Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen 9781350222588, 9781783606719

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Introduction by Michael Wood

F or m an y reasons this is an ex trao rd in ary b o o k . P u b lish ed w h e n V ic to r K iern a n was eighty, it is th e p ro d u ct o f fo rty years’ reflectio n o n Shakespeare an d o n th e role o f th e artist in society; b u t o f course it also rests o n a life tim e’s th in k in g a b o u t h isto ry b y o n e o f th e great B ritish historians o f th e tw e n tie th century. F or m y g en e ratio n o f students V G K was a p ath -b rea k er w h o se great b o o k The Lords o f H um an K ind, a panoram ic an d deeply h u m a n e survey o f p o w er an d race u n d e r im perialism , co m p elled us to see m o d e rn h isto ry in a fresh light, n o t least in th e h ea rt o f o u r o w n E u ro p e an civilization. A M a n cu n ia n - he was o n e o f th e m o st e m in e n t alu m n i o f M an ch ester G ram m ar S chool - V G K b elo n g ed to that ex trao rd in ary g en e ratio n o f historians, in c lu d in g C h risto p h e r H ill, R o d n e y H ilto n , E. P. T h o m p so n a n d E ric H o b sb aw m , w h o m ade B ritish h isto rio g rap h y d o m in a n t across th e w o rld in th e 1960s. L o o k in g back n o w it is n o ex aggeration to say that, even m o re th a n th e A nnales school in France, th e ir im p act has b ee n global, an d it still continues, shaping th e w ay w e u n d ersta n d social h isto ry b u t also literary studies too. All o f th e m lived th ro u g h th e D epression and th e rise o f fascism, an d all believed in M arxism as a to o l to u n d erstan d history, as w ell as a p ath to a m o re egalitarian w o rld . W h a te v er th e rea d er’s p o sitio n o n th e legacy o f M arxist th o u g h t today, read in g this b o o k h e o r she w ill have n o d o u b t a b o u t th e relevance o f M a rx ’s ideas to o u r u n d ersta n d in g o f historical process an d cultural p ro d u ctio n . P u t simply, it m akes us see Shakespeare in a fresh - a n d m o re realistic - light. P o etry was in V G K ’s b lo o d from th e b eg in n in g . A h isto rian celebrated for his global vision an d form idable analytical gifts, V G K was also a m an o f staggering linguistic accom plishm ents, w ith a w id e k n o w led g e o f p o e try in m an y languages. D u rin g his c h ild h o o d in M a n ch e ster his fath er h ad b e e n a translator w o rk in g for th e Ship C an al com pany, an d th e y o u n g V G K le arn ed Spanish, F ren ch an d P o rtu g u ese b y th e tim e he was eleven. A t M G S h e studied th e classics an d m o d e rn languages; d u rin g eight years in B ritish India, h e becam e fluen t in U rd u an d Persian too. H e was an esteem ed translator o f G halib, Iqbal an d Faiz. (A n e w ed itio n

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o f his Iqbal was published in Pakistan on ly recently, th o u g h aficionados w ill still treasure th e lovely ed itio n published by K u tu b in B o m b ay in 1947.) V G K ’s interests in p o e try th e n w ere v ery w id e in d e e d - o n e o f his last publications was a study o f his beloved H o race. B u t Shakespeare was his lifelong fascination, as surely he always m ust b e to anyone w h o cares a b o u t th e hum anities; equally com pellin g to th e lover o f literature an d th e historian. In his eighties V G K p ro d u ce d tw o celeb rated books, this o n e o n th e H istories an d C o m ed ies an d Eight Tragedies (1996), also re p rin te d b y Z e d B ooks fo r th e 4 0 0 th anniversary o f th e p o e t’s death. B o th b o oks are ric h in insight an d still feel as fresh m in te d as w h e n th ey first appeared. T h e key idea o f th e b o o k is ‘th e c o n n e c tin g threads b e tw e e n w h a t S hakespeare w ro te an d th e en v iro n m en t in w h ic h h e lived’. T h e p ro b lem o f Shakespeare, V G K insisted, was n o t o n e for th e literary h istorian alone. Since V G K w ro te this b o o k , m an y have agreed: th e so-called N e w H istoricists in particu lar have d o m in a te d discussions o f cultural poetics in th e R enaissance an d o f ‘culture u n d e r capitalism ’, w ith scholars like S tep h en G reenblatt voraciously digging in to cultural m ilieu x , social politics, a n d religious an d sectarian allegiances to co n stru ct th e ir p sy ch o ­ histories o f six te e n th -c e n tu ry people. In th at, th e y w ere naturally strongly in flu e n ced b y M arxism a n d especially b y th e B ritish school m e n tio n e d above. B u t o f course, stim ulating as th e debate has b ee n , th a t is n o t the same as a b o o k w ritte n b y a professional histo rian w h o is also steeped in th e poetry. T his b o o k is u n iq u e in that it is th e w o rk o f a great h isto rian equally ad ep t in literary theory, fo rm an d practice. In these pages V G K situates S hakespeare firm ly in th e T u d o r age, in th e b e lie f th a t to u n d ersta n d his language, his m eanings a n d his w id e r am bitio n s as an artist, w e have to see h im as a p ro d u ct o f his age - that is, a ‘citiz en ’. A n d , to use H e rm a n n B ro c h ’s apt w ords o n V irgil, it was a tim e o f ‘n o lo n g e r an d n o t y et’. T h e p o e t was b o r n o nly fiv e -a n d -a -h a lf years after th e accession o f E lizabeth, less th a n th irty years after th e b eg in n in g o f H e n ry V III’s R e fo rm a tio n , d u rin g w h ic h tim e th ere h ad b e e n fo u r changes o f state relig io n an d the beg in n in g s o f a massive shift in lan d o w n ersh ip an d w ealth in E ngland. So th e p o e t was b o r n in to a w o rld w h o se futu re was in n o w ay clear an d w h o se present was deeply conflicted. V G K sees it as a tim e o f p ro fo u n d e c o n o m ic change an d b rea k d o w n o f th e old agrarian order, w ith social unrest as enclosures spread a n d th e landless an d dispossessed w an d ered th e roads o f E n g lan d - vagrants are am ply d o c u m e n te d in to w n b ooks o f th e tim e. In th e h isto ria n ’s eyes this is th e g ritty w o rld o f T aw ney’s Tudor Economic Documents or, to cite an exam ple close to th e p o e t’s h o m e, H a rry T h o rp e ’s fam ous m ic ro -h isto ry The Lord and the Landscape, w h ic h show ed h o w o n e W arw ickshire family, th e Spencers o f A lth o rp , m ad e it

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b ig enclosing c o m m o n lan d fo r grazing in th e six teen th century, n o t far fro m Shakespeare’s Stratford. T his is th e w o rld o f Shakespeare: as V G K show s, a citizen in a real w orld. T h e b o o k has w h a t is still a very sharp a c co u n t o f w h a t w e k n o w a b o u t S hakespeare’s o w n life an d b ack g ro u n d . C rucially, his m o th e r was th e d au g h ter o f a h u n d red -ac re husb an d m an (that is, above th e social rank o f a la b o u re r b u t b elo w th a t o f yeom an, let alone g en tlem an , despite th e ir later claims to gentility!). H is fath er to o was a ren tin g cultivator w h o rose to en te r th e aspiring m iddle class b u t was ru in e d in th e deep eco n o m ic crises o f th e late 1570s w h e n th e w o o l in d u stry especially was h it hard. E v ery th in g discovered since V G K w ro te bears o u t his acu te analysis o f th e social stresses o f this w o rld o f change; as h e says, ‘i f th e re ever was a M e rrie E n g lan d it was n o t in W illiam Shakespeare’s tim e ’. Indeed, reading this b o o k o n e m ig h t w o n d e r w h e th e r th e p o e t’s obsession w ith h isto ry was in p art b o r n o f nostalgia for th e lost w o rld o f his parents and grandparents, th e hierarchical w o rld o f old kings, n o b le lords an d ‘g o o d friars’ n o w dissolving u n d e r th e predations o f th e n e w ric h u n d e r th e T u d o r m onarchy. T h ere, V G K suggests, fo r all his show biz n o u s, an d his playing to th e audience, Shakespeare in his subtext gives us (as H am let says) ‘th e very age an d b o d y o f th e tim e his fo rm an d pressure’. T his overarching narrative o f social change co n n ects V G K ’s ex p lo ratio n o f th e H istories w ith th e ir im p licit co m m en tary o n T u d o r rulership, w h ic h in th e 1590s h e sees as reflecting th e b eginnin g s o f a q u estio n in g o f th e very in stitu tio n o f m o n arch y itself (and, after all, isn ’t o n e o f S hakespeare’s greatest characteristics as a w rite r his scepticism a b o u t pow er?). A n o th e r fascinating aspect o f V G K ’s approach to 1590s cu ltu re concerns chan g in g g en d e r roles, an d critiques o f trad itio n al sex roles in society. M iddle-class w o m e n fro m y eom an an d even h u sb an d m an h ouseholds n o w are o w n in g bo o k s, as literacy spreads; w o m e n are b ein g p ublished as w riters: th e beg in n in g s o f a tid e o f d ebate w h ic h less th a n th irty years after S hakespeare’s d eath w ill lead to th e C ivil W ar, in w h ic h w o m e n Levellers w ill also have th e ir voice. In to this rapidly ch a n g in g w o rld , th e n , w ith th e professional th eatre as a n e w mass m e d iu m , the m e d iu m o f public discourse, V G K asks us to see Shakespeare’s p o p u la r en tertain m en ts as reflecting c o n te m p o ra ry conflicts over gender, th e rise o f individualism an d even o f ro m an tic love (w ith a typically observant stress o n J o h n Lyly as a m o d el, w h ic h is en tirely b o rn e o u t b y recen t research). W o m en as w e k n o w n o w w ere an im p o rta n t part o f th e L o n d o n th eatre audience: so i f th e patriarchal reso lu tio n o f th e Shrew was soon to b e problem atized, it was o n ly w h a t was w an te d b y th e fem ale citizens - in th e pit as w ell as th e galleries. I am n o t sure I share V G K ’s co n v ictio n that ‘Shakespeare’s b e lie f in th e capacity o f th e h u m a n race to advance m ust have b ee n stro n g ’. H istory,

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I te n d to th in k , tau g h t h im otherw ise. B u t w e w ill all have o u r view s on th e m an him self, intensely private as o n e im agines h im to be. Finishing this b o o k th e reader w ill w ish im m ed iately to m ove o n to Eight Tragedies, w h ic h takes us in to th e early Jacobean w o rld w h e n th e p o e t reached his peak as an artist engaged in society, p ro d u cin g som e o f th e m ost challenging p o p u la r en tertain m en ts ever w ritte n . T h a t second v o lu m e o f this fascinating d iptych was p ro d u ce d w h e n V G K was w ell in to his eighties, b u t still, as Pablo N e ru d a w o u ld have said, in ‘full pow ers’. T o g eth er these tw o boo k s constitute a to u r de force b y a h isto rian w h o has already left us a ric h an d challenging legacy o f such am plitude. O n e can o n ly rem ark, in conclusion, that th ey d o n ’t m ake ’em like that any m ore!

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Foreword by Victor K iernan

T he first o f various drafts o f this book (and o f its intended sequel, concerned w ith the later h alf o f Shakespeare’s work) was w ritten m ore than forty years ago. An author w ith such a confession to m ake m ust fear, like M ark Antony, that it can be taken only in ‘one o f tw o bad ways’: either he has been deplorably sluggish, or he is offering his w ork as guaranteed by its age, like a cobwebbed bottle o f port, to be m uch better than it really is. A nd during so unconscionably long a tim e he m ust have had m any uneasy thoughts as to w hether there is anything left to be said about a dram atist already so often - like Jehovah’s nam e in Doctor Faustus - ‘Forw ard and backward anagram m atized’; or w hether he is not merely exposing him self to Sw inburne’s censure on the rash new com er w ho seeks to ‘append his nam e to the long scroll o f Shakespearian parasites’ (25). D uring these years critical opinion has undergone various shifts. C om m entators o f m any persuasions seem, as Levin rem arks in his survey o f three recent decades, to feel bound to offer novel ‘readings’ o f any play they discuss, each a ‘com plete interpretation’ w ith its ow n ‘them atic’ key (New Readings, pref.; ch. 1). In the course o f the h u n t for buried treasures, some o f the progress has been o f a retrograde sort. H alf a century ago it had com e to be m ore or less recognized that Shakespeare, like every other artist, was a child o f his times. Since then some ‘N ew Critics’ have appeared to ‘see literature as non-referential, as having no connection w ith a w orld outside’ (Rabkin 32). This is to tu rn Shake­ speare into a solipsist. Fortunately there has also been m uch w riting o f a m ore fertile kind; and m eanw hile know ledge o f Shakespeare’s background has greatly expanded. U nderstanding o f the professional conditions under w hich he w orked has grown. Investigation o f the condition o f England in his lifetim e, and its E uropean setting, has gone m uch further. Thanks in good part to M arxist scholarship, w hat Rabkin calls ‘the inscrutability o f history’ (61) has been a good deal dim inished. It is the possible connecting threads betw een w hat Shakespeare w rote and the environm ent

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whose air he breathed that are the subject o f this study. W e know little m ore than before, it is true, about his ow n life; his inn er life m ust rem ain a mystery. Still, there is plentiful evidence o f links betw een art and society in other times and places. By thinking about the grand problem o f Shakespeare, we may hope to learn a little more. W e have a secure starting poin t in the fact - daunting as it may be - that in one b rie f tim e and one small place it was possible for a poet to compose bo th the greatest tragedies and the finest comedies ever w ritten. W h a t is attem pted here is a survey o f the picture o f hum an life in its social or collective aspects, and their sway over the individual, that can be derived from Shakespeare’s writings; w ith the caveat that his impressions o f life cannot be separated from the grow th o f his powers o f expression as a poet. Part I sketches his historical setting, and some guidelines for a search for m eanings in the plays. T here is no ideal order o f reading for these. In the decade roughly o f the 1590s Shakespeare was w riting, side by side, tw o very different groups o f plays: the English Histories, and the farces and rom antic Com edies - testim ony to the extraordinary diversity o f his genius and the contradictory impulses, from a country in the turm oil o f change, that nourished it. H e m ust have found it refreshing to possess two such territories, and com e and go betw een them. H ere the two are looked at separately, beginning w ith the Histories; each play by itself, and then the contribution o f all o f them to specific leading themes. N early all the plays offer difficulties over dates o f w riting or production, w hich I have not tried to delve into. B ut the Histories, except for King John, clearly fall into two sequences, the historically later one w ritten first. T ogether they cover the years from 1398 to 1485, ending on the threshold o f the T u d o r period. W ith the Com edies there are m ore uncertainties, and no arrangem ent yields a consistent line o f develop­ m ent. B ut there are evidently early, m iddle and later stages, and w ithin these w hat seems the least unlikely order has been chosen. It is to be rem em bered that Shakespeare was n o t a freelance w riter b u t one o f a theatre partnership, and cannot always have been free to follow his own bent. In betw een the two m ain groups have been placed the miscellaneous set o f other compositions. T here are two early tragedies; and two long narrative poems, published in 1593 and 1594, w hich occupied an interval w hen the theatres were closed because o f plague. T he Sonnets were probably beginning to be w ritten - n o t for publication - about the same tim e, and may have gone on dow n to any date before 1609, w hen they (or all o f them that we have) appeared in print. All or some o f them are, or m ay be, the only utterances we possess o f Shakespeare speaking directly for himself. Finally, in Part V some general reflections are

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gathered together about w hat appears to be his unfolding outlook on life; his sense o f how the happenings that affect m ankind com e about, and the direction o f his thinking or feeling towards the w ork o f his later career, w ith Tragedy predom inant. It w ould be an advantage to be able to include quotations liberally; b u t in a study seeking to cover so m uch ground there is room only for very b rief ones. Readers, it may be hoped, will have copies o f Shakespeare at hand, and look up some o f the references supplied in the text. These are to the Cam bridge edition edited by Q uiller-C ouch and Dover W ilson. (Line num bers are om itted w hen the scenes they belong to are brief.) References to books and articles also are given in brackets in the text, by the auth o r’s nam e and a b rief title if m ore than one w ork o f his or hers has been cited. T he Bibliography contains details o f all writers and w orks quoted, b u t o f no others. T he date or approxim ate tim e o f w riting o f each play is taken from the latest (1989) edition o f Harbage’s catalogue; the order in w hich the plays have been arranged is in not quite exact conform ity w ith this. O ver the years I have benefited by profitable discussions w ith m ore people than can be recorded here. O ne w ho cannot be om itted is my wife, a m em orizer o f Shakespeare from childhood and still an infallible rem em brancer and an ardent disputant. A second is m y friend Sydney Bolt, him self a w riter on Shakespeare and the donor o f a num ber o f helpful volum es from his collection.

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Late Tudor England

If there was ever a M errie England, it was n ot in W illiam Shakespeare’s time. D uring the sixteenth century population levels in Europe were rising; betw een 1500 and 1650 England’s m ay have risen from about two to five m illion. This p u t heavy strains on inelastic societies and econ­ omies. O ne effect, emphasized recently by J.A. Goldstone, was to increase the num b er o f younger people, always likely to be the m ost restless; and the fact that m ost property - in land especially - w ent to eldest sons, added to the num ber o f discontented juniors. Massive unem ploym ent, homelessness, vagrancy, were evidence o f how gravely England’s social fram ew ork was being dislocated. T here was m uch m igration, chiefly from the countryside into the towns; above all into London, whose population, furth er swollen by foreigners, by 1600 was approaching 200,000, im m ensely greater than that o f any other English town. W ith in the lim its o f the medieval ‘City’ the capital was self-governing, w ith an elaborate oligarchical constitution; its w ealth m ade it a political factor that no governm ent could ignore. O utside the walls were suburbs and dism al slums. T oo m any com m entaries on Shakespeare’s background have been concerned w ith Elizabethan society as a whole, Krieger observes in his M arxist study, whereas it is often necessary to think o f discordant social classes (66). England had a nobility o f great landowners, few in num bers b u t pow erful in their ow n provinces and influential nationally. U nder it was a large and grow ing gentry-class, whose support - or at least assent was indispensable to the governm ent. T here was m ore social m obility in the later sixteenth century than before or after, particularly in terms o f landow nership. M any were rising into the gentry, others were sinking o u t o f it. These were fewer, b u t there were loud laments over the ruination o f old families, weighed dow n by debts or dissipation, w hich could be viewed as an index o f national decay. O n the land, w here m ost people lived, sem i-capitalist relations were spreading m ost quickly. Landlords rented o u t their estates to substantial farmers, w ho w orked

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the soil w ith the help o f hired labour - a hybrid system never so w idespread anywhere else as it came to be in England. Population grow th was accom panied by rising food prices, w hich benefited landow ners and yeom en-farm ers b u t depressed real wages, while m ore and m ore sm allholders were sinking to the degraded status o f farm labourers. Those w ho were doing well were prospering m ore at the expense o f the poor than by virtue o f any productive im provem ents. H ardships o f poverty were augm ented by a prolonged climatic dow n­ turn, at its worst during Shakespeare’s lifetime; bad harvest years were recurrent, a series o f them occurring in the later 1590s. Penury and misery threw a heavy shadow over the scene Shakespeare was born into. ‘Sturdy beggars’, or tram ps, inspired alarm, and were brutally treated by way o f reprisal. B ut there were always some writers ready to protest, even if ineffectively, against ram pant social injustice. In a play by Robert W ilson the clown reproached the greedy rich and prophesied that oppressors w ould end in hell (Bradbrook, Player 189). In 1608 a pam phlet by Thom as D ekker expressed a Londoner’s disillusion w ith ideas o f rural felicity, on finding ‘the poore husbandm an m ade a slave to the riche farm our; the farm our racked by his landlord ...’ (Belman 109). Excessive profiteering m ight be condem ned by the govern­ m en t itself, because liable to provoke disorders. A Privy C ouncil circular to Justices o f the Peace on 22 Septem ber 1597 denounced ‘engrossers’ w ho were trying to corner food supplies, as miscreants ‘m ore lyke to wolves or corm orants than to naturall m en ’. Such serm onizing was unlikely to soften hard hearts. N ext year the m ajor o f D artm outh was accused o f em bezzling part o f a grain supply intended for the hungry For its favourites life held new comforts. M ultitudes o f families o f all ranks from yeom an upw ard were building themselves new houses, w ith chim neys and glass windows. W o m en o f the b etter-o ff classes seemed to foreign visitors surprisingly free, though they were always being reproved from the pulpit for w anting m ore freedom than could be good for them . T he ‘m iddle classes’ were m ultifarious, ranging from very rich to very m odestly furnished. T here were families and groups that can be labelled ‘bourgeois’, b u t there was scarcely as yet a ‘bourgeoisie’, w ith a collective line o f developm ent and am bition. Capitalism was forging ahead am id a com plex o f other impulses, m aterial or moral, at w ork in early m odern Europe, w hich may be sum m ed up as ‘individualistic’. M any self-m ade m en were eager to becom e bourgeois gentilhommes, w hile those above them w ho were shrewd enough to keep up w ith the times were now gentilhommes bourgeois, esteeming profits as highly as pedigrees. C om petition was in m any ways the keynote o f the age. Each m an m ust push him self to the front, w ith o ut too m uch scruple about

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means, o r be elbowed aside. A highly litigious spirit was stirring; lawyers were in great dem and. It was a society that could breed all kinds o f m orbidities (Stafford-Clark 29), an age o f anxiety. M adm en thronged the dram a. B ut it was equally an age o f opportunity and progress. Hardships and tensions do not by themselves engender literature; they can help to do so w hen they are interacting w ith opposite factors, fresh inspiration, new ideals. Individualism separates, b u t can also recom bine, by amplify­ ing m en ’s ability to respond to other personalities. N o era before that o f B acon and Shakespeare had felt so deeply the tru th that ‘N o m an is an Social individualism in the western E urope o f the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had its opposite pole in authoritarian governm ent. It was the age o f the ‘N ew ’ or ‘Absolute’ m onarchies. In England the T u d o r dynasty seized pow er and ended the W ars o f the Roses in 1485; it lasted until the death o f Elizabeth in 1603. It was often arbitrary enough in its methods; b u t it differed from the C ontinental m odel in being less despotic, less well equipped w ith authority to levy taxes, and therefore less able to build up a standing arm y to enforce its will. It depended for supplem entary revenues on Parliam ent; this institution therefore stayed alive, w hen m ost o f the m any similar ones on the C ontinent were dying out. It m et only at irregular intervals, w hen the governm ent w anted it; bu t little by little its im portance was growing. T here was an increasing appetite for seats in the House o f C om m ons, where the gentry were heavily overrepresented. A bulky bureaucracy like the French was as m u ch o u t o f the T udors’ reach as a regular army, and local adm inis­ tration had to be left, u nder loose governm ent supervision, to tow n councils, reliably undem ocratic, and landowners, still half-feudal, acting N ationalism was a buttress to authority; it was growing, along w ith individualism and conscious class division, in a union o f contraries. As everywhere it was a p roduct o f changing forces, econom ic and cultural, and had close links w ith religion in a Europe now bitterly divided over the control o f routes to Heaven, as well as to the Indies. In England it could be identified w ith a T u d o r m ystique and a ‘cult o f personality’ on w hich Elizabeth depended heavily. She was easy to idealize, as England’s preserver through long years; but ordinary Englishm en seem to have had very mixed feelings about the regim e they lived under. H er court was a synonym for depravity and arrogance; there m ust have been a strong adm ixture here o f middle-class feeling against a luxurious aristocracy and its pretensions. A m ong the noble families, old and new, civil wars had been exchanged for a m ore m odern form o f power struggle, w ith the court as an arena for intrigues and feuds. Politics was still a danger­ ous game, and through the T u d o r epoch a long line o f am bitious m en

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followed one another to the block, ending w ith the Earl o f Essex, From M ary T u d o r’s death in 1558, a C hurch o f England was being pushed or pulled together. In the earlier years it was very m uch a makeshift: conservatively episcopalian in structure, partly Calvinist in theology. C hurch attendance was com pulsory (though this was im ­ possible to enforce in full); the m ain Sunday business was the reading out o f H om ilies w hich expounded the duty o f unquestioning obedience to g overnm ent and law, under penalty o f hell fire. B ut repeated official changes o f religion in m id century had m ade for indifference. T here was a large, only slowly dw indling num ber o f Catholics, or half-Catholics; b u t w ar w ith Spain, at first undeclared, intensified patriotic feelings and helped to m erge them w ith radical Protestantism , or Puritanism , and its Calvinistic creed. 1588, the Arm ada year o f trium ph, was the high-w ater m ark o f P uritan influence before the 1630s, and brought on a prem ature attem pt to rid the C hurch o f bishops w hich suffered a sharp check from D uring and after the 1590s, as a result - fortunately for the dram a then reaching its heights - Puritanism was on the defensive, obliged to content itself w ith quieter activities. Its strength was am ong the m iddling classes, including sections o f the gentry. It was grow ing from below - am ong urban artisans, small traders and the like, com pelled to practise thrift, sobriety and prudence in order to survive; and from above - sponsored by bigger businessmen and serious-m inded magistrates, in whose eyes its virtues were needed to form good citizens and zealous employees. Econom ic progress, increasingly on capitalist lines, could not go on w ithout reliable, conscientious w orkm en (C ollinson, ch. 5). D runkenness, vice, tim e-w asting frivolities like the theatre, were to be condem ned because they m ade w orkers - London ’prentices, for instance - less industrious, and m ight make them unruly. M ost o f the poor, all the same, continued to prefer ale, w hen they could get it, to A rough balance o f forces prevailed, at any rate in London, betw een aristocracy, headed by the C ourt, and m iddle classes, led by the City; each cam p w ith m any dividing-lines o f its own. This, and a governm ent n o t m u ch interested in theology so long as it did not disturb the political order, gave England an invaluable interval during w hich the pressure o f religion on m inds open to ideas was greatly relaxed. T here was air for breathing by m en, Shakespeare am ong them , ready to profit by this degree o f freedom - very exceptional in E urope then and long after and thin k for themselves. They m ight take religious ethics seriously, w hile troubling themselves very little about dogmas. As users o f the English language they benefited from the various translations available

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o f the Bible, m uch o f whose phraseology was passing into com m on speech. T hey could n o t be unaffected by the misgivings about the state o f the hu m an soul that were spreading and deepening along w ith social tensions, and were at last to break out in the ‘Puritan revolution’. In a w ider view these uneasy, even m orbid sensations were part o f a general expansion o f h um an consciousness. Self-exam ination stim ulated curi­ osity about both depths and heights o f the hum an personality, and accom panied questioning o f the w orld and all its laws. It was a m axim o f statesmanship, w arranted by Machiavelli, that the best - if not the only - way to avert strife at hom e was to engage in wars abroad (Hale; K iernan, ‘W a r’). T he N ew M onarchies were habitually at war. Victories and conquests were their m ost potent means o f impressing their subjects. England was involving itself in the affairs o f w estern Europe, as well as pushing on the conquest o f Ireland. English forces assisted the Revolt o f the N etherlands against Spanish rule; in France they gave aid to the Protestant leader H enry o f Navarre, w ho inherited the throne (as H enri IV) and m ade sure o f it by turning Catholic in 1598 b u t granting religious toleration. T o fill the English ranks, conscription often had to be relied on; the system, cheap b u t inefficient, pressed heavily on the poor, and w ar was popular chiefly am ong those w ho did n o t have to fight. By some moralists it was condem ned, and middle-class attitudes - except to defensive action, as against the Arm ada - were often ambivalent. P uritan influence could favour continuance o f the Spanish war; Spain was the cham pion o f popery, and also represented E m pire and its gold, w hich some o f the m erchantry w ere eager for a share in. Shakespeare belonged to a period o f half-daw n, w hen an old order and its panoram a o f life were fading or crum bling and a new one was only fitfully taking shape. History and m ythology jostled together, magic and science, theology and reason. Such a situation m ight well be ideal for stirring poetic impulses. A lthough in early m odern times the higher classes in w estern Europe were draw ing apart, in social habits and cultural tastes, from the mass o f the people, there was still m uch com m on ground. W ell into the seventeenth century there was a reading public avid for stories borrow ed from or im itating old rom ances o f chivalry, or tales o f fairyland (W right, esp. ch. 11). They could blend well enough w ith classical literature. O vid’s storehouse o f m ythology was being translated after 1560 and w on m any hearts, Shakespeare’s am ong In his far-o ff corner o f Europe, and w ith a b rief w orking life o f barely m ore than two decades, Shakespeare m ight seem as if bounded into a nutshell. T h at he could nevertheless becom e king o f infinite space owed m u ch to the fact that English culture was n ot suffering from insularity, b u t in m any ways was part o f a cosm opolitan whole. H e read M ontaigne,

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took plots from Italian novels; he was very English, b u t was also a E uro­ pean phenom enon: his later universal appeal is a confirm ation o f this. W e ll-o ff families were sending their sons abroad to learn. Publishing was enjoying vigorous growth. Literacy was keeping pace w ith it, in L ondon spreading dow n to all b u t the lowest levels (Stone 68, 79), and w ith it a rem arkable degree o f interest in words, idioms, the capacities of the English language. For an increasing variety o f em ploym ents, educa­ tion was a necessary passport (T revor-R oper 27). For the intellectual cream, whose m em bers m ight be also m en o f affairs, the times could hold incitem ents to im m ense undertakings. Bush cites Bacon’s Instauratio Magna, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Raleigh’s History o f the World, as each ‘the partial accom plishm ent o f an impossibly vast design’ (262). Rowse writes o f D r D ee and his circle as examples o f an ‘insatiable passion to know about the unknow n and unknow able’ (Renaissance 285). M arlow e’s T am burlaine could talk o f ‘clim bing after knowledge infinite’ (Part I.ii.7); w ords highly inappropriate in so barbaric a m outh, but perfectly

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Society and Art

In a lecture in 1949 R.H. Taw ney m aintained that nothing is know n and im plied that nothing can be know n - about links between the art o f an age and its economy; our business is to adm ire genius, not to try to explain it (33-4). Turgenev showed m ore insight w hen he praised his adm ired philosopher Belinsky for recognizing that ‘in the developm ent o f every people a new literary epoch comes before every other, that w ithout experiencing and going beyond it, it is impossible to move forw ard’ (115). Lukács credited art w ith a still m ore direct contribution when he w rote that the m ore intricate the problem s o f a changing society, ‘the greater the part literature can play in social evolution, in the ideological preparations for some great crisis in social relations' (Realism 107). Since the late eighteenth century this has been the task especially o f the novel, w ith its pow er o f exploring situations whose facts are becom ing com prehensible; for an era like Shakespeare’s, w ith charts still mostly guesswork, the poetic dram a offered a uniquely fitting means o f expression, on a plane less realistic but m ore highly imaginative. H azlitt contrasted C haucer’s thoughts, each ‘separate, labelled, ticketed’, with the ‘sociability’ o f Shakespeare’s, all tum bling into one another (Characters 71). It was partly a difference between narrative and drama, but akin also to that between dry land and sea; Shakespare’s endlessly com bining images have an effect o f light reflected from rippling waves, as in Impressionist painting. They m irrored an England in a state o f fluid change, as Shakespeare’s own art always was. Poetic dram a has a universalizing nature; the changeful times it has accom panied have lifted m en, by accentuating their consciousness, to heightened awareness o f elem ental things shared by all. It may be conceivable, but is extrem ely unlikely, that Shakespeare could have w ritten as he did about war, death, property, all the while contem plating their grimness from an O lym pian peak o f detachm ent. Joseph C onrad disclaimed any m oralizing intention in one o f his novels, but added that ‘even the most artful o f w riters will give him self (and his

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morality) away in about every third sentence’. Shakespeare grew up in the tradition o f the old ‘m orality’ plays, Fripp writes: ‘T he ancient didactic clings to him , and he has no wish to cast it away’ (66-70). It was part o f a general consensus that literature can be justified only by a serious purpose. It was conventional w isdom w ith Elizabethan m en of letters, as w ith Ham let, that A rt should hold a m irror up to N ature, or social reality; and the m irror o f A rt is a magic one w hich does not merely photograph b u t selects, magnifies, colours, shows things unseen. A poet’s m ind is ‘a m irror by w hich the soul receives visions’, in a m odern critic’s words (Beckerman 28). It seems misconceived o f another critic to assert o f Shakespeare that ‘there is never anything outside his plays that he w anted to “say” ’ (Frye, Shakespeare 2). O n the contrary, they are full o f notions, interpolations, o f his ow n that may have little or nothing to do His English Histories, the m ost substantial part o f his ou tp u t before about 1600, raise the essential problem s o f hum an nature and society w hich underlie his later, greatest writing. In his tim e there was no political activity going on that m ight have attracted him. H e could not be, w hether he w ould have wished it or not, a political citizen like his great successor M ilton; b u t he was m ore - at least m ore directly - a political poet. W ith few forerunners, he was m ore strongly draw n to national history-w riting than any o f his fellow-playwrights; this is enough to prove his strong concern w ith affairs o f state. T h at he w rote unm atched political plays can only appear ‘a strange paradox’ to a reader bent, like Palmer, on convincing him self that Shakespeare’s sole interest was in ‘the private m ind and heart o f the individual’ (vi). Pope found it ‘perfectly am azing’ that he should display such skill at presenting ‘great and public scenes o f life’, as he so often did, and could only suppose that the poet knew his w orld ‘by Intuition’ (Smith 49). It is m ore natural to suppose an affinity betw een his tem peram ent and interests, and the spectacle o f public affairs, m en in action. As Dover W ilson said, his num erous topical allusions show him brim m ing w ith interest in current events and personalities, ‘the real background o f his plays’ (Shakespeare 13). (W ith this may be coupled Saintsbury’s w arning that as evidence for dating they are ‘open to the gravest suspicions’ [‘Life and Plays’ 175-6]). K enneth M uir could descry no philosophy in the plays beyond ‘a blend o f medieval morality, pious platitudes, and stoical consolation’ (Singularity 135). Coleridge took an am pler view, and pronounced Shakespeare ‘not only a great poet, b u t a great philosopher’ (Shakespeare 58). As regards politics, w hile some have denied him any interest in m en’s collective life, others have attributed to him strenuous political convictions o f a sort better suited to the m ost philistine o f petty functionaries. LB. Cam pbell discovered in the Histories ‘a dom inant

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political pattern characteristic o f the political philosophy o f his age’ (6) o f the official C hurch and its Homilies, that is. Caroline Spurgeon found in his im agery a deep-seated fear o f social disruption, an alm ost mystical attachm ent to social harm ony (75). For all conservative students the keyIt is easy enough to quote passages em bodying this message utterances o f an archbishop in Henry V o r a m erry old bon vivant in Cpriolanus - and to conclude that ‘Shakespeare’s thought was in funda­ m ental agreem ent w ith the prevalent views o f his day’ (Phillips 4, 94). B ut Shakespeare was a dramatist, and had to make such characters talk as they w ould in life. It is by no means so easy to believe that England’s forem ost poet, in a tim e o f profound social disturbance and distress, was a conservative to the backbone. He was on his way to becom ing a m an o f property, it is true; but property was o f m any kinds, and was to be ranged before long in very different political camps. As to principles, we may recall Prince H al’s ironical rem ark to Poins: ‘thou art a blessed fellow to th in k as every m an thinks’ (2H .IV Il.ii). This is surely Shakespeare speaking, and disclaim ing in advance the average-m an opinions so often It may often be a safe rule that w hat his characters say w hen playing an active part in the story belongs to them: w hen they tu rn away to generalities, the ideas are likely to be his. W e are best served w hen the two things converge. W e sometimes hear him speaking through the m ouths o f his villains. Shylock, not Portia, denounces the cruelties and injustices o f Venice. Richard C rookback’s soliloquies are not self­ disclosure alone, b u t a running com m entary on the follies and vices o f his feudal world. T he final test o f w hen Shakespeare believed, or took seriously, w hat his m en and w om en were saying m ust always be his language, and how m uch conviction it carries. It m ust no doubt be true that he, like any other sensible person, disliked the thought o f anarchic disorder. It is about the causes o f disorder that he m ust have differed from m any others. Evidently he had a vivid sense o f the fragility o f civilization, and the chaos it m ight fall into. He was willing on occasion to jo in in preaching nationalism o f the most aggressive sort, as a prophylactic. A better, m ore perm anent security, a new equilibrium o f individual and society, was harder to find. Shake­ speare was exploring confusion, instability, w ithin hum an beings, as well as in the State ruling over them by the grace o f God. Like the m ore clear­ sighted o f the Rom antics o f later days, he was deploring not the passing away o f a rigid feudal order but the loss o f genuine hum an ties supposed to have once existed. His ideal (as we may at least glimpse it) was not the O rd er o f a M etternichian police state b u t a com m unity w ith a natural harm ony o f its own, grow ing out o f m en’s feelings for one another and

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for their com m on tasks. It was a dream or fantasy o f a future m ore than o f the past; it could be transposed m ost persuasively into the m ythic im agery o f the ‘music o f the spheres’, in the idyllic garden scene at the close o f The Merchant o f Venice, following the anger and hatred o f the An orderly - or order-w orshipping - society, like the France o f Louis XIV, can be expected to have its reflection in a formal, w ell-disciplined type o f art. Elizabethan dram a com bined energy and im agination w ith a striking indifference to form. Intensity o f feeling - im m ediate, consum ing - was its soul. England com bined, like its drama, ‘im m ortal longings’ and m uch dislocation, a turm oil o f contrary impulses. Shakespeare’s plays were 110 exception. And in recent years, ‘O rd er’ has been losing ground as an answer to all his social questionings; m ore note has been taken o f the ‘scepticism, tensions, and equivocations’ o f political thinking in his tim e’ (Berry 231; Kettle), as well as o f his own inH e may fairly be called a ‘progressive’: a man, that is, dissatisfied in m any ways w ith things as they were, and w anting to see changes for the b etterm ent o f the hum an lot. H e can be called so only w ith due caution, because in his day 110 clear lines o f division had been drawn, or program m es advanced, except over some m atters o f the C hurch and foreign policy. T here were no two ‘sides’, one recognizably m ore forw ard-looking than the other. Instead there was a rising hubbub o f controversy over miscellaneous contentious issues. W e cannot enrol him as an adherent o f a defined class, a trum peter o f its views. T here were no ‘parties’ for him to join; though by the tim e o f his death or soon after, the beginnings o f a nationw ide split were to become visible. M eanwhile, instead o f consistent attitudes there were ‘irreducible contradictions w ithin outlooks and codes’ (H einem ann, ‘D ram a’ 162). In a 1938 Shakespearian controversy am ong Soviet scholars, the m ost helpful view (not the m ost favoured) was that o f I.M. Lifshitz, who explained the gropings and uncertainties o f great writers o f the past in term s o f ‘objective class confusion’, absence o f distinct class conscious­ ness (ll). It may be that the same factor helps to explain their greatness: they had n 0 shibboleths, coined by others, to fall back on, no band­ wagons to tie themselves to. B recht adopted a similar view o f Shake­ speare and his fellow-writers: as m en living in an uncharted space betw een declining feudalism and nascent capitalism, and echoing the clash o f values betw een them (H einem ann, ‘B recht’ 206-7). An example o f the blurring o f social horizons can be seen in the readiness o f London ’prentices and civic patriots to enjoy tales w here great city m erchants and benefactors o f past times were extolled as patricians, as well able as any belted earl to display warlike prowess w hen need arose (Stevenson 6, etc.).

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Even on the battlefields o f the 1640s the issues m en were fighting over look far less clear to the historian than they did to the combatants, w ho tho u g h t - or talked - in the kind o f abstractions habitual to m en in action all through history. T he civil war was a ‘bourgeois revolution’ in the sense that it brought the bourgeoisie a bigger share o f power. B ut the bourgeoisie was seldom seen on those battlefields; and it is the same in Shakespeare’s plays. T here is ‘not a single bourgeois character o f signifi­ cance’ there, it has been said, except Shylock (Sinsheimer 84). Somehow one cannot im agine a businessman talking in verse. N oblem en have never declaim ed metrically either, but we swallow the fiction o f their doing so because we think o f them as a small, rem ote, pow erful race, and because their lives were passed under the tow ering banners o f conflict T he sources Shakespeare took his plots from - annals, legends, folk­ tales - had nothing to tell him about rising m iddle classes. H e belonged to these himself; but it was a truthful enough instinct that kept them out o f his Histories. T he doings o f m oney-m en, entrepreneurs, have been o f vast historical im portance, b u t not often heroic. W h en swords were out they were usually in the background, ready to pick up lost property, like the traders w ho followed Rom an armies and the rest and bought up the soldiers’ p lunder cheap. In Shakespeare’s tim e there was a bourgeoisie ruling H olland, b u t the fight for freedom was mostly left to foreign m ercenaries led by the great feudal house o f Orange, w hich was not even D utch. England’s bourgeoisie has always been typical o f its species in w anting to enter the aristocracy, not to overthrow it. Am ong Shake­ speare’s contem poraries adm iration o f com m erce, or capitalism, was shared by only a few, ‘whereas his suspicion o f it was shared by nearly all’ It is easier in some ways to see w hat Shakespeare was against than w hat he was for. T here were social types for w hich he had a special distaste, like the boorish landow ner T h u rio in Two Gentlemen, or the foppish courtier in Henry IVPart 1 - both o f w hom w ould have followed the standard o f Charles I. B ut besides Cavaliers and Roundheads there was a third camp, o f the com m on people, in the 1640s a m ostly silent m ajority, w ith little liking for either idle rich or busy m oneygrubbers. Shakespeare could sympathize w ith the hardships that sometimes goaded them into revolt. His rebel leader Jack Cade, w ith a ro ugh-andready mission o f putting dow n kings and grandees and setting a new nap on the com m onw ealth {2H.IV IV.ii.5), may not have dropped out o f his m ind, any m ore than out o f English history. In the 1640s the Levellers Shakespeare could draw at least on a reservoir o f the fantasy-life o f com m on people, and an oral record o f their experience o f reality.

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Elizabethans were heirs to a treasury o f folk-tale and m yth, enshrining fears, dreams, legends o f centuries, w aiting to be turned to account as it could only be through an art form like Shakespearian drama. A nother m edium in w hich wisdom or feeling o f the past was preserved was the proverb. Shakespeare cited an astonishing range o f proverbial sayings, far m ore than any other English poet except C haucer (Obelkevich 56). W e can hardly think it beyond him to realize at times that w hat was disagreeable in the plebs, from volatile thinking dow n to garlic breath and sweaty caps, was not born w ith them but brought about by the W riters and artists have been m ore eloquent in denial or protest than in affirm ation. Evils they attack are know n, tangible; im provem ents they hope for are only floating in the air. B ut the old has to be underm ined before it can be dem olished and som ething better p u t in its place. M eanw hile the m ouldering away o f the old, m orally if not physically, is m ore apparent than any budding o f the new; hence the m arked vein o f deteriorationist thinking in Shakespeare’s time, w hich found a way into some o f his plays, along w ith the idea that the end o f the w orld was at hand. G ood things as well as bad were decaying, and he was clearly sensitive to the weakening o f old social relationships, w hich m ust have been m ore obvious in London than anywhere. Yet somehow the climate o f his plays, com pared w ith that o f any o f the other playwrights, seems far m ore fully suffused w ith the w arm th and pulse o f life. His people show m ore interest in one another as hum an beings, m ore m utual awareness. They seem real to us because o f the images they build up in H e belonged by birth - and maybe by lifelong preference - not to London, w here aggressive individualism was pushing hardest, but to Stratford, one o f those m any modest-sized towns that offered microcosms of a way o f life destined to decay. W ith all its crudities and inequalities, the old order had linked folk together in a pattern sm oothed and softened by use and wont, w hich had a place and a function, however hum ble, for all. Still, it was in m any ways inert, dull-w itted, stuck in the m ud; the new order now forcing its way in was m entally tar m ore alert. It could awaken some at least to the wants and concerns o f others, m ore clearly than o f old, even if its tendency was atomistic and m ight often encourage the selfish separation o f m an from man. W e are free to read into Shakespeare’s thinking a desire to preserve the best o f the old world for the benefit o f the new, by adapting its virtues to a changed setting. W e can see him , in other words, as far less a conservative than a ‘conservator’, a cherisher o f civilized values deriving from all classes and from generations past and present. Between aristocracy and the m oneyed strata lines of social distinction were clear, but they had not yet hardened

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into political lines, and in fact never fully did so; this made it easier to contem plate a blending o f the better qualities prized by each. In the heyday o f fascism a socialist w riter could feel that he was defending, besides socialism, the best o f a liberal tradition on w hich the heirs o f its bourgeois founders were turning their backs; Shakespeare m ight feel that in draw ing some o f his portraits he was restoring w hat was w orthy in an old feudal-chivalrous tradition, debased now by courtiers and parasites. In one way or another he was struggling all his life w ith the knightly concept o f H onour, a kind o f h onour not to be plucked from the m oon, like H otsp u r’s, b u t w ith a vital place in a real world. It was a problem o f rescuing m en from a drift into m oral scepticism or nihilism; part o f a ‘transvaluation o f values’, itself part o f a long-draw n-out transition from In the endow m ent o f the ‘m iddling sort’, honesty m ight be said to claim prim e place, as h onour did for those o f blue blood. From this level the p oet’s eye could travel dow nw ard to the plain simple qualities o f people o f the m ost ordinary sort, the necessary foundation o f any higher culture. G reat art has always, perhaps, had roots in the artist’s longing to reunite him selt w ith the People from w hom a divided society cuts him off, to recapture a prim al whole w here a poet could address all his fellow -m en, as his forebears once did. Class division brings w ith it fissures w ithin the artist’s consciousness; it may be surmised that w hen Shakespeare tried to reconcile the ideals or standards o f Englishmen, he was at the same time trying, instinctively, to surm ount inner discords o f It is a suggestive though disputable dictum o f the novelist Somerset M augham (316-17) that all a w riter’s characters are aspects or particles o f himself. If this is even partially true, study o f them offers the best clue to his ow n personality. B ut his consciousness and that o f his age are not sealed o ff from each other; he m ust be supposed capable o f entering into the sensations o f others, in a measure proportionate to the breadth o f his ow n sensibility. T hus Coleridge could say that a poet’s understanding o f varied em otions grows less by his seeing them in people around him than by ‘the pow er o f im agination proceeding upon the all in each o f h u m an nature. By m editation, rather than by observation’ [Shakespeare 410). A nd he him self can find outlet and relief for w hatever disturbs or excites h im by being able to m erge it w ith a hum an consciousness w ider than his own. If he can thereby rise above his im prisoned self, both an artistic and a therapeutic purpose will be served. It was the natural bent o f a society reared on rugged individualism to view each Shakespearian character as a four-square, free-standing statue. Shakespeare cannot have thought, or felt life, in such terms; and it is because his m en and w om en are rooted in the conditions o f his time,

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m ost o f all in its complex web o f relationships, that they are so full o f sap o r vitality. They are alive, as Pushkin said, vibrant w ith diverse passions n o t simply personifications, like M olière’s people, o f a single quality (M orozov 85). Shakespeare lived in a com paratively open, expansive society; M olière in one o f stricter classification. T o the Elizabethan listener em otions unfolded on the stage could have kinship w ith feelings o f his own; the rhetoric o f a pow er-hungry T am burlaine or Richard III could seem like ‘huge cloudy symbols’ o f his ow n m ore m odest am bitions o f rising in the w orld and outstripping his rivals. W alter Scott recognized Giles O verreach, the remorseless bloodsucker in Massinger’s play, as ‘the Richard III o f m iddling life’ (Lockhart ch. 25). Shakespeare’s royal personages are not a narrow caste, apart from other men; good or bad, they are themselves men; and as M E . Prior said, he makes use o f them to display hum an feelings and actions at their m ost intense (102). For the same reasons they continue to have messages for us too: for m en W e m ust, on the other hand, be cautious o f looking for precise ‘m eanings’ in the plays. W e m ust keep in m ind ‘one o f the principles o f m ature Shakespeare, that o f indeterm inacy’, openness to discrepant interpretations (Daniell 109). M any have been struck by the apparent detachm ent w ith w hich he lets each participant in turn pour out his m ind. Very often - though n o t on essential m oral issues - he throw s out opposite suggestions as to w hat we should think, and leaves us to choose. T his openm indedness to ideas marks him as a m an o f the ‘interregnum ’ betw een old and new, w hen medieval rigidities were crum bling but m odern thinking had not yet taken orderly shape. It was a tim e w hen cobw eb-covered windows were opening, and far-o ff vistas were com ing It may be helpful to conjecture that w hat engrossed his m ind in the act o f com position was n o t the individuals for w hom he was finding words, b u t rather a com plex o f w hich each form ed a com ponent. H ow could an author totally im m ersed in - or self-identifying w ith H otspur, and then Glendower, alternate between one and the other, m inute by m inute? His consciousness m ust seem to have been spread over some larger whole, em bracing both o f them , so that he was concerned not w ith each o f them separately but w ith their unique interaction - som ew hat as Bach, im provising a fugue, w ould have his subject and countersubject w orking together in his m ind. Shakespeare was not a preacher w ith a cut-and-dried gospel, as m any o f his contem poraries were, b u t a m an w ho m ust often have been, like O thello, ‘perplexed in the extrem e’ - about hum an life, and about his ow n fellow -countrym en in particular. He, like m any w ho have lived in days w hen everything has been altering, m ust have felt acutely the lack

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o f correspondence betw een things he grew up believing in - and m ight still hanker for - and new er realities or rationalities he could not shut his eyes to. He can often be quoted against himself, because on m any crucial issues he felt, we m ust suppose - and painfully - opposing affinities. He has been credited w ith an im m ense sanity, and sometimes does seem to possess it; b u t we may need to think o f this endow m ent as wrestling w ith deeply depressive moods. His m ust have been an extrem ely complex nature. W ith o u t its fundam ental contradictions and extremes he could hardly have been both suprem e tragedian and suprem e comedian. T here m ust have been saving qualities o f balance, a sense o f the ludicrous as well as the sublim e in hum an existence, to keep him from being pulled Great poets, English poets especially, have been apt to make their appearance at m om ents of revolutionary upheaveal. Shakespeare did not, as M ilton did, live through a period o f open conflict, though there was m uch o f this both in the British Isles and on the C ontinent. B ut his lifetim e coincided w ith the crossing o f a steep watershed, and ended w ith revolution alm ost in sight: a return - in changed, but not altogether different, form - o f the civil broils he had w ritten so m uch about. Fractured consciousness in him w ent w ith deepening schism in his England. H e could not be expected to read the riddles o f com ing events. N o one else, even the philosopher-statesm an Bacon, had any inkling o f w hat lay beyond the gathering storm clouds. N o one, even today, has a

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3

Shakespeare’s Life

K enneth M uir drew a valid distinction w hen he confessed that he had com e to doubt the feasibility o f ‘relating Shakespeare’s works to his private life’, as he and O ’Loughlin had earlier essayed to do, though he still held that the outlines o f ‘his developm ent as an artist and o f the developm ent o f his m in d ’ were discoverable from the plays (‘Shakespeare the M an’ 9). W h at little we know from o ther sources o f Shakespeare’s life cannot, o f course, be neglected. T he outw ard contours o f any artist’s career m ust be im portant in helping to determ ine w hich facets o f the life around him will be likely to set up vibrations in his artistic self. A bout the m iddle o f the sixteenth century Shakespeare’s father Jo h n quitted his native village o f Snitterfield for nearby Stratford, ‘a w ell-todo m arket tow n o f some two thousand inhabitants’ (Lee, Life 4), where he plied a m ixture o f trades, that o f glover am ong them , and for nearly three decades prospered. Stratford was granted a charter in 1553, which m eans that W illiam was fam iliar from boyhood w ith a com m unity governing itself, if not very democratically; and his father rose to be an alderm an, and in 1568 bailiff, the highest civic post. Jo h n ’s wife M ary was the youngest daughter o f a wealthy farmer, Robert Arden, the leading branch o f whose clan stood high in the county. W illiam was thus, in a small way, an example o f the interm ixing o f gentry and burghers that w ent on all over England. A rden was a Catholic, and in 1583 a m ore prom in en t A rden was executed for treason (Levi 19). T here is reason to think that Jo h n Shakespeare, too, was a Catholic in private. W ith W illiam , a half-nonconform ist fam ily background may have resulted in the tolerant spirit, the indifference to formularies, that seems m anifest in his plays. T hey show, however, far m ore familiarity w ith the Bible than the works o f any other playw right (Fripp 101; Boas, Elizabeth 67 ff.). W illiam was born in 1564, the eldest o f five children - four o f them sons - w ho survived infancy; he was no stranger to family life, w hich figures in so m any diverse lights in his plays. Stratford had a free

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gram m ar school, w here he m ay be supposed to have becom e a pupil; he w ould have acquired some grounding in Latin, and in later years may well have picked up a reading know ledge o f French and Italian. W h eth er he ever became a wide reader has been queried (H art 9); if not, his vast and ever-expanding vocabulary is all the harder to account for. From about 1575 his father’s affairs were going downhill; he was never bank­ rupt, b u t for years he was harassed by debts and lawsuits, and lost his place on the tow n council. This was happening during W illiam ’s adolescence, a sensitive tim e for him to be exposed to such a family com edow n; it may well have left a p erm anent scar. Stratford too was going through hard times, and had to petition for tax relief in 1590, urging that w ith its trade in decay the poor ‘now live in great penury and m isery’ (J.W. Gray 102). Early in his life Shakespeare was familiar w ith the spectre o f poverty; it may have taught h im both fellow-feeling w ith the poor, and a determ ination not to be condem ned to a life o f deprivaIf the family’s decline had a disorientating effect on him , one result may have been - if we can trust an old story - his poaching escapades and prosecution by the landow ner Sir T hom as Lucy. Such an episode m ight kindle an early and lasting spark o f radicalism, resentm ent at the arrogance o f the rich. A less benign consequence o f youthful recklessness - or so we can guess - was his m arriage at eighteen to a young w om an o f twenty-six, the daughter o f a respectable farmer, w hich was hastened by her pregnancy. It was a ‘m ost unusual u n io n’, requiring, since he was a m inor, his father’s consent (Bradbrook, Shakespeare 18). A daughter was born in 1583, a tw in son and daughter in 1585. Sundry touches scattered through some early plays w arrant the suspicion that he was haunted by the image o f a shrewish woman. ‘T o be slow in words is a w om an’s only virtue’, says the servant Launce (T G V IIIi.328). H otspur thinks G lendow er as tedious ‘as a tired horse, a railing wife’ (1H .IV IILi. 159-60). ‘W o m en are shrews, both short and tali’, sings M aster Silence (2H .IV V.iii.35). Clearer evidence o f regret for a hasty m arriage may be the alm ost obsessive disapproval o f pre-m arital sex to be found in plays as far At any rate, his wife was unlikely to be congenial com pany for long for a young m an whose m ind was developing as extraordinarily quickly as Shakespeare’s m ust have been. From 1585 to 1592 he disappears from view. At some date - w hich may have been 1589 - he m ade his way to London, as other young Stratford m en were doing. H e may have been stage-struck already; touring actors visited his town, where he can be expected to have seen them. W e never know him as a very youthful writer; if he m ade his start about 1590, he was already twenty-six. Plentiful m oney was to be made in the theatre business, but as W alter

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C ohen says, not m ainly by writers; he compiles a long list o f poor, needy, ill-starred playwrights (171). Shakespeare was one o f very few Eliza­ bethan dramatists w ho were also regular actors, though as a perform er he was n o t in the first flight, whereas by 1600 he was the m ost popular w riter o f all. N o other playw right is know n to have becom e a theatre shareholder, as he was, w ith an entitlem ent to 10 per cent o f profits, from the opening o f the new Globe T heatre in 1599. N o one could well be m ore com pletely a m an o f the theatre, even if he was m uch else as well. His com pany, the ‘C ham berlain’s M en’ - w ho on Jam es I’s acces­ sion becam e the ‘K ing’s M en’ - appear to have been a happy family. H e was lucky in entering the theatre about the date w hen various o f its leading w riters w ere disappearing from it; G reene died in 1592, M arlow e in 1593, Kyd in 1594 (W ilson, Shakespeare 48; D obree 245 ff ). Still, Shakespeare’s rise cannot always have been easy going. M alcontents, m en disgruntled over exclusion from the position they th ink due to them , are com m on in his plays, and in the earlier ones may sometimes be voicing fm strations o f his own. Richard Crookback, in a curiously

That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns. ( 3 H . V l I.ii.124 ff.) Properly licensed players, w ith a patron o f high rank, w ere accepted by an Act o f 1571 as a reputable profession, and m ight w in both acclaim and wealth; b u t the upper-class view o f th em rem ained supercilious, the religious view hostile. It may n o t be surprising that a quality Shakespeare soon learned to esteem was patience, fortitude in undergoing ordeals. Very early, in Two Gentlemen, Silvia’s tribulations teach her to bear trouble ‘patiently’, and V alentine prays for ‘patience’ (V.iii,iv). A recurrent cluster o f images reveals Shakespeare’s detestation o f hypocritical flattery (Spurgeon 195); all the stronger, perhaps, because he m ay have been com pelled to have recourse to it him self at times, not only in his sonnets. His provincial origins m ust help to explain a preference for plain, unpretending manners. H e is fond o f m oralizing on the deceptiveness o f ‘outw ard shows’, the gap there may be between pretence and sterling w orth. T ouchstone’s peacock airs m ake little im pression on C orin the honest shepherd (A Y L I III.ii.22 ff.). H igh­ falutin’ modes o f speech, ‘taffeta phrases’, are am ong the bad habits that ‘Sincerity’, in fact, was becom ing Shakespeare’s m oral yardstick. H e seems to have had a fixed dislike o f vows, because they m ight prove hollow and, if genuine, were superfluous. ‘D o not swear at all’, Ju liet says to Rom eo (Il.ii). C rookback can sound exactly like the m an w ho knows how to smile and be a villain, as H am let says. Shakespeare m ust have

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been m aking some close friends, or at least feeling a keen need o f them. Respect for friendship loyal through thick and thin shines through even so preposterous a m etaphor as a lady’s hairs ‘Sticking together in calam ity’ (KJ III.iv.64 ff.) or so unim pressive a leave-taking as that o f W arw ick and the two brothers before battle. A ’prentice w riter can feel strongly about things he cannot yet clothe in fitting expression. Fare­ wells, separations, exiles were o f poignant concern to Shakespeare because they m eant disruption o f hu m an ties, the essence o f hum an life. By 1593-94 he was in a position to dedicate tw o long poem s to a w ealthy young patron, the Earl o f Southam pton, a w ard o f the powerful m inister Lord Burghley. H e was reaching the fringes o f the aristocracy; his contact w ith it was evidently, from the Sonnets, not to be an u ntroubled one. W h a t he saw or heard o f high life may have helped to colour his picture o f a nobility decaying, m orally as well as politically, in the Histories. H e was not only w riting history, b u t living on its edges. O ne evening in 1601 his com pany was perform ing at W hitehall before the queen on the day w hen she signed the death-w arrant o f Essex, w ho was to be executed w ithin a few hours (Lee, Life 376). Southam pton was im plicated in Essex’s m ad rising, and narrow ly escaped the scaffold Shakespeare did n o t bring his family to L ondon - at first if only because he could not afford to. H e may n o t have w anted his daughters to grow up in a city w here their father was a w ell-know n stage actor. He may have feared that his wife w ould be o u t o f place in the com pany he had to keep, either social or literary. H e seems to have lived for the m ost part in lodgings, w ith liberty to rem ove w hen he liked. ‘Shakespeare lived near w here he w orked’; from Bishopsgate he had crossed the river, by 1599, to be close to the Globe (Schoenbaum 7). O ne w ould guess him to have been a sober, m ethodical w orker, b u t a very different and m ore ‘B ohem ian’ portrait emerges from a passage in Ben Jonson’s com m on­ place-book, apparently referring to Shakespeare though not by name: it comes only a page later than the celebrated criticism o f Shakespeare’s style as too copious and florid. According to this account it was hard to get him working, b u t once started he w rote feverishly, day and night, u ntil exhausted, and then relapsed into ‘sports and loosenesse’ (589; cf. If he was n o t an authentic puritanizing citizen, dedicated to steady application and thrift, he was living econom ically enough to be able to save and invest money. His son H ajnnet’s death in 1596, at the age o f eleven, cut short any hopes he may have cherished o f being the founder o f a family; still, he w ent on being careful w ith money. H e had two daughters to m arry off, b u t he may have been chiefly saving up for a rainy day. In 1597 he acquired a big Stratford house, N ew Place, though

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he occupied it only after his retirem ent. In 1599 - w ith his aid, no doubt - his father obtained, after earlier failure, the coat o f arms he hankered for; W illiam too probably set store by it as the badge o f a gentlem an: in English society a hazy b u t w eighty distinction. From this tim e he seems to have com e to Stratford annually, and he was buying land an d m aking oth er investm ents there. H e inherited his father’s litigiousness, and ‘stood H e seems to have divided him self into two: one self devoted to m ining the gold o f im agination, the other to putting together a m odest com petence. His labours, how ever irregular, m ust often have been exhausting. N o t seldom he dwells on the w holesom e sleep earned by m anual toil, by contrast w ith the restless nights o f a weary m ind. H e seems to have left the stage about 1608 and rem oved to Stratford, still w ith a few plays left to write. H e may not have found his native place as consoling a retreat as he .hoped. Puritanism was gaining ground there, and dislike o f the theatre was one o f its hallmarks. In 1612 play-acting was banned by the council. Shortly before his death in 1616 his younger daughter Judith, aged thirty-one, m ade a som ew hat irregular marriage, w hich turned o u t n o t too well, w ith a m an four years younger (Levi 338 ff). It may som etim es have occurred to Shakespeare that he had W h e n he died, only about h alf o f his plays had been published - some im perfectly. T he com plete First Folio collection - still very m uch a novelty at that date - appeared in 1623, tw o o f his old fellow-actors taking the lead. T h eir dedication contained a regret that he could not have ‘set forth and overseen his ow ne w ritings’ - a phrase suggesting, perhaps, that the project had been m ooted before his death, and w ith his approval. T o doubt this is indeed difficult. H e had w ritten eloquently in y o u th on the im m ortality conferred by verse. It was part o f the spirit o f his age, or o f those m any for w hom undying fame could be a substitute for w hat religion no longer convincingly offered. W h en Bassanio talks o f dying to save A ntonio, his friend bids h im ‘live still, and w rite m ine epitaph’ (M KIV.i.l 18). H am let says the same to H oratio. It was a thought inspired by Shakespeare’s strong social sense, in addition to any personal interest. A m an and his reputation belong to the com m on stock; the m em ory they leave w ith others m atters after they are gone. B ut the poet m ay have grow n too tired to care about any o f this, or to face the labour H e had w ritten m uch about the past, and had m ore leisure now to speculate about the future. A good m any thoughts scattered through the plays suggest that he had often done so before, in one m ood or another. A q u arter-century after his death England was engaged in civil w ar o f a different kind from any he had w ritten of, or any that had ever

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happened. In July 1643 the queen, H enrietta Maria, on the m arch w ith a small army, reached Stratford, and was lodged for three days at N ew Place, the house o f M rs Hall, the poet’s elder daughter Susanna (Lee, Life

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4 -------- —

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Shakespeare and the Theatre

M ost astonishing in the cultural life o f Shakespeare’s England was its sudden, torrential outpouring o f drama. T his above all was som ething cosm opolitan as well as English. D ram a was flourishing about the same tim e over w estern Europe and as far away as Hungary. English actors toured abroad, English playwrights borrow ed from foreign productions (Cohen ch. 2; C ham bers vol. 3). English and Spanish theatres had m any resemblances (see Rennert). Secular dram a seems to have been a p h enom enon o f the long interval betw een medieval and m odern, part o f a convulsive attem pt - or com pulsion — to escape into a new age. T he Greeks had thought o f life passing like a scene on the stage; now the im age becam e a comm onplace. In A s You Like It the philosophical duke talks o f life’s ‘universal scene’, w hich launches Jaques on his ‘All the w orld’s a stage . . . ’ (Il.vii.l 36 ffl). Sir H enry V ane’s speech at his execution in 1662 began: ‘T he w ork w hich I am at this tim e called unto in this place, as upon a public theatre, is to die’ (W illcock 382). T here could have been no m ore p otent stim ulus than the theatre to aid a people’s struggle into consciousness, discovery o f itself and its w orld o f good and ill, faculties and weaknesses, hitherto sm othered. Centuries later Yeats w anted the Irish T heatre to be ‘a place w here the m ind goes to be liberated as it was liberated by the theatres o f Greece and England at certain great m om ents in their history’ (Ronsley 27) - set free, that is, from old grooves and habits, to try its wings in fantasy before it could do so in action. Like m any other great artists, Shakespeare was the heir and con­ sum m ation o f a long tradition, as well as an inaugurator. Medieval England abounded in ‘sub-dram atic en tertainm ent’. D uring the W ars o f the Roses there were troupes o f actors kept by Y orkist nobles, and by R ichard III (Bradbrook, Player 17-18, 25). W e m ust w onder how m uch use was m ade o f these perform ers for propaganda. In the sixteenth century both partisans and enemies o f R eform ation knew how useful plays could be (Bradbrook 31). Pageants o f the ‘N ine W orthies’, like the

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one Shakespeare brought into Love’s Labour’s Lost, were still in his day fam iliar diversions o f country towns. Extem pore play-scenes resem bling the one betw een Falstaff and Hal in Henry I V Part 1 (Il.iv) were com m on. O th e r Shakespeare plays owe a debt to the old m oralizing ‘Interludes’ w hich, like The Taming o f the Shrew, conventionally ended w ith a lay T he England Shakespeare was born into had a m any-featured popular culture, w here arts like singing, dancing and play-acting found no lack o f exponents. By the tim e he was grow ing up, entertainm ent was being provided m ore than before by professionals, and he belonged to ‘almost the first generation in Europe o f a predom inantly com m ercial theatre’ (Salingar, Comedy 221). T here was loss as well as gain in the change; am ateur perform ers were liable to be squeezed out. Puritan zeal for sweeping away anything redolent o f the old rustic festivals, as bad for morals, was one cause. Another, the m ost serious, was the gradual crippling o f the village com m unity by the segregation o f the peasantry into a prosperous upper layer and a rural proletariat (cf. M. Kelly 62-6, O n the other hand, the new theatre was releasing dram a from its narrow medieval confines, opening up w ider perspectives (W eim ann, ‘Soul’ 31 -2). L ondon was its focal point, b u t it was m aking itself a truly national institution, helping to build a m odern national culture. N o theatre com pany stayed in the capital all the year round; any tow n w ith a couple o f thousand people could expect at least one visit betw een May and O ctober (Lee, Life 81). T h e provinces came to have some regular theatres, as well as second-rate ‘strolling’ companies, from whose perform ances novices like B ottom the weaver in A Midsummer Night’s Dream m ust have picked up notions o f how things were done. In L ondon some o f higher station are likely to have been ready to learn. Acting had m uch in com m on w ith some o f their professions: lawyers, preachers - royalty itself - could take useful elocution lessons from the stage. H ooker com pared the H ouse o f C om m ons and its seating arrangem ent to a theatre. Shakespeare was the first professional playw right to indulge in frequent allusions to the actor’s art, or stage technicalities (H art 97). It has been argued recently that his audience was not a cross-section o f society, as m any have thou g h t it, b u t was dom inated by ‘the privileged playgoer’, representing the b etter-o ff classes. These, A.J. C ook believes, m ust have constituted at least o n e-ten th o f the London population, twice as m uch as anywhere else, and enough to fill up m ost places in the theatres (8, 93). T o suppose that ordinary people had enough sense and taste to com prehend Shakespeare is in her view an illusion o f the 1920s and 1930s, dissem inated especially by H arbage (4-5). This sounds like a retu rn to the elitist eighteenth-century views taken over, Rossiter remarks,

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by the Rom antic critics (150). His ow n picture is o f a mixed audience, quick-w itted and responsive, w ith no distinct line betw een the ground­ lings’ receptive faculties and those o f their betters. It may be hard to th in k o f w orkm en as able to appreciate Shakespeare; no doubt they were n o t fully able - nor are we; b u t there seems little reason to suppose that the b e tte r-o ff classes, as we see them portrayed in fiction or sermons or on the stage, were m uch better qualified. Bradley found it easy to believe th at audiences in the public theatres m ust have had ‘the same general character’ as those in the ‘private’, higher-priced ones (364). As to num bers, towards the end o f the seventeenth century a single theatre sufficed for the London public, then very genteel; while formerly, as K enneth M uir points out, there had been h a lf a dozen (‘Interpretations’); the contrast surely points to a broad, largely ‘popular’ audience in It is undeniable that in the public theatres - as distinct from the private sort, w hich were smaller and com pletely roofed over - the audience was in one sense sharply divided. T he poorer stood, or sat on the ground, under the w intry sky, while the w ealthier were seated under cover; and the tw o sorts cannot have had the same feelings about contentious subjects such as the dram a often threw up. In another sense the dram a was an equalizer, a place w here the classes rubbed elbows. Anyone was free to smoke, eat apples, hiss or clap. Except in church, occasions for public gatherings o f any serious kind were few. A theatre audience m ight be called an im p ro m p tu parliam ent, and the tem porary proxim ity o f classes so discordant could be a stim ulus to the m inds o f all. T h e theatre w ould have a special function in helping to induct into L ondon life the swarm o f newcom ers always arriving, at first uprooted and bewildered. Altogether, as L.C. K nights said, ‘the theatre’s success lay in the bringing together and the lively interplay o f different interests w ithin a fairly hom ogeneous society’ (l 1). Harbage observed that w hat its opponents disliked was this audience itself, rather than the plays they watched: ‘T he theatre was a dem ocratic institution in an intensely A trenchant reply to Professor C ook’s argum ent, adm itting at the same tim e some strong points in it, will be found in an appendix to M artin B utler’s book. H er estim ate o f one in six o f the London population belonging to the ‘privileged’, or ‘gentlem en’, is ‘astonishing’, he points our, and it is evident if only from the continual denunciations o f the theatre that a very considerable num ber o f its frequenters were All perform ers were male. Boys apprenticed to the adult companies began w ork w hen very young, usually in w om en’s roles; though these m ight be taken by m ore m ature actors - we hear o f one aged tw enty-

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four (Gurr, Shakespearean Stage 69). In C hina m en tw o or three times that age have been renow ned im personators o f young wom en. If Shakespeare had no actresses, am ong his spectators he could count a good sprinkling o f w om en. T h e epilogue to A s You Like It, spoken by Rosalind, addresses first the w om en present, then the men. T he form er were o f all ranks; those m ore careful for respectability had escorts w ith them (Gurr, Playgoing 8, 57). N o special galleries were provided for them , as they were in some Spanish theatres. A playw right-turned-preacher, Stephen Gosson, deplored the scandal o f m en shoving and elbowing to get a place next to any w om an, and the sequel - ‘such ticking, such toying, such smiling, such w inking’ (25). B ut the w om en’s presence may on the whole have im proved the tone o f the house, as it has that o f the Scottish tavern since they were adm itted. D isorder seems to have been infrequent, behaviour reasonably proper (Harbage, Audience chs. 3-4). It was on the stage that Shakespeare had his chief and habitual contact w ith the ‘populace’. H e could declaim scathingly about ‘T he stilldiscordant wavering m ultitude’ (Prologue to 2H.IV) w ithout fear o f giving offence. W e all feel that such criticisms are aim ed at other people, not at us; and as the m ost adm ired o f all the dramatists, he was a privileged voice. An average play, it has been estimated, m ight have been seen in the course o f eighteen m onths by as m any as 30,000 people (Beckerm an 2). Success required patient study o f crowd tastes and moods. A n actor w ho was also an author w ould be left in no doubt about w hat was thought o f his work. Shakespeare could not foresee that w hen he and his colleagues recited his lines to the crowded benches o f the Globe, they were addressing the entire future world, the hum an race o f centuries to come, b u t he m ust at least have been able to believe that a fair part o f his audience appreciated him . A willing suspension o f disbelief is a need o f the w riter as well as the listener. T h e 1580s were the true inaugural decade. W h en they began, a dram a was not m uch m ore than horseplay and b lood-and-thunder; a m elo­ dram a as crude as Titus Andronicus m ight still have years o f resounding popularity before it, and end up enshrined in the First Folio. From the later 1580s, however, progress was m arvellously rapid. M arlowe led the way, Shakespeare was his great successor; and the audience, too, was learning. W hatever its deficiencies, it possessed the suprem e m erit o f being sufficiently close to earlier ages o f the w orld to be able to listen to dram atic verse. A bout 1580 Sidney was lam enting that poetry, ‘the first light-giver to ignorance’ am ong the noblest nations, had sunk in England to being no m ore than ‘a laughing-stock o f children’ (102-3). W h e n he wrote, a m iraculous fountain o f poetry was about to gush out from , o f all places, the dry bare boards o f the despised stage. It was n o t to flow for long. D ryden’s estim ate o f his audience, a m ore

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elitist one in his day, was low, and helped to make him w ant his plays to be read rather than perform ed: poetical beauties could not bloom on the bustling stage (159). ‘Poetry and the stage do not agree together’, H azlitt w rote in 1816 (Wells 9), stating w hat by then had long been an irrever­ sible fact. R um m aging through a bundle o f old plays one evening, W alter Scott concluded that ‘T he audience m ust have had a m uch stronger sense o f poetry then than now ’ (Journal 1 August 1826). O ne consequence was the readiness o f Shakespeare’s characters - H am let m ost o f all - to enlarge and generalize, to soar from the particular to the universal. Poetry transform ed both its them es and its hearers, lifting Actors needed patrons in high positions to give them legal status; they needed, too, the governm ent’s protection against their enemies, Puritans and others w ho form ed the ruling interests o f the City. Perform ances at co u rt brought a welcom e addition to their takings, but for m ost o f their incom e they had to rely on the public. If they fell into the hands o f a m anager like Henslowe (see Greg), they w ould learn som ething o f w hat the new capitalism could mean. Shakespeare and his associates escaped this by being able to hold on to an older, co-operative form o f organiza­ tion; though in relation to actors and other assistants w ho were not ‘sharers’ they stood in the relationship o f a business enterprise to its workers. Actors as a profession were thou ght o f as poverty-stricken, shilling-a-day m en (Sheavyn 93-4). Here, as often, we see Shakespeare’s place - in the practical affairs as well as ideas o f his w orld - as curiously A gentlem an com plained o f his young son being got hold o f by some actors, to be m ade use o f in the ‘vile and base m anner o f a m ercenary player’ (Bentley 47-8). C ity prejudice found succinct expression in a letter from the Lord M ayor to the Lord C hancellor in 1580, referring to actors, acrobats, etc., as ‘a very superfluous sort o f m en’ (Chambers vol. 3, 279). Civic topics were n o t neglected by authors; in 34 o u t o f the 80 plays surviving from 1580-1603, m erchants or craftsm en have parts to play (Stevenson 50). B ut there were com plaints that they were too often ridiculed, and this kept some o f the ‘better sort’, though not all, away from the theatres (W right 604-7, 628). It is not unlikely, o f course, that ’prentices and craftsm en enjoyed seeing their employers m ade fun of. T h ere was a riot o f ’prentices in Ju n e 1591 after a perform ance, though its cause was a grievance o f their own; five o f them were sum m arily executed after food riots in the sum m er o f 1595. In each case the theatres were closed for a while. In 1597 the Privy C ouncil was induced to order them to be pulled down. This was a sop to the City, It has often happened (nowhere m ore than in England, perhaps) that

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high and low have been able to m eet on com m on ground for recreation - on the turf, at the ring or cockpit, in the m usic-hall - while the higher-m inded m iddle classes have stayed away. Elizabeth and her courtiers enjoyed the same shows as her subjects; scarcely any o f the plays perform ed before them were w ritten specially for the purpose (Bradbrook, Player 76). B ut apart from this parity o f taste, a basic policy disagreem ent was involved, w hich w ent on widening. Like m ost other m onarchies, and every governm ent today, the T udors acted in the spirit o f M achiavelli’s advice to keep the public am used w ith entertainm ents and spectacles (cf. U nderdow n). T h e City, or bourgeoisie, or Puritans, shared in full the governm ent’s m istrust o f the m any-headed beast, or labouring masses; b u t their preference was for the alternative tactics o f discipline, m oral reform , inculcation o f sober, industrious habits. T heir aim was to convert ordinary m en and w om en to acceptance o f prescribed behaviour - virtues favourable, on their practical side, to m aterial progress and employers’ profits. It is w orthw hile to ask how m u ch o f this conflict o f policies, rival medicines for the body politic, can be recognized in the outbreak o f civil w ar in 1642, w hen one o f Parlia­ m e n t’s first measures was to close the theatres. In the m eantim e one effect was to confuse and divide the political sympathies o f playwrights By friend or foe the theatre could be seen as a force to be reckoned with. It could w hip up patriotism , as N ashe said in 1592 in its defence (128-32). A play m ight be com m issioned for propaganda purposes, like A 'Larum fo r London, a grisly story o f the sack o f A ntw erp by Spanish forces in 1576, to convince the taxpayer o f the need for preparedness. D ram a such as Shakespeare’s Histories lent itself admirably to dissem ination o f opinions and sentim ents agreeable to the régime. To keep w riters from straying, there was a censorship, exercised from 1579 until near his death in 1610 by Sir E dm und Tilney, as M aster o f the Revels (Boas, Elizabeth ch. 2). Shakespeare m ust be referring to it in Sonnet 66, w here he speaks o f ‘art m ade tongue-tied by authority’. This is only know n to have happened to him once, over his Richard II, w here the scene o f the king’s deposition was cut out. C ontrol m ight not be easy to enforce. Players could serve as m outhpiece for any m ood o f the m om ent; they were accused not only o f satirizing City worthies b u t also o f disrespect to C hurch and State, or to foreign governm ents, w hich m ight protest. Actors m ight drop hints n o t in the text: they could deride an individual by aping some m annerism . H am let cautions Polonius not to fall foul o f them (Il.iii), and in Troilus and Cressida Achilles and his friend are said to be guying the G reek leaders like scurrilous players (I.iii). Shakespeare him self was supposed to have got his ow n back on his Stratford enem y Sir Thom as Lucy by turning him into Justice Shallow.

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As a rule during the 1590s the governm ent felt sufficiently secure to tolerate m ore frank speaking on the stage than later (Heinem ann, ‘D ram a’ 188). H istory broke in rudely in 1601, on the eve o f the Essex rising, w hen the conspirators induced Shakespeare’s com pany to perform Richard II, by way o f preparing public opinion for another transfer o f power. Elizabeth was sensitive on the subject o f R ichard’s dethronem ent, and if, as she heard, a large num ber o f perform ances were given in the streets, it cannot have been by the regular actors, or things w ould have gone hard w ith them after the coup. B ut the episode is a tribute to the influence C hu rch m en and pious w riters were usually hostile. All the same, medieval dram a had a religious fram ew ork, and none the less abounded in social criticism and the com plaints o f the m an in the street (Kinghorn ch. 6). Sidney held that comedy, though bad writers had made it ‘odious’, could usefully com bat ‘the com m on errors o f our life’ (123). T his was very m uch w hat the preachers were doing, in their ow n m anner, and dram atic language could overflow into divinity (Collinson 233-5; W illey 136, 169-70). Jo h n Field was an an ti-theatre divine, and one o f his sons was a bishop; b u t another, N athan, turned actor and dram atist, and w rote in defence o f the stage. W illiam Shakespeare and W illiam Perkins, m ost influential o f all P uritan gospellers, can often be heard saying the same thing, especially w hen it was a question o f upholding traditional m oral standards or good sense against aberrations. B oth were critics o f duelling, for instance (cf. Perkins 120, 136, 435). A nd in the Elizabethan as in the R om antic era, religious revival and rom antic love w ere blossoming side by side, nourished by the same soil and silently encouraging each other. D ivine and hu m an love were alike ‘infinite’ and ‘Shakespeare was a poet before he was a dram atist’ (Rylands 89). A w riter in whose evolution the dram atic came first w ould be unlikely to scale the heights o f Parnassus. O n the other hand a poet dabbling in am ateur drama, com posing o u t o f sight or sound o f the theatre, like Byron, Tennyson, Brow ning, Bridges, or T.S. Eliot, w ould be even less likely to excel. As professional playw right and actor, Shakespeare had to be as fam iliar w ith stage and audience as w ith his ow n house and neigh­ bours. T hey m ade it possible for him to com bine poetic and dram atic in perfection. Absence o f scenery favoured shifts o f location from scene to scene and w ith them - in Shakespeare’s plays as in others - a looseness o f construction that was sometimes excessive. W e may fancy him going to w ork w ith the same eagerness as his Mrs Page, w hen a fresh stratagem occurred to her and her ally - ‘Com e, to the forge w ith it; then shape it. I w ould n o t have things cool’ (M W W IV.ii.17-18). His creative flow showed in his habit o f w riting plays m uch too long to be perform ed

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w ith o u t cuts (H art 151); and since he seldom invented stories, b u t took them ready-m ade, he had less need to pause and ponder. T he fact that they were often familiar to his hearers in advance is a pointer to the presence o f a strong ‘popular’ elem ent in his audience, though also to the ability o f the higher sort to share the taste for folk-tale. Shakespeare had to w rite for a particular set o f actors, Baldwin rem inds us (Organization 300). Rossini likewise composed each opera to suit w hatever set o f singers he found. T here is evidence, as Baldw in adds, o f actors giving their writers advice and suggestions: this m ust sometimes have been a nuisance, b u t in the case o f Shakespeare and his associates, so long and closely linked together, can have contributed m uch ‘collective invention’ (303). W e do not know how often Shakespeare’s m ind turned back to plays he had w ritten a year or ten years before, b u t theatres w orked on a repertory system, w ith a stock o f plays m ore or less frequently revived. This w ould oblige him to look through his texts again, and no doubt consult his colleagues on details. Discrepancies in Twelfth Night have made readers suspect an incom plete revision (Bethell 138ff.). Saintsbury felt that The Merchant o f Venice and other plays contained sections differing so m uch in m aturity that they m ust have been w ritten at different dates (‘Life’ 183-4). Evidences o f revision can be detected in tw enty-five plays altogether, distinct p ro o f in sixteen (Bentley 261). Shakespeare’s boast, reported by Jonson (587-8), that he never ‘blotted’ - cancelled or altered - a line, can refer only to his An instinct o f fidelity to life may underlie his apparently casual m ethods. A w ell-organized plot m ust always be unnatural in its singling ou t o f one sequence o f happenings from the daily welter. A story told w ith some o f its inconsequences and illogicalities may reflect m ore faithfully a real w orld w here m en m ore often than not act hastily, forgetfully, failing to see obvious repercussions. As a m an o f the theatre Shakespeare had his eye fixed on the building up o f dram atic situations, giving plenty o f scope for the clash o f rival wills or hopes. As a student o f h u m an nature he was interested, as Scott said, in perm anent features, by contrast w ith Ben Jonson the collector o f ephem eral social m annerisms (Monastery Introd.). Shakespeare could enjoy - and knew his audience enjoyed - an allowance o f topicality, b u t he freed him self from over­ im m ersion in it by his choice o f settings, far away in tim e or space. They gave him the liberty to concentrate on his chief characters and their relationships, so distinctly draw n that they m ake up a little w orld by themselves, as real to us for the tim e being as our own.

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Shakespeare and English History

Sir T hom as Elyot’s treatise on governm ent in 1531 strongly upheld the doctrine that history can be an invaluable teacher; b u t his illustrations were nearly all taken from A ntiquity, classical or biblical. Chroniclers, and the playwrights w ho drew on them , were teaching Englishm en lessons o u t o f their ow n past. Shakespeare above all was enabling them to look back on it. Paying tribute to his achievement, Coleridge observed that m uch o f the know ledge o f bygone m en and events still afloat in the public m ind was derived from his plays (Shakespeare 112). They m ight be called collectively an epic poem; after them the Epic could have only one m ore appearance in English, perhaps in any European language, and M ilton had to rem ove it from an earthly to a celestial plane. Shake­ speare’s barons contended for an English throne; M ilton’s archangel was incited to rebellion by ‘no less than the throne o f the universe’ (Hazlitt, Poets 94). B ut every now and then in Paradise Lost, am id the crash o f heavenly artillery, we catch glimpses o f terrestrial affairs; and betw een past and present in the Histories can be felt a sim ilar vibration. N oblem en o f 1400 and 1600 are different in m any ways, b u t still alike in others; ostlers, servants, com m on soldiers, o f w hom the chronicles had little to tell, have altered m u ch less. It is by breathing impulses and passions o f his ow n day into m en and w om en o f old, as well as feelings proper to their place in history, that Shakespeare brings them to life. Shakespeare w rote nine English H istories and part o f a tenth, Henry VIE, and three Roman; if to these are added Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth, we have n o t m uch less than h alf o f his total output. In one late w ork he refers to history as ‘devised and played to take spectators’ (Winter's Tale Ill.ii); no doubt the business o f ‘taking spectators’, and their m oney, had to com e first w ith him , as it did w ith his companions. B ut study o f happenings o f the past was an im p ortant part o f his continuing efforts to com prehend his ow n world; a fascinating arena in w hich he could contem plate m en and w om en in action, and the com plex relations

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betw een them and the families, classes, nations they belonged to. H ere he could show him self ‘an alm ost unrivalled observer’ (Morris 103; cf. Hill, Origins 174). A profound instinct led him to history and helped to make h im one o f the first great artists o f m odern Europe, and its greatest w riter. Universal art m ust have a firm local footing. B oth Renaissance and Reform ation, in different ways, prom oted grow th o f national feeling, that dangerous but invigorating flame; and everywhere the sense o f belonging to a people w ith a name, and a part to play in the w orld, fired interest in the collective past. An England often at w ar in the late sixteenth century could draw assurance o f its rights and its claims on divine favour from the m em ory o f a victory like Agincourt. In nearly two centuries since then English trium phs abroad had been few. For fanning patriotic ardour there could be no m ore effective m edium than the theatre. A governm ent desirous o f identifying itself w ith defence o f national interests could only welcom e the aid that actors could give it; though it had to take care that their trum pet was always blow ing the right notes. O n their side the theatres had m any enemies o f their own, grave magistrates and bigoted preachers; they could have no better apologia than that they were helping to forge patriotic unity. Shakespeare covered the best possible ground: the years o f the fifteenth century w hich saw the later stages o f the H undred Years W ar alternating w ith the W ars o f the Roses, and ended w ith the accession o f the first T udor. M aterial came from a variety o f sources, chief am ong them Holinshed, whose Chronicles were first published in 1577 and enlarged in 1587, each tim e suffering some unkindly cuts from the censor. T hey m arked ‘a tu rn in g -p o in t in the history o f T u d o r dram a’ (W ilson, King John xv). In general Shakespeare stuck as closely as he could to the facts as recorded; we may see here a respect for reality, a seriousness about the im portance o f history. D uring the 1590s historical dram a, fed by the Spanish attack and national excitement, breathed fresh vitality into the theatre and raised its standing and prestige. O n the stage an im age o f ‘national character’ was taking shape. English soldiers ‘harebrain’d’ in their ‘courage and audacity’ ( 1H.VI I.ii.36-7) were to have m any descendants in the fiction o f later times. H itler is recorded in his Table Talk as finding fault w ith Schiller for seeking a hero in a paltry Swiss instead o f a Germ an, and w ith Shake­ speare’s English history sources for providing only imbeciles or m adm en. Shakespeare learned from M arlowe, and especially in the first and last o f the Histories ( 1H.VI and H .V ) m ay seem at times to be em ulating Tamburlaine, published in 1590, w ith its ‘high-astounding term s’. A certain m iasm a o f the insane, o f violence o u t o f control, pervades all the earlier Histories, as the spiral o f crim e goes on m ounting. Am id it all the old political order shows itself irretrievably bad, incapable o f regenera-

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tion. Its anim ating spirit is an unreasoning, insatiable thirst for power: over foreigners by conquest and over Englishm en by success in w inning the throne and riding in triu m p h through London like T am burlaine Historical dram a is always concerned w ith change, bift often leaves its causes mysterious (Lindenberger 99). Shakespeare has no com prehensive explanations to offer, b u t he strews plentiful hints or guesses. England’s failure to hold on to its French dom ains precipitates civil war. T he first sequence o f plays rises to its climax in Richard III, w here Shakespeare takes an am azing stride forward. It is a dram a falling not far short o f tragedy, and can be called at the same tim e the finest m elodram a ever w ritten, w ith an energy ensuring it a p erm anent place on the stage. Richard, the suprem e power-seeker, goes far beyond his forerunners; w ith h im the contest takes on a dim ension only hinted at previously. Political intrigue and demagogy have first place over warlike prowess. Them atically King jo h n , though o f uncertain date, can be placed between the first series and the one starting w ith Richard II. Shakespeare’s sole foray into an older medieval era, it exhibits another double calamity. Failure in France leads to French invasion and a near approach to civil war, w ith a king unfit - like H enry VI, b u t for very different reasons - to cope w ith the situation. H ere again, success abroad seems necessary to T h e second series opens on a level again aspiring to the tragic, by very different means than those o f Richard UI. R L . Smallwood points out that Richard II’s queen is virtually an invention o f Shakespeare’s, and that he was beginning to bring fictional characters into an increasingly complex interw eaving w ith his facts (151, 155). Each play in tu rn was now a novelty; his im agination was displaying astonishing fertility. His old m en in Richard II, last o f Edw ard Ill’s overm any sons, are stragglers from the past, and seem to stand for a w hole era ready to fold up its tents and depart. T h e leap from here to the England o f Henry IV, from stylized altitudes to the rough-an d -tu m b le o f com m on life, is prodigious. H istory ceases to be simply political and is fused w ith com edy or social satire, though until H otspur’s death still w ith a lingering o f the tragic. In Henry VI there was h u m o u r o f a clow nish sort, in episodes tacked on to the m ain story. Richard Crookback revelled in macabre wit; King Jo h n ’s nephew the Bastard in robust jocularity. In Richard II anything hum orous disappears, as if deliberately repressed. T hen, in Henry IV, laughter rolls over us in a flood. Each play has been com ing to group itself round one outstanding figure, the first o f them W arw ick the king­ maker; now it is Falstaff s turn. H e is an outsider, an onlooker, but rubs elbows w ith people from all walks o f life. M uch o f the play’s sparkle arises o u t o f the jostling together o f classes and ranks, and the discovery

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that at bottom all m en and w om en belong to the same species, and sober history and com edy to the same world. Falstaff emancipates Shakespeare and us from any inflated estim ate o f the great and their doings. Plebeians are n o t rebelling now, as they did in Henry V I Part 2, b u t we see far m ore o f them - in their ordinary lives, or in the army, we learn som ething o f their hardships, and hear some o f their grievances aired. In Henry V I Part 1 and King John, scenes set in England and France alternated; now the shift is m ore abrupt: betw een Eastcheap, hom e o f the com ic spirit, and W estm inster, w here it w ould be unthinkable for anyone to crack a joke. W ith this mixing o f ranks and m edley o f m oral planes goes a looser, m ore episodical construction. Shakespeare has come to be concerned less w ith the outer husks o f history, m ore w ith its inner reality; he is less its custodian, especially in the Elizabethan official style, and m ore its interpreter. In spite o f all the wit, in Henry I V we are em erging n o t into fresh sunlight b u t into a grey, overcast m orning. W itticism s are sometimes things for people to enjoy together: m ore often, even in the tavern, they are weapons for them to use against one another. An old feudal w orld and its ideas, everything from the crow n dow nw ard, are com ing under critical scrutiny. Age and decay have a pervasive presence, w hich seems to find a bodily m anifestation in old buildings gnawed by time: the ‘ancient castle’ w ith ‘rude ribs’ and ‘ru in ’d ears’ (R .II Ill.iv), or W arkw orth, that ‘w orm -eaten hold o f ragged stone’ (2 H .IV Prologue), whose condition heralds the approaching downfall o f the Percies. W h a t we see o f the condition o f England is no m ore cheering. It is another sym ptom o f a vitiated atm osphere that w om en, except o f a disreputable sort, are practically eliminated. At the outset o f H enry V’s b rief reign, all this seems to have been banished. Exeter talks w ith ringing confidence about a truly national, united governm ent; C anterbury follows w ith his glowing picture o f class harm ony in the beehive. B ut it includes ‘soldiers’ w ho range afield to m ake booty o f the flowers and bring hom e their ‘pillage’ to the tent o f their ‘em peror’. B oth m en are arguing for peace at hom e, w ar abroad; and thinking o f the two, evidently, as inseparable. M onarchy has suffered an ignom inious collapse w ith Richard II’s fall; H enry IV’s reign has been at best hu m d ru m , and m arred by the behaviour o f his heir. For it to recover credit the king m ust be the cham pion, the em bodim ent, o f his people; for this, there m ust be a foreign enem y in sight. In H otspur the heroic virtues rem ain self-centred, therefore an­ achronistic and harm ful. W h a t Shakespeare requires is that honour and em ulation should transcend this anarchic level and become profitable to the com m onw eal; b u t he has no means o f bringing this about, in order to im prove the people’s lot. All he can do is to tu rn his back on the dilem m a, and m arch his hero o ff to w orsen the French people’s lot. T he

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H istories seem to end w here they began; b u t the problem s that Shakespeare, like his H enry V, was trying to escape were still there to h au n t him. This is typical o f his progress. Each play is pushed forward by its contradictions and their dem and for solutions: it has, properly speaking, no end, because it has brought to light m ore new questions than can be answered w ithin its ow n limits.

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2 —

The Plays

Henry V I Part 1 (1590) T here have been m any doubts about the authenticity o f several scenes in the three parts o f Henry V I; in recent years - perhaps from exhaustion after prolonged debate - there has been m ore willingness to take the w hole w ork as substantially belonging to Shakespeare, a youthful learner o f his craft. Its acceptance has indeed been called a m ajor swing o f critical opinion (Bradbrook, Shakespeare 55; cf. Ribner 97). O ne consid­ eration urged has been ‘the occurrence o f typically Shakespearean clus­ ters’ o f im agery (Arm strong 185). C onstruction is loose, in the absence o f any coherent train o f events; Shakespeare makes up for this at times w ith form alistic devices, or relies on coincidences to cobble things together, as w hen all three o f the chief participants in a scene at the French court sim ultaneously receive letters from England at the crucial m om ent (Part 3 : Ill.iii). H air’s-breadth escapes, dizzy ups and downs o f fortune, thrills o f all kinds, often horrific, provide a rapidly shifting kaleidoscope. O ne p ungent ingredient is the revenge them e so dear to Elizabethans. Dear also was the trick o f a foem an’s head cut o ff and displayed on the stage. Part 1 is divided betw een grow ing resistance in France to the English occupation, despite the superhum an exertions o f Talbot, and politics at the English court, w ith feudal magnates quarrelling for first place. In general the English or ‘political’ scenes are better w ritten than the French or ‘m ilitary’, except w hen Joan o f Arc is in the limelight. Talbot, that ‘dreadful lord’ (I.i. 110) - to one com m entator at least (Leggatt 9) a true hero - bestrides the battlefields, knocking over Frenchm en in heaps; he glories in being acknowledged their ‘terror and their bloody scourge’ (IV.ii). H e is above all a m an o f blue blood, w ith a long string o f titles for Joan to deride (IV.vii); captured, he rejects the indignity o f being exchanged for a prisoner o f lesser rank, and we never see him fraterniz­ ing w ith the rank and file, as H enry V learns to do - though he is as ready as H enry V, or Crom w ell, to give the glory to God (III.ii.117, iv; IV.ii). N o dram atist could fail to m ake good (or bad) use o f so extraordinary

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a personality as Joan o f Arc. In this play the better scenes about her are a rem arkable tribute both to her and to French resistance. She is portrayed as so active and energetic a leader that there is no need o f w itchcraft to explain her successes, except as a salve to English pride (e.g. III.ii.38—40; cf. W arn er 107ff.). H er dignified appeal to B urgundy to com e over to the French side, and his response (Ill.iii), do far m ore justice to the better side o f patriotism than alm ost anything in the trilogy. Loss o f France is bringing civil war to England, and the blam e rests clearly on the ‘factious em ulations’ deplored by the young king (IV.i.l 11 ff.). T albot is left to perish because Y ork and Somerset are too jealous o f each other to organize a relief force. T he soldiers are m utterin g about the jangling lords’ behaviour (I.i.57 ff.); we can hear in this the voice o f the com m on man, and the prelude, misconceived as it may be, to popular criticism o f the ruling class. Act II Scene iv, w here the red and w hite roses become the badges o f rival claims to the throne, is one o f the m ore impressive. It may be supposed that the audience was ready to be interested by the genealogical details unfolded here, and again (in II.v) by the aged M ortim er, nearing his death in the Tower. England in the 1590s was facing the prospect o f a change o f dynasty before long, and Jam es VI o f Scotland’s hereditary right as greatgrandson o f H enry VII’s daughter M argaret loom ed over the political scene. In this context Shakespeare’s dram as were doing som ething to educate the public m ind - as Jam es can hardly have failed to note w ith approval - to the benefits o f adherence to strict hereditary succession. B ut so far as the W ars o f the Roses are concerned, we are shown only a senseless scrimmage. N either side raises any issues o f public concern,

A t the close o f the first scene o f Part 2 all the protagonists reveal their aims; they are beasts o f a jungle w here only the m ost ruthless can survive. In Act III Scene ii H enry prepares to hold the trial o f his U ncle G lou­ cester, w hom we know to be lying m urdered behind the curtain. Before long the Bishop o f W inchester - ‘the haughty cardinal’ for w hom , as in Part I, nobody has a good w ord - dies raving and sees the ghost o f G lou­ cester, whose death he has connived at, w hispering at his pillow (III.ii.370 ff., iii). O f the ill-fated king, Shakespeare’s portrait is at times wavering; it is only personalities as crude as T albot or the bishop that he can as yet see, or draw, in firm outline. H enry soon sinks into depend­ ence on his term agant wife; he appears to be aware o f her preference for Suffolk, b u t shows no jealous resentm ent. H e is a good m an who, like one or two others in Shakespeare, fails com pletely as a ruler; perhaps

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because only a harsh, even cruel ruler can be an effective one. H e pines to be rid o f the throne he was born to, while his challenger Y ork is ravenA m ong the feudalists, G loucester is the m ost estimable. M ore than in P art I, he emerges clearly as a faithful statesman who, as Protector during H enry’s m inority, kept order well. B ut he has grow n old and tired, and is being pulled dow n by his enemies; there is real pathos here, and some likeness to the dying Jo h n o f G aunt in Richard II. His afflictions are w ors­ ened by the plotting, and disgrace, o f his am bitious wife. This em bryo Lady M acbeth warns him that he too will come to grief; she is right. N ext in respectability are Salisbury and W arw ick, father and son, w ho seem to accept Y ork’s right to the crown, w hen he argues his case to them , on its m erits (Il.ii). Salisbury feels duty-bound to resist H enry’s appeal to him to stay quiet in his old age, not ‘seek for sorrow ’ w ith his spectacles, and he fights on the Y orkist side like a ‘w inter lion’ (V.i.165, iii). Y ork him self ‘reaches at the m oon’, like H otspur, b u t for pow er rather than ‘h o n o u r’ (III.i. 158). His lengthy soliloquy at the end o f Act III Scene i, glorying in his ow n naked am bition, has m uch striking imagery and real eloquence. Evidently Shakespeare felt a sort o f fascination in such characters and their N ietzschean will to power. Y ork has no com punction about the ten thousand Englishm en whose deaths may be needed to bring him to the throne, any m ore than T albot cared about Far the m ost interesting scenes in Part 2 are those concerned w ith Jack C ade and his K entish rebellion; due tribute to their vitality is paid by Leggatt (16-20). T o treat them as m erely comical, ‘anarchy by clow ning’, may fit into a view o f Shakespearean com edy as a sort o f hum orous purgation, a ‘saturnalian release’ (Barber 4, 13); but it leaves h alf o f the m eaning out. Serious and comic, or grotesque, jostle together in this irru p tio n o f rustic m entality and discontent into the feudal or urban fram ew ork o f the Histories. Shakespeare at Stratford had been close enough to the countryside to learn a good deal about it. It is interesting in itself that he chose to bring in - or drag in - this episode, a m iniature dram a scarcely connected w ith the m ain plot. Such an outburst o f class conflict, like the feudal factions in another way, shows som ething rotten in the state o f England. Elsewhere in these plays we have realistic detail about hardships and grievances o f the poor; only here is there active revolt against them . Shakespeare had in m ind also, no doubt, that the invasion o f the capital by the rebels w ould have a special piquancy for his audience. T o see these yokels burlesqued, as they partly are, w ould be rich entertainm ent for Londoners high and low, united by the usual conceit o f a m etropolis. O ne m ight indeed expect some o f them to be stirred to sympathy w ith the rebels by hearing them addressed as ‘the

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scum and filth o f K ent’ (IV.ii. 119). Shakespeare may have counted on such language to allay any official disapproval o f social revolt on the stage; the poor, like the French, m ust be denigrated. C ade’s talk is a ju m b le o f sense and nonsense. His tu rn for ro u gh-andready jocularity makes it difficult to know how m uch he intends to be taken literally. N o t all his followers swallow his tall talk about his high birth. D ick the butcher and Sm ith the weaver, w ho laugh at it, are o f the village artisan or shopkeeper sort; very probably such m en were easier than ploughm en for Shakespeare to find w ords for. Cade him self is first called an old soldier, later sometimes a ‘clothier’ or cloth-m erchant. H e has som ething o f the same reckless energy and desire to lead and com m and as the am bitious lords; b u t in his bom bast about the happiness to be brought by his reign there is an undercurrent o f G olden Age utopianism . H e is given a deliberate resemblance to Jo h n o f Leyden, leader o f the Anabaptist rising at M ünster in 1535 and ever since a bugbear to all the propertied classes o f Europe. As Jo h n was accused o f doing, Cade intends to make all wives ‘as free as heart can wish or tongue can tell’, b u t reserves to him self the right o f the first night w ith every T h e sem i-proverbial saying that ‘it was never m erry w orld in England since gentlem en came u p ’ (IV.ii.8-9) w ould have been echoed by thousands o f Shakespeare’s poorer contem poraries; and C ade’s pledge that ‘there shall be no m ore m oney’ (IV.ii.66), and ‘all things shall be in com m on’ (IV.vii.16), have a ring o f the prim itive com m unism o f some Anabaptists, whose propaganda Shakespeare had clearly heard about (Hill, Upside Down 114). A clerk or scrivener is caught and, because he can w rite his name, hanged; and the captured Lord Say, a judge, makes no im pression on the insurgents w ith his plea that he has been a patron o f education and knowledge, ‘the wing w ith w hich we fly to heaven’ (IV.vii.21 ff.). Protestant B ible-reading stim ulated literacy in the sixteenth century, b u t Cade’s m en show no inclination to fly away from their troubles to heaven. T he m eaning o f learning for their class was quite different from its m eaning for city folk, to w hom it could spell opportunity. Lawyers were the poor m an’s enemies. Jo h n o f G aunt’s w ords about the country being tied up ‘In inky blots, and rotten p archm ent bonds’ (R .II II.i.64) had far m ore relevance to the plight o f the peasantry than to him and his fellow-nobles. These K entishm en (though the only distinct grievance we hear o f is overtaxation) are alienated from everything in the national life except its w orst feature, its bellicose nationalism: a prophetic glimpse o f Europe in times nearer our own. T hey are as ready as their betters to blam e those in pow er - Say is one A uthority’s first im pulse is to resort to threats, and then the m ailed

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fist. B ut the com m ons are n o t to be p u t dow n so tamely. Cade leads them into battle, in pell-m ell style b u t boldly, w ith the cry o f ‘liberty’, to be w on by the pulling dow n o f lords and gentry (IV.ii.181-2). T hey rout their assailants, and enter London. In the scenes that follow, the ‘rascal people’jo in the rebels (IV.iv.), w hile the m ayor and burgesses are w ith the governm ent: they too are defeated. Resort m ust be had to diplomacy, and Clifford and a fellow -noblem an are sent to offer a royal pardon, though not m uch else. W h at cuts the ground now from under Cade’s feet is the jingoistic dem agogy he him self has incautiously indulged in. All the colloquy is m ade to tu rn on w hich side is m ore patriotic, or antiFrench, w hile the people’s grievances are pushed out o f sight. Cade’s m en abandon him and appear hum bly before the king, w ith halters rou n d their necks. H enry has ju st been lam enting his own fate, and w ishing he were a private m an instead o f a ruler. W e seem to be hearing a confession o f how little m onarchy can really do for its hum bler subjects. T heir leader, now a fugitive seeking food, is caught and killed, defiantly exclaiming that ‘the unconquered soul o f Cade is fled’ (IV.x). His killer, a squire, delivers a violent tirade over the ‘dam ned w retch’, in w hich we hear again accents o f ferocious class hatred.

In Part 3, m ostly ebb and flow o f civil war, Shakespeare m ust have found his w ork tedious at times; there is a plethora o f uninspired verse, though also some firm er character-sketching. At the outset H enry makes an effort to outface his opponents, and even manages to sound quite fierce. W a r shall ‘unpeople this m y realm ’ before he will give way (I.i. 126): a phrase echoed by Cleopatra, and proper for a sovereign because the realm is his patrim ony. H e is soon pushed into the background by M argaret and her henchm en, and is content to be a resigned bystander. T hanks to this he can learn som ething, as Lear does later, o f the miseries o f ordinary folk; w atching a battle, he feels as no one else ever does the pathos o f the weak suffering for the quarrels o f the strong (II.v.73ff., 94 ff.). B u t at m ost he can take com fort from the thought o f having at least done his people no harm: he has never overtaxed them , nor denied them justice (IV.ix). In the end, w hen Richard Crookback comes to m u rd er him in the Tow er, H enry defies him fearlessly. In fact he has never shown any fear for himself; he is n o t a coward, and therefore not W arw ick the king-m aker has swelled into a grand, com m anding figure, as nearly adm irable as can be expected against such a background. H e is a frank enemy, a loyal friend, w ho changes sides only once, from m otives n o t discreditable, and receives erstwhile foes w ith a generous

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freedom from m istrust. York, the resilient politician, brave soldier and affectionate father o f Part 2, meets his terrible end stoically, shaken only by the m u rd er o f his youngest son (I.ii). N early all these pitiless m en are brave; and it seems always an instinctive feeling in Shakespeare that while m en possess this bedrock quality, w ith out w hich they are less than hum an, there is room for hope o f m ankind grow ing into som ething better. B ut m ore than before, assassination has now becom e a regular p art o f politics. Blood calls for blood, and Shakespeare has to pile on the agony in order to keep up the interest. W ith no injury o f her ow n to call for retaliation, M argaret joins in stabbing the captured Y ork (I.iv). Protest is left to boys, like Rutland pleading for his life w ith the inexor­ able C lifford, and later Edward IV’s young sons in the Tow er, followed in King John by Prince A rthur. In their prayers and lam ents can be heard Shakespeare’s ow n protest against m an’s in hum anity to man. Y ork’s eldest son, destined to be Edward IV, makes his profession o f faith early: ‘I w ould break a thousand oaths to reign one year’ (I.ii). A sensualist and egotist, he wants the crow n as a schoolboy wants a plum pie, and sets about enjoying it irresponsibly. Taken to task by his brothers and advisers over his foolish marriage, he retorts that he is king, ‘and m ust have m y w ill’ (IV.i.16; cf. 75 ff.). By com parison w ith H enry’s concept o f kingly duties, m onarchy is in decay. W ith the sort o f irony these plays abound in, Edward, near his death, is basking in a glow o f success and family goodwill, while his brother Richard stands by,

Richard had been germ inating in Shakespeare’s m ind for a good while before he came to the front, full-blow n. Early on we have seen him effervescing w ith anim al spirits and vitality, b u t not yet totally self­ centred. H e has risked his life in battle for his father, and been a Yorkist w ith a strong family attachm ent. It is in his long self-com m uning at the end o f Act III Scene ii o f Henry V I Part 3, w hen Edw ard is already on the throne, that he suddenly sheds his old skin. Shakespeare sets him self to chart the inner workings o f such a character, his subtlest hitherto, and convincingly links the mania for pow er w ith the deform ity that cuts Richard o ff from his fellows, especially from w om en and love. H e is driven on by a dem onic im pulse in whose grasp he is as helpless as any o f his victims. After stabbing H enry he glories in his wickedness, and thinks o f him self in a strikingly Byronic style as a Cain, a solitary am ong men. H e is already schem ing to destroy his o ther brother, Clarence - ‘and then R ichard’s ‘I am m yself alone’, in the same scene, ranges him w ith a

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n um ber o f solitary Shakespearian characters. W h en their aloneness turns into w illing self-isolation it is vicious, even if Shakespeare him self can say, in the dark, w orld-defying m ood o f Sonnet 121, ‘N o, I am that I am ’. Richard opens his ow n play w ith another o f the spirited soliloquies in w hich he takes pleasure in spreading his cards out on the table for us to see. Physically handicapped, he plum es him self on his intellectual superiority, the skill w ith w hich he can bend hum an beings to his will. For m onarchy in itself he has no conventional respect; his derisive attitude to the w orld he moves in is som etimes not very far rem oved from Falstaff s nihilism. H e revels in his w ork for its ow n sake, and we rejoice w ith him , though o f course we are glad to know that he will com e to a bad end w hen he has had his fling; this is our sop to the conscience that warns us o f illicit cupidities o f our own. Charles Lamb, in his essay on Shakespeare’s Tragedies, confessed his liking for Richard m ore candidly than most, his adm iration for w hat he thought m ost actors missed - ‘the lofty genius, the m an o f vast capacity, the profound, the witty, accom plished R ichard’ (IV, 203). T rollope paid a similar tribute to T hackeray’s Barry Lyndon, a consum m ate scoundrel for w hom ‘it is alm ost impossible not to entertain som ething o f a friendly T he play has unusually m any theatrical m etaphors (M urry 125), and R ichard is an accom plished actor. H e has been seen as a descendant o f the ‘Vice’ in the m orality plays, b u t he is a very up-to-date one w ho has pored over his Machiavelli. Shakespeare had to do his w orst for him , because his villainy was the w arrant for the Tudors to usurp the throne; T hom as M ore, the poet’s chief source, gave him his cue. B ut he was grow ing up too fast to be content w ith a m ere stage villain. H e did not m ake a Richard a ‘tyrant’ in the sense in w hich M acbeth turns into one. Those he doom s are few and carefully selected; there is little h in t o f a reign o f terror bleeding the country. Like ‘honest Iago’ he likes to pose as a rough plain-spoken fellow (e.g. I.iii.45 ff.); really he is a m aster o f words, and loves to juggle w ith them and m ake them w ork for him. H e is in his ow n line an artist, and for us it is a privilege to be taken into his confidence. B uckingham makes a splendid collaborator, bold and crafty and resourceful. It is fine to w atch him playing to the gallery o f public opinion, striving to convince Richard o f his duty to accept the crown, for the country’s sake, while Richard protests his reluctance in tones o f vibrant sincerity (Ill.vii). M ixed w ith o u r appreciation o f their per­ form ance is probably a thrill o f discovery - that this is w hat the kind o f m en w ho com e to the top are really like, and this is how they fool us. B ut any partnership betw een two such m en is sure to break dow n before long. For Shakespeare, true friendship can link only good men, joining

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Already in Henry VI Richard has displayed a vein o f sinister hum our; it goes well w ith the dram atic irony that intensifies now, and rubs into o u r m inds the self-destructiveness o f this feudal w orld whose presiding genius C rookback is. Clarence’s m urderers reveal to him the hollowness o f R ichard’s friendly professions (III.iv.243 ff ); we may feel that Shake­ speare misses a chance by n o t m aking Clarence sound as thunderstruck as we expect. Hastings foolishly ignores a w arning to escape, and in the council cham ber rem arks on how cheerful Richard is looking, and how his m ood always shows in his face - a m o m ent before Richard fiercely accuses h im o f conspiracy, and orders his execution (Ill.ii, iv). Som ething is needed for the sake o f contrast w ith the hyperactive Richard, and this is supplied by a chorus o f wailing w om en, royal widows and m others whose lives have been blighted by masculine am bitions - som etim es by their ow n as well - and w ho are now reduced to helpless suffering. T h eir doyenne is M argaret who, w ith little care for probability, haunts the palace like a living ghost, or living record o f the w hole span o f civil wars. T h eir lo n g -d raw n-out lam entations and denunciations are rhetorical exercises, w hich m ust have suited the audience’s taste; today their highly artificial style makes them tedious and insipid. O ne scene in particular, Act IV Scene iv, runs - or crawls to an im m ense length o f over 500 lines. It fails to extort sympathy, because none o f these unfortunates has any sym pathy to spare for anyone b u t herself. W ith this chorus o f ‘form al Senecan declam ation’ (Ribner 104), Shakespeare is attem pting to weave a fate-laden atm osphere like that o f ancient tragedy, b u t he has not found the right means. W h ile the w om en curse, Richard believes in pro m p t action, m uch unlike Richard II or Hamlet: ‘fearful co m m enting/is leaden servitor to dull delay’ (IV.iii). Y et the strain o f continual calls on his resources is proving too m uch even for him. M acbeth and his wife suffer from ‘terrible dream s’; unlike them , Richard has no conscience to m olest his w aking hours, b u t in sleep his iron nerves are shaken. A nne is wakened in the nights by his ‘tim orous dream s’ (IV.i); she m ight well have some herself, before becom ing yet another o f his victims. Towards the end, his firm hold on m en and events is failing. H e hurries messengers off w ith o u t messages and loses his tem per, like M acbeth, w ith one he thinks is bringing bad news (IV.iv). H e is m ore and m ore cut off from others by his crimes; he ‘h ath no friends b u t w hat are friends for fear’, an enem y His breach w ith B uckingham has cost h im his one real ally. H e tries unavailingly to keep Stanley loyal by threatening to send his son, kept as hostage, ‘Into the blind cave o f eternal n ig h t’ - w hich he him self is soon to enter (V.iii.54). O n the evening before Bosw orth he needs wine to m ake up for loss o f his old ‘alacrity o f spirit’, and in his sleep the ghosts

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o f all his victims com e to denounce him. H e is left to m editate, for the first and last time, on his sins, and his solitude: ‘T here is no creature loves m e’. H e quits his tent to go round the camp, in very undignified fashion (and very unlike H enry V before Agincourt), to eavesdrop and hear w hat his lieutenants are talking about. In the m orning - to our relief in a way, because the strength o f such a m an is part o f the strength o f the hum an race - he is him self again, and can dismiss conscience as a bogey ‘Devised at first to keep the strong in awe’. This is hardly the best way to cheer his nobles, w hom he seems to be addressing as fellow-brigands, b u t it is his final declaration o f independence, a substitute for the dying speech Shakespeare does n o t allow him. H e harangues his soldiers, and takes the field w ith all his old zest - ‘A thousand hearts are great w ithin m y bosom ’ (V.iii). Shakespeare’s villains, as well as his heroes, die game. A nne was queen for long enough to rem em ber how she had once laid a curse on w hatever w om an Richard should marry, and to feel the curse falling on herself (IV. iv). All the m aledictions, or prophecies o f woe, and the nightm ares that started w ith C larence’s ‘fearful dream s’ and m em ories o f his crim es (I.iv. 1 ff.), seem to throng together in the ghost scene in a collective vision o f a feudal w orld at its last gasp. For Shakespeare - as for m odern historians - a w hole epoch is ending at Bosw orth, a new era opening. As a sort o f public-relations officer to Q u een Elizabeth, Shakespeare is clothing the final events in semi­ religious guise. H er very worldly-w ise grandfather R ichm ond - or H enry VII, the first T u d o r - becomes a saintly cham pion to w hom the ghostly visitants bring hopeful dream s and blessings. H e proves him self a true dragon-slayer by killing Richard in single combat. His closing speech is a denunciation o f all future renewers o f E ngland’s ‘m ad’ divisions, now ending and giving place to peace and ‘smiling plenty’. T u d o r England was indeed to be blessed for m ost o f its tim e w ith internal peace; its plenty was reserved for a m inority. Shakespeare’s hearers knew this; he m ust have intended them to ponder on his last

In this conjuring up o f a rem ote time, history and dram a are loosely, aw kw ardly m atched. Jo h n was a usurper, b u t the crow n was n o t yet fully hereditary, and though he was a youngest son he had been nom inated as successor by his brother Richard I instead o f the boy A rthur, son o f another brother. In the first two Acts Jo h n is in France, not as invader bu t as guardian o f territories jo in ed to England in 1066 by the N orm an C onquest. France is backing A rth u r against him. By 1204 Jo h n had been driven out. All this is ju m b led up in the play w ith happenings o f a decade

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later, w hen his dispute w ith his barons led to civil w ar (and to M agna Carta, w hich the play ignores), and their calling in the French as allies. From lack o f tim e - or o f interest in details o f things so far away Shakespeare did n o t go to the chronicles, b u t relied on a play published in 1591, perhaps w ritten in 1588-9, The Troublesome Raigne o f John King of England. His ow n version m ay have been produced in 1590-91 and It is a poorly constructed thing, revised - if at all - very carelessly. Its second h a lf has little connection w ith the first; the gap is patched over w ith the business o f papal interference, the staple o f w hat Englishm en since the R eform ation associated w ith John. In the later Acts the three w om en have disappeared; the denouem ent is a chapter o f accidents and anticlimax. M ost obvious o f a num ber o f confusions is the way H ubert agrees to kill A rthur and then threatens h im instead w ith blinding. Some characters are indistinct, inconsistent. Y et there are new ideas, new feelings, m uch splendid writing. Above all there is a spirit o f curiosity and inquiry, close som etim es to the critical m ood o f the later Histories; even m ore than there, the England o f this loose chronicle play is full o f discordant elements. Shakespeare’s abiding interests - war, kingship, class, w om en as an influence on m en - are handled w ith striking freedom , and w ith their good and bad sides both fully in view: w ith an acute eye, that is, for their contradictions, an invaluable gift o f both Jo h n could n o t be treated as a thorough-paced villain, like Richard III, because o f his reputation w ith Reformers as an anti-papal cham pion. H e m ight stray, b u t he w ould n o t be im m une to either m oral com punction or fear o f public opinion. H e shows no misgivings about his being on the throne, as his m o th er and confederate E linor secretly does. In the first h a lf he is bold and confident to the p o in t o f rashness, w inning the respect even o f the French; in the second he is paralysed by a sense o f guilt, becomes incapable o f action, leaves everything to his bastard nephew Philip. T he turning p oint comes w ith the fine scene (Ill.iii) w here he stoops to flattery in order to suborn H ubert, and shufflingly edges towards the ugly disclosure o f w hat he wants: the m urder o f his young captive A rthur. T he dialogue works up to an explosive line m ade u p o f five b rief speeches, o f hinting and com pliance. T he scene o f A rthur pleading w ith H u b ert is the m ost highly w rought o f Shakespeare’s variations on the them e o f royal fledgelings faced w ith the rigours o f an ‘iron age’, as A rth u r calls it. T h e poet is voicing his protest against horrors o f his ow n iron age - and, prophetically, o f ours. After this Jo h n ’s only independent act is his craven subm ission to the papal legate Pandulph, w ith o u t a w ord to the Bastard, w ho deems it a shameful national betrayal. Jo h n m oulders away unheroically, beset on his

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deathbed ‘W ith m any legions o f strange fantasies’ (V.vii.18). Y et his last th o u g h t is o f England. Patriotism is the overriding imperative. T h e Bastard is one o f Shakespeare’s creations w ho impress above all by their abounding vigour and vitality; this keeps us from noticing the contrarieties he is m ade up of. These derive partly from Shakespeare’s m odel, The Troublesome Raigne; he makes use o f them to w ork o u t some o f his historical thinking. T he Bastard is a hybrid figure, w ith one foot inside and one outside an old crum bling feudal world, open-eyed both to its faults and to those o f a new age preparing to supplant it. H e is delighted, at the outset, to be recognized as a natural son o f Richard the L ion-H eart, and w elcom ed by Jo h n and E linor into the royal circle. His b irth and his pride in it stamp him as a free spirit, unfettered by convention, determ ined to m ake his ow n way; though from a reckless adventurer he will quickly m ature into his uncle’s right-hand man. Som ething here can be traced to the Rom ance m o tif o f young sprigs o f royalty brought up ignorant o f their origin, b u t w ith an innate royalty o f nature. His talk often has a rustic bluntness; the phrase ‘fair play’, w hich he uses twice, seems redolent o f the village green. H e is one o f the very few m en o f rank in these plays to be endow ed w ith a sense o f hum o u r, and there is a m ocking detachm ent in his view o f the great w orld into w hich he has been so suddenly inducted. W h e n he intervenes to prevent Salisbury from attacking H ubert, as A rth u r’s supposed m urderer, his w ords - ‘Y our sword is bright, sir, p u t it up again’ - sound like O thello, b u t his threat to ‘m aul you and your toasting-iron’ belongs m u ch m ore to the vernacular (IV.iii.79, 99). H e brings new blood into a fossilized aristocracy, and an atm osphere o f change, renovation. B ut he has no positive ideas, no arm our for the old order against Falstaffs France and Austria ostensibly go to w ar w ith Jo h n for purely chival­ rous reasons, on behalf o f C onstance and her son A rthur. It is ‘a ju st and charitable w ar’ (II.i.35-6). B ut King Philip, defied by the citizens o f Angiers, threatens to ‘W ade to the m arket-place in Frenchm en’s blood’. Even Constance, bent on w ar as she is, has some qualms, and deprecates unnecessary bloodshed (II.i.44 ff ). W a r is the Bastard’s vocation; still, he has an uneasy feeling o f how m urderous it is, and w hen he manoeuvres France and Austria into bom barding each o ther’s forces, it is hard not to th in k that w arfare is being m ade to look grotesque. W h e n the allies have abandoned Constance and com e to term s w ith John, he winds up Act II w ith a long soliloquy about how ‘C om m odity’ - self-interest, profit rules everything nowadays. Philip has abandoned his role as ‘G od’s ow n soldier’ in an ‘honourable w ar’ for a ‘m ost base and vile-concluded peace’. T his was an antithesis that Shakespeare could never escape or overcome; all the same, as an account o f the dishonesties o f diplom acy

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the speech is brilliant. Its opening w ords - ‘M ad world! m ad kings!’ m ake a good sum m ary o f the state o f Europe in Shakespeare’s ow n day. ‘I am n o t w o rth the coil that’s m ade for m e’, A rthur is sensible enough to tell his m other. N one o f these royalties is w orth fighting about, Later the Bastard becomes the spokesm an o f patriotism , the ideology destined to be as m uch that o f the bourgeois dispensation as chivalry was o f the feudal. It is he w ho organizes the country’s defence w hen the barons, outraged by the thought o f A rth u r m urdered, jo in hands w ith the French. (Shakespeare is regrettably silent about their real reasons for falling foul o f their king.) T heir dignified leader Salisbury, in a speech originating w ith Shakespeare, pledges their allegiance to the D auphin, b u t bewails the cruel necessity o f fighting against their native land. H e and his friends are vastly relieved w hen the treacherous intentions o f the French com e to light and set them free to forget A rthur and tu rn back to ‘o u r ocean, to o u r great king Jo h n ’ (V.iv.47). In re ality jo h n has shrunk to a sterile marsh: the true ‘ocean’ is the m otherland. At the sight o f A rth u r’s dead body, and suspecting H ubert o f being responsible, the Bastard him self sounds at first quite religious in his indignation at a crim e ‘Beyond the infinite and boundless re a c h /O f m ercy’ (IV.iii.l 17-18); b u t before long the th ought o f England in danger banishes all else from his m ind. Jo h n longs to have a united nation at his back, b u t knows that he has no right to expect it (IV.ii. 170-72). It is left to his nephew to blow the tru m p et and talk o f England’s ‘victorious h an d ’ terrifying the foe, and o f even English ladies donning arm our, Less chance is given to the French to display a similar love o f country. W e have no reason to credit K ing Philip w ith an ideal o f French unifica­ tion. T h e Bastard has all Jo h n B ull’s disdain for the French. ‘A cockered silken w anton’ is his description o f one o f them (V.i.70), and it is only because C o u n t M elun has an English grandfather, and hence some spark o f decent feeling, that he dies confessing his countrym en’s - quite pointless - treachery. T he D auphin shows resolution in face o f the loss o f his fleet (V.v.20-22); at other times he is easily cast down, and he may be called a stereotype o f the m ercurial French tem peram ent. King John is very m uch a dram a o f royalty, w ith its three sovereigns and h a lf a dozen princes or princesses. T his collective portrait o f ‘the anointed deputies o f heaven’ (Ill.i. 136) and their families is not a flatter­ ing one. All three rulers are prepared to kow tow to Rome. Austria shows up worst, because he has bragged too loudly o f his knight-errantry. A king’s oath is no longer w orth m uch, Constance declares: by deserting h er Philip has show n him self a m ere ‘counterfeit resem bling sover­ eignty’. Y et her denunciation o f ‘these perjured kings’ (III.i.99-100, 107)

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m ust strike us as m onstrous egotism, by contrast w ith the com prom ise peace and m arriage alliance that has ju s t been agreed on. It is the proposal o f the citizen o f Angiers, guided by m iddle-class com m on sense Jo h n ’s initial defiance o f legate and pope is magnificent, and goes well beyond any requirem ent o f the story. A ‘sacred king’ cannot be called into question by prelates, he asserts, and he goes on to a sweeping rejection o f all the papacy’s ‘usurped authority’ (III.i.l47ff.). It is em erging that m onarchs are ‘sacred’ because they em body their peoples’ rights o f sovereignty and independence. P andulph’s retort includes incitem ent to m urder as well as rebellion, w ith an evident topical reference to plots against Elizabeth. His answer to Philip’s expostulation against renewal o f w ar w ith England is full o f logic-chopping and quibbling, a Jesuitical argum ent that ends justify means. Later the D auphin refuses m uch m ore firm ly to obey w hen the legate wants him to leave England alone now that Jo h n has subm itted to Rome. W h ere priests hector and kings falter, the m en o f the bourgeois future, represented by the citizens o f Angiers, stand firm. T hey sensibly care nothing about the legalist claims o f Jo h n or Philip: their politics are pragm atic, and they feel as the burghers o f V erona do about the brawlings o f M ontagues and Capulets. T he w arring m onarchs are m ade to look silly when, after their scrimmage, each claims victory, and the citizens tell them they have w atched it all and know that neither side has won; there is a telling image o f them looking on from their walls like spectators in a theatre (II.i.300 ff., 373 ff.). Angiers dictates rather than proposes a peace treaty, and adds a challenge as bold as any ever throw n o u t by an arrogant king or noble. Its m en are, indeed, given the beau rôle, and they speak the same high-flow n verse as the feudalists. T he Bastard, iconoclast as he may be, is quick to notice and resent their plebeian presum ption (II.i.456 ff.). At Angiers, m ore daringly than a playw right could have ventured to draw it in a scene o f English history, a revolu­ tionary m iddle class is lifting its head. In later times it was to do so only

Richard II (1595) W e see two very different Richards in this play. E ither Shakespeare had n o t decided at the outset w hat sort o f Richard he was to be, or he w anted to show an outw ard, acquired self crum bling away at the touch o f adversity, and exposing a native ego concealed beneath it. In the early scenes Richard is a self-willed, overbearing individual. W e know from his ow n words (I.iv) that he has been reckless w ith m oney - ‘from too great a C ourt, and liberal largesse’ - to favourites; as a rem edy he means

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to hand over the collection o f revenue to tax-farmers; the burden will thereby becom e heavier. T h e D uke o f Y ork warns his brother Jo h n o f G aunt o f the futility o f giving advice to a nephew whose head is addled w ith flattery and frivolities. Several touches, left undeveloped, point to crim inal as well as foolish behaviour. Richard may like to talk o f his sacred self, b u t his aunt, the w idow ed Duchess o f Gloucester, talks o f the ‘sacred blood’ o f all the royal family, and dem ands punishm ent for his com plicity in her husband’s death (I.ii). These hints should not be forgotten w hen we hear the later Richard pitying him self as a hapless victim - a good deal like Charles I after his fall. G aunt’s son Bolingbroke and a rival noble, M ow bray D uke o f N orfolk, accuse each other o f treason, and are to undergo trial by battle before the king. W h a t happens is an anticlimax: Richard forbids the com bat w hen it is about to take place, and banishes both men: why, Shakespeare leaves unclear - a n o t infrequent feature o f his methods. R ichard’s ostensible reason is that their quarrel is inspired by envious pride and am bition and, if not cut short, m ight lead to civil broils. In the follow ing scene (I.iv) it is m ade clear that Richard is suspicious o f his cousin Bolingbroke, and has been w atching his departure, ‘his courtship to the com m on people’. O ne o f the m ost brilliant passages in Shake­ speare on the m odern art o f demagogy comes here: Bolingbroke is suddenly transform ed, by a couple o f centuries, from a cavalier entering the lists to w ager his life in true chivalric style, into a wily politician. T hat he is close in the line o f succession, and that Richard, now thirty-tw o, is childless, is left unm entioned. All this suggests an abrupt change in the picture Shakespeare is planning to draw. His creative grow th and inter­ ests seem to be pushing him forw ard towards m odernity. As soon as Richard is confronted he loses his nerve, his bold front dissolves, and each b rief fit o f resolution is quickly followed by a fresh slum p into despair. W e m ight guess that he is underm ined by rem orse for past misdeeds, b u t alm ost until the end he is conscious o f no m ore than unpopularity and isolation. H e is sorry for him self instead o f for the country he has misgoverned; he retreats into self-righteous hugging o f his divine right to do as he chooses. Like all Shakespeare’s archetypal characters, Richard is both an individual and a personification o f historical change; it was in the same way that the Stuart m onarchy was to try to face dow n opposition. H e is the only English king in the Histories w ho is n o t a usurper or the heir o f a usurper, and has therefore the strongest title to legitimacy. Schiicking notes his habit o f referring to h im self in the third person, like Julius Caesar (52), b u t may misconceive the reason: it may denote rather a distance opening between king and crow n, m an and m onarchy, an absurd incongruity in the royal pre-

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Shakespeare holds up the doctrine o f divine right in a very unfavour­ able light by associating it w ith a weak, histrionic claim ant w ho loses him self in poetical fancies as a hiding-place from reality. H e is an actor, instead o f a m an o f action, because it can no longer feel natural for a m ere m an to wear a crown. H e postures to his subjects, and to himself. H e has no party: scarcely anyone is ready to stand by him. Back from Ireland, he calls on England’s loyal spiders, toads, nettles to bar the rebel advance - parlous auxiliaries indeed. W h e n he discovers how things are going wrong, he can think only o f ‘sad stories o f the death o f kings’; in prison he pictures him self as a king long dead, his fall a tale for a w inter nig h t (Ill.ii; V.i). M onarchy itself has grow n m oribund, as Richard, in Act III Scene ii, is the first o f all Shakespeare’s people to see. N ow here else in the plays, Leggatt observes, is it ‘subjected to such intense scrutiny’ (60). Richard has shown no sign o f religious feeling in Act I, b u t w hen abandoned by m en he counts on legions o f angels - not spiders and toads now - to come dow n and fight for him (Ill.ii). This m ilitant m ood sinks into one o f resignation, and w hen his faithful consort tries to rouse him it is too late. H e is learning som ething, however; he is one o f a line o f rulers in Shakespeare w ho are com pelled by m isfortune, like Lear, or by danger, like H enry V, to realize that a m onarch is only a m ortal. ‘I live w ith bread like you, feel w ant/T aste g r ie f . ..’. In the end, chastened by suffering, he is capable o f repentance. H e and the queen m ust atone by ‘holy lives’ for the ‘profane hours’ they have squandered. In prison he quotes Scripture, and looks back on his failure to manage affairs o f state properly. He is a fantasist, b u t still a prince, w ho dies resisting his W h a t Shakespeare wants now is som eone in R ichard’s place w ho can grow into respectability, n o t tarnished by over-obvious am bition. B olingbroke shuffles, instead o f striding, towards the throne. H e returns from exile professing to w ant only his rightful inheritance, seized by Richard and his hangers-on; he may, for all we know , be sincere at first in this protestation, w hich his supporter N orthum berland vouches for; though Bolingbroke also declares his intention o f ridding the country o f R ichard’s m inions, those ‘caterpillars o f the com m onw ealth’. B ut R ichard’s collapse cannot b u t draw h im on, or alm ost com pel him to go on. It is a vice o f the w hole m onarchical system that a m an in his position can feel safe only w hen he has the throne to sit on; and then his own

This play’s extraordinary richness o f ideas and personalities is em pha­ sized by its background: an England still in confusion, w here things

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either som bre or ridiculous catch the eye most. In the early Histories nearly everyone belonged to m uch the same m ould; now England can give b irth to a pair as antithetical as H otspur and Falstaff, B orderer and tow n-loiterer. T hey are centuries apart in outlook, yet in very different ways b oth are m en o f the past, descended from com m on feudal origins. H ence, though such opposites, they are related to each other, however distantly, and can react dram atically to each other. They com bine in a m arvellous discord, whose resolution will lead far. H otspur meets his death from Prince H al’s sword, b u t m orally it is Falstaff w ho laughs him and all he stands for o ff the stage o f history. His corpse, carried off by the fat k night for exhibition, like a carcass to the m arket, symbolizes the overthrow o f Chivalry. Appropriately, whereas Richard II was w ritten alm ost entirely in verse, Henry I V is very largely prose, the language o f workaday life. T he distance betw een the tw o could not be better marked. Survivors from the past are now aging m en, on w hom it lies heavily. H enry is a usurper, w ho can never feel entirely secure. T he Percies, w ho helped him to power, feel cheated and resentful, and N orthum berland H otsp u r’s father - has a painful sense o f guilt as well. T he England o f com m on m en and w om en, so skilfully w ooed by Bolingbroke, cannot now be ignored by those above; and w ith the tw o Englands face to face, acrim onies betw een them are obtrusive. In the political wrangles each side professes to uphold public interests and welfare; each accuses the other o f indulging in em pty talk. T h e action moves back and forth betw een serious and comic; w hich o f these is the m ore real, or m eaning­ ful, it is hardly possible to tell. From one view point political strife looks portentous; from another it is a farce, absurder than any tavern m erriBecause pow erful currents are dragging the story in various direc­ tions, superficial facts o f history have to be treated offhandedly. Every­ thing connected w ith M ortim er and his claim to the throne is incoherent; Shakespeare is no longer interested in such cobwebs, if he ever was. Prince Hal undergoes fairy-tale metam orphoses. Closer scrutiny o f the dram atist’s handling, however, reveals a careful dove­ tailing o f his two series o f episodes, in such a way as to show high life and low life as really two versions o f the same thing. As Gadshill says, ‘ “ho m o ” is a com m on nam e to all m en’ (II.i.94). T hus the first scene is about wars and disputes am ong the great; the second - surely m eant to be heard as an echo - is about highway robbery. In the third scene the conspiracy o f the Percies takes shape; in the fo u rth the plan for the robbery does the same. T he hum bler miscreants call it their ‘p lot’: H otspur has ju s t been lauding his ow n ‘plot’ as a fine one, and reiterates the term four times in a soliloquy not m uch later. (This m eaning o f the w ord was new, as also was ‘plot’ as the outline

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o f a play.) Gadshill talks o f the prince robbing for ‘sport’ (II.i.77); and ‘sport’ - H otspur’s notion o f w ar - was the last w ord o f the previous scene. Act II Scene ii ends w ith the prince laughing at the nervous fears o f his fellow-thieves; the next scene begins w ith H otspur grow ling to h im self about the cowardice o f a tim id friend unw illing to jo in in his adventure. Early in the following scene we have Falstaffs repeated ‘A plague o f all cowards’, to uphold his ow n pretence o f valour on the highway. In the next, H otspur makes a jo k e o f G lendow er’s still m ore preposterous assertions. In Act III Scene ii Hal is prom ising his father to tu rn over a new leaf; Act III Scene iii opens w ith one o f FalstafPs rueful fits o f w anting to do the same: his resolve to repent and go to church. A t the outset English forces have defeated the Scots, but have been defeated by W elsh rebels. Fighting is to be expected now only in the country’s outskirts, it seems; and the n o rth ern rebellion that soon breaks o u t gets no nearer to London than Shrewsbury. H otspur is facing ‘the lion’s arm ed jaw s’ (Ill.ii. 102), and he alone is filled w ith unclouded determ ination; his elders are doubtful and hesitant, pricked on m ore by fear o f the king turning against them than by any positive motive. H enry, for his part, is uneasy about them , and helps to provoke them into revolt by w hat looks like unreasonable harshness towards H otspur after the hero’s defeat o f the Scots. O n the other hand, we can sympathize w ith H enry for rejecting H otspur’s anachronistic plea that it was all right for his brother-in-law M ortim er, having been w ounded and captured by the W elsh chief Glendower, to go over to him and m arry his H otspur was in fact older than the king; but whereas Shakespeare’s H enry looks aged and w orn out, H otspur can be thought o f only as b rim m ing w ith buoyant youth and its ‘idealism ’, how ever irrational. H e dies lam enting that he is being robbed o f his youth. His father and uncle share w ith the king the spirit o f ‘base and rotten policy’ that he detests (I.iii.l 08); m uch o f his attractiveness lies in his openness and freedom from calculation. By nature he is a border baron o f old times, cherishing alm ost sovereign rights. O ne o f Shakespeare’s sharpest social antitheses brings him together w ith the foppish courtier whose silly chatter infuriates him on the battlefield w here he has ju st been grappling w ith the Scots (I.iii.29 ff.). B ut H otspur is a com posite portrait, native to a tim e o f change, as Shakespeare’s m ore original creations are apt to be. H e is a m an o f the Renaissance as well as o f the tu rbulent frontier - full o f its intense consciousness, intoxicated w ith the dazzling mirage o f Fame. His tw o selves together breed the restless tem peram ent o f one living too m u ch on fantasy. It shows in his wife’s account o f his ‘cursed m elan­ choly’ during the long painful w aiting for action, his dreams o f battle (Il.iii): a picture o f nervous tension rather than the pleasurable excite­

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m en t o f a healthy fighting animal. This, m ore than overconfidence, is w hat m ust be supposed to have m ade him engage the enem y pre­ cipitately at Shrewsbury, w here he ‘leap’d into destruction’ like a m adm an, ‘w ith great im agination’ b u t w ith too few m en [2H.IV I.iii). His old antagonist and now ally Douglas the Scot praises him as ‘the king o f h o n o u r’, and his w idow as the inspiration o f ‘all the chivalry o f England’ (2H .IV II.iii). W ith him the idea o f ‘honour’ soars to a sem imystical height, as all values w hich have outlived the conditions they sprang from are apt to do. B ut his tactless contradicting o f Glendow er shows a m ore m odern quality, the sceptical rationalism that was another part o f Elizabethan culture. G lendow er boasts o f the w ondrous portents that surrounded his birth and m arked him as outside ‘the roll o f com m on m en’; H otspur pooh-poohs them as merely the effects o f an earthquake that m ade N ature shake ‘like a coward’ (III.i.l5 ff.). H e has the same scornful disbelief in W elsh demons. This is in part a lordly indifference to hell or heaven; he never turns to God or asks for divine aid, as his opponent Hal learns to do so fluently. In politics this w ilful self-sufficiency leaves him , as his wife says, ‘altogether governed by h u m o u rs’ (III.i.233). At his first entrance he is reproaching his father and uncle for having helped Bolingbroke to the throne, and thus incurred a ‘detested blot’, ‘a w orld o f curses’ (I.iii). They adm it this, and it becomes their m ain justification for revolt that Bolingbroke, after pretending on his retu rn from exile to be claiming only w hat was his, had seized the crown. H otspur, addressing his friends before the battle, assures them that their consciences can be at rest, because their cause is ‘fair’ and ‘j u s t’. Despite this legitim ist pose, he intends to make M ortim er, whose right to the throne he seems to recognize, only king o f southern England, w hile he him self reigns over the N o rth and G len­ dow er keeps W ales. T hus the rebels are guilty o f treason not simply against H enry IV, b u t against England. Shakespeare did not invent this atavistic plan o f partition (W ilson edn 159), a flat negation o f the rising spirit o f nationalism ; it stamps the conspirators as stragglers from a bygone age, as well as from rem ote frontiers. B ut w ith one o f his many puzzling silences, Shakespeare makes no com m ent. H otspur m ay be ‘the perfect m irror o f h o n o u r’, as N orm an Council dubs him (42), b u t only in a very out-o f-d ate sense. In his com pany we are nearing the end o f an era. H e may be one o f Shakespeare’s best poets, as another critic says (Van D oren 121), b u t he resembles H enry V in draw ing his rhetoric from the past, while affecting on weekdays a love o f plain b lu n t language. H e carries the aristocratic virtues and foibles to their furthest point, w here they hover betw een grandeur and folly. His am bition is a quest for ‘glory’ m ore than for power; there are no brutal crimes to be laid to his account. H e has som ething o f the look o f a

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youthful English D on Q uixote, w ith a head turned by too m uch reading o f old romances: Cervantes’s novel was to com e out h a lf a dozen years after Shakespeare’s play, and to w in speedy popularity in England. B ut for H otspur ‘h o n o u r’ can be little m ore than vainglory; it is extravagant, easily caricatured because destitute o f any social or m oral purpose. T rue ‘h o n o u r’ is rescued only by the coup de théâtre o f a dissipated Hal transform ed by a wave o f the w and into an ideal hero. Shakespeare was adding social to political history, long before pro­ fessional historians thought o f any such thing. T he two could not be fused; to bring their two spheres together, and those o f high and low life, he had to resort to the awkward - if theatrically effective - artifice o f a legendary Prince o f W ales dividing his tim e betw een court or army, and disreputable haunts and escapades. W e may be m eant to surmise that he - or Shakespeare - considered the court as disreputable a place as any. T h e story’s requirem ents oblige H al to treat his poor carew orn father as heartlessly as later he treats his com panion in idleness, Falstaff. Already near the close o f Richard II B olingbroke was lam enting the behaviour o f his ‘u nthrifty son’ (V.iii). Early in Henry I V Part 1 Hal is given a soliloquy, w hich critics (e.g. Sch ücking 220) have laboured needlessly to interpret, offering us an explanation o f his conduct. It is highly unconvincing, and brings in very inappositely the P uritan m axim o f holidays being better w hen they are rare (I.ii.l87ff.). His father’s serm onizing in Act III Scene ii and later shows that H al’s life is all play and no work; also, in the king’s opinion, he has been fooling too m uch in public, as Richard II did, and m aking people sick o f the sight o f him and his japes. Hal does not try to rebut this, though he denies some o f the graver charges against him as slander. T here are hints, all the same, that the robbery at Gadshill was n o t the only escapade o f its kind (I.ii). In the tavern, it is true, Hal is never d ru n k or silly, never gam bling or in pursuit o f wom en. H e is habitually cool, self-possessed, looking dow n w ith m ore or less disdain on those he is consorting with. W e seldom, if ever, see him really at his ease, in unbu tto n ed enjoym ent o f life. A t times he has the air o f a shrewd observer looking through the shams and posturings o f the great w orld - as w hen he burlesques his father, or laughs at H otspur as a mindless fighting machine. His tem porary reform ation, for the campaign, is reinforced by a laughable description o f him and his m adcap playmates vaulting into their saddles in full arm our - w hich m ight weigh from 70 to 130 lb. M ost o f this piece o f claptrap was borrow ed from N ashe and Spenser (W ilson edn 172-4), by Still, under the test o f w ar we are show n a Hal w ith w orthy antagonists. H e can feel true respect for H otspur, w hich the latter in the end can return. B oth are soldiers w ho can talk finely about their calling.

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H al shows his only touch o f real feeling for Falstaff w hen he thinks he has been killed in the fight. H e sets the captured Douglas free, w ithout a ransom , in recognition o f the bravery he has displayed; it is a lesson in ‘how to cherish such high deeds’, even those o f enemies (V.v.29-3l). This, Shakespeare is telling us, is how w ar betw een gallant opponents

Part 2 is an epilogue, whose chief purpose is to gratify the public w ith another chapter o f Falstaff. It is even m ore lacking in unity than Part 1; Shakespeare is using up ideas and situations he had no room for there. N o n e the less, the hum orous scenes are brilliant, the serious ones full o f political insight. After years o f reflection on English history Shakespeare has learned, like his Cassius, to look ‘quite through the deeds o f m en’, and the play is a com pendium o f the qualities o f a late feudal epoch th ro u g h whose final stages he him self was living. T u d o r manuals o f H eroic and Comic, the two continents between w hich the action moves, are drifting fu rther apart. Hal is now a less habitual visitor to an Eastcheap that is going downhill. Its revels take on a m ore sordid look w hen som eone dies after a row w ith Pistol and Doll, and she is brought o u t to be w hipped by the beadle. B ut Falstaff is m ore sparkling than ever in his running exchange o f fire w ith the C h ie f Justice, that pillar o f right thinking. Fresh entertainm ent is provided, far away in Gloucestershire, by Justice Shallow, a very m inor representative o f the governing classes; an old dodderer at w hom Falstaff can only poke fun, not share flights o f fancy w ith as he could w ith Hal. C onnected w ith this is the business o f Falstaff m isusing his com m ission to impress m en for the army, and pocketing bribes from those w ho can afford to buy themselves off. This is very diverting from his point o f view, very pathetic from that o f the m en taken: we know from Part 1 w hat their fate is likely to be. In m any ways this is one o f Shakespeare’s m ost pessimistic plays. Its m ood is reflected in the fact that, still m ore m arkedly than Part 1, it is a play about old m en and w om en, and their weaknesses and fears. Shallow’s m aundering reminiscences are mixed w ith delusions; Falstaff s com m ent - ‘Lord, Lord, how subject we old m en are to this vice o f lying!’ (III.ii.275—6) - may be m eant for seniors o f higher rank as well. A t the top, the king is always ailing and lam enting under burdens from the past and anxieties for the future, as he totters towards the grave. H e is not, like King John, torm ented by conscience; he is satisfied that it was ‘necessity’, rather than am bition, that guided him to the throne; though he still has misgivings over w hat the country thinks about it

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(IILi). H e has loyal m inisters and reliable younger sons, and is ready to leave m ost o f w hat has to be done to them . B ut he has no intim ates, and it pains him to recall that N orthum berland, now his foe, was n o t long ago his sponsor. O ver him hangs, as over the Shakespeare o f the Sonnets, the pervasive Renaissance feeling o f the instability o f all hum an things, w hose old religious foundations have crum bled. W arpings w ithin the old order have their counterpart in disruption of the family; the tension betw een H enry and his heir persists alm ost to the end. W aking to find the prince gone from his bedcham ber, and the crow n w ith him , he m editates on how im patient greed sets sons against aging fathers. It m ust be said for him that his anxieties are m ore for England than for himself; his dread is that w hen the Prince o f W ales comes to the throne, the w orst can be expected. H al’s exculpation is a laboured piece o f rhetoric, seasoned w ith pious sentiments. H ere is one o f the relationships, and the strains they are subjected to, that Shakespeare is m ore concerned w ith in this play than w ith m en’s actions. These strains, and the heaviness o f age, afflict the opposing camp even m ore than the royal palace. Far m ore than the feuding nobles o f Henry VI, the rebel lords are flesh-and-blood creatures, not w alking suits o f arm our. Family revenge is again a prim e motive. A t the tidings o f his son’s death N o rthum berland falls into a paroxysm o f fury and despair, and raves about anarchy and destruction (Li). As M orton tells him , this is n o t o f m uch help to his party, and before long his wife and H otspur’s w idow persuade the tim orous old m an to ru n away, leaving the others to bear the b ru n t - a flight w hich only postpones his death and renders it W e are told o f little m ore than private grudges as causes o f the rebellion. Shakespeare neglects w hat H olinshed had to say o f the public grievances alleged against the governm ent. H e may have w anted to p u t the rebels in a bad light: his ow n governm ent can hardly have w anted rebels to be p u t in a good light. It has been argued, w ith force, that there are signs o f m u tilation by censorship in Act IV Scene i. T he archbishop’s b rief and obviously defective speech, lines 94 -6, may be one such. In his longer speech to the royal envoys (53 ff.) the second half is a statem ent o f grievances, b u t the first - w hich makes nonsense o f it - is an unexpected serm on about England’s civil broils having for their real cause a kind o f ‘b urning fever’. ‘W e are all diseased’ - we can m ean only the selfindulgent ruling class - by ‘o u r surfeiting and w anton hours’. Shake­ speare is ensnared in a m edical m etaphor o f luxurious living to be cured only by bleeding: he cannot (or has n o t been allowed) to tu rn it into plain term s o f needed reform . B ut there is a glimpse here o f the real situation: an aristocracy pushed by its appetites into a struggle for the sweets o f office. Such an idea, far above the ordinary ding-dong o f the Histories,

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can m ost safely be entrusted by Shakespeare to a churchm an whose em inent virtue is recognized even by his opponents. T here is som ething like a kindred thou g h t in H enry’s words about the rich having food b u t no stom ach for it, the poor sharp stomachs b u t no food (IV.iv). In Part 1 rebellion was crushed far away from London; in Part 2 it is nipped in the bud. H enry’s chief lieutenants now are his son Jo h n o f Lancaster, and W estm oreland. Prince Hal has to be kept in the back­ ground, reserved for higher things. It is these others w ho are m ade responsible for the treacherous seizure and execution o f the rebel leaders, after term s have been agreed on. A bloody encounter is averted, and Shakespeare seems to invite us to see this as a good thing, whatever the means; b u t clearly there is n o t m uch ‘h o n o u r’ left am ong these H o n o u rables o f the ruling class. Civil w ar may be over, b u t this has taken the ‘ro tten policy’ o f the king, the treachery o f Lancaster, the cowardice o f N orthum berland. Beyond political discord, there is spiritual decay for England to be rescued from; suppression o f the old insubordination has alm ost suppressed the old virtues w ith it. H al is in effect w aiting for his father to die; Shakespeare’s pretext for bringing him back to Eastcheap, his fear o f being thought hypocritical if he shows g rief at court over the king’s illness (Il.ii), is clumsy, though it m ay shed some light on court m entality. His father seems to understand his character w hen he calls him a m ixture o f good qualities w ith passion and caprice (IV.iv). O n e display o f tem per that Shakespeare turns to good account is his striking the C h ief Justice in an altercation about Bardolph, o f all u nw orthy causes, and being arrested. This is only reported to us, and briefly (I.ii.46-7), b u t it puts the prince in a very degrading O n his accession H al has to reassure his brothers that England is not T urkey, w here a new sultan’s brethren are sum m arily p u t to death (V.ii). T h e m an w ith m ost cause to be nervous is the C h ief Justice; and the new king’s prom ptness in not only pardoning b u t com m ending and re­ appointing him sets the key for a new reign. M onarchy as arbitrary autocracy has had its day, and in its place the im personal State is em erging, w ith law as its grand regulator. In sixteenth-century England and Europe, justice could be reckoned the principal responsibility o f governm ent, at any rate in peacetime. T his w orthy ju d g e w ith his civic courage represents a settled, orderly w orld o f self-respect and honesty o r m en ’s aspirations towards such a public life. W e never hear o f him by name, only by his office, another rem inder that the law takes no account Folklore required the young ruler to pretend resentm ent and then be nobly reconciled; Shakespeare takes the opportunity to preach a salutory lesson on law and order and the duty o f m en o f every degree to respect

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th em (V.ii). T he ju d g e ’s long speech defending his action is one o f Shakespeare’s m ost splendid political utterances. H e rem inds H al that the offence took place w hile he was in his courtroom , ‘busy for the com m onw ealth’, as the king’s deputy and upholder o f ‘T he majesty and pow er o f law and ju stice’. H e has prepared him self to face loss o f life as well as office. H arry, in his still lengthier response, says everything he o u g h t to; it is noticeable that he twice uses the w ord ‘state’ in its m odern sense o f political nation, ju s t em erging from the earlier usage seen in the O rd er has trium phed over anarchy, in the m oral sphere as previously in the political. B u t order and justice have never agreed m ore than approxim ately in the m odern State. Shakespeare does not m ean us to forget how m any injustices can flourish under the cloak o f legality, or how ‘O rd er’ m ay in practice be only an orderly robbing o f the m any by the few, the shearing o f a docile flock. Falstaff s daydream o f having the laws o f England at his com m andm ent w hen Hal is king (V.iii) only magnifies things fam iliar low er down. In Gloucestershire Justice Shallow is easily persuaded by his m an Davy to favour one party in a dispute against the other. T he m an to be favoured as a knave, they agree, but ‘G od forbid, sir, b u t a knave should have some countenance at his O ne w riter on the Histories decided to pass over Falstaff as irrelevant, ‘historically an in tru d er’ (L3 . Cam pbell 213). This was to take a very narrow view both o f ‘history’ and o f Shakespeare’s genius as an inter­ preter o f it. O f the nineteen scenes o f Henry I V Part 1, ten m ight be classed as historical, six comic, three mixed. Falstaff is on the stage in eight o f them , and altogether for rather m ore than a third o f the play’s duration. H e also has a pro m in en t place in Part 2. In the com pany o f the self-im portant m en o f action, he lends a flavour o f silliness to their doings and pretensions. H e makes fun o f everything, good or bad, in an obsolescent society o f w hich he him self is a m averick m em ber. All theatregoers loved him ; spectators o f the poorer sort m ust have liked h im all the better for the way he exhibited the follies and m alpractices o f their superiors. Shakespeare was n o t a professed satirist, but w ith Falstaff s aid he could be the m aster satirist o f the age w ithout exposing h im self to attack, because Falstaff s random com m entary on hum an behaviour is always light and tolerant, and his creator could disclaim his opinions. If Q ueen Elizabeth really appreciated Falstaff, she m ust be credited w ith enough clear-sightedness to see through the glittering Falstaff refuses to take serious things seriously, Bradley w rote (262-3); Shakespeare could let him do so because m any conventional notions o f w hat was ‘serious’ had w orn thin. Falstaff is the great jester, b u t not a

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co u rt jester. H e has a prince for com panion rather than patron; both o f th em are usually under a cloud. H e gets some help from H al in occasionally - paying his bills ( 1H.IV I.ii.49 ff ), b u t we never hear him ask for money. H e values his independence; his casual m ode o f existence, w ith all the discom forts o f w hich he complains, has been his ow n choice. H e has n o t been expelled from society b u t has, in the m odern phrase, opted o u t o f it. H e has a good share o f intellectual vanity, and plum es him self on his wit, the best ever to com e o u t o f ‘the brain o f this foolishcom pounded clay, m an’ [2H.1V I.ii.1-2): a good sum m ary o f his estimate o f the h u m an species. H e is delighted w ith Shallow as a b u tt for witticism s alm ost m ore than as a source o f easy cash (1 :V.i). W ith D oll on his knee, and H al and Poins listening unseen, he talks o f them both w ith lofty superiority (2: II.iv.l94 ff.). A solitary being, though far from unclubbable, he is fond o f talking to him self - less often, like Richard III or Iago, about his nefarious schemes than, like H am let, about his philosophy. T h e secret o f his m agnetism is the fund o f h u m o u r he adds to his wit; he disarms us by his willingness to see him self as others see him , to laugh at himself; this sets us free to enjoy his roguery, and let our Poins smiles at Sir Jo h n ’s habit o f letting everyone know that he is a knight, ju s t as others let everyone know that they are related, however rem otely, to the royal fam ily (2: Il.ii). ‘D ro p o u t’ though he is, and m ocker o f the society he has turned his back on, he holds firm ly to his title. H e rebukes the servant w ho proposes that he should waive his rank and fight him m an to m an (2: I.ii). Social status can, o f course, be o f some assistance to Him in trying to rem edy the ‘perpetual consum ption’ o f his purse. ‘As I am a gentlem an’ he says to the angry Hostess, assuring her th at he m eans to pay her bill. Snare, com ing to arrest him for debt, is hesitant. ‘It may chance cost some o f us o u r lives, for he will stab’ (2: Il.i). H e does indeed resist. Snare and Fang, the sheriffs men, are underlings, and his self-respect will not let him truckle to them . Shallow rem em bers h im in you th as quite a blade (2:III.ii.26-8). In his verbal set-to’s w ith the C h ie f Justice he is perfectly cool in his assum ption o f equality, and once w inds up w ith an im pudent suggestion th at the dignitary should lend As a gentlem an he keeps a few tatterdem alions for retinue, a parody o f the throngs o f servitors kept by the great. W h e n exercised on them his w it is n o t always good-hum oured; he derides B ardolph’s red nose w ith o u t m ercy (l: Ill.iii). B ut they too are dropouts, living n o t unlike him , some degrees lower, and rem em ber him after his death w ith a grum bling affection (H .FII.iii). His talk o f his luckless conscripts is as cold-blooded as any o f Crookback’s jibes at his victims (l: IV.ii; V.iii). W h a t is prudence in a knight is disgusting in a plebeian; he is con-

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tem ptuous o f recruits w ho buy themselves o ff - exactly w hat he w ould Every society has its loose fringes, especially in an age o f change like Shakespeare’s, or our own. Falstaff is their suprem e representative, w ith a perennial appeal as a sceptic, a nonconform ist, such as we all are at times, if only covertly. H e and Hal burlesquing the court, w ith Falstaff for once orating in verse, his bald head for crown, a stool for throne (l: II.iv.370 ff.), reduce the pom p and paraphernalia o f m onarchy to nonsense. It is the same w ith all the strutting and stiffness o f convention­ al life. Falstaff used to live, he tells us, as ‘virtuously’ as a gentlem an need, w ith n o t m uch swearing, gam bling n o t m ore than once a day, and so on. It is n o t on any points like these that his notions o f conduct diverge from upper-class standards. T hey are heterodox m ost o f all over the neochivalric code o f hon o u r w hich in Elizabeth’s tim e was being enshrined Shakespeare m ade a m ock o f ‘h o n o u r’ m ore than once, as n o t a few o ther w riters did; he owed som ething to M ontaigne’s essay on Glory, and the picaresque novels o f sixteenth-century Spain w ere fond o f ridiculing heroic posturings (Valbuena Prat 164-5). H e takes his first quizzical look at the subject in the scene in Henry V I Part 3 (IV.iii) w here sentries on night duty are com paring peaceful com fort w ith ‘dangerous h o n o u r’, ju s t before W arw ick rushes in w ith his shout o f ‘h o nour now or never!’ Falstaff on campaign, w ith his unsentim ental view o f warfare, m ust be expressing thoughts afloat in the m inds o f m any ordinary soldiers. Every great character o f fiction draws together, in some such way, the thinking or feeling o f many. His m onologue on hon o u r at Shrewsbury marks a crucial point in the unfolding o f Shakespeare’s ideas. It is quickly followed by the death o f that cham pion o f honour, ‘B u t yet no coward, H al’, Falstaff protested (l: II.ii). N o one believed him until after M aurice M organn’s essay appeared in 1777, and even since then n ot all readers do. A coward is a m an w ho dare not do som ething he feels he ought to do. If Falstaff is to go on being Sir John, he m ust be ready to show proper spirit, or som ething like it, w hen he thinks it necessary, though w ith o u t running him self into any super­ fluous hazards. Before the Gadshill affair Poins speaks o f two o f the band as ‘tru e-b red cowards’, and o f Falstaff as a m an who will not fight ‘longer than he sees reason’ (I.ii.l75ff.): an exact distinction. W hatever may be said o f his hum ble companions, a really craven Falstaff w ould scarcely be engaged in such a ‘vocation’ as highway robbery. It carried m ore risks than one. ‘If I hang, old Sir Jo h n hangs w ith m e’, one o f the others declares: in other words, he will ‘peach’ (II.i.66-7). Falstaff joins in the attack on the travellers although he is w arned that

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there are eight or ten o f them , and he has only three m en w ith him. W aylaid in tu rn by the disguised prince and Poins, and deserted, he strikes a blow or two before taking to his heels. A fat old m an need not be expected to stand and fight a pair o f young swordsmen. W h e n it came to m aking up a tale about w hat had happened, his purpose was o f course, as M organn pointed out, to amuse, n o t to deceive (140-41). H acking his sw ord-edge as testim ony o f a stiff resistance, and m ultiplying m en in buckram by leaps and bounds, were com ic fictions on a par w ith PoohB ah’s ‘corroborative detail’ about an im aginary execution. Poins had predicted that he w ould have ‘incom prehensible lies’ to tell o f a struggle w ith ‘thirty at least’ (I.ii.l78ff ), and Falstaff had a golden chance to live u p to his inventive reputation. Hal labours the obvious w hen he refuses to believe a story that w ould n o t deceive a child. At Shrewsbury too, Falstaff s dem eanour is that n o t o f a poltroon b u t o f a cool level-headed m an w ho will do w hat he m ust and no more. H e has ‘led’ his m en under fire, and left them dead or crippled, presum ably w ithdraw ing in good time. (Are we to guess that he hopes to go on draw ing their pay and keeping it, as Elizabethan officers frequently did? If so, the m ore killed the better.) H e looks around him at the heavy­ handed heroes, as unperturbed as though taking his ease in his inn. At D ouglas’s approach he lies down, pretending to be dead, as sensible m en have done w hen approached by a bear. Still, he will be happy if people th in k that by some fluke he has m anaged to kill H otspur, and earn a Falstaff makes game o f H otspur’s H o n o u r ju st as H otspur does o f G lendow er’s magic (so does Falstaff: II.i.v.331 ff.) - on this point at least, the ill-m atched pair agree). Puritan w riters and preachers were attacking atavistic notions o f honour, b u t they w ere doing so from the firm standing-ground o f a new class w ith new values, whereas from Falstaff w e hear the self-criticism o f an old class whose values are rusting away. H e is fond o f Puritan jargon, tags and fragm ents o f Scripture, b u t only as figures o f speech; he w ould be quite ready to sell his soul to the Devil for a cup o f M adeira and a capon’s leg, as Poins accuses him o f having done (1 :1.ii.l 11-13). H e affects indignation at the sad discovery that ‘V irtue is o f so little rew ard in these costerm onger tim es’ - so little that pursep roud tradesm en are im pertinent enough to insist on gentlem anly custom ers giving them ‘security’ (2 :1.ii). H ere is the cry o f a w hole class o f decayed gentry, swept away to m ake room for the moneybags. Sir Jo h n has to be thankful for an invitation to dinner at a tavern from M aster Sm ooth the silk-dealer, hoping no doubt for a suit o f clothes on credit as well as a free meal (2: II.i). H e is stranded betw een two eras, w ith no place in either, yet always unblushingly ready for a laugh. ‘T hey hate us y o u th ’, he exclaims as he and his band attack the pious w ell-fed

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pilgrims: ‘young m en m ust live!’ (1: Il.ii). Y oung m en were discontented; and in his freakish way Falstaff is a true rebel against a grey, cram ping environm ent. H e is an old scamp, to be forgiven because he is an am usingly unsuccessful one: all his schemes go awry, as they ought to for Still, life on his B ohem ian plan m ust also be a long train o f petty m akeshifts and annoyances, ending in catastrophe. His self-pityings are a ludicrous counterpart to King H enry’s. In his very first m eeting w ith us he is a prey to low spirits, and is deploring his bad reputation (l: I.ii). ‘Sighing and g rie f are his excuse for corpulence. H e likes to harp on his age, b u t he does n o t relish anyone else hinting that he is old and decrepit. H e was angered once by the prince com paring him to ‘an old, w ithered applejohn’ (2: Il.iv). B ardolph irritates him , w hen he is feeling sorry for himself, by saying ‘you are so fretful you cannot live long’ (l: III.iii). Bradley - and, m ore surprisingly, H azlitt - thought him unfailingly g ood-hum oured, or pretending low spirits only for fun (Bradley 261; H azlitt, Characters 146, 148): as great an error, surely, as to reckon him a coward. W e never dream o f seeing him drunk, but he is a toper, one o f the very few in Shakespeare, and a philosophical one, as true a disciple o f Bacchus as H otspur is o f Mars. W ith o u t sherry-sack life w ould scarcely be bearable; it is his refuge from the squalor o f his surroundings. It purges the brain o f ‘all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours w hich environ it’ - another h in t o f moods o f depression. M ore positively, he pays tribute to it as the inspirer o f his wit, as o f warlike Falstaff s spells o f self-reproach, and talk o f reform ing and recovering his name, are n o t purely jo cu lar (cf. Salingar 41). H e is fond o f blam ing others - ‘Com pany, villainous com pany’ (1: III.iii.9) - for leading him astray: at one m om ent Hal, at another Poins. B ut a return to a state o f grace, or genteel living, has no real attraction for him. E m ploym ent as a hangm an, he tells Hal, w ould suit him quite as well as ‘w aiting in the co u rt’ (1: I.ii.65ff.). B ut in the end his philosophy o f life breaks dow n u nder the w eight, we m ust think, o f increasing years and needs, and o f tem ptation: news o f the king’s death, and the sudden rash hope o f court favour. N ow at last he is ready to sell him self for a mess o f pottage, disguised as luxury, influence, patronage. T his is his real fall; his rejection by the new king only caps his self-betrayal. O u r idea o f him is sadly tarnished by his indecent haste to get back to L ondon and m ake his fortune, w ith an unw orthy revenge on the C h ief Justice to sweeten it. By repudiating him Hal saves him from sinking into a hated court favourite. C om m issioned by the now ostentatiously virtuous Hal to see to Falstaff's reform ation, the C h ief Justice orders him to jail as a first step in im provem ent; m uch as in the beehive fable in Henry V, the Justice hands

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over the lazy drone to the executioner. W h a t we hear o f Falstaff's last days is painful. Like the past he belongs to, he has to be left sternly behind. ‘His heart is fracted’ (H .V II.i) - n o t by sentim ental regrets, for w hich he has little room , b u t by disappointm ent, and the shame o f ruthless public disgrace; above all, we m ust hope, by the thought o f how he has low ered him self to the level o f a vulgar fortune-hunter. His deathbed is a troubled one, and there are only his old disreputables to regret him . ‘W o u ld I were w ith h im ’, says Bardolph, though all he ever got in Falstaff's service was drink and a red nose (H.FILiii).

H azlitt, the great dissenter, refused to see H enry V as an ideal patriot, and objected to his bloodthirsty speechifying (Characters 156-8). Infatua­ tion w ith Em pire restored the victor o f A gincourt to his pedestal. Sidney Lee rejoiced at his display o f ‘the higher potentialities o f hum an character’, particularly as they are found in England (Life 252). W orld W ars o f the tw entieth century did him fu rther good - in his native land, at least. Shakespeare’s play could be extolled as ‘a new epic and heroic dram a, blending C hristian virtue w ith m artial prowess’ (Knight, Sover­ eign Flower 37). Since then there has been a relapse. O ne pair o f critics find sym ptom s o f boredom on the au th o r’s part, covered by forced m etaphors (M uir and O ’L oughlin 112-13). A nother com plaint is o f an ‘astounding inflation’ o f language (Van D oren 172). Leggatt goes so far as to call the play a ‘satire’ (121). It does indeed often seem as if Shakespeare - fresh from w riting a w ork as iconoclastic as Henry I V - is ranting to conceal his ow n disbelief in his recantation, even parodying his heroic style by turning it into bombast. Graver still is the charge that he is the herald o f a historical ideology ‘destructive and ultim ately selfT he anniversary o f A gincourt was still being celebrated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was a trium ph o f aggression; unfortunately, before the Arm ada year England had scarcely any defensive struggle to look back on. From Henry I V Shakespeare had perforce to go on, as pledged in its Epilogue, to Henry V, for a grand finale to his Histories. Equally inevitable was his failure to m ake a coherently credible dram a o f it. His play contains thrilling poetry and pointed thoughts, b u t a tim e-honoured tale o f conquest could not be a fitting place for them . T he C horus’s appeals to the audience to assist the author w ith its im agination may be a sign that this author is often E dw ard H all’s chronicle had given T u d o r Englishm en a H enry V w ho was ‘the m irro r o f C hristendom and the glory o f his country’ (W ilson

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edn xviii). W ith this eulogy Shakespeare could not openly disagree; he could only lend it some shade as well as light, by touches here and there. As w ith Prince Hal, the result is an unconvincing medley. Early on he takes pains to colour his picture o f H enry as a reform ed or newly revealed character. W e are told, as impressively as if Shakespeare really believed it, how well he can discourse on theology or political or m ilitary affairs, in spite o f the fact that his tim e has all been frittered away on ‘riots, banquets, sports’ (I.i.37 ff.). His lengthy denunciation o f the ‘English m onsters’, or traitors, suborned by French gold is a lecture on patriotic loyalty; he bespeaks our sym pathy by telling us pathetically o f his very intim ate friendship w ith one o f them , Scroop, a Judas w ho had know n the very bottom o f his soul (II.ii.79 ff.). This is news, for we have previously heard H enry say that he had no better friend than Poins (2H .IV Il.ii), and he never seems like a m an capable o f close friendship. His heart is not ‘fracted’, at any rate; Scroop and the betrayal are not given another thought. Even an adm irer w ho believes in his ‘genuine love o f public service for its ow n sake’ finds som ething missing, an absence o f hu m an reality behind the mask o f the successful ruler (Ellis— Ferm or 43-5). It should be noted, however, that the villains are not condem ned to death out o f hand, b u t rem itted ‘to the answer o f the laws’: law is a higher authority than the king, even if we know well It m ay be conjectured that some in official quarters were displeased by the levity o f Henry I V in the m atter o f arm y recruitm ent, for instance; and that its author was given a h in t to be on his best behaviour next time. In any case, this play is stridently nationalistic. T h ro u g h o u t it the French are denigrated; care is taken to blunt any better feeling we m ay have for them. T h eir attem pt to procure H enry’s assassination w arns us w hat to expect o f them , like their vile plot in King John. Y et despite all the patriotic noise and heat, the public seems, to its credit, not to have been enthusiastic. T here appear to have been few perform ances in Shakespeare’s lifetime, or for long after. D isappointm ent at the loss o f Falstaff m ust have been a m ain cause; a further instalm ent o f his doings had been prom ised in the Epilogue to Henry IV. Shakespeare m ust have understood w hen he set to w ork that Falstaff in France w ould cast a blight over the w hole campaign. H e offers a sort o f apology w hen Fluellen, discoursing on M acedon in the m idst o f the Battle o f A gincourt, and on Alexander as H enry V’s peer, refers inadvertently to A lexander’s hasty tem per and killing o f his best friend, and goes on to com pare it to H enry’s turning away ‘the fat k night’ w ho was ‘full o f jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks, I have forgot his nam e’ O nce more, as w hen T albot was in his stride, an English arm y is

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m arching and slaughtering on foreign soil. T here is, however, a vast change o f atm osphere, and an audible u n d ercurrent o f criticism o f both w ar and royalty. Each o f these tw in institutions is far m ore com plex now than it used to be. H enry wrestles w ith God; Shakespeare can be seen w restling w ith himself. O ften he is w riting far too well to be doing m ere jo u rn ey m an work; b u t his words m ay sound double-edged. T o suppose him a sim ple-m inded cheerleader, w anting everything he says to be taken literally, w ould im ply as abrupt a transform ation o f Falstaffs creator as o f his Hal. O n the surface the play is a straightforw ard exercise in drum -beating, b u t scattered through it are asides to us by the author that give it a very different complexion. W ar-w eariness was growing in England in the few years before Ireland was ‘pacified’ and Jam es I p u t an end to the fighting w ith Spain. Shakespeare was thinking o f ordinary folk w ho suffered under the burdens o f war, as well as o f the warlords. T h e superheated rhetoric o f H enry’s speech to his m en at H arfleur After Agincourt, not m uch is left. Shakespeare apologizes for leaving things out; he may have been wearying. H e m ight have ended on a note o f blood-reeking trium ph, b u t preferred a fifth Act tranquillizingly bland, only h a lf the length o f Act IV, and nearly all in prose. Its business is to arrange a French surrender, b u t Shakespeare gives this the air o f an am icable settlem ent o f claims, w ith H enry eager for peace. N othing tactless is said to ruffle tempers. W h a t overshadows all the rest is B urgundy’s speech, as m ediator, about the torm ent that France has undergone. In Act I we heard H enry threatening France w ith all the horrors o f war; now we know that these horrors have in fact been inflicted on that hapless country. A jo cu lar courting scene makes a poor sequel, a worse com edow n than alm ost any other im portant Shake­ spearian play’s conclusion. H enry, b lu ff and self-satisfied, has no rem orse for the devastation he has caused; K atherine is a m ere stage doll. T o have to descend to this was a confession o f failure; and the Epilogue rem inds the spectators o f how quickly, w ith H enry’s infant son on the throne, It was on ‘high m oral grounds’, according to the faithful L.B. C am pbell, that the decision to invade France was taken (263-4). Y et Shakespeare offers no acceptable explanation; w hat he does give us is a sight o f the kind o f secret history that played a large part in getting the wars o f his ow n era going, as it still does now. In the background is the lesson H enry had learned from his father: that the way to avoid trouble at hom e was to pick quarrels abroad (2H .IV IV.v.209 f£). For too long England had been a prey to feudal factions; an attack on France w ould u nite all these, wash away their guilt in French blood, and refresh and

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Foreign w ar was counted on by contem porary wisdom to purge the realm o f discontents o f the poor as well as o f the powerful. N ew social forces were em erging, b u t nothing yet o f a social program m e, apart from the prescriptions held o u t by Puritanism . H enry’s incursion into France will enable some social rubbish - like B ardolph - to be got rid of; m ore respectably, it m ay draw high and low (and likewise the com ponent regions o f the British Isles) together in a com m on endeavour: all are to have a place in H enry’s band o f brothers. T he archbishop’s idyllic beehive, w ith order and obedience for keynote, is - like M enenius’s fable in Coriolanus—a panegyric on social harm ony, all classes blending into one: Fullest justification o f a w ar o f aggression could come only from religion. T h e H enry V o f history did m ake a parade o f piety, and advertised it by persecuting heretics. Shakespeare’s Henry, w ith his inces­ sant applications to God (for a further credit, so to speak), his insistence that heaven is squarely on the English side, sounds incongruously like a m ilitant Protestant. It was Protestant anim osity against Catholic Spain and Ireland that supplied m ost o f w hatever popular approval England’s wars, at the tim e w hen this play was w ritten, enjoyed. H enry’s opponents are n o t allowed even to beg for divine favour, and Frenchm en are too Shakespeare m ight have given H enry a better-sounding claim by arguing that France was u nder bad or w eak rule, and he w ould govern it better. Instead, he thinks o f the country as crudely as an anim al-tam er: ‘France being ours, w e’ll bend it to our a w e /O r break it all to pieces’ (I.ii.226-7). O nly here and there in Shakespeare’s Europe were people learning to object to their countries or provinces being handed dow n or bandied about am ong kings ju s t as estates were by landowners. His audience m ay well have taken an interest in his genealogies o f its own rulers, b u t it is not likely to have felt nearly so m uch in the archbishop’s antiquarian rigm arole about H enry’s rights to France. Shakespeare took it straight from Holinshed, and left it ‘very im perfectly dram atised’ (Raleigh 69), as if deliberately m aking it sound nonsensical. H enry’s envoy tries to convince the French that his claims are not m ere rubbish ‘Picked from the w orm -holes’, or ‘dust o f old oblivion’ (II.iv.85 ff.), but that is w hat they obviously are; and the bloodthirsty threats that follow w ith the responsibility, as usual, laid entirely on the victims - belong to an age that Shakespeare m ust have w anted England to leave behind. Shakespeare seems to relish the opportunity afforded him by the chronicles to begin his play by show ing a pair o f supple prelates schem ing to avert a sweeping confiscation o f church w ealth proposed by Parliam ent by egging H enry on to w ar and prom ising financial support. A fter this, H enry’s earnest exhortation to C anterbury to pronounce on

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his claims w ith religious im partiality, and the anxious wish he professes n o t to offend heaven by starting ‘unjustly’ a w ar whose bloody con­ sequences he vividly foresees, can only sound like Shakespearian irony. T h e response is unctuously reassuring; and on one point, the plunder to be w on from war, the M etropolitan is franker than anyone else, even if he wraps it up in his parable o f the bees. W h at real gains will accrue to the nation, except a surety against civil war, he and Shakespeare refrain from any attem pt to show. T h at there will be a positive loss - o f the church w ealth that Parliam ent could have applied to useful purposes - is n o t emphasized; b u t we may suppose that a post-R eform ation audience By offering no public justification for war, Shakespeare leaves H enry to appear as a ruthless egotist dem anding his pound o f flesh. This does m u ch to nullify the appeal o f the synthetic hero he is trying to produce, a com pendium o f adm irable qualities from previous plays. T here is no room for a H otspur in England; only in a foreign war can his dashing courage be p u t to good use. Prince Hal overthrew H otspur; H enry V dons the skin o f the dead lion, and talks about his thirst for H onour in exactly the same strain. Englishm en were being invited to see themselves as a collective H otspur, as they were to becom e in em pire mythology. In H enry royalty is taking on a partially m odernized aspect. H e is a feudal m onarch fighting for hereditary rights, and playing the knight errant. B ut once in the field he becomes the leader o f a State w ith a swelling nationalist spirit to be played on; and he has a strong infusion o f the m iddle-class virtues, united w ith the older ones o f sword and lance. T he England o f his successors is to be a nation o f w ell-arm ed shopkeepers, a U nlike Richard III before Bosworth, H enry before A gincourt goes out to m ingle incognito w ith his soldiers, and then prays him self into the proper m ood o f self-righteousness. His small arm y is cut off, hem m ed in by superior forces; he is alone. H e does n o t kneel to ask forgiveness for the selfish am bition that has b rought his m en to this pass; it is no sin o f his ow n that weighs on his m ind, b u t his father’s sin o f usurpation. He has nothing to reproach him self with. A fter all, he wants no m ore than his God does - the kingdom , the power, and the glory. British em pirebuilders o f later days could have no better patron saint than H enry V. A king going about in disguise am ong his people had long been a popular ballad m o tif (H olt 103). H ere it leads to an argum ent, one o f the passages that m ake this a ‘problem play’, and a partial rebuttal at least o f B ernard Shaw’s charge against Shakespeare o f having (unlike Ibsen and himself) no ideas (Shakespeare). D oubts in the soldiers’ m inds com bine w ith H enry’s ow n uncertainty about his title to the throne, and bring on his b rief loss o f confidence. T he debate, however, is an unsatisfactory

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one. Tillyard found it chilly (Historical Plays 309); it is so because H enry can only be evasive - which, m oreover, is less easy in prose than in verse. Bates and W illiam s have a sour conviction that if the English are beaten the king will be ransom ed and go hom e, while com m on soldiers are left to rot. T hey go on to thoughts o f the battlefield, w ith its m aim ed and dying m en, w ho m ay have left unprotected wives and children; the king, they argue, if right is not on his side, will be responsible for all this. Shakespeare does not let them talk about responsibility for the evils the invasion is inflicting on France; he may wish his hearers to think o f it. W ith the skill in theology we have heard h im to possess, H enry turns the w hole question into an abstract one o f divine purposes. It takes a form w here the new individualism shows once again, m ore m orbidly than usual. God has his eye on every single soldier, and battle is his oppor­ tu n ity to punish those w ho are guilty o f crimes - com m itted not during this blameless campaign, b u t before it. Each m an is answerable for the fate o f his ow n soul, H enry insists, and m ust not think to p u t the blame on his leader: it behoves every soul to be in a state o f readiness for death, H enry’s prolix reply may sound to us ‘poor, m uddled and irrelevant’ (Palmer 238), b u t it is really a skilful piece o f casuistry. His subjects may th in k they can blame him for everything that befalls them; he transfers the blam e to God: ‘W ar is His beadle, w ar is His vengeance.’ Bates and W illiam s are easily convinced (was Shakespeare’s audience?), though other anxieties still rankle in their minds. T he question o f widows and children left unprovided for has dropped out o f sight; so has that o f responsibility for crimes com m itted on orders from above. Shakespeare had b rought this up earlier - in Act I Scene iv o f Richard III, w here C larence’s m urderers m et his expostulations by saying that they were only carrying out the king’s com m and, w hile he urged that m urder was forbidden by ‘the great King o f kings’. In o u r century this has grow n into After these nocturnal scenes, the battle itself is uninteresting. T here is n o t m u ch o f it that Shakespeare can p u t on his stage, and he seems not even to w ant to. In the play as a w hole fighting enters into only two Acts, and then w ith a refreshing infusion o f lighter business. H enry’s blood­ curdling threats to the citizens o f H arfleur had the w arrant o f a rule, com ing to be accepted in Shakespeare’s tim e, that a beleaguered tow n w hich refused to capitulate w hen it had no chance o f being relieved could be given up to ‘m ilitary execution’, or sacked, as Badajoz was by W ellington as late as 1812. B ut Shakespeare m ust surely have expected some o f his hearers to w onder w hether H enry’s antiquated ‘rights’ in France were w orth such atrocities as ‘naked infants spitted upon pikes’

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T here m ust have been some smiles at the announcem ent, after the fierce fighting at the bridge, that French losses have been heavy, while the English have n o t lost a single man; b u t clearly part o f the aim is to depict the cam paign as costing England very little in blood. A gincourt is a m ere walkover. T en thousand Frenchm en are killed, nearly all o f them o f blue bood - com m oners have not suffered m uch - and only tw entynine Englishm en (IV.viii). ‘O God, thy arm was here’, H enry may well piously exclaim. Shakespeare makes a m uddled effort to discredit the enem y again, b u t he really brings out H enry’s streak o f ferocity, w ith his order to kill all prisoners. Fluellen angrily accuses the French o f a massacre o f English baggage-boys, b u t H enry has given his order a scene earlier, sim ply because the French seem to be rallying, and later threatens to give the order w ith o u t any allusion to their crim e (IV.vi, vii). And in the end the English are left w ith 1,500 gentry prisoners, besides others. T o lend the battlefield a sentim ental touch we have a description o f Y ork and Suffolk expiring in each other’s arms, like brothers. Shake­ speare calls this ‘pretty and sweet’ (IV.vi). H e m ust have forgotten that his D uke o f Y ork is the craven A um erle o f Richard II, Act V. T here is no Falstaff now to laugh at his protege’s declamations, b u t his seedy followers are still w ith us - a w alking com m entary on the glorification o f w ar and a picturesque contrast w ith the sturdy, sober m en -at-arm s w hom H enry meets. At the start they are taking leave o f their L ondon tavern, and Pistol o f his newly w ed Hostess. H e warns her to be on her guard, and cautious about giving credit - ‘For oaths are straws, m en’s faiths are w afer-cakes’ (II.iii.49): a comic echo o f H enry’s denunciation o f the traitors in the previous scene. T here is another Beggar’s-O pera sort o f parody in B ardolph having to reconcile Pistol and N y m after a gam bling dispute, so that they can go o ff to the wars ‘all three sw orn brothers’ (Il.i), m uch as H enry is going to w ar to unite his quarrelsom e nobles. T he trio are o ff to France ‘like horse-leeches To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!’ (Il.iii; cf. IV.iv.65). Pistol is as realistic as any prelate about the fact that the purpose o f w ar is plunder. T h e boy they take w ith them is one o f the sharp-eyed youngsters w hom Shakespeare makes use o f as reporters. H e is soon wishing him self back in London: ‘I w ould give all m y fam e for a pot o f ale, and safety’ (Ill.ii); he m ust have listened profitably to Falstaff. At H arfleur H enry’s ‘O nce m ore unto the breach’ is prom ptly taken up by Bardolph: ‘O n, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!’ - b u t he and his comrades at once find good reasons for not going on, until Fluellen appears and beats them forw ard (Ill.ii). Shakespeare has tried in this play - maybe half­ heartedly - to kindle som ething like the exaltation o f 1914 and Rupert B rooke’s sonnet about H on o u r com ing back into the world. B ut H otspur, its standard-bearer, perished at Shrewsbury, and Falstaff gave

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his corpse a parting stab as though to symbolize the m oral death his satire had already inflicted on the heroic dream -w orld. T he last we see o f the unheroic group, after B ardolph is hanged for pilfering, is Pistol getting a well-deserved thrashing from Fluellen, for insulting him and W ales. ‘All hell shall stir for this!’ - his furious threat, o n being released, sounds as if it is borrow ed from some o f H enry’s earth-shaking menaces; b u t he soon collapses. ‘O ld I do wax, and from m y w eary lim b s/H o n o u r is cudgelled’: once m ore the heroic is deflated by association. His wife has died o f the ‘m alady o f France’; D oll T earsheet has sunk to ‘a lazar kite’, a low prostitute; and he is going to sneak hom e and live by begging and stealing (V.i). A nother pathetic rem nant o f an older tim e has com e to the end o f its tether. Englishm en o f H enry’s tim e and later w ere taught that ‘he had ruled spectacularly w ell’. H e was a w inner, and ‘conspicuous w orldly success is dem anded o f kings’ (Saccio 88). H e has a kindred spirit in the R ichm ond w ho, on his way to the throne, assures him self that he is G od’s appointed ‘captain’ (R.III V.iii). H e has a successor in Crom w ell, the crusading imperialist, and all his brood o f em pire-builders for w hom Henry V was to be som ething like a cam p bible. T h ro u g h it we have a good view o f the feudal perversions w hich w ere bequeathing to later times a m entality o f conquest cem ented by C hristian conviction, or a pretence o f it. As a resounding climax for the w hole series o f plays, Henry V has a historical veracity. It was w ritten w hen England was on the brink o f three centuries o f im perial expansion, beginning w ith Ireland, settlem ents in N o rth America, buccaneering expeditions round the globe. B ut no w orldw ide expansion could ever lay to rest the contradictions planted by

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Historical Themes

M onarchy ‘H ath he deserved to lose his b irthright thus?’ Q ueen M argaret exclaims, w hen h er husband signs away their son’s title to the succession (3H .V I I.i.229; cf.II.ii.35). T h e crow n is the suprem e em blem o f the divine right o f property, it is the ‘b irth rig h t’ o f w hoever has the best claim to it by descent. Each landow ner’s title to his estate or fief rested on the same basis: the tw o species o f right evolved together. B ut w hen the crow n is disputed in the Histories, m en take sides from varied motives, as they always have done w hen societies are divided by fundam ental issues. H enry VI h im self is weakened by an uneasy conscience on account o f his grandfather having been a usurper. His scruples are Shakespeare’s ow n invention, n o t derived from the chroniclers (Council 13). This has helped to inspire a conception o f the Histories as a kind o f Oresteia, a record o f a royal house under a curse from its founder’s guilt. It is a no tio n rightly rejected by W.R. E lton (30). Shakespeare’s view o f history is pragm atic, n o t mystical. K ingship m ay be ‘divine’, b u t only in so far as it is useful; tho u g h he is quite ready to m ake use o f any striking ideas for the sake o f dram atic effect. M ade prisoner by some gamekeepers, H enry VI is confronted by the alien way o f thinking o f these commoners. W h e n he taxes them w ith their oath o f allegiance, their answer is that they m ust take orders from w hatever king m ay be in power; and they seem to care very little w hich king this m ay be (3H. VI III.i). Englishm en o f the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries w ere obliged to acquiesce in a shuttlecock alternation o f regimes and creeds; these plays brought on to the stage a sim ilar spectacle, w hich m ust have had a similar psychological effect. O n balance Elizabeth could feel satisfied. She was the grand­ daughter o f another usurper; her right to the throne rested very m uch on h er ow n prowess, as H enry V’s was vindicated by his conquest o f France. In any governm ent’s eyes the best lessons o f history are those that tell in its ow n favour. Philip in Kingjohn can discourse impressively on a king’s duty to right

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w rong, as deputy o f the ‘supernatural ju d g e ’ (Il.i.112-14), b u t the prim e function o f kingship is to keep order. In Henry V I Part 2 Y ork rhapsodizes about the sceptre not only as the suprem e possession but as the means ‘to act controlling laws’, ‘to govern and rule m ultitudes’, w hich he declares H enry incapable o f (V.i.9l ff.). In the very first scene o f the Histories H enry V’s m em ory is evoked by his b rother H um phrey o f Gloucester, as th at o f a m odel ruler. It is a fearsome enough picture: m enacing eyes, ‘brandished sw ord’, ‘arms spread w ider than a dragon’s wings’. T here is a clear im plication that unless a king knows how to play the dragon, anarchy will quickly ensue: in other words, the State has little cohesion o f its own, b u t can be held together only by unrem itting coercion. Clifford the younger, in his dying speech on the battlefield, m ourns H enry V i’s fatal weakness in n o t destroying the Y orkist faction out o f hand (3H .VI Il.vi). Richard II’s gardener knows that plants grow ing too tall m ust be lopped off, like overm ighty subjects (IILiv). Richard has obeyed this rule o f th u m b by banishing two such men; b u t that was n o t enough. A n heir com ing to the throne w hile still a m inor could not be a vigorous ruler, here was a failing o f hereditary m onarchy, now here m ore p ro m in en t than in Scottish history. It m ight, therefore, be deem ed sensible to pass over a m inor and install the com petent m an nearest to the succession. This is Richard Ill’s contention, and Jo h n ’s; and as Jo h n ’s enem y C onstance complains, the sovereigns she is appealing to ignore legitim acy w hen peace w ith Jo h n suits their interests. His seat on the throne is unquestioned until he comes und er suspicion o f having had A rth u r m urdered. T his distinction betw een ousting an heir and m aking away w ith him m ay be illogical, b u t it may well have weighed w ith public opinion, never m uch guided by strict logic. Even the hardened B uckingham jibs w hen it comes to Richard w anting his nephews killed, and his defection is the beginning o f R ichard’s downfall. Similar m ixed feelings m ight be aroused by removal from the throne o f adult rulers, and their subsequent fates. Shakespeare said quite enough about the sinfulness o f usurpation to placate an Elizabeth to w hom Richard II’s deposition was a sore subject; her appetite for flattery had early w on her the nicknam e ‘Richard the Second’. Shakespeare could also w rite impressively o f the sanctity o f a king’s person; this was a them e that could have p oten t m ythic or poetic force, in union w ith the religious or magical virtues o f anointm ent. His m u rd erer’s hand will ‘b u rn in neverquenching fire’, Richard warns him , and Exton shudders at the thought (R .II V.v). Richard’s death seems to weigh m ore heavily than his deposi­ tion; and at A gincourt, w hen H enry V is troubled by the m em ory o f his father’s ‘fault’ in ‘compassing the crow n’, it is the shedding o f royal blood that is upperm ost in his m ind (H .FIV .i.). Y et the practical difficulty rem ained. A dethroned m onarch left alive w ould always be a focus o f

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conspiracy - hence Elizabeth’s execution, after m any hesitations, o f her prisoner M ary Stewart. It was an advantage in this case that M ary was a foreigner, already rejected by her ow n country. Still, Elizabeth had to disclaim responsibility; as H olland says (128), Shakespeare may be politely subscribing to this pretence w hen his King Jo h n lam ents ‘the curse o f kings’: that their officers are always ready to exceed their instructions (KJ IV.ii.208). C rom w ell was to learn that Charles I’s deposi­ tion and execution could seem two very unequal things to his people. As a political study Richard II is less a dram a o f one king’s overthrow than a rejection o f an archaic pattern o f kingship, or the idea com ing to be know n as the ‘divine right o f kings’, w hich was to cost the Stuarts so dear. Richard is an unstable, self-absorbed individual, under the sway o f favourites and flatterers. His challenger Bolingbroke, by contrast, is a m an o f will and action, such as the times require, as well as a first cousin o f Richard, w ith blood alm ost as royal as his. It may be noted as another part o f Shakespeare’s elastic conception o f w hat is due to rulers - and from them - that foreigners have no claim on his advocacy, though they may have received, or be entitled to, the same mysterious ointm ent If the preoccupation o f the earlier Histories is w ith the need for strong governm ent, capable o f m aintaining law and order, it is not long before an opposite danger shows itself: o f governm ent becom ing too strong and arbitrary. This may com e about w hether the m an on the throne is strong or weak. Richard II’s frivolity allows his m inions to persuade him into, or themselves indulge in, all kinds o f misuse o f authority. Jo h n is an energetic ruler w ho provokes chaos by abusing his power, until factions are snarling like dogs, the Bastard grumbles, over ‘the bare-picked bones o f majesty’ (KJ IV.iii.148). Pandulph has predicted th at John, as a usurper, will have to m aintain him self by ruling despoti­ cally, and argued that tyranny can never m ake itself safe by killing (III.iv). W h e n Jo h n has done no m ore as yet than resolve on a single crime, in im agination Shakespeare sees him , his people see him , he seems to see himself, as already drenched in blood. His foot ‘leaves the p rin t o f blood w here’er it walks’, cries Salisbury (IV.iii.25). Jo h n him self is driven to recognize that bloodshed can be ‘no sure foundation’ (IV.ii.104). W hat, then, can? M onarchy seems to dem and m utually exclusive qualities. A king m ust be strong and resolute - ‘glister like the god o f w ar’, as the Bastard tells his uncle (V.i). B ut the greater his strength, the likelier he is to resort to arbitrary m ethods. O nly a good m an is fit to hold sway, but no ruler could be a better m an than H enry VI. Strong rule may bring order, at least for a while, b u t Shakespeare is far from adm iring pow er for its ow n sake; and greed for it can lead to crime, and thereby liberate fresh disorder. A fter changing sides in the W ars o f

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the Roses, W arw ick at once denounces Edw ard IV as a ‘tyrant’, and E dw ard’s queen, Elizabeth, applies the same epithet to W arw ick him self (3H .VI III.iii.206; IV.iv.29). It m eant properly a usurper, b u t was loosely used in a sense m ore like ours. E dw ard’s b rother Clarence, in the Tow er, protests that he has had no trial, no jury: it is ‘m ost unlaw ful’ for him to be condem ned w ith o u t being ‘convict by course o f law’ (R .III I.iv). Edw ard on his deathbed will soon suffer painful regrets for his hasty suspicions o f Clarence. T he w hole play m ay be called a w arning against the irrem ediable acts o f violence that unfettered pow er seems doom ed to Richard C rookback, once on the throne, is in every sense an authentic tyrant, though able to style him self (with a sardonic chuckle, doubtless) ‘the lord’s anointed’ (IV.iv.15l). T u d o r lawyers struggling w ith their often-changing law o f treason faced the dilem m a o f how to distinguish the due rights o f de jure and de facto wearers o f the crown. Shakespeare seems to be left stranded betw een two contradictory ideas: it is not on the w hole w rong for an unsuitable ruler to be deprived o f the crown, but it is w rong for any other man, however suitable, to take it. C om m on sense has to brush such difficulties aside, and treat the problem as a simple one o f expediency. In a crisis o f battle during the civil wars Edw ard o f Y ork kneels to God, the ‘setter up and plucker dow n o f kings’; a little later, M argaret vituperates W arw ick as ‘Proud setter up and plucker dow n o f kings’ (3H. V I Ill.iii). T h eir alm ost identical words can m ean only that i f a crow n topples from a royal head, its w earer m ust have proved unw orthy o f it. In the end Richm ond is the country’s heaven-sent deliverer. His lack o f a royal pedigree is kept out o f sight. C learly the m andate o f heaven has been given to him , and he dem on­ strates it by slaying Richard in som ething like a ritual trial by battle. At Shrewsbury H enry IV likewise confirm s his right to a stolen crow n by facing the redoubtable Douglas in single combat; he has to be rescued, b u t it is his son and heir w ho saves him . Personal courage is a quality no In the heady days o f civil war, to heedless aspirants the crow n is an irresistible magnet. Richard o f Gloucester, urging his father to break the pact w ith H enry VI, expatiates on how sweet it m ust be ‘to w ear a c ro w n ,/W ith in whose circuit is Elysium ’ (3H .VI I.ii); but once won, it m akes its fatal Midas touch felt. It m ay prove a heavy burden to those u nd er its sway, b u t it is certain to be one for its wearer. All princes pay for their em pty honours by undergoing a ‘w orld o f restless cares’, the governor o f the T ow er reflects over his sleeping prisoner Clarence (R.III I.iv.78 ff.). H enry VI groans under the painful insecurity o f ‘kings that fear their subjects’ treachery’ (3H. V I II.v.45): one o f m any passages w here m onarchy seems to suffer from an incurable disease.

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At the close o f Henry V I Edw ard IV, safe on the throne and happy w ith his new born son, is looking forw ard to ‘stately trium phs, m irthful com ic shows’ (3 H .V IV.vii.43). B ut w hen the sequel begins, in his gloomy last days, he is sunk in idle fears o f ‘prophecies and dream s’ (R.III I.i.54), and his consort lam ents her elevation to so giddy a height (I.iii.83-4). Richard III in tu rn is to learn that once pow er is gained, the fruit turns to ashes. For each o f the m any royal personages in King John, before long som e blight or other ‘hath spoiled the sweet w orld’s taste’ (III.iv.110). Even the Bastard, at first so jovially full o f anim al spirits, staggers under the cares o f state w hich soon devolve on him . By degrees as the epic story advances, the focus is shifting from the right to be king to the duties o f being king, or an understanding that the ruler exists for the benefit o f society, n o t the other way about. Shake­ speare’s Elizabeth told her last Parliam ent w hat a heavy burden the crow n was, and his H enry IV w ould have agreed from the bottom o f his heart. Already in Part 1 his opening w ords - ‘So shaken as we are, so w an w ith care’ - show him approaching exhaustion, as perhaps m onarchy itself is. In Part 1 he is gloomy; in Part 2 alm ost tragic. H e dom inates the stage less and less, though his shadow hangs over it; in Part 2 he does not appear u n til Act III. T here his first words are a lam ent over the anxieties that keep him sleepless. If a young m an could see in advance, he says, w hat fate and the strange whirligigs o f tim e had in store for him , he w ould ‘sit him dow n and die’. Before long H enry him self is lying dow n to die, w o rn o u t by ‘T h e incessant care and labour o f his m ind’ (IV.iv. 116 ff.). His u ndutiful son, at his bedside, repeats his thoughts about the H enry V is ‘the m irro r o f all C hristian kings’ (Act Il.Prol.), b u t we never see him governing England. H e is o ff at once on a wild-goose chase after glory abroad, his so m uch adm ired reform ation no m ore than a skip from his form er pranks to war, the sport o f kings. Y et he manages to take him self very seriously. In his m o u th the them e o f the sovereign as a public servant dedicated to unselfish toil is carried still further. B ent und er the load o f one crown, he is straining every nerve to gain another, w hich will be vastly m ore onerous. A labourer can little guess ‘W h a t w atch the king keeps to m aintain the peace’ (IV.i.239); b u t Henry, in fact, is running away from his duties and dragging his people into war. H e is devastating France in order to com pel the French to adm it his sacred right to subm it to the painful duty o f ruling them for their own It m ay well be true that for Shakespeare the crow n had a symbolic m eaning, and could be associated w ith anything precious (Knight, Crown 107, 116, 119). Y et the conservative w ho was indignant in 1605 about kingship, governm ent, religion being held up to derision on the stage,

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m ig h t well have included these Histories in his censure (D ollim ore 8). O n the whole, they give us anything b u t an edifying picture o f m onarchy. A feudal regim e in a m align condition is generating little but divisions and hatreds. T he long stretches o f insult and recrim ination am ong the royal ladies in Richard III are an undignified washing o f dirty linen in public. In King John too the royal wranglings are on a level certain to corrode any superstitious reverence for crow n or throne. Shakespeare is demystifying, dem ythologizing, purging it o f the aura that still clung to it in Europe. T hroughout, m onarchy is held up as a hazardous form o f governm ent, unstable because it kindles excessive love o f pow er in the ruler, guilty am bition in others. It warps family affections. It requires successful w ar to bolster it. It cannot conceal a w idening gap betw een m agnificent appearance and sordid reality. N o th in g it is ever likely to do will rem edy the social ills so unblushingly H enry V’s m ind never turns to such things, b u t he has a chronic uneasiness. T h ro u g h o u t the three plays he figures in we are hearing ‘speeches o f self-justification’ from him (Palmer 185). A m ong all the seven English and three French crow ned heads in the Histories (M argaret’s nam e m ight be added), very few can be considered passable rulers, none as an ‘ideal’ ruler. H ereditary succession could be no guarantee that authority w ould fall into the w orthiest hands. H enry IV’s m istrust o f his scapegrace son drives him to think that H otspur has a better natural right (3H .IV III.ii.97 ff.). C o u rt life surrounds the ruler w ith ‘smiling pickthanks and base new s-m ongers’, by w hom ‘the ear o f greatness’ m ust often be deceived (ibid. 24-5). Falstaffs am usem ent at a self-im portant ass like Shallow being a squire and a Justice (2H .IV III.ii.275 ff.) is a rem inder o f w hat royal authority was likely to be in the T here is still som ething to awaken awe in the om nipotence that lies in ‘the breath o f kings’ [R.II Il.i), but such pow er is com ing to seem excessive; and the king w ho listens to these words is soon com pelled to rem em ber that w ithin the circle o f the crown, death is w aiting for its m ortal wearer. It has becom e a curse; stories throng into his m ind o f kings deposed, slain in battle, poisoned by their wives, haunted by ghosts. W h a t Richard learns painfully, H enry V knows as a plain m atter o f fact, having acquired in Eastcheap a taste for small beer (2 H .IV Il.ii). ‘T h e king is b u t a m an’, as he says to his soldiers. ‘T h e violet smells to him as it does to m e’ (IV.i.100 ff.) - as Shylock w ould say, ‘H ath not a Jew eyes?’ And the grand em inence that kings attain at the expense o f ‘infinite heart’s ease’ is n o t som ething for others to envy (IV.i.232). H enry’s speech on ‘cerem ony’ (H.V. IV.i.226 ff.) - one o f Shakespeare’s suprem ely great political utterances - is a declaration that kingship can no longer rest on

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royal titles and trappings. By the end o f the sixteenth century it was grow ing self-conscious, conscious o f critical eyes on it. Shakespeare was, it seems, doubtful o f any future king being equal to the dem ands on it. W h a t was called for now was n o t new candidates but a new political system for them to be part of. H enry takes care not to appear desirous o f the rank o f Renaissance superm an, like M achiavelli’s Prince or M arlow e’s Tam burlaine. H e m odestly gives all the credit for the carnage he is com m itting to God, and to his band o f brothers; at m ost he will confess to being m ore covetous o f ‘h o n o u r’ than any m an alive (IV.iii. W h e n Richard II’s willingness to abdicate is announced, the Bishop o f Carlisle is the sole protesting voice. For him a king’s right to his throne is G od-given and indefeasible; he is ‘the figure o f G od’s majesty’. H e prophesies civil w ar as the dire consequence (R.II IV.i). H e is alm ost the only prelate in the Histories w hom we can respect; b u t we need not suppose Shakespeare to be endorsing his stand. T he good bishop is being left behind by history, like his n o n-juring successors after the deposition o f Jam es II in 1688. In the earlier plays interest had been fixed on rulers o r w ould-be rulers; now the focal point is m onarchy as institution. It was easy for official T u d o r doctrine to extol order and social harm ony, b u t the lesson o f history seemed to be that m onarchy could n o t be depended o n for those blessings. It m ight do better if it tried, as the hapless H enry VI knew w hen he told his queen they m ust ‘learn to govern better’ (2H. V IIV.ix.49). H e was given no chance, and few others ever thought o f trying. W h e n Shakespeare enlarges on the hardships and cares o f state, he is telling us n o t that kings all tug so hard at the oar, but that they ought B ut even if they were willing to wear themselves o u t in the service, as H enry IV m ight be said to have done, it could not be enough. O nly ‘A tlantean shoulders’, as broad as those o f M ilton’s archangel, w ould be strong enough to bear the w eight o f a kingdom . Shakespeare could not tell his audience this too bluntly, and cannot have grasped it fully himself. W ith the grow ing volum e and com plexity o f affairs, England was stum bling awkwardly betw een tw o eras. N othing could be accom plished w ith o u t a ruler playing a strong part, b u t the m ore he did so the less freedom there w ould be for institutions, from Parliam ent dow n, to develop, and for adm inistration to evolve on lines according w ith the interests o f the classes that had w eight in the country. T he revolution, w hen it came, was to be over the w orking and program m ing o f governm ent, including its ecclesiastical departm ent. It was time, in other words, for the frow n o f majesty to be transferred from king to State. Impersonal authority, w orking w ithin a regulated fram ew ork, m ust cease to be arbitrary. W hile he is putting H enry V on

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the throne, Shakespeare gives us repeated assurances that governm ent in England is to be the antithesis o f T urkish despotism. ‘W e are no tyrant, b u t a C hristian king’, H enry tells the French envoy w ho asks leave to deliver his insulting message in plain term s (.H .V ’ I.ii.242): ‘C hristian’, as often, m eaning civilized. O ne o f his first decisions is to call a Parliam ent, B ut there was, as there has always continued to be, another aspect o f the building up o f state m achinery. N o governm ent allows itself to be always bound by law. Cade’s captive Lord Say, a seasoned m inister o f state, w hen asked w hether he has ever struck a blow for his country,

In Henry V the traitors are unm asked ‘By interception w hich they dream no t o f (II.ii.7). G uilty and innocent m ight be caught in the same snares. T h e king ‘Sought to trap m e by intelligence’, H otspur alleges ( 1H.IV IV.iii. 18), as m any w ho ended on T u d o r scaffolds m ight have done. Any p ro m in en t m an m ight learn, like the younger M owbray, w hat ‘slight and false-derived cause’ could bring him under suspicion (2H.IVYV.i. 189 ff.). In 1599 T hom as N ashe was denouncing inform ers w ho were o u t to fill their pockets by alarm ing governm ent w ith fabricated tales (W ilson, Life Shakespeare could scarcely poin t o u t - b u t he knew his audience was well aware - that the governm ent they lived under was a past m aster o f such m ethods, w hich were needed all the m ore because above-board means o f policing the country were scanty. T here were m urky depths o f secret-service activity (e.g. Boas, Marlowe 2 5 -7, etc.). Burghley was at the centre o f an elaborate spy ring. W h e n Shakespeare talks o f the State he may seem to be m aking som ething portentous o f w hat was really, by later standards, quite exiguous; b u t he was seeing it through a m ist o f the unknow n or half-know n that m agnified its dimensions. It has been conjectured that his father came under suspicion o f com plicity in a Elizabeth knew how to strengthen her position w ith the applause o f the m ultitude; the ‘lesson’ o f Henry V - its better one, in contrast w ith its ram pant jingoism - is that governm ent needs m ore than bursts o f cheering, the active support o f ordinary m en and women. T he m artyred brothers Crispin and C rispian on whose feast day, as H enry rem inded his m en, A gincourt was fought w ere the shoemakers’ patron saints. Fluellen upholds the rights o f the com m on soldier by saying that W illiam s ought to strike the m an w earing his gage, o f whatever rank he

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m ay be: it is, o f course, the king. H enry speaks to him in verse; W illiam s replies in equally dignified prose (IV.vii.35 ff.), and they part good friends. T h e episode makes an interlude, w hich Shakespeare plainly relishes, after the uproar o f battle. T h e last friendly face Richard II sees is that o f a devoted groom w ho has got leave to visit him (R.II V.v). This is the old feudal fidelity; b u t such a virtue has a place to fill in the com ing

A king stands over and above his peerage, as the precursor or crude em bodim ent o f the m odern polity. In ordinary affairs, on the other hand, kings and magnates in these plays are birds o f a feather, and the arrogance o f rank and pow er is the hallm ark o f the nobility as a class. From early in the M iddle Ages it had been developing an image o f itself - and n o t in England alone - as a superior caste, far above ordinary hum anity. Its pretensions stand out in the reluctance o f Shakespeare’s noblem en to subm it to law, a hum iliating shackle on their indepen­ dence. In the rose-garden scene ( 1H .VI II.iv) two lawyers are present, b u t are only perfunctorily asked for their opinion about the rival claims o f Y ork and Lancaster. T he aristocratic tem per shows in Suffolk’s in­ difference to law, to w hich he has been a ‘tru an t’: he is accustom ed to m ake it bend to his will, instead o f bending to it. W arw ick boasts o f being a better ju d g e o f hawks, horses and girls than o f any ‘nice sharp quillets o f the law’. Somerset, asked w here his argum ent is, replies W ith this attitude goes an im m ense disdain for social inferiors, given vent especially in the first set o f plays; w hen these were w ritten Shakespeare’s notion o f how great m en behaved m ay have been a little overstrained. G ood D uke H um phrey flies into a passion w hen ‘dunghill groom s’ obey their orders to bar his entrance to the tow er (IH .VI I.iii). Y ork addresses Peter the arm ourer’s m an as ‘Base dunghill villain and m echanical’ (2H .VI I.iii.191). This epithet is a favourite one. Lord Bigot bestows it on H u b ert de Burgh, a royal officer n o t o f the lowest grade ‘O u t, dunghill! dar’st thou brave a gentlem an?’ (KJ IV.iii.88). Suffolk is contem ptuous o f ‘worthless peasants’, and highly indignant at finding him self in the hands o f a rabble o f seamen, one o f them an old servant o f his. H e cannot believe that such a set o f ‘paltry, servile, abject drudges’, led by an ‘O bscure and lousy swain’, can m ean to take the life o f an earl, and he w ould rather lose his life than plead to such w retches for it (2H .W IV.i. 121 ff.). Richard C rookback stops the hearse carrying a prince’s corpse and, w hen the guard rem onstrates, calls him an ‘u n m annered dog’ and ‘beggar’, and threatens to strike him (R .IIII.ii.39 ff.).

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It can be supposed that this abusive language, instead o f striking awe into the h um bler part o f Shakespeare’s audience, had an opposite effect on it; we m ay even guess that this was w hat he intended. His frequent guying o f the French aristocracy m ight be patriotically Jo h n Bullish, but to see foreign grandees ridiculed m ight be a step for English spectators towards seeing their ow n peerage in a similar light. T hey may have w ondered, too, w hy H um phrey o f G loucester’s wife Elinor, the guiltiest o f her crew o f plotters, should be let o ff w ith the lightest sentence because ‘m ore nobly b orn’ (2H .V I II.iii.9); or w hy the notables killed at Bosw orth, including those on the w rong side, should be given a m ore honourable burial than the rank and file (R . I I IV.v). In a late feudal society, ‘h o n o u r’ m ight be called the true religion o f the upper classes. It was closely allied to ‘glory’, in a com plex o f ideas o f great im portance to Shakespeare’s England and Europe; they w ere at the centre o f the aristocratic code, and as such a keystone o f a feudal society no longer in its prim e. T hey signified all that was due from a m an o f ‘gentle blood’ to others, especially to his equals, and all that was due to him from his inferiors. Inspired by these self-advertising values, the w orld o f the Histories is a bleakly m asculine one. N oblem en feel a strong sense o f family, expressed in loyalty to their fathers; their m others seldom com e into anyone’s m ind. Y oung Clifford’s threats o f vengeance, over his father’s dead body, are impressive, except w hen they lapse into classical tropes (2 H .V IV .ii). A part from family ties, there are few signs o f any close personal bonds; we are am ong a race o f Hobbesian egotists. Shakespeare is only on the threshold o f his task o f spinning threads betw een hu m an souls. H e is quicker at learning to assign motives. Clarence deserts his brother Edw ard IV from resentm ent at not being rew arded w ith a rich heiress. B uckingham has very definite expectations in retu rn for helping Richard III to the throne, and rebels w hen he is Past politics fascinated Shakespeare from the beginning - so obviously th at it is scarcely possible to think that he was not interested in the politics o f his ow n time. C u t-a n d -th ru st debate o f the kind m et early in Henry V I Il.iv) was the precursor o f m any such scenes to come, in the H istories and beyond. T he politician’s psychology was one o f his fields o f study. Y ork’s long soliloquy at the end o f the first scene o f Henry V I Part 2 is a m asterly dram atic m onologue, the self-revelation o f a bold and adroit schem er w ith strong passions held in check by calculation. H igh politics, national and international, are the great game. As W arw ick lies dying he is still under its spell, the sensation o f open pow er and subter­ ranean combat: he can boast o f how he has learned ‘T o search the secret treasons o f the w orld’ (3H .V I V.ii.18). W h e n Salisbury in King John sheds tears at the tho u g h t o f having to take up arms against his ow n country-

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men, the Dauphin tells him he should leave tears to

never looked higher than the m irth and gossip o f private life. Excitem ent and gain go together; he ends by prom ising the earl a good share in ‘the T h e great gam e is not for weaklings. H um phrey o f G loucester’s virago wife thinks him , as H enry V i’s wife and friends think him , too m ild and unsuspicious. She is quite right w hen she warns him that his enemies are on his trail, and he is foolish w hen he relies on his innocence to safeguard him . His last words are those o f a m an hem m ed round by unpitying foes, w ith no one to take his part, alone w ith his fate (2H .VI III.i. 142 ff.). C om petition is increasingly savage. Shakespeare is very unlikely to have know n M achiavelli’s Discourses at first hand, but there is plentiful evidence o f his fam iliarity w ith their doctrines (M elchiori 91 2). Best fitted by nature to feel at hom e in the ju ngle is som eone like Richard Crookback, w ho revels in the thought o f outdoing ‘the m urderous MachiaveP (3H . V I Ill.ii. 193). Resolving to m urder his wife and m arry his niece, he reflects, very m u ch like M acbeth, that he is ‘So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin’ (R.III IV.ii.62): a lesson o f all these plays. John, unlike Richard, is capable o f repenting - or at least regretting - a w icked design, and realizing that there is ‘N o certain life achieved by others’ death’ (KJ IV.ii.105). If Elizabeth T u d o r ever listened to these words, they may have rem inded her o f M ary Stuart’s head on the block. Few o f Shakespeare’s characters, good or bad, need Joan o f Arc’s rem inder that ‘O f all base passions, fear is m ost accursed’ (1H .VI V.ii.18): a succinct statem ent o f the code o f honour. N oblem en are stoical in adversity, defiant in face o f death, even w hile baited by their enemies like Red Indians at the stake, as Y ork is. ‘T ru e nobility is exem pt from fear’, declares Suffolk, in the hands o f his captors (2H .VI IV.i.105). He, like m any others, is at his best or boldest w hen he is about to die. Richard II’s favourites hear their sentence w ith o u t a trem or, and Green is sure that ‘H eaven will take our souls’ (R.II III.i). W orcester submits to his fate briefly and - one o f Shakespeare’s great words - ‘patiently’ ( 1H.IV V.v.12). T his physical courage is a virtue that Shakespeare can admire and extol, b u t it can go w ith a brutality relieved only by occasional gleams o f generosity. Suffolk has been responsible for the strangling o f his far m ore deserving enem y H um phrey. Y oung Clifford is a Tybalt, a devotee o f the blood feud at its worst, as his m urder o f the boy R utland Treason is a ‘labyrinth’ w here ‘M inotaurs lurk’, Suffolk warns him self ( lH .V IV.iii. 188-9); it does n o t take him long to overcome any scruples.

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Short o f treason, there is a great deal o f treachery and bad faith in the record. Casuistry allows the Y orkist party, after its agreem ent w ith H enry, to decide w ith o u t waste o f tim e that its oath is not binding on it. Alengon is a ‘notorious MachiaveP or treaty-breaker on the French side (1 H .V IV .iv.74, 163-4). ‘T ru st nobody, for fear you be betrayed’ (2H .VI IV.iv.58) is a seasonable w arning to all. ‘T here is no w rong, b u t every­ thing is right’, a Lancastrian accuses the o ther side o f believing (3H. VI Il.ii. 132). In one o f the finest passages in Richard III, Hastings bewails the folly o f relying on the faithless favour o f m en (III.iv.91-2). ‘T here is neither tru th nor h o n o u r in all these noble persons’, H azlitt com m ents T here are m om ents w hen a feudal lord can be heard striking a note o f principle - or ‘taking the high m oral ground’, as politicians say nowadays. W arw ick urges Gloucester and W inchester not to injure king and country by their wranglings; b u t we have lately seen him in private as a heated Y orkist partisan (1H .VI lll.i; Il.iv). Gloucester seems to have earned some respect as Protector, by contrast w ith Suffolk, w ho is an oppressor o f the poor, an enclosing landlord or stealer o f village com m ons. Generally the individuals w ho show some better feeling are m in o r figures. T here is patriotism o f a sort - m ostly a very aggressive sort. It attains a better quality in the later part o f King John, b u t the English nobles there are indistinct, unconvincing. Salisbury’s ‘holy vow’ to deny h im self every pleasure o f life until he has paid dead A rth u r ‘the w orship o f revenge’ sounds histrionic, like the high-flow n chivalry paraded at first by King Philip and Austria (IV.iii.66 f f ). As a class this nobility seems incorrigibly vicious. Crim es m eet w ith retribution, b u t can hardly be said to be expiated. ‘M easure for m easure m ust be answered’ (3H .VI II.vi.55) is the keynote throughout: revenge exacts revenge. Some o f these bad m en feel retribution falling on them in Richard III, w ith the prophetic curses o f M argaret and others com ing true. T here is no C hristian forgiveness am ong any o f these m en and w om en, and we have little inclination to forgive them . Shakespeare was no m edievalizing rom antic, and his procession o f snarling, squabbling, school-bully lords looks deliberately unpleasant. T he Histories may teach that Englishm en are superior to Frenchm en, b u t they also teach that E ngland’s masters are - or w ere until recently - far worse m en than m ost other Englishm en, and perfectly indifferent to the hardships or grievances o f those below them . Richard III, concluding the W ars o f the Roses, is the culm ination, a kind o f suicide o f an archaic feudal order, w ith Richard a wild beast turned loose against the others, splendidly destructive and, in the end, self-destructive. T here are still troublesom e nobles in store for us, but they are both less villainous and less resolute

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Poor folk are only onlookers at history, like spectators in a theatre, T hom as M ore w rote in his History o f Richard III (about 1513). His assum ption was the general one, and sufficed for chroniclers concerned w ith n o t m uch m ore than the doings o f the great. Shakespeare’s principal authority, H olinshed, had little to offer him o f the social or econom ic inform ation needed by the m odern historian. His ow n curiosity led him towards such matters, and we m ay suppose that he had thought m u ch m ore about them than he could bring into his plays. H e was n o t alone - indeed, in his social criticism he was m ore restrained than some o f his fellow -w riters (see H einem ann, ‘D ram a’). H e was fonder than m ost o f them o f exhibiting, in m en on the lower or lowest rungs o f the feudal ladders, virtues o f com m on hum anity that those above them have been losing. Retainers can show m ore loyalty to their lords than these do to their king, and are ready to take up their masters’ quarrels as their own. W inchester’s m en and Gloucester’s brawl in the streets, and profess their willingness to fight and die for them. T his is adm irable, b u t also - as in Romeo and Juliet - stupid, a sym ptom o f social distem per. Individuals show up better. O ne o f H u m p h rey ’s m urderers, hum ble tools o f Suffolk, regrets the deed the m o m en t it is done; scarcely any o f the great are ever touched by such remorse. O n e o f Clarence’s m urderers has to struggle in a style o f black h u m o u r w ith conscience - a little like Falstaff w ith H o nour - as som ething enfeebling that a m an w ho means to rise m ust hold in check; after the w ork is done he feels like a Pilate, and renounces his share o f the rew ard (R.III I.iv). H u b ert’s assistant is horrified at the idea o f A rthur being blinded. H u b ert him self spares A rthur; he wins our further esteem, w hen threatened and insulted by Salisbury, w ith his retort that his sword is as sharp as the earl’s, and that although he w ould not beard a noblem an from choice, he w ould defend his good nam e ‘against an In Shakespeare’s day the party, destined to take shape from the 1640s onw ard as the decisive factor in political evolution, was n o t yet m uch m ofe than a religious or court camarilla, looking around for backing. In the course o f the Histories the inchoate grow th can be traced, w ith its m anagers accum ulating a fund o f tactical skill. W orcester admonishes his fellow -conspirators that insurgents m ust take care n o t to let prying eyes see or suspect any disunity am ong th em ( 1H .IV IV.i.60 f£). Just as m onarchy has to broaden itself o u t into state power, w ith an ear open to public feeling, feudal faction widens into the beginnings o f a party by discovering the need for a popular base, and the arts o f demagogy. Even in the first stages there is sporadic recognition o f the utility o f an appeal to som ething like ‘public opinion’ (an entity still highly in ­ coherent and volatile in our ow n day). Charges are often bandied about -

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though we never get to the bottom o f them - o f em bezzlem ent o f arm y funds m eant for the French wars, overtaxing o f ‘the needy com m ons’, and so on (e.g. 2H. V I Ill.i. 108 ff ). Leaders profess at times - as in the opening scene o f Henry V I Part 2 - a disinterested regard for the public good, and accuse one another o f ‘am bition’, greed for ‘preferm ent’. Allusions to the im portance o f conciliating the com m oners m ultiply as tim e goes on. Salisbury com m ends his son W arw ick for having w on esteem by his ‘deeds’, ‘plainness’, and ‘housekeeping’ (2H.VI I.i.l89-90) or open-handed hospitality, including food for the poor at the rich m an’s gate. Even the wicked C ardinal o f W inchester thinks it w o rth ­ w hile to angle for street favour, by calling H um phrey ‘a foe to citizens’ and saying that his w ar policy cripples them w ith taxes. H um phrey retaliates by com ing to Parliam ent w ith ‘w ritten pam phlets’ or posters against his enem y (1 H .V II.iii; IILi). His popularity can have been gained only by ‘flattery’, M argaret asserts, and it will enable him to draw the m u ltitu d e into a ‘com m otion’ w henever he pleases (2H .VI III.i.28-30). D ow n to the eighteenth century any public applause could be looked at In the end it is n o t H um phrey’s pam phlets b u t his m urder that excites a tu m u lt at Bury St Edm unds, w ith a clam orous dem and for Suffolk’s banishm ent: if the king does n o t give them satisfaction, the people will take their ow n measures to shield him from evil advisers. This nerves H enry to get rid o f Suffolk, the chief culprit and Q ueen M argaret’s lover (2H. VI III.ii). These dem onstrators have noblem en to speak for them ; b u t as a rule, suspicion and hostility are habitual betw een nobles and com m oners. T he crow d expresses its resentm ents as it can, w hich m ay be brutally enough, as w hen it laughs and jeers at Elinor, sentenced to barefoot penance in the street (2H .V I Il.iv). H er husband’s presence, although he is the good D uke H um phrey, does not restrain the mob. B ut H u m p h rey ’s noble foes bait h im in defeat ju s t as unfeelingly, and ju st as W h e n Edw ard IV is seeking a m arriage alliance w ith France, King Lewis inquires w hether he is ‘gracious in the people’s eyes’, and is given suitable assurances; b u t W arw ick, having broken w ith him , accuses him - in quite m o d em accents - o f n o t know ing ‘how to study for the people’s w elfare’ (3H. V I Ill.iii; IV.iii). T here is nothing to show w hether in reality one faction is any better at governm ent than the other; and since there is no sign o f prom ises o f better times ever being fulfilled, the people m ay be excused if they are as fickle in their preference as their betters com plain. T hey m ight well be expected to relapse into in ­ difference; instead, Shakespeare’s picture is o f mass feeling continuing to ferm ent, b u t taking unexplained, seemingly irrational courses. T o the pow er-seekers - themselves often quite changeable enough -

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the people appear to be weathercocks, turning in the direction o f each new wind. H enry shrinks from a trial o f strength w ith the Yorkists in London because ‘the city favours th em ’. L ondon was Yorkist, according to the chroniclers. B ut later on, W arw ick talks o f leaving him there in safety am ong his ‘loving citizens’. T hey do nothing for him w hen, while he is congratulating him self on the goodwill his ju st rule m ust have w on him , Edw ard breaks in and seizes him (3 H .V I Li; IV.viii, ix). C aptured earlier on, he had bewailed ‘the lightness o f you com m on m en’ (3H .VI III.i.89). Clifford, dying, has bitter w ords for ‘T h e com m on people’ turning towards the new sun. T w o Acts later the ‘com m on people’ are sw arm ing to desert the Y orkist cause and jo in W arw ick; yet w hen E dw ard IV comes back to England, ‘m any giddy people flock to h im ’ (JH .VI II.vi; IV.ii, viii). Such experiences help to explain w hy a m an like H enry VI sighs for the tranquil life o f a shepherd, far from all the ‘care, m istrust and treason’ that surround a king (3H .V H I.v). M uch o f thevtalk about the fickle masses sounds like literary stereo­ type. In Kingjohn the feeling o f the streets is - as usual - only reported to us, and leads to nothing positive; b u t the report is m uch m ore detailed and vivid. Confused the mass m ind m ay have been, b u t it is not dully apathetic; there is a lively, if elem entary, interest in public affairs, a sense o f involvem ent in them . Tillyard m ay be right in saying that the artisans w e hear o f as so avid for news are bystanders, n o t ‘m em bers o f the body politic’ (Historical Plays 233); b u t m en so eager to learn about events may be relied on to w ant a share in m aking th em before long. They are m ost easily roused by happenings or rum ours o f the sort we call ‘sensational’ and, as is still the case today, n o t by ideas and principles b u t by person­ alities, stories o f m en or wom en. Just as excitem ent was kindled by H u m p h rey ’s m urder, now it is the suspected m urder o f A rthur. P andulph predicts the effect: a restless populace, uneasy and unsettled, ready to interpret any happening, natural or unnatural, as a portent T his m ust have been a state o f m ind fam iliar to Shakespeare, in an England u nder stress o f little-understood change, to w hich erratic m oods or w ild guesses w ere an unsurprising response. At the climax, w hen J o h n is ‘giddy’ w ith a press o f bad news, the Bastard brings in a ‘pro p h et’, Peter o f Pom fret, w ho ‘in rude, harsh-sounding rhym es’, has been foretelling calam ity and leaving his hearers ‘strangely fantasised’ (IV.ii. 131 ff , 193 ff ). T here follows H u b ert’s famous description o f a people seized by strange fears, a kind o f vertigo; a blacksm ith letting his iron cool on the anvil as he listens open -m o uthed to the news told by a tailor w ho has ru n o u t in haste w ith his slippers on the w rong feet. In Henry I V Part 2 R um our, as Prologue, censures the spreading o f baseless tales, frivolous alarms. Elizabeth’s governm ent can be expected to have

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approved. Shakespeare’s interest in this feature o f mass psychology shows m ore hum orously in D ogberry’s nonsense about somebody called ‘D eform ed’, whose genesis is his m isunderstanding o f a w ord (M A A N A single passage o f Henry V I Part 2, not followed up, tells us that the C ade outbreak is being instigated by the Yorkists (III.ii.355 ff.). T here is deep discontent in the K entish countryside, w hich m ischief-m akers m ight thin k o f exploiting. B ut the rising and its leader are depicted as a m ixture o f brutality and childish folly. Shakespeare, it has frequently been repeated, could esteem individuals o f any rank, but not the crowd o r mob; and the dictum is n o t w ith o u t w arrant. K nowledge o f national events m ight be spreading, b u t people’s collective ties and experience o f organizing were narrow ly local, W h en m en under some extraordinary im pulse flocked together in num bers, like Cade’s host or any London m ob, they w ere only a chance collection o f strangers, and their be­ haviour was incalculable. C onsidering this, Shakespeare does not display an undue m istrust o f the ‘people’, or panic fear o f it. His crowds go astray less from listening to leaders o f their own, like Cade, than w hen they let themselves be taken in by deceivers from the ruling class, like Clifford in T h e w ealthier citizen class, already im portant in fifteenth-century England, was a class that Shakespeare and his fellow-actors had no cause to love; and the only m em bers o f it w ho are allowed to w in our adm ira­ tion are n o t Englishm en b u t the burghers o f Angiers in King John. Indeed, their role is so com m anding as to look like a foretaste o f things to com e about in England’s n o t too distant future. B ut w hen English burgesses m ake an appearance they are sober men, douce householders fond o f a quiet life, opposites in every way to the fiery aristocrats. T heir senior representative, the M ayor o f London, does intervene in a resolute style to stop the brawl o f feudal retainers (1H .VI I.iii): he reads a riot act, threatens to ‘call for clubs’ - a tu rn o u t o f ’prentices, w ho could be a form idable force - and gets them to disperse. H e is left shaking his wise head over their cantankerous behaviour: ‘I m yself fight not once in forty year’. A little later he attends Parliam ent to petition the king against the disturbers o f public order. T h e M ayor o f C oventry is tongue-tied while the nobles w rangle (3H .V IV . i); his brother o f Y ork is easily hoodw inked by Edw ard IV into opening the city gates - he is a good old fellow, Hastings com m ents, happy to see all well so long as he does not have to W ith Richard Crookback we take a big stride forward in the technique o f politics, or political m anipulation; he is its first real master, and revels in his virtuosity. Act III o f Richard III in particular is a thrilling spectacle o f plotting and scheming, w ith judicial m urder for accelerator.

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R ichard’s situation obliges him and B uckingham to pay court to the respectable citizenry o f London, and its spokesman the mayor, rather than to the populace; and they are n o t easily swayed, even if they are hesitant about speaking their minds. W e hear three o f them anxiously discussing things - ‘the souls o f m en are full o f dread’ (Il.iii) - b u t they have no n otion o f m en like themselves taking a hand; they can only leave God to dispose. T he m ayor can be bullied into acquiescence, b u t the citizens m aintain an obstinate silence. A lawyer em ployed to forge a long indictm ent against Hastings, designed to show that he had a regular trial instead o f being executed o u t o f hand, reflects that everyone will see thro u g h this ‘palpable device’, though no one will dare to open his R ichard C rookback finds no national grievances to m ake capital out of; in Richard II private wrongs m erge w ith discontents o f a public nature. W h e n Y ork rem onstrates against R ichard’s seizing the belong­ ings o f the dukedom o f Lancaster, now B olingbroke’s, as soon as the breath is o u t o f his father Jo h n o f G aunt’s body, he dwells on its bad consequences as an affront to all property rights, certain to raise up countless opponents. N orthum berland talks to his friends about how other noble houses are being despoiled, for the benefit o f royal favourites w ho lodge false accusations against them (Il.i). A t the same time, ordinary folk are being harassed by ‘grievous taxes’. T he favourites know how they are hated, and are in fear o f being to m to pieces by ‘the w avering C om m ons’, whose love, Bagot naively complains, ‘lies in their B olingbroke’s core o f support is a group o f fellow-grandees, b u t he needs the m an in the street on his side, to m ake sure o f being the forem ost candidate w hen the throne falls vacant. He has no need to stir up disaffection, b u t only to p u t him self at its head. Again - and still m ore acutely than in Richard III - we are m ade to feel that we are standing on the boundary betw een two epochs w hen we first w atch the cham pions ready to fight in the arena, then hear o f one o f them setting o u t into banishm ent am id the clam our o f the streets, and o f his ‘fam iliar courtesy’ to ‘poor craftsm en’, draym en, oyster-wenches (I.iv). C ontrasting eras stand out again w hen Bolingbroke is on the throne, and H otspur, as incapable as a C oriolanus o f stooping to cajole the rabble, pours contem pt on him as a ‘king o f smiles’, a ‘fawning grey­ h o u n d ’, and on his tactics after his retu rn from exile, w hen he declaim ed against abuses o f governm ent and pretended to weep ‘O ver his country’s w rongs’ (1 H .IV I.iii.246, 251; IV.iii.81-2). N o one has ever draw n a m ore living picture than Shakespeare o f this style o f aristocratic demagogy, destined to flourish long in England. W e can already descry in the distance D ryden’s Achitophel, bow ing popularly low, and even catch a

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far-o ff glim m er o f the Prim rose League. H enry IV lectures his undutiful son about ‘O pinion that did help m e to the crow n’, and the ‘courtesy’ and ‘hum ility’ he cultivated in order to w in it. H e points out at the same tim e that w hile royalty m ust stoop to conquer, it m ust m aintain at m ost Richard II’s queen is n o t surprised to hear her gardeners talking o f affairs o f state, because everyone does so w hen political change is in the offing (Ill.iv). Shakespeare does not think o f opinion as a m atter o f settled conviction; under H enry IV it is still a ‘wavering m u ltitude’ that we are faced w ith (2H .IV Prol.). B oth the governm ent and its ill-wishers are nervous and m istrustful o f it - a symptom , as Shakespeare m ust in some degree have recognized, o f a g u lf betw een the w hole ruling class and the rest o f the country. It is H enry’s tu rn now to denounce those w ho w ould incite ‘fickle changelings and poor discontents’, penniless m en longing for ‘pellm ell havoc and confusion’ (1H.IV V .i.72 ffi). In the long-draw no u t disintegration o f the feudal order there was inevitably a dangerous mass o f discontent, the unlucky ones left w ithout a perch to cling to; and the same label could be conveniently pinned on to social grievances o f It m ight be asked w hat danger such riffraff could be to law and order; b u t considering that part o f the royal force at Shrewsbury consisted o f soldiers like Falstaffs scarecrows, it m ust be allowed that any outbreak could be - at least tem porarily - a m enace to be taken seriously. At the prospect o f disturbances, ‘Rich m en look sad, and ruffians dance and leap’ (R .II Il.iv): everyone w ith som ething to lose w ould see the p o in t o f such a warning. This m eant n o t the rich only, even if a good m any had n othing to lose b u t their lives. In a free-for-all breakdow n o f order it m ay be the poor, least able to protect themselves, w ho com e o ff worst. Shakespeare m ust have had this in m ind in his eloquent condem nations o f disorder (on w hich see M uir, in Kettle), though on the surface they m ay seem to echo official anathemas. Society in his tim e was in a chronic condition n o t o f regular class struggle, b u t o f a m ore elem ental tension In these plays it is naturally spokesm en o f the ruling class w hom we hear draw ing the moral. H enry IV’s com m ander reproaches rebel leaders w ith fom enting a revolt that ought to be left to ‘base and abject routs’, ‘boys and beggary’ (2H .IV IV.i.32 ff). Revolt, in other words, was no longer a pastim e to be carelessly indulged in by great men: all m en o f w eight should close their ranks against it - as in T u d o r times they were learning to do. All the ‘absolute m onarchies’ arose on the basis o f aristo­ cratic fear o f the poor, as well as m iddle-class disgust w ith feudal disorderliness. O n the other side the A rchbishop o f York, while declaring that he and his friends m ust broadcast their reasons for taking

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up arms, seems to have no inkling of the real ills that the people are sm arting under: w hat sets them in m o tion is m ere irresponsibility, restless love o f change. T hey hated Richard; now they regret him , and are tired o f Henry. ‘W h a t trust is in these times?’ (2H .IV I.iii.85 f£). T he conspirators do talk vaguely o f misrule, and a suffering country, but they have to eke o u t their appeal w ith dried blood said to have been scraped o ff R ichard’s prison wall, under the sanction o f the archbishop’s nam e O utw ardly, nobility in the later plays is still a distinct, separate caste. It goes w ith H otspur’s feudal arrogance to reprove his wife for using m ealy-m outhed m iddle-class turns o f phrase ( 1H .IV III.i.247 ff.); the great should be free to use any sw ear-w ords they choose. T here is less contem ptuous treatm ent o f inferiors now, however, than in H enry V i’s reign. W h e n kings or w ould-be kings are learning to be civil to com m oners, the blue-blooded m ust trim their tongues likewise; W orcester reproves his nephew H otspur for lacking the self-control proper to his rank. B u t on the battlefield, gentility keeps its pride o f place and its disrelish for plebeian company. At Shrewsbury, w hat H al finds regrettable is that ‘M any a noblem an lies stark and stiff, ‘stained nobility lies trodden on’ ( 1H .IV V.iii.41, iv.13). T h e fate o f m en like Falstaffs recruits does n o t call for notice. A fter the ro u t o f the French at A gincourt their herald comes to beg perm ission for them to ‘book’ and bury their dead; the fact that m any o f the highest ‘Lie drow ned and soaked in m ercenary blood’ (H .V IV.vii.70 ff.) seems an indignity m ore tragic than the loss o f the battle. W e can read into these attitudes an oblique censure o f the ostentatious self-conceit o f Elizabethan E ngland’s W hatever its trappings and pretensions, the inner vitality o f aristo­ cracy, like that o f m onarchy, is visibly decaying. T he poor old D uke o f York, left in charge by Richard II, fum bles and bumbles, unequal to em ergency and divided in sympathy. Schopenhauer took the character o f N orthum berland, in this play and Henry IV, as an example o f a weak m an repeating one cycle o f conduct, entering the scene w ith a weighty, impressive air, failing to live up to it, and finally com ing to grief (231-3). It is really n o t so m uch the individual as his political setting that has altered. N o rth u m b erlan d ’s son H otspur scarcely belongs to his; he is a throw back to an older life still persisting until Jam es I’s day in the wild n o rth ern borderland. H e has a rom antic, chivalrous streak, but also m ore T h e Percy rebellion will be form idable, B lunt rem arks, ‘If promises be kept on every h and’ (lH .IV III.ii.167-8); b u t they are not. After H otspur’s death his w idow ’s eulogy o f him throw s into relief the poor quality o f those left behind. She reproaches his father w ith his craven absence from

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the field at Shrewsbury, b u t now that a second attem pt is being planned she counsels him not to throw in his lot w ith the rebels until he is sure they are w inning (2H .IV Il.iii). W h e n the rebels are tricked into laying dow n their arms, and led away to execution, feudal insurrectionism is ending w ith a w him per. A m inor figure, Coleville, surrenders tam ely to Falstaff, m uch as the French gentlem an at A gincourt surrenders to Pistol. Coleville too is sent to the block, leaving his captor to sing the praises o f M ortim er pictures W ales in English feudal term s w hen he urges G lendow er to gather his ‘tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlem en’ ( 1H .IV III.i.88). B ut these satellites o f great m en are not so ready now to answer their call, w hen it comes to taking up arms against the govern­ m ent. H otspur is disgusted to find one m an he has approached putting him o ff w ith a letter o f civil excuses, w hile protesting his ‘love’ for the Percies, and suspects that the w riter will inform against him ( 1H.IV Il.iii. 1 ff.). Feudal ties in the N o rth o f England were w eakening in Elizabeth’s time, though even then they were stronger than in areas nearer the capital (James); the n o rth ern rising o f 1569 and its failure were It is against the background o f an old society crum bling that its concept o f H onour, all through Henry IV , is being called into question. Falstaff, the renegade gentlem an, derides it. H otspur idolizes it, but makes it look silly by his extravagance, and w ith him it lacks any serious m eaning; it has sunk into m ere vainglory, or a figm ent o f fancy to be snatched from the pale-faced moon. O ne indication o f this descent is th at the old chivalric linkage o f H o n o u r w ith Love, Mars w ith Venus, and b o th o f them w ith the m instrel’s art, has broken down. H otspur has only a rough-and-ready regard for his wife, thinks oftener o f his horse, In the Histories, through w hich Shakespeare was w orking his way towards an understanding o f his society, m anifold meanings o f the w ord ‘H o n o u r’ jostle together. It m ight m ean a m an’s inner sense o f duty and right action; m ore usually it m eant some token o f his outw ard standing. As the badge o f gentility, h o n o u r was fraying at the edges; w hat was left was chiefly its central value, courage, readiness to face death w ithout flinching. Even this ultim ate virtue is wilting. In the Parliam ent scene in Richard II the exchange o f insults and challenges, one lord after another throw ing dow n his gage, serves no purpose except to show the nobility in hopeless disarray. W orse follows: the first loud challenger, Aumerle, is soon taking p art in a plot against the new king: his tim id father Y ork gets w ind o f this, and hurries o ff to denounce his son as a traitor, while his wife follows to beg her son off, and Aum erle, w ho has lost his nerve, gets there first to kneel and plead for pardon (V.iii). A nything m ore

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hum iliating for noble breeding - indeed, for royal blood - can scarcely In Henry I V the shadow o f cowardice lengthens, am ong m en o f high degree as well as thieves at Gadshill. T he recreant w ho declines to jo in H otspur is ‘a shallow cowardly h in d ’ ( 1H .IV Il.iii. 17). W h en N o rth ­ um berland talks o f his ‘h o n o u r’ com pelling him to fight, Lady Percy declares that he has throw n it away already by leaving his son in the lurch. His final defeat and death are reported, as they deserve, in a few offhand words [2H .IV Il.iii; IV.iv). N othing tells us m ore about the m oral debility o f the old ruling caste than the fact that it extends even to It was an adage old enough to be cited by Aristotle that a ruler m ust be on his guard against ‘over-m ighty subjects’, as T udor w riters called them . In the later Histories we see an inevitable contradiction between these great families and a swelling state power, each side convinced o f the o th er’s hostility. W orcester may be sincere w hen he says that he w ould have chosen a quiet old age [lH .IV V .i.22 ff.); b u t he feels that he and his clan m ust strike, or be struck dow n themselves. Before the battle H enry offers pardon, b u t he offers no guarantees, and there could be none for their future safety. In H otspur’s love o f honest fighting, and his hatred o f a ‘vile politician’ like H enry, an antithesis betw een two epochs can be seen. It is in favour o f established authority that the scales are tilting. N o rthu m b erlan d ’s allies M orton and Lord Bardolph agree that their party had ventured on ‘dangerous seas’, w here failure was far m ore probable than success. M orton sets great store by the archbishop’s reputation for piety; it will counteract the dam aging associations that the w ord rebellion has acquired, w hich unnerved H otspur’s followers at Shrewsbury or ‘froze them u p ’ like fish in a pond [2H .IV I.i). In another consultation som eone expatiates on the th orough preparations that m ust

Shakespeare’s classical allusions show h im an adm irer, above all other gods or demigods, o f H ercules (Boas, Elizabeth 79). H eroic bravery and strength ranked very high w ith him . W ars, soldiers, and their problem s had a pro m in en t place in Elizabethan dram a, now here m ore than in his plays (Langsam 1-2, ch. 2). T h e tread o f m arching - or stum bling armies resounds through the Histories. W a r is the native haunt o f the

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feudal classes, the vocation w here their endow m ents find a channel. It is the first them e that stirred Shakespeare to true eloquence, well in advance o f love, though the feelings it aroused in him m ight be contradictory. Y et in its details or m echanics he shows little interest. His im agery o f w ar reveals no particular acquaintance w ith it (Spurgeon 36). Some plays from other hands tell us m uch m ore - B eaum ont and Fletcher’s Bonduca, for instance. O nly h an d -to -h an d fighting really fired Shakespeare, because better than any other kind it brought to light the true m etal o f the w arrior - and, o f course, because it was the only kind he could exhibit on the stage. A battle was thus reduced to a simple slogging m atch, uncum bered by niceties o f tactics. T albot does ‘w onders w ith his sword and lance’, and derides the French for skulking behind the walls o f Rouen like ‘base m uleteers’ or ‘peasant foot-boys’, instead o f com ing o u t to fight ‘like gentlem en’ (1H .VI I.i. 122; III.ii.68—70). Logistics are treated very offhandedly. York, appointed Regent o f Ireland, expects to have an army, recruited from all the shires, aw aiting him at Bristol w ithin a fortnight. He brings an Irish arm y back w ith him and casually dismisses it somewhere betw een St Albans and London, telling the m en he will pay them the next day [2 H .V IIII.i.313, 328; V.i.44 ff ). Shortly afterwards the truce betw een him and the Lancastrians breaks dow n and he embarks on a battle, quite forgetting that he has already disbanded his forces. (Shakespeare is doing some drastic com pression o f events hereabouts: H olinshed 285 ff.). Reconnaissance w ork is equally neglected. ‘W here slept our scouts?’ W arw ick may well ask w hen an enem y host suddenly appears under his nose, or under the walls o f C oventry [3H.VI V.i. 19); and King Jo h n is equally taken aback by the abrupt apparition o f a French army: O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?

R ichard III is an exception. H e makes careful preparations at Bosworth, surveying the ground and settling the disposition o f his troops (R.III V.iii. 15 ff., 291 ff.). For him w ar is a com plex business, calling for experience and skill - even if dram atic effect requires him , w hen the battle comes, to fight and die like an ordinary soldier. As for long-range weaponry, there is scarcely m ore m ention o f archery than o f musketry. A rtillery furnished Shakespeare chiefly w ith thunderous imagery. T here is an aw kw ardly overstrained m etaphor in Henry V I Part 1 o f eyeballs turned into bullets; m ore eloquently B urgundy, persuaded by Joan to abandon the English alliance, says that h er w ords ‘Have batter’d m e like roaring cannon-shot’ (IV.vii; Ill.iii). G unnery makes itself felt at O rleans, besieged by the English. N o t

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surprisingly, T albot regards gunpow der as vulgar; this was the attitude o f all the E uropean aristocracy to the grand leveller o f the battlefield. W h e n a French m aster-gunner hits the tow er from w hich English com m anders are observing the town, and one o f them is killed, another w ounded, T albot is outraged by ‘this w oeful tragedy’, and breaks into bloodcurdling threats o f retaliation against ‘these dastard Frenchm en’ for their ‘treacherous’ conduct ( 1H.VI I.iv; Il.ii). (In colonial campaigns B ritish officers always considered it treacherous o f natives to am bush For us, and perhaps for Shakespeare, there was som ething em blem atic in that g unner’s cannonball, heralding the downfall o f the old m ilitary feudalism. G unpow der was dehum anizing warfare, nullifying its heroic qualities. In his - or H otspur’s - account o f the Battle o f H olm edon (1 H .IV I.ii.30 ff ), Shakespeare altered bows and arrows to cannon, so as to enable the foppish courtier to talk o f his dislike o f ‘villainous salt-petre’. W e are breathing a m odern air now. H otspur has feverish dreams about ‘palisades, parapets, culverins’ (II.iii.52 ff ). A t Shrewsbury Falstaff makes use o f a pistol-holster to carry his bottle o f sack (V.iii). In his next cam paign he gives one o f his recruits a caliver, or small musket, and bids him show how he can use it; fam iliarity w ith firearms m ust have been spreading in Shakespeare’s countryside. His m en are given ‘coats’, uniform s o f a sort - another im portant innovation {2H.IV I ll.ii). In Henry V Shakespeare moves forw ard som ewhat, though partly in quest o f hum orous m aterial. Fluellen and his com panions are officers w ith a pride in their expert knowledge, and their talk is o f mines and counterm ines rather than o f hon o u r and glory, even if the W elshm an always wants to drag in the disciplines o f the wars as practised by Pompey. C ontroversy still raged over the m erits o f R om an and m odern m ethods; Fluellen is a classicist, C aptain M acm orris the Irishm an a m odernist (Langsam 60-61). Longbow and m usket still competed. G unpow der and m ining are pro m in en t in the siege o f Harfleur, and the D uke o f Gloucester, to w hom its planning is entrusted, is ‘altogether directed’ by M acmorris: ill-advisedly, i f Fluellen is right in thinking this engineer ‘an ass, and as ignorant as a puppy-dog’ (III.ii.61 ff ). Generalship is m aking no sim ilar progress, because it is still the province o f the feudal elite. A t Agincourt, w hen action is about to com m ence, Y ork requests and is granted com m and o f the vanguard (IV.iii. 130-32), nobody having th o u g h t about such a detail before. W e do n o t see H enry fighting, but he rushes o ff to lead the assault at H arfleur, and after A gincourt we hear casually from him that he had a h an d -to -h an d grapple w ith Alengon T here is a pretty touch o f the rom ance o f w ar in the ‘dancing banners’ o f Philip’s arm y (KJ II.i.308), and in his vow to w in the day or throw

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away his life. T he Bastard hails this joyfully: true ‘glory’ shines out ‘W h e n the rich blood o f kings is set on fire!’ (Il.i). H e is not C oeur de L ion’s son for nothing. Jo h n has brought w ith him a flock o f ‘Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries’, young hopefuls w ho have sold their patrim onies to equip themselves. T he D auphin Lewis boasts likewise o f the ‘fiery spirits’ he has gathered ‘to w in renow n/E ven in the jaw s o f danger and o f death’ (Il.i; V.ii). B ut it is in a crisis o f battle, w hile trying to rally his broken troops, that C lifford the younger, in some ways H otspur’s precursor, pays the finest tribute to war. It sounds the first authentic note o f Shakespeare’s long endeavour to moralize war by endow ing it w ith a true mystique. T h e poet’s divided m ind shows in C lifford’s cry that w ar is the ‘son o f hell’, b u t also (as H enry V too proclaim s it) the ‘m inister’ o f heaven; and that its acolyte can have no

In m ore philosophical terms, the individual self cannot fully realize itself except by rising above itself, ceasing to be m erely individual. Battle is a collective ecstasy, whose intoxication can satisfy m an’s craving both to assert him self and to escape from or surrender himself. Mars and Venus can be seen n o t far apart, Elizabethans spoke o f the act o f love as a ‘dying’. Less dignified motives, revenge and profit, have m ore sway over m ost o f the cavaliers. Jo h n ’s volunteers are not too ‘inconsiderate’ to think o f recouping their fortunes in France; in other words, they are going there to loot the country as well as for the sake o f adventure and renown. As to the com m on soldier, in w hat we see o f his lot there is not m uch either o f glory or o f profit. Usually English soldiers, w hether at hom e or abroad, seem to be serving for pay; and there is a curious hin t o f the com m ercial­ izing o f warfare, like everything else, in Shakespeare’s day, w hen Richard II takes com fort in the thou g h t o f a host o f angels ‘in heavenly pay’, ready to fight on his side (III.ii.58—9). B ut in the stylized battle scene o f Henry V I Part 3 (II.v) a son and his father, w hom he has unw ittingly killed, have both been serving under com pulsion: one in the royal army, the other in that o f his ‘m aster’ the Earl o f W arwick. H ere and there are signs o f com m on soldiers feeling that they are exploited. French sentinels pity themselves for having to be out in rain and cold while their superiors sleep com fortably ( 1H.VI II.i.5-7). N o great zeal is ever displayed by the rank and file; their leaders are often dissatisfied w ith their perform ance. T albot and the D auphin each curse their soldiers for hanging back. Sometimes it occurs to a com m ander to m ake an effort to im prove their morale. W arw ick relates ruefully how at

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St Albans he found his m en fighting half-heartedly, striking their blows ‘like an idle thresher’ - a telling image from rustic life - and tried to hearten th em w ith talk about ‘the ju stice o f our cause’, and, m ore realistically, ‘w ith prom ise o f high pay’ (3H .V I Il.i.Ill ff.); b u t to no avail, perhaps because they have been scared by Clifford’s threat to kill all his prisoners. Edw ard IV assures his recruits o f ‘large pay’ if they win, as they m ove o ff to an engagem ent (IV.vii.83); in such contests, o f course, only the w inner w ould be able to pay anything. O th e r governm ents often found their ow n subjects too unwilling, untrained, perhaps m utinous, to m ake serviceable soldiers. From the later M iddle Ages reliance on professional troops draw n from a large cosm opolitan pool was growing, and Shakespeare lived at a tim e w hen foreign m ercenaries were in action all over Europe. In the Histories they are often at w ork on English soil, w ith o u t their presence seeming to call for any com m ent. In Henry VIPart 3 the tw o factions com pete for French aid: W arw ick invades England w ith troops supplied by K ing Lewis; Edw ard IV returns from exile at the head o f ‘hasty Germ ans and blunt H ollanders’ supplied by the D uke o f Burgundy; Q ueen M argaret lands w ith forces ‘raised in Gallia’ (IV.iii.3, 7 -8 ; V.iii). O nly fifteen years before Shakespeare’s b irth Italian and G erm an mercenaries w ere being em ployed to suppress risings o f com m on people in Cornw all and Such professional troops w ere expensive, and to m ake native levies m ore useful, m orale had to be im proved. D em agogy could be practised on soldiers as well as citizens. At B osw orth both com m anders exhort their m en to do their duty. R ichm ond’s long harangue is in a highly religious strain. H eaven and its saints are on their side, w hile Richard is G od’s enem y as well as a tyrant; they are fighting to protect their wives and children, though Richm ond does not forget to add that the m erest soldier w ill have his share in the ‘gain’ o f the victory. R ichard’s speech is less religious, m ore nationalistic. T h e enem y are invaders, foreign brigands like the ‘bastard B retons’ often defeated by Englishm en in their ow n country; they w ant to seize on our lands and our ‘beauteous wives’, and ‘ravish our daughters’ (R.III V.iii.238 ff.). M odern w ar propaganda has struck m any o f the same notes, and the sim ilarity betw een the two orations suggests intentional irony on Shakespeare’s part. H e m ust have had recurrent misgivings about war, in spite o f its glorious outside and its higher function as the ultim ate test o f the hum an spirit. H e could n o t help seeing that m any o f its cruelties fell on ordinary hu m an beings w ho had no concern w ith it. After Clifford’s dithyram b there is an abrupt change o f key w hen he comes on his father’s corpse, and breaks into one o f those threats o f slaughter that are Shakespeare’s m ost horrific utterances. At times even the warlords themselves are

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visited by thoughts o f w hat their am bitions are costing. Starting in Henry VI, there is an im agery o f w ar as an uproar o f w ild beasts preying on one another (Knight, Flower 17). In King John death itself becomes a monster. T h e Bastard has been hailing the ‘glory’ o f combat, b u t he goes on to a grisly speech about death preparing to ‘line his dead chaps w ith steel’ and Shakespeare’s self-im posed task o f refining warfare, preserving its astringent virtues w ith o u t its barbarities, is an arduous one. In King John, m ore directly than in Henry V, the m orality o f w ar is under debate. Philip pleads w ith Pandulph, vainly, n o t to disrupt the ‘sm iling peace’ by renew ing ‘T h e fearful difference o f incensed kings’ whose hands, ‘besm eared and overstained’ w ith blood, have only ju st been washed clean (III.i.224 ff.). In England, after Jo h n ’s abject submission to him , P andulph tries, equally vainly, to call o ff the D auphin, and exorcize ‘the savage spirit o f w ild w ar’ that he was recently bent on inflam ing (V.ii. 69 ff.). In this play belligerents m ake the w elkin ring w ith their rhetoric, b u t the fighting is fragm entary and inconclusive. W e have a deepening im pression o f Shakespeare grow ing distrustful o f w ar altogether, not simply o f civil war. Shifting pressures push governm ents on; hum ble folk H e w anted to breathe new life into the old chivalric tradition, to m ake a reality o f w hat had always been m ainly fantasy. A reconciliation betw een two old enemies like Douglas and H otspur, each the other’s w arm adm irer, has the true flavour o f rom antic legend. So have H otspur’s b rief words to his com panions before the battle - addressed to the ‘gentlem en’, n o t the rank and file - ending w ith his cry: ‘Sound all the lofty instrum ents o f war!’ (V.ii.83 ff.). B ut all this belonged to a heroic past whose feet o f clay Shakespeare was being com pelled to acknowledge m ore and more. M eanw hile we have been learning som ething o f the seamy side o f war, w hich found a place in some o f the m any m ilitary writings o f the Elizabethan period: that o f Gervase M arkham the ‘m uster-m aster’, for instance (cf. Langsam 29). Charges o f em bezzling arm y funds, bandied about am ong the magnates in Henry VI, Peculation low er dow n was notoriously rife in all sixteenth-century armies, b u t never so inim itably portrayed as in Falstaffs doings as a recruiting officer. In the Shrewsbury cam paign he makes ^ 3 0 0 by letting m en bribe themselves o ff from service, and fills the gaps w ith riffraff - runaw ay tapsters, penniless younger sons, jailbirds, ‘the cankers o f a long peace’ (V.ii.l 1 ff.). T here was manifestly a floating population o f broken m en ready to serve any employer. T hen, as for centuries to come, the arm y was the last refuge o f a pauper. In London Falstaff pretends to m istake the C h ie f Justice’s servant for a beggar, and reproves him for his

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shiftlessness: ‘Is there n o t wars? Is there n o t em ploym ent?’ (2H .IV Lii). T h a t Shakespeare’s picture was no caricature is show n by a report o f 1602 on a contingent o f eight hundred recruits gathered at Bristol; the comm issioners declared that they had never seen ‘such strange creatures’; all the able-bodied m en had m anaged to dodge the call-up (Boas, Elizabeth 163, 170; cf. LB. C am pbell 245-54; Cruickshank). Falstaff s m en look ‘pitiful rascals’ to Hal, b u t as their captain coolly rejoins, ‘they’ll fill a p it as well as better’ ( 1H.IV IV.ii.62 ff.). M en o f rank fight w ith swords; Falstaffs rabble are ‘peppered’ - bullets are good enough for them - and left dead, or helpless cripples, beggars for the rest o f their lives (V.iii.35 ff.). Such treatm ent o f soldiers was a crying evil o f T u d o r times. Raleigh was one w ho denounced it (Hill, Origins 169), and Shakespeare deserves com m endation for giving it such scathing publicity. This w ould have a special m eaning for playgoers, some o f w h o m m ight chance to find themselves im pressed into an arm y very like H enry IV’s; it m ust have been well enough received to make Shakespeare stage a recruiting scene in Part 2, w here there is no fighting b u t plenty o f m ilitary business. H ow the rebel chiefs have got their forces together is n o t m ade clear, b u t as soon as they are disbanded the m en hurry away hom ew ard, n o t w aiting for any pay, as gleefully as boys running hom e from school (IV.ii). Altogether, Shakespeare’s shining vision o f war, always blurred, was in danger o f fading out; illusion and reality were Henry F is his last grand attem pt in the H istories - a too galvanic one to reflate the cult o f h o n o u r and glory. W ith cleavage grow ing in England in the late 1590s betw een a w ar party and those im patient o f the burdens o f war, a propagandist note m ust have been obvious in the play. M u ch as in King John, the arm y bound for France has plenty o f enthusiasts, adventurous young gentlem en w ho ‘sell the pasture now, to buy the horse’ (Act Il.Prol.). In every breast ‘h o n o u r’s thought reigns solely’, though once m ore it is quickly followed by the thought o f rich prizes to be won. T here is m uch talk o f m aking prisoners; a m an o f good b irth m ight be above looting, b u t there was no bar to his taking ransoms. H owever, Shakespeare is doing his best to give us a reform ed soldiery as well as a tow ering hero, and national purpose (of a dubious sort) in place o f feudal am bition. D uring the cam paign we see very little o f the English noblem en w ith the army, Shakespeare has to respect the proprieties by giving them the lim elight occasionally, b u t they are only figureheads, even if we are not told that the real victors at A gincourt w ere the English and W elsh bow m en. T h e French arm y is far m ore an elite force, w ith only a small proportion o f privates serving for pay, and no technical services; its miserably poor perform ance is no advertisem ent for blue blood as an asset in war. Shakespeare refrains from pointing out

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that a feudal array has been routed by a m ore m odern and plebeian one, H enry addresses his troops at H arfleur as ‘yeom en’, and declares that none o f them is ‘so m ean and base’ as to be incapable o f noble em ulation. Elizabethan w riters often ran into extravagances w hen flattering those above them , and the same m ight happen w hen they were learning to flatter Demos. Shakespeare gets into a preposterous com parison o f a soldier’s frow ning eye to a cannon p rotruding from a cliff above a wild ocean; an image on a par w ith P.G. W odehouse’s o f a choleric old duke snorting through his snowy m oustache until it foams like a wave breaking on a stern and rockbound coast. H enry is for ‘m odest stillness, and hum ility’ as the proper behaviour for peacetime, tigerish ferocity for w ar (III.i.3 ff.). Similarly, W arw ick the king-m aker w anted his neigh­ bours ‘N o t m utinous in peace, yet bold in w ar’ (3H . V I IV.viii). It was a w ell-w orn idea; C haucer and M alory had long before held up as m odel the k night w ho was ‘lion in battle b u t lam b in the hall’ (G. H ughes 42). This, needless to say, could be the ideal o f every governm ent: any grievances that its subjects m ight nurse they should w ork off against H enry’s soldiers, he tells them before Agincourt, are his ‘band o f brothers’, and the m eanest will have a chance to ‘gentle his condition’ by his feats, or qualify as a gentlem an (H .V IV.iii.60-63). It was a rule in some early m odern armies that good service entitled a private soldier to challenge even an officer to a duel. Seeking to rekindle the torch o f chivalry, Shakespeare saw a need to extend the ‘honours o f w ar’ beyond the charm ed circle to a new breed o f soldier, plebeian b u t soberly selfrespecting. W illiam s and his comrades provide the only serious portrayal o f com m on soldiers in the Histories, probably the earliest in English literature. T hey are the vanguard o f a N ew M odel Army. W h o they are, w hat they have com e for - except to earn their bread - or w hat weapons they are arm ed w ith, Shakespeare does n o t tell us. H e m ust be partly inventing a species o f m en he feels ought to exist, as m uch as describing a kind he knows. H e wants m en w ith w hom the king can have a frank, edifying exchange o f views. Before A gincourt the arm y is painfully short o f supplies, b u t we hear no grum bling about food; these m en’s m inds tu rn to w eightier questions - o f conscience, o f the rights and w rongs o f war, and w ho is responsible for it. H enry, for his part, is the forerunner o f a long line o f B ritish generals w ho did n o t pretend to m uch technical know ledge or tactical skill, b u t prided themselves on their gift o f ‘leaderD over W ilson hailed the play during the Second W o rld W a r as ‘Shakespeare’s message’ to his countrym en in peril, as This Sceptred Isle was subtitled. If so, it m ust be called a very confusing one. W h a t cannot

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be gainsaid is that betw een Henry VI Part 1 and Henry V there has been a great change o f atmosphere. A strong u n d ercurrent o f criticism o f war makes itself felt. Shakespeare may have believed it scarcely possible to elim inate war; in view o f his reverence for valour, we cannot safely assume that he w anted it to disappear. In his m ind it often seems transform ed from reality to symbol, an expression o f feelings not easily p u t into any other form: an ideal touchstone o f m ankind’s fibre. It is noticeable that he often sends his favourites o ff to the wars, to w in their spurs, at a very early age. T he Bastard has only ju st left home. T here is some lack o f realism in the prowess o f such striplings, b u t youth m ust prove itself on the battlefield, as a rite o f initiation into m anhood. In Henry V Shakespeare resorted to various means o f softening the m ore aggressive aspects o f w hat the play w ould be assumed by m ost o f his audience to teach, besides the too obvious device o f spreading an aura o f divine favour over the English cause. A n English arm y is now a citizen arm y o f patriots, even if no plans for b etter treatm ent o f injured ex­ servicem en are being m atured. An English soldier is hanged for theft. T h e French have learned less; their nobility is frivolous, whereas in the English cam p even com m on soldiers can be ‘touched to fine issues’. A gincourt fits in well w ith Shakespeare’s scheme, because there the English are cornered, taken at a disadvantage; the battle m ade a good starting p o in t for the tradition, so dear to later-born Britons, o f their th in red line defying fearful odds. And at the end we are invited to suppose the tw o sides quitting the stage arm in arm, henceforth to live in Y et w ith all this, the dom inant im pression left behind is a sombre one. H enry is far too easily convinced that he is entitled to go to war, his C hristian conscience intact. In Act II Scene ii he accuses conspirators o f w anting to sell England to a foreign enem y whose com ing will m ean massacre, rapine, destruction. Some conspirators in Shakespeare’s England really were trying to do this, in the nam e o f religion. B ut H enry is about to descend on France, as a foreign enemy, and the consequences will be - as he knows - ju st as lurid. T he two-facedness o f nationalism could hardly be m ore clearly revealed. His accom m odating archbishop can savour the th o u g h t o f Edw ard III at Crecy smiling as he watched his son the Black Prince ‘Forage in blood o f French nobility’; the French king has a m ore painful tho u g h t o f Edw ard sm iling to see his son ‘M angle the w ork o f nature’ (I.ii. 108 ff.; IV.ii.60). ‘Famine, Sword, and Fire’ are to follow the hero to France, like hounds, w e are prom ised at the start; we m ay need to recall that Shakespeare’s audience revelled in H enry him self dwells often and feelingly on the horrors o f war, but finds it easy to shuffle the blame on to som eone else. It is the French

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governm ent, or the governor o f H arfleur, whose duty it is to take pity on their people and avert the terrific consequences w hich m ust otherwise fall on them , by surrendering. If H arfleur has to be storm ed, it will be impossible for him to hold the inflam ed soldiery back from every outrage. B ut ‘W h at is’t to me?’ It will not be his fault (III.iii. 19 ff.). W ar is an ‘im pious’ thing, he admits, ‘Arrayed in flames, like to the prince o f fiends’ (III.iii. 15-16). Peace, on the contrary, says B urgundy in his eloquent tribute, is the ‘D ear nurse o f arts, plenties, and joyful births’ (V.ii.35). Peace by honourable accord is the best kind o f conquest, we have heard the virtuous archbishop in Henry I V Part 2 say. This note, as well as its opposite, has been heard in the Histories from the beginning. Pope and em peror jo in to advocate peace in Henry V I Part 1; good D uke H u m phrey agrees, saying that he has always thought these wars betw een Christians ‘im pious and u nnatural’ (V.i). Certainly the lesson m eant to be heeded m ost in the Histories is that civil w ar is a horrible calamity, but its evils are n o t easily distinguished from those o f foreign war. H otspur left a w idow to bewail the cruelty o f ‘the hideous god o f w ar’ (2H .IV II.iii.35); so, no doubt, did m any o f the fallen at Agincourt.

H um phrey o f Gloucester, traduced by m alignant tongues, assures the king that he w ould willingly die if his death could end E ngland’s mis­ fortunes (2H. VI Ill.i). This king, exiled to Scotland, steals secretly back, w ith no aim o f recovering pow er b u t simply for the happiness o f treading his native soil once again (3H .V I III.i.12-13). Y oung A rth u r’s last w ords are ‘England keep m y bones’ (IV.iii). M owbray takes a feeling leave o f his hom eland, lam enting that he will no longer be able to speak his ‘native English’; Bolingbroke, likewise banished, vows to be always ‘a true born Englishm an’, loyal to his country’s ‘sweet soil’ (R.II I.iii). Richard, back from Ireland, ‘weeps for jo y ’ and caresses the earth w ith In the Histories, Shakespeare is the m ost eloquent o f all poets o f English patriotism , w ith an em otional, idealizing sense that wells up now and then o f w hat England is, or m ight be. It overflows in lyrical speeches that may have little dram atic relevance; above all, Jo h n o f G aunt’s apotheosis o f his m otherland as he lies dying. This ideal England, a rainbow or dream o f the future m ore than a present reality, often calls to m ind the country’s protective barrier o f the sea, the gift o f N ature or Providence. It is thought o f as an island, G aunt’s ‘sceptred isle’, w ith Scotland ignored, and w ith evocations, lit up by the fate o f the Armada, o f storm y waves and im pregnable cliffs. ‘England is safe, if true w ithin itself, Hastings declares (3H. V I IV.i,42 ff.) - m uch as the Bastard does in

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the closing lines o f King john. A n enem y too, the D uke o f Austria, talks o f the ‘roaring tides’ that are England’s ‘w ater-w alled bulw ark’ in its ‘U tm ost corner o f the west’ (KJ II.i.23 ff.) - though in fact in this play the waves devour English and French ships impartially. All this w ould seem to recom m end policies o f splendid isolation; and a speech like G aunt’s breathes a civilized, non-belligerent spirit m ore agreeable to associate w ith Shakespeare than any braying trum pets. B ut love o f country has everywhere been fed by hatred o f foreigners. His audience was blessed w ith a polarized m entality, a product o f changing times, w hich enabled it to love Falstaff the great sceptic as well as to adm ire H enry V the great tub-thum per. W ith one h alf o f its nature it w anted action, and blood. In 1592 N ashe reported that Part 1 o f Henry VI had been seen by ten thousand spectators in all, in tears as they watched their idol Talbot, covered w ith blood. T h ro u g h o u t the Histories runs the them e o f the superiority o f Englishm en over Frenchm en. W h e n France is being lost it cannot be adm itted that this is the result o f French bravery and patriotism ; it can only have been caused by a stab in the back, H ere is the sole issue on w hich the feuding lords can take a publicspirited stand. W arw ick actually sheds tears over it; Y ork bewails ‘the h o n o u r o f this warlike isle’ and dreams o f recovering France {2H.VI Li). His son Edward, in a very Shakespearian speech, avows that but for H enry V i’s disastrous m arriage and its results in France, his family w ould have let its claim to the throne sleep (3H . VI Il.i. 144 ff.). So obsessive is the issue that a Lancastrian envoy soliciting aid from a French king bases his party’s right to the English throne, very tactlessly, on the victories o f H enry V; for good measure he throws in Jo h n o f G aunt’s mythical conquest o f Spain (3H .V I lll.iii.81 ff.). T he boy prince Edward thinks about Julius Caesar, builder o f the T ow er o f London, w here he is soon to perish, and shows his royal spirit by resolving to ‘w in our ancient right in Shakespeare can sing the praises o f peace; yet a persistent conviction am ong his contem poraries, that peace brings national degeneracy, too often finds its way into these plays. He never seems to feel any need to give reasons for w hat is really a very startling belief. Like others, he was unconsciously looking at such things from a point o f view borrow ed from an upper class whose traditional function was fighting and w hich was in fact liable to decay, loss o f morale, w hen deprived o f opportunity. Som etim es Shakespeare clothes the idea in medical language: peace breeds plenty; surfeit breeds disease. B ut any notion o f the mass o f Englishm en sinking (as the archbishop in Henry VI Part 2 seems to suppose) into gluttonous self-indulgence and sloth is ridiculous, w hen a large p roportion o f them were famishing. ‘T he fat ribs o f peace’ sound

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more convincing when John talks o f the Church, and of subsidies to be Peace, being so unw holesom e, m ust lead to civil disorder. At first this m eant feudal faction-fighting; b u t as tim e goes on there seems to be some deeper-lying peril, som ething lodged in the nature o f society itself. Again, little logic is discernible. If peace brings m aterial com fort, swinish content, it may be bad for the hum an spirit, but there seems no reason for it to be bad for law and order; except that there will always be some w ho are dissatisfied w ith their share, and w hatever distempers appear m ay be w orsened by subversive thinking having m ore freedom to spread. In his defence o f dram a in 1612 as a teacher o f good civic conduct and respect for authority, Thom as H eyw ood w rote o f seditious sectaries sprouting like weeds ‘in the fatness and rankness o f a peaceable W h a t all this m eant at bottom was that Englishm en m ight love their native land, b u t they loved one another m uch less, because o f the social inequalities and clashing opinions that divided and estranged them. H ence national unity could only be precarious. T he Histories are full o f uneasy presentim ents o f civil strife, always thought o f as a grim prospect. T o H enry VI it is a ‘viperous w orm ’, and his great-uncle, honest old Exeter, has m uch to say o f ‘base and envious discord’ ( 1H.VI Ill.i). R ichm ond concludes Richard III w ith a condem nation o f civil strife; Richard II denounces the ‘sky-aspiring and am bitious thoughts’ that awaken the ‘grating shock o f w rathful iron arm s’ (I.iii). His uncle Y ork reproaches Bolingbroke w ith com ing back to England to stir up broils, ‘Frighting her pale-fac’d villages w ith w ar’ (Il.iii). Such fears find vivid expression in the Bastard’s image o f ‘vast confusion’ ready to fall on the country ‘like a raven on a sick beast’ (.KJ IV.iii.152-3). All the same, in T u d o r official presentation the peril may have been m agnified somewhat, because o f its usefulness as a bugbear; and in this Shakespeare may be said to have had a dutiful hand. In his plays hostilities are regularly prefaced by the direst threats and counterthreats. Between the rival chiefs in the W ars o f the Roses, these are as regularly carried out; m ore and more, as tim e goes on, the same ferocious treat­ m en t is prom ised to everyone on the enem y side - though we are left to w onder w hether it is actually inflicted. W h e n W arw ick and the Yorkists prepare to m arch on London, he intends to execute all those in towns on the road w ho fail to applaud them (3 H .IV Il.i. 194-7). B olingbroke threatens that if his banishm ent is n o t repealed and his rights restored, he will ‘lay the sum m er’s dust w ith showers o f blood’ from the veins o f ‘slaughtered Englishm en’ (III.iii). Richard II is ready for similar reprisals if his sacred prerogative is infringed. Falstaff observes - a m ore m odern touch - that even a ru m o u r o f political disturbances will depress the

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m arket value o f real estate; Hal adds a hum orous forecast o f girls being raped en masse ( 1H.IV II.iv.35 ff ). His father, king now instead o f rebel, inveighs against those w ho are unleashing ‘all-abhorred w ar’ (V.i.16). A fter all this, the only crim e we hear o f d uring the rising is a shirt stolen from an in n by one o f Falstaff s ragam uffins (he expects other linen to be rem oved from hedges on the march) (IV.ii.49 f£). Even the invaders from However, the stolen shirt may serve as symbol o f a real fear o f political dissension opening the door to social disruption. Pandulph, egging the French on to attack England, talks graphically o f how a discontented people will seize any chance to get in a blow at their governm ent (KJ Ill.iv). Insurgents will always m eet w ith a welcome, H enry IV is gloom ily aware, because there are always

And from here the argum ent leads back w ith renewed force to the necessity o f war. A state is strongest, Nashe wrote, that ‘lives every hour in fear o f invasion’. T here are always some m en ‘for w hom there is no use b u t w ar’ and who, if n o t em ployed against foreigners, will be fighting their com patriots (127-8). In an era o f surplus population, prone to lawless behaviour, such reasoning was plausible enough to be very tenShakespeare’s patriotic Englishm en are ju s t as ready to threaten their fellow -countrym en w ith fire and sword as to threaten foreigners. Clearly, then, it was best to find foreigners for them to fight. In King John, w hen English swords are about to be turned against each other, Salisbury sighs for a united crusade against the T urks (V.ii). H enry IV hunts the trail o f policy in the same direction. Part 1 opens w ith a long address from him about his preparations for a crusade, designed to heal the ‘furious close o f civil butchery’. T he sum o f his statecraft, as he delivers it on his deathbed to his son, is that it is futile to rely on the loyalty o f friends or the favour o f ‘giddy m inds’: hence to distract attention from affairs at hom e he has kept up a talk o f leading an arm y to the H oly Land, and his successor too, if he w ould be secure, m ust seek T rium phs abroad are the best guarantee o f a throne, and for a usurped throne the single justification strong enough to bar the claims o f legitimacy. It was only fitfully beginning to dawn on the Elizabethan m ind that the best way to forestall social unrest lay in finding social remedies, measures such as curbs on enclosure o f village com m ons or profiteering in times o f food scarcity. T h at the masses will and m ust

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always be painfully poor was an axiom. Maladies o f peace could be ‘purged’ only by war. A country ‘o’er-cloyed’ w ith inhabitants does well w hen it ‘vom its forth’ its surplus on ‘desperate ventures’, says Richard III In one o f his medieval novels W alter Scott rem arks that the loss o f French provinces was felt th roughout England as ‘a national degrada­ tion’; he points out that nobles were losing fiefs they had acquired in France, and that squires and yeom en had also m ade som ething o u t o f the conquest (Anne ch. 7). T here could be no benefits to the vast m ajority o f Englishm en from feudal acquisitions in France, though they had to bear a good share o f the costs. A few lucky ones am ong the rank and file m ust have got hom e w ith some plunder; others w ith at least a right to boast o f their feats am ong gaping neighbours, as H enry at A gincourt pictures his m en doing. O n this shallow foundation a m ythology could be reared about France (as later about India) as a great national property shared by all Englishm en, and the duty o f their sons to hold on to w hat their fathers had won. M uch help in keeping the tradition alive m ust have com e from the m ultitude o f local entertainers - minstrels, actors, perform ers o f all sorts, professional or am ateur, feudal or civic. T here is thus an underlying realism in the fiasco o f the Cade re­ bellion, as an object-lesson in how useful nationalism can be for diverting mass resentm ents. Cade him self has some respect for his sovereign for the sake o f his father, ‘in whose tim e boys w ent to span-counter for French crow ns’ (2 H .V I IV.ii. 154 ff ). Clifford, as royal deputy, has only to take up the glorious them e o f how H enry V ‘made all the French to quake’ in order to set the crowd cheering; and he plays an easy trum p card by asking w hether Cade will know how to defend them against a French invasion, or to lead them into France, and make all o f them ‘earls and dukes’. It is God and the King w ho will carry them to victory. ‘T o France, to France, and get w hat you have lost!’ This blatant trickery (as Shakespeare m ust surely have m eant it to be seen) wins the day, and Cade is left deserted, ruefully reflecting on his K entishm en’s folly: ‘T he nam e o f H enry the Fifth hales them to an h u ndred mischiefs’ (IV.viii). Each o f the first two T udors tried his hand at invading France, and m ust have counted on popular approval; M ary T udor, as schoolboys learn, died w ith the nam e o f lost Calais engraved on her heart. W e may think o f the fantasy o f a lost France as an outlet for grievances for w hich ordinary Englishm en could find as yet no rational expression or cure. It is in som e such fashion that all garblings o f mass discontent into fiction m ust be interpreted. England’s supposed need o f France was a distant forerunner o f Cecil Rhodes’s teaching that B ritons could prosper only if their rulers had a far-flung em pire to rule as well. By Shakespeare’s tim e France was turning into a symbol for hazily grandiose aspirations to

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w orldw ide expansion, ju st taking shape and evolving w ith scarcely a break o u t o f the old feudal instinct o f conquest. Ireland was the bridge, as Granada was for Castile. Appropriately, the Prologue to Act V o f Henry V does its best to w ork up enthusiasm for the com ing conquest o f Ireland along, w ith the bygone conquest o f France. All such national daydreams could be dram atized - allegorized, alm ost - in the shape o f an old legend like Agincourt, brought up to date by a w riter o f Shakespeare’s skill to herald a new era. A strong ‘colonial’ tinge colours nearly all the French scenes in the Histories - from the outset, w here the French are England’s ‘oft-subdued slaves’, and any resistance on their part is ‘treachery’ (1 H .VI I.V.32). Since then the author o f Henry V has learned m uch: he is a better historian or political observer now, and a great deal in this play is serious study o f a war o f aggression. It ends w ith an urbane mirage o f France not as a conquered dependency b u t as a partner w ith England in an amicable ‘league’ (V.ii.356 ff). W hatever the connection betw een the two, it was destined to break dow n before long. Foreign w ar appears to lead nowhere; yet if abandon­ m en t o f it m ust lead to civil war, the condition o f C hristendom appears altogether m orbid and unstable. It is a dismal confession for a patriotic

K enneth C lark deem ed Shakespeare unquestionably a sceptic, o f a kind ‘m ore com plete and m ore uncom fortable’ than the M ontaigne w hom he adm ired; he was ‘the first and may be the last supremely great poet to have been w ith o u t a religious belief (163-4). T here is a great deal o f C hristian feeling in Shakespeare, in term s o f ethics and a philosophy o f life: it is religion refined, held in solution, w ithout doctrinal colouring. His good m en and w om en are good spontaneously, thanks to their ow n natures, and because they feel sufficiently in tune w ith life to be above petty spites and jealousies. In an age o f religion - or rather, o f theology and clerical self-assertion - he created extrem ely few characters w ith a recognizably religious tem peram ent. H e could think him self into m any varieties o f m ind or m ood, b u t not easily, it seems, into this. Religion in the Histories, especially the early ones, is chiefly a w ing o f the feudal edifice, and its representatives are at first simply feudal nobles in other costume. W h en H um phrey o f Gloucester produces in Parlia­ m ent his indictm ent o f the wicked Bishop o f W inchester, the prelate snatches it from him and tears it up: he will have no truck w ith ‘w ritten pam phlets studiously devised’ ( 1H.V1 Ill.i). N o t content w ith this, he challenges H um phrey to single com bat (2H .VI II.i.36 ff), as if

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Shakespeare wants to m ake h im look grotesque as well as villainous. This arrogant, ruffling priest, w hom we see paying dow n m oney for a card­ inal’s hat (1 H .V IV .i), stands for Rom e as well as feudality, and the antipopish note often struck in the Histories is heard loudly - and crudely in w hat we learn o f his usury, fornication, and other ‘lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks’ ( IH .VI III.i.15), and in the guilty conscience that H um phrey is a critic o f popish ways, along w ith his other good qualities. W h en W inchester m aintains th at H enry V succeeded because the C h u rch prayed for him , the duke rejoins that on the contrary the C h u rch m ust have prayed for his death, because it likes only feeble princes w hom it can overawe (1H .V11.i). Relations betw een C h urch and State are in the forefront in King John, a dram a w ith a background o f Protestant adm iration for Jo h n as a cham pion o f England against Rome. Jo h n intends from the start to make the rich abbeys pay for his French expedition (I.i.48-9). P andulph the papal legate is a dignified and fearless churchm an, b u t he is totally blind to all interests other than those o f the First Estate, and expects peace and w ar to be m ade at his nod. In return Jo h n talks pointedly o f the corruptions o f the C hurch under the ‘usurped authority’ o f a m eddling Italian priest, and makes use o f ‘the free breath o f a sacred king’ to declare h im se lf‘suprem e head’ o f his ow n C h u rch (III.i. 147 ff ). In Richard III the roles are reversed w hen the C ardinal-A rchbishop o f C anterbury, after expressing horror at C rook­ back’s purpose o f violating rights o f sanctuary, gives way weakly to raison At a low er level than the political, the first two plays contain anti­ popery o f a m ore knockabout species. A bogus miracle is exposed and punished by the shrewd H um phrey; this is in line w ith polemics o f Shakepeare’s day, w here Catholics w ere accused o f concocting miracles. A graver im pression is created by the episode o f the am bitious Duchess Elinor hiring necrom ancers to raise a spirit so that she can consult the powers o f darkness about her plottings; tw o o f them are priests. It seems to be left to the audience to consider this spirit another hoax, or an authentic ‘fiend’ from hell, as it calls itself - though, like M acbeth’s, a A stringent test, either o f religious sentim ent or o f hum an fibre and courage, is the approach o f death. Such courage, one o f Shakespeare’s m ost highly esteemed virtues, could be displayed by m any sorts o f people; there is a curious affinity betw een some words o f two m en very far apart in all else. ‘A m an can die b u t once’, says Falstaff s recruit Feeble, the w om an’s tailor (2H .IV III.ii.34). ‘Cowards die m any tim es’, says Julius Caesar. It should be noticed that Shakespeare’s wolfish feudalists are sheltered from religious fears by their unquestioning confidence that

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they have been born w ith first-class tickets to heaven, as part o f their aristocratic entitlem ent. T albot and his son will die together on the battlefield, he proclaims, ‘And soul w ith soul from France to Heaven fly’ ( 1H.VI IV.v.55) - stopping at no interm ediate point like Purgatory. M argaret bids farewell to her fellow-captives w ith a prom ise to m eet them again ‘in sweet Jerusalem ’ (3H .VI V.v.7-8). Some change is appearing w hen Y ork dies com m itting him self into G od’s hands, and his son Edward, before rushing back into battle, prays quite earnestly that the ‘brazen gates o f heaven’ will open to his ‘sinful soul’ (3H .VI I.iv; V.iii). T here is no sign that such pious sentim ents have any influence on the speakers’ behaviour. Possibly the w riter may be hinting that their heaven is as illusory as their expectation o f reaching it. Some other crim e-stained feudalists o f Shakespeare’s first generation, facing m ore lingering deaths, reveal lively apprehensions o f w hat lies before them . Edward IV, in his later years, is a prey to superstitious fears, w hich his brother Richard knows how to profit by. O n his deathbed he rem inds his jarrin g courtiers o f G od’s w atchful eye. Buckingham , on his way to execution, dreads the w rath o f the ‘high All-seer’. Some spectators may have pursued him in fancy into a lurid place o f burning; b u t w hat seems to be m eant is rather that guilty m en m ake their ow n doom , that punishm ent follows crim e as a necessity, a shadow, o f m an’s life am ong his fellows. W h en H enry V, in solem n tones, unmasks the English traitors, we see a consecration o f nationalism. State and people, as well as m onarch, are now anointed. An extension is in progress o f a privileged class’s assurance o f preferential treatm ent in the next w orld as in this, to a favoured nation’s conviction o f having God on its side, o f Englishm en being - as the guns o f the C om m onw ealth were before long to shout to the w orld - the new Chosen People. They are sublimely sure that heaven looks w ith partisan sympathy on their wars w ith the French. ‘T he battles o f the Lord o f hosts he fought’, says W inchester, a dubious witness, o f H enry V (IH .VI I.i.31). ‘God is our fortress’, says T albot (II.i.26). ‘Baleful sorcery’, ‘the help o f hell’, can w in the enem y only an occasional success, and even they may glimpse the tru th that God is an English deity (Il.i). King John, in France w ith his army, announces him self as ‘God’s w rathful agent’ Such catchphrases abound, b u t practically the only C hristian we can identify in these plays is H enry VI. Shakespeare m ust have had in m ind the cult o f H enry as a saint; pilgrimages to his tom b in W indsor chapel long continued. Piety is no asset to him as a ruler. Friend and foe are at one in holding that ‘church-like hum ours fit not for a crow n’, as Y ork derisively com m ents ( 1H.VI I.i.242 ff.). His wife despises him as a besotted collector o f relics, images, beads {2H.VI I.iii.53 ff.). This seems to have been Shakespeare’s ow n picture o f him at first; b u t king and

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playw right grow and develop together, and H enry’s piety evolves from m ere religiosity to a true C hristian m orality and resignation. H e brings a gleam o f light into a prison world. W inchester’s torm ented death inspires him to a m oral that m ight serve for m any other occasions in Shakespeare: ‘Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all’ (2H .VI III.iii.3l). His dying words are o f forgiveness for his m urderer, Crookback. Against them we can w eigh a sum m ary o f the political creed o f the realists, the w ords o f Richard o f York, w ith Somerset’s blood on his sword: ‘Priests pray for enemies, b u t princes kill’ (2 H .V I V .ii.7l). His son Crookback, at the opposite pole from H enry VI, is the gladiator w ho knows best how to m ake religion serve his turn. H e boasts to us o f his finesse in dissembling and deception, w ith bits o f Scripture to cloak his ‘naked villainy’ (R.III I.iii.334-8). His order for his brother’s m u rd er follows w ithout a pause. Y et he proves, after all, too clever by half. Machiavelli, as Shakespeare m ay w ant us to realize, is n o t a safe guide to practical politics. Richard alienates nearly all those about him and, w orst o f all, ends w ith w aning energy and confidence even in himself. H e is as m uch a failure as H enry VI, for opposite reasons. H enry deem ed him self heaven’s ‘unw orthy deputy’ (2H. V I III.ii.385—6); H enry V will know how to w in a reputation as its very w orthy deputy. B ut the inability o f m onarchy and m orality to form a natural blend was one that ‘Shakespeare regarded h u m an history’, one sanguine reader pronounces, ‘as a progressive revelation o f G od’s judgm ents upon hum an k ind’ (W instanley 54). M any o f his - or rather his characters’ - sayings m ay seem to corroborate this. M argaret tells us that the ‘heavens are ju s t’ (3H .V I III.iii.77), b u t there is little sign o f it in the econom y o f things here below. Later on we hear her exclaim ‘O upright, just, and tru edisposing G od’, as she finds ‘the course o f ju stice’ doing its work; b u t all this means no m ore than that she rejoices to see some o f her enemies sharing her ow n m isfortunes (R.III III.iv.55, 105). W e may feel m ore ready to listen to H enry VI w hen he hails W arw ick as the ‘instrum ent’ a Shakespearian w ord - o f his deliverance, and God as its ‘author’ (3H .VI O n the w hole it is extrem ely hard to discover any consistent attem pt by Shakespeare to interpret the flux o f events as directed by an over­ riding Providence. T here may be cause to surmise that he w ould have liked to believe in the existence o f some such guardian power, b u t this is no p ro o f that he did believe in it. Religion in the Histories is a terrestrial phenom enon, sometimes ethical and good, m ore often political and bad. W e are n o t m oving - as, for instance, in M assinger’s plays - in a realm o f miracles, w ith a trap door into heaven continually opening. T h e few supernatural solicitings that occur aim frankly at stage effect, like the

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triple sun that the Y orkist princes see in the sky, an om en o f returning fortune, or the ghosts that appear on the night before Bosworth. For the popular m ind, such aberrations o f N ature were easier to digest than m ost o f the official creed. N o divine aid is expected or begged for by the peasant rebels o f K ent, no disapproval feared. Shakespeare’s was a questioning era, and he m ust have been at least as quick as his neighbours to detect the hollowness o f m any conventional views o f w orld history offered them from the pulpit. Even about the m eaning o f the suprem e fact, death, doubts m ust have been widespread. W e may be little surprised at Richard III talking o f it as ‘the blind cave o f eternal night’ (V.iii.62); b u t w om en show no m ore sign o f religious feeling than men. Edw ard IV’s virtuous w idow uses identically pagan w ords about her consort’s departure ‘T o his new kingdom o f ne’er-changing night’ H er b ro th er-in -law Clarence, m ew ed up in the Tower, has a fevered dream o f death; it is lent a classical setting by C haron and the Styx, w ith ‘a legion o f foul fiends’ to add a C hristian touch, b u t w hat the sleeper feels he is on the brink o f is ‘the kingdom o f perpetual night’, or annihilation (R.III I.iv.45 ff.). Justice Shallow is struck by the thought o f an old acquaintance dying, b u t his m aundering reflections are m ixed up w ith livestock prices (2H .IV III.ii.30 ff.). Perhaps Shakespeare is showing us the com m on sense, how ever m uddled, o f the average man. Jo h n o f G aunt o n his deathbed is another w ho thinks o f death as an ‘endless nig h t’. B ut w ith Richard II and the crisis o f m onarchy, and divine right as its refuge, things are changing, and religion is frequently, if sometimes awkwardly, invoked. G aunt him self finds an excuse for not avenging a b ro th er’s death by trusting the m atter to God, all the m ore because the culprit was His ‘deputy anointed’ (I.ii). T o have divine right made a cloak for m u rd er casts grave doubt on it, and the w idow ’s expostulations bring Y ounger m en, Richard especially, now have a m ore positive view o f religion and w hat it can do for them . Before the abortive trial by battle M ow bray has gone to the confessional (in exile he turns crusader); his o p ponent’s pledge that his ‘divine soul’ will ‘answer it in heaven’ makes a fitting response (I.iii). O ld m en helpless am id the press o f events and the crum bling o f their w orld resign themselves to heavenly designs they cannot understand. York, left in charge o f the governm ent, may be shuffling o ff responsibility, b u t there is som etimes in his w ords a note o f the indistinct b u t deep trust in some kind o f Providence that is often heard in later plays. R ichard’s m isfortunes m ust have been perm itted by G od ‘for some strong purpose’, and his ‘high w ill’ cannot be gainsaid This contrasts w ith the outlook o f the m en o f action, w ho know w hat

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they want, strive to get it, and look to God to assist them . Heaven will indeed protect a true king, the loyal Bishop o f Carlisle admonishes Richard, b u t only if he avails him self d f the earthly means that it affords him (Ill.ii). An honest conservative, the bishop opposes his deposition, and then joins w ith the A bbot o f W estm inster and other conspirators in a plot to assassinate Bolingbroke. H e is sentenced by the new king to no worse than retirem ent, o u t o f respect for his character and ‘high sparks o f h o n o u r’ (V.vi). Spectators m ust have seen a likeness betw een this plot and the Catholic m urder plots know n or suspected in their ow n time. R ichard suffers from a belief that the cerem ony o f anointm ent, m ore m agical than religious, authorizes h im to draw on heaven for unlim ited succour. H e lapses easily into despair, none the less, w hich may be attributable to a lurking awareness o f the absurdity o f such a claim, as well as to an unstable nature. In the rem arkable scene o f his retu rn from Ireland, he can soar on the wings o f divine right into fine poetry, b u t it is plain to those hearing him that he is retreating into a fool’s paradise. Dashed by news that his W elsh forces have dispersed, he clings again to the m ystique o f royalty: ‘Is not the K ing’s nam e tw enty thousand names?’ - b u t very soon he is drooping once m ore (Ill.ii). It is the same w hen he has to confront Bolingbroke. H e dem ands p ro o f that ‘the hand o f G od’ has dismissed him from his ‘stew ardship’, and threatens divine ven­ geance that will strike, indiscrim inately, generations yet unborn; but defiance soon gives way to tam e subm ission (III.iii). In the deposition scene (IV.i), the finest in the play, Richard is a pathetic, scarcely a tragic, figure, because he is conscious only o f his ow n fall, n o t o f how m uch harm he has done his subjects; he can adm it his ‘w eaved-up follies’, b u t the deposing o f a king is a sin far m ore deeply ‘dam ned in the book o f H eaven’. H e does at least realize that w hat he is being forced to relinquish is a ‘heavy w eight’; the ‘unw ieldy sceptre’ is beyond his strength. A nd this is the real curse that his successors are doom ing themselves to: no m an can be equal to the burden o f kingship. In prison R ichard’s m ind runs m uch on the ‘small needle’s eye’ that separates w orldly success from spiritual truth, and the discrepancies in Scripture that ‘set the W o rd itself against the W o rd ’ (V.v.13-14) - a phrase used differently a little before by the Duchess o f Y ork, pleading for h er son. R ichard’s m editation on C hristianity is one o f very few in Shakespeare; he has a good m any briefer ones on religion in general. In the later Histories, m en w ho are m oving w ith the times are ready at least to show a proper respect for religion, while those o f the tim e departing are indifferent. Falstaff is fond o f religious tags, in a hum orous way, and recom m ends his friends to ‘repent at idle tim es’, b u t he has forgotten w hat the inside o f a church looks like (2H .IV Il.ii. 127; 1H .IV III.iii.7-8). Mistress Q uickly has an involuntary acquaintance w ith her

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parish clergyman, M aster D um be (2 H .IV II.iv.80 ff.). H otspur calls not on G od b u t on Bellona, and Mars ‘up to his ears in blood’; he dies uttering his finest words, as m en do on Shakespeare’s battlefields, b u t there is no M eanw hile the House o f Lancaster is learning w hat stars to steer by. Bolingbroke repulses R ichard’s m urderer, unrew arded, and vows a pilgrim age to the H oly Land as expiation (R.II V.vi). Sundry allusions to crusading are scattered about, as if an idea w ere floating in Shakespeare’s m ind, as it did in various others’, o f E urope sinking its differences and com bining against the Turks. G aunt recalls the part played by Englishm en in crusades; his son’s first w ords in Henry I V Part 1, like his last in Richard II, are o f the H oly Land. His practical concern is always w ith civil wars that may break out; a crusade may serve as prophylactic. All this is for the public ear, part o f a new political style. Similarly before Shrewsbury he claims G od’s favour ‘as o u r cause is ju st’ (V.i.120) - a solem nity at once capped by FalstafPs soliloquy on H onour. After the battle H enry taxes W orcester w ith n o t having delivered his offer o f pardon to his fellow-rebels ‘like a C hristian’ (V.v.9). Y et under stress o f continual anxiety H enry really is falling under the sway o f religion, though to h im it is another shadow m u ch m ore than a com fort. His troubled conscience makes him fearful o f a ‘secret doom ’, and o f his thoughtless son as ‘the rod o f heaven’ sent to punish his transgression His younger son Jo h n o f Lancaster, th at ‘young sober-blooded boy’ [2H .IV IV.iii.84), w ho m ay be taken as a first sketch o f Octavian, renders G od the credit for his m orally very questionable tripping up o f the next set o f rebels (IV.ii. 121). From Prince Hal we can already catch the accents o f H enry V w hen he promises his father am endm ent ‘in the nam e o f G od’, n o t forgetting to p u t the blam e on others - ‘God forgive them ’ w ho have turned the king’s thoughts against him (1H .IV III.ii. 129 ff.). In Henry V divine favour in battle takes the place o f divine right, and the cry is ‘God for H arry, England and St George’: heaven is expected to side now w ith a nation and its leader, n o t w ith an egotistic individual like If religion is to serve its due purpose, relations betw een C hurch and State m ust be on a due footing. Prince Jo h n rebukes the Archbishop o f Y ork for stirring up civil strife instead o f keeping to the w ork that has w on h im respect as a priest deep in ‘the books o f G od’, ‘the speaker in His parliam ent’ (2H .IV IV.ii. 15 ff.). In Henry V the A rchbishop o f C anterbury plays his part to perfection; he is a true fire-eating imperialist, like a long line o f prelates and royal chaplains after him. T he interests o f b o th parties are served; though some auditors m ust surely have felt th at C anterbury’s call to the king to unw ind his bloody flag,

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and w in his rights ‘w ith blood and sword and fire’ (I.ii.10, 131), was not quite the way for a Christian, even an archbishop, to talk. H enry is a w orthy pupil. H e is n o t a hypocrite; religion is genuinely a p art o f him , filling up any inconvenient gaps in his philosophy or personality. Perturbed before A gincourt by the thought o f his father’s usurpation, he seems to be trying to ‘bargain w ith his God like a pedlar’ (Ellis-Ferm or 47), as he rem inds heaven o f the two chantries he has founded to say prayers for R ichard’s soul, and his other acts o f contrition (IV.i.291 ff.). T hey were likely to strike Shakespeare’s hearers m ore as R om ish superstition than as true piety. B ut there is a prophetically C rom w ellian ring in his ultim atu m to the French, calling on them ‘in the bowels o f the L ord’ to surrender to his will; and his sum m ons to H arfleur brings in Satan, Leviathan and H erod. Indeed, the hero’s religiosity is overwhelming. Leaving aside casual ejaculations, he is heard calling on heaven no fewer than thirty-three tim es - fourteen times in the great fou rth Act alone. H otspur as well as Falstaff w ould have laughed at all this. Shakespeare m ust have done the same at times, and som etim es seems to invite us to jo in him - m ost openly w hen H enry threatens w ith capital punishm ent anyone in the arm y w ho brags o f the victory at A gincourt, instead o f giving the glory to God, and Fluellen pipes up: ‘Is it n o t lawful, an please your majesty, to tell how m any is killed?’ (IV.viii. 115 ff.). B ut H enry has to quiet an uneasy conscience, as well as to impress others. H e complains o f his soldiers w anting to p u t the blam e for everything on him ; he himself, as Shakespeare m ust w ant us to notice, is ju s t as eager to p u t the responsi­ bility for his w ar and all its sufferings on God.

W o m en and th e Fam ily In the feudal w orld family counted for m ore than individual, m an for far m ore than wom an. In the early Histories fathers and sons are close, as we see w ith T albot and his son perishing together in battle. Y ork can take pride in his sons’ heroic fighting, and their attem pts to rescue him (3H .V I I.iv.7 ff.). Fraternal ties, too, m ay be warm. Dying on the battle­ field, W arw ick calls o u t for his brother, only to learn that his brother has died calling o u t for him (3H .VI V.ii.33 ff.); a use o f parallelism that Shakespeare was fond o f in his years o f apprenticeship. In a disintegrating society the family is a surviving stronghold, b u t one th at cannot for long resist the general breakdown, especially as the leading them e o f these plays is dynastic schism. In Richard III the family collapses, underm ined by individual am bition and the same thirst for pow er w hich form erly held it together. Clarence has deserted his new party to retu rn to the bosom o f the Y orkist family, and ends by being

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m urdered by his tw o brothers. T heir m other recites a threnody over its ru in w hen she looks back over Richard C rookback’s life o f crime, and lays her curse on him (R.III IV.iv.116 ff ). T here is no recovery o f the bond betw een father and son. T hree o f the five kings after Edw ard IV are childless, and another, John, practically so. W h a t we are left w ith is discord, taking various forms, betw een the generations. It is not the fam iliar rift, as in Romeo and Juliet, betw een ardent youth and crabbed age. In b o th Richard II and Henry I V it is m ore a m atter o f age and caution being flouted by reckless, lawless youth. Falstaff laughs at them both. It is hard to believe th at he him self was ever a m em ber o f any family - his offh and allusion to his ‘brothers and sisters’ notw ithstanding (2H .IV H otspur’s outburst at his father’s absence from Shrewsbury is not one o f filial respect (1H .IV IV.i). H e was not too entirely headstrong to refuse to consider terms, b u t his uncle W orcester, from self-regarding motives, conceals the royal offer o f pardon from h im (IV.iii.107 ff ; V.ii.l f£). H enry’s bitterness against his tru an t son breaks out at times alm ost in the accents o f Lear. H e has been led to suspect the Prince o f W ales o f w anting him o u t o f the way - even, it w ould seem, o f being ready to m u rd er h im (1H .IV Ill.ii. 121 ff ; V.iv.48 ff ); the prince’s action in saving his life in the battle removes this suspicion only for a while. His long tirade about sons turning against the fathers w ho have toiled all their lives for them seems to range beyond a personal situation to a general social malaise, n o t surprising in an epoch like the Elizabethan, over fam ily properties and inheritance, and the im patience o f the rising generation to see the last o f its parents. H enry foresees an England turning after his death into ‘a wilderness again,/Peopled w ith wolves’ M ost o f the w om en w ho play a part in the historical events Shake­ speare is concerned w ith are either bad - at least over-am bitious - or helpless, from weakness or from having suffered defeat. Joan o f Arc is the great exception; b u t as a mysterious, half-legendary character she cannot be very clearly pictured. In her earlier appearances she is treated w ith com m endable respect, as if genuinely inspired, certainly brave and able to breathe courage into others. T he French nobles are an unimpressive lot; it is she w ho is the voice o f France. T h ro u g h her Shakespeare makes am ends for a prevalent tone o f jingoism by showing patriotism as not an English m onopoly, and English trium phs as having to be paid for by French sufferings. It is only after defeat that she is m ade to invoke infernal assistance. In her final scene there is a ju m b le o f good w riting and very sad stuff, surely not both by Shakespeare. B ut this play was being w ritten at the height o f the E uropean w itch-hunr, actors may well have felt that it w ould be good for business to have some dem ons and a

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w h iff o f black magic. O n the w hole Joan comes o ff well. Possibly a m em ory o f her was afloat in Shakespeare’s m ind w hen he w rote o f Frenchw om en m ocking their nobles for their failure to throw back the A masculine tribe o f ladies o f rank, hard and resolute, form ed in Shakespeare’s m ind before his Portias and Rosalinds dawned there naturally enough, because for the spitfires he had history to counsel him ; the enchantresses had to be conjured up o u t o f his own im agination. It was only in times o f disorder that w om en could push their way to the front, and then only if they were as good fighters as the men. Pow er struggles distort their natures equally w ith m en’s. T hey give way far m ore readily to hatred than to love, and p our it out in floods o f angry words. Q ueen M argaret boxes Duchess E linor’s ear, pretending to mistake her for a servant; the duchess threatens to scratch the queen’s face (2H. V I1.iii.73 ff., 136 ff.). King Jo h n ’s m other and her d au ghter-inlaw C onstance abuse each other like a pair o f fishwives, each casting d o u b t on the o th er’s morals, and the Bastard and Austria jo in in, until K ing Philip interrupts w ith ‘W o m en and fools, break o ff (ILi. 122 ff.). W e can fairly guess that Shakespeare enjoys letting some o f his great ones behave in so undignified a style, and knows that some o f his specta­ tors w ill enjoy it. T he briefly seen French princess Bona, heedlessly jilted by Edw ard IV, is as furiously avid for revenge as M argaret could be Shakespeare’s fighting-w om en belong to the earlier Histories, the times o f chronic civil war. So too do the active partnerships betw een w om en and men, w hich have very few counterparts in Shakespeare from then on: Jo an ’s w ith the D auphin, M argaret’s w ith Suffolk, w ho is also her lover, and then w ith W arw ick; Q ueen Elinor’s w ith her son John. Duchess E linor wants to forge an alliance w ith her husband, H um phrey; she is a forerunner o f Lady M acbeth, ‘a w om an o f invincible spirit’, ready to clim b to pow er on ‘headless necks’ (2H .V I I.iii.6-7, ii.65). W ith no backing from the duke, all she can do is to tu rn to infernal arts; and her spirit-raiser, the priest H um , is taking m oney from her enemies to betray her. She has forgotten that her w orld is one o f greed and faithlessness. Like its male denizens w hen they come to grief, she bears her disgrace M argaret, m uch younger at the outset, has a m uch longer career. Shakespeare takes care to give her convincing motives. She is set going by her liaison w ith Suffolk and her resentm ent at being looked dow n on as the dowerless daughter o f a beggarly French princeling (2H .VI I.iii.75 ff.). U nexpectedly becom e a queen, she is a beggar on horseback, overbearing and b ent on holding sway. She is able and resourceful, b u t her intrigues fatally w eaken the Lancastrian dynasty. She is in her way a devoted

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m other, w ho w ould have let the soldiers toss her on their pikes rather than surrender her son’s right to the succession, as H enry has done (3 H .V I1.i.244); b u t this makes her all the m ore ferocious. In such ruthless tim es m en m ight like to thin k o f w om en as their ow n opposites, as Y ork does before his death w hen he protests th at w om en ought to be all that M argaret, that ‘she-w olf o f France’, is n o t - ‘soft, mild, pitiful and It w ould seem that w hile Shakespeare found hum our, even clowning, com patible w ith the dignity o f history, he felt otherw ise about love, and reserved it for his Comedies. It is an unflattering com m ent on the belle passion that practically the only w om an to fall in love is the adulteress (one o f extrem ely few in Shakespeare) and m urderess, M argaret. Suffolk —a m arried man, though we hear nothing o f his wife - inveigles H enry into a politically disastrous m arriage w ith her, so that she will be in England and available to him too. H e argues adroitly that even a royal m arriage should rest on free choice, n o t on dow ry-haggling fit only for

- a progressive sentim ent that Shakespeare was to repeat in m any w orthier contexts. Before long M argaret is angrily contrasting her m anly adm irer Suffolk w ith her feebly religious husband, fit only for the C h u rch (2H. V I I.iii.40 f£). Passionate feeling betw een her and her lover is fully revealed only at the m om ent o f his banishm ent and their leavetaking, a dialogue rising at times to true poetry. T h e obsessive Elizabethan tho u g h t o f female m isconduct and bastardy is n o t long in showing itself in these plays, w here the feudal am bience gave it a special pungency. Legitim ate transm ission o f estates, rank, pow er from father to son w ould be jeopardized if w om en were allowed to range at will. A king’s consort guilty o f tainting the royal blood risked being sent to the stake. In the prevailing atm osphere o f male m istrust Elizabeth’s ostentatious role o f Virgin Q ueen took on an added lustre. Suffolk, him self a queen’s seducer, in his heated altercation w ith W arw ick insults him by declaring that his m other m ust have been in bed w ith some ‘u ntutored churl’ (2 H .VI III.ii.210 ff ). In lighter vein Falstaff, im personating H enry IV in the act o f reprim anding his son, grumbles: ‘T h a t thou are m y son, I have partly thy m other’s w ord ...’ ( 1H.IV II.iv.442--3). H enry V at H arfleur calls on his m en to give w arrant o f their m others’ virtue by displaying courage equal to their fathers’. All this lends fu rther m eaning to the task Shakespeare set him self in other plays: o f restoring marriage, on m odern foundations - an endeavour that

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b rought him close to the m ore enlightened Puritans. In King John he allows one great exception to his principle o f m arital fidelity (he may, for all we know, have m ade other exceptions in his ow n favour): the Bastard does not hesitate to accuse his m other o f having been a royal mistress, and she has few qualm s about confessing it (I.i). H e is the play’s hero, whereas the Bastard o f O rleans in Henry V I Part 1 is a decidedly m ore unpleasant Frenchm an than the D auphin. It can at least be said for the braw ling barons that they were too busy w ith their feuds to have m uch tim e for am orous dalliance, and Shake­ speare was n o t inclined to drag C upid in by the hair, in Hollyw ood style. Edw ard IV’s philandering draws unfavourable com m ent; and after his death, w hen his brother Richard sends B uckingham to harangue the citizens and throw discredit on him , and his young sons w ith him , a predatory and ‘bestial appetite’ for w om en o f all sorts is one o f the accusations he proposes (R.III III.v.79 ff ). W o m en ’s light-m inded readiness to yield is pilloried in Act I Scene ii, the scene o f R ichard’s tour deforce in persuading A nne to m arry him , by dint o f flattery laid on w ith the trowel, over the bier o f her first husband, H enry V i’s son Edward, w hom Richard has killed. T o com pose such a dialogue Shakespeare m ust have had m oods o f misogyny, w hich he could w ork o ff in dram atic All this deepens the im pression o f a m oribund society whose blight has spread to its inm ost point, the family. M en are grow ing wickeder, w om en weaker, m orally as well as practically. Edw ard’s wife Elizabeth, a m atron o f m odest rank w ith grow n-up sons w hen he m et her, was virtuous enough to refuse to be his mistress; b u t the m arriage was foolish as well as freakish. Richard III is loud w ith the outcries o f aggrieved w om en w ho are always denouncing their enemies w ith little, if any, sign o f regret for their ow n misdeeds, or o f feeling for w hat their rival factions have cost the country. In this blindness we may see evidence o f the inability o f the old order to tu rn over a new leaf, grow self-critical, reform itself from w ithin. A new dynasty is required, a N ew M onarchy, to open the way for radical changes in the national life - including the From the point o f view o f w om en’s m ore active sphere King John, that o uter planet am ong the Histories, comes before Richard III and their reduction to nullity, though it may poin t to this as im m inent. Blanch, a youthful princess w ho is m ade a political shuttlecock, is an unlucky w aif am id the clash o f arms. Shakespeare bestows on her ‘beauty, education, blood’ (K J II.i.493), a triad o f the qualities his heroines require. As regards marriage, she defers very dem urely to her guardian’s fiat. T here is no room in the Histories, w here young ladies are part o f the politi­ cians’ stock in trade, for the em ancipated outlook o f the Com edy

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heroines. B ut there are touches o f pathos, and a feeling o f the curse o f war, w hen she lam ents the renewal o f bloodshed on her w edding day, T h e tw o w om en o f action here, Jo h n ’s m other and his sister-in-law Constance, are b oth involved in business o f the same kind as M argaret, b u t less independently, w ith m ore need o f m en to do their w o rk H ence they are less active in crime, b u t their aims are not o f a sort to appeal m u ch to us - or to Shakespeare, ju d g in g by the quality o f w hat he gives them to say. In the Histories m en w ant the throne, and revenge for their fathers; w om en w ant to get or keep the throne for their sons, and their m aternal attachm ent has bitter fruits for others. Elinor’s spirited ‘I am a soldier’ is prom ising (I.i. 150), b u t it is only in the first Act that she is given her head, and after the third she disappears and dies. She has some pricks o f conscience about Jo h n ’s usurpation; w hether they becom e sharper and, like Lady M acbeth’s guilt, bring on her decline and death, is left to our guesswork. Jo h n feels unm anned by the loss o f her, but her influence has been no m ore wholesom e than V olum nia’s over Coriolanus; she is ‘A n Até stirring him to blood and strife’ (II.i.63). C onstance dies at the same tim e, ‘in a frenzy’ (IV.ii. 122); again, we learn o f this only as news from afar. H er death can m ore obviously be ascribed to the frustration o f her hopes. H er ‘W ar! W ar! N o peace!’ (Ill.i. 113) sounds too bloodthirsty, and her abuse o f Austria for deserting her cause comes close to Billingsgate. In later years Shakespeare learned m ore about aristocratic manners, and his ladies in distress learn m ore self-control. B ut in the later Histories w om en o f the ruling class have lost all political am bition and influence, and gained very little in exchange. T h eir w orld is changing; they have only a m arginal m em ber­ ship o f it. W o m en are m ore visible and audible now low er dow n in society, in Eastcheap, although w ith no gain in respectability such as Richard IPs queen is a devoted wife, w ho has done nothing to check his follies and, at the first sign o f trouble, shares his facile slide into despair. H enry IV has no consort living, H al no m other. Lady Percy is the only w om an o f rank w ho stands out now. H er partnership w ith H otspur is a patchy one. As w ith a good m any o ther characters, Shakespeare seems to have begun w ith o u t a clear plan for her, and to have been content to let her grow under his hand. She starts w ith a long speech in ‘heroic’ vein - an appeal to her husband, very like Portia’s to B rutus, to adm it her into his confidence. H otspur, very unlike Brutus, brings things dow n to a jo cu lar level, w ith disparaging talk about a w om an’s lack o f w isdom and inability to keep secrets. This reduces her at once to m ere pettish com plainr, she is in no awe o f h im and calls him , w ith some w arrant, a ‘m ad-headed ape’ (1H .IV Il.iii. 109 ff.). H e can relax in her

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com pany, and crack jokes w ith a rather barrack-room flavour, but he quits her w ith o u t a word. W e hear nothing m ore o f her until after his death, w hen she recaptures the heroic vision and pays a long, eloquent tribute to his m em ory. It includes a personal trait that Shakespeare w ould n o t have noticed earlier: his way o f ‘speaking thick’, w hich R om antic love comes back, b u t it is kept to an ironical m inim um . M ortim er and his wife are deeply in love, b ut he knows no W elsh and she no English; we are being show n how to be happy though married. H enry V’s bride has learned little English; as she is virtually the captive o f his bow and spear, and he knows her answer in advance, his blunt mode o f laying siege serves well enough. H er m o th er supplies w hatever else is needed w ith a pious adage about ‘God, the best m aker o f all marriages’ (H .V V.ii.356). This one has been arranged by the god Mars. O u r first inform ation about H enry as Prince Hal is that he is going to carry a prostitute’s glove as a favour in a tournam ent at O xford (R.II V.iii. 16 ff ). (W e hear at the same tim e that he has not been seen by his father for three m onths; and as this is ju s t after R ichard’s deposition, it m ay be th at Shakespeare was looking ahead and providing his future hero w ith an alibi, p ro o f that he had no hand in the business o f usurpa­ tion.) B ut this unsavoury kind o f prank is n o t repeated. Shakespeare may laugh at m asculine H onour; he is never frivolous about the ‘honour’ o f w om en. W e never have reason to suspect Falstaff o f m aking use o f w om en to lead the prince astray. W ith Falstaff him self they do not seem to have been the w orst part o f his life, and we can take it as hum orous exaggeration w hen Hal talks o f him as a wencher, or o f finding ‘m em orandum s o f baw dy-houses’ filling his pocket ( 1H.IV I.ii.7 ff ; Ill.iii. 158). In his ow n m ock-defence o f his character Falstaff denies being a ‘w horem aster’, w hich Hal has not accused him o f (II.iv.459-6l). At any rate now, in old age, all that he wants from w om en is money. T h ere is a rich tailor’s wife w hom he thinks o f as a source o f supply, and he has been prom ising m arriage every w eek for years to an old Mistress U rsula (2H.IV I.ii.43 ff , 236-8). H e has been cajoling Mistress Q uickly in the same way, and she is indignant at being made ‘an ass and a beast’, w hile he has piled up a debt o f a h u ndred marks (II.i.29 ff). She is determ ined to have him arrested; the way he talks her round has a ludicrous resemblance to C rookback talking A nne round. W o m e n ’s retaliation is to come w ith the Merry Wives, towards w hich m uch in Henry I V Part 2 points the way. W h e n Sir Jo h n and Doll T earsheet are together Shakespeare keeps the scene free from either grossness or sentim entality. T hey are both old, and old associates, and there is some rough goodwill betw een them (2H .IV Il.iii). Shallow, that other old acquaintance for w hom Falstaff feels only contem pt, is m uch fonder o f

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recalling the bona robas o f their frolicsome days w hen - Falstaff rem em bers - he was as ‘lecherous as a m onkey’. B ut all this belongs to a fading past, and Jane N ightw ork too has grow n ‘old, old’ (III.ii). O ne witness gives us a darker m om ent o f Falstaff on his deathbed babbling o f w om en, as well as o f green fields, and calling them ‘devils incarnate’ (H. V

Every genuine poet is a teacher, Shakespeare in the highest degree; the Histories m ay be called his ‘M irror for M agistrates’ and, still m ore, for the public. T h ere could be little to learn from the past if the past had not m u ch in com m on w ith the present; England’s social structure had altered in two centuries m uch less in reality than in appearance. H e was giving his audience a m ixture o f the far-o ff and exotic, an extinct species o f feudal barons in dinosaur arm our, w ith the here and now. M any scenes o f the plays are laid in London; a L ondon audience was w atching events in its ow n city, w ith the grim T ow er, its fortress, close by the Countless topical allusions have been unearthed, or guessed at, in Shakespeare’s plays, and som etim es - if n o t very often - they have real significance. This m ay be so especially in the field o f foreign affairs, w here the w riter m ight feel m ore free to p o int to parallels. It w ould be cheering for English folk to be told that the French are ‘a fickle and wavering nation’ ( 1H.V1 IV.i.148), and some will have recalled these w ords in 1593 w hen England’s ally, H enry o f Navarre, m uch to Elizabeth’s disgust, turn ed Catholic, on the plea that ‘Paris is w orth a Mass’. (It w ould be equally cheering for higher-class spectators to be assured th at the discontented poor w ere a fickle and wavering class.) A nti-F rench speeches in Henry V m ight easily translate themselves in listeners’ m inds into anti-Spanish invective, as they have in this century into anti-G erm an. In 1584 W illiam o f O range, the father o f D utch freedom , was assassinated, on Spanish instigation; Shakespeare’s King John is poisoned by a m onk; Catholic plots to kill Elizabeth lent reality to H enry V’s warning: ‘Treason and m u rd er ever kept together’ (Il.ii. 106). C harlie C haplin, as a son o f the people, used to disclaim any taste for Shakespeare, on the ground that he was concerned only w ith crowns and coronets, instead o f w ith ordinary m en and w om en (275). W alt W h itm a n the great dem ocrat began w ith a similar m istrust, b u t came ro u n d to finding Shakespeare’s ‘distinctiveness and glory’ m ore in the Histories than in any o f his other works (34, 57, 109-12); their panoram a o f feudalism, w ith its ‘tow ering spirit o f ruthless and gigantic caste’, arrogance, cruelty, was designed, he believed, to sap w hat rem ained o f its

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fabric in m en ’s minds. Certainly the W ars o f the Roses are show n not as a m agnanim ous contest whose protagonists we can admire, b u t as w hat one o f them calls ‘base and envious discord’ ( 1H.VI Ill.i. 194). W e see great m en brawling, plotting mischief, hurling abuse at one another, hiring assassins. M ost o f them com e to a deservedly bad end. It needs no great stretch o f fancy to im agine a good p art o f the audience rejoicing at the spectacle o f a ruling class tearing itself to pieces, its ringleaders falling in battle or being m arched o ff to the block. Richard Ill’s m ocking spirit, contem pt for any rules o f conduct, and boundless egotism are not an aberration from the feudal type, b u t its naked self stripped o f pre­ tensions. W hatever Shakespeare m ay have thought about the ‘m ob’, it can be said for him that he was giving com m oners a liberal education w ith his unsparing criticism o f both high and low: above all, by letting D em os hear w hat his masters really thou g h t about him. Henry I V is not so m uch a continuing dram a as a study o f politics and society; it shows both in a parlous condition, and w ith no regenerative principle com ing to light. T h e old w orld is left to serve as b u tt for Falstaff s wit; like him it has m isspent its days, and is feeling intim ations o f m ortality. T o enable m en o f position to go on living their m ore or less worthless life there has to be a league am ong them at the expense o f their inferiors, w ho are sent into the w orld to be m ade use o f by them , like animals. Falstaff also makes use o f Shallow, or his purse; in return Shallow hopes that Falstaff will be useful to him , as ‘a friend i’ the court’ (2H .IV V.i). It m ay be a question w hether the m en in pow er w hen this play cam e o u t w ould be pleased to see a JP ’s little weaknesses exhibited, or w ould have preferred them hushed up. This, in any case, is not an England for the poor and friendless to be happy in. Falstaff and Shallow are b o th callously indifferent to the w retched conscripts’ feelings. ‘M ouldy, it is tim e you were spent’, Falstaff answers brutally w hen the poor m an protests that his ‘old dam e’ will be left helpless. ‘Spent!’ he echoes pathetically; the Justice shuts him up (2H .IV Ill.ii. 15 ff.). W h en the beggar w ho has pretended a m iraculous cure from blindness is arrested, his wife urges that ‘we did it for pure need’; D uke H um phrey’s reply, very m uch in the spirit o f T u d o r social legislation, is to order them to be w hipped through the country back to their place o f origin (2H. VI Il.i). O n occasion the poor can think o f revenge, as the grandees always do. T h e wicked Earl o f Suffolk’s declaration o f his disdain for all plebeians is prom ptly followed by the Cade rebels’ declaration o f war Shakespeare was very conscious o f an accelerating social m obility all around him: m any families rising in the scale, m any sinking. Suffolk’s captors m ay be taken as specimens o f a large im poverished section o f the gentry class and its dependants. Individuals o f this sort could be m ore

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useful for m elodram atic purposes than poor m en from lower down. T yrrel is recom m ended to Crookback, for his w orst purposes, as ‘a discontented gentlem an/W hose hum ble m eans m atch not his haughty spirit’ (R.III IV.ii). In m ore jocular term s Falstaff carps at ‘these coster­ m onger tim es’ w hen youth and talent like his are neglected; he wants It is w ith the Bastard, his wits sharpened by his am bivalent social position, that awareness o f a new state o f things breaks in m ost rudely. H e has m u ch satire to bestow on new m en and m anners, a social life full o f pretence, flattery, dissim ulation. (As a raw youth from the country he cannot have seen m uch o f it yet: it is Shakespeare w ho is ventrilo­ quizing.) It behoves a m an w ho wants to get on, and not be thought oldfashioned, ‘a bastard to the tim e’, to cultivate a haughty air, learn the vices in vogue, and be ready to supply others w ith w hat they w ant ‘Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s to o th ’ (KJ I.i. 184 ff ). His great m onologue on ‘C om m odity, the bias o f the w orld’, covering both self­ interest and m aterial gain, strikes the keynote o f his view o f contem porary life, even if it is n o t very germ ane to the business o f the play. Its assum ption is that society is naturally well-regulated, like a bowl ‘M ade to ru n even upon even ground’, b u t is now being disordered by unbridled greed and pursuit o f profit (II.i.574 ff.). Richard C rookback is another m outhpiece for the jerem iad about upstarts disturbing the fixed gradation o f ranks - ‘the w orld is grow n so bad . . . ’ (R.III. I.iii.69 ff.). M argaret follows h er antagonist w ith abuse o f the fam ily o f Edw ard IV’s wife as climbers, nobodies (I.iii.253 ff.). W h at is w rong, for all these conservatives, is the b lurring o f lines o f distinction th at are needful to a hierarchical society. T h eir concept o f order is not sim ply one o f obedience to political authority, b u t includes the solidity o f the social fabric underlying this. It includes also w hat m attered m ost to Shakespeare - the m oral order, in the sense o f acceptance o f rules o f conduct appropriate to status, as the code o f H o nour was to nobility. All this had a good deal in com m on w ith the orthodox H indu horror, enshrined in the Gita, o f any mixing up o f castes, as fatal to the right Falstaff is incensed at purse-proud tradesm en w ith their ‘high shoes’ and ‘bunches o f keys’ (2H.IV I.ii.36-8), precursors o f the com ing masters o f England. W e catch a fleeting sight o f m uffled shapes in the back­ g round w hen the th ie f Gadshill assures his accomplice that they can co u n t on protection from notables, n o t only ‘Trojans’ (like Prince Hal) b u t ‘burgom asters and great onyers’ ( 1H.IV II.i.74 ff.), the latter probably revenue officials; the idea conjured up is o f a shadowy netw ork o f corru p tio n and profiteering. Shakespeare had grow n m ore and m ore critical o f the old order, b u t he was n o t enam oured o f the new one

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com ing on the scene, whose uglier aspects w ould catch the eye m ore In The Comedy o f Errors m ention o f Ireland makes D rom io think o f bogs; o f Scotland, barrenness (Ill.i). This may have been about as m uch as an average Londoner, as well as Syracusan, knew about them ; but an Elizabethan politician needed to know a good deal more, and from the H istories a playgoer could learn at least a little more. T hough Shake­ speare’s concern was always prim arily w ith England, as tim e w ent on he took increasing account o f the other regions o f the B ritish Isles. N o scenes in these plays are set in Scotland or Ireland; Richard II has a short one in W ales, Henry I V Part 1 a longer one. B ut during the civil wars forces from these countries m ake repeated appearances, besides others at tim es from the C ontinent. Y ork’s scheme o f going to Ireland as regent and th en using his arm y to capture pow er at hom e (2H .VI III.i.341 ff.) sounds rem arkably like a forecast o f one o f the schemes o f w hich Strafford was to be accused in 1641. Shakespeare’s account is garbled: in fact Y ork m ade no m ove for m onths after his return, and it was then w ith a large force from the W elsh borders that he m arched on London. H otspur’s plot brings Douglas and his Scottish levies into England, and a W elsh contingent is expected to jo in them , though it fails to do so. T h a t England is to be partitioned is a w arning o f the perils o f continuing division w ith in the B ritish Isles. In Henry I V Part 2 we hear o f the king facing a threefold threat from the n o rth ern conspirators, the W elsh, and the French; and N orthum berland, after seeking shelter in Scotland, eventually rejoins his friends in England w ith a Scottish force. Early in Henry V there are uncom plim entary references to ‘the weasel Scot’, a ‘giddy neighbour’ w ho may m olest the N o rth while the arm y is away in France (I.ii. 136 ff.). Shakespeare m ay be telling his hearers that to have K ing Jam es on the throne will perm anently rem ove the old peril o f a w ar T h e tw o outstanding Celts in the Histories, G lendow er and Fluellen, are both W elsh. Stratford was n o t very far from the W elsh border, and Shakespeare m ust have know n W elsh folk there. In Henry I V Part 1 W elshw om en have m utilated the bodies o f the slain after a battle (I.i. 43 ff.): W ales, at least in the old days, is m ade to seem a land o f savages, like Ireland in Elizabethan propaganda. B ut the T udors m ade m uch o f their W elsh descent and mythology, to com pensate for deficiencies elsewhere in their pedigree, and W elsh fighting-m en helped them to the throne at Bosworth. Shakespeare has to keep thinking o f two epochs, past and present, and to rem ind us that there is now a W ales civilized by English influence and rule. G lendow er turns o u t to be a polished, w ell-read ‘gentlem an’, proud o f his English as well as W elsh culture (Ill.i. 163 ff.). H enry IV, however, has to m ake him o u t an ogre, ‘the great magician,

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dam ned G lendow er’ (I.iii.83), and he himself, convinced that he is no ordinary h u m an being, is as proud as Prospero o f his magical powers and ‘deep experim ents’ (III.i). Shakespeare’s countrym en, themselves super­ stitious enough, m ay well have credited W elshm en w ith uncanny gifts, such as m en o f the hills have often been th o ught to possess. G lendow er’s w onderful arts seem to have no practical utility: we see them at w ork only w hen he sum m ons musicians from ‘a thousand leagues’ away to perform for his guests. T he three Englishm en show no sign o f being either impressed or incredulous, or surprised at his having no players nearer at hand; b u t H otspur is tactlessly sceptical about G lendow er’s talk o f the portents that heralded his birth. H otspur’s chase after H o nour is fantastical enough, b u t in m atters like this he is an em bodim ent o f sturdy English com m on sense - a legend then in its first stages, to w hich H ere and often elsewhere Shakespeare m ay be leaving those w ho w ant to believe in magic free to do so, and the m ore rational to jo in him in scoffing. H e m ay be hinting at the bad practical effects superstition can have w hen he twice shows it interfering w ith arm y operations. Earlier on, w hen he was still only Bolingbroke, H enry was expecting to have to fight Glendower, and R ichard’s party was counting on W elsh support, b u t the W elsh forces that collected were scared by om inous signs, like w ithered trees and shooting stars (R.II II.iv; IILi). W e can sym pathize w ith H otspur’s attitude to m u m bo-jum bo w hen we learn that G lendow er has failed to keep the rendezvous at Shrewsbury because ‘o ’er-ruled by prophecies’ (IV.iv.16-18). This does n o t com e from H olinshed, and looks like an invention o f Shakespeare. Ireland had been tho u g h t o f for centuries as a place whose inhabitants - or those ‘beyond the pale’ or boundary o f the English settlem ent w ere hopeless barbarians. Spenser served there for some years, and was one o f those w ho argued that exterm ination was the only treatm ent for them (Coughlin). ‘W e m ust supplant those rough rug-headed kerns’, Richard II declares w hen preparing for his expedition: Ireland has no snakes; h u m an beings are its ‘venom ’ (II.i.156 ff ). B ut Shakespeare hints at som ething better, incorporation o f Ireland as a partner in a com ing u n io n o f the B ritish Isles. His quartet o f officers in H enry V’s arm y includes a C aptain M acm orris, a sapper. W h a t kind o f Irishm an he is is left unspecified; he m ay be o f m ixed stock, like his nam e, or belong to one o f the other three m ain sorts o f Shakepeare’s day - native Celtic, Catholic ‘old English’, and m ore recent Protestant settlers. M acm orris is sensitive on the subject, and takes offence at an innocent rem ark from Fluellen about his ‘nation’. ‘W h a t ish m y nation? W h o talks o f m y nation?’ (Ill.ii. 119-21). N ationality was becom ing a ticklish question over m u ch o f Europe, and for Irishm en m ore so than most.

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Shakespeare’s relapse in Henry V into raucous jingoism has been a stum bling-block to m any since H azlitt, b u t it was the only way open to him o f broadening the horizon from English to ‘B ritish’. Having in Henry I V seen the British Isles in turm oil, in Henry V we are suddenly given an opposite picture o f all these lands - o f spokesmen from each, at least, as forerunners - draw n together u nder English leadership in a com m on purpose. T h e effect is patchy: Shakespeare was having to overcom e hastily a yaw ning gap betw een real and ideal, ju st as he was w hen trying to m ake nobility and soldiery in his arm y feel like brothers. M acm orris and C aptain Jam y the Scot appear only during the siege o f Harfleur; he m ay have found them and their dialects harder to handle than his W elshm an. Nevertheless, the play can in some ways be seen pointing Gower, the English officer, reproves Pistol for jeering at a W elshm an (H .V V.i) - a habit, no doubt, o f m any o f Shakespeare’s Londoners. Fluellen, like Glendower, is a blend - though a m ore endearing one - o f the adm irable and the laughable, and helps to give the play the light relief it badly needs. As H enry knows, Fluellen is brave, and w hen roused ‘h o t as gunpow der’ (IV.vii. 176-7) - traits belonging, very probably, to a W elsh stereotype. So, perhaps, w ith the frugality and sim plicity o f his offering W illiam s a shilling, to m end his w orn boots: ‘’tis a good silling, I w arrant you’ (IV.vii.70 ff.). H e is a gentlem an, b u t puts on no airs. W h en he brags o f W elshm en having served in older wars in France, H enry responds, w ith his ready affability, ‘I am W elsh, you know, good countrym an’ (IV.vii.96 ff). H e has, at any rate, been Prince o f W ales. O ne o f the four m en o f hote in his arm y w ho lose their lives at A gincourt is a T h e lesson o f all this is that the peoples o f the British Isles ought to form an ‘incorporate league’, as England and France at the end o f the play are to do, b u t w ith m ore perm anence. It does not seem to have struck the poet or anyone else that the Celtic languages w ould be an obstacle to union. So far as Ireland was concerned, the U lster rebellion was already falsifying the play’s amiable hopes. It was crushed in 1601, in spite o f a Spanish force com ing to its aid; the outcom e was a brutal colonial occupation destined to last for three centuries. Shakespeare’s H enry V declares that he has been looking to France as his true kingdom , w ith England m erely his tem porary cam p (I.ii.272 ff). A t E dinburgh Jam es VI was pining for L ondon as the capital w here he w ould reign in splendour, instead o f in the squalid penury o f his ow n city. His desire was to be sovereign o f a united Britain, like his legendary predecessors B rutus o f T roy and K ing A rth ur (Thomas 495-6). In this aspiration he was to fail. M any less foreseeable things lay concealed in a fu tu re close at hand. T h e revolution against his son was to break o u t first

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in Scotland. In the ensuing Civil W ars, all the Celtic regions were to be o n the royalist side: evidence that the m onarchy belonged, like the Celts H istory itself was soon becom ing a battleground. T hanks in good m easure to Shakespeare, the W ars o f the Roses w ere far from having been forgotten, and the thought o f a new outbreak on similar lines could still beset people’s minds. W h e n hostilities broke out in 1642 ‘the political nation had been, for over a decade, obsessed w ith medieval precedent and its gothic past’, writes Adam son (93): his study suggests that m any echoes o f conflicts long gone by can be heard in this later contest. Englishm en were, as often happens, w alking into the future backwards. A good deal o f the old England still survived, and the schism o f the 1640s divided the nobility, and to a very considerable extent the gentry, as the red and w hite roses had done. A t bottom the differences w ere far greater. In the English camp before A gincourt, Bates and W illiam s derided H enry’s invitation to find fault w ith the king if he deserted them: ‘you m ay as well go about to tu rn the sun to ice w ith fanning his face w ith a peacock’s feather’. H a lf a century later their grandsons, soldiers o f C rom w ell’s N ew M odel Army, were ready not to fan the king’s face b u t to cut o ff his head w ith the crow n on it.

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Tragedies

Sandwiched betw een the two series o f plays o f the 1590s, those where lordship and h o n o u r are on trial and those w here love and loyalty are under scrutiny, we are faced w ith an assortm ent o f com positions little connected w ith one another, and varying very m uch in interest. T hey m ay all be called experiments, some o f th em not to be taken up again later. T hey are decidedly ‘serious’, rather than light-hearted, and from this point o f view have m ore affinity w ith the Histories than w ith the com edies - except for The Merchant o f Venice, n o t very distant from them in date. T w o are tragedies, the two long poems are both tragical, m any o f the short ones are in a som bre key. So far as this can be taken as testim ony to habitual m oods o f their creator, at least in the m iddle years o f the decade, to w hich they m ostly belong, these m oods w ould seem to have been far from sanguine. Shakespeare came to the theatre soon after Tragedy had w on an established place there. His ow n involvem ent in it was cautious. H e had tw o early tries, b u t in general was content in the 1590s w ith the tragic them es supplied by his Histories. Even in his m aturity, his tragic subjects w ere to be largely historical, and thus firm ly linked w ith the w orld’s affairs as well as those o f individuals.

Titus Andronicus (1594?) T his first attem pt is anom alous in having only a pseudo-historical location, although it can be called ‘intensely academ ic’ (Frye, Fools 47), w ith a heavy debt to Seneca for em otionalism o f a peculiar, not very ‘Shakespearian’ kind. It was published in 1594 as a ‘M ost Lam entable R om aine Tragedie’; it is indeed lam entable enough in m any ways, sensational beyond its two models - Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy and M arlow e’s Jew o f Malta. Y et there has been o f late m ore willingness than form erly to th in k it - or m ost o f it - genuine early Shakespeare, in spite o f its wild and w hirling story and grotesque horrors: a change o f opinion w hich

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m ust owe som ething to our ow n prodigiously grow n appetite for the sensational. A n attem pt has been m ade to extend Shakespearian author­ ship to the play Edmund Ironside, on the strength o f parallels betw een the tw o (Sams 34-7, etc.). These are indeed striking; but such a species o f m elodram a could quickly gather, like our crim e film, a com m on stock o f devices and phrases, available to all. ‘N oth ing could be too bloody and horrible for an Elizabethan audience’ (W right and LaMar). Titus Andronicus was extrem ely popular both on the stage and w ith readers, for w hom it was often republished. T hey listened to fire-and-brim stone sermons, and by p u lp it and pam phlet were plied w ith gruesom e warnings about Shakespeare was n o t an eighteenth-century rationalist, b u t he may fairly be supposed to have taken this nonsense w ith a pinch o f salt. H e was helped by not being conventionally religious; he was, moreover, a great hum orist, and fond o f burlesque. Some critics have been unable to resist the tem ptation to see him laughing in his sleeve during some o f the scenes. O ne such is Act II Scene iv, w here T itus’s brother Marcus, finding his m utilated niece Lavinia in the woods, instead o f attending to her delivers an interm inable tirade. Still, the versification - there is very little prose - is n o t in general bad, and a good m any graphic touches catch the ear. In the opening scene T itus’s w ords o f farewell to his fallen sons, left now to the peace o f ‘silence and eternal sleep’, recall the ‘eternal night’ o f the Histories. T am ora’s praise o f countryside charms (Il.iii) is quite T here are no breathing characters, only passions personified, though one or two, if n o t fully hum an, m ay be called hum anoid. T he plot is all revenge and reprisal. A aron the M oor is clearly m odelled on M arlow e’s diabolical Barabbas the Jew, b u t as D over W ilson says has far m ore vitality: his engagingly robust enjoym ent o f his crimes gives him a kinship w ith Richard III (edn Tit.A. lxii-iv). H e is certainly the play’s ‘m ost entertaining and m ost individual character (Brower 28). Like the rest o f Shakespeare’s brood o f villains, he loves to advertise his villainy. As param our o f Tam ora, captured queen o f the Goths and soon consort o f the new em peror Saturninus, he has done rem arkably well for himself, and his hopes soar still higher. It is n o t clear, therefore, w hy he is soon declaring to Tam ora: ‘Blood and revenge are ham m ering in m y head’ (II.iii.39). B ut m elodram a has no place for contented villains. T am o ra’s enemies are censorious about her taking a lover o f so swart a hue - ‘Spotted, detested’ - or, as Lavinia says, ‘raven-coloured’ (Il.iii. 72 ff.). In his study o f Shakespeare’s aliens and outsiders, Fiedler attributes to h im am bivalent feelings about race and colour, and associates Aaron w ith the m ore hostile o f these (140). H e m ay well be right; yet Aaron, so far from appearing soured by consciousness o f his colour, as C rookback

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is by his deform ity, can seem quite p roud o f it (IV.ii. I l l ff.). Like R uddigore he makes a point o f com m itting a crim e daily. His pranks are m u ch like those that witches and wizards were accused of, and the Devil often revealed him self in the shape o f a black man. O ne o f A aron’s diversions is setting fire to barns and haystacks at night (V.i.139). His sole redeem ing touch is his bold defence o f his bastard infant by Tam ora, w hich she wants destroyed for fear that its dusky skin will betray her (IV.ii). Shakespeare gives us few pictures o f parental fondness like this. Sentenced to a cruel death, Aaron, like lago, goes to his doom T am ora is intelligent, self-reliant, witty, entitled to plum e herself on her talent for fascinating others (IV.iv.95 ff.). She is inhum anly cruel and treacherous; nearest to her in the Histories is Margaret. T itus is a stage Rom an, o f interest as a highly coloured picture o f how Englishm en conceived heroic Romans, w ith their ram rod spines. At the outset this inflexible p atriot and patriarch has only four sons left, having lost the oth er tw enty-one in the service o f his country; he now takes offence at one o f the survivors, and kills him . Shakespeare may have felt that a certain respect was due to such m onolithic figures, carved out o f granite, so m uch the opposite o f his doubters and hesitaters. Y et at the end Titus is calling in an arm y o f Goths to punish the persecutors o f his family, like that later m ilitarist Coriolanus calling in the Volscians to punish Rome for his banishm ent. N ationalism has always abounded in such contra­ As to the R om an citizenry, Shakespeare, on his first encounter w ith them , can hardly be said to flatter. In the disputed succession they give a perfunctory approval to the w inning candidate, Saturninus. He, however, does n o t regard ‘the giddy m en o f R om e’ (IV.iv.93) as negligible, and does n o t trust them: he keeps his ear to the ground by going about incognito, and it is his awareness o f public disgust that makes h im despair o f resisting the Goths. B ut it seems that Rom e’s liberation can be expected only from foreign intervention. T itus has learned from the way he and his family are treated that the city is no Shakespearian plays often contain a netw ork o f associated thoughts or features, and Titus is no exception. A taste for long stretches o f ‘railing’, o r abuse and com plaint, so intrusive in the early Histories, shows here too. T itus prom ising to read to Lavinia ‘sad stories’ o f old days (III.ii.87— 8) has been noticed as resem bling the ‘sad stories’ Richard II asks for. T here is a h in t o f a future tragic vision o f life w hen M arcus tries to soothe his torm ented brother, though forced to confess that the spectacle o f life on this earth is enough ‘T o stir a m utiny in the m ildest thoughts

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Romeo and Juliet m arks an im m ense advance, though it still shows m any signs o f its auth o r’s nonage. Rhym ed couplets are frequent; they may suit a speech like the Friar’s opening one, o f sententious m oralizing, in Act II Scene iii well enough. M ediocre w riting is not hard to find, w ith fine lines or touches breaking in. Still awkward, as in the earlier Histories, w ith w om en in em otional states, Shakespeare was too ready to fall back on the w ord-play that the dram a opens w ith and too often returns to. Ju liet quibbles over words w hen she is supposed to be desperately afraid that her Rom eo is dead (Ill.ii), and passes from this to a piece o f artificial T h eir story, from Italian sources, was well know n and popular before Shakespeare touched it. It had a strongly dram atic shape to recom m end it to him . H e turned it into a p lo t that is n o t always convincing in detail, tho u g h a defect o f this kind cannot have disturbed him unduly. R om eo’s first tho u g h t after the m arriage ought to have been to rem ove his bride from her father’s house, as O thello did D esdem ona, and from Verona. She was ready to follow h im ‘thro u g h o u t the w orld’ (Il.ii. 148), and he is well furnished w ith m oney w hen we see him later at M antua. Al­ together, the practical side o f this rom ance is m anaged as fatally as the darkest stars could have wished. T here is, besides, a lingering o f the fondness for horrors that Shakespeare, at this tim e o f his life, may have shared w ith his audience. O f course the feud dem ands sacrifices, but the vault o f the Capulets is left cram m ed w ith corpses. Shakespeare could see the ridiculous side o f such a piling up: it is impossible to miss its likeness to the guileless dram a enacted by B ottom and his friends. ‘Eyes, look your last!’ exclaims Romeo, over Ju liet’s supposedly dead body (V.iii.l 12). ‘Eyes, do you see?’ Pyramus, or B ottom , exclaims over that o f his Thisbe. W h e th e r or n o t the author was caricaturing himself, he was capable o f seeing life in one m ood as tragedy, in another as farce. W hatever frailties there m ay be in the plot, Shakespeare succeeds in m aking it a succession o f antithetical moods, contrasting revelations o f h u m an life. Tragedy is still only a part o f this life, not its whole, as it comes to be later on. Light and darkness supply the leading im agery (Spurgeon 310 ff , App. 4). In the opening scene a sunrise, a favourite sight w ith Shakespeare, is conjured up and contrasted w ith som bre night and the ‘artificial night’ o f R om eo’s room , curtained against the ‘w orshipped sun’. In the play’s first h a lf there is a strong elem ent o f light­ hearted jollity, youthful high spirits. O f the tw o opposing themes, hatred and love, the first is guyed at the start by the comic braw ling o f the servitors; the second by the clow ning jocularity o f the musicians ju st after Ju liet’s ‘death’ (IV.v.96 ff.) - and by m u ch else. Jest and earnest fit

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into one pattern, instead o f m erely alternating to make a ‘tragicomedy’. Y outhful aristocratic gaiety and plebeian hum our, better draw n than in m ost o f the Comedies, are needed to give us a poignant sense o f how enjoyable life m ight be in V erona if it were not for the feud, the in trusion o f evil from some alien realm, or from a dead past. All tragedy teaches this in a way, b u t few tragedies bring the lesson so close as this one does. M ercurio, that m agnetic invention o f Shakespeare’s own, makes fun o f love, and laughs at the absurdities o f duelling too, until he is killed fighting a duel himself. His death marks a focal point in the Tragedy involves collision betw een m an and fate, as well as between men: ‘fate’ being o u r symbol for the com plexity o f factors, hum an or other, w hich so often seem leagued to thw art us. For Elizabethans, as all over their Europe, fate exercised its will through the stars, and this was no m ere m etaphor. This play’s Prologue announces ‘star-crossed lovers’, and R om eo’s last speech is about the ‘inauspicious stars’ whose yoke he is about to shake off. Gloom y dreams and presentim ents m ultiply the fate­ laden shadows. A doubt falls across Rom eo’s m ind as he prepares to enter the hall o f the Capulets (I.iv.106 ff.). Juliet, taking leave o f him after their w edding night, has ‘an ill-divining soul’, and seems to see him a corpse M an is caught in a web o f causes that to him (if not to religious clairvoyance) appear irrational. T hey m ust seem all the m ore so in a society riddled w ith inexplicable change, com pared w ith the relatively static setting o f the French classical theatre. It is only w hen two epochs, rival values, are in conflict that tragedy like Shakespeare’s can be born. In sublunary terms, the hum an sensation o f being confronted by a hostile universe means that m en or w om en are singly confronted by an uncongenial com m unity and its laws. In this play individual right asserts itself on tw o historical planes. An older generation o f nobility claims a charter to carry on private warfare, w ith o u t regard to public order and in defiance o f the authority now vested in absolute monarchy. Secondly, a younger generation o f the same class, infected (in London, if not in Verona) by the thinking o f new er m iddle classes, claims liberty for each O ld and young are both rebels, b u t the old w ant to tyrannize over the young, as the State seeks to tyrannize over them. For the young, love also m eans rejection o f a family quarrel, another appendage o f the old order. These lovers (unlike their m entor, Friar Lawrence) have no thoughts to spare for the good that their union m ay do by ending the feud: they are w rapped up in themselves, and pursue their ow n aim in a fashion liable to inflam e family relations still further. Nevertheless, they are, in their ow n way, rebelling against the past’s m orbid hold over the present. They

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belong to an era w hich is beginning to regard each person as a separate h u m an being, n o t as one lim b o f a family tree. Tow ards partial assent to such views Shakespeare’s England was moving. Ju liet’s father, old C apulet, is as enlightened in this way as one o f his upbringing could be, and likes to thin k o f him self as an excellent p arent to his only child. H e tells her suitor Paris that he m ust w oo her and w in h er affections, n o t sim ply have h er handed over to him . Juliet, for her part, is not at all averse to marriage, and assures her m other that she will do her best to like Paris. H e is perfectly eligible, though uninteresting; he has a title, and ‘fair dem esnes’, and other good points (III.v.179 ff.), and he is truly in love w ith her. Ju liet’s readiness at first to consider h im favourably is the counterpart to Rom eo’s calf love for It is only after falling in love w ith Rom eo that Ju liet feels she is being kept in bondage by her parents. It may be allowed that her refusal to m arry Paris, so soon after her prom ise o f docility (III.v), is brusque and tactless; and there is som ething o f D esdem ona’s cavalier treatm ent o f her father in the way she suddenly turns her back on kith and kin. Capulet, to be sure, is a hasty, capricious, unreasonable old fellow; he has to disgust us w ith his harshness, in order to ensure that our sympathies will T o keep the love story from dragging, it is p u t into a very condensed form . H ero and heroine are on the stage together - alive - in only four scenes, and m ost o f these m eetings are quite brief. T hey fall in love in the tw inkling o f eighteen lines o f conversation in a crow ded ballroom. R om eo’s previous self-pitying sighs are blow n away: he is transform ed into a new m an, ready for action, and the play is lifted on to a new level. Equally, from a girl Ju liet turns into a w om an, though in fact, as her nurse insists on telling us in prolix detail, she is a little under fourteen years o f age (I.iii. 17 ff.). Girls o f the T u d o r aristocracy m ight sometimes be m arried very young, for reasons connected w ith property or family influence; b u t the average age o f m arriage in ordinary families was quite In a hom e-bred girl ten years younger than this, Ju liet’s m odish m anner o f speech, high principles, heroic conduct, are o f course perfectly unbelievable. Shakespeare could not have been unconscious o f this; he had daughters o f his own, aged (in 1595) ten and twelve. It w ould have cost h im nothing to give Juliet h alf a dozen extra years. M ore easily still, he could have left it to each o f us to guess her age. N one o f his C om edy heroines is a child. B ut Juliet, like M iranda in The Tempest (who, however, has nothing to do, and little to say), is only in part a person; in p art she is an em blem o f a new era, a new dispensation, and Shakespeare cannot fully blend this second function w ith a flesh-and-blood personality.

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Juliet is an idea, a new spirit o f rom antic love. W h en she and Romeo first meet, their w ords com bine to m ake a sonnet: a stylized kind o f wooing, even if sanctioned by the conventions o f a masked ball, b u t it helps to convey the required sense o f a y o u th and m aiden hypnotized by the magic o f life, becom ing its half-conscious train-bearers. This is carried still fu rther by Rom eo’s face being concealed by a mask; Tybalt detects him only by his voice. Such a love has a ritualized, alm ost mystic quality, as the pair themselves feel; she talks o f his ‘divine perfection’, and he feels th at in her love he will be ‘new baptized’ (Il.ii). It is the only tim e that Shakespeare invests m ortal love w ith such a sacram ental atm os­ phere, or bestows on it, through his Friar, the special blessing o f religion. Love at first sight - or first hearing, in Ju liet’s case - spares Shake­ speare and us the em barrassm ent o f lovem aking on the stage, w hich can scarcely ever be convincing, and o f w hich he was always chary. H e again saves h im self trouble by the device o f letting Rom eo hear Ju liet confess h er love in a soliloquy (Il.ii). She is only slightly abashed at finding herself overheard. She believes in frankness, n o t in coy concealm ent, and thinks open love is m ore likely to last. T his openness soon leads her to m ake it clear to Rom eo (as M iranda does to Ferdinand) that if he wants her he m ust m arry her, even though their union may have to be kept secret from her family. O ld-style feudal m arriage belongs to the past, but m atrim ony rem ains sacred as the bedrock o f social behaviour and stability, one o f the indispensable continuations betw een old w orld and O n these term s Juliet is quite ready to w elcom e her nurse’s counsel ‘Go, girl, seek happy nights’ (I.iii. 107). She deems ‘true love acted simple m odesty’; and the highly poetical opening o f the leave-taking scene (III.v) throw s a rom antic glow over the w edding night ju st past. B ut as Shakespeare was fond o f rem inding us, there are diverse kinds o f love, and different points o f view about it. T h e C apulet servants have their ow n wenches, and are going to have them in while the ball is in progress. Plebeian paganism has a splendid incarnation in the nurse, w ho is everything old, earthy, unrom antic, tho u g h also truly devoted to her Juliet. Like Annabella’s nurse in Ford’s tragedy T is Pity She’s a Whore, she represents a hearty hum anity o f the masses along w ith indifference to b o th abstract m orality and high-flow n idealism. A t the other extrem e is the unreal, affected pose o f the gentlem anly amorist. M ercutio’s light-hearted banter, w ith a spicing o f indelicacy, has an easy target in Rom eo’s languid infatuation w ith Rosalind. His posturing is as silly as the clum sy w ord-play that he and Benvolio regale each other w ith, m uch as the servitors in the opening scene do. It may be that Shakespeare is rem inding us, as he does in his early Comedies, that m aster and m an are, after all, n o t so far apart. (The rank breath o f the

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m ob often disgusts him ; b u t it has n o t escaped M ercutio that a high­ b orn lady’s breath may be tainted by too m uch eating o f sweets [I.iv.75M ercutio’s talk o f ‘vain fantasy’, ‘m ore inconstant than the w ind’ (I.iv.98 ff.), prepares us for R om eo’s instant fall out o f one love into another. B ut the play raises m ore serious questions about this second one, w hich we cannot be m eant to overlook. At first Juliet has a sensible feeling that they should let their love ripen, not be in too m uch haste; b u t the next m inute she is pressing for an im m ediate w edding (Il.ii). R om eo’s wild talk o f suicide w hen he learns o f his banishm ent sounds to the Friar like that o f a hysteric or a m adm an (III.iii.108 ff.). H e has already reflected, w ith foreboding, that ‘Such violent delights have violent ends’ (II.vi.9); w hich in one way is the play’s moral. O nly the unnatural atm osphere created by the fam ily vendetta could m ake so desperate a passion seem natural, even inevitable. W e take sides w ith the rebel lovers against parental obstruction, and w ith the governm ent against the braw ling nobles. Escalus is a ruler w ith plenary power, unlike some in the Comedies; evidently in V erona such authority is needed, b u t it is n o t always effective. T hough he is m asterful and dignified, Escalus is conscious that he has not been strict enough. T o pardon m urder is false mercy, he declares after the deaths o f M ercutio and Tybalt: from now on he will be ‘d eaf to pleading and excuses’ (III.i.191). Feuds like V erona’s were still endem ic and troublesom e in late-sixteenth-century Scotland, and n o t unknow n in W ales. Some Englishm en w ould be aware that France was m uch plagued w ith duelling, the m ore individualistic sequel to the family feud, and that H en ri IV was reproached w ith granting pardons too easily. It is from this p o in t o f view that the Prologue summarizes the play’s them e. H atred and love are bound up together, the lovers a necessary sacrifice for the peace to be restored. M ore conspicuously than anything else could do, the feud advertises the obsolescence that overtakes old custom s and values. W hatever hints there m ay be o f a ‘tragic flaw’ in the love o f Rom eo and Juliet, the real flaw lies in society and its falsities. W e never hear how the quarrel began. N o one in either family is bent on keeping it going, except the bully Tybalt. N either hero nor heroine feels the slightest interest in it. W e are w atching a case - in M arx’s words - o f the past w eighing like a nightm are on the brains o f the living. In the first m inutes o f the play the feud is erupting afresh, in the caricature style o f servitors brandishing their weapons at one another. W e are being show n its absurdity, though also, as Coleridge said, the touching fidelity o f these underlings, or w hat he quaintly calls their ourishness (102). For them , as for some retainers in the Histories, their combativeness brings a breath o f excitem ent into their lives, and a

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feeling that they too are m en o f spirit - despite some nervous trem ors like their betters, w ith a part to play in the annals o f tw o great families. All they earn by their loyal zeal is T ybalt’s contem pt for them as ‘heartSuch a scuffle looks all the m ore futile, though deadly, w hen old C apulet calls for his sword, and he and M ontague struggle to get at each oth er w hile their wives hold them b ack It adds another im pression o f an o utw o rn past that Escalus talks o f ‘V erona’s ancient citizens’ having to be called o u t to p art the rioters w ith their ‘old’ hands and w eapons - as if there w ere no longer any young m en in the city, except a few hotheads. O ld age haunts the play, as it does the latter part o f Henry IV , and the generations have no better tie than the m o th -eaten feud. C apulet and his cousin have a strong likeness to Justice Shallow and Silence, especially w h en C apulet looks fatuously back on a tim e w hen he too could whisper in ladies’ ears, ‘’Tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone ...’ (I.v.17 ff.). T he Friar is old, as a priest should be; the nurse frets Juliet, im patiently expecting her w ith a message, into crying o u t that old people are like corpses, It has been noticed that C apulet does n o t always succeed in appearing the head o f an ancient house he is supposed to be (Byrne 189). Shake­ speare was n o t yet as m uch conversant w ith aristocratic m anners as he cam e to be. W h e n all the servants are o u t o f the house, C apulet runs off o n an errand himself; he jokes w ith the ladies at his ball about their corns (I.v.17 ff.). H e takes credit for long and painful labour to secure a good m atch for Ju liet (III.v.176 ff.); as he is rich and she is lovely, there w ould seem little need o f this, unless he is looking very high. As the Friar says to him , and m ight have said to m any a rich burgher o f London, ‘’twas your heaven she should be advanced’. Paris is a count, or ‘earl’, as well as a kinsm an o f the prince; so th at am ong Ju lie t’s m erits we m ust reckon her rejection o f a splendid prom otion. H er parents m ake an unam iable pair. W e m ay take them for an illustration o f w hat the old-style marriage system m ay lead to. Lady C apulet is clearly a good deal the younger about thirty, if we pin Shakespeare to his dates (IV.iv.l 1-12); we are free to th in k o f her as blighted by prem ature u n ion w ith a m uch older man. She has no fellow-feeling, all the same, for h er daughter, until she thinks Ju liet dead; she shows her disposition by coolly telling Juliet that she m eans to have Rom eo, as her nephew T ybalt’s slayer, secretly poisoned T ybalt is a bold swordsman, p ro m p t to im peril his not very useful life, b u t also one o f those ‘fantasticoes’ or ‘fashion-m ongers’ w ho so annoy M ercutio w ith their m artial airs and ja rg o n (II.iv.28 ff.). These are a parallel to R om eo’s early am orous foppery, and M ercutio dislikes both; it is n o t always the old ways that are bad, or the new good. In the first scene

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Benvolio is trying to quieten the servants, but im m ediately engages T ybalt w hen he is called a ‘cow ard’, an insult only blood can w ipe off. Later on, M ercutio draws his sword against Tybalt simply because he is outraged by R om eo’s refusal to do so. H e dies w ith ‘A plague o’ both your houses’, twice over (III.i.90, 105). B ut neither house called on him to fight; he rushed into com bat on his ow n impulse, and his dying reproach should be addressed to the code o f h o n o u r o f his class. This code, or creed, was to h au n t E uropean life and literature for another three centuries (Kiernan, Duel). Aggression, w riters like W alter Scott saw, was w rong, b u t w hat should a m an do if he was challenged by an aggressor? T h ere could be no way o u t o f this blind alley until history had m oved a long way fu rther forward. H ere was one o f the earthquake trem ors that Shakespeare was conscious o f in his society, one that neither he nor it Like the gentlem an’s honour, rom antic love had to be exposed to the touchstone o f peril in order to justify its claims. Love and danger m ust go together, for heroine and hero alike. R om eo has to risk his life for their one night together. His grand claim on us is the self-control and m oral courage that enable him to reject T ybalt’s challenge, b u t we are also com pelled to adm ire him w hen he fights T ybalt after M ercutio has taken up the quarrel for him and lost his life. If he did not do this he w ould forfeit our respect and his own, and his right to Juliet - though it is, fatefully, her cousin w hom he is obliged to kill. His creator m ust have intended us to see him as growing, developing by stages, until w hen he learns o f Ju liet’s supposed death he can be content w ith nine quiet w ords - ‘Is it e’en so? T hen I defy you, stars!’ (V.i.24) - in place o f his form er torrential outpourings. H e is resolved at once on suicide, and acts w ith p ro m p t energy. In the tom b he is as ‘savage-wild’, ‘inexorable’, as H am let in one o f his furious fits; he turns on the m eddlesom e ‘boy’ Paris as if he now feels him self to be m uch the older o f the two (V.iii). T h e tragic hero is w hirled along by a fate w ith w hich his w hole being comes to be bound up; ‘fate’ m eaning all that m en are called on by their hum an, b u t also social, condition to do and suffer. Ju liet is willing to look up to her husband as her ‘lord’, b u t seems to grow and learn self-com m and m ore quickly than he does. ‘M y dismal scene I needs m ust act alone’, she says before drinking the Friar’s potion (IV.iii. 19); the star-crossed have to undergo their ordeal in solitude. These tw o prove their love by each choosing death rather than life w ith o u t the other. Rationally, this is frenzy, we are m oved by it because we can be rescued for a w hile from o u r torpid earthbound existence by the spectacle o f any passion strong enough to engross itself so com pletely N o one in the play has a thought to spare for the ban that all

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C hurches laid on suicide and in principle, at least, on duelling; the air we breathe is a pagan one. M ercutio’s irreverent jo k e about parsons dream ing o f tithes w ould be taken by the audience as a hit at Anglican worldliness (I.iv.79-81). It comes not long after an allusion to heretics being burned, w hich w ould rem ind hearers o f Rom e and Spain and their cruelties (I.ii.94). Lawrence is one o f those ‘friars’, o f an O rd er founded by Shakespeare, whose vague designation allows them to live and serve o n their own, respected anchorites w ho have turned their backs on the w orld - including, apparently, the C hurch. His ‘ancient ears’ (II.iii.74) accentuate his air o f a straggler from an older time; so too do his words about old age and its sleep-banishing anxieties. H e is a learned man, able to talk o f both philosophy and botany. H e belongs, moreover, to a Shakespearian series o f thoughtful m en w ho try to guide and im prove hu m an affairs; distantly, at least, he can be com pared w ith the D uke in Measure for Measure, and w ith Prospero. His practical wisdom does not His religion is a dim vision o f the mysterious, possibly benign Providence that seems to have floated at times through Shakespeare’s m ind; it served him poetically, if no more. Lawrence’s w arning about ‘the Heavens’ and ‘their high w ill’ (IV.v.94-5) is very m uch in the poet’s later vein; so is his exhortation to Juliet, over R om eo’s dead body, to ‘bear this w ork o f heaven w ith patience’ (V.iii.260-61). H er ow n cry o f distress w hen she is ordered to m arry Paris - ‘Is there no pity sitting in the clouds’ (III.v.196) - is one o f m any such appeals in Shakespeare to an indistinct protector; they suggest a traditional deity fading into m yth. T h e answer, so far as the events o f this play can tell us, is No; hum an beings m ust look to themselves alone for salvation. T h e place often occupied in Shakespearian dram a by w ar is here taken by the feud; it m ay occur to us that if one o f these is foolish, the other m ay be so too. Images o f gunpow der exploding are rem inders o f this o ther (III.iii. 132—3; V.i.64-5). V iolent deaths are needed to bring the feud to an end, sacrifices to lift a lingering curse. Few are left o f the rival families, and we are n o t m uch interested in the reconciliation betw een two doddering seniors. A truer reconciliation has taken place am ong the dead, w hen Paris begs w ith his dying breath to be laid beside Juliet, and R om eo does as he asks, and him self in his last words asks forgiveness o f his ‘cousin’ T ybalt (V.iii.73, 101). B ut the w eight o f the play falls not so m u ch on this as on the them e o f crim e and punishm ent. M en w ho kill others, to h on o u r their family scutcheons, are criminals. ‘See w hat a scourge is laid upon your hate’, says the prince to the tw o old m en w ho have lost their children, reproaching h im self again w ith his inadequate severity (V.iii.292,308). It may have occurred to Shakespeare that some day m en m ight learn to renounce w ider-reaching hatreds, o f nation or religion.

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Ju liet pictures love as a kind o f ‘w ealth’ (II.vi.34), and Rom eo’s last w ords are spoken w hen he is about to m eet ‘engrossing D eath’: death is the great m onopolist, the all-swallowing maw. A part from such m ercantile images, there is scarcely any shadow o f a ‘social problem ’ - o f the fact that w hile Verona has been divided by a family quarrel, it and the w orld have been m ore deeply divided by w ealth and poverty. In the play’s first scene the lovelorn Rom eo asks idly ‘W h ere shall we dine?’ (I.i.l 72). H e and his associates have never had to ask: H ow can we get som ething to eat? H e has resolved on suicide w hen the thought seems to com e to him that w hile gentlem en kill one another, starvation cuts short H e pauses in the street at M antua, recalling in detail an apothecary’s shop he has seen there, and its owner, b o th miserably poverty-stricken. T his unexpected speech is n o t p u t in, as suggested by some editors, to give the m an tim e to appear at his door, for Rom eo calls him only at the end o f it, and he appears at once. Its dram atic purpose - to tell us w hy he will be willing to break the law by selling poison - could be achieved in a very few words. Rom eo goes on to urge that his poverty and hunger, ‘need and oppression’, justify him in breaking any law. Receiving the poison, he com m ents that the gold he is giving in retu rn is a far worse and m ore destructive one (V.i). Earlier he has talked casually o f ‘saintseducing gold’ (I.i.213): now he sounds like T im on. His ow n m isfortunes, it seems, have brought him to feel and pity those o f others. T here is no reason w hy a M antuan druggist should be reduced to such an extremity; in R om eo’s m ind the starveling he is buying peace from m ust stand for

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2

Poems

Venus and Adonis (1593) Closure o f the theatres during part o f 1592-3, because o f the plague, is enough to account for Shakespeare’s turning to another field, and com posing his only two long poems. Venus and Adonis was published in the spring o f 1593, and the next year Lucrece, a title later turned by a shrewd publisher into The Rape o f Lucrece. Shakespeare had caught the eye o f a youthful noblem an, the Earl o f Southam pton, intelligent enough to appreciate good writers and rich enough to scatter largesse am ong them . In 1593 he was nineteen. B oth poem s were dedicated to him , the second in noticeably m ore fam iliar terms. T h eir au th o r’s choice o f subjects m ust have been influenced by the taste o f such connoisseurs in Renaissance Europe. From the Induction to The Taming o f the Shrew we gain some idea o f a typical collection o f paintings. ‘Venus rising from the sea’ was a favourite them e, and Venus in love w ith a young m an m ight m ake an equally attractive poem. It and Lucrece b o th had the m erit o f being classical stories, and thus displaying Shakespeare as no ignoram us despite his profession and lack o f college education. T h e two form a pair, each concerned w ith physical desire, first female and then male, as if Shakespeare was preoccupied w ith the perilous violence o f this passion. Venus lavishes blandishm ents on a handsom e b u t frigid youth; T arquin makes no attem pt to seduce a virtuous m arried wom an, b u t resorts at once to threats. M ost o f Venus and Adonis takes place in sunlight, all o f it in the open air. O ne o f its best features is the lyrical freshness o f its response, for instance in a sudden splendid passage about the daw n (853 ff.). O n the other hand, N ature is given a blood-sm eared look by masculine ardour for hunting. A long description comes in o f a hare trying to escape, and o f dogs injured by the boar they have been set on, until the boar, or N ature, takes its revenge by killing and m angling the sportsman, Adonis. Lucrece is com pared to ‘the poor frighted deer’, not know ing w hich way to flee its pursuers (1149-50). M en are turning into beasts o f prey, she

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reflects: other animals may be less savage. Venus and Adonis are each reduced m etaphorically to animals, w hen he is first invited to feed or graze on her body, and then to play the stallion; his horse sets an example Classical m yths o f am ours betw een deities and m ortal beings may be supposed to have flattered Renaissance m an’s sense o f being only a little low er than the angels, loudly though theologians m ight proclaim that he was very little higher than the devils. B ut n o t seldom in the long-draw no u t w rangle betw een goddess and obdurate youth, Shakespeare seems close to the border o f absurdity, possibly by intention. It ends on a note o f bathos w hen Adonis runs away and ‘Leaves love upon her back deeply distress’d ’ (814). She is left to lam ent, groaning or singing, until she takes alarm at the thought o f Adonis in danger in the hunt, and at last discovers his dead body. Shakespeare m ust surely have smiled as he made h er think o f the goring tusks as the boar’s kisses, and o f how she, if endow ed w ith such teeth, w ould have kissed Adonis to death (111 ff.). Y et there is a strain o f som ething m ore rom antic or ideal in her infatuation. Early on in the story she descants in higher style on her voyagings through the air; her declaration that ‘Love is a spirit all com pact o f fire,/N o t gross to sink’ (149-50) is prophetic o f C leopatra’s ‘I am fire and air’. For dead Adonis’s sake she lays a curse on love, w hich henceforth is always to bring m ore grief and folly than jo y (1135 ff.); she m eans to go into retirem ent on her island o f Paphos, though Shakespeare can scarcely have m eant to convert the goddess o f love into a celibate. She has expressed for him the anti-ascetic bent o f the Renaissance, and repudiated those ‘Love-lacking vestals and self-living nuns’ (752) w ho Still, the M iddle Ages could not be simply left behind, and pagan innocence or freedom from shame recaptured; love and all its regalia w ould have to be attained by painful pilgrimage. Som ething like this was to form a good part o f the thinking o f Shakespeare the dramatist. Before breaking away from his temptress, Adonis launches into a serm on w hich sounds far beyond his years or attainm ents - about the gulf betw een true love and lust; he has listened to warnings about the risks o f indulgence; Venus should not call w hat she feels love, ‘for love to heaven is fled’ (793: he forgets that heaven is w here his visitor lives). Venus is given to still m ore inappropriate speech-m aking, as characters in the plays so often are. M yth and life im pinge often and oddly. She wanders into a com plicated com m ercial m etaphor about kisses and rates o f interest. From her picture o f the h unted hare she draws a hum an parallel, as Jaques in A s You Like It does from the w ounded deer: those in m isfortune are tram pled on, n o t succoured (707-8). W h en she comes on A donis’s bleeding hounds, and is frightened by the sight into guessing

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that he m ust have been killed, Venus com pares herself to ‘the w orld’s poor people’, long perturbed by ‘apparitions, signs and prodigies’, inspiring ‘dreadful prophecies’ (925 ff ). T h e poet may well be thinking o f the uneasiness w ith w hich Englishm en awaited the death o f Elizabeth, now only ten years away; b u t there seems no reason for Venus to be p erturbed over it. H er m ost im probable plea to Adonis is that he ought to breed children to propagate his good looks (163 ff ). In his early sonnets Shakespeare was preaching on the same text to a young m an baulking at marriage. This parallel makes it all the m ore credible that the young m an o f the sonnets was the p atron to w hom the poem was

By contrast, the second poem unfolds its story indoors, m ost o f the tim e shrouded in darkness. It makes for tragedy in a far m ore m eaningful way: death comes n o t from a boar’s tusks b u t from the wickedness o f man. Y et it has n o t seemed to m ost readers to m ark m uch o f a poetic advance. Saintsbury even ju d g ed it inferior to Venus and Adonis, except as a ‘school exercise’ (‘Poem s’ 228). H aw kins com m ented on how little is m ade o f the political or heroic elem ents o f the tale, w ith the result that the effect in the m ain is ‘pathetic, not tragic’ (158). In a w ork prim arily addressed to courtly readers, Shakespeare m ay have th o ught it undesirable to strike too radical a note. Levi takes the poem as a study o f ‘the breakdow n o f society’ (88), and this is w hat it m ight have been: sex can serve as a seismograph, and Lucrece’s fate could be a register both o f exploitation o f the w eak by the strong, and o f fission w ithin a dom inant class. Little o f this emerges, however. It has been observed that Lucrece is too nearly akin to Titus Adronicus in its ‘fascinated contem plation’ o f desire and bloodshed; its conception o f tragedy is youthfully crude (Prince xxxvii). In Elizabethan England the idea o f rape, like the spectacle o f bearbaiting, m ight pander to sadistic instincts. M arlow e’s Tam burlaine had a special relish for wholesale massacres o f virgins. Venus and Adonis em ployed a simple six-line stanza, popular w ith T u d o r w riters o f narrative verse. In Lucrece the stanza is a w eightier one o f seven lines, m ore difficult because one rhym e is repeated three times. As T hom as Gray pointed o u t in detail in his com m entary on Lydgate, Elizabethan poets were already suffering from some o f the problem s, the shrinking n um ber o f available rhymes, b rought about by shifts o f pronunciation since C haucer (370-72). Shakespeare was too im patient a w riter, too m uch an improvisatore, to be an expert rhym er. W e can fancy h im thinking o f him self w hen his Lucrece hesitates over how to begin h er letter because so m any thoughts ‘T h ro n g her inventions’, like a press

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o f people at the door each trying to get in first (1301-2). Rhym e was a hobble, as often in the Sonnets too. ‘Evil’ and ‘devil’ partner each other w ith tiresom e regularity. Syntax is som etimes distorted, m eaning Lucrece is considerably longer than its predecessor, and moves so slowly that in spite o f its central episode it cannot be called a dram atic poem . A t every tu rn the story is clogged w ith strained conceits. Readers m ust have enjoyed these com plications as som ething to exercise their m inds on. Venus was voluble, b u t Lucrece is far m ore so, no doubt w ith b etter excuse. Everything her eyes fall on, in her desperate grief, ‘too m u ch talk affords’ (1106). H er long plea to T arquin to spare her is a declam ation w ith little em otional force, like so m any woebegone speeches in the early Histories. Left alone, she pours out her torm ented feelings in a soliloquy o f 273 lines, encrusted w ith every sort o f polished ornam entation. W ith ‘this cursed crim eful night’ (970) she comes close to the eloquence parodied by Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Lucrece and her husband C ollatinus are an ideal couple, though not an equal one. W o m en are necessarily weaker. She feels some self­ reproach at not having offered any active resistance to Tarquin. She was intim idated by his threat to kill her, b u t we are rem inded that he had also threatened her w ith disgrace. W om en, w ith their ‘waxen’ m inds (the term recurs in Twelfth Night), ought n o t to be blam ed for failings that are really the fault o f m en (1237 ff.). N one the less, Lucrece has strength to face w hat she deems her duty o f suicide. It is a duty because she belongs to h er husband, and her body, his treasured possession, has been ‘poisoned’ or ‘corrupted’ by T arq u in ’s act. U nlike her C hristian sister Juliet, she debates w ith herself the m oral issue o f suicide (1153.f ). For her it raises the question o f body and soul, so prom inent in C hristian th o u g h t and handled here in w hat may seem a deliberately scholastic m anner. This settled, she can feel once m ore ‘mistress’ o f her fate. H er husband and friends try - not very urgently - to dissuade her; the knife frees her soul from its ‘polluted prison’, though not before she has exacted a pledge o f vengeance on T arquin, invoking the knight’s duty to right w om en’s wrongs (1688 ff.). C hristian and Rom an ideas jostle together. Collatinus is disappointingly inert, and it is left to Lucrece’s T arq u in has nothing rom antic about h im and feels no m ore than anim al passion, against w hich ‘reason’ is feeble (243). Except in his goal, he has a m arked resem blance to M acbeth - now here m ore so than w hen he wrestles beforehand w ith his conscience, or rather w ith prudence (190 ff.). A kind o f false pride drives b oth m en on. T arquin tells him self that only weaklings are awed by ‘a painted cloth’, and that his scruples are

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really nothing b u t unw orthy fear. ‘T houghts are b u t dream s’, until they are turned into actions. A great deal o f Shakespeare is condensed into these conflicting impulses. T he crim e is soon com m itted - in darkness, so we are n o t com pelled to w atch (as we w ould be in a m odern film rendering) - and quickly followed by a revulsion o f feeling, shame and self-disgust. U ncontrollable until gratified, lust is then only ‘a bankrout beggar’ (703 ff ). Shakespeare’s h o rro r o f ‘lust in action’ and w hat it ends in is the true subject o f the poem , as it is o f Sonnet 129. Religious associations are insistent. U nder such a load o f sin the soul is a ‘princess’ T his is n o t a political poem , as it could have been, b u t it has political and social overtones. Its villain is a prince (or king - Shakespeare is hazy) and this, it is reiterated, does not cover up his sin b u t makes it far m ore heinous. ‘Kings like gods should govern everything’ - including, it is im plied, themselves - Lucrece protests; their transgressions cannot be concealed (602). As often in Shakespeare’s plays, the principle o f m onarchy is extolled, b u t its representative is a very unw orthy one. From such unw orthiness com m on people have to suffer. Lucrece, like Romeo, is one o f Shakespeare' s people w ho are led by their ow n m isfortunes to th in k about those o f others, ‘T he poor, lame, blind, halt’, and those groaning under oppression: ‘J ustice is feasting while the w idow w eep s...’ As in Venus and Adonis, things o f long ago and far away ru n together w ith English realities. Imagery distils an atm osphere o f a highly com m ercialized society, such as England was acutely conscious o f being because the process was overtaking it so rapidly. As T arquin hesitates outside Lucrece’s cham ber the same perils, rocks and storms and pirates, com e into his m ind as into A ntonio’s in The Merchant o f Venice (335-6). Trafficking for w ealth seems to lurk close under the surface o f the story, as if Shakespeare felt that m ankind in his tim e - he him self along w ith the rest - was in danger o f losing its soul for gain. Rape o f a m arried w om an is a trespass against her rightful ‘ow ner’ (412-13). Collatine, shocked by his wife’s tale o f woe, is ‘the hopeless m erchant o f this loss’ (1660). She lam ents her ow n shattered happiness as a cancelled contract T here are trains o f tho u g h t here that w ere becom ing habitual w ith Shakespeare. O ne is his puzzle about how a goodly exterior can hide a vicious disposition (1528 ff ). M ost besetting o f all is the obsession w ith T im e, m ore often than not as the enem y o f everything m ankind can m ake o f its world. T im e is ‘injurious’, a robber and destroyer, as so often in the sonnets Shakespeare was writing; we may guess him to be feeling that he had n o t m ade enough o f his life so far, that age was going to overtake him unawares. In one extended passage he seems for a while to

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take a m ore com forting view: ‘T im e’s glory’ is to perform good works, to end old quarrels for instance (925 ff ). Lucrece prays to T im e to curse T arq u in (967). B ut Shakespeare was overw helm ed by it, unable to come to term s w ith it; he could only throw rou nd it a tum ultuous riot o f A t m any points linkages can be noticed between the poem and various o f the plays, besides Macbeth. Lucrece’s words about a prince’s duty to be ‘the glass, the school, the book’ for others to learn from (615­ 16) are a rougher version o f O phelia’s tribute to Hamlet. W e are told less about Collatine than about the groom w ho carries Lucrece’s message to him , a hum ble honest fellow, a ‘pattern o f the w o rn -o u t age’ (1345 ff.), o f honester times gone by. Richard II’s faithful groom , and old Adam in As You Like It, were m en o f the same m ould. Life in London m ight well set Shakespeare brooding on the corrosion o f the hum an family by selfish com petition; there was m uch o f the past he w anted to rescue, as well as W h eth er or n o t he took the legend o f B ritish descent from T roy as seriously as m any did, the very elaborate and irrelevant description o f the painting o f the siege o f T roy in Lucrece’s house w ould be enough to reveal a keen interest in the subject, in advance o f Troilus and Cressida. It m ay rem ind us, too, o f V enus’s dire predictions o f the future in store for love: am ong its curses will be an ‘unsavoury end’, jealousy, and responsibility for wars (1135 ff.). Shakespeare was to w rite plays exhibit­ ing all three. It is a grey light that the two poems throw on the hum an T hey w ere applauded, and frequently reprinted. Nevertheless, their au th o r showed no furth er interest in literary reputation. H e had w on success by adapting him self to a very artificial fashion o f w riting, and can scarcely have felt pleased for long w ith w hat he had achieved. H azlitt m ay go too far in saying that these poem s w ere ‘as glittering, and as cold’, as a couple o f ice-houses; b u t he was right in saying that Shakespeare’s im agination could find freedom only in dram a (Characters 263-6). W hatever dram atic qualities the poem s have they owe to the clash o f unyielding wills, such as always thrilled h im w hen he was com posing for the stage. In narrative verse, to be read at leisure, he was too free to luxuriate in language for its ow n sake. H e was redeem ed from this tem ptation - not all at once - by the theatre, whose dem ands com pelled him to get on w ith his tale, instead o f overflowing into the stagnant waters o f com m entary on it. Intuition m ust have taught him that only in the theatre could his genius be at hom e. H e was o f too independent a m in d to sink into reliance on private patronage, m ore fickle than the m any-headed audience. W e m ay suppose that during 1593-4 he was also sketching his next plays, or gathering inspiration for them.

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3

Sonnets

In 1609 a collection o f 154 sonnets ascribed to Shakespeare was published. In literary m erit they range from very high to distinctly low; from every other point o f view they are enveloped in m ore than the usual Shakespearian uncertainties. Shakespeare may have authorized their publication, though D over W ilson is very probably right in guessing that the editor upset him by including some he w ould not have wished to appear (Sonnets 17-18). M urry (93) and Levi (94) are am ong those w ho doubt w hether the poet gave any such approval. His and m any other m en ’s sonnets m ust have circulated privately, in handw ritten copies. Francis M eres w rote in 1598 about his ‘sugar’d sonnets am ong his private friends’. A b rief vogue o f sonneteering, inaugurated by the appearance o f Sidney’s collection in 1591, was over by 1600. It may be safe to suppose that Shakespeare was taking part from the tim e w hen his long poems were w ritten, and w ent on through the 1590s and even after. T he judicious T ucker attributes them to 1592-1601, w ith a few later additions (xxv; cf. Ellrodt 43-4; B urto 195). Some have a depth o f feeling and m aturity o f language akin to those o f the ‘problem plays’ and tragedies. Shakespeare may well have found, in w hat began for him as a literary or social exercise, a means o f relieving his m ind o f painful feelings, the ‘perilous stu ff that weighs upon the heart’ w hich M acbeth’s doctor could not cure. H e was not, at any rate, following the conventional plan o f an epistolary w ooing o f a lady, real or im aginary, though he m ight often be said to be w ooing a patron. It w ould have been out o f place for a young w riter o f no social standing to address am orous poem s to a lady, and ridiculous to address sonnets to a w om an o f his ow n station. Later on he could follow custom by finding, or inventing, a faithless siren to reproach. His Sonnets were exceptional, too, in not form ing a unitary sequence; as a w hole they do not fall into any logical order. T here is a sequence o f seventeen at the beginning, and w hat look like fragments o f

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o ther groups; some com e in pairs, like N os 27-8. H e could n o t have taken long to discover that sonneteering had a ridiculous side, m ore in tune w ith R om eo’s first love than w ith his second, and that it attracted some very silly writers. O ne o f these is the A rm ado o f Love's Labour's Lost, w here a crop o f poetasters p u t their feelings into fourteen lines. Longaville’s sonnet, a poor one, is indited to a ‘goddess’ (IV.iii.58 ff.), as a great m any others o f the tim e were. W o m en were assumed to be as greedy for flattery as monarchs; though one at least in this play had the sense (as Q ueen Elizabeth often did not) to dismiss an outpouring o f it as ‘a huge translation o f hypocrisy’ (V.ii.5051), and one m an has the sense to deride a fashion ‘w hich makes flesh a deity,/A green goose a goddess’ (IV.iii.73—4). T he king’s effort w ith his pen (III.iv.24 ff.) has the m ixed quality o f m any o f Shakespeare’s own, w here fine images from N ature are spoiled by laborious love-conceits. Sonnets belonged, in fact, to a vast literary hobby or industry o f Renaissance Europe, and it was inevitable that Shakespeare, like the rest, should sometimes be repeating things that others had said, or rehearsing stock sentim ents, long since stale. Sidney Lee’s exam ination shows this in relentless detail. It was a fam iliar pose o f scribblers to lam ent their grey hairs, w hether they had m any or few (Lee, Life 155); they had to sound lugubrious. T he idea so tediously propounded in Shakespeare’s first seventeen pieces - that a handsom e young m an ought to m arry and enrich the w orld w ith progeny in his ow n image - was a com m onplace (185). As Philip Sidney com m ented in his Defence o f Poesy, poets were lavish in guaranteeing im m ortality to their patrons: som ewhat im perti­ nently, Samuel B utler rem arked - a noblem an w ith a distinguished career open to him m ight n o t w ant to be told that his fame w ould depend on some versifier’s rhym es (79-80). Poets, like preachers, denounced lust, as Shakespeare did in Sonnet 129. B ut Lee, as some have felt, pushed his inquisition too far, allowing too little for w hat Shake­ speare added. T houghts in No. 53 may well derive from N eo-Platonism (Lee, Life 180), but the imaginative leap from archaic metaphysics to the magical opening lines cannot be measured. No. 119 borrows two striking w ords for its fine opening from the now long-forgotten Barnabe Barnes; b u t to borrow and transfigure was som ething Shakespeare was Some o f the feeling in the Sonnets must be real; the sketchy episodical fram ew ork may or may not be, and the best argum ent for its reality is th at if the Fair M an and the D ark Lady were inventions, Shakespeare could have been expected to produce better ones. T ucker felt that w ith some pieces at least, like No. 90, it w ould be ‘alm ost a wicked scepticism to doubt that he is speaking genuinely for h im self (xxxiii; cf. xxxv-vi). T o A uden all the sonnets, apart from the initial set, sounded like ‘naked

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autobiographical confession’ (xxxiv). Lee, on the other hand, m uch less impressionable, could detect ‘a strain o f personal em otion’ only here and there (Lee, Life 168). T his seems self-evidently wrong. Y et it seems also that even in these b rief poems, where, if anywhere, we m ight hope to com e face to face w ith the living Shakespeare, he is still often wearing a mask, or leaving his m eaning to be fully understood by a few intim ates only. T h e h o u r had n o t yet struck for a poet to reveal all his feelings to a public audience, or even to a private circle. W h a t he said m ight be m ore like a ‘dram atic m onologue’ by B row ning than self-disclosure. It cannot be accidental that the 1590s saw both the private vogue o f the sonnet and the com ing o f age o f the public drama; the one was an elitist shadow o f the other. Shakespeare was one o f the middle-class writers w ho were advancing towards realism - that is, realistic exploration o f hum an feeling, w hether in a naturalistic setting or not. As a sonneteer he could n o t always be sure o f his footing; hence m any awkwardnesses and im perfections. It has been noticed that he wavers betw een addressing his patron familiarly, as ‘th o u ’, and formally, as ‘you’ - a dilem m a from w hich the revolution was soon to free w riters by abolishing ‘th o u ’ and H ow m uch o f Shakespeare him self w ent into a sonnet can best be ju d g ed from its quality; but the finest ones are apt to be the m ost enigm atic. A possibility cannot perhaps be ruled out that Shakespeare felt some physical attraction towards m en, as well as a stronger one towards w om en. In this and other contexts, real feeling may be disguised un d er conventional husks. If he, like others, affected an air o f being older, m ore decrepit, than his real age, it is possible that he often did feel like this u nder the strain o f an exhausting life. H e may have been about thirty w hen the Sonnets were begun, w ith scarcely tw enty years o f active life ahead. In youth he had been im prudent; in L ondon his private life may have been at times as tem pestuous as he says. In spite o f this he grew into a saving man, a shrewd investor, a citizen in good standing. Tensions betw een tw o sides o f his nature - inherited, perhaps, from parents w ith discordant tem peram ents as well as different social backgrounds - may In spite o f his success in the theatre, he m ay have felt his profession as a b urden w hen he contrasted it, as he m ust have done, w ith the easy, graceful idleness o f his aristocratic young acquaintances. E m bitterm ents o f this kind are less likely to be fabricated than disappointm ents in love. A soldier renow ned for m any victories can be disgraced by one failure (No. 25): Shakespeare may be reflecting on how precarious a trade his m ust be, and No. 29 looks like m ortification at some such reverse. In No. 110 he is stung by the thought o f having m ade him self ‘a m otley to the view’, or played the clow n to amuse people; as a w itty com panion he

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m ust have been in dem and - som etim es in circles w here he, like H am let, m ig h t be fooled to the top o f his bent. In the next sonnet he is soured by the ill-fortune that has left him to earn his bread by ‘public means w hich U nprom ising though their them e is, the first Sonnets are not deficient in poetry. Perhaps in w riting them - about 1593-4 - the poet was often thinking o f his ow n son, rather than o f the son he was urging his young p atro n to set about begetting, and looking forward to having grandsons to follow him . Some w ords o f N o. 13 - ‘dear m y love you know /Y ou had a father . . . ’ - w ould suit this reading; like such a phrase for his p atro n as ‘lovely boy’, they suggest paternal m ore than any other feeling. If so, H am net’s death in 1596 cut short such hopes; the N ew Place b ought the next year at Stratford w ould go to others, like M acbeth’s W hatever their credibility in detail, the am atory sonnets reveal at least tu rb u lent sensations. Shakespeare was living apart from his wife, and a substitute relationship o f any w holesom e kind w ould be hard to achieve. Actors w ere greatly adm ired, by w om en, no doubt, even m ore than by men; and he could p u t on a surly defiance o f opinion, in­ difference to the ‘rank thoughts’ o f others about his ‘sportive blood’ and ‘frailties’. ‘N o, I am that I am ...’ (No. 121). T rue, he was w riting comedies, am ong o ther things, and we have stray testim onies to a light­ hearted social life am ong his peers. H e cannot always have been looking forw ard to his exit from ‘this vile w orld’, as in No. 71. B ut the dark m oods, it m ust be thought, were black enough. Everyone w ith a pen has w ritten about T im e, b u t Shakespeare said far too m u ch about it for there to be any dou b t o f its poignant meanings for him ; and it rarely failed to inspire him . It is a salient them e o f fourteen sonnets, three o f them in the opening set. As in Lucrece, T im e is m ost often a negative force, an enemy, it is ‘injurious’ (No. 85), ‘devouring’ (No. 86). H e is running a race against T im e, or sw im m ing against a tide o f change he dislikes. For m en and w om en o f that era, religion helped to sharpen consciousness o f T im e - the m orbid consciousness o f the isolated soul m uch m ore than any spirit o f social effort and confidence. O n e o f its key-w ords was ‘eternity’, w hich throw s a huge shadow over T im e brings death and oblivion; b u t N os 18-19 m ove to another hackneyed b u t m ore congenial idea: that o f the poet’s verses conferring im m ortality. It is, o f course, his ow n literary im m ortality that the poet is interested in, w hatever he m ay profess to be saying. A m bition to survive in fame was one o f the Renaissance legacies from Antiquity; one o f the splendid sonnets (No. 55) - ‘N o t marble, nor the gilded m o n u m e n ts/O f p rin c e s. . . ’ - is an im itation o f a H oratian ode (III.30). H orace’s prophetic

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claim for him self and his w ork had com e true; Shakespeare’s m ight too. W ith No. 77 he sends his friend the gift o f a blank com m onplace book, recom m ending him to record his thoughts in it as they arise, and thus save them from being swept away by Tim e. It is an interesting sidelight on his creative processes w hen he adds that thoughts thus rendered visible take on a fresh vitality. O n e m ust w onder w hether he carried a scribbling-pad himself, and jo tte d ideas dow n as they occurred to him - some o f them to be stuck in w herever there m ight be a nook All the sonnets on fame ru n betw een N os 18 and 83 in the published order; if we can trust this so far, it m ay be that afterwards Shakespeare came to feel that his reputation was assured. O r it may be that his interest in it dwindled. W riters unappreciated by their contem poraries have often turned away in quest o f the approval o f generations unborn. H e could n o t content him self w ith this kind o f ghostly intercourse w ith his fellows; he needed a m ore flesh-and-blood interchange, and found it in the theatre. Perhaps it was because there were no m ore pressing calls from the theatre, after he retired, to rouse h im to activity, that he failed M ost o f his sonnets w ould have found few readers in later days if they had been w ritten by anyone else. T here is m uch m onotonous repetition. A n inspired 106 and 108 follow on a batch o f m ostly dull apologies for silence. Q uality th ro u g h o u t is very uneven. This may not always m atter w hen we are looking for signs o f Shakespeare’s ordinary interest in the social life ro u n d him; it m atters m u ch m ore w hen we ask w hich poems can be taken to disclose the poet’s m ost poignant sensations. Few can d o u b t that poetry o f the highest order is, in Shelley’s words, ‘Struck from L andor ju dg ed none o f the sonnets first-rate. Auden, w ho quoted and dissented from this dictum , considered th at forty-nine w ere ‘excellent th ro u g h o u t’, w hile m any others had good lines (xxiv). M y ow n count adds up to fifteen in the first class (Nos 29, 30, 53, 57, 6 4 -6, 107, 110-11, 116, 129-30, 146); forty-nine others w ith flashes o f poetry. Those that can be felt to record Shakespeare’s ow n responses to his environm ent w ere part o f the com plex historical process that was heightening m en’s sense o f their ow n individuality and, at the same time, o f the uniqueness o f each relationship betw een one individual and another. Religion had given th em their first preoccupation w ith the self; now they w ere ready W h a t m ay be called the official or ‘co u rt’ culture was as elaborate and showy as a courtier’s costume. In his sonnets as in his long poems, Shakespeare was subm itting to its artificialities, its conceits and verbal capers and quibblings (e.g. N os 24, 46), devoid o f any real meaning.

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Sonneteering m ust be an easy way to w ork o ff a tepid sensation of love, E lizabeth B ennet in Pride and Prejudice once rem arked. T he nam bypam by D auphin in Henry V has w ritten a sonnet in praise o f his horse. From feeling obliged, early on, to w rite so stiltedly, Shakespeare may well have had fits o f self-doubt. In No. 55 he is trium phant; in No. 72 he is ashamed o f ‘that w hich I bring fo rth ’, ‘things nothing w o rth ’. T h ro u g h all this he was a professional w riter in the making, w orking his way towards a diction far m ore lucid and direct than m ost am ateurs attained. Sidney’s sonnet-m anner is often tortuously rhym e-cram ped. M oreover, Shakespeare was discovering, like M ilton n ot m uch later, how greatly the sonnet was capable o f being im proved and expanded. W ith the court style w ent a flavour o f the hum bug or insincerity that infected the court itself and all the higher walks o f life. Shakespeare’s sonnets o f absence and separation are, for w ant o f a w orthy occasion, am ong his m ost fulsom e and overstrained. Some o f his com plim ents have a distasteful streak o f servility, w hatever conventions he was obeying. Usually the closer he comes to boot-licking, the further he is from poetry. In some o f his sonnets addressed to a man, the tone m ight suggest an association then considered im proper, b u t in Elizabethan usage the w ord ‘love’ was elastic enough to cover a wide span o f meanings. T h e dedication o f Lucrece begins w ith the author’s ‘love’ for his patron, m eaning no m ore than w arm attachm ent. ‘M y sweet boy’, ‘m y h eart’, Falstaff calls o u t to Hal, in the street (IH .IV V.iv.44, 48). If all artists have, like Heine, tw o souls in one breast, this m ay have been m ore acutely so w ith Shakespeare than w ith most. In the long poem s the court culture was predom inant; in the Sonnets we see it w restling w ith new er ways o f thinking and behaving; and in the later, harshly realistic ones, the new er ways prevail. In Nos 40 and 95 (both containing the w ord ‘lascivious’) we have a picture o f vice gilded by aristocratic graces w hich m ight easily, for a while, charm an im pression­ able young m an from the country. Shakespeare points out quite clearly the blurring o f right and w rong th at this entailed - w ith little show o f repulsion, b u t his m oral sense m ust have gone on w orking to throw off the alien element. Y et high culture is always a fusion, a com pound. Shakespeare was n o t abandoning old standards b u t seeking to bring them into a m ore durable amalgam, fit for a com ing age, and thereby at the same tim e to ennoble the standards o f a social order now emerging. General reflections on life are the staple o f the finest sonnets; the persons they are supposed to be addressed to are brought in in deference to a prescribed pattern. T here is an evolving style, and ‘Shakespeare is m oving nearer to D onne than to Spenser’ (Ellrodt 43). In D onne’s ‘metaphysical’ style a true fusion o f cultures could not be brought about; it was m ore a m ixing up o f ideas o f professional m iddle-class scholars

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and w riters w ith those o f a sceptical courtier type: the two agreed in rejecting the fulsome, overblow n em otionalism o f court poetry. Such a convergence can com e about m ore easily on the artistic plane than on the political one o f class interests, b u t it was too intellectually contrived to be fully congenial to Shakespeare. His im agery continued to belong to the perennial w orld o f nature, and o f social relations. Sonnets 1 to 17 were addressed to a young m an, apparently o f high station, w ho m ay have been - as Tucker, am ong others, thought (xxxvii ff.) - W illiam H erbert, third Earl o f Pem broke, to w hom the First Folio was dedicated; b u t he was only fourteen in 1594, and a m ore probable candidate is the Earl o f Southam pton, to w hom Shakespeare dedicated his tw o long poems. W ranglings about the rival claimants may never end, since as one critic rem arks both sides have to depend a good deal on plausible assumptions (Booth 547-8). T h eir argum ents have been reviewed lately by W ait (ch. 1) and Calvert (Section 2). O n the whole S outham pton seems to have the better case; A.L. Rowse in 1984 deem ed this perfectly obvious. W ith equal confidence he identified the ‘D ark Lady’ as Em ilia Lanier, orphan daughter o f an Italian court musician, and herself a poetess as well as an ‘outspoken fem inist’ (Sonnets x, xix ff ). Southam pton was a youth o f adventurous or freakish spirit, w hether or n o t capable o f serious thinking; a Catholic, a ward o f the great Lord Burghley, he got into trouble in 1598 by a clandestine marriage. T he same m an may have been the recipient o f some or all o f the later sonnets to an aristocratic patron, a close b u t n o t always reliable friend. W h at these poem s tell us is perplexingly hard to unravel. W e can see w hich poem s or lines are good, b u t can only guess at w here their sap, or inspira­ tion, was draw n from. Some may have been deliberately indistinct. A nything like a political allusion, even one n o t m eant for the press, w ould have to be m uffled. As actors, w ith royal patronage, Shakespeare and his colleagues were, in their way, public figures, and it behoved them to w atch their steps. H e may n ot have taken due note o f this at first. A n aging queen w ould scarcely have enjoyed reading No. 7, w here twelve lines are about how the sun is revered w hile ‘his sacred majesty’ is young and fresh, b u t w hen he feebly declines towards his setting people w ithdraw their ‘hom age’ and ‘look another way’. Shakespeare m ay have ru n some risk o f being com prom ised by his connection w ith Southam pton w hen the latter’s friend and leader, the Earl o f Essex, was executed after his attem pted rising in 1601, and Southam pton, w ho was im plicated, narrow ly escaped the same fate. Instead he was sent to the Tower; the ‘confined doom ’ o f No. 107 can plausibly be related to this. A separation lam ented in No. 97 is com pared to a bleak winter; it breathes real feeling, or at least has real eloquence, and may be taken for an expression o f sympathy. A num ber o f sonnets,

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m ature in style, are unusual in their political images or cryptic allusions to events - like ‘the blow o f thralled discontent* in No. 124, w hich suggests a conspiracy, or the ‘suborned informer* o f No. 125. They give us the m ood o f Elizabeth’s last years, w hen fears were m ounting about w hat w ould happen w hen she died. Everything was, in fact, being arranged in advance by the politicians, but, as Samuel B utler admits, ‘w ith the utm ost secrecy’ (140); the public could not know that there was little to fear. T h e ‘m ortal m oon’ and her ‘eclipse’ (No. 107) have usually been taken to refer either to the queen’s survival o f her ‘clim acteric’, at the age o f sixty-three, in the au tu m n o f 1596, or to her death in 1603. T h e later date seems preferable because the now -prom ised ‘olives o f endless age’, or enduring peace, fit the undisturbed succession o f Jam es I - which, am ong other things, b rought Southam pton’s release. In 1603 all the poets m ade play, as Lee says, w ith eclipses and olives (Life, 227). A Shakespeare character had anticipated th em w hen he reported to H enry IV that a rebellion was over, and ‘Peace puts forth her olive everywhere’ T h e ‘D ark Lady’ item s sound realistic in a very different way, though their subject m ay have been either one w om an or a conflation o f several. T hey begin w ith a satire on cosmetics (No. 127), a com m onplace topic b u t seeming w ith Shakespeare m ore closely linked to disapproval o f the rich, w ho bought and used them , and o f the m oral cosmetics o f pretence and insincerity. T here is m ore farce than tragedy in the situation that develops, as a w riter o f comedies cannot have failed to perceive. W ith some indecencies throw n in, it becomes a sort o f conte drôlatique. T he w om an is com pared - in a hom ely rem iniscence o f country life, the longest extended image o f the collection - to a housewife chasing a runaw ay hen (the rival) w hile her child (the poet) runs after her (No. 143). M ore serious, and m orbid, is the fact that he cannot help w anting this w om an, w hom he knows to be worthless and promiscuous. H ere the tone (Nos 137-8) is strikingly ‘m o dern’, and suggestive o f an experienced m an in m iddle life taking leave o f such adventures - or o f A ntony trying to shake o ff his subjection to Cleopatra. T h ro u g h a shifting m edley o f moods and feelings, we reach the earthy opposite o f the rom antic love that floats like a perfum e through the Comedies. W h y it is always haunted there by incredulous questionings, we can better understand in the light o f these unrom antic sensations recorded in the In No. 152 we have the sole allusion to the poet being a m arried m an w ho is breaking his vows. T his seems to lead back to a group o f a dozen sonnets on the them e o f remorse, w hich have a m ore genuinely personal ring than any o f the others. T hey point to a gloom y scene o f unfaith­ fulness, folly, debauchery. Penitents have often, o f course, found a

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perverse satisfaction in holding themselves up as ‘the chief o f sinners’. V irtuous sonneteers could denounce lust in order to set their ow n perfect love in a brighter lustre. B ut the dark shape o f ‘lust in action’ in N o. 129, ‘m u rd ’rous, bloody ... savage’, can have grow n only out o f som bre experiences, w hether they belonged to fantasy or to reality. In N os 146 and 151 there is the standard C hristian antithesis o f body and spirit. Similarly, Sidney w rote o f the soul suffering infections from ‘the dungeon o f the body’, and two o f his best sonnets are a renunciation o f b o th desire and love (111, 167-8). T h e w ords o f No. 147 about ‘reason’ as the ‘physician’ trying to rescue h im from the ‘fever’ o f a m ad passion have a startling likeness to Iago’s w ords about our ‘reason’ being a bit to curb our raging lusts. As so often in Shakespeare, Christian ethical feeling - here, medieval asceticism - outlives dogm atic teaching. All the reflections in the Sonnets on Tim e, age, death, are entirely pagan. T h ere is no infernal blaze in No. 13 to w arm ‘death’s eternal cold’. T ru e love, or close friendship, is a refuge from the ravages o f T im e - a consolation, as the tw o very fine sonnets 29 and 30 say, for all life’s crosses and disappointm ents. A nother, No. 116, on love as the one im m utable thing in h u m an life, is a declaration o f rom antic love fortified by C hristian fidelity; it is em bedded am ong the poems o f remorse. Its opening, ‘the m arriage o f true m inds’, is contradicted by w hat follows, the ‘alteration’ that m ay affect one b u t not the other. T here is nothing ‘private’ in the lines, until at the end the poet offers his own faith as pledge o f the tru th o f his words. N os 123-4 repeat the challenge. No. 109 concentrates an im pulse that seems to lurk hereabouts in the Sonnets: a wish to reassure someone he has been absent from that he still thinks o f him or her as his closest and dearest, and that any ‘stain’ o f ‘frailties’ he has contracted can and will be washed away. H ere can be felt the m ost w holesom e expression o f deep attachm ent, rom antic but not facile, anyw here in the Sonnets. T he poet is turning back, in revulsion from the idols he has gone roving after, to a straightforward, u n ­ pretentious, w ell-tested affection. W e cannot doubt that he means w hat he says, even if we may need to rem ind ourselves that though poetry can tell truth, it is never likely to tell the w hole tru th and nothing b u t the tru th - a task, perhaps, impossible in any h u m an speech. T he overture he is holding o u t w ould be m ost fittingly m ade to a neglected or ill-used wife; som ething like this occurs in some o f Shakespeare’s latest plays. If A nne H athaw ay m ust regretfully be considered ineligible, the best alternative w ould be some w om an Shake­ speare has got to know in L ondon and has form ed a close bond o f trust and fondness with. She w ould n o t belong to fashionable circles, or to the factions hinted at in No. 124, b u t w ould have enough intelligence and education to understand him ; she w ould be younger than him , b u t not

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over-young; attractive, though n o t ravishing - No. 21, an early, sim pler version o f No. 130, avers that he loves his lady as m uch as he could love anyone, though he will not indulge, like others, in ridiculous hyperbole. In lines like these we m ay discern a serious relationship, such as he w anted love and m arriage betw een ‘true m inds’ to develop into. No. 110 speaks only o f a ‘friend’, b u t it works up to a prayer for w elcom e back to a ‘pure and m ost m ost loving breast’ - surely a w om an’s. Conceivably in No. 116 it is not himself, b u t this w om an he is turning back to, w ho is credited w ith the unshaken fidelity o f a ‘true m ind’. A w riter’s choice o f im agery is revealing in m any ways. O ften the best p art o f a Shakespearian sonnet consists o f its ‘asides’, or m etaphors sprouting from generalities, w hile the concluding couplet, ostensibly the p o in t o f the poem , may have nothing to add. M any o f these flowerings com e from N ature, b u t they may be entw ined w ith observation o f social life. ‘Sum m er’s lease hath all too short a date’ (No. 18): the w ord ‘lease’ is ubiquitous, and a rem inder that short leases o f land were weapons in the hands o f those m any landow ners w ho w ere busy ejecting superfluous tenants. M ercantile phraseology is rem arkably prevalent. T he nervous poet fears that his patron, grow ing conscious o f his defects, will hold an ‘aud it’ and decide to dismiss him (No. 40). It is not ‘forbidden usury’, No. 6 says, to advance m oney to borrow ers w ho ‘pay the willing loan’. T h ro u g h all the rom anticism runs this train o f associations w ith property, law, trade, money. Subtle influences o f a com m ercializing society w ere seeping into literature, as into every other sphere. Shake­ speare’s m ind turns nostalgically to ‘days long since, before these last so bad’ (No. 67). This m ay be partly a pose, b u t like m ost Englishm en he was still at the stage o f looking back, instead o f forward, in search o f happier times. T h e litany o f social evils in No. 66 makes clear w hat were the corruptions, old or new, that w eighed on his m ind. An evident thread joins it to H am let’s catalogue, and runs on to Lear. His com plaint is never o f hu m an life in itself, as either painful or meaningless: it is o f the m an-m ade evils that dehum anize it. T hey m ight well m ake him crave for a firm hum an attachm ent, a haven the contented m ind has less Four consecutive sonnets w here he com m unes w ith his M use (Nos 58-61) are concerned w ith literature, and reflect his awareness o f rapid changes o f taste and an au th o r’s need to go on supplying novelties if he is to keep his footing. Clearly he did n o t take kindly to all the new modes, and the ‘tim e-bettering days’ o f No. 82 sound ironical. In another group, N os 79-86, he is faced w ith rival versifiers, outstripping him in the p atro n ’s favour by their ‘gross painting’, or flattery. N o flattery could be grosser than some o f his own, b u t it seldom extends to m ore than a young m an’s looks. In No. 86, the best o f this set, he pays enigm atic

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tribute to one com petitor, whose superior talent has paralysed his inventive faculties. M any have thought C hapm an to be indicated (e.g. T ucker 163; H arrison 121). B ut as against Shakespeare’s despondent air, the travel sonnets p oint to absences at Stratford that may have been resented by a patron or other fashionable acquaintances w ho wanted Here, once again, we can think o f instinct calling him back to the theatre, w here he was on his ow n ground. Even if his audience m ight sometimes, like a private patron, oblige him to w rite against the grain, this could seem to him less hum iliating. In any case, the theatre was far m ore bracing. From a noblem an’s m ansion to the Globe was all the distance betw een a feudal climate and a m odern one. In the Sonnets Shakespeare usually seems to be experiencing life passively - inclined, like a Richard II, to luxuriate in regrets. W h e n he indulges in ‘sweet silent th o u g h t’ (No. 30) it is to call to m ind the pangs he has undergone, the friends he has lost. By contrast, w ith the stage in view he is always dram atic; even w hen some o f his people seem to lose themselves in discursive talk, it is under the sway o f a strong dram atic situation. T he theatre was his salvation from introspection, the sonnet his means o f sinking back into a m ood that was ‘sweet’ because it was solitary. Like the long poems, the Sonnets have m any echoes in the plays, w here events m ay sometimes be seen as crystallizing sensations earlier clothed in rhyme. R um our, as Prologue to Henry I V Part 2, talks o f ‘M aking the w ind m y post-horse’. In Sonnet 51 the poet talks o f how he will post hom ew ard, spurring ‘though m ounted on the w ind’. Such verbal repetitions abound in Shakespeare, b u t a m ore significant link betw een the sonnets and Henry I V is a certain congeniality betw een the poet and the fat knight. Ludicrous as this may seem, all Shakespeare’s greater characters m ust be projections o f his ow n relations w ith life, at one angle or another; and England’s forem ost comic w riter and forem ost com ic character could not be w ithout some special kinship. Falstaff is endow ed w ith a double portion o f his creator’s w it and hum our. H e too makes him self a m otley to the view (No. 110) and suffers from bouts o f disgust w ith him self and the com pany he keeps. H e can be thought o f as one o f Shakespeare’s m any purgations, freeing him from uncom fortable ‘I am old, I am old’, Falstaff can lam ent on his behalf, as it were ahead o f time; and the C h ief Justice dilates on how aged and decrepit Sir Jo h n has grow n (2H .IV II.iv.270; I.ii). In the ju d g e ’s eyes he is a perverter o f youth, w ho haunts Prince Hal ‘like his ill angel’ (I.ii); Falstaff plays on the expression, as Shakespeare does in Sonnet 144. If Falstaff is painfully conscious o f advancing age, so is the sovereign w hom he antics, and H enry’s lam ents over his debility, ‘this bare w ithered tru n k ’ (IV.v.229),

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have the same note as Sonnet 73, w ith its w inter scene o f bare leafless trees. All three m en feel chill winds blow ing over them ; king and poet feel them also blowing over their England. It is out o f such confluxes o f personal and social that poetry is generated. At the end, w hen Hal, now king, rebukes Falstaff as an ojd ‘fool and jester’ (V.iv.49), we m ay hear Shakespeare rebuking himself, as he does in some sonnets, for sacrificing self-respect to amuse young idlers; he m ust have had sour prem onitions o f decline into a superannuated jester. T h e jealousy he felt o f another p o et-flatterer has its analogy in Falstaffs comic outburst against Poins, w ho is in a way his rival as the prince’s com panion (II.iv.238 ff.). By the tim e Falstaff was taldng shape, some o f the sonnet agitations m ust have been subsiding into recollections ready to be transposed into a com ic key. ‘A proper gentlew om an’, D oll Tearsheet is sardonically called, b u t we hear that she is as com m on as the road from St Albans (II.ii. 166-7). Shakespeare’s faithless mistress may be a lady, b u t she is ‘the w ide w orld’s com m on place’ (Sonnet 137). ‘I am m eat for your m aster’, D oll offends Pistol by telling him haughtily (Il.iv.l 20-21); we can fancy a D ark Lady giving Shakespeare some such snub - b u t also placating him w ith som ething like D oll’s assurance to Falstaff: ‘I love thee better than I In Henry IV P art 2 the archbishop’s explanation o f his party’s rebellion is that England is full o f ‘rank m inds sick o f happiness’, and has had to take to civil w ar as a cure (IV.i). As a political statem ent or excuse this is (as pointed out earlier) very lame, n o t to say unintelligible. It becomes easier to com prehend how Shakespeare’s m ind is w orking w hen we read Sonnet 118 and find the same logic applied to his ow n affairs. H e has grow n ‘sick o f welfare’, ‘rank o f goodness’, w ith his true love, and has turned away to worse com pany like a m an swallowing a bitter purge. If there really was a good w om an w hom he loved b u t neglected, we are

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1

The Comic Realm

In the 1590s, w hile Shakespeare in his Histories was letting his tongue ‘tang argum ents o f state’, as M alvolio m eant to (T N III.iv.73-4), he was also w riting a series o f rom antic comedies, prefaced by one or two farces. This was one m ark o f his exceptionality: m ost other playwrights were stick­ ing to sterner themes, like w ar (Gurr, Playgoing 137). H e m ust have felt a need to escape from these at intervals, into m ilder realms. Rom antic com edy was n o t his ow n invention; he had an im p o rtant predecessor here in Jo h n Lyly, as in history he had Marlowe. Lyly was the m an w ho ‘set a standard, and shaped a m odel’, m ore artistic than the popular m ode o f Peele, Greene, Nashe, m ore natural than the Italian C om m edia dell’A rte w ith its stereotyped characters (Bradbrook, Comedy 61 ff.). His m ode was not an offspring o f the regular professional theatre; he was w riting, in the 1570s and 1580s, for perform ances by the boys o f the Chapel Royal and St Paul’s choirs. As a novelist he b rought into fashion a fantastically ornate style o f w riting, w hich can be seen im itated b u t also m ade fun o f in Love's Labour's Lost', two o f this play’s characters are in part copies from

Ly¥

It cannot be said that Shakespeare was adding m uch artistry o f construction to the m odel he took over. Rules or form ulae had little m eaning for him . T he nearest he came to w ell-rounded sym m etry may have been in A Midsummer Night's Dream, w here m ankind is laid under a spell, relieved o f responsibility for its actions. O n the other hand, nearly all these plays are full o f precious m etal th at only loose construction and free indulgence in fantasy could have allowed Shakespeare to store them with. T his feature o f the Comedies goes w ith a shift o f the centre o f gravity from Adam to Eve. ‘Shakespeare has no heroes,’ said Ruskin, ‘he has only heroines’ (116). This is scarcely true o f the w hole corpus o f his work, b u t it comes close to the tru th o f the Comedies. T heir w orld is a fem inine one, instead o f aggressively virile. M en were m aking havoc o f their w orld, and neglecting to repair and renovate it; in a kind o f hum orous despair w ith them , w hen Shakespeare w rote com edy he made

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th em abdicate, and leave things to w om en. In the Histories w om en were fish o u t o f water, either bad or helpless. In the Comedies they can be perfectly natural, and often able to direct events. As a rule (The Merchant o f Venice, in various ways, stands by itself) their success is lim ited to their ow n circles; they are not new broom s w ith a mission to sweep out the A ugean stables that m en have m ade o f life, though they can do m uch to It suited Shakespeare’s design to choose exotic settings for all the Com edies except The Merry Wives o f Windsor. Four o f them are set in Italy, b u t he was n o t going there, like so m any dramatists, in search o f tyrants, poisoners, or suchlike figures o f m elodram a. Things may often look very English, b u t room is allowed for a free play o f fantasy, deriving from old traditions o f storytelling, fairy-tale, magic. In a sense we are being transported into the past; yet as G urr says, to conservatives o f his day Shakespeare’s heroines and their views on m arriage could appear ‘an alarm ing novelty’ (Gurr, Playgoing 149). As in the Histories, he has less to do w ith the respectable citizenry than w ith those above and below; his stage is for the gentry w ith their cultivated wit, and for com m on folk w ith their broader hum our. It is in keeping w ith this that the setting is seldom urban. Illyria has a seaport, b u t a nameless one, w hich we visit in Shakespeare’s m ethod gave him licence to depict hum anity w ithout photographic realism. His ow n society was changing rapidly, he him self was part o f a ferm ent o f change. His characters often break away or are sw ept away from their m oorings and undergo unforeseen experiences am ong new landm arks, like the heroines w ho disguise themselves as m en in order to be - or to discover - themselves. T here could be no occasion here, as in the Histories, for patriotic attitudes, and he could talk o f Englishm en and foreigners w ith equal freedom. Fanciful land­ scapes lent an ‘insulating agent’ to social criticism (Byrne 209). ‘I am a great eater o f b eef and I believe that does harm to m y w it’, says Sir A ndrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (I.iii.87-8). H e is an Illyrian, b u t too m u ch eating o f m eat was a bad habit o f Englishm en w ho could afford it. T h ere is a cut at French m anners in B erow ne’s jib e about Boyet as an affected fop, a ‘m onsieur the nice’ (LLL V.ii.315 ff.) - and at French m orals in D r Caius’s com placent assertion that in his country husbands are free o f the vice o f jealousy (M W W III.iii. 164-5). If it was a current n otion that ‘Germ ans are honest m en’ (M W W IV.v.66), they may be said to com e o ff best. England, at any rate, is being shown as part o f Europe. From Europe Shakespeare is free to let fancy roam still further afield. O ne o f Portia’s w ould-be husbands is a M oroccan prince, like O thello very conscious o f his colour and given to a high strain o f eloquence. He boasts o f having slain a Sophy, or Shah o f Persia, w ith his scimitar, and

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talks o f other suitors hastening to Venice from as far away as ‘the H yrcanian deserts’ and ‘wide Arabia’ (M V II.vii.41-2). Fairies are above any colour prejudice: T itania is quarrelling w ith O beron over an Indian boy whose m other was a bosom friend o f hers. Lysander, by contrast, repulses H erm ia as a ‘tawny T artar’ (M ND III.ii.263), and Claudio, in Much Ado about Nothing, thinks o f a dark-com plexioned w om an as an ‘E thiope’ (V.iv.38). H orizons continue to expand as tim e goes on. T here is a new m ap o f the Indies; and Sir T oby hails M aria as ‘my m etal o f India’, o r gold (T N III.ii.76—8; Il.iv. 15). Curiosity extended to China, still know n by its old nam e o f Cathay, and ‘C ataian’ was already a synonym for cheat ( T N II.iii.78; M W W Il.i. 130) - an illustration o f how quick we are to form a bad opinion o f outsiders. ‘Vapians passing the equinoctial o f Q u eubus’, in a jester’s nonsense-talk (T N II.ii.25—6), may be taken for a skit on the often garbled or far-fetched reports o f explorers. T w o plays, Love's Labour's Lost and A s You Like It, are not so m uch dram as as conversation pieces, or exercises in talking, w ith only a pretence o f plot. Shakespeare was savouring his ow n passion for words, and for reflections on life - tastes evidently shared by m any theatregoers. A bsorption in words could spill over into the Histories. B ardolph and Justice Shallow have a droll debate about the w ord ‘accom m odate’, and Shallow rem arks that ‘good phrases are surely ... very com m endable’ (2H .IV III.ii.68 ff.); Mistress Q uickly is as full o f malapropisms as Dogberry. Shakespeare’s unwillingness to be penned into any conven­ tional lim its shows above all in the irru p tion o f the comic genius into history w ith Falstaff, and that o f som ething akin to the tragic into com edy w ith Shylock. Rom antic love first appears in full glow in a tragedy, Romeo andJuliet In the Com edies it never makes itself altogether at hom e: it is there, so to speak, on probation. Shakespeare was learning too m u ch about life to be credulous. H e looked on at his people’s doings w ith a half-sceptical detachm ent. W ith him reality was invading a rom antic realm ‘guarded like a dream ’ (Raleigh 193). In the late Histories he failed to revive the Heroic, or faith in it; in the late Comedies he failed to breathe fresh life into the rom antic. It was tim e for them both to give way to other kinds o f drama, other voyages o f discovery.

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2

The Plays

The Taming o f the Shrew (c. 1590) Troublesom e wives have been a staple o f male gossip and mythology, they had a place on the early English stage in miracle plays. Shakespeare’s shrew is a caricature specimen. H e makes it as hard as possible for us to feel any sym pathy for her. She begins by threatening to hit som eone on the head w ith a stool. She ties up her younger sister Bianca, and strikes h er w hen she protests at being treated like ‘a bondm aid and a slave’ (II.i.2). N ext we have H ortensio, disguised as a music teacher, com plaining that she has broken his lute over his head (Il.i). In her first encounter w ith Petruchio she gives him a box on the ear. W h a t the play is about, in short, is n o t simply a m an bullying a w om an, b u t a bullying w om an subdued by a male bully. P etruchio is a caricature o f an ordinary dom ineering male. ‘She is my goods, m y chattels - m y horse, m y ox, m y ass’ (III.ii.328) - his m an-ofproperty attitude to a wife only magnifies w hat m en in m any lands and times have really thought. H e has a boorish tem per, as we hear from G rum io, his ‘ancient, trusty, pleasant servant’, w hen Petruchio angrily wrings his ear for not understanding an order (I.ii). At his w edding he knocks the priest down, presum ably as a w arning to K atherina o f w hat she m ay expect. T here is nothing w hatever in his behaviour to her to give him any claim on her respect. Folk-tales seem to dem and a ‘m oral’ (Bethell 112), and this farce ends w ith one - K atherina’s ‘beautiful speech’, as a V ictorian editor called it (M arshall 316), announcing her abject surrender and unquestioning obedience. Shakespeare underlines its com ic incongruities by m aking her talk o f how husbands care for their wives, their ‘painful labour both by sea and land’: as his audience was well aware, nothing could be further from the thoughts o f the dow ry-hunting idlers w ho h aunt these plays. T h e real m oral is that this is how husbands ought to behave, n o t how they do behave. Shakespeare’s jo k e is aim ed at fossilized conservatism in every sphere. W h e n K atherina talks o f the oaf Petruchio as her ‘lord’,

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‘king’, ‘sovereign’, Shakespeare is ridiculing not m erely husbands w ho take themselves too seriously, b u t m onarchs as well. Some o f his English kings will soon be learning to m ake speeches about their painful toil for Amazingly, as late as 1968 another editor was echoing K atherina’s nonsense by expatiating solemnly on ‘the submission o f wife to husband as a law o f natu re’, and declaring that this pair are now true lovers (Hibbard, Taming 7). Shakespeare had to be m ade a pillar o f O rder in the dom estic as well as the political realm. Later still, in 1986, a com m entator has managed to see K atherina’s subjugation as the first step towards Petruchio’s conversion from ‘obstinate perversity’, and her own em ergence as ‘a true w inner in the perennial battle’ (Bryant 113). M ost surprising o f all is a fem inist w riter’s discovery in the dénouement o f ‘a harm onious synthesis’ o f m asculine and fem inine (French 85). T he same w riter holds that Shakespeare never shook o ff a conviction o f a ‘natural and ineradicable’ inequality, am ounting to ‘a class difference’, between

Farcical as it is, this piece gives the lie to K atherina’s new gospel by portraying an overbearing and unfaithful husband and a resentful wife. It has m uch m ore ingenuity o f plot, and a serious m eaning w hich shows every now and then am id the slapstick. T here is for once a distinct atm osphere o f a com m ercial city, and there is m ore than a w hiff o f topical reference. In the lively opening account o f hostilities betw een two governm ents arising from a trade w ar and bans on foreign goods, the Syracusans are said to be ‘seditious’ (Li. 12), or engaged in rebellion against Ephesus: w hen the play was w ritten, the D utch were in revolt against Spain, and during the long conflict bans were im posed by M adrid on D u tch seaborne trade (see Israel). ‘G uilders’ are m entioned as a Syracusan coin, and as useful currency for Eastern trade (I.i.8; IV.i.4). B aldw in’s study o f the play ( William Shakespeare Adapts a Hanging) unearths a netw ork o f allusion to the A nglo-Spanish w ar and the anti-popery T here is plenty o f indignant fem inism in the play, b u t w om en are not yet in the foreground. T h eir chief representative, the Abbess, does no m ore than preside over a cobbled-up ‘happy ending’, happiest in a fairy­ tale fam ily reunion. T here is no m eeting o f m inds betw een A ntonio o f Ephesus and his ill-used Adriana: he is n o t reproved by his virtuous m other the Abbess, and in the last scene his wife is scarcely allowed to open her m outh, w hile his ‘courtesan’ receives from him a prom ised diam ond (paid for w ith A driana’s money). T here is no prospect o f the

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Dromio twins being freed from slavery as a reward for long service, and

T his may have been the first com edy that was com pletely Shakespeare’s own. It has a plot m ade up by him , w hich does him no great credit; but the piece is to be judged less on its story than on its dialogue. Because it is so m uch his own, it may be safer than it is in m ost cases to look for traces o f the author’s ow n feelings. Parallels w ith the Sonnets are many. T here is m uch m ore rhym ing than in any other play. T he opening them e o f Fame as guardian against the ravages o f T im e is another rem inder o f the Sonnets, w hich share w ith it the im agery o f ‘scythe’ and ‘brazen tom bs’. B ut the gaiety o f this play may w arrant a surmise that some, at any rate, o f Shakespeare’s sonnet-tears w ere o f less than scalding tem perature. T h e court o f N avarre m ight be m istaken for an English country house. T here is no tow n in sight, b u t a park and a dairy are not wanting, together w ith the usual appurtenances o f a village: curate and school­ m aster and constable. T he young king, w ho converses so familiarly w ith his circle, m ight be a squire w ho has arranged a reading-party w ith his college friends. It has always been th o u g h t that there are num erous topical or personal allusions. A rm ado’s nam e obviously recalls the Arm ada, and to have an absurd Spaniard to laugh at, full o f gentlem anly pretensions b u t lacking a shirt, w ould tickle any English patriot. Spain had a m ultitude o f shabby-genteel hidalgos; b u t A rm ado looks m uch less like a haughty Castilian than a skipping M ounseer, that already cherishIn the Histories all the com petitors are avid for power. In the Com edies personal distinction, fame, is the goal o f am bition. N avarre’s first w ords to his friends are about ‘fam e’, ‘h o nour’, ju st as if H otspur were speaking: they too will be ‘conquerors’, though by other means. Supported by rigorous self-mastery, self-denial, they will m ake their little country ‘the w onder o f the w orld’. W e can smile both at this parody o f national conceit, and at the anachronistic ideal o f asceticism. A choice betw een learning and love, A thena and Aphrodite, was a topic o f student songs going back to the tw elfth century (W addell 199). Renais­ sance culture sought to com bine the two: a gentlem an should be, as Shakespeare repeats in m any contexts, courtier and soldier and scholar all in one. U nderlying this was the ideal o f a fusion o f the good qualities o f different educated classes. N avarre’s bookish scheme is a turning backward; he can thin k only o f arid scholarship for the sake o f scholar­ ship. H e wants, as the sensible Berow ne says, to pore over ‘Things hid and barred ... from com m on sense’, and vouched for only by ‘base

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authority from others’ books’ (I.i.57, 87). Berowne is giving an airy version o f the Baconian doctrine o f know ledge as useful inform ation, to be w on or tested by experim ent. H e stands for the m arch o f mind, D enied the com pany o f w om en, these scholars are to have for light relief th at o f Armado, w ho has ‘a m in t o f phrases in his brain’, and comes ou t w ith so m any ‘hig h -b o rn w ords’, ‘fire-new words’, that one can even ‘love to hear him lie’ w hen he tells his tall tales o f Spanish chivalry (I.i.l65ff.). This m ight seem poor fare for young m en o f spirit, b u t in England language was taking on a very unusual im portance, and was viewed w ith a respect that makes its im m ense literary harvest less hard to com prehend. England was growing, and English was com ing into its own; it was no m ore than two generations since a gentlem an was expected to be able to converse fluently in Latin, as Q ueen Elizabeth could. Lovers o f English, from Shakespeare down, were learning it and helping it to develop simultaneously; and this verbal fever seems to have been shared in some measure by all ranks. A shim m ering rainbow o f w ords overarched the sky, announcing the departure o f the medieval Deluge. H om age to language could link all m en - and w om en - o f education; and, further, the am algam ation o f gentry and m iddle class, or their best elements, into a new elite. These tw o com ponents could be closer in th at period o f social flux than they w ere to be later on, w hen the dividing lines o f a new social pattern had hardened, w ith forms o f speech T h e language itself was at a special stage in its developm ent, not unconnected w ith the interaction o f social strata, and m aking possible the unique Elizabethan richness o f im agery (W eim ann, Structure 227). W h e n H olofernes the schoolmaster, after turning over on his tongue four other adjectives, hits on peregrinate as the mot juste for Armado, N athaniel the curate whips o u t his notebook to jo t dow n this ‘m ost singular and choice epithet’ (V.i.14-15). N athaniel counts him self blessed in his freedom from the ‘m onster Ignorance’; it elevates him above poor D ull the constable, w ho is ‘only an anim al’ (IV.ii.27). Even C ostard the clown is ready to try his tongue on a new hard word. These hum ble ‘intellectuals’ o f N avarre are the opposites o f Jack C ade’s m en in K ent, so vehem ently convinced that all learning is their enemy. B ut studied m odes o f speech have their snares: they can lend themselves to affectation, and to verbiage in place o f thinking. W it may too easily be used to w ound others. A rm ado’s contem pt for the vernacular w hich he mangles - the ‘base and obscure vulgar’ - goes w ith his gentlem anly seduction o f a girl o f hum ble station, w hom he has talked o f m eaning to Shakespeare was m aking fun o f all this preciosity, but also revelling in

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‘the great feast o f languages’ that was going on (V.i.38-9). H e was busy piling up his prodigious vocabulary; he never ceased to be a venturesom e experim enter. W e can see him , u nder the nam e o f Holofernes, im ping the wings o f his ow n exuberant genius, at present far richer than his know ledge o f the w orld - ‘a foolish extravagant spirit, full o f forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, m otions, revolutions ... T h e blending o f social qualities that he seems to look forw ard to, refinem ent w ith solidity, has an accom panim ent in com plem entary endow m ents o f m en and wom en. Berow ne and the princess have m uch in com m on. H e is the sensible, plain-spoken m em ber o f the male quartet; it is he w ho leads the way back to rational acceptance o f life and hum anity. O n her side the princess has always been sensible as well as charm ing, a m ild preceptress to her ladies. At the end she gives them a lead in the right way to treat their im patient suitors. She has all Shakespeare’s suspicion o f light-spoken vows. ‘Y our oath I will not trust’, she tells the king candidly, and imposes on him a year’s probation in ‘som e forlorn and naked herm itage’ (V.ii.784ff.). W e could wish that she had th o u g h t o f som ething m ore constructive for him to do. H er ladies insist, each in turn, on the same twelve m onths o f waiting; only Berow ne is given a useful task: to visit the sick and try to amuse ‘groaning w retches’ w ith his wit. T h e play seems to hold out the prom ise o f a sequel; b u t Shakespeare m ay n o t have found it as easy as his lovers to believe that love could survive the ordeal o f twelve m onths’ separation, to

The Two Gentlemen o f Verona (c. 1593-94) Shakespeare’s Com edies contain little in the way o f adventure, or deeds o f derring-do. H e had enough o f that in the Histories. T h e Two Gentlemen is unusual in its descent into m elodram a, o f an absurdity suggestive o f m odern pantom ine or operetta. V alentine, the hero, is com pelled by threats from a com pany o f Italian banditti - two o f them nam ed Moses and Valerius - to becom e their ‘king’ or ‘general’ (IV.i). Some o f the brigands are gentlem en, banished for ‘petty crimes’ o f youth like homicide; they all scorn ‘such vile base practices’ as robbery o f w om en or the poor. This sounds like a com ic version o f Robin H ood, w ho is referred to w ith his ‘fat friar’. A ltogether the piece has so m uch resemblance to G ilbert and Sullivan as to suggest reflections on a perm anent strain o f English hum our, running through the centuries. In Act V the operetta style takes full control. Proteus has rescued Silvia, w ho rejects him and reproaches him for deserting his true love, Julia (who is hanging about disguised as a man). H e is about to ravish her

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w hen her true love V alentine enters, and denounces him as a false friend: Proteus’s disloyalty upsets h im far m ore than Silvia’s plight. ‘Such is a friend now ’ - all friendship has decayed (V.iv.63); b u t V alentine lives up to its claim him self by forgiving Proteus and handing Silvia over to him. She makes no com m ent; it defied even Shakespeare to think o f some­ thing appropriate for her to say. T here was a cult in his day o f extra­ vagant friendship, as well as one o f hyperbolical love; he was equally T h e two young w om en deserve a m uch better fate than to be cast away in such company. Shakespeare evidently enjoyed painting - or sketching - their portraits, as well as inventing freakish adventures for them . Julia’s constancy shines the m ore brightly in contrast w ith Proteus’s p ro m p t transfer o f his affections from her to Silvia, the D uke’s daughter. For a princess, Silvia has unconventionally free-and-easy m anners, and her vitality and sprightliness p u t her too am ong the chosen band o f Shakespearian heroines. O ne o f their essential qualifications is virtue, and Silvia can even be called ‘holy’ (IV.ii.5, 41). Rather than subm it to an odious m arriage she takes flight, is captured by the bandits, and faces this fresh trial w ith courage; her cry ‘O Valentine, this I endure for thee!’ (V.iii. 15) is in the accents o f Imogen. In his first Comedies Shakespeare had pilloried brutish behaviour in husbands; in the m ore serious strands o f this play, m en are again shown in a bad - or at least flickering - light, w hile w om en and their love are exposed to slings and

In this second o f the few plays Shakespeare seems to have m ade up for him self - an experim ent he soon tired o f - he was helped w ith his intricately interw oven plot by the fairyland magic he had at his com m and. It is only early on that all the h um an beings are acting on their ow n volition, and have to be provided w ith motives. T he play is rom antic by virtue o f its poetry and atm osphere, the perfum e o f the m oonlit woods; m ost o f its h um an beings contribute little b u t noisy discord. W h en the forest is left behind, only faint m em ories o f its happenings survive, a fading revelation o f the chaotic underw orld o f h u m an behaviour, norm ally kept o u t o f sight. Theseus has, as he says, w ooed H ippolyta w ith his sword (I.i. 16), as H enry V wins his French princess. H e is a forerunner o f H enry also in his shrewd, com m on-sense outlook; the plain-speaking, plain-dealing m an o f action belonged to a species that Shakespeare was draw n to by a sort o f attraction o f opposites. W h eth er from good nature or from policy, this D uke o f Athens sees (like H enry again) that com m on folk ought to be

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given their due, and kept in good hum our; whereas his courtiers and bride look dow n on the hard-handed artisans and their perform ance w ith pitying disdain. These plebeians are all very loyal subjects, breathing a reverence to their ruler w hich in England was entering its twilight. T hey are ridiculous only because they are out o f their proper orbit; Shakespeare finds vital sparks in them , and B ottom is a m ore sturdily interesting person than either o f the pasteboard young gentlem en. T h e first part o f Spenser’s Faerie Queene had com e out in 1590, and Shakespeare may be suspected o f setting up against its ‘G loriana’ another fairy queen, stripped o f ideal em bellishm ents. Gloriana was also Q ueen Elizabeth, and if our author was m aking fun o f Spenser’s laborious epic he may have judged it tactful to make clear that his Titania was not Elizabeth by inserting a poetical tribute to his sovereign (II.i.l55 ff ), as well as providing T itania w ith a consort. Fairyland’s royal pair are m ore convincing than the hum an lovers; their quarrel is a com m entary on the fragility o f w edded love. T itania accuses her lord o f sundry strayings, and o f H ippolyta having been his ‘buskined m istress’ and ‘w arrior love’; he retorts by taxing her w ith a past connection w ith Theseus (II.i.71 ff ). ‘W h a t fools these m ortals be!’ Puck exclaims, but the taunt m ight be returned. Between the two there is no gleam o f affection; presum ably they have been m arried a very long time. In the end T itania has to subm it, though she is tricked into surrender, not brow beaten like K atherina the Shrew. Puck may be supposed to personify the freakish effects o f accident on h um an affairs. H e is O beron’s jester as well as factotum , and Shakespeare’s m outhpiece for some strictures on hum an manners. H e is happiest w hen things ‘befall preposterously’ (Ill.ii. 120): ‘a shrewd and knavish sprite’, fond o f practical jokes and m ischief (II.i.33). W h e n things begin H erm ia and Lysander are lovers, b u t H elen has been jilted by D em etrius - formerly, as he confesses, betrothed to her, b u t now determ ined to have H erm ia instead. H e has no qualms about getting her savage father to threaten her, as by law he can, w ith death or a nunnery if she refuses him . C onduct like this ought surely to exclude any m an from the benefits o f a happy ending, b u t Shakespeare has no qualm s about letting him off. Helena, faithful like Julia o f V erona to her unw orthy favourite, goes to the woods in pursuit o f him , and in the hope o f pleasing him betrays her bosom friend Herm ia. O f the four only H erm ia comes out tolerably well, and the m oral seems to be that love, in male hearts at least, is haphazard, unstable, and egotistic. For Lysander, w ith the magic drops in his eyes, his H erm ia becomes a ‘Vile thin g ’ (III.ii.260). D em etrius tells H erm ia he w ould like to throw her Shakespeare may have been trying to teach m en a lesson in self­ restraint; b u t the w om en, as rivals, display the same venom. Rom antic

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love is called into question m ore light-heartedly w hen the magic drops throw T itania into love w ith Bottom , despite the ass’s head that Puck has clapped on him ; and she declares her passion ‘O n the first view’ (Ill.i). B ottom and his friends may be bungling actors, b u t their play reduces tragical love to farce. A ltogether, in this play love ‘comes in such a questionable shape’ that we m ust w onder, as very often, w hat Shake­ speare really thought o f it. H e may never actually have been able to make

‘Is the Merchant o f Venice a Problem play?’ asks Salingar (Dramatic Form ch. 2). W . C ohen speaks o f ‘the difficulty o f transform ing the play into a paraphrasable m eaning o f any kind’ (195). Shakespeare could not make ‘an intellectually coherent w hole’ o f it, concludes M urry (192). It stands out, in fact, as one o f the clearest cases w here Shakespeare’s story can be taken only as a refracted picture o f social cracks or tensions, class animosities, in his England, because it is impossible to m ake sense o f it in N o other com edy by Shakespeare, except o f course A Midsummer Night's Dream, contains anything so fabulous as the casket scene, or the pou n d o f flesh, m any versions o f w hich were afloat in Europe; Sinsheimer cites one from Serbia (79). T he casket test is given a m oral as well as supernatural colouring w hen Nerissa tells us that Portia’s dying father was inspired to know ledge o f how to ensure her happiness (I.ii.26 f£). Portia herself does not feel that she owes him any thanks for it. T here is m uch good and varied prose in the first three Acts, m uch less in the rest. This partly corresponds w ith a m ixing up o f realism and fantasy, w hich no doubt strikes us m ore than it did the first audiences. W h e n reality turns into Shylock, the discordance becomes extrem e for us. H atred o f Jews had been kept alive in England by religious pro­ paganda ever since their expulsion three centuries before, b u t this gave them an aspect m ore dem onic than simply wicked, and to an ordinary Elizabethan - at any rate, before he saw this play - Shylock w ould be a kind o f C aliban-m onster. T o us, w ith o u t Shylock his Venice w ould be an uninteresting place, and after his downfall the play is over; Act V is only lyrical poetry and a m ildly am using joke. Poetic dram a may be possible - indeed, credible - only w hen its events are free to float on the tides o f im agination, not chained to terra firma. B u t contradictions and im probabilities are m ultiplied here beyond bounds. It is unbelievable that a w ealthy philanthropist like A ntonio should find himself, all o f a sudden, both friendless and penniless. Has he no house to sell, or mortgage? Shakespeare has to leave

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him a blurred, am biguous figure, to deter us from asking such questions. Bassanio goes o ff to B elm ont w ith o u t telling him about the caskets, and passes the three m onths before the bond falls due in enjoying Portia’s com pany and hospitality. H e is only a few hours’ distance away, yet these two devoted friends never think o f letting each other know how things Lancelot Gobbo, again, m ust be Shylock’s apprentice, not houseservant; otherw ise it w ould be pointless for his m aster to com plain o f his being ‘Snail-slow in profit’, and Lancelot w ould not be so hesitant about run n in g away (and incurring penalties by breaking his contract). W e are asked to suppose that this w ealthy Jew ish businessm an’s entire establish­ m en t consists o f his daughter and one obviously incom petent assistant — a Christian. Portia wants to dazzle her husband and his friend by rendering them a w onderful service, b u t Italy m ust be very short o f lawyers if a young lady can learn overnight to do better than any o f them . H er appearance in court makes effective theatre, however, and Portia is a lady residing outside Venice, in a sphere o f her own, w hich heightens her m agnetism as a being above and beyond the everyday world. M orocco extols her as a ‘shrine’, a ‘saint’, draw ing pilgrims from far and w ide (Il.vii). W e do not know how she has come to acquire so m agnificent a reputation, at her age. B ut Shakespeare has em barked on a story w hich threatens to burst the bounds o f comedy; aggressively male passions are seizing control, and can be thw arted only by a potent fem inine spell, a heroine from a fairy-tale to play the part - in male T o be equal to this, Portia can be a natural w om an only at intervals. She has the makings o f several heroines, n o t fully am algam ated into one personality. H er chats w ith Nerissa about m en and their ways show a surprising know ledge o f them; her jokes, especially about the missing rings (V.i), can be unexpectedly free. She is intelligent and energetic, and makes up her plan for saving A ntonio o u t o f her ow n head, ju st after assuring Bassanio that as ‘an unlessoned girl’ (Ill.ii. 160) she will always depend on his counsel and guidance. These two have been learning to love each other for m onths, b u t it is typical o f our author that we are not show n anything o f this. M ost o f w hat they say to each other is in a form al tone; Portia has a taste for long set speeches, displays o f elocution, and seems m ore interested in the relations betw een husband and wife than those betw een lovers. Early on she is com pared to her Rom an namesake, and the two owe som ething to the same tributary stream in Shakespeare’s im agination. ‘I am h alf y o urself (III.ii.249): each wife claims the right to know her husband’s problem s, to share fully in his life

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Portia is related to the leading lawyer Bellario. W e do not know w hether her father was a professional m an, a great m erchant, or a landed aristocrat. In Venice these vocations m ight not be far apart, as Shake­ speare was probably aware. B ut his Bassanio is very definitely a noblem an and nothing else, w ho has spent m ore than his means by living in style, and has ru n up debts w hich only a w ealthy marriage can enable him to clear off. H e is regularly addressed as ‘lord’, and is clearly o f higher rank than any o f his associates. T o go to B elm ont w ith a retinue w orthy o f him , he needs another three thousand ducats to furnish him out. As he admits, he has nothing to offer Portia b u t his name. He is a gentlem anly fo rtune-hunter, o f good carriage and w ell-m eaning, but n o t nearly good enough to deserve such a prize. Venice is som ehow not as cheerful a place as it ought to be. From the start A ntonio looks as w orld-w eary as ‘his grandsire cut in alabaster’ (I.i.84). His depression seems to foretell shadows falling across the w orld o f comedy. W hatever its sources, there is besides a m alignity in his persecution o f Shylock, and his boasting o f it, that matches the Jew ’s own retaliatory venom. Gratiano, that am using chatterbox, talks w ith unexpected gravity - and w ith no dram atic purpose - about the satiety that follows quickly on all happiness (II.vi.8 ff.). H e is thinking o f Lorenzo’s com ing elopem ent w ith Jessica; b u t his words strike a note o f com ing disillusion for all lovers, him self am ong them. At Belm ont Lorenzo philosophizes about the cause o f Jessica’s sadness w hen she It is n o t too speculative to detect in all this a m orbidity generated by the unresting competitiveness o f life in Venice, or rather in London. Shakespeare was living in a ju n g le o f business greeds and worries, w ith luxury and poverty side by side and the hardships o f the poor worsening. T his play suggests m any misgivings in his m ind on the subject o f wealth. A ntonio’s failure to enjoy life is needed, as well as his charities, to excuse him for being so rich. In oblique fashion Bassanio’s rejection o f the gold and silver caskets, his talk o f the w orld’s false shows and gauds, are a foretaste o f m any louder cries in later plays. They are m ore proper to Shakespeare, or to a Rom eo about to take his ow n life, than to Bassanio who, after all, has com e to B elm ont to look for bullion. Shylock in his gaberdine may have a m ythic aspect, b u t he combines it w ith som ething unpleasantly w ell-know n to Englishmen: the sharpclawed greed o f the m oneylender. T o denounce this ugly reality is A ntonio’s mission in the play, though an incongruous one for a great capitalist. H e gives expression to the m isery o f a m ultitude o f hapless borrow ers caught in the m antrap. Usurers were terrible figures in sixteenth-century Europe, and in some regions for long after. England was full o f debtors and creditors, and m any writers were denouncing the

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m oneylenders (McVeagh 16-19). T h eir profits form ed one strand in the com plex unfolding o f capitalism. A ntonio despises and reviles Shylock n o t prim arily because he is a Jew, like others in Venice, b u t because he wrings profit o u t o f m en’s misfortunes. It is on the score o f his ‘m oneys’ and his ‘usances’ that A ntonio has ‘rated’ him on the Rialto (I.iii. 104-5). Shylock in tu rn hates A ntonio n o t prim arily as a Jew -baiter (against w hom he could take legal action) b u t as one whose foolish benevolence, in lending m oney gratis to those in need, spoils the m arket for the usurer. This com plaint is repeated five tim es over - three times in Act III Scene 1 alone. A ntonio h im self gives it as the reason w hy Shylock wants M erely as a m oneylender w ith a professional grievance, Shylock w ould be no m ore than a vulgar bloodsucker. As m outhpiece o f an injured people, an insulted creed, he becomes som ething different. U n d er stress o f em otion he can move from his private grudge to the broader grievances o f his com m unity. It is natural for him to like to tell himself, and a co-religionist, that it is as a Jew that A ntonio has harassed him . ‘H e hates our sacred nation’ (I.iii.45) - Shylock does not forget that he belongs to a Chosen as well as ill-used People. W h at drives him from the narrow er to the w ider feeling, and sets Shakespeare’s im agination w orking for instead o f against him , is the fresh and worse injury o f his daughter’s elopem ent w ith Lorenzo, carrying w ith her a store o f his jew ellery and money. T h at he is entitled to justice against Lorenzo, as a thief, is acknowledged by the Doge, w ho even takes part personally in an attem pt to arrest the culprit (II.viii.4-5); b u t the guilty pair escape to Genoa. T hey soon retu rn and are sheltered from the law by Portia at B elm ont; the fact that Lorenzo is an absconding crim inal is quietly forgotten by all, including Shakespeare. Portia then goes off to Venice to play her role o f legal expert, leaving Lorenzo - very im prudently, one Shylock is left to revenge him self on A ntonio, w ho has now becom e for him the em bodim ent o f all C hristian injustice. ‘I’ll torture him ’, snarls Shylock (III.i.109-10). B ut he can now take on a tragic aspect, because he is no longer thinking only o f his ow n grievances b u t identifies him self w ith his com m unity, condem ned to live under a ‘curse’ (III.i.79-80). His passionate outburst to two o f the jeering Christians in Act III Scene i is, though in prose, one o f the m ost eloquent speeches Shakespeare ever wrote. By thinking o f him self as a victim o f religious oppression, and as such the spokesman o f a whole people, he ennobles him self and exalts the bloodthirsty reprisal he is planning - on their b ehalf now, as well as his own. His dram a rises far above the com m on level o f the Elizabethan ‘revenge play’. Shylock him self is not a persecuted Jew; nor have the Jews o f Venice

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collectively any tangible grievances to com plain of. They have their synagogue, and their right both to practise their religion and to make m oney in the city is well established. W h e n Shylock begins to speak on b ehalf o f a w ronged people, it is only o f their history at large that he can w ith any propriety be talking. Shakespeare m ust have know n som ething about this: it was only a century since the expulsion o f the Jews from Spain and Portugal. W h e n Shylock refuses double or treble repaym ent o f the loan, and is ready to sacrifice the m oney lent rather than forgo his pound o f flesh, a sense o f h onour is chaining him to w hat has becom e for him a duty. ‘I have an oath in heaven’, n o t to be broken - ‘N o, not for V enice’ (V.iv.225-7): words curiously akin to Prince Florizel’s in The Winter's Tale, w hen ordered to renounce his love instead of, like Shylock, Y et there was still som ething left for Shakespeare’s imaginative sympathies to supply, to expand the figure o f Shylock into the towering archetypal shape that it has for us today. T he tim e-honoured ‘C hain o f B eing’, w hich linked all created things into a single series from high to low (Tillyard, World Picture), and helped to sustain the metaphysics o f O rder, m ay no t have m eant m uch to Shakespeare; b u t he had som ething o f his ow n in its place: easy passage from the particular to the general and from there to the universal. ‘H ath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands? ...’ So have m any other ill-fated beings, w ith - in Christian thinking better claim on our interest. Shylock goes on to m ake him self - as A ntonio has done m ore practically b u t less broadly - a cham pion o f the oppressed. H e rem inds the court o f how C hristian Venice treats its slaves; he is the first o f m any Jews who, in m odern times, were to speak for all hum anity. H e even rem inds the Venetians o f how they treat beasts o f burden. By saying such things he is challenging the sacred and absolute rights o f ownership. He is, o f course, no revolutionary. He is concerned only to poin t o u t that one oppressor is as good or bad as another; that cruelty is cruelty, how ever respectable the perpetrator. His antagonists, Portia am ong them , have no reply to offer. ‘A day in April never came so sweet’, or well-apparelled, Portia’s servant tells her, in the lyrical strain that anyone in Shakespeare can com m and w hen required - as Bassanio’s messenger announcing his approach and bearing ‘gifts o f rich value’ (II.ix.86 ff.). In this play the aristocratic m ode o f living is draw n w ith a surer hand than the poet had possessed earlier. It is a very expensive one. Bassanio’s attendants are decked o u t in borrow ed plumage. In England im provident gentlem en were being stripped o f their m anors by m oneylenders. Antonio, a kinsm an o f Bassanio, is supposedly a m erchant, b u t there is nothing m ercantile about him except his argosies floating like dreams on distant waters. H e has no partners, clerks, account-books, so far as we can see;

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only risky ventures and creditors. His lavish offer o f all his resources to a confessed spendthrift like Bassanio (I.i.l53ff.) is quixotic. Shakespeare clearly felt, as m ost T u d o r w riters did, that a society governed by acquisitive instincts, greed for m oney, m ust be a bad one. Y et earning his bread as he did in the com m ercial heart o f England, and at such a time, he could n o t w ant to see the clock turned back. As Bishop H all pointed out, the shipping trade was financed m ainly by loancapital, and w ould be brought to a halt if no good C hristian could charge or pay interest (379-80). It was desirable that overseas com m erce should be rom anticized, idealized, so as n o t to disturb the old ideal o f a rationally ordered com m unity. In the archbishop’s beehive, in Henry V, m erchants w ho ‘venture trade abroad’ have their contribution to make, though it may n o t be obvious w hat sort o f bees they resemble. A ntonio’s m anagem ent o f his fortune belongs to the popular tradition o f an older L ondon w here rich m en poured their w ealth into good works and Shylock, on the other hand, deems A ntonio a ‘prodigal’ (III.i.42). H e keeps no reserves, despite the m any hazards o f his business so graphically depicted by his enem y (I.iii.21 ff.). H e has other anxious creditors, and finds that Jews are n o t the only ones w ho may grow ‘cruel’ (III.ii.317). Shylock’s opinion o f him is close to w hat real businessmen in London, the puritanizing bourgeoisie grim ly in earnest about piling up money, w ould thin k o f such an am ateur as A ntonio in their midst. Shylock in a way speaks for them too, and theatregoers unfriendly to them w ould easily see in him a first cousin to a hard-hearted m oney-grubbing Puritan. Phrases like ‘m y sober house’, a ‘thrifty m ind’, m ark his affinities clearly; so do his miserliness, churlishness, and austere dislike o f masques, feasts, ‘the vile squealing’ o f the fife, and all such ‘shallow foppery’ (II.v.30-35). Fiedler has ground for seeing him as a representa­ tive o f puritan asceticism, Portia as less a C hristian than an em bodim ent It m ust appear contradictory to find in Shylock features both o f a protester against social oppression and o f a m em ber o f a grasping bourgeoisie. B ut in England this class was itself m oving towards opposi­ tion to governm ent policies as well as court culture. Historically such a class, challenging an old regime, has always had to look for supporters by taking up - verbally, at least - the cause o f the masses. Shylock is one o f those greater Shakespearian characters w ho are too full o f vitality o f their ow n to be pressed into the service o f an allegory, b u t w ho w ould not be In England the term ‘J ew ’ had lingered on as a piece o f jocular abuse. ‘If thou w ilt go w ith m e to the ale-house’, says Launce to his crony Speed, ‘so; if not, thou art an Hebrew , a Jew ’ (T G V II.v). ‘Y ou rogue, they

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w ere bound, every m an o f them ,’ Falstaff affirms, ‘or I am a Jew else, an E b re w je w ’ (1H .IV II.iv. 197-8). M ore crudely, M acbeth’s witches have ‘liver o f blasphem ing Jew ’ as an ingredient in their cauldron. Shakespeare draws a line betw een the unthinking prejudice o f the streets and a m ore enlightened view: that a Jew ceased to be obnoxious as soon as he gave up his bad habits. T o satisfy the m ore conventionally m inded m ajority o f the audience, these habits had to include creed as well as trade; and this m ust now appear outrageous. B ut in England and all over Europe Christians w ere being induced or com pelled to change Churches; and Shakespeare troubled him self little about articles o f faith. At any rate there is nothing ‘racist’ in the attitude o f the Venetian elite, from the D oge down. Jessica is given a ready w elcom e to their fold. She is one o f those m akeshift characters w hom Shakespeare shows in one light or another, as dram atic convenience requires. Lorenzo calls her ‘wise, fair, and tru e’ (II.vi.56); she is wise enough to bring him a handsom e - if stolen - dowry, and has had enough education to exchange classical allusions w ith her lover (V.i.l ff.). Lancelot likes her, b u t he has know n poverty and is conscious o f his country’s overpopulated condition; he is hum orously dubious about conversions - they will raise the price o f pork, and ‘we w ere Christians enow before; e’en as m any as could well live, one by another’ (III.v.19 ff.). B ut Jessica’s m arriage is m ore readily understandable if we think o f her as the daughter o f an English nouveau riche. Marriages betw een middle-class heiresses and needy gentlem en w ere m ultiplying. If Shakespeare looked towards a blending o f class qualities, he m ay be supposed to have approved o f such unions. T here was no stage o f his life w hen Shakespeare, as revealed in his plays, felt him self to be living in a harm onious environm ent; he was too m u ch a social realist ever to lapse into com fortable acceptance o f things as they were. T his play is a m em orial to one o f the times w hen tensions w ith in them pressed m ost sharply on his consciousness. O pposing forces o f good and evil are concentrated, m ore distinctly than in any other comedy, in two figures: Portia and Shylock. Shylock gives ‘a local habita­ tion and a nam e’, fittingly alien and threatening, to disruptive forces filtering into social life, m uch as Richard III sucks up into him self the ruthless egotism o f feudalism. Portia’s task is to defeat and exorcize a lurking evil that im perils Venice. This scheme o f salvation fails to be really convincing because - Shakespeare’s realism compels him to adm it - good and evil, w hen clothed in hum an, social forms, cannot be so neatly separated: they interm ingle. A nd no m oral victory can be w on by legal legerdem ain. In the trial scene it is hard to dismiss Bradshaw’s objection that Portia’s continually addressing Shylock as ‘J ew ’ is ‘coolly, deliberately offensive’ (25). (The Doge addresses him by name.) A suspicion m ay even cross the m ind that h er grand speech on M ercy is

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designed (by Shakespeare the showm an, if n ot by her) to p u t Shylock in the wrong. By refusing to show m ercy he disqualifies him self from having any title to it w hen his tu rn comes to need it - like the conspira­ N o other character except Falstaff, his hum orous counterpart as a critic or m ocker o f conventional standards, can have escaped as m uch as the Jew does from Shakespeare’s leading-strings. His creator has to rescue his play from the ruin threatened to its fabric by Shylock, and som ehow send spectators hom e from a happy ending. Shylock’s enemies have done their C hristian duty by waiving the death penalty for attem pted m urder, and they have left him w ith h a lf his capital. C hris­ tianity has dem onstrated its superior virtue, and if Shylock is com pelled to renounce his religion, that is a fu rther benefit conferred upon him. T h e concluding Act V is far m ore poetical than dram atic, and unconvincing because, as Levi says, Shylock’s shadow falls across the B elm ont garden (169). A nother reader refers to the long passage on music, and the symbolic association for Elizabethans o f m usic w ith order on a lofty plane, and points o u t that it is needed to sm ooth away the dissonances o f the trial scene (Stevens). It is really a confession o f failure to convince us that this charm ed w orld o f the aristocracy rests on firm foundations. M usic and m oonlight can lull our doubts only for the m om ent, and allow us to think o f Portia’s entry into the garden, and her w ords ‘Let m e give light’ (V.i.130), though spoken in jest, as the prom ise o f a better world. T alk o f ‘celestial harm ony’ does not com e well from such a scapegrace as Lorenzo. T he m ischief personified in Shylock cannot end w ith his downfall, because it is n ot confined to him ; in some degree it infects the w hole social order. N o happy ending is in prospect for the like o f old Gobbo, w ho will still be ‘exceeding poor’ (II.ii.48); slaves will still be slaves, debtors will still languish in jails. A last thought m ay be that w ithin h alf a century Jews were to be readm itted into England, and that Shakespeare’s play may have had some share in

Discords in Shakespeare’s w orld were kept, in his first comedies, to a m ainly farcical level; in The Merchant o f Venice they swelled up form id­ ably, and could be overcom e only by being translated into a folk-tale idiom and solution. Rom antic com edy had m ade a lim ping start in The Two Gentlemen o f Verona; it was now to enter its brief, insecure season of bloom . A s You Like It can be read as a recoil from the violence o f The Merchant o f Venice, a continuation from the rhapsodic, b u t artificial, harm ony o f the m oonlit garden. In The Merchant o f Venice the villain was

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baffled; in A s You Like It the virtuous have to ru n away and hide in the woods. T here are tw o villains now for them to contend w ith instead o f one; b u t in spite o f their villainous bluster, these two tu rn out to be only A s You Like It is Shakespeare’s fantasia on the literary-pastoral style, so tenacious in its appeal to urbanized m ankind. Tales o f life in the greenw ood carried w ith them legendary m em ories o f a golden age, to w hich m any looked back, as he som etim es did, w ith nostalgia, or affectionate irony. A good old duke has been in exile for years, dethroned by his brother, b u t neither he nor his supporters have taken any steps to restore him . T hey form a cheerful, carefree band, though forest life is not w ith o u t hardships. This A rden is a wilderness, like m any forest or fen areas in Shakespeare’s England: unlike them it has wild beasts as well as sheep and shepherds, though they appear only w hen the prom pter calls them . Doubtless the duke has been a good ruler, b u t even so he has benefited from the lessons o f rough w eather and roofless skies: they have taught him , as they are to teach Lear, that he is only a hum an being like the rest. U nder this tutoring his followers have becom e his ‘brothers in exile’ (II.i.1), as H enry V’s, in the extrem ity o f war, are his ‘band o f As a discussion piece the play has less w ord-juggling than Love's Labour's Lost, m u ch m ore sparkle and hum our. Episodic scenes, o f individuals or groups brim full o f their ow n concerns or ideas, succeed one another. In the dearth o f any masculine activity in the forest there is all the m ore room for Rosalind, w ho has been forced to follow her father thè duke m uch later into exile, to take the central place and charm us and her hearers; the fountain o f her w it and jo y o f life can play freely. T h ere are scoundrels and plots in the bad old w orld outside, but we have no need to take them seriously. A Midsummer Night's Dream was a play o f the m oonlight, as The Merchant o f Venice ended by being; A s You Like It belongs to daylight and sunshine and, we feel, to youth, as if an old order O f the two fair cousins, before their exodus from court it is Celia, heiress to the usurper, w ho takes the lead. It is she w ho proposes flight to the forest and insists on accom panying Rosalind, w ho adds the idea - a w ell-w orn one w ith Shakespeare - o f male disguise. In the woods Rosalind comes to the front. She has been used to w inning approval by ‘silence’ and ‘patience' (I.iii.78) w hile living at court on sufferance; she now has freedom and love to exhilarate her, as well as fresh air. Celia makes a perfect com panion; it is now h er tu rn to be m ore quiet and reserved, though never dull. Rosalind is intelligent, witty, charm ing, and quite ready to manage other people’s affairs besides her ow n - like Portia, though the affairs are o f a m ore trifling sort. W e are easily

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convinced o f how m any fathom deep in love she is (IV.i.200-1). B ut there is no love-m aking betw een her and O rlando; that is left to less w orthy clients o f C upid, like Touchstone. Shakespeare keeps his m ost likeable C om edy heroine, still garbed as a young man, lecturing to her O rlando has been deprived o f education by a venom ous elder brother, yet he has all the m anners and impulses o f a polished gentlem an. His speech to the exiled duke is elaborately flowery (Il.vii.). Shakespeare is adhering to folk-tale convention: blue blood is born w ith instincts that need no teachings b u t it helps to m ake O rlando an uninteresting though very respectable hero. His care for Adam, the faithful old servant w ho reaches the forest w ith him famished, does him credit; after that he has little to do beyond m aking up verses about Rosalind, carving her nam e o n trees, and listening for hours to her banter w ithout recognizing her. These newcom ers to the forest represent youth, b u t the only one o f the duke’s com panions we get to know is the elderly noblem an Jaques, a m isanthropist w ho insists on rem inding us o f the darker side o f life w hich Shakespeare was unlikely to be able to forget for long. M ost o f the tim e the play is an unusually cheerful one, b u t there is frequent talk o f ‘railing’, that cherished relief o f stage malcontents. Celia very early proposes a railing at Fortune; T ouchstone the jester does the same not m uch later (I.ii; Il.vii); Jaques, an addict, feels im pelled in one scene to rail at the first-born o f Egypt; in another at the w hole w orld and its miseries (II.v; III.ii.275). W e first hear o f this cross-grained, hum orous philo­ sopher, one o f Shakespeare’s m ore puzzling characters, lying under a tree and gazing at a w ounded stag, whose plight inspires him to a string o f comparisons w ith h u m an beings injured or neglected by their fellows Jaques does n o t often seem b orn to be a reform er; he is content to hug his gloom and debate things endlessly, w hile doing nothing except that he has chosen the forest as his hom e. H e prides him self on the travels he has m ade - probably the ‘grand to u r’ - and on his deep ‘rum ination’ over w hat he has seen (IV.i.17). Every profession brings its ow n special melancholy, he believes (IV.i.10 ff.): in other words, every kind o f activity leads to disappointm ents, so m en do well n o t to set themselves any goals. H e enjoys m eeting Touchstone, and invites Rosalind to a chat. T h e duke likes his com pany and serious conversation; Jaques, on the other hand, finds the duke ‘too disputable’, or argum entative (II.v). T h eir chief sparring m atch (II.vii.46 ff.) seems related to the controversy brew ing in the 1590s as to w hether satire can be a w hole­ some social corrective, or is only a plague. Jaques feels that he could be a reform er as a satirist, if allowed full freedom o f tongue to attack every sort o f m isbehaviour. T h e duke retorts that Jaques has been a libertine in

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his rime, soiled w ith all the vices, and by harping on them w ould be spreading them wider. Jaques offers no rejoinder, and seems to accept this account o f his past life. W e m ay be hearing the Shakespeare o f the Sonnets o f remorse, in Jaques’s disgust w ith the hum an condition. Instead o f a direct answer he falls back on the stock defence o f satirists: that in censuring m oral ills he w ould n o t be attacking any individual reprobate. A fter an interruption the duke reflects on hum an woes, and Jaques makes his famous speech on the seven ages o f m an, ending in ‘childishness and m ere oblivion’. Arden, it seems, is no m ore than a little oasis in the w ide wilderness o f existence, like Portia’s little candle ‘in a naughty w orld’ (M V V.i.91-2). At any rate Shakespeare m ust have found Jaques’s gloom useful as a foil to Rosalind’s high spirits. H e takes action only once, and then very properly, to prevent T o u ch ­ stone from going through a bogus w edding to his shepherdess Audrey w ith the help o f the hedge-priest O liver M artext, w hom he has som ehow m ade her believe to be ‘the vicar o f the next village’ (Ill.iii). T ouchstone is a glib talker, w ith a love o f verbal flourishes. H e is Shake­ speare’s first professional court jester, apparently a m an o f breeding; out here in the forest he feels, as he says, like O vid am ong the Goths (Ill.iii). H e is devoted to his two young ladies b u t unsentim ental about his rustic girl, and franker than m ost m en in Shakespeare are about his physical needs. From him to O rlando, the rom antic high-flier, we can see ‘love’ at tw o stages o f evolution. A m ore laughable case o f the ailm ent is poor Silvius’s pursuit o f Phebe, who, o f course, is enam oured o f the disguised Rosalind. All these variations effectively m im ic the fashionable pastoral O rlan d o ’s w icked brother O liver and Celia’s wicked father Frederick - w ho falls o u t w ith O liver too - both suffer, like Richard III, from a feeling that nobody loves them , and are soured by the popularity o f others. B rutal egotism brings its ow n penalty: a w arning against in­ dividualism in its m ore antisocial forms. Frederick is ‘rough and envious’ (I.ii.229) and hates Rosalind because she outshines his daughter. O liver cannot understand w hy his brother is loved, and he him self ‘altogether m isprised’ (I.i.l53ff.). These two culprits provide Shakespeare, w hen he feels that enough rime has gone by in am using talk, w ith m aterial for a flurry o f m elodram atic incidents. T hey are only reported, from off-stage, w hich m ay m ake them a shade less im probable. Magicians, like w om en o f charm , are easily forgiven, and Shakespeare is the greatest magician o f all; b u t even he, we m ust feel, som etim es tries to pull too m uch wool In a hurry, as often, to w ind up his story, he turns his offenders into a highly virtuous pair, transform ed, like B ottom , in the tw inkling o f an eye. Forgiveness instead o f revenge carries forw ard a leading idea from

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The Merchant o f Venice, b u t here it is scram bled together clumsily, w ith O rlando rescuing his brother from a lioness. ‘Kindness, nobler ever than revenge’ - C hristianity ennobled, or grafted on to the aristocratic m ode o f thinking, - and ‘n atu re’, or kinship, m ade him risk his life for the m an w ho had tried to kill him ; and O liver finds ‘conversion’ so sweet that he is a changed m an (IV.iii). It is tem pting to think that the audience was expected to guffaw at this, b u t disgusting to see O liver rew arded on the spot w ith Celia, love bow ling them over at first sight. A year’s probation, as in Love’s Labour’s Lost, is the least that Shakespeare ought to have done to allay our indignation. Instead he bows to the convention that every young w om an in a com edy m ust end w ith a husband - a notion derogatory to the new w om en o f Shakespeare’s day, by im plying that m arriage alone could give life any m eaning for them . Frederick is converted even m ore preposterously, by m eeting ‘an old religious m an’ w hile galloping into the forest to wreak further harm on the refugees (V.iv.157). A transfiguration as sudden as this is the spiritual parallel to love at first sight; Shakespeare may be hinting at some scepticism about both. In spite o f this, the play has a trickle o f biblical or oth er religious allusions, w hich Shakespeare did not take from his sources (Arm strong 111 f£). It m ay be that the background o f wanderings in the wilderness, and pastoral life, drew his m ind back to O ld Testa­ m en t scenes. Still, his haste to finish things off detracts som ew hat from the finale, w here he - or Rosalind for him - like the detective at the end o f a crim e film, unravels all the tangled threads. Four couples are united;

A fter we em erge from the forest o f Arden, com edy makes a further tu rn away from fantasy towards naturalism . T h e folk-tale species o f plot is left behind; in Much Ado there is n o t even a girl dressed up as a man, and apart from the very im plausible plot against H ero this is the m ost sturdily realistic o f all. T w o-thirds o f the play is in prose, and Benedick, the person w ho along w ith Beatrice attracts us most, is essentially a prose-speaker, not one to th in k o f entering a casket lottery for a wife, or to fall asleep in a w oodland am ong the fairies. D on Jo h n is an o ff-thepeg villain, suited to comedy. Still, he is the cause o f m ore m ischief than the m ere storm in a teacup that the title misleadingly advertises. Male jealousy was always a very grave m atter w ith Shakespeare, whose readiness to cham pion the cause o f w om en shows now here better than in his so often taking groundless jealousy as his target. H ere it provokes a challenge to a seriously m eant duel, even though, as things tu rn out, this

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Benedick is given a testim onial at the outset: he has ‘done good service’ in the cam paign ju s t concluded; he is ‘A lord to a lord, a m an to a m an’, som eone w ho does not stand on his rank (I.i.45). His em ployer D on Pedro testifies that he is ‘o f a noble strain, o f approved valour and confirm ed honesty’ (II.i.355-7). His wit, however Beatrice may like to belittle it, goes beyond the verbal ping-pong o f the early comedies; it has absorbed into itself a sturdy com m o n -m an vitality. T here is m uch o f B erow ne in it, even a touch o f Bottom . W e can see here Shakespeare’s am algam o f social qualities in a new and impressive form. As a gentlem an, courtier and soldier, B enedick can hardly be expected to be altogether prim and proper. Possibly Shakespeare forgot as soon as he had w ritten them Beatrice’s unexpected words about Benedick having once w on her heart ‘w ith false dice’ (II.i.262-3); since Leonato and H ero, w ho are listening, m ake no com m ent, it m ay be taken that he was guilty o f nothing worse than a flirtation, b u t the m em ory may have rankled in her m ind. T here are other hints o f a fondness for the ladies, coupled w ith a strong aversion to marriage. Leonato jokes about this, and D on Pedro says that Benedick has ‘twice or thrice cut C upid’s bow -string’, or had Beatrice is an orphan, though w ith a kindly uncle for guardian, and may have cultivated a prickly style o f w it and m anner, quite unlike any oth er Shakespearian heroine’s, for protection. H er com ing together w ith B enedick is a reversal o f the overw orked love at first sight. T hey are accustom ed to carry on a ‘m erry w ar’ or ‘skirm ish o f w it’ (I.i.57-9), and to encounter each other on level terms. Each is proud o f being esteemed a wit, and their jokes sometimes carry a sting. Benedick is irritated at being accused o f ‘everm ore tattling’, and still m ore at being called ‘the prince’s fool’, or jester (Il.i). Beatrice is nettled at his saying that she steals her good things o u t o f Boccaccio (Il.i. 114-15). T hey were am ong Shakespeare’s best-liked characters, w hich shows that his audience could enjoy the spectacle o f a m an and w om an fencing - and then loving - as equals, at least as well as it enjoyed horseplay like that o f The Taming o f the Shrew. Benedick is sturdily indifferent to witticisms from others, w hen he succum bs to love; they are no m ore than ‘paper bullets o f the H e is confronted alm ost im m ediately by som ething m ore deadly, w hen he is called on to seal his love by fighting his friend Claudio and punishing his treatm ent o f Hero. It does n o t occur to him - b u t it may now and then to us - that Beatrice is putting his life at risk in order to have justice done to her cousin. W o m en o f the higher classes were trained to accept their m en’s code o f honour, whose best apology was its being partly dedicated to their protection. B ut her abrupt and thrilling ‘Kill C laudio’ (IV.i.288) betokens a gathering em otional revolt o f w om en

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against a m orality heavily w eighted in favour o f men. Benedick is startled, b u t he has already show n his sym pathy w ith the injured family (IV.i.243 ff.) and is quickly convinced that she is right. N ext tim e they m eet, h er first question is w hether he has delivered the prom ised challenge (V.ii), and again she shows no uneasiness over his danger, any m ore than D on Pedro does over either o f his two followers. D ram a­ tically, a good deal is lost; b u t Shakespeare m ust be taking care n o t to let his com edy get o u t o f bounds, and tu rn into som ething different. H ero is kept in the background; alone w ith her com panions she can talk quite fluently; she is given two o f the play’s few references to N ature (Ill.i), w hich som ehow seem to suit her. H er father talks lengthily to his brother about her m isfortune, and his g rief is genuine, b u t his language is stilted, w ith none o f Shylock’s tragic flashes. Claudio has little or nothing to recom m end him , and no excuse b u t youth: he is som ew hat younger than Benedick. H e is interested in H ero’s inheritance, and content to let the prince do his w ooing for him (partly to gratify Shakespeare’s love o f masquerade). H e parades his wit, after H ero’s disgrace and supposed death, w ith an unfeeling jib e about the aggrieved father and uncle as ‘two old m en w ith o ut teeth’ (V.i.115). H e and Benedick represent tw o distinct types o f aristocrat, one o f w hich Shakespeare is leaving behind as frivolous and useless. It is not merely C laudio’s lack o f years that makes him so; he and D on Pedro both show at their worst, and go on bantering Benedick until he dismisses their silly jokes w ith dignified firmness and w ithdraw s from the prince’s service. It is the play’s m ost impressive speech, though only h a lf a dozen lines o f O nce m ore a happy ending has to be fabricated. It is sadly in ­ congruous in a play w hich, like the The Merchant o f Venice in another fashion, has m oved so far away from comedy. Light com edy w ithout real em otional strain was som ething Shakespeare managed to keep to in The Taming o f the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, A s You Like It, and The Merry Wives o f Windsor; b u t it did n o t com e easily or naturally to him . All his m ajor comedies raise ‘burning m oral questions’, and solve them only in term s o f ‘theatrical ingenuity’ (Salingar, Comedy 312). H e gave his hearers plenty to laugh at, b u t unhappiness kept breaking in.

Shakespeare’s only English dom estic comedy, nearly all in prose, has been too often underrated. Saintsbury was one o f the few to do it justice (189); M.C. B radbrook acknowledges it to be ‘the m ost prosaic dram a Shakespeare ever w rote’, b u t recalls D ryden’s tribute to it as the first really well m ade play in English (Shakespeare 75-6). Bradley found it

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‘very entertaining’, b u t was disgusted by Falstaffs hum iliating defeat (247-8). Falstaff is com m only thought to have shrunk in stature; it is rather that L ondon and England and the clash o f great events are reduced to W indsor and provincial intrigue. It is Falstaffs paradox that he is the suprem e comic character, yet he does n o t belong to comedy. T o be truly him self he needs a setting like that o f Henry IV, peopled w ith serious personages trum peting their strenuous messages in blank verse, for Falstaff the arch-unbeliever to direct his w it at and stand o u t in Y et m u ch o f his talk is as sparkling as ever. H e is still a fat m an w ith a lean purse; one o f his best utterances is a com plaint about his necessities and the shifts he is p u t to, w hich com prom ise his knightly ‘ho n o u r’ (Il.ii). H e resorts to a stratagem that afforded Elizabethan hum orists a stock topic: a plan for getting m oney o u t o f w ell-to-do burghers’ wives by tickling their vanity. ‘M oney is a good soldier, sir, and will on’ (Il.ii. 159): in one sentence a m ilitary society turns into a com m ercial one. M eta­ phors o f ships and voyages are frequent; M rs Ford and M rs Page are to be Falstaff is adopting the style o f a new age w hen he practises econom y by dismissing a pair o f his disreputable hangers-on - a com ic m iniature o f the disbanding o f great feudal households in T u d o r days, b u t also a parody o f his ow n dismissal by H enry V. H e fails to foresee that they will get their ow n back on him by giving away his schemes. H e now has a pageboy nam ed Robin, one m ore o f Shakespeare’s precocious juveniles, w ho is also playing him false. This is a society w here m utual trust and loyalty are waning. Falstaff is a product o f it. H e has been a failure in life, poor because he chose a life o f freedom from conventional bondages, a life o f toping and ease and wit; he is the great ‘dropout’ o f literature. W h a t we are offered in this play is the spectacle o f a man, vastly cleverer than we are, overreaching him self in a way that we feel we ourselves W e can even - unlike Bradley - rejoice at his defeat, because like his rejection by the new king his fiasco at W indsor saves his comic ‘innocence’ from the taint o f squalid success. W orldly gear is not for him . His w onderful w it was bestowed on h im for our enrichm ent, not for his. Alone in the w orld now, Falstaff does not m ake this a m atter for pathos: he can face his situation philosophically, and fears nobody, as he tells M aster Brook, ‘because I know also life is a shuttle’, at the m ercy o f accident (V.i). T h e play ends in harm ony, m ore credibly than in the m elodram atic comedies; everyone is ready to see his ow n errors, and laugh at them , or to make the best o f things, and Sir Jo h n can jo in in the It is a play, often farcical, about him , b u t at the same tim e a social

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study. Class relations provide the basis, m ainly those between gentry and burghers - n ot noblem en, and n o t rich L ondon m erchants; this W indsor is closer to Stratford than to London. Falstaff looks dow n on citizens, and they look w ith suspicion at gentlem en on the fringes o f court and fashion, like him or Fenton: a small landow ner like Slender, w ith no frills, is m ore in their line. N either class shines. Shakespeare takes few pains to polish Fenton up into an acceptable lover. Ford is foolishly jealous, D r Caius the physician ridiculously French. T he middle-class w om en are adm irable in their way, b u t M rs Page is no m ore sensible in w anting D r Caius for a son-in-law than her husband, w ho wants the At the close o f a com edy o f m anners like this, on English ground, Shakespeare can feel free to point o u t its lessons m ore directly than in his rom antic comedies. H e preaches against fornication in the song o f the children, got up as fairies, ‘Lust is b u t a bloody fire’ - a text as ill-chosen for such singers as A donis’s lecture to Venus about lust and love. Falstaff's object was not this, b u t cash; b u t he counted on the w om en being desirous o f an affair w ith him - very absurdly, as Mrs Page tells him ; he him self confesses the folly o f ‘lust and late-w alking’, as some­ thing that ought to be m ade know n ‘through the realm ’ (V .v.l39ff ). Ford seems thoroughly cured o f his silly jealousy. Y oung Fenton, w ho has m arried Anne Page w ith o u t leave, is eloquent on the sin o f all parents w ho force their offspring into uncongenial marriages T h e choice o f royal W indsor for Falstaffs last appearance was a com plim ent to the queen, probably on the occasion o f a G arter cerem ony. Seemingly Elizabeth had too m uch sense o f h u m o u r to take offence at the last scene, w here Mrs Q uickly, o f all people, in blank verse for the first and last tim e in her life, calls on the ‘fairies’ to bless W indsor Castle and its owner, as O beron and his retinue have blessed the palace at

Twelfth Night can be thought o f as belonging to 1601, Shakespeare’s farewell to rom antic com edy w hen he had already really left it behind and begun m oving into new territories. H e uses again devices already em ployed w ith good effect; there is even an occasional retu rn to rhym e, and nearly all the last Act is in verse, w hich the situation does n o t really require. W h a t is new is comic, not rom antic. Shakespeare’s com edy fram ew ork had always been elastic, and his treatm ent o f detail is as carefree as ever. N one o f his other girls disguised as m en thinks o f pretending to be a eunuch, and he has surely forgotten Viola’s pretence

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o f it by the tim e the D uke unclasps his ‘secret soul’ to the youth w ho has ju s t entered his service, and chooses him to plead his am orous cause w ith O livia (I.ii.55; I.iv.13-14). T o C.L. Barber it appears that transvestism is em ployed here so as to ‘renew in a special way our sense o f the differ­ ence’ betw een m en and w om en (245). M ore recognizably, it is woven into the plot, entw ined w ith various other strands, w ith greater adroitB ut Life is the great jester, or Puck, and plays tricks w ith hum an beings in order to awaken them to its realities. T he D uke’s infatuation has a swooning, effem inate note, like R om eo’s first love: it is a pose o f the idle rich, w anting to show themselves m ore soulful than their coarse neighbours. H e and Olivia both have to be jo lted into genuine feeling, taken by surprise as Rom eo is w hen he m eets Juliet. In Viola’s argum ent w ith Olivia about love there is w it on b oth sides, Shakespeare’s unfailing antidote to sentim entality (I.v.l70 ff ). N either alludes to O livia’s dead brother, for w hom she has vowed seven years’ m ourning; Viola makes no apology for in truding on her, b u t simply tells her she is ‘too p ro u d ’. Olivia is left m using w ith fatalistic resignation: ‘W h a t is decreed, m ust be’. Viola has ju s t lost her ow n brother, b u t he is already forgotten, as It is surprising to be told that ‘Olivia is irresistible in her passion; the D u k e’s sensibility is charm ing, taking’ (French 121). M ore unsentim en­ tally Levin cites Johnson’s view o f Viola as a ‘schem er’, and is doubtful as to w hether she is genuinely ‘rom antic and idealistic’ (Love 120). She really is, b u t all rom ance has taken on by now a dream -like quality. C aught in a freakish triangle, it has reached a lim it beyond w hich lies only farce. T here is nothing in any Illyrian attachm ent to interest us. O livia’s vow is clearly m eant to look excessive, a self-display like the young m en’s vow o f seclusion in Navarre. W h e n we first see her she is am using herself w ith h er jester; an h o u r later she is in love. Always unpredictable, love is now still m ore capricious; a wealthy noblew om an falls into the same snare as the shepherdess in Arden, a passion for a girl disguised as a youth. It belongs as m uch to fantasy as the drug-induced fervours o f the A thenian forest; Shakespeare employs for it a suitably artificial dialogue style, w ith single-line exchanges, rhym ed couplets, Malvolio, cross-gartered and sim pering, is not m uch m ore ridiculous than his betters in love. Olivia herself feels that her ‘m adness’ and his are not far apart (IH.iv. 14—15). E m otion has becom e histrionic, or turned ‘high fantastical’ as the D uke calls his ow n love (Li. 15). Viola’s tw in b rother Sebastian w onders w hether he has gone out o f his m ind w hen he finds Olivia instantly in love w ith him (IV.iii.l f£); this follows neatly on Malvolio, w ho thinks her in love w ith him, protesting that he is quite sane.

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Accident, coincidence, illusion, prevail. Viola speaks o f the vices o f ‘o u r frail blood’ (III.iv.354-5); h u m an beings seem insubstantial creatures easily blow n about by vanity or w him . ‘J ove, not I, is the doer’, Malvolio exclaims as he sees a brilliant future fall into his lap (III.iv.86). This (with ‘J ove’ for God) is conventional piety, b u t it is o f a piece w ith the way the heroines resign their hopes to Fate or fortune. Viola’s fictitious sister ‘never told her love’, b u t wasted away (Il.iv.1 10ff.). In a society bereft o f orderly opinions and rational ideals, individuals are less ready for A ntonio the sea-captain resolves to follow Sebastian at all hazards: ‘I do adore thee so’ (Il.i). As Shakespeare’s never robust faith in rom antic love wanes, he seems to tu rn away to friendship betw een m en, w hich he had treated hum orously in The Two Gentlemen o f Verona, seriously in The Merchant o f Venice. In the A ntonio o f b o th The Merchant o f Venice and Twelfth Night, feeling is evidently stronger in the elder man. So far as the story o f Twelfth Night is concerned, there is no real need o f this character, and friendship like his sounds overblown; it invites Levin’s suspicion o f ‘a hom osexual attraction’ (Love 142). B ut it gives Shakespeare a chance to upbraid Viola (m istaken for her brother) w ith ingratitude, and to let her protest that this is the vice she m ost detests (III.iv.345 ff.). It may be that the poet was w orking o ff some private sense o f injury; ingratitude is a sin that recurs often in his work. Accused by the D uke o f piracy - his neck in danger - Antonio, instead o f defending himself, breaks into another tirade about ‘Sebastian’, w hom he has rescued from the sea, refusing to Olivia can be angry enough to call her uncle T oby (such term s were loose; he may be an elder cousin) a ‘ruffian’, and tax him w ith chronic braw ling (IV.i.55-7). Toby is a kinsm an o f Falstaff too, but not a close one. H e is not a thinker, and he lives in a corner o f now here instead o f in L ondon w ithin earshot o f the great w orld and its doings. W e get no satire on it from him , and not m uch wit, b u t plenty o f rum bustious hum our; w hen well supplied w ith wine he has a hearty fondness for life, unlike the m ore refined characters. H e too is hard up; he sponges on Olivia, and gets m oney o u t o f his friend Sir A ndrew by encouraging him to hope for O livia’s hand and fortune. H ere is friendship o f another species, a com ic version o f Iago’s for Roderigo. T oby is no poltroon, and w hen he is w ounded in a fight, and irritable, he lets A ndrew know his Falstaff used to prom ise m arriage to w om en he got m oney from; T oby does better, by really m arrying Maria, by way o f reward for the fooling o f Malvolio w hich is her inspiration. He thus secures an active, practical helpm ate, w ho may p u t his affairs in better order. She is O livia’s ‘gentlew om an’ (I.v.162), n o t a m enial servant b u t far below the m anaging

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young ladies before her like Portia and Rosalind. It is tim e for a w om an o f m ore m odest station to show w hat she can do. H igh-born dames have com e to feel they are hapless sports o f chance; M aria does not philoM alvolio, the play’s newest personage, seems to be o f Shakespeare’s ow n coining. H e belongs to the m iddling ranks and, like very m any others, is a w ould-be entrant into the charm ed circle o f aristocracy. H e is, we can feel sure, a reliable and com petent steward; Olivia is quite on his side against Toby, and he is know n to and esteemed by the D uke (V.i.378-9). H e is a stickler for order and regularity, intolerant o f such indulgences as noisy nocturnal revelry or bear-baiting, over w hich he has got O livia’s gentlem an Fabian into trouble w ith her (II.v.8-9). In addition he gets A ntonio into jail (V.i.274-5); we do not know how or why, b u t the fact accentuates his sour disposition. H e comes to g rief because am bition and conceit m ake him look too high, too hastily, and sacrifice substance for shadow. His hopes may not be quite so ridiculous as the costum e that M aria tricks him into donning. H e is entitled to call him self a ‘gentlem an’ (IV.ii.84); he may very probably com e from some m odest gentry family and, like Fabian, be one o f the ‘serving gentlem en’ to be found in all great households. Stewards o f great estates did som etim es rise high, by m erit and luck. M alvolio’s error is sim ply his failure to see through a trick, because he is blinded by inflated vanity and lack o f any sense o f hum our. As Olivia tells him , he is ‘sick o f self-love’ (I.v.88). In Much Ado about Nothing a trick was played on Beatrice and Benedick w ith the friendly purpose o f m aking each think the oth er in love w ith him or her. It is a m easure o f the distance betw een that comedy, w here all breathe m uch the same social air, and Twelfth Night, w here classes are separating, that there a similar trick is played w ith very unfriendly intentions: a joke, b u t a cruel and m alicious one. T h ere is no pretence o f reconciliation at the end, and Malvolio goes o ff H e is n o t to be too indulgently viewed. As M aria says, he is n o t a genuine ‘p u ritan ’ (II.iii.151 ff.), actuated by principles w orthy o f respect; he is sim ply im patient to rise in the w orld and then, as he tells us himself, ‘w ash o ff gross acquaintance’ (II.v. 165-6). D aydream ing such as he gives way to is a perennial source o f m irth to others, because - as, perhaps, w ith all the weaknesses we laugh at - we are conscious o f the same inclination in ourselves. Sir A ndrew represents an opposite aspect o f life in Illyria; his pursuits are eating and drinking, dancing and bear-baiting (I.iii.95). H e and T oby are entertaining b u t disreputable; Malvolio is respectable b u t disagreeable. T he play’s best scenes com bine their oddities, in com edy o f a high order. B ut com edy itself is nearing its end. Shakespeare has been able to shuffle his resources once m ore into a fresh

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pattern, captivating b u t holding o u t no way forward. Its opposites belong to a society ready to break apart. Across dilettante posturing and vinous jo llity falls the shadow o f a new order. T h e youthful spirit so vivacious in Love's Labour's Lost has faded. Y oung ladies languish; young m en for them are hard to find. T he jester, w ho ought to spread only m irth, seems instead p art o f this dow nhill drift. T w elfth N ight is the tim e w hen

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Comedy Themes

W it and H u m o u r Puritans o f the decades after Shakespeare were too often hum ourless beings, as M ilton was by com parison w ith him . W h e n m en are still groping, and see no clear way forward, they can laugh at themselves and their puzzlem ents; w hen the road seems to have been found, it is tim e for jo k in g to be laid aside. Shakespeare lived w hen social tensions were strong enough to stim ulate literature, w ith o u t overpow ering it. H e shone in b o th w it and hum our, an unco m m on com bination; perhaps above all in hum our, the m ore dem ocratic or ‘h u m an ’ faculty. His gift o f laughter broadened by stages from sim ple forms, like punning or clowning, into som ething m ore significant, part o f his com m entary on the life going on round him , from Rom eo overfull o f sighs to D ogberry o n police duty, inflated by self-im portance. W hatever its social, moralistic functions, com edy’s first business has always been entertainm ent. This could itself be credited w ith wholesom e properties o f another sort, as it is in The Taming o f the Shrew, where m edical opinion is cited in support o f the view that ‘m elancholy is the nurse o f frenzy’, w hile ‘m irth and m errim ent’ is health-giving and ‘lengthens life’ (Induction ii.12 7 ff.). Life, then, is to be enjoyed, not consum ed in a fever o f effort or am bition. W h en Lucentio comes to Padua to study philosophy, his m anager T ranio observes that O vid need n o t be altogether eclipsed by A ristotle (T S I.i.29f£). G ratiano’s recom ­ m endation o f carefree hilarity instead o f m orose gloom is in the same key (M V I.i.79ff.). A star danced w hen Beatrice was born, and she often ‘w aked herself w ith laughing* at a silly dream o f being sad (M A A N II.i.308ff ). C om edy has often m eant one class laughing at another, b u t in some oth er ways it can draw the classes together in am usem ent at things that tickle them all. T his is especially true o f its sim pler elements, w here m an k in d ’s physical self is in question: we can all fall over buckets. Tipsi­ ness is another leveller. Shakespeare was n o t m uch indebted to it, finding

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the h u m an race comical enough even w hen sober. O ne o f his few tipplers is Sir Toby Belch who, w hen in need o f a surgeon, is indignant at learning that the m an is drunk, at eight o’clock in the m orning, and declares him self a hater o f drunkenness (T7V V.i. 197-8). Some in the audience no doubt expected to be regaled w ith bawdy talk or sly im proprieties; and students w ho have sought for these spices in Shake­ speare have found them (e.g. Rowse, Renaissance 166; Fryer 50-56, 81). Shakespeare started w ith a countrym an’s fondness for broad farce. It is a pointer to the continuity o f o u r sense o f funniness that he borrow ed one pair o f identical twins for The Comedy o f Errors from Plautus, and Laurel and H ardy borrow ed Shakespeare’s tw o pairs for a laughable film called Our Relations. In Shakespeare personalities are often confused by disguises, occasionally by magic, further worsening the myopia that affects all h u m an beings’ perceptions o f one another. It is the essence o f farce, said Ben Travers, author o f the A ldwych comedies, to display ordinary people in extravagant situations (BBC Radio 3, 27 D ecem ber 1981). These spring from accident, unforeseeable disruption o f our usual routine, such as lies in w ait for us all. W e all have lurking prem onitions o f it, and a dim sense th at our lives have been m ostly a tissue o f chance happenings, m ore often unw elcom e than not. Hercules may be beaten at D extrous use o f words had becom e p art o f everyday life am ong all, high or low, w ho aspired to be in fashion, or to get on. As astonishing as the ability o f poetry to thrive on the Elizabethan stage was the popularity o f displays o f verbal fencing, scarcely to be expected in large, crowded, partly unroofed theatres. Spectators m ust have been very attentive listeners, despite their nuts and apples. C om petitions in w it w ould send them away ready to engage in sim ilar bouts, and dream o f scoring trium phantly o ff their acquaintances. ‘T o see this age!’ the jester in Twelfth Night exclaims: w ords are always being turned inside out nowadays (III.i.11-13). Everyone wants to be thought ‘an exchequer o f w ords’ (T G V II.iv.42-3). Viola and Toby fall as it w ere autom atically into an exchange o f punning repartee and flourishes (TN III.i.69ff.). It is an axiom am ong Shakespeare’s young m en o f taste that the way to a w om an’s heart is through her presum ed liking for w it and poetry. Silvia’s rival suitors belabour one another w ith witticisms, some o f them boyish enough (T G V Il.iv). Sir A ndrew the booby is told that he should have ‘banged’ his supposed rival ‘Cesario’ into ‘dum bness’ by accosting Olivia ‘w ith some excellent jests, fire-new from the m in t’ (T N III.ii.21-3). T his occurs in one o f Shakespeare’s m ost dazzling prose passages, an im p ro m p tu o f a dozen lines throw n o ff by Fabian. H e does n o t have m u ch part in the play, b u t this speech is cram m ed w ith touches o f fancy. Shakespeare’s wits are self-consciously expert w ith their tongues, as we

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m ay guess him and his associates to have been. Benedick is m ortified if one o f his jokes falls flat, or so Beatrice says (A4/L4NII.i.l35f£). W ith no b etter listener than Audrey at hand, T ouchstone lam ents that it strikes a m an dead to have his sallies falling on d eaf ears (A YLI III.iii.5 ff.). Jaques is in a surly m ood w hen he runs into O rlando in the forest, b u t cannot help being impressed by the young fellow’s ready parries (III.ii.252 ff.). It was a com plim ent to the ladies that they were expected to be so responsive to w ell-turned phrases and rhym ing tributes. Shakespeare clearly believed that they could and should be educated up to this and, in addition, be able to talk intelligently themselves. All the C om edy girls have to be witty, w hatever else they may be. T hey chat and jo k e am ong themselves in m uch the same strain as the men; their sense o f hu m o u r is at times n o t m uch m ore delicate. Despite h er slavish devotion to Proteus, Julia is no simpleton. T he family descent T h u rio prides him self on, she com m ents, is only ‘from a gentlem an to a fool’ (T G V V.ii). It is wrong, however, Shakespeare warns us, for either m an or w om an to use a sm art tongue to w ound other people’s feelings w ith o u t cause. Berow ne and Beatrice are censured for this, though they are never malicious in our Beatrice is ‘Lady D isdain’: ‘She speaks poniards, and every w ord stabs’ (M AAN I.i.ll3 ; II.i.229). As her m ild cousin says, her fault is to deride good qualities as m uch as bad, and allow no w orth to ‘simpleness or m erit’. As soon as she is m ade to realize how she is ‘condem n’d for pride and scorn’, instead o f adm ired, she resolves to tu rn over a new leaf (IILi). All com edy is concerned in some degree w ith persuading us to see ourselves as others see us, to be m ore aware o f other people’s existence. Benedick, like Beatrice, is willing to look into Shakespeare’s m irror open-eyed. ‘H appy are they that hear their detractions and can p u t them to m ending’ (II.iii.225—6) - b u t who, equally, are not to be swayed by frivolous mockery. ‘D ost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram?’ he W it and satire are n o t easily kept apart. C ensure o f individuals could easily grow into criticism, light or grave, o f a class, a society, a nation. G overnm ent m ight be show n as a façade o f sham benevolence concealing ineffectiveness and m uch worse. T h e spectacle o f D ogberry and Verges instructing their w atchm en (M A A N Ill.iii) is a splendid piece both o f social history and o f com m ent on authority. Especially after FalstafPs advent, Shakespeare was treating his audience to a strong dose o f exposures, or hints, o f things rotten in the state o f England, all the m ore effective because Falstaff never moralizes, b u t is simply amused by w hat he sees. T h e country too m ust learn to be self-critical, and p u t its house in order. Public opinion was form ing, grievances were finding their way into parliam entary debates whose eventual outcom e w ould be

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revolutionary change. Toby and Fabian, laughing in their sleeves at Sir Andrew, invoke ‘j u d g m e n t and reason’ as tim e-honoured ‘grand-jurors’ M alvolio is n o t the only one w ho deceives himself, or is duped by others, into a false sense o f im portance. In the Induction to The Taming o f the Shrew the bibulous tram p Sly, w ith w hom a noblem an diverts him self by installing him in his ow n luxurious quarters, soon begins to believe th at he really is a lord. Bottom , w earing his ass-head, is soon ready to fancy him self king o f fairyland, and gives orders to T itania’s attendants as to the m anner born (IV.i). W e laugh because we are being rem inded th at vanity can w ork on us all, especially w hen we suppose ourselves to be adm ired by the other sex. Shakespeare himself, Sonnet 87 seems to tell us, m ust have had m om ents o f feeling, like his creatures, ‘In sleep a king, T h e w it o f the educated has an accom panim ent o f lower-class im itations, and rough-and-ready fun. At first this is stuck in here and there at random , like the long-w inded bouts in The Two Gentlemen o f Verona betw een the servants, Launce and Speed. Shakespeare’s clowns are as fond o f soliloquizing as his grand heroes and villains. Launce tells us a long tale about how his dog m ade a nuisance o f itself under the ducal dining-table, and how to save it he took the blam e on him self and subm itted to a whipping. ‘H ow m any masters w ould do this for his servant?’ (IV.i.l ff.). T here is a true, if grotesque, touch in this o f the high value Shakespeare placed on fidelity; it is a plebeian version o f the old attachm ent betw een lord and vassal. A nother lengthy spell o f drollery brings in Launce’s trick o f pretending to m istake one w ord for another ‘your old vice still’, Speed rem onstrates - and ends w ith Launce suddenly recollecting that he has an urgent message to give his com panion M ore is to be gleaned from h u m o u r arising from the contacts betw een classes, their diverse attitudes to life, their opinions o f them ­ selves and o f each other. O u t in the country, social m anners could rem ain little differentiated except at high altitudes. Falstaff noticed that Justice Shallow and his servants, from being continually together, had com e to think and talk in ju st the same fashion (2H .IV V.I.62ff.). T ow n life and sophistication hastened change, and m uch o f Shakespeare’s earlier com ic dialogue arises from this. Servants often guy their masters, th o u g h social criticism is kept on a light tone. In The Comedy o f Errors the tw o slaves are at least as quick-w itted as their owners. W e like to see our superiors, or inferiors, being m ade to look ridiculous, because this fortifies our ow n self-esteem. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the b lunderings o f the artisans perform ing their play, in Love's Labour's Lost those o f the am ateurish N ine W orthies, draw quizzical com m ents from the

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aristocratic spectators. Shakespeare invites us to jo in these in laughing at the aw kw ard bum pkins, though n o t unam iably. O ld Gobbo and his son in Venice b o th perpetrate howlers w hen they attem pt learned words. D ogberry brings malapropism s to perfection. T hey are not confined to the low er orders; Slender at W indsor com m its as m any errors as Evans, w ith o u t his excuse o f being W elsh. Each onlooker could plum e him self o n know ing w hat a misused w ord ought to have been, or m ake up his m ind to find out. In this light the theatre could serve as a schoolroom, as it is w hen H olofernes gives us a spelling lesson (LLL V.i.l 7 ff.). It can be seen as a m ark o f the social tensions in The Merchant o f Venice, the play w here com edy is m ost in danger o f breaking down, that w it has a m ore uneven distribution than before. T h e three leading m en m ake no attem pt at it. Shylock is too morose, A ntonio too glum , Bassanio perhaps too exalted to descend to hum our. Portia has no such inhibitions. D ow n below, Lancelot jokes easy-goingly w ith Lorenzo, his new m aster Bassanio’s friend, until Lorenzo, w ith some im patience, shuts him up as a ‘w it-snapper’ (III.v.26 ff.). B ut this is virtually the end o f plebeian jocularity in these plays, as if life has grow n too hard for the poor to allow them any taste for it. T hey m ay am use us, b u t n o t by intention. W h e n he gets to Illyria, Shakespeare leaves them out. W h ile the stage clow n is too clum sy to fit in w ith conventional society, the jester is too clever to w ant to, or to take it at face value. Each is an intruder, w ho keeps the w orld o f the play from being a sealed-up, windowless one. T hey continue the Carnival tradition, lost to Protestant Europe, o f a yearly breathing-space w hen rules can be throw n off, as m ostly sham. Shakespeare makes use o f a nu m ber o f figures w ho in some ways resem ble jesters. Puck thinks o f him self as the jester o f the fairy court: ‘I je st to O bero n ’ (who seems easily pleased by practical jokes) (M N D II.i.44). A rm ado’s attendant M o th is far too precocious to be a credible pageboy; he and Falstaffs boy in The Merry Wives o f Windsor, or the one in Henry V, have the air o f ’prentice jesters, except that their w it is m eant for us, n o t for the patrons they deride. Above all, o f course, there Professional jesters appear only late on, in As You Like It and Twelfth N ight T hey belonged to a dying race, along w ith m uch else o f the old feudal paraphernalia; they were escorting an old era off the stage o f history. T his Shakespearian pair are b o th in the service o f ladies, w ho m ight be fonder than m en o f keeping old custom s alive, and had m ore leisure to be w hiled away. T h eir social status is indeterm inate. Celia warns Touchstone, w hile they are still at court, and he says som ething disrespectful about her father, that his loose tongue may earn him a w hipping (A Y L I 1.79-80) - as Lear warns his Fool. Rosalind calls him ‘the clow nish fool’ (I.iii. 130). It may look as though Shakespeare, after

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w riting the first Act, decided to give T ouchstone the m ore gentlem anly tu rn that makes him such an oddity in the forest, w here he, far m ore than the courtiers, feels cut o ff from civilization. ‘It is m eat and drink to m e to see a clow n’, he tells us, as he bewilders his rustic rival in A udrey’s affections w ith a flow o f long w ords (V.i.10). His caricature o f the duelling code (V.iv) has som ething in com m on w ith Falstaff s derisory Feste too is a highly literate person. His nonsense talk, adm ired by Sir Toby, can be thought o f as a parody o f the pretentious diction, or the learned jargon, in vogue. Rabelais had a fondness for similar rigmarole; he was a m an o f the Renaissance ridiculing scholastic verbiage, and so was Shakespeare. W ith m uch less natural gaiety than T ouchstone, Feste is an enigm atic person. His skirm ishing w ith his patroness is artificial; he sometimes strikes sparks better w hen he is o ut o f her house, on his own. H e goes absent w ith o u t leave ( T N I.v.l ff.); he hangs about cadging for tips; and he has M alvolio to harass him . ‘Y our fooling grows old, and people dislike it’, Olivia warns him half-seriously, after M alvolio has spitefully asserted that he was beaten in a contest lately by ‘an ordinary fool’ (I.v). Such w it-contests seem to have been popular even at the alehouse level, and a jester w ould be expected to ‘talk for victory’, like D r B ut w hat is com ing to the front in these last plays o f the series is the discord o f classes and eras, m ore than any set-to’s betw een individuals. Again unlike Touchstone, Feste has no w arm attachm ent to anyone. His song at the end, though often dismissed as unShakespearian, breathes a vague disillusion, a note o f failure and m elancholy aided by the haunting recurrence o f ‘the w ind and the rain’. Shakespeare may have felt at times th at his ow n fooling was going o u t o f fashion. H e was now, in any case,

Shakespeare’s understanding o f hum an beings could help them to understand themselves; by so doing it could dim inish obstacles to com prehension betw een m en and w om en, and help them to see them ­ selves as com plem entary parts o f a w hole com m unity. In the Com edies relations betw een them are the chief them e, b u t this is not isolated from o ther things in life, and it has m any variations. Shakespeare does not, like too m any authors, rely on ‘love’ as a universal propellant, a fuel to bring inert natures to life. W ith h im it is one aspect o f a personality, and has connections w ith m anners, culture, religion, class. It is often linked w ith social criticism, as well as em otional stirrings; we are in the com pany o f young people often, like Y um -y u m in The Mikado, ‘very w ide awake’,

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w ho are feeling the currents o f a new age and learning to m ake them ­ selves at hom e in it. These plays are full o f debate about marriage and love; they reflect a changing society, as the Histories m irror an evolving In the Elizabethan m ind, polarized as it often was by the class structure, m en ’s relations w ith w om en m ight be idealized to the point o f rarefaction, or reduced to their lowest level. Shakespeare achieved a balance betw een ideal and terrestrial scarcely attained by any o f the other writers. Like other Elizabethan poets he tho ught o f m any bad things to say about w om en, b u t he (or Romeo) was, it seems, the first to call a w om an an ‘angel’ (Hughes 224-5). H e took a hand in the current sniping at w om en’s foibles, their cosmetics and false hair and the rest o f the stock in trade o f satirists and moralists. B ut w hen Viola som ewhat bluntly inquires o f Olivia ‘if God did all’ for her face, Olivia can reply ‘T is in grain . ..’ (T N I.v.240-42). ‘A dangerous law against gentility’, Berow ne observes on a proposal to deprive w om en w ho com e anywhere near the court o f their tongues (LLL I.i. 128): it will bear m ost hardly on gentlew om en. Still, on the w hole nearly all the w om en o f the Comedies, very unlike those o f the Histories, w in our esteem and affection. Enlightened w om en form ed, as they do today in ‘developing’ countries, a distinct species o f ‘rising m iddle class’. Shakespeare’s ‘new w om en’ w ere an im aginative com bination o f older and newer modes o f living, outlooks, values, w ith the liberal education that Bianca in The Taming o f the Shrew is receiving to bind them together. T hey com bine an aristocratic sparkle, and readiness - less aggressive than in the Histories to take the lead, w ith the virtues o f an upper-m iddle class. W it, m eaning also intelligence, forms a good part o f their endow m ent. ‘Love com m only w eareth the livery o f W it’, w rote Nashe (85), and if the C om edy w om en are claim ing m ore equality o f status, on this plane they Shakespeare was at one w ith the m iddle-class w riters w ho were upholding the sanctity o f the family, w ith especial care for female conduct b u t w ith good behaviour incum bent on m en as well. C ourtly philandering is denounced in Sonnet 66, whose ‘m aiden virtue rudely strum peted’ w ould m ean a poor girl ruined by a rich man; it has little place in the Com edies except to be ridiculed in the scenes o f Touchstone w ooing Audrey. T here are no bad w om en. H eroines are virtuous by nature, and can be trusted on their own, beyond reach o f any guardian or duenna. O n e o f the qualities O rlando admires Rosalind for is chastity, th ough he can really have no assurance o f it (A Y L I III.ii.10). T o m eet B enedick’s requirem ents a w om an m ust be, am ong other things, ‘fair’, ‘wise’, and ‘virtuous’ (M A A N II.iii.25fE). Love and lust were am ong Shakespeare’s antipodes, and his idealizing o f rom antic love was an

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attack on behaviour he must have seen most often in the upper class he M ore generally, it was an im pulse to refine the ways in w hich the sexes regarded and treated each other. His young w om en are not expected, like their V ictorian descendants, to have no eyes for male attractions. ‘A good leg and a good foot’, as well as money, Beatrice tells D o n Pedro, are am ong the assets they look for (II.i.13-14). B ut this is a joke, and such things, w hen seriously m eant, are apt to belong to farce. Phebe’s adm iring speech about ‘G anym ede’, the disguised Rosalind, shows that she has viewed ‘h im ’ carefully, not neglecting the shape o f ‘his’ legs (A Y L I III.v. 19). M en could find it easy to believe that they were being appreciatively scrutinized. M rs Page’s eye ‘did so course o’er m y exteriors’, Falstaff declares, that it seemed to scorch him like a b u rningShakespeare’s ostensible reasons for so often sending his young ladies o u t into the w orld in m ale attire are not always clear; b u t there is an assum ption in the background that w om en by themselves, undisguised, w ould n o t be safe. Rosalind proposes to arm herself w ith an axe and boar-spear (A Y L I I.iii.l 14ff ). Silvia in The Two Gentlemen o f Verona is threatened w ith the fate o f Lucrece. B ut even far short o f this, it is no w onder K atherina in The Taming o f the Shrew believes that a w om an m ust have ‘a spirit to resist, if she is n o t to be ill used’ (III.ii.218-19). W o m en are subjected in the Comedies, m uch m ore than m en, to all sorts o f mishaps and ordeals; perhaps because in the poet’s eyes they have m ore m eaning for the h u m an future. In flight from parental tyranny H erm ia wakens up in the A thenian forest to find herself alone, deserted by her lover (M ND Il.ii). T he way these unfortunates brave m isfortune, and som etim es rise above it and take control o f events, is a fem inist M ale attire can look very m uch like a parable o f W o m an ’s painful com ing o f age. Some o f those w ho adopt it are conscious o f taking a rashly bold step. Julia has qualm s about her ‘im m odest raim ent’ (T G V V.iv.106). It seems as if Shakespeare was recognizing in w om en energies and aspirations at odds w ith the decorous seclusion they were expected to be content with. T o be fully w om en, they m ust pretend to be men: a paradox in w hich Shakespeare may be said to compress the w hole dilem m a o f m odern w om anhood and em ancipation. W h e n Portia, newly won, hails Bassanio as ‘her lord, her governor, her king’ (M V III.ii. 166), we m ay be unpleasantly rem inded o f K atherina kow tow ing to Petruchio. B ut it is she w ho saves the situation w hen trouble arises; and o n her retu rn from triu m p h in Venice she is ready for a pretended quarrel, in place o f the ‘m odest stillness and hum ility’ expected by husbands from wives, as by m onarchs from their subjects.

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M en being w hat they too often are, it is not easy for w om en to steer betw een being either too self-assertive, as Beatrice has been, or too selfeffacing. H elena assures D em etrius that she is his ‘spaniel’, and loves him all the m ore for his spurning her (M N D II.i.203 ff., 242-3). This is disgusting, as K atherina w ould be if we could take her capitulation seriously. A w om an w ho submits to being bridled by an unjust marriage system is, as Adriana says, no better than a donkey (CE II.i.13-14); but the alternative m ay seem an unam iable angularity. She has a deeply felt sense o f how husband and wife ought to be ‘undividable, incorporate’; she is n o t too m uch o f a rebel to think o f the w om an as the m ore dependent, clinging to the m an like the vine twined round the elm (Il.ii. 110 ff.). Its blank verse makes this long speech all the m ore impressive, the play’s rhym ing couplets being nearly all designed for com ic effect. W e are aware o f a sad discrepancy betw een a high ideal o f W o m en are right to feel m istrustful o f w hat love means to men, and w ant to m ake sure o f its sincerity. T h e four French ladies suspect that the four gentlem en o f N avarre are playing w ith them , and resolve on a tit for tat. T hey are soon able to feel that they have scored a success; and the princess can tax the m en w ith being ‘p erjured’ because by m eeting w om en they have broken their vow (LLL V.ii.346). H er underlying m eaning is that m en are not to be trusted w hen they talk o f love. B erow ne protests that they are in earnest, and reproaches his Rosaline, as Benedick does Beatrice, w ith being too fond o f sarcasm, o f m aking ‘W ise things seem foolish and rich things b u t p oor’ (V.ii.378). All the same, m en are subject to strong tem ptation, and too often give way to it. T here is frank talking about the carnal side o f love, like B erow ne’s unrom antic allusion to C upid as ‘King o f Codpieces’ (IH.i. 183). In A rden the duke, criticizing Jaques, speaks o f ‘the brutish sting’ he has form erly been enslaved by (A Y L I II.vii.66). A rm ado yields reluctantly to his fancy for the country w ench Jaquenetta, from snobbish, n o t m oral scruples. ‘T here is no evil angel b u t love’, he reflects (LLL I.ii. 165-6), and we soon hear that he has got the girl w ith child. A nother like her, Audrey, looks forw ard to becom ing ‘a w om an o f the w orld’ through the m arriage w ith T ouchstone that he has tried to dodge (HYLI V.iii).Jaques’s com m ent is realistic as well as cynical: their voyage o f love ‘Is b u t for two m onths victuall’d ’ (V.iv. 188-9). All m en are faithless, according to Ju liet’s nurse. Julia’s confidante Lucetta warns her before she leaves hom e o f how ‘deceitful m en’ delude w om en w ith their tears and protestations; Julia rejects this ‘base’ suspicion and is sure o f Proteus’s fidelity, the ‘infinite’ o f his devotion to her (T G V Il.vii) - com ic irony, since we already know that he is unfaithful. Proteus has some twinges o f conscience, b u t he satisfies

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him self in a w ordy soliloquy that it is all right for him to discard Julia in favour o f his new love, Silvia, and to view his friend V alentine as a rival and an enemy. ‘U nheedful vows m ay heedfully be broken’ (Il.vi). Poor Julia, com ing to jo in him , has to hear him m aking love to Silvia. It is the latter w ho reproves him as ‘perjured, false, disloyal’ to both his mistress and his friend (IV.ii). Julia’s love survives unshaken. ‘Because I love him , I m ust pity h im ’, she sighs (IV.iv.95). Shakespeare alm ost seems to regard a w om an’s love, once plighted, as som ething, like the m arriage vow itself, T h e duke is sure his daughter Silvia’s love for V alentine will quickly evaporate (Ill.ii). H e is wrong: her love is p ro o f against her ordeal o f im prisonm ent, b u t she is very poorly rewarded. At some stage in the w riting Shakespeare m ust have intended a serious conclusion; and the them e o f love and friendship in com petition was one that Elizabethans were fond of. D eploring the decay o f friendship in these bad days, V alentine sounds like a stripling T im on; his hom ily on the virtue o f repentance and the duty o f forgiveness is in quite solem n language (V.iv). B ut its w riter m ust have realized th at his story was collapsing into absurdity, and decided to p u t a hasty end to it. In any case the play is a fantasia on constancy and inconstancy, w ith the two heroines carrying o ff the palm. Its m oral may be read in Proteus’s words near the close - ‘O heavens, were m an /B u t constant, he w ere perfect!’ (V.iv. 110-11). C onstancy as a cardinal virtue has a place in m any o f Shakespeare’s later plays, in all sorts o f relationships. His influence, over the years, m ust have contributed heavily to an accepted pattern o f rom antic love grow ing into faithful w edded love, and had a deep effect on social - especially m iddleO f family life we are show n scarcely anything below the level o f the higher classes, w here property, dignity, social calculations, all com e in. By com parison w ith the Histories, the upper-class family o f com edy is far less dense and close: the individual is n o t em bedded in it, the group is m u ch less a m icrocosm o f society. C om edy has to treat m en and w om en, mostly young, as individual selves; they m ust be fairly m obile and manoeuvrable. O lder m en in these plays, chiefly m artinets o f the stock type, are widowers; children are motherless; some daughters, and in the later plays sons, have no fathers either. Several o f the young w om en have no visible family connections at all: Julia, Helena, Olivia, and (to all appearances) nearly all those in Love's Labour's Lost Shakespeare m ust have decided early on that The Two Gentlemen o f Verona w ould be better w ith o u t a father for Julia - one heavy father in a play is enough - but forgot to cross o u t two allusions to him (I.ii). In the forest Rosalind casually m entions to Celia that yesterday she ran into her exiled father, and they exchanged a few words - b u t ‘w hat talk we o f fathers’: she can

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th in k only o f h er O rlando (Ill.iv). She and h er father have been separated since her childhood; still, Shakespeare could have w orked up an W h ere fathers and sons are in question, the m ost deserving parent is old Aegeon in The Comedy o f Errors, w ho has brought up one son and gone roam ing in search o f a lost one. In The Taming o f the Shrew a hard­ headed observer feels sure that Vincentio will not agree to hand over his large property and be content ‘in his w aning age’ to sit at his son’s table, a dependant (II.i.39-63). Y et his son Lucentio, after playing an unfilial n o t to say crim inal - trick on him , gets his pardon m ore easily than his eloping bride Bianca gets her father’s. A m ore typical autocrat is the A ntonio o f The Two Gentlemen o f Verona w ho orders his son Proteus off to court to seek his fortune at tw enty-four hours’ notice, and brooks no rem onstrance: ‘For w hat I will, I will, and there an end’ (I.iii). Fathers and daughters are m ore likely than not to be at loggerheads over m arriage issues w hich usually tu rn on status or wealth. Fathers represent the outlook o f a society w here revenue comes first. O ne o f Bianca’s suitors, Grem io, is ‘an old gentlem an’, b u t since he has plenty o f m oney he is as eligible in her father Baptista’s eyes as anyone else (TS I.i). Silvia’s father the D uke o f M ilan is equally materialistic. H e is well aware that she loves V alentine and hates T hurio, b u t he prefers T hurio - ‘O nly for his possessions are so huge’, as V alentine complains. H e sounds alm ost like Lear w hen he threatens to cast h er off, and ‘let her beauty be h er w edding-dow er’, for baulking his hope o f being ‘cherish’d by her child-like duty’ in old age (T G V III.i). T his hope scarcely seems to com port w ith m arriage to T h u rio or anyone else; the duke is thinking on two separate lines, so as to m ake his unreasonableness clear to all w ho hear him . By draw ing such forbidding portraits Shakespeare was taking part in public debate at a tim e w hen opinion about family life was H erm ia’s father Egeus is cast in the same m ould as Silvia’s. D uke Theseus, in other respects a wise and benign ruler, takes the high conservative ground w hen it comes to parental authority. A father m ust be looked up to ‘as as god’, he tells Herm ia: ‘you are but as a form in wax/By him im printed’ (M ND I.i.47-50). Jam es I was fond o f telling his subjects that kings are like gods; Theseus’s adage completes the trio o f god, king, father. Shylock w ould n o t dissent; he takes as rigid a view o f the patria potestas as any Gentile, and believes his daughter ‘dam ned’ for running away from h im (MFIII.i.30), and w ith a Christian, and taking his ducats w ith her. His house has been a ‘hell’ to live in, Jessica says (II.iii.2). In a Jew ish setting Shakespeare is free to paint in even m ore sombre hues the m isery o f a life w here the daughter hates the father and revenges herself in the same unfeeling spirit as his own.

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Beatrice is an orphan, w hich opens the way for her to grow up as a free spirit and a feminist. H er lively talk to H ero about how a young w om an should choose for herself and say ‘Father, as it please me’ (M A A N II.i.48 ff.) is m eant for o u r ears, n o t for her dem ure cousin. H ero is content to be m arried o ff in short order, w hether to D on Pedro or to C o u n t Claudio seems to m ake no difference to her. It does not occur to Leonato that he ought to consult her. H e makes amends w hen he rejects the charge against her, and talks to his prince w ith blunt anger. B ut h alf o f this anger, and his bro th er’s, is w hat they feel as heads o f a fam ily w hich has been dishonoured; its h o n o u r will be repaired by C laudio agreeing to m arry another m em ber o f it. From this old-fashioned standpoint, w hich even Beatrice - in the interests o f a happy ending does n o t repudiate, H ero is at least as m u ch a family appendage as a person w ith feelings o f her own. A nne Page belongs to a bourgeois circle, m oving m ore quickly than aristocracy could do towards the notion o f individual freedom o f choice. She dutifully admonishes her lover Fenton to seek h er father’s approval (M W W Ill.iv); b u t she is firm ly determ ined against the suitors favoured by her parents. Silvia speaks for all the m odern -m in d ed young wom en: ‘heaven and fortune still reward w ith A part from M rs Page, the sole m other in the Com edies is the Abbess o f The Comedy o f Errors, w ho has been separated from her family since her children’s infancy by one o f the storms and shipwrecks that Shakespeare, like Prospero, could conjure up at will. His young ladies w ho look forw ard so rom antically to love and m arriage show no eagerness for w hat was to follow: child-bearing, prem ature aging, infants dying, their ow n lives often cut short. Aegeon m ay talk o f ‘the pleasing punishm ent that w om en bear’ for the sin o f Eve, b u t a w om an in the same play, Luciana, has rem ained single from fear o f ‘troubles o f the m arriage-bed’ (CE I.i.46; II.i.27). T houghts o f them m ay account for some part o f Shakespeare’s misgivings about the rom ance o f love. His missing m others have left few offspring behind them . Siblings are hard to find, and in The Taming o f the Shrew, A s You Like It, and Much Ado about Nothing they are enemies. Elsewhere in Shakespeare brothers and sisters m ean m ore to each other than any other relatives, but there is little o f this in the Com edies (Kiernan, ‘Relationships’). T he happiest relations are between the two pairs o f girl-cousins: Rosalind and Celia, Beatrice and Hero. T h e idea o f some freedom o f choice in marriage, at least a right o f refusal, was gaining ground in England. Spread o f education fostered it. Some strands even o f religious thinking were favourable. L uther had considered a couple’s consent, n o t parental sanction, the essential condition for m arriage (305). Shakespeare was helping to quicken the trend, by presenting it m ore persuasively than anyone else could. In two

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o f the m ore ‘bourgeois’ plays the principle is adm itted, at least in the abstract. W h e n Petruchio and Baptista have exchanged inform ation about their resources and agreed on dow ry and settlem ent, the older m an unexpectedly adds that Petruchio m ust secure K atherina’s love ‘for that is all in all’ (TS Il.i.l 29). Possibly he fears an explosion if she is n o t hum oured. In The Merry Wives o f Windsor the num skull M aster Slender, sponsored by M r Page as a son-in-law , is asked w hether he feels he can love A nne and, as his cousin Shallow puts it bluntly, ‘upon good dowry, m arry h er’. H e finds it ludicrously hard to grasp Shallow’s The Comedy o f Errors is another urban, m ercantile play, b u t the discontented A driana was m arried in feudal style: as a w ard o f court, w ith a fortune, she was bestowed by the ruler on a m an w ho saved his life in battle. H er grievance is that, having got her estate, he has neglected her and spent her m oney on other w om en. All the com fort she gets is advice to subm it patiently. B ut ‘Love will not be spurr’d to w hat it loathes’, as Julia says near the end o f The Two Gentlemen o f Verona (V.ii). Silvia is the m ost eloquent o f all on the repulsiveness o f a forced marriage, and the evils it m ust bring in its train. H er ‘very soul abhors’ the boorish T hurio, and she feels that it is her duty as well as desire to escape h im (IV.iii). H erm ia chooses life im prisonm ent rather than subm it to an ‘unw ished yoke’ (M N D I.i.79ff.). In an exalted poetical fashion, w atching Bassanio about to choose his casket, Portia dramatizes him into Hercules slaying the sea-m onster and rescuing the Trojan m aiden, its destined sacrifice (III.ii.53 ff.). She herself, in this fantasy, is the m aiden; the m onster is the unw elcom e suitor w ho will get her if G ood old Sir E glam our helps Silvia to ru n away because he knows her to be ‘virtuously’ inclined ( T G V IV. iii). So are all Shakespeare’s brave young paladins o f their sex and its rights, and this adds w eight to their cause. T h eir protests are repeated by one o f their sweethearts, Fenton o f W indsor (M W W V.v.231 ff.). O therw ise a nonentity, he is speaking for Shakespeare in his rebuke to A nne’s parents, in language deeply serious, even solemn; o f all the play’s lessons this is the one that Shakespeare is m ost concerned to underscore. It is indeed safe to say that on this text, this negative tru th about m arriage, he always preaches w ith com plete conviction; on the positive side, reliance on rom antic love to bring the right partners together, he is far from equally certain. O n both counts Beatrice has been grow ing up into the m ost determ ined independent o f all: she objects not to one m an or another as a husband, b u t to the th o u g h t o f being m arried to any m an, ‘overm astered w ith a piece o f valiant dust’ (M A A N II.i.55-6). She changes her m ind in favour o f

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Benedick, w ho has him self been an objector to the m atrim onial chain. H e is an observant and thinking m an (we actually find him reading a book) as well as a wit; like m any in Shakespeare he is ready to talk about the badness o f the times. T h e tim e o f good neighbours’ - o f com m unity feeling, fellowship - has gone by, he says: m en are quickly forgotten Bachelors like him have their ow n reasons for fearing to be pushed or trapped into marriage. It will deprive them o f some carefree enjoyments; it m ay coop them up, shut them o ff from a career. Valentine, setting out from hom e, thinks o f love as cutting short youthful ‘w it’ and develop­ m en t (T G V I.i.45ff.). It can be a folly, a Circe altering m en from their proper shapes. ‘J ulia, thou has m etam orphosed m e’, Proteus laments, and m ade m e ‘lose m y tim e’ (I.i.66-7); this resentful feeling m ay be taken as helping to explain w hy his love for h er cools so swiftly. ‘Y ou are m etam orphosed w ith a mistress’, V alentine’s servant is soon telling him Shakespeare’s happy endings som etim es dem and hasty marriages, against his presum able better judgem ent, b u t he always disapproves o f any anticipation o f m arriage by loving couples. W h en Lysander in the forest wants to lie dow n to sleep close beside H erm ia, she insists on their keeping apart, and he at once assents (M N D II.ii.45 ff.). W h e n H ero is accused o f having been seduced, her fiance self-righteously declares that he was n o t to blam e for her ‘sin’ (M A N N IV.i.46 f f ). A part from his ow n feelings, as father o f tw o girls left at Stratford w ith a m other w ho had herself been im prudent, Shakespeare had to think o f forestalling criticism from the strait-laced. ‘Y oung blood doth not obey an old decree’ (LLL IV.iii.214): B erow ne’s w ords are another pointer to u n ­ easinesses that m ight beset the older generation, as they did Polonius. In the absence o f actresses, any Elizabethan play was likely to have m any m ore male than female characters; here is one reason w hy Shakespeare has few m arried couples to show us. M atrim ony has a p ro m in en t place in the farces, b u t then retreats to fairyland and to W indsor. M ost o f w hat we see o f it is unprepossessing, above all because it is perm eated by the male desire for dom ination, the m an’s conviction o f a right and duty to assert his superiority. In the Induction to The Taming o f the Shrew the keynote is struck w hen the lord instructs his page, dressed up as Sly’s lady, to show loving and hum ble service, as a w ellbred wife should. A t the end o f the play Petruchio can boast o f the ‘awful rule, and right suprem acy’ that he has established over his wife; her father is delighted to hear o f it (V.ii.108). Ford o f W indsor holds that a ‘revolted’ wife incurs dam nation (M W W Ill.ii), ju s t as kings th ought o f rebellious subjects. O beron accosts T itania as ‘rash w anton’, and rem inds

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In The Comedy o f Errors m arital relations supply the one serious them e runn in g through the slapstick. Adriana’s w retchedness is a good illustra­ tion o f the evils that a loveless m arriage m ust bring w ith it. She is em bittered by her husband’s conduct, and her sour tongue has m ade him even worse. H e m ust be older than she is; to her sister she calls him ‘deform ed, crooked, old, and sere’ (IV.ii). H e is overfond o f the landlady o f the P orpentine inn, ‘a w ench o f excellent discourse/P retty and witty* (III.i.109-10). Adriana understands how indignant a husband m ust be at the th o u g h t o f his w ife’s body being ‘contam inate’ by another m an’s lust: she argues that he should have equal regard for her feelings (III.ii.l30 ff.). H er unm arried sister Luciana tells her sententiously that throughout N ature, as well as in the h um an sphere, the female is and m ust be subject to the m ale (Il.i. 18 ff.). Still, Luciana addresses a long appeal to her b ro th er-in -law (or rather to his tw in brother, by error) to treat her sister better, or at least m ake a decent pretence o f fondness, and conceal his m isconduct. W o m en are easily fooled, she ends (Ill.i. 124 ff.). T he Abbess shows even scantier sym pathy w ith the w ronged wife w hen Adriana tells her that she has reproached her husband for his loose conduct day and night, in private and public, and to no avail. ‘T he venom clam ours o f a jealous w om an’ do m ore harm than good, the Abbess rejoins sternly In the Com edies as in the Histories, there is a pervasive m istrust o f conjugal fidelity. Leonato is only jo k in g about his wife’s assurances to h im that H ero is really his daughter (M A A N I.i.99 ff.); b u t it is a jo k e that no m odern father w ould make, publicly and w ith his daughter listening; and the frequency w ith w hich som ething o f the same kind is said m ust p o in t to a prevalent insecurity am ong Elizabethan husbands. According to Beatrice, even the D evil’s traditional horns give him the look o f ‘an old cuckold’ (II.i.40). D on Jo h n the Bastard shares Benedick’s conviction that a m an w ho m arries ‘betroths him self to unquietness’ (I.iii). His ow n irregular b irth m ay give him a better title to carp at holy wedlock. So in oth er plays too. O ne o f the concluding songs o f Love's Labour's Lost, supposed to be sung by a cuckoo, has an obvious allusion to cuckolds. A s You Like It overflows w ith the idea that all w om en are born unfaithful. T ouchstone is ready w ith badinage about m atrim ony and its penalty, horns, awaiting m en o f every class. ‘Poor m en alone? N o, no; the noblest deer h ath them as huge as the rascal’ (Ill.iii). From a sharp-eyed court jester the words are telling, and the com m ent on aristocracy is disrespectful. A song after the killing o f a deer inevitably has a chorus about the horns destined to all m ankind (IV.ii). Rosalind herself, in love and descanting on love, amuses herself by talking about these appendages as the natural consequences o f m arriage (IV.i.50 ff.). Advocates o f freedom o f choice could, o f course, m aintain that they

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were consequences o f forced wedlock, or legal rape. M asculine jealousies were fanned by the often fiercely anti-fem inine jerem iads o f the pulpit. General distrust could too readily sharpen into suspicion o f a particular wom an. Claudio is very easily taken in, like O thello after him , by a clum sy deception - a trick perhaps deliberately m eant by Shakespeare to strike us as unconvincing. M aster Ford throws dust in his ow n eyes w ith spontaneous folly and, like Posthum us in a later play, sets o u t to test his wife. All Shakespeare’s jealous m en are suffering from quite groundless fears, and show themselves in a foolish o r an odious light; their creator is w arning husbands in his audience against stum bling into the same quicksand. His repeated lessons m ust have gone some way towards m aking such behaviour less com m on, and convincing his public that, in Mrs Page’s words, ‘W ives may be merry,

Individualism , voluntarily em braced or not, had an isolating effect w hich prom pted a search for new ties in place o f old. T hey could be looked for in practical partnerships, or m ore em otionally in w arm friend­ ship or ideal love as ways o f reunion w ith a w orld grow n strange. It was the tidal force o f this social need that lent energy to relationships other­ wise as lacking in substance as sceptics took them to be. Friendship and love had the same anim ating spirit, and their names could be inter­ changed. Berow ne addresses the w om an he is in love w ith as his ‘friend’; M aria uses the w ord o f her probationary lover (LLL V.ii.404, 830). M en never hesitate to speak o f their ‘love’ for other men. In The Two Gentlemen o f Verona, and tem porarily in Much Ado about Nothing, we see a male friendship disrupted. In the Com edies close ties seem m ore natural betw een w om en - usually young, b u t at W indsor m iddle-aged and m ore m atter-of-fact; and strongest w hen the pair are close relatives. Less intim ate are the cordial relations o f Julia and Portia w ith their ‘m aids’. B ut fem inine friendships as well as masculine can capsize, w hen jealousy comes in. H elena has been H erm ia’s ‘sweet playfellow’, b u t is ready to betray her and foil her escape. T heir girlhood affection is as touchingly recalled (M N D I.i.214ff.; Ill.ii. 198 ff.) as that o f Rosalind and Celia. M emories are n o t all sentimental. H elena re­ m em bers that her schoolm ate could be a ‘vixen’, and ‘fierce’ w hen angered (M N D III.ii.323-5), and it looks as if this m ay be true enough. Love is the wellspring o f poetry in these plays, b u t its m eaning is enigmatic. It m ay be a firm lifelong bond, or a shim m ering illusion. A lover, Shakespeare seems often to have felt, is condem ned ‘T o w orship shadows and adore false shapes’ (TGFIV.ii.126). Love can appear illusory

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because it was too often an aristocratic pastim e - the occupation o f the idle, as N apoleon said - and because it was in a way a novelty. Rom antic love has helped to inspire poetry and legend even in the veiled East; b u t now sober m en and w om en found themselves stepping or being pushed into story-land. Lucentio is astonished to discover that he has fallen in love w ith Bianca at first sight (T S I.i.l4 7 ff ). Instantaneous love, o f course, saves time, and theatre tim e is precious. It also saves Shakespeare from having to explain why A has fallen in love w ith B; b u t he cannot conceal some uncertainty about w hat it means. O ne distress seldom undergone by Shakespeare’s lovers, except the undeservers, is that chronic bane o f sonneteers, love unrequited. O rsino is a rare sufferer, and we are not m eant to take his self-pityings seriously. A nother rarity is for a lover to find that he has a rival for his lady’s affections, as w ith other writers he nearly always does. Shakespeare treats such situations as comical, or one-sided; a w om an w ho hesitates betw een tw o suitors cannot be capable o f real love, he seems to feel. T ouchstone and W illiam are rivals for A udrey’s hand; O rsino threatening to kill ‘Cesario’, as his rival for Olivia, is threatening a girl, w hom he will soon be m arrying ( T N V .i.l2 4 ff ). Claudio m om entarily, foolishly, suspects a rival in D o n Pedro (M A A N Il.i). T h u rio has no chance o f Silvia, or D em etrius o f H erm ia, or D r Caius o f Anne, except by enlisting parental authority on his side. For a real tug o f w ar V alentine and Proteus are the only candidates, and Shakespeare chooses to throw away his opportunity In the opening colloquy o f The Two Gentlemen o f Verona V alentine speaks feelingly o f the pangs o f love, and how they outw eigh its joys, as if Shakespeare w ere living again through some m oods o f the Sonnets. V alentine feels superior to his infatuated friend; b u t by the tim e the two m eet again he has to confess his ow n surrender to love’s ‘high im perious thoughts’, and his having to do ‘penance’ w ith tears and sleepless nights (II.iv.l28ff.). It is now Proteus’s tu rn to be amused by his friend’s discom fiture. As very often, Shakespeare is seeing love in a hum orous rather than rom antic light. B erow ne is another who, having been a m ocker o f Cupid, to his disgust finds him self succum bing (LLL III.i.172 ff.). Real em otion can be felt in his lo n g-draw n-out selfcom m uning about Rosaline, w hich rem inds every reader o f the D ark Lady. O n his lower level, A rm ado is another reluctant victim. It is ‘base Shakespeare was n o t fond o f showing com edy lovers together, and having to th in k o f things for them to say to each other. Celia compares a lover’s vows and verses to the antics o f a clum sy rider in the tilt-yard (A Y L I l l . i v), a spectacle that Shakespeare m ust have witnessed. V alentine gives the duke, w ho is pretending to be in love, a lecture on the art o f

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lovem aking, w ith gifts and flattery for staple (T G V III.i.93 ff.); a m echanical set o f tricks that Shakespeare m ust also have seen at work. H e gives us scarcely any courting betw een any o f the three couples in The Merchant o f Venice, and we hear hardly any billing and cooing. C laudio leaves it to D on Pedro to plead his suit for him; O rsino employs ‘Cesario’ as his proxy. Julia falls in love w ith a letter from Proteus (T G V I.ii); w hen we see them together they are already confessed lovers, and about to be parted. Separation may be m ore poetically inspiring than an encounter. V alentine is talking n o t to Silvia, b u t about her, w hen he declares that he is ‘as rich in having such a jew el/A s tw enty seas’ It was the m ore extravagant cult o f love that struck sensible people as irrational, and likely to have dubious effects on its acolytes. Theseus associates it w ith poetic flights, and w ith lunacy (M N D V.i.7 ff.). T he tragic love o f Pyram us and Thisbe was a m uch-adm ired tale in Shakespeare’s tim e (Frye, Shakespeare 30); he guys it in a very offhanded style. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the inconstancies and uncertainties o f h u m an em otion are accelerated by the magic drops, the shifting m oods o f a year condensed into an hour. In the first scene Lysander talks, as if prophetically, o f love vanishing like a lightning flash in a dark sky: ‘So quick bright things come to confusion’ (149). It is ironic that after the p o tio n has been p u t in his eyes he should wake up and tell him self that ‘reason’ m ust have m ade h im realize the truth: it is H elena he likes best, n o t H erm ia (Il.ii.l 17ff.). B ottom m ight be com m enting on this w hen he rem arks that ‘reason and love keep little com pany together nowadays’ O rsino opens Twelfth Night w ith reflections on love in a highly poetical - or musical - if som ew hat vacuous style; he winds up by calling his sensations only ‘fancy’. W h e n we find him at the end o f the play in love w ith a different w om an, we can agree w ith him . Earlier he has told this oth er w om an that a wife should be younger than her husband, because m en are m ore giddy and inconstant, and w om en’s beauty does n o t last long. A few m inutes later he says the opposite: that w om en are the m ore inconstant, their attachm ent being only sensuality, ‘appetite’, an affair o f the ‘palate’ (II.iv.29 ff., 93 ff.). H e is, therefore, pining for a w om an he knows to be, like all w om en, unw orthy o f him. O f all the comedies A s You Like It is the one w here everything ‘ro m antic’ is held up to the sharpest questioning and mockery, and new points o f view on m en’s and w om en’s relations are aired. Rosalind, herself passionately in love, is the leading spirit in this raillery. W h e n she m eets O rlando in the forest, and w ith no bashful hesitation pretends to be ‘a saucy lackey’, she laughs at his confession o f being in love - ‘Love is m erely a m adness’ - and undertakes to cure him ; he is to pay court to

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her, as if to his mistress, and she will snub him and bring him to his senses (III.ii.293 ff ). It is a neat comic invention. Celia can be ju st as witty, and teases her in the same fashion w hen she has a fit o f doubt about O rlan d o ’s love: ‘T h e oath o f a lover is no stronger than the w ord o f a tapster’ (III.iv). N eith er o f these young princesses is likely to know m uch about tapsters and their tricks - Shakespeare is often careless about choosing im agery appropriate to its user - , b u t Rosalind understands well At this point we have ju st seen T ouchstone trying to snare Audrey into a false marriage. It is a m axim o f his that ‘the truest poetry is the m ost feigning’, especially on the subject o f love (Ill.iii); a hit at the sham throbbings o f Elizabethan am orous verse. Phebe brushes aside Silvius’s com plaint that her cruelty is killing h im (III.v.83 ff.); Rosalind assures O rlando that the notion o f m en dying for love is m ere literary fable: a mistress’s frow n ‘will not kill a fly’ (IV.i.105). A song at a w oodland banquet in A rden is about ingratitude, hollow friendship, and foolish love (II.vii.l73ff.). And even m en and w om en w ho truly love, Rosalind w arns O rlando, both alter quickly once they are m arried (IV.i.l38ff.). H ow does she know? Shakespeare is again lending his eager young folk a fund o f w isdom o u t o f his ow n store. W h e n Rosalind is ready for her final denouem ent, the lovers, each in turn, profess a true passion. A m usingly tart even now, she cuts short the am orous chorus - ‘’tis like the how ling o f Irish wolves against the m o o n’ (V.ii). O ne o f Shakespeare’s devices for creating a sceptical detachm ent is to let old m en recall, as som ething incom prehensible, the calf love o f their early years, w hich to their ju n io rs can only sound laughable. O ld C orin the shepherd o f A rden was once in love, and ran into pranks as w ild as Silvius’s now; so did T ouchstone (Il.iv); so did even Polonius. A nother way o f bringing high-flow n rom ance dow n to earth is to transpose it from an aristocratic to a plebeian key. It is at hom e only on the heights; to see m en w ho w ork w ith their hands fall frantically in love is to make it ridiculous. Silvius has enough resources to buy a farm, b u t as a love-= lorn swain talking in pastoral verse he is a joke. T ouchstone’s *love’ for A udrey parodies the m ore refined em otions o f A rden (Bethell 93). Lower dow n still, Launce’s very earthy description o f the m ilkm aid he is grow ing fond o f is m ore disgusting than diverting (TG V III.i.261 ff.). D rom io o f Syracuse is horrified at being claim ed as her ow n by the kitchen w ench his tw in b rother has been dallying w ith, a ‘very beastly creature’ (CE III.i.l94ff.). At Venice we hear casually that Lancelot has got a ‘negro’ or ‘M oor’ w om an w ith child ( M V III.v.35 ff.). A light b u t astringent appraisal o f love pervades the Comedies. It can be a m edium for a critical estim ate o f upper-class society, whose prim e ostensible value is often love. Similarly the critique o f H o nour in the

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later Histories is a sapping and m ining o f the same castle from a different angle. C ourtier-style love is a pastime, a relief from boredom . By contrast, for the advancing citizen or P uritan class, w ith a m eaningful life to live, it was w ithin this life that a place had to be found for love. It becam e less declam atory, m ore sober and also firmer. A part from a scatterbrain like Audrey, w om en do not seek w ealth or status by catching the right man. B ehind the male lover’s smile may lurk the fortu n e-h u n ter, though this too is rare; it shows chiefly in the com m ercial atm osphere o f Padua and Venice. G entlem en w ere not expected to wear their purses on their sleeves; on the other hand, it was no discredit to them to take an intelligent interest in dowries and legacies; rather, it was their family duty to ‘m arry well’. Lorenzo wants Jessica’s - or rather Shylock’s - m oney, b u t like Bassanio he plays the lover’s part convincingly. A lthough C laudio is careful to begin by m aking sure that H ero is an heiress, he does not hesitate to reject her w hen he thinks her unw orthy to be his countess. N o question arises o f w hether Bassanio and Portia w ould have been w illing to m arry on a crust, if destiny had n o t taken them by the hand. For the w ell-born to descend to beggary for the sake o f love m ight have struck Shakespeare’s audience, as it w ould have struck Jane A usten’s, as m ore eccentric than admirable. O rsino’s love is too ‘noble’ to be affected by w ordly gear: he is n o t interested in O livia’s ‘dirty lands’ (T N II.iv.80ff.) - but o f course he Rom ance and h u m o u r are w oven together. T hey are interacting aspects o f the w orld Shakespeare is contem plating. His gospel is very m u ch w hat Carlyle was fond o f calling ‘veracity’: delusion and deception m ust be stripped away, and truth, genuineness, brought to the front. These plays leave us w ith a conviction th at true love does exist, b u t a suspicion that pinchbeck im itations are m ore num erous. Advances in any epoch bring into sight fresh vistas, tantalizing visions n o t yet realizable. These attach themselves m ost readily to private spheres o f life, less intractable in appearance than the collective. In early m odern Europe, as again two centuries after Shakespeare in the R om antic age, an ideal o f perfect love betw een m an and w om an offered itself as symbol. It illum inated w om en in particular, as redeemers. Shakespeare’s parallel study o f history was showing him how little its great m en could be trusted to lead m ankind out o f the wilderness. As little could be expected from w om en in great places w ho com peted w ith m en and had to behave like men. In a sphere o f their ow n they m ight be very different; at any rate, it was easier for a poet to invest them w ith such a glow o f promise. As always until quite lately they have been, for m en, exotic and strange. W o m en have been com pelled to learn m ore about m en, chiefly on their worse sides, than m en have needed to know

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about w om en (which may explain w hy m ost o f our novelists nowadays are women). In a tim e o f unfolding horizons im agination could find in them em bodim ents o f its idealizings. B erow ne’s rhapsody about them is a panegyric on Love, w hich fills the gods w ith ‘harm ony’, and on the poetry o f love, able to ‘ravish savage ears’ and soften tyrants (LLL IV.iii.341 ff.). T he Shakespeare w ho w rote this was as yet m ore poet than dram atist or thinker. And it m ight be objected that any w om an quite so transcendental w ould be, as Beatrice said o f a royal husband, ‘too costly Aristocratic sonneteers w ere flattering w om en in order to seduce or simply entertain them . M ore sincere appreciation o f their qualities was m ore likely to em erge in the m iddling social levels, am ong those w ho w ere rising in the scale, aspiring to fu rth er success, and conscious o f a need for reinforcem ent by fem inine abilities. Shakespeare can be reckoned am ong their teachers and spokesmen. This elevation o f w om en was n o t som ething that could be undertaken yet in any direct fashion, though m ore freedom and education for them w ere already being advocated. Beyond lay a still nebulous dream o f the future, sharing w ith all history’s highly charged fantasies an elem ent o f real meaning. Shake­ speare took stories that were h alf folk-tales, w here heroines in adversity were m ost at hom e; in such settings rom antic love could be brought dow n to earth w ith o u t soiling its wings. His eyes were on a future that could be guessed at; naturalistic w riting concentrates its interest on the here and now. T o keep rom ance free o f m awkish sentim entality he gave each heroine enough wit, as well as charm , to be able to look at and som etim es laugh at themselves and their loves. ‘H ow m any fathom deep I am in love’, Rosalind exclaims (A Y L I IV.i.20l). It is by such chance touches, very different from the convulsive embraces o f the m odern stage or screen, that Shakespeare transports us into a state w here ordinary inertias o f the m ind are cast off. It is not love fulfilled that he likes to conjure up, b u t the condition o f being in love and looking hopefully and happily forward. Rosalind is its m ost bew itching expression. This ardent love o f hers is for a m an she knows little of, as is the case w ith m ost o f the C om edy lovers. Rom antic love can be fired only by the unknow n; it owes m ore to a w ish to believe than to any reason for believing. Still, Rosalind and O rlando are getting to know each other after a fashion; and even if there is no com m on purpose, no quest, for them to share, they are undergoing together in exile a kind o f ordeal, a test such as love demands. W e can hope well for their future, as even the gloom y Jaques manages to do (V.iv.185). A painter, Shakespeare seems to have thought, should strive to outdo N ature and show us a true horse, for example, b u t a m ore flawless one than we have ever seen (Venus and Adonis 289 ff.). H e may well have felt

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similarly about his ow n art. H e was draw ing his heroines from his ow n creative im agination, or sense o f possibilities, m ore than from living reality. H e was trying (not in a deliberate, schematic m anner) to take over, to transfuse into m iddle-class veins, the essences o f the old order, im proved and refined; he was faring better w ith wom en, if only because w om en and their capacities w ere in m any ways still untried. T o love gracefully was an accom plishm ent he prized, b u t to love sincerely is m ore fundam ental. N o honest, simple affection is to be spurned. Rosalind interrupts Phebe w ith an indignant rebuke: Silvius has m ore to recom m end him than she has; she ought to learn to ‘thank heaven, fasting, for a good m an’s love’ (.A Y L I lll.v.35 ff.). T h at love can be th o u g h t o f as a leveller has always been p art o f the attraction o f folk-tale rom ance to m ankind im prisoned in its civilized zoo, w ith separate cages for each species. Olivia is stung by the indignity o f being rejected by a y o u th who, though w ell-bred, is no m ore than the duke’s ‘servant’, but she cannot bring herself to abandon her efforts to w in him (TNIII.i). In the forest o f A rden som ething o f the equality o f the golden age is restored. ‘M y pride fell w ith m y fortunes’ (A Y L I I.ii.240): Rosalind, like h er father, has had lessons to learn, and m ust owe to them some part o f h er friendly ease o f m anner w ith all and sundry. N early all the heroines are w ell-born, b u t n o t all are pam pered by fortune, and some are unfortunates, cast dow n by fate to our ow n hum ble level or worse. D epriving them o f external advantages allows their inbred qualities to M en have never died for love, Rosalind assures her hearers; some w om en m ay have done so, Shakespeare seems prepared to think. In Love's Labour's Lost the princess refers, as Viola does, to a sister w ho died o f disappointed love and m elancholy (V.ii.13 ff.): a good reason for her now to be looking at love cautiously. It is always (except in ‘happy endings’) som ething to be taken very seriously. Love's Labour's Lost is an outlaw ing o f all insincerity or trifling betw een m en and w om en. If they are to benefit by the grow ing freedom that society allows them , w om en m ust m ake use o f it wisely. M oreover, love should not be egotistic, selfisolating; it should have a social as well as a private character. Rosalind bestirs herself to straighten o u t the affairs o f other forest-dwellers. (Shaw called her, for her pains, ‘a fantastic sugar doll’ [26]). W h e n Portia saves the life o f her husband’s friend, and Beatrice finds Benedick ready to risk his ow n life in defence o f the innocent, the same principle takes a graver form. As in all rom antic fiction it is im plied - if, as a rule, not stated that the trials and tribulations undergone by lovers are, like those in the Magic Flute, the guarantee o f their future happiness. T h e princess in Love's Labour's Lost is spared such ordeals, except in token form , b u t she com bines rom antic gifts w ith practical abilities. She

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has been sent to N avarre by her father, the king o f France, on an im p o rtan t diplom atic mission, centuries before the appointm ent o f any real w om en to ambassadorial posts. (True, we are soon allowed to forget that there is any business to be conducted.) T here is a fem inist note in her lightly spoken words: ‘praise we m ay afford/T o any lady that subdues a lord’, or husband (IV.i.39-40). O u t o f consideration for the am ateur actors she overrules the king o f N avarre’s reluctance to let them perform and bore his guests (V.ii.513 ff.). She has the hum ane feeling so strong later in the M arina o f Pericles, and puts deer-shooting in the same category as the ‘crim es’ o f ‘glory’ com m itted by rulers in their wars (IV.i.24 ff.). She typifies the ideal o f w om anhood, virtuous and intelligent and cultivated, that makes Berow ne thin k o f love as the originator o f all inspiration, valour, art, and o f w om en as the source o f ‘the true P rom ethean fire’ (IV.iii.286 ff.). T he w hole play is a sum m ons to w om en to show their sex w orthy o f such praise and such expectations. B oth Julia and Silvia fully deserve the gems o f poetry allotted to them as rewards. Julia sets out alone in quest o f her lover, ‘a true-hearted pilgrim ’ o f love (T G V II.vii.9). Silvia has w on praise on all sides. She is ‘too fair, too true, too holy’ or chaste, to be seduced by his incense, Proteus soon discovers (IV.ii.5-6). Julia adds her tribute o f praise to Silvia as ‘A virtuous gentlew om an, m ild and beautiful’, even if she does herself the justice o f considering her ow n beauty no w hit inferior (IV.iv.178 ff.). W h e n things go w rong, however, through the baseness or brutality o f m en, there is nothing they can do to set them right. Beatrice can take action through her influence over Benedick. These two are equals in both good qualities and failings, and she is one o f the few heroines w ho get a husband really w orthy o f them . Portia has been called ‘the vision o f . . . a hum anity n o t yet in being’ (Sinsheimer 91; cf. 13) - a title she deserves in her inspired m om ents, at least, b u t one w hich m ight be conferred on Shakespeare’s heroines collectively. In some o f the early plays w om en have n o t acquired the faculty o f guiding their fellows and directing events; at the end they are losing it. In betw een they have w on some trium phs, yet their success has been lim ited. T his com edy w orld is one w here accident reigns, or has a wide sway, and individuals good or bad splash th rough the waves as best they can. W h a t the shining lights can do is to draw round them charm ed circles o f goodwill, sunshine, hopefulness. Rosalind does this in the forest. She has nothing to do w ith the overthrow o f wickedness: Shakespeare unfrocks his pair o f villains, and makes good m en o f them , by a couple o f stage tricks. A society so badly w arped as his was not to be redeem ed by any magic ju ice that even he could drop into m en’s and w om en’s eyes; its deep-seated discords had to be left unresolved. Shadows hover over the sunlit - or m oonlit - scene. T here is the rustling

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o f a tragic future in Lysander’s lam ent about ‘W ar, death, or sickness’, ready to destroy (M N D I.i. 142) - as they are already doing in the In all times and places w here it has been cherished, love has had m ore m eanings than those simply o f relations betw een two hum an beings; it has been in some degree - b u t very seldom as distinctly as w ith Shakespeare - part o f a glim m ering hope o f a better future for m ankind, o f progress towards liberation and harm ony. It could not glow w ith any steady light. N one o f the three unions at the end o f the last C om edy is edifying. Olivia has hurriedly w edded a stranger, m istaking Sebastian for his tw in sister ‘Cesario’, and im pelled by a ‘m ost jealous and too doubtful soul’ ( T N IV.iii.22 ff.). As Puck said o f those under the spell o f O b eron’s magic, the destinies o f lovers may tu rn out ‘preposterously’ [M ND

Shakespeare as a social critic can be seen trying - m ore by instinct than by design, no doubt - to sketch a pattern o f truly ‘aristocratic’ behaviour. In the Histories he was concerned w ith conduct in high places, in great affairs; in the Comedies, in m ore private settings. In the form er he began w ith traditional types, and sought by degrees to invest some o f them w ith a new er consciousness. In the latter he began w ith m en and w om en often really o f a w ell-off middle-class sort, whatever their nom inal standing, and bestowed on some o f them the finer traits o f a higher rank. At the outset he had, as Byrne says, to learn som ething o f how the high and m ighty lived, as well as to rum inate on how they ought to live. T h e elaborate Induction to The Taming o f the Shrew may suggest that he had th o u g h t o f a full-length English play, b u t felt unequal to this and retreated to Padua. As he w ent on learning, he has been accused o f flattering aristocracy by his evident preference for it, at least as a theme, com pared w ith anything his gallery o f m iddle-class life can show. W h at he was doing, however, was n o t ‘idealizing’ the upper class, but offering it ideals to form itself on: ‘W e m ust educate our masters.’ And his earlier portraits were not, in fact, always very attractive. T he task o f w elding together the better qualities and principles o f an older and a new er class could n o t be simple. O ne early outline o f a m odel gentlem an, not a young one, is Sir Eglam our, as described by Silvia. H e is ‘valiant’, ‘wise’, ‘well accom plish’d’, and so faithful a husband that w hen his lady died he vowed him self to ‘pure chastity’ (TG FIV .iii). A m ore m ature prescription is O livia’s, w hen she reproves Malvolio for his self-centred quickness to take offence. It is better to be ‘generous, guiltless, and o f free disposition’ ( T N I.v.88f.) - free, that is, from petty

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suspicions and rancours. In As You Like It, as years later in the Romances, m en and w om en have to go o u t into the wilderness to recover the fine freedom o f m ind and tem per that conventional living cramps or poisons, A n indication o f how little was needed to impress the com m on m ind is the W indsor innkeeper’s encom ium on Fenton: ‘H e capers; he dances . . ( M W W III.ii); w hat m ore can be asked o f a young gentlem an? M ore in Shakespeare’s line is the im portance attached in the plays to good m anners, n o t for self-display b u t as an index o f respect for self and for others. Even disguised, Viola has a propriety o f bearing that at once impresses Olivia; it confirm s Viola’s claim to gentle birth. It impresses the duke equally; w hen Olivia marries V iola’s brother, O rsino assures her that she has n o t done amiss: ‘right noble in his blood’ (TNV.i.263). His only evidence is Viola’s good m anners, m ore and m ore in ShakeConversely, though less convincingly, good blood makes for good m anners, as in the case o f O rlando. Blue blood is indelibly blue; a folk­ tale m o tif useful - n o t here alone - to Shakespeare as a story-teller, but blending w ith the retrograde idea o f an upper class as a superior caste. Feudalism encouraged this. Prim ogeniture reserved estates to eldest sons alone, b u t gentility extended to all the offspring; and the m ultitude o f younger sons sent o u t into the w orld, m any o f them to L ondon as apprentices, m ade the m ost o f a claim to good birth that m ight be their sole asset. So also did the m any landowners w ith shrinking estates, fearful T h eir poin t o f view finds an unexpected m outhpiece in Portia’s suitor the prince o f Arragon. G entility may be pushed o ff its perch by winds o f change, b u t it cannot lose its ‘m erit’, or intrinsic virtue, only w aiting to be restored to its rightful place. H e is a legitimist, upholding ‘the true seed o f h o n o u r’, or old landed elite, against the ‘barbarous m ultitudes’ o f upstarts from the mass o f ‘low peasantry’ (M V II.ix.31 f.). All this was a fam iliar T u d o r jerem iad, stoked by the unprecedented revolution in landed property o f the second h alf o f the century: a com plaint about the rise o f nobodies, the decay o f old families, the confusion o f social ranks. Fallen dignity can always look well by contrast w ith upstart im pudence. B ut we are n o t called on to agree w ith Arragon. H e is about to choose the w rong casket, and his speech is m eant to tell us why. Bassanio makes no such divine-right pretensions, though he is an obvious case o f a m an o f high b irth deep in debt, and in danger o f being swept away. Shakespeare’s m uch m ore m odern standpoint is that o f the duty o f every m an to m ake the m ost o f his gifts and his chances, as he him self was doing. His era was a very ju m b led one in English social history, but at all levels above the hum blest a tim e o f opportunity and com petition.

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Each individual m ust push him self to the front, or be elbowed aside. Achilles m ust go on fighting, and W illiam Shakespeare m ust go on w riting plays, or their laurels will quickly fade. Royal favourites jockeyed for position at court; in every parish neighbours squabbled about w ho was Even young m en w ith an apparently secure future m ust understand that to cut any figure in the w orld, or even to m ake sure o f survival, they m ust find an occupation. This was a lesson that all the old landed classes o f E urope had to learn, often painfully. T h e new standing armies were their great recourse, b u t there was less and less room in them for illiterate backw oodsm en such as Prussian Junkers were until com pelled to subm it to education; it was m en like B enedick w ho were w anted for officers. Success in any w alk o f life required preparation. O rlando h im self realizes how m uch he has been deprived of, in the first words o f A s You Like I t A gentlem an, as V alentine says, needed study and educa­ tion to be ‘com plete in features and in m in d ’ (T G V II.iv.60ff ), and for this he m ust go o u t into the world. ‘H om e-keeping youth have ever hom ely w its’: he pities his friend Proteus, chained by love to ‘shapeless idleness’ (I.i.2, 63). Panthino points o u t to his employer, Proteus’s father, som e o f the varied professions beckoning to young men: army, university, exploration o f ‘islands far away’; his ow n suggestion is a m ore old-fashioned one, that Proteus should repair to the em peror’s court, ‘practise tilts and tournam ents’, and ‘converse w ith noblem en’ (I.iii). At Stratford Shakespeare m ust have know n country gentlem en o f the m uddy-w itted sort: the comedies contain a choice selection o f such oafs - T hurio, Slender, Sir A ndrew Aguecheek. T h u rio ’s great possessions deserve pity, for being ow ned by such an ass (T G V V.ii). H e turns out to be a craven as well, like Sir Andrew. In such figures Shakespeare is satirizing a large section o f the m ore backward and boorish o f the English gentry, m uch o f it sliding dow nhill because it did not know how to m anage its property in this new era. It furnished m any o f the easily cheated ‘gulls’ w ho abounded in Elizabethan social satire. From the Squire W esterns it was no great distance to an unpleasant type that Shakespeare has m uch to say about, though it is characteristic o f him n o t to bring it on to the stage. It consisted o f the offscourings or hangers-on o f gentility, or m en pretending to some status, or plain ruffians; they w ere the ‘swashbucklers’ w ho often set L ondon streets in an uproar. Rosalind and, quite unnecessarily, Portia, setting o ff in disguise, are each resolved to outface these ‘m annish cowards’ (A Y L I I.iii. 121; M V III.iv.63 ff.). A nother testim ony is the indignant speech o f H ero ’s old uncle about the young m en o f the day, o f w hom he considers C laudio one - ‘Scambling, out-facing, fashion-m onging boys’, w ho ‘lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander’ (M A A N V.i.94-5). T here was

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m u ch in the swirling life around him that Shakespeare disliked. H e may himself, on occasion, have been molested in the streets. A rm ado is a m ore harmless specim en o f the decaying layers o f an old order: a caricature o f aristocratic affectation, an em bodim ent o f w hat is absurd in courtly culture. His inability to count is a jo k e not at his poor arithm etic, as is sometimes supposed, b u t at his pseudo-refinem ent: he cannot tell w hat three times one makes, because such calculations are beneath h im - ‘I am ill at reckoning: it fitteth the spirit o f a tapster.’ H e is no less ill at paying his attendants. Gam bling, on the other hand, is a gentlem anly accom plishm ent, part o f ‘the varnish o f a com plete m an’ (LLL I.ii.39-42). B erow ne’s caustic com m ents on Boyet, as a cavalier servente w ho ‘knows the trick /T o m ake m y lady laugh’, may be taken as Shakespeare’s opinion o f such parasites in great households. In A rden the banished duke and his friends look back on their court life w ith mixed feelings; it is left to the snobbish jester to pine for it as the earthly paradise. Anyone w ho has n o t been at court, he assures the bucolic Corin, m ust have clumsy manners, and m ust therefore be dam ned (A Y L I Jaques asks the good-looking O rlando w hether he has n o t cajoled goldsm iths’ wives o u t o f rings (A YLI III.ii.268 ff.). N eedy courtiers preying on foolish citizenesses were a standard butt. Shortage o f cash compels Falstaff to jo in their ranks, and try to tu rn his knighthood to account. His defeat by w om en o f the despised trading class makes his failure the m ore resounding. T o Sir Jo h n a bourgeois husband, however prosperous, is a m ere ‘peasant’, and fair game. He tries to catch M rs Ford, as T ouchstone does Audrey, w ith the idea that under his w ing she will soon be shining at cou rt (M WWII.ii.261; Ill.iii). H e fails. Y et betw een the classes they stand for there was always a blurring at the edges. Mrs Page wants to give her daughter to D r Caius because he is n o t only well off W e are show n the gentry, good and bad, a good deal through the eyes o f their servants, or through interplay betw een the two. A t the top o f the ladder o f service w ere the gentlem en-servitors and ladies’ maids, often draw n from the great pool o f younger sons and unm arried daughters. Shakespeare is getting things m ixed up w hen he makes Lucentio’s lackey in The Taming o f the Shrew call T ranio his ‘fellow’, after T ranio has been talking w ith Lucentio like a tu to r and friend, and quoting Latin (Li). P anthino in The Two Gentlemen o f Verona can be reckoned a m ajor-dom o. Julia discusses her suitors w ith her intelligent and w ell-spoken w om an Lucetta, and w hen leaving hom e puts h er in charge o f the house and all its contents (Il.vii). Nerissa is P ortia’s ‘m aid’, b u t entitled to m arry Bassanio’s gentlem an Gratiano. H ero has two gentlew om en, w ho take

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A ready tongue, a tu rn for bandying jokes w ith an easy-going master, m ig h t be a recom m endation in a servant o f hum bler station. In this role he was a successor to the jester, and ancestor to a long line o f attendants o f the race o f Sam W eller. Speed is jo k in g w ith his m aster’s friend Proteus in the first scene o f The Two Gentlemen o f Verona. H e can use quite fine language, and even talk in rhym ed fourteen-syllable lines whose use, he says, he has learned from som ething he has been reading (II.i). Jocular exchanges have m ost p o in t w hen they reflect contrasting social viewpoints. Speed remonsates w ith the lovelorn Valentine about his indifference to their dinner-tim e: love m ay feed on air, b u t ‘I am one A ntonio o f Syracuse com m ends his D rom io as ‘A trusty villain’ whose ‘m erry jests’ have often dispelled his cares (CE I.ii.l9ff.). A term o f abuse can soften into an endearm ent. Berow ne uses the w ord ‘slave’ twice, in casual talk to the clow n Costard (LLL III.i.149, 160), good-hum ouredly instead o f in the haughty style o f the Histories. Plebeians could use it am ong themselves; Launce calls his fellow -servant ‘an unm annerly slave’ ( T G V III.2). H e him self is a blundering sim pleton w hom Proteus, w hen irritated, abuses as a ‘w horeson peasant’ and ‘foolish lo u t’ (IV.iv). W e may take such dullards for new com ers from the countryside, or from small­ tow n life, by contrast w ith the native C ockney wits. T hey are on the stage to be laughed at, though also sometimes to raise laughs against others. Sly’s tipsy talk o f his ancestors w ho ‘came in w ith Richard the C onq u ero r’ (TS Inductions) derides a snobbish pretension familiar in England then as in later times. Lancelot Gobbo, as a native o f Venice, m ust have been at the theatre and picked up scraps o f the bom bast beloved by the ruffling youth. ‘T hese foolish drops do som ething drow n m y m anly spirit’, he exclaims, to cover his tearful leave-taking from Jessica (M V Il.iii. 13—14). Pistol is given to m ore impassioned flights o f nonsense, all that is left to h im and his com panions to keep up their spirits w ith. Such threadbare retainers o f decayed gentlem en have no future; like m u ch else in Shakespeare’s world, they are m oribund T ouchstone the jester accosts C orin in the forest as ‘you clow n’ (A Y L I Il.iv). Rosalind and Celia, w ho are w ith him , are m uch m ore civil; and this is generally true o f the C om edy heroines. T here is a charm ing air o f cam araderie in the jok in g betw een princess and gam ekeeper in Love's Labour's Lost, in rhym ed couplets (IV.i.lOff.). B ut as tim e goes on, there is a m oving apart. T h e gentry learn to practise w it am ong themselves. An older, easy-going coexistence betw een classes was fading, or being broken o ff uncerem oniously. Shakespeare m ust often have know n ‘unregarded age in corners th ro w n ’, like his Adam in As You Like It, brutally dismissed by Oliver; he gives O rlando the small savings o f a

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lifetim e and accompanies him to the forest. Adam is the m ost truly religious person in the Com edies (except, perhaps, Shylock), w ith a deeply held trust in heaven. In his way, he is a P uritan w ho has always practised thrift and kept his health by leading a wholesome, abstemious In the Histories m iddle-class life is virtually a blank. Italy had never been so thoroughly feudalized as France and England, and this left differences that m ust have been visible to Shakespeare in the sources he drew on. Even so, middle-class modes o f living show only here and there in the Comedies; on the other hand, w hat m ay loosely be called m iddleclass ideas and qualities are fairly steadily enlarging their influence. W h ere the m iddle point o f the social scale was to be fixed had hitherto depended on the old m arkers o f birth and rank; now there was an alternative m easuring-rod, money. H ere too it seems as if Shakespeare’s preference was for the halfway mark. C o ntentm ent w ith a m odest com petence was an ancient doctrine often repeated by Elizabethan writers. Nerissa laughs at her mistress’s sighs, and praises the golden mean: ‘for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit w ith too m uch as they A malaise seems to hang over the heaped-up treasures o f w ealthy Venice. T h e two rich m en both com e to grief, and the rich lady suffers painful suspense over her father’s eccentric will. A ntonio’s first speech, the first o f the play, begins: ‘In sooth I know not w hy I am so sad’. Portia’s first w ords are ‘By m y troth, Nerissa, m y little body is aweary o f this great w orld’ (I.ii.1-2). A ntonio’s unexplained m elancholy seems a presentim ent o f sorrows to come; w ealth appears as an unnatural, illom ened thing, a burden to the possessor like the crow n to a king, and a perverter o f society. His profits are wafted to him over far oceans; he has only to w ait and receive them . T o such a m an life m ay well feel unreal, a m irage, or ‘A stage’, as he says, ‘w here every m an m ust play a part’ (I.i.78). T h e ‘low er orders’ figure m ore distinctly than the m iddle classes, but n o t collectively. T here is scarcely any allusion, except by the alien Shylock in the courtroom , to the suffering poor as a class. B ottom and his friends are the only flesh-and-blood group o f hand-w orkers. U n tu ­ tored they m ay be, b u t not altogether ignorant - o f theatrical matters, for instance. B ottom knows w hat roles are in fashion; Q uince has some understanding o f a producer’s job, and wants a prologue ‘w ritten in eight and six’ (M ND Ill.i). These ‘rude m echanicals’ (III.ii.9) have m ore com m on sense than the gentlefolk chasing one another through the woods, and their com pany gives us a w elcom e change. O nce m ore we hear plebeians struggling w ith novel words: Flute has to correct Q uince’s W e are rem inded in all kinds o f ways that the C om edy w orld belongs

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to a late, decadent stage o f feudalism. T his is very clear in Love’s Labour’s Lost A rm ado’s letter to the king begins w ith a string o f com plim ents to his ‘soul’s earth’s G od’ (I.i.218-19) such as the sonneteers addressed to their mistresses or patrons. W ith m ore than a touch o f irony, the princess sends w ord to the king that she and h er party are awaiting ‘Like h u m b levisaged suitors, his high w ill’ (II.i.34) - i.e. w aiting to know w hen he will be ready to see them . Shakespeare probably had such experiences in unpleasant earnest; Sonnet 57 hints at them :

Rosaline threatens to torm ent B erow ne by m aking him ‘fawn, and beg, and seek,/A nd w ait the season, and observe the tim es’ (V.ii.61 ff.): the pro u d mistress was the fem inine replica o f the haughty aristocrat m aking his clients dance attendance on him . C ourtship and courtiership were m u ch the same thing. Silvia addresses both her adm irer V alentine and his nearly arrived friend as ‘servant’ ( T G V II.iv). Ju st as Shakespeare makes us see the lo u d -m outhed street bully indi­ rectly, by vivid description and w ith a few com ic im itators like Pistol, he does n o t show us m uch o f the bourgeois class, b u t in subtler ways lets us know a great deal about how society is being bourgeoisified, or perm eated by m oney and m oney-m aking. Sum m er’s beauty can be called ‘costly’ only in a society w here everything has to be paid for. T he im patient heir is ‘gaping’ for his patrim ony, Theseus com pares the m oon, whose slow w aning delays his wedding, to an old w om an ‘Long w ithering o u t a young m an’s revenue’ (M ND I.i.5-6). Images and odd phrases in Love’s Labour’s Lost show that rem ote N avarre is breathing the same air as Athens. T h e obnoxious Boyet is ‘w it’s pedler’, whereas Berowne and his friends ‘sell by gross’ (V.ii.317 ff.): one o f m any comparisons all the m ore illum inating because so incongruous to the speakers. In Padua a father is anxious to m arry o ff an elder daughter and so, like a shopkeeper, get rid o f a ‘com m odity’ w hich has long lain ‘fretting’ by him (TS II.i.321). In Venice, A ntonio undergoes the hum iliation o f having to follow the Jew he has spat on through the streets and beg for mercy. In the m oney­ m aking ju n g le there is no pity for the distressed, as we see again, m eta­ phorically, in A s You Like It (II.i.45 ff.) w hen Jaques is pitying a w ounded stag and finding a ‘thousand similes’ to m oralize on. T hey tu rn on money, property, sordid greed. O ne o f them may suggest that the poet is thinking o f his father’s business troubles: the sufferer is abandoned by its ‘velvet friends’, w ho have no sympathy to spare for ‘the poor and broken b an k ru p t’. T hey are com pared to ‘fat and greasy citizens’: words full o f aristocratic distaste for the bourgeoisie, like Jaques’s talk a little later

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about the luxurious apparel o f rich citizens’ wives (Il.vii 75-6). The Taming o f the Shrew abounds in w hat T rollope, in The Kellys and the O 'Kellys (ch. 1), called the ‘particulars always interesting to gentlem en w ho seek m oney and love at the same tim e’. P etruchio’s father has ju st died, leaving h im an estate, b u t he wants m ore, and is prepared to m arry any w om an for m oney (I.ii.48 ff ). H ortensio predicts that K atherina will find a husband in spite o f h er tem per, because her father Baptista is offering a good dowry, and ‘there be good fellows in the w orld’ w ho will snap up such a bargain (I.i. 127-9). Baptista offers his younger daughter Bianca to the highest bidder, and we learn all about the applicants’ resources. Lucentio, or T ranio as his proxy, carries the day by boasting o f his great w ealth (Il.i). H ortensio gives up hope o f Bianca, and prom ptly transfers him self to a rich w idow w hom he has long had the refusal of. H e can boast him self a ‘gentlem an’, w hich m ay be his attraction for her Fenton at W indsor confesses, like Bassanio at Belm ont, that he has been a spendthrift; worse, he has been given to ‘riots’ and ‘wild societies’; his interest in A nne Page began w ith thoughts o f her father’s m oney (he and Shakespeare m ay b oth have forgotten that she has a young brother), b u t he assures her it is now quite different [M W W III.iv.5 ff.). Fenton is ‘too great o f b irth ’ for M r Page’s liking, though probably not for Miss Page’s. Bassanio adm its to Portia that all his w ealth runs in his veins (M V III.ii.255—6). In retu rn she does n o t forget to tell him that w ith her ring she is giving him her possessions as well as herself (Ill.ii. 168 ff.). H e has w on the golden fleece that floated in his m ind in Venice (I.i. 170-1), and that his com panion G ratiano rather tactlessly recurs to now in Portia’s Overseas trade is lucrative, b u t hazardous, for political as well as other reasons. A t the opening o f The Comedy o f Errors old Aegeon o f Syracuse is being condem ned to death for venturing into Ephesus, because o f a quarrel betw een the two states. In The Taming o f the Shrew a M antuan is tricked by a tale that M antuan ships at V enice are being seized, and all M antuans in Padua, a V enetian city, are to be executed (IV.iii). A ntonio o f Venice is very sorry for the loss o f his ships, b u t neither he nor anyone else has a tear to spare for the luckless seamen w ho m ust have lost their lives, or been cast away like some w ho are seen at G enoa by Shylock’s friend T ubal (M FIII.i.97-8). Capitalism dehum anizes; it is the m erchan­ dise that m atters, not the men. As very often, one longs to know w hether Shakespeare means us to notice this, or has noticed it himself. B ut a habi­ tual chord o f his social com m entary is touched by D ogberry’s saying that ‘m en grow h ard-hearted and will lend nothing for G od’s sake’ (M A A N V.i.314-15). A debtor is not to be envied, even w ithout a Shylock at his heels. W e hear o f one debtor under arrest, and his dolorous condition in

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jail, kept in ‘durance worse than H ell’ by a pitiless w arder - ‘A fiend, a Y ou take m y life, Shylock protests to the Doge, if you take away the capital I live by ( M V IV.i.371-3). M any a small English cultivator ejected from his rented patch o f land, or his share in the use o f a village com m on, m ight have voiced the same com plaint. In A s You Like It, that golden comedy, there are scattered references to social evils: they are needed to explain w hy the rigours o f life in the woods - the duke, unlike his daughter, seems to have no ro o f over his head - can seem m ore bear­ able than those o f ‘civilization’. Shakespeare is rom anticizing the past w hen he contrasts the virtues o f an ‘antique w orld’ w ith a m ercenary present. O rlando has fared as badly as the prodigal son, w ithout deserving it (I.i.35-7). Even in A rden the refugees encounter a ‘churlish’ master, or rich farmer, w ho has no th o u g h t o f earning m erit by gener­ osity to others (II.iv.73 ff.). Sidney Lee did n o t doubt that Shakespeare had in m ind the grievances o f the peasantry o f his native south W arw ickshire In this play we have an antithetical picture o f society rem iniscent in some ways o f the Histories. A t the top, am ong the well-placed, are fraternal hatred and fratricidal plotting; at the bottom , a jester escorts his mistresses into exile, as A dam follows O rlando. Things have been turned upside down; the high becom e dependent on the low. Silvan com pan­ ionship and cheerful endurance are n o t a realistic forecast o f the century to follow; they are a daydream o f a better time, leading to one w hen blind Fortune’s gifts will be ‘bestowed equally’ instead o f ‘m ightily m isplaced’ (A Y L I I.ii.29 ff.). B ut there is no daw ning o f such a tim e at the end o f the Comedies; in Twelfth Night the social order is breaking, or

A n inconsistent picture o f governm ent emerges from the Comedies. O n the one hand authority is grow ing im personal and formal; and w here we hear o f it (we never see it) as still active, it can be expected to misbehave. O n the other hand, though rebellions and civil wars have been stopped, at street level things are still disorderly, because authority lacks strength, as Shakespeare’s obsessive talk o f noisy bullies and rowdies warns us. Portia has some conventionally fine w ords about ‘the dread and fear o f kings’ (M V IV.i. 189), b u t such language is out o f place in republican Venice, and there is nothing dreadful about the rulers w ho tread Shake­ speare’s comic stage. W e are living in a post-absolutist era, w hen the function o f governm ent, in peacetim e, is little m ore than to declare and uphold the law. B ound by custom , rulers are constitutional m onarchs or

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presidents, unable to infringe even the w orst law for the best reason. In Venice the D oge cannot override Shylock’s bond to save a good m an’s life, and in Athens Theseus cannot set aside a law w hich enables a father to have a disobedient daughter executed. In Ephesus the duke pities Aegeon, b u t cannot exem pt him from the rigour o f the law. Absolutism had n o t altered the fact that England and Europe w ere full o f m usty old laws, nearly impossible to shake o ff w ith o u t revolution. W e m ay then feel called on to wish for governm ents to be m ore capable o f initiative and action, yet chance allusions to unfettered pow er p o in t to the dislike and suspicion that ‘the court’ and its denizens habitu­ ally inspired in England. Honeysuckles keeping out sunlight are like ‘favourites m ade proud by princes’ (M A A N III.i.9 ff.). T he good duke in A s You Like It contrasts the free life o f N ature, w hich teaches knowledge o f reality instead o f flattering, w ith the ‘painted pom p’ o f ‘the envious co u rt’ (Il.i.l ff.). It is always curious to th in k o f Q ueen Elizabeth listening to speeches like these - unless they were toned dow n for her benefit. T h e Com edies are situated in a peaceful present instead of, like the Histories, in a lawless past. Shakespeare takes for granted the ‘T u d o r peace’, and som etim es makes it sound m ore com plete than it really was. H e was telling both governm ent and public how they ought to behave. Respect for law and legality was no dou b t growing, b u t there m ust be some hum orous exaggeration w hen Sly the tinker, threatened w ith arrest for debt by a parish officer, replies that he will ‘answer him by law’. T he C apulet servants m ay w ant to be sure o f having the law on their side, but it is n o t long before they are battling w ith their M ontague foes. Law enforcem ent m achinery is m inim al, as it really was in England. Locally it is entrusted to w orthies like Justice Shallow, or Constable Dogberry, w ho considers that the best way to deal w ith a th ie f is to have nothing to do w ith him (M A A N III.iii). Parson Evans is against notifying the Privy C ouncil o f a riot, because ‘T h e Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear o f Got, and n o t to hear a riot’ (M W W I.i.32 ff.). Even w here a prince has an im portant role to play, it is not as a w ielder o f power. Shakespeare makes his duke o f M ilan a ridiculous m onarch as well as an odious parent; he pursues his runaw ay daughter himself, instead o f sending his guard, and is captured by a parcel o f ban­ ditti. D on Pedro looks like a m em ber o f a jolly house-party. Benedick refers to h im and C laudio as a pair o f ‘hobby-horses’ (AL4A/VIII.ii). O nly in The Taming o f the Shrew and The Merry Wives o f Windsor is no head o f State visible, b u t only in The Comedy o f Errors, A Midsummer Night}s Dream and The Merchant o f Venice, the three classical or republican polities, is he an impressive figure. And ‘M ighty Theseus’, as his court official addresses him (M N D V.i.38), has only a small paternalistic state to manage, o f the sort o f w hich G erm any had scores or hundreds; despite his conquests, the

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laws o f his Athens ru n no m ore than seven leagues from the city. N avarre is told by the princess that by his retirem ent, and giving up ‘housekeeping’, or the duties o f hospitality, he is com m itting a ‘deadly sin’ (LLL Il.i. 104). She is treating him as a country gentlem an. N o duties o f governm ent com e into question; he has none. Illyria is a sim ilar country. ‘W h o governs here?’ Viola, shipwrecked on the coast, inquires (TN I.ii.23). T he answer ought to be ‘N obody’. D uke O rsino is perhaps only a governor, and at one point he dwindles to a C o u n t (III.i.37). At the outset he is baring his lovelorn heart to his court­ iers, and sum m oning them to jo in him in repose on ‘sweet beds o f flowers’. Clearly he has nothing better to do w ith his time. H e is m ore his natural self w hen he hails the jester affably as ‘m y good fellow’, and rewards his w it w ith a piece o f gold (V.i. 10-11, 27-8). As in the latter Histories, m onarchy is learning the arts o f popularity. Theseus insists on w atching the w orkm en’s play, despite a w arning that it will be poor stuff, and adds an obvious allusion to Elizabeth’s progresses, w ith their speeches o f w elcom e read o u t by sufferers from stage fright, and so on

A long w ith its fellow-traveller, kingship, w ar has receded into the back­ ground. T w o battles are heard of, both o f them events prior to the play. In Much Ado about Nothing we hear at once o f a cheerful victory, w ith few losses, and the rebel, D on Pedro’s brother, already pardoned. Before Twelfth Night begins there has been a sea-fight; booty was carried off by the attackers, b u t m ost o f it has been handed back, for the sake o f restoring trade (Ill.iii). Imagery may be o f warfare far away. Puck travels ‘Swifter than arrow from the T artar’s bow ’ (M ND III.ii. 101). B ut there are m ore realistic touches as well, sometimes suggestive o f revulsion against the brutalities o f war. Berow ne’s simile o f a tow n captured w ith the aid o f fire, b u t also destroyed by it (LLL I.i.l 46), may be a m em ory o f some recent happening in France or the N etherlands. Glory and crim e often go together (LLL IV.i.3l). Jaques pictures a soldier as quarrelsom e, hard-sw earing, brave, b u t for no better m otive than pursuit o f ‘the Y et Shakespeare remains an adm irer o f the m anly courage that can show itself fully only w hen life itself is staked on the gage. H e is never tired o f ridiculing pretended courage; it m ay be doubted w hether any oth er w riter o f his tim e returns so often to this theme. Sir Toby, no faint-heart, rem arks on how loud oaths and an overbearing m anner may have m ore effect than a bold spirit (TN III.iv.l80 ff.). Shallow makes no boast o f being a fighting m an now, b u t likes it to be understood that he has been ‘a great fighter’ in his time, and could m ake ‘four tall fellows

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Valentine, O rlando, Benedick, Sebastian, exhibit courage before our eyes, and thus prove themselves w orthy o f the fair ladies in Shakespeare’s gift. D uke O rsino pays tribute to A ntonio’s bravery on the enem y side in the naval encounter; he him self took part in it, w hich gives him a m ore m anly air than he has shown h itherto (77V V.i.50ff.). Petruchio talks o f his experiences o f sea-tem pest and battlefield, w ith ‘great ordnance’ firing, as evidence that he will not flinch from a w om an’s tongue (TS I.ii.201 ff.). Shakespeare’s ow n preference is for the courage o f m ore civi­ lized men. His instinctive wish was to refine whatever he touched. He evokes repeatedly the Renaissance association between w ar and letters. N avarre is a quiet place, b u t Longaville has earned a right to be extolled as a m an ‘well fitted in arts, glorious in arm s’ (LLL II.i.45). Bassanio is first m entioned as ‘a scholar and a soldier’ (M V I.ii. 108), w hich we can take on trust even if we never see him w ith either a book or a sword in Mars and Venus were close together in Shakespeare’s pantheon. Even ‘the stern and direful god o f w ar’, she boasts to Adonis, has been her ‘cap­ tive’ and ‘slave’ ( VA 97 ff.). Love and war, or rather the capacity to undergo the test o f war, are related to each other as two o f life’s prim e values; irreverently enough in the phrase we hear from T oby about ‘boarding’ a w om an, as if a ship to be m ade prize of. O n the other hand, adm iration o f m asculine courage could be expected from w om en, seeing that they often had to depend on it for protection. According to Proteus, ‘Falsehood, cowardice and poor descent’ are the three things they despise m ost in m en (TGFTII.ii.32-3). Before the w restling m atch in As You Like It Celia and Rosalind try to dissuade O rlando, b u t once the bout starts they ardently hope for him to win, and it is his defiance o f the cham pion that kindles Rosalind’s interest in him . His tongue w ould scarcely have w on it for him , b u t later on, as a m akew eight, Shakespeare gives him a lioness to fight, off-stage. ‘T here is no love-broker in the w orld’, Sir T oby asserts, m ore persuasive w ith w om en than ‘report o f valour’ (T N III.ii.36—7); in pursuit o f it Sir A ndrew is steered into the business o f his challenge to ‘Cesario’, his fancied rival for O livia’s hand. In his duelling episodes Shakespeare’s am bivalence o f feeling about violence and bloodshed shows m ost clearly. H e makes fun o f the duel again and again, yet it rem ains for him the ultima ratio o f a gentlem an, as w ar is tif a king. O n this ground a m an o f h o nour was above any law except th at o f honour. O nly a poltroon like Sir A ndrew w ould take care, w hen draw ing up a challenge, to ‘keep o’ th ’ w indy side o f the law’, as Fabian sarcastically com m ends him for doing (T N Ill.iv. 168-9). As the proposed antagonist is really a girl, the w hole affair is nonsensical. So it is, o n the surface at least, w hen the elegant A rm ado is challenged by Costard the clown. Costard em bodies the com m on sense o f the anti-heroic:

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‘Peace be to me, and every m an that dares not fight’ (LLL I.i.2256). Y et w hen a serious occasion arises, it is he w ho is ready to fight, not the courtier. H e is fond o f Jaquenetta, and A rm ado has trifled w ith her affections. Costard comes to the village girl’s defence like a hum bly born C hallenged by Valentine, T h u rio replies, sensibly enough, that he is n o t going to risk life and lim b on account o f a girl w ho cares nothing for him ; her father the duke considers this ‘degenerate and base’ (T V V.iv.l32ff.). W h en Lysander and D em etrius blunder about after each oth er in the m isty woods, crying out on each other’s cowardice, it looks as if Shakespeare is having a h it at m en w ho trum pet their love o f fighting w hen there is nobody to fight. T ouchstone likes to air his w it on the subject o f ‘h o n o u r’ (A Y L I I.ii.56ff.), and he backs his claim to gentility w ith a hum orous tale o f how he once nearly had to fight a duel for criticizing the cut o f a courtier’s beard (V.iv.45 f£). His rigm arole about the ‘seven causes’ - Q u ip M odest, Lie D irect, etc. - is scarcely m ore silly than the pedantic textbooks w ritten in Italy and other coun­ tries on the m inute niceties o f the laws o f H onour. D r Caius, the fire-eating Frenchm an, sends a challenge to Parson Evans, w ho is backing Slender for A nne Page’s hand. T o call out a parson, and on such grounds, was hardly proper, b u t Evans is a m artial W elshm an, like Fluellen. H e asks the landlord o f the G arter to m easure the weapons; the jolly host arranges for the opponents to be w aiting for each other at different places - Caius full o f sanguinary threats, Evans n o t quite so bellicose. W h e n the host confesses his little trick, all are soon friends again (M W W Ill.i). Sir A ndrew thinks it sm art to challenge a m an and then leave h im w aiting at the rendezvous (T N II.iii.l32 ff.). H e is soon being pushed by officious friends into facing an encounter in earnest, as w ere a great m any m en all thro ugh the history o f duelling. ‘H e cannot by the duello avoid it’, Sir T oby solem nly pronounces (III.iv.305). Later on, w hen A ndrew falls foul o f Sebastian and is knocked dow n, he threatens only ‘an action o f battery against him , if there be any law in Illyria’ (IV.ii.33-5). T oby is so disgusted that he takes the quarrel o n himself. A duel follows, and he is injured, but takes it in good part. Sebastian, newly m arried to Olivia, has to apologize for w ounding her kinsm an (V.i.208 f£): a com ic parallel to Rom eo having to fight his wife’s In all this buffoonery the duel is show n in its absurder colours; only in Much Ado about Nothing is a serious challenge given for a serious reason, and w ith the w orthiest motives. It comes w ith all the m ore w eight from B enedick because he seems to have a reputation for p ru d en t avoidance o f unnecessary quarrels. This is the only sense that can be m ade o f Pedro’s bantering w ords - m eant for him to hear - about how he keeps out o f

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danger ‘w ith a m ost C hristian-like fear’ (II.iii. 188 ff.). Benedick is acknow ledged to be a brave soldier. His philosophy is Shakespeare’s: ‘In a

Religion is at as low an ebb as its ally, royalty. T here is no m ention o f it as a bar to Portia’s m arrying the M uslim prince o f M orocco. N either she nor any o f the others thinks o f offering thanks to heaven for A ntonio’s deliverance, as H enry V w ould have done so unctuously. T here is a plen­ tiful sprinkling o f religious allusions, and one, to a heretic being burned alive, is a rem inder that religion was no laughing m atter (M A A N 20). A n ill-judged love, now renounced, is a ‘heresy’ abandoned (M ND Il.ii. 145-6). O rlan d o ’s virtues are ‘sanctified and holy traitors’ to him , because bad m en take advantage o f them (A Y L I II.iii. 13): there is a strong w h iff here o f C atholic conspiracy, that bugbear o f Elizabethan England. T h ere are turns o f speech borrow ed light-heartedly from sermons or pious tracts, and sm iled at in the concluding song o f Love's Labour's Lost about how ‘coughing drowns the parson’s saw’. M ost o f the scattering o f phrases about Providence are as perfunctory as M rs Q uickly’s ‘all is in His hands above’ (.M W W I.iv). H u m an passions are too strong to be curbed except ‘by a special grace’, or divine aid, Berow ne admonishes his W ords that stand out m ore earnestly are H ero’s pathetic appeal to God as the only protector left her against the ‘catechizing’ or interroga­ tion she is subjected to. She is answered w ith good advice from a sympa­ thetic priest, a m an w ho can see the tru th because, we are told, he has learned from the book o f life as well as from reading (M A A N IV.i). Shakespeare finds convenient uses for C atholic priests, as an Italian setting licenses h im to do, in The Two Gentlemen o f Verona, for instance, w hen Silvia escapes by going to ‘Friar P atrick’s cell’, ostensibly for confession (IV.iii). These m en are always w ell-m eaning and try to be helpful; at any rate, they are better m en o f God than the proud prelates o f the Histories. Some Catholic sentim ent descending to him from his fam ily m ay have helped to m ake Shakespeare treat them benignly. ‘Sir’ N athaniel in Love's Labour's Lost has a very English air, from a tim e w hen A nglican clergym en did n o t com m and m uch respect. H e seems to be a regular ‘curate’, yet B erow ne alludes to him uncom plim entarily as ‘the hedge-priest’ (V.ii.540). In A rden a real hedge-priest or im postor plies his trade, ‘Sir’ O liver M artext. Feste is ready w ith jokes about the clergy (TN IV.ii.4ff.), and has no scruples about m asquerading as one o f them. In the C hu rch o f England beliefs too were debatable. Salvation by faith instead o f by good w orks was the shibboleth o f the R eform ation, b u t the T h irty -n in e Articles w ere designed to be am biguous,

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and now the issue was hotly argued. Maria, laughing at Malvolio, u n ­ w ittingly takes the Protestant side w hen she says that a good C hristian ‘m eans to be saved by believing rightly’ (III.ii.69). So does the princess in Love’s Labour’s Lost w hen she calls it a ‘heresy’ to th in k o f being ‘saved by m erit’ (IV.i.21-2), b u t an airy skit on C atholic thinking lurks in the plot o f this play. N avarre’s am bition o f w inning fam e by austere study is a parody o f C atholic hopes o f w inning heaven by ascetic rigours and self-m ortification. A Protestant believed in sober self-control, in the m idst o f an active, useful life, not in displays o f asce­ ticism. His m entors did n o t favour the taking o f private vows like those N avarre gets his friends to jo in h im in. T h ere seems to be a laugh at casuistry, a discipline in w hich Jesuit skill or oversubtlety was unques­ tioned, w hen the other three acolytes call on Berow ne to concoct some plausible excuse for them to break their vows, ‘some salve for perjury’ Shakespeare has equal enjoym ent in m aking fun o f the opposite cam p, that o f the ‘Puritans’, often accused o f hypocritical austerity. W h en Bassanio cautions G ratiano against his over-levity and ‘skipping spirit’, G ratiano promises to be the soul o f discretion at Belm ont, and always to have a prayer book in his pocket. M artext the bogus priest com forts him self w ith pious jargon, after being berated by Jaques; no one, he says defiantly, can ‘flout m e o u t o f m y calling’ (AYLI III .iii). For the P uritan his work, w hatever it m ight be, was laid out for him by his heavenly taskmaster. (Falstaff makes a jo k e o f highway robbery being his ‘vocation’.) T here is a disparaging reference in Twelfth Night to one set o f radical Puritans, seceders from the C hurch o f England: the ‘Brownists’ or Shakespeare has been taxed w ith being too hard on Malvolio, as a worldly, egotistic ‘p u ritan ’. H e seems to w ant to m ake it clear, through that shrewd person Maria, that Malvolio is not a puritan in any really religious sense (TN II.iii.l53ff.); perhaps also that he him self is n o t anti­ Puritan, w hen he makes the stupid tippler Sir Andrew say that he w ould like to beat any P uritan like a dog, w hich even Toby finds surprising (II.iii.l47ff.). Malvolio knows how to be ‘a kind o f puritan’ at times (II.iii.146); there is no contradiction betw een this and his am bition to be a great m an, surrounded by obsequious attendants. H e belongs to an ‘upw ardly m obile’ m iddle class, ready to challenge an unthrifty gentry and step into its shoes. H e w ould like to be ‘C o u n t M alvolio’, consort o f a w ealthy heiress; he dislikes loose living like Sir T oby’s, b u t once gentrified he m ay be expected to behave as foolishly as he does in his yellow stockings and cross-garters. Charles I th o u g ht the play ought to have been called Malvolio; he m ay have seen in him some traits o f his ow n R oundhead opponents. T oby accused M alvolio o f thinking that because

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he was virtuous, there should be no m ore cakes and ale (ILiii. 120-2); the C om m onw ealth was too apt to make outlaw ing o f cakes and ale a substi­ tute for reform o f graver evils, those o f w ealth and poverty. T h o u g h there is little form al piety in these plays, forgiveness and reconciliation are som etim es held up to us as ideals: V alentine is their first advocate. B u t the message is an aw kw ard one to fit into plays where the villains are the m ost comical characters, and the happy endings are a joke. Shylock’s case is the exception, because here tw o religions are set up as opposites. It has been noted that it is illogical for Portia to address to a Jew the C hristian argum ent that we should extend to others the forgive­ ness th at we ourselves pray for. If, however, we p u t the m ost favourable construction on h er words, they are really spoken to her fellow -C hrisdans. It has to be impressed on them early in the trial that w hen their tu rn comes to have the w hip hand they m ust show themselves better able than an unbeliever to rise to a m oral challenge. Some o f them do respond and display, as the Doge says, ‘the difference o f o u r spirit’ from Shylock’s (M V IV.i.364). G ratiano’s brutal trium phing over the defeated foe is the spirit o f everyday ‘C hristianity’; true C hristianity has to tran­ scend it. All this can only rem ain one-sided; Shylock is foiled, b u t no m ore reconciled than Malvolio. His forced conversion is meaningless. It is the nom inal Christians w hom Shakespeare is converting, by getting

It w ould be agreeably simple to identify ‘serious’ drama, historical or tragical, w ith the crum bling o f an old order, and com edy w ith a new one grow ing up to replace it. In reality older and new er elem ents are in ter­ m ingled in both, and good and bad; though in the case o f com edy w hat w e see is gradual decay rather than sudden collapse. T h e salient contrast is betw een attitudes to life, or philosophies o f life. W atching ‘serious’ dram a ‘w e look before and after, and pine for w hat is n o t’, like Shelley. In com edy we are content to m ake do w ith the present. Still, the present is n o t stationary; today is also part o f a process o f change. T he plays them ­ selves, in this series, are altering. As often noticed, they m ake repeated use o f the same devices, in particular the disguising o f young w om en as young m en. W h a t is altering all the tim e is n ot the materials Shakespeare makes use of, the m echanics o f com position, b u t colouring, atm osphere, M uch w it in these comedies is m erely playful, b u t there is a cum ula­ tive im pression o f its w orking on the side o f new, m ore sensible thinking, escape from a lim bo o f outw orn, meaningless things. A sm oul­ dering fire is consum ing old rubbish. Shakespeare can often be heard

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laughing at the faded w isdom o f bygone days. ‘Divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel o f the m o u th ’ (M W W I.i.215-16): the scholastic pedantry that Bacon was sweeping away sounds all the m ore absurd in the odd English o f a W elsh parson. So does the m usty Latin lesson he gives to young W illiam ; M rs Q uickly’s m isunderstandings o f the words Som ething o f the same kind is happening w ith the cherished credos o f popular superstition, too often sponsored and exploited by the learned, both lay and clerical. W ith o u t too hasty an enlisting o f Shake­ speare on the side o f rationalism , we may fairly see his references to the supernatural as pointing that way. A ntipholus o f Syracuse is soon convinced that Ephesus m ust be full o f ‘D ark-w orking sorcerers’, ‘Soulkilling witches’, and so on (C E I.ii.97 ff ), w hen we know that his bewil­ derm en t is simply the result o f his being w ith the w rong D rom io. Shakespeare’s sim ple-m inded contem poraries w ere ju st as ready to explain everything that turned o u t badly as caused by magic. Pinch is an em aciated w retch w ho has taken to fortune-telling and the occult for w ant o f any better livelihood (V.i.238ff.). W ith the example o f the unlucky A ntipholus o f Ephesus, Shakespeare points out how easily a citizen could find him self locked up as a lunatic, or one possessed by an ‘W h ite ’ magic was often resorted to for help in finding missing things or persons (Thomas chs 7-8). O rlando seems only m ildly surprised w hen Rosalind assures him th at she will produce his lost mistress for him by secret arts learned from a ‘p rofound’ b u t ‘not dam nable’ magician (A YL IV .ii); surely she does n o t m ean him to take her prom ise seriously. M r Ford believes an old w om an in the house to be a w itch (M W W IV.ii); surely this is m eant to be part o f the folly that suspicion o f his wife has plunged h im into. Illyria’s practical jokers pretend to think that M alvolio is possessed by a fiend, and Fabian suggests calling in the ‘wise w om an’ w ho was to be found in every English village (TN III.iv). A dual process was going on - as in the Histories on another plane o f Shakespeare getting to know m ore o f the realities o f his England, and turning over in his m ind w hat parts o f them were w orth preserving, w hat ought to be got rid of. His m ain field o f speculation was the area w here the lesser aristocracy or gentry, and the cultured m iddle class, m et and in varying degrees m ingled. Castiglione, in his book on the m odel m an o f the world, com plained that am ong the French only w arlike virtues w ere esteemed (88, 93). Shakespeare rated these very highly, b u t he looked for others too, and was seeking to bring together courage and honour, sense and education. H e had so m uch success that a good part o f all later English - and European - thinking about the ‘gentlem an’, and w hat he ought to be, m ust be credited to him.

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In the Com edies it is the better and w eaker qualities o f youth that we see m ost of. Shakespeare’s young gentlem en are not a vicious set. W e do n o t see them gambling, drinking or philandering. A censure that he passes on their class in England - it does not apply to any o f his ow n characters - is that they are too fond o f outlandish clothes and manners. ‘T h e young baron o f England’ w ho is one o f Portia’s suitors is ridiculous because his costum e is a m edley from three countries, yet he knows n othing o f any foreign language (M V I.ii.64 ff.). Shakespeare may have recognized that resentm ents against an upper class com e out m ore H e w anted his young m en to be doing som ething w ith their gifts; in this he did n o t differ m uch from a P uritan preacher and w riter like Perkins, always indignant at the idle rich and their hangers-on, as m ere parasites. Some o f Shakespeare’s m en may be landowners, b u t this is not emphasized, and the occasional one, like T hurio, whose sole recom m en­ dation is the ‘d irt’ he owns, does n o t invite esteem. M ostly they have or m ean to acquire some occupation; b u t their existence suffers from a certain emptiness. Tow ards the end, after Benedick, Shakespeare seems to tire o f his young m en, and prefer the com pany o f older m en from am ong the undeserving poor o f the old order: Falstaff and Sir Toby. Some grafting o f com plem entary qualities can be seen betw een m en and w om en, as well as betw een classes. W o m en too should have educa­ tion, intelligence, freedom to speak, and courage, m oral if not physical; m en should have m ore o f their sensitiveness and sympathy. W om en rem ain attractively different from m en - far m ore than in the Histories, w here the sexes are only too close in their am bitions and ruthless egotism. N ow that it is their better, instead o f worse, qualities that are draw ing them together, love can take on true meaning. Som ething not altogether unlike the later Rom antic idea o f w om an as redeem er shows here and there in the Comedies, as it does m ore distinctly in Shake­ speare’s last plays. It is n o t sustained in the final Comedies, any m ore than the evolution o f the gentlem an. Rosalind disguised as a m an could be queen o f the forest, b u t Viola discovers that her disguise is m aking trouble, and has to adm it the ‘frailty’ o f her too impressionable sex, o f ‘w om en’s waxen hearts’ (T N II.ii.25 ff.). She and Olivia - and A nne Page - have no confidantes, and are the m ost isolated o f the heroines. A stereotyped pattern o f villain against hero is not a favourite w ith Shakespeare, in either com edy or tragedy. It implies too simple a distrib­ u tio n o f evil and good - elem ents in reality dispersed, w hether latent or active, thro u g h the social frame. In V enice alone we have w hat appears to be a clear-cut antithesis betw een w holesom e com m unity and wicked intruder. B ut Shylock is n o t a true villain, a hum an being w ho chooses evil. Instead the dram a shows how badly m en o f all sorts can act, w ithout

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feeling bad. O f the daily injustices o f social life, overlooked from force o f habit, the nearest we com e to a revelation is Shylock’s charge against the V enetians - w hich no one answers - o f cruel usage o f slaves and beasts o f burden. Shylock is baffled easily enough, b u t to exorcize these general discords is far harder. T h e music o f the spheres we hear o f in Act V seems to be a harm ony o f the heavens only, not to be looked for on earth. A sm all-tow n provincial, finding his feet in L ondon and m oving betw een there and Stratford, Shakespeare makes m uch use in the C om edies o f shifts betw een tow n and country. Even w hen the location is urban, a good m any scenes are laid in gardens. B oth A Midsummer Night's Dream and A s You Like It are m ainly rural, though as usual the characters m ostly com e from the town. W e are n o t yet near to Tim on, shaking the dust o f Athens o ff his feet; b u t there is enough sense o f disgust w ith m ankind, or the w orkings o f its social life, to m ake exile under trees and stars seem a good exchange. O nly by w ithdraw ing to a utopian settle­ m en t in the wilds, as the young Rom antic poets w ere to dream o f doing, B ut it is only in fantasy that Shakespeare can think, now and then, o f turning the clock back, or forward, like this. T he Comedies end w ith a play o f w onderful charm , b u t over-rom antic, as Henry V is overheroic; it needs the hearty earthy strain o f Sir T oby and his set as an antidote to artificial refinem ents. Appropriately, Shakespeare moves his scene fu rth er away now than Italy, to a R uritania o f his im agination.

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=—

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Chance and Destiny, Fate and Accident

It w ould n o t be surprising if a m an devoting as m uch o f his energy as Shakespeare did to w riting plays, m em orizing parts in other m en’s plays, perform ing all kinds o f roles, came to be som etim es haunted by a sense o f unreality. H e w ould be likely to feel this m ore in Com edy, pure fiction, than in History, grounded on fact. ‘T h o u talkst o f nothing’, exclaims Romeo, interrupting M ercutio’s Q ueen M ab speech; he agrees - T ru e , I talk o f dream s’ (RJ I.iv.96). A Midsummer Night's Dream is full o f questionings about the two realms o f being, real and fancied, and the m eaning that poetry, in betw een them , can have. Theseus is a m atter-offact Anglo-Saxon; he dismisses the lovers’ tales as delusion, and goes on to com pare them w ith the poet’s pen turning ‘airy nothing’ into words (V.i.2 ff , 208). T h e best actors are only shadows, he declares, like the worst, and the Epilogue echoes him: ‘If we shadows have offended ...’ Force o f feeling am ong spectators, called up by force o f language, could tu rn them into creatures o f flesh and blood - for a while, at least. ‘Im agination bodies fo rth /T h e form o f things unknow n ...’ (M N D V.i.14-15). ‘Im agination’ was n o t a new w ord, b u t it was taking on new m eanings, as it did for the R om antic poets later, becom ing a pow erful daimon o r genie. B ut w hat unknow n things was it bringing to light? W e m ay venture to think o f Shakespeare looking deeper, into recesses o f h u m an life from w hich thoughts and feelings o f the future were to emerge. H e can be heard pondering on im agination, and on him self as a creative artist, in the im prisoned Richard II’s long self-com m uning, w here the soul, standing for instinct or em otion, is the dom inant partner, and the brain, or reason, its helper: ‘M y brain I’ll prove the female to m y s o u l. . . ’ (V.v.l ff ; cf. K night, Imperial Theme, ch. xi). T hings historical, like R ichard’s crown, were real, b u t they or their m eanings w ere shifting; fam iliar shapes w ere adrift on or being w hirled

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along by an irresistible current. In a long soliloquy w hile a battle is being fought the hapless H enry VI muses on T im e, and how sm oothly and tranquilly it ought to flow along; instead it has becom e for w ar-to rn England a raging flood (3H .VI II.v.l ff.). So it was for Shakespeare’s England and Europe. As a result his contem poraries were preoccupied, far m ore than m ost o f their forefathers, w ith the processes o f change and w hat they m ight bring. N o m ind has been m ore sensitive to them than Shakespeare’s, alm ost to the point o f obsession. ‘T im e’s deform ed hand’ (C E V.i.300) was to h im very often destructive. For the individual, aware o f life slipping away, T im e is a tyrant, as in the Sonnets; from a collective standpoint it may be a fertile, organic dim ension o f life. ‘T im e is the nurse and breeder o f all good’ (T G V III.i.243) - even if these words are spoken by a false friend, seeking to deceive. Shakespeare’s skill in ‘the m anipulation o f tim e’ on the stage has been praised (Beckerman 157). T im e as a them e for discussion is m ore than usually audible in A s You Like It, in those leisurely forest hours w here it m ig h t be supposed to have fallen asleep. As a pretext for accosting O rlando, the disguised Rosalind asks him the time: w hat can it m atter in Arden? b u t it gives h er an opening for w itty talk about how tim e som e­ tim es goes too slowly, som etim es too fast, as for a th ie f on his way to the gallows (IH.ii): an odd choice o f subject for a sprightly creature talking to th e m an she loves. In another scene she calls T im e ‘the old justice’ w ho tries and tests everything (IV.i. 194-5). O rlando thinks o f ‘the creeping In another forest even the fairies have learned to measure o u t time, into fractions o f a m inute (.M N D II.ii.2). For centuries religion, com m erce, war, had been helping to give E urope a m ore urgent sense o f tim e than weighed on any other region. It was Europe that had invented serviceable mechanical clocks, and was now producing watches (see Landes). In Shakespeare clocks and watches have a conspicuous place. Jaques is vastly am used at the sight o f T ouchstone consulting his w atch and talking sententiously o f the passage o f life and tim e (A Y L I Il.vii. 12 ff.). In M alvolio’s daydream o f being m arried to a countess and sitting in state am ong his attendants, he takes o u t his w atch and winds it up, doubtless w ith a self-im portant air (77V II.V .59-60). A w atch could be a status symbol. A neighbour w ho also owns one is the parish priest; it keeps h im in m ind o f his progress towards the grave (V.i.161). Berow ne com pares a wife to a clock that always goes badly (LLL Ill.i. 1 8 9 -9 0 ), as m any early timepieces did. In King John the Bastard talks o f ‘O ld tim e the clock-setter, th at bald sexton tim e’ (III.i.324). W e m ay assume that Shakespeare acquired a w atch and needed to look at it often. W hatever his ow n m ethod - or lack o f m ethod - o f w orking, he could appreciate a feeling o f m any busy m en o f his day,

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w hich Puritanism elevated into a religious principle, that any waste o f tim e was culpable. N avarre opens Love’s Labour’s Lost w ith mixed m eta­ phors about pursuit o f fame as the preserver against ‘corm orant devouring T im e’ and ‘his scythe’s keen edge’. ‘T he clock upbraids me w ith the waste o f tim e’, says Olivia self-reproachfully w hen Viola rem ains d eaf to her wooing (T N III.i.132). Prince H al’s first words to Falstaff, w ho wakes up and asks the tim e, are ‘W h a t the devil has thou to do w ith the tim e o f the day?’ - and he ends this scene w ith an assurance that we shall find him ‘Redeem ing tim e w hen m en least think I will’ ( 1H .IV I.ii.3 ff., 209). Sure enough, once king he is reported to be husbanding his tim e w ith the greatest care. H ere is a m onarch steeping him self in a very middle-class virtue. Even H otspur the cavalier is touched at the end by the Puritan recognition that ‘the tim e o f life is short’, as he says to his friends before the battle (V.ii.83). As he lies dying, his last w ords are about how ‘tim e that takes survey o f all the w orld/ M ust have a stop’ (V.iv.82-3) - m ust end for him , w ith his death, or for the universe, as Prospero foretells? O nly Falstaff keeps his gentlem anly indifference, except at m om ents w hen he feels the cold hand freezing him into an old man. ‘Let tim e shape, and there an end’ (2 H .IV III.ii.3312), he concludes his easy acceptance o f the w orld and all its injustices, T o m ake good use o f time, a m an m ust learn w hat he can o f how things com e about, and how they can be anticipated or regulated. W ritin g so m any plays about history, Shakespeare is likely to have done a good deal o f thinking about its m otive forces. H e w ould have agreed w ith H enry V’s shrewd archbishop that the age o f miracles had gone by, and rational explanations m ust be sought instead (I.i.67-9). Shakespeare seems to have thought o f things happening through logical processes o f their own, ceaselessly at work; in the long ru n they will ‘fashion the O rdinary folk were still thinking in term s o f external forces, foreign to m an and m ost clearly m anifested by the stars. Traditional notions o f a cosmic theatre full o f signs and wonders w ere still upheld by the learned, though com m on sense was knocking at the door. Shakespeare was ready enough to m ake use o f them , at least as stage props for his ow n theatre. W h e n T itania and O beron quarrel, N ature falls into disorder (M ND II.i.82 ff.). W e may laugh, as H otspur does, at the portents Glendower boasts o f having accom panied his birth; less coolly, perhaps, w hen H enry VI recalls, in his last words before C rookback strikes him down, the ‘hideous tem pest’ that signalled R ichard’s m onstrous birth (3H. V I V.vi. 46 ff.). W h e n H enry IV is dying his sons talk o f the portents that com m on people are observing (2H .IV IV.iv. 120 ff.). Prophecies were ubiqui­ tous in Shakespeare’s day and for long after, usually w ith an astrological

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foundation, and never m ore so than during the Civil W ars and Inter­ regnum , w hen they w ere part o f the staple o f political propaganda It needs no great effort to convince oneself that Shakespeare was am ong those w ho were taking a m ore rational view o f such things. H e employs ghosts, in Richard III, and sim ilar paraphernalia, but they are m ere em bellishm ents, standing outside the action; or if the spiritconjuring in Henry VIPart 2 is an exception, it is an early, very crude one. Such things could be effective, and m ight be expected by the audience, b u t Shakespeare’s handling o f them is o f a kind to underm ine credulity. Clarence is arrested on the strength o f prophecies and tales o f plotting and wizardry; we know that these have been p u t about by Richard to poison their brother Edw ard IV’s ear; and Edward swallows them because he has grow n ‘sickly, weak, and m elancholy’ (R.III I.i.32 ff , 136). W h e n Richard accuses his opponents o f using w itchcraft to w ither his arm (.R .III III.iv.67 ff.) we take it for granted that he is lying, and the audience m ust have done the same, know ing that the arm had always Prophecy tells m en the future; a curse can determ ine it. M any curses are bandied about in the Histories, reaching their climax in Richard III, w here w om en, reduced to helplessness, launch maledictions w hich are fulfilled one by one. Some at least o f M argaret’s opponents feel a chilling pang o f fear, like B uckingham w hen her w arning against Richard makes his hair stand on end (I.iii.246 ff., 303). In passages like these the stylized verses seem to im port that the speakers are uttering m ore than their ow n A sense o f im pending fate is built up. Even Richard, w ith all his vibrant energy, can be startled by an Irish bard’s prediction (IV.ii.100 ff.). B ut there is no need for us to believe that anything is happening other­ wise than by natural causes. These m en o f the Histories are driven by blind am bitions and hatreds, from w hich they cannot dream o f em anci­ pating themselves; lacking any higher purpose, their lives are so meaningless that they thin k instinctively o f a blind Fate overruling them . ‘T h e sands are num bered that m ake up m y life’, says York, about to be captured. His im potent struggles rem ind his foes o f a trapped bird or rabbit, a sight m ore fam iliar to Elizabethans than to m odern m en (3H . VI I.iv). ‘W h a t fates im pose,’ his son Edw ard tells him self w hen caught in his turn, ‘that m en m ust needs abide’ (IV.iii). A little later we have, close together, ‘Fortune’s spite’, ‘Fortune’s m alice’, ‘the stars’ (IV.vi). T he habi­ tual th o u g h t o f the w orld as a ‘stage’ could help to foster a feeling o f the T here is very little in the Histories to suggest faith in a superintending Providence; it can com e naturally only to m en and w om en w ho are able

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to feel w orthy o f help from above, and these are very few. T here are m om ents w hen Shakespeare, as poet if not as thinker, comes close to the idea - n o t o f his ow n inventing - o f a hereditary curse hanging over the H ouse o f Lancaster, as over the H ouse o f Atreus in Sophocles, because o f an ancestral crime. H enry wrestles w ith it before Agincourt, rem em ­ bering that his father was a usurper. D ram atically it comes in very n atu ­ rally here. H e is putting into religious shape w hat is really a pagan conception, as he does w ith his creed o f war, conquest, and fame. A w ilder sense o f destiny or mission makes C rookback feel, as he stabs H enry VI, that this is a task for w hich he was ‘ordained’ (3H .V IV .vi.58). W h e n he tells Elizabeth later on to blam e n ot him but fate, she answers in religious terms: ‘avoided grace makes destiny’ (R.III IV.iv.218-19) m en can loosen fate’s grip by listening to conscience. Shakespeare was becom ing a true historian in aim, if not always in m ethod: he was studying the past in order to understand the present better, and w hat was needed to m ake the future better than either. In the W ars o f the Roses it was evident to him that the red rose bloom ed chiefly in the N o rth o f England, the w hite in the South; it was clearest o f all that H otspur and his n o rth ern party w ere the m ore feudal and anach­ ronistic, like the rebel earls o f 1569. D iana V ernon in Rob Roy, whose ancestors were Yorkist, accused the dram atist o f being a Lancastrian. Really he did n o t take sides; m anifestly b o th sides were bad, or far m ore bad than good. Success ought to favour a ju s t cause; this was a conviction o f H enry VI (3H . V I II.ii.45—6, 62), b u t his ow n w retched fate gainsays it. In the end neither side has won; they have both destroyed themselves and m ade way for a new, better dispensation, w ith the candidate m ost useful to his country in com m and. A fter so m any ups and downs, legit­ im acy can m ean little. ‘T im e’, how ever it may be personified as a directing spirit, is turning into ‘H istory’; ‘prophecy’ is becom ing recog­ nizable as a change in m en’s thinking, w ith pow er to bring about a Pious literature abounded in stories o f ‘special judgem ents’, inflicted by heaven on sinners. A bricklayer gets d ru n k on the Sabbath, and next day falls o ff his ladder and breaks his neck. H ere the A lm ighty’s inten­ tion is crystal-clear, b u t very often it was so opaque that theology had to fall back on the thought o f G od’s inscrutable purposes. These covered everything, b u t to the vulgar eye they w ere indistinguishable from the w orkings o f the stars, or the Fortune that m ight seem the true deity o f Renaissance man. Spenser’s allegorical figure M utability, in The Faerie Queene, challenges Jove'for the m astery o f the universe (Part 2 Bk 7). Before a secular, scientific outlook could form, the old m ythic notions had to give way to recognition o f the simply accidental, the dem ystified happening, on the one hand - and, on the other, o f broad

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patterns o f change, sweeping chance events along w ith them . Sonnet 115 speaks o f T im e’s ‘m illioned accidents’ w hich alter m en’s m inds and ‘change decrees o f kings’. In comedy, chance is always to be expected. B orachio’s m ischief-m aking starts w ith his happening to overhear a conversation, and ends w ith his happening to be overheard in turn. In tragedy, accident is m ore often harm ful. Rom eo and Ju liet perish because a sudden outbreak o f plague prevents a message from reaching M antua. B u t this does not go against the grain o f the drama. It was very unlikely that a secret union like theirs could fail to com e to grief. As Lukács said, Shakespeare treats such accidentality ‘w ith sovereign ease’: it does n o t conflict w ith the play’s doom -laden ‘atm osphere o f necessity’ (Historical Novel 120-21). In his ow n day ‘F ortune’ could be used at times as w hat w ould now be term ed a ‘code w ord’, a cover for m ankind’s self­ inflicted misfortunes. ‘U nder the fiction o f this blind goddess,’ w rote Nashe, ‘we aim at the folly o f princes and great m en in dispensing o f A ccident cannot be elim inated, b u t it can be m ade skilful allowance for. Intelligible designs take shape am id the welter, w ith causes and consequences that m ay be confronted. This is m ost patent in Henry I V w ith its m ore m odern political life and critical outlook. W h e n H enry is gloom ily recalling the deposed Richard II’s prediction o f nationw ide confusion, W arw ick braces h im by urging that such forecasts have no incom prehensible warrant. From know ledge o f the past we can W ith a near aim, of the main chance of things

b u t go on to becom e ‘the hatch and brood o f tim e’. ‘Are these things then necessities?’ the king rejoins. ‘T h en let us m eet them like necessities’ Challenges dictate vigilance and energy, problem s can be scrutinized and resolved. M en can take a rational view o f things or situations w hen they feel capable o f m astering them. In Henry I V Part 2 ‘necessity’ hems m en in, b u t the w inning side is confident in its resources, while the losers feel increasingly vulnerable. ‘W e are tim e’s subjects’, says Hastings fatalistically, w inding up a discussion o f their plans by the conspirators (I.iii.l 10). T h e stream o f tim e’, the archbishop feels, is driving him and his friends into a hazardous channel, leaving them no choice. Shakespeare was developing, n o t pioneering, a rational approach, w hich was at the same tim e a profoundly im aginative one. His characters have behind them ‘the w hole Renaissance philosophy o f history’ (LJB. C am pbell 225), the belief in it as a useful science. Living w hen he did, he

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m ight well take up such ideas w ith a fresh and m ore searching m ind, as well as clothing them in m ore splendid language. Things were changing m ore and m ore quickly and drastically now, w ith the advent o f a society w here m oney was to becom e all-pow erful, and old ties were being Any epoch o f deep-seated change is likely to have indistinct presenti­ m ents o f w hat is to come, as well as a m ixture o f relief and regret at w hat is being left behind. Looking back, in her biography o f her husband, a Parliam entary officer w ho died in prison after the Restoration, on her girlhood towards the end o f Jam es I’s reign - a few years after Shake­ speare’s death - Lucy H utchinson wrote: T h e land was then at peace - if that quietness may be called a peace, w hich was rather like the calm and sm ooth surface o f the sea, whose dark w om b is already im pregnated w ith a h orrid tem pest’ (2). Shakespeare, draw ing on M ore by way o f Holinshead, had w ritten som ething rem arkably similar w hen he made his nervous citizen in Richard III observe th at at the approach o f any great By a divine instinct men’s minds mistrust The waters swell before a dangerous storm. T h e w ords may have an archaic sound, like those o f Sonnet 107 about ‘the prophetic s o u l/O f the wide w orld, dream ing on things to com e’. B ut this ‘soul’ is nearing a m etam orphosis into som ething m ore secular and tangible: public opinion and its guidance by careful observers able to descry in advance the drift o f future events. W arw ick’s adm onition to H enry IV is repeated in a later play by N estor, to the other Greek chief­ tains outside Troy. G reat happenings are preceded by smaller ones,

In King John ‘baby eyes’ and ‘the giant w orld enraged’ are close together (V.ii.56-7). Shakespeare had a liking for the epithet ‘giant’; it expressed his always sensitive feeling o f a frighteningly huge complex o f things over against the puny hum an being. Y et this is not a pow er in itself, a m onster w ith a vital strength o f its own; it is the image m en and w om en singly have o f the social life they collectively build up, or the reverbe­ rating changes they bring about or fail to prevent. It is not an external deity, or fate, b u t som ething they have n ot yet learned to cope w ith sensibly. From this viewpoint, w hich Shakespeare shared w ith the m ore progressive thinkers o f his age, he and they were not living through a

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‘w aning age’ (TS Induction, ii.62), the last chapter o f a w orld running dow n; they w ere bound on an adventurous voyage towards a future day w hen m en w ould know better how to live.

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2

Towards the Tragic

Shakespeare’s belief in the capacity o f the h um an race to advance m ust have been strong; b u t so was his recognition o f its failings, and o f the barriers they constituted against any b etterm ent o f the hum an lot, the terrible cost o f any m ovem ent towards a brighter future. In this lay the essence o f tragedy. H e had from the outset an im pulse towards the tragic; his ‘tragic period’ w ould be an intensifying o f it, an eclipse o f the comic spirit, n o t a new birth. A part from darkening m oods o f his own, sombre accents w ere part o f w hat his audience w anted to hear from him , at first in the shape o f m elodram a as crude as m ost o f ours o f today. W orsening conditions o f life for many, w hile others prospered, deepened spreading m oods o f resentm ent and guilt. Stories o f tow ering figures and their fall could give expression to a pervasive sense o f instability, o f everything being in a m elting-pot from w hich anything m ight emerge; a state o f m ind containing tragical and revolutionary elements. O u t o f these u n ­ digested w orkings o f the mass m ind, and his own, Shakespeare was to learn by degrees to distil the spirit o f tragedy, in the highest form m ankind has known. B oth o f his long poems w ere ‘tragical’ narratives. Early on he com posed (or reworked) tw o tragic plays. Some o f the Histories, like Richard III, w ere entitled ‘tragedies’, and indeed any w eighty m atters o f state could' be th o u g h t o f as belonging to that sphere. In Richard III B uckingham assures his confederate that w hen it comes to swaying the public he knows how to ‘counterfeit the deep tragedian’ (III.v.4 ff.). Edw ard IV’s queen, asked the reason for her abrupt entrance and dishevelled hair, replies that she comes T o m ark [make?] an act o f tragic violence’ (II. ii. 29): h er husband is dead, danger is in the air. In the early H istories long tirades or ‘railings’ are a stilted attem pt to soar into tragic altitudes w here one day the earth-shaking denunciations o f Lear and T im o n w ill be heard. ‘W ell could I curse away a w inter’s night’, cries the banished Suffolk - even if he had to stand ‘naked on a m o u n tain top’ (2H .VI III.ii.335—6). From w om en such outpourings can

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sound m ore natural, since they m ust often suffer w ithout being able to act. ‘I prythee, give m e leave to curse aw hile’, says Joan o f Arc, now a doom ed captive ( 1H.VI V.iii.43). Shakespeare m ade use also o f boys, helpless victims o f another kind, A rth u r or the princes in the T ow er, as a C horus bewailing the w orld’s evils - as other youngsters, like M oth in Love’s Labour’s Lost, m ake us laugh at its silliness. Elizabethans found language so magical that to clothe troubles in words could itself afford relief. H am let was only too ready to ‘unpack his heart w ith w ords’. H azlitt considered historical events too painfully real to be proper them es o f tragedy, w hich requires ‘fictitious danger and fictitious distress’ (Shakespeare 186). This is rather an argum ent against con­ tem porary themes, as too close to the spectator’s eye. T h e W ars o f the Roses w ere quite rem ote enough from Shakespeare’s theatre, as they are from us; though for his grand historical tragedies he was to m ove m uch fu rth er away, to medieval Scotland or the ancient world. Feudal lords o f the fifteenth century, b o m to live dangerously and often die painfully, w ere rich in tragic suggestion, if n o t fulfilm ent. T hey offered a spectacle o f feverish energy lavished on a pursuit o f suprem acy w hich, w hen w on, Pow er-hunger was to be one o f Shakespeare’s great tragic themes. In the Histories he saw it swelling into a kind o f madness, the delirium o f a m oribund class. In Y ork’s long soliloquy about his plans (2H .V I III.i. 331-83) he is trying to ‘steel’ him self against doubt or ‘pale-faced fear’; he calls h im self a ‘m adm an’, his frenzied struggle for pow er is ‘this m adbred flaw’. This is finally intensified into the nightm arish isolation o f his son R ichard III, nearing his end; and then translated by Shakespeare, in Henry V, into the unbalanced pow er-greed o f a nation seeking conquest. By then the m o d em State is being built up: the m an on the throne, H enry IV and his son, m ay be m ore secure, b u t they are cut o ff in a new way from their fellows. These tw o are n o t ‘tragic’, b u t loneliness was to In the plays before Henry IV, am id the convulsions o f the dying feudal order, every now and then individuals are touched by the tragic Muse. T alb o t is m eant for one o f these, and has m om ents o f eloquence, b u t m ost o f his rhym ing rhetoric makes h im sound less a m an than a creaking iron w ar-m achine, as the French see him ( 1H.VI I.iv.47 f£). H enry VI is too pathetic, and too inactive, to be tragic; b u t even enemies are m oved by Y ork’s tears over his youngest son, and his last h o u r and death are clearly designed as tragical (3H. V I I.iv). If they scarcely seem so to us, it is because he has done, and said, too little to enlist our sympathy. W arw ick shows m ore authentic grandeur, though, like York, little inwardness. His last long speech - always an acid test o f quality, like the last w ords that L ondon crowds loved to hear from criminals on the

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scaffold - is good, if over-elaborate. It tells us that all is, in the end, ‘earth Richard III is n o t allowed to address us like this. B ut having adm ired his blend o f tigerish vitality and sardonic hum our, we cannot w atch his fall w ith o u t some softening o f our ‘surly virtue’. His physical deform ity and the em bitterm ent it condem ns h im to has a share in this. Tow ards the close o f King John both the king and the Bastard rise to a quite tragic intensity o f speech. B ut there is no m atching situation, only a king w ith a bad conscience dying o f poison; and there is nothing to w arrant his nephew ’s passionate regret for him . Instead there is a descent into absurdity w hen we are told that John, after his deathbed ravings, is singing like a dying swan (V.vii). W ith Richard II the tragic spirit flags. H e is a hollow m an, living on m ake-believe and self-pity, instead o f A fter h im a new England' is struggling into existence, one inoculated w ith h u m o u r and scepticism, especially as m ost o f this comes from Falstaff. By now the salt o f feudal values is losing its savour. W h at rem ains o f it is left to H otspur. From one p o int o f view Henry I V Part 1 is his tragedy, as Julius Caesar is that o f Brutus. H e resembles M acbeth in being a fam ous w arrior o f the north, a defender o f his country until he is led astray, by others and by his ow n hasty tem per, into treason. H e is driven on n o t so m uch by am bition as by his anachronistic nature; he is a knight errant in quest o f fame, in a com m ercializing w orld w here there is not room for him outside his ow n natural habitat, the Borders. In the H istories Shakespeare is surveying a transition from anarchic feudalism to despotic b u t popular m onarchy, it elim inates m uch evil, b u t also, as the necessary price, som ething grand, heroic, w hich he clearly admires Because H otspur’s qualities have outlived their time, they have grow n m orbid, excessive. W h e n he talks o f w ar as ‘sport’, and revels in the tho u g h t o f Mars ‘up to his ears in blood’ (I.iii.299; IV.i.l 16-71), he sounds a m ere killer (as H al burlesques him), like Talbot. T h e laws o f his ow n archaic m ode o f life doom him , he feels the hand o f destiny on him . ‘W h ith e r I m ust, I m ust’ (Il.iii. 107). As battle approaches, his cry o f ‘D oom sday is near’ seems to m ingle the shadow o f a tragic fate w ith boiling excitem ent (IV.i.134). H e rushes into the fray precipitately, betrayed or deserted by some o f his allies, and perishes - a sacrifice to progress. His last w ords end, like W arw ick’s, w ith ‘dust’: all that he has stood for is fading into nullity. W h a t is left is a symbolic reconciliation betw een the dead hero and his antagonist. Prince Hal has had to travel far into the past, as well as far from Eastcheap, to m eet his foe; briefly, on the stricken field, they can share a com m on chivalry. Faithful to his m ission o f preserving and blending, Shakespeare rescues som ething o f

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the reckless H otspur by transferring it - n o t altogether convincingly - to In Part 2 there is nothing like this; no fighting, to strike the sparks o f tragedy, only nervous hesitation on one side, deceit on the other. T here are m om ents w hen K ing H enry speaks in tragic tones (e.g. III. i), b u t he is too busy a m an, harassed and fretted, to feel tragical for long, and he dies in his bed, carew orn b u t successful. H otspur was the great loser, H enry V is the great winner, w ho prom ptly claps an extinguisher on that other nonconform ist, Falstaff. It is tim e for a new start, b u t none is open to Shakespeare except a patriotically aggressive w ar abroad. H e is true to history here, b u t m orally the new start is as anachronistic as anything H otspur could think of; it leads to nothing better than his pursuit o f ‘h o n o u r’, or fame. W e have gone round in a circle and got back to w here w e began w ith T albot trying to conquer France; only H enry’s rodo­ m ontade sometimes reaches a better standard. T here m ust have been in Shakespeare’s m ake-up a fund o f hopeful cheerfulness. It had his personal success, as w riter and m oney-m aker, if n o t in all other respects, to prop it; also an abiding interest in com m on h um anity and sym pathy w ith its flounderings, acquired earlier perhaps by life in a setting like Stratford rather than in London. His favourite im age from nature was sunrise, as in the break o f day before Bosw orth (R.HI V.iii.86-7), or D on Pedro’s w elcom e to daw n after the nocturnal vigil in Much Ado about Nothing (V.iii). Y et Shakespeare has been called ‘the great pessimist’ (Clark xvi). His Com edies show copiously how foolish, and selfish, hu m an beings can be; his Histories show how dreadful, and how dreadfully unfortunate, they can be. T here is a strong infusion o f barbarity in a com edy like the Dream, and even m ore o f folly in a H istory like Henry IV. In the Com edies the deity invoked is Love, b u t from the first w ith no w holehearted faith in its bona Jides; in the Histories, faith in m onarchy is und er varied strains. T w o opposite pictures o f England flit through the Histories: an ideal one o f w hat the country m ight be, a gloom y one o f w hat it is. T hey com e together in G aunt’s great speech. O n the w hole England is being w eighed in the balance and found wanting. H enry V’s predatory spring across the C hannel could be no escape; Falstaff’s w it could n o t give com edy a new lease o f life, and it was no p art o f his vocation to set things right in a bad w orld, except by hastening its disintegration. Historical dram a m ust take the road towards Tragedy; C om edy m ust move Shakespeare was far from being alone in m oving into a landscape u n d er louring skies. As L.C. Knights says, ‘a particular kind o f m elan­ choly’ was settling on English literature about 1600, and its root cause lay in social conditions (315, 323); it was no m ere fin de siècle pose. O n e o f its

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accom panim ents was the increasing stir th at religion was m aking about the tu rn o f the century. W ith the em otions it fom ented, the sometimes agonizing self-exam ination it dem anded, it encouraged moods, and concern w ith psychological states, that could help to prepare the soil for B u t feudings am ong rival believers w ere helping m ore than ever to foster doubts about religion, in the em ancipated m inds am ong w hich we can cou n t Shakespeare’s; and freedom from the crutches o f faith, w ith its easy half-answ ers to all questions, was a necessary condition for the dram a’s furth er advance. Shakespeare m ight grope towards a tenuous notio n o f a ‘Providence’, b u t his continuing belief was in m ankind, in spite o f all its sins and imbecilities; a belief w ith o u t w hich tragedy w ould have sunk into nihilism. Spain by contrast teem ed w ith drama, b u t failed to reach genuine tragedy, because faith, guarded by the dragon o f the Inquisition, could never be questioned, at least openly; and because, largely for the same reason, Spain was n o t m oving towards revolution, b u t drifting into decay. In Shakespeare’s w orld Constance’s cry o f ‘Arm, arm, you heavens!’ (KJ Ill.i. 107) could be travestied by Pistol’s bluster, after his cudgelling by Fluellen: ‘All hell shall stir for this!’ (H .V V .i.68) Shakespeare was to attain his full tragic vision at a tim e w hen England was about to enter on the decades o f approach to revolution. These led n o t to an explosion like that o f 1789, swift and sudden, b u t to a protracted civil w ar betw een two m inorities. T h e divided national consciousness revealed by this m ust have had com m on roots from m uch earlier w ith the flourishing o f dram a, w hich by its nature divides its stage-folk into factions. T hanks to this division, and because social and econom ic developm ent was still very im m ature, the issues England faced in the 1640s w ere too heavily w rapped up in and disguised by the ghostly counsels o f religion, and substitution o f m oral for social reform. H ence the conflict was destined to be m ore fertile o f hopes and ideas than o f tangible gains. Like the plots o f Shakespeare’s Comedies, the revolution stopped short and left h alf its questions hanging in the air. All the same the ‘G reat Rebellion’ helped to accelerate, and render in large p art irreversible, changes in England that taken together deserve to be called revolutionary. In themselves the events o f the civil wars may be seen, in one light, as symbolic, or allegorical, like the fall o f the Bastille in 1789; or better, as scenes o f a dram a th at gave a hu m an contour to im personal tides o f change. It was a dram a in w hich m en fought w ith passion, b u t w ith little clear sense o f w hat they w ere fighting about, like M atthew A rnold’s ‘ignorant armies clashing by night’. Perhaps a great extent o f w hat m ay be called ‘visible history’, by contrast w ith the larger, subterranean part, has been o f this ‘dram atic’ or symbolic order.

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Index

Adamson, J.SA 129 A ’Larum for London 29 Anabaptism 43 anti-semitism 175, 179, 180-81 Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare) 146, 158 Aristotle 95, 195 Arnold, Matthew 251 As You Like It (Shakespeare) 20, 24, 27, 146, 150, 167, 182-6, 188, 197, 199, 201, 202, 203, 206, 209, 211,212-13, 214, 216, 2 19-32 passim, 234, 236, 240 Auden, W.H. 152-3, 155 Austen, Jane 214

Bacon, Francis 5, 17, 234 Instauratio Magna 8 Baldwin, T.W. 31 William Shakespeare Adapts a Hanging 169 Barber, C.L. 191 Bastard, figure o f 50-52, 77, 89, 98, 103, 106, 119, 125, 249 Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher, Bonduca 96 Bhagavad-gita 125 Bradbrook, M.C. 188 Bradley, A.C. 26, 62, 66, 189 Bradshaw, G. 181 Brecht, Bertolt 12 Bridges, Robert 30 Brooke, Rupert 73 Browning, Robert 30, 153 Burghley, Lord see Cecil, W illiam, Lord Burghley Bush, D. 8 Buder, Martin 26 Buder, Samuel 152, 158 Byron, George Gordon, Lord 30

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Calvert, H. 157 Campbell, LJ3. 10—11, 69 capitalism 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 28, 178, 225 Carlyle, Thomas 214 Castiglione, Baldassare 234 Catholicism 6, 7, 18, 70, 82, 110, 123, 127, 157, 231,232 Cecil, William, Lord Burghley 82, 157 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, Don Quixote 58 Chaplin, Charlie 123 Chapman, George 161 Charles I (King) 77, 232 Chaucer, Geoffrey 9, 14, 102, 147 Church o f England 6, 30, 110, 115, 143, 181, 231-2 Clark, Kenneth 109 class 3, 12, 15, 42, 65, 123, 124, 175, 190, 193, 195, 198, 201 middle 4, 6, 7, 13, 29,7 1 ,9 2 , 153, 171, 180, 181,201,216, 223, 234 nobility as 83, 84, 121, 137, 147, 187, 200, 202, 204, 213, 218, 219, 220, 221,235 wom en as 169 Cohen, Walter 20 Coleridge, S.T. 10, 15, 35, 140 Comedies 119, 120, 137, 138, 154, 158, 165-236, 239, 244, 250, 251 see also specific plays Comedy o f Errors (Shakespeare) 126, 169-70, 196, 198, 199, 201, 203, 205, 206, 207, 209, 213, 222, 225, 226, 227, 234, 240 Conrad, Joseph 9-10 Cook, AJ. 25, 26 Coriolanus (Shakespeare) 11, 70, 135 Court 6, 29, 155, 156, 180,214 Cromwell, Oliver 77, 129

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INDEX Dee, D r John 8 Dekker, Thomas 4 Devereux, Robert, Earl o f Essex 6, 21, 30 Donne, John 156 Dover W ilson, J. 10, 134, 151 Dryden,John 27, 91, 188 Edmund Ironside 134 Eliot, T.S. 30 Elizabeth I (Queen) 5, 6, 21, 29, 30, 48, 52, 62, 64, 75, 76, 79, 82, 89, 119, 123, 147, 152, 158, 171, 174, 190, 228 Elton, W.R. 75 Elyot, Sir Thomas 35 Essex, Earl o f see Devereux, Robert feminism 169, 217 feudalism 38, 50, 51, 55, 71, 74, 80, 84, 86, 87, 92, 96, 97, 101, 106, 108, 109, 116, 123, 124, 139, 161, 181, 189, 207, 219, 223, 224, 248, 249 Fiedler, L.A. 180 Field, John 30 Field, Nathan 30 Fletcher, John, and Francis Beaumont, Bonduca 96 Ford, John, Tis Pity She’s a Whore 139 France 7, 12, 37, 40, 41, 51, 69, 73, 75, 86, 103, 105, 108-9, 117, 123, 140, 223, 228 Fripp, E.I. 10 Goldstone, J.A. 3 Gosson, Stephen 27 Gray, Thomas 147 Greene, Robert 20, 165 Gurr, A. 166 Hall, Edward 67 Hall, Bishop Joseph 180 Hamlet (Shakespeare) 22, 28, 29, 47, 142, 150, 160, 249 Harbage, A. 25, 26 Hazlitt, W illiam 9, 28, 66, 67, 86, 128, 150, 248 Heine, H. 156 Henry IV Part 1 (Shakespeare) 13, 19, 25, 37, 38, 5 4-9, 62, 63, 67, 68, 79, 82, 85, 87, 91—5 passim, 97, 101, 107, 115, 117, 119, 121, 122, 125, 126,156, 181,189, 241, 249-50 Henry IV Part 2 (Shakespeare) 13, 19, 37, 38, 59-67, 68, 79, 80, 82, 89, 9 2 -5 passim, 97,

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259

98, 101, 104, 107, 110, 113, 114, 115, 117, 122-6 passim, 161-2, 167, 190, 241, 244, 250 Henry V (King) 75 Henry V (Shakespeare) 11, 38, 39, 40,48, 54, 57, 66, 67-74, 76, 79, 82, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 109, 115,116,118, 122, 123, 126, 127, 141, 156, 180, 182, 183, 199, 236, 248, 250, 251 Henry VI Part 1 (Shakespeare) 38, 40-41, 42, 47, 60, 8 3 -6 passim, 88, 90, 96, 97, 98, 103-6 passim, 109, 110, 111, 120, 123, 124, 248 Henry VI Part 2 (Shakespeare) 38, 40, 41-4, 47, 60, 7 6 ,8 1 -6 passim, 88, 90, 96,104, 105, 108, 109, 111, 112, 118, 119, 242, 248 Henry VI Part 3 (Shakespeare) 20, 37, 40, 44 -5 , 47, 60, 64, 76, 78, 79, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 96, 98, 99, 104, 105, 111, 112, 116, 118, 119, 240, 241, 242, 243, 248-9 Henry VII (King) 41, 48 Henry VIII (Shakespeare) 35 Henslowe, Philip 28 Herbert, W illiam, Earl o f Pembroke 157 Heywood, Thomas 106 History plays 10, 11, 13, 29, 35-129, 133-6 passim, 140, 165, 166, 167, 170, 201, 204, 209, 214, 218, 226, 227, 228, 234, 235, 239, 242-3, 249-51 see also specific plays Hitler, Adolf, Table Talk 36 Holinshed, R , Chronicles 36, 60, 70, 87, 96, 245 Holland 13, 77, 169, 228 honour 15, 57, 64, 65, 71, 73, 84, 94, 122, 127, 133, 142, 187, 213, 229, 234, 250 Hooker, R 25 Horace 154 Hutchinson, Lucy 245

Ibsen, Henrik 71 individualism 5, 14, 15, 72 Ireland 7, 69, 70, 74, 109, 126, 127, 128

James I (King) 20, 41, 69, 93, 128, 158, 205, 245 James II (King) 81 Johnson, Samuel 191 Jonson, Ben 21, 31 Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) 53, 90, 121, 249

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INDEX

KingJohn (Shakespeare) 21, 37, 38, 45, 4 8-52, 59, 68, 75, 76, 77, 79, 8 0 -7 passim, 89, 90, 96, 9 7-8, 100, 101,105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 118, 120-21, 123, 125, 240, 245, 249, 251 King Lear (Shakespeare) 44, 54, 160, 183, 247 Knights, L.C. 26, 250 Krieger, E. 3 Kyd, Thomas 20 The Spanish Tragedy 133 Lamb, Charles 46 Landor, Walter Savage 155 Lanier, Emilia 157 Laurel, Stan and Oliver Hardy, Our Relations 196 Lee, Sidney 67, 152, 153, 158, 226 Legatt, A. 67 Levellers 13 Levi, Peter 147, 151, 182 Levin, R. 191, 192 Lifshitz, I.M. 12 literacy 8, 43 Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare) 20, 25, 152, 165, 166, 167, 170-72, 183, 186, 188, 194, 198, 199, 201, 203, 204, 208-11 passim, 215, 216-17, 221, 222, 224, 2 28-32 passim, 240, 241, 248 Lucrece (Shakespeare) 145, 147-50, 154, 156 Lukács, Georg 9, 244 Luther, Martin 206 Lyly,John 165 Macbeth (Shakespeare) 35, 47, 110, 118, 121, 148, 150, 154, 181,249 Machiavelli, Niccolo 7, 29, 46, 81, 112 Discourses 85 Malory, Sir Thomas 102 Marlowe, Christopher 20, 27, 165 TheJew ofMalta 133, 134 Tamburlaine 8, 16, 36-7, 81, 147 Marx, Karl 140 Mary Stewart (Queen o f Scots) 77 Mary Tudor (Queen) 6, 108 Massinger, Philip 16, 112 Maugham, Somerset 15 Measurefor Measure (Shakespeare) 143 The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare) 11, 12, 22, 31, 80, 133, 149, 166, 167, 175-83, 186, 188,192, 195,198, 199, 202, 205, 207, 212, 213, 214, 219, 220-7 passim, 229, 233, 235-6

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Meres, Francis 151 The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare) 30, 122, 166,188-90, 199, 202, 206, 207, 208, 210, 219, 221, 225, 227, 228, 230, 231,234 A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare) 25, 136, 146, 148, 165, 167, 173-5, 183, 198, 199, 202, 205, 207, 208, 210, 212, 218, 223, 224, 227, 228, 230, 231, 236, 239, 240, 241,250 The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan) 200 Milton, John 10, 17, 81, 156, 195 Paradise Lost 35 Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) 16 Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de 7, 64, 109 morality plays 10, 46 More, Thomas 46, 245 History o f Richard III 87 Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare) 90, 167, 186-8, 193, 195, 197, 201, 206-11 passim, 215, 220, 225, 227, 228, 230-31, 241,250 Muir, Kenneth 10,18, 26 Murry, J.M. 151, 175 Nashe, Thomas 29, 58, 82, 105, 107, 165, 201,244, 245 nationalism 43, 57, 71, 103, 104-109, 127, 135 O ’Loughlin, S. 18 Oresteia (Aeschylus) 75 Othello (Shakespeare) 16, 50, 63, 136, 138, 159,192 Our Relations (Laurel and Hardy) 196 Ovid 7, 185, 195, 208 Palmer, J. 10 Peele, George 165 Pericles (Shakespeare) 217 Perkins, W illiam 30, 235 Plautus 196 Pope, Alexander 10 popular culture 25 Pride and Prejudice (Austen) 156 Prior, M L. 16 Puritanism 6, 7, 22, 25, 28, 30, 65,71, 180, 193, 195,214, 232, 235, 241 Pushkin, Aleksander 16 Rabelais, François 200 Raleigh, Walter 101 History of the World 8

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INDEX The Rape ofLucrece see Lucrece religion 109-16, 134, 139, 143, 155, 206, 231,241,251 see also Catholicism; Church o f England; Puritanism Rhodes, Cecil 108 Richard II (Shakespeare) 29, 30, 37, 38, 42, 47, 5 2-4, 55, 58, 73, 76, 77, 80, 81, 83, 85, 8 6 ,9 1 ,9 2 , 94, 104, 113-14, 115, 117, 121, 126, 127, 135, 150, 161, 239, 249 Richard III (Shakespeare) 16, 37, 45-8, 49, 63, 71, 72, 76, 78, 79, 80, 8 3 -7 passim, 90, 91, 96, 99, 105, 106, 110-13 passim, 116-17, 120, 124, 125, 134, 181, 242, 243, 245, 247,249 Richard III (King) 24 Rob Roy (Scott) 243 Romeo andJuliet (Shakespeare) 19, 20, 87, 117, 136-44, 149, 167, 239, 244 Rossini, G. 31 Rossiter, A.P. 25 Rowse, A.L. 8, 157 Ruskin,John 165 Saintsbury, G. 10, 31, 147, 188 Salingar, L. 175 Schiller, J.C.F. von 36 Schopenhauer, Arthur 93 Schiicking, LL. 53 Scotland 126, 128-9, 140 Scott, Sir Walter 16, 28, 31, 108, 142 Rob Roy 243 Seneca 133 Shakespeare, W illiam, passim; and see under titles of individual works Shaw, George Bernard 71 Shelley, P3 . 154, 233 Sidney, Sir Philip 27, 30, 151, 159 Defence of Poesy 152 Smallwood, R.L. 37 Sonnets (Shakespeare) 29, 60, 149, 151-62, 170, 185, 198, 201, 224, 244, 245 Southampton, Earl o f see Wriothesley, Henry, Earl o f Southampton Spain 7, 36, 70, 128, 143, 169, 170, 179 Spenser, Edmund 58, 127, 156 The Faerie Queene 8, 174, 243 Spurgeon, Caroline 11 the State 81, 82, 87, 107, 110, 111, 115, 248 The Taming o f the Shrew (Shakespeare) 25, 145, 168-9, 195, 198, 201, 202, 205-8

Shakespeare Poet and Citizen.indd

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261

passim, 211, 218, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227, 229 Tawney, R.H. 9 The Tempest (Shakespeare) 19, 138, 139, 143 Tennyson, Alfred Lord 30 Thackeray, W illiam 46 theatre 6, 12, 20, 22, 24-31, 145, 153, 161, 165, 241,251 Tillyard, E.M W . 72, 89 Tilney, Sir Edmund 29 Timon of Athens (Shakespeare) 236, 247 Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare) 27, 133-5, 147 Tragedies 133-44, 150, 247-51 see also specific plays Travers, Ben 196 Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare) 29, 35, 150 Trollope, Anthony 46 The Kellys and the OKellys 225 The Troublesome Raigne of John King of England 49, 50 Tucker, T.G. 151, 152 Turgenev, Ivan 9 Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) 31, 148, 166, 167, 190-94, 196, 198, 199-200, 201, 211, 212, 214, 216, 218, 219, 226, 228-35 passim, 240, 241 Two Gentlemen o f Verona (Shakespeare) 13, 19, 20, 172-3, 181, 182, 192, 196, 197, 198, 202-13 passim, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 224, 229, 230, 231,240 Vane, Sir Henry 24 Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare) 145-7, 190, 215,228 Wait, R.J.C. 157 Wales 126-7, 128, 140 warfare 95-104, 137, 228-30, 234, 249-51 Wars o f the Roses 5, 24, 36, 41, 79, 86, 106, 124, 129, 243, 248 Whitman, W alt 123 W illiam o f Orange 123 W ilson, J.D. 102 W ilson, Robert 4 The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare) 35, 179 Wodehouse, P.G. 102 wom en 116-23, 136, 148, 152, 168-9, 173, 176, 186-8, 191, 197, 201-10 passim, 214-17, 235 Wriothesley, Henry, Earl o f Southampton 21, 145, 157, 159 Yeats, W 3 . 24

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