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A. C. Bradley - Shakespearean Tragedy

A >> A. C. Bradley >> Shakespearean Tragedy




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.

The main business of the Exposition, which we will consider first, is to
introduce us into a little world of persons; to show us their positions
in life, their circumstances, their relations to one another, and
perhaps something of their characters; and to leave us keenly interested
in the question what will come out of this condition of things. We are
left thus expectant, not merely because some of the persons interest us
at once, but also because their situation in regard to one another
points to difficulties in the future. This situation is not one of
conflict,[19] but it threatens conflict. For example, we see first the
hatred of the Montagues and Capulets; and then we see Romeo ready to
fall violently in love; and then we hear talk of a marriage between
Juliet and Paris; but the exposition is not complete, and the conflict
has not definitely begun to arise, till, in the last scene of the First
Act, Romeo the Montague sees Juliet the Capulet and becomes her slave.

The dramatist's chief difficulty in the exposition is obvious, and it is
illustrated clearly enough in the plays of unpractised writers; for
example, in _Remorse_, and even in _The Cenci_. He has to impart to the
audience a quantity of information about matters of which they generally
know nothing and never know all that is necessary for his purpose.[20]
But the process of merely acquiring information is unpleasant, and the
direct imparting of it is undramatic. Unless he uses a prologue,
therefore, he must conceal from his auditors the fact that they are
being informed, and must tell them what he wants them to know by means
which are interesting on their own account. These means, with
Shakespeare, are not only speeches but actions and events. From the very
beginning of the play, though the conflict has not arisen, things are
happening and being done which in some degree arrest, startle, and
excite; and in a few scenes we have mastered the situation of affairs
without perceiving the dramatist's designs upon us. Not that this is
always so with Shakespeare. In the opening scene of his early _Comedy of
Errors_, and in the opening speech of _Richard III._, we feel that the
speakers are addressing us; and in the second scene of the _Tempest_
(for Shakespeare grew at last rather negligent of technique) the purpose
of Prospero's long explanation to Miranda is palpable. But in general
Shakespeare's expositions are masterpieces.[21]

His usual plan in tragedy is to begin with a short scene, or part of a
scene, either full of life and stir, or in some other way arresting.
Then, having secured a hearing, he proceeds to conversations at a lower
pitch, accompanied by little action but conveying much information. For
example, _Romeo and Juliet_ opens with a street-fight, _Julius Caesar_
and _Coriolanus_ with a crowd in commotion; and when this excitement has
had its effect on the audience, there follow quiet speeches, in which
the cause of the excitement, and so a great part of the situation, are
disclosed. In _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ this scheme is employed with great
boldness. In _Hamlet_ the first appearance of the Ghost occurs at the
fortieth line, and with such effect that Shakespeare can afford to
introduce at once a conversation which explains part of the state of
affairs at Elsinore; and the second appearance, having again increased
the tension, is followed by a long scene, which contains no action but
introduces almost all the _dramatis personae_ and adds the information
left wanting. The opening of _Macbeth_ is even more remarkable, for
there is probably no parallel to its first scene, where the senses and
imagination are assaulted by a storm of thunder and supernatural alarm.
This scene is only eleven lines long, but its influence is so great that
the next can safely be occupied with a mere report of Macbeth's
battles,--a narrative which would have won much less attention if it had
opened the play.

When Shakespeare begins his exposition thus he generally at first makes
people talk about the hero, but keeps the hero himself for some time out
of sight, so that we await his entrance with curiosity, and sometimes
with anxiety. On the other hand, if the play opens with a quiet
conversation, this is usually brief, and then at once the hero enters
and takes action of some decided kind. Nothing, for example, can be less
like the beginning of _Macbeth_ than that of _King Lear_. The tone is
pitched so low that the conversation between Kent, Gloster, and Edmund
is written in prose. But at the thirty-fourth line it is broken off by
the entrance of Lear and his court, and without delay the King proceeds
to his fatal division of the kingdom.

This tragedy illustrates another practice of Shakespeare's. _King Lear_
has a secondary plot, that which concerns Gloster and his two sons. To
make the beginning of this plot quite clear, and to mark it off from the
main action, Shakespeare gives it a separate exposition. The great scene
of the division of Britain and the rejection of Cordelia and Kent is
followed by the second scene, in which Gloster and his two sons appear
alone, and the beginning of Edmund's design is disclosed. In _Hamlet_,
though the plot is single, there is a little group of characters
possessing a certain independent interest,--Polonius, his son, and his
daughter; and so the third scene is devoted wholly to them. And again,
in _Othello_, since Roderigo is to occupy a peculiar position almost
throughout the action, he is introduced at once, alone with Iago, and
his position is explained before the other characters are allowed to
appear.

But why should Iago open the play? Or, if this seems too presumptuous a
question, let us put it in the form, What is the effect of his opening
the play? It is that we receive at the very outset a strong impression
of the force which is to prove fatal to the hero's happiness, so that,
when we see the hero himself, the shadow of fate already rests upon him.
And an effect of this kind is to be noticed in other tragedies. We are
made conscious at once of some power which is to influence the whole
action to the hero's undoing. In _Macbeth_ we see and hear the Witches,
in _Hamlet_ the Ghost. In the first scene of _Julius Caesar_ and of
_Coriolanus_ those qualities of the crowd are vividly shown which render
hopeless the enterprise of the one hero and wreck the ambition of the
other. It is the same with the hatred between the rival houses in _Romeo
and Juliet_, and with Antony's infatuated passion. We realise them at
the end of the first page, and are almost ready to regard the hero as
doomed. Often, again, at one or more points during the exposition this
feeling is reinforced by some expression that has an ominous effect. The
first words we hear from Macbeth, 'So foul and fair a day I have not
seen,' echo, though he knows it not, the last words we heard from the
Witches, 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair.' Romeo, on his way with his
friends to the banquet, where he is to see Juliet for the first time,
tells Mercutio that he has had a dream. What the dream was we never
learn, for Mercutio does not care to know, and breaks into his speech
about Queen Mab; but we can guess its nature from Romeo's last speech in
the scene:

My mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels.

When Brabantio, forced to acquiesce in his daughter's stolen marriage,
turns, as he leaves the council-chamber, to Othello, with the warning,

Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
She has deceived her father, and may thee,

this warning, and no less Othello's answer, 'My life upon her faith,'
make our hearts sink. The whole of the coming story seems to be
prefigured in Antony's muttered words (I. ii. 120):

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage;

and, again, in Hamlet's weary sigh, following so soon on the passionate
resolution stirred by the message of the Ghost:

The time is out of joint. Oh cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.

These words occur at a point (the end of the First Act) which may be
held to fall either within the exposition or beyond it. I should take
the former view, though such questions, as we saw at starting, can
hardly be decided with certainty. The dimensions of this first section
of a tragedy depend on a variety of causes, of which the chief seems to
be the comparative simplicity or complexity of the situation from which
the conflict arises. Where this is simple the exposition is short, as in
_Julius Caesar_ and _Macbeth_. Where it is complicated the exposition
requires more space, as in _Romeo and Juliet_, _Hamlet_, and _King
Lear_. Its completion is generally marked in the mind of the reader by a
feeling that the action it contains is for the moment complete but has
left a problem. The lovers have met, but their families are at deadly
enmity; the hero seems at the height of success, but has admitted the
thought of murdering his sovereign; the old king has divided his kingdom
between two hypocritical daughters, and has rejected his true child; the
hero has acknowledged a sacred duty of revenge, but is weary of life:
and we ask, What will come of this? Sometimes, I may add, a certain time
is supposed to elapse before the events which answer our question make
their appearance and the conflict begins; in _King Lear_, for instance,
about a fortnight; in _Hamlet_ about two months.


2

We come now to the conflict itself. And here one or two preliminary
remarks are necessary. In the first place, it must be remembered that
our point of view in examining the construction of a play will not
always coincide with that which we occupy in thinking of its whole
dramatic effect. For example, that struggle in the hero's soul which
sometimes accompanies the outward struggle is of the highest importance
for the total effect of a tragedy; but it is not always necessary or
desirable to consider it when the question is merely one of
construction. And this is natural. The play is meant primarily for the
theatre; and theatrically the outward conflict, with its influence on
the fortunes of the hero, is the aspect which first catches, if it does
not engross, attention. For the average play-goer of every period the
main interest of _Hamlet_ has probably lain in the vicissitudes of his
long duel with the King; and the question, one may almost say, has been
which will first kill the other. And so, from the point of view of
construction, the fact that Hamlet spares the King when he finds him
praying, is, from its effect on the hero's fortunes, of great moment;
but the cause of the fact, which lies within Hamlet's character, is not
so.

In the second place we must be prepared to find that, as the plays vary
so much, no single way of regarding the conflict will answer precisely
to the construction of all; that it sometimes appears possible to look
at the construction of a tragedy in two quite different ways, and that
it is material to find the best of the two; and that thus, in any given
instance, it is necessary first to define the opposing sides in the
conflict. I will give one or two examples. In some tragedies, as we saw
in our first lecture, the opposing forces can, for practical purposes,
be identified with opposing persons or groups. So it is in _Romeo and
Juliet_ and _Macbeth_. But it is not always so. The love of Othello may
be said to contend with another force, as the love of Romeo does; but
Othello cannot be said to contend with Iago as Romeo contends with the
representatives of the hatred of the houses, or as Macbeth contends with
Malcolm and Macduff. Again, in _Macbeth_ the hero, however much
influenced by others, supplies the main driving power of the action; but
in _King Lear_ he does not. Possibly, therefore, the conflict, and with
it the construction, may best be regarded from different points of view
in these two plays, in spite of the fact that the hero is the central
figure in each. But if we do not observe this we shall attempt to find
the same scheme in both, and shall either be driven to some unnatural
view or to a sceptical despair of perceiving any principle of
construction at all.

With these warnings, I turn to the question whether we can trace any
distinct method or methods by which Shakespeare represents the rise and
development of the conflict.

(1) One at least is obvious, and indeed it is followed not merely during
the conflict but from beginning to end of the play. There are, of
course, in the action certain places where the tension in the minds of
the audience becomes extreme. We shall consider these presently. But, in
addition, there is, all through the tragedy, a constant alternation of
rises and falls in this tension or in the emotional pitch of the work, a
regular sequence of more exciting and less exciting sections. Some kind
of variation of pitch is to be found, of course, in all drama, for it
rests on the elementary facts that relief must be given after emotional
strain, and that contrast is required to bring out the full force of an
effect. But a good drama of our own time shows nothing approaching to
the _regularity_ with which in the plays of Shakespeare and of his
contemporaries the principle is applied. And the main cause of this
difference lies simply in a change of theatrical arrangements. In
Shakespeare's theatre, as there was no scenery, scene followed scene
with scarcely any pause; and so the readiest, though not the only, way
to vary the emotional pitch was to interpose a whole scene where the
tension was low between scenes where it was high. In our theatres there
is a great deal of scenery, which takes a long time to set and change;
and therefore the number of scenes is small, and the variations of
tension have to be provided within the scenes, and still more by the
pauses between them. With Shakespeare there are, of course, in any long
scene variations of tension, but the scenes are numerous and, compared
with ours, usually short, and variety is given principally by their
difference in pitch.

It may further be observed that, in a portion of the play which is
relatively unexciting, the scenes of lower tension may be as long as
those of higher; while in a portion of the play which is specially
exciting the scenes of low tension are shorter, often much shorter, than
the others. The reader may verify this statement by comparing the First
or the Fourth Act in most of the tragedies with the Third; for, speaking
very roughly, we may say that the First and Fourth are relatively quiet
acts, the Third highly critical. A good example is the Third Act of
_King Lear_, where the scenes of high tension (ii., iv., vi.) are
respectively 95, 186 and 122 lines in length, while those of low tension
(i., iii., v.) are respectively 55, 26 and 26 lines long. Scene vii.,
the last of the Act, is, I may add, a very exciting scene, though it
follows scene vi., and therefore the tone of scene vi. is greatly
lowered during its final thirty lines.

(2) If we turn now from the differences of tension to the sequence of
events within the conflict, we shall find the principle of alternation
at work again in another and a quite independent way. Let us for the
sake of brevity call the two sides in the conflict A and B. Now,
usually, as we shall see presently, through a considerable part of the
play, perhaps the first half, the cause of A is, on the whole,
advancing; and through the remaining part it is retiring, while that of
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.

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