drama_, 1558-1642, which appears as this volume is
passing the press, is a general history of the drama of the period stated,
with special reference to the development of dramatic species. It contains
an extremely useful Bibliographical Essay and "A List of Plays" written,
acted, or published in England, 1558-1642.
CHAPTER III
THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAGEDY
In this chapter the development of tragedy is to be traced from 1562, the
year of the production of "Gorboduc," to about 1587, the beginning of
Marlowe's career. Our knowledge of the drama during this period is scanty,
and there are few extant tragedies or plays resembling tragedy. Before
examining these plays with the detail which their historical position
demands, it will be necessary first to glance at the theatrical conditions.
Reference has been made to some of the changes that had been working a
transformation from the conditions of the popular performance of the
religious drama in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Through these,
the drama had already to a large extent passed from the control of the
guilds to that of small companies of amateur or professional actors; from
the open air into the halls of noblemen or of the schools; from the large
stage with its fixed stations for the different actors or the procession of
pageants, to the small and perhaps improvised platform. Long plays with
hosts of actors had given place to short plays with few parts, or many
parts divisible among few actors, and constructed with a clear distinction
between "on the stage" and "off the stage." Performances indoors, no
specially prepared stage, few actors, and short plays represent the
prevailing theatrical practice of the early sixteenth century.
From 1562 on, however, theatrical conditions were various and shifting, and
not always easily discernible by the modern student. While miracles were
still performed after the old popular fashion, the traveling professional
companies were growing in importance and tending to monopolize the acting
of interludes. Amateur actors, however, at court, school, university, inns
of court, or, indeed, among the Bottoms and mechanics of the villages,
still contended with the professional for the control and maintenance of
the drama. So far as tragedy is concerned, it will be convenient to keep in
mind at least four distinct kinds of performance. First, the Gentlemen of
the Inns of Court, who throughout the Elizabethan period showed themselves
liberal patrons of the drama, occasionally gave plays, usually in
connection with special festivities. Second, there were performances at the
schools and universities which continued to exert an important dramatic
influence, as they had for the preceding sixty years. Plays at the
universities were generally in Latin, but there were English plays at both
schools and universities, and companies from the Merchant Tailors and
Westminster schools acted at court; these last performances falling
properly in the third group. Third, companies of children were trained for
performance at court; and these were in the course of time restricted to
the choir boys of St. Paul's and of the Queen's chapel. Fourth, the
traveling professional companies, numerous at the beginning of the period,
acted in the inn-yards of London, at court, in the halls of noblemen, on
the village greens, in the guild halls, even in the churches of the towns,
or wherever else they could obtain an opportunity, until the most important
of them found homes in the London theatres. On all four of these classes of
actors the influence of the court was considerable, for it was the highest
gratification of either amateur or professional to be engaged in a court
performance, and performances at court were subject to greater preparation
than those in public.
Such were the conditions governing the presentation of tragedies in this
period, but in the course of its twenty-five years the professional
companies constantly grew in importance and in the end practically
monopolized the business of giving plays. Schools, universities, and
companies of amateurs became of decreasing moment in the development of the
drama, while the choir boys were permitted to act plays publicly in their
own theatres and thus became formidable professional rivals of the men's
companies. In 1572 the statute compelling the common players to obtain the
license of some nobleman reduced the number of the adult companies, but
strengthened those that survived, which now became known as Lord
Leicester's men, Lord Howard's men, and so on. In London they were able
with the assistance of the court to establish and maintain themselves
despite the active and constant opposition of the city authorities. The
Theatre, built outside the city proper in 1576, was soon followed by other
playhouses, and in 1583 a company was licensed under the Queen's personal
patronage. Henceforth the history of the Elizabethan drama is in the main
confined to four or five companies of men and one or two of children,
acting regularly in their established theatres and occasionally in the
provinces, or at court, or elsewhere.
The character of a tragedy naturally varied with the circumstances of its
presentation. A Latin play at one of the universities was much more
dignified and scholarly than the performance of a few traveling actors for
the delectation of a provincial audience; and a play by the Gentlemen of
the Inner Temple was given with an elaborateness not to be expected in
those by the choir boys, which were likely to be brief and to include a
good deal of singing. The extant tragedies can consequently be best
classified according to their methods of presentation. Before all
audiences, it should be remembered, moralities of divers sorts were
performed, but we are now concerned only with those that most closely
approach tragedy. All the extant Latin plays were presented at the
universities. Of English plays, "Gorboduc," "Tancred and Gismunda,"
"Jocasta," and "The Misfortunes of Arthur" were acted by gentlemen of the
Inner Temple or Gray's Inn, and are all Senecan tragedies. "Damon and
Pithias" and "Appius and Virginia" were acted at court by children, and
show little Senecan influence, but are medleys of tragedy, comedy, and
music. No performance by an adult company of any extant tragedy is
recorded, but "Horestes" and "Cambyses," both of which may have originally
been intended for children, bear some evident marks of popular
presentation, and both are mixtures of morality, farce, and tragedy. These
plays, with the exception of "The Misfortunes of Arthur," acted in 1588 at
the very end of the period, were all written and performed in the sixties.
With the addition of "Promus and Cassandra" (1578), apparently not acted,
they comprise all extant plays acted before 1586-87 which can be classed as
tragedies or tragicomedies. Our knowledge of the professional drama may be
supplemented from the titles of non-extant plays and from the Revels
Accounts of performances at court; but it should be observed that our
information in regard to the development of popular tragedy is very meagre,
especially for the important period after 1570, and that the group of
Senecan plays, which we are to examine first, owed their existence to no
popular favor, but to amateur performances under special conditions.
"Gorboduc," or "Ferrex and Porrex," printed surreptitiously in 1565 and
with an authoritative text about 1570, was written by Thomas Norton and
Thomas Sackville, the author of "The Complaint of Buckingham" and "The
Induction" in "The Mirror for Magistrates," and afterwards Lord Buckhurst,
Lord High Treasurer. It was performed before the Queen as a part of the
elaborate Christmas entertainment of the Inner Temple in 1561-62. The plot
is taken from a British legend that was introduced into literature by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, and relates the division of the kingdom by Gorboduc
between his two sons, Ferrex and Porrex, the murder of the elder by the
younger, the murder of the younger by his mother, the murder of both father
and mother by their subjects, the slaughter of the people by the nobles,
and the resulting civil wars. The story, evidently chosen because of its
likeness to Seneca's "Thebais," is treated in Senecan manner, each of the
first four acts being followed by a chorus of "Foure auncient and sage men
of Brittaine." The murders are not enacted but are related by messengers,
but the unities of time and place are violated, as Sir Philip Sidney noted
with disapproval. There is little characterization, much political
moralizing, which delighted Sidney, and an abundance of long declamations,
about eight hundred lines, nearly half of the play, being comprised in ten
speeches. The play is written in blank verse, already used in Surrey's
translation from the Æneid, and perhaps adopted in imitation of the
unrhymed verse of the Italian tragedies. After the Italian fashion, each
act is preceded by a dumb show, symbolizing the following action, and these
dumb shows seem to have been utilized to provide the spectacle that was
entirely wanting in the play proper. Supernatural visitants appear in the
three furies before act iv; and before the last act the dumb show consists
of a battle-scene, similar to those which later became the invariable
accompaniments of the chronicle history play: "there came forth upon the
stage a company of hargabusiers and of armed men all in order of
battaile," who discharged their pieces and marched three times about the
stage.
In spite of the close adherence to the Senecan model, there is little
direct borrowing from Seneca, and medieval elements are not lacking. The
debates between the good and bad counselors are very like those of the
moralities, and the structure is essentially that of a chronicle of a whole
story rather than that of a classical tragedy. The first two acts are
occupied by the interminable debates, and the last three by the
catastrophe, or rather the succession of catastrophes, though the final
scene of the fifth act is a sort of epilogue after Senecan fashion. The
play has little literary value, though Marcella's recital is not without
power and the disquisitions on discord and disloyalty in the state have the
merit of earnestness; but it is clearly the beginning of a new species. It
abandons current dramatic forms, and endeavors to depict the fall of
English princes in accordance with the models of classical tragedy.
"Jocasta," by Gascoigne and Kinwelmarsh, acted 1566 by the Gentlemen of
Gray's Inn, demands little attention. It is a translation in blank verse of
Lodovico Dolce's "Giocasta," itself an adaptation of the "Phoenissæ" of
Euripides. It thus furnishes additional evidence of the influence of
Italian tragedy on English. The chorus numbers four, as in "Gorboduc," and
the dumb shows, apparently of Gascoigne's invention, are notably elaborate
and spectacular.[2]
"Tancred and Gismunda," acted before the queen at the Inner Temple in 1568,
under the title "Gismond of Salerne," was written in rhymed quatrains by
five gentlemen of the Temple, and afterwards revised and put into blank
verse by the author of the fifth act, Robert Wilmot, and first published in
1591.[3] In both versions Cupid appears before the first and third acts as
the director of the action, and Magæra comes on before the fourth act to
superintend the revenge and murder. The play is based on Painter's version
of Boccaccio's _novella_, which is followed closely, but the base-born
lover becomes a count according to the prevailing theory of tragedy. The
story itself has an obvious dramatic power and a certain dramatic structure
which it imposes on the play. Gismunda's passion for the Count Palurin
runs counter to her father's wishes; at the end of the third act love is
triumphant, but in the fourth is defeated, and the gruesome catastrophe
follows, Tancred and Gismunda dying on the stage. This is the earliest
extant English play based on an Italian _novella_, and the first tragedy to
adopt a romantic love story and to make the passion of love its central
motive; and the authors accomplished their experiment with evident
enthusiasm and some gracefulness and force of diction. They were, however,
very conscious of their models. Seneca's "Thyestes," and "Phædra," itself
presenting a story of passionate love, were perhaps their chief
inspirations; but Buchanan's "Jephthes" and Beza's "Abraham," translated
into English in 1577, are mentioned in Wilmot's dedication, and, together
with other plays, supplied precedents for the treatment of the favorite
tragic theme, the sacrifice of a child by a father. Moreover, Italian
tragedies had, since Giraldi's "Orbecche," been turning to romantic fiction
for their subjects instead of to history and mythology; and some of these,
"Orbecche" itself, and, as Professor Creizenach notes,[4] Dolce's "Dido,"
doubtless influenced the young templars. There had, indeed, already been
Italian tragedies based on Boccaccio's _novella_, and one by Frederigo
Asinari (1576) had added an Oedipean horror by making Tancred put out his
eyes before killing himself, an augmentation adopted by Wilmot in his
revision. The play was thus not only thoroughly Senecan, but the result of
a tangle of derivative Senecan influences. The authors were probably
unconscious of the incongruity so obvious to us between the classical form
and the romantic material. They were interested in their story and were
eager to give it all the advantages that erudition could discover; their
intentions were doubtless perfectly reflected in the praise which William
Webbe gave them for a play that "all men generally desired, as a work,
either in stateliness of show, depth of conceit, or true ornaments of
poetical art, inferior to none of the best in that kind: no, were the Roman
Seneca the censurer."
"The Misfortunes of Arthur," by Thomas Hughes, was acted and published in
1588. The story from "The Morte D'Arthur" was suggested by its likeness to
Senecan plots; and the play was an ambitious attempt to use British legend
as Seneca had treated classical myth. The strife between father and son,
with its accompaniments of adultery and incest, is viewed as constituting a
Nemesis for the crimes of Arthur's father, Pendragon; and the ghost of the
wronged Gorlois appears in the first scene to promise revenge, and in the
final scene to triumph over its fulfillment. The author knew his models by
heart, borrowed much, availed himself of all the particulars of the Senecan
technic, and imitated everywhere with a good deal of spirit and success.
The play has dramatic and poetic merits beyond its predecessors, but its
late date makes it of small importance in our effort to trace the
beginnings of English tragedy. Acted twenty-six years after "Gorboduc," it
testifies less to the progress of dramatic art than to the
conventionalizing effect of Senecan models. Though perhaps the most
successful of English imitations of Seneca, it marks the failure of amateur
actors and courtly audiences to revive the classical drama on the English
stage. On the occasion of its performance before the Queen at Greenwich,
its actors and authors may very likely have thought it full of significance
for the future of the drama; but "Tamburlaine" had already been acted, and
poetry had taken up its abode in the despised public theatres. The chief
interest for us in "The Misfortunes of Arthur" is that it furnishes further
illustration of the use of English history and of stories of revenge.
To understand the full importance of the attempt to domicile Seneca in
England, we must turn to the universities. Two English plays, which would
be of interest, have not been preserved, "Ezechias," a tragedy by Udall,
acted in 1564 at Cambridge, and "Palamon and Arcyte" by Edwards, the author
of "Damon and Pithias," acted 1566. These are the only English plays at all
tragical that are recorded; but the practice of giving Latin plays
continued and grew in popularity.[5] We hear of "Dido" and an "Ajax
Flagellifer," apparently a translation of Sophocles, both in 1564, and a
"Progne" in 1566. The extant Latin tragedies are of a later date. Gager's
"Meleager," "Oedipus," and "Dido," all acted in the early eighties, are
modeled strictly on Seneca, the first two showing direct borrowings. In the
fragment which we possess of the third, the ghost of Sichæus appears to
warn Dido, and is followed by the storm, represented, we learn, by sugar
for snow, sweetmeats for hail, and rose-water for rain. Gager's "Ulysses
Redux," acted in 1591, a little beyond the limits of our period, presents a
somewhat freer treatment of the Senecan form, the number of characters and
of scenes being larger than in the earlier plays. Of uncertain date are a
"Herodes," which takes the form of a revenge play introduced by the ghost
of Mariemma, and "Solymannidæ" and "Tonumbeius," which apply Senecan
methods to Eastern instead of to classical atrocities. "Roxana" (1632),
acted before 1592, is a translation of "La Dalida" of Luigi Groto, and won
some contemporary distinction and the praise of Dr. Johnson two centuries
later. It is a revenge play with a ghost, combining Senecan gruesomeness
with the motives of romantic comedy.
More famous than any of these in its own day was "Richardus Tertius," a
tragedy in three parts, each part acted on a separate night in 1579 at St.
John's, Cambridge, the work of Thomas Legge, Master of Caius and afterwards
Vice-Chancellor of the university. Legge seems to have felt the incongruity
between the material of the chronicles, which he followed closely, and a
strict Senecan form, and to have striven to overcome this by the
mechanical expedient of prolonging the action over three plays. But the
problem of presenting on the stage the events of a whole reign could not be
solved in the terms of the Senecan formula. Legge copied the Senecan
rhetoric, interpreted historical events and persons under the guidance of
the formula, and retained much of its technic, the narration of deaths
instead of their presentation, counsel scenes between hero and advisers,
frequent use of the nuntius, and a vestige of a chorus. But the play
departs as widely as popular dramas from the unities of time and place,
contains many scenes with more than three speakers, is full of dramatic
action, and presents processions, pageants, and battle scenes after the
fashion of later chronicle plays in the public theatres. Its influence on
popular drama may well have been considerable; though, on the other hand,
its adherence to sources and its looseness of structure may have been
reflections from the public stage. Whether the first chronicle play or not,
it is the earliest extant play to indicate the result of the inevitable
conflict between a narrow and stereotyped dramatic form and the wide range
of material which the chronicles afforded.[6]
In these university Latin plays there is evident a development similar to
that traced in the English Senecan drama. Biblical themes disappear; close
imitations of Seneca on classical themes give way to freer treatment of
romantic or historical material. Revenge and the ghost are ever prominent;
and English history introduces a host of events, varied, incongruous,
panoramic, and bursting the bounds of the traditional structure. Nash,
Marlowe, and others of the later dramatists were university men, and saw
some of these plays performed, and perhaps took part in them. Their scenic
spectacle, choices of themes, handling of situation, and general effect
must have had an appreciable influence upon the subsequent course of the
drama. To the various influences which we have denominated humanistic, and
especially to the derivative influences reinforcing that of Seneca, we must
add this of the Latin plays at Oxford and Cambridge. Latin tragedies
continued to be acted at the universities for many years, but their
influence on the popular drama can have been potent only during its
formative period.
When we turn from these academic and amateur productions to the more
popular performances,[7] we have to deal with a very different class of
plays. The four to be considered were all written by men of scholarly
training, and all deal with classical themes, but the Senecan influence is
slight and mainly discernible in the figurative and hyperbolic diction and
the fondness for sententious maxims. None of the four are divided into
acts; none have choruses or other characteristic marks of Senecan
structure; all present action to the exclusion of reflection, and all are
in rhymed verse, the favorite metre, at least in the serious portions,
being doggerel. All admit comic and farcical scenes, and three are in a
large measure moralities. In the tragic portions all admit violence and
murders of all kinds on the stage; there is a beheading, a hanging, and, in
the case of "Cambyses," a flaying, accomplished, the stage direction
reassures us, "with a false skin."
"Damon and Pithias" (1571), by Richard Edwards, was acted by the Children
of the Chapel at court in 1563-64, and, judging from the title-page,
probably also in public. The prologue, which contains a discussion of
"decorum," explains that the term "tragicall comedy" is used because the
story is a matter "mixed up with mirth and care." The serious portion of
the play presents the tyrant Dionysius as well as the two faithful friends,
and shows evidence of a study of Seneca; but it is intermixed with comedy,
where the influence of Plautus is noticeable, and indeed with scenes of
broadest farce. Carisophus, the parasite, is hardly distinguishable from
the vice of the moralities, and is not only clown and mischief-maker, but
the villain, whose infamy brings about the tragic entanglements. The play
contains a number of songs, and this mixture of tragedy, farce, and musical
comedy seems typical of the children's plays of this period.
"Appius and Virginia" (S. R. 1567-68), by an unknown R. B., was also
evidently acted by one of the children's companies, perhaps, as Mr. Fleay
plausibly conjectures, by the boys of the Westminster school. It is much
shorter than "Damon and Pithias," but, like that play, is styled a tragical
comedy, is written in rhymed verse, mostly doggerel, and contains farcical
scenes and many songs. The vice Haphazard is a clown and mischief-maker;
and, in addition, a number of personified abstractions, Conscience,
Justice, Comfort, Doctrina, etc., indicate the close relation of the play
to the moralities. The main plot, however, is tragic and has no integral
connection with the comic scenes. It begins with the domestic happiness of
the family of Virginius, and proceeds promptly to the action. Virginia is
beheaded, and the head is afterwards exhibited; Appius Claudius and
Haphazard are executed out of the sight of the audience; and in the
closing scene the tomb of Virginia is shown upon the stage, Memory
inscribes her renown, while Justice, Reward, Doctrine, and Fame apparently
join in a song "around about the tomb in honor of her name."
"Horestes" (1567) by John Pickering was probably the "Orestes" acted at
court 1567-68. It also seems to have been performed by children, but was
very likely given public presentation by various companies. The title runs
significantly, "A New Interlude of Vice, conteyninge the Historye of
Horestes," etc. The vice, indeed, is hardly absent from the stage, and
offers much that is new in his species. He is a clown, but apparently this
is only a disguise, for he appears to Horestes as a messenger from the
gods, urging him to revenge; later as Courage he is Horestes' faithful
friend and supporter, then as Revenge he attends to the execution of
Clytemnestra, and finally he appears as a beggar thrust out of court, since
Revenge could not agree with the Amity dwelling there, and takes the
opportunity to read a long lecture to women. The diversity of elements
confused in this personage is typical of the play. It is in a large measure
a morality; Nature appears to Horestes to dissuade him from including his
mother in his vengeance, Fame appears as a judge and exempts him from
guilt, and other abstractions are numerous and voluble. There are also a
number of songs, Egisthus and Clytemnestra having just finished a love song
when the messenger announces the avenger's approach. There are many scenes
of sheer farce, where the humor lies wholly in fisticuffs and beatings;
and the spectacular element suggests the later historical plays. Horestes
is accompanied by an army which marches with drums about the stage and
fights two pitched battles, one with the host of Egisthus and the other for
the possession of the city. "Make your lively battel and let it be long,"
says the stage direction. Still further, the classical elements are
curiously confused. Although there are a number of quotations from Ovid and
frequent citations of other classical worthies, there is no mention of
Seneca, though the plot of "a revenge for a father" here makes its first
appearance in the English drama, and the authors appear to have been
entirely ignorant of the Greek tragedies. The ultimate source is the sixth
book of Dictys Cretensis. The author follows closely one of the popular
versions of the Troy legend, retains the anachronisms of the romantic
version, and imposes on that the structure of the morality, the vice taking
the place of the oracle of Apollo, and abstractions mingling with the
knights and dukes of the Trojan war. The play is thus interesting as
marking another step in the translation of the morality into the "history"
type of tragedy. The closing scenes, in particular, illustrate the
adherence to sources with morality embellishments. The play by no means
ends with the murders. Horestes is approved by Fame, accused by Menelaus,
who arrives, defended by Nestor, who throws down his glove as a gage, then
reconciled to Menelaus, married to Hermione, crowned by Duty and Truth, and
applauded and advised by Commons and Nobelles.
"Cambyses" (S. R. 1569-70) was written by Thomas Preston, afterwards Master
of Trinity Hall, and acted some time in the sixties. Perhaps originally
intended for a school performance, it was later evidently acted in public,
and seems more suited than even "Appius and Virginia" or "Horestes" to a
performance by an ordinary professional adult company. The title-page sets
forth the plot with a terse emphasis of its various elements: "A Lamentable
Tragedie mixed full of pleasant mirth containing the Life of Cambises King
of Persia from the beginning of his kingdome unto his Death, his one good
deede of execution, after that, many wicked deedes and tyrannous murders
committed by and through him, and last of all, his odious death by Gods
Justice appointed." Like "Horestes," this is a combination of morality and
history, and the chronicle or epical method is enforced by the fact that we
have the whole story of "the life and death," as later titles ran, of a
monarch. The chronicle structure is mixed full of pleasant mirth and pays a
certain regard to climax. Cambyses begins by executing an unjust judge, and
proceeds to murder the child of his minister, then his brother, then his
bride, and finally himself. The comic scenes have a link of connection with
the tragic ones in Ambidexter, the vice and accomplice of the villanous
tyrant. Seneca is appealed to as an authority in the prologue, but there is
little trace of his influence, unless it is found in the central figure of
the wicked tyrant and his gory career, or in the highfalutin of Cambyses'
vein. The extraordinary list of _dramatis personae_ indicates sufficiently
the hodge-podge of the action and the prominence of the morality influence.
The deaths are managed by Cruelty or Murder; Commons Cry, Commons
Complaint, Small Nobility, and Proof appeal against tyranny; the marriage
feast is arranged by Preparation; the comic scenes are shared by Huf, Ruf,
Snuf, Hob, and Lob; Venus and Cupid manage the love affairs; and Shame
appears as a sort of tentative ghost:
"From among the grisly ghosts I come, from tyrants' testy train."
The fall of the Prince Cambyses, it should be added, is accidentally or
providentially upon his own sword; and only the exit of Ambidexter and a
few words from the three lords, who pronounce the accident a just reward
from heaven and promise princely burial, are required to bring the play to
a close.
In these plays we may trace the gradual emergence of tragedy in the popular
drama in response to a growing knowledge of its functions and methods. It
appears still mixed with farce and morality, but it has themes like those
of Seneca, bloody, revolting, and sensational, and its freedom in stage
presentation permits an emphasis on crime and death even greater than in
the Senecan imitations. Notably, it introduces the stories of the downfall
of a tyrant and the revenge of a son for a father. The structure has none
of the Senecan characteristics, and consists merely in linking together, or
rather in interrupting by extraneous comedy, a few scenes illustrating a
story; but it is like that of the English Senecan plays in the space it
gives to catastrophe. In general the plays begin conventionally with the
depiction of peaceful and prosperous circumstances, and proceed at once to
the disasters and deaths, with very little attention to the events or
motives that lead to these results. The element of conflict is as yet
hardly translated out of the abstract terms of the morality into those of
actual life. The conflict of motives never leads to a dramatic crisis but
keeps to the form of a medieval debate, as between Nature and Horestes, or,
indeed, between the bad and good counselors in "Gorboduc." Characterization
likewise depends mostly on the form of arguing abstractions, though certain
types of importance later are already noticeable. The faithful friend and
the aged counselor are ever at hand, and the part, if not the character, of
the tragic hero is provided in Horestes and Virginius. The villain receives
considerable attention. The English dramatists were puzzled to follow the
classical tragedies in placing the source of evil in Fate or the decrees of
the gods; and even when their stories provided them with persons
sufficiently iniquitous to cause all the tragic trouble, they seem to have
felt the need for a visible and special representative of the devil. Evil
in "Gorboduc" may be said to arise from the counsels of the parasites as
well as from the folly of the king and the envy of the princes. In "Tancred
and Gismunda" it is due, after classical imitation, to the intervention of
Cupid. In the popular plays the vice is borrowed from the moralities, and,
in all except "Horestes," is made a mischief-maker, a source of evil, and
the special representative of the devil. Questions in regard to the origin
of the vice and his relationship to the devil of the medieval drama have
not been freed from doubt by recent investigation, but it seems clear that
in the early tragedies he was given some of the work later accomplished by
the stage-villain and his accomplices. The part that women play in these
early tragedies should also be noticed. Women and love, as Professor
Creizenach has observed, receive far more attention in Renaissance tragedy
than in Greek or Senecan. "Tancred and Gismunda" and "Promus and Cassandra"
deal with stories of romantic love; Virginia and the queen in "Cambyses"
present noteworthy though slight examples of the idealization of women so
important in later drama. The purpose of all these plays, Senecan or
popular, is superficially didactic, as is witnessed not only by the
abundant moralizing in the Senecan imitations, but also in the popular
plays by the emphasis in the closing scenes on the reward of virtue and the
punishment of vice. In the last act of "Appius and Virginia" the lesson of
the play is written on the tomb, and in "Horestes" the conduct of the hero
is discussed by Nestor and Fame and finally rewarded by Hermione, Truth,
and Duty. "Cambyses" is more in line with later tragedy in presenting the
protagonist as a monster and in closing promptly after his punishment by
death.
The most certain accomplishment, however, in the development of the drama
up to 1570 had been in the widening of its range of material. The bible
narrative and moral allegory had been superseded by classical myth and
history, and these in turn were being encroached upon by the romantic
fiction of the Italian _novelle_ and by the chronicles of English history.
Italian _novelle_ were open to dramatists mainly through a series of
collections of translations, of which "Painter's Palace of Pleasure" (1566)
was the chief. The interest in English history was stimulated and fed by
"The Mirror for Magistrates" and the various editions of the chronicles;
Grafton, Stowe, and the third edition of Fabyan appearing in the sixties,
and Holinshed in 1577; while interest in the classics was maintained by
numerous translations as well as by an increasing knowledge of Latin.
Translation, indeed, had brought the stories of the world to the English
mart, and the dramatic industry was now eager in its demand for material.
Of the continued development of popular tragedy after 1570, and
particularly of the sources drawn upon for dramatic material, we can get a
few hints from the titles of non-extant plays. The incomplete Revels
Accounts of performances at court preserve the names of over sixty plays
acted between 1570 and 1585, and about thirty are derived from other
sources. Of the court plays, none had biblical subjects; a number were
moralities, a few were drawn from old romances; but the majority were from
classical or Italian sources. Many of these must have contained tragic
incidents,[8] though probably they were not much more classical in form
than "Appius and Virginia" or "Horestes." Only one title drawn from
national history presents itself, "The King of Scots." The English
chronicle play had evidently not yet made any stir at court; but many of
the classical plays were drawn from Livy. Two other titles, "The Cruelty of
a Stepmother" and "Murderous Michael" (Sussex's men, '78, '79), and a third
of a play at Bristol in 1578, "What Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man,"
may possibly have had for sources accounts of contemporary murders, and
thus have instituted the species of domestic tragedy. A few titles,
suggestive of tragedy, with accompanying comments, have been preserved by
Gosson, who praises: "The Jew," "representing the greediness of worldly
chusers and bloody minds of usurers," apparently a forerunner of "The
Merchant of Venice"; "Ptolemy," "describing the overthrow of seditious
estates and rebellious commons"; "The Blacksmith's Daughter," "contayning
the treachery of the Turkes, the honourable bountye of a noble mind, and
the shining of virtue in distress"; and his own play, "Catilin's
Conspiracy," "showing the reward of traitors."
Some further information concerning the emergence of popular tragedy can be
derived from the criticisms of the period. Gosson in his "Plays Confuted"
(1582), declares:--
"For the poets drive it most commonly unto such points
as may best show the majesty of their pen in tragical
speeches, or set their hearers agog with discourses of
love; or paint a few antics to fit their own humours
with scoffs and taunts or wring in a show to furnish
forth the stage when it is too bare; when the matter
itself comes short of this, they follow the practice of
the cobbler, and set their teeth to the leather to pull
it out.... So," he adds, "was the history of Cæsar and
Pompey and the play of the Fabii at the theatre, both
amplified where the drums might walk or the pen
ruffle."
A similar criticism is made by Whetstone in his dedication of "Promus and
Cassandra" (1578): "The Englishman in this qualitie, is most vaine,
indiscreete, and out of order: he first groundes his work on
impossibilities: then in three howers more likely ronnes he throwe the
worlde: marryes, gets Children, makes Children men, men to conquer
kingdomes, murder monsters, and bringeth Gods from Heaven and fetcheth
Divels from Hel." Sidney in the well-known passage on the contemporary
drama in his "Apologie for Poetrie" (1595, but written about 1580)
amplified these same criticisms, deploring the lack of "noble moralitie,"
the violation of the unities, and the admixture of farce in current
tragedies, and especially animadverting on the histories and the "mongrel
Tragy-comedie." He asks scornfully: "And doe they not knowe, that a
Tragedie is tied to the lawes of Poesie, and not of Historie? not bound to
follow the storie, but having liberty either to faine a quite new matter,
or to frame the history to the most tragicall conveniencie. Againe, many
things may be told, which cannot be shewed, if they knewe the difference
betwixt reporting and representing,"--and he goes on to illustrate.
Evidently the medieval methods were still potent rather than those of
Sidney's models, Euripides, Seneca, and "Gorboduc"; and the tragedies in
the theatres followed their sources without recognition of the difference
between a narrative and a dramatic structure, and with an appeal to vulgar
taste by means of hideous monsters, pitched fields, scurrility, or "some
extreme shew of doltishness." From these critical comments we may infer
that the popular drama had before 1585 triumphed over the Senecan. The few
extant tragedies before that date have shown little which was not
paralleled in the contemporary drama of western Europe; but in the
popularization of a professional drama that rejected Senecan technic but
still delighted in the presentation of tragic fact we have the first clear
differentiation of English tragedy from that of other nations.
Unfortunately we have only this indirect evidence that such differentiation
was well under way before Marlowe.
On the basis of such evidence, however, we may draw a few inferences in
regard to the course of popular tragedy from 1570 to 1585. We may infer
that Senecan imitations in the hands of amateurs did not multiply, and were
not readily accepted even as object lessons by writers for the public
theatres, who, whatever inspiration they may have received from amateur or
academic plays, must have felt the increasing force of the demand from the
public for amusement and sensation. While undoubtedly many traces of
Senecan influence continued, and while classical themes persisted, the
prevalent type of drama became neither right comedy nor right tragedy but
the so-called "history." Whether based on history or fiction, its main
purpose was the presentation of a story, the more marvelous the better;
and, even if it ended in deaths, it was likely to contain a mixture of
farce, romantic love, stage spectacle, and, as time went on, a diminishing
inculcation of morality. Throughout the period, popular tragedy probably
remained commingled with other species of drama. As it forsook the
morality, it found itself wedded with farce or spectacle; or, perhaps more
extensively, with history and romantic comedy. What course the popular
drama farthest removed from court or academic influence may have taken, we
can only surmise, though the presentation of contemporary murders, which
found favor even at court, must presumably have flourished with less
cultivated audiences. And it is impossible to resist the conjecture that
English history must have received crude presentation in the public
theatres much earlier than we have any record of.
We may also surmise that in the quarter of a century from "Cambyses" to
"Tamburlaine" there must have been some considerable development in the
power to depict tragic fact, in the traditions of tragic acting, and in the
cultivation of the taste of both audiences and authors for the genuinely
terrible, pathetic, and heroic, but we must assume that tragedy still
awaited the service of both literary and dramatic genius. The genius of
Marlowe, however, had its way prepared by twenty-five years of
extraordinary dramatic activity, during which the functions of comedy and
tragedy had become known if not observed, comedy had attained a
considerable development in Lyly and Peele, and tragedy had gained
sufficient vigor to extend its themes, and to decide against a development
imitative and scholarly, and in favor of one original and popular.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Most of the books in the list for the last chapter are useful in connection
with the matter of this. Creizenach and Ward are the chief authorities;
Collier, Symonds, and Jusserand deal with the period. Spingarn, Cunliffe,
and Fischer are valuable for their special fields. Texts are to be found in
Manly, Dodsley, Brandl, and discussions in the latter. For the stage
history of the Elizabethan drama, the works of F. G. Fleay are very
valuable, though marred by much unsupported conjecture: _A Biographical
Chronicle of the English Drama_, 1559-1642, 2 vols. (1891); _A Chronicle
History of the London Stage_, 1559-1642 (1890); _A Chronicle History of the
Life and Work of William Shakespeare_ (1886). The first-named is the most
reliable and useful of the three. Original documents and records are
printed in part in Collier and Fleay; and in Halliwell-Phillipps's
_Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_ (6th ed., 1886); Malone's _Variorum_
ed. of Shakespeare, 1821; Cunningham's _Extracts from the Annals of the
Revels at Court_, Shakespeare Society, 1842; Nichols's _The Progresses and
Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth_, 3 vols., 1823; _Aussere Geschichte
der englischen Theatertruppen_, 1559-1642, by Hermann Maas (Materialien zur
Kunde des älteren Englischen Dramas, 1907); Hazlitt's _English Drama and
Stage_ (1869); Chamber's _Notes on the Revels Office_ (1906). The essays of
Gosson, Sidney, Webbe, Puttenham, which supply most of the dramatic
criticism of the period, are in Arber's Reprints; selections from these and
other critical works with an introduction are collected in _Elizabethan
Critical Essays_, G. Gregory Smith (1904). J. W. Cunliffe's edition of
Gascoigne's _Posies_ (1907) contains the plays, which he has also edited
with an introduction in _The Belles-Lettres Series_ (1906). A study of
Legge's _Richardus Tertius_ is found in G. B. Churchill's _Richard III up
to Shakespeare_ (Berlin, 1906); and an account of the Latin university
plays in the article cited, by G. B. Churchill and W. Keller (_Shakspere
Jahrbuch_, 1898). W. W. Greg's _A List of English Plays written before 1643
and printed before 1700_ (London Bibliographical Society) is based on the
title-pages of the original copies. Fleay's _Biographical Chronicle_
includes all plays known, extant or not. Greg, Fleay, and Schelling
supersede Halliwell-Phillipps's _Dictionary of Old English Plays_ (1860),
and W. C. Hazlitt's _Manual of Old English Plays_ (1892). _English Drama, a
Working Basis_, by K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, Wellesley College (1895),
is the only attempt at a directory to modern editions, and though very
incomplete, is the most serviceable guide to the whole field of English
drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Before the first act, "there came in upon the stage a king with an
Imperiall Crowne upon his head ... sitting in a chariot very richely
furnished, drawne in by foure kinges in their dublettes and hosen, with
crownes upon their heades, representing unto us ambition," etc. And before
the fifth act there is a similar exhibition of a woman in a chariot driving
kings and slaves. These shows may have suggested to Marlowe the famous
business of Tamburlaine and his chariot. The show before act ii introduces
the paraphernalia of coffins and a grave, afterwards so frequent in popular
tragedy.
[3] The earlier version also survives in MS. and has been published by
Professor Brandl in his _Quellen des Weltlichen Dramas_. The revised
version is the result of elaborate care and reflects more highly developed
dramatic conditions than existed in the sixties, but in some respects it
may be closer to the original performance than is the manuscript. The songs
of the chorus, now four maids of Gismunda's instead of four gentlemen of
Salerne, and the dumb shows must have had some equivalents in the
presentation before the Queen, though both are wanting in the earlier
version. The dumb shows are noteworthy because, unlike those in _Gorboduc_
and _Jocasta_, they are not allegorical, but represent important actions
described or referred to in the text.
[4] _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_, ii, 471.
[5] For a list of Latin plays acted at the universities, see Fleay,
_Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama_, vol. ii, 347-366. This list
must be corrected in many particulars by an article, "Die Lateinischen
Universitäts-Dramen in der Zeit der Königin Elisabeth," by
George B. Churchill and Wolfgang Keller, _Jahrbuch der Deutschen
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_, xxxiv, 220-323.
[6] Far more novel than any of the plays discussed in its departures from
Senecan precedent, is _Perfidus Hetruscus_. So far as can be judged from
the outline (_Jahrbuch_, xxxiv, 250-252), it offers no semblance of Senecan
structure. There is no chorus, but there are six ghosts, a villain, two
accomplices,--one a Capuchin, the other a Jesuit,--and an elaborate plot,
as full of surprises as of poisonings. It seems to be a popular revenge
play turned into Latin, and can hardly come within our period.
[7] One play should be mentioned here as standing in some ways between the
classical and popular plays. _Promus and Cassandra_, by George Whetstone,
published 1578, cannot be placed in any of our four classes, for there is
no evidence that it was ever acted. Like _Tancred and Gismunda_, it was
based on an Italian _novella_, also the source of _Measure for Measure_,
and it follows Latin comedy rather than tragedy. In its division into five
acts, its frequent soliloquies, its attempted observance of decorum
(especially vaunted in the preface), and in its serious purpose and moral
sentiments, the play shows a pedantic clinging to classicism. In the main,
however, it belongs with _Damon and Pithias_ and _Appius and Virginia_, and
seems to have been intended for performance by children. It is a mixture of
tragedy, comedy, farce, and songs; and this abundance of incongruous
material seems to have led to its division into two plays, as Whetstone
says, for the purpose of decorum. Here, as elsewhere in the period, the
experiment of putting new material into old dramatic structures burst the
bottles. Clowns, parasites, tyrants, prostitutes, hangmen, Egyptians, and
girls in boys' clothing make up a pageant which is a sort of tragicomedy
but which the learned author called by the more popular title, "a history."
[8] _Ariodante and Genevra_ (_Orlando Furioso_), _Ajax and Ulysses_,
_Agamemnon and Ulysses_, _Cæsar and Pompey_, _Cloridon and Radimanta_ _Duke
of Milan_, _Effigenia_ (_Iphigenia_), _Four Sons of Fabius_, _Mutius
Scævola_, _Quintus Fabius_, _Perseus and Andromeda_, _Sarpedon_, _Scipio
Africanus_, _Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes_, _Telemo_, _Twelve Labors of
Hercules_. Some titles suggesting medieval romance are: _Knight of the
Burning Bush_, _Red Knight_, _Paris and Vienna_, _Solitary Knight_.
CHAPTER IV
MARLOWE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
The growing national consciousness that reached its triumphant culmination
in the defeat of Spain made itself felt in the drama, specifically in
efforts to present the glories of English history, and still more potently
in an awakened responsiveness to the new fields and new incentives for
artistic ambition. The beginning of the greatness of the national drama is
significantly coincident with the victory over the Armada. By that time the
spirit of noble endeavor had found lodgment in every worthy breast. It
animated Marlowe no less than Drake, and the author of the least successful
chronicle play as well as admiral or counselor. The extraordinary
achievements that had been contributing to the might of England as a
political power were, indeed, but one expression of the freedom and
eagerness of individual initiative that characterized this English
Renaissance and found other expression in the activities and
accomplishments of literature. In comparison with the men of preceding
generations, the Elizabethan Englishman faced a world of new horizons, new
ideas, boundless opportunities, and alluring rewards. Every career was open
and promised an untrod pathway and unworn laurels. He might win fame as a
pirate, philosopher, or poet; or in the new excitement of living he might
crowd not one but many careers into the span of life. The versatility of a
Raleigh only typifies the excitement and energy of deed, the lively
movement of thought which quickened mind and body, and resulted, now in a
voyage to Virginia, now in a conspiracy, now in a sonnet, and now in a
history of the universe. And this feverishness to make trial of thronging
opportunities was symptomatic not only of vigor of intellect, celerity of
emotion, and independence of will, but also of an imaginative idealism that
enlightened the daily living of many a sorry citizen, and was destined to
live resplendent in the verses of Spenser and Shakespeare. In the stir of
free ideas, the surprise of discovery, and the glow of accomplishment, life
grew heroic, attainment seemed easy, and no ideals too lofty for the
scaling ladders of human aspiration. Men achieved much and they dreamt of
more. The apprentice went to the theatre to don Fortunatus's cap or to
triumph with Tamburlaine; every one had his El Dorado distant only a short
voyage; and, with the new world before them, poets and playwrights set sail
in blithe confidence of splendid discovery. Never before, or perhaps since,
have so many new things seemed within grasp, whether in literature or in
life; never has all living so throbbed with a sense of the nearness of the
unattainable, the kinship of the real and the ideal.
In non-dramatic literature the incentives of the classics and of the
Italians from Petrarch to Tasso had led on from translations and imitations
to experiments and inventions. In the dozen years before the Armada, lyric
poetry, criticism, and prose fiction had felt the stir of successful
English innovation, and the time was almost ripe for the vast projects of
Spenser, Hooker, and Bacon. In comedy the development had been earlier and
more rapid than in tragedy, and had already in Peele and Lyly reached the
stage of dexterous expression and varied innovation. Whether presenting a
story of classical mythology or of medieval romance, whether farcical,
Plautian, pastoral, sentimental, satirical, or spectacular, comedy was by
the time of Marlowe ready with its examples to offer instruction to any
writer attempting tragic themes. Tragedy could hardly remain longer in the
stage of translation, imitation, and feeble experiment which we have been
considering.
Still further, a stimulus for tragedy was exercised by the daily events of
that active era. These stirred men's imagination and ambition, and must
almost inevitably have directed artistic impulse toward the heroic, the
passionate, and the terrible. The abundance of bloodshed in Elizabethan
tragedy may find some interpretation in the fact that Ben Jonson killed his
man in a duel and that Marlowe was stabbed in a tavern brawl. The time was
one of bloodshed, violence, quick and brutal passion; a time in which the
torture of a Gloster or the revenge of a Shylock was far closer to life, to
the life at least of poets and dramatists, than such stories are to-day.
Drake in his cabin drinking and praying with the unmoved lieutenant whom he
was to hang the next day is a bit of fact that rivals in horror the
devilries of a Barabas. Even if Seneca's example had not already approved
themes of adultery, murder, blood-vengeance, the atrocities of tyranny, and
the deadly strife of father and son, such themes must have stirred men's
minds in the days of the Massacre of St. Bartholemew and the career of Mary
Stuart. If tradition had not already selected the falls of princes as the
especial field for tragedy, the history of monarchical Europe in the
sixteenth century must have given such stories a power of appeal hardly to
be appreciated now. In that strenuous generation the dramatist must have
found artistic impulses from bloody and gruesome deeds, and no less from
daring ambition, heroic struggle, and indomitable greatness of mind.
The summons, however, which the tragic muse heeded came directly from the
public theatres and the professional actors. The university men who at this
time were writing for the theatre under the lash and loans of a
slave-driving theatrical manager may have been tempted to forget that their
sordid and Bohemian existence offered a means for triumphant artistic
expression. The London theatres were now well established, patronized by
the courtiers, and secured in prosperity by the motley audiences that
crowded their performances. They had become important centres in the social
life of the time, comparable to the newspaper offices of a
twentieth-century city in their close touch with the daily life about them;
and in their task of affording amusement and information fulfilling in part
the functions of periodicals and novels as well as of the drama at
present. The stage, without scenery, was still in a transition state
between the medieval and modern, and, to our view, almost unrealizably
crude. Places were sometimes indicated by signs; properties, beds, tables,
or trees were brought on or off as occasion required; or, a heavier
property, like a cave, might remain whether the scene was in cave-land or a
counting-room. There was no drop curtain; actors went off, others came on,
and the place changed from a seacoast to the palace; or, the actors merely
moved across the platform, and it transpired that they had passed from "a
fair and pleasant green" to a room in the house of Faustus. At the close of
a tragedy all the survivors might be needed to bear off the bodies of the
dead. A balcony in the rear of the stage stood in stead of a castle wall or
the deck of a ship, while a curtained space below might represent an inner
room or a dungeon vault. A curtain extending across the stage seems at
times to have been used in managing a change of scene. Spectacular elements
were not lacking: fireworks, ascents and descents of gods, armies,
coronations, and battles delighted the eye. On costume, anachronistic but
elaborate, the manager lavished his money and ingenuity. Cleopatra tightly
laced, Tamburlaine in scarlet copper breeches are recorded facts, but
Venuses, Apollos, mermaids, devils, satyrs, and nymphs leave something for
fancy to conceive, as does the "gown to go invisible in" which perhaps
shielded Ariel or Puck. Of the acting we have little information. Female
parts were played by boys; clowns with their jigs were great favorites,
but a considerable skill in acting must be supposed,--less subtle, less
occupied with stage business than to-day, more declamatory possibly, and
more attentive to the spoken word. Any superiority in the appreciation
possessed by the audiences over those of to-day must be attributed not to
their superior intelligence, but to their long training in listening to
plays. They probably differed from uneducated audiences in the cheaper
theatres of to-day chiefly, if at all, in spontaneity of emotions, a desire
for emotional incongruity, and a cultivated delight in verbal fireworks or
felicities. It is certain that in the time of Marlowe they were gaping for
sensation and joyed in a comedy of beatings, a tragedy of murders, and a
mixture of jigging and villany. For such audiences, for such a stage, under
stress of immediate demand requiring hasty and collaborative work, Marlowe
and his contemporaries wrote. They were hack writers, and so viewed by the
literati of their day. Every one of them, Shakespeare included, had in the
first place to satisfy the demands of the public theatres. This needs to be
remembered no less than the fact that the plays of nearly all, of the
meanest hack as well as Shakespeare, seem to have felt the stir and thrill
of the effort to express thought in enduring words.
In the course of the six or seven years ending with Marlowe's death in
1593, tragedy experienced a rapid and multiform development. The various
influences already noticed in the last chapter as at work were developed
by the ingenuity and innovation of a dozen writers, and translated into the
expression of individual genius by Marlowe and Shakespeare. No theory of
tragedy ruled the theatres; no school of dramatists adopted any code of
principles; the plays which we class as tragedies were mostly known as
histories and were written in violence to the accepted literary conception.
Nevertheless, tragedy was establishing itself as a popular species of
drama, was separating its themes and their treatment clearly from those of
comedy, and was defining the course which it was to follow until the
Puritan revolution.
The impossibility of determining a precise chronology of the stage history
of the period renders the exact appraisal of indebtedness, or the tracing
of any certain evolution, very insecure. The changes in the companies in
1594 and the consequent publication of a large number of plays in the same
year enable us to fix on a number of tragedies acted before Marlowe's
death, and we may safely add a few others as not later than 1595. Among
these extant tragedies and in the names of those that have not survived
there are representatives of various types,--biblical plays, tragedies
dealing with romantic love, domestic tragedies telling stories of
contemporary crimes. In any one of these plays, indeed, various types may
be combined; the writers were concerned with telling stories, not with
_l'évolution des genres_. But the most salient and pervasive forces working
in tragedy may be roughly denominated as (1) the chronicle history play,
(2) the revenge type of tragedy, (3) the type of tragedy created by
Marlowe. To these should perhaps be added romantic comedy with its
idealized love story and its element of averted tragedy. But the first
three types, though overlapping and not distinct, were of marked importance
in the history of tragedy and need especial consideration in connection
with the most important dramatists of this period, Peele, Kyd, Marlowe, and
Shakespeare.
The chronicle history play may claim attention first, not because it was
demonstrably earlier in appearance than the others, but because it engaged
the efforts of nearly every dramatic writer of the period, and because in
its disregard of foreign influence or parallel in its methods and
structure, and in its devotion to the demands of the London theatres, it is
most typical of the drama of the period. The prime essential of a play was
that it should tell a story. A playwright took his material from _novella_,
poem, or chronicle, and strove to translate it into an interesting and
varied series of scenes. In the chronicles he found material peculiarly
suited to such translation. Everything was there,--battles, coronations,
counsels, conspiracies, amours, speeches, characterization, and sentiments.
No enlargement was necessary as in the case of a _novella_, no
considerations of consistency of characterization, few incidents in
addition to those in the highway or the byways of the narrative, and only a
minimum of invention. The interest of a distinct plot was superseded by
that of historical persons, events, and spectacles, and these compelled
only such unity as might be secured by taking the reign of one monarch as
the basis of a play, or sometimes of several plays. The presentation of
history involved a large number of persons on the stage, many changes of
place, a long stretch of time, and an incongruity of matter, all this
loosely organized into scenes themselves often long and varied and
admitting some change of place and lapse of time within their bounds.
Though the scene, rather than the act, was the unit in popular drama, it
had almost no structural value. A play was really a continuous performance,
the actors coming and going, a battle intervening, and now and then a
withdrawal of all the actors and the appearance of a new group presaging a
marked change of place or the beginning of an entirely different action. In
the arrangement of scenes, however, some attention to parallel, contrast,
and climax soon became manifest; and some integration of the confused
material from the chronicles, particularly in the separation from scenes
abounding in action of those purely narrative or expository and those
purely lyrical, chiefly lamentations. In spite of such beginnings of
system, the early chronicle plays, "The Famous Victories of Henry V," "Jack
Straw," "Leir," "Edward I," and "The Troublesome Reign" are less coherent
in structure, more incongruous in material, and less regardful of any clear
fable, tragic or comic, than are other contemporary plays.
To determine criteria to define these plays and their successors as a class
is by no means easy. They were usually based on the chronicles, but the
method of composition just described was applied to legend or poem with
similar results, and there were also plays based on chronicles of
contemporary events. They had for their main purpose the presentation of
history, but this was shared by plays on French and Roman as well as
English history, and there were historical plays that had no marks of the
chronicle method of structure. The English chronicle plays usually show a
pronounced patriotic temper, but this is often subsidiary and neglected in
the desire for farce or sensation. The spectacular features are a
characteristic element, a battle-scene being perhaps the most indispensable
element or ingredient of a chronicle play, but this again fails to supply
even more than a superficial criterion. In the popularity of the
presentations of historical facts, all kinds of stories were worked over
into a likeness to "true chronicle history," and the genuine historical,
legendary, and biographical plays are hardly distinguishable from the
pretenders. An illuminating illustration of the characteristics of the
national drama about 1590 can be found in a comparison of two dramatic
versions of a romance in Cinthio's "Hecatommithi," one by Cinthio himself,
the other by Robert Greene. The Italian play is a tragicomedy in strict
Senecan form, in which Arrenopia (Greene's Dorothea) appears as a
declamatory queen confiding her troubles to the attendant nurse. Greene
took the romantic comedy, added some pseudo-historical events, patriotic
sentiments, and a pitched field for the finale, and called the whole "The
Scottish Historie of James IV, slaine at Flodden." For our purpose the
chronicle plays are to be regarded less as a distinct type than as
representing a set of practices in vogue at this period and widely
influential on the drama's development. They possessed the following
characteristics and imposed some or all of them on very different forms of
drama: subjects drawn from English history, the presentation of historical
and political events, an incongruous mixture of material, a narrative
structure almost as unorganized as the chronicles themselves, patriotic
sentiments, and the stage pageantry of court and camp.
From their earliest appearance, however, the chronicle plays offered
opportunities for developments later consummated by Shakespeare. Comic
scenes were freely interspersed to enliven the tedium of royal
declamations, and in these lay the possibility of the combination of
history and comedy in the Falstaff plays. On the other hand, the history of
a doleful fall of a prince or the retribution visited on some tyrant gave
the plays a tragic tone and opened the way for "Macbeth" and "Lear." "The
Troublesome Reign of King John,"[9] the basis of Shakespeare's play, is the
best example of an early chronicle play presenting undeveloped
possibilities for tragedy. It is written partly in blank verse, partly in
rhyme, and partly in prose. It does not follow the chronicles with any
fidelity, but twists history, adds fiction, and proclaims throughout a
vigorous protestant patriotism. Battles, embassies, farce, orations, death,
and much else mingle together, each scene being treated like another and no
discernible method being followed in their arrangement or proportion,
except that of a loose adherence to the scheme of "a life and death." The
first part closes with John crowned and assured of the miscarriage of his
intended murder of Arthur; in the second part, as the address to the reader
declares,
"First scenes shows Arthur's death in infancie,
And last concludes John's fatall tragedie."
"The Troublesome Reign" indicates what little advance had been made toward
tragedy when Marlowe's first play appeared. The prologue to that play was a
declaration of reform and innovation.
"From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits,
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay,
We'll lead you to the stately tent of war,
Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine
Threatening the world with high astounding terms,
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword."
The doggerel rhyme favored in the popular drama was to give place to blank
verse, and the jigging clowns to heroic themes and "high astounding terms."
Marlowe came to the theatre,[10] fresh from the university, his fancy
aflame with the beauty of Latin verse and story, his mind storming with the
problems and ambitions of adolescent genius. He threw aside Senecan
traditions and devoted himself to meeting the demands of the professional
stage. When a few years later he died, English tragedy had been created
anew largely through his achievement.
His independence and initiative are shown in his choice of subjects.
Although in "Dido" he took a standard theme of humanistic tragedy, and in
the Henry VI plays and "Edward II" followed the prevailing taste for
English history, and in "The Massacre of Paris" another fashion for the
dramatization of current atrocities; yet in "Tamburlaine" he chose the
story of a world conqueror, in "Faustus" a legend that had just entered
print in the German "Volksbuch" of 1587, and in "The Jew of Malta" he
worked over unknown sources into a tragedy of revenge with evident freedom
of invention. All three stories present notable contributions to tragic
themes, and the last two disregard both the fashion for historical subjects
and the requirement that tragedy deal only with princes. These new and
varied themes gave a chance for a considerable revolution in the content of
tragedy. Revenge, murders, battles, intrigue, physical horrors are still
prominent; but the Senecan round of incest and adultery disappears, and the
"Mirror for Magistrates" no longer represents the epitome of tragic action.
Marlowe's choice and treatment of plots seem, indeed, dictated by a new
conception of tragedy, as dealing not merely with a life and death, or a
bloody crime, or a reversal of fortune, but with the heroic struggle of a
great personality, doomed to inevitable defeat. "Tamburlaine" is scarcely a
tragedy at all, but rather a chronicle of the hero's greatness; but in
"Faustus" and "The Jew" heroes with ambitions boundless and passionate like
Tamburlaine's are overwhelmed in the end by the inexorable destiny of human
weakness. In "Edward II," where the hero is less dominant over the action,
the study of historical facts results in a more restrained, more human
presentation of the same theme, a ruling passion drawing the protagonist to
pitiful defeat.
In the structure of his plots Marlowe forsook the Senecan models and began
with the methods of the chronicle play. "Tamburlaine" is a chronicle
history, presenting the story of the events of a life and ending with
death. Originally the play contained comic scenes, omitted in the published
form and evidently of no value in structure or conception. Without these
there is enough of a medley, though the amazing succession of conquests,
defiances, murders, harangues, battles, funerals, wooings, and horrors is
arranged with considerable skill. There is manifest regard for contrast in
the alternating exhibitions of Tamburlaine's power and his enemies'
weakness; his love for Zenocrate, an addition to the source, is integrated
with the main story of conquest; and in Part I the climactical arrangement
is emphasized by the division into acts. Each act comprises an important
stage in Tamburlaine's career, act v presenting the culmination in the
suicide of the Turkish emperor and empress, the conquest of Arabia,
Zenocrate's former betrothed, and the submission of her conquered father to
her marriage with Tamburlaine. Part II, the prologue implies, was an
afterthought due to the popularity of Part I. The climax is carried on
somewhat loosely up to the harnessing of the jades of Asia; but the
reversal of fortune, though developed in the death of Zenocrate, the
unworthiness of the eldest son, and the approach of death to Tamburlaine,
is not given effective emphasis. Tamburlaine's death is merely the end of
the play, not a tragic catastrophe. Epical and crude though their structure
is, the two plays possess a firmer organization and a greater unity than
any preceding popular tragedy. Everything centres in the protagonist; he
keeps the middle of the stage; his towering passion and incessant
declamation fix one's attention; episodes like the deaths of the Turks or
of Olympia hardly divert the mind from his titanic personality.
A similar unity governs the structure of "Faustus" and "The Jew." In each
there are many actions, some comic, instead of one serious action, and the
history of a lifetime instead of a great emotional crisis; but in each the
dominant figure and the course of his controlling passion impose a certain
unity of structure. Both begin with soliloquies, revealing the protagonists
at the height of fortune and about to face crises in their careers; and it
is significant of the increased importance given to inner conflict that
reflective soliloquies, neglected in "Tamburlaine," play a considerable
part, especially in "Faustus." In both plays there is also advance in the
clear conception of catastrophe, which now controls the structure. In "The
Jew" his thwarted lust for gold drives him through a series of villanous
triumphs over difficulties until he is melodramatically hoist with his own
petard. In "Faustus" the choice of the devilish magic leads through
apparent success, past opportunities for repentance, to final remorse and
damnation. In both plays, the domination of the protagonist by a passion,
its conflicting joys and sorrows, and its final failure become points for
emphasis. The history of a life thus becomes organized into a tragedy.
In "Edward II," Marlowe's masterpiece in structure as in other respects,
there is an absence of comedy, for which he seems to have had no aptitude,
and adherence to the chronicles is governed by his maturing sense of the
structural principles which should proportion the tragic story. Twenty
years of confusion are condensed into five acts which attain dramatic
organization not only under the direction of the central personality and
the inevitable catastrophe, but also from the skillful handling of the
counter-force. The play begins with a salient manifestation in the recall
of Gaveston of the passion which is to be the king's downfall. The
hazardous combination of the two similar careers of Gaveston and Spenser is
adroitly managed; it develops the central theme of Edward's weakness and
brings into active conflict the counter-force of the barons under the
leadership of Mortimer. The alternating triumph and discomfiture of the
king in his struggle with the barons leads to the climax of their
humiliation at the end of act iii; and thus the turning-point of the action
is given an emphasis not found in earlier plays. Henceforth the
counter-force is in the ascendant, and the catastrophe is realized with a
tremendous power that justifies Lamb's extravagance: "the death scene of
Marlowe's king moves pity and terror beyond any scene ancient or modern
with which I am acquainted." The play, to be sure, has many faults of
structure. It is the product of an immature period of the drama and of
crude theatrical conditions; but it indicates clearly how Marlowe was
developing tragic movement out of the confused narratives of the
chronicles, and was giving to a presentation of diverse and crowded actions
principles not altogether unlike those that Aristotle had found in the
Attic drama.
It should be added that the manifest excellences of the dramatic treatment
lie less in the structure of any one play as a whole than in the handling
of the separate scenes. These have, of course, the peculiarities of the
popular stage and the chronicle plays. Events are sometimes reported by an
intercalary narrative like scene ii, act i, of "Edward II," which consists
of four lines by Gaveston, announcing that the nobles have gone to Lambeth,
and four words of reply by Kent. Soliloquies are often used to explain
action or character. In the task of translating incident into dramatic
situation, however, Marlowe had the advantages of centuries of dramatic
practice and the traditions of tragic acting, and his genius often worked
with facility and power. These qualities are most manifest in the death
scenes. Olympia, Bajazeth, Zabina, Zenocrate, all die with at least stage
effectiveness; and in the deaths of Faustus and Edward, Marlowe's dramatic
power reached its highest mark. Death, synonymous with tragic catastrophe,
was revealed to future dramatists as something more than physical horror or
the end of existence. Death became the loss of active and glorious living,
the negation of individual power, the expiring struggle of the drama of
life, its last defiance and its most irresistible appeal to pity and
terror.
Characterization, like conception and structure, in Marlowe's tragedy is
largely an affair of the protagonist. Minor figures are for the most part
mere sketches without any sustained and consistent delineation. Only in
"Edward II" does the antagonist receive much attention, and only in that
play is the character of the tragic hero free from lapses into caricature
and absurdity. The protagonists, as in many tragedies before and since, are
evil men intent on evil deeds. They appeal to our sympathy only in
misfortune and disaster; in more fortunate circumstances they run counter
to moral laws and excite a mixture of admiration, horror, and even
contempt. Tamburlaine the atheist and Faust the dealer in magic invited a
greater condemnation in every Christian then than now. Barabas is
conceived, under the inspiration of Machiavelli and perhaps also of stage
practice, as an intriguing villain with all the accompaniments ever since
familiar in drama and fiction. He is the source of all evil and utterly
without conscience; he avows his villany to the audience and he works by
crafty intrigue with the aid of an equally conscienceless accomplice.
Edward II, on the other hand, is of the type of tyrants, weak, vacillating,
and self-indulgent, and he offers the difficult dramatic problem of a
protagonist who is sometimes contemptible and must sometimes be heroic and
pitiful. Marlowe's conception of a tragic hero, however, transcended any
outlines furnished by his sources or any stage types such as villain and
tyrant. He conceived his heroes first of all as men capable of great
passions, consumed by their desires, abandoned to the pursuit of their
lusts, whether they led to glory, butchery, loss of kingdom, or eternal
damnation. This intensity of emotion gives them an elevation and a heroic
interest that outlasts contemptibility or pathos. Nor are they without
representational value. They linger in the mind as men, absurd,
exaggerated, monstrous at times, but appealingly human in moments when
their passion rings true, and impressively typical of the eternal struggle
of passion and desire against the fixed limits of human attainment. It is
in the realization of their emotions that the plays secure their great
impressiveness. Tragedy has become not the presentation of history, myth,
or events of any sort, but the presentation of the passionate struggle and
pitiful defeat of an extraordinary human being.
Genuine human passion and a vital conception of life's tragedy found
expression in verse, sometimes inspired, sometimes absurd, but always
spontaneous and unfaltering. Blank verse, borrowed from Italy and adopted
in English Senecan plays, now became a new instrument, and its preëminent
adaptability for tragic poetry henceforth long remained unquestioned. If it
has had many greater masters since, it had none comparable before, and, in
spite of stiffness, monotony, and great unevenness, it rises now and again
to remarkable technical excellence. It is _sui generis_, without known
models, though it gathers to itself many of the prevailing characteristics
of Renaissance poetry. It has plenty of Senecan hyperbole, but curiously
little of Senecan antithesis or aphorism; it abounds in rant and bombast;
it is over-adorned with classical allusion; it delights in ornament and
sonority; and in the main it is declamatory and lyrical rather than
dramatically suited to character and situation. Again, it is mannered and
often monotonous, especially in "Tamburlaine," where the repetition of
names and the recurrence of polysyllabic words at the ends of lines give
the familiar swing:--
"To ride in triumph through Persepolis"....
"Soft ye, my lords, and sweet Zenocrate"....
"Then shall my native city, Samarcanda."
Yet the lover of romantic poetry will find delight in the very impetuosity
of the rant, the thunder of the declamation, the roll of the proper names,
the color and pageantry of the descriptions, the occasional loveliness of
the luxurious classicism, and yet more in the splendid surges of the verse
to reveal the turmoil and anguish of passionate death. From the first
moment Marlowe was an undoubted poet; and to his tremendous facility of
words and rhythm he was adding, as "Edward II" reveals, a moderation of
ornament, an evenness of power, and a dramatic consistency, while still
retaining the potentiality of dazzling dramatic flash. He brought not only
blank verse but poetry to the English drama, and the greatness of its style
dates from his achievement.
We must not, however, in the poet forget the playwright, or lose sight of
Marlowe's contributions to the purely theatrical side of the drama.
"Tamburlaine" set a standard in stage effects as well as in poetry. Kings
and sultans appear in droves, crowns are handed about like toys, treaties
are torn, cities stormed, battles fought. Frequently eight or ten
chieftains crowd the stage with their trains. The tents of the conqueror
are pitched and changed from white to red and then to black as the
beleaguered city continues to withstand his power. An emperor and empress
dash out their brains against the bars of their cages. Tamburlaine drives
the bridled monarchs harnessed to his chariot. Two bodies are burnt; there
are murders by the dozen; and there is a solemn funeral scene where the
hearse advances in the light of a burning town. The popular stage had
probably never seen such a spectacle before. In "Faustus" new and even more
surprising stage effects are supplied to illustrate the wonders of magic.
In "The Jew of Malta" there is a display of plots and atrocities which the
plays of the next thirty years strove in vain to surpass. Apart from these
spectacular elements, it is obvious that the characterization and
declamation, in fact the very structure of the plays, were designed to
supply full opportunity for the acting of Edward Alleyn. He was nearly
seven feet tall, we are told, the greatest actor of his day, and especially
skilled in majestic parts. So to him, perhaps, as well as to Marlowe's
conception of tragedy, was due the one-part play, the sonorous lines, and
the passionate protagonists.
Such considerations recall the double purpose, hardly separable from the
drama and particularly manifest in the Elizabethan dramatists, the two
desires, to please their audiences and to create literature. The spectacle,
bombast, and horrors, the new and startling stories of Marlowe's plays were
certainly intended to win his public, and they probably caused no twinges
to his artistic conscience. On the other hand, while hardly an element of
the dramas is without the influence of theatrical conditions, and while of
deliberate artistic theories there is little evidence, yet the study of
character, the underlying conceptions, the maturing power of structure, as
well as the beauty and wisdom of separate passages, reveal a mind of
intellectual and emotional profundity seeking to give noble expression to
the things in life that impressed him most vividly. In the traffic of the
stage the young poet found a chance to study men and their motives, to seek
"the immortal flowers of poetry," and to utter something of his own
experience and view of life. Into the rapid translation of stories for the
stage he threw his own conception of the rewards and defeats of an
overmastering passion, of the glory of struggle, and the pity and terror of
failure. In the further development of the drama, his influence continued
not only in his series of tragedies forming a fairly definite type, but
also as that of an inspiring personality.
"Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clere;
For that fine madnes still he did retaine,
Which rightly should possess a poet's braine."
DRAYTON: _Epistle to Henry Reynolds._
The influence upon the drama of Marlowe's whilom friend, Thomas Kyd, was
not due to his personality, concerning which recently discovered documents
create no very favorable impression, or to any remarkable poetic genius,
but to a single play and the type of tragedy which it fathered. "The
Spanish Tragedy,"[11] entered in the Stationers' Register, 1592, and
probably acted at about the same time as "Tamburlaine," and earlier than
Marlowe's other plays, was the first representative of this type of revenge
tragedies, and it gained an immediate and lasting popularity, though after
a time encountering the ridicule of Jonson and later dramatists. The story
of revenge had already appeared in "Horestes" and in Latin plays at the
universities; and theme, ghost, treatment, and structure were derived from
Seneca by Kyd and adapted with great originality to the popular drama. At
least, no other dramatist has as good a claim to be considered the creator
of a species of tragedy that had a long series of representatives even
after its culmination in Shakespeare's "Hamlet."
The main theme of the play is revenge of a father for a son, superintended
by a ghost; and this theme attaches to itself other motives important both
here and in their later developments. The revenge is delayed by hesitation
on the part of Hieronimo, who finds his task a difficult one and requires
much proof and superabundant deliberation to spur his irresolution into
activity. Madness is another accompaniment of the main theme; the second
title of the 1602 quarto, "Old Hieronimo mad againe," indicating how
important it was in the stage presentation. Hieronimo pretends madness, and
his pretended madness often passes into real melancholy and distraction.
Isabella, his wife, is driven by insanity to suicide. Intrigue used both
against and by the avenger is another important element; the villain is a
machinator and Hieronimo finally accomplishes his revenge by means of
dissimulation and trickery. According to both Senecan and national
precedents, vengeance moves in a pathway of blood; ten of the _dramatis
personae_, innocent and guilty alike, pass to "the loathsome pool of
Acheron," and the final slaughter leaves five bodies to be borne from the
stage. Intrigue and slaughter characterize most of the tragedies of this
period, notably "The Jew of Malta," but the ghost-directed revenge,
hesitation, insanity, and the meditative soliloquies distinguished more
specifically the Kydian species. In spite of the medley of intrigue and
carnage, there is introduced, after Senecan fashion, much philosophizing
and introspection. Meditations on fate, revenge, suicide, and similar
subjects play a large part in the development of the story and are most
frequently given the form of soliloquies. Hieronimo's inner struggle is
revealed in lonely communings, now in defense, now in bitter condemnation
of his delay.
The structure is an interesting adaptation of Senecan and popular
characteristics. The play does not confine itself to the last phase of an
action, and it introduces various actions introductory or subsidiary to
that of the revenge, and a mixture of comedy. Moreover, everything is
represented on the stage with the freedom established in the popular drama.
On the other hand, there is much exposition by means of narrative, and
Revenge and the ghost of Andrea appear, after Senecan fashion, as a
prologue, and after each act as a sort of vestigial chorus. While there is
a surplus of violent and external action, the epic, lyric, and reflective
scenes picture an inner conflict and supply both aphorisms and a searching
psychology. When late in the play Hieronimo's revenge for his son is
finally started, it has to contend with both his own hesitation and the
intrigues of the villain. Its development, in comparison with "Hamlet," is
absurdly faulty because of Kyd's failure to make clear from the start the
character of the avenger; but, if it is studied as a first attempt to give
structure to a complex theme, the vicissitudes of Hieronimo's irresolution
and frenzy will seem carefully designed and strikingly prophetic of the
course of Hamlet's struggle.
Kyd's skill in devising stage situations is shown by the dramatic value and
lasting effect on the public of the scene in which Hieronimo is called from
his naked bed to discover the body of his son hanging in the arbor, or of
the scene in which, offering a handkerchief to the weeping Senex, he draws
forth the bloody napkin which he has kept as a reminder of his son's death.
The play within the play, used here as a means of revenge; the scenes in
which Isabella "runs lunatick"; the laments and final exultation of the
ghost; the exhibition of the body of Horatio after the mock play, found
later imitators and became usual accessories of revenge tragedies. Indeed,
minor bits of stage business, as the wearing of black, the swearing by the
cross of the sword, the capture of the accomplice by the watch, the reading
of a book before a soliloquy, the falling on the ground as an expression of
grief, though not the inventions of Kyd, were given their later vogue
partly through the popularity of this play.
Some of the types of character represented also appear again and again in
later plays. Lorenzo is the villain par excellence; his accomplice is
grotesque as well as evil; and Bel Imperia, both prettily sentimental and
desperately revengeful, is of a type not uncommon in later tragedy. The
character of Hieronimo, rudely as it is drawn, is not without subtlety of
conception. This type of tragic hero, very different from Marlowe's,
naturally good and noble, meditative by temperament, driven to melancholy
and madness by the responsibility forced on him by crime, and at length
accomplishing direful revenge through trickery and irony, is manifestly a
precursor of Hamlet. Kyd's style justifies Nash's description, "whole
handfulls of tragical speeches" and "a blank verse bodged up with ifs and
ands." It displays the rhetorician rather than the poet and, like his
conception and structure, gives evidence of an ingenious innovator adapting
Seneca. It abounds in artificial balance, parallelism, antitheses,
word-play, strained figures, and it harrows hell for its tragic vocabulary;
but its love scenes have a verbal prettiness and its tirades and
soliloquies helped to confer on subsequent tragic style sententiousness and
elevation as well as rant. Far inferior to "Tamburlaine" as an artistic
achievement, "The Spanish Tragedy" can no more than that play be pushed
aside as a mere blood and thunder tirade. Beneath its absurdities there
lies the conception of an inner struggle against overwhelming
responsibility, and of the conflict of the individual against evil and
fate.
From the success of such a play Kyd may very naturally have turned to the
similar story of revenge embodied in Belleforest's "Historie of Hamblet."
From contemporary references we infer that the old "Hamlet" was a tragedy
of blood, written under Senecan influence, and containing a ghost that
cried "revenge." If, as seems undoubted, it was used by Shakespeare, traces
of it must be found in the German version of Hamlet, in the corrupt first
quarto, and even in Shakespeare's final version; but there is as yet no
agreement among scholars as to what can be attributed to Shakespeare's
borrowing rather than to his invention and transformation. It seems
entirely probable, however, that the early play was a companion-piece to
"The Spanish Tragedy," containing the motives of revenge, hesitation,
insanity, intrigue, and slaughter, with the addition of the murderer's
passion for the wife of the murdered. On the now established theory that
the play was by Kyd, we may infer a protagonist like Hieronimo, much
meditating and soliloquizing, a dramatic structure like that of "The
Spanish Tragedy," a play within a play, a mad Ophelia, and an intrigue
culminating in slaughter. There are evidences in Marston and later
contributors to the revenge type that the original "Hamlet," fully as much
as "The Spanish Tragedy," served as their model; while doubtless like "The
Spanish Tragedy," Kyd's "Hamlet" must have borne a much closer resemblance
than even that play to Shakespeare's masterpiece.
"Soliman and Perseda," if not by Kyd, at least shows many evidences of his
influence and is itself an interesting combination of the tragedy of
revenge and romantic comedy. Love, Fortune, and Death make up a Kydian
chorus and debate for supremacy until the close, when Death, like the
Ghost, exults in an enumeration of the dead. The love story furnishes a
clearly defined plot. The course of true love, despite the heroine's
jealousy, an unintended murder by the hero, his banishment, the sack of
Rhodes by the Turks, and the Sultan's passion for the heroine, ascends
through the first four acts to the reunion and prospective happiness of the
lovers. The fifth act proceeds to their separation and death through the
Sultan's wickedness. Some of the incidents are those of romantic comedy,
such as the use of the chain as a symbol of loyal love, its loss, the
resulting jealousy, and the donning of boy's clothes by the heroine in
order to receive death from the sword of the hated suitor. The fun of the
piece is furnished by a _miles gloriosus_, Basilisco, and the extraordinary
merit of his characterization furnishes the chief reason for doubting Kyd's
authorship. Over lyric love, fortune, and fun, however, Death reigns
supreme. This is his favorite tragedy, for eighteen persons are actually
killed on the stage, and at the close not one of the _dramatis personae_ is
left to bear off the bodies of the slain.
The successes of Marlowe and Kyd gave tragic stories a new popularity with
actors and audiences, and the stage was occupied with fiercely declaiming
Asiatic conquerors, deep-dyed villains, and shrieking ghosts. Marlowe's
themes, characters, and blank verse found many imitators, while Kyd's plays
encouraged the presentation of stories of ghosts and revenge similar to
those in Seneca and his English imitators. Direct imitations of Seneca in
technic and language are also common. The abundance of bloodshed is
invariable. A wide range of material was drawn upon, including Asiatic
story, Italian _novelle_, Plutarch, Xenophon, and the Bible, although the
English chronicles remained the favorite source, and the majority have at
least the semblance of a historical setting. Many have a mixture of comic
material, but they show in general a preponderance of tragic events and
emotions far greater than in the early popular tragedies. There seems to
have been a general effort in conformity with an address to the audience
placed in the second act of "The Wars of Cyrus," acted by the Children of
the Revels, which announces that they have "exiled from our tragicke stage"
"needlesse antickes," and promises "mournfull plaints writ sad, and
tragicke tearmes." The gentle reader will not linger long over any of these
plays or discover in them signs of nascent genius, but they have a
considerable interest in illustrating further the development of chronicle
history toward tragedy, the influence of the Senecan tradition, and the
dominating power of Marlowe's example. They also inform us of the
conditions governing tragedy when Shakespeare began his career. In their
many resemblances one to another we have evidence not so much of direct
borrowings as of the close relations then existing among the few theatrical
playwrights and companies. Any successful innovation was bound to have its
immediate imitations, and on the other hand the keen rivalry for success
was likely to result in innovation and novelty.
Of these plays perhaps "Locrine"[12] has the most diverse indebtedness. It
presents a story of a bloody family feud, but it is also of the chronicle
history order, with a mixture of battles, patriotism, and farce. It
exhibits borrowings from Spenser, imitations of "Tamburlaine," Ate as a
chorus, dumb shows requiring a menagerie, two ghosts, one of whom takes
part in the action, and a story of double revenge. The hero is occupied
with revenge number one until the fourth act, when his infidelity makes him
the object of a return revenge that culminates in his death. Among the
plays mainly indebted to Marlowe are: Greene's "Alphonsus of Aragon," a
comedy that is almost a travesty on the first part of "Tamburlaine";
"Selimus," ascribed to Greene, which also shows Senecan structure and
philosophy; "The Wounds of Civil War, or the Tragedies of Marius and
Sylla," the first extant play based on Plutarch; "The Wars of Cyrus," in
part romantic comedy; and Peele's "Battle of Alcazar," which has a
presenter, dumb shows, three ghosts, and a Moorish villain of the same
class as Marlowe's Barabas and Aaron in "Titus Andronicus."
The English chronicle plays also felt Marlowe's influence, most notably in
Shakespeare's early historical plays, to be considered in a moment, but
also in several plays almost contemporary with "Edward II" and the first
versions of "Henry VI." "The True Tragedy of Richard III" (1594), by an
unknown author or authors, seems to have preceded Shakespeare's play and to
have followed the third part of "Henry VI." It presents a combination of
chronicle play with Marlowesque protagonist and a Kydian apparatus of
revenge. The ghost of Clarence appears at the beginning crying, "Vindicta,"
and Truth and Poetry supply the necessary exposition. The revenge element
becomes prominent toward the end of the play, when the ghosts of Richard's
victims appear to him in a dream, not visible as in Shakespeare, and the
remorseful villain declares that not merely his victims but all the forces
of nature, sun, moon, and planets, cry revenge:--
"The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge.
The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge."
Richard is a man of powerful will carried away by ambition and evidently
modeled on Tamburlaine; but unlike the Scythian and like Faustus, he is
conscience-smitten, and his punishment comes in remorse as well as death.
This conception, based on the chronicle, is treated with power, but in the
main the play is a hodge-podge. More worthy examples of chronicle history
are "Edward III," often ascribed to Marlowe and not unworthy of him, and
the anonymous "Tragedy of Woodstock."[13] The latter shows frequent
resemblances to "Edward II" and apparently preceded Shakespeare's "Richard
II," leaving off at the point where that play begins. The events of half a
reign are focused about the central personalities of Richard and Woodstock,
a weak king beset by flatterers and an honorable and patriotic leader of
the nobles. The construction is skillful in its integration of comedy with
the main action and its alternation of tragic and comic, action and
counsel, force and counter-force; and the characterization is remarkably
well individualized. Woodstock, especially, has human appeal and is notable
as a tragic hero, or at least the central figure of a history, who meets
misfortune and death through no fault of his own but solely through the
wickedness of others.
Holinshed's chronicle is also the source of "Arden of Feversham" (1592),
sometimes ascribed on very insufficient grounds to Shakespeare, the
earliest extant domestic tragedy. The play deals with a notorious murder of
some forty years before, and follows the crude dramaturgy of the earliest
chronicle plays. The stage presentation of notably brutal murders is common
to-day and was to be expected on the Elizabethan stage, but the play seems
also to represent reaction from the royalties, marvels, and unrealities of
the contemporary tragedy. The epilogue, indeed, offers a defiance of
romanticism and the since well-worn creed of the realist.
"Gentlemen, we hope youle pardon this naked tragedy,
Wherein no filed points are foisted in
To make it gratious to the eare or eye;
For simple truth is gratious enough,
And needes no other points of glosing stuffe."
Notwithstanding this protestation, occasional monologues reveal the common
stylistic decorations. The play is tediously detailed and artlessly
realistic, though it has some vigorous blank verse and several powerful
scenes; the most powerful, when Michael in the middle of the night is
awaiting the murderers of his master, recalling a well-known passage in
"The Spanish Tragedy." But the greatest merit of the play lies in the
portrait of Alice Arden, absorbed in a despicable passion, but cunning and
unabashed, incomparably the most lifelike evil woman up to this time
depicted in the drama.
Peele's "The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe, with the Tragedie of
Absalon," acted about 1591, has, unlike "Arden," many "filed points to make
it gratious to the eare and eye." It gains a unique interest as the only
extant tragedy of this period based on the biblical narrative. The bible
story is treated just as a historical chronicle would have been; and the
play, divided by choruses into three "discourses," offers no advance in
conception, structure, or characterization on the average tragedy of the
period. Yet it is the masterpiece of one of the most active among
Shakespeare's predecessors and illustrates his most distinctive
contribution to the drama's development. As the author of "Alcazar,"
"Edward I," and possibly "Locrine," as well as "David and Bethsabe,"
Peele's contribution deserves some note. His dramatic career began at
Oxford, where he made a version of one of the "Iphigenias" of Euripides,
which was acted at Christ Church, and where he also aided in the production
of Dr. Gager's Latin plays. In London he became the friend of Nash, Greene,
and Marlowe, and the versatile adopter of the latest dramatic modes,
whether in comedy, pastoral, history, or tragedy. In his best work,
however, and especially in "David and Bethsabe," there are graces of style
which justify Nash's eulogy of his friend as "primus verborum artifex." The
great innovation of this early drama was, after all, in poetic style; and
in furthering this Peele may claim a place only second to Marlowe. If
Marlowe gave sweep and grandeur to blank verse, Peele brought a sweetness
of cadence and, as Professor Ward observes, "a vivacity of fancy and a
variety of imagery." As Marlowe turned everything into sonorous phrase, now
bombastic, now superb, so Peele turned every thought to music and fancy,
sometimes banal, sometimes lovely. "David and Bethsabe," with its oriental
setting, though treated with careless dramatic art, proved an inspiration
to the stylist. The excess of verbalism, indeed, gives the play a sugary
and monotonous effect, and its poetry loses connection with character or
situation. Absalon plays with conceits for twenty-five lines while hanging
by his hair, and laments melodiously for fifteen lines more after being
stabbed. But there is charm and gracefulness everywhere, in the choruses,
in the defense of Hamon, and in the parables, and now and again the very
allurement and luxury of words, as in the famous,
"Now comes my lover tripping like the roe
And brings my longings tangled in her hair."
While this operatic verbalism with its faults and merits cannot of course
be assigned wholly to Peele, he seems to have been in the drama one of its
earliest and most influential purveyors.
The dozen plays just noticed furnish departures from, as well as
adaptations of, the Kydian and Marlowean types of tragedy, but they reveal
no marked advance in conception or structure. In characterization, however,
there is a development in various ways; thus, a hack play like "The True
Tragedy" has considerable power in its conception of a conscience-smitten
villain, in "Woodstock" there is clear individualization, and in Alice
Arden and the Countess of "Edward III" female character becomes lifelike
and impressive. Still more salient is the attention paid to style. The
Elizabethan theatregoer was used to the spoken and not to the written word,
and expected at the theatre to be delighted by verbal display. Dramatic
style then had functions which have since been relegated to other arts. It
was to be declamative, taking the place of oratory; descriptive, supplying
in part the place of scenery; and operatic in its word-play and decorative
phrasing, and in its lyric interludes and laments. Moreover, medieval
tradition and Senecan models alike enforced the necessity in tragedy of a
heightened style; and many dramatists doubtless agreed with Gosson in
placing first among dramatic requirements "sweetness of words, fitness of
epithets with metaphors, allegories." Still further, along with the
excesses resultant from this delight in words, there was manifest a growing
mastery of language to represent truthfully situation and character.
"Arden" gave crude expression to this reaction toward realism in style;
"Woodstock" much more effectively; and colloquial directness was mingled
with the artificialities of "The Spanish Tragedy" and the beauties of
"Edward II." Henceforth the Elizabethan drama exhibits a conflict between
dramatic suitability of language and its declamatory, operatic, or
aphoristic decorativeness, promoting on the one hand a realistic
presentation of life, and on the other fantastic absurdity and imaginative
idealism.
The preceding discussion of Marlowe and his contemporaries must have made
it apparent that Shakespeare cannot be treated as outside of the circle,
although his plays have for convenience been reserved until now. The young
actor and poet learned to meet successfully the demands of the stage
through an apprenticeship of hack-work, collaboration, and revision, and
progressed in his art by means of adaptation and imitation. He wrote in
association and rivalry with his fellow playwrights, responding like them
to theatrical fashions, and feeling like them the spur of current artistic
impulses. The dramatic activity that we have been discussing bears at every
point upon his early work. He shared both the limitations and the
incentives, bowed to the commanding influences, and rose to the
opportunities for initiative which characterize this period. His dramatic
career probably began two or three years later than Marlowe's, and of the
plays now to be considered several were probably not written until the
years following Marlowe's death. "Titus Andronicus" and the three parts of
"Henry VI" belong to the early nineties and should be classed with the
tragedies of blood and the chronicle histories of those years. "King John,"
"Richard III," and "Richard II" came somewhat later and form a part of the
more advanced development of chronicle history variously represented by
"Edward III," "Woodstock," and Marlowe's "Edward II." "Romeo and Juliet,"
in its final form perhaps still later, is a great and original masterpiece,
but one still very characteristic of the dramatic period of which it is the
crown and flower.
How much of "Titus Andronicus" is to be regarded as Shakespeare's remains a
debated question, a recent and plausible theory being that it was his
revision and combination of two old plays.[14] The play, which was coupled
by Jonson with "The Spanish Tragedy" as popular twenty years after its
first appearance, is mainly an imitation of Kyd, though the phrasing and
rhythm frequently show an advance over that author's work. In situations
and various specific passages the imitation is pronounced and the motives
of the Kydian type are in the main repeated. The revenge of a father for
his son is opposed by villanous intrigue, involves a play within the play,
and leads the hero into madness. Kyd's finer conception of a tragic hero
hesitating in the face of fearful responsibility is, however, lacking; the
combination of the two revenge stories--Tamora for her child murdered by
Titus, and Titus in return for the murder of his children--resembles
"Locrine"; and the black Aaron is, like the negro-Moor in "Alcazar," one of
the many Marlowesque villains. The play surpasses current revenge plays
chiefly in its unapproached orgy of mutilation, murder, and horror.
The three parts of "Henry VI"[15] are certainly only in part Shakespeare's
and represent the complex form of collaboration not infrequently found in
the drama. It is likely that Marlowe and Greene were concerned in the
plays, and that Shakespeare's share was mainly in revision. The three plays
were at all events very popular and occupy an important place among the
early chronicle histories. The contention between the houses of York and
Lancaster becomes an epic theme, uniting the three parts, and affords
manifold opportunity for battles, defiances, coronations, usurpations, and
patriotism. The structure as well as the material is of the chronicle,
without any approach to tragic unity or coherence; but the plays do in some
ways invade the field of tragedy. Comedy is practically excluded except in
the Cade scenes; and the last two parts, as their titles indicate, present
a series of "falls of princes"--"the death of the good Duke Humphrey; And
the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the tragicall end of
the proud cardinall of Winchester" and "The true Tragedie of Richard Duke
of Yorke, and the death of good King Henry the Sixt." With themes of
bloodshed and battle, material at least full of tragical possibilities, and
under the schooling of Marlowe, Shakespeare served his apprenticeship for
historical tragedy.
In "King John" Shakespeare still followed chronicle history methods without
any clear advance toward tragedy. He was engaged in rewriting the old
"Troublesome Reign," and he followed its plot with great closeness, scene
after scene with entrances and exits being the same in both plays. But here
his indebtedness practically stops. He seems to have made out a careful
scenario, following the old play with only such alterations and omissions
as were necessary for the condensation of its two parts into a single
play, and then to have thrown aside the old text and almost forgotten it.
His improvements consequently coincide with the developments which we have
found common in the tragedies of the period in that they concern
characterization and style. Faulconbridge and Constance become incomparably
more vital and impressive than in the old play and win our interest away
from the battles and arguments of the rapid scenes. The style, almost never
reminiscent of the early play, is mainly rhetorical, though always vigorous
and usually surpassing the models which it frequently recalls. It often
displays the conflict between the ornamental and naturalistic tendencies;
as, for example, when Arthur, facing the murderer, quibbles for ten lines
over the red-hot iron which is to put out his eyes, and then, as the
attendants enter, forgets his rhetoric in words whose sincerity and
simplicity have touched every reader.
"Richard III" and "Richard II," though possibly earlier than "King John,"
show the imitator and adapter rather than the reviser, and represent
independent efforts to give tragic unity to the material of the English
chronicles. While all the tragedies and histories so far considered have
long since proved unfitted for the stage, "Richard III" has maintained its
first popularity and continued to attract the greatest actors and to win
the liking of the patrons of the theatre of each generation. Yet, though it
has for three centuries exercised a profound impression on the popular
imagination, it shows in the opinion of all critics a great indebtedness
to Marlowe, and is so evidently imitative of current models that critics
writing from such different points of view as Mr. Fleay and James Russell
Lowell have been led to doubt Shakespeare's authorship. External and
internal evidence both contradict such doubts emphatically, but the close
relationship of the play to "Henry VI" makes it improbable that Shakespeare
turned to the theme solely of his own initiative. "Richard III" is the
fourth play of a tetralogy manifestly planned before the earlier members
were completed. Margaret appears in all four plays; the character of
Shakespeare's Richard is distinctly outlined in Part III; and it was
evidently meant to end the contention of York and Lancaster with the
triumph of the Tudor dynasty, and the long series of falls of princes with
the tragedy of the villanous Gloster. The chronicle of Richard's reign had
indeed been given a tragic unity in the history by Sir Thomas More and in a
long saga of chronicle and literature which had developed still further the
conception of this masterful and dreadful villain. The suitability of this
material to current forms of tragedy was obvious. Dr. Legge had found in
this saga the material for a Senecan play; the unknown author of "The True
Tragedy" had discovered there a ready-made tragedy of blood and revenge;
and there are indications of non-extant plays on the same theme. For either
Marlowe or for Shakespeare working with him on the history of the struggle
between York and Lancaster, the opportunity for a tragedy with a central
hero of the type of Tamburlaine, Faustus, or Barabas must have been
apparent.
Shakespeare found in the chronicles a full-length portrait of Richard and a
detailed outline of the events of his career, while "The True Tragedy"
supplied a few hints. His most notable omission of matter in the chronicle
is his neglect of the pangs of conscience, dwelt on in More's history and
made salient in "The True Tragedy," and suggesting such a dramatic
presentation of remorse as he later created in "Macbeth." His most notable
addition is the wooing of Anne, the betrothed but not the wife of Prince
Edward, which has no historical foundation and is somewhat extraneous to
the main action, though dramatically one of the most effective scenes in
the play.[16] In dramatizing the chronicle he manifestly followed Marlowe,
making the protagonist the dominating force everywhere in the action, and
the other persons foils to set off the hero's villany. But he adopted only
with skillful and essential modifications the prevailing methods of the
tragedies of blood and revenge. The idea of Nemesis, made clear in Polydore
Virgil's account of Richard, must have suggested a Senecan tragedy, or at
least a ghost overseeing the course of the villain and finally triumphing
in his defeat. Shakespeare, however, personified Nemesis in Margaret, and
gave her the various functions of a supervising ghost and of a
chorus,--curses, laments, and exultations. Moreover, with a tact unique at
that time and not displayed by him in "Titus Andronicus," he perceived that
the presentation of many murders on the stage would detract from rather
than add to the terror and horror centred in Richard, and so removed all
the murders from view excepting that of Clarence. To compensate in a way
for this lack of stage sensation, he developed Richard's dream of ghosts
into the highly spectacular presentation of the spirits of the eleven
victims in their nocturnal appearance between the two opposing camps.
An abundance of theatrical effects, already familiar on the stage, is
indeed supplied. The murder of Clarence, with its prolonged dialogue
between the murderers, the victims led away to execution, the orations
before the battle, the funeral cortège, the battle scenes, the laments and
curses, now multiplied and expanded beyond the verge of absurdity, all
reflect current stage practices. The structure, still over-dependent on the
chronicle sources, indulges after the current fashion in the retention and
prolongation of undramatic material: such as the feeble forebodings of the
citizens (ii, 3), the prolongation of Hastings's warning of death (iii, 2),
and the useless soliloquy of the scrivener (iii, 6). Yet, in comparison
with contemporary plays, there is great superiority both in dramatic
construction and theatrical effectiveness. The main action progresses with
rapidity and coherence to the moment of Richard's reversal of fortune (iv,
4), thirteen years being condensed into a few days; and the interest from
this climax to the catastrophe is maintained by startling melodramatic
effects. But the great dramatic merit of the play lies in the use of
contrast, surprise, and particularly of dramatic irony in the separate
scenes and in their masterly integration to display the character of
Richard himself.
Following closely the character outlined in the chronicle, borrowing
conception and treatment from Marlowe's protagonists, and mindful of the
host of stage villains that had proved so popular in tragedy, Shakespeare
constructed a cacodemon who remains not only a great stage figure but also
alive and human in our imaginations. That he is the source of all evil in
the play; that he is absurdly and impossibly diabolic; that he informs the
audience of all his nefarious schemes; that he has a Machiavellian skill in
intrigue; that he is in intellect and will easily the superior of all whom
he encounters; that he is possessed by an egoism superhuman in its
audacity; that he is an accomplished and ironical hypocrite; that he is
conscienceless except when half asleep and dreaming; that from the
beginning to the end he is a masterful and relentless pursuer of his
ambition, uninfluenced by persons or events, alike subjects of his
contempt,--all this indicates a skillful adaptation and continuation of
sources and models. But Richard is more. He is dramatically immensely
effective; he is always at hand at the right moment; he is never
nonplussed; a murder is hardly over when he appears smiling and ironically
repentant; he can ask for strawberries with murder in his heart, or play
with the children or woo the woman whom he has already marked for doom.
That these theatrical fascinations were the results of a consistent
conception based on a profound ethical and psychological study can hardly
be maintained. It may indeed be doubted whether in this respect there is
much advance over Marlowe's villains, or even those of his contemporaries,
to say nothing of an approach to Macbeth and Iago. Richard is sometimes a
human being, sometimes a monster, and always a stage villain. But the very
fact that critics have delighted to analyze and moralize over his traits is
proof that Shakespeare, in spite of the monstrosities of his conception,
gave to its dramatic presentation not only a stage effectiveness but also
plausibility.
This plausibility must be accredited largely to the vigorous colloquialism
of his speeches. The play manifests the usual conflict of artificial and
natural styles; the elaborate stichomythia and the wailing and cursing
queens furnish examples of the common affectations of tragic style; and the
rhetorical display appears not infrequently in Richard's speeches. But in
the main he speaks with a naturalness and directness far greater than was
usual in tragic heroes, and the natural-speaking Richard often makes
plausible and convincing the theatrical and rhetorical villain. Thus, after
the opening soliloquy he drops his rhetoric for the conversational tone of
his conference with Clarence; and thus, the procession of ghosts remains
still impressive on our stage because it is followed by a soliloquy that
surpasses all except a few of Marlowe's in power and naturalness.
Throughout the play, while others declaim, wail, and curse, the most
impossible figure of them all becomes the only convincing human being, very
largely because of the realism of his speech.
In "Richard II," written at about the time of "Richard III," Shakespeare
was also writing under the influence of Marlowe, but now in direct
imitation and rivalry of "Edward II." The first part of the reign of
Richard II had already received treatment in "Jack Straw" and "Woodstock,"
and the theme of a weak king forced to abdicate had been presented in
"Henry VI" as well as "Edward II." Shakespeare followed, as always
hitherto, his source, Holinshed, very closely, and the historical material
determined the plot and characterization, but Marlowe's example led him to
an interpretation of the fifteen years' history as the tragedy of the
reversal of fortune of a king whose temperament made him contemptible in
prosperity but pitiable in adversity. Along with the story of the rise and
progress of the conflict between Richard and the barons under Bolingbroke,
there runs the story of "the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty," which
give a new pathos to that favorite theme of medieval tragedy and
Elizabethan history, the vanquishment of a prince by scornful Fortune. The
struggle within Richard's own heart, even more than in the case of Edward
II, absorbs the interest and points the moral, the hollowness and
uncertainty of earthly grandeur.
Structurally there is no advance on "Edward II" in exposition, integration
of action, or catastrophe. Adherence to the chronicle results in a long
drawn out and iterative first act, a virtual repetition of Richard's
struggle over the relinquishment of the crown in iii, 3, and iv, 1, and a
slight and melodramatic treatment of the catastrophe. On the other hand,
there are some changes from Marlowe's method of interest in connection with
later tragedy. Elegiac scenes with their lamenting women, also conspicuous
in "Richard III," are an addition to the historical source and an important
factor in the structure; their distribution through the play indicating
that they were employed to supply a relief from the scenes of much action
and high tension, more suitable to tragedy than the relief of comic scenes,
and also to take, as in "Richard III," the place of a chorus through their
lyrical reinforcement of the tragic emotions excited by the action. Again,
as the theme is Richard's reversal of fortune rather than his death, so the
emotional crisis receives a structural prominence not unlike that given to
Hamlet's, and the catastrophe of death is relegated to a postscript. The
passage from crisis to catastrophe is managed, as in "Hamlet," "Lear," and
"Macbeth," by the introduction of incidents extraneous to the main action,
here the episode of Aumerle's conspiracy.
The main departures from Marlowe, however, are to be found in those
elements of dramatic composition to which in this period the genius of
Shakespeare as well as the talent of his contemporaries most readily
responded, the characterization and the style. Not only the king himself
but many other persons in the play, and notably Bolingbroke, are presented
with consistency and subtlety. The historical narrative is transformed into
a gallery of full-length historical portraits that lead us to forget
history and drama in our study of their personalities. The euphuistic and
sentimental Richard gives a fair field for the stylist, but his example is
infectious, and the Queen, Gaunt, York, Bolingbroke, the gardener, and in
fact all the persons of the drama, employ word-play, periphrasis, and the
various flourishes of Elizabethan rhetorical style. If one accepts the
theory that tragedy is a game for rhetorical display, and further accepts
the conventionalities of Elizabethan style, there must be unmeasured
admiration for the extraordinary verbal skill displayed. Shakespeare
employs the current artificialities of diction with abounding facility and
zest, and often suits them skillfully to the delineation of character;
while his constant attention to expression results in a sustained
eloquence, which, if it blurs the outlines of reality, substitutes a haze
of fancy, and sometimes the glory of magnificent beauty. The miserable
years of Richard's downfall are forever associated in our minds with the
picturesqueness of the two entries into London and with the splendor of the
apostrophe to England and the recital of Norfolk's death.
In the three chronicle histories just considered, although the historical
material largely determines structure, tragic conception, and
characterization, and although all these are obviously under Marlowe's
influence, yet Shakespeare had reached a stage far more advanced than that
of mere imitator or adapter. In "Richard III" he had added his own impress
to the Marlowean type of tragedy, and in "Richard II" he had introduced
innovations foreshadowing his later conceptions. As a playwright he had
equaled any of his contemporaries in immediate popularity and outdone them
in permanent theatrical effectiveness. He had acquired a complete mastery
over the conditions and conventions of the stage, and had frequently, if
not always, outdone the best of his rivals in dramatic ingenuity and power.
Like his contemporaries, however, he was hampered by theatrical conditions
and intractable historical material; and his chief interest was in the
opportunities furnished by the chronicles for the delineation of character
and the exercise of his gift of tongues. In range and verisimilitude his
characters already far surpassed Marlowe's; and as a poet, whether in
lyric, descriptive, or purely dramatic passages, whether in sustained
treatment of situation or in splendid purple patches, he had shown himself
the peer of his master.
In "Romeo and Juliet" the same dramatic and poetic qualities are exhibited
as in the historical plays, but the happy choice of the already well-known
love story led Shakespeare outside of the direct range of Marlowe's
example, freed him from the limits of the historical material, and gave his
genius full scope. The importance of love as a motive in the Italian drama
of the Renaissance is one of the traits that distinguish it from its
classical models, and the influence of Italian drama and fiction was
important in turning Elizabethan dramatists to stories of romantic passion.
These had already been widely adopted in comedy and had formed the
principle plots of "Tancred and Gismunda" and "Soliman and Perseda," as
well as minor parts in other tragedies of the period. The story of Romeo
and Juliet, which Brooke speaks of having seen "lately (1562) set forth on
the stage with more commendation than I can look for," may have been made
into an English play before Shakespeare was born.[17] It had at least been
dramatized in France and Italy, where Luigi Groto's "Adriana" (1578)
surpassed all contemporary plays in the number of its editions.
Brooke's poem, "Romeus and Juliet" (1562), was the main source of the play
and provided a story eminently adapted to dramatic representation. The
plot, with its conflict between love and hate, the brief triumph of love,
the interference of feud and family authority, the separation and death of
the lovers, has been repeated in its essentials in thousands of stories,
and has played an enormous part in the imaginations of four centuries; but
it has hardly found a more effective scenario than that which lay imbedded
in Brooke's long-spun narrative. A lesser genius than Shakespeare might
have discovered it, but his powers of invention and construction are amply
apparent, especially up to the turning-point of the play. The brawl and the
love-sick Romeo of the first scene, dramatically expository and symbolic of
the whole action, the meeting of the lovers at the dance, the balcony
scene, the embassy and return of the nurse, the fatal fight with Tybalt,
are all executed with a wealth of incidental invention, a sureness of
technic, and a rapidity and directness of dramatic movement that relied but
little on Brooke's narrative or contemporary example. The second half of
the play, though skillfully condensed, follows the source more closely and,
perhaps for this reason, impresses the modern reader less vividly.
Shakespeare's dramatic skill is manifest in his departure from the current
methods of the tragedy of blood as well as in his treatment of the
narrative. What imitators of Seneca and of Kyd did with similar love
stories we have seen in "Tancred and Gismunda" and "Soliman and Perseda";
and "Romeo and Juliet" had an equal chance for ghosts, villany, and
physical horrors. Some traces of the prevailing fashion do survive, as in
the addition to Brooke of the murder of Paris and in the attention paid to
the horrors of the tomb. But many of the best scenes are of the sort that
occur in romantic comedy,--the repartee of gallants, the preparations for a
feast, the dance, the street affray, the meetings and partings of the
lovers,--and there is no villain, no figure of Nemesis, no ghost, no
warring armies, and no pomp of courts. No tragedy had yet appeared with
less theatrical sensationalism, and none which maintained the interest of
the spectators upon the story with comparable dramatic intensity.
The extraordinary advance over the historical plays in dramatic technic is,
however, overshadowed in our appreciation of the play by the irresistible
appeal made by the persons of the story. They are more closely realized
for us than the friends and foes of our daily life, yet they dwell forever
in the enchantment of idealized romance. To analyze Shakespeare's power to
portray and at the same time to exalt human nature would be to unlock the
very key to Shakespeare's heart; we may well be content to wonder and
exclaim. Yet, we may note that, while characterization, which had been
increasing in range and individualization in the historical plays, is here
triumphant, the means and methods are not unlike those already noticed. The
brilliant translation of prose narrative into monologue and dialogue gives
us the nurse; the vivacious amplification of a type familiar in comedy--the
garrulous old man--results in Capulet; and even the greatest creations
naturally retain traces of contemporary influences. Mercutio is the prince
of a throng of quick-witted quibblers, and Juliet is sometimes declamatory,
sometimes fantastic, like Brooke's heroine. But they are Shakespeare's own,
and the first representatives of two ways in which his imagination
characteristically and supremely manifested itself in later plays. Mercutio
is the first of those imaginative achievements that concentrate into a few
lines of blank verse the complete individualization of a human being;
Juliet is perhaps the first of the amazing series of idealized women. If
one considers how often the young girl in love has been the theme of
genius, and recalls Fielding, Scott, Browning, and Meredith, one may secure
some measure of Shakespeare's achievement. When one seeks comparison with
the naïve and likable young animal of Brooke's doggerel, or the women of
preceding drama, even the charming heroines of Greene's comedies, the art
that produced Juliet must seem miraculous. The idealization of woman was,
to be sure, common in Renaissance art; and the union in her of wit and
beauty, power and charm, passion and purity, innocence and wisdom, was not
solely Shakespeare's conception; but the power to conceive such a being
with truth and to realize her dramatically, alive, human, and consistent,
was his alone.
The conception and expression of character cannot be separated; there lies
in the qualities of the poetic style some explanation of the impression we
receive of idealized humanity. While colloquial directness is not wanting
in the play, the prevailing style has the artificialities, the lyricism,
and the exuberance we have found prevailing elsewhere. It exhibits about
all the faults and affectations of the dramatic poetry of the time, but
these are the defects of an art that finds poetry in everything and ever
lingers to enjoy the beauty of words, whether over Queen Mab, or the
apothecary's shop, or Friar Laurence's herbs. It stops to display its
verbal ingenuity in a pun; it delights in lyric outbursts, sestette or
sonnet, morning-song or epithalamium; it riots in the refrains on
"banished," becomes grotesque in the wailing quartette, and finds its
supreme opportunity in the fancy and music and passion of the lovers
underneath the summer moon. It is this exuberance, this spontaneity, this
carelessness of incongruity, this delight in ornamentation, this abandon to
music and fancy that transfigures the Verona of brawls, dinners, nurses,
and deaths, and, forever ascendant over our fancies, like Romeo's blessed
moon, "tips everything with silver."
It is in part this poetic style which distinguishes the play from the later
tragedies, but the difference is everywhere manifest to our impressions.
The evil and gloom and pessimism that help to make up the tragic fact in
"Lear" and "Macbeth" are here scarcely felt. To joy comes sorrow, because
of evil and through accident,--this is the tragic theme. In the course of
its presentation one may find it suggestive of the passing of youth to age
or of passionate love to oblivion, but surely no one comes from the poem
with a dominant impression of the wickedness of family feuds, or of the
inevitable brevity of romantic passion, or of the dangers of youthful
precipitousness,--rather the mind glows with the beauty and joy revealed in
life.
In this impression the play has a kinship with the tragedies, even the poor
and the maimed, that had preceded it. Tragedies so far have been strangely
free from Christian teaching or sentiment. Compared with the medieval
drama, early Elizabethan tragedy seems not only secular but pagan. This is
partly because it followed its sources and treated of Romans, Moors,
Scythians, and heroes of myths and legends; partly because it derived stoic
and fatalistic sentiments from Seneca and other classical writers; but it
also represents an entire departure from the medieval point of view, a
departure necessarily emphasized in tragedy. In the medieval drama, death
had been a translation to final reward or punishment,--the portals of
heaven and hell were open on the stage. In the Renaissance conception of
tragedy death was the point and pith of tragic fact. Faith, forgiveness,
reliance on Providence, assurance of immortality are rarely alluded to.
Chance, mysterious fate, the emissaries of the devil, the powers of evil in
the mind of man are the forces to which tragedy must attend; and they lead
to a death terrible and pitiful, to be met bravely and defiantly, it may
be, but not peacefully and hopefully. And this emphasis of the gloom of
death required an equal emphasis on the glory and beauty of life. Tragedy
was the passing into darkness from under this majestic roof fretted with
golden fire, the loss of noble reason and infinite faculty; and it must
needs proclaim the beauty of the world as well as the quintessence of dust.
And so, although writers of tragedy dwelt on the horrors of death and its
accompaniments of blood and atrocity, and though they symbolized in their
villains their sense of the reign of evil, yet, in Marlowe's treatment of
an Asiatic conqueror or the ignoble fascination of Edward II, or in Peele's
fancy that made musical the amours of David; everywhere indeed, in the
Pantheas and Persedas, the Marii and Selimi, they were presenting human
life as removed from the commonplace, the sordid, the usual, and as the
abode of heroisms, splendors, and aspirations. Even evil deeds and
villains, even death itself sometimes partook of this glorification; and
tragic theory, moral purpose, and theological dogma were alike forgotten
in the fascination of human character, passion, and achievement. This
idealization of life was, as we noted at the beginning of the chapter,
characteristic of the national temper and of the artistic impulses in every
field of literature during its brief breathing spell between the Protestant
and Puritan revolutions. Its power is curiously illustrated in the effect
of the story of Romeo and Juliet upon Brooke in the course of his by no
means despicable attempt to turn it into a tragic poem. In his Address to
the Reader, he dilates with medieval propriety on the moral of the poem "to
raise in the reader an hatefull lothyng of so filthy beastlynes." "And to
this ende (good Reader) is this tragicall matter written to describe unto
thee a coople of unfortunate lovers thralling themselves to unhonest
desire, neglecting the authorite and advice of parents and frendes,
conferring their principall counsels with dronken gossyppes, and
superstitious friers (the naturally fitte instrumentes of
unchastitie)"--and so on through all their evil doings until "finallye, by
all meanes of unhonest lyfe hastyng to most unhappye death." So wrote the
conscious Puritan; but the story charmed the artist. It enticed his meagre
art to a share in the joys of the lovers, it led him to a delight in
unhonest life, it dissolved his sermon into romance and poetry, and left
him enamored even of his "superstitious frier."
And so the tragedy of the lovers became for Shakespeare as for Brooke and
as other stories had become for Marlowe, Peele, and Greene, the spur and
the means to an idealization of life. It is not in the reconciliation of
the families, still less in the sense of a deserved punishment, that we
find an antidote for death and evil; but in the assurance that human
passion may be so lovely, human nature so full of strength and beauty. "The
sun for sorrow will not show his head," says Prince Escalus at the end, but
we believe with Romeo that
"Jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward, Fleay, and Schelling are the best general guides for this period. The
books already mentioned by Collier, Symonds, Jusserand, Cunliffe, Fischer,
and Churchill bear directly on the matter of this chapter. The sources for
documents and records are the same as for chapter iii, with the important
addition of _Henslowe's Diary_, vol. i, 1904, ed. by W. W. Greg. The
sources for lists of plays and bibliography are the same as in chapter
ii,--Greg, Fleay, Hazlitt, Schelling, and Bates. There is no satisfactory
and comprehensive treatment of Marlowe's work; J. H. Ingram's _Christopher
Marlowe and his Associates_ (1904) supplies a full bibliography. Marlowe
has been well edited by Dyce and by A. H. Bullen. Dyce's editions of Greene
and Peele have long been standard. Bullen has also a good edition of Peele.
The recent Clarendon Press editions of Greene, Lyly, Kyd supply careful
texts and full introductions. My article, _The Relations of "Hamlet" to
Contemporary Revenge Play_s (Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 1902), has been drawn
upon for the discussion of Kyd; it furnishes references to the various
critical discussions of Kyd's work. Texts of the plays by minor writers are
to be found in Dodsley; W. C. Hazlitt's _Shakespeare's Library_ (6 vols.,
1875), containing old plays and other sources for Shakespeare's plays;
Delius, _Pseudo-Shakspere'sche Dramen_ (1874); the Tauchnitz edition of
_Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare_; and in the editions of several of the
pseudo-Shakespearean plays by K. Warncke and L. Proescholdt, Halle. This
last edition of _Arden of Feversham_ contains a valuable introduction. For
direction to the bibliography of Shakespeare, see chapter v. On the Henry
VI plays, Miss Jane Lee's paper, _New Shaks. Soc. Transactions_, 1875-76,
still offers the most exhaustive treatment of the question of authorship.
On _Titus Andronicus_, Mr. Harold DeW. Fuller's article, _Mod. Lang. Publ._
(1901), and Mr. J. M. Robertson's _Did Shakespeare write Titus Andronicus?_
(1905) are among the latest discussions. My review of Mr. Robertson's book,
_Journal of Eng. and Germ. Philology_ (1907), treats in detail some of the
discussion of this chapter. The latest studies of the Elizabethan theatre
are C. Brodmeier's _Die Shakespeare-Bühne_ (Weimar, 1904), which reduces
the "alternation" theory to an absurdity, and G. F. Reynold's _Some
Principles of Elizabethan Staging_ (Chicago, 1905), which disposes of
Brodmeier's theories, but goes a little too far in the other direction.
See, also, Baker's _Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_ for a careful and
detailed account of the London theatres. Miss V. C. Gildersleeve's
_Governmental Regulation of the Shakespearean Drama_ (Columbia Univ.
Studies in English, in press) is an exhaustive treatment of its subject and
incidentally throws light on theatrical matters. Volume iv of Courthope's
_History of English Poetry_ is on the "Development and Decline of the
Poetic Drama," from Marlowe to 1642. Schelling's _The English Chronicle
Play_ (1902) is the best discussion of this species. W. Bang's series,
_Materialien zur Kunde des älteren englischen Dramas_, includes reprints
and studies of interest in connection with this and the three following
chapters.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] It consists of two parts published 1591, and acted, as the prologue
indicates, shortly after _Tamburlaine_, perhaps in 1588. Its scenes cover
about the same ground as Shakespeare's play, with the addition of a ribald
account of the sack of a monastery, an explanation of the poisoning of John
in his treatment of the clergy, and a scene of some power in which Philip
obtains from his mother, Lady Fauconbridge, a confession that his father
was Richard.
[10] _Tamburlaine_ in two parts, certainly acted as early as 1588, gained
an immediate and long-continued popularity, and was followed by a number of
plays, all tragedies or histories. Without reckoning the numerous plays
that have been assigned to Marlowe on no sufficient grounds, he
collaborated on the _Tragedy of Dido_ (1594), perhaps an early work, and on
the three parts of _Henry VI_; and was the author of _The Tragicall History
of Dr. Faustus_, printed 1604, acted 1588 (?); _The Jew of Malta_, acted
about 1589, and long the most popular of Henslow's repertoire: _The
Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward II_, printed 1594, acted
about 1591; and _The Massacre of Paris_, of an unknown date of acting.
[11] The only other play certainly by Kyd is a translation of Garnier's
_Cornelia_, 1595, which was doubtless never acted. His authorship of the
_First Part of Jeronimo_, 1605, is denied by recent critics, and at most
the text represents a very corrupt abridgment of his work. _Soliman and
Perseda_, S. R. 1592, is attributed to him solely on internal evidence, and
may have been by an imitator. The non-extant _Hamlet_, alluded to by Nash
in 1589, and not until twelve years later used by Shakespeare as the basis
of his play, is now generally assigned to Kyd.
[12] Printed 1594, "as newly set forth, overseen, and corrected by W. S.,"
sometimes assigned to Peele, and in an earlier form perhaps acted about
1590.
[13] Preserved in MS. and first printed in the _Shakespeare Jahrbuch_ in
1899.
[14] Harold DeW. Fuller, _Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn._ 1901.
[15] The collaborators on Part I (1623) are unknown, and Shakespeare's
contribution to the present form seems likely to have been written later
than the bulk of the play, a not very impressive example of chronicle
history. Parts II and III (1623) exist also in the abridged and altered
forms of the two quartos of 1594, _The First Part of The Contention_ and
_The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York_. The problems of the relations
of these two quarto plays to the folio texts are among the most puzzling
encountered by Shakespearean scholars.
[16] Somewhat similar situations between Lycus and Megæra in _Hercules
Furens_, Locrine and Estrile in _Locrine_, and Tamburlaine and Zenocrate in
_Tamburlaine_ must have been known to Shakespeare.
[17] See H. DeW. Fuller, "Romeo and Julietta," _Modern Philology_, 1906. It
seems clear, however, that Shakespeare drew directly from Brooke.
CHAPTER V
SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
After "Richard II" and "King John," Shakespeare turned aside from tragedy,
and within the next half-dozen years produced his masterpieces of romantic
comedy and non-tragical history. With the exception of "Titus Andronicus"
and "Romeo and Juliet," the first half of his dramatic career was devoted
entirely to comedy and history. With "Julius Cæsar," about 1600, began the
period of tragedies and bitter comedies, which lasted until about 1608,
when he turned again to romantic comedy and tragicomedy. In these main
divisions and turning-points of his dramatic activity there is a
correspondence with the development of the contemporary drama which we are
able to mark with an approach to definiteness. Both romantic comedy and
chronicle history had their hey-day during the dozen years that he was
devoting to those species. Then at the close of the century various
influences produced an abandonment of those forms, a revival of tragedy,
and an extensive production of satirical and domestic comedy. About 1608,
again, the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher led a return to romance. The
Shakespearean period of tragedy may thus be separated from the Marlowean by
an interval, during which few tragedies of importance appeared; and its
beginning was coincident with new and important developments in the drama.
The leading force in initiating these changes was apparently Ben Jonson,
whose prologue to "Every Man in His Humour" (acted 1598) avowed the
principles which that play exemplified, and proclaimed the establishment of
a comedy of humors. This change was heralded as the result of a more
critical and conscious art, of a desire to free the drama from the
absurdities and lawlessness of the past, and to supply it with literary
standards and artistic aims. His practice, which during the next ten years
was mostly in accord with his preaching, was followed or paralleled in many
respects by most of the other dramatists. At the date of "Every Man in His
Humour" Shakespeare was proclaiming in the choruses of "Henry V" his sense
of the incongruities of the chronicle history play and bidding farewell to
a form of drama that he had made preëminently his own; and Chapman and
Middleton were forsaking romantic comedy for realistic comedies of London
life. Perhaps a little earlier, the satires of Donne, Hall, and Marston had
created considerable stir and doubtless had a share in turning literary
endeavor from sentiment to satire. This satire and exposure of the follies
and evils of society also received encouragement from the moral and social
change that was working in England and especially in London. The healthy
and aspiring national life that had found expression in the sound morality
and the imaginative idealism of the earlier drama was now giving place to
the moral corruption, social laxity, and lack of national pride that render
the reign of James I notorious. At all events, whatever the causes, the
comedy of the next seven or eight years was prevailingly realistic,
domestic, or satirical.
In tragedy the changes were similar, though less distinct. The protest
against the lawlessness of the early drama was manifested in the
infrequency of chronicle plays and the appearance of tragedies presenting
foreign, and especially Roman, history with due regard for both historical
truth and tragic structure. Realism appeared just at the beginning of the
century in a number of domestic tragedies that violated the established
conventions by dealing with actual events, contemporary society, and humble
persons. Satire of contemporary manners became frequent in tragedy, and
satirical comedies often dealt with tragic events and exercised an
influence on pure tragedy similar to that exercised by romantic comedy in
the earlier period. Up to this time popular tragedy had hardly received
critical consideration even from the dramatists themselves. Marlowe, Kyd,
Shakespeare, and others had been mainly concerned in telling stories on the
stage without much consciousness of theory or of the types of drama which
they were creating. In this period, however, the demarcation between
tragedy and comedy and the definition of a conception of tragedy became
positive both in occasional critical comment and in the practice of the
dramatists. The old types, however, survived. Medleys of various kinds of
tragedy and comedy, such as "Old Fortunatus" or "The Downfall and Death of
Robert, Earl of Huntingdon," are not found much after the beginning of the
century; but the revenge tragedy received a remarkable development by
Marston, Chettle, Tourneur, Chapman, and Jonson, to say nothing of
Shakespeare.
Practically synchronous with the period of Shakespeare's great tragedies
are these several interesting developments: the domestic tragedies, and
especially the allied work of Heywood; the Roman historical tragedies,
especially the two by Jonson; the French historical tragedies by Chapman;
and the various revenge plays, beginning with Marston's "Antonio and
Mellida." These dramatists, however, were mainly occupied with comedy, and
no one of them devoted himself as exclusively to tragedy as did
Shakespeare. Nor did any of them equal him in immediate popularity. The
imitative methods of his artistic apprenticeship had given place to a
maturity and independence of art that at once won a supremacy in tragedy
even greater than that already attained in comedy. Yet in themes and
treatment there is no divorce from the practice of his fellow dramatists.
His genius continued responsive to the demands of the stage of the day, and
it felt the changes in dramatic conditions, of which we have been noticing
some symptoms, and which made the tragedies of others as well as his own
more satirical and realistic than those of Marlowe's time, more concerned
with the problem of evil, more conscious and critical in their art, and in
their style less lyrical and descriptive, more reflective and sententious.
Of the domestic tragedies, very much in fashion from 1597 to 1603, the few
survivors show little advance over "Arden of Feversham." These
presentations of hideous contemporary crimes maintain the protest initiated
by that play against the conventionalities of "the ghost and revenge"
drama, and echo its demand for realism. The satirical description of
Tragedy in the induction to "A Warning for Fair Women" (1599) is
particularly noteworthy as indicating the definiteness which the current
conception of tragedy had assumed. The epilogue reiterates the cry of the
realist in an era of romanticism:--
"Perhaps it may seem strange unto you all,
That one hath not avenged another's death
After the observation of such course:
The reason is that now of truth I sing."
A second of these plays, "Two Lamentable Tragedies" (1601), is a curious
combination of the story of the babes in the wood and that of the recent
murder of one Beech. A third, "A Yorkshire Tragedy," acted by Shakespeare's
company about 1605, and published with his name (1608), is remarkable for
its naked realism and the vividness and rapidity of some of its prose.
With these plays may be grouped Heywood's "A Woman Killed with Kindness"
(1607, acted 1603), for, although it does not deal with real events, it
lacks the usual accompaniments of tragedy, courts, kings, ghosts, and
battles, and presents a story of current English life. Its themes are the
common ones of adultery and revenge, but it gives them an entirely novel
treatment, the husband refusing to take vengeance on his guilty wife, who
dies repentant and forgiven. After a fashion soon to become general, there
is an underplot which, like the main plot, presents a problem of social
ethics, the question of the sacrifice of chastity to save a brother's
honor. Similar problems are common in contemporary comedy, and the play
might be classed indifferently as a domestic tragedy or a tearful comedy.
It is Heywood's masterpiece and exemplifies the qualities that won him the
affection of Lamb, "generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depth of
passion, sweetness, in a word, and gentleness." The wife falls too easily
and repents too sentimentally to be of much interest, but the character of
Frankfort is finely conceived and, especially in the great scene of the
discovery, executed with a power and truth of feeling rarely combined
outside of Shakespeare. In a very similar play, "The English Traveller,"
written long afterwards, Heywood speaks of two hundred and twenty plays in
which he had a main finger. Some of these lost plays must have further
exemplified the method of "A Woman Killed with Kindness"; but his success
failed to encourage other dramatists to attempt domestic themes and to
abandon the tragic conventions. Such realism as his was left to comedy, and
tragedy continued to seek its stories in romance or history.
Ben Jonson's two tragedies, "Sejanus" and "Catiline," reveal an effort to
treat Roman history with accuracy and dignity, and to enforce on the
public stage what he regarded as the essential rules of tragedy. Such
representations of Roman history as "The Wounds of Civil War" or the still
more incongruous medley of Heywood's "Lucrece" must have excited in him
still greater condemnation than did the English chronicle plays. Even
Shakespeare's "Julius Cæsar" provoked a sneer, though its dramatization of
Plutarch's portraits of the great conspirators apparently excited his
emulation and suggested much in his treatment of Sejanus and Catiline.
Incongruous spectacle and farce disappear from these plays, and the events
are treated upon a well thought out theory of historical tragedy. Jonson
strove to present the main events and characters with accurate fidelity to
authorities, and even minor persons and deeds in constant harmony with the
historical narrative. But the scholar overtopped the dramatist. "Sejanus"
has a paraphernalia of notes like a doctor's dissertation; and "Catiline"
long excerpts from Cicero's orations.
His plays, however, were intended for the public stage, and are by no means
to be classed with closet dramas like Daniel's "Philotas," the tragedies of
Fulke Greville and Alexander, or the earlier translations of Kyd and the
Countess of Pembroke. Jonson started with current popular forms, with
"Julius Cæsar" rather than the Senecan models for a basis. His purpose was
to rebuild these, not without some recognition of current dramatic method,
but with his main reliance upon classical rules. His cardinal error was his
acceptance of the current classical theory of tragedy, the belief that the
essential difference between epic and dramatic fable lay in the observance
of the three unities and similar proprieties. As he was forced to confess,
the ambitious careers of Sejanus and Catiline and the style of action
demanded by the audiences of the day did not lend themselves easily to such
limitations. But he persevered in his doughty fashion. If in "Sejanus" he
gave up the unity of time, he maintained the unity of place; if he retained
the comic scenes of the courtesan, he avoided any grotesque mixture of the
comic and tragic; he omitted battles, jigs, and spectacles, and secured a
coherent development of the main action. In "Catiline," which he boldly
proclaimed a "dramatic poem," he adopted the Senecan technic of an
introductory ghost and a segregated chorus. But though the action be one,
perfect and entire, according to Jonson's understanding of those terms, he
never learned Shakespeare's art of focusing events about a spiritual
conflict.
Yet in characterization Jonson's interest, like that of his contemporaries,
largely centres. Catiline, Cicero, Sejanus, and Tiberius are thoughtfully
conceived and faithfully represented. The representation, indeed, is that
of exposition, each scene illustrating and emphasizing some trait without
securing much illusion of life. The style, especially in the long speeches,
is too often rhetorical, and rarely displays great beauty or dramatic
power. Yet it is masterly in its way, careful and competent to its
purposes, and free from obscurity or over-richness. His plays mark another
failure to turn popular tragedy back into the classical mould. They
contributed, perhaps, to a greater regularity of action on the part of his
contemporaries and to a more serious consideration of the functions of
drama, but the scholarly student of history failed to make it live, the
author of "Bartholomew Fair" did not find his best opportunity in the
acceptance of classicist theory.
Chapman's tragedies attempted a field hitherto untried except in Marlowe's
"Massacre," that of contemporary French history. While treating historical
events with freedom of invention, he dealt with real persons and careers
familiar to his audience. In the long-popular tragedy of "The Death of
Bussy D'Ambois" (1607, acted 1600-1604) he turned to the court of Henry III
and centred a story of treasonable ambition, conspiracy, and adultery about
the interesting personality of the insolent and indomitable D'Ambois. After
the fashion of Kyd and Marston, he followed "The Death" with a "Revenge of
Bussy D'Ambois," which adopted the established technic of the revenge
plays, with less alteration than might have been expected after
Shakespeare's transformation in "Hamlet." The avenger, Clermont, is a
"Senecal man," and his sententious and rhetorical philosophizing was
doubtless incited by "Hamlet," though it followed a long-established
precedent. The "Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron" (two parts, 1608, acted
1607) dealt with important affairs in the reign of Henry IV that were still
fresh in the memory of the audience, Biron having been executed in 1602.
In the original form of the play, in fact, Queen Elizabeth was represented,
and the French queen boxed the ears of her husband's mistress, but the
protest of the French ambassador made a revision necessary.
The new material of these plays did not lead Chapman to attempt any
variations in form from the current drama, nor did it result in any advance
in method; his fondness for long speeches and narrations resulting rather
in a treatment more epical and less dramatic than is found in any of his
contemporaries. Nor did his study of contemporary memoirs for his sources
and his interest in political philosophy result in any advance in reality
or vividness of characterization, though here he is often very felicitous,
as in his portrait of Henry IV, and though his arrogant protagonists are
interesting and original variations of the Marlowean tragic hero, not
without successors in the later drama. But for Chapman, tragedy was in the
main, as for the writers whom Gosson derided, an opportunity "to show the
majesty of his pen in tragical speeches." The abundance, ingenuity, and
beauty of his figurative language are simply amazing. Every person, deed,
or sentiment calls for illustration and lets loose a flood of similes.
Finished verse, a highly picturesque sense of the value of words, a
remarkable union of pregnant sententiousness with vividness of description,
have made his plays the delight of many a reader, though perhaps most of
his admirers have experienced a fatigue that found satisfaction in Dryden's
perverse criticism, "dwarfish thought dressed up in gigantic words,
repetition in abundance, looseness of expression, and gross hyperboles."
For, though the thought is by no means dwarfish, the dress is often too big
for it. We are wearied by the constant effort to write up to the tragic
opportunity for a heightened and sententious eloquence. In this respect,
Chapman's style partakes of the faults of his day. It has not the
spontaneity and ease of Marlowe, Peele, and "Romeo and Juliet"; it is
difficult, involved, pretentious, and self-conscious, yet its splendors
remain. Its abundance of resource, its imaginative condensation, its
suggestive power again and again compel comparison with Shakespeare
himself.
Revenge directed by a ghost found favor with both Jonson and Chapman, but
they were preceded in the use of this popular motive by John Marston. In
1598, at the age of twenty-three, he made something of a sensation by his
satires and immediately proceeded to carry his censoriousness of human
frailties into the drama. His earliest play, "Antonio and Mellida" (two
parts, 1602, acted 1599-1600), reveals in Part I the still dominant
influence of romantic comedy, despite its tragic trend; but Part II,
"Antonio's Revenge," is a tragedy of the Kydian type. The play was followed
by a number of comedies, all outspoken in satire of contemporary manners
and in the exposure of social immorality. Several dealt with tragic
material, and one, "The Malcontent," is a notable combination of a tragedy
of blood and a satirical comedy. Its protagonist is of a type represented
in the other comedies and not without influence on contemporary dramatists.
Marston's malcontents are men of virtue and honor "who hate not man but
man's lewd qualities"; in disfavor and out of joint with the world; given
to melancholy and a showy pessimism that finds fitting expression only in
images of filth and putrefaction. His tragedy "Sophonisba" (1606), which he
seems to have deemed the most important of his plays, treats history with
great freedom, and unites melodramatic horrors with his usual unflinching
fondness for rankness of thought and imagery. The horrible realism of the
Erichtho scenes comes in strange contrast with the songs, dances, and
musical accompaniment suited to a performance by the child actors for whom
all of Marston's plays were written.
"Antonio's Revenge" is the earliest representative in this period of the
Kydian type of revenge tragedy. The satirical passages in "A Warning for
Fair Women" indicate the popularity of ghosts and revenge, and there are
many evidences of the continued vogue of "The Spanish Tragedy" from 1597 to
1602. Marston's play was evidently modeled on "The Spanish Tragedy," and
probably still more directly on the Kydian "Hamlet." The story is the
revenge of a son for a father murdered by a villanous duke who seeks to wed
the hero's mother; the revenge is directed by the ghost of the father; the
hero is driven to hesitation, irresolution, and the verge of madness; he
pretends to be a fool; intrigue and trickery are indulged in by both hero
and villain, and the revenge is accomplished with an abundance of
bloodshed. There is a minor story of revenge, enforcing the main situation
as does the Laertes story in "Hamlet" and the scene with the Senex in "The
Spanish Tragedy"; and, doubtless as in the early "Hamlet," the passion of
the murderer for the widow of his victim now becomes an important motive in
the action. Moreover, the play abounds in psychological introspection and
meditative philosophy set forth for the most part through the soliloquies
of the hero.
The indebtedness to the earlier revenge plays extends to details of the
stage presentation. Revenge is accomplished much as in "The Spanish
Tragedy," though by means of a masque instead of a play, and without the
death of the hero. From similar scenes in the old "Hamlet" were probably
derived the appearance of the ghost at midnight, the cry "Antonio,
revenge!" and the second appearance of the ghost to the hero and his
mother. The dumb show exhibiting the wooing of Maria, the use of the
churchyard, the banquets, carousals, funerals, exhibition of the dead
bodies, and the oaths of the conspirators were perhaps already conventional
accompaniments of a revenge play. "Antonio's Revenge," however, is not
wanting in inventiveness; its abundant horrors and its melodramatically
ingenious stage effects were probably recognized as an advance upon the old
favorites, and they excited the emulation of succeeding dramatists.
The hero, too, is of the Kydian type. Like both Hieronimo and Hamlet, he
is a scholar, interested in philosophy and also in theatrical performances.
Like them he is distinguished by a tendency to reflection, and struggles in
solitary meditation at each crisis in his career. Like them he is driven to
the verge of madness by the pressure of his heavy responsibility and by his
awakened sense of evil in the universe. Though he does not seek further
proof, yet, like Hamlet after the revelations of the play, he becomes
frantic and irresolute, neglects an opportunity to kill the duke, and
wastes his vengeance upon an innocent child. Like Hieronimo and Hamlet, he
is tricky, wild, and ranting. With all his overdrawn passion, however, his
mental struggle occasionally attains intellectual depth and tragic power.
As he tells us, it was "the stings of anguish," "the bruising stroke of
chance" which made him run mad "as one confounded in a maze of mischief."
Several years, then, before Shakespeare's "Hamlet," we have a play dealing
with the old story of a revenge of a son for a father, following closely
the methods introduced by Kyd, appealing to a taste that delighted in
extravagant violence and melodramatic sensationalism, but also striving to
simulate profundity of thought and a passionate sense of evil. It is
difficult to-day to take Marston seriously. His plays have little merit,
while his bombastic sententiousness gives an air of insincerity to
everything that he wrote; yet a serious purpose and a considerable
influence on later drama cannot be denied to his efforts in tragedy. Like
so many others, he deserves to be remembered for what he attempted rather
than for what he did. Absurd though "Antonio's Revenge" be as an artistic
achievement, it is historically of importance as indicating an ambitious
attempt to give poetical expression to the spiritual conflict of a mind
brought to face dreadful evil. The prologue that he addressed to his London
audience testifies sufficiently to his serious and ambitious intentions,
and to the clear separation of tragedy from other forms of drama, which he
and other poets were trying to force upon the theatre.
"Therefore we proclaim,
If any spirit breathes within this round
Uncapable of weighty passion,
(As from his birth being hugged in the arms
And nuzled 'twixt the breasts of Happiness,)
Who winks and shuts his apprehension up
From common sense of what men were, and are;
Who would not know what men must be: let such
Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows;
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast,
Nail'd to the earth with grief; if any heart,
Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring;
If there be any blood, whose heat is choked
And stifled with true sense of misery:
If aught of these strains fill this consort up,
They arrive most welcome."
A number of plays dealing with "revenge for a father" followed. In 1602
"The Revenge of Hamlet" was entered in the Stationers' Register; and the
first quarto, a pirated and very corrupt edition, appeared in the following
year. This quarto, in the opinion of a majority of critics, represents
Shakespeare's partial revision of the old play, which was put on the stage
by Burbage's company in 1601-02. In the same years Ben Jonson was receiving
pay from Henslowe of the rival company for two sets of additions to "The
Spanish Tragedy," and these were published in 1602. In that year Henslowe
also paid Chettle for a tragedy, "Hoffman" (1631); and in 1602-03
Tourneur's "Atheist's Tragedy" (1611) was probably acted.[18] By 1603
Shakespeare had given "Hamlet" its final form as represented by the second
quarto (1604). The almost simultaneous appearance of these various plays is
sufficient testimony to the popularity of the old revenge story with both
audiences and authors. Dealing with similar plots, they naturally have many
elements in common, but they exhibit few or no signs of servile imitation
of one another. They represent independent developments of the type that
Kyd had introduced a dozen years before and that Marston had revived, each
retaining many of the old conventions, and each adding much that was new.
Jonson's additions to "The Spanish Tragedy" are distinct from the rest of
the play and affect the proportion and movement of the action rather for
the worse. They deal in the main with Hieronimo; his irony is increased and
made more effective; his reflections become more elaborate and pregnant;
above all, his madness gains enormously in reality and intensity. His
madness, indeed, receives a disproportionate development. Throughout the
additions Jonson is picturing a mind diseased by grief, sometimes conscious
of life's unrelaxing pain and again lost in frenzied delirium. Thus, the
imaginative impulses that responded to the demand for revenge plays here
stirred a great poet to a rehabilitation of the crude ravings of the old
Hieronimo in a form more intellectual, more vitally human, and of immensely
greater imaginative range.
"Hoffman" is a sensational melodrama by a hack writer not unskillful in
using prevailing conventions with theatrical effectiveness. The story is
again the revenge of a son for a father, but there is no ghost, only the
skeleton to excite him to vengeance. He banishes "clouds of melancholy" at
the start and shows no hesitation in carrying out the revenge until turned
from his purpose by his passion for the mother of his chief victim.
Intrigue and slaughter reign supreme; and, as in "Locrine," there are two
plots of revenge--Hoffman seeking revenge for his father and every one else
seeking revenge on Hoffman. In the pathetic situation of Lucibella, driven
insane by grief, Chettle made use of a character and a situation familiar
on the stage in much the same fashion as they must have been presented in
the old "Hamlet." Lucibella's madness, however, is made the instrument of
some telling hits at the villain and the means of discovering his iniquity.
While Ophelia's madness has no influence on the main action, that of
Lucibella leads directly to the _dénouement_. Dramatically this is a very
important difference and seems due to Chettle's invention. Unlike Marston
or Jonson, he made little effort to give the story either imaginative
intensity or philosophical significance. He took common theatrical motives
and situations, added much and changed much, and constructed a good acting
play not without some grace of verse. A play that was popular thirty years
after it was written must have successfully met the stage demand.
Tourneur's "Atheist's Tragedy" differs in many respects from all preceding
revenge plays. The revenge is for a father murdered by an uncle and
directed by a ghost. The revenge, however, is left to Providence; the ghost
is Christian; the avenging son not only hesitates, but after a little
irresolution overcomes his inclinations to revenge, and, obeying the
ghost's behests, resignedly awaits the judgment of heaven. In stage
presentation the play also shows a wide departure from Kyd, especially in
the indescribable comic underplot. There are, however, three appearances of
the ghost,--one to soldiers on watch,--churchyard scenes, banquets, sword
fights, suicides, scaffolds, and death's-heads. In the accumulation of
horrors, in the development of the villain's character, in the emphasis on
new sensational motives at the expense of revenge, and in the more
elaborate handling of the intrigue, it may be said to carry the general
development of the revenge tragedy a step farther than Marston or Chettle,
and a step nearer to Webster. On the other hand, in its definite attempt to
present an intellectual conception not lacking in moral grandeur, it
sometimes, more closely than any of the other plays considered, approaches
"Hamlet." The change in the revenge motive is especially manifest in the
soliloquies and reflective passages, which unite in a fairly well connected
argument that points the moral of the action, the omnipotence of God's
providence.
When, after an interval of some half dozen years, Shakespeare returned to
tragedy, evidently both the demands of the theatres and the artistic
impulses of the poets were different from those of Marlowe's day. The plays
of Marlowe and Kyd were still active forces in the drama, but in 1600-01,
when Shakespeare was perhaps writing both "Julius Cæsar" and the first
revision of "Hamlet," the man of the hour in tragedy was Marston.
In "Julius Cæsar" Shakespeare availed himself of a theme already a
favorite. The story of the overthrow of a tyrant, the progress of a
conspiracy, the fall of a prince, and his revenge upon the murderers
furnished material well approved for tragedy, while the greatness of the
events and the actors both gave assurance of popular interest and incited
the poet to his best. Shakespeare was not directed by scrupulous regard for
historical accuracy, but his genius was stirred by that of Plutarch to give
the events of the Roman civil war the interest and vitality he had given to
the reigns of English kings. In dealing with a story that followed so
closely the standard lines of tragedy,--the murder and the
revenge,--Shakespeare adopted some of the methods current in contemporary
plays. There is really no evidence to support Mr. Fleay's ingenious surmise
that the play was originally in two parts,--I, The Death, and II, The
Revenge of Cæsar,--but the play seems to have separated itself naturally
into those two divisions. The rise of the action traces the rise of the
conspiracy to Cæsar's death; the return of the action proceeds to the
failure and deaths of the conspirators. But from the beginning Shakespeare
must have found his interest engaged less by the story of conspiracy or
revenge, or even by the presentation of the turmoil of an empire, than by
the delineation of the character of Brutus. There, for him, lay the kernel
of the tragedy, in the struggle of a highly gifted nature with a task unfit
for his accomplishment. The play became not a tragedy of over-reaching
ambition, as Marlowe might have made "The Tragedy of Cæsar," nor the
tragedy of supernaturally ordained revenge, as Kyd might have made "Cæsar's
Revenge," but the tragedy of Brutus,--the fateful struggle of a noble mind
against counter actors and against chance, and also against an incurable
deficiency in his own temperament.
Similarly, in revising the old "Hamlet," Shakespeare must have been
attracted by the possibilities in the character of the hesitating avenger.
Here, however, as we have seen, the influence of his contemporaries was
considerable and complex. The plot, situations, types of character, and
leading motives of the old "Hamlet" were already familiar to the stage in
several plays. Revenge, directed by a ghost, hesitation on the part of the
hero, insanity real or feigned, intrigue, copious bloodshed, a secondary
revenge plot, meditative philosophizing in the form of soliloquies, were
all essential elements probably of the Kydian "Hamlet," certainly of
several other revenge plays. The refusal of an opportunity to kill the
villain, the songs and wild talk of a mad woman, the murder of an innocent
intruder, scenes in a churchyard, the appearance of the ghost to soldiers
of the watch, the play within the play,--all these as well as many more
minor conventionalities, such as the swearing on the sword hilt, or the
voice of the ghost in the cellar, had appeared in other plays than the old
"Hamlet." And Hamlet himself, wild and ranting at times, crafty and
dissimulating at others, cynical and ironical, given to melancholy and
meditation, hesitating in bewilderment, harassed by the unavoidable "whips
and scorns of time,"--so far as we can analyze the tragic hero, his
characteristics had been already used by contemporary dramatists. Dramatic
ingenuity was all that was required to make a new play out of this
abundance of old material. Chettle succeeded in doing just this. Marston,
Jonson, and Tourneur, however, had been trying to give the old story
philosophical significance and a highly imaginative phrasing. They had
glimpses of the dramatic and poetic possibilities that lay in the situation
of the hesitating revenger, and at moments they succeeded in realizing
these. Shakespeare set himself to their task, and naturally enough he was
in many ways limited and directed by their efforts. It was perfectly
possible for him to change the plot completely, or to omit the ghost in the
cellar, or to remove the bloodthirsty and intriguing elements from the part
of Hamlet, or to give a more Christian interpretation to the revenge; but
in these and other matters he followed the practice of the earlier plays.
There was no dramatic need of so many long soliloquies; the meditative
avenger need not have been ironical; insanity might have received less
elaboration; but in these respects Shakespeare was in agreement with his
contemporaries. The themes which they took inspired him. He succeeded in
doing what they vainly attempted.
He by no means neglected the external story or denied the theatrical demand
for sensation. He, perhaps, did not radically change the course of events
as depicted in the old play, but he unquestionably improved on any
preceding tragedy in the mere effectiveness of the scenic presentation of a
sensational story. How great this effectiveness is may be judged by the
continued popularity of "Hamlet" as a stage performance even before
unlettered auditors. We may surmise that had poetry and philosophy both
perished, it would still draw its crowds as it does to-day on the remote
borders of civilization. This theatrical triumph is due in part to dramatic
excellence of structure and presentation. From the old play probably came a
story restricted by semi-Senecan technic to a great emotional crisis; but
Shakespeare at least resisted the temptation, to which his contemporaries
succumbed, of extending the action over the events leading up to the
murder. And assuredly to him rather than to Kyd or another is due the
recognition of the dramatic values of the story's beginning, middle, and
end. Magnificent as is his development of the ghost scenes at the
beginning, still more important structurally is his realization of the
value of the middle of the tragedy and treatment of the play within the
play and its immediate sequences; and if the end is developed with an
Elizabethan looseness of coherence that will not correspond to any logical
scheme of structure, yet the pathos of the Ophelia scenes and the wonderful
grotesquery of the graveyard excite and renew the spectator's interest to
the final catastrophe. The scenic presentation, while telling a sensational
story with preëminent effectiveness, becomes as never before in English
drama the means for exhibiting the inner struggle of the protagonist.
Parallel with the external conflict between murderer and avenger, beginning
with the advent of the ghost and ending with a holocaust, there runs the
story of a man's moods and thoughts; and this story of doubt and melancholy
overpowering resolution imposes its unity of structure and emotional tone
upon the external conflict so full of visible action. The throng of
dreadful happenings becomes a foil to set off the inner struggle of
thought. Their climax is only the brink of resolution from which Hamlet
shrinks. Their catastrophe is the end of irresolution in silence.
The reflections and moralizings and broodings over misfortunes inherited
from Seneca, and long an essential element in the revenge plays, are also,
like the sensational incidents, integrated and humanized by the conception
of the hero's character. The soliloquies, though keeping to the themes and
methods of contemporary drama, become landmarks in the depiction of the
inner struggle and in the general progress of the action. The absurd
convention of speaking aloud one's unformed and unbidden thoughts becomes
theatrically exciting, dramatically essential, and, through the reach of
Shakespeare's imaginative expression, representative of the eternal battle
of human frailty against the mysteries of chance and evil.
Analysis might, indeed, continue to discover in the multiform
impressiveness of the characterization and the poetry survivals of old
conventions and hints of the method of Shakespeare's transformation. Taken
apart, various passages seem overburdened with rhetoric, after the style of
the day, and others over-sententious. Taken piece by piece, the sarcasm,
the irony, the pessimism, the stoic philosophy, even the passionate protest
against destiny, have much in common with the ideas then current in other
plays. But here again the transformation accomplished through unrivaled
powers of expression and knowledge of human nature seems to result from an
absorbing interest in the meditating and hesitating temperament of the
hero. The union of a drama of blood-vengeance with a drama of thought, a
union that had been often attempted by others, is finally achieved,
because here for the first time there is full recognition of the tragic
interest, movement, and significance of a man's battle with himself. The
tragic drama of character has been consummated.
In Shakespeare's conception of the tragic hero we find many characteristics
and some incongruities that belong to the old avengers; but there is new
penetration into the sources of human motive that results in an essentially
new view of the functions and scope of the tragic drama. As in most
tragedies since "Tamburlaine," the play is a one-part play, presenting a
hero far above the average in mental and moral power, but for the time
mainly under the sway of one dominating mood or emotion. Like the other
heroes of revenge tragedies, Hamlet is a good man brought suddenly face to
face with evil. Again, like the heroes of Seneca and of most tragedies
dealing with a reversal of fortune, Hamlet is a strong man brought to face
the enmity of chance. He is an individual forced to struggle against a
hostile environment. Again, he is a man in a tragic crisis that requires
the exercise of all possible powers on his part if he is to avoid disaster,
who finds himself afflicted with a temperamental weakness that makes
failure possible or indeed inevitable. Critics emphasize now one and now
another element of his character as they emphasize one or another of these
conflicts as the most important. Shakespeare here, as again in later plays,
united in one hero all the varieties of conflict catalogued by the
critics. But if we ask which is most peculiarly Shakespearean, it must be
said to be the conflict with his own temperamental unfitness, call that
irresolution, melancholy, meditativeness, or what you will. Here lies
Shakespeare's main differentiation from preceding tragedy, though one
distinctly presaged in "Julius Cæsar." At all events, we have a conception
of tragedy carried out in his succeeding plays. The hero, noble and
righteous, is brought into conflict with the results of evil and
circumstance, and he is crippled by his own inability or weakness. Tragedy
becomes inherent in character, in the incompleteness that marks the best
and mightiest of mankind.
Our consideration of "Hamlet" has been prolonged partly because its
relations to contemporary drama can be traced more readily than those of
Shakespeare's other tragedies, and partly because it is the first of his
plays to afford a full definition of tragedy, a conception of prime
importance both in the development of Shakespeare's art and in the future
history of the drama. A sensational struggle is presented, and the
abounding incidents are wrought into effective if loosely connected
stage-scenes, dealing with material similar to that then current in the
theatres,--villains, ghosts, murders, insanity, grim farce, meditations,
aphorisms. But the scenic presentation and the dramatic structure are to
express not only an external conflict between hero and counter-force, but
an inner struggle of the hero himself. They are to be the effects and
results, nay, the very mirror of the inner thought and feeling. And the
disaster that falls upon the hero and those by him beloved comes home to
us as due not merely to external forces or circumstances or to evil working
within, but also to an inherent unfitness of his own.
This conception of tragedy found further exemplification in "Othello,"[19]
freer from Elizabethan methods than any of the other tragedies, and the
most masterful of all as a play. The fable was found in an Italian novella
that related, like so many of its class, a bald story of love, jealousy,
and villany. The very baldness of the narrative in comparison with the
fullness of incident and characterization of the chronicles or Plutarch,
gave Shakespeare's imagination an untrammeled opportunity. The ingredients
of the story, common in romantic comedy and already combined by Shakespeare
in "Much Ado about Nothing," were also not unfamiliar in tragedy, but
Shakespeare enlarged and interpreted them to fit the conception of his two
preceding tragedies, the presentation of a spiritual struggle in which
goodness is attacked by evil at its point of greatest vulnerability. The
credulity of Othello, however, is assaulted by a more active agent of evil
than in "Julius Cæsar" or "Hamlet." Malignant evil is embodied in Iago, and
it is against his machinations that the nobly idealized characters of
Othello and Desdemona prove incompetent and defenseless. He is the person
who dominates the action and gives explanation and plausibility to the
circumstances. He not only opposes the hero in the external action, he
creates through his insinuations all the evil suspicions that struggle in
Othello's mind. He might almost be considered the protagonist of the
tragedy.
In structure there is a notable advance over preceding plays, accomplished
apparently in part through deliberate intent. The first act with its
account of Iago's craft and the marriage is a distinct introduction. The
remaining four acts present a practically continuous action, confined to
Cyprus and representing about thirty-six hours. Moreover, by a skillful
ambiguity, which Christopher North called "the double clock," Shakespeare,
while securing this rapid and uninterrupted process of time, has succeeded
in conveying an impression of protracted intrigue and slowly-developing
motives. Thus, without lessening the variety and importance of the events
and emotions, he gains, by a closer observance of unity than in the other
tragedies, a greater degree of theatrical illusion and of dramatic
intensity. Again, "Othello" technically is noticeable among the tragedies
for its relinquishment of many current methods. It is neither a chronicle
history nor a Senecan tragedy. There is no presentation of history and
little of court ceremonies. There are no battles, no long exposition, no
spectacles, no ghosts, no insanity, and almost no comedy. It has few
persons and virtually a single action. The underplot is subordinated and
closely united to the main action, and there are no delays and new
excitements between crisis and catastrophe as in "Hamlet" and "Lear."
Nowhere else in Shakespeare is the progress of character, emotion, and deed
toward the final event so consecutive and so uninterrupted. This advance in
coherence and proportion seems due less to the contributing causes just
enumerated than to the explanation of action by character. Accept the
unbelievable malignity of Iago--and you do accept it before you have
proceeded far--and every step of the appalling chain of intrigue seems a
natural outcome of the motives of the persons before us.
In consequence of this integration of character and action, the characters
are, more than in the other tragedies, distinct and unmistakable. As if to
make stronger the contrast between good and evil, the good man is a Moor,
apparently, as in the case of the Moors in "Titus Andronicus" and
"Selimus," hardly distinguishable from a negro; and the bad man is deprived
of the motive which in the _novella_ rendered his wickedness intelligible.
Yet nowhere, even in Shakespeare, are generosity and greatness of soul more
admirable than in Othello, nowhere is villany more human than in Iago. The
stage villain here receives his apotheosis as the avenging hero did in
"Hamlet." The source of all the evil in the play, the Machiavellian
machinator, the subtle hypocrite whose every action is a pose to conceal
its purpose, the simulator of honesty and bluntness, the shameless egoist
who proudly avows his villany and bawls it to the gallery, the intellectual
master who plays every one for a dupe, and especially his accomplice--all
this had been embodied in the villains of Kyd and Marlowe. Although
intelligible to Elizabethan psychology and theology, and credible in the
light of Tudor politics and feuds, such a type would seem to lack enduring
truth. While preserving all the attributes of the stage type, Shakespeare
made it the means for that searching analysis of human depravity to which
his contemporaries were less successfully dedicating their efforts. This
soliloquizing devil becomes identified with the suggestions and sinuosities
of evil that partake of the flux of our consciousness. Hypocrisy, cynicism,
cruelty, the absence of human sympathies, the pride and malignity of
intellectual superiority have henceforth their symbol in Iago. Impossible,
diabolical, inhuman as Barabas or Richard III, he is never for a moment
unplausible, because he ever unearths a corresponding potentiality in us.
The persons of the play, while unusually effective on the stage, and while
human and real in their discourse, have a universality of appeal essential
in the greatest works of art, desired by Aristotle and dimly foreshadowed
in Elizabethan efforts after greatness and typicality. Othello, Desdemona,
and Iago create fresh reflection and new impulse in every reader of every
generation. And to each they are not only real persons but also symbols and
ideals of the generosity, sweetness, and iniquity of the universe. This
idealization of character is accomplished with wonderful clarity by means
of an expression, splendidly eloquent, untroubled by conceit or obscurity,
equally masterful in prose or verse, magnificently adapted to the
representation of every mood or temperament. Shakespeare here realized the
ideal toward which English tragedy under the leadership of Marlowe had been
struggling, the presentation of human greatness in blank verse beautiful
and dramatic.
If "Othello" is comparatively free from current conventions, "Lear" is in
many respects the most Elizabethan of Shakespeare's tragedies. Story,
themes, situations, stage effects constantly recall the plays of his
predecessors; and if his creative imagination here attains the most
astounding triumph in all literature, it cannot be said to free itself
entirely from a confusion of archaisms and absurdities.
Returning to English history, Shakespeare selected a story that had
outgrown the chronicles and been narrated by several poets and in one
drama. From the early "Leir" he took a few important hints, but he treated
the material of the chronicles with a freedom which both its obviously
legendary character and its remoulding by other poets permitted. He was
only slightly concerned with the presentation of history and hurried over
the battles and the shows, the still indispensable accompaniment of
historical plays. He was concerned solely with the tragic entanglements of
character, with the devastations of evil and folly.
The kernel of the story, Lear's trick and Cordelia's unsatisfactory reply,
though possessing a kind of objectivity suitable for the stage, is of
itself so absurd and childish as to impede illusion of truth. Its
development is full of inconsistency, and the interwoven themes of madness,
villany, lust, ambition, family feud, and ideal virtue suggest no break
from the Elizabethan canon of tragedy. To the story of Lear and his
daughters, Shakespeare added the still more childish parallel story of
Gloster and his sons. This common device of a reinforcing sub-plot is here
extended to every situation and motive. Even the devoted Kent is balanced
by Goneril's faithful creature, Oswald; the inhuman sisters are supported
by the machinating Edmund; and, most extraordinary of all, the assumed
madness of Edgar becomes an accompaniment for the real madness of Lear. The
elaboration of the sub-plot causes an unprecedented complexity of persons
and events, and it dislocates the structure. The intense interest which is
absorbed in the sufferings of Lear finds itself distracted and dissipated
in a medley of incidents so incongruous and so confusing that one wonders
how a rational mind could have selected them. The crowded scenes which
separate the climax of the third act from the catastrophe assuredly form
one of the least happy instances of the Elizabethan habit of introducing a
change of interest and a variety of incident in the fourth and fifth acts.
Yet the structure of the play, if far from faultless, reveals amazing
mastery. The development of the action in the first three acts with the
constantly increasing tension of feeling, and the final gathering of all
the different actions in the wonderfully condensed catastrophe, are among
the greatest achievements of dramatic plotting. Moreover, in spite of his
zest for crowded and diversified action, Shakespeare's feeling for unity of
emotional effect caused him to omit one motive that modern renovators have
never been able to forego. He found a place for battles, villany, childish
intrigue, the clown's songs and jests, the plucking out of Gloster's eyes,
and the protracted foolery between Edgar and his helpless father, but he
refused to admit romantic love into this drama of the madness that
separates father and child.
Though Shakespeare chose to involve himself in these manifold difficulties
of story and structure, he hardly felt his fetters. No play depends less on
mere incident and event. The inconsistencies and confusion of the action
are forgotten in the wild turmoil of human passions. Wild, terrible,
elementary, brutal, grotesque, or sublime,--everything in the play is
touched with the imaginative truth that gives it limitless range of
suggestion, applicable to any discord of parents and children or to the
most dreadful spiritual torture. Insanity, long a favorite theme of
Elizabethan tragedy, and fantastic grotesqueness, often its bane, summon
his imagination to its most wonderful creation when the feigning Bedlam
counters the mad king mid the jests of the fool and the havoc of the storm.
Such a conception could have been attempted only in an age which took its
emotions strong and mixed, which found insanity a subject for laughter as
well as horror, and which refused to limit the imagination by reason or
rule. In that age a lesser than Shakespeare might have formed the bare
design of making his audience laugh at the fool and poor Tom, and shudder
at the eyeless Gloster and the raving Ancient. Something akin to it may be
found in many scenes, in that in which Marlowe's emperor and empress dash
out their brains against the bars of their cage in a frenzy of humiliation,
or that in which Webster's duchess stands undazzled amid the dancing ring
of obscene maniacs. The Elizabethan drama had prepared the opportunity for
the full and terrible presentation of the discords and agony of a breaking
mind. The London audience was ready for the scenes on the heath.
Madness is only one element that contributes to the overwhelming effect of
the play. Its so-called pessimism is the only other on which our meagre
survey may dwell. English tragedy had from the beginning concerned itself
mainly with heinous crime and sin; and during the years immediately
preceding and following "Lear" there was a distinct conception of tragedy
as the representation not only of the depths of iniquity but of the moral
confusion and blackness that beset us all. In "Hamlet," "Othello," and
"Measure for Measure" the sense of evil is ever present. In "Lear" it
grips the reader like the rack. As in "Othello," evil, here represented by
the two fiendish daughters as well as by an intriguing villain, dominates
the action, and carries all that is good along with it to destruction. But
evil is only one of the forces that cause suffering and ruin. Lear and
Cordelia contend against their own imperfections and against chance and
circumstance so hostile that they seem directed by gods who sport with men
as with flies and loose the fury of the elements to torment their victims.
Where else in tragedy are the forces that make for ruin so appalling and so
irresistible; and where else are suffering and ruin so dreadful and so
complete? The sufferers are powerless. Suffering does not here arouse a
Promethean defiance, but it discovers and purifies human virtue. If evil is
dominant over the action, Cordelia, Kent, the Fool, and the chastened and
purified Lear are dominant in our reflections. The end is not the fall and
cessation of all that is good. Even in our dismay at the convulsion which
evil may cause, there remains the memory of the perfection of human
devotion and love. The final impression must, however, partake of confusion
and horror at the blackness and ruthlessness of a moral order that can
sacrifice perfect virtue in an effort to free itself from the hideous
enormity of evil. This is the tragedy of life as Shakespeare saw it, and
the cry of bewilderment and agony seems to come from the poet's own heart.
The language, sometimes crowded and difficult, has hardly a trace of
artifice. Rarely as perfectly mastered as in "Hamlet" and "Othello," it
surpasses even those plays in the tremendous sincerity of its passion. If
passionate despair at things human has a language, it is the speech of
Lear.
"Macbeth" offers a marked contrast to "Lear" in its brevity and rapidity.
In spite of a few probable interpolations, the text is so short that it may
likely represent a condensation of the original version. In none of the
tragedies is the story told with more breathless directness, or with more
effective presentation of the externals of the action. The play is more
dependent on the chronicle than "Lear," and pays more attention to the
representation of history. In "Lear" the political and national importance
of the events is forgotten, but in "Macbeth" the convulsion of the kingdom
is kept in mind, and the battles, political intrigue, and the prophecies of
future dynasties recall the early chronicle plays. The story in Holinshed's
chronicle, however, conforms to the current ideas of tragedy, so closely
indeed that one wonders that some writer had not earlier attempted its
dramatization.[20] Apparently it awaited a Scottish king and a general
interest in Scottish affairs. The story is one of crime and retribution
with a rather striking likeness to some of the classical dramas. It
coincides with the Senecan plan of a crime committed and then revenged
through the accompaniment of supernatural agencies. It is the story,
familiar to both humanistic and popular tragedy, of a usurper who becomes
a bloody tyrant and is overthrown after a reign of increasing crime.
Macbeth's inordinate and fatal ambition also offers an obvious chance for a
development akin to that of Marlowe's protagonists. Again, as in most
English tragedies from "Cambyses" to "Sejanus," the story presents the
punishment of evil rather than the suffering of the good, and, except for
the absence of lust as a motive, might have found favor with any
contemporary dramatist. All these possibilities in the story were seized
upon by Shakespeare and adapted to his purpose. "Macbeth" might be studied
as the complement of "Lear" in the reflection and summarizing of all
preceding essays at tragedy.
Shakespeare's use of these various potentialities of the story and the
definiteness of his unifying purpose may both be seen by a comparison with
his treatment of the very similar materials furnished by the chronicles for
"Richard III." There, following closely the Marlowean methods, he for some
reason minimized the motive of remorse emphasized in his sources, and left
Richard as conscienceless as Tamburlaine or Barabas. In "Macbeth" the story
of ambition is also a story of the temptation, defeat, and remorse of
conscience. As in the other great tragedies, Shakespeare informed the old
material with the struggle of the human will. At the same time he made the
most of the hints in the chronicle that the protagonist was driven by fate
or some forces beyond his control. He united with marvelous dramatic tact
the destiny tragedy of the Greeks and the villain tragedy of the
Elizabethans. As a result the character of Macbeth has its paradoxes that
are the despair of the analysts. We do not quite know how far free-will and
how far superhuman agencies determined his course. But while the superhuman
agencies give his villany a mystery and impressiveness, they never confuse
for a moment the distinctions of good and evil. The powers of right and
wrong are clearly marshaled, and the triumph of evil leads to anguish as
well as to ruin.
Shakespeare's transforming and vitalizing use of both the suggestions of
Holinshed and the established conventions of tragedy in order to suit this
changed purpose is manifest at every turn, but nowhere so transcendently as
in his treatment of the supernatural. The ghost that interrupts the banquet
is no shrieking revenger, hardly more than a hallucination of the murderer.
The invisibility of the ghost to all but the one whom he would frighten or
admonish has other examples in the drama, but by 1605 most of the
playwrights made their ghosts either melodramatically horrible or vulgarly
familiar. In "Macbeth" Shakespeare not only etherealizes the ghost as in
"Julius Cæsar" and "Hamlet," but makes him a part of the very mood and
temper of the murderer. And similarly, the witches, drawn from Holinshed's
hints, represent a supernatural interference very different from that of
the furies, devils, or sorcerers usual in the theatre. Some of their stage
effects are archaic enough, as the shows of the head, the bloody child, and
the monarchs; some, like their vanishing in air, may have been novel on
the stage of the Globe; certainly they were all intended to surpass in mere
theatrical novelty and effectiveness any of the supernatural or magical
creatures of the contemporary drama. Delighting the groundlings and
appealing to the current interest in witchcraft, they are none the less
essential to the drama, inwrapt in the conception of character. The foul
hags of superstition, they seem also to have the attributes of the
classical Fates. Novel and effective on the stage, they are the supervisors
of Macbeth's destiny. They lay bare the path to his crimes, yet they seem
to obey rather than to govern his inclinations. The embodiments of the
desires hid in his bosom, they become, like the dagger in the air and the
ghost of Banquo, the symptoms of his soul's disease.
The disease of the soul is the theme, and the attention is centred upon
crime and its accompaniments, as in many contemporary plays, but with less
relief than in any other of Shakespeare's tragedies. While the range of
crime is confined, lust for instance never appearing as a motive, there is
an unrelieved concentration on the evil course of ambition. The virtuous
and noble have only minor parts. Lady Macbeth is an instigator and
accomplice in crime. For the first time since Shakespeare's early plays,
there is no idealized woman. The wickedness of Iago and the wolfish sisters
was relieved by the lovableness of Desdemona and Cordelia, unavailing for
the time but unforgettable in the sympathies of the reader. The eternal
stars never glimmer through the blackness that broods over Macbeth.
Because of this concentration on one process of evil and the absence of any
idealization of goodness, the play has a less intense appeal to our
sympathies than the three preceding tragedies. Again, because of its
concern with historical and political results, it removes itself from
immediate relationship to common experience. In these respects it links
itself with the two Roman historical tragedies that followed it.
"Antony and Cleopatra" and "Coriolanus," like "Julius Cæsar," are dramas of
great historical characters already splendidly described in Plutarch. They
are consequently far more limited by their sources than are the other
tragedies. Shakespeare was circumscribed by the main historical facts of
persons and events, and he was writing as the translator and interpreter of
Plutarch; yet his conception and methods remained the same as in "Hamlet"
or "Macbeth." An idealization of the tragic struggle of the protagonist is
environed by a wealth of incidents and persons, and accomplished by a
gathering and transformation of the methods and matters of current tragedy.
The world of antiquity is not faithfully reproduced, but it is made alive
and akin to our daily experience in the same fashion as are the Elsinore of
Polonius and the grave-diggers, and the Britain of Osric and Kent. And the
tragic conflicts that involve the great persons, if confused in the
spectacles and actions of this varied stage, are the accompaniments of
momentous national crises, themselves of hardly less imaginative appeal
than the spiritual struggles which they parallel. The mental battles of
Macbeth and Lear are reflected and magnified by the incantations of the
weird sisters and the turmoil of the elements; those of Coriolanus and
Antony by the battle of the powerful and the oppressed and by the throes of
a dying civilization.
In "Antony and Cleopatra," the subject of many Renaissance tragedies,
Shakespeare chose for a theme an ignoble infatuation that leads counter to
duty and on to destruction. The difficulties of the historical material led
to a remarkable reversion in dramatic structure to the methods of the early
chronicle plays, innumerable and loosely connected scenes, constant
shifting of place, prolonged time, and an absence of tragic unity. The
problem of a confused and intricate action, voluntarily imposed in "Lear,"
is here forced upon the dramatist who will combine the wars of the
triumvirs, the conflict of East and West, and the story of an enchantress
and her victim. The tragic course of the conflict between infatuation and
ambition is incumbered by historical details and stage spectacles, but in
style and characterization few plays more greatly reveal Shakespeare's
genius. In no play is the idealization of character more magnificent; no
other dramatist has made Antony in the lures of a strumpet still
representative of what is illustrious and magnanimous in mankind, no other
has made a woman with the manners and heart of a strumpet the rightful
empress of the imagination. The interest in the play is less centred than
in the other tragedies. It is divided between the spectacle of historical
events and the conflict of motives; it lies as much in the persons as
vitalizations of history as in their fate as human beings. But this is the
triumph of historical tragedy as Shakespeare conceived it. Its scenic
presentation makes alive the events and persons, and through a grandiose
panorama interprets the passions that ravished both empires and the souls
of their possessors.
The human drama in "Coriolanus" is involved not only in historical
circumstances, but also in the eternal conflict between the upper and the
lower classes, the incurable disease of the body politic. While their pride
in class, their blindness to the rights of others, and their failure in
patriotism are made apparent, the patricians are treated as the
representatives of righteousness and nobility. The plebeians, on the
contrary, are depicted without appreciation of their sufferings or rights,
as ignorant, imbecile, and the dupes of tricky demagogues. Contempt for the
mob was a common sentiment in Renaissance literature, and the people as a
factor in history held little place in the thoughts of the sixteenth
century or in the historical drama. But here and in "Julius Cæsar"
Shakespeare treats them with far less consideration than does Fletcher or
Massinger, with a contempt, indeed, that can hardly have flattered his
audiences and that has often been taken as indicative of strong personal
feeling. Shakespeare must have foreseen at least some of the political
lessons which would be derived from the play, but one may easily exaggerate
its importance as an exposition of his political theory. He was following
Plutarch closely, with an eye for interesting theatrical scenes as in
"Antony and Cleopatra," but with less than his usual inspiration. The lack
of individuality in the persons, a certain typicality in the
characterization, and the heaviness and complexity of the style may have
been caused less by an intrusion of political theory than by a lapsing of
that splendid power of characterization so long maintained. Moreover, the
political partisanship is in part a dramatic necessity, almost compelled by
Shakespeare's conception of tragedy and his dramatic method. Coriolanus
must be given resplendent virtues. The populace as a foil and contrast must
be made contemptible and the ready tool of vice. Pride, the fatal defect of
the hero, must be exposed as was the sensuality of Antony, but it must be
made the flaw of an Achilles. The rôle of villain is left for the
demagogues, and that of the witless accomplice for the people. Again, here,
as in all his histories, Shakespeare is blind to the importance of the
people, because for him, as for his contemporaries, the dramatization of
history was the dramatization of its great personages, and their passions,
vices, and ambitions.
The loss of power discernible in "Coriolanus" is conspicuous in "Timon."
Its corrupt text and unfinished condition and the certainty that only part
of the play is Shakespeare's render uncertain its importance among the
tragedies. Here, however, as in "Coriolanus," though the interest in the
causes that make man's misery is still keen, the lack of inspiration
results in an exaggerated type for a protagonist and in an unconvincing
exposition of human baseness. If Coriolanus's politics were Shakespeare's,
certainly Timon's misanthropy was not.
With these themes Shakespeare's interest in tragedy exhausted itself.
Possibly influenced by the success of Beaumont and Fletcher's early
romantic plays, he attempted in "Cymbeline," and perfected in "A Winter's
Tale" and "The Tempest," a type of play combining tragic and idyllic
elements, full of romantic variety of incident, and resulting in surprising
and happy _dénouements_. The possibilities for tragedy are there; jealousy,
villany, and intrigue abound; even death is introduced. But the main
actions are not of suffering and ruin; love and forgiveness heal all ills;
and the end is reconciliation and marriage. These romantic tragicomedies
are not only departures from the established tragic forms, but from any
consideration of tragic themes and problems comparable in seriousness or
intensity with that of the plays which we have just discussed.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward, Fleay, and Schelling continue to be the best general guides.
Important critical discussions of Shakespeare's tragedies by Professors A.
C. Bradley, Lounsbury, and Baker were noted in the Bibliographical Note to
chapter i. Other recent books of special interest are: _Shakespeare_,
Walter Raleigh (1907, English Men of Letters Series); _William Shakespere_,
Barrett Wendell (1894); _Shakespeare and his Predecessors_, F. S. Boas
(1896). For a general surrey of the course of Shakespearean criticism, see
Ward, vol. i, chap. iv; or Lounsbury, _Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_,
and _Shakespeare and Voltaire_; or the bibliographical lists in the various
volumes of Furness's Variorum edition. This edition, now in progress, and
Malone's Variorum edition of 1821, are the most valuable in furnishing
information. Nearly all recent editions of Shakespeare supply fairly
adequate information in regard to critical conclusions on matters of date,
sources, and text. Probably the most serviceable bibliography of
Shakespearean editions and criticism up to 1870, and to a considerable
extent for the Elizabethan drama, is to be found in the _Catalogue of the
Barton Collection_ of the Boston Public Library (1888), accessible in most
large libraries in this country. A complete Shakespearean bibliography
since 1865 is supplied by the bibliographies published in the _Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_. These also comprise nearly all
monographs of importance dealing with the drama from 1557 to 1642.
The present chapter borrows from my article on Hamlet and the Revenge Plays
(_Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn._ 1902), referred to in chap. iv. E. E. Stoll's
_John Webster_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1905) gives a further discussion of the
Revenge Plays, and especially of Marston. Bullen's edition of Marston is
the standard. The editions of Heywood's Works (1874) and of Chapman's
(1873-75) attempt no scholarly discussion. F. S. Boas's edition of the two
Bussy D'Ambois plays in the _Belles-Lettres Series_ (Boston, 1905) has a
valuable introduction. Gifford's edition of Jonson (1816) is unfortunately
not yet superseded. The careful editions of various of his plays in the
_Yale Studies in English_ as yet include none of his tragedies. _Ben
Jonson, l'homme et l'oeuvre_ Paris, 1907, by Maurice Castelain is very
elaborate, and contains a full bibliography with a preliminary descriptive
note of editions. A new edition of Jonson edited by C. H. Herford and P.
Simpson is announced.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Mr. Elmer Stoll's argument against this early date does not seem to me
convincing. See the Appendix to his _John Webster_, Cambridge, 1904.
[19] _Troilus and Cressida_ in some form was probably acted in 1602. The
editors of the Folio apparently first intended to class it with the
tragedies, but they changed their minds while the book was printing and
placed _Troilus_ without pagination between the histories and tragedies.
The preface to one of the quartos of 1609 classes it with the comedies, and
the prologue inclines that way. For an interesting though not always
convincing discussion of the many difficulties offered by the play, the
reader is referred to Mr. R. A. Small's _The Stage Quarrel between Ben
Jonson and The So-called Poetasters_ (1899), pp. 139-170. The play offers
problems of importance in Shakespearean criticism, but in a history of
tragedy it seems negligible. The concluding scenes (v, 7-10) are clearly
not by Shakespeare, and the Prologue and v, 4-6 are doubtful.
[20] There is in fact a reference in Kempe's _Nine Days Wonder_ (1600) to
the story, which may possibly indicate an earlier play.
CHAPTER VI
SHAKESPEARE
Our study has perhaps already made it evident that Shakespeare's tragedies
were in many ways the product of a rapid and complex evolution. At the same
time it is clear that, until Shakespeare, Elizabethan tragedy with all its
genius and innovations had failed to attain finality of art, or to mark out
any sure pathway thither. It was still in its formative period when he
created out of it something new and immortal, and its development continued
after his death mainly in response to forces not of his initiating. For the
past two centuries, to a constantly increasing body of spectators and
readers, his tragedies have had a life entirely unconnected with the works
of his contemporaries, an existence that has dominated our theatres and our
conceptions of tragedy, and become a part of the daily living and the
permanent ideals of the race. It is therefore necessary to separate his
plays from the mass of tragedies, and to review them for a moment as the
creations of a genius that was the chief creator as well as the glory of
English tragedy.
Two points of view that have been largely maintained in nineteenth century
criticism of Shakespeare may, however, be neglected in our summary. His
plays have been viewed as the reflection of his personal experiences and
emotions; and his return to tragic themes about 1600 and his occupation
with them for the next eight years have been connected with a supposed
period of spiritual depression in his own life. Again, the generalization
of experience and the abundant wisdom of his tragedies have been viewed as
the result of a conscious and rather systematic philosophy of life. Much
might be said for these attitudes of criticism. Any attempt to describe the
plays in terms of our emotions as readers is likely to result in the
attribution of those emotions to the author, an interesting process of
analogy and one hardly to be disproved. Any attempt to survey his work as a
whole and to relate its parts is likely to result in the systemization of
his message and philosophy. But for students of the growth of his dramatic
art under the peculiar conditions of the reigns of Elizabeth and James,
these nineteenth century points of view involve dangerous critical
anachronisms. Shakespeare does not seem to have been a lyric Shelley or
Byron, making poetry out of his changing moods, or a Tennyson or Browning
generalizing life in the persons of his men and women. There seems no
reason for separating him from his companion poets and playwrights. Like
them he was in the first place telling a story for the stage; like them he
found in these plays opportunity for the expression of his knowledge of
human motives in the guise of beautiful verse; and like them, when he chose
tragic themes, he became absorbed in the presentation of the tragic facts
and problems of life. Our attempt to determine his relations to them is not
to discover indebtedness large or minute, but rather by the safest approach
to arrive at a right appreciation of his genius and its transcendent
contribution to tragedy.
For the purpose of our survey we may have the four great tragedies chiefly
in mind. The early tragedies are manifestly the products of an experimental
period and the precursors of the latter plays; and the three Roman
histories have a subordinate and contributory rather than an essential and
preëminent part in his achievement in tragedy. Whatever can be said of the
four great tragedies applies in its essentials to all.
All these plays taken together illustrate the extraordinary amalgamation of
the medieval and classical inheritances that English tragedy had received
as a birthright. No play escapes from its narrative sources, and some are
bound closely by them; yet the choice of sources often indicates the
influence of the Senecan formula, sensational externals giving opportunity
for an introspective analysis of emotional crises, notably in the stories
of crime, revenge, and retribution. Their enormous variety of incident,
their mingling of the comic and the tragic, their admission of physical
horrors, deaths, and spectacles mark the survival of the medieval
tradition, while the aphoristic and heightened style, the ghosts and the
soliloquies are derivatives from Seneca. The freedom of the medieval stage
to the presentation of all sorts of matters accounts in part for their
splendid comprehensiveness, while classical theory is partly responsible
for their restriction to momentous events and supernormal persons. Their
structure remains epic and popular, but progress toward dramatic unity
seems conditioned by the Senecan five-act scheme. The medieval idea of the
pagan deity Fortune is preserved; and conceptions of good and evil, like
those of the morality, stand side by side with classical conceptions of the
struggle between the individual and fate. The union of these diverse
elements has become too close for disentanglement. "Macbeth," based upon
Holinshed's chronicle, comes nearest in conception and treatment to
classical tragedy; "Antony and Cleopatra" in structure and method reverts
the nearest to medieval models.
More distinct contemporary influences reappear similarly amalgamated and
transformed. In "Hamlet" we have a play closely related to those of a
particular species; but in the other plays of Shakespeare's maturity
nothing like close relationship can be found to the great examples of
Marlowe, to the peculiar type introduced by Kyd and developed by Marston,
or to the contemporary efforts of Chapman and Jonson. Any one play
doubtless responded to a tangle of influences not now to be separated.
Current popular plays, practices on the stage, the personalities of the
actors, Shakespeare's own preceding plays, contemporary non-dramatic
literature, current events such as the Essex rebellion or the Gunpowder
Plot, and hosts of other influences were at work directing the development
of an old story into a tragedy. Taking the plays as a body, some of the
more important of these limiting and directing influences still remain
discernible in the transformed result.
All the tragedies but "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet," only partial
exceptions, relate the falls of princes and the revolutions of kingdoms.
These stories of princes are of the same kind as in other Elizabethan
tragedy. In a setting of court and camp they place sensational crimes, and
trace the accompaniments and consequences. Their themes are revenge,
madness, tyranny, conspiracy, lust, adultery, and jealousy. They abound in
villany, intrigue, and slaughter. They avoid Senecan atrocities and the
abnormal phases of lust; but the tearing out of Gloster's eyes recalls the
horrors of the early plays; while revenge, conspiracy, and villany are as
prominent as in the contemporary tragedies of Marston, Jonson, and Chapman.
Three of the stories include ghosts, while in "Macbeth" the weird sisters
offer an opportunity for a most original treatment of the supernatural.
Comedy is always combined with tragedy, and the medieval tradition and the
popular taste for an emotional contrast receive artistic vindication in the
grotesqueness of "Hamlet" and "Lear." Each plot, like those of Marlowe's
plays, centres about a great personality and illustrates a temperament
dominated by passion. It traces the course of folly, mistake, or sin to the
wages of death as in "Lear," "Othello," and "Antony and Cleopatra"; or it
begins with a murder and records its progeny of crime and death as in
"Julius Cæsar," "Hamlet," and "Macbeth."
Shakespeare's choice of stories was clearly determined by the Elizabethan
conception of tragedy and by the current tastes of the theatre. And by
these stories his imagination was directed and limited. However absorbed he
became in character or ethics, he never neglected the plot or the theatre.
Consequently the great revelation of tragic fact which he gave to posterity
was limited by these stories of crime and hampered by their improbabilities
and stage effects. The tragedy of ambition is limited to the story of a
murderer who sees a ghost; and the tragedy of ingratitude is joined to a
relation of senile folly, crime, and the humors of Tom of Bedlam. Even his
interpretation of human motives suffers, for the bloodthirstiness of Hamlet
and the perverse reticence of Cordelia belong to the old plots as much as
to the characters. Yet Shakespeare's greatness of mind no less than his
responsiveness to contemporary taste appears in his very choice of
material. Whether he took the oft-told tragedies of Cæsar, Brutus, Antony
and Cleopatra, or the old plays of Hamlet and Lear, or the neglected themes
of Othello and Macbeth, he chose always stories of great dramatic interest
and those that presented the range and vicissitudes of human passion. His
attraction for each story was evidently in the emotional conflict that made
each protagonist a great acting part and also a fascinating study of human
motive.
Moreover, in his general treatment of this material there is a uniformity
that gives some hint of a Shakespearean definition of tragedy. In each play
a man of great attainments is presented as involved in a moral conflict
that results in his death. This conflict is two-fold, internal between
opposing desires, and external against some persons of the counter-actions.
Conflicting forces contend for mastery in the hero's breast, and from their
confusion he drives on to action that is disastrous. The unusual powers,
the best potentialities, of his nature are opposed and thwarted by the
forces of chance and circumstance beyond his control; by the force of evil,
whether in his own breast or represented by the crime and intrigue of
others; and still further, by a defect or deficiency in his own
personality. The force of chance, equivalent to the Greek Fate, plays a
part in all tragic story and drama; the power of evil without or within was
the counter-force in medieval drama, and was the theme most powerfully
dwelt upon by Shakespeare's immediate contemporaries. The fateful power of
incompatibility of temperament with conditions of life seems to have been
Shakespeare's own conception.
In Sophocles, arrogance and audacity are accounted evil; in Marlowe and
Chapman, it is intensity of desire that drives to disaster; but in
Shakespeare the melancholy and reflective temper of Hamlet and the generous
and credulous magnanimity of Othello are the allies of untoward
circumstance and designing villany in bringing suffering to the good and
failure to the potent. The greatness of Shakespeare's conception, however,
results from the massing of all these combatants against the hero. The
conflict thus gains in the comprehensiveness of its presentation of life;
and human nature in the face of such odds becomes magnificent even in
failure. Hero wars with villain; human intrepidity and wisdom with chance
and destiny; conscience with sin; greatness of purpose with crippling
defects of temperament.
Such a conception of tragedy involves a recognition of the blindness of
chance that cannot be squared with any theory of poetic justice or
theological view of the rewards due to virtue. But it also involves a
recognition of moral law that results in the punishment of its violators.
The villains never escape as they do in comedy. The wages of sin are always
death, though the reward of virtue is not happiness. The vastness of evil
in the world, its malignant influence, its temporary triumphs are conceived
in a manner not different from that of contemporary thought. The doctrines
of total depravity and of moral responsibility go side by side as in
medieval drama, theology, and psychology. In the depiction of the waste of
effort, the expense of spirit, the crippling of greatness by weakness, the
ineffectually of virtue, Shakespeare gave a far more comprehensive and a
far more penetrating representation of tragic fact than the world had yet
known, but without professing any solution of its mysteries.
Such a conception gives unity to the action of each play, but not always a
unity that governs details of structure. The structure of a tragedy cannot
be described in terms of a system, for the dramatic presentation of each
play differs from the others and conforms to the story it relates. There
are many survivals of the early epic lawlessness, as in "Antony and
Cleopatra" and "Lear"; and in no play is the main action kept entirely free
from intruding incongruities. Neither act nor scene receives much regard as
an integral unit of structure. The most noticeable structural division is
due to an event of extraordinary importance reached somewhere in the middle
of the play. This point, to which the terms climax or crisis are sometimes
applicable, brings to an end one important development of the action, and
thus divides the play into two parts. Cæsar's murder, Duncan's murder,
Lear's madness complete one course of tragic incident and introduce us to
another.
The effectiveness of Shakespeare's construction, however, was not due to a
formulation of system or rule but to his intuition and experience. His
sense of what parts of a narrative should be acted and what parts not, had
developed beyond that of most of his contemporaries. In comparison with his
own earlier plays the tragedies contain little, whether comic, spectacular,
or essential to the main tragic action, which had not a manifest value on
the stage. His ability to create great dramatic situations was also at its
height, and the great scenes are prepared for and emphasized by what
precedes, so that they gain all the effect possible from the dramatic
construction. Thus, the appearance of the ghost, the play within the play,
the funeral of Ophelia, and the final slaughter are given a value in the
mere narration of the story for which there is no parallel in the many
other treatments of similar stories. Of far more importance is his use of
the developments of character as the determining factors of the progress of
the dramatic narrative. The rapidity with which the first two acts of
"Macbeth" hurry us to the murder of Duncan, the tremendous climactic
pressure of the first three acts of "Lear," are extraordinary examples of
his power to compel incidents to reveal the course of motive convincingly.
In each play the order of incidents becomes a logical development from the
characters of the actors; each deed, thought, or speech has its sequence.
There are no tricks, no surprises, no sudden conversions of character. Once
admit the premises, a person of a certain temperament, facing a certain
situation, and subject to a certain accident, mistake, or folly, and we
cannot escape the conclusion. The dramatic necessities of character are
never violated. From the clear exposition of the first scene, the progress
is inevitable to the end.
The persons of the plays spring from the old stories, and by these the
study of their motives is in many ways limited. It is limited again by the
types and conditions of stage-land. The bloody tyrant, the hesitating
avenger, the Machiavellian villain come hence. The acts which they commit,
their moods, motives, their very language depend in part on the
representatives of these types that had long been familiar to the audiences
of the theatres. Yet the host of individual personalities are the result
of a most profound and fresh observation of an almost boundless range of
life. That interest in characterization which distinguishes the early drama
and finds its main illustration in Shakespeare's own practice in the
preceding decade here comes to its culmination. Not only the main actor,
but the most conventional part, the most absurd business, the merest
supernumerary, receives its touch of truth. And something more than truth
to life or knowledge of motive is manifest. The great characters are cast
in large moulds. They represent the courses of the master passions.
Smallness of horizon, triviality of design, feebleness of mind or body are
absent. Momentous crises that try men's souls are the real subjects of the
tragedies. The accidents of dress, or manner, or time, or race, the
incidents of action, are forgotten as revenge, jealousy, irresolution, and
lust seize their splendid prey. The greatness of human nature, the power of
the human will, the responsibility of the individual remain. There is no
belittling of reason even when it breaks under the crash of the storm. Iago
is no mere stage villain, though he has all the characteristics of the
type; nor is he merely a transcript from life, though he has all the
variety and plausibility of a human being. He is the embodiment of our
countless evil impulses, the incarnation of depravity. So with all the
others. They are human in their truth; they are magnificent idealizations
in the range and value of their manifold suggestiveness; they leave the
stage to become the habitants of our imaginations, contributing to our
reflections their embodiments of good and evil, folly and reason,
resolution and doubt.
They speak a language all their own, though with resemblances to their
kinsmen in the other Elizabethan tragedies. The blank verse, far more
flexible than in the early plays, presents a triumphant union of the
conflicting tendencies toward decoration and naturalness observed in the
other dramatists; and it is freely mingled with hardly less masterly prose.
Marvelous in comparison with preceding verse is its extreme condensation in
spite of its opulence of figures and aphorisms. Although crowded with
thought and image, it is nevertheless, in its response to the varying
persons and moods, superbly dramatic. A critic who is both a poet and a
philosopher[21] objects to Macbeth's dagger "unmannerly breech'd with gore"
as violent and crude in comparison with the historical reminiscences with
which Homer might have made Achilles describe the weapon. But recall the
scene. Macbeth has murdered the grooms and rushes from the chamber to
confront the fearful suspicions of Duncan's sons and friends. Surely, his
false and frenzied excuses must be over-fanciful, violent, and crude.
"Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood,
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore."
Such a style, however, does not readily give up opportunities for aphorism
or beauty for the sake of absolute truth to situation or character. Still
less does it mimic actual speech. It does give a potency to the stories,
otherwise hardly conceivable; and it adds to truth of character the
allurement of music and picture, and the idealization of a magnified
suggestiveness. A father has reason to curse his daughter--gesture and
incoherent words might correctly represent life; a plain sentence of
Ibsen's might convey the tragedy of the situation--but it is the
extravagant and terrible imprecation of Lear that has for centuries made
men's imaginations shudder. Style such as this the drama will never
recover. We shall sooner find another Shakespeare to blend its diverse
elements than a host of dramatists, like the Elizabethans, fascinated by a
newly discovered world of poetry and daringly adventurous in search of
melody of verse, wealth of aphorism, luxury of fantasy, and truth to
character.
The effect of Shakespeare's tragedies on spectator or reader is so complex
as to defy analysis. Incidental wisdom, effective scene, immortal story all
contribute; but the main sources of their abiding impressiveness have
surely been the characterization and the poetic style. If we must continue
to seek for a katharsis, do not they supply it? The great tragedies are
full of disaster, wrong, and suffering. The world they reveal is not the
abode of happiness, but of darkness and remorse. Though the bad are
punished, the good are not rewarded. Sweetness and innocence suffer and
perish along with foulness and malevolence. The noblest spirits are
broken; the wages of mortal effort are failure. There are many "breaches in
nature for ruin's wasteful entrance." Nor does the life hereafter offer a
promise of compensation. Death ends all,--that is the great catastrophe
toward which human endeavor precipitates itself. This is not Shakespeare's
view of life, but it is his view of the tragedy of life, and its effect
upon us is gloomy, overpowering, heartrending. But everywhere this tragedy
of life is revealed in verse infinitely appealing to intellectual analysis
and to imaginative exhilaration. Everywhere there are men and women, not
dead but living, representative of much that is most intensely and
universally interesting in life, and the permanent guests of our
reflection. The old ethical adage that it does not so much matter what men
do as what they are has a particular truth when applied to the people of
Shakespeare. That they do this or that, love, murder, die, is in the story;
what they are remains the possession of humanity. Our horror at the
successful villany of Iago finds a certain relief in the intellectual
pleasure and admiration at the creator's achievement; it accomplishes a
certain purification in its application to the Iago in ourselves. Still
more do the persons who most excite our sympathy survive the intolerable
emotions that first greet their misfortunes. When we read "Othello" we feel
an overwhelming pity, a fierce resentment, but we would not erase from our
possession the memory of Desdemona and her Moor. The misery and wrong and
death go to make up in our reflection the beings whom we love and cherish.
It is Lear's fivefold "never" that completes for us the loveliness of
Cordelia.
A comparison of the tragedies with the masterpieces of other national
dramas might disclose their faults but would not diminish their glories.
Faults in plenty there surely are, whether judgment be taken of classicists
or realists, or of the best standards of the Elizabethans. There are many
quibbles or fantasies of diction that might be criticised, many bits of
dialogue or stage spectacle that might be omitted without detracting from
the total impressiveness. How many minor inconsistencies of plot or
characterization might be corrected. How complicated and bewildering is
"Hamlet" in comparison with the simpler harmony of "Antigone." How involved
and cumbrous, and how undignified in its appeal to the emotions, is much of
"Antony and Cleopatra" in comparison with "Phèdre." How impossible and
fantastic is much of "Lear" in comparison with "Ghosts." But Shakespeare's
defects and deficiencies belong to his time and to his methods. They are
inseparable, indeed, from the very means on which depend his consummate
results. Not in response to literary tradition, but to the public theatre;
not by a refined but by a daring art; not by simplicity and unity, but by
complexity and opulence of effect; not by devotion to creed or science or
fact, but by the idealization and sublimation of man's emotional nature,
did Shakespeare give to his dramas their imperishable wealth of life.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] George Santayana, _Reason in Art_, p. 113.
CHAPTER VII
THE LATER ELIZABETHANS[22]
Shakespeare's great tragedies did not create a new epoch in the development
of the drama. In themes and general treatment they made no marked departure
from the past. Their translation of story and circumstance into the
conflicts and processes of character was beyond the reach of imitation,
and, indeed, not likely to gain full recognition from contemporaries. They
were rather the consummation of the old than the heralds of a new era,
though their influence on succeeding dramatists was wide and permeating,
especially as time and publication brought a growing appreciation of their
greatness as literature. Meanwhile, the old types of tragedy continued
their sway, sometimes little touched by Shakespeare's influence. English
history plays were rare; Roman history plays frequent; Senecan closet
dramas continued; the Marlowean and Kydian traditions received further
development. The revenge play, in particular, continued to be one of the
most conspicuous types. Further, a most important innovating force appeared
just at the close of Shakespeare's tragic period in the heroic romances of
Beaumont and Fletcher, which gained an immediate popularity and created new
practices in both tragedy and tragicomedy.
The times were changing. The improved social status of the theatre, the
support of the court, the vogue of private theatres like Blackfriars, the
increasing interest in the stage on the part of the lettered and
fashionable classes, supplied more intelligent and critical audiences; but
the increasing Puritanism separated the drama more and more from sympathy
with the main public. The drama became less national, more critical, and
less moral. The corrupt society of the reign of James I supplied little of
that imaginative idealism which had found expression at the time of the
Armada. It offered the serious drama either objects for satire and cynicism
or sophisticated and courtly ideals of conduct. In consequence, a more
conscious art found itself less competent than in the early drama to depict
greatness of mind, and resorted to the tracing of abnormal passion, the
casuistical inquiry into moral problems, the exposure of evil, or to
romance without moral intention.
Yet dramatic enterprise continued unabated. The theatre continued to
attract poetic ambition. Scholars, men of letters, gentlemen of rank turned
to the popular stage. There was as yet no suspicion of decadence. Rather
the past seemed to offer, through a recognition of its merits and a pruning
of its faults, encouragement for a greater achievement in the future. In
spite of critical realization of the absurdities of the early drama, and
of the necessity for a better regulated art, the integrity of the national
tradition was recognized and maintained. In 1612, in a preface to his
"White Devil," Webster, after explaining that he had departed from the
classical standards "willingly, and not ignorantly," proceeds to extol his
contemporaries and masters:--
"Detraction is the sworne friend to ignorance: for mine
owne part I have ever truly cherisht my good opinion of
other mens worthy labours; especially of that full and
haightened stile of Maister Chapman, the labor'd and
understanding workes of Maister Johnson, the no lesse
worthy composures of the both worthily excellent
Maister Beamont & Maister Fletcher, and lastly (without
wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious
industry of M. Shake-speare, M. Decker, & M. Heywood;
wishing that what I write may be read by their light;
protesting that, in the strength of mine owne
judgement, I know them so worthy, that though I rest
silent in my owne worke, yet to most of theirs I dare
(without flattery) fix that of Martiall:
--non morunt haec monumenta mori."
After a time the greatness of the past masters proved rather an impediment
than a stimulus. But in 1612 their work seemed to offer encouragement for
even greater achievement in the immediate future.
For the historian this period offers less difficulties than the preceding
ones. After 1610 comparatively few plays of importance are non-extant, and
few of the extant plays are anonymous. The bulk of the important plays was
produced by a few dramatists, who dominated the theatres and whose careers
determined the drama's development. After examining the revenge plays
which about 1612 gave a further extension to that species, and the heroic
romances of the Beaumont-Fletcher collaboration, which were produced within
a few years before that date, we may trace the succeeding developments of
tragedy mainly in the work of Fletcher, Massinger, Middleton, Ford, and
Shirley.
The main line of the development of the revenge tragedy is represented by
Tourneur's "Revenger's Tragedy," the anonymous "Second Maiden's Tragedy,"
and Webster's "White Devil" and "Duchess of Malfi." The four plays may be
said to constitute a new species whose differences from the old type seem
clearly unconnected with Shakespeare's "Hamlet" but directly traceable to
Marston's plays, especially his "Malcontent."
Revenge is no longer the main motive but is a subsidiary element in
complicated stories of revolting lust and depravity. Tragedy has become the
representation of vice and sin, with a proneness for their foulest
entanglements. In one play a brother plays the part of pandar to his
sister; in another a father to his daughter; and in a third a mother to her
daughter. Nor is revenge, even in its subordinate position, the simple
blood-for-blood requital that it is in Kyd. It may be for various causes
beside murder; it is born of malice rather than duty; it may share in the
moral turpitude of the rest of the action. The ghost no longer directs the
course of revenge, and may disappear entirely. In "The Revenger's Tragedy"
the skull of the betrothed, as the skeleton in "Hoffman," takes the place
of the apparition; and in other plays the duties of the ghost are
minimized or farmed out among various supernatural agents, two female
ghosts appearing. Hesitation on the part of the avenger does not appear.
Indeed, his entire character has changed. He may be a villain, as in
"Hoffman," or the villain's accomplice, or one of Marston's "malcontents,"
or a combination of these parts. The other leading elements in the Kydian
type are preserved. Insanity of various forms, real and pretended, is
prominent. Intrigue of a complicated kind abounds, but is often dependent,
after the fashion of current comedy, largely on improbable disguises.
Deaths are as frequent as ever and more horrible. Much of the old stage
effect reappears, as in the masques, funerals, ghosts, and exhibition of
dead bodies, but there is a great increase in the number and ingenuity of
melodramatic sensations. Each play is a chamber of horrors. In one, a wife
dies from kissing the poisoned portrait of her husband; in another, the
lustful king sucks poison from the jaw of a skull; and in a third, from the
painted lips of a corpse. Comets blaze, there are many portents, the time
is ever midnight, the scene the graveyard, the air smells of corruption,
skulls and corpses are the _dramatis personae_. Every means seems to be
employed to make theatrically effective the horrors of death and decay. And
once, at least, these means are used with tremendous power in the riot of
madness, torture, and corruption that preludes the death of the Duchess of
Malfi.
All or nearly all of the active characters are black with sin. The
extraordinary exploitation of villany in Elizabethan tragedy here reaches
its culmination. The arch-villain as ruthlessly devoted to crime as
Hoffman, the accomplice assiduous in revolting baseness, the villain
touched by remorse, the malcontent reviling human life,--all these
appear--sometimes all combined in one person--and play their parts along
with unshrinking prostitutes and lustful monarchs. The study of villany,
however, has gained intensity and plausibility over the earlier plays. If
none of the villains take to themselves much individuality, most of them
have moments of dramatic impressiveness, and they are intended to be
realistic. They are drawn with an accumulation of detail, a fondness for
probing into depravity, with a sense of the dramatic value of devilry, and
with a bitterness and cynicism that often seem sincere and searching. It is
this cynicism which gives character to the reflective elements of these
plays. The Kydian soliloquy on fate has given way to the prevailing
satirical and bitter tone that finds its favorite themes in the sensuality
of women and the hypocrisy and greed of courts, and its favorite means of
expression in the connotation of the obscene and bestial.
The qualities attributed to these four plays recall "Hoffman" and "The
Atheist's Tragedy," and still more Marston's plays, and the satirical
comedy of the preceding decade as well as the tragedy. Though the four
plays are thus classed together, their differences are marked. "The Second
Maiden's Tragedy" manifests more than the others the influence of Beaumont
and Fletcher. Tourneur's "Revenger's Tragedy," far superior to his earlier
"Atheist's Tragedy," surpasses Marston and reveals brilliant dramatic
talent. Full of thrills and unspeakable juxtapositions, it is governed by a
sheer delight in horror and unrelieved by any moral standard. Webster, on
the contrary, made his horrors impressive in both poetry and moral.
Dependent at every step on the work of predecessors, he succeeded as did no
other poet except Shakespeare in transforming the revenge play into a work
of art and truth. Chapman was, perhaps, his chief model, but the processes
of his transforming art, though not its results, bear resemblances to
Shakespeare's. He was possessed by an interest in the effects of crime upon
character, and had the power to realize these momentarily with amazing
truth. Hence his great portraits of Vittoria, the Cardinal, and the
Duchess, and the ingeniously and vividly though not very consistently drawn
figure of Bosola. As Shakespeare in "Macbeth" and "Lear," fascinated by the
wickedness of the world, reveled in images of blackness, corruption, and
despair, so Webster, more laboriously and inquisitively, was ever seeking
fantastic expression for the old truth that all is vanity. In his
masterpiece, "The Duchess of Malfi," and in a lesser degree in "The White
Devil," his recognition of moral values again recalls Shakespeare. We are
moved by the pitifulness of the suffering as well as by the horror of the
evil. There is no confusion of good and bad; and if the prevailing view of
life is cynical, it is not unrelieved by respect for fortitude and
conscience. The tragedy of revenge reached a new altitude in this play,
which, though poorly constructed, tells a story of criminal and horrible
revenge with a vivid delineation of character, a pervading moral sense, and
with flashes of speech that attain both poetic and dramatic sublimity.[23]
The collaboration of Beaumont and Fletcher was finished by the time that
Webster published his acknowledgment of their mastership. Gentlemen by
birth and breeding, they began writing for the stage apparently as pupils
of Jonson, entered into collaboration by 1607, and in the next five years,
by the time that Beaumont was twenty-seven and Fletcher thirty-three,
produced some ten plays that gained them a popularity surpassing that of
Shakespeare's later years, and extending well through the Restoration. So
far as tragedy is concerned, the main result of their collaboration was the
formation of a new species of heroic romances, some tragedies and some
tragicomedies. Six plays serve to define the type, though other plays of
the collaboration have resemblances to it and, after Beaumont's retirement,
the type was continued in the work of Fletcher and others. These six plays,
"Four Plays in One," "Thierry and Theodoret," "Cupid's Revenge,"
"Philaster," "A King and No King," and "The Maid's Tragedy," probably owe
more to Beaumont than to Fletcher. "The Maid's Tragedy" and the two
tragicomedies, "Philaster" and "A King and No King," are the masterpieces,
but the six plays resemble one another so closely that one analysis will
answer for all.
Beaumont and Fletcher did not, like most of their predecessors, turn to
English or Roman history for their plots, and they preserved but few traces
of the Marlowean tragedy with its central protagonist and dominating
passion, or of the revenge type in any of its amplifications. Their plots,
largely of their own invention, are highly ingenious and complicated. They
deal with heroic actions in imaginary foreign realms. The conquests,
usurpations, and passions that ruin kingdoms are their themes, but there
are no battles or armies, and the action is usually confined to the rooms
of the palace or a neighboring forest. Usually contrasting a story of gross
sensual passion with one of idyllic love, they introduce a great variety of
incidents, and aim at a constant but varied excitement. Love of one sort or
another, honor also of many kinds, and friendship, which is somewhat more
steadfast, are ever in conflict. We are given seats in an anteroom of the
palace, and at once the flow of events engrosses us,--conspiracies,
imprisonments, insurrections, wars, adultery, seduction, murder, the talk
of courtiers, gossip of women, banquets of the monarch, and the laments of
the love-lorn. Or, after a tumultuous hour, we may retire to the adjoining
forest, where the lovers wander to forget their misfortunes, and by its
fountains weave their laments into lyrical garlands. A few hours, and
kingdoms have trembled in the balance; the heroine has been proved guilty
and innocent again; and the lover has been ecstatic, frantic, jealous,
cowardly, implacable, and forgiving, and finally wins or dies with his
honor secure.
The tragedies differ from those preceding in structure as well as in
material. Their main purpose is theatrical effectiveness; their means of
securing it the constant use of surprise. Beaumont and Fletcher did not
follow their narrative sources closely; they invented their own stories or
used old ones as the frame for their favorite situations and characters.
The tragic, idyllic, and sensational matter is skillfully constructed into
a number of theatrically telling situations which lead by a series of
suspenses and surprises to very effective climaxes or catastrophes. All
signs of the epic methods of construction found in the early drama have
disappeared, and the interest in the action is maintained at fever heat. In
"The Maid's Tragedy," the climax of the play comes at the end of the fourth
act with the murder of the king by his mistress, Evadne, the wife of
Amintor. But in the fifth act the main action absorbs the sub-plot and
continues its course of thrills and surprises until the very end. In "A
King and No King," the love of Arbaces for his supposed sister furnishes
many entanglements, and it is not until the end of Act V that we know that
the princess is not his sister, and the tragedy of incest is resolved into
romance. There is no inevitableness in the action of these plays. Usually,
until the last moment there is a chance for either a happy or an unhappy
ending, and in every case the _dénouement_ or catastrophe is elaborately
planned and complicated.
From the nature of their material and treatment there is little difference
between the tragedies and tragicomedies. Tragicomedy as a species had up to
this time hardly been recognized in the English drama, although there are
sporadic instances of the use of the term and although romantic comedy
usually offered tragic elements. Fletcher's definition (borrowed from
Guarini) in the preface to "The Faithful Shepherdess," may be taken as
sufficiently distinguishing the form from other species,--"A tragicomedy is
not so called in respect to mirth and killing, but in respect it wants
deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it,
which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a representation of
familiar people, with such kind of trouble as no life be questioned; so
that a god is as lawful in this as in a tragedy, and mean people as in a
comedy." The example of Beaumont and Fletcher, moreover, gave popularity
and importance to this class of plays. Borrowing motives familiar in
romantic narrative and the preceding drama, they yet created a departure
from preceding romantic comedy, both in the constant emphasis which they
place upon the contrast between the tragic and idyllic elements of their
plots and in the especial attention they pay to surprising and complicated
_dénouements_. They aim not merely at a mixture of the sentimental and
tragic but at involving every one in a tangle of disastrous complications,
resolved only by a series of final surprises. Although only two of the six
romances are tragicomedies, the imitators of Beaumont and Fletcher most
frequently adopted the form, realizing apparently the theatrical value of
keeping the spectators thrilled and excited until the end and then
relieving their sympathetic suspense by a happy solution.
The _dramatis personae_ of the six plays belong to the impossible and
romantic situations rather than to life, and are usually of certain
types,--the sentimental or violent hero; his faithful friend, a blunt
outspoken soldier; the sentimental heroine, often a love-lorn maiden
disguised as a page in order that she may serve the hero; an evil woman
defiant in her crimes; and the poltroon, usually a comic personage. With
the addition of a king, some gentlemen and ladies of the court, and a few
persons from the lower ranks, the cast is complete. The various persons
introduce one another in long descriptions; and, after the introductory
speech, the character remains fixed, except as the shifting situations
demand some unexpected revolution. There is no shading or subtlety in the
characterization, little discrimination or individuality in the different
representatives of the favorite types, who, however, are by no means
wanting in originality. They do not reveal the depths or complexities of
human nature, but they exhibit fresh and ingenious variations of the old
types, audacious humor and abundant spirit, and the power of their
creators to rise to a situation and to express dramatic emotion. Thus,
their type of evil woman acquires tremendous force in the scenes where
Evadne plays her part; and their heroines suffer, serve, weep, love,
forgive, and die, in lines that somehow preserve the grace of simplicity,
though they wear all the jewels of allusion and imagery that the authors
possess. Moreover, their men and women talk like real persons. Dryden
declared that they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen
much better than Shakespeare, a distinction that in some respects is clear
to-day. The men of preceding tragedies had spoken a language elevated and
removed from ordinary discourse, but in Beaumont and Fletcher the romantic
scenes and impossible changes of character are made plausible by an absence
of archaism and a directness and lucidity of speech.
In the main, what reality the characters retain in our memories is due to
the power of the verse to reflect clearly the emotions of the moment. There
is a notable absence of the merely sonorous, the turgid declamation, the
mouthing of strange words, and an absence of over-crowding thought or
fancy. Beaumont and Fletcher had no desire to make their style sententious,
weighty, and philosophical. They knew what they wanted to say, and they
said it clearly and rapidly. They had room for ornament and rhetorical
device, but none for eccentricity or obscurity. Another remark of Dryden's,
that they perfected the English language, deserves consideration as the
view of a century later, and can be appreciated even now. The
characteristics of their style, so far as it can be considered as a common
property, seem due to an effort to make dialogue correspond as nearly as
possible to natural speech. This is particularly true of Fletcher, who is
the more revolutionary of the two and the more persistent in his
mannerisms. His structure is loose and conversational, and his blank verse
overruns the borders of the rigid pentameter and approaches the
irregularity of prose. Numerous added syllables and a large percentage of
feminine endings further mark his departures from past models, and,
combined with his end-stopped lines, give his verse a peculiar monotony.
Both writers rise now and then to an intensely imaginative phrase or a
beautifully wrought description. The verse of neither is suggestive of the
intricacies of human feeling or the splendor of human intellect, but the
verse of both, of Fletcher preëminently, reveals a fertility of imagination
and an extraordinary mobility of words.
These merits of style gave Beaumont and Fletcher their seventeenth century
reputation and have continued to attract readers in the generations since.
Ethical objections to their plays drove them from the stage in spite of
their theatrical effectiveness. They wrote with little ethical intention.
Unlike some of their contemporaries, they did not seek to discover the
abodes of sin and to chastise the monster, nor did they study human nature
in the light of moral law. They dealt with themes that would please their
audience and would offer a sufficient range of emotions for the exhibition
of their poetic powers. Without imaginations that touched spiritual heights
or penetrated to the real significance of moral conflict, they entered
unhesitatingly upon the task of holding up a mirror to a society loose in
manners and unprincipled in morals. They were not so much guilty of
intentional immorality as impotent to produce moral effect. If their
imaginations kept too frequent company with the gross and the unhealthy,
they also sought at times the sweeter and nobler aspects of life. What won
for their ethics high laudation from their contemporaries was their
rhetorical and dramatic exaltation of ideals of magnanimity and dreams of
idyllic love and devoted friendship.
Their masterpieces, despite their limitations, must be given high rank in
the English drama. Outside of Shakespeare it would be difficult to find in
our language another tragedy that as an artistic achievement can be counted
the superior of "The Maid's Tragedy." But the main contribution of their
collaboration took the form of a type, limited in themes and
characterization, brilliant often both in dramatic discovery and in
execution, but tending toward artificiality and convention. Their most
important innovations, the products of serious artistic effort as well as
of cleverness and ingenuity, mark the acquirement by the drama of new
habits of doubtful value. Their sacrifice of character to situation, their
devotion to theatrical effectiveness, their lack of moral purpose, their
dalliance with the artificial and abnormal aspects of passion, and their
disregard for the limits of blank verse, all these characteristics
furnished examples eagerly followed by the dramatists of the next
generation, examples that did not promote in tragedy a true or
comprehensive or noble reflection of life.
Immediately after Beaumont's retirement Fletcher probably collaborated with
Shakespeare on "Henry VIII" and "The Two Noble Kinsmen," and possibly on a
lost play, "Cardenio." The partnership resulted in no distinct departures
from the methods of either dramatist, but it seems to have been full of
incentive for the younger man, whose poetic gift nowhere displays itself
more splendidly. From this time on he wrote constantly for the theatre,
composing three or four plays a year, collaborating on many of these with
Massinger, and maintaining his position as the most popular dramatist of
the time until his death in 1625.
Perhaps if Beaumont had lived, the two might have advanced to maturer and
worthier achievement, but Fletcher's work alone rather displays the
superficialities and artificialities of the collaboration. His amazing
cleverness appears in every scene, but he evidently wrote more and more for
immediate success, and relied more and more on his readinesss of wit and
invention to take the place of earnest and serious purpose. The long series
of plays in which he had at least a considerable share, range in kind from
comedies of manners to tragedies of blood and revenge, but practically all
may be described as romantic drama, having, that is, strange improbable
events, foreign and remote scenes, variety and surprise in action, and love
as the central motive. His sense of dramatic value in theme or incident was
constantly alert, and in Spanish stories, especially the "Novellas
Exemplares" of Cervantes, he found mazes of complicated action which
exactly suited his fancy, and which he managed with adroit dramaturgy. The
Spanish influence is more noticeable in the comedies than in the more
serious plays; but, whatever the theme or the source, Fletcher added bustle
and excitement. The distinctions between tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, and
romantic comedy often become barely discernible. The material and treatment
are similar. Tragic situations occur in comedies as well as tragedies, and
in either case, though finely conceived and admirably expressed, are yet
always directed by the desire for surprise and thrills. The tragicomedies
conform most closely to the conventionalities and repetitions of the heroic
romances, though they exhibit abundant originality of invention. Through
their example, romantic and melodramatic tragicomedy became perhaps the
most popular and characteristic dramatic species of the reign of Charles I,
and a direct progenitor of the heroic plays of the Restoration.
In his tragedies Fletcher's prostitution to theatrical effectiveness admits
a recognition of the literary tradition. At least, the two which are the
result of his unaided efforts are composed with more care and with more
evidence of artistic responsibility than his other dramas. In
"Valentinian"[24] he turned from his usual sources and themes to those long
approved in pure tragedy, and found in Roman history a story of revenge and
lust. Though treating the material with great freedom, he unfortunately
followed his source in continuing the action beyond the murder of
Valentinian through the counter revenge on Maximus. The first two acts,
that tell of the attempted seduction of Lucina and her final ruin, are
among the best sustained tragic developments in Fletcher, and, in
comparison with many similar scenes in contemporary drama, testify to his
remarkable poetic gifts. But the later scheming and the overthrow of her
husband involve a conversion of character and a descent into absurd
improbability. In "Bonduca," Fletcher's invention moved unhampered.
Historical sources are used merely as hints and incentives. The stories of
Bonduca and Caratach are combined; and the interest in their tragic fates
diversified by the stories of Bonduca's daughters and their Roman lovers,
by the episode of the noble Poenius, by the pathos of the child Hengo, and
also by some gross and brutal comedy. All these interests are skillfully
interwoven and focused upon the great central scene of the battle. There is
stirring presentation of camp life, and throughout the action moves with
abounding spirit. The play is not tragedy at all if one judges it strictly
by Aristotle's precepts or by Shakespeare's example, or even in comparison
with the emotional tension of "The Maid's Tragedy." But it is an admirable
example of the blending of the romantic, historical, heroic, pathetic,
comic, and tragic, full of human nature as well as incident, conspicuous
for poetic expression as well as theatrical ingenuity, one of the
masterpieces of the romantic drama.
The tragedies in which Fletcher collaborated with Massinger or others offer
few amendments of his usual dramatic habits. "The Queen of Corinth," "The
False One," "The Double Marriage," and the spectacular "Prophetess" are all
melodramas in which Massinger's moral earnestness and rhetorical
seriousness contrast with Fletcher's vivacity, and in which clever
stage-craft, noble poetry, and slipshod and hasty workmanship are
indiscriminately manifest. "The Tragedy of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt"
carries on the practice of treating contemporary foreign history, already
exemplified by Marlowe and Chapman. Hurriedly written within a few months
of Barnavelt's death, it can lay no claim to be a thorough or impartial
study of historical events, but it affords a remarkable illustration of the
readiness with which both authors could summon their talents to an
occasion. Given a theme that had a current theatrical interest, and
Massinger's declamation and Fletcher's pathos came nimbly to the task, and
almost at their very best.
The most striking illustration, however, both of Fletcher's genius and its
prostitution to theatrical effectiveness is to be found in "The Bloody
Brother; or Rollo, Duke of Normandy." Here in collaboration with Massinger
and possibly Jonson and Middleton, he returned to one of the stock themes
of tragedy, the story of family feud and a bloody tyrant. In comparison,
however, with any preceding dramas of this class, whether in early
imitations of Seneca or later treatments of lust and revenge, the play
shows the alteration that had come over dramatic ideals and methods. Its
purpose is neither to follow literary tradition nor to expose the evil of
tyranny, but to make some startling theatrical effects out of the familiar
material. Fletcher accomplishes this purpose with his usual recklessness of
talent. When the height of tragic passion is required he rises to it, or
very nearly, in the scene where Edith pleads with the tyrant to spare her
father's life, a scene which Dyce pronounced the most real in its
passionate earnestness of anything in Beaumont and Fletcher's writings. But
the most astounding display of his power comes where there is no genuine
passion but only make-believe. It is the final scene of the play.
Edith, whose father has been killed by the bloody and
lustful Rollo, is planning to murder him. She has
pretended to yield to his solicitations, and has
arranged a secret meeting with him at her house. Enter
Edith, splendidly dressed--a banquet prepared. She
kneels and prays to her father's soul that she may
forget all pity and kill the tyrant--
"His heaven forgot, and all his lusts upon him."
Then, as her boy sings the lovely song, perhaps
Shakespeare's,
"Take, oh take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn--"
Enter Rollo. By one of Fletcher's sudden conversions,
he has changed to a subtle hypocrite and appears
humble, repentant, begging for pity and love,
"in whiteness of my wash'd repentance,
In my heart's tears and love of truth to Edith,
In my fair life hereafter."
Edith, surprised and unnerved, gradually forgets her
purpose, and as she informs the audience in several
asides, is yielding; when--Enter Hamond and the guard.
Hamond, a brave blunt soldier, is seeking revenge on
Rollo because the tyrant has killed his brother and
outraged him by commanding him to murder the noble
Audrey. Hamond announces that he has come to kill
Rollo, who seizes Edith and interposes her as a
defense. She, aroused now to Rollo's real nature, draws
her dagger, but he snatches it from her. In the
struggle that follows Rollo and Hamond are both killed.
All this occupies only one hundred and fifty lines of verse and must be
accounted a most skillful bit of playmaking, a scene such as only Fletcher
among the Elizabethans could contrive. But there is neither truth to life
nor dramatic logic; on the contrary, there are two improbable conversions
of character. It is not tragedy, it is hardly serious drama, it is
theatrical claptrap; yet Fletcher's poetry is as fine, and, for all that
one can see, as sincere as in the scene of genuine passion. Such dramatic
impossibilities as this Fletcher faced with eager recklessness, and gayly
spurred his Pegasus for the leap.
"The Bloody Brother" further illustrates the union of the material and
methods of the Beaumont-Fletcher romances with the conventions of the
tragedy of revenge and lust. That union, manifest also in Fletcher's
"Valentinian," is henceforth characteristic of the tragedy of the age. The
dramatists belonged to a late period of an artistic development and had
many examples both native and foreign to draw upon. They were men of talent
or even genius whose creations were independent and original but rarely
without large indebtedness to their predecessors. While Shakespeare and
Jonson were often borrowed from, the majority of the tragedies clung to the
examples of Webster and Tourneur or mingled revenge and horrors with the
romantic plots and novel technic of Beaumont and Fletcher. A marked
similarity consequently exists in the plays of men of different
temperaments and purposes. Lustful tyrants and their intriguing favorites,
love crossed by honor and often allied with revenge, illicit and abnormal
passion, romantic princes and princesses, an action confined to the rooms
of a palace, situations involving seduction or temptation, stage-effects
whether by horrors or by masques and pageants, and a style more equable,
less fantastic than in the early drama,--these are the ingredients which
characterize tragedy for the quarter century after Shakespeare's death.
Middleton's tragedies and tragicomedies came late in his career, following
a period of realistic comedies, in which his observant and satirical
imagination found free play. Though affected by Beaumont and Fletcher's
romanticism, he preserved most of the traits of the tragedy of revenge in
its late development, including such penetrating analysis of character
swayed by evil as we have found in Marston and Webster. In some of his
romantic dramas, as the tragicomedy "The Witch," there is little of this
serious purpose. The various revenge motives--of the duchess on the duke
who has compelled her to drink from the skull of her murdered father, of
the lover upon the husband who has married his betrothed, and of the
jealous husband upon his wife--are all treated with melodramatic
insincerity though with an ingenious accompaniment of spectacular and
supernatural interference on the part of the witches. Attempted murder
results in wounds that easily heal; the deadly potion proves harmless; the
duke discovered dead comes to life. In the single tragedy written by
Middleton alone, "Women Beware Women," the revenge species appears
unadulterated. Isabella's illicit relation with her uncle, the use of a
masque to bring about the final slaughter, the scenes of seduction, and the
abominable wickedness of all the persons, are elements that recall the
Tourneurian group. The fluency and eloquence of Middleton's style and his
admirable delineation of character by rapid dialogue are best shown in the
early scenes; after the old mother, so beautifully and truly drawn, has
disappeared from the action, the rest is unrelieved murder and lust.
The two famous plays that were the results of Middleton's collaboration
with Rowley have somewhat different characteristics. Rowley, a playwright
used to rude and fantastic comedy, and the author of "All's Lost by Lust,"
a clumsy tragedy of revenge, wrote most of the comic scenes and had some
share in the serious plots. In "The Fair Quarrel," the hesitation of
Captain Ager to defend the honor of his mother unless convinced of her
purity; and in "The Changeling," the entanglement of Beatrice with the
loathed follower whom she has persuaded to murder her accepted suitor,
offer situations novel and ingenious. In both plays, the opportunity for
mere melodrama with sudden conversions of character is refused, and the
series of startling situations made the basis for a study of human motive.
It is this which gives "The Fair Quarrel," in spite of its absurdities,
superiority over most of the tragicomedies of the time. In "The
Changeling," one may easily imagine what havoc Fletcher would have made of
the characterization in order to over-emphasize situations, sensational
enough in themselves; but Middleton and Rowley followed the best tradition
of Webster. The rash and pampered Beatrice retains our sympathies even in
her degradation, and remains convincingly alive, whether in her incipient
love for De Flores or her final cry for forgiveness. De Flores,
clear-headed and well-motived, is the most powerful and individual of the
post-Shakespearean villains. The comic relief supplied by the mad scenes
spoils the tragic unity of the play. But, except in Shakespeare and
Webster, the old combination of murder, revenge, sinful love, villany,
madness, and ghosts had never been made so consistently the result of human
motive and so effective in its appeal to our sympathies.
Massinger's dramatic career, ranking in productiveness with Shakespeare's
or Fletcher's, extended from the time of Shakespeare's withdrawal from the
theatre to within a few years of the Civil War. For ten years he was mainly
occupied in collaborating with Fletcher for the king's men; and of the
nineteen plays usually classed as his own, none were acted before 1622. His
work, therefore, falls roughly into two periods, the first when he was the
assistant of Fletcher, the second when he had succeeded Fletcher as the
main reliance of the leading London company.
Of his work with Fletcher the tragedies have already been considered. In
most of the plays of the collaboration, Fletcher's share is the more
important, especially in the treatment of the dramatic crises. In plays, as
"The Queen of Corinth" and "The Laws of Candy," where Fletcher's hand is
least apparent, there is an excess of melodramatic ingenuity without the
Fletcherian vivacity, Massinger's temperament reveals itself, however, from
the first in the gravity of his style and the seriousness of his morality.
From Fletcher he acquired his stage-craft and his attachment to the
romantic drama of thrills and surprises, but his art was meanwhile
developing a responsibility and purposes all its own.
Of the plays written without the aid of Fletcher, two, "A New Way to Pay
Old Debts" and "The City Madam," are domestic comedies of manners. The
others are romantic dramas which can be classified only with some
difficulty as comedies, tragicomedies, and tragedies. A number of the
tragicomedies are to be distinguished from the tragedies only by the happy
endings and the absence of bloodshed. Nor are these always decisive. Of
the tragedies, "Believe as You List" and "The Virgin Martyr" result in
victory as well as death, and in the tragicomedy, "The Maid of Honor,"
suitors worthy and unworthy are rejected and the vindicated heroine enters
a nunnery. The tragedies in the main deal with more serious and important
actions and rely less on intrigue than the tragicomedies; but it may be
said of Massinger, with even more truth than of Fletcher, that he dealt
with romantic stories abounding in tragic possibilities, usually resulting
in happy endings, but occasionally taking a loftier tone and a fatal
conclusion.
The plays as a whole reveal a remarkable variety of stories and a treatment
of sources fully as free and ingenious as Fletcher's and often contriving a
political as well as a moral lesson. Honor and religion play conspicuous
parts as in contemporary Spanish drama, to which Massinger apparently owed
a considerable debt; although in only one instance, "The Renegade," has
direct indebtedness to a Spanish play been traced. The earlier drama is
also freely drawn upon. At this date it was in fact almost impossible to
compose a play without traversing motives and incidents that were familiar
on the stage; and Massinger borrowed from many, from Shakespeare as freely
as from Fletcher, and from minor dramatists as well. The story of the
usurper Sebastian, told in "The Battle of Alcazar," is retold in "Believe
as You List"; and the poisoning by kissing the painted corpse, related in
"The Second Maiden's Tragedy," reappears in his "Duke of Milan." In spite
of their variety and ingenuity, his plays are very like others of the
period. There are the same court and courtiers, general, favorite, rival
lovers, rival mistresses, and the same trials of chastity or intrigues of
lust and malice.
Yet the independence of Massinger's invention and the truth of his
conceptions of human motive are by no means small. In "The Bashful Lover"
there is a presentation of idealizing and self-sacrificing love, far
surpassing the courtly compliments of Fletcher and rivaling the magnanimity
of Browning's conceptions. In such themes, just removed from the exaltation
and the horror thought necessary for tragedy, yet serious and exalted above
the average of comedy, Massinger is at his best. An outline of his "Maid of
Honor" may serve to illustrate both the independence of his imaginative
conceptions and the careful integration of his structure.
Act i opens at the court of Roberto, King of Sicily,
who, after much eloquent solicitation, permits his
natural brother Bertoldo to lead an expedition against
Gonzaga, a knight of Malta, who is relieving Sienna,
captured by Ferdinand, Duke of Urbin, in his effort to
win the duchess by force. Camiola, the maid of honor,
after some buffoonery on the part of Sylli, a
Malvolio-like wooer, has a parting interview with
Bertoldo and confesses that his vow as a knight of
Malta is the only bar to her acceptance of his offers
of marriage. In act ii, after some further buffoonery
by Sylli, who serves throughout as a comic contrast to
Camiola's other suitors, Fulgentio, the King's minion,
solicits Camiola, but is tartly repulsed, and threatens
to slander her. The scene changes to Sienna, the camp
of Gonzaga, and then to the citadel held by Ferdinand.
Bertoldo and his followers are defeated and made
prisoners, Gonzaga tearing the cross from Bertoldo's
breast. In act iii all the prisoners are released by
ransom, except Bertoldo, who thereupon bewails the
falseness of his brother the King. The scene changing
to Sicily, Adorni, a faithful follower of Camiola's
father, soliloquizes on his love for her and his
intention to take vengeance on Fulgentio. Later he
appears wounded before Camiola and presents the
minion's recantation, but is blamed by her for his
presumption in assuming a task proper only for her
lover. Upon the arrival of news of Bertoldo's plight,
Camiola, who is as energetic as loyal, decides to
sacrifice her fortune to pay her lover's ransom, and
summons Adorni to act as her agent in freeing Bertoldo.
Adorni dutifully undertakes the mission that promises
to ruin his hopes. In act iv the Duchess Aurelia
arrives at Sienna and Ferdinand surrenders. Bertoldo in
prison reads Seneca, soliloquizes on suicide, falls on
the ground, and threatens to rend the bowels of the
earth, quite in Kydian fashion. Adorni enters, and
Bertoldo, upon hearing of Camiola's sacrifice, blesses
her name and promises marriage. It is now Adorni's turn
to soliloquize on suicide. Bertoldo is brought before
Aurelia, who, suddenly enamored, offers him herself and
duchy. After some resistance he yields. Adorni now
begins to hope. In Sicily Camiola has convinced the
King of Fulgentio's worthlessness. In act v Camiola
receives from Adorni the news of Bertoldo's fickleness,
but she still scorns Adorni and resolves to seek
redress from the King. Accordingly, at the marriage of
Bertoldo and Aurelia, she breaks in, states her case
with eloquence and temper, and appeals to the King.
Aurelia suddenly feels all her love quenched, and
Bertoldo pleads for pity. All await the fulfillment of
Camiola's promise that she will declare whom she will
marry, and are astonished when Father Paula announces
that she has decided to become the bride of the church.
Before taking the veil, she obtains Fulgentio's pardon,
gives one half of her wealth to the faithful Adorni,
and commands Bertoldo to resume the cross of Malta.
In his six tragedies there is less of romantic love and more of the blacker
passions. "The Unnatural Combat," "The Duke of Milan," "The Fatal Dowry"
(in collaboration with Field), and "The Roman Actor" deal with lust and
revenge in the quantity and quality long prescribed. In the last named,
however, Massinger broke away from the conventional treatment and made his
protagonist neither the cruel tyrant nor the lustful queen, but a dignified
and noble representative of the actor's profession, and took the
opportunity of effectively expanding the old device of a play within a
play. The other two tragedies present still more originality of conception
and treatment: "Believe As You List," dealing with the fortune of a
rightful claimant to the crown, and "The Virgin Martyr," perhaps a revision
of an early play by Dekker, returning to the old material of the Miracles,
the story of a martyrdom that converts the persecutors. In each of these
tragedies, as in "The Maid of Honor," a number of stories are organized
into a single action, introduced by admirable exposition, and usually
carried through with direct and logical progress. In the treatment of
catastrophe, always heightened, prolonged, and sometimes full of surprise
after Fletcher's fashion, Massinger is less competent. Massinger could not
keep to the inevitable development of character as did Shakespeare, nor
could he sacrifice character to situation as light-heartedly as did
Fletcher. In consequence he falls between two stools; and his fifth act is
usually clumsy and unconvincing.
Massinger's art was not only less reckless than Fletcher's; it was linked
to a serious moral view of human affairs. He always worked under a sense of
responsibility both as a dramatic artist and as a preacher of political and
personal morality. Neither the heedlessness of Fletcher nor the perversion
of Ford is discoverable in his plays. Bad and good are clearly
differentiated, despite the improbabilities of the romantic vicissitudes;
and poetic justice is administered with decision. Following his venturesome
and nimble master, he pursues his pathway gravely, judicially, somewhat
heavily. His careful art and sincere morality lack the leaven of dramatic
genius. The orator and the rhetorician are always elbowing the dramatist
off the scene. His style, never splendid, never excessively figurative, is
always contained and clear. At its best in sustained declamation, it often
descends to a tone approaching prose and rarely rises to the more stirring
or impelling emotions. His abundant inventiveness also fails him in the
great crises of passion. Again and again when the heroine is at bay, or the
hero within the jaws of ruin, Massinger resorts to oratory. As in "The Maid
of Honor," eloquence is the _deus ex machina_ which solves the difficulties
of the plot. In consequence, the characterization, though involving subtle
and penetrating conceptions of human nature, and often logical and
consistent, rarely results in living beings. An exception must be made of
some of his men, whose virility and dignity are akin to his own temper and
can be made real through his favorite rhetorical means. The women, with
few exceptions, of whom Camiola is chief, are, for reverse reasons, bad
failures. Chastity cannot be revealed by an oratorical appeal, and the evil
women only grow impossible when they add rhetoric to lust.
The passing of the greatness of the Elizabethan drama is manifest in
Massinger as in his contemporaries. He retains, to be sure, most of the
external characteristics of his predecessors; he writes constantly in the
light of their achievements; he would restrain Fletcher's theatricality by
a more cautious and responsible art. Like Shakespeare he maintains a moral
standard despite the exigencies of a romantic plot. But the old fervor as
well as the old extravagance of diction have gone; and a careful dramaturgy
now finds itself incompetent to meet the requirements of great tragic
crises. His tragedies recapitulate what has been done before, without
important advance or departure, and without attaining one unforgettable
phrase or one moment that electrifies the reader with an undeniable
conviction of its dramatic truth.
In Ford the results of servile imitation and original genius were curiously
combined. The first dramatist to feel the overshadowing effect of
Shakespeare's tragedies, he borrowed freely from "Lear," "Othello," and
"Romeo and Juliet," and he was hardly less indebted to Beaumont and
Fletcher and the school of Webster. As a playwright he was, in fact,
usually imitative and often unskillful. As a poet his consciousness of the
greatness of earlier dramatists now chilled him to bald copying and now
incited him to a unique development of some of the old tragic motives. With
Dekker and Rowley he collaborated on "The Witch of Edmonton," a tragicomedy
dealing with a contemporary crime and linking itself with the domestic
tragedies. "Perkin Warbeck," a revival of the chronicle history, is without
battles or pageants, and is less concerned with the scenic presentation of
history than with the delineation of the character of the claimant. His
other tragedies, "Love's Sacrifice," "The Broken Heart," and "'Tis Pity
She's a Whore," are at once both more in accord with prevailing modes in
the drama and more characteristic of Ford's imaginative temperament. In
spite of their worthless comic scenes, their conventional material, and
their melodramatic situations, they present tragic passion with an
intensity and truth possible only to dramatic genius.
Love is the theme, and an excess of sentiment and passion in conflict with
friendship, right, or natural law, is the particular province that Ford
makes his own. A favorite in love with the wife of his lord, a brother in
love with a sister, are the situations over which his genius casts an
oppressive melancholy that lasts until the final heart-breaks. The monarch,
his favorite, a buffoon or two, and lords and ladies, love-sick or
passion-inflamed, play with the casuistry of love and mingle dances and
revels with bloodshed and horror. Villany and revenge appear but are not
very essential. The seeds of fatal passions have been already sown when the
play begins; it is the stifling hothouse in which they luxuriate. The end
is inevitable, though it may be long held in suspense and attained through
some surprise in the final act.
"The Broken Heart" is the most healthy of his plays. Orgilus, whose life
has been blighted because Penthea has married Bassanio through the
intervention of her brother, the great General Ithocles, pursues his
revenge upon Ithocles in spite of much delay and apparent reconciliation.
Finally he stabs Ithocles to death just as Ithocles is to be married to the
princess Calantha, and just as Penthea dies of madness and starvation. The
familiar round of revenge, madness, and torture here reappears, but it is
told in a story full of romantic sentiment and human passion, and not
without sunshine as well as shadow. It is the final scenes, however, which
every reader remembers. Calantha is dancing when the tidings of the deaths
of her father and her lover are brought to her, and she dances on, hiding
her grief and playing her part nobly, until, duty accomplished, her heart
is free to yield to its bursting sorrow.
It is in scenes like these, showing passion restrained or overborne for the
moment, or the strain and suspense preceding the crash, that Ford is at his
best. The marvelous parting scene between brother and sister in "'Tis Pity"
is perfection itself. His imagination dissolves the horrible story into the
very language of the breaking heart. His verse, lacking both the old
rhetorical artificiality and the vivacity and adaptability of Fletcher's,
possesses a restraint and moderation of language and a complex and
beautiful melody all its own. At times it is the thinnest of translucent
veils "through which passion is burning as the radiant lines of morning."
One may find in him somewhat of the perverse inquisitiveness of Donne. A
wayward and solitary searcher in the realms of poetry, he voyaged only to
regions unexplored or forbidding. But, as we have seen, his imagination,
wayward though it was, took direction from his contemporaries, and he was
representative of much in current tragedy. Though Ford's ethical attitude
is perhaps more non-committal than that of any of his contemporaries, yet
his casuistical interest in moral problems, and the emphasis which he
places on such problems at the expense of his stories, are traits common in
the drama of the time, and especially in the collaborative work of
Middleton and Rowley. His absorption with questions of sex, his searching
for new sensation, his attempt to bestow on moral perversion the
enticements of poetry correspond with what is most decadent in Fletcher and
Shirley. Like his fine-spoken and well-mannered courtiers and impulsive
ladies, Ford imagined in an atmosphere of unhealthy emotion. His plays are
immoral because their passion is so often morbid and their sentiment
mawkish. His power to reveal character and passion, which rank him with the
greatest of the Elizabethans, was discovered in his searching the by-paths
of the abnormal and pathological. Pathos for him was a flower plucked from
a poisonous exotic.
Beginning about 1625 and extending to the Civil War, Shirley's dramatic
career overlapped and continued Massinger's as Massinger's did Fletcher's.
After leaving the university he took orders, but shortly became converted
to Catholicism, and then, after a volume of poems, turned to the public
theatres for employment. The last of the brilliant series of poets who made
the London stage the home of poesy and contributed to the great period of
the English drama, at the closing of the theatres he was the dean of his
profession. His thirty odd plays, while naturally continuing the methods
and types of Massinger and of Fletcher, his avowed master, and while
reminiscent of much in earlier writers, especially Webster and Shakespeare,
also reflect about all the characteristics manifest in the drama during the
reign of Charles I.
Shirley's remarkable talents challenge comparison with his predecessors. He
had a share of Massinger's seriousness of purpose and painstaking art, and
of Fletcher's freshness of fancy and sprightliness of style. In invention
he is hardly less ingenious than either, and in careful construction and
theatrical craftsmanship he approaches Massinger's undoubted mastership.
His verse seems modeled on Fletcher's, but it often has a spontaneity of
movement and a richness of decoration that recall Elizabethan style in its
early flights. Little of early aphorism, however, or of the later obscurity
and confusion remains; these are replaced, sometimes indeed by a hackneyed
declamation, but often by natural and fluent dialogue.
Yet, in spite of his talents, Shirley's own position and his contribution
to the drama are difficult of definition, because he is so constantly
reminiscent of his predecessors and so constantly approaching, though never
quite equaling, their preëminent models. His plays, like Massinger's, seem
to the reader of to-day repetitions of one another. Each coalesces in the
mind with other comedies of manners, or other tragedies of blood, or with
the tragicomedies of Massinger and Fletcher. Whatever the species, love is
the theme, lust is pursuing, chastity is tried by intrigue and by
declamation; but the real interest is in the plot, the tricks, disguises,
subterfuges, villains, and surprises that end--as the case may be--in the
discomfiture of the fools, or the marriage of the lovers, or the downfall
of a dynasty.
The drama had become conventionalized. The dramatists were no longer
searching for new themes and characters in a wide range of stories; they
were inventing their plots but were restricted in their materials. The
ingredients of early plays served Shirley's purpose, and by a few new
devices or changes in motive he gave his fashionable ladies, his lustful
monarchs, scheming favorites, and exiled heroes new names and adventures,
and so produced a play. The cleverness of the plot occupies your attention,
or occasionally a beautiful passage or a fine conception of character
arrests the mind, but at the close you are at a loss to separate the play
from a dozen similar ones.
In Shirley, as in Massinger, the most representative plays, and certainly
those most satisfactory to our taste, are the tragicomedies. Bloodshed and
horror and grossness of language and situation may all be absent, and the
story of love and intrigue, even if it does not exalt the mind or purify
the passions, may be altogether delightful. In "The Royal Master," one of
the best, the rôle of the lustful monarch is assumed for a single scene,
only to cure a really charming heroine of her infatuation for royalty; and
the intriguing favorite is foiled, the banished noble vindicated, and two
love matches completed with gracefulness of language and dexterity of plot.
Unfortunately Shirley's land of romance is rarely so wholesome as here or
the inhabitants so agreeable.
His tragedies mainly conform to the hackneyed models, no matter what the
sources may be or how large his own invention may seem. The earliest, "The
Maid's Revenge," relating a Spanish story of the rivalry in love of two
sisters that ends in a fatal duel between brother and lover, is wholly in
the tone of romantic melodrama. "The Politician," a more ambitious effort,
combines the villain play with the Beaumont-Fletcher romance. Gotharius,
the politician, is the villain; Marpisa, the evil woman, is his mistress
and about to be married to the king; Albina, the loyal and long-suffering
heroine, is the villain's wife; Turgesius is the prince and hero; and
Olaus, a blunt soldier, is his faithful friend. There is an insurrection,
as so often in Fletcher; and after a long intrigue the villain and the evil
woman perish, and the prince marries the heroine. In "Love's Cruelty," a
more original conception is worked out with telling realism and a good deal
of dramatic truth. Clariana becomes infatuated with her husband's friend
Hippolito; and, even after the guilty lovers have been permitted to go
unpunished by the husband, her passion continues until her jealousy at her
lover's approaching marriage to Eubella drives her to his murder. Rarely
elsewhere in the Elizabethan drama is the story of illicit love told with
less of glamour and more veracity. These merits are perhaps counterbalanced
by the extreme realism of the language and the stage action.
In this play the deceived husband dies of grief, but Eubella, who had
earlier resisted the lustful duke, is solaced after the death of her
betrothed by a promise of marriage from the duke himself. Both "The
Politician" and "The Duke's Mistress," a tragedy along hackneyed lines, end
with reward for the virtuous and punishment only for the vicious. Such
application of poetic justice had been earlier expounded by Ben Jonson in
defense of the punishments inflicted in his comedy, "Volpone." The
applications of the doctrine in Shirley and Massinger were, however,
probably due not so much to theoretical criticism as to the popular
preference for the restriction of the catastrophe to the bad, a preference
recorded by Aristotle and evidently shared by a generation in which
romantic tragicomedy was the most popular dramatic form.
Shirley's tragic masterpieces, however, offered no alleviation of horror
and bloodshed. "The Traitor" and "The Cardinal" are plays of revenge, lust,
intrigue, and villany, in which all the accretions of this kind of tragedy
from Kyd and Marlowe down to Webster and Massinger seem to be represented.
The villains are as black as Barabas and as crafty as those of Webster;
plots are as intricately entangled with counterplots as in Tourneur; and
surprises follow as rapidly as in Fletcher. The corpse kissed by the
repentant duke is again presented; there is attempted rape and assumed
madness; in each play a bridegroom is murdered as he takes his place in the
wedding procession; and in each revenge strews the final scene with the
dead. But the old motives still had power to convey poetic inspiration, and
the examples of all his predecessors summoned Shirley to his best efforts.
Perhaps in no other plays does he so constantly recall their work;
certainly in no others do the poetic quality of his language, the vigorous
delineation of character, and the dramatic depiction of passion so worthily
maintain what were even for men of his day the great traditions of English
tragedy.
Tragedies by minor writers during the years from 1620 to 1642 offer little
that is distinctive. Occasionally, as in the anonymous "Nero" of 1624, we
have a play spontaneous in phrase and lifelike in characterization, worthy
of the best days of the drama; but in the main the plays only repeat what
is to be found in Massinger, Ford, and Shirley. In spite of the vogue of
tragicomedy, tragedy was by no means neglected, nearly fifty tragedies
being preserved from the twenty years, in addition to those by the authors
mentioned. These include several by Suckling, Glapthorne's pastoral
tragedy, "Argalus and Parthenia," and his worthless "Wallenstein," May's
plays on classical history, and others by Killigrew, Davenant, Carlell,
Heming, Davenport, and less known men.
The large majority conform to the later type of revenge play as exemplified
in Massinger and Shirley. Sometimes the romantic love element supersedes
the intrigue and horrors, but oftener the horrors have full sway. A double
plot, usually with an elaborate surprise in the fifth act, revolves about
lust and revenge with some attention to untarnished honor and unconquered
chastity. The lustful duke and his intriguing favorite, or the tyrannical
usurper and the rightful prince alternate at the centre of the stage along
with the evil woman, perhaps a Lady Potiphar, and a distressed maiden,
likely to be disguised as a boy. Madness is frequently represented, eyes
are plucked out, brains dashed upon the stage, and many of the old horrors
reproduced, but ghosts rarely appear. The action consists largely of
adultery, seduction, and rape; and these are represented with a horrid
detail that rivals Marston. When chastity is preserved it is often by a
device similar to that used in "Measure for Measure," although occasionally
there is an exchange of men instead of women. Tragedy is for the most part
confined to stories of crime. The monstrous politicians and libertines
differ from their sixteenth century predecessors chiefly in the greater
ingenuity and complexity of their intrigue, their subordination of ambition
or other motives to those of love or lust, and in the prosaic flatness of
their blank verse.
Often there are manifest borrowings, and occasionally a dramatist evidently
strove to include everything that had ever been known on the tragic stage.
"The Rebellion," by Thomas Rawlins, presents Machiavel, a villain, whose
soliloquies might be burlesques on Barabas and Richard III, two mad scenes,
a nurse from "Romeo and Juliet," a Moor, who is another villain, attempted
rape, and frequent bursts of poetry:--
"The lazy moon has scarcely trimm'd herself
To entertain the sun; she still retains
The slimy tincture of the banish'd night."
On the other hand, the usual type of tragedy, with reminiscences of
Shakespeare and Fletcher, sometimes shows a genuine poetic gift, as notably
in Lord Falkland's "The Marriage Night." The most marked trait, however, of
these minor tragedies is their eagerness to out-Herod Herod and to make
good their weakness in dramatic truth by means of stage horrors or rant.
"The Valiant Scot," a tragedy dealing with the career of Wallace,
represents the cutting out of the tongue of one English ambassador and the
putting out of the eyes of another. In "Mirza" the protagonist kills his
seven-year-old daughter,--"Takes Fatima by the neck, breaks it, and swings
her about." The taste for atrocities seems to have been most highly
developed at Oxford, where the students acted Goffe's outrageous plays and
a Samuel Harding published "Sicily and Naples," a medley introducing
revenge for a father, a maiden disguised as a boy, a villain-favorite, the
Mariana device, and combining rape, murder, madness, and incest in a
fashion not equaled since "Titus Andronicus."
Absurd plays of this sort were common enough from the days of "Cambyses,"
and cannot be fairly taken as evidences of the drama's decadence. Nor do
the main differences that are apparent between tragedy after 1620 and that
of the early or of the Shakespearean period point to decadence as
unmistakably as critics are wont to assume. There is a waning of poetic
power; blank verse descends to prose, and its flowers have a jaded air; but
there is poetic imagination in Glapthorne as well as in Shirley, noble
rhetoric in Massinger, and sheer poetry in Ford. The ethical tone has in
general suffered deterioration. The moral insight of Shakespeare or even of
Webster is not maintained; courtly and sophisticated ideals ring false; the
language becomes gross; the vulgarities of the early plays are replaced by
mawkish sentimentality or lewd suggestiveness. There seems to be increasing
difficulty in presenting persons normally good. The reiteration of scenes
of rape and seduction bespeak an unhealthy moral atmosphere. Yet tragedy,
though at tunes perverse or forgetful, still clings to its moral standards.
It still endeavors to expose and chastise sin and to incite to virtue.
Decadence is more manifest in the restriction and conventionalizing of the
material of tragedy. The love for the impossible, the craving for
stupendous emotions and supernormal passions had given place to theatrical
court intrigues. The daring attempts of Marlowe and Shakespeare to depict
the great round of the emotions had given way to a continual harping on
illicit love. Dramatists were no longer striving to give beautiful
expression to the terrible, heroic, or pitiable in story, but seeking to
construct acting plays out of stock situations and stock characters. There
was a lack of fresh impulse. French romance and Spanish drama seem to have
encouraged no marked innovations, and French classicism was only just
making itself heard at the closing of the theatres. A man of original
genius like Ford staggered under the recognition of the greatness of
earlier achievement and turned to the abnormalities and excesses of passion
for his themes. Shirley, more typical of the period, devoted talents of a
high order to repeating familiar models.
Yet there was progress as well as stagnation. Dramatists had shaken off the
medieval adherence to sources and learned to invent, though their invention
unhappily followed current theatrical fashions rather than fresh creative
impulses. The art of making plays had advanced, not as Shakespeare had
pointed the way, by making construction dependent upon character, but as
Beaumont and Fletcher had fashioned, by making character subordinate to a
varied and rapid action. There is more complication, more coherence in
plot, more ingenuity in situation, and a far greater use of surprise than
in the early plays, but no great gain in consistent motivation. Yet many of
the early absurdities have disappeared; and in discovering what is to be
acted and what not, in the quick excitement of the spectator's interest,
and in the careful integration of the various lines of action, the
dramaturgy is, in comparison with the period before Shakespeare, noticeably
modern.
The differences which distinguish the different periods do not conceal the
essential unity of the entire development from 1562 to 1642. The changes
that take place in the prevailing types are of degree and not of kind.
Nearly all the tragedies might be called tragedies of blood, for nearly all
deal with crime and bloodshed. A narrower division like that of the tragedy
of revenge keeps its integrity from Kyd onward, the hesitation motive
finding transformation in "Hamlet," the union of revenge, intrigue, and
madness finding a different development in Webster and others, and
remaining until the end the most prevalent type of tragedy. A majority of
Elizabethan plays are romantic rather than classical or realistic, though
the romance is of many kinds and drawn from many widely different sources,
as Boccaccio, D'Urfé, or Lope de Vega. For a time it is mainly confined to
romantic comedy, but it soon enters into tragedy and tragicomedy. In
tragedy it plays a fitful part, but in tragicomedy it conquers the
theatres. The course of tragedy from its inception in an amalgamation of
medieval and classical elements, through its establishment by Marlowe, its
development of types and methods, the transformation of these by
Shakespeare into a dramatic form that changed and enlarged the meaning of
tragedy for the centuries since then, the further development of types and
methods under the innovations of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the splendid
contribution that tragedy still received from Webster, Middleton, Ford, and
Massinger,--all this was comprised within a single century; all that was
most significant, within a single lifetime.
Tragedy throughout this development remained popular. Less than the ballad
but more than any other form of literature prior to the pamphlet, novel,
and newspaper, the drama was the result of popular taste, thought, and
desire. Tragedy early shook off the bonds of classical tradition, and it
never ceased to aim first at pleasing the audiences. Shakespeare as well as
Dekker or Shirley was their servant. Even in the later days when increasing
Puritanism alienated a large portion of the public from the theatres,
literary standards failed to overthrow the sovereignty of the people,
though, as the dramatists paid allegiance to a restricted and less
representative audience, the drama waned. Without a guiding criticism,
without any reliance on authority or tradition, appealing first to the
public theatre and only secondly to court or culture or posterity, tragedy
at its best was not distinguished by impeccability of literary art. It
lacked simplicity of theme and precision of treatment; it was fantastic in
design and language. It lacked refinement; it was vulgar in diction and
scene; it was revolting in its horrors and bloodshed. It lacked reserve and
definiteness of literary purpose; it was sensational, incongruous, or naïve
in its address to the intelligence. But from the same conditions that gave
rise to its faults and excesses came its excellences. A delight in verbal
felicity, a welcome for diverse excitement, and a craving for story on the
part of the public made possible the wealth of incident and character, the
varied emotional appeal, and the fervid poetry of Elizabethan tragedy. It
was free to avail itself of every resource of poet or playwright in order
to present human passion of all kinds, human individuals of many varieties.
Its virtues as well as its faults are summed up in Shakespeare. After his
death it developed in dramatic dexterity rather than in the
comprehensiveness of its mirror of life. Yet, without Shakespeare, the
fabrics of its vision comprise
"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself."
Even without him, the legacy of Elizabethan tragedy is an unfaded pageant
of the greatness and the pain, the passion and the poetry of our little
life.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward, Fleay, Schelling, and the bibliographies in the Shakespeare
_Jahrbuch_ continue to be the best guides. Dyce's admirable edition of
Beaumont and Fletcher (11 vols., 1843-46) has long been the standard, but
two new complete editions of their works are now in progress, one under the
general editorship of A. H. Bullen (London, 1904-), the other edited by A.
Glover and A. R. Waller (Cambridge, 1905-). The discussion in this chapter
is in part based on my _Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare_
(1901) and my edition of _The Maid's Tragedy_ and _Philaster_ in the
_Belles-Lettres Series_ (Boston, 1906). I must refer to the latter for a
full bibliography of both texts and critical works. Miss Hatcher's _John
Fletcher_ (Chicago, 1905) should be added. Webster has been well edited by
Dyce and Hazlitt; and his two principal tragedies by M. W. Sampson in the
_Belles-Lettres Series_, with full bibliography. E. E. Stoll's monograph,
_John Webster_, referred to in chapter v, has been drawn upon in the
discussion in this chapter. Tourneur has been edited by J. Churton Collins
(1878); Middleton by A. H. Bullen; Massinger very poorly by Gifford (2d
ed., 1815); Ford by Gifford (1827, revised by Dyce, 1869); and Shirley by
Dyce (1833). Editions of selections from all these dramatists will also be
found in the _Mermaid Series of Old Dramatists_, with introductions of
varying value. Bibliographical references to all dramatists of this period
will be found in Ward and Schelling, and in general more comprehensive
discussion of their plays than are to be found elsewhere. Of especial value
in the study of sources are E. Koeppel's two volumes, _Quellen Studien zu
den Dramen Ben Jonson's, John Marston's und Beaumont und Fletcher's_ (1895)
and _Quellen Studien zu den Dramen George Chapman's, Philip Massinger's und
John Ford's_ (1897).
Among the critical appreciations of the dramatists of this and the
preceding chapters are: Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_,
Hazlitt's _Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth_, Jeffrey's _Essay
on Ford_, Lowell's _Old English Dramatists_, G. C. Macaulay's _Francis
Beaumont_ (1883), Swinburne's _Ben Jonson_ (1889), and his essays on other
dramatists.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Elizabethan has been used to designate the whole period of the drama
from 1559 to 1642.
[23] For a somewhat different view of the play, emphasizing its crudity as
a drama, see Mr. William Archer's "Webster, Lamb, and Swinburne," _New
Review_, January, 1893.
[24] See Coleridge, _Notes on Beaumont and Fletcher_, for a characteristic
and valuable criticism of the play.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RESTORATION
The drama of the Restoration was separated from the earlier periods by
sixteen years of closed theatres and a virtual cessation of all dramatic
composition. To the drama, as to other forms of literature, the Restoration
brought not only a revival but also a revolution--new fashions, new models,
new foreign influence, a new age, and a changed society. No such break in
theatrical conditions has occurred since then, and nothing so nearly
revolutionary in the history of the drama. Since then the theatres have
been always open, the dramatists always writing. Changes have been gradual,
the history continuous. Due recognition must, therefore, be given to the
last years before the closing of the theatres and the first years after
their reopening as marking an end and a beginning. Really, however, the new
was a continuation of the old; the pause was by no means a severing of
traditions; and the Restoration drama inherited far more from the
Elizabethan than it imported from France or originated under the
inspiration of that illustrious patron of poetry, Charles II.
Signs of continued interest in the theatre had not been wanting during the
Commonwealth. The theatres were reopened in 1648 but promptly suppressed
and dismantled. Drolls or short farces derived from popular plays were
performed here and there in London or in the country, and the continued
publication of old plays revealed a considerable demand from the reading
public. In 1656 Davenant obtained permission for the performance of his
"Siege of Rhodes" "made a Representation by the Art of Perspective Scenes,
and the story sung in Recitative Music." Thus, even before the revival of
the regular drama, came its rival the opera, and the important innovation
of movable scenes. Two years later Davenant produced another entertainment,
and was performing regular plays before Monk had entered London. Two
companies, the King's and the Duke of York's, were presently licensed;
these, united from 1682 to 1695, sufficed for sixty years to supply the
needs of the London public, and maintained their monopoly until well into
the nineteenth century. Before 1642 the open public theatres had largely
given place to the "private" theatres in inclosed rooms. These and the
contemporary French theatres served as models for the Restoration
buildings. The stage still protruded into the auditorium and was frequently
crowded with gallants as in the Elizabethan days, but the use of scenery, a
drop curtain shutting off all the stage but the proscenium, the
performances by artificial light, together with the women actors, who now
for the first time interpreted Shakespeare's heroines, brought the
Restoration stage closer to that of our own day than to that of the
preceding generation. This transformation from a half-medieval to a nearly
modern stage resulted in far-reaching changes in the drama; among others,
in a new importance to female parts and in alterations in structure due to
the use of scenery and curtain. Few of the old actors were still alive,
though enough had been gathered to make up the nucleus of the companies and
to transmit the traditions of the Globe and the Blackfriars. The acting of
the Restoration probably soon surpassed that of the earlier period, and the
great triumphs of Betterton and Mrs. Barry set new and long influential
traditions in English tragedy. The changes which most fundamentally
affected the drama were those in the stage and the actors.
The influence exerted upon the drama by the new opera may also be described
as largely theatrical. The opera of the Restoration is to be distinguished
from the form as it has prevailed since the introduction of Italian opera
into England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The term was
loosely used to describe a variety of entertainments, in which the dialogue
might be altogether sung, or in part spoken, and in which the dancing and
decoration were regarded as not less essential than the music. Derived from
France, where the opera gained great favor and attracted the services of
Corneille and Quinault, the English species was closely related to two
national forms of drama, the masque and the tragedy. In music, dancing, and
machinery it resembled the former; in theme, plot, and persons, often the
latter. A resemblance between the opera and the heroic tragedy is also
observable in the prominence given by each to heroic love. Tragedies were
readily transformed into operas as in the case of Lee's "Theodosius" and
Tate's "Brutus of Alba," and of Fletcher's "Island Princess" and
"Prophetess." Throughout the period the relations between the two remain
close. They were presented in the same theatre; the same actors often
played in one and sang in the other; an orchestral band was provided to
play between the acts in tragedy; and tragedy availed itself of songs,
scenery, and machines. Entirely apart from its place in the history of
English music, English opera is of some importance in the development of
tragedy, partly as a rival and partly because it promoted operatic elements
in tragedy itself. Tragedy came in the Restoration period to rely more than
ever before upon the externals of its stage presentation, and on elements
then considered distinctively operatic,--scenery, spectacle, and music.
From changes in theatrical conditions, friends of the drama doubtless found
hope for its higher development; but the main source of promise seemed to
lie in the patronage of the court. The court of Charles II indeed exerted a
greater influence on the drama than any court since or, perhaps, before,
but the influence was mainly toward social and political immorality.
Patronage rather than public support was relied upon by both dramatists and
actors. In consequence, the theatres became servile purveyors to the
amusement and taste of the king and his favorites, and blindly partisan
adherents of the royal politics. The failure to represent the nation and
the consequent loss both in range of artistic impulse and in soundness of
moral standards that had characterized the drama in the reigns of the two
earlier Stuarts were now greatly intensified. In tragedy, grossness of
language and manners had less opportunity than in comedy, but political
subserviency had freer play. Political allegory combined with tragedy in
plays contemptible as specimens of either species. This unworthy
partisanship and this catering to a society mean and corrupt necessarily
maimed that branch of the drama supposed to devote itself to heroic and
lofty themes.
The influences making most for innovation in the poetry and art of the
drama came from France, partly owing to the instigation of the court. The
character of this French influence, like its sources, differed from time to
time, but from 1660 until after the death of Voltaire it was continuous and
powerful. In tragedy, shortly after the Restoration, the heroic romances of
Calprenède, Scudéry, and others, and the French plays which they had
fostered, were the sources and models of much in the English heroic plays.
There was constant borrowing and adapting from French romances and
tragedies, as from French comedies. The "Cid" had been translated and acted
in the reign of Charles I; several other of Corneille's plays were
translated before 1670, his subjects and style were often imitated, and
toward the end of the century the influence of Racine was marked upon
English drama. The French influence on tragedy, however, was less a matter
of models than of rules and theory. The English dramatists never in this
period got very close to Corneille or Racine, but they were greatly
impressed by French criticism and precept. In an age of reason and
modernity, English tragedy, like other forms of literature, found its
reaction from the crudities of an earlier age and its reform of the
excesses of an untrained art in the pseudo-classicism of France.
An effort was made, which proved far more portentous than preceding ones,
to wrest tragedy back into conformity with the supposed rules of Aristotle.
The conflict between English and French models, between Shakespeare and
Corneille, between romantic license and classical proprieties had begun, a
conflict to be continued in criticism as well as practice for over a
century. Dryden's "Essay on Dramatic Poetry" introduces us at once to the
questions at issue and the state of the debate. The main questions were:
first, the unities, recognized in French drama as necessities and
supposedly derived from Aristotle; second, the mixture of tragedy and
comedy, or, more especially, the introduction of low comedy into tragedy;
and third, the use of rhyme as in French tragedy or of blank verse as in
English, prose by general consent being restricted to comedy. In these the
English tradition was directly opposed by French practice and theory, and
in many minor matters as well: in the _liaison_ of scenes, favored, as was
the unity of place, by the use of scenery; in certain proprieties in the
conduct of kings and of subjects to kings; in the restriction of tragedy
to historical, classical, or at least heroical persons and themes; and,
notably, in the avoidance of violence and bloodshed in the action. Dryden's
discussion reveals French practice and classical practice, not clearly
differentiated, set up against the English tradition, and recognizes much
in the former that seems reasonable and authoritative. But, on the other
hand, it insists on the excellence and impressiveness of the English
achievement. Such was the state of opinion shortly after the Restoration,
and such, with varying emphasis and refinement, remained the consensus of
opinion of dramatists and critics for a century. The laws of the
pseudo-classicists were held to be measurably good, but Shakespeare without
those laws had been undeniably great.
Throughout the Restoration the main influence on the theatre was that of
the earlier English drama. When the theatres were opened the old plays were
acted. Literally hundreds were revived, many of which long held the stage.
After a time changes in taste and theatrical conditions led to revisions
and alterations; but the alterations of Shakespeare and others not only
illustrate this perversion of taste, but also testify to the continuance of
the English tradition. Not merely revisions and adaptations, but the whole
drama bears witness to its descent. The characteristics of the tragedy of
1630 are those of the tragedy of 1670. The influence of the
Beaumont-Fletcher romances and of the tragedy of revenge are hardly less
marked after 1660 than before. The comic scenes, blank verse, complicated
plots, physical horrors, and supernatural agents, the mixture of
idealization and realism that characterize Elizabethan tragedy, persist
throughout the Restoration period.
The conflict between the contending theories of tragedy may be studied in
criticism. Dryden's various essays recur again and again to the main issues
of the war, and define with changing emphasis his attempted reconciliation
of the two opposites. Rymer came forward as a thoroughgoing exponent of
classicism, and at the beginning of the next century Dennis, Gildon, and
Addison carried on the discussion. The conflict is also represented in the
work of nearly every dramatist. There are tragedies in blank verse and
tragedies in rhyme, tragicomedies, tragedies with comic scenes, tragedies
without deaths and with happy endings, tragedies translated from the
French, others based on Greek originals, and still others in their medleys
of farce, horror, and rant as Elizabethan as "The Jew of Malta" itself.
Many of these varieties are represented in the work of a single writer, as
Crowne, or Lee, or Otway. The career of Dryden sums up and reflects nearly
all the changes in opinion or practice. His plays, and with them the whole
course of tragedy from 1660 to 1700, fall roughly into certain divisions.
For a few years after the Restoration, ending at about the time of the
"Essay," is the period of the dominance of the earlier drama, a period of
which Davenant is the leading figure. About 1664 began the heroic tragedies
in rhyme which for a time carried all before them. In a dozen years,
however, the fashion wore out, and Dryden's "All for Love" in 1678 marked
the abandonment of rhyme and led the return to Shakespeare. From 1678 on,
the course of tragedy again takes to varied streams. To this period belong
the most notable alterations of Shakespeare, the most permanent of
Restoration tragedies in the plays of Dryden, Lee, and Otway, and also the
growth of French methods and of the influence of Racine, culminating in the
pseudo-classical triumph at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
At the opening of the theatres, tragedy and tragicomedy took up their
courses about where they had left off. The plays of Davenant, the main
connecting link between the two periods, might be treated in connection
with either, without seeming in the least out of place. Tragicomedy of the
type current in the thirties continued in the sixties; tragedy oscillated
between honor and horror, fine writing and perverted lust, as in Massinger,
Shirley, and Glapthorne. Spanish stories, long influential in the drama,
promised for a time to prove still more important. Dryden's first two
plays, "The Wild Gallant" (1663)[25] and "The Rival Ladies" (1664), were
based, like many other contemporary plays, on Spanish originals; but the
second introduced rhyme and some of the elements of the plots of the heroic
plays. It was, however, the Elizabethan plays that the audiences went to
see, and that the dramatists had constantly before them. The plays of the
Marlowean period were regarded as out of date, and very few were revived,
practically none of the tragedies except the early ones of Shakespeare. Of
the later Elizabethans, Beaumont and Fletcher were the most popular, for a
time surpassing Shakespeare. Over thirty of their plays were revived, and
many of these were constantly acted. Of tragedies and tragicomedies, "The
Maid's Tragedy," "Philaster," "Bonduca," "A King and No King,"
"Valentinian," and "Rollo" held the stage till the end of the century, the
first three much longer. Jonson's tragedies, as well as his comedies, were
revived; and Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," Webster's "White Devil,"
Chapman's "Bussy D'Ambois," Shirley's "Cardinal" and "Traitor" were among
the plays that carried on the traditions of the tragedy of blood.
Shakespeare's comedies fell into disfavor, but his tragedies were popular
from the start. This was due in part to the genius of Betterton, who found
his best opportunities in depicting their protagonists, in part to their
merits as stage plays for both actors and audiences; but, whatever the
causes of their success, they soon exercised a large and increasing
influence upon the theory and practice of tragedy.
The Elizabethan plays, however, had almost from the first to encounter a
rivalry with a new fashion. Davenant, their reviver, was also the first
with the new. His "Siege of Rhodes" (1656), with its scenery, machines,
music, rhyme, and heroics, may be said to inaugurate both the opera and the
heroic play. Howard's "Indian Queen" (1664), in which Dryden had a hand,
was followed by Dryden's "Indian Emperor" (1665), in rhyme and displaying
the full-fledged heroic formula. The love-complications of its plot are of
a kind constantly reappearing not only in the heroic plays but in later
tragedy as well.
Montezeuma and Cortez are the historical heroes;
Almeria, daughter of the Indian Queen, is the vengeful
passionate heroine; Cydaria, daughter of Montezeuma, is
the angelic heroine. Montezeuma's sons, Odmar and
Guyomar, Almeria's sister, Alibech, and her brother,
Orbellan, all in love with some one, add to the
criss-crossing of affections. Almeria is loved by
Montezeuma, but loves Cortez, who does not love her.
Cydaria is loved by Cortez and also by Orbellan. The
two heroines, as well as the two heroes, are thus
rivals, and the vengeful one directs the intrigue. The
brothers Odmar and Guyomar, to say nothing of a Spanish
captain, both love Alibech, and provide the usual story
of fraternal rivalry. After duels, captures,
imprisonments, conflicts of honor, renunciations, and
jealousies, finally the vengeful heroine succumbs. One
of the brothers is preserved for Alibech; Cortez weds
the angelic heroine; the rest, including six of the
leading actors and several supernumeraries, are killed
or commit suicide.
Dryden's dedication of "The Rival Ladies" to the Earl of Orrery gives some
support to the latter's claim to have been the introducer of the rhymed
heroic species, though his first play acted was probably "Henry V," in
1664. Whoever the originators, their example was soon followed by Crowne,
Lee, Settle, Otway, and most of the dramatists of the day; and for fifteen
years or so English efforts in tragedy were confined to the heroic model.
The use of the heroic couplet was its distinguishing mark; of course, an
imitation of French practice. The plots, too, were direct borrowings, or
close imitations, of contemporary French romances or dramas. Moreover, the
themes and their treatment, the conception of honor, the importance given
to love, and the pseudo-history, all followed French ideas. The unities
were attended to, if not strictly observed; incidents, persons, and scenes
greatly reduced in number in comparison with Elizabethan practice; and
fixed rules of propriety in characterization and language observed, all in
French fashion.
The English plays, however, formed a type unknown in France or anywhere
else on sea or land. The plots of all the "Sieges," "Rivals," and
"Conquests" are mainly concerned with love, which inspires heroic sentiment
and valor, encounters much jealousy and intrigue, runs counter to
friendship and honor, and works its sorrows and joys among persons
illustrious in history. In the end, the hero, a man of prodigious valor and
most exemplary honor, weds the heroine, who is equally skilled in the
artificial code of honor, while the deaths of the ambitious villain and the
evil princess, in love with the hero and seeking revenge on the heroine,
provide a tragic catastrophe. The persons are usually historical, English,
Classical, or Eastern, and a little historical fact was intended to give a
kind of grandeur to the story. The Alexanders and Montezumas, however, have
manners and sentiments drawn partly from the courts of Louis and Charles
and partly from the world of romance. The curious conception of honor as
superhuman valor and magnanimity combined with formal propriety leads to
impossibilities like those in a child's book of wonders. Duels and rescues
take the place of pitched fields; the valorous champion puts to rout an
army, exchanges compliments and courtesies with the grace of a
fashion-plate, boasts and rants in Cambyses' vein, and is near to expire in
an ecstasy of declamation when the heroine extends her hand for him to
kiss. The two rival lovers and the two rival ladies generally play their
game of jealousy, ambition, and wounded honor during a conquest or a siege;
but world and empire count for naught. _Amor vincit omnia._
A mere summary of their leading traits may suggest, what a careful
examination of the various representatives of the class will confirm, that
the heroic plays were by no means a fresh importation from France, but
rather a result of tendencies distinctly manifest in the English drama, at
least since the Beaumont-Fletcher romances.[26] The _genre_ of heroic
romances begun by Beaumont and Fletcher, continued in tragedy and
especially in tragicomedy by Fletcher, Massinger, and Shirley, here takes a
further but not very diverse development under the spell of French romance
and drama. The conflicts of honor, the rivalries in love, the few types of
character constantly recurring, the extraordinary surprises and
discoveries, the women, sentimental and sensational, offered nothing new in
English drama. The avoidance of bloodshed, the observance of poetic
justice, the exaltation of love as the whole theme, the preference for the
sensational and astounding rather than the natural or inevitable, have all
been found distinguishing drama since Fletcher. On the other hand, the
hateful intrigue and abnormal lust, the horrors and gloom of Webster and
Ford found little place in the heroic plays. One survival from the revenge
plays, however, took on new life. Ghosts became as numerous and voluble as
in the days of Kyd. But in the main the heroic plays represent the
continuance of the heroic romance and tragicomedy corrected in accord with
French standards of dramatic art and French conceptions of gallantry and
heroism.
It is in this aspect that they are of the most interest in the history of
English tragedy. They are not a freak variation but a species lineally
related to those which precede and follow. They carry the restriction and
conventionalization of the material of tragedy much farther than did the
plays of Shirley and his contemporaries; and, somewhat before Racine, they
confine the main course of tragedy to sentimental love. Though their main
innovation, the employment of rhyme, did not prevail, and though their
changes in technic were rejected by many later Restoration dramatists, yet
they were a powerful force in habituating the theatre to the structure and
methods of French tragedy and in promoting the triumph of these methods in
the next century. They also mark a further change in the conception of the
field and functions of tragedy. The result of developments from tragicomedy
rather than from tragedy, they exhibit a blending of the two forms and a
redivision along new lines. Before the Restoration, nearly all tragedies
had presented a mixture of comedy or of farce. Tragicomedy had been
distinguished from tragedy not by the presence of comedy but by the fact
that its leading persons were brought near to death yet saved for a happy
ending. Moreover, tragicomedies as a class developed along the lines of the
Beaumont-Fletcher romances. The heroic plays inherited the traits of this
class and also to some extent the happy endings. In some, as Orrery's
"Henry V," there is no suffering and everything turns out well; in others,
as Orrery's later plays, there is bloodshed enough; but in nearly all death
is visited only on the evil; the heroic are married. All plays with heroic
themes, however, were called tragedies. There was no hint of heroic comedy
as in France. The distinction between tragedy and comedy, which the
Restoration drama drew much more closely than the Elizabethan, came to
depend less on the presence of deaths or of an unhappy ending, and more on
the nature of the material and form. After the decline of the heroic plays,
tragedy returned, as we shall see, to bloodshed, deaths, and horrors, but
meantime the heroic plays had emphasized as essential certain elements
that long continued their ascendency in both critical and popular views of
tragedy. Henceforth every one associated with tragedy heroic actions,
illustrious persons, verse, whether rhymed or blank, a love story, and an
inflated diction. The curious heroic rant, indeed, supplied a vocabulary
and a manner that lasted long after the jingle of the rhyming couplets had
been abandoned. Its "furies," "vows," "chains," "transports," "ecstasies,"
and "Etnas burning within the breast" remained the language of despairing
innocence and palpitating passion. Tragic became almost synonymous with
artificial and inflated.
A worthier achievement must also be credited to the heroic plays. The
spacious realms of romance which the Elizabethans had loved were closing
their gates to the imagination of the later seventeenth century. Even
Shakespeare's isles of the blest that so delighted Elizabeth and James were
strangely inaccessible to Restoration fancy, which took pleasure in only
the "Merry Wives of Windsor" among his comedies. The narrowing of romance
had been manifest in the drama since 1600, and it was a theatrical and
artificial domain of thrills, sentiments, and honor that the Restoration
received for its heritage. Poor enough as is this kingdom, absurd its
inhabitants, it is still the land of the wonderful and impossible, and its
monarchs now and then remind us of Tamburlaine and Hotspur. At the time of
Wycherley's comedies and Rochester's patronage of literature, men and women
sighed and thrilled with Albumazor, dreamed of love, and fancied
themselves kings and queens in China and Peru. When Romance was banished
from other forms of literature,--unless in pastoral or opera,--tragedy
still remained dedicated to the banished goddess, and in its precincts
scanty flames still burned on the altars of heroism, enthusiasm, romantic
aspiration, and extravagant love.
The rise and wane of the heroic plays is sufficiently illustrated in the
career of their chief exponent. After his "Indian Emperor" (1665), Dryden
turned in "Secret Love" (1667) to tragicomedy with a mixture of verse,
rhyme, and prose and a mixture of heroic and lively comedy. After various
comedies and the adaptation of "The Tempest," "Tyrannic Love" (1669) and
"The Conquest of Granada" (1669) accomplished the full triumph of rhymed
verse and "the grand scale." At times Dryden's rapidity and vigor almost
justify the rhymed couplets and redeem the absurdities of the conventions.
It was in the Epilogue to "The Conquest" that he attacked the Elizabethans,
vaunting the superiority of an age when
"Our ladies and our men now speak more wit
In conversation, than those poets writ."
In 1671 came the burlesque "Rehearsal," which, if its attack did not centre
on heroic plays, made Dryden and the popular "Conquest of Granada" the
butts of its most telling fun. Then followed Dryden's "Essay of Heroic
Plays," two comedies, his inexcusable tragedy of "Amboyna" (written in a
month to support the war with the Dutch, yet, in conformity to the
fashion, tracing the Dutch atrocities to a heroic love), and the opera
based on Milton's "Paradise Lost." In 1675 came "Aureng Zebe," the last of
his heroic plays, without supernatural machinery, and somewhat tamed in
style.
The vogue of the heroic play was about over. In 1678 came Rymer's attempt
at a model heroic tragedy and his "Tragedies of the Last Age," a severe
attack upon the Elizabethan drama from the point of view of extreme
pseudo-classicism. But in the same year was acted Dryden's "All for Love,"
in blank verse, with a preface extolling Shakespeare, rejecting the models
of the ancients as "too little for English tragedy," discarding "the nicety
of manners of the French," yet claiming credit for an observance of the
unities. This was the one play in which, as he declared, Dryden followed
his own bent unheedful of stage fashions, and it seems to have set the
fashion and led the way back to blank verse and to Shakespeare. Rhymed
plays continued to appear occasionally, but blank verse was henceforth
recognized as the proper medium for tragedy.
Even Dryden's praise of Shakespeare is modified by his respect for French
rules, and by the prevailing opinion that Shakespeare's genius lacked the
improvements readily secured by an application of the accepted formulas of
art. That a certain improvement is accomplished cannot be denied. The
incoherent profusion of scenes, the host of distracting incidents are
reduced to order, the unities of time and place give a directness and
rapidity to the action that "Antony and Cleopatra" greatly lacks. In
characterization and poetry Dryden's play is, to be sure, not comparable
with Shakespeare's, but in both respects it far surpasses the numerous
other English dramas on the subject. This is faint praise. By following
Shakespeare without imitating him, and by adapting a play to the stage
requirements of the day without bowing to the absurdities of the heroic
models, Dryden succeeded in producing a great and original poetical drama.
Not in response to mere theatrical fashion or to French taste or theory,
but in response to the inspiration of Shakespeare came the finest product
of Restoration tragedy.
In this same year as "All for Love" appeared "Oedipus," written in
collaboration with Lee, in which the authors brought to their classical
model the methods of the Elizabethans. Eurydice and Adrastus furnish the
necessary love story, and Creon becomes the hateful rival and intriguing
villain. The declamation sometimes shows Dryden at his best, the bombast
and horrors are in Lee's worst vein. In the next year appeared Dryden's
improvement of "Troilus and Cressida" with his careful essay on "The
Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy," in which he criticises after the fashion
set by Rymer the errors of Shakespeare and Fletcher, insists on the
necessity of unity, order, and greatness in action, and praises the
excellence of Fletcher and especially of Shakespeare in character and
passion. Nowhere else, perhaps, has Dryden expressed so discriminatingly
and so finally his own views and, on the whole, the views of his age, on
tragedy. Shakespeare's greatness is recognized as preëminent in the
presentation of character and passion; his faults in coherence and unity of
structure and his archaism in manners and proprieties are admitted.
From this time on Dryden's contributions to the drama were less frequent.
In "The Spanish Fryar" (1681), he added the best Restoration example of
tragicomedy, availing himself of Fletcher's example, a double plot, and a
happy ending. "The Duke of Guise" (1682), a political allegory, written in
collaboration with Lee, deserves little consideration as satire or drama.
After two operas and an absence of several years from the stage, came "Don
Sebastian" (1690), which Sir Walter Scott thought the best of his
tragedies. It is heroic in its pairs of lovers and tangle of love and
jealousy, and in the exploits, boasts, and love-making of the hero; French
in its general structure; Elizabethan in its mixture of comedy, its use of
horror and incest, and its imitation of Shakespeare. It recalls the
tragedies before 1642, with their heroic love after the style of Beaumont
and Fletcher, their horrors and incest following the Websterian school, and
their emulation of famous passages in Shakespeare. "Cleomenes" (1692),
which repeats the Potiphar's wife story, is still more Elizabethan, and
"Love Triumphant," a tragicomedy (1693), deals with an incestuous passion
proved innocent at last, a motive very popular since "A King and No King."
Dryden never gave the theatre a whole-hearted service. Responding readily
to its conditions, he wrote with facility and vigor comedies, tragedies,
operas, and political allegories of the kind that changing fashion or
patrons demanded. When, after a long slavery, he had acquired mastery of
his art and confidence to lead rather than to follow, circumstances arose
to call him away from the theatre. We may wish that he had earlier and
oftener tried to do his best, as in "All for Love," "The Spanish Friar,"
and "Don Sebastian"; but his genius was not essentially dramatic, and we
may not regret the time taken from the theatre for the Satires and Fables.
His greatness can be best seen by comparison with the work of his
contemporaries. Whatever he tried, he did on the whole better than they,
and in comprehensiveness and adaptability as well as in sheer poetic
faculty he was their master.
Up to "Aureng Zebe" Dryden's tragedies reflected the prevailing fashion;
his "All for Love" marked a turning-point in the course of tragedy; and his
criticism reviewed, summed up, and discriminated the current views of
Shakespeare and the French. His later work was less representative of the
general course of the drama, yet the various species exhibited in his work
recur in that of his contemporaries, and the partial return to Elizabethan
methods that marks his latest plays is perhaps the leading characteristic
of the last twenty years of the century.
Crowne's "Thyestes" is the only attempt besides Dryden's "Orestes" to adapt
a classical play to the popular stage, and neither returns much nearer to
the Greek than Seneca. The only play closely modeled on the Greek is
Milton's "Samson Agonistes." The preface renounces the stage with a scorn
that includes not only the Restoration tragedies but apparently those of
Shakespeare as well. Though the play stands by itself, it may be said to
represent a tendency to turn to Greek rather than to French models, a
tendency boasted of by Dryden and Crowne, and fully manifest in the next
century. And it takes its place at the head of the numerous, if sporadic,
tragedies on Greek models that extend from the Restoration to the present
day.
In the return to Shakespeare, Dryden's influence was more potent, though
here, as in the case of the Greeks, an increased appreciation was shown
partly through alterations and adaptations. Before "All for Love," only
"Measure for Measure," "Macbeth," and "The Tempest" of Shakespeare's plays
had suffered alterations, and in two of these Dryden had a share. In the
four years after 1678, no less than ten alterations were produced, the
majority of which long usurped the stage. The restorers, sincere enough in
their admiration for Shakespeare, were following Dryden's precept and
example, correcting Shakespeare's faults in diction or structure, and
preserving his poetry and characters. While their entire readiness to cut
or to add resulted in part from ignorant vanity, it depended far more on
their confidence in the panacea afforded by Art for all diseases of genius.
Art, according to their prescription, was compounded of closeness of
structure in the French style and a declamatory vocabulary in accord with
the latest pseudo-classic conventions. The alterations are so various in
their audacities that a brief general description is hardly possible. The
main purpose in each case was the remaking of Shakespeare's disordered
beauties into "a play," and, beyond the formulas of Art, the most usual
improvement was the addition of a love story. Thus, Alcibiades marries the
daughter of Timon, and Cordelia's loyalty is rewarded by the hand of Edgar.
Perhaps the most that can be said for the restorers is, first, that they
rescued for the stage some of the less dramatic plays, as "Troilus and
Cressida," "Timon," "Henry IV," "Coriolanus," and "Cymbeline," and thereby
greatly extended the knowledge and appreciation of Shakespeare; and,
second, that they left "Hamlet" and "Othello" untouched. Adaptations were
made of practically all Elizabethan authors, and Shakespeare fared as his
fellows. A more elaborate history of the drama than the present one might
trace the changes in the conception of tragedy and in the taste of the
theatres as indicated by these alterations. The main consideration here is
that, however mutilated or embellished, a half dozen of his tragedies were
among the favorite plays of the Restoration. Before the end of the century
they had outclassed the other Elizabethan plays, even those of Beaumont and
Fletcher, in popular regard. The Restoration did what his own age had not
done; it recognized Shakespeare's supremacy in English tragedy.
It would be tedious to trace the infatuation for the heroic plays and the
partial return to the Elizabethans in the work of the various dramatists
whose careers paralleled Dryden's. His rival, Settle, wrote heroic plays, a
sensational political play on the Whig side, "Pope Joan, or the Female
Prelate," and a long series of tragedies and comedies extending well into
the next century. John Crowne, another contemporary, began with tragic
comedies and heroic rhymed plays, proceeded to Shakespearean alterations,
"Thyestes," and blank verse plays in the Elizabethan tradition, and ended
his career with a rhymed "Caligula." Among those who in tragedy confined
themselves mainly to adaptations or borrowings from the Elizabethans were
Tate, Ravenscroft, and D'Urfey; and a group of women should be
mentioned,--Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Pix, and Mrs. Centlivre,--who in
the later half of the period devoted considerable attention to tragedy
without creating any marked departure from the commonplace. We must confine
ourselves to the authors whose tragedies had a more extended interest.
Nathaniel Lee wrote his first play in 1675, when he was eighteen years old,
and produced ten tragedies, in addition to the two in which he collaborated
with Dryden, before the close of 1684, when he became insane. The first
three, "Nero," "Sophonisba," and "Gloriana," were rhymed, but the fourth,
"The Rival Queens" (1677), preceded Dryden in its return to blank verse and
won an enormous success, maintaining itself on the stage long after the
death of Betterton. His remaining tragedies were in blank verse,
"Mithridates," "Oedipus," "Theodosius," "Cæsar Borgia," "Lucius Junius
Brutus," "Duke of Guise," "Constantine," and "The Massacre of Paris," which
with the tragicomedy "The Princess of Cleve" was acted after his release
from the madhouse.
All his plays are pretty much of a kind. The juvenile and worthless "Nero"
unites the conventions of heroic love with the ghosts, lust, bloodshed, and
madness of the later Elizabethan revenge plays. The later blank verse
plays, though to a large extent based on French romances, envelop the love
interest in a Tourneurian medley of depravity and horror. They revive the
late Elizabethan type of tragedy that united the sentimental and the
terrible and delighted to present loving and devoted womanhood in an
environment of undiluted villany, abnormal lust, and physical torture. They
add somewhat of the closeness of structure of French models, the spectacle
of an unproved stage that displays ballets and temples along with bloody
heavens, human sacrifice, and crucifixions, and a style that out-Herods the
Elizabethans in the extravagance and vehemence of its rant. "Theodosius"
tells of the fatal result of the rival love of brothers for the same woman;
"Brutus" of the judicial murder of a son by a father; "Cæsar Borgia"
introduces Machiavelli again as a machinating villain in a story of
fraternal rivalry in love; "Constantine" and "Gloriana" deal with the rival
loves of son and father. This theme, a favorite with Lee, reappears in
"Mithridates," the contents of which are fairly typical of the revolting
intrigues to which Lee mainly confined himself.
The leading persons are Mithridates, the lustful
dotard; his two sons, Ziphares and Pharnaces; Monima,
the gentle heroine, contracted to Mithridates;
Semandra, the chief heroine, in love with and loved by
Ziphares; her father, a noble soldier; and two
conspiring villains. The Romans are at the gates of
Synope, where the scene is placed. Pharnaces, at feud
with his brother and desirous of Monima for himself,
conspires with the villains to thwart the marriage of
Mithridates to Monima and direct the passion of the
king to Semandra. Mithridates condemns Ziphares to
death and pursues Semandra, but is persuaded to relent
in order that Ziphares may lead the army against the
Romans. Semandra and Ziphares exchange parting vows of
fidelity as he leaves for battle. The conspirators
again incite Mithridates; and Semandra, in order to
save the life of her lover, repulses him upon his
return in triumph. In consequence he believes her false
and leaves her in the power of his father. The fourth
act opens with Mithridates, who has ravished Semandra,
"encompassed with the ghosts of his sons, who set
daggers to his breast and vanish." He is attacked by
remorse; Pharnaces betrays the city to the Romans;
Semandra and Ziphares have a last interview and commit
suicide; Mithridates dies after condemning the captured
conspirators and Pharnaces to execution.
It is interesting to compare this with Racine's play of the same title and
dealing with the same historical incidents, acted four years earlier.
Though neither play represents its author at his best, and Lee's was
apparently written without any knowledge of Racine's, the two illustrate
the differences between the two theatres, and may remind us how far Lee
was from forsaking the English tradition for the French. In Racine, all the
stage spectacles, temples, portents, and ghosts, all the horrors and frenzy
are lacking; so, too, are the characters of Archilaus the noble soldier and
Semandra the all-important person in Lee. In addition to Mithridates,
Monima, and the two sons, the only persons are two confidants and a
servant. The intrigue is of the simplest. Monima, contracted to
Mithridates, is loved by both of his sons and returns the love of Xipharés.
In the end Pharnaces forsakes his father, who dies, leaving Monima and
Xipharés to face impending ruin. Mithridates is not the lustful tyrant
traditional on the English stage, but a monarch who cherishes great
projects and counts magnanimity a royal duty. Nor is Pharnaces the
traditional English villain with accomplices, as in Lee, though he has a
villain's part to play. The interest is psychological, centring on
emotional crises in the lives of all, and without resort to sensationalism,
horrors, or complication of incident.
Otway, like Lee, began with rhymed plays, "Alcibiades" (1675) and "Don
Carlos" (1676), the second winning an extraordinary and long-continued
success on the stage. The next year appeared his "Titus and Berenice," a
free and sympathetic translation of Racine's "Berenice" that was surpassed
in the favor of the theatre by Crowne's treatment of the same subject.
After several comedies he followed the fashion for Shakespearean
adaptations in his "History and Fall of Caius Marius" (1680).[27] This
monstrous play, about half of which, as Otway acknowledged in his prologue,
is from "Romeo and Juliet," provides a large mixture of comedy, and
presents Juliet (Lavinia) dressed as a page, the servant of her lover,
after the style of Beaumont and Fletcher's Bellario. For sixty years this
play superseded "Romeo and Juliet" upon the stage. Otway's two other
tragedies, "The Orphan" (1680) and "Venice Preserved" (1682), are his
masterpieces. They continued to be stage favorites for a century and a
half, and procured for Otway the place next to Shakespeare in the
admiration of the eighteenth century.
"Venice Preserved" may be classed with the many tragedies of the day that
maintain the Elizabethan traditions. These are manifest in the general
structure, the large number of actors, the changing scenes, the gross
comedy, the abundance of incidents, the terrors, ghosts, and madness. Not
only the frequent reminiscences of Shakespeare and Fletcher, but the whole
conception and treatment testify to an inspiration from the earlier and
better days of the drama.
The story, not long ago too well known to need
retelling, relates how Jaffier, in poverty and
desperation, is induced to join a conspiracy against
the state, and is then persuaded by his wife,
Belvidera, to save the state and her father by turning
informer. He seeks to sacrifice himself for the friend
whom he has betrayed, and in the end stabs both himself
and his friend upon the scaffold. A curiously
Elizabethan prolongation of the catastrophe follows in
the apparition of the ghosts of the friends, and the
madness and death of Belvidera.
The essentials of great tragedy, of Shakespearean tragedy, are here. The
opposition of character, the struggle of the generous but pliable Jaffier
under the conflicting influences of his wife and the steadfast 'Roman'
Pierre, the joy and tenderness and ruin that come with his love for
Belvidera, are all drawn with a truth of passion in conception and language
that reaches the heart. "Nature is there," wrote Dryden, "which is the
greatest beauty." Marred as a whole by buffoonery and excess, the play is
still among the two or three best tragedies of the Restoration. If it were
all equal to the tremendous fourth act, Otway would be sure of a place
among the immortals.
Marked by the same power of swaying the emotions of tenderness and pity,
"The Orphan" attains these effects by means of the situations rather than
through the study of motives. The plot deals with the rivalry of two
brothers in love with their father's ward. She is secretly married to one;
the other substitutes himself by trick on the marriage night. The
situation, which has parallels in preceding tragedy, is abhorrent enough to
kill all interest in the persons concerned; but Otway's power to depict
love and distress triumphs over one's repugnance. The play is remarkable in
many ways. Its few characters, its observance of the unities, its
confinement of the action, give it the simplicity and directness of French
tragedy. Its theme and its poetry recall Elizabethan rather than
Restoration examples. But it departs from the canons of either theatre in
presenting neither historical persons, nobles, kings, nor illustrious
actions. Based on a story, supposedly of fact, related in a contemporary
pamphlet, it merely transfers the scene to Bohemia, without adding the
usual accessories of tragedy. Though it keeps something of a court setting
and does not venture into middle-class society, it is like the Elizabethan
plays of crime in its presentation of contemporaneous fact, and like
Heywood's "A Woman Killed with Kindness" in telling a story of domestic
distress. It might by a little extension of the term be called a domestic
tragedy, and it still further departs from the canons in relating the
misery of an innocent sufferer who is the victim of a cruel mistake. Otway
should, therefore, be remembered as a dramatist who, in a time when tragedy
was largely artificial, imitative, and conventional, painted suffering and
tenderness with truth to nature, and who violated the accepted rules of his
art in order to reach the hearts of his audience. That he could not also
escape the moral perversion of taste that marked his time has brought its
punishment in the final neglect of his masterpieces; but it is a sign of
genius to turn away from heroic plays, Racine, and Shakespeare, to write
plays different from any written before, and to stir all men's hearts for
over a century.
Of the many dramatists who wrote tragedies in the last decade of the
seventeenth century and bridged the way from the age of Dryden to the age
of Pope, only Banks, Southerne, and Congreve produced plays of continuing
popularity and influence through the eighteenth century. Banks ended a
prolific career with "Cyrus the Great, or the Tragedy of Love" in 1696, but
his popularity was mainly due to his three English historical tragedies,
"Virtue Betrayed, or Anne Bullen," "The Island Queens" (Elizabeth and Mary
Stuart), and "The Unhappy Favorite" (the Earl of Essex). These plays are
interesting as an illustration of the survival on the stage of a dramatic
species in a debased form. Though in blank verse, their material is that of
the heroic play; their formula, much love-making and a pretense of
portentous events; their persons, rivals in love,--two men with the same
woman or two women with the same man,--a wicked minister, a revengeful
woman, and the queen at the centre of the stage. There is no comedy, no
physical horrors, and even the portents are reduced to a peculiar
decorum:--
"Last night no sooner was I laid to rest
But just three drops of blood fell from my nose."
The construction is on French models with few actors, continuity of scenes,
and observance of the unities. Puerile in conception and more ridiculous in
their bombast than Fielding's burlesque, they have enough rapidity of
action, vivacity of claptrap, and extravagance of changing emotions to
account for their stage success.
Thomas Southerne finished "Cleomenes" for Dryden, with whom he was closely
associated, and his tragedies follow Dryden's later work in maintaining
the Elizabethan traditions of blank verse, comedy, double plots, shifting
scenes, horrors, and persons of varied ranks. His "Loyal Brother" (1682) is
wholly commonplace, and "The Spartan Dame" (1719) and "The Fate of Capua"
(1700) do not depart from usual themes and methods, though the latter is in
some respects Southerne's best play; but his two most successful plays,
"The Fatal Marriage" (1694) and "Oroonoko" (1696), both based on novels by
Mrs. Behn, present decided innovations in theme. "Oroonoko, or the Royal
Slave" contains much comedy, and has little merit besides the novelty of
the story, presenting the virtues of a negro slave. "The Fatal Marriage, or
the Innocent Adultery" introduces the Enoch Arden story, attached to an
outrageous comic underplot derived in part from Fletcher's "Nightwalker."
In the main plot, Biron, oldest son of Baldwin, has
been captured by pirates and is supposed to be dead,
his letters being kept secret and answered by his
villanous brother, Carlos, who urges his wife Isabella
to marry. After Baldwin, instigated by Carlos, has
thrust her out from his house, she accepts the devoted
Villeroy. Biron returns; she goes mad in a scene of
great imaginative power; Carlos and his assistants
endeavor to kill Biron, who is rescued by the returning
Villeroy. Biron, however, dies; and an accomplice of
Carlos, tortured upon the rack (on the stage),
confesses and exposes Carlos. Then "enter Isabella
distracted, her little son running in before, being
afraid of her." She stabs herself.
Like Otway's "Orphan," this is virtually a domestic tragedy, for there are
no interests of state or court, and our sympathy is centred solely on the
innocent distress of the heroine. Like Otway, again, Southerne gains his
greatest effects by an appeal to pity. The sentimentality that we attribute
to the days of Richardson's "Clarissa" earlier triumphed on the stage in
the heroines of Lee, Otway, and Southerne.
Not less successful on the stage than the plays of Banks and Southerne was
the single tragedy of Congreve. First acted in 1697, "The Mourning Bride"
continued without alteration through the next century, and furnished Mrs.
Siddons with one of her greatest parts. Congreve's remarkable dramatic
ingenuity was skillfully exercised in combining all the elements that the
average audience delighted in, and yet presenting these draped sufficiently
to avoid offending the judicious. Classical form and technic permit a
sensational and gruesome fifth act; dignified and facile verse gives way at
times to outrageous rant; the usual plot of the rival ladies and rival
lovers is ingeniously complicated to supply suspense, surprise, and a happy
ending.
It is the day after the death of King Anselmo, prisoner
of Manuel, King of Granada, whose daughter Almeira has
been secretly married to Alphonso, son of Anselmo, and
then separated from him by shipwreck. She confesses
this marriage to her confidant, mourns Anselmo, and
declares that she will never yield to her father and
marry Garcia, son of the premier Gonzales. King Manuel
returns from battle, having slain the Moorish king, and
brings the queen Zara and other prisoners, among them a
valiant warrior, Osmyn--Alphonso in disguise. At the
tomb of Anselmo, Osmyn-Alphonso and Almeira meet and
dissolve in grief.
The king is in love with Zara and Zara with Osmyn. She
offers to procure Osmyn's escape and to fly with him;
but later on, discovering him with Almeira, she betrays
them to the king. The king and Zara are now torn by
love and jealousy. She obtains permission to have Osmyn
strangled by one of her mutes, and the suspicious
Gonzales assumes the costume of the mute in order to
make sure of the execution. Meanwhile the king,
learning of Zara's passion for Osmyn, determines to
have him killed and then assume his clothing in order
to confront Zara. Osmyn makes his escape; Gonzales
kills the king, taking him for Osmyn; Zara, taking the
body to be Osmyn's, drinks poison; Almeira is about to
make the same mistake, when the soldiers enter with
Osmyn at their head.
Perhaps no other single play is so representative of the various features
of Restoration tragedy. It is not a tragedy, at all if one insists that
tragedy should be logical and psychological; but it was praised by Voltaire
and Dr. Johnson and approved by the London public for over a century.
Although the years from 1660 to 1700 offer little in tragedy that has
proved of permanent value, they mark the continuance of the _genre_ in a
full tide of popularity. Probably in no forty years since then have so many
original tragedies appeared in the London theatres; certainly in no forty
years since have so many Elizabethan tragedies been revived. Tragedies and
tragicomedies together are in numbers almost equal to the comedies which we
think of as especially distinguishing the Restoration stage. There was
hardly a writer for the theatre who did not try his hand at tragedy. In
spite of the rivalry of opera and comedy, it continued from Davenant to
Southerne to delight the age. Its literary as well as its theatrical
importance was maintained. Noble authors as well as the greatest wits, the
Earl of Orrery, Granville, Dryden, and Congreve, courted the tragic muse.
Tragedy written for the popular stage had, indeed, a literary eminence
hardly recognized before, even in the generation preceding the Civil War.
In comparison with their Elizabethan predecessors the tragedies of this
time are, in fact, literary rather than popular. They draw their themes
from French or English plays; they display little innovation and still less
study of life; they adopt rules and regulations; they are conventional and
artificial. They respond to literary traditions; they hardly express the
sentiments or ideas of their age. Some exceptions there are; but even plays
like those of Banks, which gained theatrical success without literary
distinction, resembled their more worthy brethren in their adherence to
convention rather than nature.
In the main Restoration tragedy must be regarded as a continuation and
development of Elizabethan. The influence of Beaumont and Fletcher
continued in the heroic plays and their after-effects. The wane of the
heroic plays brought a return to the Elizabethans, and, notably in Lee, to
some of the most characteristic features of the later revenge plays. The
increasing influence of Shakespeare was felt not only in the worthy
emulation of "All for Love" and in the various adaptations, but also in
the debates of the critics and through the whole warp and woof of tragedy.
But what were preëminent in many of Shakespeare's contemporaries as in
Shakespeare himself, poetry, passion, and characterization, were beyond the
reach of any of the playwrights except Dryden, Lee, and Otway at their
best. The worst excesses, the most undesirable conventions of the
Elizabethans, excited imitation as much as their excellences. The
Elizabethan bloom had gone to seed in unfavorable soil. It is not strange
that after the horrors, bloodshed, and supernaturalism of Lee and Otway,
and after the gross buffoonery that spoils tragedies otherwise so noble as
"Don Sebastian," "Venice Preserved," and "The Fatal Marriage," there should
have followed in the opening years of the next century a marked reaction to
the decencies of French tragedy. In the Restoration period, however, the
French influence, though manifest in the great vogue of the heroic plays
and in a wide adoption of French ideas of structure and propriety, won only
a partial triumph in checking and modifying the Elizabethan tradition. Its
effect in supplying fresh incentives for worthy endeavor was slight,
indeed, hardly discernible unless in the influence of Racine upon Otway.
Tragedy, then, as handed down to the eighteenth century, was not a fixed
and definite form, though measurably more so than a century before. It was
still a conglomerate of various forms and tendencies, mingling relics of
the medieval stage with reminiscences of Shakespeare and the manners of the
court of Louis XIV. The sentimental tragedies of Southerne and Otway,
telling stories of distressed womanhood and exciting pity without any
accessories of grandeur, were perhaps the most independent achievements of
Restoration tragedy; the preservation of Shakespearean influence was its
most important. But, in comparison with a century before, the changes in
tragedy that were most noticeable and permanent were the restriction of
themes, the narrowing of structure, and the conventionality and
artificiality that extended to character and language as well as to themes
and plots.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward continues to supply the best history of the drama. Henceforth the
standard authority for the history of the stage is Genest's _Some Account
of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830_, 10 vols., Bath,
1832. This is an invaluable collection of facts in regard to plays and
actors, superseding preceding books on the subject and supplying material
for subsequent ones. Other histories of the theatre are: Chetwood's
_General History of the Stage_ (1749); _The Dramatic Mirror_ (1808); D. E.
Baker's _Biographica Dramatica_ (1764, continued by Isaac Reed and Stephen
Jones, 3d ed. 1812); Dibdin's _Complete History of the English Stage_
(1800). Lowe's _Bibliographical Account of English Dramatic Literature_
(1888) will guide in their use. More recent histories of the theatre are:
P. Fitzgerald's _New History of the Stage_ (1882); Lowe's new edition of
Doran's _Their Majesties' Servants_ (1888); and H. B. Baker's _The London
Stage_, 1576-1903 (1904).
Works of the Restoration period on the drama or theatre include a number of
Dryden's essays, notably, _The Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, _The Defence of
the Essay_, _The Defence of the Epilogue_, _Of Heroic Plays_, and _The
Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy_; Wright's _Historia Histrionica_ (1699,
reprinted in Dodsley and in Cibber's Life); Edward Phillips's _Theatrum
Poetarum_ (1675); Langbaine's _Account of the English Dramatic Poets_
(1691); Rymer's _Tragedies of the Last Age_ (1678) and _A Short View of
Tragedy_ (1693); Dennis's _The Impartial Critic_ (1693); and Jeremy
Collier's _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
Stage_ (1698). Downes's _Roscius Anglicanus_ (1708, facsimile reprint,
1886) also contains interesting information on the period. Corneille,
Boileau, Saint Evremond, the Abbé D'Aubignac, and Rapin are the French
critics of most influence on the drama of this period, especially Rapin,
whose _Reflexions sur la poëtique_ was translated by Rymer (1674). J. E.
Spingarn's _Seventeenth Century Critical Essays_ (now in press) will
contain all the critical work of the period of importance, with a valuable
discussion of its relation to French criticism.
There are collected editions of the works of most of the Restoration
dramatists, but none of Settle or Banks. The Scott-Saintsbury edition is
the standard for Dryden. Individual plays are to be found in many
collections: _The Modern British Drama_, 5 vols. (1811); Oxberry's _New
English Drama_ (1812-25); Mrs. Inchbald's _Modern Theatre_ (1811); Bell's
_British Theatre_ (1797) and supplement. _Dramatists of the Restoration_,
edited by Maidment and Logan, 14 vols., Edinburgh, 1872-79, includes the
plays of Crowne, Davenant, Tatham, and John Wilson. Ward and the _English
Drama_ (by K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, _op. cit._) direct to editions
and monographs of the individual authors of this period.
J. J. Jusserand's _Shakespeare en France_ (1898), Professor Lounsbury's
_Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_, and Miss Canfield's _Corneille and
Racine in England_ (1905) are important for certain phases of the drama.
Concerning the heroic plays there is a considerable literature; see,
especially, P. Holzhausen on Dryden's heroic plays, _Englische Studien_,
vols. xiii, xv, and xvi (1890-92); L. N. Chase, _The English Heroic Play_
(1903); J. W. Tupper, _The Relation of the Heroic Play to Beaumont and
Fletcher_, Mod. Lang. Assn. Publ. 1905. C. G. Child, _The Rise of the
Heroic Play_, Mod. Lang. Notes, 1904. Alex. Beljame's _Le Public et les
Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au xviii^{e} siècle_ (1881) deals fully
with Dryden and has an elaborate bibliography.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] In this and subsequent chapters the dates in brackets give the year of
the first presentation in the case of acted plays. The date of publication
usually coincides with the year of acting.
[26] _Cf._ James W. Tupper, _Relation of the Heroic Play to the Romances of
Beaumont and Fletcher_. Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 1905.
[27] Ward (iii, 415) is in error in crediting public taste with
condemnation of this play. Lavinia seems to have been one of Mrs. Barry's
most successful parts.
CHAPTER IX
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
In tragedy the division between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is
less marked than that which distinguishes in general the literatures of the
Restoration and the Augustan eras. Yet by 1700 most of the leading
dramatists of the preceding generation had ceased to write for the stage;
and the death of Dryden marked the end of the old, as the beginning of the
reign of Anne, with its important changes in politics, society, and
literature, marked the beginning of a new development in tragedy. The
attack of Jeremy Collier (1698) was also an important landmark in the
history of the drama, assisting in a notable change from the preceding
licentiousness and toward a moralized and sentimentalized comedy. A similar
change in tragedy was its most apparent departure from Restoration models.
Chastened language and a stricter moral censorship of both subjects and
sentiments reflected that refinement of which the age of Addison and Pope
was wont to boast.
The theatrical conditions governing the reign of Queen Anne were not very
different from those of the Restoration. There was a general complaint, as
there has been ever since, that operas and spectacles were crowding the
serious drama out of favor, but there was still abundant opportunity to see
many of the best plays of the Elizabethan and Restoration periods. Of
tragedies, we find in a single season, 1703-04, "Hamlet," "Othello,"
"Julius Cæsar," and alterations of "Macbeth," "Lear," "Richard III,"
"Timon," and "Titus Andronicus," Shirley's "Traitor," and Beaumont and
Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy," "Valentinian," and "A King and No King," "The
Loyal Subject," and other of their tragicomedies. "Henry VIII," "Rollo,"
"Bonduca," and "Philaster" were performed within the next few years. Of
Restoration tragedies, Banks's "Unhappy Favorite" and Lee's "Rival Queens"
were perhaps the most popular, and other plays of Banks, Lee, Otway,
Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne were acted yearly. A number of the heroic
plays also still kept the stage, including Howard's "Indian Queen,"
Dryden's "Conquest of Granada," "Indian Emperor," and "Aureng Zebe."
Throughout the century both the London and the provincial theatres
presented each year a large number of old plays, including many of these
already mentioned. The Elizabethan tragedies, except Shakespeare's, and the
heroic plays gradually disappeared from the regular repertoire, but
Shakespeare's tragedies steadily gained in popularity, and "The Unhappy
Favorite" (rewritten as "The Earl of Essex"), "The Orphan," "Venice
Preserved," "Oronooko," "The Fatal Marriage" (altered as "Isabella"), "All
for Love," and "The Mourning Bride" maintained their places into the
nineteenth century. Tragedy thus had its permanent representatives in this
group of stock plays, to which newcomers gained admission only by marked
success on the stage.
To these stock plays no writer of the eighteenth century made more notable
additions than Nicholas Rowe, the first editor of Shakespeare, whose work
began the century, borrowed much from his predecessors, and yet introduced
most of the changes which distinguish the eighteenth century type of
tragedy from that of the Restoration or Elizabethan period. His first play
was followed by four other tragedies by 1707, and, after an interval of
seven years, by "Jane Shore" (1714) and "Lady Jane Grey" (1715). Of the
first five, three are of little interest except as representing common
variations of the prevailing type. They all relate love stories of rivalry
and intrigue among heroic personages, and all observe the French
proprieties in structure. "The Ambitious Stepmother," like so many
predecessors and successors, places the scene in an oriental court;
"Ulysses" more daringly invades Homeric territory; and "The Royal Convert"
turns to early English history, a field which literary patriotism was
appropriating for tragedy.
In "Tamerlane" (1702), love and intrigue play subordinate parts to the
political and moral interest which the author endeavored to centre upon his
protagonist. Tamerlane, who, we are told, was patterned on William III, is
an extremely pious pagan, who overtops conquest with mercy and adorns every
occasion with a moralizing discourse. Had he ever encountered his
Marlowean namesake, he would have shed the pitying tear. In general, the
structure is on the French plan, but the large number of characters and the
considerable amount of action recall Elizabethan models. The verse, too,
with its feminine endings, occasionally reminds one of Fletcher, and the
figures of speech are feebly patterned on Shakespeare, while the ravings of
Bajazet are worthy of Nat Lee. The play, long acted every November fifth,
seems to have owed its great success to its high moral tone and its
patriotic eloquence. It set the key for many similarly patriotic tunes.
"The Fair Penitent" (1703) links itself with the two later "She-tragedies,"
to borrow a term from one of their epilogues. Its prologue proclaims an
innovation from the usual tragic themes of monarchs' cares and lost
royalty, because--
"We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share
*....*....*....*
Therefore an humbler Theme our Author chose,
A melancholy Tale of Private Woes."
This was the play of which Dr. Johnson said that "scarcely any work of any
poet is at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the
language." The domestic theme, the female protagonist, and the insistent
appeal to pity were all already familiar in the plays of Otway and
Southerne. Rowe gave these a larger popularity; and from his Lothario and
Calista Richardson received suggestions for Lovelace and Clarissa.
"The Fair Penitent" is also interesting as an adaptation of an Elizabethan
play. Rowe borrowed the plot and some hints in the characterization from
"The Fatal Dowry" of Massinger and Field, but he refashioned the scenes and
rewrote the verse in accord with current modes. While "The Fatal Dowry" is
by no means one of the best of Elizabethan tragedies, a comparison of it
with Rowe's version of the story emphasizes the losses which tragedy was
suffering as it moved farther and farther from its old traditions.[28] "The
Fair Penitent" reduces the host of _dramatis personae_ to eight, the fair
penitent, her husband, his rival, his sister, and three friends or
confidants, and confines the action to one place and something over
twenty-four hours. Much of the action of the early play is omitted or
reduced to narrative, including all the opening scenes of the funeral of
the husband's father and the origin of his friendship with the father of
the heroine. The various attempts of the faithful friend to mend matters
are also restricted, and Massinger's usual trial scene omitted. The result
of these structural changes is a loss of verisimilitude. The old play had
something of the illusion of a true history; in "The Fair Penitent" the
action, though narrowed, is still far too much for the time supposed, and
improbabilities are solved by well-worn theatrical devices. The guilt is
discovered by means of a lost letter and an over-heard conversation, and
throughout literary and moral proprieties lead to a reduction of action and
an increase of talk. This is well illustrated in the scenes in which the
husband confronts the guilty wife. In "The Fair Penitent," the wife and
Lothario are having a final meeting, or declamation contest, on the day
after the wedding. She upbraids him and incidentally relates the story of
her seduction; the husband overhears. In "The Fatal Dowry," the husband
comes unexpectedly to the house of Aymer where the lovers have an
assignation. Aymer is attempting to divert him with music, when a laugh is
heard within,--more music, and the lady's laugh again. The husband rushes
from the stage and returns driving in the lovers. Further, the restricted
action of Rowe's play causes a conventionalizing of the characters. The
wife and her lover are shallow persons in Massinger's play, but they have
some plausibility. In Rowe, he becomes the avenging rival; she, an
impossible declaimer, now the evil woman of the heroic plays, now the
lachrymose moralizer. The moralizing, emphatic in all of Rowe's plays, also
adds to the general artificiality. Calista dies after most voluble
repentance, and her husband matches her "groan for groan and tear for
tear."
If the Elizabethan play is confused, long spun out, and not especially
edifying, it is yet occasionally intense in its emotional effect and
maintains some verisimilitude of life and character. Rowe's artificially
ingenious and morally mellifluous play, if edifying, is never thrilling.
Its conventional persons and scenes do not depict life by action; they
declaim sentimentally a story that ends in a sermon. In its
conventionalization and moralization Rowe illustrates the main tendencies
of the drama, tendencies derived largely from the French, but it must not
be thought that either his play or the majority in the century altogether
forsake English models for French. Rowe's declamations and laments,
immeasurably inferior in all respects, differ essentially from Racine's in
that they fail to disclose psychological moments and emotional crises. They
also differ from Racine in their retention of spectacle, incident, and
business in accord with English tradition. Like other of his contemporaries
and successors, Rowe was prone to copy the Elizabethans at their worst. The
most Elizabethan thing in his play, though not found in "The Fatal Dowry,"
is the setting for the long famous fifth act. "The Scene is a Room hung
with Black; on one side, Lothario's body on a Bier; on the other, a Table
with a Scull and other Bones, a Book, and a Lamp on it. Calista is
discovered on a Couch in Black, her Hair hanging loose and disordered:
After Musick and a Song, she rises and comes forward"--and begins her
midnight soliloquy. Perhaps, as Dr. Ward surmises, this business went far
to give the act its great effectiveness.
Of the two later "She-tragedies," "Lady Jane Grey" presents the usual love
intrigue (fomented here by the discarded rival), the female protagonist,
and much Protestant and Whig patriotism, but nothing not paralleled in
Rowe's other plays. "Jane Shore" (1714), one of the most popular plays of
the century, represents another treatment of "the fair penitent," this time
not only in a story used in the Elizabethan drama, but in a style avowedly
in imitation of Shakespeare's.
Gloster, who is closely modeled on Shakespeare's
Richard III, plays an important part, usually in
consultation with his two confidants, Catesby and
Radcliffe. Hastings, suspected by Gloster of loyalty to
the child prince, becomes enamored of Jane Shore, the
former mistress of Edward IV. She, now dedicated to
penitence, resists his persuasions, in which she is
encouraged by Dumont (her husband in disguise) and his
confidant Bellmour. When Hastings resorts to force,
Dumont comes to the rescue and disarms him. Alicia,
deserted by Hastings, is the jealous and vengeful
woman, well known in tragedy; and she denounces
Hastings and Jane Shore in a letter which she
substitutes for the petition for the release of Dumont,
imprisoned through Hastings, that Jane Shore presents
to Gloster. Gloster, upon testing Hastings and Jane
Shore, is met by frank protestations from both of their
loyalty to the prince. Hastings is condemned to death,
but has time for a final interview with Alicia, and the
exchange of mutual upbraidings, confessions, and
forgiveness. Jane Shore is condemned to public penance.
She has a parting interview with Alicia, who has gone
mad, and then encounters Dumont, who, after a long
discussion with his confidant, has decided to reveal
himself and forgive his wife. She dies and he is led
away to prison.
"Let those who view this sad Example, know
What Fate attends the broken Marriage Vow;
And teach their Children in succeeding Times,
No common Vengeance waits upon their Crimes,
When such severe Repentance could not save
From Want, from Shame, and an untimely Grave."
The play is undoubtedly Rowe's masterpiece, the closing scenes having a
natural pathos that he rarely attains elsewhere. The only Shakespearean
imitation now discernible is in the character of Gloster, though Rowe may
have endeavored in his female characters to supply the naturalness and
greatness of emotions which he recognized as characteristic of
Shakespeare's men, but curiously thought lacking in his women. Here and
elsewhere in language and metaphors Rowe reverts at times to the
Elizabethans, as also in the admission of much action and spectacle, in
pale horrors, and in the plots of his two best known plays. In the general
conception and structure of his plays he follows Otway. Taken as a whole,
however, his plays, without comedy, with much heroic love, with few
persons, and a restricted action, come nearer to French models than those
of any preceding writer of large reputation. Sentimentalized, moralized,
conventionalized as the plays are, Rowe may be said to have made a novel
departure in tragedy, though one accomplished a century before by Heywood's
"A Woman Killed with Kindness." Penitence is the sole theme of his two
famous plays, and the moral lesson is constantly enforced. The protagonist
is a repentant sinner for whom we feel pity because of her punishment,
which we nevertheless regard as just.
Rowe's plays, tame as they are, seem to have been too exciting and too rude
for the coterie of wits who set the standards of criticism; and before the
appearance of "Jane Shore" an effort was made under the direction of
Addison toward still greater refinement and closer accord with French
rules. Smith's "Phædra and Hippolitus" (1706), an adaptation of Racine,
failed on the stage in spite of Addison's approval, but it was later often
revived, and it prepared the way for the great success of Ambrose Philips's
"Distrest Mother" (1712), a translation of the "Andromaque." This success,
promoted by the zealous support of Mr. Spectator and Sir Roger de Coverley,
was due in large measure to the story, sentimental and moral in accord with
the taste of the day.[29] In these respects "The Distrest Mother" had the
advantage of "Phædra," though both illustrate the tendency, growing since
Lee and Otway, of making the heroine the protagonist. At all events, the
success of Philips's translation was not only great for the moment, but
long continued. It remained a popular stock play through the century, gave
a favorite part to Mrs. Siddons, and introduced Macready to a London
audience.
In the flush of Philips's first success, Addison was emboldened to present
his long withheld "Cato" upon the stage. The political circumstances made
the first night one of the most memorable in the history of the theatre,
and gave the play what was then the enormous initial run of a month.
Voltaire praised; and, with the exception of the doughty Dennis, English
critics seemed agreed that here at last was an English tragedy in full
accord with classical precedents and the rules of reason. The play
continued a favorite on the stage into the nineteenth century, and even
after the retirement of Kemble, who found in Cato one of his great parts.
It would be vain to search for dramatic merits to account for this great
success. The play combines love intrigues, as absurd as those usual in
contemporary plays, with lucid declamation and aphoristic moralizing.
Aphorism and declamation have, indeed, rarely been absent from the tragedy
of any period or nation, but they were especially delightful to the taste
of the Augustan era. Addison was only continuing the success of Rowe's
"Tamerlane," reducing its rant to a more reasonable pattern. The reforming
classicists, like the theatre-pleasing Rowe, hit on the two themes which
pleased the public, the distressed female and the patriotic moralizer.
The success of "The Distrest Mother" and "Cato" was the beginning of the
long triumph of French influence over English tragedy, yet the victory was
never more than half won. There was no capitulation, and the battle
continued through the century both among the critics and on the stage.
Rowe's plays maintained at least a feeble English tradition, and
Shakespeare's won increasing admiration. If critical opinion was for a time
warm in support of French classicism, the theatre still clung to
Elizabethan practices. Later, when imitations of the French models had
established themselves in some degree upon the stage, criticism turned to
condemnation of the unities and renewed its laudations of Shakespeare. The
lines of battle were often obscured. Between Rowe's refinements of
Elizabethan plays and Addison's imitation of the French there is little
difference; and later, in spite of the din of critical essays and prefaces,
the representatives of "Shakespeare's school" and of "correct taste" have a
great similarity.
The Elizabethan tradition was directly represented by Elizabethan
imitations and revivals, by many new plays that reverted in one way or
another to the early methods, by the conservatism of actors and playgoers,
and by the tragedies of Shakespeare. As Shakespeare grew in the
appreciation of readers and critics, there was a tendency toward the
restoration of a real Shakespearean text to the stage. There were, to be
sure, innumerable new alterations and adaptations, but these were mostly of
little importance on the stage. They dealt with the minor plays, as
"Cymbeline," "Coriolanus," or "Timon;" or they were the essays of admiring
amateurs with a bent for restringing the rough diamonds of the original, or
of playwrights trying to meet the theatrical demands of the moment.
Cibber's "Richard III" and Tate's "Lear" held the stage well into the next
century, but "Julius Cæsar," "Hamlet" (except for Garrick's alteration,
1772-80), and "Othello" admitted no alterations. After 1744 Shakespeare's
"Macbeth" took the place of Davenant's, and "Romeo and Juliet" of Otway's
"Caius Marius." "Coriolanus," variously revised, altered, and finally
combined with Thomson's play of the same name, was toward the end of the
century given a great vogue by Kemble; and, indeed, the only one of the
tragedies neglected during the century was "Antony and Cleopatra."[30]
Dryden's "All for Love" had usurped its place. As the critical tone toward
Shakespeare grew more admiring and less tainted by condescension, so the
attitude of actors and audiences grew in heartiness of appreciation. The
revival of the romantic comedies marked an important change of taste,
though not calling for more than mention here. Year after year his
comedies, histories, and tragedies were acted oftener and to larger
audiences, and gave opportunity for the best efforts of a long series of
great actors and actresses. Garrick's revivals and triumphs were followed
by those of Mrs. Siddons and Kemble. Now one play became a favorite, now
another, under the influence of a great impersonation; but few were
neglected, and over the theatre Shakespeare's domination was unquestioned.
Except for Shakespeare the direct influence of the Elizabethans was small.
A few of the tragedies were acted intermittently in the first half of the
century, and a few comedies kept their places in the stock list much
longer. Revivals, though not infrequent, were rarely permanent. Revampings
sometimes resulted in an almost unconditional surrender to the French.
Theobald in the first half of the century attempted a reversion to the
Elizabethans without much success, and later a revival of interest in
Massinger succeeded in restoring only his two comedies to the theatre. As
sources of incentive for those writers who shunned French modes, Otway,
Southerne, and Rowe took the places of the Elizabethans other than
Shakespeare. The English tradition which these names represent had, as we
have seen, already been much subject to French influence, though protected
by the adherence of the theatre to old custom. Consequently, while the
majority of eighteenth century tragedies retain some Elizabethan practices,
there is not one of importance that is a thoroughgoing representative of
the old methods and technic.
French influence, on the contrary, had many representatives among the new
plays. The success of "The Distrest Mother" led to a number of
translations. In the first quarter of the century there were ten of
Racine's plays and four of Corneille's; and of these fourteen, eight were
acted, and several with success. Later on, Whitehead's "Roman Father"
(1750), an adaptation of Corneille's "Horace," won a place in the stock
list. But the leading factor in the French influence on English tragedy
during the century was Voltaire. The long critical debate which he waged in
behalf of the rules and against the barbarities of Shakespeare has its
importance in English as well as French literary history. But while the
English critics grew more and more eager as the century advanced to uphold
the glory of Shakespeare and to denounce an atheist who denied this, or to
proclaim their freedom from the narrowing rules which were French, yet the
triumphs of Voltaire's plays upon the English stage continued unabated.
Adaptations of no less than nine of his tragedies had appeared on the
London stage before the English translation of his full works in 1779-80,
and there were manifold borrowings from him in many other plays.[31] A
number of the translations, Hill's "Zara" and "Merope," Miller's "Mahomet,"
and Murphy's "Orphan of China," made notable successes. From the production
of "Brutus" to that of "Semiramis" in 1776 Voltaire may be said to have
been the most popular and influential of the writers of tragedy for the
English theatre.[32]
The translations of these tragedies, however, indicate the influence of
English traditions. The long speeches are shortened, the dialogue is broken
and enlivened, the minor proprieties disregarded, the sentiments and morals
Anglicized, and some business and bloodshed introduced on the stage. In
Hill's "Merope," for example, the great scene where Merope strives to kill
the murderer of her long-lost son and discovers the supposed murderer to be
her son himself, loses all its simplicity as well as its poetry. It is
ornamented by Hill with processions, virgins in white, music, a sacrificial
song, and many starts and strains. Where on the French stage Egisthe
decorously withdraws behind the scenes as his mother approaches with the
dagger, on the English stage everything was in full sight. If some of the
other translations are less altered, the imitations and unavowed
adaptations are much more so. Hoole's "Cyrus" (1768), a popular play, is
obviously based on "Merope," but adds a much complicated plot, a mad woman,
a love intrigue between the long-lost son and the daughter of the old
tutor, and a returning husband for Mandane (Merope). The great success of
Voltaire in England did not, in fact, produce any very marked change in the
course of tragedy. He represents the continuance of French influence but
established no departures of note from the general type established in the
English theatres by 1725. Virtually no English tragedies in the eighteenth
century introduced comedy; few reveled in horrors and bloodshed, the
majority observed the unities, nearly all had few persons, a restricted
action, and themes and situations confined to slight variations of a
stereotyped love story; and nearly all had regard for poetic justice. The
differences between French and English tragedy were largely those which
adapters of Voltaire eliminated when they made over his plays for the
London theatres and gave them a more broken dialogue and more stage action,
and perhaps a mad woman or a villain. Moreover, the amelioration of the
differences between the two theatres was not all on one side, as is shown
by Voltaire's own imitations of Shakespeare and his introduction of ghosts
and horrors, and by the growing interest in France in Shakespeare and
other English dramatists.[33] Voltaire, with his ingenious plots and
telling crises, was nearer than Racine to the English tradition, and he
wrote at a time when the differences between the two national theatres were
minimized to a degree that made intercommunication easy. His talents gave
him an easy superiority over any English writer of tragedies after the
classical formulas.
In the course of the century there were also a considerable number of plays
that turned from French to Greek models. While these cannot be regarded as
wholly representative of a reaction from a pseudo to a truer classicism,
they certainly offered hardly more resemblance to Voltaire than to
Shakespeare. The Greek influence was, however, variously manifested.
Adaptations of Euripides were numerous, half a dozen of which were
presented at the theatres. In addition, a number of original plays were
written, following the Greek form. Most famous of these were two by Gray's
friend Mason, "Elfrida" and "Caractacus." The latter, while stilted and
academic, compares favorably in point of literary excellence with most
tragedies of the century, and not altogether unworthily takes its place in
a series that includes "Samson Agonistes" and "Prometheus Unbound." "Read
Shakespeare," wrote Lyttleton to Aaron Hill, "but study Racine and
Sophocles." But the classicists were occupied in the main with neither
poet, but in discussing various minor questions of dramatic propriety:
Should any violence or bloodshed be permitted? Should rhyme tags end the
scenes? Should the epilogue be comic or serious? Should figures of speech
be allowed? Should long speeches be shortened for presentation? Classicism
in both England and France was not greatly imitative of either Sophocles or
Racine, but mainly insistent on immaterialities.
If we attempt to follow the diminishing differences between English and
French standards in the work of individual authors, Young's "Busiris"
(1719) and "Revenge" (1721) are the most important of those tragedies in
the first quarter of the century which cling to some of the characteristics
of the early English drama, while his "Brothers," written at about the same
time but not acted until 1753, is based upon Thomas Corneille's "Persée et
Demetrius." In "Busiris" there is no villain, but tyranny, conspiracy, and
a passionate revenging queen play their usual parts. There is an attempt,
both in incidents and expression, at Elizabethan force and horror; the main
action deals with a rape, and five of the principal persons are killed upon
the stage. "The Revenge" is still more Elizabethan, being a palpable
imitation of "Othello." The prologue declares that the proper field for
tragedy is not villany but "the tumults of a Godlike mind," yet the
villain, the Moor Zanga, is the chief character and was acted by Garrick,
Kemble, and Kean. The villain's part, it is interesting to note, affords
the most striking difference between this popular play and the even more
popular "Zara." In both, the heroine, pure and innocent, is killed by the
husband, Othello-like in both magnanimity and jealousy; but in Voltaire the
jealousy is occasioned by the heroine's meetings with her brother, a
captive Christian, in Young by the busy and ponderous intrigues of a
Moorish Iago.
In opposition to Young, Thomson represents the vogue of classicism both in
literary circles and in the theatres. His early tragedies, "Sophonisba"
(1730), "Agammemnon" (1738), and "Edward and Eleonora," prohibited by the
censor because of its attacks upon Walpole, won little favor except in the
circle of wits who attempted to dictate the national taste in letters and
among the opponents of Walpole. The first was dedicated to the Queen and
the two later to the Princess of Wales, and "Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743)
to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the patron of the drama and the hope of the
Tories. This play, the presentation of which was fathered and superintended
by Lyttleton and Pitt, achieved a large popular success; and portions of
"Coriolanus," acted after the author's death in 1749, were combined with
Shakespeare's tragedy in versions by Thomas Sheridan and Kemble, and
supplied the latter with his greatest part. All Thomson's plays endeavor
to retell stories often used in tragedy, in strict accord with the rules,
with absolute propriety of diction, some reference to political events, and
a due inculcation of moral sentiments. In the language of one of their
admirers, they were intended to be "reasonable entertainments becoming
virtue itself to behold with tears of approbation."[34] "Sophonisba" is
sternly heroic in its subordination of love to patriotic hate of Rome in
the character of its heroine, and sternly classic in the simplicity of its
plot and the heaviness of its inflated rhetoric. "Agammemnon," also a
"She-tragedy," is designed after the school of Racine rather than of
Corneille; and its wavering, inconsistent Clytemnestra, who closes the play
with a torrent of remorse and a faint, its Melisander saved from a desert
island, and its courtly love-sick Egisthus are queer denizens of the house
of Atreus. "Edward and Eleanor," telling of the queen who sucked poison
from her husband's wound, and of the sultan who, suspected of the attempted
murder, bore a truly miraculous antidote to the Christian camp, owes
allegiance to Voltaire. Its emotional changes and elaborate intrigue bring
it also more closely in accord with the prevailing English type. "Tancred
and Sigismunda," based on the story as told in "Gil Blas,"[35] makes the
lover a claimant to the throne and the intervention of the father due to
reasons of state. The plot is developed with more skill than is usual in
Thomson, and the rival lovers, the marriage in revenge, the midnight
interview, the duel, and the murder of the heroine are quite in conformity
to the prevailing model. "Coriolanus," the subject of many French tragedies
and of Shakespearean alterations by Tate and Dennis, illustrates the
inferiority of the classic scheme to the Elizabethan in the presentation of
history. The action, beginning with the arrival of Coriolanus as a
suppliant for Tullus's hospitality, crowds the remaining events and the
changes in the two rivals within the impossible confines of the unities of
time and place. Coriolanus himself exemplifies the effort toward "Nature,"
that is, typicality and reasonableness, in pseudo-classical
characterization. He expresses the sentiments and manners approved by the
eighteenth century, and, even when pride and revenge most fire his passion,
is a very tame lion. The moral lessons, somewhat clouded in Shakespeare,
are distinctly enunciated and finally summed up by Galesus:--
"This man was once the glory of his age,
Disinterested, just, with every virtue
Of civil life adorn'd, in arms unequall'd.
His only blot was this; that, much provok'd,
He rais'd his vengeful arm against his country," etc. (v. 4).
In Thomson's other plays the inflated declamation occasionally gives way to
a bit of description that recalls "The Seasons," but in "Coriolanus" he
follows the promise of the Prologue to "Tancred" with unerring fidelity:--
"Your taste rejects the glittering false sublime,
To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme.
High _rant_ is tumbled from his gallery throne;
Description, dreams,--nay, similes are gone."
He was obviously seeking what he called Shakespeare's "simple, plain
sublime," and his declamations occasionally reach a sententious lucidity
worthy of Addison, but the pseudo-classic diction freezes every emotion
with its "transports," "charms," and "nuptial loves." This is Volumnia's
appeal to Coriolanus, her husband in Thomson's play:--
"Ah Coriolanus!
Is then this hand, this hand to be devoted,
The pledge of nuptial love, that has so long
Protected, bless'd, and shelter'd us with kindness,
Now lifted up against us? Yet I love it,
And, with submissive veneration, bow
Beneath th' affliction which it heaps upon us.
But O! what nobler transports would it give thee!
What joy beyond expression! couldst thou once
Surmount the furious storm of fierce revenge,
And yield ye to the charms of love and mercy.
Oh make the glorious trial!" (v. 1).
Thomson's plays were not esteemed even by his master Voltaire as
contributing greatly to that perfection of art possibly attainable by a
"due mixture of the French taste and English energy." For, though "wisely
intricated and elegantly writ," Voltaire found him, like Addison, lacking
in warmth, an "iced genius."[36] Frigid to his contemporaries, the
tragedies were long since decently interred. They constitute,
nevertheless, the most considerable attempt made by any author of the
eighteenth century to conserve the classic theory of tragedy, and they
recall nearly every variety of pseudo-classic endeavor. Of classicism it
might be said, as of Thomson, that it attempted classic and early English
history, that it found in partisan patriotism its favorite theme for
rhetoric, that its French rules and taste usually pleased readers better
than spectators, but that when it took one of Shakespeare's tragedies as
the basis for an infusion of classical theory, or when it was tempered with
a love story and a lively action, it triumphed in the theatre.
Thomson's friends, Mallet and the versatile and indefatigable Aaron Hill,
joined him in his efforts to redeem the tragic muse. Hill's efforts, if no
more successful than Thomson's and much less consistent, are at least more
amusing. His general theory seems to have been not unlike that which
actually controlled theatrical practice; he purposed a combination of
French rules with romantic incident, theatrical bustle, and his own
inimitable style. His "Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam" (1716), he boasted,
had "a deeper and more surprising plot than any play which has been
published, that I know of, in the English tongue; and yet is written in
strict observance of the dramatic rules" and affords "room for topical
reflections, large description, love, war, show, and passion," and also "a
very high regard to decoration." The play is noticeable for its tangle of
trite dramatic motives.
The emperor's vision is of a son who shall kill him and
usurp the throne. The two elder sons are in love with
the Princess of Siam. Sworn by her to kill their
father, and condemned by him for a murder they did not
commit, they die fighting in his behalf. The third son
kills the emperor, marries the princess, and ascends
the throne. In his rapid advance he is aided by the
banished empress, who has returned to court and
attained high power, disguised as the favorite eunuch.
Hill adapted three of Voltaire's plays, "Zara," "Alzira," and "Merope." To
the first he wrote some comic choruses intended to be sung between the
acts, and to the third he prefixed his revised and final opinion of
Voltaire and French tragedy:--
"Our unpolished English stage (as he assumes the
liberty of calling it) has entertained a nobler taste
of dignify'd simplicity, than to deprive dramatic
poetry of all that animates its passions; in pursuit of
a _cold, starv'd, tame abstinence_, which, from an
affectation to shun _figure_, sinks to _flatness_: an
_elaborate escape_ from _energy_ into a groveling,
wearisome, bald, barren, unalarming _chilness_ of
expression, that _emasculates_ the mind, instead of
_moving it_."
"Athelwold" (1731), a revision of his early "Elfrid," is colorlessly
conventional; "The Roman Revenge" (1753) is an alteration of "Julius
Cæsar"; "The Insolvent" (1758) is a rewriting of "The Fatal Dowry," making
the heroine an innocent object of jealousy. Most Aaronic of all is "Henry
V" (1723). Here he gives up French unities and technic, and introduces many
characters, shifting scenes, a bit of comedy, and the "genius of England,"
who sings a song. His greatest addition to Shakespeare is his Harriet, who
starts out like one of the evil queens in the heroic tragedies. When
abandoned by Henry, she is still jealous and revengeful; next she appears
disguised as a page in the French camp, and, Viola-like, relates a story of
a love-lorn sister; then recaptured by Henry, she storms and melts; but the
Jane Shore mood is transient, and, like a tragedy queen again, she stabs
herself. A man who could write a comic duet for Voltaire's "Zaïre" and
could supply Prince Hal with a paramour whose grandmothers were Viola and
the Indian Queen, ought not to be wholly forgotten.
Hill's career may remind us both of the din of the critics over Voltaire
and Shakespeare, and also of the virtual compromise and amalgamation that
had taken place on the stage between French and English traditions. English
tragedy, after a long national development, had become materially modified
by French influence and had assumed a fixed and restricted form. This type,
recognizable early in the century, continues to prevail nearly to the end.
The century had little power of innovation, little that can be called a
development in the history of tragedy. The pendulum swings now toward
French, now toward Elizabethan models, but its oscillations are slight and
regulated. The plays thus far considered offer unimportant variations from
the type, and plays after the middle of the century vary still less. Home's
famous "Douglas" (1757), that thrilled every heart and in the opinion of
the judicious redeemed the stage anew from barbarism, fails now to
distinguish itself from its fellows, unless by its touches of melancholy,
medievalism, and nature, that hint of romanticism. Here, as so often, a
much suffering woman is beset by villany and jealousy. Home's other
tragedies and those of Glover, Hoole, Brown, Murphy, and Cumberland offer
even less of novelty, except that toward the end of the century refinement
in sentiments and morals becomes increasingly attenuated. Miss Hannah More
best represents this feminization of the type. Her "Percy" (1777), a very
successful play, is devoted to the sentiment:--
"Will it content me that her person's pure?
No, if her alien heart doats on another,
She is unchaste."
"The Fatal Falsehood" (1779) presents in a domestic guise the usual plot of
rivals in love and an intriguing villain, with the addition of a love-sick
lady who runs mad. "The curtain falls to soft music." The century has one
marked innovation in the realistic plays of Lillo and Moore, and after 1780
there are signs of the romanticism stirring elsewhere in literature; but in
the main the new tragedies are hopelessly commonplace representatives of an
extremely conventionalized form.
Yet tragedy was by no means neglected in literature or on the stage.
Several hundred tragedies were published during the century and many of
them went through several editions. Three or four were brought out every
year in the theatres, and many of these maintained themselves for a time as
stock plays. Most men of letters essayed tragedy,--Addison, Johnson,
Young, Thomson, Gay, the laureates Cibber, Rowe, Whitehead, Pye, and a host
of minor celebrities. Besides the tragedies acted, there were almost as
many not acted but printed. Closet dramas, common in the Elizabethan
period, grew more numerous after the Restoration. Whether the writer
scorned or was scorned by the manager, an appeal to the reading public was
always easy and apparently sometimes profitable. Tragedies were bought and
read; a popular play might start with an edition of five thousand and run
through a number of editions. Even after the novel had supplanted the drama
among readers, there was no diminution of printed plays. The non-acted
plays, however, offer nothing of importance for the history of the drama.
The majority are unactable; others follow the usual formulas; a few Greek
plays, alterations of Shakespeare, and sacred dramas have some interest as
curiosities. The increase in the number of these plays does indicate a
growing separation between the drama and the theatre. Plays were no longer
written by a set of dramatists who made a profession; they were written by
any one who had literary pretensions. Only a few new plays were required;
the supply greatly exceeded the demand. The theatrical monopoly maintained
by the two patented theatres offered no great encouragement to dramatists,
and the number who wrote without any acquaintance or knowledge of the stage
increased. Literary fame rather than success in the theatre was perhaps the
greater incentive in the case of tragedy. Whatever the incentive,
individual ambition resulted in no individuality of expression. The popular
ballad of tradition is scarcely less expressive of personality than the
average eighteenth century tragedy. Even the plays of temporary importance
have no flavor of their own.[37]
The features of this type have often been mentioned in connection with
particular plays, but it may be convenient to collect them in a composite
picture. In structure and technic French models are mainly followed. Very
long speeches, indeed, are rare, bloodshed and violence are permitted on
the stage, and there is a good deal of incident; but bloodshed and horrors
after the Elizabethan style no longer appear. Comedy also has disappeared,
and is tabooed even in adaptations of Shakespeare or of Restoration plays.
Comedy is reserved for the farce which is always performed after a tragedy.
Each tragedy concerns itself with a single plot, involving only from six to
ten persons, and observing the unities, even after Johnson's salutary
condemnation of them. There are few changes of scene, ordinarily none
within an act. With the disappearance of other medieval characteristics
there has also departed the medieval freedom in respect to the suitability
of an action for the stage. The range of incidents possible for
presentation is very limited; exposition is largely by narrative;
supernatural elements, common in Lee, are unusual; the ghost at last rests
in peace. Madness, however, is still retained, especially in the case of
the long-suffering heroine. Battles, armies, stage spectacles of all kinds,
are restricted, though the scenes may be elaborate, and processions,
sacrifices, even music and songs are permissible. The first essential for
the action is a love story, the second some kind of historical setting. The
fatal or hazardous loves of princes and queens are the themes; Eastern,
classic, or early English courts are the scenes.
The love story itself often keeps to the form customary in the heroic
plays. Two rivals in love, two heroines, major and minor, a tyrant, an
intriguing minister, and the accompanying confidants appear again and again
to assist in similar stories of jealousy, ambition, and villany. The old
Elizabethan motives continue, as "Rape" and "The Fate of Villany," the
titles of two plays acted in 1729-30, may witness, but usually they are
refined and tamed. Incest and rape are averted; the tyrant in love with the
heroine only threatens; the villain who pursues casts suspicion on her
virtue but abstains from violence; the two brothers, or the son and the
father, in love with the same lady sometimes find renunciation possible.
Unjustified jealousy is perhaps the leading motive, and there are many
feeble imitations of "Othello." A secret marriage, a long-lost son, and
marriages, either for revenge or in order to save a lover, are common
elements in the plot. Hero and heroine are examples of virtue. Their
difficulties or ruin are sometimes due to one fatal error duly emphasized,
or they may be due wholly to the machinations of the villain. In the latter
case, poetic justice is usually regarded and the good are saved.
The villain is the most constant reminder of Elizabethan tragedy. He has
all the traits of the stage Machiavellis of Marlowe and Kyd, and sometimes
imitates Iago. He is wholly black at heart, but he is apparently frank and
honest; his revenge or ambition works by most devious intrigue; he confides
his schemes to the audience in long soliloquies, yet his accomplished
hypocrisy long baffles the rest of the _dramatis personae_. As in late
Elizabethan and Restoration plays, he is often a prime minister. A
collection of these villains' speeches would illustrate the
conventionalized character of eighteenth century tragedy and the tendency
of stage types to perpetuate themselves in theatrical tradition. A few
lines from two may be sufficient. The first is the opening soliloquy of
Seyfert in "The Heroine of the Cave," a play of some popularity acted in
1774.
"Revenge, thou art the deity I adore!--
From thy auspicious shrine I hope a cure
For the corroding pain that rends my heart.
The vain Alberti being thus preferr'd
By fair Constantia, passeth all enduring!
Colredo I have rouz'd--another wooer--
And in his name are such reflections dropp'd,
As 'twixt the two a duel must provoke--
My purpose is, whoe'er the conqu'ror be,
To reap advantage for my private views," etc.
The second is the opening soliloquy of Bertrand in Miss Hannah More's
"Fatal Falsehood" (1779).
"What fools are serious melancholy villains!
I play a surer game, and screen my heart
With easy looks and undesigning smiles;
And while my actions spring from sober thought,
They still appear th' effect of wild caprice,
And I, the thoughtless slave of giddy chance.
What but this frankness has engag'd the promise
Of young Orlando, to confide in me
That secret grief which preys upon his heart?
'Tis dangerous, indiscreet hypocrisy
To seem too good: I am the _careless_ Bertrand,
The honest, undesigning, plain, blunt man:" etc.
The continuance of the stage villain is worthy of some note beyond its
evidence of conventionalization. It calls attention to the fact that
English tragedy has always been largely concerned with evil persons. Though
the utterly bad were condemned as tragic figures by Aristotle, and the
overthrow of the wicked as a tragic theme has ever since been held in some
contempt by theorizers; yet from the time of Marlowe, or even earlier,
English tragedy has told the stories of evil-doers with careers of cruelty
or lust, or of machinators who have turned to bitterness and disaster the
lives of the pure and the good. Of the first class are the tyrants,
usurpers, lustful monarchs, and bloody avengers; of the second, the
Machiavellian prime ministers, the hypocritical counselors, and the
traitorous friends; and the two are often united as in Barabas or Richard
III. English authors, actors, and audiences have delighted in a visible
representative of the devil upon the stage, in an impersonation of the
source of evil. Given grandeur of ambition, the evil one becomes the
protagonist; given mere revenge and hatred as motives, he is still the main
opponent of the hero. Perhaps the highest kind of tragic feeling is not
aroused either by the fall of the depraved or by the ruin of the noble
through trickery and cunning, yet "Richard III" and "Macbeth" deal with the
one theme, and "Othello" and "Lear" with the other. Shakespeare's
tragedies, indeed, represent other conflicts than this between good and
evil, and in the representation of that conflict they are not confined by
theological or dramatic formulas. Such formulas were just what eighteenth
century writers enjoyed, and in attacking the problem of evil they clung to
one of the most artificial if also one of the most typical persons in
literature, the Elizabethan stage machinator. The conflict of bad and good,
a natural if not inevitable motive of a drama descending from medieval
times, found its expression in the excessively amiable hero and heroine and
the utterly black villain, stage types that have maintained themselves in
fiction as well as the drama through Scott and Dickens down to the present
day. The stage villain, a theory of poetic justice that refused to punish
the good except for some distinctly emphasized fault, and a faith in the
potency of moral precepts, these are the devil, providence, and salvation
of a theatrical theology, which, along with conventional technic, narrowed
plots, and some refinement in moral taste, distinguish the eighteenth
century type of tragedy.
The bird, caged and clipped, no longer sang. There was no poetry left in
tragedy, and no human nature. Was there anything, then, in this type that
showed advance over the preceding centuries, or anything that offered
promise for future development? Not one of the literary forms in which the
eighteenth century excelled, and not one fully representing the
pseudo-classical theories, tragedy cannot be fairly judged as representing
classicism _versus_ romanticism. It merely presents a deteriorated English
tradition modified and narrowed by pseudo-classical rules and theory. Yet
it corrected and modified English tradition where it needed corrections and
modifications, without quite denationalizing it. The admixture of comedy,
prone to become gross farce, the horrors and bloodshed, and the brutal and
revolting themes were rightly abandoned. In structure there was a more
positive reformation. Stage illusion and precision of effect may be aided
by an observance of the unities, and the limitation of the action to a
single plot, a few persons, and a few scenes,--Shakespeare and encomiasts
of his art to the contrary notwithstanding. It must be added that in
practice the unities are likely to result in a counter-balancing defect, in
a concentration of incident improbable and artificial, as often in
eighteenth century tragedies, and even in Ibsen. The pseudo-classicists
erred mainly in taking their rules as masters instead of as guides. Yet
eighteenth century tragedy deserves this meed of praise that it sought for
literary form, which preceding tragedy had largely lacked; and its attempts
to secure this offered useful lessons for the future. But here the
usefulness of its dramatic art ends. In the limitation of what could be
acted and of what belonged to the species, it was suicidal. French tragedy
in its effort to imitate Greek failed to take advantage of the resources of
modern theatres; and English tragedy, halting between English and French
precedents, simply confined itself to well-worn theatrical customs. There
are not only no new subjects or characters, there are no new situations,
surprises, or catastrophes, no new methods of exposition or dialogue. Some
of the worst of the old conventions survived, as the soliloquies, which
continue long, frequent, and undisguised, but it would be hard to find even
a bit of stage business that was new. Eighteenth century tragedy made no
adequate demands of its splendid theatres and great actors.[38]
The only daring departure from the prevailing type, and the most important
contribution to the general development of European tragedy in the
eighteenth century, came in the success of "George Barnwell, or the London
Merchant" (1731). This was the first tragedy of George Lillo, a London
jeweler, who had hitherto had no known theatrical or literary connections,
save for one unsuccessful play. It was followed within a few years by
another domestic tragedy, "Fatal Curiosity," two tragedies of the regular
type, "The Christian Hero" and the posthumous "Elmerick," and by
adaptations of "Pericles" and "Arden of Feversham." The two domestic
tragedies differ somewhat in both form and purpose. "The London Merchant,"
in prose, tells the story of Barnwell's downfall through the courtesan
Millwood, his murder of his uncle at her instigation, and the final
execution of both criminals. Barnwell's repentance is much dwelt upon, and
the moral lesson is enforced in every line. "The Fatal Curiosity," in blank
verse, tells of a frightful murder of a son by a father at the instigation
of the mother. From the innocent "curiosity" of the long-lost son in
concealing his identity from his parents, there is traced the chain of
circumstances which finally drive the poverty-stricken and wretched couple
to the murder of the stranger. The play is thus nearer to Greek than modern
ideas of tragedy, in that it represents destiny as something separate from
character, and it links itself with the German species of
_Schicksalstragödie_, which indeed it directly influenced. "The London
Merchant," on the contrary, seeks the causes and effects of crime in a
crude and popular presentation of character that always makes the most of
human will and sentiment.
Daring and important as was Lillo's innovation, it was by no means without
progenitors and near kinsmen. The relations of his plays to Elizabethan
domestic tragedies are evident. Like "Arden of Feversham," which Lillo may
have been copying, "The London Merchant" presents a murder, portrays a
monstrous woman, and ends with an execution. Like the Elizabethan plays,
Lillo's are bald, detailed, and moralizing. The very pleas that he advances
in his dedication for realism and liberty had been advanced in "Arden" and
the "Warning for Fair Women." Moreover, while since 1660 no tragedies had
dealt solely with middle-class society, there had been much chafing against
the restrictions that limited tragedy to princes; and from English writers
as well as Corneille had come forecasts of the sweeping democracy of
Lillo's creed:--
"What I would infer is this, I think, evident truth;
that tragedy is so far from losing its dignity, by
being accommodated to the circumstances of the
generality of mankind, that it is more truly august in
proportion to the extent of its influence, and the
numbers that are properly affected by it. As it is more
truly great to be the instrument of good to many, who
stand in need of our assistance, than to a very small
part of that number."[39]
Southerne, Otway, and Rowe had won great success for domestic themes, and
their examples were naturally cited in the prologue which introduced "The
Merchant." Comedy might also have been summoned to support. After the
scourging from Collier it had joined in the general movement at the
beginning of the century toward sentiment and moralizing. Sentimental
comedy, seeking both pathos and a moral, may be said to begin in England
at least as early as Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband" (1704) and Steele's
"Tender Husband" (1705). Steele's "Conscious Lovers" (1722) shows the
species in full development. More general but not less important
encouragements for realism in tragedy came from the realistic tendencies
manifest in the literature of the preceding generation, notably in the
novels of Defoe, and from the moralistic tendencies everywhere manifest in
both fiction and drama. Lillo was one with his time, though out with truth
and art, in thinking "the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy
is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind."[40] The ascendancy
of the middle class in letters, their expanding social life, their
attachment to a conventional morality and a utilitarian art, and their
delight in sentimentality, all help to explain the appearance of "George
Barnwell." Lillo was writing for a generation that had "The Fair Penitent"
and was waiting for "Pamela."
Lillo's work, however, was none the less that of a pioneer. "The Fatal
Curiosity" had a special influence, beginning forty years after its
appearance, in the German tragedies of destiny; and "The London Merchant,"
soon after its publication, became of importance in both France and
Germany. In France its welcome was prepared by the growth of a species of
sentimental comedy paralleling the English, and it was translated in time
(1748) to serve as an example and stimulant to Diderot's plays and
theories. Even before the publication of his "Le Fils Naturel"[41] (1757),
and "Le Père de Famille"[42] (1758), Lessing's "Miss Sara Sampson" (1755)
had appeared directly modeled on "The London Merchant." Through Diderot and
Lessing and, a little later, through German translations of Lillo's plays,
domestic tragedy continued its leavening work in the German drama. By that
time, sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy were returning from France
and Germany to influence the English drama.
In England the direct stream of domestic tragedy never flowed high. A
one-act play, "Fatal Extravagance," in prose, had appeared in 1721 under
the patronage of Aaron Hill, and was revived the year before the success of
"Barnwell," and later enlarged into five acts. There were a few
successors--"Caelia, or the Perjured Lover" (1732), by Charles Johnson,
presenting a Lovelace-like protagonist; "Love the Cause and Cure of Grief"
(1743), a three-act play in prose; and Victor's adaptation of "A Woman
Killed with Kindness" (1776). Far more important than any of these was
Moore's "Gamester" (1753), long a stock play, and almost as influential on
the continent as "Barnwell." Like "The Yorkshire Tragedy," it pictures the
horrors of gaming. The gamester, his long-suffering wife, a faithful
servant, a spirited girl, her lover, the intriguing villain, and his
accomplices play a story of far more insistent dramatic power than Lillo's
and of no less sentimental and moral conclusiveness. Cumberland's
"Mysterious Husband" (1783) is a later and less crude representative of the
same species.[43]
Lord Davenant has deceived his wife into marrying him
by slandering her lover Dormer. Later he has entrapped
Dormer's sister into a pretended marriage and then
deserted her. She, supposing her husband dead, marries
Lord Davenant's son. On their marriage day, Dormer
returns; Lord Davenant is discovered and kills himself.
Though a man and not a woman is the central figure of this social
entanglement, we are reminded of the Tanquerays and Ebbsmiths of a later
day in its powerful and not unveracious presentation of domestic ruin.
One reason for the failure of Lillo's pioneering to arouse a larger
following in tragedy was the possession which comedy had taken of both
domestic sentiment and morality. The species of sentimental and tearful
comedy, which had already by 1730 appeared in both England and France, soon
flourished in both countries. Their vogue was diminished by the success of
"She Stoops to Conquer" and "The Rivals," but there was a further
development during the last thirty years of the century in the plays of
Cumberland, Holcroft, Mrs. Inchbald, and others. A certain amount of low
comedy was, after "The Rivals," admitted to be necessary, as Holcroft avows
in the preface to "Duplicity," but in such plays as his "Duplicity" and
"Road to Ruin," or Cumberland's "The Jew" and "The Wheel of Fortune,"
suffering abounds, ruin is imminent, there is much weeping, and a salient
moral lesson. The suffering usually is confined to loss of fortune or
temptation of virtue, and the moral lesson is directed against gaming, or
loose living, or marital infidelity upon the part of the husband. The
intriguing villain in this kind of play sinks to insignificance, and the
moving force is likely to be a humanitarian benefactor who rescues the lost
fortune or saves the heroine from the hated marriage. Occasionally this
type of serious comedy comes close to tragedy. In Holcroft's "Deserted
Daughter" (1795), a revamping of Cumberland's "Fashionable Lover," the
father has disowned his daughter by his first marriage, and, through his
wicked agent, she has been sent to a house of ill-fame. Not knowing his own
daughter, the father, ruined in fortune and conscience, plans to aid a
friend to secure her, and himself visits her. The situation is ghastly
enough, but all comes out happily. The happy ending was in fact the dram of
eale that corrupted the whole substance of this sentimental comedy. The
theatrical necessity of a happy ending forbade either tragedy or a serious
study of life. It compelled the dramatist to devote a large part of a play
to preparing for the reconciliation, to spend much time on youthful love,
to maintain a lightness of tone throughout; and it destroyed the
possibility of tracing out character and incident to anything like a
logical conclusion. The domestic drama, devoted to a serious presentation
of social life, had its opportunity in the eighteenth as well as in the
twentieth century. It shrank from tragedy; it advanced as far as attacking
fashionable excesses, or as dramatizing moral theses, but it never got
beyond the lovers who must be united and the everything that must come out
well. It resigned itself to sentimentality and false conclusions, and was
naturally overwhelmed by the theatrically more captivating sentimentality
and falsity of Kotzebue. When "The London Merchant" and "The Gamester"
encouraged the vogue of sentimental comedy, they nourished an ingrate which
destroyed the legitimate brood of domestic tragedy. In the theatres men
took their realism sugared by a sentimentality that sent them home
contented. But Lillo's work was not unheeded by the genius who in "Tom
Jones" and "Amelia" gave literary greatness to a realistic study of manners
and morals. The sentimentalizing and moralizing of the middle classes,
which from the time of Southerne had threatened to have their say on the
stage, found their spokesman in the author of "Clarissa Harlowe."
In the last third of the century the various social, intellectual, and
imaginative changes that make up the beginnings of the Romantic movement
had their effect upon tragedy, but only in a partial and secondary fashion.
The drama was already losing place to the novel in popularity, and showing
signs of becoming a sort of literary by-product. Successful novels were
made over into plays, and the various romantic tendencies to medievalism,
melancholy, supernaturalism, and naturalism found expression in novel or
verse rather than in play. The reawakening interest in the Elizabethan
dramatists was represented by a revival of a number of the plays of
Massinger and of Beaumont and Fletcher,[44] and imitations of Elizabethan
diction became frequent. A more important departure was furnished by the
so-called Terrific School of fiction. Medieval stories and scenes, and the
various accessories of horror, ghosts, graveyards, dungeons, vaults, and
the midnight bell had never been lacking in eighteenth century tragedy, but
the novels of Walpole and his successors offered some novelties. Walpole's
own unacted "Mysterious Mother" (1768), perhaps the most powerful of the
Gothic tragedies, was the pioneer of the movement. Robert Jephson, whose
"Braganza" (1775) was heralded as
"His; no French tragedy,--tame, polish'd, dull by rule!
Vigorous he comes, and warm from Shakespeare's school,"
produced in 1781 an adaptation of Walpole's "Castle of Otranto," called
"The Count of Narbonne," which, as the epilogue boasts,
"Midst the placid murmurings of Love
Rolls the rough tide of Gothick force along."
His "Julia" (1787), another popular play with his usual abundance of
soliloquies, tells a story of Elizabethan villany; and there were a few
other Gothic attempts, as Cumberland's "Carmelite" (1784), before Lewis's
"Castle Spectre" (1797) carried the town by storm. The further history of
the terrific tragedies belongs to the next chapter, as does that of the
German importations which culminated in the craze for Kotzebue, but it may
be noted here that "Werter," acted in 1785, and "Emilia Galotti," acted in
1794, were among the earlier indications of German influence on the stage.
By 1790 the decadence of English tragedy had apparently run its course and
nearly come to a full stop. The freedom and independence of Elizabethan
days had degenerated by the time of Charles I into a fairly definite type.
That type, maintained in the Restoration period, though with modifications
and innovations, had now become conventionalized, debased, sterile. French
influence had proved unprocreative. In spite of the activities of the
theatres, the inspiration of Shakespeare, and the assistance of great
actors and actresses, tragedy had failed to produce literature comparable
to that of its rival, the novel. The drama, to be sure, had played a large
part, both in tragedy and comedy, in reflecting and promoting the
sentimentality and moralizing common in the literature of the century;
Otway, Southerne, and Rowe had in a way fathered the sentimental novels.
But in tragedy their Isabellas and Calistas had no successors to rank with
Clarissa and Amelia. If tragedy through its alliance with sentiment failed
of permanent advance, it was still more unsuccessful in representing the
reasonableness, typicality, and austerity which the classical conception
required. It was half-hearted, turning now to Shakespeare, now to Voltaire,
but never producing anything not conventionalized and dull. The escapes
from its dullness remained until the very end of the century only
half-opened doors. Through the door opened by "Barnwell" and "The
Gamester," the drama saw only the broad path that led back to
sentimentality and overlooked the straight and narrow way leading to
realism and truth. Over the threshold that opened to medieval castles and
chambers of horrors it was still hesitating. The divorce between literature
and the stage had widened, and tragedy failed to attract genius to its
rescue. Crabbe did not write a tragedy of the village, and Burns did not
summon poetry and passion to the stage.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward's _History of Dramatic Literature_ ends with the death of Queen Anne;
and there is no adequate history of the English drama for the last two
centuries, and no good bibliography. Genest continues to be the main source
of information. Lowe's _Bibliographical Account_ and the histories of the
theatre noted in the last chapter are useful for the matter of the present.
In addition, _The History and Illustration of the London Theatres_, by
Chas. Dibdin, Jr. (1826); Victor's _History of the Theatres of London and
Dublin_ (1761); W. C. Dalton's _History of the Theatres_, 1771-95; and _The
Dramatic Censor_ (1770) become available for this period. A large number of
memoirs of actors also supply information in regard to the drama. _An
Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, written by himself_
(1750), reviews the Restoration period as well. Others of interest are:
Davies's _Memoirs of Garrick_ (1780); Murphy's _Life of Garrick_ (1801);
Boaden's _Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons_ (1827) and _Memoirs of Kemble_ (1825);
Cumberland's _Memoir_ (1806); Mudford's _Critical Examination of the
Writings of Richard Cumberland_, etc. (1812); Boaden's _Memoirs of Mrs.
Inchbald_ (1833); _Private Correspondence of David Garrick_ (1831-32);
Holcroft's _Memoirs_, ed. by Hazlitt (1816); Cooke's _Memoirs of Charles
Macklin_ (2d ed., 1808).
The plays by authors of note can be found in the collected editions of
their works, the more popular plays in the various collections noted in the
last chapter. The majority of the tragedies, however, have never been
reprinted and can be obtained only in the original editions. Dramatic
criticism of the period can be studied in various essays by Addison,
Steele, Gildon, Dennis, and Dr. Johnson, especially his Preface to the
edition of Shakespeare and his _Lives of the Poets_. Lord Kames's _Elements
of Criticism_ (1762) was highly approved in its own day; and several essays
on tragedy are of historical interest: William Guthrie's _Essay on Tragedy_
(1747); Mrs. Montagu's _Essay on the Genius and Writing of Shakespeare_
(1769); Edwin Taylor's _Cursory Remarks on Tragedy_ (1774); William Cook's
_Elements of Dramatic Criticism_ (1775); and Hodson's _Observations on
Tragedy_, prefixed to his tragedy _Zoraida_ (1780).
Beljame's _Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre_ bears on this
as on the preceding chapter. Voltaire's influence on English tragedy has
never been fully studied, but the following recent books bear on his
relations with England: A. Ballantyne's _Voltaire's Visit to England_
(1893); J. Churton Collins's _Bolingbroke, a historical study, and Voltaire
in England_ (1886); Lounsbury's _Shakespeare and Voltaire_ (1902), which
gives much information on the drama and criticism of the period and
sufficient directory to Voltaire's comment on the English drama; and
Jusserand's _Shakespeare en France_, which is also very valuable for this
period. Miss Canfield's study of _Corneille and Racine in England_ is also
of marked service; and L. Morel's _James Thomson_ (Paris, 1895) gives a
very full study of Thomson's plays and literary relations. The
_Belles-Lettres Series_ contains editions with introductions of plays of
Rowe, ed. Miss Sophie Hart; and of Lillo, ed. A. W. Ward (1906). Dr. Ward's
introduction is particularly valuable for its sketch of the course of
domestic tragedy and sentimental comedy on the continent. From the notes in
these various studies, and from _La Littérature comparée, essai
bibliographique_, by Louis P. Betz, Strasbourg, 1904, direction can be had
to a number of monographs dealing with special phases of the relations
between the dramas of England and France, and, toward the end of the
century, between England and Germany.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] For comparisons of the two plays, see Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on the
Drama," Cumberland's _Observer_, Nos. 77, 78, 79; and Gifford's
introduction to his edition of Massinger.
[29] See _Corneille and Racine in England_. Dorothea Canfield. New York,
1904.
[30] Its only appearance on the stage recorded by Genest was in Capell's
adaptation, acted six times by Garrick in 1759.
[31] _Brutus_ (1734), _Zara_ (1736), _Alzira_ (1736), _Mahomet_ (1744),
_Merope_ (1749), _Orphan of China_ (1759), _Orestes_ (1769), _Almida_
(1771) (from _Tancrède_), _Semiramis_ (1776). See, also, Hoole's _Cyrus_
(1768), Cradock's _Zobeide_ (1771), Murphy's _Alzuma_ (1773), and Brooke's
_Imposter_ (1778), not acted.
[32] Professor Lounsbury seems mistaken in finding a "sudden cessation of
interest in Voltaire" after 1750. _Shakespere and Voltaire_, pp. 304, 305.
He neglects the later popularity of _The Orphan of China_ and the continued
popularity of plays earlier translated.
[33] _Le théâtre anglais_ (1746-49) of Pierre de La Place contained in its
8 vols. synopses and partial translations of the following plays:
_Othello_, _3 Henry VI_, Richard III, Hamlet, _Macbeth_, _Cymbeline_,
_Julius Cæsar_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Timon of Athens_, _Merry Wives of
Windsor_, _The Maid's Tragedy_, _Catiline_, _The Fair Penitent_, _Venice
Preserved_, _Aureng Zebe_, _The Mourning Bride_, _Tamerlane_, _Siege of
Damascus_ (by Hughes, 1720), _Busiris_, _Love for Love_, _The Innocent
Adultery_, _Cato_, _The Funeral_ (Steele, 1702). This list, in which it
will be noticed tragedy greatly predominates, represents fairly the English
taste of the time.
[34] Dr. Rundle, Letters, quoted by Morel, _James Thomson_, p. 82.
[35] _Gil Blas_, Book 4, "Le Mariage de vengeance."
[36] For various references to Thomson in Voltaire's Letters, see Morel,
_op. cit._ pp. 192-194; and a letter on the French translation of _Tancred
and Sigismunda_, p. 153.
[37] The following list includes all eighteenth century tragedies, not
mentioned in the text, that achieved any considerable popularity. These all
became stock plays, and most were acted in the nineteenth century. Hughes,
_Siege of Damascus_(1720); Fenton, _Mariamne_(1723); Jones, _Earl of Essex_
(1753), which superseded Banks's play as a stage favorite; Brown,
_Barbarossa_ (1754); Francklin, _Earl of Warwick_ (1766); Hartson,
_Countess of Salisbury_ (1767); Murphy, _Zenobia_ (1768), and _The Grecian
Daughter_ (1772), which gave a famous part, Euphrasia, to Mrs. Siddons and
later to Miss Fannie Kemble.
[38] The eighteenth century was not blind to the absurdities of its
tragedies, but made fun of them without stint. The number of burlesque
tragedies is large and includes: Gay's _What d'ye Call It_ (1715); Carey's
_Chrononhotonthologos_ (1734); Fielding's _Tom Thumb_ (1730); Foote's
_Tragedy a la Mode_ (1764); and Sheridan's _Critic_ (1779).
[39] Dedication to _The London Merchant_.
[40] Dedication to _The London Merchant_.
[41] Translated into English as _Dorval, or the Test of Virtue_(1767).
[42] Translated 1770, and as _A Family Picture_ (1781). Also, cf. General
Burgoyne's _Heiress_ (1786), which borrows from _Le Père de Famille_, and
Holcroft's _Love's Frailties_ (1794), based on a German adaptation.
[43] Criticised in _The Critical Review_, lv, 151, because of its
introduction of a comic character.
[44] The elder Colman was a leader in this revival. Besides the few
comedies which remained on the stock list and "Philaster," which was
frequently acted at this time, the following Elizabethan plays were revived
in the decade 1778-88: _Bonduca_, _Bondman_, _City Madam_, _Duke of Milan_,
_Knight of Malta_, _A King and No King_, _Marcella_ (based on _The
Changeling_), _Maid of Honor_, _The Picture_, _The Pilgrim_, _Scornful
Lady_ (altered as _The Capricious Lady_), _Triumph of Honor_, _Women
Pleased_.
CHAPTER X
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
The last few years of the eighteenth century and the first few of the
nineteenth made up a decade full of movement and change in the drama. The
eighteenth century had been, as we have seen, a time of stagnation in
tragedy and of little dramatic advance in any direction. The theatregoer of
1720 would in 1780 have found the same plays or others similar in kind;
but, had he postponed his visit yet twenty years, he would have entered a
new theatrical world of romance, musical plays, and German novelties. By
that time nearly all the factors of importance in the history of the stage
during the first half of the nineteenth century had made their appearance.
New departures in both tragedy and comedy, and a theatrically important
_tertium quid_ were all instituted. And new ideas, new themes, and new
stories witnessed the changing taste and gave promise of the enlargement of
the imaginative horizon which the new romanticism was to produce.
We have seen that, while neither realistic tragedy nor sentimental comedy
had experienced a notable development, they had been departures from
long-standing conventions. Tragedies in three acts, tragedies in prose,
tragedies on domestic themes, tragedies without princes, tragedies of the
present, all gave some encouragement for further novelty and experiment.
The several varieties of "soft tragedy and genteel comedy" departed far
enough from the standards of both species to suggest a dramatic development
that should discard the traditional limitations. This changing taste,
however, was seized by German plays and dramatized "tales of terror." The
large and varied influence of German poetry, criticism, and philosophy upon
the romantic movement in England can be noticed here only so far as it
affected the drama. The plays of Lessing and the early plays of Goethe and
Schiller made little impression on the English stage, though they exercised
an immediate influence on the reading public and on most of the young men
"standing on the forehead of the age to come." The conquest of the English
stage was made at its point of greatest vulnerability--its
sentimentality--by one who seemed the very Napoleon of the drama, Kotzebue,
the conqueror of the theatres of all western Europe. In 1798 "The Stranger"
("Menschenhass und Reue") took Drury Lane by storm, and the next year
Sheridan's "Pizarro," an adaptation of "Die Spanier in Peru," plus some
eloquence and some songs, gained a still more brilliant success and drew
even George III to the theatre. For several years Kotzebue reigned supreme;
twenty or more of his plays were translated; many were acted; "Pizarro"
alone had passed through twenty-nine editions by 1811, besides other
English and American versions of the play. Kotzebue's triumph was due in
part to his great skill in stage-craft, and in part to his adroit appeal to
the more superficial sentiments for social and political revolution that
were everywhere stirring. When it is compared with preceding sentimental
comedy, the success of "The Stranger" is easily understood. It has the
theatrical merit of arousing curiosity at the beginning and keeping it on
question until the last moment; and it deals, over-sentimentally of course,
with a social question of dramatic value and of especial piquancy at a time
when many conventions seemed tottering,--should an erring wife be taken
back again by her husband? The theme of "A Woman Killed with Kindness,"
"Jane Shore," and "The Fair Penitent" was given a new interest and a new
solution. "Pizarro," retaining much of the plot familiar in English tragedy
since the time of Dryden's "Indian Emperor," has two lovers, opponents in
war, and two heroines, one vengeful, the other angelic, but makes the real
hero the renouncing lover, who sacrifices all for the happiness of the
angel who loves not him but his friend. Under these new auspices the fair
penitent and the renunciatory hero began long careers in English drama and
fiction. But neither these nor any other of Kotzebue's plays offered any
guidance toward a serious interpretation of life or any innovations of real
consequence in the English tragic tradition.
If Kotzebue's plays offered little promise for the national drama, the
native plays which rivaled them in popularity offered less. Castles, monks,
dungeons, and so on had already become somewhat common in musical plays
and operas[45] and occasionally in tragedies, when "The Castle Spectre" of
Monk Lewis opened the flood-gates to "tales of terror" and their medieval
and supernatural paraphernalia. "The Castle Spectre," which in the season
of 1797-98 surpassed "The Stranger" and for a while held its own with
Kotzebue, represents a new reign of romance. The new queen did not come
from "perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." She belonged to the earlier
days of the romantic movement, and made her conquest at the head of
squadrons of medievalistic, terroristic, and Germanistic Goths. She is
adequately described in the prologue to the play:--
"Far from the haunts of men, of vice the foe,
The moon-struck child of genius and of woe,
Versed in each magic spell, and dear to fame,
A fair enchantress dwells, Romance her name,
She loathes the sun or blazing taper's light:
The moon-beam'd landscape and tempestuous night
Alone she loves; and oft, with glimmering lamp,
Near graves new-opened, or midst dungeons damp,
Drear forests, ruin'd aisles, and haunted towers,
Forlorn she roves, and raves away the hours!
Anon, when storms howl loud and lash the deep,
Desperate she climbs the sea-rock's beetling steep;
There wildly strikes her harp's fantastic strings,
Tells to the moon how grief her bosom wrings,
And while her strange song chaunts fictitious ills,
In wounded hearts Oblivion's balm distils."
The "drama," as it was called, is in prose, and is a medley of the various
terroristic novels, including the two most famous, "The Castle of Otranto"
and "The Mysteries of Udolpho," and adding something from Schiller's
"Robbers" and from Shakespeare. There is a haunted castle, a jocose monk, a
fool, a marvelous dungeon, a fisherman's hut, a ghost, a midnight bell, and
songs and elaborate scenery. The villain, a feudal baron attended by
negroes, is finally killed by the heroine, who saves her imprisoned father
and escapes with the hero.
The signs of life that succeeded the long petrifaction of the eighteenth
century drama and the beginning of the revolutionary epoch thus resulted
only in theatrical novelties and in no serious dramatic movement. All
serious drama was, indeed, threatened by the ascendancy of the
"illegitimate" drama of music and dumb show. The causes leading to the rise
of this class and its ensuing history were in large measure connected with
the theatres themselves. Even before the new romanticism had invaded the
drama, changes in theatrical conditions of far-reaching importance were
well under way. The monopoly exercised by the Drury Lane and Covent Garden
theatres was first threatened about 1730 by the success of a few minor
theatres which gave musical, acrobatic, or dramatic entertainments. The old
theatres were successful in maintaining their monopoly in regular plays,
but the irregular houses gained permission to give performances under the
loosely defined term "burletta." A "burletta" was supposed to have a
musical accompaniment, but it proved difficult to say how little music and
how much of a drama might be included under the term. Henceforth, the
regular drama had, in addition to the rivalry of Italian and English
operas, that of musical and dramatic medleys; and the patent houses had to
face the rivalry of playhouses that infringed as far as they dared on the
legitimate drama. The patent theatres, with their vested rights in the
stock plays and their obligation to maintain Dryden, Otway, and
Shakespeare, offered no great inducements to new authors. This was
particularly true, after the rebuilding and enlargement of both theatres in
1791 and 1794, when the increased cost of bringing out a play and the
increased difficulty in acting or hearing an unfamiliar play led Kemble
practically to abandon any attempt to produce new tragedies. The minor
theatres, which were growing in importance, legally limited to the field of
musical performances, and excluded from the regular drama except by trick,
could offer little support to the serious dramatist. As a result, musical
plays, operettas, and finally a new type, the "melodrame," flourished in
the minor houses and found their way soon into the two great theatres. When
in 1808-09 these were burned, the rivalry with the minors had become acute.
The old theatres were rebuilt of so great a size that they proved
unsuitable for any spoken drama. Through their great actors, Kemble, Kean,
and later Macready, they maintained Shakespearean drama and a few of the
old stock plays; but they were forced for the rest of the time to resort to
melodrama, spectacle, or pantomime. The minors, though they now became
more daring in their invasions of legitimate drama, naturally continued the
kind of entertainments at which they had succeeded and to which they had
forced the great theatres to succumb. The long struggle for a free stage
was now nearing its end; the patent theatres were maintained with
increasing difficulty; the minors prospered. With the death of Kean in
1833, a great prop of the patent theatres fell; and though the agitation
for parliamentary reform in that year failed, and the final legislation
against theatrical monopoly was not passed until 1847, the great theatres
ceased to determine the history of the drama. Macready's two periods of
management, 1837-39 and 1841-43, were the final efforts to restore the old
régime that had maintained tragedy since the Restoration.
The "illegitimate" drama that triumphed in the theatres comprised a wide
range of entertainments, mostly farcical in their dramatic elements. Toward
the end of the eighteenth century the rage for dumb show and musical
additions invaded the regular drama. Even Kotzebue had to be decked out
with songs and choruses. Moreover, a peculiar species of the illegitimate
drama developed in the plays of Andrews, Dibdin, Reynolds, Boaden, and
Colman the younger that served as a half substitute for tragedy. This
species seems to have been mainly due to the ingenuity of George Colman.
Those of his plays verging on tragedy, of which "The Battle of Hexham"
(1789), "The Surrender of Calais" (1791), "The Mountaineers" (1793), and
"The Iron Chest" (1796) are the chief, are lively medleys of tragedy,
comedy, opera, and farce. In each a tragic story is told in blank verse,
audaciously Shakespearean, and this is mixed with broad comedy or farce in
prose. There is a bustling action with shifting scenes, much spectacle,
many songs, solos, duets, or choruses, for which a crowd of soldiers,
monks, beggars, foresters, or the like, is always within call. "The
Surrender of Calais" tells the story of Queen Philippa's mercy; "The Iron
Chest" is a dramatization of "Caleb Williams"; "The Battle of Hexham" is a
sort of musicalized chronicle history, presenting the adventures of Adeline
in search of her husband, who turns out to be a captain of a band of
robbers and the rescuer of Queen Margaret and the prince after the battle
of Hexham. "The Mountaineers," suggested by a story in "Don Quixote," finds
its land of romance in Spain, where a Christian prisoner elopes with the
daughter of his Moorish jailer, accompanied by a stage Irishman as
_gracioso_; and this group, when recaptured, are rescued by Octavian, a
half-mad tragic soliloquizer, who also recovers his long-lost love, and was
thought to be extremely impressive when impersonated by Kemble. In his use
of all the well-worn motives of serious drama and his constant imitation of
Shakespearean and Elizabethan diction, Colman displays remarkable
cleverness as well as the most cheerful effrontery. He represents, too, a
curious stage in the history of tragedy. He was born and bred in the
theatre and had an exceptional opportunity to become familiar with the
Elizabethan drama through his father's revivals and editorial labors. His
method was to start with some incident, like that of Queen Philippa, and to
connect with it any scenes that suggested themselves as interesting and
varied, so that the motives, types of character, situations, and the very
phrases of the Elizabethan and the later stock plays reappear to play their
parts in his variety shows. He did not burlesque; in fact, he imitated so
well that, while the judicious might grieve, the vulgar subscribed to pity
and terror when his plays were performed by the great actors of the day. He
popularized, vulgarized, and musicalized the great traditions of English
tragedy, and passed them along to the nineteenth century as the possession
of the illegitimate drama.
At the height of Colman's career, however, the illegitimate drama found a
still more powerful ally. Englishmen who in 1802 went to Paris to enjoy the
peace were delighted with an entirely new kind of theatrical entertainment
there, the _mélodrame_. The industrious Holcroft promptly translated its
most successful representative, and "The Tale of Mystery" heralded the long
ascendancy of this new species of drama in England and America. The
peculiar novelties of the _mélodrame_ were the supplementing of the
dialogue by a large amount of dumb show and the accompaniment of both
dialogue and dumb show by descriptive orchestral music; otherwise, with its
songs, sensations, and mechanical devices, it resembled the preceding
musical drama of Colman and others. With this new recruit, the illegitimate
held full sway. Its influence spread into all dramatic performances, and
many regular plays were supplemented by songs, music, spectacle, or
machinery. From the start, _mélodrame_ allied itself to most of the
paraphernalia, of medievalism and of the terrific school, but it soon
showed the capacity for absorbing varied material. Reynolds in 1812 turned
Dryden's "Don Sebastian" into a musical play in three acts written in
prose; equestrian combats, real water, cataracts, and machinery for
thrilling escapes became usual adjuncts. Soon Scott's poems and novels
supplied splendid material. As each novel appeared the theatres vied with
one another in bringing out the first melodramatization; and often several
versions were acted at the same time. Macready gained one of his first
large successes with "Rob Roy" in a version that reduced Di Vernon to a
singing part (1818). Any kind of a story, providing it offered strange
scenes, an exciting and lively action, and marked contrasts between bad and
good among the characters, lent itself readily to a dramatization that
required a minimum of dialogue and a maximum of action, music, and
machinery. Comic scenes were, of course, _de rigueur_. "The Slave," by
Morton, was one of the most enduring of the Colmanesque type. The serious
plot, which presents Gambia, the slave, as the sacrificing hero, borrows
from "The Curfew" and "Oronooko," and for its great scene improves upon the
escape over the bridge in "Pizarro."[46]
After Clifton and Zelinda (whom Gambia hopelessly
adores) escape across the hanging bridge, Gambia climbs
up the tree from which it is suspended and cuts the
rope. The pursuing villains are foiled on the brink.
"We are safe, my husband," cries Zelinda from the other
side; but her child, safely hidden by Gambia, hears her
voice, and runs from his hiding-place,--on the wrong
side of the river.
_Child._ It was my mother's voice! Mother! mother!
_Zelinda._ Alas! my child!
_Somerdyke._ Her child! Then we triumph--seize him! (_A
slave seizes the child, and, running up a point of
rock, hands it to Somerdyke, who continues._) Move one
step further, and you will see him buried in the
waters. Submit, or this instant is his last. (_Holding
him up in the act of precipitating him._)
_Zelinda._ I do submit.
_Gambia._ Never! (_Gambia, who has concealed himself in
the branches, snatches the child up into the tree._)
Father, receive your child! (_Throws the child across
the stream._) They have him! He is safe! Ha! Ha! Ha!
(_Curtain._)
The term "melodrama" ceased after a time to denote the peculiar species
brought from France in 1802, and came to be applied to all plays depending
for effect on situation, sensation, or machinery, rather than
characterization. The musical accompaniment and songs became minor
features; the lively action, elaborate mechanical devices, dumb show,
strong contrast of virtue and evil, and the happy ending remained the
essentials. There was thus created a kind of inferior tragedy aiming at no
literary excellence, which has ever since continued to fill the theatres
and to satisfy the larger public. This natural reaction from eighteenth
century dullness and declamation to bustle, pantomime, and music did not
further, as in France, any immediate development in the literary drama.
There was in England no relationship between the two as between Pixérécourt
and Hugo. On the contrary, melodrama in England offered nothing new, for it
absorbed about all that was old. All the well-worn situations, the escapes,
rivalries, sacrifices, of the English stock plays were preserved, and to
these was added whatever French melodrama offered. In this way there is
curiously preserved in the cheaper theatres to-day the direct results of
theatrical traditions going back before Shakespeare.
The illegitimate drama also represented the prevailing tendencies of
Romanticism. Its fondness for Shakespearean and Elizabethan motives, its
medievalism, its terrors, its democratic and humanitarian sentiments
indicate the popularization of romantic ideas. These found expression
suited to immediate public approval, not in Wordsworth but Kotzebue, not in
Coleridge but Colman, not in Southey but in melodrama. And as the
popularization of literature has increased, this illegitimate offspring of
the drama has continued to respond to changes in public sentiment and
thought by a recourse to well-worn theatrical means. During the nineteenth
century, melodrama has thrust tragedy from the theatres and from public
favor. Crowded out by the opera and again by the novel and now by the
melodrama, tragedy has tended either to assume the garb of its rivals, or
to conform its appeal to a select audience.
In the period from 1800 to 1830 the novel and the melodrama and the
melodramatized novel all united to restrict the demand for pure tragedy.
The breach between the theatre and literature which the eighteenth century
had opened was widened. In the theatre new plays and especially new plays
with tragic, romantic, or heroic plots, were adapted from Scott's novels or
otherwise devised by a comparatively small group of men. These men,
Reynolds, Morton, Soane, Terry, Dibdin, and others, were associated with
the theatres, understood the arrangement of scenery and spectacle, were
quick to foresee the taste of the audience, and pretended to little
literary skill, for none was required. Their work created a new distinction
in the drama, a species, melodrama, or tragedy if you please, that can be
acted but cannot be read. On the other hand, the literary romanticists,
while usually having no connection with the stage and despairing of its
reform, by no means relinquished the field of tragedy. Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Landor, Scott, Keats, and many other lesser
poets wrote tragedies, and most were not unwilling to have these acted.
These plays fall into two main classes, those that were acted and carried
on the tradition of tragedy in the theatres, and those that were not acted.
This second class, which for the first time becomes of some importance in
the history of literature, has itself several divisions. There are
tragedies intended for the stage but failing to get a trial there. There
are others which, while not intended for the stage, conform in the main to
its requirements, and might easily be adapted for presentation. There are
others, like "Cain" or Wells's "Joseph and his Brethren" or Swinburne's
later plays, which violate almost all the requirements of the theatre.
These form another dramatic species, the opposite of melodrama, plays that
can be read but cannot be acted. Some of these various classes of closet
drama influenced the acted drama, others have so little dramatic quality
that they are at most "dramatic poems," but all have a connection with the
tradition of tragedy. Most of the literary tragedies are indeed, despite
variations in degree, alike in kind. They are all written in verse; they
are all romantic rather than realistic; they mostly return to Shakespeare
and the Elizabethans for models; and they nearly all disregard the stage
demand. Whether they loathe the stage or ask for admittance there, they
seek literary rather than theatrical excellence. At the time when the stage
demanded action and was superseding dialogue and speech by music,
spectacle, and dumb show, the romanticists conceived of tragedy only in
terms of poetry, and wrote mainly in order to clothe their tragic themes in
the beauty of verse.
The most determined attempt to reform tragedy was made by Miss Joanna
Baillie, who, in the year of the "Lyrical Ballads," published the first
volume of her "Plays on the Passions," containing "Basil," a tragedy, and
"The Trial," a comedy, both on love, and "De Montfort," a tragedy on
hatred, with a preface announcing her intention to continue the series,
illustrating each of the dominant passions by a tragedy and a comedy. Her
preface, which should have found sympathetic response in the young men who
at Alfoxden were polishing their own tragedies and planning a revolution in
poetry, exhibits the main fallacy of the romanticists' theory of the drama.
She proposed to devote a play to the illustration of a single passion, to
trace this from its beginning to the final ruin, and to recognize that
passion arises from within, unprovoked by any external stimulus. This
absorption with a study of emotion _per se_ led to a subordination of plot
and all external incident, and--so she proposed--all poetic embellishment,
to a searching study of isolated passion. Her first volume attracted
attention, and Kemble and Mrs. Siddons played "De Montfort," but without
success. She continued, however, writing and publishing, completing the
series of plays on passions, and as many more "miscellaneous plays,"
twenty-eight in all, of which fifteen were tragedies. These present a
variety of themes, one being a domestic play in prose, another dealing with
witchcraft, but the favorite setting is medieval with gloomy vaults,
knights, monks, singing nuns, and the moon shining through vaulted windows.
Her conception of a play of passion forbids motiving of character, or
integration of the development of character with action. As Hazlitt acidly
observed, she manipulates her actors like a girl playing with her dolls.
There are many improbabilities, and the passions are exposed mainly in
soliloquies. The language avoids ornamentation to a degree that makes one
wonder why it is not in prose, though there are purple patches. It rarely
if ever betrays any adaptability to the individual speakers. Though the
plays were designed for the stage and overflow with stage-directions and
much spectacle, scenery, and excitement, the technic shows scarcely a
bowing acquaintance with the theatre. A few of the plays were acted, one
being melodramatized, but none proved effective. They gained, however, the
admiration of Campbell, Byron, and Scott, and of a wide circle of readers.
Their morality, their proximity to poetry, their definiteness of purpose
won a popular appreciation for their analyses of passion, denied to more
imaginative, subtle, or revolutionary poems. Her plays, if forbidden the
theatres, invaded the prairies and forest primeval; and Miss Baillie was
justly gratified by receiving a diploma "constituting her a member of the
Michigan Historical Society."
Wordsworth and Coleridge were in 1796-97, like Miss Baillie, writing
tragedies of passions[47] arising from within and ending in ruin, and, like
her, they were seeking presentation in the theatres. Wordsworth's
"Borderers" treats of the deep springs of villany, and was based, as he
thought, on his experiences with human nature in France during the
revolutionary period, but he seems rather to have made a study of
Shakespeare's Iago operating in a band of Schiller's robbers, and animated
by the abhorrent principles of Godwin's "Political Justice." Coleridge's
"Osorio," a study of remorse, also derived its inspiration from books
rather than from observation. Sixteen years later, in 1813, remodeled and
pruned of some of its earlier radicalism, it won as "Remorse" a fair stage
success, and led a partial revival of the poetical drama in the theatres.
The plot of a wicked brother who reports the death of the good brother and
seeks to win his betrothed, was suggested by "The Robbers"; the
inquisition, sorcery, cavern, dungeon, and other elements of the spectacle
were derived from the Radcliffian school; but the main inspiration was
Shakespeare. Coleridge planned a revenge play, with a characteristic
modification; the avenger was to seek, instead of blood, the remorse of the
villain. The elaborate plot, which might have done duty for an Elizabethan
revenge play or for one of Lewis's romances, has no connection with the
main theme of the play. The opening acts disclose everything, and the
interest in the full awakening of remorse in the wicked brother is not
contributed to by the intrigue, magic, and insurrection, nor is it made
veracious in the madness to which the remorse drives. But both the
beautiful descriptive poetry and the underlying searching for tragic
passion inspired other poets drama-ward. "Zapolya" (1817) has little
philosophical interest underlying its romantic plot, suggested by the
"Winter's Tale," but it displays a conscious effort to provide the
movement, variety, spectacle, and surprise needful for the stage. Coleridge
gave these in an Elizabethan profusion that must have overwhelmed the
managers. But even had he made the revisions that they required, he could
hardly have prevented his poetry from impeding rather than adorning his
melodramatic action.
Charles Lamb's single tragedy, "John Woodvil" (1802), was written and
offered to Kemble in 1799. Southey's comment, "(it) will please you by the
exquisite beauty of its poetry and provoke you by the exquisite silliness
of its story," comes near to being the final word. The verse catches
something of Shakespeare's sweetness and artlessness as well as his
obsolescent words, and the few persons and the silly story catch something
of Lamb's own simplicity and charity. The play is more human, though
feebler, than the contemporary plays of Miss Baillie, Wordsworth, and
Coleridge. Lamb imitates the Elizabethans with much more charm than they,
and he utterly disdains the stage spectacle which they admit, but, like
them, he seeks to explore the heart without regard to what is happening
outside and discloses its secrets by means of inordinate soliloquizing.
"The Wife's Trial," based on Crabbe's "Confidant," was written in 1827, and
refused by Charles Kemble. This tragicomedy, as Lamb called it, in two
acts, is slighter than "Woodvil" and even less adapted to the stage.
From Miss Baillie's "De Montfort" (1800) to Coleridge's "Remorse" (1813),
literary tragedy made no impression on the theatre. Godwin's plays,
"Antonio" (1800) and "Faulkner" (1807), failed flatly, and Tobin's
"Curfew," a medley of Elizabethan motives, was the most successful acted
tragedy. When Lewis tried to give his terrific vein a little dignity and
blank verse, even he failed on the stage.[48]
After "Remorse" the theatre half opened its doors to literature and the
poets rallied to the support of tragedy. Maturin's "Bertram" (1816) had a
large success, though his other plays failed. In the next few years a half
dozen wordy tragedies by Sheil were acted. Kean revived versions of the
"Jew of Malta" and "The Fatal Dowry," and the most successful of Sheil's
plays was "Evadne," based on Shirley's "Traitor." Milman's "Fazio," acted
1818, though not intended for the stage, came nearer perhaps than any
preceding tragedy of the romanticists to meeting theatrical requirements.
Fazio's wife, jealous because of his infatuation for a countess, betrays
her husband, and then for the remainder of the play is wildly remorseful.
In spite of the extreme improbability of both the persons and the language,
the story is told with dramatic directness and affords manifest
opportunities for a great actress, seized upon by Miss O'Neill and later by
Miss Cushman and, in an Italian adaptation, by Madame Ristori. A still
greater theatrical success was won by Kean in "Brutus" (1818), a pastiche
of the plays of Lee, Cumberland, and Downman composed by the American, John
Howard Payne. Sheridan Knowles's "Virginius" (1820), followed by his "Caius
Gracchus" (1823), and "William Tell" (1825), gave promise of a more
permanent revival of the poetical drama. Knowles, an actor and a practical
playwright, was also the friend and in a way the pupil of Lamb and Hazlitt,
and he gained the coöperation of a great and ambitious actor, Macready. He
united as no other writer of the generation had done, stage-craft and
poetic ideals. "Virginius," the best of his tragedies, is still
acted--excepting Bulwer-Lytton's "Richelieu," the only relic of early
nineteenth century tragedy. The story, with its one great acting scene, is
told after the Shakespearean model in very ornate and artificial verse. It
mingles much scoffing at the rabble with romantic appeals for liberty,
tricks Virginia out with a lover, and ends with the insanity of Virginius.
Knowles's tragedies at the time of their presentation were only moderately
successful, far less so than his absurd comedy, "The Hunchback"; and
several poetic dramas by other writers fared worse. Thomas Wade's "Woman's
Love," based on the Patient Griselda story, obtained a hearing in 1808, but
his Marlowesque "Jew of Aragon" was hooted off the stage in 1830. But
Procter's "Mirandola" was acted sixteen times in 1821, and Miss Mitford's
"Rienzi" (1828) and Byron's "Werner" (1830) gained veritable triumphs.
For about a decade longer poetic tragedy continued to contend for the
theatre. Its main hope lay in Macready, and its hey-day was during his two
periods of management of Drury Lane, 1837-39 and 1841-42. After the success
of "Werner" ("Marino Faliero" had been earlier produced in 1821),
"Sardanapalus" was brought out by Macready in 1833-34; and "The Two
Foscari" later. Knowles's "Alfred the Great" and his "Bridal," an
adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy," won considerable
success; and "The Pledge," a version of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," in 1831
heralded new support for romantic poetry in the drama. In the years 1836-37
Macready introduced three new writers in the "Ion" of Talfourd, "Strafford"
of Browning, and the "Duchess de la Vallière" of Bulwer-Lytton. Talfourd's
tragedies, including two, "The Athenian Captive" and "Glencoe," later acted
by Macready, are stiff and wooden, contributing little to the drama.
Bulwer-Lytton's later plays, "The Lady of Lyons" (1838) and "Richelieu"
(1839), were extremely successful and surpassed any preceding efforts of
the romanticists to adapt poetry to the stage. "Richelieu" is by no means a
great poem or free from claptrap, but it has the merit of being written to
be spoken and in having its characters designed as parts of the action. The
interest is not in the poetry--it reads much better with the omissions made
for acting--but in the development of the character of the cardinal through
the incidents. The failure of "The Blot on the 'Scutcheon" in 1843 marks
the end of Macready's management and the end of romantic tragedy on the
stage.
Many of these acted plays gained what suitability they had for the stage by
accident rather than design. Milman's "Fazio" was published several years
before it was acted, and his later tragedies were decidedly closet dramas.
Miss Mitford's "Julian" made little impression on the stage, and her other
tragedies, except "Rienzi," still less. Byron's tragedies, which succeeded
largely no doubt because of his reputation, were acted against his wish or
after his death. And the various poetic tragedies that were written at
about the same time as Byron's and Shelley's were mostly composed without
thought of stage presentation. The surpassing genius of the greater poets
has thrown into obscurity the work of these other young men, who in the
decade after Waterloo faced the world with thin volumes of verse. But there
have been few times in our literary history when the Muses have been so
alluring, and Melpomene had her share of devotees. In John Wilson's "City
of the Plague" (1816) a young naval officer wanders about plague-stricken
London, through its bacchanals and horrors, buries his mother, discovers
his betrothed, the ministering angel of the afflicted, and at last finds
rest with her in the terrible crowded churchyard. The poem is grandly
conceived and beautifully written in verse, occasionally Wordsworthian but
without affectation or over-ornament. Two other closet dramatists offer
rather less sincerity and impressiveness of conception but even more of
poetic beauty. "Joseph and his Brethren" (1823), by Charles Wells, for a
time the friend of Keats, was published when the author was twenty-three,
and fifty years later revived and rewritten because of the appreciation of
Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne. Like the plays of Thomas Wade, it shows the
influence of Marlowe in verse and plan. Long drawn out and in the main
undramatic, there is imagination everywhere, especially in the remarkable
scenes that depict the passion-inflamed Phraxanor, Potiphar's wife. Of the
Elizabethans, too, was Beddoes, who studied Webster and Tourneur as well as
Shelley and Keats, and whose verse at times fairly surpasses his masters.
His "Bride's Tragedy" (1821), written when he was nineteen, is a play only
in name, but it is a poem that joins terror and fascination as scarcely
another since Webster and Ford. Here, as in his incompleted dramas and his
"Death's Jest Book," published much later, loveliness masks with madness
and death, and mockery with passion. It seems as if he were lavishing over
strange juxtapositions of beauty and decay all the sensuous fascination of
Keats and the lingering suggestiveness of Shelley's lyrics. One's
admiration for his genius is tempered only by the thought of the greater
things he might have done.
Earlier than these poems was Landor's "Count Julian" (1812), which, like
them, presents qualities suited for the closet and not for the stage. As in
some of the "Imaginary Conversations," Landor takes it for granted that his
audience understands the story and the motives of the actors as well as he
himself. The reader gradually disentangles the situations and is stirred by
the splendid poetry; but no audience could make out what it was all about.
His other poetical tragedies, written a quarter of a century later, show no
improvement of these defects, nor do they present dramatic themes as
interesting or as powerfully conceived as those in "Count Julian."
"Otho the Great," the tragedy which Keats hoped would lift him out of the
mire,[49] was devised for Kean, and apparently accepted for Drury Lane.
Charles Brown furnished him "description of each scene entire, with the
characters to be brought forward, the events, and everything connected with
it"; and Keats merely wrote the verse up to the fifth act, when he took the
entire management into his own hands. The result of this peculiar
collaboration was what might have been expected. The plot and
characterization follow old types; and the poetry, though not lacking in
fine passages, is inferior to nearly everything else that Keats wrote in
his _annus mirabilis_, 1819.
Scott's dramas are somewhat out of place when grouped with these other
closet tragedies, for they are varied in character, representing a number
of the proclivities that we have noticed in the romantic drama.[50] "The
House of Aspen," written in prose at about the time of "Goetz," was
intended for the stage and considered by Kemble for representation. Based
on a German tale and showing the influence of "Goetz," it offers no
important deviations from the terroristic drama. "The Doom of Devorgoil,"
designed for Terry at the Adelphi, is a melodrama with many songs and a
mixture of mimic goblins with supernatural machinery that was found to be
so objectionable as to prevent its performance. It is interesting as one of
the very few cases in which a man of literary reputation undertook to meet
the requirements of the illegitimate drama. None of the other plays, which
are in blank verse, was intended for the stage. "Macduff's Cross" is a mere
sketch in one act; "Halidon Hill" a two-act dramatization of border
warfare; "Auchindrane," in three acts, is a more fully developed tragedy.
"Halidon Hill" has a clearness and directness of characterization and a
vigor of movement which suggest that had the auspices been more favorable,
the historical drama might have had another great exponent. "Auchindrane,"
though retaining a little of the Radcliffian mystery and mystification
which Scott never quite outgrew, also tells its domestic story with a
directness and verisimilitude not usual among the romanticists. German
translation, terroristic tragedy, spectral melodrama, dramatic sketches for
the closet, and domestic tragedy are all illustrated by these six plays;
and their subjects and treatment also reflect the various attachments of
Scott's literary career. They illustrate also the inability of literary
genius to aid the theatre in this period, but they differ from most of the
literary drama in their absence of subjectivity or attachment to theory.
Byron's plays, like other poetical tragedies of the time, were written in
accord with the writer's theories and counter to the prevailing theatrical
practices; but Byron prided himself on departing from the methods of the
Elizabethans or of his fellow romanticists, and on following the guidance
of eighteenth century models. "Marino Faliero," "The Two Foscari," and
"Sardanapalus," all written 1820-21, attempt regularity of plot and
observance of the unities, and profess Alfieri as a model. The two Venetian
plays, however, recall Otway's "Venice Preserved," and their exaggeration
of strange passions is quite in accord with the general practice of the
romanticists. The plots are improbable, though selected from history, and
aloof from general interest, for the resentment of the old doge at the
insult to his wife and the unyielding vengeance of Loredano and, indeed,
all the major passions are treated with an extravagance that becomes
melodramatic and renders the persons all but unintelligible. With
"Sardanapalus" the case is different. The dissolute, luxurious, but
nobly-aspiring hero and his better angel, Myrrha, derive from the
characters of Byron and the Countess Guiccioli a truth of passion that
animates the rapid and spectacular action. A tragedy of palace intrigue,
after the eighteenth century type, is thus reanimated by the romantic
fervor of its passion, philosophy, and poetry. Any time from "The Mourning
Bride" to "Zenobia" it might have triumphed on the stage, and so it did
triumph when finally acted; but it summoned only a tithe of Byron's power.
Quite different from any of these three plays, his "Werner" was obviously
suited to its own day. Based on one of Harriet Lee's novels, it forsakes
classical structure and exhibits all the paraphernalia and emotional
horrors of the terrific drama. It was one of the greatest stage successes
of the romantic drama, but it is no more deserving, either as a play or a
poem, than a dozen of its rivals.
Byron's other dramas depart farther than any of these, not only from
fitness for the stage, but from likeness to any definite dramatic species.
Of the four, however, all of which deal with a world of spirits, "Manfred"
and "Cain" have tragic themes and protagonists. "It was," wrote Byron, "the
Steinbach and the Jungfrau, and something else much more than Faustus that
made me write Manfred." Nature, the ever-recurring theme of the romantic
poets, is here given something akin to dramatic treatment. The impassioned
descriptions create a presence, not one "that disturbs him with the joy of
elevated thoughts," but "the wild comrade of Manfred's antipathy to
men."[51] The mountains become sharers in the hero's tirades, though their
nights' "dim and solitary loveliness" is the only power that curbs his
fierce unrest. "Cain," less lyrical and far more distinct in its
presentation of dramatic conflict, may rightly be claimed by romantic
tragedy for its own. It is not merely Byron's own personality which finds
expression here, but the revolt against convention and creed, so
characteristic of the romantic movement. The demands of the individual man
against society and providence make up the tragic theme. The tragedy of
individual passion, leaping the bounds of history, romance, or actuality,
is here divorced from the theatre, divorced indeed from any semblance to
the models of tragedy; but in its symbolistic and allegorical presentation
of philosophical questionings still keeps close to the essentials of great
dramatic art, the searching of the motives and conflicts of human passion.
Cain is of the brotherhood of Marlowe's Faustus and Shakespeare's Hamlet
and other tragic heroes who chafe against finite limitations, greatly
seeking after knowledge and certainty, and finding the very curiosity of
their discontent the weapon of their own destruction. The theme is an
eternal one in tragedy, but it was left to the romanticists fully to
realize its meaning, and to Byron to give it isolation and grandeur.
Shelley's "Cenci" in a different way mirrors this eternal defeat that human
struggle after justice must encounter. Deeply impressed by the current
tradition about Beatrice Cenci, he made this story of incest and parricide
the expression of his view of life and history as a conflict between
tyranny and downtrodden innocence. Nowhere else in Shelley, not even in
"Prometheus Unbound," does this world drama come out of the clouds and
reveal itself with such clarity and power. There is passion in the persons,
climax in the situations, and directness in the language such as the
romantic drama had rarely shown. The philosophical conception and the
tangle of human motives do not indeed quite harmonize. Beatrice's lie and
her unworthy seeking after life are bits of the story which interfere with
our acceptance of Beatrice the martyr, flaws that Browning would not have
admitted. On the other hand, Shelley's philosophy overrides the story, as
may be seen by a comparison of the tragedy with one of the earliest to show
dawning romanticism. Walpole's "Mysterious Mother," which at this time
Byron was praising as "the last tragedy," treats a more horrible story of
incest with the interest mainly in the plot, holding in suspense the
fearful solution until the end; "The Cenci" begins with the act of incest,
and then tries to carry our interest solely to the two characters, one the
embodiment of all inherited evil, the other, a pure and beautiful spirit
striving madly and in vain to free herself from wrong that is might. The
conquest of the stage, the writing of dramatic blank verse, and the
endowment of this story of crime with representational truth were tasks too
large to be accomplished in a single play; but, though faulty in the
details of dramatic art, "The Cenci" is, for a first tragedy, without an
equal in its mastery of the great essentials of tragic poetry. The poet who
shrank from comedy as from a wicked thing and who thought a story of incest
possible in a London theatre, had much to learn before he could master the
stage. But "The Cenci" reveals the maturing Shelley, who was opening his
mind to new impressions, admiring "Cain" and "Don Juan," profiting from
Æschylus and Calderon as well as Shakespeare, and who was seeing his
allegories clothed in human form, and no longer only in images of mist and
flame. As one reads one wonders,--had the play not been the last as well
as his first tragedy? had it come at the beginning instead of nearly at the
close of the romantic movement?
In "Prometheus Unbound" there is even greater achievement in the
presentation of this world conflict; and there Cain triumphs and Beatrice
is purified. But the achievement is lyrical rather than dramatic, and has
no proper place in the history of tragedy.
In all these tragedies, whether acted or not, and whether works of genius
or not, certain resemblances have been noted. They exhibit most of the
elements that characterize the romantic movement as it stirred English
poetry from the "Lyrical Ballads" to the first publications of Tennyson and
Browning. Without realism in plot or language, and dealing always with what
is unusual, improbable, and removed from the present, they made little
effort to catch the interest of the average audience or to excite an
interest common to ordinary experience. Their reaction against the
frivolity of contemporary melodrama was as decided as their reaction
against eighteenth century conventionality; but both impulses led to
poetry, passion, and Shakespeare, but not to drama. They did not succeed in
working out cause and effect of character through incident; when they
desired to gain stage effectiveness, they merely borrowed from current
melodrama or from the Elizabethans.
Elizabethan influence is usually apparent in the choice of themes, in the
devising of plot and situations, and particularly in the figurative and
ornate phrasing. The revival of some Elizabethan plays on the stage, the
vulgarization in the illegitimate drama of many of their incidents, and the
general interest among readers at this time in the Elizabethan drama, all
encouraged a fondness for madness, incest, battles, villany, and
unrestrained passion of various kinds. In phrasing, the Elizabethan
influence appears in all degrees; in the sympathetic emulation of Keats, in
the amazing reproductions of Beddoes, or in the starched artificiality of
the poetic embellishments of Milman, Knowles, or Procter. In general the
style is redundant and florid. In such plays as were adapted for the stage,
it will almost always be found that the mere curtailing of the figures,
soliloquies, and episodes causes a marked improvement in the dramatic
quality of the dialogue. Byron and Shelley both attempted to free their
dramatic blank verse from conceits and artificialities, and to give it
directness and lack of ornamentation corresponding to natural speech. In
consequence, Byron's blank verse often makes a slovenly approach to prose,
and Shelley's loses something of the beauty of his non-dramatic
masterpieces; but on the whole, "Sardanapalus" and still more "Cain" and
"The Cenci" show their greatness in this as in other respects, in the
dramatic quality of their verse.
Many of the tragedies also exhibit the influence of the school of terror.
The Radcliffian romances, the early German drama, and the spectral
melodrama of the theatres all encouraged castles, dungeons, titans like
Karl Moor, hallucinations, and ghosts. There is something of this in
Beddoes's churchyards; "Bertram" is a full-fledged drama of terror by one
of the masters of the school; Byron's "Werner," itself a dramatization of a
tale of terror, conforms to all the stage requirements of the species.
After the tales of terror had gone out of fashion, the romanticists still
found it easy on the stage to revert to haunted castles, inveterate
villains, and in-dungeoned heroes. But in addition to the continuing
influence of "The Robbers" and the plays of "Monk" Lewis, there was arising
the influence of "Faust" and of Schiller's later plays. "Faust," which
furnished hints for "Manfred" and "The Deformed Transformed," seems to have
been regarded as a "tale of wonder," the story of the sale of a soul to the
devil being a favorite with that class of fiction; but its philosophy
perhaps also had its suggestions for both Byron and Shelley. Schiller's
"Wallenstein," translated by Coleridge, and "Mary Stuart" at least
encouraged the prevailing fondness for historical themes and the study of
passion.
Medievalism continued its sway but with some new developments. The Waverley
novels, the growing cosmopolitanism of literature, the Italian residences
of Byron and Shelley, in fact innumerable causes led to an expansion of the
interest in the Middle Ages into an interest in the past. Literature,
whether in Scott or Keats, was carrying its search for story and ideals,
for picturesqueness and beauty, into past ages and remote climes. The
treatment of history, which had formed no part of the plans of Miss
Baillie, Wordsworth, or Coleridge, now became essential to tragedy; and we
find Byron keeping carefully to the historical sources of his tragedies of
the doges, and Shelley adhering to a narrative of the Cenci murder, which
he deemed authentic, though since proved legendary. Italian history seems
to have exercised a general fascination. Miss Mitford wrote a tragedy on
the Foscari independently of Byron's, as well as her "Rienzi"; and "Fazio"
and "Mirandola" dealt with Italian stories. The choice, however, was mainly
for grandiose historical events, as "Sardanapalus," "Virginius," "Lucius
Junius Brutus," "Richelieu," and Milman's "Fall of Jerusalem." Some of
these attracted by the opportunity to praise liberty, meaning Catholic
emancipation and electoral reform, and the denunciation of tyranny; but
they seem to have been especially welcomed because of their opportunities
for rhetorical fervors.
In nearly all the plays the main interest is not in plot, as in the
eighteenth century, and not primarily in story, as in the Elizabethan
period, but in the delineation of individual passion. "Lear," "Othello,"
"Hamlet," and "Macbeth" are the models; but the passions are more
distempered, more isolated, more abstracted from reason or sense than in
Shakespeare. As in the Restoration and the eighteenth century, the
influence of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans is most unmistakable in the
prominence given to insanity and villany. But this prominence is also a
natural result of the romanticists' prepossession with passion. In tragedy,
they felt that some passions must be very evil and some ruinous; hence
they devoted themselves to a study of malice and madness. Their villains
are more vigorous than those of the eighteenth century, but they, too,
imitate Iago; and the mad scenes always recall either Lear or Ophelia. The
romanticists can realize passion for the moment, or display its variable
moods; but they rarely succeed in making its extended portrayal convincing.
They clung to the idea that the only way to depict passion was to eliminate
all else. Even in the great writers passion absorbs the interest; in the
minor plays it tears itself to tatters. Tragedy after tragedy represents
passions, not conflicting but alternating, until one or the other turns to
madness. As Lewis's prologue declared, Romance "raves away the hours." The
conception of tragedy seems to be the burning up of the soul in passion,
and the poets' main concern to describe the conflagration. The romanticists
needed Lyttleton's advice, to read Shakespeare, but to study Racine.
The conception of tragedy that requires the expression of passion working
in individual men, and seeks in history or legend for examples of isolated
effects of the great emotions, clearly involves something different from a
veracious representation of life as we all see it, and something more than
the confusion of passions run wild. According to contemporary philosophical
criticism, as that of Schiller and Schelling, or that of Coleridge and
Shelley, tragedy should take part in the search for universal truth; not
universal in the eighteenth-century conception of typical characters and
aphoristic generalizations, but universal in the sense that, in the words
of Carlyle, it seeks the "interpretation of the divine idea in the world."
Tragedy should investigate, as Lamb declared, "the grounds of the passion,
its correspondence to a great and heroic nature," and should also seek to
find in the riots of evil or the storms of passion symptoms of the struggle
of Nature to rid itself of disease and fever, the presage of a higher unity
for both man and the universe. Something of this is discernible in
"Remorse" or elsewhere; there is a passionate demand for ethical realities
in "Cain"; but the only positive presentation of an idealistic theory of
tragedy is "The Cenci."
Though tragedy thus reflects the changes working in the ideas and forms of
literature, these changes are, of course, more distinctly indicated
elsewhere. If we had no knowledge of other literature, and only tragedy to
judge from, we could not clearly discern the far-reaching changes wrought
by the romantic revival. Tragedy from 1800 to 1830 could be described as
marking a return to the Elizabethans and Shakespeare, an absorption in the
depiction of passion, a revival of poetic imagination in expression, an
appeal to terror rather than to pity, and to the strange and mysterious
rather than the reasonable; but it could not be said that the summation of
these changes resulted in an extensive or enduring development.
It is not easy to find a stopping-place for a history of English tragedy.
In the case of the acted drama the close of Macready's management offers a
definite end, for the ensuing twenty-five years are nearly a blank as far
as acted tragedy is concerned. In the case of the unacted drama, however,
there is no point of marked change. The deaths of Scott and Goethe mark a
stage in European literature; and the Victorian era introduces new poets
and novelists, new social and political conditions, and a new foreign
influence in the French romanticists. But the closet dramas after 1830 are
in many ways closely related to those of the generation before. Closet
tragedy in the plays of Browning, Sir Henry Taylor, Matthew Arnold,
Swinburne, and others, was largely the outcome of the theatrical and
literary conditions which we have been tracing. Separated from the theatre,
it offers, one must fear, little that is vital in the development of the
drama, however impressive it may be as poetry. The appearance of new
semi-dramatic species was a natural accompaniment of the continued
departure of drama from the stage. Miss Mitford and Bulwer-Lytton had
written "dramatic scenes." Later Landor's genius found its truest
opportunity not in poetic plays, but in prose imaginary conversations, at
their best splendidly dramatic. Browning turned from the theatre to
dramatic lyrics, romances, and monologues. In fact, in the work of all the
romantic dramatists, including Browning and Swinburne, dramatic power
reveals itself in scenes and passages rather than in whole plays. Tragedy
as a literary form, it may be repeated, is dependent for its life upon the
theatre. Removed from the theatre, its integrity is gone, it develops
strange and varied forms. Instead of tragedy, we have "My Last Duchess,"
"The Ring and the Book," and the Mary Stuart trilogy.
It is this separation from the theatre that seems to have been the main
cause for the failure of the romantic movement in tragedy. We may, to be
sure, find other causes in plenty. The genius of its great poets was
lyrical rather than dramatic. Lyrical and narrative poetry and, above all,
the novel absorbed both public interest and imaginative genius. Again,
there was no free play for a revolution in tragedy, because there had been
no tyranny. Classicism had never dominated the drama as in other European
nations. In English tragedy of the eighteenth century, blank verse, however
tainted by affectation, had kept the Elizabethan fondness for figure;
structure, though following after French models, had maintained the
traditions of English freedom; the subjects had kept open a wide range and
had not neglected the medieval field; and sentiment, if not passion, had
reigned. While the German and French romanticists found in Shakespeare an
incentive to something new, the English romanticists could only elevate to
omnipotence one who had long been the idol of the theatres. He was for them
no innovator, but rather the unrecognized tyrant who held them back from
real innovation. As Beddoes recognized in theory though not in practice,
"the man who is to awaken the drama must be a bold tramping fellow,--no
reviver, even however good."
But if we still ask why Coleridge or Beddoes should not have written
tragedy as well as Schiller or Victor Hugo, why the tragedy of passion,
revolt, and idealism, applied to history or legend, did not flourish in the
time of the French Revolution and Napoleon, of Kemble and Kean, of Byron
and Browning, the best answer must be found in the fact that theatrical
conditions offered no encouragement to tragic drama, but almost forbade a
serious attempt to learn the ways of the theatre or to deal in its debased
wares.
If theatrical conditions had been favorable, if the union of Macready and
Browning could have continued, one fancies that the romantic drama might
yet have succeeded. The chronicle of English tragedy finds its climax in
the first act, with Shakespeare as its protagonist; henceforth, directed by
his ghost, its action goes haltingly, vainly awaiting another climax and
another protagonist. In Browning, it was, perhaps, nearer than ever before
to finding both. Since the Restoration, no poet had come to the theatre so
gifted with dramatic genius, no poet so concerned with the study of the
vicissitudes of human motive, so alive to the dramatic values of crucial
moments, so curious as to the meaning of passion and pain, suffering and
evil, in the drama of life. "Strafford" and "A Blot on the 'Scutcheon" have
the weaknesses of youth and experiment, but they are the plays of a pioneer
who is not content with returning to the Elizabethans or the Greeks, but is
seeking to convey through his stories and persons the truth that is in him.
The study of Strafford is almost the first independent and acute study of
an Englishman of history in all the historical tragedies since "Henry V";
"A Blot on the 'Scutcheon" one of the few plays to realize individual
passions since Otway. And the dramatic defects--the failure to meet his
audience half-way, the awkwardness and garrulity of expression, the lack of
repression in form, while defects that continue in Browning's later
poetry--are the very faults for which a severe apprenticeship to the
theatre might have been the best discipline. An apprenticeship such as
Shakespeare served might have turned Browning's monologues and lyrics into
dramas; but the age was incapable of furnishing such a training, and the
fiasco with Macready was the end of the period and the defeat of the
poetical drama.
What comes after in the nineteenth century may best be left to the future
historian, who will be able to interpret its plays in the light of a
succeeding development. The plays of Tennyson, reverting again to
Shakespeare, and the poems of Swinburne may, after all, be the forerunners
of a new revival of poetical tragedy. Or the great development in technic
that has proceeded, first under the guidance of the French dramatists, and
then of Ibsen, and the serious essays of dramatists of the passing
generation may be the pioneers of a national drama of first-rate importance
in the generation to come. Certainly Ibsen, with his revolution in both the
content and the form of the tragic drama, has been the great force in later
nineteenth century tragedy. His work as it affects England and America,
however neglected, postponed, or modified, must be the text of a
succeeding chapter on English tragedy, which cannot yet be written.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Genest's _Account of the English Stage_ stops at 1830. A continuation of
this work down to the present time is much to be desired. There is no
thorough history or bibliography of the drama of this period. In addition
to the histories of the theatre already mentioned, W. C. Oulton's _History
of the Theatres of London_, 1795-1817, may be consulted. Memoirs of the
Kembles are useful for this period, and also Macready's _Reminiscences_,
ed. Sir F. Pollock (1875), Moore's _Life of Sheridan_ (1825), Molloy's
_Life of Edmund Kean_ (1888), William Archer's admirable life of Macready
(_Eminent Actors Series_), are all valuable. _Random Recollections_ by
Colman the younger, and memoirs of Kelly, O'Keefe, and Reynolds supply
information in regard to the theatre and illegitimate drama. John
Cumberland's collections, _British Theatre_ (41 vols., 1829) and the _Minor
Theatre_ (15 vols.), are printed from acting copies, and the second
comprises many illegitimate plays.
Dramatic criticism of the period includes Coleridge (see criticism of
Maturin's _Bertram_ in _Biographia Literaria_), Hazlitt, _A View of the
English Stage_ (1818); Leigh Hunt, _Critical Essays on the Performers of
the London Theatres_ (1807) (selections from same, ed. W. Archer and R. W.
Lowe, 1894); Lamb (see _Lamb's Dramatic Essays_, ed. Brander Matthews,
1893). See, also, R. H. Horne's _New Spirit of the Age_ (1844), containing
criticism of Knowles, Macready, Bulwer-Lytton, and Browning.
The dramatic work of the chief poets has been studied in connection with
their other poetry by many editors and critics, but rarely in its relation
to the drama of the period. Professor Beers's two volumes, _English
Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_ (1899), and _English Romanticism in
the Nineteenth Century_ (1901), deal with the German influence; C. H.
Herford has an excellent though brief account of the drama of the period in
his _Age of Wordsworth_; Watson Nicholson's _The Struggle for a Free Stage
in London_ (1906) is full and valuable. Ernest Bates's monograph on _The
Cenci_ (1908) discusses that tragedy and its relations to contemporary
drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] See _The Haunted Tower_, an opera (1789), acted eighty times in two
seasons.
[46] Its borrowings are noted by Genest, viii, 603. The scene is quoted in
Archer's _Life of Macready_ (Eminent Actors Series), p. 40.
[47] _The Fall of Robespierre_ (1794), by Southey and Coleridge, and
Southey's _Wat Tyler_ (1817), written in 1794, hardly require even mention
as tragedies.
[48] In this and the two following paragraphs the bracketed dates are those
of the first performances in London. Some of the plays were first acted
elsewhere.
[49] "I mean the mire of a bad reputation which is continually rising
against me. My name with the literary fashionables is vulgar. I am a
weaver-boy to them. A tragedy would lift me out of this mess." Letter to
his sister, December, 1819.
[50] The translation of Goethe's _Goetz von Berlichingen_ (1799), _The
House of Aspen_ (1830), _Halidon Hill_ (1822), _Macduff's Cross_ (1823),
_The Doom of Devorgoil_ (1830), _Auchindrane_ (1830).
[51] Herford, _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 227.
CHAPTER XI
CONCLUSION
The questions with which the first chapter began should now have found
their answers. The plays considered in our historical sketch have many
common characteristics, they do separate themselves from other plays of
their periods, they are connected from one period to another in a
continuous development. English tragedies constitute a dramatic type, a
literary form. This type has, to be sure, permitted many
variations,--revenge tragedy, chronicle play, tragicomedy, domestic
tragedy, sentimental tragedy, heroic play, or the closet tragedy of the
romanticists--but every one of these species has had its connections with
others, and in every period the tragedies of varying kinds have been
related not only to one another but to those that have gone before. With
changing theatrical conditions, with new literary impulses, with new views
of the old traditions, with new influences from Spain or France or Germany,
the type has taken new characteristics or made new alliances, but has never
lost its integrity. At any time during the three centuries it would have
been possible to frame a definition of tragedy that would include over nine
tenths of the tragedies of the period, and the other tenth would offer only
definable variations. However strong the foreign influences, tragedy has
maintained the national tradition; however great the innovations, it has
never broken with the past. From Marlowe to Shelley there has been an
unbroken continuity in themes, stories, types of persons, nature of
emotional appeal, structure, and even in the blank verse.
So marked is the integrity and continuity of the type that tragedy lends
itself, better perhaps than most other forms, to the biological analogy.
The processes which we have been tracing are evolutionary. Whether we
consider the main type or its varying forms, we are reminded constantly of
the laws governing the origin and development of natural species. The
history of the Elizabethan drama in particular affords an example of the
origin, development, culmination, and degeneration of a literary species,
which might be analyzed closely as Brunetière has analyzed French tragedy
of the seventeenth century. Created from a cross-fertilization of Seneca on
the medieval drama, it appears in dubious forms of morality and chronicle,
springs into full integrity in Marlowe, reaches its culmination in
Shakespeare, and degenerates under the changed environment of the social
and theatrical conditions that followed the death of Elizabeth. But the
analogy is not less applicable to the whole history of tragedy. The slow
development of variations and new species under changing environment is
found in every period, as in the formation and growth of the revenge play
or in the development of the sentimental tragedy of the eighteenth century.
The quick formation of species by mutation also has its parallels, as in
the sudden appearance of Marlowe or of the heroic tragedy bred from the
Beaumont-Fletcher play and French romance. In the persistence of the stage
villain through all forms and periods, we might even discover one of
Mendel's unit characters. The reversion to an earlier form appears in the
return of Lee or of the Romanticists to the Elizabethans. And the tendency
of individual plays to regress to the main type has been a constant and on
the whole perhaps the most potent force of the development.
We may find the nature of the literary species determined by constant
principles corresponding to environment and heredity in the evolution of
natural species. Environment as a factor in literature has long been
recognized by criticism, and has been apparent in every play that we have
examined. Each period has been distinguished by theatrical, social, and
literary conditions peculiar to itself and constituting the
change-producing environment of the drama. Tragedy has at every stage
responded to these changing conditions. And the law of heredity is also
paralleled. No play has been without its inheritance. The most original, as
Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Otway's "Orphan," Lillo's "Barnwell," and Shelley's
"Cenci," have shown their indebtedness no less clearly, if less slavishly,
than the more commonplace individuals. The classical tradition transformed
the English breed as the Arabian stock has the racing-horse; the French
influence changed the very anatomy of the species. Our study must surely
have called attention to the extraordinary force that imitation has
exercised in the creation of tragedy. It seems, indeed, the generating
power. Men are forever imitating, but they cannot imitate without change.
In these changes, the variations due to environment--personal, theatrical,
literary, social--arise the individual peculiarities, the beginnings of new
species, the element of growth. The great mass of tragedies, however,
differentiate themselves only feebly or slightly from the type. They are
imitations that preserve all the essential characteristics of their
originals. Some ideas, some plays, some traditions, have an astonishing
fecundity; other stocks, procreative for a while, soon turn barren. But,
destroy the faculty of imitation, and the generation of literary forms
would seem wellnigh impossible.
Thus far, perhaps, the biological analogy may be pressed, if we remember
that it is only an analogy. The evolution of a wagon or a battleship might
offer an equally suggestive and an equally unsafe comparison. No one should
be deceived by the analogy into thinking that what we call environment and
heredity in literary species correspond in fact with their namesakes in the
physical world. One play does not create another. It, along with countless
other things, suggests ideas and impressions which are made into a play by
the author. Each tragedy is the child of a mind, whose creative processes
have little real resemblance to physical generation. To call the influence
of "Hamlet" heredity, and the influence of the author's newspaper reading,
or of his family, or his political beliefs, environment, is merely to
assign arbitrary names. Again, art, unlike nature, is careless of the type
and careful of the individual. A single play may live longer and have
greater generating power than a whole species. "Othello" during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has, perhaps, had more influence upon
English tragedy than all non-Shakespearean tragedies together. Sophocles is
still germinating. It is as if we now had the venerable chief of the
mastodons, surviving many of the species he had originated, and still
creating his offspring to confuse the evolutions of the many other species
he had already aided in forming. In literature we are attempting to trace
the development of species, of which individuals live forever; to
discriminate the agents in a complex creative process which we do not at
all understand; to call one play the child of another when it is more truly
the kaleidoscopic aggregate of much reading, much observation, much
experience shaken into a new form by the author's creative imagination.
Literary criticism may borrow from the natural sciences the evolutionary
conception and some of its accompaniments; in particular, the demarcation
of literary forms by the persistence of certain characteristics through
changing conditions of nation or period, and the recognition of imitation
as an important element in the creative process. It would seem, however,
that further progress in the classification and explanation of literary
phenomena is not to be gained by searching for additional analogies, but in
the study and analysis of the phenomena themselves in the effort to
discover the principles and laws of the mental processes peculiar to
literature.
We may put the case, then, without further reliance on the evolution of
physical species. For three hundred years Englishmen have been writing
tragedies, all much alike, all related in origin, nature, and purpose. In
our study of their relationships, the influences governing their creation
have been grouped in two main classes: first, that of the theatre itself,
and second, that which has been called the literary tradition. In the
theatre has been included the influence of actors and audience and all
pertaining to the theatrical presentation. Changes in the mere stage and
its appurtenances have been factors determining the very nature of tragedy.
The scenery and women actors of the Restoration compelled important
modifications in the drama; the large theatres of Kemble's day drove
tragedy from the stage and encouraged a pantomime hybrid. The influence of
theatrical fashions and traditions, always in part changing and transitory,
has been felt in every variation, advance, or retrogression of the acted
drama. Yet it is the influence of the theatre that has maintained the
integrity of form and has thus been the main force in preserving the
species. The literary tradition, even more complex in its elements than
that of the theatre, altering and cumulative, composed of classical or
French as well as English masterpieces, drawn from the novel or other forms
as well as the drama, affected by all social movements, passing through
such transformations as those of the classical and the romantic periods,
has nevertheless, on the whole, conserved the form and content of tragedy.
During the periods that we have examined, blank verse, illustrious persons,
the pomp of courts, the great passions of revenge, ambition, jealousy,
lust, love, and hate, hideous crimes, and the conflict of potent wills have
been the usual accompaniments of the actions of suffering and ruin. There
has been only occasional departure from the Shakespearean conception of
tragedy as representation of great personalities engaged in disastrous
conflict. Shakespeare, in fact, at least since Dryden's "All for Love," has
been a constant and often the dominating element in this complex and
variable literary tradition. The two classes of influence, theatrical and
literary, have thus proved both variable and conserving. The theatre, while
crying for novelty, holds tenaciously to its traditions. Literature, while
enforcing rules, precedents, prejudices, while clinging to its models and
demanding imitation, yet incites to rivalry and originality, to new
endeavor, variation, and excellence.
These two main classes of influence have rarely if ever run parallel. At
times the theatre has attracted literature, as in the Elizabethan era, at
times it has repelled literature, as in the early nineteenth century.
Usually, what the stage of the day desires and what the literature of the
past encourages have been quite different and often irreconcilable. In our
study we have consequently had to keep in mind not only two main lines of
influence, but two points of view and two standards of judgment. It is the
purpose of dramatic art to bring about their reconciliation, to harmonize
the technic of the theatre, the necessities of the drama, and the standards
of literary excellence. Our history records no attainment of such an ideal;
rather the two antinomies seem farther from final unity in the time of
Byron than in that of Shakespeare. Yet, through the discarding of temporary
fashions, the growing knowledge of structure, and the multiplication of
theatrical means, the material and experience necessary for further
progress have at least been accumulating. Perhaps a survey of the drama of
the last century on the continent would result in a more sanguine view of
the development of the principles of dramatic art freed from the
temporalities of theatrical fashion. There is probability in Professor
Brander Matthews's suggestion that in our growing cosmopolitanism national
divergencies in content will exist with a growing agreement in form. We may
hope that this will be merely an agreement in making quick trial of new
ideas, from whatever theatre derived, and that the principles of art
established will not, as so often in the past, prove pedantic and
hampering. This much seems fairly certain,--literary genius and theatrical
experience must unite in order to produce great tragedy. From the theatre
the writer must learn dramatic art, the first rule of which is to win his
audience; from literature he must learn the elements that will give his
work lasting value. Only after an experience with the theatre can he
venture on innovations likely to be permanent. Only if he have literary
genius will he depart in triumph from literary traditions. The double
mastery comes to one only rarely, and then only after a double service.
The relationships of tragedy, however, are not confined to the theatre or
to literature. That tragedy, like other forms of literature, is an
imitation of life, is a platitude whose meaning sometimes fails to impress
us. But its truth has a witness in every writer of tragedy. However
insignificant or thoughtless, he has been trying to put into his play
something of life as he knows it, trying to find some relationships in the
world of fact that will carry meaning and interest to his fellows. Whether
he has been writing mainly to meet the desires of actors and audience, or
has been voyaging alone toward some discovery of beauty and grandeur of
human passion, whether he has been building his house of intrigue according
to well-conned rules of dramatic structure, or has been copying some tangle
of fact, he has been studying the ways and means of human actions.
Trivially or greatly, as the case may be, he has been seeking to interpret
life. Classicist, romanticist, and realist have been by different processes
seeking the same end, the discovery of meaning in the facts of existence.
They have all viewed the Art that they have so differently formulated, as a
means of approach to Nature, the deity whom they all profess. Neither high
seriousness, nor sublime theme, nor a complete philosophy is a necessary
accompaniment of Matthew Arnold's definition. Whether the poet write of
"the tangles of Neæra's hair" or of that disobedience that first "brought
death into the world," he is attempting a criticism of life. This
definition does not state the primary aim of literature, for it must first
of all interest us, or its sole function, for it seeks beauty as well as
truth and cannot always unite them; but it does indicate the most permanent
and vitalizing element in the creation of literature, the most organic
relationship that connects its many manifestations.
The greatness of tragedy depends upon its allegiance to this meaning of
literature. The dramatic form gives opportunity for a close approach to the
semblance of actuality. The very subjects of tragedy, suffering and
disaster, discourage the seeking of mere amusement or a contentment with
mere beauty of expression. They require, if not high seriousness or a
teleology, at least a concern with the most interesting, inescapable, and
dreadful of human facts. This baleful portion of human existence is the
field of tragedy's research, where it may find grandeur and violence,
malevolence and magnanimity, optimism or pessimism, harmony or anarchy, but
where it can only with difficulty escape a serious attempt at the study of
character and deed. No other literary form has so nobly responded to this
great mission as that adopted by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Calderon,
Corneille, and Ibsen. It has constrained drama and literature to their duty
of research, interpretation, discovery in the almost impenetrable maze of
human fact, by the very nature of its chosen field, by the preëminence of
its great examples, and even by the continued endeavor of its humblest
servants. As one reads through these forgotten tragedies, as when one
scans closely any large field of human effort, the main impression is one
of futility. Beauty is not attained, life is not revealed, everything is
imitative, feeble, and absurd. Yet, even among those hundreds of eighteenth
century tragedies, with their rhyming tags that neatly sum up their
authors' generalizations on life, one may find reason for sympathy and
interest. They record what had meaning for their day, the heroisms,
sentiments, and morals that somehow stirred men's hearts and elevated their
resolves. They represent some degree of temporary success in giving
relations and significance to their world. The lastingly significant
representation of life is found not in the many but in the few, but the
mediocrities and the failures continue the effort and maintain the form
that make possible the few masterpieces. The very greatest set no
impassable bound, for the ever-widening expanse of tragic fact continually
invites new explorers. Progress can come not by resting admiringly on the
greatness of the past, but only through a free opportunity for new pioneers
and discoverers. Were the achievement of English tragedy far less than it
has been, the very expenditure of effort should give it some interest for
study. Its history, however, includes in Shakespeare's tragedies a few of
the unapproached achievements of the human mind, many other plays that for
a while greatly interested and persuaded men, not a few that still have
searching meaning for us, and hundreds more that have maintained an
unselfish, a social, a moral inquiry into life, and that, while perishing
themselves, have aided others to live. In such a history, even he who runs
may read a record of human endeavor not alien to his interest.
Tragedy takes an abiding place among the great courses of continuous human
activity dedicated to an inquiry into the meanings of life. Its imaginative
and intellectual study of suffering and ruin must continue, however its
form may alter, if the theatre is to be a social force of importance, if
literature is to offer an intelligent, serious, and comprehensive view of
life, if the two are to unite in something better than a trivial and
selfish entertainment. Its methods may not commend themselves in an age of
physical and mechanical sciences, its aim may not commend itself at a time
when splendid discoveries in the physical world blur the importance of an
interpretation of moral and social relations. But tragedy has survived many
ages and creeds, and seems likely to survive as long as men try to
understand other men, to sympathize with their troubles, and to relate
these somehow to their own beliefs and ideals. In the future as in the
past, when a nation or community is at a period of culminating advance,
when society is most mindful of its greatness and its obligations, tragedy
should find its most helpful encouragement and its greatest opportunity.
INDEX
The Index contains the titles of works, the names of authors, and the names
of a few actors referred to in the text or footnotes. The Bibliographical
Notes are not indexed. Alterations of plays are not indexed separately
unless they have separate titles. References of importance are indicated by
heavy-faced figures.
_Abraham_, 56.
_Absalon_, 39.
Addison, Joseph, 250, 289-291, 302, 307.
_Adriana_, 127.
Æschylus, 13, 354.
_Agamemnon_ (by Thomson), 299, 300.
_Agamemnon and Ulysses_, 70 n.
_Ajax and Ulysses_, 70 n.
_Ajax Flagellifer_, 58.
_Alcazar, The Battle of_, 108, 111, 115, 221.
_Alcibiades_, 269.
Alexander, W., 142.
_Alfred the Great_, 346.
Alleyn, Edward, 98.
_All for Love_, 25, 260, 261, 263, 264, 277, 282, 293, 372.
_All's Lost by Lust_, 218.
_Almida_, 295 n.
_Alphonsus of Aragon_, 107.
_Alzira_, 295 n., 304.
_Alzuma_, 295 n.
_Ambitious Stepmother, The_, 283.
_Amboyna_, 259.
_Amelia_, 321.
Andrews, P. M., 332.
_Andromaque_, 290.
_Antigone_, 195.
_Antonio_, 343.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, ~175-177~, 178, 184, 185, 189, 195, 261,
293, 297 n.
_Antonio and Mellida_ (see _Antonio's Revenge_), 139, 146.
_Antonio's Revenge_, 146, ~147-149.~
_Apology for Poetry_, 44, 72.
_Appius and Virginia_, 51, 62 n., ~63~, ~64~, 66, 69, 71.
Archer, Wm., 203 n., 335 n.
_Archipropheta_, 39.
_Arden of Feversham_, 109, 110, 113, 140;
(adaptation by Lillo), 315, 316.
_Argalus and Parthenia_, 234.
_Ariodante and Genevra_, 70 n.
Aristotle, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 25, 43, 44, 165, 248.
Arnold, Matthew, 361, 374.
_Ars Poetica_, 34, 43.
Ascham, Roger, 32, 39.
Asinari, Frederigo, 56.
_Atheist's Tragedy, The_, 151, ~153~, ~154~, 201, 202.
_Athelwold_, 304.
_Athenian Captive, The_, 346.
_Auchindrane_, 349 n., 350.
_Aureng Zebe_, 260, 282, 297 n.
Bacon, Lord, 79.
Baillie, Joanna, ~339-341~, 343, 357.
Bale, John, 39, 40, 41.
Banks, John, 273, 277, 282, 308 n.
_Baptistes_, 37.
_Barbarossa_, 308 n.
_Barnavelt, Tragedy of Sir John van Olden_, 214.
_Bartholomew Fair_, 144.
_Bashful Lover, The_, 222.
_Basil_, 339.
_Battle of Hexham, The_, 332, 333.
Beaumont and Fletcher (see, also, Beaumont, Francis, and Fletcher, John), 136,
179, 197, 199, 202, ~203-211~, 229, 232, 238, 240, 249, 251, 255, 257,
262, 265, 270, 277, 282, 322, 346, 368.
Beaumont, Francis (see Beaumont and Fletcher), 198, 204, 211.
Beddoes, T. L., 348, 356, 357, 362.
Behn, Mrs. Afra, 266, 274.
_Believe as You List_, 221, 224.
Belleforest, 104.
_Berenice_, 269.
_Bertram_, 344, 357.
Betterton, T., 245, 252, 266.
Beza, T. de, 56.
_Blacksmith's Daughter, The_, 71.
_Bloody Brother, The, or Rollo, Duke of Normandy_, ~214-216~, 252,
282.
_Blot on the 'Scutcheon, The_, 346, 363, 364.
Boaden, J., 332.
Boccaccio, 32, 55, 56, 239.
_Bondman, The_, 322 n.
_Bonduca_, ~213~, 252, 282, 322 n.
_Borderers, The_, 341.
_Bothwell_, 14.
_Braganza_, 322.
Brandl, Alois, 55 n.
_Bridal, The_, 346.
_Bride's Tragedy, The_, 348.
_Broken Heart, The_, 227, ~228~.
Brooke, Arthur, 127, 129, 133.
Brooke, H., 295.
_Brothers, The_, 298.
Brown, Charles, 349.
Brown, John, 306, 308 n.
Browning, Robert, 14, 129, 182, 222, 346, 354, 355, 361, 363, 364.
Brunetière, Ferdinand, 6, 367.
_Brutus_, 295 n.;
(by John Howard Payne), 344.
_Brutus of Alba_, 246.
Buchanan, George, 37, 56.
Bulwer-Lytton, 345, 346, 361.
Burgoyne, Gen., 318 n.
_Burning of Sodom, The_, 40.
Burns, Robert, 324.
_Busiris_, 297 n., 298.
_Bussy D'Ambois, The Death of_, 144, 252;
_The Revenge of_, 144.
Byron, Lord, 182, 338, 345, 347, ~350-353~, 354, 356-358, 363, 373.
_Byron, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of_, 144.
_Caelia, or the Perjured Lover_, 318.
_Cæsar and Pompey_, 70 n.
_Cæsar Borgia_, 267.
_Cain_, 339, 352, 354, 356, 360.
_Caius Gracchus_, 344.
_Caius Marius, History and Fall of_, 269, 292.
Calderon, 13, 354, 375.
_Caleb Williams_, 333.
_Caligula_, 266.
Calprenède, 247.
_Cambyses_, 52, 62, ~66~, ~67~, 69, 74, ~172~, 237.
Campbell, Thomas, 341.
Canfield, Dorothea, 290 n.
Capell, Edward, 293.
_Caractacus_, 297.
_Cardenio_, 211.
_Cardinal, The_, 233, 252.
_Careless Husband, The_, 317.
Carey, H., 314 n.
Carlell, L., 235.
Carlyle, T., 360.
_Carmelite, The_, 323.
_Castle of Otranto, The_, 322, 330.
_Castle Spectre, The_, 323, 329.
_Catiline_, ~141-144~, 297 n.
_Catilin's Conspiracy_, 71.
_Cato_, ~290~, ~291~, 297 n.
_Cenci, The_, 353, ~354~, 356, ~361~, ~368~.
Centlivre, Mrs., 266.
Cervantes, 212.
Chambers, E. K., 38.
_Changeling, The_, ~219~.
Chapman, George, 6, 137, 139, ~144-146~, 184, 185, 187, 198, 202, 214,
252.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 31, 32.
Cheke, Sir John, 32.
Chettle, Henry, 139, 151, ~152~, ~153~, 156.
_Christian Hero, The_, 315.
Christopherson, J., 39.
_Christus Redivivus_, 39.
_Christus Triumphans_, 39.
_Chrononhotonthologos_, 314 n.
Churchill, George B., 58 n.
Cibber, Colley, 292, 307, 317.
Cicero, 142.
_Cid, The_, 247.
Cinthio, Giraldi, 56, 86.
_City Madam, The_, 220, 322 n.
_City of the Plague, The_, 347.
_Clarissa Harlowe_, 275, 321.
_Cleomenes_, 262, 273.
_Cléopatre Captive_, 38.
_Cloridon and Radimanta_, 70 n.
Coleridge, S. T., 213 n., 337, 338, ~341~, ~342~, 343, 357, 359,
362.
Collier, Jeremy, 281, 316.
Colman, George, 322 n.
Colman, George (the younger), ~332-334~, 337.
_Complaint of Buckingham, The_, 52.
_Condemnation of John Huss, The_, 40.
_Confidant, The_, 343.
Congreve, Wm., 3, 273, ~275~, 277, 282.
_Conquest of Granada_, 259, 282.
_Conscious Lovers, The_, 317.
_Constantine_, 267.
_Coriolanus_, 175, ~177~, ~178~, 265, 292;
(by Thomson), 299, 301, 302.
Corneille, Pierre, 245, 248, 294, 300, 316, 375.
Corneille, Thomas, 298.
_Cornelia_ (translation of Garnier's), 100 n.
_Countess of Salisbury, The_, 308 n.
_Count Julian_, 348, 349.
_Count of Narbonne, The_ (adaptation of Castle of Otranto), 322.
Crabbe, George, 324, 343.
Cradock, J., 295 n.
Creizenach, W., 56, 69.
_Critic, The_, 314 n.
Crowne, John, 250, 253, 266, 269.
_Cruelty of a Stepmother, The_, 71.
Cumberland, Richard, 285, 306, 319, 320, 323, 344.
_Cupid's Revenge_, 203.
_Curfew, The_, 335, 343.
Cushman, Miss Charlotte, 344.
_Cymbeline_, 179, 265, 292, 297 n.
_Cyrus_, 295 n., 296.
_Cyrus the Great, or the Tragedy of Love_, 273.
_Dalida, La_, see _Roxana_.
_Damon and Pythias_, 51, 58, 62, ~63~.
Daniel, Samuel, 142.
Dante, 31.
Davenant, Sir Wm., 235, 244, 251, 252, 277, 292.
Davenport, R., 235.
_David and Bethsabe_, 110, 111.
_Death's Jest Book_, 348.
_De Casibus Illustrium Virorum et Feminarum_, 32.
Defoe, Daniel, 317.
_Deformed Transformed, The_, 357.
Dekker, Thomas, 198, 224, 227, 240.
_Delivery of Susannah, The_, 40.
_De Montfort_, 339, 340, 343.
Dennis, John, 250, 290, 301.
_Deserted Daughter, The_, 320.
Dibdin, T., 332, 338.
Dickens, Charles, 312.
Dictys Cretensis, 65.
Diderot, D., 317, 318.
_Dido_ (by Dolce), 56;
(by Gager), 59;
(by Ritwyse), 39;
(by unknown), 58.
_Dido, Tragedy of_ (by Marlowe and Nash), 89.
_Distressed Mother, The_, 290, 291, 294.
_Divine Comedy, The_, 31.
Dolce, Lodovico, 54, 56.
_Doll's House, The_, 10.
_Don Carlos_, 269.
_Don Juan_, 354.
Donne, John, 137, 229.
_Don Quixote_, 333.
_Don Sebastian_, 262, 263, 278, 335.
_Doom of Devorgoil, The_, 349.
_Dorval, or the Test of Virtue_ (translated from Le Fils Naturel), 318 n.
_Double Marriage, The_, 214.
_Douglas_, 305.
_Downfall and Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, The_, 139.
Downman, H., 344.
Drayton, M., 99.
Dryden, John, 145, 208, 248-251, 253, ~259-263~, 264, 266, 271-274, 277,
278, 281, 282, 293, 328, 331, 335, 372.
_Duchess de la Valière_, 346.
_Duchess of Malfi, The_, ~199~, 200, 202.
_Duke of Guise, The_, 262, 267.
_Duke of Milan, The_, 71 n., 222, 224, 322 n.
_Duke's Mistress, The_, 233.
_Duplicity_, 319, 320.
D'Urfé, Honoré, 239.
D'Urfey, T., 266.
Dyce, Alexander, 215.
_Earl of Essex, The_ (adaptation of the Unhappy Favorite, q. v.), 282.
_Earl of Essex, The_ (by Jones), 308 n.
_Earl of Warwick, The_, 308 n.
_Eccerinis_, 36.
_Edward I_, 85, 111.
_Edward II_, 89, 90, ~92~, ~93~, 94, 95, 97, 108, 109, 113,
114, 132.
_Edward III_, 108, 109, 112, 114.
_Edward and Eleonora_, 299.
Edwards, Richard, 58, 62.
_Effigenia_ (Iphigenia), 71 n., 111.
_Elfrid_, 304.
_Elfrida_, 297.
_Elmerick_, 315.
_Emilia Galotti_, 323.
_English Traveller, The_, 141.
Erasmus, 23.
_Essay of Heroic Plays_, 259.
_Essay on Dramatic Poetry_, 248, 250.
Euripides, 32, 33, 37, 54, 72, 111, 297.
_Evadne_, 344.
_Everyman_, 29.
_Every Man in His Humour_, 137.
_Ezechias_, 58.
Fabyan, R., 70.
_Fair Penitent, The_, ~284-287~, ~297 n.~, 317, 328.
_Fair Quarrel, The_, 219.
_Faithful Shepherdess, The_, 206.
Falkland, Lord, 236.
_Fall of Jerusalem, The_, 358.
_Fall of Robespierre, The_, 341 n.
_Falls of Princes, The_, 32.
_False One, The_, 214.
_Family Picture, A_, 318 n.
_Famous Victories of Henry V, The_, 85.
_Fashionable Lover, The_, 320.
_Fatal Curiosity, The_, 315, 317.
_Fatal Dowry, The_, 224, 285-287, 304, 344.
_Fatal Extravagance_, 318.
_Fatal Falsehood, The_, 306, 311.
_Fatal Marriage, The_, ~274~, 278, 282.
_Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam, The_, 303, 304.
_Fate of Capua, The_, 274.
_Fate of Villany, The_, 309.
_Faulkner_, 343.
_Faust_, 357.
_Faustus_, 89, 90, ~92~, ~98~.
_Fazio_, 344, 358.
Fenton, E., 308 n.
_Ferrex and Porrex._ See _Gorboduc_.
Field, Nathaniel, 224, 285.
Fielding, Henry, 129, 273, 314 n.
_Fils Naturel, Le_, 318.
Fleay, F. G., 58 n., 63, 118, 155.
Fletcher, John (see, also, Beaumont and Fletcher), 6, 177, 198, 199, ~211-216~,
219-221, 224-226, 229, 230-232, 234, 238, 246, 255, 256, 261, 262,
270, 274, 284.
Foote, S., 314 n.
Ford, John, 199, 225, ~226-229~, 234, 237, 240, 256, 348.
_Four Plays in One_, 203.
_Four Sons of Fabius_, 71 n.
Foxe, John, 39.
Francklin, T., 308 n.
Fuller, Harold De W., 114 n., 127 n.
_Funeral, The_, 297 n.
Gager, Wm., 59, 111.
_Gamester, The_, 318, 321, 324.
_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, 39.
Gardiner, Bishop, 39.
Garrick, David, 292, 293.
Gascoigne, George, 54.
Gay, John, 307, 314 n.
Genest, J., 335 n.
_George Barnwell, or the London Merchant_, ~314-318~, 321, 324, 368.
_Ghosts_, 18, 195.
Gifford, Wm., 285.
_Gil Blas_, 300.
Gildon, Charles, 250.
_Giocasta_, 54.
_Gismund of Salerne._ See _Tancred and Gismunda._
Glapthorne, Henry, 234, 237, 251.
_Glencoe_, 346.
_Gloriana_, 266.
Glover R., 306.
_God's Promises_, 41.
Godwin, Wm., 341, 343.
Goethe, 327, 349 n., 361.
_Goetz von Berlichingen_, 349.
Goffe, Thomas, 236.
_Gorboduc_, 22, 26, 38, ~40-42~, ~48~, ~51~, ~52-54~,
55 n., 57, 68, 73.
Gosson, S., 71, 72, 113, 145.
Grafton, Richard, 70.
Granville, Earl of, 277.
Gray, Thomas, 297.
_Grecian Daughter, The_, 308 n.
Greene, Robert, 86, 107, 108, 111, 115, 130, 133.
Greville, Fulke, 142.
Grimald, Nicholas, 39.
Groto, Luigi, 59, 127.
_Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, The_, 261.
Guarini, G. B., 206.
_Halidon Hill_, 349 n., 350.
Hall, Bishop, 137.
_Hamblet, Historie of_, 104.
_Hamlet_ (the early), 100 n., ~104~, ~105~, 147, 148, 152, 156.
_Hamlet_, 100, 102, 105, 124, 144, 148, 150, 151, 154, ~155-162~,
163-165, 169, 171, 173, 175, 184-186, 195, 199, 239, 265, 282, 297 n., 358,
368, 369.
_Hamlet, Revenge of_, 150.
Harding, Samuel, 236.
Hartson, H., 308 n.
_Haunted Tower, The_, 329 n.
Hauptmann, G., 12.
Hazlitt, Wm., 340, 345.
_Hecatommithi_, 86.
_Hedda Gabler_, 12.
Hegel, G. W. F., ~9.~
_Heiress, The_, 318 n.
Heming, Wm., 235.
_Henry IV_, 265.
_Henry V_ (by Aaron Hill), 304;
(by Shakespeare), 137, 364;
(by the Earl of Orrery), 253, 257.
_Henry VI_, 89, 108, 114, ~115~, ~116~, 118, 297 n.
_Henry VIII_, 211, 282.
_Hercules Furens_, 119 n.
Herford, C. H., 352 n.
_Hernani_, 346.
_Herodes_, 59.
_Heroine of the Cave, The_, 310.
Heywood, Jasper, 42.
Heywood, Thomas, 139, ~140~, ~141~, 142, 198, 272, 289.
Hill, Aaron, 295, 298, ~303-305~, 318.
_Hoffman_, 151, ~152~, ~153~, 199, 200, 201.
Holcroft, T., 318 n.; 319, 320, 334.
Holinshed, R., 70, 109, 123, 171, 173, 184.
Home, John, 305, 306.
Homer, 192.
Hooker, Richard, 79.
Hoole, J., 295 n., 296, 306.
_Horace_, 294.
_Horestes_, 52, ~64~, 65, 66, 68, 69, ~71~, ~100~.
_House of Aspen, The_, 349.
Howard, Sir Robert, 253, 282.
Hughes, Thomas, 57, 297 n., 308 n.
Hugo, Victor, 337, 346, 363.
_Hunchback, The_, 345.
Ibsen, Henrik, 6, 11, 313, 364, 375.
_Imaginary Conversation, The_, 348.
_Imposter, The_, 295 n.
Inchbald, Mrs., 319.
_Indian Emperor, The_, ~253~, 259, 282, 328.
_Indian Queen, The_, 253, 282, 305.
_Innocent Adultery, The_, 297 n.
_Insolvent, The_, 304.
_Ion_, 346.
_Iron Chest, The_, 332, 333.
_Isabella_, 282.
_Island Princess, The_, 246.
_Island Queens, The_ (by Banks), 273.
_Jack Straw_, 85.
_James IV, Scottish Historie of_, 87.
_Jane Shore_, 283, ~287-289~, 328.
Jephson, Robert, 322.
_Jephthes_ (by Buchanan), ~37~;
(by Christopherson), 39, 56.
_Jeronimo, First Part of_, 100 n.
_Jew, The_ (by Cumberland), 320;
(by Unknown), 71.
_Jew of Aragon, The_, 345.
_Jew of Malta, The_, 89, 90, ~92~, 95, 98, 101, 250, 344.
_Jocasta_, 51, ~54~, 55 n.
Jodelle, E., 38.
_John the Baptist_, 41.
_John Woodvil_, 343.
Johnson, Charles, 318.
Johnson, Samuel, 2, 59, 276, 284, 307, 308.
Jones, Henry, 308 n.
Jonson, Ben, 6, 79, 100, 115, 137, 139, ~141-144~, 146, ~151~,
~152~, 153, 156, 184, 185, 203, 215, 217, 233, 252.
_Joseph and his Brethren_, 339, 347.
_Julia_, 322.
_Julian_, 347.
_Julius Cæsar_, 136, 142, ~154~, ~155~, 161, 163, 173, 175,
177, 186, 282, 292, 297 n., 304.
Kean, Edmund, 299, 331, 332, 334, 349, 363.
Keats, John, 338, 347, 348, ~349~, 356, 357.
Keller, Wolfgang, 58 n.
Kemble, Charles, 393.
Kemble, John P., 291-293, 299, 331, 333, 340, 343, 349, 363, 371.
Kemble, Miss Fanny, 308 n.
Kempe, Wm., 171 n.
Killigrew, T., 235.
_King and No King, A_, ~203-205~, 252, 262, 282, 322 n.
_King John_, 114, ~116~, ~117~, 136;
(by Bale), 41. See _Troublesome Reign._
_King of Scots, The_, 71.
Kinwelmarsh, F., 54.
Kirchmayer, 37.
_Knight of Malta, The_, 322 n.
_Knight of the Burning Bush_, 71 n.
Knowles, Sheridan, 344-346, 356.
Kotzebue, A. F. F. von, 321, 323, ~327~, ~328~, 332, 337.
Kyd, Thomas, his plays, 99-106;
their influence, 106-110, 112-115, 127, 128, 138, 142, 144;
on revenge plays and Shakespeare, 147-155, 156, 158, 165, 184;
on later revenge tragedy, 196, 199, 200, 201, 223, 239;
resemblance to in later plays, 256, 310.
_Lady Jane Grey_, 283, 287.
_Lady of Lyons, The_, 346.
Lamb, Charles, 93, 141, ~343~, 345, 360.
Landor, Walter Savage, 14, 338, ~348~, ~349~, 361.
La Place, Pierre de, 297 n.
_Laws of Candy, The_, 220.
_Lear, King_, 18, 87, 124, 131, 164, ~166-171~, 172, 176, 185, 189,
190, 195, 202, 226, 282, 292, 312, 358.
Lee, Harriet, 352.
Lee, Nathaniel, 246, 250, 251, 253, 261, 262, ~266-269~, 275, 277, 278,
282, 284, 290, 309, 344, 368.
Legge, Thomas, 59, 60, 118.
_Leir, King_, 85, 166.
Lessing, G. E., 318, 327.
Lewis, Matthew, 323, ~328~, ~329~, 342, 343, 357, 359.
Lillo, George, 306, ~314-318~, 319, 321, 368.
Lindsay, Sir David, 41.
Livy, 71.
_Locrine_, 107, 111, 115, 119 n., 152.
Lope de Vega, 239.
Lounsbury, Prof. T., 295 n.
Lovati, Lovato di, 36.
_Love for Love_, 297 n.
_Love's Cruelty_, 232, 233.
_Love's Frailties_, 318 n.
_Love's Sacrifice_, 227.
_Love the Cause and Cure of Grief_, 318.
_Love Triumphant_, 262.
Lowell, James Russell, 118.
_Loyal Brother, The_, 274.
_Loyal Subject, The_, 282.
_Lucius Junius Brutus_, 267, 358.
_Lucrece_, 142.
Lydgate, John, 32.
Lyly, John, 75, 79.
_Lyrical Ballads, The_, 339, 355.
Lyttleton, Lord, 298, 299, 359.
_Macbeth_, 3, 87, 119, 124, 131, ~171-175~, 184-186, 190, 202, 264,
282, 292, 297 n., 312, 358.
_Macduff's Cross_, 349 n., 350.
Machiavelli, 95, 165, 190, 236, 267, 310, 311.
Macready, Wm., 290, 331, 332, 335, ~345~, ~346~, 360, 363, 364.
_Mahomet_, 295 n.
_Maid of Honor, The_, 221, ~222~, ~223~, 224, 225, 322 n.
_Maid's Revenge, The_, 232.
_Maid's Tragedy, The_, 203, 204, ~205-210~, 252, 282, 297 n., 346.
_Malcontent, The_, 146, 199.
Mallet, D., 303.
_Manfred_, 352, 357.
Manley, Mrs., 266.
_Marcella_, 322 n.
_Marcellus and Hannibal_, ~14.~
_Mariamne_, 308 n.
_Marino Faliero_, 345, 351.
Marlowe, Christopher, 6, 42, 48, 55 n., 61, 73, 74, 75;
his relations to his times, 77-84; his tragedies, 88-99;
his influence on his contemporaries, 106-113;
on Shakespeare, 113-126, 132, 133, 138;
on Chapman, 144-146;
on Shakespeare's later tragedy, 154, 155, 165, 166, 169, 172, 184, 185, 187;
on later Elizabethan tragedy, 196, 214, 234, 239;
his plays not acted during Restoration, 252;
survival of his type of villain, 310, 311;
revival of his influence on the Romanticists, 347, 353;
his importance in the development of the species, 367, 368.
_Marriage Night, The_, 236.
Marston, John, 105, 137, 139, 144, ~146-150~, 151, 153, 154, 156, 184,
185, 199, 200, 201, 202, 218, 235.
_Mary Stuart_, 357.
Mason, Wm., 297.
_Massacre of Paris, The_ (by Lee), 267;
(by Marlowe), 89, 144.
Massinger, Philip, 177, 199, 211, 214, 215, ~219-226~, 230, 231, 233-235,
237, 240, 251, 252, 255, 285, 293, 322.
Matthews, Brander, 373.
Maturin, C. R., 344.
May, Thomas, 235.
_Measure for Measure_, 61 n., 169, 235, 264.
_Meleager_, 59.
_Meliboeus_, 40.
_Merchant of Venice, The_, 71.
_Merope_, 295 n., 296, 304.
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, 258, 297 n.
Middleton, Thomas, 3, 137, 199, 215, ~217-219~, 229, 240.
Miller, James, 295.
Milman, H. H., 344, 346, 356, 358.
Milton, John, 14, 260, 264.
_Mirandola_, 345, 358.
_Mirror for Magistrates, The_, 32, 52, 70, 90.
_Mirza_, 236.
_Misfortunes of Arthur, The_, 51, 52, ~57~, ~58~.
_Miss Sara Sampson_, 318.
Mitford, Miss, 345, 347, 358, 361.
_Mithridates_, 267, ~268~, ~269~.
_Monk's Tale, The_, 31, 32.
Moore, Edward, 306, 318.
More, Miss Hannah, 306, 311.
More, Sir Thomas, 118, 119.
Morel, L., 300 n., 302 n.
_Morte D'Arthur, The_, 57.
Morton, T., 335, 338.
_Mountaineers, The_, 332, 333.
_Mourning Bride, The_, 3, ~275~, ~276~, 297 n., 351.
_Much Ado about Nothing_, 162.
_Murderous Michael_, 71.
Murphy, Arthur, 295, 306, 308 n.
Mussato, Albertino, 36.
_Mutius Scævola_, 71 n.
_My Last Duchess_, 362.
_Mysteries of Udolpho_, 330.
_Mysterious Husband, The_, 319.
_Mysterious Mother, The_, 322, 354.
Nash, Thomas, 61, 100 n., 103, 111.
_Nero_ (by Lee), 266, 267.
_Nero, Tragedy of_ (Anon.), 234.
_New Way to Pay Old Debts, A_, 220.
_Nice Wanton, The_, 29.
_Nightwalker, The_, 274.
_Nine Days Wonder, The_, 171 n.
North, Christopher. See Wilson, John.
Norton, Thomas, 52.
_Novellas Exemplares_, 212.
_Octavia_, 33.
_Oedipus_ (by Dryden and Lee), 261, 267;
(by Gager), 59;
(by Sophocles), 18.
_Old Fortunatus_, 139.
O'Neil, Miss, 344.
_Orbecche_, 56.
_Orestes_ (adaptation from ~Voltaire~), 295 n.;
(by Dryden), 263.
_Oroonoko_, 274, 282, 335.
_Orphan, The_, 270, ~271~, 274, ~282~, ~368~.
_Orphan of China, The_, 295 n.
Orrery, Earl of, 253, 257, ~277~.
_Osorio_, 342.
_Othello_, ~162-166~, 169, 170, 171, 185, 194, 226, 265, 282, 292,
297 n., 299, 309, 312, 358, 370.
_Otho the Great_, 349.
Otway, Thomas, 250, 251, 253, ~269-272~, 274, 275, 278, 279, 282, 284,
289, 290, 292, 294, 316, 323, 331, 351, 364, 368.
_Painter's Palace of Pleasure_, 55, 70.
_Palamon and Arcyte_, 58.
_Pamela_, 317.
_Pammachius_, 37, 39, 41.
_Paradise Lost_, 260.
_Paris and Vienna_, 71 n.
_Patient Griselda_, 40, 345.
Payne, John Howard, 344.
Peele, George, 75, 79, 84, ~107~ n., ~108~, ~110-112~, 132,
133, 146.
Pembroke, Countess of, 142.
_Percy_, 306.
_Père de Famille, Le_, 318.
_Perfidus Hetruscus_, 60 n.
_Perkin Warbeck_, 227.
_Pericles_ (adaptation by Lillo), ~315.~
_Persée et Demetrius_, 298.
_Perseus and Andromeda_, 71 n.
Petrarch, 78.
_Phædra_(by Seneca), 56.
_Phædra and Hippolitus_ (Smith's adaptation of Racine), 289, 290.
_Phèdre_, 195.
_Philaster_, 203, 204, 282, 322 n.
Philips, Ambrose, 290.
_Philotas_, 142.
_Phoenissæ_, 54.
Pickering, John, 64.
_Picture, The_, 322 n.
_Pilgrim, The_, 322 n.
Pix, Mrs., 266.
Pixérécourt, René de, 337.
_Pizarro_, 327, 328, 335.
Plautus, 21, 36, 39, 63.
_Plays Confuted_, 72.
_Plays on the Passions_, 339.
_Pledge, The_, 346.
Plutarch, 106, 108, 142, 154, 162, 175.
_Poetics of Aristotle, The_, 8, 31, 43.
_Political Justice_, 341.
_Politician, The_, 232, 233.
Pope, Alexander, 273.
_Pope Joan, or the Female Prelate_, 266.
Preston, Thomas, 66.
_Pride of Life, The_, 29.
_Princess of Cleve, The_, 267.
Procter, B., 345, 356.
_Progne_, 58.
_Prometheus Unbound_, 14, 298, 353, 355.
_Promus and Cassandra_, 52, ~61~ n., ~62~ n., 69, 72.
_Prophetess, The_, 214, 246.
_Ptolemy_, 71.
Puttenham, George, 44, 45.
Pye, H. J., 307.
_Queen of Corinth, The_, 214, 220.
_Quellen des Weltlichen Dramas_, 55 n.
Quinault, P., 245.
_Quintus Fabius_, 71 n.
Racine, 2, 7, 8, 13, 247, 248, 251, 256, 268, 269, 272, 278, 287, 294, 297,
298, 300, 359.
Radcliffe, Mrs., 356.
Radcliffe, Ralph, 40.
_Ralph Roister Doister_, 39.
_Rape_, 309.
Ravenscroft, Edward, 266.
Rawlins, Thomas, 236.
_Red Knight, The_, 71 n.
_Rebellion, The_, 236.
_Rehearsal, The_, 259.
_Remorse_, ~342~, ~343~, 344, 360.
_Renegado, The_, 221.
_Revenge_, 298.
_Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, The_ (see _Bussy D'Ambois_), 144.
_Revenge of Hamlet_, 150.
_Revenger's Tragedy, The_, 199, 202.
Reynolds, F., 332, 335, 338.
_Richard II_, 109, 114, 117, ~123-125~, 126, 136;
anonymous play on, see _Woodstock_.
_Richard III_ (by Shakespeare), 114, ~117-123~, 125, 172, 282, 292,
297 n., 311, 312.
_Richard III, True Tragedy of_, ~108~, ~109~, 112, 118, 119.
_Richard Duke of York, True Tragedy of_, 115 n., 116.
Richardson, Samuel, 275, 284.
_Richardus Tertius_, 59.
_Richelieu_, 345, ~346~, 358.
_Rienzi_, 345, 358.
_Ring and Book, The_, 14, 362.
Ristori, Madame, 344.
Ritwyse, John, 39.
_Rival Ladies, The_, 251, 253.
_Rival Queens, The_, 266, 282.
_Rivals, The_, 319.
_Road to Ruin, The_, 320.
_Robbers, The_, 330, 342, 357.
_Rob Roy_, 335.
Rochester, Earl of, 258.
_Rollo._ See _Bloody Brother_.
_Roman Actor, The_, 224.
_Roman Father, The_, 294.
_Roman Revenge, The_, 304.
_Romeo and Juliet_, 12, 114, ~126-134~, 136, 146, 185, 226, 236,
270, 292.
_Romeus and Juliet_, 127.
Rossetti, D. G., 347.
Rowe, Nicholas, ~283-289~, 291, 294, 307, 316, 323.
Rowley, William, ~218~, ~219~, 227, 229.
_Royal Convert, The_, 283.
_Royal Master, The_, 232.
_Roxana_, 59.
Rymer, T., 250, 260.
Sackville, Thomas, 52.
_Samson Agonistes_, 14, 264, 298.
Santayana, George, 192 n.
_Sardanapalus_, 345, ~351~, 358.
_Sarpedon_, 71 n.
Schelling, F. W. J. von, 359.
Schiller, F. von, 327, 341, 357, ~359~, 363.
_Scipio, Africanus_, 71 n.
_Scornful Lady, The_, 322 n.
Scott, Sir Walter, 129, 262, 285, 312, 335, 339, 341, ~349~, ~350~,
357, 361.
Scudéry, G. de, 247.
_Second Maiden's Tragedy, The_, 199, 201, 221.
_Secret Love_, 259.
_Sejanus_, ~141-144~, 172.
_Selimus_, 108, 164.
_Semiramis_, 295 n.
Seneca, characteristics of his tragedies, 33-36;
their revival on the continent, 36-38;
in England, 38-46;
English imitations of, 51-58;
Latin imitations of at the English universities, 58-61;
influence of on popular plays, 62-69, 73-75;
his models rejected by Marlowe, 89-90;
adapted by Kyd and others, 100-108, 113;
his influence on _Richard III_, 118, 119;
on Ben Jonson, 143;
on Chapman, 144;
on Marston and revenge tragedies, 146-154 _passim_;
on _Hamlet_, 159, 160;
and traceable elsewhere in Shakespeare, 183-185;
in later drama, 196, 215.
Settle, Elkanah, 253, 266.
Sheil, R. L., 344.
Shakespeare, his conception of tragedy, 8, 9;
his relations to Kyd, 100, 104, 105;
to other predecessors, 107-111;
his early tragedies and histories, 113-116;
_King John_, 116, 117;
_Richard III_, 117-123;
_Richard II_, 123-126;
_Romeo and Juliet_, 126-133;
his relations to his contemporaries, 136-147 _passim_;
to the revenge tragedies, 147-154;
_Julius Cæsar_, 154;
_Hamlet_, 155-162;
_Othello_, 162-166;
_Lear_, 166-175;
_Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Coriolanus_, 175-179;
summary of his work in tragedy, 181-195;
his influence on Elizabethan successors, 196-241 _passim_;
Restoration criticisms and alterations of his tragedies, 248-252, 260-262,
264-266, 269, 270, 277-279;
his plays in the eighteenth century, 282, 292-294;
Rowe's indebtedness to, 288, 289;
Thomson's indebtedness, 301, 302;
Hill's, 304, 305;
influence of _Othello_, 309;
his plays in the patent theatres, 331, 332;
his influence on the romanticists, 339;
on Wordsworth, 341;
on Coleridge, 342;
on Lamb, 343;
his influence dominant in nineteenth century tragedy, 355-363 _passim_;
and through the whole course of English tragedy, 370, 372, 376.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 14, 182, 338, 347, 348, ~353-355~, 356-359, 367,
368.
Sheridan, R. B., 327.
Sheridan, Thomas, 299.
_She Stoops to Conquer_, 319.
Shirley, James, 199, ~229-234~, 235, 237, 238, 240, 251, 252, 255, 256,
282, 344.
_Sicily and Naples_, 236.
Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 275, 290, 293, 308 n., 340.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 6, 44, 53, 72, 73.
_Siege of Damascus, The_, 297 n., 308 n.
_Siege of Rhodes, The_, 244, 252.
_Slave, The_, 335, 336.
Small, R. A., 162 n.
Smith, Edmund, 289.
Soane, G., 338.
_Soliman and Perseda_, 100 n., ~105~, ~106~, 127, 128.
_Solitary Knight, The_, 71 n.
_Solymannidæ_, 59.
Sophocles, 7, 9, 32, 37, 58, 187, 298, 370, 375.
_Sophonisba_ (by Lee), 266;
(by Marston), 147;
(by Thomson), 299, 300;
(by Trissino), 38.
Southerne, Thomas, ~273-275~, 277, 279, 282, 284, 294, 316, 321, 323.
Southey, Robert, 337, 341.
_Spanish Friar, The_, 262, 263.
_Spanish Tragedy, The_, ~100-105~, 110, 113, 115, 147, 148, 151.
_Spartan Dame, The_, 274.
Spenser, Edmund, 78, 79, 107.
Steele, Sir Richard, 297 n., 317.
Stoll, Elmer, E., 151 n.
Stowe, John, 70.
_Strafford_, 346, 363.
_Stranger, The_, 327, 328.
Suckling, Sir John, 234.
_Surrender of Calais, The_, 332, 333.
Surrey, Earl of, 53.
Swinburne, A., 14, 339, 347, 361, 364.
_Tale of Mystery, The_, 334.
Talfourd, Sir Thomas N., 346.
_Tamburlaine_, 58, 74, ~87-97~ _passim_, 100, 104, 107, 119 n.
_Tamerlane_, ~283~, ~284~, 291, 297 n.
_Tancred and Gismunda_, 51, ~55-57~, 61 n., 68, 69, 127, 128.
_Tancred and Sigismunda_, 299, 300, 302.
_Tancrède_, 295 n.
Tasso, 78.
Tate, Nahum, 246, 266, 292, 301.
Taylor, Sir Henry, 361.
_Telemo_, 71 n.
_Tempest, The_, 179, 259, 264.
_Temptation of Our Lord, The_, 41.
_Tender Husband, The_, 317.
Tennyson, Alfred, 182, 355, 364.
Terence, 23, 37, 39.
Terry, Daniel, 338, 350.
_Thebias_, 53.
Theobald, Lewis, 293.
_Theodosius_, 246, 267.
_Thierry and Theodoret_, 203.
Thomson, James, 292, ~299-302~, 307.
_Three Estates, The_, 41.
_Three Laws, The_, 41.
_Thyestes_ (by Crowne), 263, 266;
(by Seneca), 56.
_Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes_, 71 n.
_Timon of Athens_, 178, 265, 282, 297 n.
_'Tis Pity She's a Whore_, 227, 228.
_Titus Andronicus_, 108, ~114~, ~115~, 120, 136, 164, 237, 282.
_Titus and Berenice_, 269.
_Titus and Gisippus_, 40.
Tobin, John, 343.
_Tom Jones_, 321.
_Tom Thumb_, 314 n.
_Tonumbeius_, 59.
Tourneur, Cyril, 139, 151, ~153~, ~154~, 156, 199, 202, 217, 234,
267, 348.
_Tragedy a la Mode_, 314 n.
_Tragedies of the Last Age_, 260.
_Traitor, The_, 233, 252, 282, 344.
Treveth, Nicholas, 36.
_Trial, The_, 339.
Trissino, G. G., 38.
_Triumph of Honor, The_, 322 n.
_Troades_, 42.
_Troilus and Cressida_, 162 n., 261, 265.
_Troublesome Reign of King John, The_, 85, ~87~, ~88~.
Tupper, J. W., 255 n.
_Twelve Labors of Hercules, The_, 71 n.
_Two Foscari, The_, 346, 351.
_Two Lamentable Tragedies, The_, 140.
_Two Noble Kinsmen, The_, 211.
_Tyrannic Love_, 259.
Udall, Nicholas, 58.
_Ulysses_, 283.
_Ulysses Redux_, 59.
_Unhappy Favorite, The_, 273, 282.
_Unnatural Combat, The_, 224.
_Valentinian_, ~213~, 217, 252, 282.
_Valiant Scot, The_, 236.
_Venice Preserved_, ~270~, ~271~, 278, 282, 297 n., 351.
Victor, B., 318.
Virgil, Polydore, 119.
_Virginius_, 344, ~345~, 358.
_Virgin Martyr, The_, 221, 224, 252.
_Virtue Betrayed, or Anne Bullen_, 273.
_Volpone_, 233.
Voltaire, 247, 276, 290, ~294-297~, 299, 302, 304, 305, 324.
Wade, Thomas, 345, 347.
_Wallenstein_ (by Glapthorne), 235;
(by Schiller), 357.
Walpole, Horace, 322, 354.
Ward, A. W., 111, 270 n., 287.
_Warning for Fair Women, A_, 140, ~147~, 316.
_Wars of Cyrus, The_, 106, 108.
Watson, Thomas, 39.
_Wat Tyler_, 341 n.
_Weavers, The_, 12.
Webbe, William, 57.
Webster, John, 153, 169, 198, 199, ~202~, ~203~, 217-219, 226, 230,
234, 237, 239, 240, 252, 256, 262, 348.
Wells, Charles, 339, 347.
_Werner_, 345, ~351~, 357.
_Werter_, 323.
_What d'ye Call It_, 314 n.
_What Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man_, 71.
_Wheel of Fortune, The_, 320.
Whetstone, George, 61 n., 62 n., 72.
_White Devil, The_, 198, 199, 202, 252.
Whitehead, William, 294, ~307~.
_Wife's Trial, The_, 343.
_Wild Gallant, The_, 251.
_William Tell_, 344.
Wilmot, Robert, 55, 56.
Wilson, John, 163, 347.
_Winter's Tale, A_, 179, 342.
_Witch, The_, 3, 218.
_Witch of Edmonton, The_, 227.
_Woodstock_, ~109~, 112, 114.
_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_, ~140~, ~141~, 272, 289, 318,
328.
_Woman's Love_, 345.
_Women Beware Women_, 218.
_Women Pleased_, 322 n.
Wordsworth, William, 337, 338, ~341~, 343, 357.
_Wounds of Civil War, The_, 108, 142.
Wycherley, William, 258.
Xenophon, 106.
_Yorkshire Tragedy, The_, 140, 318.
Young, Edward, ~298~, ~299~, 307.
_Zapolya_, 342.
_Zara_, 295 n., 299, 304, 305.
_Zenobia_, 308 n., 351.
_Zobeide_, 295 n.
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