Part 2 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: _Julius Caesar_ is not an exception to this rule. Caesar, whose murder comes in the Third Act, is in a sense the dominating figure in the story, but Brutus is the 'hero.']

[Footnote 2: _Timon of Athens_, we have seen, was probably not designed by Shakespeare, but even _Timon_ is no exception to the rule. The sub-plot is concerned with Alcibiades and his army, and Timon himself is treated by the Senate as a man of great importance. _Arden of Feversham_ and _A Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy_ would certainly be exceptions to the rule; but I a.s.sume that neither of them is Shakespeare's; and if either is, it belongs to a different species from his admitted tragedies. See, on this species, Symonds, _Shakspere's Predecessors_, ch. xi.]

[Footnote 3: Even a deed would, I think, be counted an 'accident,' if it were the deed of a very minor person whose character had not been indicated; because such a deed would not issue from the little world to which the dramatist had confined our attention.]

[Footnote 4: Comedy stands in a different position. The tricks played by chance often form a princ.i.p.al part of the comic action.]

[Footnote 5: It may be observed that the influence of the three elements just considered is to strengthen the tendency, produced by the sufferings considered first, to regard the tragic persons as pa.s.sive rather than as agents.]

[Footnote 6: An account of Hegel's view may be found in _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_.]

[Footnote 7: The reader, however, will find considerable difficulty in placing some very important characters in these and other plays. I will give only two or three ill.u.s.trations. Edgar is clearly not on the same side as Edmund, and yet it seems awkward to range him on Gloster's side when Gloster wishes to put him to death. Ophelia is in love with Hamlet, but how can she be said to be of Hamlet's party against the King and Polonius, or of their party against Hamlet? Desdemona wors.h.i.+ps Oth.e.l.lo, yet it sounds odd to say that Oth.e.l.lo is on the same side with a person whom he insults, strikes and murders.]

[Footnote 8: I have given names to the 'spiritual forces' in _Macbeth_ merely to ill.u.s.trate the idea, and without any pretension to adequacy.

Perhaps, in view of some interpretations of Shakespeare's plays, it will be as well to add that I do not dream of suggesting that in any of his dramas Shakespeare imagined two abstract principles or pa.s.sions conflicting, and incorporated them in persons; or that there is any necessity for a reader to define for himself the particular forces which conflict in a given case.]

[Footnote 9: Aristotle apparently would exclude them.]

[Footnote 10: Richard II. is perhaps an exception, and I must confess that to me he is scarcely a tragic character, and that, if he is nevertheless a tragic figure, he is so only because his fall from prosperity to adversity is so great.]

[Footnote 11: I say substantially; but the concluding remarks on _Hamlet_ will modify a little the statements above.]

[Footnote 12: I have raised no objection to the use of the idea of fate, because it occurs so often both in conversation and in books about Shakespeare's tragedies that I must suppose it to be natural to many readers. Yet I doubt whether it would be so if Greek tragedy had never been written; and I must in candour confess that to me it does not often occur while I am reading, or when I have just read, a tragedy of Shakespeare. Wordsworth's lines, for example, about

poor humanity's afflicted will Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny

do not represent the impression I receive; much less do images which compare man to a puny creature helpless in the claws of a bird of prey.

The reader should examine himself closely on this matter.]

[Footnote 13: It is dangerous, I think, in reference to all really good tragedies, but I am dealing here only with Shakespeare's. In not a few Greek tragedies it is almost inevitable that we should think of justice and retribution, not only because the _dramatis personae_ often speak of them, but also because there is something casuistical about the tragic problem itself. The poet treats the story in such a way that the question, Is the hero doing right or wrong? is almost forced upon us.

But this is not so with Shakespeare. _Julius Caesar_ is probably the only one of his tragedies in which the question suggests itself to us, and this is one of the reasons why that play has something of a cla.s.sic air. Even here, if we ask the question, we have no doubt at all about the answer.]

[Footnote 14: It is most essential to remember that an evil man is much more than the evil in him. I may add that in this paragraph I have, for the sake of clearness, considered evil in its most p.r.o.nounced form; but what is said would apply, _mutatis mutandis_, to evil as imperfection, etc.]

[Footnote 15: Partly in order not to antic.i.p.ate later pa.s.sages, I abstained from treating fully here the question why we feel, at the death of the tragic hero, not only pain but also reconciliation and sometimes even exultation. As I cannot at present make good this defect, I would ask the reader to refer to the word _Reconciliation_ in the Index. See also, in _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_, _Hegel's Theory of Tragedy_, especially pp. 90, 91.]

LECTURE II

CONSTRUCTION IN SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDIES

Having discussed the substance of a Shakespearean tragedy, we should naturally go on to examine the form. And under this head many things might be included; for example, Shakespeare's methods of characterisation, his language, his versification, the construction of his plots. I intend, however, to speak only of the last of these subjects, which has been somewhat neglected;[16] and, as construction is a more or less technical matter, I shall add some general remarks on Shakespeare as an artist.

1

As a Shakespearean tragedy represents a conflict which terminates in a catastrophe, any such tragedy may roughly be divided into three parts.

The first of these sets forth or expounds the situation,[17] or state of affairs, out of which the conflict arises; and it may, therefore, be called the Exposition. The second deals with the definite beginning, the growth and the vicissitudes of the conflict. It forms accordingly the bulk of the play, comprising the Second, Third and Fourth Acts, and usually a part of the First and a part of the Fifth. The final section of the tragedy shows the issue of the conflict in a catastrophe.[18]

The application of this scheme of division is naturally more or less arbitrary. The first part glides into the second, and the second into the third, and there may often be difficulty in drawing the lines between them. But it is still harder to divide spring from summer, and summer from autumn; and yet spring is spring, and summer summer.