Chapter TwoTHE DRAMATURGY
Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe years are the highest forms of drama to result from a century of evolution. The long-fought battle between popular and private taste was to go on, finally to the defeat of popular taste in the rise of the private theaters. But in the ten years of the Globe, before the King’s men saw their theatrical future in appealing to a Blackfriars trade, the artistic possibilities of the popular narrative drama were abundantly realized.
As the poet created the play, the actors rehearsed it—or very shortly thereafter. At the Globe playhouse the intimacy between Shakespeare and his colleagues gave unparalleled opportunity for artistic collaboration. Through changes in status and physical surroundings, they maintained warm personal and professional relations. From a common creative act arose the plays that Shakespeare penned and the productions that his friends presented. The record of this partnership is contained in the extant scripts, not merely in stage directions or in dialogue, but in the very substance of the dramatist’s craft, the structure of the incidents.
To know this structure of incidents is no simple matter. Little contemporary Elizabethan theory of the dramatist’s craft exists.[1]Of the few contemporary essays on poesy which treat the drama, Sidney’s TheDefence of Poesie(c. 1583), is not only the best known but also the most thorough. In measuring pre-Shakespearean drama by neoclassic standards, Sidney concludes that the early plays lack order. Yet the characteristic that Sidney so roundly condemned is the very one which, as we shall see,was so skillfully mastered by the turn of the century: the narration of an extended history covering much time and many places. By then classicism was no longer a fixed standard. This is nowhere more evident than in the words of Ben Jonson. The most classical of all the Elizabethan playwrights, with the possible exception of Chapman, Jonson contains in his remarks on the drama contradictory tendencies not fully reconciled in theory.
The chorus toEvery Man Out of His Humour, a Globe play, provides the clearest expression of his views on the drama. Citing the precedent of the Greek poets, Jonson asserts, through the choral figure of Cordatus, that he does not see why the English poets should not enjoy “the same licence, or free power, to illustrate and heighten our invention as [the Greeks] did; and not bee tyed to those strict and regular formes, which the nicenesse of a few (who are nothing but forme) would thrust upon us” (Chorus, 267-270). Earlier, obliged to explain the absence of the traditional forms of classical drama, Cordatus remarks that there is no necessity to observe them. Yet, in setting the play in England, Cordatus quibbles over the nature of unity of place. He finds it acceptable for the author to have “a whole Iland to run through” but scorns those authors who, in one play, by showing “so many seas, countries, and kingdomes, past over with such admirable dexteritie ... out-run the apprehension of their auditorie” (Chorus, 279-286). Later in the play, despite his previous deprecation of classical authority, Jonson justifies the almost tragic scene of Sordido’s attempted suicide (III, ii) by resorting to the authority of Plautus (III, viii, 88 ff.). At another point he cites Cicero’s definition of comedy to demolish the citadel of romantic comedy (III, vi, 202-207). Throughout, Jonson maintains a double standard, eluding adherence to classical prescription when it suits him to do so, citing classical authority when it supports his practice, but at all times aware that mere imitation is neither possible nor desirable. For, it is significant to note, Jonson does not oppose classical form to no form at all, but “strict and regular” form to personal invention.
Dramatic theory of the Elizabethan period is particularly deceptivebecause the little that exists is usually classical in vocabulary and orientation. Baldwin has attempted to equate the use of classical terms with the creation of the equivalent form. He cites Jonson’s use of the critical termsepitasisandcatastropheinEvery Man Out of His Humour, together with similar evidence fromThe New Inn, as proof that “Jonson knows and observes ‘the Law of Comedy’ as it has been laid down by the sixteenth century commentators on Terence.” The epitasis is variously defined as “the intension or exaggeration of matters” or “the most busy part of a comedy” or “the progress of the turbations ... the knot of error.”[2]However, these generalizations have little to do with the way in which a play is shaped. For that we must go back to actual models. At once we see that the terms cannot be applied to both Terence and Jonson, and yet mean the same things. The interplay between Simo and Davus inThe Woman of Andros, as they attempt to outwit each other, produces a tightly drawn comedy of situation. The display of foolery which infuriates Macilente results in an ambling satirical comedy. Comparison discloses that not only in tone and content but also in function and effect the epitasis or the “busie part of the subject” differs in each case. Clearly, in no substantial way did the Elizabethans derive their dramatic forms from classical tradition.
In the absence of such a tradition and with the lack of a generally accepted alternative, the theory has persisted that Elizabethan drama lacks structural form. “The events ... are produced without any art of connection or care of disposition,” wrote Samuel Johnson ofAntony and Cleopatra. Substantially the same charge has been leveled against Shakespeare’s plays in particular and Elizabethan drama in general. The art of Elizabethan drama, it is said, must be sought in the characterization, in the poetic expression, in the myth-making patterns of ideas, but not in the structure of events. In a currently fashionable form, this view is stated quite straightforwardly by M. C. Bradbrook. “The essential structure of Elizabethan drama lies not in the narrative or the characters but in the words.... [The structure] was purely poetic.”[3]
It is true that Elizabethan dramatic structure appears to beirregular in form and haphazard in progression. Conditions of presentation, described in theprevious chapter, indicate that any conscious artistic purpose must have been difficult to pursue. The speed of composition, the prevalence of collaboration, and the absence of formal standards contributed to what might be called pragmatic dramatization. However, pragmatic dramatization did not necessarily prevent the appearance of distinctive dramatic forms. In fact, the winnowing process of the repertory system was evolutionary, ensuring the development of drama in response not to abstract theory but to the deeply ingrained artistic practices of the age.
In her constantly stimulating bookEndeavors of ArtMadeleine Doran introduces a new and provocative approach to the examination of Elizabethan dramatic structure. Adopting the thesis of Heinrich Wölfflin, expounded in hisPrinciples of Art History, Doran extends it to apply to the literary artist. Wölfflin argues that “the art of one age differs from that of another because the artists have different modes of imaginative beholding ... [As a result], any change in representational content from one period to [another is] less important to the effect of difference than the change in style arising from difference in decorative principle” or way of beholding.[4]Thus, the intent of the art work is less evident in the subject treated than in the arrangement effected. In comparing the “modes of imaginative beholding” in Renaissance and Baroque art, Wölfflin differentiates the two styles in terms of five categories of visual opposites, one of which is diffusion of effect (multiplicity) versus concentration of effect (unity). This category is the one most relevant to a consideration of dramatic literature. By demonstrating that Renaissance art “achieves its unity by making the parts independent as free members [and by relating them through a] coordination of the accents,” Wölfflin reconciles the opposites of multiplicity and unity in a concept of “multiple unity.”[5]
In the Elizabethan age the recurrent and popular expression of this concept is found in the image of art as a “mirror.” Hamlet’suse of this image need not be quoted. Substantially it was anticipated by Jonson inEvery Man Out of His Humour:
Asper.Well I will scourge those apes;And to these courteous eyes [of the audience] oppose a mirrour,As large as is the stage, whereon we act:Where they shall see the times deformitieAnatomiz’d in every nerve, and sinnew,With constant courage, and contempt of feare.[Chorus, 117-122]
Asper.Well I will scourge those apes;And to these courteous eyes [of the audience] oppose a mirrour,As large as is the stage, whereon we act:Where they shall see the times deformitieAnatomiz’d in every nerve, and sinnew,With constant courage, and contempt of feare.[Chorus, 117-122]
Asper.Well I will scourge those apes;
And to these courteous eyes [of the audience] oppose a mirrour,
As large as is the stage, whereon we act:
Where they shall see the times deformitie
Anatomiz’d in every nerve, and sinnew,
With constant courage, and contempt of feare.
[Chorus, 117-122]
Both uses of the image reveal that the reflection is to be of the times and to be directed at the spectator. That the mirror is inherent in the thinking of the Elizabethan age not only as the purpose but as themethodof poetry is expressed even more clearly in Puttenham’sThe Arte of English Poesie. In objecting to the mingling of the qualities of lightheaded or “phantasticall” men with poets, which “the pride of many Gentlemen and others” insist on to the derision of poetry, Puttenham writes that the poet’s brain “being well affected, [is] not onely nothing disorderly or confused with any monstruous imaginations or conceits, but very formall, and in his much multiformitieuniforme, that is well proportioned, and so passing cleare, that by [the mind], as by a glasse or mirrour, are represented unto the soule all maner of bewtifull visions.” Later: “There be againe of these glasses that shew thinges exceeding faire and comely; others that shew figures monstruous & illfavored.”[6]Here the poet’s mind, utilizing invention and imagination, is a mirror by which the soul receives vision.
The “mirror” had two principal functions in the Elizabethan period. One was to represent experience, in short, to achieve verisimilitude. Miss Doran demonstrates that the Elizabethans did not expect particular realism but universal truths. The other was to bring together many kinds of experience. Jonson clearly means to have the mirror turn this way and that in order to reflect a multiple image of the times. Shakespeare implies that in showing “virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,” the mirror held up to nature reflects the allegorical figure Virtue,at the same time as it reflects her evil sister, Scorn. The actual practices of the plays illustrate that the poets sought to project multiple aspects of a situation—Puttenham’s multiformitie—as it were by a mirror. Consequently, they tended to give equal emphasis to the various elements of the drama, that is, to produce a coordination rather than a subordination of parts. What “coordination of parts” means in dramaturgy may be seen by contrasting the relative dominance and integration of character, plot, language, and theme in classical and Renaissance drama.
In classical and modern “realistic” construction, plot, or the structure of incidents, is dominant. It is an imitation of an action to which character and language are subordinated. Although Francis Fergusson rightly points out the difficulty of defining the word “action,” nevertheless, he makes it clear that Aristotle specifies that plot is the prime embodiment of the action.[7]In this Aristotle describes the actual practice of ancient Greek drama. The incidents embrace the total significance of a play, for if plot, the structure of incidents, imitates the action which is the soul of tragedy, it must also contain the meaning of that action. Through plot the meaning radiates into character and language. Such a pyramid of emphasis, in which certain dramatic elements are subordinated, ensures genuine unity of action. If Greek drama did not always realize such an ideal form, it aspired toward such a realization.
In Renaissance construction, however, with its independent parts and coordinated accents, unity of action is not really possible. The structure of incidents does not implicitly contain the total meaning of the play. Character and thought have degrees of autonomy. They are not subordinate but coordinate with the plot. Therefore, the plot is not the sole source of unity. Instead, unity must arise from the dynamic interaction of the various parts of the drama: story, character, and language. Our task is to discover how this was accomplished.
Two habits of composition characterized the Elizabethan dramatists. First, the poets turned to popular romance and history for the sources of their plots. Baldwin saw one of the major problems of the dramatists to be the shaping of narrative materialto dramatic ends, and this he believes was accomplished through the Terentian five-act structure. Both Hardin Craig and Doran regard the romantic story as the formative influence in English drama.[8]Following Manly, Doran sees the miracle play as the main source of the romantic story and, as such, a principal forerunner of the Elizabethan drama. Secondly, in utilizing these materials, “English dramatists almost without exception adopted the sequential method of action, and all the weight of classic drama did not prevail to change their minds about it.”[9]The importance of this factor in the molding of drama is further emphasized in Miss Doran’s suggestion that the source material, or the story, “is often the chief determinant of whether or not a play is well organized.”[10]A glance at the play list of the Globe’s company reveals that with the possible exception ofEvery Man Out of His HumourandA Larum for London, story plays a decisive part in the flow of the drama. But so was story or fable the groundwork of ancient Greek drama. The differences arise from the ways in which the dramatists of each age treated their stories.
To begin with, the English dramatists retained a very large portion of a given story. They arranged but did not eliminate. In fact, they frequently supplied additional events. InA Larum for Londonwe find scene after scene illustrating the awful fate that befell the people of Antwerp at the hands of the Spanish. A copious montage of horrors passes across the stage. This multiplicity of events is a prime characteristic of this drama. To the Lear story Shakespeare adds the tale of Gloucester, to that of Helena and Bertram the story of Parolles.
Having taken a bustling story as his basis, the poet had to arrange all the events in dramatic order. According to Doran he had to find “a different method from the classical in two central problems of form: how to get concentration, and how to achieve organic structure, that is, how to achieve an action causally connected from beginning to middle to end.”[11]However, Bradbrook has rightly pointed out that in Elizabethan drama “consecutive or causal succession of events is not of the first importance.” With this observation, she dismisses narrative as not being one of the first concerns of the dramatists.[12]Certainly Bradbrook is right about the absence of Aristotelian causality, as the briefest review of most Elizabethan plays will show. The events leading to Cordelia’s death are without cause unless we choose chance as the cause. It is by chance she is captured, it is by chance that Edmund confesses too late.
The issue, however, is joined incorrectly. Organic structure, in this type of drama, is not a product of “causally connected events.” Nor can the absence of such connection minimize the dependence of Elizabethan dramaturgy upon narrative progression. To appreciate this point of view, we must comprehend the difference between how we usually expect a play to be linked causally and how the Elizabethans employed dramatic causation.
I believe that I follow most critics in deriving the concept of dramatic causation from Aristotle’s admonition that “the plot ... must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.” The Aristotelian plot is compressive and retrospective. Its method is to submit man to an intolerable pressure until there is a single bursting point that shatters life. A single act, invariably occurring before the play begins, initiates a series of events which, linked together in a probable and necessary sequence, produces the catastrophe, which once again casts back to the original source of momentum. Such linear intensification is promoted by the exertion of tremendous will on the part of the leading characters. Antigone’s willful piety clashes with Creon’s statism, Philoctetes’ desire for revenge and Ulysses’ desire for victory at Troy combine within Neoptolemus in a conflict between honor and duty. All incidents develop out of the wills of the characters. Incident counteracts incident. For example, before Oedipus can fully digest the charge of Tiresias, he accuses Creon of treachery. Creon responds to the charge, but before their conflict can be resolved, Jocasta tries to reconcile them, the very act of which brings Oedipus closer to the awesome truth. Focus is upon the drama mounting to the climax: the scenes leading to Oedipus’ discovery, the struggle leading to Neoptolemus’ decision, or the near disaster leadingto the ultimate revelation of Ion’s origin. To sum up, a play linked causally dramatizes all the crucial causes of major actions, maintaining due balance between the force of the motive and the intensity of effect, the action mounting from cause to effect to cause, so that at any point we are aware of what circumstances led to one and only one result. Suspense is a natural corollary of such organization, and concentration of effect is its aim.
It is apparent that the Elizabethan dramatists did not address themselves to the organization of that type of sequence. Very few plays of theirs can be found where closely linked causation produces the denouement. First, the causes for significant changes are frequently assumed or implied and not dramatized. Why Lear divides his kingdom, why Cleopatra flees the battle, why Angelo repents remain unrevealed. Iago promises to show Roderigo “such a necessity in his [Claudio’s] death that you shall think yourself bound to put it on him” (IV, ii, 247-248), and later Roderigo, waiting to assail Claudio, affirms that Iago “hath given me satisfying reasons” (V, i, 9). Between the scenes some justification, unknown to us, was given Roderigo by Iago. The revelation of Lady Macbeth’s haunting nightmares actually serves as aperipeteiawhich, Aristotle warns, must be “subject always to our rule of probability, or necessity.” But this reversal is not the result of a succession of events leading to a necessary end, unless we regard it as having taken place off-stage. Such an end may be probable, of course, but we are given no insight into the forces that make it probable. Nor apparently did Shakespeare feel it incumbent upon him to show these forces. That we accept the sleep-walking scene is not so much because it is either inevitable or likely, but because of all things in the realm of possibility that could have befallen the woman, her nightmares so perfectly satisfy both our sense of justice and our inclination toward pity at the same time.
Secondly, the causes for significant changes, when dramatized, are not always commensurate with the effects. To make itself felt, a dramatic cause, in the Aristotelian sense, must have sufficient weight to produce the effect it does; a great cause must not produce a puny effort, nor a puny effort a great result. Yet this lack of proportion occurs often in Shakespeare. The easewith which Iago secures Desdemona’s handkerchief from Emilia, though she wonders at the purpose of his request, does not balance the awful consequences. Brutus’ and Cassius’ meager dispute over whether or not to allow Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral is overshadowed by the fatal results. Here, as elsewhere, the perfunctoriness of the struggle between two antagonists is out of proportion to the effect that follows. The appearance of such imbalance, however, is not the result of ineptitude, but of artistic choice. Interest was not in the conflict leading to a decision, but the effect of the decision itself. The causes of action, therefore, tended to be taken for granted or conveyed with minimum emphasis; in other words, they were not regarded as being of first importance and so did not need to be dramatized with particularity. This attitude contributed largely to the looseness with which parts of a play are joined.
Causation, of course, was not completely abandoned, but it was generalized. Largely it resided in the given circumstances of the initial action, as Lear’s pride leading him to reject Cordelia or Cleopatra’s womanhood causing her to flee. For, within the Elizabethan scheme of man’s relation to his action, tightly linked causation was incomprehensible.
Nor was the alternative to causal succession, episodic structure, “a stringing together of events in mere temporal succession [where] each complication is solved as it arises.”[13]For dramatic causation of the parts, the Elizabethan substituted a rhythmic framework for the whole. The dramatization of a complete story employing many characters meant that within the scope of the narrative lay many plausible events. This gave the poet a wide choice of incidents with which to arrange his plot, the scope of the narrative imparting a limit of its own. Concurrently, the tendency for “mirroring” nature led him to choose scenes which would contrast or echo others or which would illustrate various facets of a single experience.
In such a drama the first scenes perform a vital function. They establish the premises upon which the action will be built. Little exposition is necessary, for not much has happened before the play opens. It is curious to note that almost all the principal characters are in a state of inertia at the beginning ofthe action. Hamlet, sorely distressed by his mother’s marriage, is not about to act. Rosalind, Cordelia, Lear, Antony, Cleopatra, Brutus, Macbeth, Timon all are uncommitted to anything but the state, happy or troubled, wherein we first see them. Usually some force, either early in the first scenes or just before them, impels the characters to act. This type of opening contributes to the impression, first, that the play is a self-contained microcosm and, second, that the first scenes are illustrations.
Antony and Cleopatraoffers a model for such an opening. The comments of Demetrius and Philo provide the frame for the illustration-premise of Antony’s love for Cleopatra and his rejection of Rome. Though the messenger from Rome does propel the action forward, calling Antony to Caesar, his arrival is handled in a ritualistic manner. We might consider this demonstration of the premise as analogous to the statement of a theme in music. Just as a composer announces his musical idea, the Elizabethan dramatist illustrates his dramatic idea, proceeding from it to the variations which occupy the balance of the play.[14]
Stemming from these premises are two lines of progression, one narrative, one dramatic. The first, which is essentially concerned with whathappensto the characters, follows a line of development to the very last scene. The second, which involves what the charactersundergo, reaches fullness somewhere near the center of the play.
The narrative line, what happens, proceeds linearly to the finale. InLear, this is concerned with the story of two fathers deceived by certain of their children; through deception they give these children their trust and power; they suffer at their hands; ultimately they are vindicated by their faithful children. All the plots and intrigues are part of the narrative. Not until Edgar fells Edmund are these plots unmasked.
The dramatic line, what the characters undergo, extends to heights of passion at the center of the play and then contracts. This line inLearis concerned with how a proud man endures curbs on his nature and is reduced to humility. In the first half of the play Lear, asserting his arrogance to the fullest, passes tothe limits of madness. In the second, he acquiesces to suffering, one might say, becomes detached from it. Extension and contraction is the pattern, extension of the potentialities of the premises of the action, contraction of the effects after they have reached their fulfillment.
Such parallel development of a play’s action produces contradictory impulses in the drama. On one hand there existed the impulse to complete the story, on the other there persisted the temptation to dilate upon the effect of the action upon the individuals. One reason why modern audiences suffer from “fourth act fatigue” in witnessing a Shakespearean play stems from the fact that their interest in the play is disproportionate. They have a greater interest in the dramatic line than in the narrative. For the Elizabethan audience the interest must have been more evenly balanced. For them the finale, the completion of the narrative line, had as much appeal as the “climax,” the height of the dramatic line.
We find a surprising similarity in the finales. Almost every one of the Globe plays contains a public resolution. Seldom is the conclusion private. The final scene ofEvery Man Out of His Humourcontaining the last of Macilente’s purgations is one of the exceptions, as are the conclusions ofA Larum for Londonand in some respects ofThe Devil’s Charter. In the latter play a spectacular conclusion representing the damnation of Pope Alexander is appended to a grand finale. All the other eleven non-Shakespearean plays terminate in a finale that is ceremonious and public. Of the fifteen Shakespearean plays produced between 1599 and 1609 onlyTroilus and Cressidaclearly dispenses with this type of finale. Thus, of the twenty-nine plays presented by the Globe company, twenty-five have a public accounting for the preceding action.
The importance of ending a play with a public exhibition is demonstrated by the amount of contrivance effected in some plays to ensure a grand finale. In theFair Maid of Bristow, King Richard suddenly grants Anabell the right to produce a championfor Vallenger. By doing so, however, he permits a last, grand discovery and sacrifice scene to be played. Other examples can be found in Shakespeare’s plays. One of the objections toMeasure for Measurehas been the forced manner in which the Duke succeeds in bringing the conclusion to public trial. This may equally well be the charge againstAll’s Well. Yet, whether or not it evolves logically from the preceding action, the great closing scene is a marked formal characteristic of this drama.
Several things may happen in the finale, either separately or jointly. In romance and comedy love triumphs. Any punishment that deserves to be meted out is usually tempered. Angelo “perceives he’s safe” inMeasure for Measureand Malvolio will be entreated to a peace. In tragedy justice prevails, even though the hero may die in the process. In comedy, the substance of the finale is the working out of the complications or confusions which impede love, in tragedy, the overcoming of evil forces that destroy a just order. In some instances, notablyMeasure for Measure, both love and justice triumph.
Common to all the Globe plays are:
(1) a means for bringing about justice or of winning love: the most frequent means are discovery of the identity of disguised persons, trial, execution, repentance, single combat, suicide;
(2) a judge-figure who pronounces judgment: he may either deliver the verdict and/or grant mercy or, after the action has occurred, declare the purport of the action; in finales of combat he may serve as the avenging arm of justice;
(3) a ranking figure who reasserts order: invariably the person of highest authority, in many plays he is identical with the judge-figure. It is a convention of Elizabethan drama that the last lines of a play, excluding epilogues and songs, be spoken by the ranking figure.
In the non-Shakespearean plays, discovery, trial and/or execution, and repentance appear most often.Fair Maid of Bristowemploys both discovery and execution,The London Prodigal,discovery and repentance. ExcludingEvery Man Out of His Humour, all the non-Shakespearean plays have judge-figures. In theMerry Devilit is the father, inVolponethe justices, inFair Maid of BristowKing Richard, inMiseries of Enforced Marriage, Scarborrow himself.[15]
This figure, sometimes central to the story, sometimes not, usually referees the conflict and, at the conclusion, either passes judgment or grants mercy. In two plays the formal agency for bringing judgment about is indirect. In the brilliant reversal scene inSejanusjudgment is exercised through the absent figure of the Emperor Tiberius. His letter read to the convocation of senators provides the means. In turn, his judgment illustrates the caprice of fortune and the descent of nemesis. The other play,Thomas Lord Cromwell, likewise makes use of an indirect agency as a substitute for the judge: King Henry’s delayed reprieve for Cromwell.
Each of Shakespeare’s plays, excludingTroilus and Cressida, also employs a final scene in which judgment is meted out and/or love is won. The content of the finale may be one or a combination of discovery, single combat, preparation for suicide, trial, and siege.[16]In seven of his Globe plays discovery untangles the knot of error which separated the lovers. Usually reserved for comedy, it is employed to make Othello comprehend the horror of his act. Discovery is also combined with repentance inAll’s Welland with trial inMeasure for Measure. InTimonthe framework of the siege contains a trial.
In his use of formal agents Shakespeare is more subtle than his fellow playwrights. Only six plays contain judge-figures central to the action: the King inAll’s Well, the “lords o’ the city” inCoriolanus, Alcibiades inTimonand, in an ingenious use of this device, Hymen inAs You Like It, and finally the Dukes inMeasure for MeasureandTwelfth Night. In describing Shakespeare’s use of the Duke as a type figure, C. B. Watson points out that “at the end of a play the role of the Duke is threefold: he acts to resolve the conflict in the interests of justice; he grants mercy to the offenders; and finally he plays the host at the festivities which are presumably to follow on the successful resolution of the dramatic conflict.”[17]
Into the other eight plays Shakespeare introduced more subtle methods of passing judgment. Two of them show a common pattern. Although a judge-figure is present, the true judgment is made by the hero. Antony is the judge-figure inJulius Caesar, and Octavius inAntony and Cleopatra, but in each case the hero by committing suicide substitutes his or her own judgment for that of other authority. Both Brutus and Cleopatra prepare for self-death elaborately. It becomes a means of warding off ignominy and gaining glory. InOthellosuicide serves the same purpose with only this difference, that Othello’s own strong sense of justice makes it unnecessary to have a judge-figure. The ranking figure, in each of these plays, is handled differently. InJulius Caesar, Octavius has this role, inOthello, Lodovico, and inAntony and Cleopatra, Octavius is both judge and ranking figure.
In each of three other plays,Lear,Macbeth, andHamlet, true judgment is rendered through a fateful single combat in which one combatant represents the forces of light, the other of darkness. InMerry Wiveswe find a double judgment. Mockery is the judgment passed on Falstaff and forgiveness that awarded Fenton and Ann. LikeOthello,Pericleslacks a judge-figure during the finale. Instead, the goddess Diana (V, i) has played that role in the act of directing Pericles to the discovery of Thaisa. Thus, in both the Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean plays the same kind of formal conclusion rounds out the story. This particular kind of conclusion reflects the moral ideals of Elizabethan society, the achievement of salvation or order or love through judgment.
Another characteristic of the concluding scene is that it is a narrative conclusion in which the initial situation is brought to a complete close rather than a thematic conclusion in which the implications of the theme are ultimately dramatized. Several elements of the narrative are introduced early inAs You Like It. They are Oliver’s alienation of Orlando’s heritage, Duke Frederick’s usurpation of his brother’s throne, and the love of Rosalind and Orlando. The thematic elements are indirectly related to the plot. They make themselves felt obliquely. But they are not embodied in the main action of the finale, nor, beingcontrasting expressions of the quality of love rather than moral injunctions, can they be so embodied. In fact, the thematic elements are absent from the finale, which is concerned with the tying of many a lover’s knot and the appropriate resignation of Duke Frederick. The same holds true forHamlet. The true issue, Hamlet’s inability to “set things right,” is resolved when Hamlet comes to a tranquil peace with his soul and accepts the guidance of providence in the scene with Horatio immediately preceding the duel (V, ii). However, the story has to be completed, and ironically Hamlet achieves by chance what he could not gain by design. In only a few plays do the thematic and narrative issues merge in the final moments of the action.Othelloof all Shakespeare’s plays offers the finest example of this concurrence, and perhaps because of this fact many critics regardOthelloas Shakespeare’s finest piece of dramatic construction. Such regard, however, is founded upon Aristotelian premises. For an Elizabethan the concurrence was incidental.
Particularly vital to our understanding of the conclusion is the place that climax or catastrophe occupies in the last scenes. The finales of Shakespeare’s Globe plays often fail to produce a climactic effect because the completion of the narrative does not arise from the conflicting forces of the theme or action. Instead ceremony frequently serves as a substitute for climax. By the time the last scene began, the Elizabethan audience knew how the story would end. But it satisfied the Elizabethan sense of ritual to see the pageant of the conclusion acted out. The appeal of this pageant is clearly illustrated inMeasure for Measure,Macbeth, andAs You Like It. In these plays the rendition of judgment through trial or combat or revelation respectively supplied the excitement that a dramatic climax would have afforded. Nor should we underestimate the interest such conclusions held for an Elizabethan audience. Knight, in pointing out that the tragedies reach a climax in Act III, suggests that the “military conflicts [at the end] were probably far more important to an Elizabethan” than to us.[18]But this statement has a wider applicability. Ceremony, such as Orsino’s visit to Olivia or trial-by-combat inLearor a parley inTimon, is often the frame for the finale. Because ceremony played so vital a rolein Elizabethan life, it had an unusually strong appeal for the audience who saw it represented on the stage.
The impulse to complete the story is satisfied in the finale, as we have seen. The impulse to dilate upon the story achieves maximum expansion in the center of the play. The presence of scenes of extreme complication and intense emotion at this point in the Shakespearean plays has led to the development of the theory of a third act climax. It has been expressed in various ways by various scholars. Knight merely notes this grouping of intensifications. Lawrence, anticipating Baldwin’s thesis of the five-act structure, assumes a third act climax. Baldwin would call it the imitation of the Terentian epitasis, and Moulton speaks of it as the center piece at the point of a regular arch.[19]
Certainly there is marked emotional intensification at the center of a Shakespearean play. However, if we are to call it a climax, we must redefine our term, taking care that it not be confused with the climax in classical or modern drama. There the climax is taken to be a single point of extreme intensity where the conflicting forces come to a final, irreconcilable opposition. At that point a dramatic explosion, leading to the denouement, is the direct outcome of the climactic release. Hedda Gabler has schemed to accomplish the glorious ruination of Lövborg. At the very moment when she expects to exult, she discovers that she has failed. The climax occurs when she learns that instead of controlling others, she herself is controlled. The denouement, her death, is a direct consequence. Causally-linked drama, by its very nature, drives to a “highest” point. In Greek drama it is usually a moment of recognition and/or reversal. That is why we must be cautious of speaking of a climax in Shakespearean drama.
If we endeavor to isolate such a climax in Elizabethan tragedy, we run into many difficulties. For example, is the play-within-the-play scene, the prayer scene, or the closet scene the climax ofHamlet? All contain some reversal; all are highly intense; we are emotionally swept along by them, caught up inthe melodrama of Hamlet’s device, in his mad exultation at its effect upon Claudius, in the pathos of Claudius’ contrition, and in the tortured uncertainty of Gertrude. But none of these scenes alone reveals a point of climax. If there is either recognition or reversal, it arises from accumulation of effect.
A more extended example of this diffusion of climax can be found inLear. Commencing with the famous “Blow, winds” speech, there are four painfully intense scenes: three of Lear on the heath, one of the blinding of Gloucester, interspersed by two brief scenes leading to that cruel act. The Lear and Gloucester scenes alternate. In some ways the emotional hysteria of Lear’s
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!You cataracts and hurricanoes, spoutTill you have drench’d our steeples,drown’d the cocks![III, ii, 1-3]
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!You cataracts and hurricanoes, spoutTill you have drench’d our steeples,drown’d the cocks![III, ii, 1-3]
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples,
drown’d the cocks!
[III, ii, 1-3]
is the most intense moment, and yet the dramatic intensification brought about by weaving together the trials of Lear and those of poor Tom has yet to occur. Moulton regards the meeting of those two as the climax.[20]But in which scene? The first outside the hovel, or the second in the shelter, where Lear arraigns his false daughters? Granville-Barker selects an exact moment for the climax, in the second of the storm scenes “when the proud old king kneels humbly and alone in his wretchedness to pray. This is the argument’s absolute height.”[21]Must, as Granville-Barker goes on to suggest, the tension relax then during the two scenes Lear plays with mad Tom? The reading of the storm scenes should make it obvious that instead of a point of intensity with subsequent slackening, we have a succession of states of intense emotional experience: Lear’s self-identification with raging nature, Lear’s pathetic lucidity and new-forged humility, Lear’s ultimate madness during a fantastic trial. Each high point subsides before the next bursts forth, not like a solitary cannon shot but like the ebb and flow of the pounding sea. The truth seems to be that we find not aclimactic point in the center of a Shakespearean play, but a climactic plateau, a “coordination of intense moments” sustained for a surprisingly extended period.
Othelloalone of the tragedies does not have that complete relaxation of intensity after the central “plateau.” But here it is a matter of degree, for though the wringing of Othello’s heart by Iago effects the maximum reversal of attitude, Othello continues to oscillate between doubt of and belief in Desdemona’s guilt. Thereafter, while intensity mounts to Desdemona’s death, the tone changes. Instead of the struggle of the giant to break the bonds of his strangling jealousy, we find a painful pathos arising from the gap between Othello’s misconception and Desdemona’s innocence.
Those plays in which the climactic plateau is most easily perceived, in addition toLearandHamlet, areTwelfth Night, III, i-iv;Troilus and Cressida, IV, iv, v; V, i;[22]Macbeth, III, iv; IV, i; andAntony and Cleopatra, III, xi-xiii. BothJulius CaesarandCoriolanushave intense centers of action in the third act. In these plays, however, the crucial scenes seem to take on the nature of a climax in the Greek sense. Antony’s speech and the banishment of Coriolanus are points of reversal. A closer examination, however, reveals that these peaks are blunted. Antony does not seem to wish to let the mob depart. There are several moments when he rouses them to action, only to pull them back for further inspiration. The climax ofCoriolanusis muted even more because Coriolanus and his friends struggle with the tribunes over the same issues twice (III, i, iii). The final banishment merely brings to an end a conclusion already foregone. In each scene Coriolanus’ patrician pride causes him to defy both friend and enemy. These last two plays contract the plateau only in degree,Julius Caesarmoving furthest toward a single moment of intensity. Generally in Shakespeare we will find the centers of action dispersed rather than concentrated, sustained rather than released.
As we might expect, a change in the duration and level of the climax produces a change in its nature. Lines of action leading to crisis are foreshortened, thereby throwing fuller emphasis on the response of the character, often expressed in lyrical ecstasy.
The center of intensity inLeardemonstrates this qualitative change. The impellent occasion for the storm scenes occurs in Act II, scene iv. Goneril and Regan’s determination to divest him of his royal position is brought home to Lear. He rushes into the raging storm after the words: