William Shakespeare Part 18

The pa.s.sion of remorse is a romantic, not a tragic pa.s.sion. It is the mood which follows the tragic mood. Shakespeare's creative life is like a Shakespearean play. It ends with an easing of the strain and a making of peace.

It is said that an old horse near to death turns towards the pastures where he was foaled. It is true of human beings. Man wanders home to the fields which bred him. A part of the romance of this poem is the turning back of the poet's mind to the Cotswold country, of which he sang so magically, in his first play, sixteen or eighteen years before. There are fine scenes of shepherds at home, among the sheep bells and clean wind. There is a very lovely talk of flowers--

"daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength."

To Shakespeare, the magically happy man, the going back to them must have been a time for thanksgiving. But to the supremely happy man all times are times of thanksgiving, deep, tranquil and abundant, for the delight, the majesty and the beauty of the fulness of the rolling world.

_The Tempest._

_Written._ 1610-11.

_Published_, in the folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ It is likely that many sources contributed to the making of this plot. If Shakespeare took the fable from a single source, that source is not now known. He may have taken suggestions for it from the following books:--

1st. From a little collection of novels by Antonio de Eslava, a Spanish writer, whose book, _Noches de Invierno_, was published in Barcelona in 1609. Three tales in this collection seem to have given hints for the play. The fourth chapter, about "The Art Magic of King Dardano," helped him more than the others. Whether the t.i.tle of the book suggested the t.i.tle of _A Winter's Tale_ is not known.

2nd. From a German play, _Die schone Sidea_, by a Nuremberg dramatist, named Jacob Ayrer.

3rd. From the tracts relating to the discovery of the Bermuda Islands in 1609. Of the known tracts, _A Discovery of the Bermuda Islands_, by Sylvester Jourdain, gave Shakespeare the most hints.

Several other books may have suggested lines and pa.s.sages.

_The Fable._ Prospero, Duke of Milan, having been driven from his dukedom by Antonio his brother, flies to sea with his daughter Miranda, lands on an island, and there lives, served by two creatures, one an airy spirit, the other a loutish monster.

By art magic, he brings to the island his usurping brother and the king and heir of Naples. Miranda falls in love with the heir of Naples. Prospero dismisses his spirits, reconciles himself with his brother, and plans to sail at once for Milan.

In this play, as in the two other original romantic plays, Shakespeare follows the workings of a treacherous act from its performance to the repentance of the sinner and the granting of the victim's forgiveness.

In the great plays the victim dies and the sinner does not repent.

Presently the wheel comes full circle, and a justice from outside life smites him dead. In these plays the betrayed live to forgive the traitors--

"Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, Yet, with my n.o.bler reason, 'gainst my fury Do I take part. The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further."

In this play, as in the other two and in _Pericles_, much is made of the chances and accidents of life, and of the sudden changes of worldly circ.u.mstance due to them. In this play, for the first and last time, Shakespeare treats of the power of the resolved imagination to command the brutish, the base, the n.o.ble and the spiritual for wise human ends.

It is easy to interpret the play as allegory. Youth in this country has reason to regard allegory as a clumsy man's way of introducing Sunday on a weekday. It is so seldom successful that it may be called the literary method of creative minds below the first rank. Shakespeare's method was never allegorical. The _Tempest_ is perhaps no more allegorical than any other good romance. But the thought of it is so clear that the first impression given is that it is thin. It is the study of a man of intellect, who has been forced from power by a treacherous brother.

Living alone with his bright, unspoiled daughter, he attains, by intellectual labour, to a power over destiny. Like the wise man of the proverb, he learns to master his stars. He uses this power n.o.bly to put an end to ancient hatred and old injustice.

The minor vision of the play is a study, often very amusing, but deeply earnest, of the coming of the fifth part civilised to the mostly brutal.

In Shakespeare's time, men like the quite thoughtless and callous Stephano and Trinculo, the "sea-dogs" who manned our ships, and of whom Raleigh wrote that it was an offence to G.o.d to minister oaths to the generality of them, were "spreading civilisation" in various parts of the world. Shakespeare, looking at them gravely, saw them to be, perhaps, more dangerous to the needs of life, to wisdom, and to unlit animal strength than the base Sebastian and the treacherous Antonio.

The exquisite lyrics, and the masque of the G.o.ddesses, show that the taste of the audience of 1610-11 needed to be tickled. Times had changed since the lion-like and ramping days, eighteen years before, when "Jeronimy" was a new word, and Tamora a serious invention. The man who had changed the times was thinking, like Prospero, that he had "got his dukedom," and that now, having "pardoned the deceiver," he might go to Stratford to enjoy it.

_King Henry VIII_, or _All is True_.

_Written._ 1611-13 (?)

_Produced._ (?)

_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ Holinshed's _Chronicles_. Hall's _Chronicles_. Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_.

_The Fable._ Act I. Two of the scenes in this act are by Shakespeare. In the first, Cardinal Wolsey contrives the attainting of his enemy, the Duke of Buckingham. In the other he procures to bring Queen Katharine into disfavour.

Act II. In this act, Buckingham is beheaded, the King shows favour to Anne Bullen, and Queen Katharine is brought to trial. It is hard to believe that Shakespeare wrote any part of this act. He is often credited with the third scene, apparently on the ground that though it is bad it is still too good to be by Bacon.

Act III. In this act, the King shows Wolsey that he has discovered his plottings. About half of the second scene (all the masculine part of it) is by Shakespeare. The rest (very beautiful) is by Fletcher.

Act IV. Anne Bullen is crowned. Wolsey dies. Queen Katharine dies.

None of this act is by Shakespeare.

Act V. Cranmer escapes from his enemies in time to be G.o.dfather at the christening of Anne Bullen's daughter Elizabeth. If any of this act be by Shakespeare it can only be the first scene.

Little of this play is by Shakespeare. The greater part of it is by John Fletcher. Some scenes bear the marks of a third hand, like that of Philip Ma.s.singer. The play reads as though the two lesser poets had worked from a scenario of Shakespeare's less complete than the draft of _Troilus and Cressida_. It is certain that they received no hint of the lines on which Shakespeare meant to proceed after the end of Act III.

Not knowing what to do, they patched up a piece without any central tragical idea, and hid their want of thought with much effective theatrical invention, pageants, a trial, a coronation, a christening, etc., and with bright, facile, vinous dialogue, of the kind that will hold an uncritical audience. The play, when done, was mounted with extreme splendour at the Globe Theatre. Wadding from the cannons discharged in the first act set fire to the theatre, and burned it to the ground, June 29, 1613.

Shakespeare's dramatic intention is indicated in the scenes written by him. Knowing his practice, and having before us Holinshed, his authority, it is easy to sketch out the kind of play that he would have written by himself. Wolsey, eaten up by his obsession for worldly power, betraying Buckingham to his fall, breaking the power of the Queen, and ruling England, would have filled the first two acts. The third act would have told (much more subtly than Fletcher has told) of his downfall. Fletcher attributes the downfall to the chance discovery of his attempt to thwart the king's marriage with Anne Bullen. That discovery would have been put to full dramatic use by Shakespeare; but it would have been represented as something working from beyond the grave, the result of many unjust acts that have cried to G.o.d for justice till G.o.d hears. The last acts would have exposed other sides of Wolsey's character. The play would have been a fuller, n.o.bler work than _Richard II_, and of an ampler canvas than _Timon_. Shakespeare's share in the play as we have it is all n.o.ble work. Wolsey, Katharine and the King are drawn with the great, sharp, ample line of a master. The difference between genius and supreme genius is shown very clearly in the first act, where a great work, greatly begun, with the masterly power of exposition that makes Shakespeare's first acts like daybreaks, is ended by another spirit, without vision, but with a tremendous sense of Vanity Fair.

WORK ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE

A play called _Cardenno_, or _Cardenna_, was acted at Court by Shakespeare's company in 1613. It is thought that this play was the _History of Cardenio_, described as "by Fletcher and Shakespeare," which was licensed for publication in 1653 but never published. The play is now lost. It was attributed to Fletcher and Shakespeare on very poor authority.

_Arden of Feversham_ is a domestic tragedy founded on a story told by Holinshed. It was published anonymously in 1592. It is held by some to be an early work of Shakespeare's, on the ground that no other known poet, then living, could have written it. It is a strong play, but it is the work of a joyless mind. It bears no single trace of Shakespeare's mind. It could not have been written by him at any stage in his career.

_Edward III_ is an historical chronicle play by at least two unknown hands. It was published anonymously in 1596. Some think that part of Act I and the whole of Act II (dealing with the King's obsession of pa.s.sion for the Countess of Salisbury) were by Shakespeare, on the grounds that the writing is too good to be by anybody else then living, and that the unknown author makes use of a line and a phrase which occur in the genuine sonnets of Shakespeare. The scenes attributed to Shakespeare contain several beautiful lines in something of the Shakespearean manner. The construction of the scenes, and their relation to the rest of the play is un-Shakespearean. It is unlikely that Shakespeare wrote them.

_The Spanish Tragedy_, a play by Thomas Kyd, published in 1592 and reprinted with many additions ten years later, contains in the additions several magnificent scenes of the pa.s.sion of grief raised to madness.

Some think that Ben Jonson wrote these scenes; others, that they are too good to be by any one but Shakespeare. They are not like Shakespeare's work.

_The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, a romantic tragedy on the subject of Chaucer's _Knight's Tale_, was first published in 1634. It was described on the t.i.tle-page as the joint work of Fletcher and Shakespeare. Shakespeare's hand is plainly marked upon the play; but it seems likely that most of the scenes usually credited to him are by Ma.s.singer. Few can have ears dull enough to credit Shakespeare with all the scenes that are plainly not by Fletcher.

About a dozen other plays and parts of plays have been attributed to Shakespeare, either by lying publishers, anxious to make money, or by foolish critics eager to make a noise. "Evil men understand not judgment: and he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent."

There is not a glimmer of evidence in any line or scene to show that Shakespeare had a hand in any of them.

THE POEMS

_Venus and Adonis._--This poem was published in 1593 with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton, then a youth. In the dedication Shakespeare speaks of the poem as "the first heire of my invention," from which some conclude that it was the first poem ever made public by him.

Though it may be his earliest poem, the thought expressed by it is the thought expressed in the greatest of the plays, that evil comes of obsession.

Venus, a l.u.s.tful woman, pursuing her opposite, a chaste youth, comes to misery. Adonis, a chaste youth, fleeing from her, comes to death.

The poem is beautiful and wild blooded. It is fierce with the excelling animal zest of something young and untainted.