Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
dangers, which, if we put Shakespeare for the moment out of mind, are
easily seen. An immediate and crushing counter-action would, no doubt,
sustain the interest, but it would precipitate the catastrophe, and
leave a feeling that there has been too long a preparation for a final
effect so brief. What seems necessary is a momentary pause, followed by
a counter-action which mounts at first slowly, and afterwards, as it
gathers force, with quickening speed. And yet the result of this
arrangement, it would seem, must be, for a time, a decided slackening of
tension. Nor is this the only difficulty. The persons who represent the
counter-action and now take the lead, are likely to be comparatively
unfamiliar, and therefore unwelcome, to the audience; and, even if
familiar, they are almost sure to be at first, if not permanently, less
interesting than those who figured in the ascending movement, and on
whom attention has been fixed. Possibly, too, their necessary prominence
may crowd the hero into the back-ground. Hence the point of danger in
this method of construction seems to lie in that section of the play
which follows the crisis and has not yet approached the catastrophe. And
this section will usually comprise the Fourth Act, together, in some
cases, with a part of the Third and a part of the Fifth.
Shakespeare was so masterly a playwright, and had so wonderful a power
of giving life to unpromising subjects, that to a large extent he was
able to surmount this difficulty. But illustrations of it are easily to
be found in his tragedies, and it is not always surmounted. In almost
all of them we are conscious of that momentary pause in the action,
though, as we shall see, it does not generally occur _immediately_ after
the crisis. Sometimes he allows himself to be driven to keep the hero
off the stage for a long time while the counter-action is rising;
Macbeth, Hamlet and Coriolanus during about 450 lines, Lear for nearly
500, Romeo for about 550 (it matters less here, because Juliet is quite
as important as Romeo). How can a drama in which this happens compete,
in its latter part, with _Othello_? And again, how can deliberations
between Octavius, Antony and Lepidus, between Malcolm and Macduff,
between the Capulets, between Laertes and the King, keep us at the
pitch, I do not say of the crisis, but even of the action which led up
to it? Good critics--writers who have criticised Shakespeare's dramas
from within, instead of applying to them some standard ready-made by
themselves or derived from dramas and a theatre of quite other kinds
than his--have held that some of his greatest tragedies fall off in the
Fourth Act, and that one or two never wholly recover themselves. And I
believe most readers would find, if they examined their impressions,
that to their minds _Julius Caesar_, _Hamlet_, _King Lear_ and _Macbeth_
have all a tendency to 'drag' in this section of the play, and that the
first and perhaps also the last of these four fail even in the
catastrophe to reach the height of the greatest scenes that have
preceded the Fourth Act. I will not ask how far these impressions are
justified. The difficulties in question will become clearer and will
gain in interest if we look rather at the means which have been employed
to meet them, and which certainly have in part, at least, overcome them.
(_a_) The first of these is always strikingly effective, sometimes
marvellously so. The crisis in which the ascending force reaches its
zenith is followed quickly, or even without the slightest pause, by a
reverse or counter-blow not less emphatic and in some cases even more
exciting. And the effect is to make us feel a sudden and tragic change
in the direction of the movement, which, after ascending more or less
gradually, now turns sharply downward. To the assassination of Caesar
(III. i.) succeeds the scene in the Forum (III. ii.), where Antony
carries the people away in a storm of sympathy with the dead man and of
fury against the conspirators. We have hardly realised their victory
before we are forced to anticipate their ultimate defeat and to take the
liveliest interest in their chief antagonist. In _Hamlet_ the thrilling
success of the play-scene (III. ii.) is met and undone at once by the
counter-stroke of Hamlet's failure to take vengeance (III. iii.) and his
misfortune in killing Polonius (III. iv.). Coriolanus has no sooner
gained the consulship than he is excited to frenzy by the tribunes and
driven into exile. On the marriage of Romeo follows immediately the
brawl which leads to Mercutio's death and the banishment of the hero
(II. vi. and III. i.). In all of these instances excepting that of
_Hamlet_ the scene of the counter-stroke is at least as exciting as that
of the crisis, perhaps more so. Most people, if asked to mention the
scene that occupies the _centre_ of the action in _Julius Caesar_ and in
_Coriolanus_, would mention the scenes of Antony's speech and
Coriolanus' banishment. Thus that apparently necessary pause in the
action does not, in any of these dramas, come directly after the crisis.
It is deferred; and in several cases it is by various devices deferred
for some little time; _e.g._ in _Romeo and Juliet_ till the hero has
left Verona, and Juliet is told that her marriage with Paris is to take
place 'next Thursday morn' (end of Act III.); in _Macbeth_ till the
murder of Duncan has been followed by that of Banquo, and this by the
banquet-scene. Hence the point where this pause occurs is very rarely
reached before the end of the Third Act.
(_b_) Either at this point, or in the scene of the counter-stroke which
precedes it, we sometimes find a peculiar effect. We are reminded of the
state of affairs in which the conflict began. The opening of _Julius
Caesar_ warned us that, among a people so unstable and so easily led
this way or that, the enterprise of Brutus is hopeless; the days of the
Republic are done. In the scene of Antony's speech we see this same
people again. At the beginning of _Antony and Cleopatra_ the hero is
about to leave Cleopatra for Rome. Where the play takes, as it were, a
fresh start after the crisis, he leaves Octavia for Egypt. In _Hamlet_,
when the counter-stroke succeeds to the crisis, the Ghost, who had
appeared in the opening scenes, reappears. Macbeth's action in the first
part of the tragedy followed on the prediction of the Witches who
promised him the throne. When the action moves forward again after the
banquet-scene the Witches appear once more, and make those fresh
promises which again drive him forward. This repetition of a first
effect produces a fateful feeling. It generally also stimulates
expectation as to the new movement about to begin. In _Macbeth_ the
scene is, in addition, of the greatest consequence from the purely
theatrical point of view.
(_c_) It has yet another function. It shows, in Macbeth's furious
irritability and purposeless savagery, the internal reaction which
accompanies the outward decline of his fortunes. And in other plays also
the exhibition of such inner changes forms a means by which interest is
sustained in this difficult section of a tragedy. There is no point in
_Hamlet_ where we feel more hopeless than that where the hero, having
missed his chance, moralises over his irresolution and determines to
cherish now only thoughts of blood, and then departs without an effort
for England. One purpose, again, of the quarrel-scene between Brutus and
Cassius (IV. iii), as also of the appearance of Caesar's ghost just
afterwards, is to indicate the inward changes. Otherwise the
introduction of this famous and wonderful scene can hardly be defended
on strictly dramatic grounds. No one would consent to part with it, and
it is invaluable in sustaining interest during the progress of the
reaction, but it is an episode, the removal of which would not affect
the actual sequence of events (unless we may hold that, but for the
emotion caused by the quarrel and reconciliation, Cassius would not have
allowed Brutus to overcome his objection to the fatal policy of offering
battle at Philippi).
(_d_) The quarrel-scene illustrates yet another favourite expedient. In
this section of a tragedy Shakespeare often appeals to an emotion
different from any of those excited in the first half of the play, and
so provides novelty and generally also relief. As a rule this new
emotion is pathetic; and the pathos is not terrible or lacerating, but,
even if painful, is accompanied by the sense of beauty and by an outflow
of admiration or affection, which come with an inexpressible sweetness
after the tension of the crisis and the first counter-stroke. So it is
with the reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius, and the arrival of the
news of Portia's death. The most famous instance of this effect is the
scene (IV. vii.) where Lear wakes from sleep and finds Cordelia bending
over him, perhaps the most tear-compelling passage in literature.
Another is the short scene (IV. ii.) in which the talk of Lady Macduff
and her little boy is interrupted by the entrance of the murderers, a
passage of touching beauty and heroism. Another is the introduction of
Ophelia in her madness (twice in different parts of IV. v.), where the
effect, though intensely pathetic, is beautiful and moving rather than
harrowing; and this effect is repeated in a softer tone in the
description of Ophelia's death (end of Act IV.). And in _Othello_ the
passage where pathos of _this_ kind reaches its height is certainly that
where Desdemona and Emilia converse, and the willow-song is sung, on the
eve of the catastrophe (IV. iii.).
(_e_) Sometimes, again, in this section of a tragedy we find humorous or
semi-humorous passages. On the whole such passages occur most frequently
in the early or middle part of the play, which naturally grows more
sombre as it nears the close; but their occasional introduction in the
Fourth Act, and even later, affords variety and relief, and also
heightens by contrast the tragic feelings. For example, there is a touch
of comedy in the conversation of Lady Macduff with her little boy.
Purely and delightfully humorous are the talk and behaviour of the
servants in that admirable scene where Coriolanus comes disguised in
mean apparel to the house of Aufidius (IV. v.); of a more mingled kind
is the effect of the discussion between Menenius and the sentinels in V.
ii.; and in the very middle of the supreme scene between the hero,
Volumnia and Virgilia, little Marcius makes us burst out laughing (V.
iii.) A little before the catastrophe in _Hamlet_ comes the grave-digger
passage, a passage ever welcome, but of a length which could hardly be
defended on purely dramatic grounds; and still later, occupying some
hundred and twenty lines of the very last scene, we have the chatter of
Osric with Hamlet's mockery of it. But the acme of audacity is reached
in _Antony and Cleopatra_, where, quite close to the end, the old
countryman who brings the asps to Cleopatra discourses on the virtues
and vices of the worm, and where his last words, 'Yes, forsooth: I wish
you joy o' the worm,' are followed, without the intervention of a line,
by the glorious speech,
Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me....
In some of the instances of pathos or humour just mentioned we have been
brought to that part of the play which immediately precedes, or even
contains, the catastrophe. And I will add at once three remarks which
refer specially to this final section of a tragedy.
(_f_) In several plays Shakespeare makes here an appeal which in his own
time was evidently powerful: he introduces scenes of battle. This is the
case in _Richard III._, _Julius Caesar_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_ and
_Antony and Cleopatra_. Richard, Brutus and Cassius, and Macbeth die on