The subject of Shakespeare's pieces, as is seen from the demonstrations
of his greatest admirers, is the lowest, most vulgar view of life, which
regards the external elevation of the lords of the world as a genuine
distinction, despises the crowd, _i.e._, the working
classes--repudiates not only all religious, but also all humanitarian,
strivings directed to the betterment of the existing order.

The second condition also, with the exception of the rendering of the
scenes in which the movement of feelings is expressed, is quite absent
in Shakespeare. He does not grasp the natural character of the positions
of his personages, nor the language of the persons represented, nor the
feeling of measure without which no work can be artistic.

The third and most important condition, sincerity, is completely absent
in all Shakespeare's works. In all of them one sees intentional
artifice; one sees that he is not _in earnest_, but that he is playing
with words.




VII

Shakespeare's works do not satisfy the demands of all art, and, besides
this, their tendency is of the lowest and most immoral. What then
signifies the great fame these works have enjoyed for more than a
hundred years?

Many times during my life I have had occasion to argue about Shakespeare
with his admirers, not only with people little sensitive to poetry, but
with those who keenly felt poetic beauty, such as Turgenef, Fet,[3] and
others, and every time I encountered one and the same attitude toward my
objection to the praises of Shakespeare. I was not refuted when I
pointed out Shakespeare's defects; they only condoled with me for my
want of comprehension, and urged upon me the necessity of recognizing
the extraordinary supernatural grandeur of Shakespeare, and they did not
explain to me in what the beauties of Shakespeare consisted, but were
merely vaguely and exaggeratedly enraptured with the whole of
Shakespeare, extolling some favorite passages: the unbuttoning of Lear's
button, Falstaff's lying, Lady Macbeth's ineffaceable spots, Hamlet's
exhortation to his father's ghost, "forty thousand brothers," etc.

"Open Shakespeare," I used to say to these admirers, "wherever you like,
or wherever it may chance, you will see that you will never find ten
consecutive lines which are comprehensible, unartificial, natural to the
character that says them, and which produce an artistic impression."
(This experiment may be made by any one. And either at random, or
according to their own choice.) Shakespeare's admirers opened pages in
Shakespeare's dramas, and without paying any attention to my criticisms
as to why the selected ten lines did not satisfy the most elementary
demands of esthetic and common sense, they were enchanted with the very
thing which to me appeared absurd, incomprehensible, and inartistic. So
that, in general, when I endeavored to get from Shakespeare's worshipers
an explanation of his greatness, I met in them exactly the same
attitude which I have met, and which is usually met, in the defenders of
any dogmas accepted not through reason, but through faith. It is this
attitude of Shakespeare's admirers toward their object--an attitude
which may be seen also in all the mistily indefinite essays and
conversations about Shakespeare--which gave me the key to the
understanding of the cause of Shakespeare's fame. There is but one
explanation of this wonderful fame: it is one of those epidemic
"suggestions" to which men constantly have been and are subject. Such
"suggestion" always has existed and does exist in the most varied
spheres of life. As glaring instances, considerable in scope and in
deceitful influence, one may cite the medieval Crusades which afflicted,
not only adults, but even children, and the individual "suggestions,"
startling in their senselessness, such as faith in witches, in the
utility of torture for the discovery of the truth, the search for the
elixir of life, the philosopher's stone, or the passion for tulips
valued at several thousand guldens a bulb which took hold of Holland.
Such irrational "suggestions" always have been existing, and still
exist, in all spheres of human life--religious, philosophical,
political, economical, scientific, artistic, and, in general,
literary--and people clearly see the insanity of these suggestions only
when they free themselves from them. But, as long as they are under
their influence, the suggestions appear to them so certain, so true,
that to argue about them is regarded as neither necessary nor possible.
With the development of the printing press, these epidemics became
especially striking.

With the development of the press, it has now come to pass that so soon
as any event, owing to casual circumstances, receives an especially
prominent significance, immediately the organs of the press announce
this significance. As soon as the press has brought forward the
significance of the event, the public devotes more and more attention to
it. The attention of the public prompts the press to examine the event
with greater attention and in greater detail. The interest of the public
further increases, and the organs of the press, competing with one
another, satisfy the public demand. The public is still more
interested; the press attributes yet more significance to the event. So
that the importance of the event, continually growing, like a lump of
snow, receives an appreciation utterly inappropriate to its real
significance, and this appreciation, often exaggerated to insanity, is
retained so long as the conception of life of the leaders of the press
and of the public remains the same. There are innumerable examples of
such an inappropriate estimation which, in our time, owing to the mutual
influence of press and public on one another, is attached to the most
insignificant subjects. A striking example of such mutual influence of
the public and the press was the excitement in the case of Dreyfus,
which lately caught hold of the whole world.

The suspicion arose that some captain of the French staff was guilty of
treason. Whether because this particular captain was a Jew, or because
of some special internal party disagreements in French society, the
press attached a somewhat prominent interest to this event, whose like
is continually occurring without attracting any one's attention, and
without being able to interest even the French military, still less the
whole world. The public turned its attention to this incident, the
organs of the press, mutually competing, began to describe, examine,
discuss the event; the public was yet more interested; the press
answered to the demand of the public, and the lump of snow began to grow
and grow, till before our eyes it attained such a bulk that there was
not a family where controversies did not rage about "l'affaire." The
caricature by Caran d'Ache representing at first a peaceful family
resolved to talk no more about Dreyfus, and then, like exasperated
furies, members of the same family fighting with each other, quite
correctly expressed the attitude of the whole of the reading world to
the question about Dreyfus. People of foreign nationalities, who could
not be interested in the question whether a French officer was a traitor
or not--people, moreover, who could know nothing of the development of
the case--all divided themselves for and against Dreyfus, and the moment
they met they talked and argued about Dreyfus, some asserting his guilt
with assurance, others denying it with equal assurance. Only after the
lapse of some years did people begin to awake from the "suggestion" and
to understand that they could not possibly know whether Dreyfus was
guilty or not, and that each one had thousands of subjects much more
near to him and interesting than the case of Dreyfus.

Such infatuations take place in all spheres, but they are especially
noticeable in the sphere of literature, as the press naturally occupies
itself the more keenly with the affairs of the press, and they are
particularly powerful in our time when the press has received such an
unnatural development. It continually happens that people suddenly begin
to extol some most insignificant works, in exaggerated language, and
then, if these works do not correspond to the prevailing view of life,
they suddenly become utterly indifferent to them, and forget both the
works themselves and their former attitude toward them.

So within my recollection, in the forties, there was in the sphere of
art the laudation and glorification of EugГЁne Sue, and Georges Sand; and
in the social sphere Fourier; in the philosophical sphere, Comte and
Hegel; in the scientific sphere, Darwin.

Sue is quite forgotten, Georges Sand is being forgotten and replaced by
the writings of Zola and the Decadents, Beaudelaire, Verlaine,
Maeterlinck, and others. Fourier with his phalansteries is quite
forgotten, his place being taken by Marx. Hegel, who justified the
existing order, and Comte, who denied the necessity of religious
activity in mankind, and Darwin with his law of struggle, still hold on,
but are beginning to be forgotten, being replaced by the teaching of
Nietzsche, which, altho utterly extravagant, unconsidered, misty, and
vicious in its bearing, yet corresponds better with existing tendencies.
Thus sometimes artistic, philosophic, and, in general, literary crazes
suddenly arise and are as quickly forgotten. But it also happens that
such crazes, having arisen in consequence of special reasons
accidentally favoring to their establishment, correspond in such a
degree to the views of life spread in society, and especially in
literary circles, that they are maintained for a long time. As far back
as in the time of Rome, it was remarked that often books have their own
very strange fates: consisting in failure notwithstanding their high
merits, and in enormous undeserved success notwithstanding their
triviality. The saying arose: "pro captu lectoris habent sua fata
libelli"--_i.e._, that the fate of books depends on the understanding of
those who read them. There was harmony between Shakespeare's writings
and the view of life of those amongst whom his fame arose. And this fame
has been, and still is, maintained owing to Shakespeare's works
continuing to correspond to the life concept of those who support this
fame.

Until the end of the eighteenth century Shakespeare not only failed to
gain any special fame in England, but was valued less than his
contemporary dramatists: Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and others. His
fame originated in Germany, and thence was transferred to England. This
happened for the following reason:

Art, especially dramatic art, demanding for its realization great
preparations, outlays, and labor, was always religious, _i.e._, its
object was to stimulate in men a clearer conception of that relation of
man to God which had, at that time, been attained by the leading men of
the circles interested in art.

So it was bound to be from its own nature, and so, as a matter of fact,
has it always been among all nations--Egyptians, Hindus, Chinese,
Greeks--commencing in some remote period of human life. And it has
always happened that, with the coarsening of religious forms, art has
more and more diverged from its original object (according to which it
could be regarded as an important function--almost an act of worship),
and, instead of serving religious objects, it strove for worldly aims,
seeking to satisfy the demands of the crowd or of the powerful, _i.e._,
the aims of recreation and amusement. This deviation of art from its
true and high vocation took place everywhere, and even in connection
with Christianity.

The first manifestations of Christian art were services in churches: in
the administration of the sacraments and the ordinary liturgy. When, in
course of time, the forms of art as used in worship became insufficient,
there appeared the Mysteries, describing those events which were
regarded as the most important in the Christian religious view of life.
When, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the center of gravity
of Christian teaching was more and more transferred, the worship of
Christ as God, and the interpretation and following of His teaching, the
form of Mysteries describing external Christian events became
insufficient, and new forms were demanded. As the expression of the
aspirations which gave rise to these changes, there appeared the
Moralities, dramatic representations in which the characters were
personifications of Christian virtues and their opposite vices.

But allegories, owing to the very fact of their being works of art of a
lower order, could not replace the former religious dramas, and yet no
new forms of dramatic art corresponding to the conception now
entertained of Christianity, according to which it was regarded as a
teaching of life, had yet been found. Hence, dramatic art, having no
foundation, came in all Christian countries to swerve farther and
farther from its proper use and object, and, instead of serving God, it
took to serving the crowd (by crowd, I mean, not simply the masses of
common people, but the majority of immoral or unmoral men, indifferent
to the higher problems of human life). This deviation was, moreover,
encouraged by the circumstance that, at this very time, the Greek
thinkers, poets, and dramatists, hitherto unknown in the Christian
world, were discovered and brought back into favor. From all this it
followed that, not having yet had time to work out their own form of
dramatic art corresponding to the new conception entertained of
Christianity as being a teaching of life, and, at the same time,
recognizing the previous form of Mysteries and Moralities as
insufficient, the writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in
their search for a new form, began to imitate the newly discovered Greek
models, attracted by their elegance and novelty.

Since those who could principally avail themselves of dramatic
representations were the powerful of this world: kings, princes,
courtiers, the least religious people, not only utterly indifferent to
the questions of religion, but in most cases completely
depraved--therefore, in satisfying the demands of its audience, the
drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth and seventeenth centuries entirely
gave up all religious aim. It came to pass that the drama, which
formerly had such a lofty and religious significance, and which can, on
this condition alone, occupy an important place in human life, became,
as in the time of Rome, a spectacle, an amusement, a recreation--_only_
with this difference, that in Rome the spectacles existed for the whole
people, whereas in the Christian world of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries they were principally meant for depraved kings and
the higher classes. Such was the case with the Spanish, English,
Italian, and French drama.

The dramas of that time, principally composed, in all these countries,
according to ancient Greek models, or taken from poems, legends, or
biographies, naturally reflected the characteristics of their respective
nationalities: in Italy comedies were chiefly elaborated, with humorous
positions and persons. In Spain there flourished the worldly drama, with
complicated plots and historical heroes. The peculiarities of the
English drama were the coarse incidents of murders, executions, and
battles taking place on the stage, and popular, humorous interludes.
Neither the Italian nor the Spanish nor the English drama had European
fame, but they all enjoyed success in their own countries. General fame,
owing to the elegance of its language and the talent of its writers,
was possessed only by the French drama, distinguished by its strict
adherence to the Greek models, and especially to the law of the three
Unities.

So it continued till the end of the eighteenth century, at which time
this happened: In Germany, which had not produced even passable dramatic
writers (there was a weak and little known writer, Hans Sachs), all
educated people, together with Frederick the Great, bowed down before
the French pseudo-classical drama. Yet at this very time there appeared
in Germany a group of educated and talented writers and poets, who,
feeling the falsity and coldness of the French drama, endeavored to find
a new and freer dramatic form. The members of this group, like all the
upper classes of the Christian world at that time, were under the charm
and influence of the Greek classics, and, being utterly indifferent to
religious questions, they thought that if the Greek drama, describing
the calamities and sufferings and strife of its heroes, represented the
highest dramatic ideal, then such a description of the sufferings and
the struggles of heroes would be a sufficient subject in the Christian
world, too, if only the narrow demands of pseudo-classicalism were
rejected. These men, not understanding that, for the Greeks, the strife
and sufferings of their heroes had a religious significance, imagined
that they needed only to reject the inconvenient law of the three
Unities, without introducing into the drama any religious element
corresponding to their time, in order that the drama should have
sufficient scope in the representation of various moments in the lives
of historical personages and, in general, of strong human passions.
Exactly this kind of drama existed at that time among the kindred
English people, and, becoming acquainted with it, the Germans decided
that precisely such should be the drama of the new period.

Thereupon, because of the clever development of scenes which constituted
Shakespeare's peculiarity, they chose Shakespeare's dramas in preference
to all other English dramas, excluding those which were not in the least
inferior, but were even superior, to Shakespeare. At the head of the
group stood Goethe, who was then the dictator of public opinion in
esthetic questions. He it was who, partly owing to a desire to destroy
the fascination of the false French art, partly owing to his desire to
give a greater scope to his own dramatic writing, but chiefly through
the agreement of his view of life with Shakespeare's, declared
Shakespeare a great poet. When this error was announced by an authority
like Goethe, all those esthetic critics who did not understand art threw
themselves on it like crows on carrion and began to discover in
Shakespeare beauties which did not exist, and to extol them. These men,
German esthetic critics, for the most part utterly devoid of esthetic
feeling, without that simple, direct artistic sensibility which, for
people with a feeling for art, clearly distinguishes esthetic
impressions from all others, but believing the authority which had
recognized Shakespeare as a great poet, began to praise the whole of
Shakespeare indiscriminately, especially distinguishing such passages as
struck them by their effects, or which expressed thoughts corresponding
to their views of life, imagining that these effects and these thoughts
constitute the essence of what is called art. These men acted as blind
men would act who endeavored to find diamonds by touch among a heap of
stones they were fingering. As the blind man would for a long time
strenuously handle the stones and in the end would come to no other
conclusion than that all stones are precious and especially so the
smoothest, so also these esthetic critics, without artistic feeling,
could not but come to similar results in relation to Shakespeare. To
give the greater force to their praise of the whole of Shakespeare, they
invented esthetic theories according to which it appeared that no
definite religious view of life was necessary for works of art in
general, and especially for the drama; that for the purpose of the drama
the representation of human passions and characters was quite
sufficient; that not only was an internal religious illumination of what
was represented unnecessary, but art should be objective, _i.e._, should
represent events quite independently of any judgment of good and evil.
As these theories were founded on Shakespeare's own views of life, it
naturally turned out that the works of Shakespeare satisfied these
theories and therefore were the height of perfection.

It is these people who are chiefly responsible for Shakespeare's fame.
It was principally owing to their writings that the interaction took
place between writers and public which expressed itself, and is still
expressing itself, in an insane worship of Shakespeare which has no
rational foundation. These esthetic critics have written profound
treatises about Shakespeare. Eleven thousand volumes have been written
about him, and a whole science of Shakespearology composed; while the
public, on the one hand, took more and more interest, and the learned
critics, on the other hand, gave further and further explanations,
adding to the confusion.

So that the first cause of Shakespeare's fame was that the Germans
wished to oppose to the cold French drama, of which they had grown
weary, and which, no doubt, was tedious enough, a livelier and freer
one. The second cause was that the young German writers required a model
for writing their own dramas. The third and principal cause was the
activity of the learned and zealous esthetic German critics without
esthetic feeling, who invented the theory of objective art,
deliberately rejecting the religious essence of the drama.

"But," I shall be asked, "what do you understand by the word's religious
essence of the drama? May not what you are demanding for the drama,
religious instruction, or didactics, be called 'tendency,' a thing
incompatible with true art?" I reply that by the religious essence of
art I understand not the direct inculcation of any religious truths in
an artistic guise, and not an allegorical demonstration of these truths,
but the exhibition of a definite view of life corresponding to the
highest religious understanding of a given time, which, serving as the
motive for the composition of the drama, penetrates, to the knowledge of
the author, through all of his work. So it has always been with true
art, and so it is with every true artist in general and especially the
dramatist. Hence--as it was when the drama was a serious thing, and as
it should be according to the essence of the matter--that man alone can
write a drama who has something to say to men, and something which is of
the greatest importance for them: about man's relation to God, to the
Universe, to the All, the Eternal, the Infinite. But when, thanks to
the German theories about objective art, the idea was established that,
for the drama, this was quite unnecessary, then it is obvious how a
writer like Shakespeare--who had not got developed in his mind the
religious convictions proper to his time, who, in fact, had no
convictions at all, but heaped up in his drama all possible events,
horrors, fooleries, discussions, and effects--could appear to be a
dramatic writer of the greatest genius.

But these are all external reasons. The fundamental inner cause of
Shakespeare's fame was and is this: that his dramas were "pro captu
lectoris," _i.e._, they corresponded to the irreligious and immoral
frame of mind of the upper classes of his time.




VIII

At the beginning of the last century, when Goethe was dictator of
philosophic thought and esthetic laws, a series of casual circumstances
made him praise Shakespeare. The esthetic critics caught up this praise
and took to writing their lengthy, misty, learned articles, and the
great European public began to be enchanted with Shakespeare. The
critics, answering to the popular interest, and endeavoring to compete
with one another, wrote new and ever new essays about Shakespeare; the
readers and spectators on their side were increasingly confirmed in
their admiration, and Shakespeare's fame, like a lump of snow, kept
growing and growing, until in our time it has attained that insane
worship which obviously has no other foundation than "suggestion."

Shakespeare finds no rival, not even approximately, either among the old
or the new writers. Here are some of the tributes paid to him.

"Poetic truth is the brightest flower in the crown of Shakespeare's
merits;" "Shakespeare is the greatest moralist of all times;"
"Shakespeare exhibits such many-sidedness and such objectivism that they
carry him beyond the limits of time and nationality;" "Shakespeare is
the greatest genius that has hitherto existed;" "For the creation of
tragedy, comedy, history, idyll, idyllistic comedy, esthetic idyll, for
the profoundest presentation, or for any casually thrown off, passing
piece of verse, he is the only man. He not only wields an unlimited
power over our mirth and our tears, over all the workings of passion,
humor, thought, and observation, but he possesses also an infinite
region full of the phantasy of fiction, of a horrifying and an amusing
character. He possesses penetration both in the world of fiction and of
reality, and above this reigns one and the same truthfulness to
character and to nature, and the same spirit of humanity;" "To
Shakespeare the epithet of Great comes of itself; and if one adds that
independently of his greatness he has, further, become the reformer of
all literature, and, moreover, has in his works not only expressed the
phenomenon of life as it was in his day, but also, by the genius of
thought which floated in the air has prophetically forestalled the
direction that the social spirit was going to take in the future (of
which we see a striking example in Hamlet),--one may, without
hesitation, say that Shakespeare was not only a great poet, but the
greatest of all poets who ever existed, and that in the sphere of poetic
creation his only worthy rival was that same life which in his works he
expressed to such perfection."

The obvious exaggeration of this estimate proves more conclusively than
anything that it is the consequence, not of common sense, but of
suggestion. The more trivial, the lower, the emptier a phenomenon is, if
only it has become the subject of suggestion, the more supernatural and
exaggerated is the significance attributed to it. The Pope is not merely
saintly, but most saintly, and so forth. So Shakespeare is not merely a
good writer, but the greatest genius, the eternal teacher of man kind.

Suggestion is always a deceit, and every deceit is an evil. In truth,
the suggestion that Shakespeare's works are great works of genius,
presenting the height of both esthetic and ethical perfection, has
caused, and is causing, great injury to men.

This injury is twofold: first, the fall of the drama, and the
replacement of this important weapon of progress by an empty and immoral
amusement; and secondly, the direct depravation of men by presenting to
them false models for imitation.

Human life is perfected only through the development of the religious
consciousness, the only element which permanently unites men. The
development of the religious consciousness of men is accomplished
through all the sides of man's spiritual activity. One direction of this
activity is in art. One section of art, perhaps the most influential, is
the drama.

Therefore the drama, in order to deserve the importance attributed to
it, should serve the development of religious consciousness. Such has
the drama always been, and such it was in the Christian world. But upon
the appearance of Protestantism in its broader sense, _i.e._, the
appearance of a new understanding of Christianity as of a teaching of
life, the dramatic art did not find a form corresponding to the new
understanding of Christianity, and the men of the Renaissance were
carried away by the imitation of classical art. This was most natural,
but the tendency was bound to pass, and art had to discover, as indeed
it is now beginning to do, its new form corresponding to the change in
the understanding of Christianity.

But the discovery of this new form was arrested by the teaching arising
among German writers at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the
nineteenth centuries--as to so-called objective art, _i.e._, art
indifferent to good or evil--and therein the exaggerated praise of
Shakespeare's dramas, which partly corresponded to the esthetic teaching
of the Germans, and partly served as material for it. If there had not
been exaggerated praise of Shakespeare's dramas, presenting them as the
most perfect models, the men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
would have had to understand that the drama, to have a right to exist
and to be a serious thing, must serve, as it always has served and can
not but do otherwise, the development of the religious consciousness.
And having understood this, they would have searched for a new form of
drama corresponding to their religious understanding.

But when it was decided that the height of perfection was Shakespeare's
drama, and that we ought to write as he did, not only without any
religious, but even without any moral, significance, then all writers of
dramas in imitation of him began to compose such empty pieces as are
those of Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and, in Russia, of Pushkin, or the
chronicles of Ostrovski, Alexis Tolstoy, and an innumerable number of
other more or less celebrated dramatic productions which fill all the
theaters, and can be prepared wholesale by any one who happens to have
the idea or desire to write a play. It is only thanks to such a low,
trivial understanding of the significance of the drama that there
appears among us that infinite quantity of dramatic works describing
men's actions, positions, characters, and frames of mind, not only void
of any spiritual substance, but often of any human sense.

Let not the reader think that I exclude from this estimate of
contemporary drama the theatrical pieces I have myself incidentally
written. I recognize them, as well as all the rest, as not having that
religious character which must form the foundation of the drama of the
future.

The drama, then, the most important branch of art, has, in our time,
become the trivial and immoral amusement of a trivial and immoral crowd.
The worst of it is, moreover, that to dramatic art, fallen as low as it
is possible to fall, is still attributed an elevated significance no
longer appropriate to it. Dramatists, actors, theatrical managers, and
the press--this last publishing in the most serious tone reports of
theaters and operas--and the rest, are all perfectly certain that they
are doing something very worthy and important.

The drama in our time is a great man fallen, who has reached the last
degree of his degradation, and at the same time continues to pride
himself on his past of which nothing now remains. The public of our time
is like those who mercilessly amuse themselves over this man once so
great and now in the lowest stage of his fall.

Such is one of the mischievous effects of the epidemic suggestion about
the greatness of Shakespeare. Another deplorable result of this worship
is the presentation to men of a false model for imitation. If people
wrote of Shakespeare that for his time he was a good writer, that he had
a fairly good turn for verse, was an intelligent actor and good stage
manager--even were this appreciation incorrect and somewhat
exaggerated--if only it were moderately true, people of the rising
generation might remain free from Shakespeare's influence. But when
every young man entering into life in our time has presented to him, as
the model of moral perfection, not the religious and moral teachers of
mankind, but first of all Shakespeare, concerning whom it has been
decided and is handed down by learned men from generation to generation,
as an incontestable truth, that he was the greatest poet, the greatest
teacher of life, the young man can not remain free from this pernicious
influence. When he is reading or listening to Shakespeare the question
for him is no longer whether Shakespeare be good or bad, but only: In
what consists that extraordinary beauty, both esthetic and ethical, of
which he has been assured by learned men whom he respects, and which he
himself neither sees nor feels? And constraining himself, and distorting
his esthetic and ethical feeling, he tries to conform to the ruling
opinion. He no longer believes in himself, but in what is said by the
learned people whom he respects. I have experienced all this. Then
reading critical examinations of the dramas and extracts from books with
explanatory comments, he begins to imagine that he feels something of
the nature of an artistic impression. The longer this continues, the
more does his esthetical and ethical feeling become distorted. He ceases
to distinguish directly and clearly what is artistic from an artificial
imitation of art. But, above all, having assimilated the immoral view of
life which penetrates all Shakespeare's writings, he loses the capacity
of distinguishing good from evil. And the error of extolling an
insignificant, inartistic writer--not only not moral, but directly
immoral--executes its destructive work.

This is why I think that the sooner people free themselves from the
false glorification of Shakespeare, the better it will be.

First, having freed themselves from this deceit, men will come to
understand that the drama which has no religious element at its
foundation is not only not an important and good thing, as it is now
supposed to be, but the most trivial and despicable of things. Having
understood this, they will have to search for, and work out, a new form
of modern drama, a drama which will serve as the development and
confirmation of the highest stage of religious consciousness in men.

Secondly, having freed themselves from this hypnotic state, men will
understand that the trivial and immoral works of Shakespeare and his
imitators, aiming merely at the recreation and amusement of the
spectators, can not possibly represent the teaching of life, and that,
while there is no true religious drama, the teaching of life should be
sought for in other sources.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This essay owes its origin to Leo Tolstoy's desire to contribute a
preface to the article he here mentions by Ernest Crosby, which latter
follows in this volume.--(_Trans._)

[2] "Shakespeare and His Writings," by George Brandes.

[3] A Russian poet, remarkable for the delicacy of his works.




PART II

APPENDIX




APPENDIX CONTENTS


 I. SHAKESPEARE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE
    WORKING CLASSES, BY ERNEST CROSBY,             127

II. LETTER FROM MR. G. BERNARD SHAW,               166




SHAKESPEARE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE WORKING CLASSES

BY ERNEST CROSBY


"Shakespeare was of us," cries Browning, in his "Lost Leader," while
lamenting the defection of Wordsworth from the ranks of progress and
liberalism--"Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley were with us--they watch
from their graves!" There can, indeed, be no question of the fidelity to
democracy of Milton, the republican pamphleteer, nor of Burns, the proud
plowman, who proclaimed the fact that "a man's a man for a' that," nor
of Shelley, the awakened aristocrat, who sang to such as Burns

    "Men of England, wherefore plow
     For the lords who lay ye low?"

But Shakespeare?--Shakespeare?--where is there a line in Shakespeare to
entitle him to a place in this brotherhood? Is there anything in his
plays that is in the least inconsistent with all that is reactionary?

A glance at Shakespeare's lists of _dramatis personæ_ is sufficient to
show that he was unable to conceive of any situation rising to the
dignity of tragedy in other than royal and ducal circles. It may be said
in explanation of this partiality for high rank that he was only
following the custom of the dramatists of his time, but this is a poor
plea for a man of great genius, whose business it is precisely to lead
and not to follow. Nor is the explanation altogether accurate. In his
play, the "Pinner of Wakefield," first printed in 1599, Robert Greene
makes a hero, and a very stalwart one, of a mere pound-keeper, who
proudly refuses knighthood at the hands of the king. There were other
and earlier plays in vogue in Shakespeare's day treating of the triumphs
of men of the people, one, for instance, which commemorated the rise of
Sir Thomas Gresham, the merchant's son, and another, entitled "The
History of Richard Whittington, of his Low Birth, his Great Fortune";
but he carefully avoided such material in seeking plots for his dramas.
Cardinal Wolsey, the butcher's son, is indeed the hero of "Henry VIII.,"
but his humble origin is only mentioned incidentally as something to be
ashamed of. What greater opportunity for idealizing the common people
ever presented itself to a dramatist than to Shakespeare when he
undertook to draw the character of Joan of Arc in the second part of
"Henry VI."? He knew how to create noble women--that is one of his
special glories--but he not only refuses to see anything noble in the
peasant girl who led France to victory, but he deliberately insults her
memory with the coarsest and most cruel calumnies. Surely the lapse of
more than a century and a half might have enabled a man of honor, if not
of genius, to do justice to an enemy of the weaker sex, and if Joan had
been a member of the French royal family we may be sure that she would
have received better treatment.

The question of the aristocratic tendency of the drama was an active one
in Shakespeare's time. There was a good deal of democratic feeling in
the burghers of London-town, and they resented the courtly prejudices of
their playwrights and their habit of holding up plain citizens to
ridicule upon the stage, whenever they deigned to present them at all.
The Prolog in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle"
gives sufficient evidence of this. The authors adopted the device of
having a Citizen leap upon the stage and interrupt the Speaker of the
Prolog by shouting

    "Hold your peace, goodman boy!"

    Speaker of Prolog: "What do you mean, sir?"

    Citizen: "That you have no good meaning; this seven
     year there hath been plays at this house. I have observed
     it, you have still girds at citizens."

The Citizen goes on to inform the Speaker of the Prolog that he is a
grocer, and to demand that he "present something notably in honor of the
commons of the city." For a hero he will have "a grocer, and he shall do
admirable things." But this proved to be a joke over too serious a
matter, for at the first representation of the play in 1611 it was cried
down by the citizens and apprentices, who did not appreciate its satire
upon them, and it was not revived for many years thereafter. It will not
answer, therefore, to say that the idea of celebrating the middle and
lower classes never occurred to Shakespeare, for it was a subject of
discussion among his contemporaries.

It is hardly possible to construct a play with no characters but
monarchs and their suites, and at the same time preserve the
verisimilitudes of life. Shakespeare was obliged to make some use of
servants, citizens, and populace. How has he portrayed them? In one play
alone has he given up the whole stage to them, and it is said that the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" was only written at the request of Queen
Elizabeth, who wished to see Sir John Falstaff in love. It is from
beginning to end one prolonged "gird at citizens," and we can hardly
wonder that they felt a grievance against the dramatic profession. In
the other plays of Shakespeare the humbler classes appear for the main
part only occasionally and incidentally. His opinion of them is
indicated more or less picturesquely by the names which he selects for
them. There are, for example, Bottom, the weaver; Flute, the
bellows-maker; Snout and Sly, tinkers; Quince, the carpenter; Snug, the
joiner; Starveling, the tailor; Smooth, the silkman; Shallow and
Silence, country justices; Elbow and Hull, constables; Dogberry and
Verges, Fang and Snare, sheriffs' officers; Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, and
Bull-calf, recruits; Feebee, at once a recruit and a woman's tailor,
Pilch and Patch-Breech, fishermen (though these last two appellations
may be mere nicknames); Potpan, Peter Thump, Simple, Gobbo, and Susan
Grindstone, servants; Speed, "a clownish servant"; Slender, Pistol, Nym,
Sneak, Doll Tear-sheet, Jane Smile, Costard, Oatcake, Seacoal, and
various anonymous "clowns" and "fools." Shakespeare rarely gives names
of this character to any but the lowly in life, altho perhaps we should
cite as exceptions Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek in "Twelfth
Night"; the vicar, Sir Oliver Mar-Text, in "As You Like It"; Moth, the
page, in "Love's Labor Lost," and Froth, "a foolish gentleman," in
"Measure for Measure," but none of these personages quite deserves to
rank as an aristocrat. Such a system of nomenclature as we have exposed
is enough of itself to fasten the stigma of absurdity upon the
characters subjected to it, and their occupations. Most of the trades
are held up for ridicule in "Midsummer Night's Dream"; Holofernes, the
schoolmaster, is made ridiculous in "Love's Labor Lost," and we are told
of the middle-class Nym, Pistol, and Bardolph that "three such antics do
not amount to a man" (Henry V., Act 3, Sc. 2). But it is not necessary
to rehearse the various familiar scenes in which these fantastically
named individuals raise a laugh at their own expense.

The language employed by nobility and royalty in addressing those of
inferior station in Shakespeare's plays may be taken, perhaps, rather as
an indication of the manners of the times than as an expression of his
own feeling, but even so it must have been a little galling to the
poorer of his auditors. "Whoreson dog," "whoreson peasant," "slave,"
"you cur," "rogue," "rascal," "dunghill," "crack-hemp," and "notorious
villain"--these are a few of the epithets with which the plays abound.
The Duke of York accosts Thomas Horner, an armorer, as "base dunghill
villain and mechanical" (Henry VI., Part 2, Act 2, Sc. 3); Gloster
speaks of the warders of the Tower as "dunghill grooms" (Ib., Part 1,
Act 1, Sc. 3), and Hamlet of the grave-digger as an "ass" and "rude
knave." Valentine tells his servant, Speed, that he is born to be hanged
(Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1, Sc. 1), and Gonzalo pays a like
compliment to the boatswain who is doing his best to save the ship in
the "Tempest" (Act 1, Sc. 1). This boatswain is not sufficiently
impressed by the grandeur of his noble cargo, and for his pains is
called a "brawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog," a "cur," a
"whoreson, insolent noise-maker," and a "wide-chapped rascal." Richard
III.'s Queen says to a gardener, who is guilty of nothing but giving a
true report of her lord's deposition and who shows himself a
kind-hearted fellow, "Thou little better thing than earth," "thou
wretch"! Henry VIII. talks of a "lousy footboy," and the Duke of
Suffolk, when he is about to be killed by his pirate captor at Dover,
calls him "obscure and lowly swain," "jaded groom," and "base slave,"
dubs his crew "paltry, servile, abject drudges," and declares that his
own head would

         "sooner dance upon bloody pole
    Than stand uncovered to a vulgar groom."
                (Henry VI., Part 2, Act 4, Sc. 1.)

Petruchio "wrings Grumio by the ear," and Katherine beats the same
unlucky servant. His master indulges in such terms as "foolish knave,"
"peasant swain," and "whoreson malthorse drudge" in addressing him;
cries out to his servants, "off with my boots, you rogues, you
villains!" and strikes them. He pays his compliments to a tailor in the
following lines:

    "O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble,
     Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,
     Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket thou;
     Braved in my own house by a skein of thread!
     Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant!"
                (Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Sc. 3.)

Joan of Arc speaks of her "contemptible estate" as a shepherd's
daughter, and afterward, denying her father, calls him "Decrepit miser!
base, ignoble wretch!" (Henry VI., Part 1, Act 1, Sc. 2, and Act 5, Sc.
4.) It is hard to believe that Shakespeare would have so frequently
allowed his characters to express their contempt for members of the
lower orders of society if he had not had some sympathy with their
opinions.

Shakespeare usually employs the common people whom he brings upon the
stage merely to raise a laugh (as, for instance, the flea-bitten
carriers in the inn-yard at Rochester, in Henry IV., Part 1, Act 2, Sc.
1), but occasionally they are scamps as well as fools. They amuse us
when they become hopelessly entangled in their sentences (_vide_ Romeo
and Juliet, Act 1, Sc. 2), or when Juliet's nurse blunderingly makes
her think that Romeo is slain instead of Tybalt; but when this same
lady, after taking Romeo's money, espouses the cause of the County
Paris--or when on the eve of Agincourt we are introduced to a group of
cowardly English soldiers--or when Coriolanus points out the poltroonery
of the Roman troops, and says that all would have been lost "but for our
gentlemen," we must feel detestation for them. Juliet's nurse is not the
only disloyal servant. Shylock's servant, Launcelot Gobbo, helps Jessica
to deceive her father, and Margaret, the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, brings
about the disgrace of her mistress by fraud. Olivia's waiting-woman in
"Twelfth Night" is honest enough, but she is none too modest in her
language, but in this respect Dame Quickly in "Henry IV." can easily
rival her. Peter Thump, when forced to a judicial combat with his
master, displays his cowardice, altho in the end he is successful (Henry
VI., Act 2, Part 2, Sc. 3), and Stephano, a drunken butler, adorns the
stage in the "Tempest." We can not blame Shakespeare for making use of
cutthroats and villains in developing his plots, but we might have been
spared the jokes which the jailors of Posthumus perpetrate when they
come to lead him to the scaffold, and the ludicrous English of the clown
who supplies Cleopatra with an asp. The apothecary who is in such
wretched plight that he sells poison to Romeo in spite of a Draconian
law, gives us another unflattering picture of a tradesman; and when
Falstaff declares, "I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or
anything," we have a premature reflection on the Puritan, middle-class
conscience and religion. In "As You Like It," Shakespeare came near
drawing a pastoral sketch of shepherds and shepherdesses on conventional
lines. If he failed to do so, it was as much from lack of respect for
the keeping of sheep as for the unrealities of pastoral poetry. Rosalind
does not scruple to call the fair Phebe "foul," and, as for her hands,
she says:

    "I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,
     A freestone colored hand; I verily did think
     That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands;
     She has a housewife's hand."

No one with a high respect for housewifery could have written that line.
When in the same play Jaques sees the pair of rural lovers, Touchstone
and Audrey, approaching, he cries: "There is, sure, another flood, and
these couples are coming to the ark! Here come a pair of very strange
beasts, which in all tongues are called fools" (Act 5, Sc. 4). The
clown, Touchstone, speaks of kissing the cow's dugs which his former
sweetheart had milked, and then marries Audrey in a tempest of
buffoonery. Howbeit, Touchstone remains one of the few rustic characters
of Shakespeare who win our affections, and at the same time he is witty
enough to deserve the title which Jaques bestows upon him of a "rare
fellow."

Occasionally Shakespeare makes fun of persons who are somewhat above the
lower classes in rank. I have mentioned those on whom he bestows
comical names. He indulges in humor also at the expense of the two
Scottish captains, Jamy and Macmorris, and the honest Welsh captain,
Fluellen (Henry V., Act 3, Sc. 2 _et passim_), and shall we forget the
inimitable Falstaff? But, while making every allowance for these
diversions into somewhat nobler quarters (the former of which are
explained by national prejudices), do they form serious exceptions to
the rule, and can Falstaff be taken, for instance, as a representative
of the real aristocracy? As Queen and courtiers watched his antics on
the stage, we may be sure that it never entered their heads that the
"girds" were directed at them or their kind.

The appearance on Shakespeare's stage of a man of humble birth who is
virtuous without being ridiculous is so rare an event that it is worth
while to enumerate the instances. Now and then a servant or other
obscure character is made use of as a mere lay figure of which nothing
good or evil can be predicated, but usually they are made more or less
absurd. Only at long intervals do we see persons of this class at once
serious and upright. As might have been expected, it is more often the
servant than any other member of the lower classes to whom Shakespeare
attributes good qualities, for the servant is a sort of attachment to
the gentleman and shines with the reflection of his virtues. The noblest
quality which Shakespeare can conceive of in a servant is loyalty, and
in "Richard II." (Act 5, Sc. 3) he gives us a good example in the
character of a groom who remains faithful to the king even when the
latter is cast into prison. In "Cymbeline" we are treated to loyalty _ad
nauseam_. The king orders Pisanio, a trusty servant, to be tortured
without cause, and his reply is,

    "Sir, my life is yours.
     I humbly set it at your will."
                (Act 4, Sc. 3.)

In "King Lear" a good servant protests against the cruelty of Regan and
Cornwall toward Gloucester, and is killed for his courage. "Give me my
sword," cries Regan. "A peasant stand up thus!" (Act 3, Sc. 7). And
other servants also show sympathy for the unfortunate earl. We all
remember the fool who, almost alone, was true to Lear, but, then, of
course, he was a fool. In "Timon of Athens" we have an unusual array of
good servants, but it is doubtful if Shakespeare wrote the play, and
these characters make his authorship more doubtful. Flaminius, Timon's
servant, rejects a bribe with scorn (Act 3, Sc. 1). Another of his
servants expresses his contempt for his master's false friends (Act 3,
Sc. 3), and when Timon finally loses his fortune and his friends forsake
him, his servants stand by him. "Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery"
(Act 4, Sc. 2). Adam, the good old servant in "As You Like It," who
follows his young master Orlando into exile, is, like Lear's fool, a
noteworthy example of the loyal servitor.