Lecture Five. William Shakespeare.

1. Biography. Shakespearian question.

2. Phases of creative activity.

3. The evolution of the genre of comedy.

4. Shakespeare’s great tragedies.

5. Reconciliation plays.

1. Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist the world has ever known and the finest poet who has ever written in English. No other writer’s plays have been produced so many times or read so widely in different countries.

Very little is known about his own life. Much has to be inferred from indirect evidence, such as literary works, legal documents. This fact produced a large number of legends.

Shakespeare was born in 1564 at Stratford-on-Avon in a family of a well-to-do burger. He was presumably educated at the local grammar school. There is evidence that the family was impoverished. The would-be dramatist went fortune-hunting to London. In London he was employed in a public theatre as an actor, but he never excelled in this profession. Even less do we know about his views or politics.

The so-called Shakespearian question came up in the late nineteenth century, when literature began to be studied professionally. Researchers were suddenly conscious of the fact that Shakespeare does not have a coherent biography. Shakespeare’s grandeur enhanced the sensation of a mystery, stimulated imagination. The admiration for his plays was so intense, that people refused to believe they were written by an ill-educated actor from Stradford-upon- Avon. It was suggested that Shakespeare’s name was used by someone who wanted to conceal his own. The list of candidates for the authorship includes now more than 60 names. Among them: Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Lord Ruthland, The Earl of Derby; The Earl of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth. None of the theories has been sufficiently proved.

2. Scholars commonly divide the period of Shakespeare’s creative activity into three phases.

I. The First Phase – 1590-s (sometimes the early period(1589-94) is singled out within this phase)

Almost all history plays, most comedies, Henry VI (3 parts), Richard III, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labours Lost, Romeo and Juliet.

The works of this phase are characterized by

• a variety of modes (histories, different types of comedies and tragedies);

• end-stopped blank verse (the line ends at the end of the sentence or a strongly marked pause);

• a large number of rhymed lines;

• no great complexity of imagery. Constant use of images taken from ancient mythology; the language is quite ornamented, with elements of euphuism.

The comedies are full of youthful mirth. Yet, even in them we find specks of gloomy darkness.

1595-1600 – A Midsummer Nigh’st Dream; The Merchant of Venice; Henry IV (two parts), Julius Caesar; As You Like It; Much Ado about Nothing; Twelfth Night.

More mature style, more flexible syntax and rhythm, more concentrated imagery. The comedies display a shift in tone to greater seriousness.

II. The Second Phase – 1600- 1608 – is the period of great tragedies.

The plays of the period are sometimes referred to as ‘problem plays’. The term was introduced by nineteenth century critics who found it hard to detect Shakespeare’s intentions. The plays are very difficult for interpretation, sombre in tone. They include the so-called dark comedies: Measure for Measure; All Is Well That Ends Well; great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra; and other works: Troilus and Cressida, The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare’s realism had now reached its full power.

III. The Third Phase – 1608-1613.

Wrote ‘romances’ or ‘reconciliation plays’. Tragedy is transformed into reconciliation of opposing elements. Little of the realism of the previous phase.

Pericles; Cymberline; The Winter Tale; The Tempest.

The three main dramatic forms are histories, comedies and tragedies. However, Elizabethan drama did not work out any rigid genre conventions for the plot and dramatic structure that might precondition the viewer’s response. Shakespeare does not treat the genre as a given, as something complete and unchangeable, regulated by a set of rules. The genre for him is an angle of the magisterial theme.

“Shakespeare is the master of combined response. Almost all his comedies are hybrids, complicated mixtures of farce and romance, sunshine and shadow, absurdity and profundity”. (Russ McDonald. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare)

The traditional division of Shakespeare’s work into three phases seems to reflect the evolution of the author’s philosophy and outlook. In the first phase, the very essence of his genius was comic.

2. The evolution of the genre of comedy.

Early comedies are full of youthful mirth and optimism. The conflict strives to a resolution, and the play to a happy ending because the obstacles that arise are external, removable, accidental. The conflict in them always arises from an error, a misunderstanding, an unhappy coincidence. It does not upset the harmony of the world.

In the main, the comedies of the 1590-s are love comedies. The magisterial plot is constituted by a knot of several love stories. Love brings out the best in the person, makes him brave, inventive and adventurous. But even in their passions, the characters know not of any inner discord. As long as they are in love, they are in harmony with themselves and the world. Love is one of the laws of nature. The setting is often natural, close to pastoral.

Even the early tragedies are written in the same clue. Romeo and Juliet is much closer in theme (and even in tone) to the optimistic comedies of the 1590-s than to the great tragedies of the 1600s. It is a tragedy of externals. The feelings and motives are readily understandable: there’s the minimum of brooding, no puzzlement over moral problems.

The greatest charm of many works of the first phase is their gracious lyricism.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream takes the same situation and brings it to a happy resolution. All the potential tragedy passes through the phase of comic confusion.

The play is probably a masque written for the wedding of some patron. It is very romantic as it takes part in an enchanted forest. A fantastic dream moves gently into a playful parody. The boundaries between the kingdom of Fairies and that of clowns merge together. The play contains an aristocratic element, a comic one, and a poetic, supernatural. The main theme is romantic love. Love strives to create (recreate) and change things. Man lives in constant self-deception, deceiving others too. The characters are in love and thus –unreasonable in the highest degree:

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all compact<…>

… the lover all is frantic,

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt…

After 1595 Shakespeare continues to write comedies of different types and modes: Twelfth Night, As You Like It; Much Ado about Nothing. Shakespearian comedies grow more problematic, more concerned with actualities of life. The source of conflict shits inwards; it is no longer based on an incident; but seems to be rooted in human nature. Nevertheless, the tensions and divisions can still find joyous local resolution.

Twelfth Night – a combination of high-minded love comedy and domestic comedy (the farcical scenes in Olivia’s house). More incisive in human psychology – concern with the masks we are wearing.

As You Like It. The usurper, Frederick, repents and returns the dukedom to the lawful Duke. Justice is restored, but it is literally “poetic justice”. The conflict seems to be deeper than that, and the happy ending appears artificial and far-fetched.

It’s entertainment, not the plot, that dominates the play. A large number of songs, joyous play (between Rosalind and Orlando).

Shakespeare’s style also becomes more mature. He explores the potential of language in witty dialogue, play upon words, which seem to be probing the traditional meaning of words, challenging universally accepted truths. His humor becomes more melancholy and intellectual.

There appear new types of character which do not quite conform to the canons of comedy. In As You Like It, they are Touchstone, the court jester, and Jaques, a melancholy philosopher. They consistently balance laughter with notes of seriousness, even sadness. They question the nature of love, the values of society, discuss the advantages of rural life. There occurs Jaques’ famous soliloquy: All the world’s a stage// And men and women merely players”. The description of seven ages of man adds a strong note of melancholy.

3. 1600 begins the period of “great” tragedies. The conflict is no longer external, now it is the inner discord of the hero. A tragic hero in Shakespeare is not just a man in tragic circumstances, but a man with inner discord, at a time of personal crisis. Romeo is not a tragic hero, but Shylock, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear are.

Hamlet is chronologically the first. Hamlet is a tragedy of estrangement. “The time is out of joint”, all the traditional ties break, man finds himself alone in the world, which is much less than perfect. At the beginning, Horatio says of the late king: “He was a goodly king”. Hamlet answers: “’e was a Man take him for all in all// I’ll never look upon his like again”. In Hamlet’s words we can still hear the echo of the Renaissance humanism – Man is the highest possible praise – but the verb with the noun is the past form: he was a man. There won’t be another one like him.

Life proved the humanist ideals inconsistent. Man is not only “the beauty of the world …”, but also “quintessence of dust”.

Othello is a tragedy of love, like Romeo and Juliet, but the difference is immense.

Othello is a man of action – a Moor in the service of the state of Venice, a man foreign to his sophisticated environment, yet accustomed to command. When he marries the white aristocratic Desdemona, he both achieves the summit of his happiness and puts himself in a position of unusual peril.

Iago, one of his military subordinates, has been passed over for promotion and bears a grudge against him. On the surface Iago is a typical middle-rank soldier: bluff, open. He is called ‘honest Iago’ over and over. But beneath this companionable surface there lurks one of the vilest creatures in all Shakespeare: jealous, cynical, corrupt and sexually possessed. Against such a creature Othello might stand a chance in the field of battle, but not at the court.

We can see Shakespeare’s mastery grow: knowledge of the human soul, skill of revealing personality, handling dialogue.

Othello’s nature is simple, open, self-confident by nature. And his language is like him, simple and clear. Iago’s is brutal, cynical, littered with images of animals and copulation. In Act III, Scene III – may be the greatest single scene in Shakespeare – we are enabled to watch the take-over of one mind by another. First Iago mutters (audibly, of course) his supposed doubts about Desdemona’s faithfulness. Then he questions Othello in a roundabout way about her relationship with the handsome lieutenant Cassio. Then he warns him against jealousy, then he gives detail’s of Cassio’s imaginary erotic dream about Desdemona. After that Othello is a man possessed. His inner simplicity and nobility of mind are forgotten. As he shouts abuses at her, the very imagery he uses is obsessively sexual, full of animality – Iago has taken possession of his mind.

Macbeth. Macbeth is a tragedy of state in which eternal forces engage.

At the beginning Macbeth fights loyally for his king. He is close enough to the throne to be ambitious, yet his ambition is checked by fear of consequences, by hesitations of a politician.

But the prophecies of witches and the taunts of his wife help him screw up his courage. Once the deed is done (king Duncan is killed), Macbeth gains a strange and fearful confidence. He wanted to be king. So, in an attempt to make his throne more secure, he kills suspected enemies. He progresses to a total atrophy of feeling. His wife is ridden by horror and remorse.

At the beginning, the reader is conscious that for all his ruthlessness, there is another side to him. He has an imagination of a poet, who can take in all the boundless universe and hear it shriek with outrage at the deed in prospect.

By the murder he destroys the existing balance in the kingdom. The nature itself seems to protest – by a storm and unnatural happenings, for the king is the anointed of God. The institution of Kingship is God-ordained. As his deeds are getting more monstrous, we feel they are supposed to produce a reaction against his terrible reign. And under the dead king’s son, Malcolm, the spiritual health of the kingdom has been restored.

4.

Shakespeare’s last plays, the product of his Indian summer stress reconciliation, forgiveness, harmonization of warring opposites.

The Winter’s Tale. The title emphasizes the play’s fairy-tale basis. Everything in the plot of the play is extravagant and conventional. The characters’ actions are not motivated, the resolution is improbable. Shakespeare’s main aim it seems is to make his play entertaining, to emphasize its festive nature by creating the atmosphere of a carnival. There are beautiful pastoral scenes, peasants’ holidays, folk ballads sung on stage. There’s cross-dressing and disguise, as well as other stock theatrical devices. In a word, it is a good old fairy tale, kind and entertaining, and no pretence at verisimilitude.

The Tempest is a unity between different literary kinds, a reconciliation of tragedy and comedy. It is also a fairy tale, where the scene is laid on a magic island. It used to belong to a bad witch Sycorax and her son Caliban, a misshapen monster and a savage. Prospero by his knowledge of magic releases various spirits imprisoned by the witch. The spirits now obey Prospero’s command.

Shakespeare often used the metaphor of theatre before, but it was a metaphor of life. The Tempest is a metaphor of a theatre itself. Prospero calls his island a pageant, spirits – actors, and the events of the play – revels (a play). Prospero is the author and the director of the play acted out on the island. Everything is orchestrated by him: he supervises all action, suppresses the rebellious sub-plots. The power of the dramatist brings the characters to life and makes them dance at his will.

Our revels are now ended <…>

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

Shakespeare is a unique dramatist. He is, in effect, a one-man history of drama. He invents drama, explores it possibilities, and exhaust them. The puzzle of The Tempest is in its reincarnation of what Shakespeare did before and in his prediction of a future for a drama.

Shakespeare was right in his prediction. Theatre after him was more spectacular, more dependant on illusion, more interested in artifice.