An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway Part 14

Or, compare the violent outburst against drunkenness in _Hamlet_ Act 1, Sc. 4, and the stern warning against the same vice in _Oth.e.l.lo_, where, indeed, Ca.s.sius' weakness for strong drink is the immediate occasion of the tragic complication. In like manner, Shakespeare moralizes against lawless love in the _Merry Wives_, in _Troilus and Cressida_, in _Hamlet_, in _Lear_.

On the other hand, Shakespeare never allows artistic scruples to stand in the way of exalting simple, domestic virtues. Simple conjugal fidelity is one of the glories of Hamlet's ill.u.s.trious father and of the stern, old Roman, Coriola.n.u.s; the young prince, Malcolm, is as chaste and innocent as the young barbarians of whom Tacitus tells.

In a final section, Collin connects this view of Hamlet which he has developed in his essay on _Hamlet_ and the Sonnets, with the theory of human civilization which his book so suggestively advances.

The great tragedies from _Hamlet_ to _Timon of Athens_ are not autobiographical in the sense that they are reflections of Shakespeare's own concrete experience. They are not the record of a bitter personal pessimism. In the years when they were written Shakespeare was contented and prosperous. He restored the fortunes of his family and he was hailed as a master of English without a peer. It is therefore a priori quite unlikely that the tragic atmosphere of this period should go back to purely personal disappointments. The case is more likely this: Shakespeare had grown in power of sympathy with his fellows and his time. He had become sensitive to the needs and sorrows of the society about him. He could put himself in the place of those who are sick in mind and heart. And in consequence of this he could preach to this generation the simple gospel of right living and show to them the psychic weakness whence comes all human sorrow.

And through this expansion of his ethical consciousness what had he gained? Not merely a fine insight as in _Macbeth_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, and _Coriola.n.u.s_, an insight which enables him to treat with comprehending sympathy even great criminals and traitors, but a high serenity and steady poise which enables him to write the romances of his last years--_Cymbeline_, _A Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_. He had come to feel that human life, after all, with its storms, is a little thing, a dream and a fata morgana, which soon must give place to a permanent reality:

We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

In 1904 Collin wrote in _Nordisk Tidskrift for Vetenskap, Konst och Industri_[23] a most suggestive article on Hamlet. He again dismisses the widely accepted theory of a period of gloom and increasing pessimism as baseless. The long line of tragedies cannot be used to prove this.

They are the expression of a great poet's desire to strengthen mankind in the battle of life.

[23: This article is reprinted in _Det Geniale Menneske_ above referred to. It forms the second of a group of essays in which Collin a.n.a.lyzes the work of Shakespeare as the finest example of the true contribution of genius to the progress and culture of the race. Preceding the study of _Hamlet_ is a chapter called _The Shakespearean Controversy_, and following it is a study of Shakespeare the Man. This is in three parts, the first of which is a reprint of an article in _Samtiden_ (1901).

In _Det Geniale Menneske_ Collin defines civilization as that higher state which the human race has attained by means of "psychic organs"--superior to the physical organs. The psychic organs have been created by the human intellect and they are controlled by the intellect. Had man been dependent upon the physical organs solely, he would have remained an animal. His psychic organs have enabled him to create instruments, tangible, such as tools and machines; intangible, such as works of art.

These are psychic organs and with their aid man has become a civilized being.

The psychic organs are the creation of the man of genius. To create such organs is his function. The characteristics, then, of the genius are an immense capacity for sympathy and an immense surplus of power; sympathy, that he may know the needs of mankind; power, that he may fas.h.i.+on those great organs of life by which the race may live and grow.

In the various chapters of his book, Collin a.n.a.lyzes in an illuminating way the life and work of Wergeland, Ibsen, and Bjrnson as typical men of genius whose expansive sympathy gave them insight and understanding and whose indefatigable energy wrought in the light of their insight mighty psychic organs of cultural progress.

He comes then to Shakespeare as the genius par excellence. The chapter on the _Shakespearean Controversy_ gives first a survey of the development of modern scientific literary criticism from Herder to Taine and Saint Beuve. He goes on to detail the application of this method to the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare. Furnivall, Spalding, and Brandes have attempted to trace the genesis and the chronology of the plays. They would have us believe that the series of tragedies--_Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _Lear_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _Coriola.n.u.s_, and _Timon_ are the records of an increasing bitterness and pessimism. Brandes and Frank Harris, following Thomas Tyler have, on the basis of the sonnets, constructed a fascinating, but quite fantastic romance.

Vagaries such as these have caused some critics, such as Sidney Lee and Bierfreund, to declare that it is impossible on the basis of the plays to penetrate to Shakespeare the man. His work is too purely objective. Collin is not willing to admit this. He maintains that the scientific biographical method of criticism is fundamentally sound. But it must be rationally applied. The sequence which Brandes has set up is quite impossible. Goswin Knig, in 1888, applying the metrical tests, fixed the order as follows: _Hamlet_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _Measure for Measure_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _Timon_, and _Lear_, and, in another group, _Macbeth_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, and _Coriola.n.u.s_. These results are confirmed by Bradley in his _Shakespearean Tragedy_.

Collin accepts this chronology. A careful study of the plays in this order shows a striking community of ethical purpose between the plays of each group. In the plays of the first group, the poet a.s.sails with all his mighty wrath what to him seems the basest of all wickedness, treachery. It is characteristic of these plays that none of the villains attains the dignity of a great tragic hero. They are without a virtue to redeem their faults.

Shakespeare's conception of the good and evil in these plays approaches a medieval dualism. In the plays of the second group the case is altered. There is no longer a crude dualism in the interpretation of life. Shakespeare has entered into the soul of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, of Antony and Cleopatra, of Coriola.n.u.s, and he has found underneath all that is weak and sinful and diseased, a certain n.o.bility and grandeur. He can feel with the regicides in Macbeth; he no longer exposes and scourges; he understands and sympathizes. The clouds of gloom and wrath have cleared away, and Shakespeare has achieved a serenity and a fine poise.

It follows, then, that the theory of a growing pessimism is untenable. We must seek a new line of evolution.]

We need dwell but little on Collin's sketch of the "Vorgeschichte"

of _Hamlet_, for it contributes nothing that is new. _Hamlet_ was a characteristic "revenge tragedy" like the "Spanish Tragedy" and a whole host of others which had grown up in England under the influence, direct and indirect, of Seneca. He points out in a very illuminating way how admirably the "tragedy of blood" fitted the times. Nothing is more characteristic of the renaissance than an intense joy in living. But exactly as the appet.i.te for mere existence became keen, the tragedy of death gained in power. The most pa.s.sionate joy instinctively calls up the most terrible sorrow. There is a sort of morbid caution here--a feeling that in the moment of happiness it is well to harden oneself against the terrible reaction to come. Conversely, the contemplation of suffering intensifies the joys of the moment. At all events, in such a time, emotions become stronger, colors are brighter, and contrasts are more violent. The "tragedy of blood," therefore, was more than a learned imitation. Its sound and fury met the need of men who lived and died intensely.

The primitive _Hamlet_ was such a play. Shakespeare took over, doubtless with little change, both fable and characters, but he gave to both a new spiritual content. Hamlet's revenge gained a new significance. It is no longer a fight against the murderer of his father, but a battle against "a world out of joint." No wonder that a simple duty of blood revenge becomes a task beyond his powers. He sees the world as a ma.s.s of faithlessness, and the weight of it crushes him and makes him sick at heart. This is the tragedy of Hamlet--his will is paralyzed and, with it, his pa.s.sion for revenge. He fights a double battle, against his uncle and against himself. The conviction that Shakespeare, and not his predecessor, has given this turn to the tragedy is sustained by the other plays of the same period, _Lear_ and _Timon of Athens_. They exhibit three different stages of the same disease, a disease in which man's natural love of fighting is turned against himself.

Collin denies that the tragedy of Hamlet is that of a contemplative soul who is called upon to solve great practical problems. What right have we to a.s.sume that Hamlet is a weak, excessively reflective nature? Hamlet is strong and regal, capable of great, concrete attainments. But he can do nothing except by violent and eccentric starts; his will is paralyzed by a fatal sickness. He suffers from a disease not so uncommon in modern literature--the tendency to see things in the darkest light. Is it far from the pessimism of Hamlet to the pessimism of Schopenhauer and Tolstoi? Great souls like Byron and Heine and Ibsen have seen life as Hamlet saw it, and they have struggled as he did, "like wounded warriors against the miseries of the times."

But from this we must not a.s.sume that Shakespeare himself was pessimistic. To him Hamlet's state of mind was pathological. One might as well say that he was a murderer because he wrote _Macbeth_, a misogynist because he created characters like Isabella and Ophelia, a wife murderer because he wrote _Oth.e.l.lo_, or a suicide because he wrote _Timon of Athens_ as to say that he was a pessimist because he wrote _Hamlet_--the tragedy of an irresolute avenger. This interpretation is contradicted by the very play itself. "At Hamlet's side is the thoroughly healthy Horatio, almost a standard by which his abnormality may be measured. At Lear's side stand Cordelia and Kent, faithful and sound to the core. If the hater of mankind, Timon, had written a play about a rich man who was betrayed by his friends, he would unquestionably have portrayed even the servants as scoundrels. But Shakespeare never presented his characters as all black. Pathological states of mind are not presented as normal."

Collin admits, nevertheless, that there may be something autobiographical in the great tragedies. Undoubtedly Shakespeare felt that there was an iron discipline in beholding a great tragedy. To live it over in the soul tempered it, gave it firmness and resolution, and it is not impossible that the sympathetic, high-strung Shakespeare needed just such discipline. But we must not forget the element of play.

All art is, in a sense, a game with images and feelings and human utterances. "In all this century-old discussion about the subtlety of Hamlet's character critics have forgotten that a piece of literature is, first of all, a festive sport with clear pictures, finely organized emotions, and eloquent words uttered in moments of deep feeling." The poet who remembers this will use his work to drive from the earth something of its gloom and melancholy. He will strengthen himself that he may strengthen others.

I have tried to give an adequate synopsis of Collin's article but, in addition to the difficulties of translating the language, there are the difficulties, infinitely greater, of putting into definite words all that the Norwegian hints at and suggests. It is not high praise to say that Collin has written the most notable piece of Shakespeare criticism in Norway; indeed, nothing better has been written either in Norway or Denmark.

The study of Shakespeare in Norway was not, as the foregoing shows, extensive or profound, but there were many Norwegian scholars who had at least considerable information about things Shakespearean. No great piece of research is to be recorded, but the stimulating criticism of Caspari, Collin, Just Bing, and Bjrnson is worth reading to this day.

The same comment may be made on two other contributions--Wiesener's _Almindelig Indledning til Shakespeare_ (General Introduction to Shakespeare), published as an introduction to his school edition of _The Merchant of Venice_,[24] and Collin's _Indledning_ to his edition of the same play. Both are frankly compilations, but both are admirably organized, admirably written, and full of a personal enthusiasm which gives the old, sometimes hackneyed facts a new interest.

[24. _Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice. Med Anmaerkninger og Indledning_. Udgivet af G. Wiesener. Kristiania, 1880.]

Wiesener's edition was published in 1880 in Christiania. The text is that of the Cambridge edition with a few necessary cuttings to adapt it for school reading. His introduction covers fifty-two closely printed pages and gives, within these limits, an exceedingly detailed account of the English drama, the Elizabethan stage, Shakespeare's life and work, and a careful study of _The Merchant of Venice_ itself. The editor does not pretend to originality; he has simply tried to bring together well ascertained facts and to present them in the simplest, clearest fas.h.i.+on possible. But the _Indledning_ is to-day, thirty-five years after it was written, fully up to the standard of the best annotated school editions in this country or in England. It is, of course, a little dry and schematic; that could hardly be avoided in an attempt to compress such a vast amount of information into such a small compa.s.s, but, for the most part, the details are so clear and vivid that their ma.s.s rather heightens than blurs the picture.

From the fact that nothing in this introduction is original, it is hardly necessary to criticise it at length; all that may be demanded is a short survey of the contents. The whole consists of two great divisions, a general introduction to Shakespeare and a special introduction to _The Merchant of Venice_. The first division is, in turn, subdivided into seven heads: 1. _The Pre-Shakespearean Drama_.

2. _The Life of Shakespeare_. 3. _Shakespeare's Works--Order and Chronology_. 4. _Shakespeare as a Dramatist_. 5. _Shakespeare's Versification_. 6. _The Text of Shakespeare_. 7. _The Theatres of Shakespeare's Time_. This introduction fills thirty-nine pages and presents an exceedingly useful compendium for the student and the general reader. The short introduction to the play itself discusses briefly the texts, the sources, the characters, Shakespeare's relation to his material and, finally, the meaning of the play. The last section is, however, a translation from Taine and not Wiesener's at all.

The text itself is provided with elaborate notes of the usual text-book sort. In addition to these there is, at the back, an admirable series of notes on the language of Shakespeare. Wiesener explains in simple, compact fas.h.i.+on some of the differences between Elizabethan and modern English and traces these phenomena back to their origins in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English. Inadequate as they are, these linguistic notes cannot be too highly praised for the conviction of which they bear evidence--that a complete knowledge of Shakespeare without a knowledge of his language is impossible. To the student of that day these notes must have been a revelation.

The second text edition of a Shakespearean play in Norway was Collin's _The Merchant of Venice_.[25] His introduction covers much the same ground as Wiesener's, but he offers no sketch of the Elizabethan drama, of Shakespeare's life, or of his development as a dramatic artist. On the other hand, his critical a.n.a.lysis of the play is fuller and, instead of a mere summary, he gives an elaborate exposition of Shakespeare's versification.

[25. _The Merchant of Venice_. Med Indledning og Anmaerkninger ved Chr. Collin. Kristiania. 1902.]

Collin is a critic of rare insight. Accordingly, although he says nothing new in his discussion of the purport and content of the play, he makes the old story live anew. He images Shakespeare in the midst of his materials--how he found them, how he gave them life and being. The section on Shakespeare's language is not so solid and scientific as Wiesener's, but his discussion of Shakespeare's versification is both longer and more valuable than Wiesener's fragmentary essay, and Shakespeare's relation to his sources is treated much more suggestively.

He points out, first of all, that in Shakespeare's "cla.s.sical" plays the characters of high rank commonly use verse and those of low rank, prose.

This is, however, not a law. The real principle of the interchange of prose and verse is in the emotions to be conveyed. Where these are tense, pa.s.sionate, exalted, they are communicated in verse; where they are ordinary, commonplace, they are expressed in prose. This rule will hold both for characters of high station and for the most humble. In Act I, for example, Portia speaks in prose to her maid "obviously because Shakespeare would lower the pitch and reduce the suspense. In the following scene, the conversation between Shylock and Ba.s.sanio begins in prose. But as soon as Antonio appears, Shylock's emotions are roused to their highest pitch, and his speech turns naturally to verse--even though he is alone and his speech an aside. A storm of pa.s.sions sets his mind and speech in rhythmic motion. And from that point on, the conversations of Shylock, Ba.s.sanio, and Antonio are in verse. In short, rhythmic speech when there is a transition to strong, more dramatic feeling."

The use of prose or verse depends, then, on the kind and depth of feeling rather than on the characters. "In Act II Launcelot Gobbo and his father are the only ones who employ prose. All the others speak in verse--even the servant who tells of Ba.s.sanio's arrival. Not only that, but he speaks in splendid verse even though he is merely announcing a messenger:"

"Yet have I not seen So likely an amba.s.sador of love," etc.

Again, in _Lear_, the servant who protests against Cornwall's cruelty to Gloster, nameless though he is, speaks in n.o.ble and stately lines:

Hold your hand, my lord; I've served you ever since I was a child; But better service have I never done you Than now to bid you hold.

When the dramatic feeling warrants it, the humblest rise to the highest poetry. The renaissance was an age of deeper, mightier feelings than our own, and this intense life speaks in verse, for only thus can it adequately express itself.

All this is romantic enough. But it is to be doubted if the men of the renaissance were so different from us that they felt an instinctive need of bursting into song. The causes of the efflorescence of Elizabethan dramatic poetry are not, I think, to be sought in such subtleties as these.

Collin further insists that the only way to understand Shakespeare's versification is to understand his situations and his characters. Rules avail little. If we do not _feel_ the meaning of the music, we shall never understand the meaning of the verse. Shakespeare's variations from the normal blank verse are to be interpreted from this point of view.

Hence what the metricists call "irregularities" are not irregularities at all. Collin examines the more important of these irregularities and tries to account for them.

1. Short broken lines as in I, 1-5: _I am to learn._ Antonio completes this line by a shrug of the shoulders or a gesture. "It would be remarkable," concludes Collin, "if there were no interruptions or pauses even though the characters speak in verse." Another example of this breaking of the line for dramatic purposes is found in I, 3-123 where Shylock suddenly stops after "say this" as if to draw breath and arrange his features. (Sic!)

2. A verse may be abnormally long and contain six feet. This is frequently accidental, but in _M of V_ it is used at least once deliberately--in the oracular inscriptions on the caskets:

"Who chooseth me shall gain what men desire."

"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves."

"Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he has."

Collin explains that putting these formulas into Alexandrines gives them a stiffness and formality appropriate to their purpose.

3. Frequently one or two light syllables are added to the close of the verse:

Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster.

or