Part 36 (1/2)
Tolstoi, on the other hand, keeps his eyes on the object, and sets himself to describe the story of ”Lear” ”as impartially as possible” He says of the first scene:
”Not toLear, the sas speak, the reader or spectator cannot conceive that a king, however old and stupid he hters hom he had passed his whole life, and not believe his favourite daughter, but curse and banish her; and therefore, the spectator or reader cannot share the feelings of the persons participating in this unnatural scene”
He goes on to condemn the scene between Gloucester and his sons in the same way The second act he describes as ”absurdly foolish” The third act is ”spoiled, by the characteristic Shakespearean language” The fourth act is ”ain begin Lear's awful ravings, at which one feels ashamed, as at unsuccessful jokes” He sums up in these words:
”Such is this celebrated dra (which I have endeavoured to make as iinal it is yet more absurd For any estion that this drah to read it to its end (were he to have sufficient patience for this) in order to be convinced that, far froht of perfection, it is a very bad, carelessly-composed production, which, if it could have been of interest to a certain public at a certain ti but aversion and weariness Every reader of our tiestion will also receive exactly the same impression from all the other extolled dramas of Shakespeare, not to mention the senseless draht,' 'The Tempest,' 'Cymbeline,' and 'Troilus and Cressida'”
Every one must admit, I think, that what Tolstoi has said of the hypothesis of the play is justified Shakespeare, as I have shoas nearly always an indifferent playwright, careless of the architectural construction of his pieces, conteland, if not with the authority of Tolstoi
It e which Shakespeare puts into Lear's mouth in the first act is ”characterless and pompous,” even silly; but Tolstoi should have noticed that as soon as Lear realizes the ingratitude of his daughters, his language becos are apt to rant and ht poaged even his monarchs speak naturally
The truth is, that just as the iambics of Greek drama were lifted above ordinary conversation, so Shakespeare's language, being the language mainly of poetic and romantic drama, is a little more measured and, if you will, more pompous than the small talk of everyday life, which seems to us, accustomed as we are to prose plays, more natural Shakespeare, however, in his blank verse, reaches heights which are not often reached by prose, and when he pleases, his verse becomes as natural-easy as any prose, even that of Tolstoi hi Lear says ”pompous,” ”artificial,” ”unnatural,” but Lear's words:
”Pray do not mock me, I am a very foolish-fond old man Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less, And, to deal plainly I fear I anantly, just because of their childish simplicity; we feel as if Lear, in them, had reached the heart of pathos Tolstoi, I am afraid, has missed all the poetry of Lear, all the deathless phrases
Lear says:
”I a,”
and the new-coined phrase passed at once into the general currency Who, too, can ever forget his description of the poor?
”Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your looped and ed raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these?”
The like of that ”looped and ed raggedness” is hardly to be found in any other literature In the fourth and fifth acts Lear's language is simplicity itself, and even in that third act which Tolstoi condemns as ”incredibly po naturally:
”Ha! here 's three on's are sophisticated: thou art the thing itself, unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art”
There is still another reason why some of us cannot read ”Lear” with the cold eyes of reason, conteony We who know the happy ingenuousness of his youth undimmed by doubts ofwith hi the bitter cup of disillusion to the dregs In ”Lear” the angry brooding leads to edy, struck again and again, should be the cry
”O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet Heaven!
Keep me in temper: I would not be mad”
”Lear” is the first attempt in all literature to paint madness, and not the worst atte his own disillusion and naked misery How blind Lear must have been, says Tolstoi; how incredibly foolish not to know his daughters better after living with them for twenty years; but this is just what Shakespeare wishes to express: How blind I was, he cries to us, how inconceivably trusting and foolish!+ How could I have irateful, or a wanton true? ”Lear” is a page of Shakespeare's autobiography, and the faults of it are the stains of his blistering tears
”Lear” is badly constructed, but worse was to coedy, ”Timon,” is merely a scream of pain, and yet it, too, has a deeper than artistic interest for us asThe mortal malady of perhaps the finest spirit that has ever appeared aedy
And to find that in Shakespeare's agony and bloody sweat he ignores the rules of artistry is siht have been expected, and, to some of us, deepens the personal interest in the draar is peculiarly Shakespeare's ives some of the finest words he ever coined:
”The Gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruar says of himself, is the moral of all passion: it is manifestly Shakespeare's view of himself:
”A most poorand feeling sorrows Aood pity”
Then we find the supreme phrase--perhaps the finest ever written: