Halleck's New English Literature Part 22

V. The Elizabethans also demanded story and incident. Modern critics have often noticed that the characterization in Shakespeare's fourth acts, _e.g._, in _Macbeth_, does not equal that in the preceding part of the play; but the fourth act of _Macbeth_ interested the Elizabethans because there was progress in the complicated story. To modern theatergoers this fourth act seems to drag because they have acquired through novel reading a liking for a.n.a.lysis and dissection.

Shakespeare succeeded in interesting the Elizabethans by embodying in story and incident his portrayal of character. Because of admiration for the revelation of character in his greatest plays, modern readers forget their moving incidents,--for instance, the almost blood-curdling appearances of a ghost, the actions of a crazed woman, the killing of an eavesdropper on the stage, two men fighting at an open grave, the skull and bones of a human being dug from a grave in full view of the audience, the fighting to the death on the stage, which is ghastly with corpses at the close. When we add to this the roar of cannon whenever the king drinks, as well as when there is some more noteworthy action, and remember that the very last words of _Hamlet_ are: "Go, bid the soldiers shoot," we shall realize that there was not much danger of going to sleep even during a performance of _Hamlet_.

Scenery.--The conditions under which early Elizabethan plays were sometimes produced are thus described by Sir Philip Sidney:--

"You shall have Asia of the one side, and Africa of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he comes in, must ever begin with telling you where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we hear news of a shipwreck in the same place, then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONTEMPORARY DRAWING OF INTERIOR OF AN ELIZABETHAN THEATER[15].]

Those who remember this well-known quotation too often forget that Sidney wrote before Shakespeare's plays were produced. We do not know whether Sidney was describing a private or a public stage, but the private theaters had the greater amount of scenery.

Modern research has shown that the manner of presenting plays did not remain stationary while the drama was rapidly evolving. Before Shakespeare died, there were such stage properties as beds, tables, chairs, dishes, fetters, shop wares, and perhaps also some artificial trees, mossy banks, and rocks. A theatrical manager in an inventory of stage properties (1598) mentions "the sittie of Rome," which was perhaps a cloth so painted as to present a perspective of the city. He also speaks of a "cloth of the Sone and Mone." The use of such painted cloths was an important step toward modern scenery. We may, however, conclude that the scenery of any Elizabethan theater would have seemed scant to one accustomed to the detailed setting of the modern stage.

The comparatively little scenery in Elizabethan theaters imposed strenuous imaginative exercise on the spectators. This effort was fortunate for all concerned--for the dramatist and for the actor, but especially for the spectator, who became accustomed to give an imaginative interpretation and setting to a play that would mean little to a modern theatergoer.

Actors.--Those who have seen some of the recent performances of plays under Elizabethan conditions, on a stage modeled after that of Shakespeare's time have been surprised at the increase of the actors'

power. The stage projects far enough into the pit to bring the actors close to the audience. Their appeal thus becomes far more personal, direct, and forceful. The spectator more easily identifies himself with them and almost feels as if he were a part of the play. This has been the experience of those who have seen the old-time reproduction of plays as different as _The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice_, and _Much Ado About Nothing_. In the case of _The Tempest_, a very interesting act was presented when all the scenery consisted of a board on which was painted "Prospero Isle."

In Shakespeare's times, the plays were probably well acted. While the fame of Elizabethan actors like Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage has come down to modern times, the success of plays did not depend on single stars. Shakespeare is said to have played in minor roles. The audience discouraged bad acting. The occupants of the pit would throw apples or worse missiles at an unsatisfactory player, and sometimes the disgusted spectators would suddenly leap on the stage and chase an incompetent actor off the boards.

Prior to the Restoration in 1660, the women's parts were taken by boys. While this must have hampered the presentation of characters like Lady Macbeth, it is now known to have been less of a handicap than was formerly thought. The twentieth century has seen feminine parts so well played by carefully trained boys that the most astute women spectators never detected the deception. Boys, especially those of the Chapel Royal, had for a long time acted masculine, as well as feminine, parts. As late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, the choir boys were presenting some of the great Elizabethan plays in a private theater connected with St. Paul's Cathedral. Rosencrantz in the second act of _Hamlet_ bears witness to the popularity of these boy actors, when he calls them "little eyases, that cry on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped for it." Ben Jonson's touching lyrical epitaph on a boy actor, Salathiel Pavy, who had for "three fill'd zodiacs" been "the stage's jewel," shows how highly the Elizabethans sometimes regarded boy actors. The regular theaters found the companies of boys such strong rivals that, in 1609, Shakespeare and other theatrical managers used modern business methods to suppress compet.i.tion and agreed to pay the master of the boys of St. Paul's enough to cause him to withdraw them permanently from competing with the other theaters.

PRE-SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATISTS

The "University Wits" and Thomas Kyd.--Five authors, John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Nashe, all graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, were sufficiently versatile to be called "university wits." Amid various other activities, all of them were impelled by the spirit of the age to write plays. These intellectual aristocrats hurled the keen shafts of their wit at those dramatists, who, without a university education, were arrogant enough to think that they could write plays. Because Shakespeare had never attended a university, Greene called him "an upstart Crow beautified with our feathers."

On New Year's, 1584, John Lyly, the author of _Euphues_, presented in the first Blackfriars Theater[16] his prose comedy, ent.i.tled _Campaspe_. This play relates the love story of Alexander the Great's fair Theban captive, Campaspe. The twenty-eight characters necessary to produce this play were obtained from the boys of the Chapel Royal and St. Paul's Cathedral. Two months later Lyly's _Sapho and Phao_ was given in the same theater with a cast of seventeen boys. It should be remembered that these plays, so important in the evolution of the drama, were acted by boys under royal patronage. _Campaspe_ is little more than a series of episodes, divided into acts and scenes, but, unlike _Gorboduc, Campaspe_ has many of the characteristics of an interesting modern play.

Lyly wrote eight comedies, all but one in prose. In the history of the drama, he is important for (1) finished style, (2) good dialogue, (3) considerable invention in the way he secured interest, by using cla.s.sical matter in combination with contemporary life, (4) subtle comedy, and (5) influence on Shakespeare. It is doubtful whether Shakespeare could have produced such good early comedies, if he had not received suggestions from Lyly's work in this field.

The chapel boys also presented at Blackfriars in the same year George Peele's (1558-1597) _The Arraignment of Paris_, a pastoral drama in riming verse. In Juno's promise to Paris, Peele shows how the possibilities of the New World affected his imagination:--

"Xanthus shall run liquid gold for thee to wash thy hands; And if thou like to tend thy flock and not from them to fly, Their fleeces shall be curled gold to please their master's eye."

While _The Arraignment of Paris_ and his two other plays, _David and Bathsabe_ and _The Old Wives' Tale_, are not good specimens of dramatic construction, the beauty of some of Peele's verse could hardly have failed to impress both Marlowe and Shakespeare with the poetic possibilities of the drama. Peele writes without effort--

"Of moss that sleeps with sound the waters make,"

and has David build--

"...a kingly bower, Seated in hearing of a hundred streams."

Robert Greene (1560-1592) showed much skill in (1) the construction of plots, (2) the revelation of simple and genuine human feeling, and (3) the weaving of an interesting story into a play. His best drama is the poetic comedy _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_. In this play, he made the love story the central point of interest.

Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), author of the story _Rosalynde_, which Shakespeare used to such good advantage, wrote in collaboration with Greene, _A Looking Gla.s.s for London and England_, and an independent play, _The Wounds of Civil War_. Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), best known for his picaresque novel, _The Unfortunate Traveler_, wrote a play, _Summer's Last Will and Testament_, but he and Lodge had little dramatic ability.

Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), although lacking a university education, succeeded in writing, about 1586, the most popular early Elizabethan play, _The Spanish Tragedy_, a blank verse drama, in which blood flows profusely. Although this play is not free from cla.s.sical influences, yet its excellence of construction, effective dramatic situations, vigor of movement, and romantic spirit helped to prepare the way for the tragedies of Marlowe and Shakespeare.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, 1564-1593

Life.--The year 1564 saw the birth of the two greatest geniuses in the English drama, Marlowe and Shakespeare. Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker, was born at Canterbury, and educated at Cambridge. When he was graduated, the dramatic profession was the only one that gave full scope to genius like his. He became both playwriter and actor. All his extant work was written in about six years. When he was only twenty-nine he was fatally stabbed in a tavern quarrel. Shakespeare had at that age not produced his greatest plays. Marlowe unwittingly wrote his own epitaph in that of Dr. Faustus:--

"Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARLOWE'S MEMORIAL STATUE AT CANTERBURY.]

Works.--Marlowe's great tragedies are four in number _Timberline, Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward, II._. No careful student of English literature can afford to be unacquainted with any of them.

Shakespeare's work appears less miraculous when we know that a predecessor at the age of twenty-four had written plays like _Timberline_ and _Dr. Faustus_.

_Timberline_ shows the supreme ambition for conquest, for controlling the world with physical force. It is such a play as might have been suggested to an Elizabethan by watching Napoleon's career. _Dr.

Faustus_, on the other hand, shows the desire for knowledge that would give universal power, a desire born of the Renaissance. _The Jew of Malta_ is the incarnation of the pa.s.sion for the world's wealth, a pa.s.sion that towers above common greed only by the magnificence of its immensity. In that play we see that Marlowe--

"Without control can pick his riches up, And in his house heap pearl like pebble stones, * * * * *

Infinite riches in a little room."

_Edward II._ gives a pathetic picture of one of the weakest of kings.

This shows more evenness and regularity of construction than any of Marlowe's other plays; but it is the one least characteristic of him.

The others manifest more intensity of imagination, more of the spirit of the age.

_Dr. Faustus_ shows Marlowe's peculiar genius at its best. The legend on which the play is based came from Germany, but Marlowe breathed his own imaginative spirit into the tragedy. Faustus is wearied with the barren philosophy of the past. He is impatient to secure at once the benefits of the New Learning, which seems to him to have all the powers of magic. If he can immediately enjoy the fruits of such knowledge, he says:--

"Had I as many souls as there be stars, I'd give them all."

In order to acquire this knowledge and the resulting power for twenty-four years, he sells his soul to Mephistopheles. Faustus then proceeds to enjoy all that the new order of things promised. He commands Homer to come from the realm of shades to sing his entrancing songs. He summons Helen to appear before him in the morning of her beauty. The apostrophe to her shows the vividness and exuberance of his imagination:--

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."

Marlowe left a fragment of a lyrical poem, ent.i.tled _Hero and Leander_, which is one of the finest productions of its kind in the language. Shakespeare accorded him the unusual honor of quoting from this poem.

In What Sense is Marlowe a Founder of the English Drama?--His success with blank verse showed Shakespeare that this was the proper versification for the drama. Before Marlowe, rime or prose had been chiefly employed in writing plays. Sackville had used blank verse in _Gorboduc_, but his verse and Marlowe's are as unlike as the movements of the ox and the flight of the swallow. The sentences of _Gorboduc_ generally end with the line, and the accents usually fall in the same place. Marlowe's blank verse shows great variety, and the major pause frequently does not come at the end of the line.

Marlowe cast the dramatic unities to the wind. The action in _Dr.

Faustus_ occupies twenty-four years, and the scene changes from country to country. He knew that he was speaking to a people whose imaginations could accompany him and interpret what he uttered. The other dramatists followed him in placing imaginative interpretation above measurements by the foot rule of the intellect. Symonds says of him: "It was he who irrevocably decided the destinies of the romantic drama; and the whole subsequent evolution of that species, including Shakespeare's work, can be regarded as the expansion, rectification, and artistic enn.o.blement of the type fixed by Marlowe's epoch-making tragedies. In very little more than fifty years from the publication of _Tamburlaine_, our drama had run its course of unparalleled energy and splendor."

_General Characteristics_.--As we sum up Marlowe's general qualities, it is well to note that they exhibit in a striking way the characteristics of the time. In the morning of that youthful age the superlative was possible. _Tamburlaine_, _The Jew of Malta_, and _Dr.

Faustus_ show in the superlative degree the love of conquest, of wealth, and of knowledge. Everything that Marlowe wrote is stamped with a love of beauty and of the impossible.

Tamburlaine speaks like one of the young Elizabethans--

"That in conceit bear empires on our spears, Affecting thoughts co-equal with the clouds."

Marlowe voices the new sense of worth of enfranchised man:--

"Thinkest thou heaven glorious thing?

I tell thee, 'tis not half so fair as thou, Or any man that breathes on earth.