Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
B advances in turn. But, underlying this broad movement, all through the
conflict we shall find a regular alternation of smaller advances and
retirals; first A seeming to win some ground, and then the
counter-action of B being shown. And since we always more or less
decidedly prefer A to B or B to A, the result of this oscillating
movement is a constant alternation of hope and fear, or rather of a
mixed state predominantly hopeful and a mixed state predominantly
apprehensive. An example will make the point clear. In _Hamlet_ the
conflict begins with the hero's feigning to be insane from
disappointment in love, and we are shown his immediate success in
convincing Polonius. Let us call this an advance of A. The next scene
shows the King's great uneasiness about Hamlet's melancholy, and his
scepticism as to Polonius's explanation of its cause: advance of B.
Hamlet completely baffles Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who have been
sent to discover his secret, and he arranges for the test of the
play-scene: advance of A. But immediately before the play-scene his
soliloquy on suicide fills us with misgiving; and his words to Ophelia,
overheard, so convince the King that love is _not_ the cause of his
nephew's strange behaviour, that he determines to get rid of him by
sending him to England: advance of B. The play-scene proves a complete
success: decided advance of A. Directly after it Hamlet spares the King
at prayer, and in an interview with his mother unwittingly kills
Polonius, and so gives his enemy a perfect excuse for sending him away
(to be executed): decided advance of B. I need not pursue the
illustration further. This oscillating movement can be traced without
difficulty in any of the tragedies, though less distinctly in one or two
of the earliest.
(3) Though this movement continues right up to the catastrophe, its
effect does not disguise that much broader effect to which I have
already alluded, and which we have now to study. In all the tragedies,
though more clearly in some than in others, one side is distinctly felt
to be on the whole advancing up to a certain point in the conflict, and
then to be on the whole declining before the reaction of the other.
There is therefore felt to be a critical point in the action, which
proves also to be a turning point. It is critical sometimes in the sense
that, until it is reached, the conflict is not, so to speak, clenched;
one of the two sets of forces might subside, or a reconciliation might
somehow be effected; while, as soon as it is reached, we feel this can
no longer be. It is critical also because the advancing force has
apparently asserted itself victoriously, gaining, if not all it could
wish, still a very substantial advantage; whereas really it is on the
point of turning downward towards its fall. This Crisis, as a rule,
comes somewhere near the middle of the play; and where it is well marked
it has the effect, as to construction, of dividing the play into five
parts instead of three; these parts showing (1) a situation not yet one
of conflict, (2) the rise and development of the conflict, in which A or
B advances on the whole till it reaches (3) the Crisis, on which follows
(4) the decline of A or B towards (5) the Catastrophe. And it will be
seen that the fourth and fifth parts repeat, though with a reversal of
direction as regards A or B, the movement of the second and third,
working towards the catastrophe as the second and third worked towards
the crisis.
In developing, illustrating and qualifying this statement, it will be
best to begin with the tragedies in which the movement is most clear and
simple. These are _Julius Caesar_ and _Macbeth_. In the former the
fortunes of the conspiracy rise with vicissitudes up to the crisis of
the assassination (III. i.); they then sink with vicissitudes to the
catastrophe, where Brutus and Cassius perish. In the latter, Macbeth,
hurrying, in spite of much inward resistance, to the murder of Duncan,
attains the crown, the upward movement being extraordinarily rapid, and
the crisis arriving early: his cause then turns slowly downward, and
soon hastens to ruin. In both these tragedies the simplicity of the
constructional effect, it should be noticed, depends in part on the fact
that the contending forces may quite naturally be identified with
certain persons, and partly again on the fact that the defeat of one
side is the victory of the other. Octavius and Antony, Malcolm and
Macduff, are left standing over the bodies of their foes.
This is not so in _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Hamlet_, because here,
although the hero perishes, the side opposed to him, being the more
faulty or evil, cannot be allowed to triumph when he falls. Otherwise
the type of construction is the same. The fortunes of Romeo and Juliet
rise and culminate in their marriage (II. vi.), and then begin to
decline before the opposition of their houses, which, aided by
accidents, produces a catastrophe, but is thereupon converted into a
remorseful reconciliation. Hamlet's cause reaches its zenith in the
success of the play-scene (III. ii.). Thereafter the reaction makes way,
and he perishes through the plot of the King and Laertes. But they are
not allowed to survive their success.
The construction in the remaining Roman plays follows the same plan, but
in both plays (as in _Richard II._ and _Richard III._) it suffers from
the intractable nature of the historical material, and is also
influenced by other causes. In _Coriolanus_ the hero reaches the topmost
point of success when he is named consul (II. iii.), and the rest of the
play shows his decline and fall; but in this decline he attains again
for a time extraordinary power, and triumphs, in a sense, over his
original adversary, though he succumbs to another. In _Antony and
Cleopatra_ the advance of the hero's cause depends on his freeing
himself from the heroine, and he appears to have succeeded when he
becomes reconciled to Octavius and marries Octavia (III. ii.); but he
returns to Egypt and is gradually driven to his death, which involves
that of the heroine.
There remain two of the greatest of the tragedies, and in both of them a
certain difficulty will be felt. _King Lear_ alone among these plays has
a distinct double action. Besides this, it is impossible, I think, from
the point of view of construction, to regard the hero as the leading
figure. If we attempt to do so, we must either find the crisis in the
First Act (for after it Lear's course is downward), and this is absurd;
or else we must say that the usual movement is present but its direction
is reversed, the hero's cause first sinking to the lowest point (in the
Storm-scenes) and then rising again. But this also will not do; for
though his fortunes may be said to rise again for a time, they rise only
to fall once more to a catastrophe. The truth is, that after the First
Act, which is really filled by the exposition, Lear suffers but hardly
initiates action at all; and the right way to look at the matter, _from
the point of view of construction_, is to regard Goneril, Regan and
Edmund as the leading characters. It is they who, in the conflict,
initiate action. Their fortune mounts to the crisis, where the old King
is driven out into the storm and loses his reason, and where Gloster is
blinded and expelled from his home (III. vi. and vii.). Then the
counter-action begins to gather force, and their cause to decline; and,
although they win the battle, they are involved in the catastrophe which
they bring on Cordelia and Lear. Thus we may still find in _King Lear_
the usual scheme of an ascending and a descending movement of one side
in the conflict.
The case of _Othello_ is more peculiar. In its whole constructional
effect _Othello_ differs from the other tragedies, and the cause of this
difference is not hard to find, and will be mentioned presently. But
how, after it is found, are we to define the principle of the
construction? On the one hand the usual method seems to show itself.
Othello's fortune certainly advances in the early part of the play, and
it may be considered to reach its topmost point in the exquisite joy of
his reunion with Desdemona in Cyprus; while soon afterwards it begins to
turn, and then falls to the catastrophe. But the topmost point thus
comes very early (II. i.), and, moreover, is but faintly marked; indeed,
it is scarcely felt as a crisis at all. And, what is still more
significant, though reached by conflict, it is not reached by conflict
with the force which afterwards destroys it. Iago, in the early scenes,
is indeed shown to cherish a design against Othello, but it is not Iago
against whom he has at first to assert himself, but Brabantio; and Iago
does not even begin to poison his mind until the third scene of the
Third Act.
Can we then, on the other hand, following the precedent of _King Lear_,
and remembering the probable chronological juxtaposition of the two
plays, regard Iago as the leading figure from the point of view of
construction? This might at first seem the right view; for it is the
case that _Othello_ resembles _King Lear_ in having a hero more acted
upon than acting, or rather a hero driven to act by being acted upon.
But then, if Iago is taken as the leading figure, the usual mode of
construction is plainly abandoned, for there will nowhere be a crisis
followed by a descending movement. Iago's cause advances, at first
slowly and quietly, then rapidly, but it does nothing but advance until
the catastrophe swallows his dupe and him together. And this way of
regarding the action does positive violence, I think, to our natural
impressions of the earlier part of the play.
I think, therefore, that the usual scheme is so far followed that the
drama represents first the rise of the hero, and then his fall. But,
however this question may be decided, one striking peculiarity remains,
and is the cause of the unique effect of _Othello_. In the first half of
the play the main conflict is merely incubating; then it bursts into
life, and goes storming, without intermission or change of direction, to
its close. Now, in this peculiarity _Othello_ is quite unlike the other
tragedies; and in the consequent effect, which is that the second half
of the drama is immeasurably more exciting than the first, it is
approached only by _Antony and Cleopatra_. I shall therefore reserve it
for separate consideration, though in proceeding to speak further of
Shakespeare's treatment of the tragic conflict I shall have to mention
some devices which are used in _Othello_ as well as in the other
tragedies.
3
Shakespeare's general plan, we have seen, is to show one set of forces
advancing, in secret or open opposition to the other, to some decisive
success, and then driven downward to defeat by the reaction it provokes.
And the advantages of this plan, as seen in such a typical instance as
_Julius Caesar_, are manifest. It conveys the movement of the conflict
to the mind with great clearness and force. It helps to produce the
impression that in his decline and fall the doer's act is returning on
his own head. And, finally, as used by Shakespeare, it makes the first
half of the play intensely interesting and dramatic. Action which
effects a striking change in an existing situation is naturally watched
with keen interest; and this we find in some of these tragedies. And the
spectacle, which others exhibit, of a purpose forming itself and, in
spite of outward obstacles and often of inward resistance, forcing its
way onward to a happy consummation or a terrible deed, not only gives
scope to that psychological subtlety in which Shakespeare is scarcely
rivalled, but is also dramatic in the highest degree.
But when the crisis has been reached there come difficulties and