Dramatic art, according to the laws established by those very critics
who extol Shakespeare, demands that the persons represented in the play
should be, in consequence of actions proper to their characters, and
owing to a natural course of events, placed in positions requiring them
to struggle with the surrounding world to which they find themselves in
opposition, and in this struggle should display their inherent
qualities.

In "King Lear" the persons represented are indeed placed externally in
opposition to the outward world, and they struggle with it. But their
strife does not flow from the natural course of events nor from their
own characters, but is quite arbitrarily established by the author, and
therefore can not produce on the reader the illusion which represents
the essential condition of art.

Lear has no necessity or motive for his abdication; also, having lived
all his life with his daughters, has no reason to believe the words of
the two elders and not the truthful statement of the youngest; yet upon
this is built the whole tragedy of his position.

Similarly unnatural is the subordinate action: the relation of
Gloucester to his sons. The positions of Gloucester and Edgar flow from
the circumstance that Gloucester, just like Lear, immediately believes
the coarsest untruth and does not even endeavor to inquire of his
injured son whether what he is accused of be true, but at once curses
and banishes him. The fact that Lear's relations with his daughters are
the same as those of Gloucester to his sons makes one feel yet more
strongly that in both cases the relations are quite arbitrary, and do
not flow from the characters nor the natural course of events. Equally
unnatural, and obviously invented, is the fact that all through the
tragedy Lear does not recognize his old courtier, Kent, and therefore
the relations between Lear and Kent fail to excite the sympathy of the
reader or spectator. The same, in a yet greater degree, holds true of
the position of Edgar, who, unrecognized by any one, leads his blind
father and persuades him that he has leapt off a cliff, when in reality
Gloucester jumps on level ground.

These positions, into which the characters are placed quite arbitrarily,
are so unnatural that the reader or spectator is unable not only to
sympathize with their sufferings but even to be interested in what he
reads or sees. This in the first place.

Secondly, in this, as in the other dramas of Shakespeare, all the
characters live, think, speak, and act quite unconformably with the
given time and place. The action of "King Lear" takes place 800 years
B.C., and yet the characters are placed in conditions possible only in
the Middle Ages: participating in the drama are kings, dukes, armies,
and illegitimate children, and gentlemen, courtiers, doctors, farmers,
officers, soldiers, and knights with vizors, etc. It is possible that
such anachronisms (with which Shakespeare's dramas abound) did not
injure the possibility of illusion in the sixteenth century and the
beginning of the seventeenth, but in our time it is no longer possible
to follow with interest the development of events which one knows could
not take place in the conditions which the author describes in detail.
The artificiality of the positions, not flowing from the natural course
of events, or from the nature of the characters, and their want of
conformity with time and space, is further increased by those coarse
embellishments which are continually added by Shakespeare and intended
to appear particularly touching. The extraordinary storm during which
King Lear roams about the heath, or the grass which for some reason he
puts on his head--like Ophelia in "Hamlet"--or Edgar's attire, or the
fool's speeches, or the appearance of the helmeted horseman, Edgar--all
these effects not only fail to enhance the impression, but produce an
opposite effect. "Man sieht die Absicht und man wird verstimmt," as
Goethe says. It often happens that even during these obviously
intentional efforts after effect, as, for instance, the dragging out by
the legs of half a dozen corpses, with which all Shakespeare's tragedies
terminate, instead of feeling fear and pity, one is tempted rather to
laugh.




IV

But it is not enough that Shakespeare's characters are placed in tragic
positions which are impossible, do not flow from the course of events,
are inappropriate to time and space--these personages, besides this, act
in a way which is out of keeping with their definite character, and is
quite arbitrary. It is generally asserted that in Shakespeare's dramas
the characters are specially well expressed, that, notwithstanding their
vividness, they are many-sided, like those of living people; that, while
exhibiting the characteristics of a given individual, they at the same
time wear the features of man in general; it is usual to say that the
delineation of character in Shakespeare is the height of perfection.

This is asserted with such confidence and repeated by all as
indisputable truth; but however much I endeavored to find confirmation
of this in Shakespeare's dramas, I always found the opposite. In
reading any of Shakespeare's dramas whatever, I was, from the very
first, instantly convinced that he was lacking in the most important, if
not the only, means of portraying characters: individuality of language,
_i.e._, the style of speech of every person being natural to his
character. This is absent from Shakespeare. All his characters speak,
not their own, but always one and the same Shakespearian, pretentious,
and unnatural language, in which not only they could not speak, but in
which no living man ever has spoken or does speak.

No living men could or can say, as Lear says, that he would divorce his
wife in the grave should Regan not receive him, or that the heavens
would crack with shouting, or that the winds would burst, or that the
wind wishes to blow the land into the sea, or that the curled waters
wish to flood the shore, as the gentleman describes the storm, or that
it is easier to bear one's grief and the soul leaps over many sufferings
when grief finds fellowship, or that Lear has become childless while I
am fatherless, as Edgar says, or use similar unnatural expressions with
which the speeches of all the characters in all Shakespeare's dramas
overflow.

Again, it is not enough that all the characters speak in a way in which
no living men ever did or could speak--they all suffer from a common
intemperance of language. Those who are in love, who are preparing for
death, who are fighting, who are dying, all alike speak much and
unexpectedly about subjects utterly inappropriate to the occasion, being
evidently guided rather by consonances and play of words than by
thoughts. They speak all alike. Lear raves exactly as does Edgar when
feigning madness. Both Kent and the fool speak alike. The words of one
of the personages might be placed in the mouth of another, and by the
character of the speech it would be impossible to distinguish who
speaks. If there is a difference in the speech of Shakespeare's various
characters, it lies merely in the different dialogs which are pronounced
for these characters--again by Shakespeare and not by themselves. Thus
Shakespeare always speaks for kings in one and the same inflated, empty
language. Also in one and the same Shakespearian, artificially
sentimental language speak all the women who are intended to be poetic:
Juliet, Desdemona, Cordelia, Imogen, Marina. In the same way, also, it
is Shakespeare alone who speaks for his villains: Richard, Edmund, Iago,
Macbeth, expressing for them those vicious feelings which villains never
express. Yet more similar are the speeches of the madmen with their
horrible words, and those of fools with their mirthless puns. So that in
Shakespeare there is no language of living individuals--that language
which in the drama is the chief means of setting forth character. If
gesticulation be also a means of expressing character, as in ballets,
this is only a secondary means. Moreover, if the characters speak at
random and in a random way, and all in one and the same diction, as is
the case in Shakespeare's work, then even the action of gesticulation is
wasted. Therefore, whatever the blind panegyrists of Shakespeare may
say, in Shakespeare there is no expression of character. Those
personages who, in his dramas, stand out as characters, are characters
borrowed by him from former works which have served as the foundation of
his dramas, and they are mostly depicted, not by the dramatic method
which consists in making each person speak with his own diction, but in
the epic method of one person describing the features of another.

The perfection with which Shakespeare expresses character is asserted
chiefly on the ground of the characters of Lear, Cordelia, Othello,
Desdemona, Falstaff, and Hamlet. But all these characters, as well as
all the others, instead of belonging to Shakespeare, are taken by him
from dramas, chronicles, and romances anterior to him. All these
characters not only are not rendered more powerful by him, but, in most
cases, they are weakened and spoilt. This is very striking in this drama
of "King Lear," which we are examining, taken by him from the drama
"King Leir," by an unknown author. The characters of this drama, that of
King Lear, and especially of Cordelia, not only were not created by
Shakespeare, but have been strikingly weakened and deprived of force by
him, as compared with their appearance in the older drama.

In the older drama, Leir abdicates because, having become a widower, he
thinks only of saving his soul. He asks his daughters as to their love
for him--that, by means of a certain device he has invented, he may
retain his favorite daughter on his island. The elder daughters are
betrothed, while the youngest does not wish to contract a loveless union
with any of the neighboring suitors whom Leir proposes to her, and he is
afraid that she may marry some distant potentate.

The device which he has invented, as he informs his courtier, Perillus
(Shakespeare's Kent), is this, that when Cordelia tells him that she
loves him more than any one or as much as her elder sisters do, he will
tell her that she must, in proof of her love, marry the prince he will
indicate on his island. All these motives for Lear's conduct are absent
in Shakespeare's play. Then, when, according to the old drama, Leir asks
his daughters about their love for him, Cordelia does not say, as
Shakespeare has it, that she will not give her father all her love, but
will love her husband, too, should she marry--which is quite
unnatural--but simply says that she can not express her love in words,
but hopes that her actions will prove it. Goneril and Regan remark that
Cordelia's answer is not an answer, and that the father can not meekly
accept such indifference, so that what is wanting in
Shakespeare--_i.e._, the explanation of Lear's anger which caused him to
disinherit his youngest daughter,--exists in the old drama. Leir is
annoyed by the failure of his scheme, and the poisonous words of his
eldest daughters irritate him still more. After the division of the
kingdom between the elder daughters, there follows in the older drama a
scene between Cordelia and the King of Gaul, setting forth, instead of
the colorless Cordelia of Shakespeare, a very definite and attractive
character of the truthful, tender, and self-sacrificing youngest
daughter. While Cordelia, without grieving that she has been deprived of
a portion of the heritage, sits sorrowing at having lost her father's
love, and looking forward to earn her bread by her labor, there comes
the King of Gaul, who, in the disguise of a pilgrim, desires to choose a
bride from among Leir's daughters. He asks Cordelia why she is sad. She
tells him the cause of her grief. The King of Gaul, still in the guise
of a pilgrim, falls in love with her, and offers to arrange a marriage
for her with the King of Gaul, but she says she will marry only a man
whom she loves. Then the pilgrim, still disguised, offers her his hand
and heart and Cordelia confesses she loves the pilgrim and consents to
marry him, notwithstanding the poverty that awaits her. Then the pilgrim
discloses to her that he it is who is the King of Gaul, and Cordelia
marries him. Instead of this scene, Lear, according to Shakespeare,
offers Cordelia's two suitors to take her without dowry, and one
cynically refuses, while the other, one does not know why, accepts her.
After this, in the old drama, as in Shakespeare's, Leir undergoes the
insults of Goneril, into whose house he has removed, but he bears these
insults in a very different way from that represented by Shakespeare: he
feels that by his conduct toward Cordelia, he has deserved this, and
humbly submits. As in Shakespeare's drama, so also in the older drama,
the courtiers, Perillus--Kent--who had interceded for Cordelia and was
therefore banished--comes to Leir and assures him of his love, but under
no disguise, but simply as a faithful old servant who does not abandon
his king in a moment of need. Leir tells him what, according to
Shakespeare, he tells Cordelia in the last scene, that, if the daughters
whom he has benefited hate him, a retainer to whom he has done no good
can not love him. But Perillus--Kent--assures the King of his love
toward him, and Leir, pacified, goes on to Regan. In the older drama
there are no tempests nor tearing out of gray hairs, but there is the
weakened and humbled old man, Leir, overpowered with grief, and banished
by his other daughter also, who even wishes to kill him. Turned out by
his elder daughters, Leir, according to the older drama, as a last
resource, goes with Perillus to Cordelia. Instead of the unnatural
banishment of Lear during the tempest, and his roaming about the heath,
Leir, with Perillus, in the older drama, during their journey to France,
very naturally reach the last degree of destitution, sell their clothes
in order to pay for their crossing over the sea, and, in the attire of
fishermen, exhausted by cold and hunger, approach Cordelia's house.
Here, again, instead of the unnatural combined ravings of the fool,
Lear, and Edgar, as represented by Shakespeare, there follows in the
older drama a natural scene of reunion between the daughter and the
father. Cordelia--who, notwithstanding her happiness, has all the time
been grieving about her father and praying to God to forgive her sisters
who had done him so much wrong--meets her father in his extreme want,
and wishes immediately to disclose herself to him, but her husband
advises her not to do this, in order not to agitate her weak father. She
accepts the counsel and takes Leir into her house without disclosing
herself to him, and nurses him. Leir gradually revives, and then the
daughter asks him who he is and how he lived formerly:

    "If from the first," says Leir, "I should relate the cause,
     I would make a heart of adamant to weep.
     And thou, poor soul, kind-hearted as thou art,
     Dost weep already, ere I do begin."

    Cordelia: "For God's love tell it, and when you have done
     I'll tell the reason why I weep so soon."

And Leir relates all he has suffered from his elder daughters, and says
that now he wishes to find shelter with the child who would be in the
right even were she to condemn him to death. "If, however," he says,
"she will receive me with love, it will be God's and her work, but not
my merit." To this Cordelia says: "Oh, I know for certain that thy
daughter will lovingly receive thee."--"How canst thou know this without
knowing her?" says Leir. "I know," says Cordelia, "because not far from
here, I had a father who acted toward me as badly as thou hast acted
toward her, yet, if I were only to see his white head, I would creep to
meet him on my knees."--"No, this can not be," says Leir, "for there are
no children in the world so cruel as mine."--"Do not condemn all for the
sins of some," says Cordelia, and falls on her knees. "Look here, dear
father," she says, "look on me: I am thy loving daughter." The father
recognizes her and says: "It is not for thee, but for me, to beg thy
pardon on my knees for all my sins toward thee."

Is there anything approaching this exquisite scene in Shakespeare's
drama?

However strange this opinion may seem to worshipers of Shakespeare, yet
the whole of this old drama is incomparably and in every respect
superior to Shakespeare's adaptation. It is so, first, because it has
not got the utterly superfluous characters of the villain Edmund and
unlifelike Gloucester and Edgar, who only distract one's attention;
secondly because it has not got the completely false "effects" of Lear
running about the heath, his conversations with the fool, and all these
impossible disguises, failures to recognize, and accumulated deaths;
and, above all, because in this drama there is the simple, natural, and
deeply touching character of Leir and the yet more touching and clearly
defined character of Cordelia, both absent in Shakespeare. Therefore,
there is in the older drama, instead of Shakespeare's long-drawn scene
of Lear's interview with Cordelia and of Cordelia's unnecessary murder,
the exquisite scene of the interview between Leir and Cordelia,
unequaled by any in all Shakespeare's dramas.

The old drama also terminates more naturally and more in accordance with
the moral demands of the spectator than does Shakespeare's, namely, by
the King of the Gauls conquering the husbands of the elder sisters, and
Cordelia, instead of being killed, restoring Leir to his former
position.

Thus it is in the drama we are examining, which Shakespeare has borrowed
from the drama "King Leir." So it is also with Othello, taken from an
Italian romance, the same also with the famous Hamlet. The same with
Antony, Brutus, Cleopatra, Shylock, Richard, and all Shakespeare's
characters, all taken from some antecedent work. Shakespeare, while
profiting by characters already given in preceding dramas, or romances,
chronicles, or, Plutarch's "Lives," not only fails to render them more
truthful and vivid, as his eulogists affirm, but, on the contrary,
always weakens them and often completely destroys them, as with Lear,
compelling his characters to commit actions unnatural to them, and,
above all, to utter speeches natural neither to them nor to any one
whatever. Thus, in "Othello," altho that is, perhaps, I will not say the
best, but the least bad and the least encumbered by pompous volubility,
the characters of Othello, Iago, Cassio, Emilia, according to
Shakespeare, are much less natural and lifelike than in the Italian
romance. Shakespeare's Othello suffers from epilepsy, of which he has an
attack on the stage; moreover, in Shakespeare's version, Desdemona's
murder is preceded by the strange vow of the kneeling Othello. Othello,
according to Shakespeare, is a negro and not a Moor. All this is
erratic, inflated, unnatural, and violates the unity of the character.
All this is absent in the romance. In that romance the reasons for
Othello's jealousy are represented more naturally than in Shakespeare.
In the romance, Cassio, knowing whose the handkerchief is, goes to
Desdemona to return it, but, approaching the back-door of Desdemona's
house, sees Othello and flies from him. Othello perceives the escaping
Cassio, and this, more than anything, confirms his suspicions.
Shakespeare has not got this, and yet this casual incident explains
Othello's jealousy more than anything else. With Shakespeare, this
jealousy is founded entirely on Iago's persistent, successful
machinations and treacherous words, which Othello blindly believes.
Othello's monolog over the sleeping Desdemona, about his desiring her
when killed to look as she is alive, about his going to love her even
dead, and now wishing to smell her "balmy breath," etc., is utterly
impossible. A man who is preparing for the murder of a beloved being,
does not utter such phrases, still less after committing the murder
would he speak about the necessity of an eclipse of sun and moon, and of
the globe yawning; nor can he, negro tho he may be, address devils,
inviting them to burn him in hot sulphur and so forth. Lastly, however
effective may be the suicide, absent in the romance, it completely
destroys the conception of his clearly defined character. If he indeed
suffered from grief and remorse, he would not, intending to kill
himself, pronounce phrases about his own services, about the pearl, and
about his eyes dropping tears "_as fast as the Arabian trees their
medicinal gum_"; and yet less about the Turk's beating an Italian and
how he, Othello, smote him--_thus!_ So that notwithstanding the powerful
expression of emotion in Othello when, under the influence of Iago's
hints, jealousy rises in him, and again in his scenes with Desdemona,
one's conception of Othello's character is constantly infringed by his
false pathos and the unnatural speeches he pronounces.

So it is with the chief character, Othello, but notwithstanding its
alteration and the disadvantageous features which it is made thereby to
present in comparison with the character from which it was taken in the
romance, this character still remains a character, but all the other
personages are completely spoiled by Shakespeare.

Iago, according to Shakespeare, is an unmitigated villain, deceiver, and
thief, a robber who robs Roderigo and always succeeds even in his most
impossible designs, and therefore is a person quite apart from real
life. In Shakespeare, the motive of his villainy is, first, that Othello
did not give him the post he desired; secondly, that he suspects Othello
of an intrigue with his wife and, thirdly, that, as he says, he feels a
strange kind of love for Desdemona. There are many motives, but they are
all vague. Whereas in the romance there is but one simple and clear
motive, Iago's passionate love for Desdemona, transmitted into hatred
toward her and Othello after she had preferred the Moor to him and
resolutely repulsed him. Yet more unnatural is the utterly unnecessary
Roderigo whom Iago deceives and robs, promising him Desdemona's love,
and whom he forces to fulfil all he commands: to intoxicate Cassio,
provoke and then kill Cassio. Emilia, who says anything it may occur to
the author to put into her mouth, has not even the slightest semblance
of a live character.

"But Falstaff, the wonderful Falstaff," Shakespeare's eulogists will
say, "of him, at all events, one can not say that he is not a living
character, or that, having been taken from the comedy of an unknown
author, it has been weakened."

Falstaff, like all Shakespeare's characters, was taken from a drama or
comedy by an unknown author, written on a really living person, Sir John
Oldcastle, who had been the friend of some duke. This Oldcastle had once
been convicted of heresy, but had been saved by his friend the duke. But
afterward he was condemned and burned at the stake for his religious
beliefs, which did not conform with Catholicism. It was on this same
Oldcastle that an anonymous author, in order to please the Catholic
public, wrote a comedy or drama, ridiculing this martyr for his faith
and representing him as a good-for-nothing man, the boon companion of
the duke, and it is from this comedy that Shakespeare borrowed, not
only the character of Falstaff, but also his own ironical attitude
toward it. In Shakespeare's first works, when this character appeared,
it was frankly called "Oldcastle," but later, in Elizabeth's time, when
Protestantism again triumphed, it was awkward to bring out with mockery
a martyr in the strife with Catholicism, and, besides, Oldcastle's
relatives had protested, and Shakespeare accordingly altered the name of
Oldcastle to that of Falstaff, also a historical figure, known for
having fled from the field of battle at Agincourt.

Falstaff is, indeed, quite a natural and typical character; but then it
is perhaps the only natural and typical character depicted by
Shakespeare. And this character is natural and typical because, of all
Shakespeare's characters, it alone speaks a language proper to itself.
And it speaks thus because it speaks in that same Shakespearian
language, full of mirthless jokes and unamusing puns which, being
unnatural to all Shakespeare's other characters, is quite in harmony
with the boastful, distorted, and depraved character of the drunken
Falstaff. For this reason alone does this figure truly represent a
definite character. Unfortunately, the artistic effect of this character
is spoilt by the fact that it is so repulsive by its gluttony,
drunkenness, debauchery, rascality, deceit, and cowardice, that it is
difficult to share the feeling of gay humor with which the author treats
it. Thus it is with Falstaff.

But in none of Shakespeare's figures is his, I will not say incapacity
to give, but utter indifference to giving, his personages a typical
character so strikingly manifest as in Hamlet; and in connection with
none of Shakespeare's works do we see so strikingly displayed that blind
worship of Shakespeare, that unreasoning state of hypnotism owing to
which the mere thought even is not admitted that any of Shakespeare's
productions can be wanting in genius, or that any of the principal
personages in his dramas can fail to be the expression of a new and
deeply conceived character.

Shakespeare takes an old story, not bad in its way, relating:

"Avec quelle ruse Amlette qui depuis fut Roy de Dannemarch, vengea la
mort de son pГЁre Horwendille, occis par Fengon son frГЁre, et autre
occurrence de son histoire," or a drama which was written on this theme
fifteen years before him. On this subject he writes his own drama,
introducing quite inappropriately (as indeed he always does) into the
mouth of the principal person all those thoughts of his own which
appeared to him worthy of attention. And putting into the mouth of his
hero these thoughts: about life (the grave-digger), about death (To be
or not to be)--the same which are expressed in his sixty-sixth
sonnet--about the theater, about women. He is utterly unconcerned as to
the circumstances under which these words are said, and it naturally
turns out that the person expressing all these thoughts is a mere
phonograph of Shakespeare, without character, whose actions and words do
not agree.

In the old legend, Hamlet's personality is quite comprehensible: he is
indignant at his mother's and his uncle's deeds, and wishes to revenge
himself upon them, but is afraid his uncle may kill him as he had killed
his father. Therefore he simulates insanity, desiring to bide his time
and observe all that goes on in the palace. Meanwhile, his uncle and
mother, being afraid of him, wish to test whether he is feigning or is
really mad, and send to him a girl whom he loves. He persists, then sees
his mother in private, kills a courtier who was eavesdropping, and
convicts his mother of her sin. Afterward he is sent to England, but
intercepts letters and, returning from England, takes revenge of his
enemies, burning them all.

All this is comprehensible and flows from Hamlet's character and
position. But Shakespeare, putting into Hamlet's mouth speeches which he
himself wishes to express, and making him commit actions which are
necessary to the author in order to produce scenic effects, destroys all
that constitutes the character of Hamlet and of the legend. During the
whole of the drama, Hamlet is doing, not what he would really wish to
do, but what is necessary for the author's plan. One moment he is
awe-struck at his father's ghost, another moment he begins to chaff it,
calling it "old mole"; one moment he loves Ophelia, another moment he
teases her, and so forth. There is no possibility of finding any
explanation whatever of Hamlet's actions or words, and therefore no
possibility of attributing any character to him.

But as it is recognized that Shakespeare the genius can not write
anything bad, therefore learned people use all the powers of their minds
to find extraordinary beauties in what is an obvious and crying failure,
demonstrated with especial vividness in "Hamlet," where the principal
figure has no character whatever. And lo! profound critics declare that
in this drama, in the person of Hamlet, is expressed singularly
powerful, perfectly novel, and deep personality, existing in this person
having no character; and that precisely in this absence of character
consists the genius of creating a deeply conceived character. Having
decided this, learned critics write volumes upon volumes, so that the
praise and explanation of the greatness and importance of the
representation of the character of a man who has no character form in
volume a library. It is true that some of the critics timidly express
the idea that there is something strange in this figure, that Hamlet is
an unsolved riddle, but no one has the courage to say (as in Hans
Andersen's story) that the King is naked--_i.e._, that it is as clear as
day that Shakespeare did not succeed and did not even wish to give any
character to Hamlet, did not even understand that this was necessary.
And learned critics continue to investigate and extol this puzzling
production, which reminds one of the famous stone with an inscription
which Pickwick found near a cottage doorstep, and which divided the
scientific world into two hostile camps.

So that neither do the characters of Lear nor Othello nor Falstaff nor
yet Hamlet in any way confirm the existing opinion that Shakespeare's
power consists in the delineation of character.

If in Shakespeare's dramas one does meet figures having certain
characteristic features, for the most part secondary figures, such as
Polonius in "Hamlet" and Portia in "The Merchant of Venice," these few
lifelike characters among five hundred or more other secondary figures,
with the complete absence of character in the principal figures, do not
at all prove that the merit of Shakespeare's dramas consists in the
expression of character.

That a great talent for depicting character is attributed to Shakespeare
arises from his actually possessing a peculiarity which, for superficial
observers and in the play of good actors, may appear to be the capacity
of depicting character. This peculiarity consists in the capacity of
representative scenes expressing the play of emotion. However unnatural
the positions may be in which he places his characters, however improper
to them the language which he makes them speak, however featureless they
are, the very play of emotion, its increase, and alteration, and the
combination of many contrary feelings, as expressed correctly and
powerfully in some of Shakespeare's scenes, and in the play of good
actors, evokes even, if only for a time, sympathy with the persons
represented. Shakespeare, himself an actor, and an intelligent man, knew
how to express by the means not only of speech, but of exclamation,
gesture, and the repetition of words, states of mind and developments or
changes of feeling taking place in the persons represented. So that, in
many instances, Shakespeare's characters, instead of speaking, merely
make an exclamation, or weep, or in the middle of a monolog, by means of
gestures, demonstrate the pain of their position (just as Lear asks some
one to unbutton him), or, in moments of great agitation, repeat a
question several times, or several times demand the repetition of a word
which has particularly struck them, as do Othello, Macduff, Cleopatra,
and others. Such clever methods of expressing the development of
feeling, giving good actors the possibility of demonstrating their
powers, were, and are, often mistaken by many critics for the expression
of character. But however strongly the play of feeling may be expressed
in one scene, a single scene can not give the character of a figure when
this figure, after a correct exclamation or gesture, begins in a
language not its own, at the author's arbitrary will, to volubly utter
words which are neither necessary nor in harmony with its character.




V

"Well, but the profound utterances and sayings expressed by
Shakespeare's characters," Shakespeare's panegyrists will retort. "See
Lear's monolog on punishment, Kent's speech about vengeance, or Edgar's
about his former life, Gloucester's reflections on the instability of
fortune, and, in other dramas, the famous monologs of Hamlet, Antony,
and others."

Thoughts and sayings may be appreciated, I will answer, in a prose work,
in an essay, a collection of aphorisms, but not in an artistic dramatic
production, the object of which is to elicit sympathy with that which is
represented. Therefore the monologs and sayings of Shakespeare, even did
they contain very many deep and new thoughts, which they do not, do not
constitute the merits of an artistic, poetic production. On the
contrary, these speeches, expressed in unnatural conditions, can only
spoil artistic works.

An artistic, poetic work, particularly a drama, must first of all excite
in the reader or spectator the illusion that whatever the person
represented is living through, or experiencing, is lived through or
experienced by himself. For this purpose it is as important for the
dramatist to know precisely what he should make his characters both do
and say as what he should not make them say and do, so as not to destroy
the illusion of the reader or spectator. Speeches, however eloquent and
profound they may be, when put into the mouth of dramatic characters, if
they be superfluous or unnatural to the position and character, destroy
the chief condition of dramatic art--the illusion, owing to which the
reader or spectator lives in the feelings of the persons represented.
Without putting an end to the illusion, one may leave much unsaid--the
reader or spectator will himself fill this up, and sometimes, owing to
this, his illusion is even increased, but to say what is superfluous is
the same as to overthrow a statue composed of separate pieces and
thereby scatter them, or to take away the lamp from a magic lantern: the
attention of the reader or spectator is distracted, the reader sees the
author, the spectator sees the actor, the illusion disappears, and to
restore it is sometimes impossible; therefore without the feeling of
measure there can not be an artist, and especially a dramatist.

Shakespeare is devoid of this feeling. His characters continually do and
say what is not only unnatural to them, but utterly unnecessary. I do
not cite examples of this, because I believe that he who does not
himself see this striking deficiency in all Shakespeare's dramas will
not be persuaded by any examples and proofs. It is sufficient to read
"King Lear," alone, with its insanity, murders, plucking out of eyes,
Gloucester's jump, its poisonings, and wranglings--not to mention
"Pericles," "Cymbeline," "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest"--to be
convinced of this. Only a man devoid of the sense of measure and of
taste could produce such types as "Titus Andronicus" or "Troilus and
Cressida," or so mercilessly mutilate the old drama "King Leir."

Gervinus endeavors to prove that Shakespeare possessed the feeling of
beauty, "Schönheit's sinn," but all Gervinus's proofs prove only that he
himself, Gervinus, is completely destitute of it. In Shakespeare
everything is exaggerated: the actions are exaggerated, so are their
consequences, the speeches of the characters are exaggerated, and
therefore at every step the possibility of artistic impression is
interfered with. Whatever people may say, however they may be enraptured
by Shakespeare's works, whatever merits they may attribute to them, it
is perfectly certain that he was not an artist and that his works are
not artistic productions. Without the sense of measure, there never was
nor can be an artist, as without the feeling of rhythm there can not be
a musician. Shakespeare might have been whatever you like, but he was
not an artist.

"But one should not forget the time at which Shakespeare wrote," say his
admirers. "It was a time of cruel and coarse habits, a time of the then
fashionable euphemism, _i.e._, artificial way of expressing oneself--a
time of forms of life strange to us, and therefore, to judge about
Shakespeare, one should have in view the time when he wrote. In Homer,
as in Shakespeare, there is much which is strange to us, but this does
not prevent us from appreciating the beauties of Homer," say these
admirers. But in comparing Shakespeare with Homer, as does Gervinus,
that infinite distance which separates true poetry from its semblance
manifests itself with especial force. However distant Homer is from us,
we can, without the slightest effort, transport ourselves into the life
he describes, and we can thus transport ourselves because, however alien
to us may be the events Homer describes, he believes in what he says and
speaks seriously, and therefore he never exaggerates, and the sense of
measure never abandons him. This is the reason why, not to speak of the
wonderfully distinct, lifelike, and beautiful characters of Achilles,
Hector, Priam, Odysseus, and the eternally touching scenes of Hector's
leave-taking, of Priam's embassy, of Odysseus's return, and others--the
whole of the "Iliad" and still more the "Odyssey" are so humanly near to
us that we feel as if we ourselves had lived, and are living, among its
gods and heroes. Not so with Shakespeare. From his first words,
exaggeration is seen: the exaggeration of events, the exaggeration of
emotion, and the exaggeration of effects. One sees at once that he does
not believe in what he says, that it is of no necessity to him, that he
invents the events he describes, and is indifferent to his
characters--that he has conceived them only for the stage and therefore
makes them do and say only what may strike his public; and therefore we
do not believe either in the events, or in the actions, or in the
sufferings of the characters. Nothing demonstrates so clearly the
complete absence of esthetic feeling in Shakespeare as comparison
between him and Homer. The works which we call the works of Homer are
artistic, poetic, original works, lived through by the author or
authors; whereas the works of Shakespeare--borrowed as they are, and,
externally, like mosaics, artificially fitted together piecemeal from
bits invented for the occasion--have nothing whatever in common with art
and poetry.




VI

But, perhaps, the height of Shakespeare's conception of life is such
that, tho he does not satisfy the esthetic demands, he discloses to us a
view of life so new and important for men that, in consideration of its
importance, all his failures as an artist become imperceptible. So,
indeed, say Shakespeare's admirers. Gervinus says distinctly that
besides Shakespeare's significance in the sphere of dramatic poetry in
which, according to his opinion, Shakespeare equals "Homer in the sphere
of Epos, Shakespeare being the very greatest judge of the human soul,
represents a teacher of most indisputable ethical authority and the most
select leader in the world and in life."

In what, then, consists this indisputable authority of the most select
leader in the world and in life? Gervinus devotes the concluding chapter
of his second volume, about fifty pages, to an explanation of this.

The ethical authority of this supreme teacher of life consists in the
following: The starting point of Shakespeare's conception of life, says
Gervinus, is that man is gifted with powers of activity, and therefore,
first of all, according to Gervinus, Shakespeare regarded it as good and
necessary for man that he should act (as if it were possible for a man
not to act):

"Die thatkräftigen Männer, Fortinbras, Bolingbroke, Alcibiades, Octavius
spielen hier die gegensätzlichen Rollen gegen die verschiedenen
thatlosen; nicht ihre Charaktere verdienen ihnen Allen ihr GlГјck und
Gedeihen etwa durch eine grosse Ueberlegenheit ihrer Natur, sondern
trotz ihrer geringeren Anlage stellt sich ihre Thatkraft an sich Гјber
die Unthätigkeit der Anderen hinaus, gleichviel aus wie schöner Quelle
diese Passivität, aus wie schlechter jene Thätigkeit fliesse."

_I.e._, active people, like Fortinbras, Bolingbroke, Alcibiades,
Octavius, says Gervinus, are placed in contrast, by Shakespeare, with
various characters who do not exhibit energetic activity. And happiness
and success, according to Shakespeare, are attained by individuals
possessing this active character, not at all owing to the superiority
of their nature; on the contrary, notwithstanding their inferior gifts,
the capacity of activity itself always gives them the advantage over
inactivity, quite independent of any consideration whether the
inactivity of some persons flows from excellent impulses and the
activity of others from bad ones. "Activity is good, inactivity is evil.
Activity transforms evil into good," says Shakespeare, according to
Gervinus. Shakespeare prefers the principle of Alexander (of Macedonia)
to that of Diogenes, says Gervinus. In other words, he prefers death and
murder due to ambition, to abstinence and wisdom.

According to Gervinus, Shakespeare believes that humanity need not set
up ideals, but that only healthy activity and the golden mean are
necessary in everything. Indeed, Shakespeare is so penetrated by this
conviction that, according to Gervinus's assertion, he allows himself to
deny even Christian morality, which makes exaggerated demands on human
nature. Shakespeare, as we read, did not approve of limits of duty
exceeding the intentions of nature. He teaches the golden mean between
heathen hatred to one's enemies and Christian love toward them (pp.
561, 562). How far Shakespeare was penetrated with this fundamental
principle of _reasonable moderation_, says Gervinus, can be seen from
the fact that he has the courage to express himself even against the
Christian rules which prompt human nature to the excessive exertion of
its powers. He did not admit that the limits of duties should exceed the
biddings of Nature. Therefore he preached a reasonable mean natural to
man, between Christian and heathen precepts, of love toward one's
enemies on the one hand, and hatred toward them on the other.

That one may do too much good (exceed the reasonable limits of good) is
convincingly proved by Shakespeare's words and examples. Thus excessive
generosity ruins Timon, while Antonio's moderate generosity confers
honor; normal ambition makes Henry V. great, whereas it ruins Percy, in
whom it has risen too high; excessive virtue leads Angelo to
destruction, and if, in those who surround him, excessive severity
becomes harmful and can not prevent crime, on the other hand the divine
element in man, even charity, if it be excessive, can create crime.

Shakespeare taught, says Gervinus, that one _may be too good_.

He teaches that morality, like politics, is a matter in which, owing to
the complexity of circumstances and motives, one can not establish any
principles (p. 563), and in this he agrees with Bacon and
Aristotle--there are no positive religious and moral laws which may
create principles for correct moral conduct suitable for all cases.

Gervinus most clearly expresses the whole of Shakespeare's moral theory
by saying that Shakespeare does not write for those classes for whom
definite religious principles and laws are suitable (_i.e._, for nine
hundred and ninety-nine one-thousandths of men) but for the educated:

"There are classes of men whose morality is best guarded by the positive
precepts of religion and state law; to such persons Shakespeare's
creations are inaccessible. They are comprehensible and accessible only
to the educated, from whom one can expect that they should acquire the
healthy tact of life and self-consciousness by means of which the innate
guiding powers of conscience and reason, uniting with the will, lead us
to the definite attainment of worthy aims in life. But even for such
educated people, Shakespeare's teaching is not always without danger.
The condition on which his teaching is quite harmless is that it should
be accepted in all its completeness, in all its parts, without any
omission. Then it is not only without danger, but is the most clear and
faultless and therefore the most worthy of confidence of all moral
teaching" (p. 564).

In order thus to accept all, one should understand that, according to
his teaching, it is stupid and harmful for the individual to revolt
against, or endeavor to overthrow, the limits of established religious
and state forms. "Shakespeare," says Gervinus, "would abhor an
independent and free individual who, with a powerful spirit, should
struggle against all convention in politics and morality and overstep
that union between religion and the State which has for thousands of
years supported society. According to his views, the practical wisdom of
men could not have a higher object than the introduction into society of
the greatest spontaneity and freedom, but precisely because of this one
should safeguard as sacred and irrefragable the natural laws of
society--one should respect the existing order of things and,
continually verifying it, inculcate its rational sides, not overlooking
nature for the sake of culture, or _vice versa_" (p. 566). Property, the
family, the state, are sacred; but aspiration toward the recognition of
the equality of men is insanity. Its realization would bring humanity to
the greatest calamities. No one struggled more than Shakespeare against
the privileges of rank and position, but could this freethinking man
resign himself to the privileges of the wealthy and educated being
destroyed in order to give room to the poor and ignorant? How could a
man who so eloquently attracts people toward honors, permit that the
very aspiration toward that which was great be crushed together with
rank and distinction for services, and, with the destruction of all
degrees, "the motives for all high undertakings be stifled"? Even if the
attraction of honors and false power treacherously obtained were to
cease, could the poet admit of the most dreadful of all violence, that
of the ignorant crowd? He saw that, thanks to this equality now
preached, everything may pass into violence, and violence into arbitrary
acts and thence into unchecked passion which will rend the world as the
wolf does its prey, and in the end the world will swallow itself up.
Even if this does not happen with mankind when it attains equality--if
the love of nations and eternal peace prove not to be that impossible
"nothing," as Alonso expressed it in "The Tempest"--but if, on the
contrary, the actual attainment of aspirations toward equality is
possible, then the poet would deem that the old age and extinction of
the world had approached, and that, therefore, for active individuals,
it is not worth while to live (pp. 571, 572).

Such is Shakespeare's view of life as demonstrated by his greatest
exponent and admirer.

Another of the most modern admirers of Shakespeare, George Brandes,
further sets forth:[2]

"No one, of course, can conserve his life quite pure from evil, from
deceit, and from the injury of others, but evil and deceit are not
always vices, and even the evil caused to others, is not necessarily a
vice: it is often merely a necessity, a legitimate weapon, a right. And
indeed, Shakespeare always held that there are no unconditional
prohibitions, nor unconditional duties. For instance, he did not doubt
Hamlet's right to kill the King, nor even his right to stab Polonius to
death, and yet he could not restrain himself from an overwhelming
feeling of indignation and repulsion when, looking around, he saw
everywhere how incessantly the most elementary moral laws were being
infringed. Now, in his mind there was formed, as it were, a closely
riveted ring of thoughts concerning which he had always vaguely felt:
such unconditional commandments do not exist; the quality and
significance of an act, not to speak of a character, do not depend upon
their enactment or infringement; the whole substance lies in the
contents with which the separate individual, at the moment of his
decision and on his own responsibility, fills up the form of these
laws."

In other words, Shakespeare at last clearly saw that the moral of the
_aim_ is the only true and possible one; so that, according to Brandes,
Shakespeare's fundamental principle, for which he extols him, is that
_the end justifies the means_--action at all costs, the absence of all
ideals, moderation in everything, the conservation of the forms of life
once established, and the end justifying the means. If you add to this a
Chauvinist English patriotism, expressed in all the historical dramas, a
patriotism according to which the English throne is something sacred,
Englishmen always vanquishing the French, killing thousands and losing
only scores, Joan of Arc regarded as a witch, and the belief that Hector
and all the Trojans, from whom the English came, are heroes, while the
Greeks are cowards and traitors, and so forth,--such is the view of life
of the wisest teacher of life according to his greatest admirers. And he
who will attentively read Shakespeare's works can not fail to recognize
that the description of this Shakespearian view of life by his admirers
is quite correct.

The merit of every poetic work depends on three things:

(1) The subject of the work: the deeper the subject, _i.e._, the more
important it is to the life of mankind, the higher is the work.

(2) The external beauty achieved by technical methods proper to the
particular kind of art. Thus, in dramatic art, the technical method will
be a true individuality of language, corresponding to the characters, a
natural, and at the same time touching plot, a correct scenic rendering
of the demonstration and development of emotion, and the feeling of
measure in all that is represented.

(3) Sincerity, _i.e._, that the author should himself keenly feel what
he expresses. Without this condition there can be no work of art, as the
essence of art consists in the contemplation of the work of art being
infected with the author's feeling. If the author does not actually feel
what he expresses, then the recipient can not become infected with the
feeling of the author, does not experience any feeling, and the
production can no longer be classified as a work of art.