Age of Shakespeare- Drama The Literary Lighthouse

The Literary Lighthouse
Literature Study Guide Literary Movement
THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE: DRAMA

THE FATHER OF ENGLISH DRAMA (1564-1616)
Literature in Elizabethan Age (1564-1616) l English Literature
William Shakespeare's Life
"William Shakespeare was born on or about the 23rd April, 1564, at

Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. He was the son of a prosperous tradesman of
the town, who a little later became its High Bailiff or Mayor. Though there is no
actual record of the fact, it is practically certain that, like other Stratford boys of
his class, he went to the local Grammar School, an excellent institution of kind,
where he was taught Latin and Arithmetic. Financial misfortunes presently
overtook his father, and when he was about fourteen, he was taught that he
might help the family by earning money on his own account. Of the nature of his
employment, however, we know nothing. In his 19th year he married Anne
Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior, the daughter of a well-to-do yeoman
of the neighboring village of Shottery. This marriage was hasty and ill-advised
and appears to have been unhappy. Three children were born to him : Susannah,
and the twins, Judith and Hamnet. Tradition says that meanwhile he fell into
bad company, and that a deer-stealing escaped in the woods of Charlecote Hall
obliged him to fly from home. There may or may not be truth in this story—we
cannot tell. It is certain that a few years after his marriage—roughly, about
1587—he left his town to seek his fortunes in London. At this time the drama was
gaining rapidly in popularity through the work of the University Wits.
Shakespeare soon turned to the stage, and became first an actor, and then
(though without ceasing to be an actor) a playwright. An ill natured reference to
him in a pamphlet written by Greene on his death-bed, shows that in 1592 he
was well known as a successful author. He remained in London upwards of
twenty years after this, working hard, producing on an average a couple of
plays a year, and growing steadily in fame and wealth. He became a
shareholder in two of the leading theaters of the time, the Globe and the Black
friars, and purchased property in Stratford and London. But the years which
brought prosperity also brought domestic sorrows. His only son died in 1596; his
father in 1601 ; his younger brother Edmund, also an actor, in 1607 ; his mother
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in 1608 Then between 1610 and 1612 he retired to Stratford, where he had
bought a house—the largest in the town—known as New Place. His elder
daughter had already (1607) married Dr. John Hall, who was later celebrated as
a physician, on February 10, 1616, Judith became the wife of Thomas Quincey,
whose father had been one of the poet's closest friends. By this time
Shakespeare's health had broken down completely and he died on 23rd April of
that year.”
His Work:
The period of Shakespeare's literary activity, which spans twenty-four years

(1588-1612) is divided into the following four sub-periods:
(i) The First Period (1588-96): It is a period of early experimentation. In this
period Shakespeare first retouched and revised Titus Andronicus and the First
Part of Henry V/. Love's Labour Lost (1589-90) is the first of his original plays. It
is a social extravaganza. It was followed by The Comedy of Errors (1592), a
rollicking farce, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1591), a sentimental romance,
and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1594-95), a fantastic romance.
Shakespeare's first love tragedy, Romeo and Juliet (1592) is rich in youthful
imagination but lacks in the grandeur and breadth of later tragedies. He was
also influenced by the patriotic feeling represented in Marlowe and Peele, and
under this influence he began his great series of historical plays with Richard II
and Richard III. His first period came to an end with King John about 1596.
Shakespeare's early verse—The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis — also
belong to this period.
Shakespeare's early dramatic work is markedly immature. It has little depth of
thought or characterisation. The blank verse is stiff and rime is prominent in the
dialogue. However, these plays bear the mark of genius that came to full
flowering in the subsequent periods.
(ii) The Second Period (1596-1600): It is a period of rapid growth and
development. Shakespeare wrote his great comedies and chronicle plays during
this period. The works of this period are The Merchant of Venice in which
Shakespeare attained entire mastery over his art, The Taming of the Shrew, a
pure comedy full of wit, The Merry Wives of Windsor, another fine comedy, a trio
of famous love comedies —Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and The
,Twelfth Night; Henry IV, Parts I and II, and Henry V, the two historical plays. All
these plays show more careful and artistic work, better plots, greater knowledge
of the world and human nature, greater freedom and flexibility in blank verse,
and deeper and more penetrating knowledge of human character and humor.
(iii) The Third Period (1601-08): It is a period of Shakespeare's supreme
masterpieces, a time characterized by the full maturity of his dramatic talent,
and by gloom and depression. The gloom and sadness which pervade this
period are attributed to "some personal experience, coupled with the political
misfortunes of his friends, Essex and Southampton ''. Shakespeare is
preoccupied with the darker side of human experience. It is a period of great

tragedies-Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello and Julius Caesar, and of bitter
and somber comedies —All's Well That Ends Well, Measure For Measure and
Troilus and Cressida. Stopford A. Brooke writes about this period: "The darker
sins of men; the unpitying fate which slowly gathers round and falls on mistakes
and crimes, on ambition, luxury, and pride; the avenging wrath of conscience,
the cruelty and punishment of weakness; the treachery, lust, jealousy,
ingratitude, madness of men, the follies of the great and the fickleness of the
mob, are all, with a thousand other varying moods and passions, painted, and
felt as his own while he painted them, during this stern time."
(iv) The Fourth Period (1608-1613): Shakespeare's last period opens with
Antony and Cleopatra, a love tragedy which shows weaker dramatic grip than
its immediate predecessors. Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Henry VIII and
Pericles were also written during this period.
What distinguishes Shakespeare's last period is the reawakening of his first love
romance in Cymbeline, The Tempest and The Winter's Tale. These three plays
known as the dramatic romances are full of "the gentle and loving calm of one
who has known sin and sorrow and fate, but has risen above them into peaceful
victory". Hudson writes: "In these last plays the groundwork is still furnished by
tragic passion, but the evil is no longer permitted to have its way, but is
controlled and conquered by the good. A very tender and gracious tone prevails
in them throughout. At the same time they show very fully the decline of
Shakespeare's dramatic power. They are often careless in construction and
unsatisfactory in characterisation, while in style and versification they will not
bear comparison with the work of the preceding ten years."
Shakespearean Comedy
Shakespeare, the crown of English dramatists, was the first to write romantic
comedies in English drama. His comedies are classified into the following three
categories:
(i) The Early Comedies: They are The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour Lost and
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. These plays show signs of immaturity, the plots
are less original, the characters are less finished and the style is also less
vigorous. They are full of humor and fun, but the humor lacks the wide human
sympathy of his mature comedies.
(ii) The Mature Comedies: Shakespeare's comic genius finds its finest
expression in Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice
and As You Like It. These plays are full of love and romance, vigor and vitality,
versatility of humor, humanity and well-developed characters.
(iii) The Somber Tragedies: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure For Measure and
Troilus and Cressida belong to the period of great tragedies. So, these comedies
have a somber and tragic tone. Edward Albert writes: "They reflect a
cynical,-disillusioned attitude to life, and a fondness for objectionable
characters and situations. In them Shakespeare displays a savage desire to
expose the falsity of romance and to show the sordid reality of life."

Characteristics of Shakespearean Comedy
Shakespearean comedy is preeminently romantic. In writing his comedies

Shakespeare was obviously influenced deeply by Peele, Greene and Lyly. Love's
Labour Lost shows the influence of Lyly, Rosalind is the child of Greene's
imagination as well as of Shakespeare's. The blank verse of these comedies
echoes melodies already devised by his university predecessors and
contemporaries. The main characteristics of Shakespearean comedy are given
below:
(i) Romantic Element: Shakespearean comedy is romantic. The classical units
of time, place and action are not observed in it. Nicoll says: "All these comedies
are bound together by a common bond of romantic treatment. Characters and
scenes alike are viewed through magic casements which transform reality." The
settings are all imaginative. The action takes place in some remote, far-off land,
and not in the familiar English surroundings. Shakespeare transports his readers
and audiences on the viewless wings of poetry to an unhistorical France,
pastoral surroundings of the forest of Arden, to the enchanted shores of Illyria,
to Messina, to ancient Venice or to an ancient forest in Greece. According to
Raleigh the Shakespearean comedy is a "rainbow world of love in idleness". In
these romantic and pastoral surroundings the inhabitants spend their time in
love making.
(ii) Romance and Realism: What distinguishes Shakespearean comedy is the
fine and artistic blending of romance and realism. All his comedies are related
to real life. There are contemporary figures and contemporary fashions in Love's
Labour Lost. Bottom and his companions exist with fairies; Sir Toby Belch and
Sir Andrew are companions of Viola and Olivia; Dogberry and Verges of Hero
and Beatrice. The union of realism and fantasy is the cardinal characteristic of
Shakespearean comedy. The secret of Shakespeare's deft and artistic
juxtaposition of such conflicting characters lies, in the words of Nicoll, "in that
particular form of humor which dominates these plays as well as more riotously
comic Henry IV. This humor, a union of intellect and emotion, irradiates both the
characters and scenes, making romantic the ordinary things of life and making
realistic the most imaginative and improbable characters and events. Through it
the Forest of Arden becomes for us as actual as Epping Forest; through it
Bottom is seen revealed in a halo of imagination which makes him a fit
companion for the delicate fairy queen". Nor are his comedies all laughter;
being true to life, they are full of mirth in funeral and dirge and in marriage.
Shakespeare's characters are real. His dramatic personages are ordinary human
beings, and incidents such as these occur in everyday life. The romantic main
plot and the realistic subplot are harmoniously put together in As You Like It,
Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Charlton writes:
"Shakespearean comedies are not satiric, they are poetic. They are not
conservative, they are creative."
(iii) Love in Shakespearean Comedy: Romantic comedy is mainly a comedy of
love ending with the ringing of the marriage bells. Wooing distinguishes it from

classical or Roman comedy. "Shakespeare and his fellows were Romantic in the
strict sense that they clamored for fuller draughts of the spirit of Romanticism.
As Roman comedy concerns itself with sexual appetite rather than with love, it
is necessarily far less limitedly occupied with young men and girls than is
romantic comedy. The Latin type is realistic, earthy, Shakespeare's poetic,
sentimental, romantic. Plautus is full of sex, Shakespeare is full of love. Plautus
weaves plots of cunning intrigues, Shakespeare chooses cunning talks of wooers
and their wooing."
The entire atmosphere in Shakespearean comedy is surcharged with love. Not

only are the hero and heroine in love, but all are in love. The play ends not with
the celebration of one marriage but with many marriages. The hero and the
heroine fall in love at first sight, as Bassanio and Portia, Orlando and Rosalind,
Beatrice and Benedick, Viola and the Duke.Shakespeare has vividly exhibited
varied manifestations of love in his comedies. In As You Like It he has described
the love at first sight between Orlando and Rosalind, thoughtful love between
Celia and Oliver, pastoral love between Silvius and Phebe, Touchstone and
Audrey. The sentimental love of Duke Orsino for Olivia, who does not love him,
and the foolish fascination of Malvolio for Olivia are presented in Twelfth Night.
Love in Shakespearean comedy is a test by which weaker mortals reveal their
weakness, grosser ones their grossness, and foolish ones their folly. It is
Rosalind who reprieves the poor Shepherd Silvius for following Phebe like foggy
South puffing with wind and rain:
it is such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favored children.
True love in Shakespearean comedy ennobles mankind. Rosalind, Viola and, to a
lesser extent, Beatrice, are Shakespeare's images of the best way of love. "They,
and in whom they inspire love, are Shakespeare's representation of the office of
love to lift mankind to a richer life." The men and women who love truly have
become superb representations of human nature. True love is spiritual. It is a
union of minds and hearts.
His Heroines. The characters of a Shakespearean comedy are kindly,

light-hearted and humorous. They are lovable creatures, who win our
sympathies so that we share their joys and sorrows and wish them all success.
The women especially are winning and charming. They dominate the action and
are always in the front. An array of glittering heroines, bright, beautiful and
witty, enlivens the world of the comedy of Shakespeare. The remark of Ruskin,
"Shakespeare has only heroines and no 'zeroes" is certainly true of his comedies.
In this connection Gordon writes: "All lectures on Shakespeare's comedies tend
to become lectures of Shakespeare's women, for in the comedies they have the
front of the stage".
The world of a Shakespearean comedy is a world made safe for women, a world
in which a girl may be happy and come to full flowering, in which the masculine

element drops its voice. "It is woman, woman all the time". She wins and puts
the man in the right place; no more charming, witty, rebellious and level-headed
young woman ever danced on the stage. Raleigh is all praises for these brilliant
heroines of Shakespeare: "They are the sunlight of the plays, obscured at times
by clouds and storms of melancholy and misdoing, but never subdued or
defeated". They are the spirits of happiness. From Cleopatra to Miranda, he is
equally at home. He has the whole range of femininity at his command. His
young men may be fine and handsome, but when any real business has got to
be done, it is always the woman who does it.
The Popularity of His Comedies. Shakespearean comedy has been loved and
enjoyed in every age and country. Its charm is as fresh as ever even day-to-day.
Its sunny atmosphere, its idyllic nature, its spirit of kindliness, its humanity etc.,
have all combined to endear it to all his readers.
(iv) Disguise: The use of the dramatic device of disguise is common in all the
comedies of Shakespeare. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julia, disguised as
a boy, is employed by the man she loves, as Viola is employed by Orsino. In The
Merchant of Venice, Jessica disguises herself in "the lovely garnish of a boy"
and Portia and Nerissa likewise don masculine attire. In Much Ado About
Nothing, apart from the masked ball, Margaret poses as hero and Hero poses as
her cousin. In As You Like It Rosalind and Celia become Ganymede and Aliena.
In All's Well That Ends Well Helena passes herself off in bed as Diana and in
Measure For Measure Marrana takes Isabella's place.
For women to disguise themselves as boys may have been suggested by the
fact that there were no actresses on the Elizabethan stage. In disguise the boy
actors could easily and naturally play female roles. Secondly, the disguise
enabled Shakespeare to symbolize one of his favorite themes, the contrast
between appearance and reality.
(v) Humour: Humor is the soul of Shakespearean comedy. It arouses thoughtful
laughter. It is full of sympathetic, kind and humane laughter. The French drew
their laughter from situations, the English, at their best, from its characters.
Shakespeare's comic characters, Falstaff and his fellow men illustrate this spirit
of joy and joviality. He can laugh at human follies, faults and failings, but such
laughter is by no means heartless, callous or cynical. Shakespeare's comic muse
is good-natured and magnanimous. His wit lacks malice and his mockery has no
bite. Brilliant wit mingles with kindly mirth and genial humor. Wit comes from
the head, humor from the heart. Shakespeare's wit, while it ranges from word
play to wisdom, is not only astounding, it is also healthy and joyous; it may
dazzle but it may not blind, it may sharpen but it never wounds.
Shakespeare's humor is many-sided. He can employ different kinds of humor
with equal ease and equal command. He can arouse laughter from the
mumblings of a drunkard and the intelligent repartees of the leading women.
The alert wit and bright good sense of Rosalind arouse exquisite pleasure. His all
pervasive spirit of mirth gains much from the presence of the Fool. Bottom and
his companions, Feste, Sir Andrew, Sir Tohy, Touchstone, Dogberry, Verges and
Falstaff are memorable fools in Shakespearean comedy, who not only create

humor and laughter, but they also interlink the main and the subplots, and
provide a running commentary on character and action. Nicoll writes that this
"quality of humor is seen nowhere more plainly than in the character of
Falstaff-- The delineation of Falstaff reveals well the peculiar sympathy which is
inherent in this mood of humor. Falstaff is a braggart, perhaps a coward,
certainly a disreputable old sinner, yet there is hardly anyone who does not feel
for him and sympathize with him. If we regard him in the cold light of reason we
are bound to shun and to condemn him, but no audience ever could regard
Falstaff in the cold light of reason because of the intangible sympathy which
Shakespeare has transferred into his pages. The humor of the man is so broad;
he, like the characters of purely romantic comedies, can laugh not only at
others, but at himself. His intellect is so acute, his sense of fun so highly
developed, that we cannot but take him to our hearts. It is the fact that
Shakespeare has presented Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor without this
humor which makes the majority of readers feel that the latter is an
immeasurably weaker and less interesting play."
(vi) Blending of the Comic and the Tragic Elements: Shakespearean comedy
differs from the classical comedy in the sense that in it the comic and the tragic
elements are commingled. However, the tragic note does not dominate and the
play ends on a note of joy. For example, The Merchant of Venice is pervaded by
the tragic element from the signing of the bond to the end of the trial scene.
Ultimately the play ends happily, as Antonio, whose life has been threatened by
Shylock, feels happy at heart as his life has been saved.
(vii) Music and Song: Since "music is the food of love," Shakespearean comedy
is intensely full of music and songs. Twelfth Night opens with a note of music
which strikes the keynote of the play. Several exquisite and romantic songs are
scattered all over A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It,
Much Ado About Nothing etc.
(viii) The Holed Fortune in Shakespearean Comedy: "The course of true love
never runs smooth." The path of true lovers is beset with difficulties.
Misunderstandings take place. Lovers have to face the hostilities of parents,
friends, or relatives; and consequently, there are many tears and sighs, before
the final union takes place. But all these complications and difficulties are
unexpectedly removed by the benign power of Fortune. As in the Tragedies, so
in the Comedies, Fate takes a human hand in the action. Raleigh says; "Fate, in
the realm of comedy, appears in the milder and more capricious character of
Fortune, whose wheel turns again and again, and vindicates the merry heart."
Dowden remarks that this Fortune of the comedies or circumstance or the
mirthful God, is a kindly and sympathetic being who only enjoys a bit of fun, like
Puck or Ariel, at the expense of poor mortals, but is never unfavorable to them.
(ix) Message of Shakespearean Comedy: Shakespearean comedy radiates the
spirit of humanity and broad vision of life. It is large-hearted in its conception,
sympathetic in its tone and humanitarian in its idealism. Shakespeare's
comedies "do not seem to succeed by reorganizing our responses to life, but by
helping us to a richer experience The richness may derive from the width of

Shakespeare's vision, the liveliness and familiarity from his power to represent
human nature; the whole seems to enhance our experience of life." It is useless
to read a philosophy in Shakespearean comedy. He neither preaches, nor
teaches; he only illuminates. He enriches our experiences of life. Shakespeare is
a good observer of good and evil, making no judgment and proposing no
reform. His comedies exhibit his vision of life, which is "to show virtue her own
face, scorn her image".
1. The Theme of the Tragedies. The theme of a Shakespearean tragedy is the
struggle between Good and evil, resulting in serious convulsion and
disturbances, sorrows, sufferings and deaths. Says Dowden. "Tragedy as
conceived by Shakespeare is concerned with ruin or restoration of the soul and
of the life of man. In other words, its subject is the style of Good and Evil in the
world." It depicts men and women struggling with Evil, often succumbing to it,
and brought to death by it. Through their heroic struggle we realize the immense
spiritual potentiality of man. It is for this reason that Charlton calls
Shakespearean tragedy "the apotheosis (or glorification) of the soul of man." It
is also for this reason that it never leaves behind a depressing effect. It soothes,
consoles and strengthens.
The Melodramatic Element. Before we proceed further with the consideration
of the different characteristics of his tragedies, it would be well to remember
that our dramatist wrote for the stage and not for our arm- chair reading. He
strove to depict "themes essentially stirring and often melodramatic, and that
his primal thought was dramatic effectiveness" (A Nicol). In his tragedies, he
presents a rich series of excitements that is likely to rouse the most apathetic
audience. The themes of all the four great tragedies are sensational. For
example, Macbeth has its witches, its ghosts and apparitions, its murder in a
darkened castle, its drunken tipsy porter, and its thrilling sight; of Lady Macbeth
walking in her sleep. In Hamlet, we have the ghost and the grave-diggers, and
in Othello night alarms and sword-fights. But every one of his tragedies is an
expression of some human passion or failing and its disastrous consequences.
Any discussion of his tragic vision must be primarily concerned with this inner or
higher tragedy, which is the soul or essence, and not with the external
framework of sensationalism.
The Tragic Hero. Shakespearean tragedy is pre-eminently the story of one
person, 'The hero's or at most of two, the hero and the heroine. It is only in the
love tragedies, Rwrzeo and Juliet and Antony and Clepatra, that the heroine is
as much the center of action as the hero. There are, no doubt, a number of other
persons, but the attention is concentrated on the main figure. A typical
Shakespearean tragedy is a single star. The story leads unto and includes the
death of the hero—at the end the stage is often littered with corpses. "It is
essentially a tale of suffering and calamity conducted to death" (Bradley).
A Conspicuous Person. The tragic heroes are all conspicuous persons who
"stand in a high degree." They are either kings or princes, or great military
generals indispensable for the state. Thus Hamlet is a prince, Lear is a king,
Macbeth belongs to the royal family, and is a trusted kinsman and general, and

Othello is a great warrior and brave general. These exalted personages suffer
greatly; their suffering and calamity is exceptional. Their suffering is contrasted
with their previous happiness. The hero is such an important personality that his
fall affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire, and when he falls suddenly
from the height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of the
powerlessness of man and the omnipotence of Fate. This is one of the ways in
which the playwright introduces an element of universality in his tragedies.
An Exceptional Person—Tragic Flaw. The tragic hero is not only a person of
high degree, he also has an exceptional nature. He is built on a grand scale. He
has some passion or obsession which attains in him a terrible force. He has a
marked one sidedness, a strong tendency to act in a particular way. They are all
driven in some one direction by some peculiar interest, object, passion, or habit
of mind. Bradley refers to this trait as the tragic flaw. Thus Macbeth has
"vaulting ambition", Hamlet "nobel inaction", Othello credulity and rashness in
action, and Lear the folly and fondness of old age. Owing to the fault or flaw of
his character, the tragic hero falls from greatness, He errs, and his error joining
with other causes brings on him ruin. In other words, his character issues in
action, or action issues out of his character It is in this sense that "character is
destiny" is true of a Shakespearean tragedy. The character of the hero is
responsible for his actions; and from this point of view they appear to be
instruments shaping their own destiny.
2. Tragic Waste: In Shakespearean tragedy we find the element of tragic waste.
All the exceptional qualities of the protagonists are wasted. At the end of the
tragedy, the Evil does not triumph; it is expelled but at the cost of much that is
good and wholly admirable. The fall of Macbeth does not only mean the death
of evil in him, but also the waste of much that is essentially good and noble. It is
for the welfare of society that Iago be punished, but it also leads to the ruin of
good represented by Othello and Desdemona. In Hamlet and King Lear the
good is also destroyed along with the evil. There is no tragedy in the expulsion
of evil; the tragedy is that it involves the waste of good.
Some Complicating Factors
As a matter of fact, the actions issuing from the character of the hero are
complicated by the following three additional factors:
(a) Some abnormal condition of mind as insanity, somnambulism, or excitable
imagination resulting in hallucinations. Thus King Lear suffers from insanity,
Macbeth has hallucinations, and Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep.
(b) The supernatural, ghosts and witches. The supernatural element is not a
mere illusion of the hero. The witches in Macbeth and the ghost in Hamlet have
an objective existence as they are seen by others also. Further, the supernatural
does contribute to the action, and is often an indispensable part of it. But it is
always placed in closest relation with character. It gives a confirmation and
distinct form to the inner workings of the hero's mind. But it is merely
suggestive; the hero is quite free to accept the suggestion or to reject it. The

hero follows its suggestion because it squares with the evil within his own
bosom. It is in this way that the supernatural is the downfall of the hero.
(c) Chance or accident. In most of the tragedies chance plays a prominent part,
as it does in life itself. Such chance happenings always work against the hero
and quicken his downfall. Macbeth is the only tragedy of Shakespeare from
which chance events are conspicuously absent. The dramatist makes only a
sparing use of such accidents, for any large admission of it would weaken the
causal connection between character and action, and so spoil the tragic effect.
It is for this reason that accidents occur only when the action is well advanced
and the impression of the causal sequence is too firmly fixed to be impaired.
The Conflict-Internal Internal and External. The action of a Shakespearean
tragedy always develops through conflict. This conflict is both external and
internal. It may be between two persons, or groups of persons, representing
opposing interests. The hero is one of the two persons, or belongs to one of the
two groups. This is the external conflict. There may also be an internal struggle
in the mind of the hero between two opposite ideas or interests which pull him in
different directions so that the hero, torn and divided within himself, suffers the
agonies of hell. As the dramatist's art matured, the conflict became more and
more internalized. In this way, the soul of the hero is laid bare before us. This
spectacle of suffering is terrible and heart-rending, and arouses the emotions of
pity and terror—the two tragic emotions according to Aristotle. A
Shakespearean tragedy is truly Cathartic, i.e., it purges the readers of the
emotions of self pity and terror.
The Calm and Serenity in the End. It may also be noted at this place that,
though the tragic hero cannot be saved from ultimate doom, he is granted just
before the end a glimpse of what might have been, a conversion in outlook
which enables him to die with a sane and cleansed mind. "A true conception of
their own actions, painful as that may be, sheds light into their soul." They form
a fresh attitude towards life which banishes a part of the evil in their beings.
Macbeth, villain though he may be, realizes a new beauty in existence, when he
thinks of all that might have been—the friends, the esteem and the sincerity
which by his own actions he has lost. Othello regains some of his former nobility
and dignity just before the end. A sort of calm descends on the tragic hero right
in the manner of the greatest Greek tragedies. It is owing to this serenity at the
end that the readers are never left crushed or pessimistic, despite the
tremendous waste involved.
The Ultimate Power in the Tragic Universe. For the one definite and clear
impression which a Shakespearean tragedy creates is that individuals, however
great they may be, are not the makers of their destiny. We constantly feel that
there is some ultimate power working through the tragic hero, influencing him
from within and without, making him act in a particular manner, and driving him
to his doom. Shakespeare never defines this power exactly and clearly, and this
intensifies the impression of some fearful mystery surrounding human life,
produced by his tragedies.

Its Moral Nature. But one thing Shakespeare makes quite clear— that this
order or ultimate power is moral. It is just. Its justice may be terrible, but still
our sense of justice is always satisfied. Of course, there is no Poetic Justice in a
Shakespearean tragedy. Poetic Justice means that prosperity and adversity are
distributed in proportion to the merits of the agents. The tragic heroes suffer
more, infinitely more, than is merited or deserved by their faults. The good and
the virtuous are often ruined and they do not get that prosperity which they
fully deserve. Lear and Othello suffer terribly out of all proportion to their faults;
and Desdemona and Cordelia are wholly good. "Poetic Justice" is not a fact of
life and so Shakespeare, the realist, does not introduce it in his tragedies.
Its Sense of Justice. The ultimate power is just and moral in the sense that it
shows itself favorable and partial to good and inimical to evil and that evil is
always destroyed in the end. All disturbances and convulsions are produced by
evil; the ultimate power reacts against it violently and relentlessly. "Tragedy on
this view is the exhibition of that convulsive reaction". The evil against which the
moral order reacts is not something outside it; it is within it and a part of it. It
has engendered it along with the good. When it is expelled and destroyed, the
moral order expels and destroys a part of itself. But together with evil it also
destroys, as we have already noted above, a part of the good which is so dear
to it. But why should this be so? Why should the ultimate power generate evil
and then expel it? Shakespeare provides no answer to this riddle of life. He was
writing tragedy, and tragedy would not be tragedy if it were not a painful
mystery.
(i) Catharsis: Shakespearean tragedy is also cathartic, that is, it has the power
of purging and thus easing us of some of the pain and suffering which are the
lot of us all in this world. Compared to the exceptionally tragic life of the hero
before our eyes, our own sufferings begin to appear to us little and insignificant.
In a Shakespearean tragedy the spectacle of the hero's suffering is terrible and
heart rending, and it arouses the emotions of pity and terror. It is truly cathartic,
as it purges the readers of the emotions of self-pity and terror.
ii) Moral Vision: Shakespearean tragedy is not depressing. It elevates, ennobles
and exalts us. Shakespeare shows in his tragedies that man's destiny is always
determined to a great extent by his own character. He is an architect of his own
fate. The tragic hero suffers because he errs. He is not just the plaything of fate.
It always reveals the dignity of man and of human endeavor over the power of
evil, which is ultimately defeated. Shakespearean tragedy ends with the
restoration of the power of the good. In the words of Irving Ribner:
"Shakespearean tragedy translates a moral vision into dramatic form, and, thus,
it is a way of knowing." It contains the vision of the possibility of man's
redemption from evil. Ribner adds that "....the Shakespearean tragic hero
through the process of his destruction may learn the nature of evil and thus
attain a spiritual victory in spite of death. This does not mean that all
Shakespeare's tragic heroes attain salvation, for they do not, and it is not
necessary that they should. Hamlet or Lear may undergo redemption, but

Richard III or Macbeth is unequivocally damned, and the reconciliation
experienced by the audience need be no less complete.
Tragedy is a social art form, and reconciliation must take place within the
audience and not within the actors. The damnation of Macbeth, no less than the
salvation of Lear may serve to affirm the feeling of a moral order in a purposive
universe upon which tragic reconciliation depends. In spite of the fate of the
tragic hero, society at the end of each tragedy must undergo a symbolic rebirth;
there is always a Fortinbrass, Edgar or Malcolm ready to begin life with a
renewed hope in the future, and in this hope the audience imaginatively
participates."
Shakespeare's Historical Plays
The historical plays were immensely popular for the Elizabethan audiences who
were intensely patriotic and very proud of the achievements of their ancestors
on foreign fields. The historical drama owed its popularity to the fervor of
Armada patriotism. The newly awakened spirit of patriotism and nationalism
enable the people to take keen interest in the records of bygone struggle
against foreign invasion and civil disunion. Marlowe had set the example of
writing historical plays in Edward II before Shakespeare. He followed Marlowe's
example.
(i) The Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Historical Plays: Shakespeare's
historical plays stretch over a period of three hundred and fifty years of English
History—from 1200 to 1550. He treats in his historical plays the tumult and
confusion, the peace and confusion of this period. Shakespeare wrote ten
historical plays which are divided into three groups: (i) the first group consisting
of Henry VI, Parts I, II and III deals with the reign of Henry VI; (ii) secondly,
Richard II, Richard III and King John are studies on kings and kingship; (iii)
and thirdly Henry IV, Parts I and II and Henry V represent Shakespeare's ideal
of kingship. His last historical play Henry VIII was completed by Fletcher.
Shakespeare's historical plays are a link between the process of his
development of comedy and tragedy. In between the period of the comedies
and tragedies come the historical plays and these plays serve their own
purpose.
(ii) His Treatment History: Shakespeare’s concept of history, as developed in
the plays is old fashioned and old dated.
His Concept of History. Shakespeare's concept of history, as developed in the
plays, is old-fashioned and out-dated. He was not a man born in advance of his
times, one who could anticipate the thoughts of the future generations. In one
sense, he was a man purely of his age, sharing the views and prejudices of his
contemporaries and moving with the times. The modern historian devotes his
chief attention to the social, economic and political changes of the period he
deals with. He is more concerned with the life of the nation and the spirit of the
times, than with the fortunes of rival-sovereigns. The achievements of the nation
during peace are often of more interest to him than periodic wars and

upheavals. But in the age of Queen Elizabeth the history of England was the
story of the doings and sufferings of the royal house, and more specially of its
wars at home and abroad. This is exactly the story which is unfolding in the
English Histories of Shakespeare.
Commenting on Shakespeare's treatment of history Sir Walter Raleigh writes:
"He very early turned his hand to them, and the exercise that they gave him
steadied his imagination, and taught him how to achieve a new solidity and
breadth of representation. By degrees he ventured to intermix the treatment of
high political affairs with familiar pictures of daily life, so that what might
otherwise have seemed stilted and artificial was reduced to ordinary standards,
and set against a background of verisimilitude and reality. His comedy, timidly
at first, and at last triumphantly, intruded upon his history; his vision of reality
was widened to include in a single perspective of courts and taverns, kings and
highwaymen, diplomatic conferences, battles, street brawls, and the humors of
low life. He gave us the measure of his own magnanimity in the two parts of
Henry IV, a play of incomparable ease, and variety and mastery. Thence, having
perfected himself to his craft, he passed on to graver themes, and with Plutarch
for his text book, resuscitated the-world drama of the Romans, or breathed life
into those fables of British history which he found in Holinshed. He revived dead
princes and heroes, and set them in action on a stage crowded with life and
manners."
Shakespeare's concept of history, says John Bailey is "more royal than national,
more personal than political". His histories are pageants of kingship in war and
peace. In Richard II he is concerned with the quarrels of Richard II and his
uncles, and practically ignores the Black Death and all its political and social
consequences.
(iii) Patriotism: Shakespeare's historical plays are suffused with the spirit of
patriotism. The aim of historical plays was to make Englishmen more patriotic
and to make Englishmen proud of being Englishmen. Can there be anything
more patriotic or more likely to make Englishmen proud of their country than
the following words of the dying John of Gaunt in Richard II?
This royal throne of England, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war.
The worship and glorification of the king is a powerful manifestation of
patriotism in Shakespeare's historical plays. Kingship is strongly idealized to
divine proportions. Mark the idealization of kingship in the following lines
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an appointed King;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose,
The deputy elected by the Lord.
(iv) Characterisation in Historical Plays: In historical plays Shakespeare has
provided nice portraits of English kings. In the-characters of King John, Richard

II and Henry VI, Shakespeare presents the weaknesses of English kings. Henry
IV, Henry V and Richard III are studies of kingly strength. Dowden writes in this
connection: "John is the real criminal, weak in the criminality; Henry VI is the
royal saint, weak in his saintliness. The feebleness of Richard II cannot be
characterized in a word, he is a graceful sentimental monarch. Richard III, in
the other group, is a royal criminal, strong in his crime. Henry IV, the usurping
Bolingbroke, is strong by a fine craft in dealing with events, by resolution and
policy, by equal caution and daring. The strength of Henry V is that of plain
heroic magnitude, thoroughly sound and substantial, founded upon the eternal
Verities. Here, then, we may recognise the one dominant subject of the histories,
viz., how a man may fail and how a man may succeed in attaining a practical
mastery of the world." These plays are, as Schlegel has named them, a "mirror
of kings".
Shakespeare portrayed his kings only as kings and not as human beings.
Although Henry V embodies Shakespeare's ideal of kingship, it would be a
complete mistake to suppose that he embodies the author's ideal of manhood.
Indeed, Shakespeare's kings are not great men, not even Henry V, but they are
kings. Pater in his essay Shakespeare's English Kings has expressed the vital
truth: "Shakespeare's kings are not, nor are meant to be, great men; rather, little
or quite ordinary humanity, thrust upon greatness, with those pathetic results,
the natural self-pity of the weak heightened in them into irresistible appeal to
others as the net result of their royal prerogative."
Dowden has rightly observed that the one dominant subject of the histories is
how a man may fail, and how a man may succeed in attaining a practical
mastery of the world. He writes: "The characters in the historical plays are
conceived chiefly with reference to action. The world represented in these plays
is not so much the world of feeling or of thought, as the limited world of the
practicable. In the great tragedies we are concerned more with what man is
than with what he does...... The histories, like the tragedies, are for the reader a
school of discipline, but the issues with which they deal are not the infinite
issues of life and the feeling which they leave in us is that of a wholesome,
mundane pity and terror, or a sane and strong mundane satisfaction."
Shakespeare takes a personal interest in creating his lower characters in

historical plays. His minor characters are the raw stuff of humanity. Falstaff in
Henry IV is an immortal creation of Shakespeare. There is no one who will deny
his kingship with Falstaff. We delight in him because he can pour the whole of
himself into speech and reveal all mankind in revealing himself. "With him
Shakespeare turned the chronicle of kings into a picture of human life, filled out
the peace and war pageantry of history with the reality of the life of ordinary
men and women which is always going on by its side."
(v) Conclusion: Shakespeare's historical plays show his love for authority and
discipline. He considers law and authority necessary for civilized life, he fears

disorder for it leads to chaos. Raleigh remarks: "He extols government with a
fervor that suggests a real and ever present fear of the breaking of the flood
gates; he delights in government, as painters and musicians delight in
composition and balance." The change of social and political institutions did not
interest him. S. A. Brooke writes: "Shakespeare desired to combine all the plays
into a whole. In completing the moral and political philosophy of good or bad,
government comes in as a necessary part of the conception, but its lessons
were not directly but indirectly given. His true aim was to represent human life
in action and thought within the limits which history set before him."
Shakespeare's Last Plays of Shakespeare's Dramatic Romances
Shakespeare's last plays, known as dramatic romances, form a class apart. His
last four plays—Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest—are
neither comedies nor tragedies. All of them end happily, but all fetch happiness
to shore out of shipwreck and suffering. These last plays have a lot in common
and it is appropriate to call them "dramatic romances" or "tragi-comedies".
They contain incidents which are undoubtedly tragic but their end is happy.
Shakespeare was distinctly influenced by Beaumont and Fletcher in writing
these dramatic romances. We find the following characteristics in
Shakespeare's last plays:
(i) The Tragicomic Note: The last plays of Shakespeare are the transitions from
tempest with its lightning and thunder to a wide illumined calm. The wrongs of
life and how they may be transcended, trials of affections, triumphs of fortitude
and patience, magnanimous self-possession under suffering, love purified by
grief, wisdom of the intellect at once with the moral wisdom, the radiant joy of
pure and radiant heart—these are the themes of Shakespeare's last plays. The
spirit of these plays is that of serenity which results from fortitude, and the
recognition of human frailty; all of them express a deep sense of the need of
repentance and the duty of forgiveness.
These plays are marked by unending optimism. The tyrannical father, the
stepmother, the devoted wife, the credulous lover, the loutish rival, the wanton
maid of honor, the faithful servant — all play their parts. They belong to the
formulae not of life, but of romance. These plays are rightly named
tragicomedies, because they have no concern with the undying pessimism of
the tragedies. They are a mixture of good and bad, sorrow and joy, tears and
smiles, pessimism and optimism, separation and union, but, finally they are
lighted with a ray of hope.
The last plays of Shakespeare mark a distinct transition from the period of great
tragedies—Macbeth, Lear, Othello and Hamlet. The unanswered cosmic
problems are now laid aside, or take on new light colors in the light of a
regained faith. Life, which the purged eve once scanned with a splendid despair,
is now seen only through a golden haze of sentiment. A great and gracious
peace descends upon the autumn of thought. The universe, which, but a
moment ago, he reviewed and judged to be chaos now spreads itself out before

his eyes as the ordered and sunlit garden of God. The transition "from the
tragedies to the romances is not an evolution but a revolution".
There is tragic material in plenty, and there are also some high-wrought tragic
scenes; but the tension is soon relaxed. Imogen and Hermione are deeply
wronged like Desdemona; Prospero like Lear is driven from his inheritance; yet
the forces of destruction do not prevail, and the end brings forgiveness and
reunion. These plays end happily but "there is no reversion," says Raleigh, "to
the manner of the comedies, the new found happiness is a happiness wrung
from experience, and, unlike the old high-spirited gaiety, it does not exult over
the evil-doer. All-embracing tolerance and kindliness inspires these plays."
(ii) Redemption, Reconciliation and Forgiveness: These plays breathe a spirit
of philosophic calm, of a robust faith in the possibility of happiness, and
redemption of wrong doers through love and forgiveness of the wronged. They
are stories of restoration, reconciliation, and moral resurrection and
regeneration. Their purpose is to teach forgiveness of wrongs, not vengeance
for them, to give the sinner time to repent and amend, not to cut him off in his
sin. The keynote of these plays is sounded by Prospero in The Tempest:
Through with their high wrongs I am stuck to the quick,
Yet, with my nobler reason, against my fury,
Do I take part; the rarer action is,
In virtue than in vengeance, they being penitent,
The soul drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.
Dowden is of the opinion that these plays ``are all concerned with the knitting
together of human bonds, the reunion of parted kindred, the forgiveness of
enemies, the atonement for wrong—not by death but by repentance, the
reconciliation of husband and wife, of child and father, of friend with friend."
Raleigh says: "An all-embracing tolerance and kindliness inspires these plays."
Reconciliation and reunion of husband and wife, of parents and child, of friend
and friend form an integral part of their denouement. Mariana, supposed to be
drowned, is restored to Pericles; Perdita who had been cast out of her country in
childhood meets Lecontes; and Cymbeline is united with his sons; Prospero is
restored to his lost kingdom.
(iii) The Romantic Atmosphere and Supernaturalism: The last plays of
Shakespeare are remarkable for the mellowed romantic atmosphere. He writes
freely, unhampered by any laws of logic or dramatic causation. These plays are
fanciful like dreams. His imagination knows no restraints and all sorts of
impossibilities are conceived, and many absurdities creep into the plots. The
romantic atmosphere of these plays is further heightened by shifting the scene
to a remote, enchanted island across "perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn" or to
the equally remote mountains of Wales or to the sheep walks of Bohemia, where
the life of the inhabitants is a peaceful round of daily deeds and rural pieties.
The beautiful scenes of the mountains and sea are particularly romantic. The
prominent scenes are laid on the sea-coast. The scenes exist in the dramatist's

imagination. It would be futile to describe their geographic position, for the
poet was giving a local habitation and name to the airy nothings.
The island in The Tempest is enchanted. It has all the plenty and loveliness of
nature. The luxuriance of nature has the quality of inducing sleep and dulling
the critical faculty. The goddesses Juno and Ceres, various spirits, especially
Aerial mix freely with human beings and govern human destiny.
The power, call it Destiny or Providence, is not a ruthless force in these plays,
"but a benevolent Providence which after leading through great trials, intense
sufferings and grievous wrongs resolves at last all dissonance into a harmony,
clear and rapturous, or solemn and profound."
(iv) Characters: Shakespeare portrays women characters with charity and
kindliness. In the tragedies he shows no charity for the fair sex. Ophelia is
ill-treated and suffers from madness. Innocent Desdemona is ruthlessly
strangled; Cordelia dies as a prisoner. In dramatic romances they are treated
gently and kindly. Women are rejudged and tenderly vindicated. Miranda and
Imogen, the finest female portraits, represent the idealization of womanhood.
Mrs. Jameson says: "Of all his women Imogen is the most perfect; Miranda is the
perfection of maidenliness and Perdita of devotion." These women are virtuous,
generous and believe in forgiveness. All forgiveness is divine but kindness and
forgiveness that Hermione or Imogen extends is rare indeed in this workaday
world.
The young people play an important role in these plays. Forgiveness and
reconciliation, which is the main theme of these plays, is invariably brought
about by the young people. Perdita and Florizel, Miranda and Ferdinand,
Guiderius and Arviragus, all make amends for the faults and misfortunes of
their parents. Prospero and Alonso become friends through the love of
Ferdinand and Miranda. The sins of fathers are not visited on the children.
Perdita is happily united with Florizel, Miranda with Ferdinand, Imogen with
Posthumus and Mariana with Pericles.
(v) Symbolism: The last plays of Shakespeare, especially The Tempest, are rich
in symbolism. Perdita and Miranda symbolize the fertility and continuity of
Nature. Caliban symbolizes brute natural force. He also represents the eternal
slave as well as the dispossessed native, and according to this view Prospero
becomes a colonizer. He has been called the symbol of Destiny, the
personification of Wisdom, and the Eternal Teacher. He also represents an
inspired artist, who is ever absorbed in the pursuit of his art and neglects his
social duties, and so is rejected by society.
(vi) The Role of the Sea: The sea plays a prominent role in these plays.
Quillercouch remarks: "…Pericles begins and ends on ship board. Even Bohemia
has its own sea-coast on which the waif Perdita is cast. At the critical point in
Cymbeline —Heaven knows why—every character in the play has all sail set for
Milford Haven; and The Tempest is The Tempest. In this again we may suspect
an improvement in mere stage mechanism as well as catch a hint of a great
wise mind voyaging out for a shore somewhere within the ring of the "still-vex'd
Bermoothes", where all this evil is composed."

(vii) Style of the Last Plays: "The style of these last plays," says Raleigh, "is a
further development of the style of Tragedies. The thought is often more packed
and hurried, the expression more various and fluent at the expense of full
logical ordering. The bombasted magniloquence of the early rhetorical style has
now disappeared. The very syntax is the syntax of thought rather than
language; constructions are mixed, grammatical links are dropped, the meaning
of many sentences is compressed into one, hints and impressions count for as
much as full blown propositions." It seems that during the last years thoughts
came so fast to Shakespeare's mind that the pen could not keep pace with the
rush of those thoughts. As an inevitable result, the construction of sentences
became often involved and the meaning ambiguous.
(viii) Songs, Music and Dance: Songs, music and dance abound in these plays.
They contribute to enchantment and romance which distinguish these plays.
(ix) Conclusion: The romances belong to Shakespeare's literary autumn, and
according to some, show decline of his dramatic genius. To quote the opinion of
Sir Walter Raleigh: "That he turned at last to happier scenes, and wrote the
romances, is evidence, it may be said, that his grip on the hard facts' of life was
loosened by fatigue, and that he sought refreshment in irresponsible play." This
is perhaps true. Technically there is a loss of mastery, an apparent relaxation of
the grip on the means to the end. His characters are no longer individual, but
stock types. We may speak highly of Imogen, Perdita and Miranda but these
women do not have the same sharp individuality as their elder sisters — Portia,
Rosalind, Viola, Ophelia, Desdemona and Cordelia. Shakespeare is evidently
growing tired. He repeats himself again and again. There is an atmosphere of
impossibility and improbability in these plays. Artificiality breathes over the
whole. The fact is that there is no lack of vitality or slackening of mental power.
Shakespeare had always been a romantic poet, but here the romantic seems to
take on a larger and higher meaning. The poet turns away from the
heartbreaking realities of the actual world to a world of pure and serene
imagination of which he alone is the creator and potent lord. Legouis refers to
the last four dramas of Shakespeare as "plays which were the supreme
accomplishment of this prosperous actor."
Shakespeare's Universality
"Soul of the age !

The applause; the delight, the wonder of our stage."
— Ben Jonson.
To this day Shakespeare remains the Prince of Poets, and the King of
Dramatists, not only of England, but of the whole world. He has been
acknowledged on all hands as the glory of the English stage, the Proteus of the
drama who changes himself into every character and enters into every
condition of human nature, as well as the expression of the genius of the English
race. The stream of time which has been continually washing the dissoluble
fabrics of other poets, passes without injury of the adamant of Shakespeare.

1. Common Possession of the Whole Human Race: Shakespeare, in the words
of Ben Jonson, "was not of an age, but of all ages. Shakespeare is eternal.
Shakespeare is universal. The whole world has adopted Shakespeare. In
Germany he is as widely read and acted as in England. Russia and Poland, Italy
and Spain, even India have excellent versions of Shakespeare's plays. In fact,
there is hardly any language in the world in which Shakespeare has not been
translated. He is the common possession of all ages and of all nations.
2. A Dramatist of Life in its Totality: Shakespeare's subject matter is life in its
totality. This is the secret of his universal appeal. Although Shakespeare has
powerfully expressed the spirit of the age, he is distinguished by his
contemporaries for the expression of those human emotions of love, hate,
jealousy, sorrow, sympathy, longings and aspirations, smiles and tears, passions
and prejudices, which are eternal. He stands secure through all eternity
transcending the boundaries of time and space, class and race, religion and sex.
His men and women are not merely superficial studies of contemporary society,
they are true to the eternal facts of human nature. He loved to present the
eternal truths of the human heart and invested them with such a touch of nature
as to reveal the kinship of the entire world.
Shakespeare had a mind reflecting "ages past" and present, all the people that
even lived are there. Human tastes and values change. Literary fashions and
tendencies change, but Shakespeare has not been lost into oblivion, due to the
faithful presentation of life in all its totality. Shakespeare's stage is the world, his
characters are types of universal mankind, his subject is the human soul; and he
himself is the very genius of humanity. He is "the prophetic soul of the wide
world dreaming of the times to come." S. T. Coleridge writes about his
universality: "The greatest genius that perhaps human nature yet produced, our
myriad-minded Shakespeare." In his almost infinite variety there is truly "God's
plenty". He is the very "epitome of mankind". His language fits all times, and his
thoughts all places. No part of human existence, no depth of universe, no
problem of human existence, no variety of character, seems outside his range.
Shakespeare is a dramatist of man and of human life. Prince Hamlet sings of the
glory of man:
What a piece of work man ! How noble in reason ! How infinite in faculty, in
form, in moving, how express and admirable in action ! How like an angel ! In
apprehension how like a God ! The beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals !
Miranda also sings:
O, wonder !
How many good creatures are here !
How beautiful mankind is ! 0 brave new world
That has such people in it !
3. Variety of Human Characters: Shakespeare "painted all characters from
kings down to peasants with equal truth and equal force", writes Lytton
Strachey, "If human nature were destroyed and no monument left to it except

the works of Shakespeare, other beings might know what man was from those
writings." Shakespeare is above all writers, the poet of nature, the poet that
holds up his readers a faithful mirror of man and his environment, manners and
life. His characters do not belong to this country or that, one country or the
other, but come from all lands and all walks of life. They are the rightful progeny
of common humanity, such as the world will always supply and observation will
always find, unaffected alike by the vagaries of fashion, the accidents of
custom and the changes of opinion. Shakespeare's persons are not only
individuals, they are a species eternal and true, taken from nowhere in
particular, though met here, there and everywhere. No other author had ever
been so copious, so bold, so creative. Shakespeare was endowed with a perfect
and flawless knowledge of the passions, humors and sentiments of mankind.
Shakespeare has a friendly approach to man with all its baseness and
limitations. He has embraced man with all his faults and imperfections. Mariana
in Measure For Measure says:
They say, best men are molded out of faults
And for the most, become much more the better,
For being a little bad.
It is this large-hearted tolerance that has made him immensely popular all over
the world.
4. Conclusion: In all the fields of poetic and dramatic literature, Shakespeare
reigns supreme, because "he created by principle while others manufactured by
rules." "He was the man," says Dryden, "who of all the modern and ancient
poets, has the largest and most comprehensive soul." He is highly praised for his
originality. Pope wrote: "If ever any author deserved the name of originality, it
was Shakespeare." His poetry is an inspiration indeed. In the words of Ben
Jonson:
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy's to wear the dressing of his lines.
Shakespeare's dramatic poetry has an enduring quality. His vision of life, his
wonderful characterisation, his broad humanity, his sense of humor and
tolerance, his catholicity of outlook, and the excellence of his dramatic art have
all found an eloquent expression in his magnificent poetry. G. B. Shaw had to
admit: "I wish I could write a beautiful play like Twelfth Night." No one has
written a better tragedy than King Lear. Matthew Arnold pays a glowing tribute
to Shakespeare's universality of appeal:
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their soul voice in that victorious brow.
Shakespeare's Dramatic Art
William Shakespeare was one of the greatest literary geniuses born on earth.
The extent, variety and richness of his plays are quite bewildering as one
approaches them. Yet he never invented the plots of his plays, which are based

on Plutarch's Lives, Holinshed's Chronicles, or other popular translations. Still he
shines to us through the intervening darkness of over three centuries with a
radiant light. What is the secret of his unrivaled superiority which is so
universally recognised today ?
1. His Immense Variety and Mastery of Human Nature: Shakespeare, first of
all, combined together all the great dramatic gifts. He commingles Marlowe's
pathos and sublimity, Webster's terrible atmosphere of grief and terror, the
lyrical intensity of Fletcher and Dekker in his plays. While they tended to be stale
and stereotyped, Shakespeare is ever changing, ever becoming different from
what he was before. Legouis writes: "His flexibility was marvelous. He adapted
himself to the most diverse material and seemed to use-all with equal ardor and
joy."
Shakespeare's remarkable power of penetrating deeply into human nature and
human character imparted rare dignity to his dramatic art. Dowden writes:
"Shakespeare cast his plummet with the sea of human sorrow, and wrong, and
loss. He studied evil. He would let none of that dark side of life escape from him.
He denied none of the bitterness, the sins, the calamity of the world. He looked
steadily at Cordelia in the arms of Lear, and he summoned up a strenuous
fortitude, and stoical submission to make such a spectacle endurable. But at the
same time he retained his loyalty to good; over against Edmund and the
monstrous sisters, he saw the invincible loyalty of a Kent, the practical genius of
an Edgar in the service of good, and the redeeming ordeal of Cordelia. Rescuing
his soul from bitterness, he arrived finally at a temper strong and self-possessed
as that of stoicism, yet free from the social attitude of defiance; a temper
liberal, gracious, charitable, tender, yet strenuous calm."
2. Plot Construction: According to Aristotle plot is the soul of drama, character
comes next. But this classical doctrine was not observed during the
Renaissance, because the matter which the praywrights usually took came from
story books of romance. The exclusion of the comic and the tragic elements,
which distinguished classical drama, and the three dramatic units of time, place
and action, were disregarded during the Elizabethan drama. Economy,
compression of material, selection and concentration distinguish classical
drama. Aristotle warned that a playwright should not attempt to construct a
tragedy upon an epic plan. Shakespeare, the gifted representative of the
romantic drama, is akin to the method of epic poet or romance writer, since like
them he follows his plot through a succession of minor scenes in which he
directly exhibits transitional movements which the modern playwright would
give in the form of explanatory notes.
Romantic drama was based on complex plots. It is a federation of several
stories, any one of which would have made a whole plot for an ancient classical
dramatist. In Shakespeare's plays also there are two or three or four plots
running together. Shakespeare's dramatic skill lies in weaving these different
plots into a harmonious design. He did not tie himself to any theory. His first
care was to get hold of a story that would succeed. He sought first for the story.

His plots are perfect in their own ways. They have a good beginning, a good
middle and a good end.
Shakespeare did not invent stories. He took up popular stories, and by his
genius transformed them into great dramas. What is prominent in
Shakespearean drama is the interweaving of different stories that move side by
side like the four parts of musical harmony. He shaped a bare outline of a story
by clever manipulation of plot and under plot, and varied relief, by interweaving
plot and character, by recreating original characters, by giving life-like
impassioned dialogue, and by such qualities as humor, pathos, passion and
poetry.
Shakespeare starts every dramatic story with a conflict. All his plots possess the
initial exposition, the rising action or complication, the climax or the turning
point, the falling action or denouement, and the conclusion or catastrophe in
which the conflict is brought to a close.
In The Merchant of Venice two main stories, taken from distinct books of
romance, have been harmoniously blended together to create an impression of
oneness. The plot of The Twelfth Night is a complex story of love. Three love
stories are made to clash together into a common entanglement, due to the
mistaken identity of the girl taken for a page. The Merry Wives of Windsor too is
an illustration of such a complication.
3. Characterisation: Shakespeare surpasses all his contemporaries and rivals in
the art of characterisation. Edward Albert writes: "In sheer prodigality of output
Shakespeare is unrivaled in literature. From king to clown, from lunatic and
demi-devil to saint and seer, from lover to misanthrope—all are revealed with
the hand of the master."
Shakespeare's art of characterisation is marked by objectivity. In the words of

Albert, "He seems indifferent to good and evil; he has the eye of the creator,
viewing bright and dismal things alike, provided they are apt and real. In his
characters vice and virtue commingle, and the union is true to the common
sense of humanity. Thus the villain Iago is a man of resolution, intelligence and
fortitude; the murderer Claudius shows affection, wisdom and fortitude; the
peerless Cleopatra is narrow, spiteful and avaricious; and the beast Caliban has
his moments of ecstatic vision."
Shakespeare's characters have a vital force. They are individual figures; who
live, move and utter speech. They are entire, rounded and capable. At his
creative breath the dead rise from their graves, heroes gain victories, lovers
murmur in accents which still moves our hearts. From the dust of chronicles he
draws the rough clay out of which he fashions his own character and as soon as
the character leaps from his hands it is alive, fights, speaks, is crowned with
laurel or myrtle, or is dashed down in some awful catastrophe. His characters
are not people on the stage, they are people in real life. His characters are not
puppets. Shakespeare's characters, whether good or bad, whether moving
among realities of history or among the most romantic happenings, have an

unfailing humanity which makes them plausible and keeps them within the orbit
of our sympathy. "His characters are so much Nature herself," writes Pope, "that
it is a sort of injury to call them by such distant names as copies of her." Hazlitt
also writes: "His characters are real human beings of flesh and blood; they
speak like men, not like authors." His characters are the rightful progeny of
common humanity. Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Falstaff, Shylock, Portia, Prospero
etc. are now parts of the world's mythology. Every single character of
Shakespeare is as much an individual as those of life itself: it is impossible to
find any two alike. His characters are neither paragons nor monsters. They act
with reason and have motives. Lady Macbeth reminds us that she is a woman:
"Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I would have done it." His
characters act from within Jonson's characters are broad types, Shakespeare's
are complex individuals. Shakespeare could raise characters from their
particular circumstances and could give them universal traits. There is an
exquisite blending of the general and the particular, the ideal and the real,
which makes his characters types as well as individuals. Shakespeare's
characters are dynamic and static. We see them in the course of their
development. They grow and unfold themselves before our eyes. Lear at the end
is an entirely different man from what he was at the beginning. So are Macbeth
and Othello. His characters have to our mind a past and a future as well as a
present. What Shakespeare loves as an artist is power and intensity in human
character. Splendid and puissant personalities are the primary material of his
tragedies; giants of wit or silliness of his comedies. Yet his characters, splendid
or extreme as they are, are never extravagant or abnormal in their nature.
Shakespeare was an unrivaled master of human psychology. His characters,
said Goethe, are like watches with dial plates of transparent crystal, they show
the hour like progress to others, and the inward mechanism is also visible.
Shakespeare's psychology, his perfect insight into human nature that has made
him the great creative artist that he is, has enthroned him as the universal
master of dramatic art. His men and women interest us more by what they are
than what they do. It is not the outer history but the inner history of the mind
and the soul— the psychological struggle of Othello, Macbeth, Lear and
Hamlet—that fascinates us.
Shakespeare has also created many fascinating female characters —

Desdemona, Ophelia, Cordelia, Imogen, Hermione, Perdita, Miranda, Viola,
Rosalind, Portia etc. Heroines play a dominant role in Shakespearean comedy.
Ruskin remarked: "Shakespeare has no heroes, he has only heroines." This is true
about comedies, not about tragedies. Man is the king of tragedy, woman is the
queen of comedy. Shakespeare's tragic protagonists as Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear
and Othello have a subtler intellect, a more penetrating imagination, a more
irresistible passion. Their personality is a mass of mighty forces out of equipoise,
they lack the balance of a durable spiritual organism. His women are often witty
and daring. Their wit is quick and searching, but it is wholly at the command of
their will, and is never employed to disturb or destroy. In the comedies women

are the spirit of happiness, in the tragedies they are the only warrant and token
of ultimate salvation, and the last refuge and sanctuary of faith.
Shakespeare portrayed his villains psychologically. They meet their
well-deserved doom. A villain while plotting the ruin of a good man, is yet able
to recognize the good in him. Even Iago, the blackest of Shakespeare's villains,
recognises the good in Othello: "The moor is of a fine and constant nature.
Shakespeare's villains, intellectually alert, though morally repulsive, are clever
and crafty. The villain is always punished and the punishment is of a reformative
or retributive type.
Shakespeare's fools are a tribe apart. He allowed the fool to appear both in his
comedies and tragedies. He makes the fool a kind of popular philosopher who
utters many wise and practical things in the garb of stupidity. The clown takes
various forms in Shakespeare's plays. Sometimes he is affectionate and kind like
Launce, or Touchstone, or Lear's Fool. Sometimes he is a foolish craftsman like
Bottom, the weaver. Sometimes he is a policeman like Dogberry or Verges. The
Fool creates innocent humor in comedies and provides comic relief in tragedies.
Shakespeare's supernatural creations—his witches, ghosts and fairies — do not
come uncalled. They are dealt with psychologically. They are the shadows and
reflections of the human mind.
Shakespeare's dramatic art is matchless in the entire range of dramatic

literature. W. J. Long writes: "Two poets only, Homer and Dante, have been
named with him; but each of them wrote within narrow limits, while
Shakespeare's genius included all the world of nature and of men. In a word, he
is the universal poet. To study nature in his works is like exploring a new and
beautiful country; to study man in his works is like going into a great city,
viewing the motley crowd as one views a great masquerade in which past and
present mingle freely and familiarly, as if the dead were all living again. And the
marvelous thing, in this masquerade of all sorts and conditions of men, is that
Shakespeare lifts the mask from every face, lets us see the man as he is in his
own soul, and shows in each one some germ of good, some "soul of goodness"
even in things evil.”
4. Humor: Shakespeare is the greatest humorist in English literature. Dowden
writes about his humor: "In the first place the humor of Shakespeare like his
total genius is many-sided. He does not pledge himself as a dramatist to any
one view of human life Shakespeare abounds in kindly mirth; he receives an
exquisite pleasure from the alert wit and bright good sense of a Rosalind...... But
Shakespeare is not pledged to deep-dyed, ultra amiability. With Jacques he can
rail at the world, while remaining seriously aloof from all deep concern about its
interests this way or that. With Timon he can turn upon the world with a rage no
less than that of Swift, and discover in man and woman a creature as
abominable as Yahoo. In other words, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total
genius, is dramatic."

Shakespeare's humor is generally impartial, objective, genial, human and
humane, refined and noble. When the occasion demands he can also be grim
and satirical, ironical and morbid. But his humor is never divorced from
humanity.. "A woman is dearer to Shakespeare than an angel; a man is better
than a god."
Shakespeare's humor is more than a laughter producing power. It is a presence

and a pervading influence throughout his mom's earnest creations. In his
earliest period Shakespeare had a keen sense of humor. Although he had not
yet attained the depth of thoughts and emotions, his humor is unmistakably
genial and human. He does not laugh at the misfortunes and weaknesses of
individuals. He found the objects of his mirth in the follies and fashions of the
time, as in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour Lost and The Comedy
of Errors. There is also light and airy satire in Love's Labour Lost. Even at this
early stage the comic and the serious elements coexist but they do not
interpenetrate. Two sets of characters represent the comic and the tragic
respectively. Speed, the professed wit, disappears from the comic stage after
playing his brief part, but Launce incarnates himself in the naive, comic
Touchstone, with his mingled instinct for sense and nonsense, Hotspur and
Mercutio, Falstaff and the Fool in Lear. Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream,
which combines fancy and humor, is an example of absurdity.
During the second period of his development Shakespeare was getting a sure
and firm grasp on the facts of life. This is the period of historical plays. Keeping
in view the dignity of historical drama, Shakespeare held his humor aloof. In
Richard II there is no humorous scene. In Richard III there is a certain grim
humor, which is part of the demonic personality of Richard III. During this
period Shakespeare created his greatest comic creation Sir John Falstaff in the
two parts of King Henry IV.
During the second period Shakespeare wrote his mature and sunny comedies As
You Like It, The Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice in which his humor
attains the highest point of comic perfection.
In the third period, the period of great tragedies, Shakespearean laughter is
more than pathetic. "Shakespeare," a German poet has said, "inoculates his
tragedy, with a comic virus, and thus it is preserved from the great disease of
absurdity." In Hamlet the humorous figures of the court — Polonius, Osric,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern — are all a little contemptible, and serve as
irritants to stimulate Hamlet's dissatisfaction with living and impatience of the
world. "The grave-diggers have a grim grotesqueness .....each a humorous jester
in the court of death ...... a connoisseur in corpses, a chronicler of dead men's
bones." The knocking scene in Macbeth has a grave significance. The knocking
at the gate after the commission of the crime indicates that the human has
made its reflux upon the fiendish, the pulses of life are beginning to beat again.
The comic scenes in Shakespearean tragedy provide us with comic relief.

In the last plays of Shakespeare humor is jovial but thoughtful. It is free from
malice and contempt. Here he smiles at human love and human joy. It is
Prospero's smile upon seeing the new happiness of youthful lovers:
So glad of this as they I cannot be,
Who are surprised with all, but my rejoicing
Nothing can be more.
5. Style and Versification: Shakespeare's style is individual and all his own. So
we call him Shakespearean. Edward Albert remarks: "It is a difficult, almost
impossible, matter to define it. There is aptness and quotability in it, sheaves of
Shakespeare's expressions have passed into common speech. To a very high
degree it possesses sweetness, strength, and flexibility; and above all it has a
certain inevitable and final felicity that is the true mark of genius."
Shakespeare's greatest poetic achievement was that he took the current
rhetorical verse of the stage and sublimated it till it became individual, precise,
strong, highly poetical, and capable of expressing the depths of all human
emotions. His command over the English language was unsurpassable. He used
15,000 words, and he wrote pure English. He discovered special skill in using
verse and prose, measured and unmeasured language at just the most
appropriate times. Shakespeare was endowed with a rare skill of expressing his
teeming fertility of fine thoughts and sentiments in an apt, majestic and
heart-touching style. All notes and all stops were at his command—from the
majesty "This royal throne of England, this sceptred isle" to the moving cadence
of "we are such stuff as dreams are made of, our life is rounded with a sleep",
from the bravery of "I dare do all that may become a man" to the dramatic
pathos of "Finish, good lady, the bright day is done, we are for the dark"; from
the whispered dread of "that undiscovered country from whose bourn no
traveler returns" to the sweet music of "Night's candles are burnt out and jocund
day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." Play after play shows the
inexorable wealth of his brain.
Shakespeare, a gifted and versatile dramatist and stylist, artistically and deftly
gave "a local habitation and a name" to "airy nothings". He brilliantly
concretises the purely imaginative phenomenon through vivid, visual images.
The style lends itself to the serenely ecstatic reverie of the sage:
Our revels are now over. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rock behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Shakespeare had a magic power over words. They come winged at his bidding
and seem to know their places. His epithets and single phrases are like sparkles
thrown off from the imagination fired by the whirling rapidity of its own motion.
His language translates thoughts into visible images. He is remarkably precise
and succinct. There are often two or three metaphors in a single sentence. When
Lady Macbeth reproaches him for his inconstant mind, her scorn condenses
itself in what seems to be, but is not, a mixture of metaphors:
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself.
The vivid quality of Shakespeare's imagination causes him to be dissatisfied

with all forms of expressions which are colorless and abstract. He makes
sonorous use of the Latin vocabulary to expound and define his meaning, and
then he adds the more homely figurative word to convert all the rest into
picture. His words are often paired in this fashion, one gives the thought, the
other adds the image. Shakespeare, by his freedom and spontaneity, and
resource has succeeded, perhaps better than any other writer, in giving a voice
and a body to those elusive movements of thought and feeling which are the life
of humanity.
Shakespeare had various distinct styles, corresponding to the different stages

of ripeness in his works. We may speak of them under threefold distinction of
earlier, middle and later styles taking Richard II, As You Like It and Coriolanus,
as representing the three distinct divisions. In the earliest plays the language is
sometimes as if it were a dress out upon the thought — a dress ornamented with
superfluous care. In the middle period there seems to be a perfect balance and
equality between the thought and its expression. In the latest plays the balance
is disturbed by the preponderance or excess of ideas over the means of giving
them utterance. The sentences are close, packed.
"The vivid pictorial quality of Shakespeare's imagination," writes Raleigh,

"causes him to be dissatisfied with all forms of expression which are colorless
and abstract." Imagery is resolved into simile and metaphor — simile being an
expanded metaphor and metaphor being a condensed simile. Something very
like this mixing figures of speech occurs in the following lines of Hamlet:
Blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so commingled
That they are not pipes for fortune's finger
To hear what stops her please.
Shakespeare makes poetic as well as dramatic use of imagery. He makes his

imagery emphasize character as well as atmosphere.
It is always Shakespeare's practice to mix both prose and verse together in his
plays. In the early comedies verse preponderates over prose. In the middle
period, especially in mature comedies, there is a proper blending of prose and

verse. In his later plays prose is put to the highest use. The following forms of
prose may be found in Shakespeare's plays. First, we have the prose of formal
documents as in letters and proclamations in the historical plays and state
formalities. Secondly, we have the prose of low life and of comic characters.
Thirdly, we have colloquial prose of dialogue and matter-of-fact narratives.
Fourthly, we have the prose of high comedy — vivacious, sparkling, and flashing
with wit and repartee. Fifthly, we have the prose of abnormal mentality as in the
case of Lear and Hamlet. And lastly, there is the highly wrought poetical and
rhetorical prose so conspicuous in Hamlet, Macbeth and Lear.
6. Conclusion: Shakespeare, writes S. A. Brooke, "was yet in all points, in
creative power, in impassioned conception and execution, in truth to universal
human nature, in intellectual power, in intensity of feeling, in the great manner
and matter of his poetry, in the welding together of thought, passion and action,
in range, in plenteousness, in the continuance of his romantic feeling—the
greatest dramatist the modern world has known." Dryden rightly pointed out:
"He was the man, who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, has the largest
and most comprehensive soul.”

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The Literary Lighthouse

Literature Study Guide Literary Movement

THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE: DRAMA

Literature in Elizabethan Age (1564-1616) l English Literature

William Shakespeare's Life

"William Shakespeare was born on or about the 23rd April, 1564, at

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The period of Shakespeare's literary activity, which spans twenty-four years

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Shakespearean comedy is preeminently romantic. In writing his comedies

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The entire atmosphere in Shakespearean comedy is surcharged with love. Not

His Heroines. The characters of a Shakespearean comedy are kindly,

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Some Complicating Factors

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Shakespeare's Historical Plays

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Shakespeare takes a personal interest in creating his lower characters in

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Shakespeare's last plays:

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"Soul of the age !

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Shakespeare's Dramatic Art

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Shakespeare's art of characterisation is marked by objectivity. In the words of

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Shakespeare has also created many fascinating female characters —

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Shakespeare's dramatic art is matchless in the entire range of dramatic

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Shakespeare's humor is more than a laughter producing power. It is a presence

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The vivid quality of Shakespeare's imagination causes him to be dissatisfied

Shakespeare had various distinct styles, corresponding to the different stages

"The vivid pictorial quality of Shakespeare's imagination," writes Raleigh,

Shakespeare makes poetic as well as dramatic use of imagery. He makes his

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