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Studies in Shakespeare

Introduction to Shakespeare Studies

Introduction

Welcome to English 366: Studies in Shakespeare. In the next three months we have the
delightful prospect of studying together a selection of works by William Shakespeare, without
question the presiding genius of English literature and the most famous and popular writer in the
history of the world’s literature. The time we have available is all too short, but I hope we can make
the best use of it, so that we emerge from this course with a richer appreciation of some of the
qualities that have earned Shakespeare his reputation, together with a strong desire to maintain a study
of his work in the years to come. In that sense, this course is designed as an introduction (and an
inadequate one, at that) to a much longer study.

In this lecture, I wish to undertake three matters: first, to introduce and review the
organization of the course, second, to offer a very quick historical introduction to Shakespeare’s
works, and, third, to present an introduction to some important matters relevant to the first plays we
will be studying. I’m going to be going through a great deal of material here, but we have a lot to get
through, so we might as well hit the ground running.

A Lover’s Complaint

But first a commercial digression. For reasons which are too complex to explain fully here,
the formal study of Shakespeare’s work in the Malaspina English department is limited to one
semester, on the principle that all upper-division courses should get equal time because they are all
equally important. To my old-fashioned way of thinking, that principle is foolish, since the works of
Shakespeare are far more central to English literature than anything else and thus deserve far more
sustained attention in the curriculum. In the tradition in which I was educated, all students
concentrating on English studied Shakespeare for three years and were rigorously examined on their
knowledge of the complete works. The idea was that people presenting themselves to the world as
graduates in English studies or as would-be teachers of English must have, as a first requirement, a
thorough familiarity with the single greatest achievement of any English writer.

That view is no longer current in many quarters, alas. In the past fifteen years, as the
popularity of Shakespeare continues to grow outside the university, inside many institutions of higher
learning his stock has in some places declined, so that a detailed familiarity with the works of the
world’s greatest writer is, in many cases, no longer required of students in English departments.
Among the reasons for this, as I’m sure you are aware, is the historical fact that Shakespeare was a
European white male who died many years ago. Privileging his work is thus (by some chop logic or
other) culturally oppressive, and he must be presented on a menu where everyone and everything has
equal billing. I understand that at Malaspina it is possible to graduate with a degree in English without
ever having studied Shakespeare at all. And a student who is motivated to study Shakespeare is
permitted only one semester of credit for immersing herself in the single most important reason for
studying the subject at all. This strikes me as somewhat the same as allowing someone to graduate in
Biology without ever having had to understand or deal with the concept of evolution. But, as I say, I
digress.

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Given enough time, the best way to study Shakespeare is to read through the works
chronologically, so that, over time, all his separate works become, in effect, one huge work, a house
with many mansions. That is a project I hope that some of you will undertake soon enough, and the
principal aim of this course is to motivate you to do so and to provide some initial interpretative
assistance for such a journey. For, make no mistake about it, if you are setting yourself up as some
sort of specialist in English literature and criticism, either as a teacher or writer, then, as I have
mentioned already, the single most essential qualification is a thorough familiarity with Shakespeare’s
works. There are all sorts of reasons for this. Among the most important are that Shakespeare’s work
sets the standard by which we assess other writers, that Shakespeare’s influence on writers after him is
pervasive and all-important (especially, let it be noted, among third-world writers), and that his
presence in the world’s popular culture has never been stronger. To these reasons we can add the most
important of all: that Shakespeare’s work is capable of generating the most intense imaginative
delight and wonder in the reader or spectator. If we ever want to know more about the full imaginative
potential of literature, we will most readily find it in the works of William Shakespeare.

English 366: Organizing Principles

Since we have only one semester, we have time to read only a few of the works, and this fact
presents the problem of selection. On what principle can we choose one work over another? There
are a number of options, from a random selection to some feeble attempt at a chronological coverage,
among others.

In order to resolve this issue, I decided that it might be appropriate to select different types of
plays so that we can together explore one of the most astonishing features of Shakespeare’s genius,
the variety in his dramatic presentation of human actions. As most of you probably know already,
Shakespeare’s work is usually divided up into three major groups: comedies, histories and tragedies
(often the group consists of four types: comedies, histories, tragedies, and last plays). The reading
material here invites us to sample plays from each of these traditional categories.

Thus, the major organizing principle of the plays we will be discussing will be this generic
division. We will start by examining two history plays: Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry V, both taken
from a sequence of plays known as the Second History Cycle. Then we will move on to look at two
of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Following these comedies, we
will look at three tragedies, Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth. And we will conclude our study with
one of the last plays, The Tempest.

To start with we will deal with the plays in pairs, spending about three weeks on each pair.
So in the next three weeks we shall be looking at the two history plays, and in the three weeks after
that the two comedies. We will slow down temporarily in dealing withHamlet and King Lear,
spending two weeks on each play. That will leave us with one week for Macbeth and one week for
the Tempest, with one week to use as we see fit.

This timetable will still mean that we do not spend nearly enough time on any particular play,
but if we remember that the purpose of this course is not to “do” Shakespeare (that is, to pretend that
we have dealt with any play conclusively) but rather to whet the appetite for further study, then we
may be able to tolerate a certain superficiality of treatment. If this proposed structure proves
unworkable we shall discuss ways to alter it. But for the moment it remains the basic organizing
principle.

A Note on the Style of Learning in English 366

I would like to stress at the outset in the strongest possible terms that the sole aim of this
course is to read, re-read, discuss, and interpret Shakespeare’s texts. We will be spending virtually no
time on anything else, that is to say, on matters dealing with the historical context of Shakespeare’s
life and times, the history of Shakespearean productions, the traditions of Shakespeare criticism, in

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short, on anything which does not directly involve reading the text and responding to it. I will be
making various recommendations and observations about some of these matters, but the only work
required of students is dealing with the plays in the above list (and some selected sonnets).

The major reason for having seminars as the important forum for the class is that they foster
the only form of criticism which is really useful for learning about interpreting Shakespeare (or any
other great writer’s work): conversational exchanges among informed participants. The seminar
process is inevitably slow, often digressive, and for some students very challenging. But we use it
because the learning that takes place in seminars is vastly superior to the learning that takes place in
lectures.

Difficult as it is for me to believe that you would not all much prefer to listen to my voice
droning on for three consecutive hours every week, I have to face the fact that students learn far more
about literary interpretation from listening to each other, putting their own views forward, and, in
general, continuing a conversational approach to complex texts. Moreover, it is well known that
students retain far more of what they learn in such a setting than from a lecture format.

[Students who would like some advice on seminar participation and a further explanation of
how this element in the course is assessed should consult the document on the instructor’s home page
called “Participating in Seminars.”]

The lectures, which form a less important component of the course, will tend to present a “big
picture” summary picture of the plays we are studying. They are designed primarily to offer a map
which points out the major features of the work and which explores a few interpretative possibilities
and alternatives. They will not attempt to duplicate the close reading and discussion of the seminars.
The texts of all the lectures will be made available on the instructor’s home page. In most cases, the
text of the lecture will contain more material than the instructor gets through in the one hour in class
session. Students may make use of these texts as they wish; the material is not compulsory reading.

What this pedagogy means, in practice, is that the research component of this course is
relatively unimportant. Students are expected to put most of their effort into preparing for the seminar
discussions by reading the texts, participating in the seminars, and reflecting on the experience
afterwards. The major writing assignments in the course, the essay and the seminar notes, do not
require extensive research. They are, by contrast, intended to encourage students to explore their own
unmediated responses to Shakespeare’s text. Of course, some students will want to dip into various
secondary sources. I would encourage you to do that only as a means of fostering or jump-starting
your own awareness of what is going on in a text. Do not, under any circumstances, so immerse
yourselves in all the secondary material (and there is a huge amount of it) that you are losing your
own contact with the text, spending more time reading what other people have said about a text than
what Shakespeare actually wrote.

By way of informing students about the interpretative methodology of English 366, I have
prepared a couple of documents which are posted on my home page (“On Scholarship and Literary
Interpretation” and “Critical Approaches to Shakespeare: Some Initial Observations”). If you would
like a further explanation of why we are proceeding as we are, then you might well look these over. If
you do not have time at the moment, you might like to print them off and read them later.

William Shakespeare: A Quick Overview

Before we settle down to some particular matters, it might be useful to offer something like a
historical overview, so that we can see where the relatively few works we are studying fit into the
grand scheme of the complete works. So I would like now to move to a rapid and cursory factual
outline of Shakespeare and his work.

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William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the provincial market town of Stratford-Upon-
Avon, in south-central England, to a middle-class family. His father was a business man, a glover,
who was a respectable and, for a time, prosperous citizen. He owned property and held public office.
Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, came from a well-established and respected family.

Shakespeare grew up in Stratford, and in 1582 (at age 18) he married Anne Hathaway (age
26). Their first child, Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583, and two years later, twins were born to the
couple: Hamnet and Judith. The record of these births is the last official evidence we have of
Shakespeare’s life until we hear of him in London as a successful playwright in 1592, some seven
years later.

The gap in the record is called the Lost Years, and it has provided scholars an apparently
insoluble puzzle. When and how did Shakespeare become a playwright? When did he go to London?
What exactly did he do in these obviously important formative years from age twenty to twenty-
seven? There have been all sorts of suggestions, ranging from the idea that Shakespeare worked as a
schoolteacher or tutor in a well-connected family to the proposal that he sailed around the world with
Francis Drake (the dates are not quite right here, but who could resist such a romantic idea?). An
enormous industry has arisen trying to penetrate this puzzle. But no definitive clue has turned up to
resolve the problem. Given the scholarly energy thrown at this problem, the total silence is very
strange.

At any rate, from 1592 on, when we first hear of Shakespeare as a successful playwright in
London, there are frequent and regular references to Shakespeare and his works in various legal and
publication records. He worked as an actor, producer, playwright, and chief shareholder of a company
called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. This company built its own theatre on the South Bank of the
Thames (the Globe Theatre), which has recently been restored as a working theatre (in a slightly
different location). Near the end of Shakespeare’s working life, the company acquired royal patronage
(becoming the King’s Men) and began using another theatre, this time one which made indoor
productions possible.

After twenty years as a working professional in London, Shakespeare evidently retired and
returned to Stratford in 1611 or 1612, where he died in 1616 at the age of 56. He was buried in the
local church. The first edition of his collected works (some of which had appeared separately) was put
together by London friends and colleagues and appeared in 1623 (this is the so-called First Folio, in
which many plays appeared in print for the first time).

This historical record of Shakespeare’s life is quite detailed but infuriatingly insufficient to
give one any sense of the personality of the man. None of the historical record includes a personal
communication to or from Shakespeare, a reliable anecdote, or even a well authenticated likeness (in
words or pictures). Thus, we have no way of knowing anything about the character or the daily life of
the man. Given the amount of scholarly digging which has gone on for generations, this absence is
remarkable. But it is so.

However, this historical cloud undoubtedly has an interpretative silver lining, for the total
absence of personal information means that the form of very misleading but popular interpretation
which insists that we must understand the text exclusively as a commentary upon the life is
impossible to pursue with much conviction (not that that stops some critics from making the attempt).

There are a number of legends and stories about Shakespeare which have persisted, like the
tale that he had a bastard son (Sir William Davenant) or the amusing story about his visiting at night a
lady who had made a rendezvous with Richard Burbage (the chief actor in the company, famous for
his Richard III), making love to the woman in the dark, and then, when Burbage appeared, leaping up
with the words “William the Conqueror came before Richard the third!” These and other stories,
however much we might like to believe them, are quite unreliable. Many can be traced back only to a
period many years after Shakespeare’s death.

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The Complete Works

What we do have—and what really matters in this story—is the collection of Shakespeare’s
works, an astonishing achievement. I would like to focus on a chronological catalogue of the complete
works for a while in order to provide something of a map for us in the coming weeks. I have attached
the list I am going to be discussing to the course outline.

Title Date Written First Published

The Comedy of Errors 1590 (?-1594) 1623


Titus Andronicus 1590 (?-1594) 1594
The Taming of the Shrew 1591 (?-1594) 1623
2 Henry 6 1591 (?-1592) 1594
3 Henry 6 1591 (?-1592) 1595
1 Henry 6 1592 (?-1592) 1623
Venus and Adonis* 1592 1593
Richard III 1592 (1592-1597) 1597
Love’s Labour’s Lost 1593 (?-1597) 1598
Rape of Lucrece* 1593 1594
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1593 (?-1598) 1623

Midsummer Night’s Dream 1594 (1594-1598) 1600


Romeo and Juliet 1595 (?-1597) 1597
Richard II 1595 (1595-1597) 1597
King John 1596 (?-1598) 1623
Merchant of Venice 1596 (1594-1598) 1600
1 Henry 4 1597 (1595-1598) 1598
Merry Wives of Windsor 1597 (1597-1602) 1602
2 Henry 4 1597 (1596-1598) 1600
As You Like It 1598 (1598-1600) 1623
Henry V 1599 (1599) 1600
Much Ado About Nothing 1599 (1598-1600) 1600
Julius Caesar 1599 (1598-1599) 1623
Twelfth Night 1600 (1600-1602) 1623
Phoenix and the Turtle* 1600? 1601
Sonnets* 1591-? 1609

Hamlet 1601 (1599-1601) 1603


Troilus and Cressida 1602 (1601-1603) 1609
All’s Well That Ends Well 1603 (1598-?) 1623
Measure for Measure 1604 (1598-1604) 1623

Othello 1604 (1598-1604) 1622


King Lear 1605 (1598-1606) 1608
Macbeth 1605 (1603-1611) 1623
Antony and Cleopatra 1606 (1598-1608) 1623
Timon of Athens 1606 (1598-?) 1623
Coriolanus 1607 (1598-?) 1623

Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1607 (1598-1608) 1609


Cymbeline 1609 (1598-1611) 1623
A Winter’s Tale 1610 (1598-1611) 1623
The Tempest 1611 (1610-1611) 1623
Henry VIII 1613 (1612-1613) 1623

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There are a number of noteworthy things about this list which I would like us to dwell upon
for a moment.

The first obvious point is the amazing volume of output, thirty-seven plays and many poems
in a period of about twenty years, while at the same time Shakespeare was acting, managing,
producing, and helping to administer a thriving professional business. The second obvious point is the
variety, everything from intense lyric poems, to witty mythological narrative poems, to farcical and
robust and ironic and pastoral comedies, passionately moving tragedies, and historical chronicle plays,
a wonderful variety of styles, unmatched in the output of any other playwright. From ancient classical
times on there has been a view that no one writer could successfully work in such different forms as
comedy and tragedy. Shakespeare’s work puts paid to that notion, and any other idea that the
particular form a writer of genius selects to work in need be somehow a limitation on other similar
forms.

However, the most astonishing feature of this list of the collected works is the quality. Quite
apart from the plays, this list contains several of the greatest poems ever written in English. In fact, if
Shakespeare had never written a single play, he would still be considered the major English poet on
the strength of the quality of some of the non-dramatic verse. However, it is certainly not the case that
everything Shakespeare wrote is a masterpiece. Some of the plays are clearly inferior to the others,
and some have given rise to sustained hostile criticism; for example, the Henry VI plays, Titus
Andronicus, and Cymbeline, and a few of the sonnets have often been called poor by any standard.
But the sustained excellence of the best of Shakespeare’s work almost defies our sense of the limits of
what is possible.

I will be coming back to this list in a moment, but it is now time briefly to explore a major
digression which has teased historical scholars (amateur and professional) about this list, namely, the
question how any one person, least of all a relatively uneducated provincial son of a small-town
merchant, a writer who, good heavens, never even attended university, could have possibly produced
these works

The Authorship Question

The almost miraculous achievement of the works in the above list has been the chief factor
prompting theories that someone other than William Shakespeare, the citizen of Stratford, must have
been the author, someone with a university education or a wider experience of the world or a much
richer cultural background. You will no doubt have all heard something of the never-ending debates
on this question, between the Stratfordians (defenders of Shakespeare) and the anti-Stratfordians
(those proposing some other author).

It needs to be emphasized as strongly as possible that there is no hard evidence for any of
these rival claimants, unless we agree that the Collected Works could not have been produced by
someone with Shakespeare’s background (which seems an entirely illegitimate assumption). Whoever
wrote the plays was clearly an extraordinary genius, so any assumptions about what we might or
might not expect on the basis of normal background and experiences is moot. Let me cite one well
known and remarkable fact: Shakespeare’s working vocabulary of approximately 25,000 words. By
comparison, the major writer of the seventeenth century who comes next for the size of his working
vocabulary, Milton, an immensely well-educated and well-read scholar, had a working vocabulary of
about 12,000 words. And most major writers have working vocabularies far smaller than that. This
fact suggests strongly that whoever wrote the plays cannot be assessed by an ordinary yardstick.

The lack of hard evidence for any rival authors has forced the Anti-Stratfordians to use their
ingenuity, and so there has been no shortage of elaborate “proofs” in favour of this candidate or
another (Christopher Marlowe, who didn’t really die but wrote the plays abroad, the Earl of Oxford,
Queen Elizabeth I, Francis Bacon, and so on; even Edward VI, who history tells us died when
Elizabeth was still very young, has been proposed as the author). I will not bore or confuse you with

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the details (some of which you can check out for yourself on the Internet, if you are so inclined), but I
do want to mention my favorite piece of evidence (as a sample of the nature of the debate).

Defenders of Francis Bacon make much of a long nonsense Latin word which appears
in Love’s Labour’s Lost: honorificabilitudinitatibus. This, so the argument goes, is an anagram for the
Latin expression:hi ludi F. Bacon nati tuiti orbi (“these plays, born from F. Bacon, are preserved for
the world”). To this argument the Stratfordians reply with the title of the play written shortly
after Love’s Labour’s Lost, in the original spelling, Much Adoe About Nothing which can be unpacked
to read, “Bacon? O naught due to him.”

These sorts of arguments are on par with the famous “proof” that Shakespeare must have
written the King James Version of the Bible. The evidence is as follows: in Psalm 46, the 46th word
from the start is “shake” and the 46th word from the end is “spear.” And the King James Version was
published in the year Shakespeare was 46.Quod erat demonstrandum. The interesting question about
such proofs, of course, is not that they establish anything about the authorship question but that
anyone could spend time coming up with them.

Shakespeare’s Collected Works: The Chronological Development

For our purposes a particularly interesting feature of the list of Shakespeare’s Complete
Works is what it reveals about Shakespeare’s development as an artist. For it is possible to recognize
very clear stages in the development of his art (these are indicated in the chart by the blank lines in
certain places). I wish to review these stages now, playing some attention to where the plays we will
be studying belong. I should stress that I have drawn these lines in myself and the positions are
somewhat arbitrary, but they serve to bring out some major points about Shakespeare’s development.

Shakespeare began his writing career in the very early 1590’s at a time when the theatre was
flourishing in London and had developed, in the hands of Shakespeare’s predecessors, some very
popular genres. If we look at the first group of plays (from The Comedy of Errors to Two Gentlemen
of Verona, approximately from 1590 to 1593) we can see that the list is dominated by comedies and
historical chronicles. This feature is not surprising. If the first task of an ambitious young professional
writer is to make his mark quickly, then the most obvious resources available are the already popular
forms of art.

So we see here plays very closely patterned on popular classical originals (e.g., The Comedy
of Errors, derived from the eternally popular Latin playwright Plautus) and historical chronicle plays
appealing to the intensely patriotic fervor of the English audience (whose jingoistic feelings had
reached an apogee of sorts in 1588 with the defeat of the Spanish Armada). This period we can, with
some justification, call Shakespeare’s apprenticeship, where he is learning the craft. Some of the
plays, by the standard of his later works, seem very crude (both in style and content). The Henry
VIplays feature a sometimes bewildering series of battles, many often repetitive and predictable set
speeches at key moments, and, in general, an often rather simple vision of experience. Titus
Andronicusis the most horrifically violent and rhetorically excessive of all Shakespeare’s plays
(featuring gang rape, mutilation, multiple murders, all with a high rhetoric to match—a real pot
boiler). Love’s Labour’s Lost is a amazingly witty poetical tour de force, in a poetical style that seems
clearly designed to show how skillful the writer can be in the approved verse forms of the day (it may
well have been written for a private and very sophisticated audience). And so on.

We are not studying a play from these period, a great shame, given the interest there is in
following the development of Shakespeare’s art from the beginning, to get a sense of how he
experimented with the prevailing popular genres. Alas, there is insufficient time.

Following the apprenticeship period, we can distinguish a second period, which I call
Shakespeare’s early maturity, characterized by a large group of plays, starting with Midsummer
Night’s Dream (1594) and ending with Twelfth Night (1600). Here Shakespeare finds his authentic

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style and produces a rich series of plays, still largely comedies and historical chronicle plays (we will
consider the differences between these shortly), but with two tragedies (Romeo and Juliet and Julius
Caesar), both deservedly popular, but, by common consent, somewhat less impressive than the later
plays in that genre. In this period, too, many of the sonnets were probably written. It appears, then,
that by 1600 Shakespeare has fully hit his stride and is well launched in a professional career. We will
be reading four plays from this period: Henry IV, Part 1, Henry V, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night.

What happens next is something of a puzzle. Starting with Hamlet(1601) and continuing
until Measure for Measure (1604) we have a series of very troubling plays, full of harsh imagery,
baffling ambiguities, and interpretative difficulties. From the robust comic affirmation of, say, As You
Like It, which seems to spring from an imagination richly confident about the world’s happiest
possibilities, we move to something much more ambiguously bitter (especially where relations
between men and women are concerned). We see that same contrast in the sonnets (although these are
not organized in a chronological sequence)—some of the most powerfully charged poems celebrating
the beauty and joy of love stand side by side with poems despairing about any chance for meaningful
love in a deceitful, troubling, and diseased world.

This period has come to be called Shakespeare’s Problem Period and the plays in it the
Problem Plays (although the name is used a great deal less nowadays than it used to be). And the
sudden change of tone has invited all sorts of biographical speculation. What could have happened to
the successful poet-playwright to turn his vision of life so bleak and bitter? How can his vision of
human character shift so quickly from, say, Falstaff and Rosalind to, say, Hamlet and Pandarus? We
do not know. The death of Shakespeare’s father (in 1601) and of his son Hamnet a few years before
might have had something to do with it. The intense love triangle depicted in the sequence of sonnets
has prompted some readers to see a torrid, illicit, diseased (perhaps), and frustrating affair as a cause.

The Problem Plays include Hamlet, which we shall be studying and which is famous for the
interpretative debates it (and its chief character) have always produced. The other plays in this group
have generally been less popular than most of the others until recent decades (if we were undertaking
this course 100 years ago, as part of my pedagogical duties I would have to be warning you,
especially the ladies, not to read Troilus and Cressida). The increased popularity of the Problem Plays
after World War II perhaps indicates that in the ambiguity and emotional confusion we find
something particularly appropriate to modern times.

The Problem Period was followed by the most staggering outburst of high-level poetic genius
the world has ever seen, Shakespeare’s great tragic period, in which, in the space of about four years,
he produced, one right after the other, a sequence of tragedies unequaled in English literature for their
power, dramatic intensity, and quality. Whatever had lead to the muddying of Shakespeare’s vision in
the problem plays is now swept aside by a profound maturing tragic understanding of the world. From
this crucial period we will be studying two plays: King Lear, and Macbeth.

But there is one more final period, that of the so-called Last Plays or (an older title) the
Romances. Here again, the change in style is remarkable and wholly unexpected. Shakespeare in these
plays returns to the comic vision of life, but with a new style of comedy which stresses somewhat
different themes, particularly the importance of learning from experience over time, of retaining faith
in one’s fellow human beings, of forgiving. The sense here is of a new mature acceptance of what life
has to offer, a feeling that the suffering and loss which life inevitably brings do not therefore make it
empty of all possible joys (something strongly brought out in some of the tragedies).

We will be spending very little time with this group of plays (partly because one has to see
productions of them to sense their full potential and they lose a lot on the page), but we will be
concluding our course with The Tempest, the last play Shakespeare wrote in its entirety.

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Histories, Tragedies, and Comedies

Just as I have done in the above discussion, it is common to discuss Shakespeare’s plays in
terms of three basic categories: Comedies, Tragedies, and History Plays. This is not a matter
Shakespeare appears to have worried about, and the distinction is first made in the First Folio (1623)
prepared after his death. So far as we can tell from the titles of his plays published during his lifetime,
Shakespeare seems to have had no particular analytical conception of these differences, as a look at
some of the names of the plays reveals.

The Tragedy of Richard the Third

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

The History of King Lear

However, the common distinction has some analytical use, and we shall be exploring some of
the distinctions between these three common labels as we proceed. At this time, I simply want to
make some observations about the major distinction between comedy and tragedy. This will serve, in
part, to outline some interpretative procedures for us to consider.

Dramatic Structure: Comedy and Tragedy

Shakespeare’s plays are all about one great general theme: disorder. This may sound like a
profound statement, but, as we shall see in a moment, it applies equally well to almost all drama. Still,
the point is worth stressing, for reasons we shall attend to in a moment, because the major entry into
every play we read is going to be an attempt to answer some key questions associated with that notion
of disorder: What is the order in this society? How is that order violated? How do the characters
respond to the loss of traditional order? How is order restored? Is the new order at the end of the play
something healthy or is it shot through with ironic resonance?

All dramatic stories always involve conflict. Typically, the dramatic narrative will open with
some sense of a normal society: we see people of all kinds going about their business, and in
witnessing this initial state of affairs we quickly ascertain the various ranks of people, the bonds
which hold them together, and something about their value system. In other words, we begin with a
society which is held together by shared rules. Many of Shakespeare’s plays begin with a large group
scene (the king and his court, for example) in which everyone has a place and knows his or her place.
The scene is offered to us as a symbol of social unity which is about to be broken and will not be
restored until the closing scenes (e.g., King Lear,Macbeth, Richard II).

Then, something unusual and often unexpected happens to upset that normality. The event
may be something natural, like a ship wreck (as in Twelfth Night or The Tempest), supernatural (as
in Macbethand Hamlet), a decision made by a particular character (as in King Lear or As You Like It)
or a sudden quarrel (e.g., As You Like It, Henry IV, Part 1). Often this event which kick starts the
action is given very quickly with no attempt to provide a detailed explanation for it or even, in some
cases, instantly plausible motivation (e.g., Cordelia’s refusal to answer Lear, Oliver’s decision to seek
Orlando’s death). At all events, this upset (which typically occurs very early in the action) disturbs the
normal situation, creates confusion and conflict. Such conflict may be the source of much humour (for
example, in the various mistaken identities which occur when a set of twins or, as in Comedy of
Errors, two sets of twins, unexpectedly get loose in the community), or it may be the source of much
political, personal, and psychological torment. Attempts to understand what is going on or to deal
with it simply compound the conflict, accelerating it and intensifying it. Finally, the conflict is
resolved.

The terms comedy and tragedy commonly refer to the ways in which dramatic conflicts are
resolved. In comedy, the confusion ends when everyone recognizes what has been going on, learns

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from it, forgives, forgets, and re-establishes his or her identity in the smoothly functioning social
group (which may return to the original normality or may be setting up a better situation than the one
the group started with). Comedies typically end with a group celebration, especially one associated
with a betrothal or wedding, often accompanied by music and dancing The emphasis is on the
reintegration of everyone into the group, a recommitment to their shared life together. If there has
been a clearly disruptive presence in the action, a source of anti-social discord, then that person
typically has reformed his ways, has been punished, or is banished from the celebration. Thus, the
comic celebration is looking forward to a more meaningful communal life (hence the common ending
for comedies: “And they lived happily ever after”).

The ending of a tragedy is quite different. Here the conflict is resolved only with the death of
the main character, who usually discovers just before his death that his attempts to control the conflict
and make his way through it have simply compounded his difficulties and that, therefore, to a large
extent the dire situation he is in is largely of his own making. The death of the hero is not normally
the very last thing in a tragedy, however, for there is commonly (especially in classical Greek tragedy)
some group lament over the body of the fallen hero, a reflection upon the significance of the life
which has now ended. Some of Shakespeare’s best known speeches are these laments. The final
action of a tragedy is then the carrying out of the corpse. The social group has formed again, but only
as a result of the sacrifice of the main character(s), and the emphasis in the group is in a much lower
key, as they ponder the significance of the life of the dead hero (in that sense, the ending of a tragedy
is looking back over what has happened; the ending of comedy is looking forward to a joyful future)..

This apparently simple structural difference between comedy and tragedy means that, with
some quick rewriting, a tragic structure can be modified into a comic one. If we forget about violating
the entire vision in the work (more about this later), we can see how easily a painful tragic ending can
be converted into a reassuring comic conclusion.. If Juliet wakes up in time, she and Romeo can live
happily ever after. If Cordelia survives, then Lear’s heart will not break; she can marry Edgar, and all
three of them can live prosperously and happily for years to come. And so on. Such changes to the
endings of Shakespeare’s tragedies were commonplace in eighteenth-century productions, at a time
when the tragic vision of experience was considered far less acceptable and popular by the general
public.

Comedy and Tragedy as Visions of Experience

But the terms tragedy and comedy refer to more than simply the structure of a narrative
(especially the ending). The terms also commonly refer to visions of experience (which those
structures present). And this matter is considerably more complex than simply the matter of the final
plot twist.

Of the two, the comic vision is easier to explain, since, as we shall see, it corresponds to the
way most of us think (or like to think) about life. Stated most simply, the comic vision celebrates the
individual’s participation in a community as the most important part of life. When the normal
community is upset, the main characters in a comedy will normally have the initial urge to seek to
restore that normality, to get back what they have lost. Initially, they will be unsuccessful, and they
will have to adapt to unfamiliar changes (funny or otherwise). But in a comedy the main characters
will have the ability to adjust, to learn, to come up with the resources necessary to meet the challenges
they face. They may also have a great deal of luck. But one way and another, they persevere and the
conflict is resolved happily with the reintegration of the characters into a shared community. Often an
important point in the comedy is the way in which the main characters have to learn some important
things about life (especially about themselves) before being able to resolve the conflict (this is
particular true of the men in Shakespeare’s comedies).

This form of story, it will be clear, is an endorsement of the value in the communal life we
share together and of the importance of adjusting our individual demands on life to suit community
demands. In a sense, the comic confusion will often force the individual to encounter things he or she

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has taken for granted, and dealing with these may well test many different resources (above all faith,
flexibility, perseverance, and trust in other people). But through a final acknowledgment (earned or
learned) of the importance of human interrelationships, a social harmony will be restored (commonly
symbolized by a new betrothal, a reconciliation between parents, a family reunion, and so on), and a
group celebration (feast, dance, procession) will endorse that new harmony.

Tragedy, by contrast, explores something much more complex: the individual’s sense of his
own desire to confront the world on his own terms, to get the world to answer to his conceptions of
himself, if necessary at the expense of customary social bonds and even of his own life. The tragic
hero characteristically sets out to deal with a conflict by himself or at least entirely on his own terms,
and as things start to get more complicated, generally the tragic figure will simply redouble his
efforts, increasingly persuaded that he can deal with what is happening only on his own. In that sense,
tragic heroes are passionately egocentric and unwilling to compromise their powerful sense of their
own identity in the face of unwelcome facts. They will not let themselves answer to any communal
system of value; they answer only to themselves. Lear would sooner face the storm on the heath than
compromise his sense of being horribly wronged by his daughters; Macbeth wills himself to more
killings as the only means to resolve the psychological torment he feels; Othello sets himself up as the
sole judge and executioner of Desdemona.

Tragic heroes always lose because the demands they make on life are excessive. Setting
themselves up as the only authority for their actions and refusing to compromise or learn (except too
late), they inevitably help to create a situation where there is no way out other than to see the action
through to its increasingly grim conclusion. Hence, for most of us tragic heroes are often not
particularly sympathetic characters (not at least in the way that comic protagonists are). There is
something passionately uncompromising about their obsessive egoism which will only accept life on
their own terms—in a sense they are radically unsociable beings (although they may occupy, and in
Shakespeare almost always do occupy, important social positions).

The intriguing question is the following: Why would anyone respond to life this way? That
question is very difficult to answer. The tragic response to life is not a rationally worked out position.
For any rational person, the comic response to life, which requires compromise in the name of
personal survival in the human community (or which sees the whole question of personal identity in
social terms), makes much more sense. What does seem clear is that the tragic response to life
emerges in some people from a deeply irrational but invincible conviction about themselves. Their
sense of what they are, their integrity, is what they must answer to, and nothing the world presents is
going to dissuade them from attending to this personal sense of worth. Hence, tragedy is, in a sense, a
celebration (if that is the right word) of the most extreme forms of heroic individualism. That may
help to explain the common saying “Comedy is for those who think, tragedy for those who feel.”

One way of clarifying this is to think how we construct for ourselves a sense of who we are,
of our identity. Most of us do that in terms of social relationships and social activities. In traditional
societies, one’s identity is often very closely bound up with a particular family in a specific place. We
define ourselves to ourselves and to others as sons, daughters, husbands, wives, members of an
academic community or a social or religious group, or participants in a social activity, and so on. In
that sense we define ourselves comically (not in a funny way but in terms of a social matrix). The
tragic hero is not willing or able to do this (although he or she might not be aware of that inability at
first). The tragic personality wants to answer only to himself, and thus his sense of his own identity is
not determined by others (they must answer to his conception of himself). Given that his passions are
huge and egocentric and uncompromising, the establishment of an identity inevitably brings him into
collision with the elemental forces of life, which he must then face alone (because to acknowledge
any help would be a compromise with his sense of who he is).

We might also ask why we bother paying such attention to a tragic character. What is there
about the tragic response which commands our imaginative respect? After all, many of these
characters strike us as very naive and full of their own self-importance (in some ways, perhaps, quite

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childish), not the sort of people one would like to have as next door neighbours or dinner companions.
Incapable of adapting to unexpected changes in life, they often seem so rigid as to defy credibility and
curiously blind (a key metaphor in many tragedies). Characteristically, they don’t listen to others, but
rather insist that people listen to and agree with them (the pronouns I and me are very frequent in their
public utterances—Lear is one of the supreme examples of this tendency).

Why are these people worthy of our attention? We shall have much to explore on this
question in dealing with Macbeth and Lear, but for the moment we might observe that we don’t have
to like these people particularly in order for them to command our attention. What matters is their
willingness to suffer in the service of their own vision of themselves. They have set an emotional
logic to their lives, and they are going to see it through, no matter how powerfully their originally
high hopes are deceived. They are also, in a sense that we can imaginatively understand, although
rarely if ever attain in our own lives, truly free, since they acknowledge no authority other than
themselves. Macbeth is a mass murderer (of women and children, among others); no one watching the
play will have any sympathy for his bloody actions. And yet as he faces and deals with the grim
realities closing in on him, his astonishing clear sightedness, courage, and willingness to endure
whatever life loads on him command our respect and attention. The same hold true for Lear, in many
ways a foolish father and king and an inflexibly egocentric man, whose sufferings and whose
willingness to suffer inspire awe.

Characters in plays, as in life, do not decide to be tragic or comic heroes. What they are
emerges as they respond to the unexpected conflict which the opening of the drama initiates. Their
response to the dislocation of normality will determine which form their story will take. To the comic
hero, undertaking what is necessary for the restoration of normality is important, and that may well
require serious adjustments to one’s opinion of oneself, an ability to adopt all sorts of ruses and
humiliations (disguise, deceptions, pratfalls, beatings, and so on), a faith in others, and some
compromise in the acknowledgment of others. Comic heroes and heroines learn to listen to others and
respond appropriately. The tragic hero, by contrast, takes the responsibility fully on himself. In his
own mind, he is the only one who knows what needs to be done, and if circumstances indicate that he
may be wrong, he is incapable of acknowledging that until it’s too late. His sense of himself is too
powerful to admit of change. Tragic heroes do not listen to others, only to themselves (or to others
who tell them what they want to hear). People who tell them they are acting foolishly are simply part
of the problem.

Tragic heroes and heroines, in other words, do not answer to community morality; they do not
accept the conventional vision of things which reassures most of us by providing a group sense of
what is most important in life. For that reason (as I shall mention in a moment) the tragic vision is
potentially very disturbing, because we are dealing with a character who is not satisfied with
traditional group explanations, with the socially reassuring rules and habits, and whose life therefore
tears aside momentarily the comforting illusions which serve to justify life to us as a meaningful
moral experience.

For that reason inquiring into the motivations of tragic characters is often difficult. Why do
they behave the way they do? Why can’t they just be reasonable and act normally? Why doesn’t Lear
take up his daughters’ offer? Why doesn’t Othello just ask Desdemona about her “affair” with Cassio?
Why does Macbeth kill Duncan? Often we seek simple rational moralistic explanations: Lear is too
proud, Othello is too angry, Macbeth is too ambitious. Such simplistic answers (which cater more to
our desire for a reassuring reason than to the complex details of the play) are an attempt to cope with
the unease which the tragic character can generate.

The critic Murray Krieger has suggested that the comic and tragic visions of experience
correspond to the two things we all like to think about ourselves and our lives. Comedy celebrates our
desire for and faith in community and the security and permanence that community ensures (if not for
us, then for our families). To become cooperating members of the community most of us spend a lot
of time educating ourselves, compromising some of the things we would most like in life, and

12
rebounding from disappointments and set backs with a renewed sense of hope (and perhaps some new
ways of dealing with things). Tragedy, by contrast, celebrates our desire for individual integrity, for a
sense that there are some things which we are not prepared to compromise, even if asserting our
individuality fully brings great (even fatal) risks. The tragic hero has this sense to an excessive degree,
just as many comic heroes display an astonishing flexibility, adaptability, and willingness to learn and
change.

An alternative formulation of this difference (prompted by the writings of Stanley Cavell)


might be to characterize it as arising from two different ways of approaching the world we encounter:
acceptance or avoidance. The first way accepts the world (including the various explanations of it
offered by our culture) and seek to be accepted by it. This response clearly requires us to place
ourselves and our thinking within a community (even our challenges to accepted ways of thinking will
be directed by how the community allows for such disagreements) and, equally, to limit the demands
we make on understanding the world (keeping such demands within conventional boundaries).

The second way (avoidance) is, in some fundamental way, suspicious of, unhappy about,
afraid or contemptuous of acceptance, since that means answering to other people, letting them take
full measure of us, and limiting our understanding of the world to what is available to us from our
surrounding community. This response prompts the individual to powerful self-assertion in a rejection
of any compromise in the direction of common social interaction. Hence, this method of encountering
the world leads to isolation, suffering, and eventually self-destruction (since the reality of the world
can never be known by nor will ever answer to one person’s imagination).

Since one of the most common ways of representing acceptance of the world is human love,
that experience is a prominent feature of plays which endorse such acceptance (i.e., comedies). For
the same reason, it is a marked feature of much Shakespearean tragedy (starting with Richard III) that
the hero suffers from an inability to love or else loses that capacity.

This last point introduces a gender differentiation which is important in Shakespeare (and
elsewhere) and raises some important questions about contrasting male and female principles, the
former associated with the origins of tragedy in some dissatisfaction with the given world and the
latter associated with an acceptance of that world. I don’t propose to pursue that here, but as you read
these plays you will see that characteristically Shakespeare associates the drive to impose order
(political or personal) on the world with men and measures the nature of this drive often by the way in
which it affects (or arises out of) their ability or, rather, inability to love.

For those interested in psychoanalytic origins of behaviour, this distinction, too, offers
potential insight. If the fundamental experience of life in men is a separation from and a desire to
repossess the mother (Freud’s Oedipal conflict) then we can see in these plays a clear distinction
between those who have overcome this separation and integrated themselves into the community
happily and those whose life is characterized by a continuing sense of separation from what they
sense they most fully need on their own terms. I offer this here as a fertile suggestion which we may
take up later on.

By way of clarifying the distinction between the comic and tragic visions further, we might
consider the different emotional effects. While the ending of a comedy is typically celebratory, there
is always a sense of limitation underneath the joy (how strong that sense is will determine just how
ironic the ending of the comedy might be). The human beings have settled for the joys which are
possible and are not going to push their demands on life beyond the barriers established by social
convention. Hence, comedy, in a sense, always involves a turning away from the most challenging
human possibilities. Tragedy, on the other hand, although generally gory and sad in its conclusion,
also affirms something: the ability of human beings to dare great things, to push the human spirit to
the limit no matter what the consequences. Hence, beneath the sorrowful lament for the dead hero,
there often will be a sense of wonder at this manifestation of the greatness of this individual spirit.

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This sense of potential sadness or limitation in the conclusion of a comedy may help to
account for one of the most intriguing figures in our cultural traditions, the clown with the broken
heart, the sad clown, the professional funny man who brings laughter to others because, although he
knows that the social order he is serving may be an illusion, it’s all there is between us and the
overwhelming and destructive mystery of life. The tradition of the sadly wise professional funny man
stems from this awareness: settling for the joys that are possible (like shared laughter) is a way of
screening from us the tragic suffering at the heart of life. We see this in at least two of Shakespeare’s
most famous clowns: Feste in Twelfth Nightand the Fool in King Lear. We also see it, incidentally, in
the sad lives of many other famous clowns, fictional and otherwise (Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Tony
Hancock).

The comic vision of experience is common to many cultures. Our traditions of comic drama
originated with the ancient Greeks, but the form never really had to be reinvented or passed down,
because it is a vital element in most dramatic rituals which communities routinely celebrate on
important occasions (in harvest pageants, celebrations of spring, and so on). Any pagan culture based
upon the cycles of nature which turns to some form of ritualized drama, usually as part of the
celebrations associated with an agricultural or hunting festival, will almost certainly produce some
form of comedy.

Tragic drama, by contrast, has a very different history. The ancient Greeks developed the
vision and the style in a way unheard of in other ancient cultures. And its unique presence there is a
tribute to the way this culture originated a preoccupation with the lives of heroic individuals, whose
very greatness brings upon them unimaginable suffering and an early death, something very strong in
our Western traditions. The Greek tradition of tragic drama was not available to Shakespeare; he
knew some of the stories from various sources other than the Greek originals, but had no direct
experience of what tragedy really meant to the Greeks. Hence, he had no inherited sense of the full
potential of the tragic vision in drama.

A Note on Tragi-Comedy

A third label often applied to the structure of drama, especially in modern times, is tragi-
comedy. This label, whatever else it may mean, tends to refer to a dramatic structure in which there is
no firm sense of closure. In other words, the dramatic conflict is not resolved, and the audience is left
with the sense that the conflict (and the suffering it occasions) will just continue, more or less without
end.

This form of a story is (for obvious reasons) generally very pessimistic, since it refuses to
confer upon the narrative a distinct ending which will give shape and significance to the action.
Hence, the tragic-comic form is quite common in those modern dramas we have come to call
collectively the Theatre of the Absurd (Waiting for Godot is the most famous representative of the
genre). Since the nature of the ending of an action determines its significance, the absence of a firm
ending is one way of evoking strongly a sense of absurdity—the action has no final meaning; it is just
going to continue without resolution. Meaningless and eternal conflict is the state of human
experience.

Shakespeare’s works do not exemplify this tragic-comic form, with perhaps one very notable
exception, Troilus and Cressida, and the particularly bitter tone of that play arises, as much as
anything, from the way in which the suffering actions find no final meaning in a tragic or comic
conclusion. We are left where we started: in the midst of a war full of betrayal, disease, killing, and
pointless debates (full of high rhetoric but not leading to actions which match the lofty language). It’s
not surprising perhaps that this play became much more popular in modern times than it had ever been
before.

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The History Play

The label History Play or Chronicle is sometimes a disputed category. What exactly does the
term denote? It seems that a clear sense of the meaning of the term History Play is not something that
Shakespeare or his contemporaries shared, since they applied the term freely to all sorts of plays we
would now exclude (e.g., Doctor Faustus is called a “tragical history,” The Merchant of Venice ”a
most excellent history,” the first published versions of Hamlet were termed “tragical history,” the first
printed version of King Lear called it a “History”; the second printed version called in a “Tragedy”).
Designating some plays as belonging to a specific group called History Plays, as opposed to
Comedies and Tragedies, starts only with the publication of the Collected Works after Shakespeare’s
death (in the First Folio). Since that time, and especially nowadays, there is a considerable debate
about just what the term might mean as an important literary genre in Elizabethan culture and how we
should place Shakespeare’s so-called History Plays into the development of that cultural form.

Without going into the arguments scholars wage over this question, we might note that for us
the term means nowadays primarily a play (comedy or tragedy) in which the scope of the action is by
and large restricted to the political-historical dimension. In other words, in a History Play, the central
focus falls squarely on the social and political aspects of the action and characterization and does not
explore too deeply any other possibilities raised by the story.

For example, the Henry IV plays are clearly Histories rather than, say, the Tragedy of
Bolingbroke or the Happy Comedy of Henry V. The focus in these plays does not permit us to wander
far from the political concerns raised by the action. It would have been possible for Shakespeare to
take us deep into the personal feelings of guilt which Bolingbroke (Henry IV) has for what he has
done to gain the throne and to link his suffering to issues far more profound than the immediate
political context. There are many hints that all is not well in Bolingbroke’s mind. However, the play
does not take us in that direction; it keeps us firmly on the plane of the political consequences of
Bolingbroke’s usurpation, putting at the forefront questions of political power, legitimacy, rebellion,
and obligation. For instance, we have no idea when or why Bolingbroke decides to usurp the throne.

Similarly, the “happy” resolution of Prince Hal’s story is kept always in the political realm.
By the end of Henry V, the character is little more than the sum total of his political achievements and
skills (and there may be a powerful irony in that). What this all means to Henry V as a particular
person remains almost entirely hidden. No character in a Shakespeare has a more significant share of
a play (Henry speaks approximately one third of the lines of the play), but there is no major character
whose personality is more elusive—even though he does address the audience in soliloquies.

This quality of restricting the action and the characterization to the political realm clearly sets
the Henry IV plays or Henry V apart from, say, Macbeth and King Lear. These plays also have an
important political-historical dimension, but they move far beyond that into the deep personal
suffering of the main characters and, through that, into an exploration of matters which leave mere
political issues far behind. They are raising issues about the nature of the universe and human life in
it, rather than with the state of the political realm at a unique historical moment or specific issue of
authority and political power.

Richard II, of all the plays conventionally called History Plays, is the one which probably
comes closest to a tragic conclusion. But, here again, the focus tends to be more squarely on the
political consequences of Richard’s actions than on their tragic implications.

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Critical Approaches to Shakespeare: Some Initial Observations

Introduction

An earlier introductory note to some basic principles of literary interpretation (“On


Scholarship and Literary Interpretation”), stressed that literary interpretation or literary criticism is, in
many ways, an anarchic conversational activity with the practical purpose of enriching our shared
understanding of a particular text. The value of any particular interpretative observations, or of a
methodology upon which those observations are based, is judged by the results, as adjudicated by a
group of intelligent conversationalists who have read and thought about the text under discussion.
Hence, there is no one privileged way of organizing and presenting one’s views. As that previous note
mentioned, there are some basic rules about how the conversation should proceed, but these do not
require a shared adherence to a single way of reading a text. In fact, the conversational basis for really
useful literary interpretation finds its justification in the contrast between different ways of reading a
text or some portion of it, because conversation is the best forum in which such differences confront
each other and the participants profit from a discussion of the results of such different readings.

However, in spite of the above remarks, there are some favorite ways of reading fictions, each
of which stresses certain elements of the work over others. These may be called, I suppose, common
approaches to or entries into the works, preferred ways of making contact with something that is
going on in the text, so as to organize one’s comments and get the interpretative conversation going.
As we shall see, these methods are not mutually exclusive, although with some works one or more
may be more practically useful than another.

The purpose of this document is to review a few of the more common of these critical
approaches to Shakespeare’s plays. This introductory comment should help students reflect upon their
own critical practices as they read, discuss, and write about Shakespeare’s texts. This is important,
because one of the great values of studying Shakespeare is that such an endeavour can lead to a much
wider and fuller understanding, not just of the works themselves, but of literary interpretation
generally. Such an understanding becomes all the more likely if students are prepared at times to
experiment with new ways of reading a text, leaving behind for a moment their preferred methods and
seeing how different approaches might work.

The Challenge of Shakespeare’s Work

Shakespeare’s work offers an extraordinarily rich resource for the literary interpreter because
it includes such a huge variety, from lyric and narrative poetry to many different forms of poetic
drama. Some of the plays seem deeply rooted in specific political realities, while others are clearly
much closer to romance, science fiction, or pastoral. The works include scores of complex characters,
major and minor, whose psychological make-up invites analysis, but they also explore complex
social, political, and moral ideas. Sometimes these ideas are very explicitly present, almost in
allegorical form (for example, the witches in Macbeth or Queen Margaret in Richard III), at other
times they are more deeply buried in the actions and decisions of particular characters. Moreover, the
texts present these elements in an amazingly rich poetic style, full of evocative metaphors. Here
indeed is God’s plenty.

As a preliminary caution, we need to remind ourselves that when we are reading


Shakespeare’s plays, all we have are the words the different characters utter (along with some
minimally useful stage directions) and the actions they carry out. We have no reliable notion in most
cases of the tone of voice the character uses, any gestures or movements which might accompany
these words, and no clear idea in most instances whether or not the character really means what he or
she says. Generally, we have no direct information about what characters look like, how old they are,
or how they move. Unlike, say, a novel in which there is often an omniscient author reliably to inform

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us of a character’s intentions, tone, appearance, inner thoughts, and so on, a Shakespeare script leaves
an enormous amount up to us. Hence, it will not be uncommon for us to find widely different
possibilities in a single person or speech (depending upon how we see and hear the character in
action). For example, the age difference between Hamlet’s father and mother, if it is really significant
(of the same magnitude as the age difference between Juliet’s parents), may prompt certain
interpretative possibilities which are far less likely if we see the two of them as roughly the same age.

That is one reason (by no means the only one) why we must reject the notion that there is one
authoritative way to read a particular work. A dramatic script by Shakespeare has no single
determinate meaning. Rather, it contains a range of possible interpretative meanings. Our job as
interpreters is to explore some of these possibilities, to evaluate them with respect to each other, and,
if possible, to come to a sense of some of the major alternatives. This process will require the ability,
one mark of a growing sophistication in the literary interpreter, to hold simultaneously in one’s
imagination different possibilities (even contradictory options), while at the same time remaining
open to other options.

One serious limitation of a college course in Shakespeare is that we do not have much
opportunity to see many productions of specific works. While reading Shakespeare can obviously be
an enormously delightful and rewarding experience, we need to remember that he did not write to be
read, but to be performed (that is, to be seen and heard). This point is particularly important to recall if
we drift into the habit of reading these plays as if they were novels. For we may then find ourselves
objecting to something which we would hardly notice (or would accept readily enough) in a fine
production (e.g., some of the coincidences on which much comic actions depends, the time frame
in Othello or Hamlet, sudden changes of mind, like Lady Anne’s inRichard III, and so on). Plays tend
to present a vision of reality far less immediately naturalistic than traditional novels, simply because
an audience at a play brings a set of evaluative criteria different from the ones people use when
reading naturalistic fiction in the solitude of their domestic dens (more about this later).

The Approach Through Character Analysis

The most obvious way to begin an interpretation of a Shakespearean play (and also the most
popular) is by evaluating the characters. Any play involves characters in a particular setting, doing
particular things. The plot will develop a conflict, which will usually inflict pain or distress on some
people (comically or otherwise), and will lead to a final resolution of sorts in which some characters
may die or be punished severely, while others survive or triumph or get substantially rewarded.
Hence, one clear entry into such a work is to put the characters on trial: Who is good? Who is bad?
Why do certain people act in certain ways? Do any of the characters change? Where are my
sympathies as I make my way through this play? As an interpreter, I am, in essence, the judge, and
how shall I apportion my verdicts?

Interpreting a play by analyzing the characters in it, judging them, and coming to some final
evaluation of them is a natural way to approach Shakespeare for three main reasons. The first is that
these are plays, and they inevitably feature active characters more or less recognizably like people
around us. That, indeed, is the chief appeal of the genre. So it is entirely natural to treat the play as we
treat life itself, by responding to the people we see, the actions they carry out, the words they use, and
the decisions they make. On the basis of these observations we will come to some conclusions about
their characters and will discuss the play in those terms. The second reason is that Shakespeare is
famous, more than anything else, for his astonishing ability to create interesting, complex, and natural
characters. Unlike many other dramatists whose characters do not invite very complex investigation
(e.g., many writers of situation comedies who rely upon stock characters very similar to those in other
plays), Shakespeare has the ability to fill a play with scores of characters, each of whom talks in a
language and acts in a way which indicates a sharply focused individual personality with a very
particular response to experience. Hence, it is, once again, natural to treat them as fully realized
people whose conduct (amusing or not) requires an evaluative judgment.

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Then, too, the fact that we are dealing with plays always keeps the approach through character
analysis alive, because theatre productions depend upon individual actors, and individual actors need
to reflect upon the motivations for their characters. They have to, in a sense, discover their human
qualities and become the stage people whose lives they enact. Thus, the dramatic tradition of
continuing to mount Shakespeare productions ensures that the analysis of character will remain a
powerful force in the interpretation of the plays.

The third major reason why character analysis is an important approach to Shakespeare’s
plays is (as Harold Bloom has repeatedly pointed out) that Shakespeare’s characters are often
intrigued or puzzled by their own characters. That is, they make their characters part of the dramatic
“problem” of the fiction we are exploring. When, for example, Hamlet or Macbeth or Othello starts
to wrestle with his own character, trying to understand his own motivation, feelings, and actions, that
moment places the nature of the character as an essential element in the work (in a way that is
markedly different from texts in which a character’s personality does not create particular problems
for him). In other words, the plays themselves put character analysis directly on the table.

The approach to a Shakespeare play which places the analysis of character at the centre of the
process was particularly strong in the nineteenth century, and the literary interpretations from that
period often illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of that approach. The great value of character
analysis is that it always reminds us that, whatever else we may want to talk of, the central concern is
particular human beings. Whatever else King Lear is about, it is centrally about a suffering old man,
whose unique character brings upon him almost unimaginable suffering. Whatever we make
of Hamlet, we cannot forget that the people in the play drive Ophelia insane and lead her to suicide,
and that she is an innocent and loving young woman. Focusing upon the characters in the play always
keeps us in touch with a major reason why Shakespeare matters—his works constantly illuminate
human nature in all sorts of moving ways.

That said, however, treating the interpretation of a play as primarily (or exclusively) a matter
of evaluating character can create problems, particularly if we get into the habit of thinking that that is
all there is that matters in the text. One major problem, of course, is that in many instances we do not
know enough about a character to arrive at a sufficiently full understanding of his or her personality.
We know almost nothing of Hamlet’s childhood, or Bolingbroke’s inner thoughts, or Lady Macbeth’s
sexuality. Thus, key elements required in any full character analysis are missing. Of course, we can
speculate on such matters (we have to if we want to arrive at a full understanding of the personality),
but such speculations can often end up in inconclusive and often trivial debates, because there is not
enough evidence. So we can find criticism by the analysis of character degenerating into explorations
of the girlhood of Shakespeare’s heroines, endless arguments about whether or not the Macbeths had
any children, how old Hamlet might be or whether he is really insane or not, whether Falstaff is a
coward or not, how black Othello really is, or what Antony and Cleopatra really talk about when they
are alone together.

A second problem which can arise by an overemphasis on character analysis is that we may
forget that Shakespeare’s characters, as well as being keenly drawn individuals, also have social and
family positions. They are kings, sisters, daughters, servants, widows, generals, fools, dukes, property
owners, workers, and so on. So they carry with them, not merely their individual personalities, but a
host of social and political attitudes, commitments, and responsibilities, and they are, to some extent,
representatives of social, political, and gender types. Hence, their interactions are more than just
clashes of particular personalities.

The Approach Through Thematic Analysis

That last point about how dramatic characters are also, to some extent, representatives of
social types is a reminder that their dramatic impact includes more than their unique personalities. For
they bring with them, for example, political and gender meanings which inevitably have a bearing on
the impact of a play and make it, not just a clash of people, but a clash of or an exploration of ideas or

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themes which the characters and their actions develop, explore, qualify, or undermine. This fact gives
rise to thematic analysis.

A thematic approach to Shakespeare’s work will tend to focus first on some guiding idea
which a character in action either expresses overtly or exemplifies. For example, Richard II is not
simply a particular person; he is also a king. That gives him particular social and political power and
responsibilities. When Bolingbroke rebels against Richard, the action immediately calls attention to
an important idea: the tension between legitimacy and fitness to rule or, alternatively put, the
justification for usurping an unfit but legitimate king. Richard II is, among other things, very clearly
an examination of this idea—not simply because the point is discussed in the play, but, more
importantly, because the action of the play forces us to consider this idea from many different
perspectives.

Thematic interpretation will tend to see the works primarily as explorations of particular
social, political, or moral ideas. This does not mean that the work is of interest merely as a
philosophical working out of some issue, some rational investigation of what an idea means or where
it logically leads. What it does mean is that the thematic interpreter will tend to call attention to some
guiding idea or theme in the work and explore how the action of the play develops our understanding
of that idea (often the point will be to complicate our understanding of an apparently simple issue,
without necessarily resolving it). Richard II does not resolve the issues surrounding legitimacy and
fitness to rule, but by the end of the play we have come to understand many of the complexities that
the issue raises (Henry IV, Part 1 does the same with the notion of honour). We have come to this
understanding, not by being told of those complexities, but by having witnessed the consequences in
action of characters who have been caught up in a drama in which this issue is something they have
had to deal with in action. Similarly, when we follow the sufferings of Ophelia in Hamlet, we are, to
some extent, dealing with the issue of how women are treated in Elsinore, an issue which transcends
the uniqueness of Ophelia’s character. And we can push the issue even further to argue that the play
is, in large part, about gender relations generally.

Thematic criticism is particularly useful in reminding us that these plays are about more than
the particular characters, that there are social, political, gender, religious, and moral issues at stake
and that, as we proceed through the play, we do need to attend to how the drama is putting pressure on
our understanding of those ideas in the context established by the play (and beyond). Macbeth, for
example, is more than the story of one particular ancient Scottish warrior-king. It is also clearly about
the nature of evil in our world, about loyalty, and other matters as well. If we fail to attend upon these
issues, because we are overly concerned with, say, Lady Macbeth’s motivation, then we are missing
some essential elements in the play.

At the same time, however, thematic criticism has its dangers, particularly if the approach
becomes too ham fisted, that is, if the interpreter simply forces onto the text the working out of a
particular idea and makes the play a relatively simple allegory. An interpreter who insists, for
example, thatKing Lear is only or exclusively a debate between two contrasting views of nature has
taken an important element in the play and made it the total experience of the work, forgetting that
there’s a suffering old man at the centre of the action and that that man, in all his human particularity,
is our main emotional contact with what is going on. An interpreter who insists that Richard III is
principally a confirmation of the providential vision of history may well miss important ways in
which the play may be subverting that idea or developing alternative visions.

In other words, if the danger of character analysis is that it can get bogged down in trivial
unanswerable questions about details of the lives of particular men and women, the danger of
thematic criticism can be that it gets crudely reductive, turning a complex work into the simple
illustration of a particular idea or dogma. This is presumably the form of criticism practiced by many
of those who would dismiss Shakespeare on the ground that his works are patriarchal, conservative,
and bourgeois (i.e., which reinforce a narrow and unwelcome ideology).

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It’s true that some plays invite a strongly thematic approach in which the characters are little
more that signals for a particular idea and their conflict is the working out or illustration of some
ideological message outside the play. Such a work of literature we call allegory. While many of
Shakespeare’s works (like King Lear) have what appears to be an allegorical framework (and can be
usefully interpreted to some extent in terms of that), in most of his plays the complexity in the
characters tends to undercut any simple allegorical approach. The one possible exception in the plays
we study is The Tempest, which, for reasons we will discuss when we get to that work, seems to invite
allegorical treatment (although there is much debate about which allegorical treatment is most
appropriate).

In some sense, interpretation which focuses on character appeals to our desire for the unique
particularity of each moment in the play and the ways these help to define rich memorable characters;
interpretation which focuses on thematic analysis appeals to our desire for more general coordinating
issues throughout the work. There is no reason these cannot work well together. In fact, that makes
good sense. For in Shakespearean drama, as in life, ideas and actions are constantly at work,
sometimes reinforcing each other, sometimes contrasting each other. Sometimes a simple action will
undermine a beautifully coherent idea (that happens all the time in Shakespeare); sometimes a simple
action will confirm an important human truth.

For that reason, a good deal of interpretation involves testing possible themes against the
perceived actions of the characters. Is The Tempest really an exploration of colonialist attitudes?
That’s an interesting idea. How does a close reading of the play, together with a careful examination
of the characters’ actions, confirm or repudiate that suggestion? Is the first History Cycle calling
attention to the marginalization of women from the political process? Or does the dramatic effect of
these particular female characters challenge that idea?

Reading a number of Shakespeare’s plays encourages this often fertile union of character
analysis and thematic interpretation, because he is fond of returning to dramatic conflicts between
pairs of opposite types: the valiant warrior (Othello, Hotspur, Antony) pitted against the devious
manipulative schemer (Iago, Henry IV, Octavius); the expressive poet-prince (Richard II, Hamlet)
pitted against the shrewd political pragmatist (Bolingbroke, Claudius); the intelligent, loving young
woman (Rosalind, Viola) having to deal with the sentimental, poetical bachelor (Orlando, Orsino),
and so on. These conflicts may present uniquely drawn characters in action, but there are recurring
thematic issues which help to coordinate all of Shakespeare’s work until it starts to become, for the
avid reader, one long work, ceaselessly exploring major issues through the experiences of
unforgettable characters.

The Approach Through Poetic Symbol

Another common approach to a particular play focuses on the imagery, either on some
obviously important symbol which recurs throughout the work or to some image pattern. Such poetic
components in the language obviously can contribute in a major way to our understanding of what is
going on. In some sense, of course, because we are dealing with poetic drama and have only the
language to examine, interpreting both character and theme will often require detailed attention to
particular patterns of imagery, symbol, and other significant language.

For example, however we assess the character of Hamlet, it is difficult to miss how much of
his language, especially in his soliloquies, is infused with images of death, sickness, and corrupt
sexuality, so much so that the patterns in the imagery invite us see in them a pattern in the personality
or an indication of a major thematic concern of the play, the sickness in Elsinore, or both. Similarly,
when we read Twelfth Night, we can hardly miss the importance of money as a touchstone of
character, since the actions of giving and taking money occur so frequently. Similarly, in this play and
in many others, music functions as an important symbol against which characters are tested.

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Music, in fact, is a particularly important element to watch for in the study of the plays. Is
there any music in the play? Where does it come from? How is it received? Does it have any
transforming power? In many of Shakespeare’s plays the active power of music or its absence is a
decisive indication of the emotional health of particular people or situations (e.g., As You Like
It, Henry IV, Part 1, Twelfth Night, the Tempest, King Lear, and so on).

In general, approaching a play through symbolic patterns requires more practice and
confidence for most students than does character analysis, simply because discussing nuances of
motivation and feelings of people whose actions we are witnessing is easier to carry out (or we have
had more practice at it) than attending to the more sophisticated task of responding to the nuances in
the poetic images and figures of speech. Still, it is frequently an excellent exercise to seize upon some
obvious symbolic element in a play or some frequent or predominant image and, by attending
carefully to the pattern of that element in the work, to see how one may come to understand things
more clearly. In fact, paying close attention to the poetic imagery and symbolism in a play is one of
the best ways to develop the skills of close reading on which the best criticism depends. This
approach to a work is particularly important when one is dealing with a specific production of one of
the plays, for the particulars of the set design and the costumes and furniture will often (in a good
production) bring important symbolic elements to bear on our reaction to the actions we witness.

Shakespeare is famous for the extraordinary richness and variety in his imagery, which seems
to come from many different quarters with an accurate sense of specific details of that activity
(sailing, warfare, glove making, the law, education, and so on). These have encouraged all sorts of
biographical speculations about his lost years. But there are some which are particularly frequent and
important, for example, metaphors involving clothes (especially as they determine rank and value and
a sense of identity and gender differences) and acting (the most convenient metaphor for expressing
any tension between outer appearance and inner reality).

Some Other Interpretative Approaches

There are a number of other ways of approaching an interpretation of a Shakespeare play, but
many of them tend often to involve a good deal of material outside the text and so, for our purposes,
they are less useful. Psychoanalytic criticism, for example, sees the text as an expression of the inner
psychological problems (the neuroses) of the artist. Thus, it strives to link details of the life with
details of the work. In Shakespeare’s case this is very difficult to do, since we know virtually nothing
personal about the man. Nevertheless, with a good deal of speculation about neuroses he must have
suffered psychoanalytic interpreters have gone to work on the plays. Alternatively, psychoanalytic
criticism may direct its attention onto particular aspects of the text (e.g., the interaction of the
characters) or onto specific themes (e.g., Oedipus Complex) explored in the work or onto certain
aspects of the language of particular psychoanalytic interest.

Mythic criticism approaches the plays with an emphasis on the structure of the story, seeking
to link it to common forms for popular stories (archetypal plots and characters). Mythic critics often
tend to stand back from the text a good deal, less interested in the finer details and ambiguities of the
language than in the broad structural similarities between a particular play and other works. There is
thus often a tendency in mythic criticism to eradicate (or dull) the significant particularity of a work
into order to insist upon its structural closeness to certain styles of story telling. Mythic criticism is
perhaps most frequent in interpretations of the final plays (what some critics call the Romances),
probably because these plays seem to move away from the more naturalistic styles of earlier ones and
to involve more ritual, pageant, and common mythic symbols and motifs.

Historical criticism (as mentioned in the previous article “On Scholarship and Literary
Interpretation”) generally will seek to root the play in its historical context, explaining what goes on in
the fiction with reference to political, cultural, and biographical facts of the age in which it was
produced. Hence, it will frequently tend to make the play an illustration of the age or limit our
understanding of the play to what we can confirm in its historical context. One particularly interesting

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element of historical criticism involves comparing Shakespeare’s treatment of a story with the same
story in the source book which he used (for Shakespeare derives almost all his plots from other books,
often following the originals very closely). In itself this may not provide much immediate
interpretative assistance, but the procedure helps to establish at least two things: first, Shakespeare’s
amazing imaginative power at turning some mundane prose description (like Cleopatra on the Nile) in
the source into the most moving poetry and, second, significant discrepancies with the source which
may provide useful interpretative clues for an understanding of the play.

No particular approach to a play has any special privilege (as mentioned before repeatedly),
but in English 366 we will be concentrating on the first three outlined in this note, simply because
those tend to be the most immediately rewarding way (especially for relatively inexperienced readers
of Shakespeare), since they begin and end with the text itself and do not require constant reference to
theories of meaning outside the text. Our primary task here is to increase the fluency with which we
read and interpret that text. However, it is almost certain that some of the other interpretative methods
will arise in the seminars, and we are free to explore where those lead. In every case, we measure the
value of whatever methodology is employed by a very practical gauge: Does it enrich our
understanding of what is going on in this text or not?

The Importance of Irony as an Interpretative Tool

Whatever the particular entry into a particular text, our major interpretative method will
involve exploring the full range of irony as we continue our examination of whatever we have
selected as a starting point. Hence, it is important to clarify somewhat the meaning of this key
interpretative term.

In common practice, the word irony is applied to some expression or action in which there are
at least two levels of meaning: the obvious surface meaning and a second implied meaning which may
be quite different from the first. The second meaning, in other words, undermines the first meaning or
qualifies it; in some cases the second meaning may entirely contradict the first (when that happens
and both speaker and listener are aware of the second meaning contradicting the first, we call the
irony, which is very strong and obvious, sarcasm). In a more general sense, irony can also
meanambiguity. An ironical expression is one in which we cannot be sure precisely what is meant
because there is a range of possible meanings.

For instance in Sonnet 138, when Shakespeare writes “Therefore I lie with her and she with
me,” the word lie carries an obvious ironical sense manifested in the two possible meanings, to lie in
bed with and to tell an untruth. Which one is the correct meaning here? The obvious answer is that
they are both equally correct, and the ironical double meaning captures the emotional paradox the
speaker of the poem is experiencing, that his sexual life with his love is based on mutual duplicity, for
when they have sex together they are deceiving each other. Earlier in the same poem the
word vainlyfunctions in the same manner, meaning both in vain and from vanity. The double meaning
captures well the ironic tension at the heart of the speaker’s feelings: he knows his love is a self-
defeating activity, but he cannot stop because his vanity prompts him.

Irony in this sense is a vital part of most creative writing, because it is one of the best vehicles
for capturing the complex nature of human feelings in an experience in which contradictory impulses
are involved. The ironical resonance of particular words enables to writer to express and symbolize
accurately paradoxical states of feeling. The effect is quite opposite to the scientific use of language,
where the precise clarity of all terminology is essential to the style (and where, thus, irony is not
welcome).

But irony can function in other ways apart from the different meanings of particular words.
Images and metaphors are inherently ironic, because they evoke a range of associations.
Understanding how they function requires a close attention to the various tensions inherent in any
comparison. When Shakespeare, in an earlier sonnet, concludes the poem with the line “Lilies that

22
fester smell far worse than weeds,” the image puts into play a number of complex suggestions. Lilies
obviously suggest purity, a dazzling whiteness appropriate for the highest innocence, but the flower
also conveys images of death. The word “weeds” suggests something unwelcome and common, but at
the same time something vigorous and healthy. And the interplay between these two images is made
all the more complicated by the addition of the word “festers,” a word strongly suggestive of a
disgusting, fatal infection (underscored by “smells”). If, as interpreters, we want to sort out the
speaker’s feelings as expressed in that line, we have to negotiate our way through all sorts of ironic
possibilities. We will hardly arrive at a single, simple, and clear “translation” of the images. But if we
share our responses, we may clarify our understanding of the effects of the irony at work.

Such verbal ironies are compounded in drama by other forms of irony. The most common is
called dramatic irony, which occurs through an uneven distribution of knowledge. We, as readers or
spectators, often know much more about what is going on than any of the characters. Thus, when a
character says something, the utterance will often have two levels of meaning: what the character
thinks it means and what the audience, with a fuller understanding of the entire situation, understands
it to mean. Dramatic irony may often be funny. In fact, in many comedies much of the humour comes
from what is called an uneven distribution of information. The audience knows everything, members
of the story all know a part of the truth (and what any one particular character may know may change
in the course of the play), and a great deal of the comic confusion will involve various
misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and so on, which arise from the incomplete distribution of
information (Shakespeare’s plays involving twins are the most obvious example of this).

Often our reaction to a play depends upon this ironical uneven distribution of information.
In Richard III, for example, we have privileged insight into Richard’s intentions (he tells us what he’s
all about and what he is going to do next). So we are aware that the things he says to various other
people (statements which they take as the truth) are, in fact, lies or are true in a way which the victims
do not understand. Beyond that, of course, we also know that Richard himself is also caught in an
ironic situation, because he thinks everything will work out for him, but we know that it will not.

The tragic effect depends upon this last form of dramatic irony called tragic irony. This
feature emerges because the readers or the audience knows the outcome of the story (that is the reason
tragedies commonly use plots with familiar endings, like Julius Caesar or Hamlet). In the course of
the play, the tragic hero will frequently reveal his understanding of the situation and his way of
dealing with it. We constantly measure that against our knowledge of how the story is going to end.
Much of our imaginative sympathy for Lear or Macbeth, for example, emerges from our fascination
with watching them become more and more driven towards their destructive end as the tragic irony of
their situation becomes more and more intense. Our response would be quite different were we totally
unfamiliar with the ending.

Beyond that, of course, plays are constantly requiring the reader or the audience to reassess an
earlier understanding of a character or an issue. We see a character do or say something, and we make
up our mind about that person or issue on the basis of that incident. Then, the character will do or say
something else, and we have to reassess or qualify our earlier judgment. Or someone else will act in a
way that calls the same issue into question, and we have to qualify our earlier assessment of that issue.
Paying close attention to a Shakespeare play requires, above everything else, a very close attention to
the way in which our powers of judgment are constantly challenged by every event. If we use the
term irony in the widest possible sense to describe this process of adjustment and readjustment to the
situations as they unfold, then an awareness of the ironical effects of dramatic action and language
will be our most important activity. And most of our useful discussions about a play or a part of it will
focus on the extent to which we see irony at work and how we assess that.

Shakespeare deliberately forces us to do this, sometimes very explicitly. In 1 Henry IV, for
example, many characters mention the word honour and discuss what they mean by the word. Then,
they act upon that understanding of the word. The reader or audience is pushed and pulled through
different conceptions of the word and different actions (sometimes in the very same scene), to the

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point where it is very clear that one important point of the play is an ironic exploration of that
word really means. Rarely will Shakespeare arrive at or offer a clear and magisterial definition of a
concept: he leaves that for us to sort out. In the case of 1 Henry IV, whatever our understanding of the
word honour when we started reading the play, by the time we have finished, we have been forced to
review a wide range of possibilities (and to experience in action the consequences of those
possibilities). We are not, however, given any final authoritative “answer” (if that is what we are
looking for).

In a similar way, a play can, in the action and presentation, often introduce irony to undercut
what seems like a firm affirmation. This is a common feature of the endings of Shakespeare’s plays. Is
the ending of The Tempest an unqualified comic celebration, or is it muted? Is there any irony present,
and, if so, how strong is it? To what extent might we want to claim that the reconciliation achieved is
fragile or illusory? Is it so muted or undercut with irony that it registers as, in fact, a defeat? Similarly,
is the end of Macbeth or King Lear a happy triumph for the forces of good or something more
complex, shot through with ironic deflations of the reassuring final actions? One important difference
in tone between Twelfth Night and As You Like It, for example, comes from the sense many (perhaps
most) readers or viewers get that the ending of the latter is unironically celebratory, whereas, by
contrast, the ending of the former is undershot with complex ironic resonance which qualify the
apparently “happy” comic resolution of the conflict.

In particular scenes, the staging can be a source of complex ironies. When Hamlet lectures his
mother on her morally deficient character, the body of Polonius (whom Hamlet has just killed) is
lying on the stage throughout the scene. Shakespeare, it seems, wanted Polonius killed early in the
scene so that, when Hamlet attempts to take the moral high ground and lecture his mother on her
corrupt character, we have to match that element in his character against the ease with which he has
just killed and discarded the father of the girl he claims to love (and the chief political figure in the
kingdom after the monarch). The presence of the dead Polonius really qualifies our response to
Hamlet’s claims that he is a moral agent.

Similarly, in Henry IV, Part 1 Shakespeare deliberately has a serious military encounter
between Prince Hal and Hotspur take place alongside a parody of that in a similar encounter between
Douglas and Falstaff. The first is full of heroic talk and brave action; the latter is full of cowardice and
evasion and humour. As audience we are forced to evaluate military combat by the contrast between
the two. This play, in particular, is full of such ironic contrasts, as we move from the world of the
court, to the taverns, to the camp of the rebellious nobles (as we shall discuss).

Irony can be a slippery business, because once we sense it is present, we know we are on
difficult ground. How deep do the ironies penetrate? Is there any firm ground on which we can rest an
interpretation? And in some writers, where ironies seem to be present everywhere (e.g., Montaigne),
we can often find ourselves losing confidence in the possibility of any firmly shared meaning. One of
the great problems with Hamlet may well stem from this point: all energizing senses of goodness and
sympathy seem to be qualified so strongly and persistently with ironic counterweights, that at the end
we are not sure how to sum up what we have experienced. It is difficult, for example, in this play not
to feel some sympathy for almost every character and yet, at the same time, to judge each character as
significantly deficient in some way or another.

Interpreting Shakespeare requires us to be alert to the possibility of such ironic complication


and to the ways it can affect our understanding of the play. In fact, many of our discussions will focus
squarely on that issue. Is this speech or this action to be understood literally? Does the character mean
what he says? How is this action or speech qualified, or undercut, or contradicted by other elements in
the scene or in the play? How does the presence of irony (in varying degrees) affect our response to
the play?

Shakespeare’s plays and poems offer a fertile ground for the consideration of these questions,
since they range from works that seem unambiguously affirming (like, perhaps, As You Like It, and

24
many of the sonnets) to others which offer limited ironic possibilities (like, say, Twelfth Night), all the
way to the other end of the spectrum where some works are so pervasively ironic that we have the
greatest difficulty deciding finally what they might be claiming, if anything, about experience (like,
for example, Hamlet, All’s Well That’s Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, or Sonnet 94).

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A Brief Note on the Historical Background to Shakespeare’s

First and Second History Cycles

Introductory Note

This note explains briefly the main historical narrative of Shakespeare’s two history cycles
and outlines the principal relationships in the royal family whose dynastic quarrels were the basis of
the Wars of the Roses. This account describes only matters directly relevant to Shakespeare’s version
of the story. His genealogy is, for the most part, quite accurate, but there are some minor
discrepancies and some omissions. And his plays significantly alter the chronology of events, the ages
of the participants, and so on.

The Wars of the Roses: Brief Synopsis

The Wars of the Roses refers to a long, repetitive, and destructive civil war, based on a
struggle for the English crown by the members of two distinct factions in the English royal family
(called the Plantaganets, who had ruled for over two hundred years). Strictly speaking, the Wars of the
Roses applies only to the latter half of this conflict, but it is commonly used to describe the entire
internecine fight.

The war had its origins in a quarrel between Richard II and his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, as
a result of which Richard II was murdered and Henry became Henry IV. Richard’s murder brought
about civil war, which continued until Henry IV’s son ascended the throne as Henry V and restored a
short interval of glorious military victory in France and peace at home.

Upon Henry V’s early death, the wars of succession resumed. Henry’s son, Henry VI, who
led the branch of the family called the Lancastrians (the party of the Red Rose) was challenged by the
Yorkist branch of the family (the party of the White Rose). Success in the war alternated for a number
of years, until the Yorkists prevailed, and Edward IV came to the throne. Upon the death of Edward,
his brother Richard became King Richard III.

The Lancastrian cause meanwhile was taken up by a distant relative of the royal family,
Henry Tudor (whose claim was based upon the marriage of his grandfather, Owen Tudor, to Henry
V’s widow). He invaded England and defeated the Yorkist forces at the Battle of Bosworth Field (in
1485), thus ending the dynasty of the Plantaganets and initiating the Tudor royal family (as Henry
VII). Henry VII was the father of Henry VIII and therefore the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth.

Although the procedure may be seriously misleading, the Battle of Bosworth Field is often
used as a convenient date to mark the start of the Renaissance in England, inasmuch as it initiates the
first distinctly Renaissance royal family in England, the Tudors, who take over from the famous
medieval royal family, the Plantaganets.

Shakespeare’s History Cycles

Shakespeare wrote two four-play sequences dealing with the full story of the Wars of the
Roses. The First History Cycle, written very early in Shakespeare’s career, consists of the three parts
of Henry VI and Richard III. The Second History Cycle, written a few years later, consists of Richard
II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. The term History Cycle may be somewhat
misleading, since we have reason to think that the plays were not originally thought of as a linear
sequence, even though we can treat them that way.

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The First History Cycle thus covers the second half of the story (from the death of Henry V to
the defeat of Richard III). The Second History Cycle deals with the first half of the story, from the
reign of Richard II to the triumph of Henry V. These two cycles should not be considered a single
eight-play sequence (although the story they tell is more or less continuous), since the Second History
Cycle is clearly the work of a dramatist far more sure of and gifted in his art than the writer of the
First History Cycle.

The Family Tree

[To understand this explanation you will need a full family tree in front of you, so that you
can locate the various characters. If you need such a family tree, consult the instructor. One should
note also that the basic principle of succession was that the throne passed to the eldest surviving male
heir or, if he was no longer alive, to his eldest surviving male heir. If there were no male heirs left in
that branch of the family, the succession went to the male survivors of the next branch of the family.
The eldest surviving heir of a female ancestor also had a claim, a factor which is crucial to the
narrative]

1. The narrative begins with Edward III (not a character in Shakespeare), a legitimate,
powerful, and successful king. Edward had seven sons. The eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales (the
Black Prince, who does not appear in Shakespeare but who is referred to) predeceased his father, but
he left a son, who became the legitimate king, Richard II (it is important to note that Richard II is,
without any qualification, the lawful king; no one disputes that in any of the plays).

2. Edward III’s second son, William of Hatfield, died without issue. The third son, Lionel,
Duke of Clarence had a daughter Philippa, who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. This link
is important, as it establishes the Mortimers as having a claim to the throne, once Richard II is dead
(because Edward III’s second son, William, left no family, the Mortimers are the male descendants of
the next oldest child of Edward III). The Mortimers are important in Henry IV, Part I, for they
challenge the legitimacy of Henry IV, on the ground that they are the true heirs. And the Mortimer
connection is, as we shall see, the basis of the Yorkist claim to the throne (a key element in the Henry
VI plays)..

3. Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt (who is a character in Richard II) is the originator
of the House of Lancaster. His eldest son, Henry Bolingbroke, is oppressed by Richard II, rebels, and
usurps the throne as Henry IV. The legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of this act is a major theme of both
history cycles. It is vital to understand that the legal justification for the family fight (on both sides)
concerns the legitimacy of Henry IV’s kingship, for if he is not a legal king, then the House of
Lancaster is not entitled to the throne.

4. Edward III’s fifth son, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, is the originator of the House of
York. As we shall see, once this branch of the family united in marriage with the Mortimers, they
established a claim to the throne through Philippa, daughter of Lionel, the third son (see Point 2
above).

5. The Second History Cycle (which tells the first part of the story) starts with the quarrel
between Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke, which results in the murder of Richard and the crowning
of Bolingbroke as Henry IV. That is the subject matter of the first play in the tetralogy, Richard II.
The two parts of Henry IV continue the story of Henry IV’s reign, as he faces repeated rebellions by
those who do not support the Lancastrians on the throne (especially the Mortimers, who believe they
have a better claim).

6. The last play in the tetralogy, Henry V, moves beyond the strife to celebrate the triumphs of
Henry IV’s son, Henry V, who seems to have put the inter-family fighting temporarily to rest by
getting everyone to combine to invade France. In the course of the play Henry marries Katherine, the
daughter of the King of France. This woman, although a minor character in the play, is a crucial link

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in the overall story, because after Henry V’s death, she marries Owen Tudor. Their grandson, Henry
Tudor, is the invader who overthrows Richard III at the end of the First History Cycle (and thus ends
the Wars of the Roses). Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne is very marginal, since his grandfather was
a commoner, and his grandmother was a royal widow, with no blood connections to the English Royal
Family. His mother (Margaret Beaufort) was related to the royal family, but through a branch that was
barred from succession because the family was considered illegitimate (the Beauforts). After the death
of her first husband (Edmund Tudor), Margaret Beaufort married Lord Stanley (a character in Richard
III, whose last-minute switch of sides contributes to Richard’s defeat at the end of the play).
Shakespeare (for obvious reason) does not explore Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne.

7. The First History Cycle begins with the death of Henry V and the accession to the throne of
his son, Henry VI. Henry’s claim to the throne is disputed by the Yorkist members of the family, led
by Richard Plantaganet, who revive the old dispute about the legitimacy of the Lancastrian claim to
the throne. Much of the first play is taken up with the ways in which the quarrels among the English
lords contribute to the loss of the French territories won by Henry V.

8. The most complicated part of this entire narrative is the claim of Richard Plantaganet to be
the legitimate king rather than Henry VI. Richard’s father was Richard, Earl of Cambridge, son of
Edmund Langley, fifth son of Edward III. This Richard, Earl of Cambridge, married Anne Mortimer,
daughter of Philippa, and granddaughter of Lionel, third son of Edward III. Richard, Duke of York is
the son of this Anne Mortimer and Richard, Earl of Cambridge. Thus, in the First History Cycle, the
Yorkist claim to the throne runs as follows: Once Richard II is dead, the throne passes to the eldest
heir or the surviving family of that heir. With Edward, the Black Prince, and his son, Richard II, dead
and William of Hatfield (Edward III’s second son) dead without issue, the legitimate royal candidates,
according to the Yorkists, are the successors of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III (i.e.,
the Mortimers). Since the mother of Richard, Duke of York, was a member of the Mortimer family,
therefore his claim to the throne is better than Henry VI’s, who traces his ancestry back to John of
Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III. Shakespeare puts the explanation of this claim into theSecond
Part of Henry VI, 2.2.

9. In the course of the Wars of the Roses, Henry VI is killed, as is his son, Edward, Prince of
Wales. The narrative of these quarrels and battles is told in the Third Part of Henry VI. With the death
of Henry VI, the Yorkist cause seems triumphant, and the eldest surviving son of Richard, Duke of
York, becomes King Edward IV. The last play in the First History Cycle, Richard III, begins with
the coronation of Edward as king.

10. Edward IV has three brothers. One (Edmund, Earl of Rutland) has been killed in the
fighting. The third brother (fourth son of Richard, Duke of York) is Richard Gloucester, who wants to
become king. He arranges the murder of his elder brother Clarence (also called George) and the
murder of the two young sons of Edward IV (Richard’s nephews, famous as the two princes in the
Tower of London), so as to eliminate any male heir who might prevent his attaining the throne once
Edward IV (who is very ill) dies. Richard is successful in his schemes and becomes Richard III, the
last of the Plantaganet kings.

11. Early in the Richard III, Richard (not yet king) woos Anne Neville (the wife of Edward,
Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI). He has thus (in the course of the plays) killed or participated in
killing Anne’s husband, her father, and her father-in-law. Nevertheless they get married. Shakespeare
gives us no clear reason why Richard wants to marry Anne, since she does not improve his claim to
the throne. They have no children.

12. The chief opposition to Richard in Shakespeare’s play comes from Henry Tudor (see
Point 5 above). His claim to the throne is very weak, but once he defeats Richard at the Battle of
Bosworth Field (at the end of Richard III) he marries Elizabeth, the sole surviving child of Edward
IV, and thus in Shakespeare’s dynasty, the last surviving member of the Yorkist branch of the royal
family. Henry claims that with the marriage he will be uniting the two houses once again (i.e.,

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combining the white rose and the red, a frequent image of Tudor politics). The weakness of Henry
Tudor’s claim, together with the fact that he is Elizabeth’s grandfather, may be the reason
that Richard III makes no mention of the legality of royal power, a major concern of most of the other
history plays in these two cycles.

If you find this narrative confusing, you might like to consider that such confusion may very
well be a really important point Shakespeare is exploring in these history cycles, namely, that attempts
to usurp legitimate authority through violence and murder may create political anarchy in which the
very notion of legitimate rule becomes absurd, as everyone makes up competing narratives with no
sure guide as to where one should place one’s allegiance. The result is political confusion.

A Brief Historical Note

As you may know, there is much debate about whether or not the historical Richard, Duke of
York (Richard III) was as evil as Shakespeare portrays him. A number of sober historical assessments
have seriously challenged this vision (as has a really delightful detective novel, The Daughter of
Time by Josephine Tey). And there is a society in English called the White Boar Society (named after
Richard’s insignia) which is dedicated to preserving the good reputation of Richard III.

In depicting Richard the way he does, Shakespeare is following the tradition established by
Tudor historians of demonizing Richard. Their motives for doing so are not difficult to see. The
Tudors’ claim to the throne through blood connections with the Plantaganets was extremely slight.
One way of papering over any potential embarrassment on that question was to celebrate the arrival of
Henry Tudor (Henry VII) as England’s divine deliverance from the diabolical evil of Richard. The
worse Richard could be made to appear, the better Henry VII (Elizabeth’s grandfather) would seem.
This rewriting of history has come to be called the Tudor Myth.

Questions of royal legitimacy were potentially dangerous in Shakespeare’s time, because


Queen Elizabeth’s claim to the throne was repeatedly challenged, on the ground that the marriage of
her mother and father (Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII) was illegitimate and that she was therefore a
bastard. Also, any dramatic depiction of the usurpation of the monarch by a powerful noble could be
dangerous. Indeed, one performance of Richard IIon the eve of the Essex rebellion led to a serious
investigation of Shakespeare’s company and some censoring of scenes from that play.

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On Scholarship and Literary Interpretation: An Introductory Note

Introduction

In any study of literature, but especially in the study of Shakespeare’s work (for reasons
which will become apparent), we need carefully to distinguish between two different approaches to
the text, literary scholarship and literary interpretation. While these activities may often overlap, they
have different methods and purposes, and a student who forgets about these distinctions may easily
get confused about what we are doing.

The following pages have been prepared in order to acquaint students with the basic approach
to Shakespeare which we will take in English 366. However, students should be aware (if they are not
already) that most of these questions are very disputed among literary interpreters and scholars. There
is by no means a firm agreement on the appropriate balance between the various activities associated
with coming to grips with works from the past. Hence, the following remarks (which inevitably
simplify many complex issues) need to be treated with some caution. They are not meant to present
the last word on the subject but to clarify some working assumptions of this course.

Literary Scholarship

The central driving purpose of literary scholarship is to establish as comprehensively as


possible the facts surrounding the production and reception and influence of the text. This task
requires the empirical study of a complex and wide-ranging series of questions involving the author,
the historical period in which the work was produced, the variations in the text, the literary tradition
which the author inherited, the verifiable responses to the work, and so on. The literary scholar’s
major task is, in some sense, to reconstruct the historical milieu out of which the work emerged and to
follow the history of the text once it has been produced.

Literary scholarship is a highly specialized and difficult task, for which, in almost all cases,
extensive research training is required, since it involves detailed investigation of often erratic and
fragmentary historical records, imaginative reconstruction of particular events, painstaking attention
to often very mundane details (like legal records or textual variants), and so on. Normally, literary
scholarship requires the investigator to select a very specific area of concern and to focus exclusively
upon that (e.g., the biography of William Shakespeare, the conditions of the stage in Elizabethan
England, the particular state of the English language in Shakespeare’s day, Elizabethan family law,
and so on). The activity is, in many ways, rather like an archeological excavation project: painstaking,
arduous, fragmentary, often frustrating, never complete, and always empirical (i.e., overwhelmingly
concerned with the verifiable facts revealed in the historical record).

The major responsibility of literary scholarship (at least in the case of Shakespeare) is to
provide as accurate a text of the works as is humanly possible, together with some tools for
understanding the language of that text. Where a firm consensus on these matters is not possible (and
there is much dispute about them with many of Shakespeare’s works), then literary scholarship helps
to sift the evidence and to establish a range of possibilities (e.g., textual variants, different ranges of
meanings for particular words, possible clarification of certain obscurities, and so on).

What literary scholarship is not primarily concerned with is the value or meaning or
interpretation of the text which its labours produce. This is a key point. In literary scholarship, as in an
archeological excavation, every verifiable fact is, in a sense, equally important as a piece of the
historical puzzle, a contribution toward a reconstruction project. Whether each piece is worth
preserving (as something beautiful or insightful) or whether the site of the dig is itself beautiful is
beside the point. If it’s a part of the historical record, it matters. Some artifacts are, of course, more

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important than others, but the importance tends to derive from the historical weight they carry (i.e.,
how much they contribute to the historical reconstruction of the facts).

Literary Interpretation

Literary interpretation, by contrast, concerns itself with meaning and value, rather than with
historical origins. Working directly with the text created by the best scholarship, the literary
interpreter explores patterns of meaning, interpretative possibilities, so as to offer some insight into
what the literary work might communicate to a modern audience. This exploration might very well
involve (in fact, frequently does involve) making value judgments about the text, comparing it with
and ranking it against other similar works. Comparisons of this sort are among the most important
tools of the interpreter of literature.

The purpose of literary interpretation is fundamentally different from the purpose of literary
scholarship. The aim of literary interpretation is to explore (that metaphor is essential) possible ways
of reading (and evaluating) the text. Since literary fictions are inherently ambiguous, there is no final
closure on any particular text, no single determinate meaning towards which literary interpretation is
moving. There are, however, interpretations which are more or less persuasive than others, and an
important part of literary interpretation is to weigh one interpretative possibility against another.
Sophisticated literary interpretation often requires the ability to entertain simultaneously a range of
different interpretative possibilities (this is particularly the case in dealing with Shakespearean
drama).

The key quality required for literary interpretation is the ability to read intelligently and to
communicate one’s responses well. These capabilities are often independent of any special training
(although they do seem to require some practice), and thus excellent literary criticism can come from
almost any quarter. It is certainly not the case that an instructor with a rigorously specialized
education as a literary scholar will necessarily be a better interpreter than a student who comes to the
text for the first time. In fact, in some instances, it may be the case that someone without any formal
training in graduate English courses is a far better interpreter of a particular literary text than the most
qualified scholar (whose scholarship may get in the way of useful interpretation). In that sense,
literary interpretation, unlike literary scholarship, is a radically egalitarian activity. What makes one
person better at it than another often has much more to do with sensitivity to language and practice
than with any specialized training in English scholarship. One of the clearest pieces of evidence for
this point is the fact that teachers of Shakespeare so often learn interesting and useful things about the
plays from their students; whereas, few, if any, undergraduates will ever offer some new historical
information about the plays.

Does this mean that the literary interpreter need pay no attention to literary scholarship? The
answer to that is both negative and affirmative. Scholarship gives the interpreter the text itself, and
any worthwhile literary interpretation must respect that text, the words on the page. In that sense,
literary interpretation starts where a major effort of scholarship ends. Also, literary scholarship
provides the interpreter’s most indispensable tool, the one absolutely essential aid which no literary
interpreter can do without, the Oxford English Dictionary. Since this lexicon defines words
historically, it is a necessary guide to the meanings of words, especially with texts written in a
language significantly different from our own (in most editions of Shakespeare the work of this
lexicon is carried out by explanatory footnotes).

On the other hand, the special historical insights which literary scholarship provides into the
context of the work and the life of the author carry no special privilege, and the literary interpreter has
no particular need to defer to them. It may well be that such historical connections between the
language of the text and the events in the life of the author or his culture are interesting and relevant;
it may be equally the case that they are not or that there are more plausible interpretative possibilities.
Even if it were possible (which it is not) totally to reconstruct all the historical facts and biographical
details, we have no justification for seeing a text as merely the product of this or that collection of

31
circumstances. In any case, our interest in Shakespeare derives from the fact, not that he is a great
Elizabethan dramatic poet (although he is), but that his work transcends the age in which it was
written and has something to say to us in twentieth-first century Nanaimo.

That means that literary interpretation needs to respect the best results of scholarship (the text
and the lexicon) but has freedom to make imaginative explorations for a modern audience. The
interpretation should not violate historical facts which bear directly on the language of the text, but it
need not be confined to the verifiable historical facts. If the literary scholar is, in a sense, trying to
take us back into Shakespeare’s age and give us the work in its historical context, the literary
interpreter is trying to bring the work from its Elizabethan context into the present age.

This sense of a tug of war between the historical scholar trying to take us back to the past
context of the work and the literary interpreter trying to bring the work into our age is an important
image, central to understanding many of debates which go on between rival camps of academic
scholars and interpreters. In English 366, we shall place our energies at the literary interpreter’s end of
the rope.

Here is a common example. Modern interpretations of The Tempest have frequently seen in
that play an exploration of certain issues arising out of the oppression of the third world by colonial
powers. Many of these interpretations pay no attention whatsoever to the historical question of how
Shakespeare might have been at all acquainted with such issues. The interpretation of the play, in
other words, simply ignores the context in which they were written. Such an approach seriously
irritates some scholars, who point out that Shakespeare could not possibly have known about such
things as banana republics under the oppressive heel of the United Fruit Company.

Such objections are, for our purposes, illegitimate, so long as the interpretative freedom
employed by such approaches does not violate the language of the text (for instance, by making
Miranda a man or reassigning speeches or inserting new scenes). Certainly, it’s true that Shakespeare
knew nothing of the specific details of twentieth-century politics in, say, Colombia, but his play is
capable of expressing artistically certain human experiences, insights, tensions, and conflicts common
to his age and modern times. If the plays were not able to make contact with such issues, there would
be very little reason to read them other than as an exercise in antiquarianism.

Obviously there is a tension here between the limits of historical fact and the freedom of the
modern interpretative imagination. And we have no clear rule to apply a priori to every case
(especially when we are dealing with works which are most fully realized in production). My view is
that such tension can be a very creative one, fostering an ongoing argument between the limits set by
historical scholarship and the desire to expand those limits as expressed in modern interpretations.
The best test is surely a pragmatic one: does the interpretative approach respect the text and, at the
same time, enrich our understanding of it? If so, then it is worth placing on the table, rather than being
arbitrarily dismissed because it may appear to violate someone’s sense of Shakespeare’s life and
times.

This point commonly manifests itself in the continuing arguments over the various ways in
which Shakespeare’s plays are given all sorts of production styles: sometimes in Elizabethan
costumes, sometimes in modern dress, sometimes in a particular historical period (suiting the
historical period of the action or not), sometimes in an ahistorical mixture of styles. It is surely rather
silly to try to establish a rule about such things, other than the common-sense principle that the style is
appropriate and justified if it enriches our understanding of the production and the text. There is thus
no “correct” style of producing Shakespeare, and the fact that in Shakespeare’s days, the productions
used Elizabethan fashions in the clothing has no special privilege. We justify a particular style,
experimental or traditional, by its effects. Thus, while people tend to have preferences in these
matters, it is surely wrong to dismiss a particular production simply because it does not adhere to a
particular style which someone has determined is “correct.”

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The Genetic Fallacy

What has all this to do with English 366? Well, the first important point is that these
distinctions call attention to the danger of confusing literary scholarship (the factual inquiry into
historical origins) with literary interpretation (the evaluative inquiry into meaning). By way of
clarifying this point, one can refer to what has been named the Genetic Fallacy. This is the process by
which someone attempts to interpret a text exclusively by linking it to the facts of its production,
whether these facts lie in the biography of the author or in the historical details of his age. In other
words, the Genetic Fallacy arises when we try to insist that the value or the meaning of a work can
only be understood with direct and repeated reference to historical or biographical facts of its
production, to the processes which produced it.

For example, someone may try to persuade you that the meaning of Hamlet can be
approached only through a knowledge of Shakespeare’s life or through a historical knowledge of
Elizabethan theatre or through a knowledge of Renaissance ideas or through some other factual maze.
Hence, if we have not thoroughly prepared ourselves for interpreting Hamlet by acquiring a
comprehensive command of such factual details we are ill equipped to offer a literary judgment about
the meaning, interpretation, or quality of Hamlet, and we must defer our interpretative judgment to
those who do have such expert knowledge.

This argument is fallacious because it confuses the origin of something with its nature and
value. Describing the facts of how something came to be produced tells us nothing definite about what
the work means or about its value. Such description may provide some interesting possibilities for us
to consider (and therefore we do not rule it out automatically), but these are not especially privileged
just because they are facts at the time. Here is a common example, familiar to most students. Imagine
a student who has worked very hard on an essay, reading a lot of books and rewriting the argument
many times. When she receives it back from the instructor, she is dismayed to find that it has received
a very poor mark. A friend of hers, by contrast, dashed his essay off at the last minute and received an
A. She complains to the instructor: “I worked really hard on that essay, and Joe Blow, who got an A,
just dashed his off. That is not fair. I deserve a higher mark.” The argument is understandable but
invalid, for there is no necessary connection between how that student set about writing the essay and
its quality. It may be the case that spending more time generally produces better quality, but there is
no necessary connection between them. The quality of the essay arises from what is actually on the
page, not from how it got there.

A second reason why explicating texts by discussions of their historical origins is very
questionable (if not spurious) is that we can never know enough about the factual context of a work to
be sure of the easy connections we might want to make. It may sound plausible to argue that
Shakespeare’s attitude to, say, women (even if we can agree on what that attitude is) is the product of
his family background, work, or some other cultural-historical milieu which we can document. But
there might be all sorts of other reasons at work, too, things about which we know nothing at all. If we
accept the fact that Shakespeare was an extraordinary creative genius, it seems rather odd to measure
his work by the commonplace ideas of his time. Besides, the link is irrelevant if we already have
enough in the text itself to convey a sense of the author’s attitude to women. By the same token, it
may be true that Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence is based upon real biographical experience, but the
situation might have just as easily been made up. And pointing out possible biographical links
(however fascinating that puzzle may be) does not tell us anything more we need to know in order to
discuss and evaluate the poems. And this point would be true even if someone produced irrefutable
documentary evidence for a firm biographical basis for some of the sonnets (say, by revealing the
identity of the Dark Lady and her relationship with Shakespeare). Such activities, intriguing though
they often are, are generally irrelevant to literary criticism (although, as mentioned above, they may
produce some useful interpretative possibilities).

The Genetic Fallacy is an important principle to remember, so as to avoid the common


temptation of trying to explain something merely with reference to some historical detail. Our

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interpretation of a text and our evaluation of it should always be based upon what is contained in the
text itself; whatever potential interpretative meaning we wish to present must arise out of what is in
the work, not out of some constant reference to factual details outside the work. And we should be
very wary of critics who try to persuade us that we cannot understand something unless we know a
great deal of historical or biographical background (this assertion often sounds like the defense of the
university academic trying to claim that understanding the work is only for the privileged few who
have been through the same scholarly training as he has). Such historical explanations may often help
us evade interpretative difficulties. We can, for example, deal with the witches in Macbeth with
appeals to Elizabethan beliefs or the interest of James I in the subject. But if that is all we do by way
of dealing with the witches, it is an evasion of our responsibilities, which are to make sense of those
witches for a modern imagination.

Let me restate an important point. Discussions of the historical facts may provide important
interpretative suggestions. For example, the knowledge that Shakespeare’s father and son died in the
years immediately before the composition of Hamlet may alert us more to the importance of some of
the family dynamics in the play. But those facts are not prescriptive; they take their place along with
all other interpretative suggestions for us to evaluate against the only facts which matter in literary
criticism: the words on the page. It is also the case that many literary historians and biographers are
also good literary critics: they have interesting and fertile suggestions to make about the work. But the
value of such suggestions is not necessarily linked to their command of historical facts; it just may
happen that they also have rich perceptions.

At any rate, we need to bear the Genetic Fallacy in mind if we are tempted to engage in a lot
of secondary reading by way of preparing for a discussion of literary criticism, especially in an essay,
for we may be easily seduced into thinking something really important about the interpretation of a
work is being said when all we are reading is a survey of some historical facts. No work of literature
worth reading (least of all Shakespeare’s work) can be reduced to or explained away in terms of the
facts of its production. So if we find ourselves reading something which is shifting our attention away
from what is going on in the text onto something outside, something in the context of the age in which
the work was written, then we need to beware. We are being led down the primrose path away from
what really matters to what is another activity entirely.

Students should bear these points in mind in writing essays. Those assignments require
literary criticism, not historical summaries. So do not attempt to explicate things with reference to
historical or biographical facts (e.g., with statements like, for example, “Hamlet’s difficulties stem
from the complex world of Renaissance politics with which Shakespeare was quite familiar,” or “This
part of King Lear clearly refers to the political debates surrounding seventeenth century
Protestantism,” or “The witches in Macbeth are obviously designed to appeal to the keen interest of
the Jacobean audience in the supernatural,” and so on). Such statements may be historically accurate
enough (perhaps), but they do not address the central purpose of the assignment: a literary
interpretation of the work in question which addresses the needs of the modern reader, which
appropriates the text for us now. Students should particularly avoid any interpretative suggestions
which involve thin, sweeping generalizations about Shakespeare’s audience—such explanations are
usually (almost invariably) empty (i.e., without any interpretative value) and rest on very dubious
assumptions (e.g., “Shakespeare’s audience all believed in ghosts and would have no trouble seeing
King Hamlet as a noble injured victim”).

The issues in this section should also alert us to what we have to do if we find literary
criticism difficult (as many students do). The only way to improve our skills as literary critics is to
engage in the activity of measuring our interpretative and evaluative skills against those of others in a
conversation (or a conversational reading). No amount of research into historical matters will provide
an adequate substitute for that, just as learning a great deal about the history of tennis and the statistics
of various players will be no substitute for practice on the court, if our desire is to learn to play the
game better. We cannot take refuge in literary scholarship simply because we find it difficult to
engage in conversations about literary criticism.

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Various Ideological Fallacies

For the same reason, some writers may try to persuade us that the literary fiction cannot be
understood except in terms of some ideological framework. So, for example, the essence of King
Lear is a debate between Hooker and Hobbes (Danby), Hamlet is a clear exposition of the Oedipus
Complex (Jones), The Tempest is an allegory of colonialism (various modernists), and so on. Here
again, it is important to remember the principle that a commentary which directs us away from the
work into some other work or works is instantly suspect. Works of literature worth reading are
unique; they are not simply examples of intellectual debates or illustrations of intellectual positions
better articulated elsewhere. It may well be the case (in fact, often is the case) that a writer will
usefully draw upon an intellectual or ideological framework: but the job of the work of literature is to
make that intellectual framework come alive in a uniquely moving manner (and often to subvert it),
and the task of the literary critic is to explore with others how that comes about within the context of
the work itself.

Ideological critics can, of course, like anyone else, provide important and fertile suggestions,
to the extent that they have good literary perceptions. So, for example, the first part of Jones’ book
on Hamlet is excellent interpretation—it looks closely and exclusively at the text and calls attention to
many things going on there which one might too easily overlook. But when he then turns to argue that
this “proves” that Shakespeare is theoretically consistent with Freud’s Oedipus Complex, he is taking
us away from the text, and we end up learning a great deal more about Freudian psychology than
about Hamlet.

All these remarks are especially true in the face of all those who would try to argue that
theories of criticism are a first prerequisite of literary criticism, that we need to argue (endlessly) first
about various forms of literary criticisms and literary theories. If we apply the test I have been
suggesting, that is, to set aside works which do not direct us back into the text in which we are
interested but lead us further and further away from them, then we will treat all such arguments about
literary and critical theory, interesting as they may be for various reasons, as they deserve. We will
leave them behind when we move into our activity as literary critics and interpreters.

In many cases, where an interpreter is bringing to bear an ideological framework, like, say, a
particular version of feminism, the issue is one of emphasis. Where the ideological framework serves
to enrich our understanding of the work it may well have very useful things to reveal to us; where
such an approach tends to make the work merely an illustration of the theory, it may be ironing out
important discrepancies in the text or significantly reducing the work’s complexity or simply dressing
up the obvious with a rich (and often bewildering) detour into more or less relevant scholarly
references.

The Intentional Fallacy

Then, there is the major scholarly fallacy of the author’s intentions. The argument is often
made that what the author has to say about his own work, especially about his artistic intentions, is a
uniquely privileged insight into it and should thus be binding upon us in some way. That must be our
primary entry into a literary work and a curb upon all interpretative departures in certain directions.
This is a major fallacy for a number of reasons.

In the first place, for many writers we have no knowledge of what their intentions were.
Biographical details may be entirely absent (as in, say, Homer), scanty (e.g., Chaucer), or factually
detailed but artistically uninformative (e.g., Shakespeare). If authorial intention is the key to literary
criticism, then there are a lot of works where we simply could not get started.

But the much more important point is that, even where we do have very clear statements from
authors about what their intentions were in creating a certain work and about how we should read it,
we need to remember that authors are often very bad critics of their own work. They reveal all too

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clearly that they have created something which they do not understand themselves particularly well
(or, what is perhaps more likely, they have an understanding which they cannot communicate) and
even have created something different from, perhaps even quite contrary to, what they had originally
intended.

A particularly famous example of this issue is Milton’s Paradise Lost. What Milton
consciously intended to do seems clear from the opening of the poem and other places where the
narrator explicitly addresses the reader. But there is a fierce argument over whether what Milton
intended is the same as what he produced. There is even a school of interpretation which claims, on
the basis of the text itself, that the final result is directly opposite to what Milton consciously intended.
Another famous example is Richardson’s novel Clarissa, where the imagination of the writer seems to
have produced something quite at odds with his conscious intentions (as he reveals in footnotes he
added to later editions of the novel, comments designed to tell the reader how to interpret particular
scenes).

We need to remember that writers, like everyone else, have both will and imagination. A
writer may start off by willing a certain work of literature with a very conscious intention (taking, for
example, a few characters and putting them in a particular place, and setting up a story with a clear
moral lesson in mind), and he or she will almost certainly will that the work is successful. But the
creative process also involves the imagination, and when that takes over the construction of a fiction,
it may lead in directions the author had never consciously intended. The real mark of the greatest
artists is that they intuitively respond to a powerful imagination and understand the quality of what
they have created (so that they leave it alone), even if it that turns out to present something not
consciously willed or even wanted. We will be exploring this possibility in some detail when we look
at Richard III.

A writer who has only his will to offer, who writes always with a conscious intentionality
guiding the words, is a rhetorician, a conscious manipulator of language. Such a writer may well
produce interesting, amusing, sophisticated work, but it is unlikely that he or she will produce works
of the highest artistic quality, works which are truly imaginatively moving, which require some form
of inspiration or imaginative excitement. As Yeats remarked, rhetoric is the will trying to do the work
of the imagination. And when a writer is commenting on his own work, he may be indicating what he
wants the work to do, but he may not have a very good understanding of his own imaginative
creation. As an artist he may surpass us all; as a literary critic of his own work, he stands as an equal
(but not an especially privileged) member of the conversation. That may be the reason why so many
important artists resolutely refuse to comment in any detail on their own work (e.g., T. S. Eliot).

Hence, we should treat the writer’s comments about his own work in the same way we treat
the information from the literary biographer or historian, as a possible source of useful suggestions,
but with no special privileges. We test their suggestions and proposals as we do those of anyone else,
against our conversational sense of the work as that manifests itself by what appears on the page.

There is, however, one common and useful way to talk of an author’s intentions, and that is
when we wish to refer to the sense we get of the overall thrust of the text (or a part of it), as that sense
emerges from the text. If, for example, we say something like “Shakespeare clearly intends us to see
that Richard’s rise to power depends upon the weaknesses of others,” this statement means that this is
the sense we derive from reading the play. It is not the case that we are appealing to some document
outside the play which makes such intentions clear.

The Affective Fallacy

Finally, there is the common claim that matters of literary judgment and interpretation are
entirely relative, that people are entitled to make their own interpretations and judgments based on
their own feelings, all of which are equally valid, provided only that they are sincerely felt. Hence, the

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claim that some interpretations are better than others or that some works are more valuable than others
is spurious. It’s all just a matter of personal taste.

For reasons which will be evident later, the claim that all interpretations are equally valid is
nonsense. Obviously, there is room of a good deal of variety, and it is true that there is no such thing
as a final authority which rules precisely on these matters. But to claim that what anyone wants to say
about a work of literature is just as valid as anything else is a foolish product of shallow modern
relativism.

Beyond that, it is clear that some works are better than others, better in the sense that they are
more intelligent explorations, more honest to the ambiguities of life, more universal in their human
appeal, more fertile in what they reveal about important matters, and so on. Again, we cannot register
such a judgment with mathematical precision, and we can certainly disagree about some of the details.
But any claim that, say, one is not entitled to an evaluative claim that the Terminator movies have less
artistic merit than the best Shakespearean tragedies or that there is no rational way to ground a
judgment that the latter are superior to the former is stupid.

The final test of the quality of a work is, once again, practical. Do future generations find it
useful, inspiring, worth preserving? Does the work promote the literary conversations of future
generations, long after the age in which it was produced has passed? What have other cultures made
of the work? When the literary interpreter is faced with evaluating something produced in her own
age and culture, such questions are impossible to answer, and the best effort can offer only an
educated guess. But when we are faced with something which has clearly transcended the limits of its
own time and culture, we can be reasonably sure that it contains something which speaks eloquently
to some important element in human life. That does not mean that we should automatically worship
the literature our ancestors hand down, for its transmission might have more to do with certain
cultural values enshrined in the work than with its literary merit. But, by the same token, we should
not reject something just because it is old. Works which have lasted have a special call on our
attention, but they still require our imaginative evaluation.

Literary Interpretation: Some Conversational Principles

What then is literary criticism exactly? Is there some precise method we need to observe? As
mentioned above, literary criticism is best thought of as by and large an anarchic, egalitarian,
conversational activity, and those who would seek to persuade us that we need to know a great deal of
extraneous information other than the specific text of the work are wrong. We judge the value of
literary criticism by its practical results, rather than by its adherence to some carefully worked out
theoretical principles. And that practical purpose has to do with enriching our imaginative
understanding of the text in question (as readers experience such enrichment). What serves that
purpose is effective literary interpretation; what does not so enrich our relationship with the text or
what leads us away from the text into other quarters is not serving that practical purpose.

These general claims do not mean, however, that we do not have recommended ways of
proceeding. These are less rules of criticism than principles to guide the conversation.

First, the discussion must start and stay with the specific details of the text. Literary
interpretation of any value emerges from the interrelationship between the perceiving imaginations of
the interpreters and the hard (although always ambiguous) facts of the text. To explore one’s reaction
to a work or to ground an interpretation of what something in it might mean in a way that has some
practical value, one must offer inductive evidence from the work itself. Hence, subjective digressions
into one’s own memories, experiences, and so on, into territory beyond the text where no one else can
follow, are not very helpful. Obvious misreadings of the text (i.e., factual errors) disqualify an
interpretation (e.g., the claim, say, that Ophelia is really a man in disguise or that Polonius is not
really her father or that Lear is really a young man). By the same token, speculations about things

37
which the text does not tell us are suspect if they are asked to bear a major interpretative weight (e.g.,
Hamlet’s childhood).

Second, literary interpretation is a rational social activity in which opinions and


interpretations are shared. The literary interpreter is offering an insight into the work, seeking to
persuade her listeners that this view has some value for an understanding of what is going on. As a
form of argument, interpretation requires attention to some basic rules of reason (e.g., the relationship
between evidence and conclusions, the importance of the consistent use of particular terms, and so
on). Writing, say, a poem or a piece of music as a means of communicating a response to a play of
Shakespeare is not an act of literary interpretation in this sense, although it might provide some
important assistance to someone seeking to understand the play. Similarly, a production of a dramatic
work of Shakespeare is, in a sense, not a work of literary interpretation (although the director must
have interpreted the work for herself in order to produce the text intelligently), but it can stimulate us,
in our interpretation of the production, to recognize some important possibilities in the text. Such
artistic responses to the text (as opposed to rational interpretations) might be called meta-
interpretations.

Third, in conducting literary criticism we need to remember that works of literature do not
have a single determinate meaning. It is far better to think of them as a group of interpretative
possibilities. And these interpretative possibilities will depend, in part, on the historical and cultural
context of the readers. Thus, as mentioned earlier, part of being a sophisticated literary critic is the
ability to hold simultaneous possibilities (even contradictory possibilities) in one’s imagination,
together with an awareness of how one’s own particular historical context may shape one’s
preferences. This does not mean that all interpretations are equally valid or that anything goes (see
below). This point is particularly the case when we are dealing with Shakespearean drama.

Fourth, interpretations should be presented as suggestions, as possibilities. They are not


“proofs,” in the sense that a Euclidean proposition is a proof. The literary critic is saying, in effect,
“Here’s a pattern I find interesting in this work. It strikes me that this might be bringing out . . ., and
this leads me to see in this work a sense of . . . .” Ham-fisted reductive language in criticism
(especially a language which stresses verbs like proves, demonstrates, clearly indicates, and so on)
generally indicates a critic with a certain tunnel vision or an ideological framework into which the
work is forcibly pushed, without regard to its full ambiguity. In a very real sense, a great deal of the
best criticism starts out as an exploration: let’s see how this way of interpreting this detail might lead
to a fuller understanding of something, and its value emerges from what that line of inquiry has to
reveal about the work.

Fifth, all interpretative suggestions initially have an equal status. We deal with them by
putting them to a series of basic questions: What is the evidence for this possibility? Is the evidence
significant? Is it contradicted by anything in the text? Is this interpretative possibility coherent and
consistent (i.e., does it hold throughout the work) and fertile (does it help us to understand many
things in the work)? Does this view of things illuminate the work (i.e., make us see it in a useful,
fruitful, pleasing way)? The answer to these questions is determined by consensus, that is, by the
informed agreement of the group. Such a consensus will rarely, if ever, settle on a single “correct”
interpretation, but it will almost certainly rule out a great many unsatisfactory ones and may well rank
some of the others (i.e., as more or less plausible). Other useful tests of interpretation are the
following questions: Does this literary interpretation enable me to see more in the work that I did
before? Does it drive me back to the text with fresh insight? Does it enrich my understanding of the
text? If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then the interpreter is doing good work; if
the effect of the interpretation is to encourage the reader to read other books as necessary
preliminaries (e.g., historical accounts of the context of the play), then the interpreter is doing
something other than effective interpretation of the text in question.

Sixth, literary criticism as a rational activity is usually guided by two common principles of
reasonable arguments. Simpler explanations are generally to be preferred to more complex ones

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which do not account for any more of the text (this is the principle of Occam’s razor, a common rule
of reasoning together in all subjects). And secondly, interpretations which account for most or all of
the work are to be preferred over others which account very well for a much smaller part but which
are not helpful anywhere else or which are contradicted by other parts of the text (the Principle of
Inclusiveness).

A Note on the Issue of Literary Merit

I have mentioned a number of times the concept of evaluation as a central concern of literary
interpretation. What does this mean precisely, and how do we set about the task? By evaluation, most
simply, I mean that, as interpreters of literature, we do more than simply interpret; we also seek to
provide some measure of the worth of the work. Does it succeed well or partially or not at all in
providing a significant insight into something about human feeling? Do we emerge from it with the
sense that we have experienced a privileged and memorable glimpse which we have not had before?
Or, by contrast, does the work close us off from experience? Does liking it require that we stop
thinking about life or accept unintelligent, reductive, or sentimental pictures in place of imaginative
vision? Are parts of the work much more effective than others?

Let me start with an extreme example. Most of us acknowledge that there are some fictions
which we reject as pornographic. We reject them, I presume, because we find the vision of life
contained in them objectionable. And what is the source of the objection? Simply put, we object not
because there is generally a lot of sex, even very kinky sex, but rather because the human interactions
depicted (sexual and otherwise) are stupid, unintelligent, and corrupting. The pornographic work
depicts people (especially women) as objects to be manipulated for pleasure and thus pictures life
crudely, unambiguously, and reductively. The real objection to pornography (first articulated by
Plato) is not that it depicts sexual activity, nor even that it encourages aggressive sexual activity
(although it may), but rather that it corrupts the understanding (the intellectual and the emotional
understanding) of sexuality. Literary fictions of this sort we have little trouble in recognizing as
inferior, if not on some absolute scale, well then at least by comparison with something which we find
imaginatively inspiring.

But literature does not have to be pornographic to be corrupting. Anything that closes off our
minds to the complexity of the emotional and intellectual life is potentially offering a false picture of
experience; a work that does so is in some fundamental way dishonest. It is seeking to satisfy the wish
fulfillment of the reader—often the fulfillment of the feelings or ideas which appeal most strongly to
the reader’s desire not to confront life honestly—at the expense of a richer and more intelligent
possibility.

Consider, for example, the issue of sentimentality. Very simply put, sentimentality is, as the
modern American poet Wallace Stevens observed, a failure of feeling. It is the desire to substitute a
false emotional understanding of life, to betray the complexity of the experience the work of fiction is
exploring. The sentimental writer (e.g., of the Harlequin romance) invokes a potentially complex
experience (e.g., love) but offers, in effect, a cartoon picture and resolution of the human experience.
Sentimentality is dishonest in the sense that it simplifies, distorts, and closes off experience in order to
offer a false (and generally reassuring) picture. In fact, sentimental fictions, like sentimental song
lyrics, require us to attend to them with half a mind; if we start raising some serious questions about
what the works are actually saying or about the internal logic of the action, the work collapses in on
itself.

Sentimentality is, however, extremely popular. And the source of the appeal is easy enough to
sort out. It answers to what we would like to believe about ourselves and about the world. Hence, the
vast majority of the most popular fictions are intensely sentimental, and those who make the biggest
profits out of marketing fictions are incurably sentimental (e.g., Walt Disney, a great deal of pop and
country music, the majority of television entertainment). To call all this corrupting is perhaps to be
over severe, since many of these works make no attempt to disguise what they are. And there is no

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danger, I suppose, in engaging in our liking for sentimentality if that is what we know we are doing.
The corrupting effects emerge from sentimental art posing as serious, presenting itself (and being
accepted as) a serious engagement with the full complexity of life. One of the major tasks facing the
literary critic is the unmasking of such sentimentality in popular fiction.

Both pornographic and sentimental fictions rely upon what we might call stereotypical
presentations of life. Intelligent literature attacks and undermines stereotypes, which depend upon our
desire to generalize easily about the world, to lump large groups of people or large numbers of
experiences or important and complex ideas into single, simple, and therefore manageable categories.
Inferior art powerfully reinforces stereotypes; in fact, mediocre popular art is probably the single most
powerful agent in creating and perpetuating the stereotypes which appeal to our desires not to be
emotionally or intellectually challenged into rethinking our vision of life. As such, it is a major agent
for emotional and intellectual corruption or, if that is too pejorative a label, for emotional and
intellectual oversimplification. The moral justification for literary interpretation rests, more than
anything else, on the challenge and the importance of resisting this tendency.

Consider, for example, the issue of jokes. There are two basic kinds: the first appeals to our
stereotypes; it reinforces them. Whether we call this racist or sexist humour, when we laugh we are
endorsing a closing off of our minds against new experience. Jokes of this kind are a very powerful
way of keeping new experience away from our consciousness, of keeping the outsiders or the
intruders on our awareness at bay, at a distance, so that we do not have to think about them as
anything more than simplistic targets (as dehumanized objects). Humour which relies on jokes of this
sort is immensely popular, and there are comedians who make their living by providing an apparently
endless stream of such locker-room wit. For obvious reasons, such humour is particularly popular
among male adolescents, at a time in life when they are very insecure about many things (especially
about mature sexuality)..

The more intelligent forms of humour force us to laugh at ourselves, to recognize the
limitations of our own ways of thinking, and thus encourage us to transform our understanding of
others and ourselves (rather than laughing at someone different from us, we end up laughing at
ourselves). This sort of humour changes the situation, leaving us with a more complex understanding
of our own reactions (or more commonly, of the language in which we express these reactions, or
both). Both forms of humour are examples of literary art: I have no trouble, however, in seeing the
second as a more worthwhile activity than the former.

One of the most immediately obvious qualities of Shakespeare’s mature style in his plays, as
we shall see, is the way in which his presentation of characters in action is constantly subverting our
sense of stereotypes, reminding us always that easy generalizations about others or about life itself or
about ourselves, of the sort we make all the time, are limiting and potentially corrupting, not only to
us but to those around us. His art, in other words, constantly challenges many of our most complacent
assumptions.

Some Criteria for Making Literary Evaluations

Given what has been said above, let me conclude by listing a few criteria by which we might
begin to think about evaluating (that is, passing a judgment on the quality of) a particular literary
work.

If we begin with the notion of a literary fiction as an exploration into the emotional
complexities of a human experience, we can certainly reflect upon how intelligently, seriously, and
honestly the writer addresses that experience, as opposed to any sense that he or she is taking refuge
in sentimentality, reductive simplicity, dishonesty, cheap thrills, pornography, and so on. This is a
personal judgment we make, as readers, and, as with all questions of interpretation, there is room for
disagreement. Nevertheless, we can, with some confidence, assert that these criteria will enable us to
consider some works as better than others.

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The task of evaluating literary fictions is often best carried out as a comparative
conversational exercise. That is, our sense of how good a work of fiction is we will derive from our
sense of what we have read that is better or worse than other things we have read and from the
reaction we share with others about that point. Just as we are better able to recognize dishonesty by
having an experienced sense of what honesty is, so with fiction: a familiarity with the best enables us
to recognize what fails to live up to the highest demands of literary fiction. One of the major reasons
for reading fictions (too little acknowledged) is the important pleasure and insight we derive, not just
from reading the work, but from engaging in conversations with others about our responses.

One of the great values of reading Shakespeare’s works chronologically (even a small
selection of them) is that such evaluation inevitably emerges as we move from the very early work
into the mature plays. The latter are, in some respects, very much better than the earliest plays, and an
inquiry into why this should be the case can teach us all some important things about the criteria we
use to make such evaluative judgments, not just about Shakespeare’s work, but about other literature
and, beyond that, about elements of life itself..

In evaluating fiction, we need to be careful not to condemn something for not being what it
does not set out to be. Literary fiction comes in many forms, and we all have our preferences (e.g.,
for, say, lyric poetry over satire, for dramatic comedy over tragedy, and so on). Before rendering
judgment, we need to consider what the work is set up to achieve and to measure its success against
the standard that it sets for itself. A pastoral romance (like, say, The Winter’s Tale), for example, will
hardly rank very high with those who demand always naturalistic seriousness from fiction. But if the
work lives up to the standards of the form which it has set, we can hardly complain justly that it is not
something else, just as we can hardly condemn, say, a polka for not being a waltz or a fugue (but we
can certainly condemn a polka for being a boring, repetitive, unimaginative polka). The experience of
studying Shakespeare’s literary fictions can make us more experienced in dealing with different forms
and styles, so that we become better at avoiding errors of this sort.

One key metaphor we might want to bear in mind is this: some works obscure or bore, some
works illustrate, and some works illuminate. The first group are inferior because they make no
emotional contact with us, and reading them is a chore and a bore (a criticism many have leveled at,
say, Henry VI, Part I or Titus Andronicus). The second may be pleasing enough, but they do not give
us anything we did not have before, and they have not taken us to any place with which we are not
quite familiar. They may, in fact, reinforce the limitations of our emotional understanding of life. But
the final group gives us a new insight, an exciting new sense of something we have not come across
(or we have met it before but forgotten about it). The illumination is energizing and memorable.

How do we recognize such illumination? There are a couple of reliable criteria. First, reading
such works tends to be increasingly rewarding; we discover something different each time, rather than
simply going through the same emotional response as we did before (or a reduced version of it). And,
secondly, these works (or the most memorable parts of them) tend to stick in our minds. The images
and stories and characters remain for reasons we may not fully understand.

Such illumination may happen very rarely, but when it does, we have possession of
something that is going to contribute to setting a standard by which we measure other fictions. And
one of the main reasons for studying the works in English 366 is to increase our stock of such
illuminations, because when Shakespeare is writing at the top of his genius the illuminating power of
his work is beyond comparison.

The great English literary critic Matthew Arnold suggested that those interested in literary
interpretation should use such moments of illumination astouchstones. That is, as we read, we should
make a special note of poems or passages of literary fictions which we find particularly illuminating,
moving, and (for reasons which we may not fully understand) excellent in some way. These passages
we should become familiar with, so that they enter deeply into our awareness of the very best
achievements of literary creativeness and thus become the standard against which we measure

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everything we read. This is a very useful principle for the student of literary criticism. And anyone
who is planning on a career as a teacher of literature or a literary interpreter should begin immediately
to keep a record of such touchstones, carrying them about with her, and reviewing them constantly.
They are the finest and most useful critical tools, an inescapable part of the interpreter’s most
important resources.

That point is (or should be) particularly important to anyone in English 366 who is setting out
to concentrate professionally in some way or another as a specialist in English literature. For
Shakespeare sets the standard by which we measure literary achievement in English, not simply in
Renaissance drama or poetry, but in the whole range of interpretation of fiction. To profess oneself a
teacher of or specialist in English literature without a thorough knowledge of Shakespeare, an
ingrained familiarity with his highest achievements, is, in some fundamental way, to misrepresent
oneself.

A Postscript

The above paragraphs have attempted to clarify the approach to interpretation we shall be
taking in this course. Such clarification is necessary because there is at the moment a frequently
bewildering series of approaches to texts (as undergraduate students quickly discover when they move
from one instructor to the next). Hence, the above remarks are intended to alert the students to the
interpretative methodology we will be using.

One can sum up this view of literary criticism by saying that it stresses, above all, close
readings of the text with conversational interpretation which is not filtered through the requirements
of any historical or ideological context (although, of course, it has its own latent ideology). The
approach outlined generally corresponds loosely to what has come to be called New Criticism, a form
of literary interpretation which developed in the 1930’s in England and America and which is still
practiced in many universities, especially in undergraduate instruction.

Many of the most important literary critics in English (particularly in the interpretation of
Shakespeare) are associated with this approach (e.g., T. S. Eliot, L. C. Knights, G. Wilson Knight, F.
R. L. Leavis, D. A. Traversi). One important centre of New Criticism has been and still is the
University of Cambridge.

New Criticism has been strongly contested for many years (particularly by academics writing
in journals), for a number of reasons, the most important of which have to do with its relative neglect
of historical context (of both the work and the reader) and its apparent aversion to ideology. Many of
these objections are significant, but for our purposes in English 366, an initial New Critical approach
has the important advantage of encouraging everyone to address the text directly, without worrying
about a necessary preparation in history or psychological, political, feminist, or linguistic theory. The
conversational style of the class should encourage us often to move beyond the principles outlined
above into wider fields, as the group determines.

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The Foxes, The Lion, and the Fat Knight: Introduction to Henry IV, Part 1

Introductory Comments

We start our study of Shakespeare with Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry V, two plays from the
four-play Second History Cycle, which, as I have already explained elsewhere, deals with the first
part of the family conflict and civil war known as the Wars of the Roses.

In this lecture I shall be exploring some of the more important issues in Henry IV, Part 1.
These issues arise out of the dramatic action of the first play in the four-part sequence,Richard II, are
explored further in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and apparently resolved in Henry V. In dealing with our
first two plays, I particularly want to call our attention to Shakespeare’s use of irony to challenge,
complicate, and qualify our understanding of particular characters and issues. In other words, I would
like our study of these first two plays to help us learn some important things about how to read
Shakespeare. I shall be clarifying what I mean by that all important term irony in a few moments.

Preliminary Observation on the Term History Play

Shakespeare’s works are, as is well known, commonly divided up into three major groups:
Histories, Comedies, and Tragedies (sometimes a fourth group is added, Last Plays or Romances;
technically these are comedies, but they are significantly different from Shakespeare’s earlier
comedies).

As I have observed in a previous lecture, the differences between Tragedies and Comedies
include important structural differences in the plot (especially the ending) and in the vision of life
which the play celebrates. There’s no need to repeat those observations here. But a word or two on
the term History Play may be in order.

Shakespeare himself does not appear to have distinguished very clearly between these
different genres, especially between History Plays and Tragedies. The distinction was created at the
time of the publication of the First Folio (1623), the first Collected Works, after Shakespeare’s death.
The division may have been designed to celebrate Shakespeare’s versatility as a dramatist, something
his friends wished to celebrate, especially in comparison with his great rival Ben Jonson.

In any case, the term History Play is commonly used to designate those plays (whether
tragedies of comedies) in which the action and the major themes of the play are predominantly, even
exclusively, political, rather than anything much wider and more profound. Some History Plays are
very close to tragedies (e.g., Richard III and Richard II) and some are clearly comedies (e.g., Henry
V), but what separates them from the regular comedies and tragedies is that the History Plays confine
their attention largely to the political realm, without straying into other social or metaphysical matters.

We can see the difference clearly by comparing, say, the Henry IV plays, with Macbeth or
King Lear. The latter two plays are clearly based on historical events and they have a political
dimension. But the major focus of the play is something much more complex than simply political
questions: they involve an exploration of the soul of the major figures in the context of a full human
life. In other words, they transcend the limits set by political concerns. In the Henry IV plays, by
contrast, we never stray from the political dimensions of the actions and the relationships. For
example, we never see what is going on with Bolingbroke’s soul—the issue is hinted at but kept at a
safe distance. If the plays brought us as close to Bolingbroke as, say, Macbeth does to Macbeth, then
the concerns of Henry IV would quickly move well beyond the limits of political considerations.

This distinction is, no doubt, somewhat arbitrary, but it is commonly observed and relatively
easy to grasp from the nature of the discussions we have of the plays. In our conversations

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about Henry IV, we are almost always talking about political-social issues; in our discussions
of Lear or Macbeth, we spend most of our time talking about other matters (e.g., the nature of evil).

One of the best examples of what I have just mentioned occurs in 1Herny4.3.2 when Prince
Hal and his father have their private meeting. This is potentially a very revealing scene, where Henry
IV at last might gives some glimpse into his motives for murdering Richard and his awareness of the
moral consequences. But all he really talks about in the scene is the politics of royal behaviour.
There are allusions to deeper matters (“I know not whether God will have it so/For some displeasing
service I have done”), but these are not explored, and the entire scene sticks firmly to the political
issues of the Prince’s behaviour. And once Prince Hal has reassured his father that he has a political
agenda working, his father quickly understands (Bolingbroke is astute enough to recognize effective
Machiavellian tactics when he hears about them) and agrees. We see the political significance of their
patching up their differences, but we don’t really learn anything significant about either man’s
character (as we do, for example, in Hamlet’s conversations with his father or with his mother, or
Macbeth’s conversations with his wife). In that sense, the focus of the play is tightly confined to the
political—hence the term History Play.

A Note on Richard II

Before turning directly to Henry IV, Part 1, however, I would like to clarify the narrative and
dramatic basis of the play, for those of you who are not familiar with Richard II, the play which
immediately precedes it and which establishes much of the foundation of Henry IV, Part 1. If we had
sufficient time, we would, of course, have included Richard II in the curriculum, since
understanding Henry IV, Part 1 fully requires some appreciation for that first play.

Richard II tells the story of how Richard, the legitimate king of England, is overthrown by a
civil rebellion launched by his powerful cousin, Henry Bolingbroke. Richard is a very negligent king,
who commits a serious offense against tradition by confiscating Bolingbroke’s inheritance, after
having exiled him on something of a trumped-up charge for a crime which, the play strongly suggests,
Richard himself committed (the murder of their common uncle). Bolingbroke returns illegally from
exile, enlists the support of some powerful nobles who are upset with Richard’s incompetent rule
(notable the Percy family: Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur), and together they defeat and
imprison Richard. Bolingbroke then, very unexpectedly (in Shakespeare’s play) announces that he
will make himself king (King Henry IV), and he arranges at the end of the play for Richard II to be
murdered (in order to solidify his position on the throne).

Richard II raises, as a central political issue, a major concern of Henry IV, Part 1, namely, the
question of rebellion against legitimate authority. No one in Richard II disputes the fact that Richard
is the legitimate king. The laws and traditions of the land confirm that point, and all the major figures
in the play have sworn allegiance to Richard. Hence, in rebelling against him they are breaking the
law and their personal promises (as some figures in the play point out repeatedly).

However, Richard is clearly a bad king, who fails to recognize and live up to his
responsibilities. He violates the very traditions which uphold his authority. His actions thus leave his
subjects with a difficult choice: either they must endure the harm their king is inflicting on them and
remain loyal to him (as many in the play do), or they must break their promises and the laws and
rebel. Bolingbroke chooses to do the latter, not merely to correct the immediate wrong done to him
(the confiscation of his estates) but to install himself as king and then to kill the legitimate king. It’s
clear throughout Richard II that Bolingbroke’s actions are illegal (for he has no rival claim to the
throne with which to challenge Richard).

What’s crucial about this action (for the purposes of our understanding of Henry IV, Part 1) is
that Bolingbroke (Henry IV) has decisively broken with the traditional form of political authority—
the common allegiance to a legitimate king, who derives his authority from his inheritance and from
the shared agreement that that is the way the political order in the country should be determined—and

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has substituted for it his own power. He has become king, not from any legitimate, traditional claim
(or, indeed, any legal claim whatsoever), but simply because he has a military superiority over the
legitimate king and the desire to get rid of Richard.

Bolingbroke may have some moral authority on his side, given that Richard II commits a
number of crimes against Bolingbroke (and others), but Bolingbroke’s actions have consequences far
beyond his original intentions, and these consequences form a major theme in Henry IV, Part 1. This
issue can be summed up as follows: Once we have made power, military power, the basis for political
order, how can we have any shared agreements about political obedience, obligation, and legitimacy?
If power is the only basis for authority, what happens to a country in which there are competing
powers? What happens to our desire for political stability under a system in which we all understand
clearly where our political obligations ought to be? Furthermore, when power advances its interests
through deception (false promises and lies), how can anyone trust anyone else?

Let me elaborate on this for a moment. At the beginning of Richard II, everyone shares the
same understanding of their political obligations: they have all sworn an oath of allegiance to the
legitimate king, and he is (by common agreement and tradition) the arbiter of any disputes (the agent
of justice). To go against this system would be dishonorable and illegal, inviting public shame and
punishment for breaking a common rule which holds society together. Here, one’s power is
subordinate to one’s honour: one’s power is used in the services of one’s public obligations, to which
one has made a public commitment, in keeping with long-standing traditions. In such a system,
justice is something everyone understands readily enough, and public manifestations of power (like a
trial or a court hearing) endorse the arrangement in which everyone knows his own place and the
place of everyone else (not unlike a sports team on display). Henry IV, Part 1contains a very
important reminder of this medieval world in the person of Hotspur, for whom pubic honour is far
more important than personal gain (more about him later).

But in Richard II, this arrangement of justice is overthrown for two main reasons: first, the
person most responsible for maintaining the system subordinates those responsibilities to his own self-
interest (failing to respect what belongs to other people) and, second, some very powerful people
offended by those actions, rebel. They break their promises, act deceitfully (i.e., lie and fail to keep
their public promises), and fight and murder their way into power. Clearly, for them the old system of
public honour and promise-keeping as the essential requirement for political justice is less important
than their own self-interest.

The first important point to make about Henry IV, Part 1, is that it explores the consequences
of this overthrow of traditional public justice. We are now dealing with a world in which power is the
basis for political life, and disputatious issues cannot be quickly and fairly resolved because there is
no agreement about who is a fair judge (as there was at the start of Richard II)—everyone is now
acting first and foremost out of self-interest. Bolingbroke (Henry IV), in other words, is having to deal
with a problem which his own illegal actions created, but he does not have the traditional political
authority to deal with them effectively, because his actions (prompted by Richard’s negligence) have
struck a mortal blow at that authority (which rests on the agreement of all to abide by it). Having
violated the traditional allegiance owed to a king, he cannot now effectively invoke it to protect
himself and keep his powerful nobles in line. Having broken his promises to Richard, he is not in a
position to trust what other people say to him (nor are they encourage to believe him).

One way of looking at these first two plays we are studying is to see in Henry IV, Part 1, an
exploration of the enormous difficulty, perhaps even the impossibility, of imposing order on a country
through power alone—Bolingbroke is unable to deal effectively with the problems his own actions
have brought about; Henry V, by contrast, seems to offer the picture of a ruler who has learned how
to do just that, to rise above the tangled web his father has created and to impose a glorious order on
his kingdom, a triumph of political justice restored (whether that is precisely what the play adds up to
or not we will be discussing later).

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The Machiavel

Before taking up a more detailed discussion of Henry IV, Part 1, I’d like to use the above
remarks as an introduction to one of Shakespeare’s favourite character types, of which Bolingbroke is
the first we meet in our study (though by no means the first in Shakespeare’s works)—an often
complex and attractive personality which Shakespeare never tires of placing in his plays in various
guises as the central embodiment of all sorts of major thematic issues. This character is called the
Machiavel. And an understanding of these two plays, and of Shakespeare’s works generally,
absolutely requires us repeatedly to explore the nature of the Machiavel.

What exactly does this term mean? Well, Bolingbroke is a good initial example. Simply put,
the Machiavel sees political life (and often his own personal life) as primarily, even exclusively, a
matter of power to secure his own personal gain by whatever means are most appropriate to the task.
The Machiavel, in other words, sees morality—that is, a careful adjudication of whether what one
proposes or want to do is what one ought to do, in accordance with some system which discriminates
between good and evil conduct—as subordinate to efficiency, that is, securing through clever
manipulation and power whatever it is one sees as necessary to satisfy oneself..

[The next few paragraphs are taken, with some modifications, from a previous lecture—not
delivered in this English 366 course, the lecture on Richard III]

The term Machiavel is derived from the name of Machiavelli, one of the first great modern
voices in political and moral theory. He lived in Italy almost one hundred years before Shakespeare
(from 1469 to 1527) and was most famous (or notorious) for a book called The Prince, which is a
short work providing political advice to the modern ruler. There is no time here to elucidate
Machiavelli’s political philosophy in detail, and there is no need to, because it is very unlikely that
Shakespeare had any first-hand knowledge of Machiavelli’s writing. The Machiavelli he was drawing
upon and responding to was the popular conception of Machiavelli, which was inevitably a simplified
and exaggerated version of what Machiavelli was saying but which also contained an important part
of the truth of his political philosophy.

Machiavelli’s fame or notoriety rested (and rests) on the fact that he insisted as a first
prerequisite of effective political rule that the ruler should forget about traditional notions of virtue
and morality. The essential quality of a ruler was the effective use of power to guarantee his own
survival. And The Prince is full of advice on how the ruler should skillfully use whatever resources
are available to maximize his own power and to reduce the power of his enemies. Machiavelli is the
great exponent of the popular maxim “The end justifies the means,” and the end he has in mind is the
continuing political survival of the ruler. If, to stay in office, one needs to lie, cheat, deceive, or kill,
that is all part of what the ruler must do without moral scruple. This requires, Machiavelli insists, a
complex set of practical abilities (what he calls virtu), and it may well require the appearance of virtue
(because that is a useful cloak to wrap oneself in for public consumption—as public relations, so to
speak). But it does not require any strict adherence to old-fashioned notions of charity, honesty,
clemency, or other components of traditional Christian virtue. Nor does it require one to keep one’s
promises, if one’s political survival requires one to break those. Hence comes the old saying, with
Machiavelli there is no virtue in virtu.

The Machiavel figure in the English theatre, which originated before Shakespeare (Marlowe
even has Machiavelli as a character in one of his plays), is thus primarily a person who puts his own
personal survival and power above any traditional moral restraint. He is a person who believes that the
assertion of his individual desires is more important than observing any traditional ways of dealing
with people and who is prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve his personal desires. He is, thus, a
self-interested individualist with no traditional scruples about communal responsibilities and morality.
The Machiavel is commonly an inherent source of social disorder, especially in a society which relies
upon traditional moral codes and social bonds to educate people about what they ought to do.

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In carrying out his plans, the Machiavel typically demonstrates many of the particular skills
which Machiavelli talks about. He is, above everything else, a really fine actor, a consummate
hypocrite, who can adjust his looks and his talk to meet any particular situation. He is a superb
manipulator of people (especially those who take his appearance for the truth). He has a really
impressive practical intelligence, being able to assess people and situations to his advantage, and he
uses people’s credulity, stupidity, fear, ambition, and ignorance always to his own advantage. In many
cases, he does not have a clear plan of action; he initiates discord (or takes advantage of chaotic times)
and then improvises his way through, using an impressive range of efficient skills to get his way.
Bolingbroke’s rise to the throne is rather like this: he doesn’t seem to set out the get the throne (or at
least that’s unclear) but once the opportunity presents itself, he seizes it.

Many of Shakespeare’s most interesting and famous heroes and villains are clearly Machiavel
figures, in tragedies, comedies, and history plays: Bolingbroke, Richard III, Macbeth, Don John, Iago,
Claudius, Regan and Goneril, Edmund, and others. These figures all demonstrate a preoccupation
with their own advantage and an unscrupulous way of achieving what they want. They also share
many Machiavellian skills, especially the ability to act whatever role and use whatever language they
think the situation requires. What makes them often such complex embodiments of evil is that almost
all of them are, to a greater or lesser extent, recognizably normal; we meet such people in the world
all around us. Their success, in many cases, depends upon other people’s failing to see them as
anything but ordinary. In some cases, Shakespeare’s presentation of them makes them, in some ways
(initially, at least), quite likable and amusing (e.g., Iago, Edmund, Richard Gloucester).

But what makes Shakespeare’s treatment of this Machiavel figure so fascinating is that
Shakespeare is no sentimental traditionalist deploring the immorality of modern individualism (as so
many critics of Machiavelli were). For he is acutely aware that, although Machiavel qualities can lead
people into monstrous evil, in the modern state certain qualities of the Machiavel are essential for
political efficiency and peaceful community. It is no longer the case that traditional virtues will be
enough to keep a ruler in power. Once breaking promises and pretending to be something one is not
become standard ways of operating in politics, then a traditional morality is no longer effective
(because too many people are willing to ignore it), and stability in the political order requires someone
who is very skilled at recognizing and dealing with deception and power grabs as the essence of
politics. In a world of power political double dealing, the successful leader must have some basic
skills of the Machiavel (that seems to be one of the major themes of the Henry IV plays).

Hence, in Shakespeare’s work, in addition to the examination of the evil brought about by
excessive devotion to self-interest, there is also an exploration of the necessary qualities the
Machiavel figure brings to political rule. This, indeed, is one of the great themes of the second history
cycle (as we shall see in our study of Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry V): Prince Hal’s education in how to
become king requires him to learn and to use many of the qualities we associate with the Machiavel,
and in Henry V these qualities are on display throughout. The fascinating question Shakespeare
explores in this history cycle, particularly in the last play, is the complex issue of what a commitment
to Machiavellian tactics does to the humanity and the personality of the Machiavel (more about that
later in the course). In other plays, of course, the Machiavellian origins of disorder in a particular
human personality are seen as much more immediately evil (e.g., Iago, Edmund).

In Shakespeare the Machiavel figure appears in a variety of forms. Sometimes, he is a very


melodramatic villain, not unlike a devil figure (Richard III, for example), sometimes the apparently
unmotivated nasty spoiler (Don John, Iago), sometimes the shrewd political operative seeking some
important advantage (Bolingbroke, Goneril, Regan, Octavius Caesar), sometimes figures of enormous
psychological complexity (Macbeth). What these figures all have in common is a commitment to
deceit at the expense of traditional bonding between people, a ruthless disregard for others in pursuit
of their own personal power agenda.

One quality to watch for particularly in the Machiavel is his use of language. Typically, these
Machiavels are, first and foremost, experts at adopting a language suitable for any situation. Because

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they regard language as a tool for achieving their own secret purposes rather than as an essential part
of a meaningfully honest communication with other human beings, they routinely deceive other
people with false promises, lies, protestations of virtue or of ignorance, pretense, and so on. Their
ability to manipulate people relies on their skilful instrumental use of language more than anything
else (this is particularly true of Henry V). Allied to this talent is usually a very shrewd ability to listen
to other people, assess what needs to be said in order to deal with them, and then to frame a response
which suits the occasion.

Because Machiavels are committed to using language deceitfully, it is often very hard for us
to figure out what they really mean (unless they tell us directly in soliloquy—like Macbeth or Richard
III). Hence, coming to grips with the essential nature of the human being playing the Machiavel is
often very difficult, if not impossible, as in the case of Bolingbroke/Henry IV and Henry V (more
about this later).

Some Basic Observations About Irony

Before considering Henry IV in more detail, I’d like to say a few words about a critical
interpretative procedure essential to our studies of Shakespeare. That procedure is the notion of irony,
something we always need to remain alert to. In fact, your developing skill as a literary interpreter (of
Shakespeare or anyone else) depends upon your increasing sensitivity to ironic possibilities and your
ability to recognize the dramatic consequences of these.

In common practice, the word irony is applied to some expression or action in which there are
at least two levels of meaning: the obvious surface meaning and a second implied meaning which may
be quite different from the first. The second meaning, in other words, undermines the first meaning or
qualifies it; in some cases the second meaning may entirely contradict the first (when that happens
and both speaker and listener are aware of the second meaning contradicting the first, we call the
irony, which is very strong and obvious, sarcasm). In a more general sense, irony can also
mean ambiguity. An ironical expression is one in which we cannot be sure precisely what is meant
because there is a range of possible meanings.

For instance in Sonnet 138, when Shakespeare writes “Therefore I lie with her and she with
me,” the word lie carries an obvious ironical sense manifested in the two possible meanings, to lie in
bed with and to tell an untruth. Which one is the correct meaning here? The obvious answer is that
they are both equally correct, and the ironical double meaning captures the emotional paradox the
speaker of the poem is experiencing, that his sexual life with his love is based on mutual duplicity, for
when they have sex together they are deceiving each other. Earlier in the same poem the
word vainly functions in the same manner, meaning both in vain and from vanity. The double meaning
captures well the ironic tension at the heart of the speaker’s feelings: he knows his love is a self-
defeating activity, but he cannot stop because his vanity prompts him.

Irony in this sense is a vital part of most creative writing, because it is one of the best vehicles
for capturing the complex nature of human feelings in an experience in which contradictory impulses
are involved. The ironical resonance of particular words enables to writer to express and symbolize
accurately paradoxical states of feeling. The effect is quite opposite to the scientific use of language,
where the precise clarity of all terminology is essential to the style (and where, thus, irony is not
welcome).

Such verbal ironies are compounded in drama by other forms of irony. The most common is
called dramatic irony, which occurs through an uneven distribution of knowledge. We, as readers or
spectators, often know much more about what is going on than any of the characters. Thus, when a
character says something, the utterance will often have two levels of meaning: what the character
thinks it means and what the audience, with a fuller understanding of the entire situation, understands
it to mean. Dramatic irony may often be funny. In fact, in many comedies much of the humour comes
from what is called an uneven distribution of information. The audience knows everything, members

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of the story all know a part of the truth (and what any one particular character may know may change
in the course of the play), and a great deal of the comic confusion will involve various
misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and so on, which arise from the incomplete distribution of
information (Shakespeare’s plays involving twins are the most obvious example of this).

Beyond that, of course, plays are constantly requiring the reader or the audience to reassess an
earlier understanding of a character or an issue. We see a character do or say something, and we make
up our mind about that person or issue on the basis of that incident. Then, the character will do or say
something else, and we have to reassess or qualify our earlier judgment. Or someone else will act in a
way that calls the same issue into question, and we have to qualify our earlier assessment of that issue.
Paying close attention to a Shakespeare play requires, above everything else, a very close attention to
the way in which our powers of judgment are constantly challenged by every event. If we use the
term irony in the widest possible sense to describe this process of adjustment and readjustment to the
situations as they unfold, then an awareness of the ironical effects of dramatic action and language
will be our most important activity. And most of our useful discussions about a play or a part of it will
focus on the extent to which we see irony at work and how we assess that.

Here’s a simple example from the opening of Henry IV, Part 1. Early in the first scene Henry
IV talks solemnly about going on a crusade. The words give every indication that he is serious, and
we might well form an initial sense of Henry as a genuinely pious man. But later in the scene we
learn that he has known all along that the crusade is not going to happen. So our initial sense of
Henry is qualified in an ironic way. We’re not quite sure where we stand with him. Is that desire to
go on a crusade sincere or just a public relations sentiment designed to make him look good. Or could
it be both (does he really want to undertake a significant Christian act and sorry that he cannot)?
There is no firm answer to this question, because the ironic effect is inherently ambiguous.
Nevertheless, our understanding of Henry’s character is going to depend on how we personally
interpret that issue. Later in the scene he talks about his son with such sadness and regret, we get the
sense of a person who might be suffering from some sense of a guilty conscience for what he has
done, a suggestive insight that adds to our understanding of why Henry’s desire to go on a crusade
might be genuine. Coming to grips with Henry’s character requires us to negotiate a complex set of
facts about him which qualify, challenge, and undercut what we have learned about him already.
That’s irony in action.

A much more obvious example of such irony in Henry IV, Part 1, emerges in the way
Shakespeare deliberately forces us to explore a particular issue. For example, many characters
mention the word honour and discuss what they mean by the word (Hotspur, Falstaff, Prince Hal,
Henry IV). Then, they act upon that understanding of the word. The reader or audience is pushed and
pulled through different conceptions of the word and different actions (sometimes in the very same
scene), to the point where it is very clear that one important point of the play is an ironic exploration
of that word really means. Whose definition of honour makes the most sense? Where do our
intellectual and emotional sympathies lie? We thought we had a clear understanding of the
word honourwhen we came into the theatre, but now we’re not sure what to think.

Rarely will Shakespeare arrive at or offer a clear and magisterial definition of a concept: he
leaves that for us to sort out. In the case of 1 Henry IV, whatever our understanding of the
word honour when we started reading the play, by the time we have finished, we have been forced to
review a wide range of possibilities (and to experience in action the consequences of those
possibilities). We are not, however, given any final authoritative “answer” (if that is what we are
looking for). In fact, one point of the play may well be to encourage us to be distrustful of simple,
reductive answers to complex living issues.

In a similar way, a play can, in the action and presentation, often introduce irony to undercut
what seems like a firm affirmation. This is a common feature of the endings of Shakespeare’s plays. Is
the ending of The Tempest an unqualified comic celebration, or is it muted? Is there any irony present,
and, if so, how strong is it? To what extent might we want to claim that the reconciliation achieved is

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fragile or illusory? Is it so muted or undercut with irony that it registers as, in fact, a defeat? Similarly,
is the end of Macbeth orKing Lear a happy triumph for the forces of good or something more
complex, shot through with ironic deflations of the reassuring final actions? One important difference
in tone between Twelfth Night and As You Like It, for example, comes from the sense many (perhaps
most) readers or viewers get that the ending of the latter is unironically celebratory, whereas, by
contrast, the ending of the former is undershot with complex ironic resonance which qualify the
apparently “happy” comic resolution of the conflict. This question is going to be an important one for
us to consider when we read Henry V: Is that play an unambiguous celebration of the perfect king?
Or is that celebration undercut by ironic qualification, and, if so, how does that ironic qualification
alter our sense of what is being celebrated?

In particular scenes, the staging can be a source of complex ironies. When Hamlet lectures his
mother on her morally deficient character, the body of Polonius (whom Hamlet has just killed) is
lying on the stage throughout the scene. Shakespeare, it seems, wanted Polonius killed early in the
scene so that, when Hamlet attempts to take the moral high ground and lecture his mother on her
corrupt character, we have to match that element in his character against the ease with which he has
just killed and discarded the father of the girl he claims to love (and the chief political figure in the
kingdom after the monarch). The presence of the dead Polonius really qualifies our response to
Hamlet’s claims that he is a moral agent. That’s an ironic element provided by the staging (which we
might miss when we are reading).

Similarly, in Henry IV, Part 1 Shakespeare deliberately has a serious military encounter
between Prince Hal and Hotspur take place alongside a parody of that in a similar encounter between
Douglas and Falstaff. The first is full of heroic talk and brave action; the latter is full of cowardice and
evasion and humour. As audience we are forced to evaluate military combat by the contrast between
the two. This play, in particular, is full of such ironic contrasts, as we move from the world of the
court, to the taverns, to the camp of the rebellious nobles (as we shall discuss).

Irony can be a slippery business, because once we sense it is present, we know we are on
difficult ground. How deep do the ironies penetrate? Is there any firm ground on which we can rest an
interpretation? And in some writers, where ironies seem to be present everywhere (e.g., Montaigne),
we can often find ourselves losing confidence in the possibility of any firmly shared meaning. One of
the great problems with Hamlet may well stem from this point: all energizing senses of goodness and
sympathy seem to be qualified so strongly and persistently with ironic counterweights, that at the end
we are not sure how to sum up what we have experienced. It is difficult, for example, in this play not
to feel some sympathy for almost every character and yet, at the same time, to judge each character as
significantly deficient in some way or another.

Interpreting Shakespeare requires us to be alert to the possibility of such ironic complication


and to the ways it can affect our understanding of the play. In fact, many of our discussions will focus
squarely on that issue. Is this speech or this action to be understood literally? Does the character mean
what he says? How is this action or speech qualified, or undercut, or contradicted by other elements in
the scene or in the play? How does the presence of irony (in varying degrees) affect our response to
the play?

Shakespeare’s plays and poems offer a fertile ground for the consideration of these questions,
since they range from works that seem unambiguously affirming (like, perhaps,As You Like It, and
many of the sonnets) to others which offer limited ironic possibilities (like, say, Twelfth Night, Henry
V), all the way to the other end of the spectrum where some works are so pervasively ironic that we
have the greatest difficulty deciding finally what they might be claiming, if anything, about
experience (like, for example, Hamlet, All’s Well That’s Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, or Sonnet
94).

The Political World of Henry IV, Part 1

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Henry IV, Part 1 opens with a scene of royal power—King Henry IV is in control, and he sits
in council with his chief ministers. Henry talks in his opening speeches of how his kingdom is now at
peace how he now wants to undertake the finest duty of a Christian king—to organize a crusade. But
from the opening words, we recognize that the kingdom is in trouble: Henry’s first words
acknowledge that he is sick, and we learn that he is deeply worried about the apparent excesses of his
son. Trouble seems also to be brewing with his former allies, the Northumberland family, who helped
him depose Richard.

By the end of the third scene, we see the open break between Henry and the Northumberland
family, a break which is going to launch a prolonged civil war. It is worth asking ourselves: Why
does this breach occur? Why cannot these two allies, now that they have successfully gained power,
exist together? These scenes make the answer to that question clear: They cannot co-exist peacefully
together, because they no longer trust each other. Worcester makes the point explicit:

For, bear ourselves as even as we can,

The King will always think him in our debt,

And think we think ourselves unsatisfied

Till he hath found a time to pay us home. (1.3.279)

And already these allies of Henry’s are talking about the illegitimacy of his claim to the
throne, exploring in their minds possible ways to challenge Henry’s authority.

The scene raises the question: Why cannot they trust each other? Having together worked to
get rid of Richard II, why don’t they just get on with their normal business? The point here is that
they cannot do that (as they once could) because, in destroying Richard, Henry and his allies
destroyed the basis for political trust between powerful people, namely, that words (especially
promises) have permanent meaning, bind the parties to the promise, and thus guarantee a stable
future (to the extent that anything can be guaranteed). In order to get the throne, Henry and his
friends pretended to be loyal (as they were obliged to be by their oaths of allegiance) only to break
that loyalty to increase their own power. Now, they have inherited the world they created.

It’s worth dwelling a moment here on a key issue in many of Shakespeare’s plays, the matter
of language. For one important way to explore characters in Shakespeare is to look very closely at the
language they use and the purposes for which they use it. In these opening scenes of the royal court
in Henry IV, Part 1, for example, Bolingbroke’s language merits close attention. In his response to
Hotspur on the matter of the prisoners, Henry uses words which are hardly diplomatic (e.g., “foolish
Mortimer,” “wilfully betrayed,” “redeem a traitor,” “revolted Mortimer”), and when Hotspur protests,
Henry addresses him as a servant (“sirrah”), before sweeping away, leaving Hotspur absolutely
furious.

Why does Henry do this? Or, more pertinently, what is the significance of Shakespeare’s
showing us this? Given what we know about Henry’s skills, it seems clear enough that he’s
deliberately provoking his former allies into a quarrel. The issue of the prisoners hardly seems
something non-negotiable, and Hotspur is being agreeable enough (at first). Either Henry’s political
skills have let him down badly (which might be the case, given that he’s sick and worried about his
son) or it’s part of his deliberate power strategy to deal with those who are now dangerous, since what
they helped him to do to Richard they are now capable of doing to him.

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The point I wish to stress about this here is that there is no way to tell precisely what Henry’s
motivation is for talking to Hotspur in this aggressive manner. Because he uses words, not to express
his real feelings or thoughts, but as a political tool to achieve a particular end, we have no way of
ascertaining his real intentions or feelings. This, indeed, is one of the first things we perceive about
him. As I mentioned above, all that talk about a crusade to the Holy Land (in 1.1) reveals itself as so
much moral posturing, for we learn that Henry has known all along about the crisis that makes such a
crusade impossible. And we cannot conclude from all that pious talk whether or not Henry is sincere
in his desire or not (we get no detailed look at him in private or in soliloquy, something which might
enable us to see the private man beneath the public figure).

And our difficulty in figuring out Henry IV’s real character, real intentions, and real feelings
is something which his former friends now have to deal with as well. The Northumberland family
have no particular reason to hate or fear Bolingbroke, except the most important: now that power is
the only arbiter of political disputes, I have to be afraid of what someone else’s power might do to me,
if I don’t get him first. I cannot trust the King to mean what he says.

[Parenthetically, it’s interesting to think about how much in civilized life depends upon
people meaning what they say and living up to their promises, and how much of our social interaction
is poisoned or made impossible in a climate where words are routinely used deceitfully. I’m tempted
to offer the huge generalization that all our business and social life ultimately depends upon people’s
keeping their promises, meaning what they say (at least most of the time). Perhaps that’s why we
nowadays, long after the concept of honour has ceased to be effective, have so many lawyers and
contracts and very detailed laws]

The opening court scenes in Henry IV, Part 1 manifest a style of politics which is
distinctively modern (in contrast to the medieval world of the opening of Richard II) and focus on the
central issue of modern politics: What is the basis for trust and stability in a world where the only
political reality is power? When we cannot rely upon people’s sense of honour and truthfulness, how
are we to deal with each other? And the answer that scene gives is clear: there is no basis for trust—
power must be met with power.

There is one further element to stress about these opening scenes: that is the point that here
decisions have to be made. This world is an urgent one, in which the participants have to respond to
problems which they have to face up to if they wish to survive. The political world is thus a world of
action. It has room for neither contemplation or fun. We see this most notably in the emphasis on
time and the importance of time. In the power political game, one has to scramble to keep up; any
delay may cost one an important advantage. And whatever the nature of Henry’s illness, he has lost
none of his decisiveness in making important decisions:

Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we

Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords.

But come yourself with speed to us again.

For more is to be said and to be done

Than out of anger can be utterèd. (1.1.102-106)

The World of the Tavern

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Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Henry IV, Part 1 is that it forces us to contrast that
world of the court—Henry IV’s world—with something entirely different, the world of the Tavern—
Falstaff’s world, where life’s priorities and activities are entirely different. This contrast is forced
upon us in two main ways: first, the opening of the play alternates the scenes between these two
locales, and second the major figures in the play, Prince Hal and Falstaff, move between these two
worlds. Particularly important here, of course, is that Prince Hal is in a position of having to choose
between the two of them.

In terms of what I said earlier, the contrast between the world of the tavern and the world of
the court is a major and recurring source of irony. We have in this play, so to speak, competing
visions of life, of what matters most in life, and so, although the two worlds are, in some respects,
miles apart, our response to one of them constantly qualifies in an ironic way our response to the
other.

That we are strongly pressured to compare these worlds is obvious enough from the opening
of 1.2, the first tavern scene, where the opening lines pick up the theme immediately announced at the
ending of 1.1, the first court scene. Those lines closing lines (quoted above), which stress the urgency
of time and the need for quick, decisive action, link up directly with the opening lines of 1.2 and serve
to introduce the marked contrast between the royal court and the Boar’s Head tavern. Falstaff’s
opening question asking Prince Hall to tell him the time brings out an emphatic reply that the question
is utterly irrelevant to the way Falstaff lives. In the process of making his reply, Prince Hal vigorously
insults Falstaff with a rhetorical excess which seems to indicate that he takes great pleasure in the
process:

Thou are so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and
sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou
wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were
cups of sack and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the signs of
leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see
no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. (1.2.2 ff)

These opening exchanges indicate that in this world, unlike the court, time is irrelevant. When
one lives for the pleasure of each moment, one does not need to subordinate one’s desires to a strict
schedule and scramble to keep up with events. One keeps track of the time according to one’s desires
for pleasure, and if that means sleeping in until noon, that’s fine. Here, in the tavern, one is free to
subordinate time to one’s desires, rather than to feel that one must answer to the demands of a strict
schedule (as in the royal court).

The same freedom is endorsed by the style of the insults. Gone is the formal poetry of the
court diplomacy, the carefully studied phrasing of high-stakes diplomacy. Here the conversations rely
on a freewheeling prose, delivered with an enormous gusto and often with a satiric mockery of the
seriousness of religious or political rhetoric (many of Falstaff’s speeches are clearly parodies of
judicial or religious language)..

In the tavern free-wheeling insults are the stuff of conversation, not because there’s a desire to
hurt anyone, but because they enable the speaker freely to indulge in the great pleasures of linguistic
excess. No play that I know of is more full of extraordinary verbal insults than Henry IV, Part 1 (the
Shakespeare insult generator on the Internet relies very heavily on expressions from this play). These
insults are given and taken as a sign of affection. In the royal court, the language one uses needs to be
carefully chosen, because quarrels turn on the phrasing of a reply or a request; the person who does
not mind carefully what he says and how he expresses himself can quickly be in trouble (Henry’s

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insults to Hotspur turn the latter’s mind decisively to rebellion, as Henry probably intends). In the
Boar’s Head, language, like life, is something to be enjoyed to excess without regard to the rules of
careful political dealing.

To put this another way, in both the royal court and the Boar’s Head, people are always
playing games. But the political games devised by Henry and the Northumberlands are dangerous,
carefully crafted, and secretive; the games in the Boar’s Head, by contrast, are open, free, anarchic.
One can change the rules, invent new games as one goes along, change stories, take on different roles,
and enjoy the rarest and freest of human activities, the full play of the imagination, without fear of
repercussions. Since there is no hidden agenda, beyond the setting up of the next jest, the people here
are open and free with their affections for each other.

The whole business of the Gadshill robbery, for example, is to set up Falstaff, so that Hal and
Poins can listen to how Falstaff is going to lie his way out of their exposure of his cowardice. The
young men know that they are never going to be able to pin Falstaff down, but they also know that
witnessing his amazingly fertile imagination talk his way out of it is going to be great fun, a living
testament to the anarchic spirit of life which the fat knight embodies. As much as anything else, the
Prince and Poins undertake the exploit in order to provoke Falstaff into a linguistic excess which they
know will be delightful for its own sake, for the fun of the moment.

If we look at the tavern in this light, we can readily enough understand Prince Hal’s
fascination with and enjoyment of it. That his father disapproves he knows well enough, but (and this
is a frequent observation) Falstaff is also Prince Hal’s father, providing him everything Bolingbroke
cannot, an unrestricted zest for pleasure, excess, and freedom, a richness in living which is entirely
incompatible with the carefully controlled, dangerous world of the royal court. And there is little
doubt of Falstaff’s genuine love for the young prince, an open affection that we have never seen in
Bolingbroke.

In that connection, it is significant that Prince Hal has no mother and, thus, no real home life
in the court. His father is summoning him to be an adult, to take up his place in council (which he has
lost), and enter the world of politics, which is entirely dominated by serious adult men caught up in
time-consuming serious and dangerous affairs. It’s not difficult to see in Prince Hal’s hesitation at
plunging himself into that world a desire to linger for a while in a very different environment where
he does not have to have his guard up all the time and constantly be on show. For that reason, I think
we have to be careful about coming too quickly to any firm conclusions about that really important
soliloquy of his at the end of 1.2. There, of course, he sounds extremely calculating, reassuring us
that he’s just using these tavern folk as apparent cronies in a shrewd long-term political plan. And he
may well be doing that (in fact, that’s how it all looks later). But he may also be trying to persuade
himself, trying, that is, to rationalize his love for Falstaff with a scheme his father might approve of.
For there seems little doubt that Hal genuinely enjoys himself in the tavern and loves to play games
with Falstaff. Certainly to the spectators, the marked contrast between the serious, dangerous, and
stern climate of Henry’s royal court and the sheer fun of Falstaff’s tavern leaves little doubt about
where we would prefer to spend and evening.

There’s more to the contrast than this, of course, and we will be coming to that in a fuller
discussion of Falstaff. But the opening movement of the play clearly invites us to compare the court
and the tavern and to recognize how mutually incompatible they are.

The Rebel Camp

The significance of this contrast become more complex in at the end of 1.3, when we see the
rebels plotting their action, and we get our first good look at Hotspur. The leaders of the rebels,
Worcester and Northumberland, are, like Henry IV himself, caught in the consequences of their own
self-interested support of Bolingbroke in his rebellion against Richard. Those consequences include
now a permanent fear of what Henry might do to them if they ever drop their suspicions.

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Worcester’s words of suspicion about Henry (quoted earlier) are as close to political paranoia
as a reasonable person can get, and it’s clear that such thinking leaves only one option: fight until one
prevails or goes under. In that absence of trust, there is no other alternative and no prospect for peace
until the one person left in control is so powerful that he has no one to fear.

If we read this play with Richard II still in mind, we can see an important point emerging:
those who use power deceitfully but efficiently, the way Bolingbroke and Northumberland have in
deposing Richard, will soon enough find themselves with nowhere to turn to but their own power,
even if there is no immediate threat, simply because in a Machiavellian world everyone is always
afraid of everyone else (unless there’s a compellingly strong single power to enforce the peace). If we
frame the problem in terms of the concept of dialogue (which we introduced in the lectures
on Richard II), we can see that dialogue between Henry and the rebels is impossible, because they
don’t trust each other’s words. The opening argument between Henry and the rebels, interestingly
enough, focuses on what Hotspur has actually said, but it quickly becomes clear that the precise
language he used is irrelevant, because there is no firm trust in language (of the sort we witnessed at
the ceremonious opening of Richard II, for example).

Hotspur, of course, is a rebel of a different sort. He is immune to the fear Worcester expresses
because he has no clear understanding whatsoever of how the political world has changed. He’s a
throwback to a much older and more traditional sense of politics as a matter of military honour won
by individual prowess in battle:

Send danger from the east unto the west,

So honour cross it from the north to south;

And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs

To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

..............................

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,

Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,

And pluck up drownèd honour by the locks,

So he that doth redeem her thence might wear,

Without corrival, all her dignities. (1.3.194-205)

After a prolonged immersion in the court of Bolingbroke, we may well find that such a firm
assertion of the importance of personal value as a matter of public manifestations of individual
courage comes as something of a breath of fresh air, and it is not difficult to sympathize with Hotspur.
We know where we stand with him, for he says what he feels, without duplicity. He, we quickly
recognize, is incapable of pretense or even (for that matter) of hiding his feelings. He is the least
Machiavellian of characters.

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But we need to see how hopeless such an attitude is to work effectively in the modern world.
Hotspur’s sense of honour comes without an ounce of deceit; indeed, he lacks the most necessary of
all the Machiavellian virtues, the ability to conceal what he is feeling and shape his exterior
appearance to suit the situation. What he feels, he utters, even if, as with Glendower, what he says
may be politically inappropriate and strategically foolish. More than that, however, he is incapable of
recognizing that others may be deceitful. They may trick him or betray him or manipulate his sense of
honour so that he works on their behalf. And Hotspur is manipulated throughout the play by the
Machiavels he has to deal with.

The second point to note about Hotspur’s conception of honour is the strong militaristic shape
it takes. It’s a code of honour based upon blood, the killing of one’s enemies in hand-to-hand combat,
one of the oldest and most durable male systems of conferring status. In this activity Hotspur is a
champion, but his commitment to glory through competitive blood combat makes him appear sadly
out of date. There may have been a time, long ago, when such a code might form the basis for living
(in the world of King Arthur, for example), but at a time when the key issue is establishing peace in
an unstable political world with no trust, such an attitude is a dangerous anachronism. Appreciating
this element is important, because we need to be careful not to sentimentalize Hotspur and, in the
process, to see him as somehow a fit standard for the modern political world. For in the world of
English power politics, Hotspur has become an anachronism. He is, of course, the person one wants
to have as one’s comrade in any fight once the battle starts, but once the fighting is over, he’s not a
person fit to negotiate his way through the complex deceits of modern politics.

Still, Hotspur is the only one of the major players in the civil war who does not deceive, who
is what he appears to be, and who openly declares his feelings, even at the risk of insulting potential
allies (like Glendower). He is, in a sense, the only consistently honestmajor character in the play. He
is also the only major character who enjoys a healthy and loving marriage, a relationship remarkable
for its humour, mutual respect, openness, and love. Nothing in the play does more to establish the
attractive emotional qualities of Hotspur than the scenes with his wife. In that sense, Hotspur seems a
fully integrated character, sure of his values, confident of his identity, and honest in declaring what he
thinks. The fact that such a character is hopeless at dealing with the modern political world is as
much an indictment of that world as it is of his own character. That fact raises the thorny issue (to be
discussed in later lectures) of whether it is possible in the modern world to be honest and honourable
(in the old sense) and survive as a politician.

These characteristics, combined with his political naiveté, make him easy to manipulate, of
course, and Hotspur is manipulated by almost everyone. He is persuaded to rebel because that gives
him an opportunity to fight and win more honour (he has little interest in personal power and no fears
about what Henry might do to him). His potential allies let him down, his father betrays him, and his
uncle lies to him by not reporting Henry’s offer of clemency. Prince Hal uses him to enhance his
reputation, and Falstaff mutilates and uses Hotspur’s dead body as a commodity for financial gain.
What Hotspur represents thus has a value in this society, but it’s not an intrinsic value (except to him);
the value comes from the ways in which Hotspur’s qualities can be used to further deceitful political
agendas.

Falstaff

If Hotspur is a permanent rebel because he is always needing someone to fight in order to


demonstrate his worth to himself and the world, then Falstaff is also a permanent rebel, but of a very
different sort. Hotspur’s sense of honour, the source of his participation in the political rebellion, is a
very traditional code of military conduct. Falstaff, by contrast, repudiates any notion of a code which
might measure his conduct. In that sense, Falstaff is an anarchic spirit, ready to defy any rules in order
to satisfy his own appetites.

No character in Shakespeare, other than Hamlet, has been written about more extensively than
Falstaff (modern Shakespeare criticism began with a long essay on Falstaff), and his presence

56
in Henry IV, Part 1 is the single most important factor which has made this play the most popular of
Shakespeare’s history plays (with the exception of Richard III). And Falstaff’s name and the adjective
derived from it, Falstaffian, are terms which have entered the popular idiom to denote a giant zest for
life, a huge appetite for pleasurable experience at the expense of any conventional notions of restraint,
honesty, or moderation.

Falstaff is an enormous paradox. He is a huge man, who is so quick witted and so deft at
manipulating language that he remains eternally elusive (much of the humour of Falstaff emerges
from this combination of the enormously fat clown with a lightning wit). He is quick to use others and
has no sense of honesty, yet he gives and inspires great affection in those around him. He is a
relatively old man, yet he refuses to admit the fact. He is a knight of the realm, yet acknowledges no
sense that being a knight requires of him any decorum, loyalty, or respectable behaviour. He is an
enormously selfish man, but he brings out of others some of their best qualities of wit, good
fellowship, and conversation, as he himself says in Henry IV, Part 2,

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is
not able to invent anything that tends to laughter more than I invent, or is invented on me. I
am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. (1.2.5)

We can interpret Falstaff as some sort of Lord or Misrule, a figure of irrepressible energy and
joyousness in life who exists as a counter to the necessary order and stability in political society. And
it may well be the case that Falstaff’s theatrical origins include many such figures, the Kings of the
Harvest Festivals where the rules of order are temporarily suspended in the name of communal
celebrations free of normal restraints.

But we must be careful not to sentimentalize Falstaff (he invites us to do that, of course),
because if we do, we will fail to take account of his more corrosive qualities. For Falstaff does not,
like a festival lord of misrule, represent the temporary overthrow of traditional order in the name of
communal celebrations (that form of misrule depends upon and confirms the existing order which
sanctions such a temporary letting go). His attitude includes also a deep skepticism which undercuts
all value, which empties words of any stable meanings, and which therefore makes any form of shared
life in a peaceful community impossible.

What brings this point out particularly well is Falstaff’s rank. He is a knight, ostensibly a
member of the upper class responsible for law, order, and good government. His subversive qualities
would be far less powerful, were he simply a fat common layabout. But he has the same rank as, say,
Sir Walter Blunt, and is entitled to join all the commanders in the consultation with the rebel leaders
before the battle and, as a knight, has the right and the responsibility to take command or the common
men whom he presses into the king’s service. Thus, his skepticism operates from within the system of
“official” ordered value, and his refusal to comply with any restraint, his mockery of other people’s
attempts to do so, his ironic deflation of the rhetoric and actions of authority (like his contempt for
Blunt’s sense of honour)—all these offer a much more corrosive ironic counterpoint throughout the
play.

This quality is most evident in Falstaff’s contribution to the exploration of the theme of
honour. Over against Hotspur’s unequivocal tradition notions of honour, we have Henry IV’s. This
sense of military honour permits him to have several other knights dress up in his royal armour and
impersonate him on the battlefield, so that his enemies will wear themselves out chasing and fighting
the wrong person. From Henry’s point of view, this is clever military strategy—efficient policy at
work; from Hotspur’s point of view it is a denial of what true honour requires, which is not something
politically expedient or efficient but something deeply personal, a manifestation of one’s true

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character honestly and publicly announced and maintained. From Falstaff’s point of view, all honour
which requires one to run the risk of losing one’s life (especially in someone else’s cause) is absurd.
In fact, any sense of honour which holds one back from seizing a good opportunity to enrich oneself is
merely an empty word, to which he is not prepared to pay attention (although he is prepared to use the
appearance of honour to serve his own interests).

When we enjoy Falstaff’s actions in the tavern, we should also see how, out of this approach
to life, his attempt to cheat the hostess out of money, his conduct with the conscript soldiers, and his
mutilation of Hotspur’s body follow quite consistently. These actions complicate our response to him.
In a stable society, at peace with itself and observing shared nad honestly observed rules of conduct,
such actions would seriously prejudice our opinion of the fat knight. But in this play, our judgment is
made much more difficult, because Falstaff’s actions are, in some respects, not all that different from
what others are doing on a much bigger scale.

After all, Falstaff may well be abusing the king’s press, but Henry is forcing people to dress
up and be killed on his behalf, to uphold his claim on the throne, which he won by rebellion and
murder. Falstaff mutilates Hotspur’s dead body, but Worcester and Prince Hal bring about Hotspur’s
death. Falstaff may rob the traveler at Gadshill, but others have stolen or are planning to steal the
entire kingdom. In a world where the leaders routinely dispense with moral considerations in their
pursuit of power and manipulate language to suit their political purposes, Falstaff’s actions appear less
reprehensible than they otherwise might. After all, if the king and the lords are lying, stealing, and
deceiving, why shouldn’t he? At least the scale of his operations is much smaller, and he seems to
have much more fun doing it (and bringing pleasure to others in the process). Moreover, he is quite
candid about what he is doing and does not attempt (as Henry and the rebels do) to justify his actions
as somehow morally defensible (except in mock justifications which parody the official language of
the court). In fact, his impersonation of them, his appropriation of their high-toned language for
satiric purposes, reminds us constantly of the hypocrisy of their special pleading. On top of all that,
he has, as he observes, a capacity to bring joy to others, to make them laugh, to inspire their
affections, in a manner quite impossible in the royal court.

That’s why the presence of Falstaff is much more subversive than a sentimental picture of
him might suggest. He candidly acknowledges what he does and why he does it, and our knowledge
of what is happening on the larger scale doesn’t give us the solid assurances we need to deal with
Falstaff as we might wish. If Falstaff is wrong (and his conduct would seem to be quite unacceptable
to any normal dealings with each other), then where can we turn to find out some standard by which
to measure the man? Is the difference between right and wrong conduct now simply a matter of one’s
political rank?

In that sense, Falstaff’s references to himself as a devil take on a certain resonance. Of course,
he belongs to the famous tradition of the Vice, the clown-devil with a dagger of lath, surrounded by
his cronies and dedicated to creating havoc among ordinary folk. Most of the obvious allegorical
connections with such a figure have been taken away or toned down, so that we see Falstaff primarily
as the spirit of anarchic play. But for all his fun, he carries also the disturbing presence of a skepticism
which undercuts all meaning, all restraint, all settled order. That is the reason why Prince Hal knows
that he is going to have to sever the connection between them at some point.

Prince Hal

At the very centre of these various political issues stands Prince Hal, and how we interpret his
actions in relation to the various other characters and themes will determine in large part how we
understand Henry IV, Part 1. Hal apparently undergoes a significant transformation in the course of
the action, emerging by the end as a shrewd and successful political operator, every bit as efficient as
his father. In that sense, Henry IV, Part 1 is, first and foremost, the opening chapter in Shakespeare’s
study of the education of the modern ruler. This focus on the education of the modern ruler continues
in Henry IV, Part 2 and reaches its culmination in Henry V, where we see Prince Hal, now king,

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fulfilling all the political duties of the king with maximum speed, efficiency, and success. Since we
will be dealing with Henry V later, I’ll confine my remarks here to Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part 1.

Traditionally there are two common ways to interpret Prince Hal’s development. The first,
which is the older of the two, sees it as an unironic celebration of a great king in training. According
to this view, Hal learns from the tavern important qualities which serve him well later on (e.g., how to
understand common pleasures, like drinking small beer, and the working life of his subjects, how to
relate to the people). He acquires a more mature understanding of life by acting as a young rebel
(mildly) and always retains his warmth and affection which govern life in the tavern. In Prince Hal,
then, Shakespeare is offering us, so this view has it, a picture of the growth of responsibly mature
modern political leadership, a celebration of the very best the new political order has to offer, a king
with the “common touch.”.

[Parenthetically, it is interesting in this regard to recall Empson’s observations on the


reputation of the historical Henry V as the first really English king, the first to use the English
language in his official correspondence, and one of the first kings to acquire a glorious reputation as
an Englishman.]

The second view is less charitable. It sees Prince Hal as a coldly calculating Machiavel right
from the start, a man who is, in effect, using his friends as means to a political end, without much
regard for their feelings. Hal, in this view, is far from warmly human and affectionate: he is, by
contrast, a selfish and cruel political operator, fond of painful practical jokes (for example, his
treatment of Francis), whose every move is part of a calculated game plan. Hence, Prince Hal is
Shakespeare’s picture of just how nasty and inhuman successful political operators really are (or need
to be).

How are we to choose between these two readings of the character? The script can sustain
either one, and, if these were the only two options, the style of the actor playing the role would
indicate which one we were dealing with in any particular production. However, I’d like to suggest a
middle course here, between these two extremes. For me, Prince Hal is Shakespeare’s exploration not
merely of what it takes to be an effective political leader in a Machiavellian world but, more
importantly, of what such leadership costs. In other words, I would argue that Prince Hal’s great
success (and there is no doubt that he is spectacularly successful) comes at a price, and that price turns
out to be very high.

I admit that this view of Prince Hal is not so clear in Henry IV, Part 1 as it becomes later in
the series of plays (especially in Henry V), but it has the merit of making the best sense of the
evidence and turning the play into something more challenging than a celebration or an indictment of
modern political leadership. It becomes instead an exploration of the links between political
effectiveness and a loss of human richness in one’s life. To establish this point quickly, let me list
some obvious points.

Prince Hal has quite clearly committed himself to following in his father’s footsteps. He never
debates with himself that point, and his first soliloquy at the end of 1.2 (which is much disputed) tells
us unequivocally that he is resolved to emerge and make a grand stir in the political realm.
Furthermore, this soliloquy informs us that Prince Hal has a firm grasp on the fact that the essential
quality of the powerful leader is theatrical, the ability to put on a dazzling and surprising public
performance. His justification for being in the tavern, after all, is that it will, like a good play, enable
him to make a crowd pleasing show out of his transformation. In that sense, he’s fully committed to
the modern political world (just as everyone else in the play is, other than Hotspur); he has no sense of
any other ways of operating (so this play does not include an exploration of political options, as, for
example, Julius Caesar does—nor does it ever engage in the nostalgic option that one can go back to
the old ways of governing before Bolingbroke’s rebellion)..

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But there may be more to his sojourn in the tavern than such rational self-interested
calculation. There is also a sense that in the Boar’s Head he can experience a happiness which is not
available in the court. He can be himself. He can experiment with life, joke, make friends, and indulge
in whatever takes his fancy, as he says: “I am now of all humours that have showed themselves
humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock
midnight” (2.5.86). He can, in other words, shape his conduct to suit his feelings (his “humours”),
something not possible in the royal court. Such freedom will disappear as soon as he enters the
political world. Hence, it is not difficult to understand why he likes the tavern. Life with Falstaff is so
much more fun, so much more imaginatively alive than life with father at the palace.

It’s true that that soliloquy at the end of 1.2 sounds very calculating, deliberate, and self-
serving, especially the latent contempt in the opening lines:

I know you all, and will a while uphold

The unyoked humour of your idleness. . . . (1.2.173-4)

But these lines might be, as I mentioned above, more than just the declaration of an insidious
rational intention. It may well be the case that in them Prince Hal is attempting to justify to himself
the time he spends at the Boar’s Head. If he can attach a political strategy to hanging out with Falstaff,
then he will be able for a while longer to enjoy a form of life which is unachievable in the palace.

This sense of his motivation emerges in a later scene in the following remark:

I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the North—he that kills me some six or seven
dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life! I want
work.’ (2.5.94-97)

His remarks here are, of course, a travesty of Hotspur’s character, but there’s enough truth in
the exaggeration to indicate that Prince Hal has a shrewd idea of the pointlessness of basing one’s life
on the value of killing others. But the word that interests me here is that adverb yet. It adds an
important qualification to Hal’s criticism of Percy, for it indicates that he is aware that at some point
in the future he is going to have to play the role of Hotspur, he is going to have to, as it were, out-
Hotspur Hotspur, to make him, as he later tells his father, his “factor,” his instrument in achieving
political goals.

This remark comes across as a casual joke, but it suggests an interesting inner tension in
Prince Hal, his awareness that the political life he is going to choose in the near future will require of
him conduct (in a political role-playing exercise) which he knows is not spontaneously felt, not an
essential part of himself, something which he can see through easily enough, but which is a necessary
political role he will have to take on temporarily to achieve his political goals efficiently. Hotspur’s
way of life may, for Prince Hal, be ridiculous, but it’s something he’s going to have to deal with on
Hotspur’s terms soon enough. His political future demands that.

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Hal also knows that he is going to have to sever his connections with Falstaff. In fact, this
play telegraphs this divorce in one of the funniest and yet most moving scenes in the entire play, that
part of 2.5 in which Falstaff and Hal pretend they are in the royal court and they alternate roles. Once
Hal takes on the role of the king (his future destiny) he offers an official condemnation of Falstaff:

Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that
swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that
roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity,
that father Ruffian, that Vanity of Years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it?
Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft?
Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in
nothing? (2.5.409-418)

In response to these questions, Falstaff (speaking in his role of Prince Hal) defends himself:

But say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is
old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a
whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be
old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be
hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish
Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff,

Banish not him thy Harry’s company,

Banish not him they Harry’s company.

Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. (2.5.425-438)

This, of course, is all part of the fun and games they have devised, but (depending on how the
scene is played) the moment has extraordinary reverberations. Falstaff is making the case in his own
defense. But is he still in the role of Prince Hal speaking to King Henry IV (the situation when the
speech began)? What seems to have happened here is that somewhere in the middle of the play-acting
Falstaff senses the reality underlying the pretense. The phrase “thy Harry’s” may well mean
Bolingbroke’s son, Prince Hal, but it might also mean that part of Prince Hal which belongs with
Falstaff, the “Harry” part of him. The colloquial vigour and intimacy of the name and the formal
repetition in the closing lines suggest that Falstaff is appealing to a bond established between them
because, like Prince Hal, he knows their bond may be ruptured. The game may be still going on, but
the tone of it has been quite transformed.

The key moment in this exchange (and potentially one of the most poignant moments in the
play) is Prince Hal’s reply to this defense, and how these lines are delivered will indicate, more than
anything else, the nature of Prince Hal’s character and motives. For he states quite simply, “I do; I
will.” I have seen this line delivered by Hal right at Falstaff with a tone of immense regret and love
(and with Hal’s arms around Falstaff’s neck); in other productions I have seen the line tossed off
casually. Of these two alternatives (and there are obviously others) the first one evokes Prince Hal’s

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awareness of what is going to have to do, the sense of the loss he will have to sustain, together with
his resigned but determined acceptance of that loss.

This important moment is decisive also because at that instant the political world breaks in
upon the tavern fun, and the Prince, by the end of the scene, knows that he must go and join his
father’s enterprise. When we next see him he is in conference with his father, declaring his allegiance
to his cause and his readiness to play the political role which has been waiting for him. In a sense, this
play-acting in the Boar’s Head is the last truly carefree moment the Prince enjoys, and it ends with
him declaring his determination to leave Falstaff. From now on, Prince Hal’s play acting will be on
the wider and more dangerous stage of English power politics.

Of course, the formal public rejection of Falstaff does not occur until the end of Henry IV,
Part 2, but it’s noticeable that the next time we meet the fat knight he is starting to complain about
illness and decay, a process that continues throughout the second play. And Prince Hal does return to
the tavern. But he’s cast his lot with the political world, and the scenes between him and his Boar’s
Head cronies never regain the freedom and zest of the early parts of this play.

That divorce from Falstaff registers with us (and with Prince Hal) as something of a loss.
Falstaff has pleaded, “Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world,” and there’s a certain truth in that
statement. To work as an effective political leader, one has to banish plump Jack. That is obviously
necessary. But that banishment takes with it all the vital things that Falstaff makes available to those
around him, the things I have referred to repeatedly already, like spontaneous affection, careless
rhetorical excess, the joys of an unsuspicious friendship, games where one’s life is not at risk, even
love. As I mentioned, it brings out the cost of turning oneself into a king.

It also takes away Falstaff’s keen sense for the hypocrisy and absurdity of much of the lofty
rhetoric associated with political leadership. In the tavern one can afford to make fun of the language
of authority (political and religious), to, as it were, unmask its pretense to be firmly grounded in moral
practice. On the larger stage, one’s language has to fit the roles required of leadership and that
requires taking seriously (or pretending to take seriously) what anyone who associates with Falstaff
knows is empty moral posturing. Hence, there is a sense that giving up the tavern for the royal council
involves more than simply a loss of carefree good times; it also involves surrendering oneself to the
roles one has to play in a game where the stakes are much higher and where the rules cannot be
changed when the imagination prompts and where one cannot permit one’s critical awareness of one’s
own hypocrisy to interfere with the efficient carrying out of whatever actions the situation demands
(or speaking whatever language one’s role requires at any particular moment).

There may well be a feeling of this loss (or at least the beginning of it) when Prince Hal has
killed Hotspur and stands over the corpse and what Hal believes is the dead body of Falstaff (in 5.4).
Here he is standing over his dead rival and his apparently dead friend, yet there’s a curious sense of
detachment about him. He can pay tribute to Hotspur’s spirit, but in calling attention to his feelings,
he seems to suggest a noticeable lack of any deep emotion:

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so dear a show of zeal;

But let my favours hide thy mangled face. (5.4.93-95)

In paying tribute to Hotspur’s great spirit, Prince Hal acknowledges that if Hotspur were
conscious he wouldn’t be paying him this compliment. Whatever he’s feeling at the moment, he’s

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very clearly in control of it, so much so that his ability to imagine Hotspur alive and think about how
he would react differently in that situation indicates no immediately passionate response. What he’s
saying, in effect, is that in a different situation he would have to take on a different role. The tribute is
a fine one, appropriate in the circumstances, but perfectly controlled, just what one might expect from
someone with a fine command of appropriate political rhetoric but with no deep feeling.

The subsequent tribute to Falstaff is similarly detached (enough to make a feeble joke about
the body), and when he discovers Falstaff is alive, Hal does not indicate any great surprise or moving
feeling. It’s as if, having donned the role of mighty passionate warrior and out-Hotspured Hotspur,
Prince Hal can drop the role. He’s made his point, and is not, like Hotspur, wedded to it. That
particular part of the multiple performances he will now have to play is over. That’s why he can also
let Falstaff take whatever credit belongs to killing Hotspur and let Douglas go.

What I’m trying to point to here is a sense that Prince Hal, in turning himself into a political
actor, becomes a consummate role player, efficiently discharging his duties in whatever mode that
requires (heroic warrior, magnanimous winner). But the efficient discharge of a particular role lacks
the spontaneous energy of the earlier life in the tavern. There’s a calculation behind it. And once
there’s no more reason to play a role, Prince Hal seems to have little use for it.

I admit I’m heavily influenced in this sense by what comes in the later plays, because what
we see there, especially in Henry V, is a king whose mastery of all the roles of kingship is complete
but who, we sense, in turning himself into such an efficient and necessary political operator loses any
spontaneous sense of self. He becomes merely the totality of the public roles he plays and is gradually
emptied of all complex humanity, in a process that is not unlike that of Michael Corleone, who
becomes the shrewdest and most successful Godfather of all at an enormous price (in Godfather II),
the loss of his family and the deadening of his emotional centres.

Henry IV, Part 1 does not underline this development; indeed, the ending makes clear that
there is still a good deal more of the story to come. But the major development of Prince Hal is well
launched and with it the theme exploring what the human cost of effective political leadership might
be. If we read the later plays, witnessing the very public rejections of Falstaff at the end of Henry IV,
Part 2 and learn of his death (from a broken heart brought on by Henry’s rejection of him, so we are
informed by one of Falstaff’s tavern friends) then the triumph of Prince Hal as he becomes the
perfectly successful king carries a strong ironic reminder that the price of effective political leadership
might be more than most people are willing or able to bear.

Postscript: Shakespeare’s Political Vision?

If might be worth wondering for a moment or two what, if anything, we derive fromHenry IV,
Part 1 in the nature of a political vision. Can we take away from this play a sense of what political
leadership and political life amount to? Alternatively put, is Shakespeare endorsing, celebrating, or
indicting the success of Bolingbroke and his son over the rebels? Is there anything here remotely
relevant to our understanding of modern politics?

These questions (and other like them) are much debated these days, usually in the form of a
question like the following: “Is Shakespeare defending the establishment of the modern vision of the
state as controlled by an unscrupulous but efficient political leadership? Or is he undermining that
vision of the state, holding it up for criticism, exposing its arbitrary injustice?”

These are complex questions, and I shall make no attempt to deal with them in any detail
here, but a few final observations might be in order.

First, there are reminders throughout Henry IV, Part 1 that those at the bottom are given little
consideration. The men whom Falstaff gathers in to fulfill his quota of soldiers are those who have no
money to purchase their way out. They are those with little stake in the structure of authority, and they

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are consequently, as Falstaff cynically points out, “food for powder.” And even in the tavern, where
people can forget about politics and play imaginative games with each other, the lad who keeps the
beer coming, Francis, is an indentured servant, forced to labour for years in order to qualify as a bar
man. There is no sense in this play that these people have any resources to deal with their lowly
situation nor that any one in power cares enough about them. Thus, if the play is calling attention to
the injustices built into the political system it depicts, it is certainly not suggesting that there is any
remedy at hand either in the consciousness of the people at the bottom or in the political vision of
those higher up. There is also a strong suggestion here that these people pay heavily for
incompetence at the top: the casualties of civil war are not confined to those whose decisions initiate
it.

Second, if we see this play as, in part, a celebration of the political skills of Prince Hal in
acquiring the expertise to be a star player, there is a sense of the emptiness which this commitment
brings with it. A view of politics which sees it, as this play does, as consummate role playing divorced
from any political vision other than short-term success over one’s immediate enemies undermines the
very skills which it endorses. Inevitably the question arises: Why dedicate oneself to the enterprise,
then, given that it has brought Bolingbroke no peace of mind and launched England in a series of
inconclusive civil wars? Falstaff’s presence in the play as the ironic satiric counterpoint to the high
political rhetoric powerfully adds to this undermining of any claims to some higher moral purpose in
political leadership.

At the same time, however, it seems clear that the self-perpetuating civil wars are inevitable
in a political order based only on power and devoid of trust. To the extent that all political order
exists for the security of the citizens governed, we are (I think) invited to see that the only answer here
(if there is any) is for one person to get so much power and skill, that no one will be able to muster
forces against him. Just how that might happen, of course, the play does not make clear.

Third, there is no room in this vision of politics for women. We have said little about the
women in the play, because there is little to say. Significantly, the one moment where they emerge as
most important is at the court of Glendower, the magical Welsh rebel, who belongs to a world far
from the practical, hard-headed, self-serving power grabbing of the English court. There the women
are linked to the magic and mystery of spells and music. But significantly, the wonderful
contributions of music and song are in a language that no Englishman can understand, and the one
person who is truly moved by them, Lord Mortimer, plays no significant political role in the rebellion
(although his claim to the throne is their ostensible justification for fighting against Henry). And from
the news of what the Welsh women did to the bodies of the dead soldiers, we are invited to see them
as belonging to some barbarous culture antedating the modern age (although Falstaff also mutilates
the dead). So whatever we are to make of the women in this play, there is no sense whatsoever that
they hold any influence over or answers to the problems of modern politics, a thoroughly male
business (a point which this play may not be celebrating at all but holding up as one source of the
problems).

What does this add up to? I’m not sure if I can summarize it easily. We are a far distance from
the opening of Richard II, where politics is conducted in open traditional rituals in which everyone
speaks the same language, in which gardeners going about their business in the palace gardens can see
connections between natural and political order. In that world, single combat can be the arbiter of
justice because there is a shared faith that God has an interest in the human community and will
intervene to protect the right.

In Henry IV, Prince Hal’s offer to fight Hotspur in single combat is, by contrast, a theatrical
gesture, made in deference to that old tradition but without any conviction. He knows he won’t be
taken up on it. In this world, God does not manifest Himself in history nor in the traditional rituals of
justice. That is so apparent that Bolingbroke’s repeated references to a crusade strike one as
incomprehensible (until we learn in Henry IV, Part 2, that the expedition is part of his political
strategy to keep his domestic enemies busy in foreign quarrels). Frequent mention of God’s name, of

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course, is an important part of public rhetoric (as we shall see in Henry V], but faith in God is not
longer an essential part of the political or judicial process.

Is this, then, a totally cynical view of history and politics? I don’t think it is quite that,
although the vision is certainly ambivalent. On the one hand, this play seems to be saying, effective
political leadership must come from the top if life is not to be an endless parade of civil wars; on the
other hand, such leadership now consists of and requires, above everything else, the effective
command of theatrical pretense merely for the sake of maintaining power, without the need for any
further religious, dynastic, or moral justification (other than as part of the pretense).

This ambivalence is sustained throughout Henry IV, Part 2 and culminates in Henry V. In that
last play, we have the glorious celebration of Prince Hal’s (now Henry V) amazing political success in
everything he attempts. But the very last words of the play tell us that all these achievements amount
to nothing, because a few years after his death, everything goes back to the way it was during the
rebellion. If this does not amount to a revolutionary doctrine satisfactory to ideologues who want to
emancipate the working classes, then it seems to me it indicates at least some radical paradox at the
heart of the new politics which makes it, in some fundamental way, self-defeating.

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Variations on a Theme of Love: An Introduction to As You Like It

Introduction

I noted in a previous lecture that very early in his career Shakespeare, as one might expect
from a young ambitious writer, tended to concentrate on the dramatic styles most immediately popular
with the play-going audience in London, that is, on History plays and Comedies, for which his
predecessors and contemporaries had already prepared a market. I don’t mean by this remark to
suggest that these categories of drama were firmly established genres, and that Shakespeare was, in
effect, learning how to write in forms about which there were firm conventions. For in the 1590’s
English theatre was in a very experimental period, with rival companies competing for audiences with
different forms of drama and some lively criticism, seeking to explore all sorts of dramatic
possibilities. And Shakespeare’s early work carries the mark of this experimentation, not just the work
of a young artist learning his craft, but also (along with the work of his many professional colleagues)
various attempts to find and define a style most suitable to his genius and to public taste.

Nowhere is this sense of experimentation more obvious than in Shakespeare’s early comedies,
in which we can sense an experimental artistic spirit trying out various possibilities in a much
disputed genre. We are not reading any of those early works, but by way of an introduction to the two
later comedies we are looking at in some detail, I’d like to say a few words about dramatic comedy in
general, with some special reference to some of the more distinctive features of Shakespeare’s most
famous comedies.

Dramatic Comedy—Some Observations

Traditional classifications of drama normally started with the basic distinction between
tragedy and comedy, a separation common in Greek and Roman drama, and clearly established by
Shakespeare’s time. Of these two styles, the easiest to define initially was the former. Tragedy was
understood as the dramatic portrayal of a great man’s suffering and (almost invariably) his death. The
hero might be a great villain or famous for virtue (a historical or Biblical character, for example), but
the main purpose of the play was to focus on his career, especially the final chapter: the events leading
up to his death, his death, and moral reflections upon the story (tragedy lent itself often to fairly
orthodox Christian themes: punishments for arrogance, pride, overreaching, and so on).

By common traditions, then, tragedies were serious, involving some ultimate questions about
the moral framework of a human life in the face of our common fate, death. Hence, tragedies
demanded a formal style in the language (e.g., blank verse), subject matter, and acting: tragedies were,
by definition serious and formal—high art, if you will. In addition, the central character had to be, to
some extent, larger than life—a suitable focus for our attention on major questions of human
existence. Tragic heroes were thus almost invariably people of special social prominence: kings,
generals, extraordinarily successful achievers (or over-achievers).

About comedy, however, there was no such general agreement, and in Shakespeare’s time
there was a fierce competition between rival companies seeking to win over audiences with different
brands of comedy. As we shall see, such a competition is still alive in our culture. By way of
illustrating this competition, let me list a few of the rival possibilities.

One of the oldest styles of comedy, developed by the Greeks and a staple ingredient of
Roman drama, was the so-called New Comedy, or comedy of manners. Here the dramatic focus is
squarely on the middle-class urban family, its trials and tribulations, and, in the conclusion, a happy
resolution of its problems. This is the sort of drama we are very used to seeing on television in
programs like All in the Family, Bill Cosby, Malcolm in the Middle,Will and Grace, and so on, the
staple fare of sit-coms.

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New Comedy, in other words, presents to its overwhelmingly middle-class audience a image
of itself, focusing on their major concerns, especially money, property, quarrels between parents and
children, neighbours, husbands and wives and servants, and so on. It relies heavily on certain stock
characters invented by the Greeks and Romans which have not changed all that much—the conniving
adulterous husband, the clever servant, the nagging wife, the expensive mistress, the horny son, the
boastful soldier, and so on. In many cases, such New Comedy lends itself easily to satire, and so it
becomes a favorite vehicle for dramatists who wish to present in their work some lesson for the
audience to learn about appropriate conduct (New Comedy is thus a favourite vehicle for those who
believe that art should—or must—have a social moral purpose). Since New Comedy is also a
common classical form (especially in Latin literature), this form is particularly attractive for any
writer who wants to lean on classical models or display his command of classical literature.

New Comedy relies heavily on naturalism—that is, offering a world and characters
recognizably similar to the world of the audience, what we would call slice-of-life (again, modern
television sit-coms illustrate this quality well). It is predominantly urban in setting, taking place in the
street, the market, or in some public space (like a hotel) where the characters can plausibly meet,
interact, engage in conflicts, and so on. The source of the conflicts and their resolution rely heavily on
things common to the middle-class life of the audience, which may be unexpected but which fit the
description of reality defined by the middle-class setting. Hence, there are few violations of the
naturalistic basis for the style (no magic, no divine interventions, and so on). There may be many
coincidences, but the action never moves to the entirely implausible. In fact, the heart of New
Comedy is a tightly constructed and interesting plot. Since the characters are more or less familiar
types who don’t change very much and since the style is naturalistic, without weird special effects, the
major interest in the drama is the way in which the conflict gets increasingly complicated and then
resolves itself quickly in a suitably convincing way. The logic of the action must be interesting and
plausible within the principles established by the style.

At the other extreme of the spectrum of comic styles is the more anarchic world of Popular
Comedy (I use this term for want of a clear label for such a style), a much more free-wheeling affair,
closer to a children’s pantomime or fairy story than to a naturalistic middle-class life. In many cases,
the action is loosely scripted, so as to permit a great deal of improvisation, especially by the clowns,
audience interaction, local references, singing, dancing, joke-telling, clowning around of all varieties,
and so on. Popular Comedy of this sort respects no particular dramatic rules, and it tends to be much
more colloquial, physical, spontaneous, and vulgar than New Comedy. Hence, it often prompts stern
criticism from those who believe middle-class drama should observe certain rules about a proper style
and subject matter and carry a useful moral lesson.

For instance, an excellent modern example of this Popular Comedy—and the most popular
form of live drama in our culture—is professional wrestling. It has a stage, all sorts of props (like
chairs, tables), outlandish costumes, continuing audience interaction, and a great deal of on-the-spot
improvising as the main actors carry out a loosely scripted performance. It also has no pretensions to
any socially redeeming message or any concern for polite taste (as one of its latest wrinkles, the stink
fight, where women rub their buttocks in each other’s faces, would seem to indicate): its purpose is to
give the people a lot of physical entertainment for their money. It also features a great deal of
audience participation (as does another very popular form of this style, The Gerry Springer Show).
Such physical vigour, variety, and spontaneous action are much more important than the plot which
(like a wrestling match) may be entirely predictable and thin).

Of course, such Popular Comedy attracts the stern criticism of those who believe that
entertainment should pay attention, first and foremost, to public standards of decency and moral
purposiveness (or at least naturalistic plausibility). So the sorts of arguments we see about wrestling
and Gerry Springer on television are not unlike the sorts of arguments going on in Shakespeare’s time
about an appropriate style for public dramatic performances (it’s all fake, it’s too repetitive, crude,
predictable, and so on).

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In between these two is a style of comedy called pastoral drama. Like New Comedy, pastoral
drama tends to avoid the excesses of what I have been calling Popular Comedy and it often has a clear
moral purpose. But, unlike New Comedy, it makes no attempt to be strictly naturalistic. Pastoral
drama, like pastoral literature generally, usually features an idealized vision of country life, with
shepherds and shepherdesses happily united in nature talking all the time about love. But (and this is
key to the pastoral convention) the life is typically seen from a city-goer’s perspective, a point of view
which enables the writer to use the country experience as a means of critiquing urban values in a
manner more sophisticated than a point of view defined entirely by the country experience would
permit. Pastoral literature, in other words, features an interaction between an urban sophistication and
a simplified vision of life away from the city.

Pastoral drama typically features love as its major concern—a romance between country folk,
or the love of an urban man for some country lass, or a romance between two urban people who, for
some reason or another (frequently implausible) find themselves temporarily in the country, having to
deal with country life (i.e., from an unfamiliar perspective). Because pastoral drama takes place away
from the city or the palace, it permits the characters to explore life in a totally non-political way, in a
setting where their social roles can be momentarily set aside and they can, to some extent, experiment
with possibilities not available in the much more restricted world of the city, where they are known,
have social and political responsibilities, have to observe much stricter codes of behaviour (e.g., in
clothes), and (this is often quite important in the Pastoral style) have to answer to the demands of the
clock (i.e., organize their daily schedule more rigorously than in the country).

Also, the pastoral setting often encourages a much less naturalistic style, one in which
woodland sprites, fairies, amazing coincidences, enchantment, and so on come with the territory. So
pastoral drama, like popular comedy, can routinely violate naturalistic principles in a way which
would not be acceptable in the more naturalistic world of New Comedy. Since the action is taking
place outside the city, the normal rules of the city do not apply. Thus, anything can happen.

Pastoral comedy, however, is much more sophisticated than Popular Comedy, since it has a
potentially important theme (the nature of love) and tries to establish a more or less consistent
fictional world (the country setting). While it can often feature the colloquial language of country
folk, it also requires a certain sophistication in the exploration of love through poetry and (a very
important element in much pastoral drama) music and song.

Shakespeare began his writing career at a time when all these forms of comedy were
available, and when companies and playwrights were fighting each other about what the “proper”
form of comedy should be. The fight itself is an interesting manifestation of the growing phenomenon
of the urban middle-class and the arguments about standards appropriate to its entertainment (things
we are still arguing about in our debates over television content).

Leading the charge for a standard of polite comedy were those with a classical education and
a preference for New Comedy (e.g., Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s great rival)—particularly because it
carried a moral intention of educating the public through satire and because it celebrated the
continuing vitality of classical models of drama. These writers often had little use for what they
perceived as the crudity and crass appeals to the audience’s lowest common denominator of Popular
Comedy. In addition, New Comedy was a standard ingredient in the classical education of many
young boys, who formed their own companies and generated a popular following for a time.

Early in his career Shakespeare, in response to popular taste, began with New Comedy. His
earliest work, especially The Comedy of Errors, patterned itself closely on classical models and stuck
to the conventions of the style. But he soon began to move towards the pastoral style, taking the urban
characters out of their customary setting and putting them into the countryside, shifting the emphasis
from the complexities of a plot (quite bewildering at times in The Comedy of Errors, with its two sets
of identical twins) to the exploration of human relationships in love (the central concern of the
pastoral tradition), and relaxing the demands of naturalism appropriate to New Comedy so as to

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include magical elements. The most famous relatively early example of this shift is Midsummer
Night’s Dream, featuring gods, fairies, magic transformations, and all sorts of implausible
occurrences which come about when a few urban characters, including pairs of lovers, wander off into
the woods.

One way of appreciating the shift is to attend to the nature of the story. Northrup Frye once
observed an important distinction between what he called “Hence” stories and “And then” stories. In
the first type, as the label “Hence” suggests, the interest in the story is the logic of cause and effect,
how a series of circumstances presents a logical sequence, each stage flowing logically and
naturalistically out of the previous situation, as a result of decisions, motives, and so on quite similar
to the logic of real life. In “And then” stories, by contrast, events simply follow one after the other,
often without any clearly logical link between them (as in many children’s stories: “This happened,
and then this happened, and then this happened, and so on. . . .”

In New Comedies, like The Comedy of Errors (and situation comedies generally), the effect
of the play depends upon a tight “Hence” structure, and the audience has to keep close track of the
distribution of information so as to understand the various confusions, misunderstandings, quarrels,
and so on, each of which makes logical sense once we understand who knows what. But in the
pastoral comedies, like Midsummer Night’s Dream (or a children’s fairy story), events tend to follow
one another apparently much more casually with no tight logical connection between events (as we
shall see in more detail in a few moments).

As You Like It and Twelfth Night: Some Initial Observations

The two comedies we are discussing, both from the late 1590’s and early 1600’s, illustrate
these differing tendencies in comedy. As You Like It is clearly a pastoral comedy—with a country
setting, much talk of love of all sorts, a story which consists, for the most part, of a series of
accidental meetings one after the other, and a resolution involving implausible transformations of
character and divine intervention. Although (as we shall see) the Forest of Ardenne is not a
completely idealized pastoral setting, we have here all the standard ingredients of pastoral drama.

Twelfth Night is somewhat different. The pastoral element in the play is obviously present in
the treatment of love and the leisurely world of Illyria, not quite as pastoral as the Forest of Ardenne,
but miles away from the political world of the city. And a good deal of the play follows a loose “And
then” plot structure, once again featuring a series of accidental meetings.

However, Twelfth Night contains a sub-plot, the tricking of Malvolio, which is clearly drawn
from the style of New Comedy, the comedy of manners, the satiric exposure of folly. The characters
of the sub-plot, like the foolish knight Aguecheek, the clever servant Maria, the boisterous lay-about
Toby Belch, and the self-deceiving Malvolio, are all urban types common in New Comedy, and their
plot to trick Malvolio depends, as in almost all New Comedy, on a sequence of events which is
plausibly crafted (in “Hence” story tradition). In a sense, Twelfth Night is one more experiment, this
time combining two distinct styles in a very interesting and dramatically convincing manner.

Preliminary Observations on As You Like It

As You Like It will be for many of you a rather difficult play to appreciate and interpret
simply on the basis of a reading. The reasons for this are not difficult to ascertain. The play is, as I
have observed, a pastoral comedy, that is, a comedy which involves a traditional literary style of
moving sophisticated urban courtiers out into the countryside, where they have to deal with life in a
very different manner from that of the aristocratic court. This play, like others in the Pastoral
tradition, freely departs from naturalism, and in As You Like It (certainly by comparison with the
History plays) there is little attempt to maintain any consistently naturalistic style.

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This can create problems for readers unfamiliar with the conventions of pastoral, especially
those who find it just too artificial and incredible to grasp imaginatively. After all, how are we to
understand the unmotivated family hatreds which launch the action? We are simply not given any
sufficiently detailed look at why Oliver hates Orlando (he himself does not understand the reason) or
why Duke Frederick hates Duke Senior and turns on Rosalind so suddenly or, what is most surprising
of all, why the nasty people whose animosities have given rise to the plot so suddenly and so
conveniently convert and become nice people just in time to wind the plot up happily under the
supervision of the goddess Hymen, the Greek deity of marriage, who arrives as an unexpected but
welcome guest.

But these features of the plot which we might find unconvincing if we demand naturalism
(that is, if we insist on treating the play as a “Hence” story) are little more than standard plot devices
in “And then” stories, common in a genre like pastoral, which makes no claims to naturalistic
motivation. Such plotting serves to launch and to conclude the comic confusion. The main point of the
play here, after all, is not the working out of a carefully constructed plot, but rather the various
encounters which take place in the Forest of Ardenne. In fact, the structure of the play is less a
carefully complex and unfolding plot than a series of conversations between characters who happen to
run into each other amid the trees.

You will notice, for example, that most of the central part of As You Like It consists of often
random encounters between different characters in the forest. In many cases, they have no particular
reason to talk to each other. What these serve to bring out is a series of conversations about life (and
particularly about love) in which we witness different attitudes clashing. The effect is to take us
through a variety of responses to shared concerns and to get us responding to our own sense of the
appropriate ways to deal with experience.

To put this another way. The pastoral style of As You Like It does not encourage a deep
psychological approach to any of the characters, to the logic of their motivation. If that’s what we
demand from a story to make it interesting, then this play is not going to satisfy us. We are not in that
sort of a world. There is far more direct pressure on us to see in the interactions between characters
the exploration of some themes, especially issues concerning love. That is not to say that the
characters are not theatrically interesting and worth talking about; it is rather to insist that the
characters here are serving thematic purposes more obviously than they are in more psychologically
plausible plays. So there’s little point in seeking to penetrate deeply into the plausibility of the
psychological motivation or of the coincidences.

To take one obvious example of a thematic concern, very common in pastoral, we notice in
the play a repeated contrast between court and country life. The purpose here is not to provide some
naturalistic contrast, for the picture of life in the country is obviously idealized a good deal (although
not totally, for there are references to the harsher aspects of life away from the comforts of the court
and to the realities of working for an absentee landlord). Nor is the purpose any romantic celebration
of the values of country living as somehow more authentic than city life. The pastoral is primarily a
vehicle for a (usually) gentle satire on urban values, on some of the corrupting manners of the court
(like flattery and excessive attention to clothes or fine language). And we can see this clearly enough
in this play. But there is no sense in As You Like It that, given a free choice, any of the principal
characters (except Jaques) would actually prefer to live in the country rather than the court.

The other great difficulty with As You Like It for inexperienced readers is much of the
humour. Here again, what makes little sense on the page (and doesn’t come across as very funny)
generally works much better in a production. This point is generally true of all comedy, where the
physicality of the human interaction (something not always readily apparent from the text of the play
alone) is an essential key to understanding and responding to what is going on. That aspect of
comedy, especially Shakespearean comedy, is one reason why, in the curriculum of this course, the
comedies are underrepresented. The only quick way to overcome this problem is to focus on seeing
the play in production (and there’s a useful BBC video version available in the college library).

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The Pastoral Setting: The Forest of Ardenne

Central to the pastoral vision of As You Like It is the setting in the Forest of Ardenne,
especially the contrast between it and the ducal court. In the former, there is a powerful political
presence which creates dangers. Deception lurks behind many actions, brothers have secret agendas
against their brothers, and people have to answer to the arbitrary demands of power.

In the Forest of Ardenne, however, life is very different. For one thing, there is no urgency to
the agenda. There are no clocks in the forest, and for the exiled courtiers there is no regular work.
They are free to roam around the forest, prompted by their own desires. There is plenty of food to eat,
so the communal hunt takes care of their physical needs. That and the absence of a complex political
hierarchy creates a much stronger sense of communal equality hearkening back the the mythical good
old days. The exiled Duke himself attests to the advantages of living far from the court, free of the
deceits of flattery and double dealing and welcomes Orlando to the feast without suspicion.

And, most important here, especially in comparison with the history plays, is the importance
of singing. As You Like It is full of songs—not performances by professional court musicians, but
impromptu group singing which expresses better than anything else the spontaneous joy these people
derive from life in the Forest and the joy they give back to others. The songs indicate clearly the way
in which in the Forest people can shape their actions to their moods—a situation totally unlike the
court where one has to consider one’s actions much more carefully.

Hence, the Forest of Ardenne provides for the exiled courtiers an important freedom to
experiment with their lives, to discover things about themselves. In the Forest people can talk openly
with whoever they might happen to meet on a stroll through the trees, and that might be anyone, given
that in the Forest no one owns any particular territory (there are no rooms, palaces, roads—unlike the
court where there is a preoccupation with property) and thus one might well meet and have to deal
with a person whom one would never get close to in the court (that can have comic results, of course,
as Touchstone’s conversations with Audrey and William demonstrate). In the Forest life is, as I have
observed, lived more immediately in the moment with whatever life presents at the moment. Such an
approach to life is impossible in the politically charged world of the court.

That freedom makes possible Rosalind’s transformation and her taking charge of the
courtship and makes an interesting contrast between Rosalind and Viola (in Twelfth Night)—the latter
is not nearly so free to take charge, because she is still operating in a social environment with a clear
structure of authority, which she has to respect. Hence, the fortunate outcome of that play relies upon
her patience and luck far more in the case of Rosalind, who is the driving force in her courtship
(Viola’s desires very nearly are unfulfilled).

We should note, however, that the Forest of Ardenne is not an entirely idyllic setting. The
Duke pays tribute to the often brutal weather, and there are some dangerous animals lurking in the
underbrush. Corin, the shepherd, informs us that he works for another man—a slight but significant
reminder that even in this pastoral setting the realities of power are not entirely absent.

And, of course, there is never any sense here (as there might be if this were a Romantic vision
of life) that the Forest is a suitable place to live on a continuing basis. Given the opportunity to return
to the court, all the exiles (except, significantly, Jaques) seize the chance. The Forest has done its
work—it has educated some, repaired fraternal relationships, brought the lovers to a fuller awareness
of their own feelings. Now, they can return to what will be, we sense, a much better and fuller life in
the court.

The Language of Love

The most obvious concern of As You Like It is love, and particularly the attitudes and the
language appropriate to young romantic love. This, I take it, is obvious enough from the relationships

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between Orlando and Rosalind, Silvius and Phoebe, Touchstone and Audrey, and (very briefly) Celia
and Oliver. The action of the play moves back and forth among these couples, inviting us to compare
the different styles and to recognize from those comparisons some important facts about young love.

Here the role of Rosalind is decisive, and much of one’s response to this play (especially in
performance) will depend upon our reaction to her. Rosalind is Shakespeare’s greatest and most
vibrant comic female role, and there’s a old saying to the effect that in any successful production
of As You Like It, the audience members will all leave the theatre in love with her.

She is clearly the only character in the play who has throughout an intelligent, erotic, and
fully anchored sense of love, and it becomes her task in the play to try to educate others out of their
false notions of love, especially those notions which suggest that the real business of love is adopting
an inflated Petrarchan language and the appropriate attitude that goes with it.

Rosalind falls in love with Orlando at first sight (as is standard in Shakespeare), becomes
erotically energized, and remains so throughout the play. She’s delighted and excited by the
experience and is determined to live it to the full moment by moment. One of the great pleasures of
watching Rosalind is that she is always celebrating her passionate feelings for Orlando. She does not
deny them or try to play games with her emotions. She’s aware that falling in love has made her
subject to Celia’s gentle mockery, but she’s not going to pretend that she isn’t totally thrilled by the
experience just to spare herself being laughed at (she even laughs at herself, while taking enormous
delight in the behaviour which prompts the mockery).

At the same time, Rosalind has not an ounce of sentimentality. Her passionate love for
Orlando does not turn her into a mooning, swooning recluse. It activates her. She takes charge of her
life. She knows what she wants, and she organizes herself to seek it out. If she has to wait to pursue
her marriage, then she is going actively to enjoy the interim in an improvised courtship and not wrap
herself in a mantle of romantic attitudinizing. She initiates the game of courtship with Orlando and
keeps it going. She has two purposes here. This gives her a chance to see and court Orlando (in her
own name) and thus to celebrate her feelings of love, but it also enables her to educate Orlando out of
the sentimental pose he has adopted.

Orlando, too, is in love with Rosalind. But his view of love requires him to write drippy
poems and walk through the forest hanging them on trees. He sentimentalizes the experience (that is,
falsifies it), so that he can luxuriate in his feelings of love rather than focusing sharply on the reality
of the experience. In their conversations, Rosalind/Ganymede pointedly and repeatedly deflates his
conventional rhetoric. This comes out most clearly in her famous reply to his claim that, if Rosalind
rejects him, then he will die.

No, faith; die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his
brains dashed out with a Grecian club, yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of
the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year though Hero had turned
nun if it had not been for a hot midsummer night, for, good youth, he went but forth to wash
him in the Hellespont and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned; and the foolish
chroniclers of that age found it was Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies. Men have died from
time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. (4.1.81-92)

It needs to be stressed that Rosalind’s view of love is highly intelligent (that is, emotionally
intelligent) and sensitive. This is not the statement of a cynic, because we know that Rosalind is very
much in love, passionately eager to be with Orlando or to talk about him as much as she can. But the

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experience is not corrupting her response to life. She will not permit herself or Orlando to be deceived
into thinking love is something other than the excitingly real experience she is going through—love is
the most wonderfully transforming experience for her but it is not the sum total of everything life has
to offer (as Orlando’s poems make out). This fusion of passion and intelligence, shot through with a
humour which enables her to laugh at herself as much as at other people, makes Rosalind a
wonderfully attractive character.

This complex attitude first emerges when she discovers Orlando’s poetry. Of course, she
knows the poetry is really poor, and she can laugh heartily at Touchstone’s damning parody of all the
words which rhyme with “Rosalind.” But at the same time she is erotically thrilled that Orlando is
around and that he is in love with her. Rather than being embarrassed by the wretched sentimentality
of her lover, she simultaneously loves the fact that her feelings are returned and can laugh at his
attempt to express them. This is not laughter at Orlando, but at the incongruity of the situation and joy
at the mutuality of their feelings.

Consider also her sense that the youthful love she is now enjoying will not last. She knows
that and is not going to shield herself from that awareness in conventionally romantic platitudes: “No,
no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are
maids, but the sky changes when they are wives” (4.1.124-127). Of course, time will change the
passionate excitement she now feels. But she’s not going to act like Marlowe’s Nymph who denies
the passionate shepherd his love because she’s afraid of the destructive powers of time. No, she will
not let any future fear interrupt or qualify the enormous joy she derives out of being in love right at
this moment. What the future will bring will happen. That is no reason not to appreciate the
immediate joys of the love she feels for Orlando.

No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen, and
born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses everyone’s eyes because his own are out, let him
be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I’ll go
find a shadow and sigh till he come.

Here she is, in part, laughing at herself as a victim, one more person hit by naughty Cupid.
But she’s obviously thrilled by the experience and is not going to deny herself one bit of the joy she is
feeling.

Rosalind becomes the pivot around whom the other lovers move, because she is the only one
with a maturely intelligent sense of the difference between love and sentiment. Thus, she can deliver
stern lectures to Silvius and Phoebe about how they are denying themselves the joys that are possible
because they have a false sense of love. Silvius’s excessively conventional Petrarchan attitudes simply
encourage Phoebe to close him out of her feelings and to develop a false sense of her own importance,
as Rosalind points out very bluntly: “Sell when you can. You are not for all markets” (3.5.61). She is
telling Phoebe, in effect, to wake up to the realities of the world in which she lives and to abandon the
sentimental dream in which she has locked herself, thanks to the language in which she and Silvius
understand their feelings.

It’s significant that throughout much of the play, when Rosalind talks to others about love,
she talks in prose, rejecting the formal potential of a more imaginative language, in order to keep the
discussions anchored in the reality of everyday life. Rosalind wants love, but she will have it only in
the language of everyday speech, without the seductive embellishments of poetical conventions,
which corrupt because they take one away from the immediately reality of the experience.

Orlando profits from Rosalind’s instructions because he is basically an emotionally intelligent


person as well. His commitment to playing the role of the conventional lover is only luke warm; as
Rosalind observes, he doesn’t have the appearance of such a literary poseur. Significantly, his poetry
is very bad, and he’s not going to mind acknowledging the fact. He does not love his own words more
than his own true feelings and hence does not strive to develop his abilities as a poet and quickly

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moves into the prose conversations with Rosalind/Ganymede. It’s an interesting question whether or
not he might recognize or have his suspicions about Rosalind/Ganymede well before the ending.
There’s an intriguing possibility that he knows her all along, but recognizing that she is in charge of
the game, he is only going to drop the pretense when she gives him the cue. I’ve never seen this
interpretation attempted, but if I were producing the play, I would like to try it.

The Role Of Jaques

The essentially healthy emotional intelligence of Rosalind and Orlando and their suitability
for each other emerge from their separate encounters with Jaques (in some editions Jacques), the
melancholy ex-courtier who is part of Duke Senior’s troupe in the forest. Both Rosalind and Orlando
take an instant dislike to Jaques (which is mutual). And in that dislike we are invited to see something
vitally right about the two of them.

For Jaques is, in effect, the opposite of everything Rosalind stands for. He is a moody cynic,
who likes to look at life and draw from it poetical contemplations at the generally unsatisfactory
nature of the world. He is, in a sense, an initial Hamlet-like figure (the comparison is frequently
made), someone without any motivating erotic joy, who compensates for his inadequacy by trying to
drag everything down to the level of his empty emotions and by verbalizing at length in poetical
images. He takes some pride in what he calls his very own brand of melancholy which can suck the
joy out of life as a weasel sucks the protein out of an egg (an interesting image of the destruction of
new living potential), and he spends his time wallowing in it. His own social desire seems to be to
find someone else to wallow in the same emotional mud as he does. But the spirits of the other
characters, especially of Rosalind and Orlando, are too vital and creative to respond favourably to
Jaques’s attempts to cut life down to fit his limited moods.

That judgment no doubt sounds quite harsh. And perhaps it is, for Jaques is a relatively
harmless person, who deceives no one (nor does he try to), and his poetical reflections, like Hamlet’s,
are often seductive. But we should not let the fame of some of his utterances (particularly the famous
“Seven Ages of Man” speech in 2.7, a frequently anthologized piece of so-called Shakespearean
“wisdom”) conceal the fact that his approach to life is thoroughly negative. He sees no value in
anything other than calling attention to the world’s deficiencies. He does not recognize in the
fellowship, music, and love all around him any countervailing virtues.

This point is made really explicit at the very end of the “Seven Ages of Man” speech
(2.7.138-165). As Jaques concludes his cynical evaluation of the emptiness of human life by talking
about how in old age men become useless lumps of flesh (“Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything”), Orlando enters carrying Adam. The latter is the living denial of everything Jaques has
just said, for Adam is very old, but has actively striven to help Orlando with generosity, love, and a
sense of duty, qualities which confer upon him an emphatic and obvious value. The dramatic irony in
that entrance points us to the severely limited and limiting understanding of the world which Jaques
has just uttered.

[As an aside, it might be worth remarking that this habit of excerpting speeches of
Shakespeare and setting them up as “gems” outside of their immediate dramatic context has the
unfortunate tendency to immortalize a passage as some special insight into the nature of life when it
is, in fact, quite the reverse. The speech of Jaques is, along with the advice of the Polonius to his son,
the most famous example of this problem. Far from being a particularly mature earned insight into
anything important, Jaques’s speech is an indication of his limited and unwelcome sense of the
unsatisfactory nature of life. The entrance of Orlando and Adam underscores this point.]

Oscar Wilde, in one of his most famous apophthegems, once defined a cynic as one who
knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. That definition applies very well to Jaques,
and it helps us at once understand why Rosalind and Orlando will have nothing to do with him.
Rosalind understands that love comes at a price. Time will change things, and a commitment in love

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brings with it the risk of infidelity (and there is much talk of that in the play). But she will not
therefore deny its value or refuse to take the risk. On the contrary, she determines to extract the full
value from her excited feelings for Orlando, not by freezing those feelings in some sour poetical
reflections but by experiencing them moment by moment, no matter what the future may bring.
Orlando also is too full of the spirit of life to find anything in Jaques’s gentle but persistent pessimism
at all worth bothering about.

I don’t mean to over-emphasize the kill-joy quality of Jaques. He is generally harmless


enough, particularly in this play where everyone recognizes him for what he is and where he has no
particular interest in pulling others down to his level against their will. If they don’t want to sit down
with him and rail against the first born of Egypt, he’s content to move away on his own. But it’s
significant that he’s not a fully participating member of the final celebrations and that he is going to
remain in the forest. He has learned nothing and, indeed, is incapable of learning anything, simply
because he is not open to experience (in terms of the earlier analysis I offered of Richard II and
Hamlet, Jaques is a “chatterer”). He’s made up his mind what life is all about, and he is seeking
confirmation of a pre-set attitude.

Traversi’s summary comment on Jaques hits the mark precisely:

. . . Jacques’ motive is, in the last analysis “observation,” the gratifying of a self regarding
curiosity based on a kind of personal impotence, an inability to participate fully and naturally
in the processes of life; and, since his attitude is one which implies throughout an incapacity
for genuine giving, for the positive acceptance of an order, at once natural and distinctively
human, beyond the isolated self—the acceptance by which, in love or otherwise, the self is at
last justified—he remains a mere marginal presence in the process by which that order is
finally . . . consummated. (An Approach to Shakespeare, Vol. 1, p. 328)

Perhaps another way of summing up Jacques’ is to observe that he’s more interested in
language than he is in life. His interaction with the world is governed largely by his desire to find
occasions to verbalize, to construct poetical reflections on the melancholy state of things. He seems
happy enough with this condition not to feel any desire to break out of it, to open himself up to new
experience, to listen carefully to others, and thus risk having to adjust his understanding (that is, to
learn). In a play that is so centrally concerned with the relationship between language and feelings he
may thus stand as an eloquent and charming but ultimately frozen being who has imprisoned himself
inside a love of language, perhaps as a protection against the world, perhaps out of a sense of the
misplaced importance he gives to a particular form of verbalizing. So his decision to remain in the
forest is apt: there he will find plenty of opportunity for gloomy reflections and conversations, without
learning from them enough to acquire the civilized intelligence of the newly energized ducal court.

The Question of Gender

One of the most intriguing aspects of the treatment of love in As You Like It concerns the
issue of gender. And this issue, for obvious reasons, has generated a special interest in recent times.
The principal reason for such a thematic concern in the play is the cross dressing and role playing.
The central love interest between Rosalind and Orlando calls into question the conventional wisdom
about men’s and women’s gender roles and challenges our preconceptions about these roles in
courtship, erotic love, and beyond.

At the heart of this courtship is a very complex ambiguity which it is difficult fully to
appreciate without a production to refer to. But here we have a man (the actor) playing a woman
(Rosalind), who has dressed herself up as a man (Ganymede), and who is pretending to be a woman

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(Rosalind) in the courtship game with Orlando. Even if, in modern times, Rosalind is not played by a
young male actor, the theatrical irony is complex enough.

The most obvious issue raised by the cross dressing is the relationship between gender roles
and clothes (or outer appearance). For Rosalind passes herself off easily enough as a man and, in the
process, acquires a certain freedom to move around, give advice, and associate as an equal among
other men (this freedom gives her the power to initiate the courtship). Her disguise is, in that sense,
much more significant than Celia’s, for Celia remains female in her role as Aliena and is thus largely
passive (her pseudonym meaning “Stranger” or “outsider” is an interesting one). The fact that Celia is
largely passive in the Forest of Ardenne (especially in contrast to Rosalind) and has to wait for life to
deliver a man to her rather than seeking one out, as Rosalind does, is an interesting and important
difference between the two friends.

These points raise some interesting issues. If becoming accepted as a man and getting the
freedom to act that comes with that acceptance is simply a matter of presenting oneself as a man, then
what do we say about all the enshrined natural differences we claim as the basis for our different
treatment of men and women? Given that Rosalind is clearly the most intelligent, active, and
interesting character in the play and that these qualities would not be likely to manifest themselves so
fully if she were not passing herself off as a man, the play raises some interesting questions about just
what we mean by any insistence on gender differences as more than mere conventions.

But the issue is much more complicated than that. For Rosalind’s assumed name, Ganymede,
is a very deliberate reference to the young male lover Zeus carried up to Olympus, and it points us to
what might be a very strong element in the courtship game between Orlando and Rosalind and in the
feelings Phoebe has for Rosalind, namely homoerotic desire. There’s little in the play to suggest this
explicitly, but a production which showed, say, that Orlando’s feelings were becoming involved with
Ganymede, so that the pretend courtship has a strongly erotic undercurrent, would not be violating the
text. Perhaps it’s hard to distinguish totally between Orlando’s feelings for Rosalind and Orlando’s
feelings for Ganymede. And that challenges all sorts of conventional expectations about erotic love, in
order to “probe the surprisingly complex issue of what is natural in matters of love and sexual desire”
(Jean Howard, Introduction to As You Like It in The Norton Shakespeare).

That’s why the play wedding ceremony that Rosalind and Orlando go through with Celia
playing role of officiating minister (in 4.1) is, for all the acting going on, quite powerfully charged.
Celia, who loves Rosalind, supervises the wedding of the two people presenting themselves as men,
and under the obvious fun of the make believe there’s a powerful sense of the sexual attraction the
two have for each other. It’s worth asking at this point just how much Orlando might know or suspect
or what feelings are keeping him in this game. There seems little doubt that underneath his play acting
he is experiencing a strong bond with Rosalind/Ganymede, something which emerges as even more
ironic if we sense (from the style of the production) that part of him either recognizes Rosalind or is
responding to the same characteristics in Ganymede that make him so in love with Rosalind. The
BBC production is worth attending to for its presentation of this complex moment in the play.

This point is underscored by the very strong instant desire that Phoebe finds for
Rosalind/Ganymede, which seems at first not unlike the feelings Orlando has for Rosalind. Phoebe, of
course, abandons her love as soon as she learns that Rosalind is a woman, but the play confronts us
with the question about the validity of those feelings. If a set of men’s clothes is the only thing
distinguishing conventional sexual arrangements from alternatives, we are invited (at least) to wonder
somewhat about the extent to which conventional arrangements do not exhaust the erotic possibilities.

The play, of course, in its closing scene celebrates conventional heterosexual marriages. But
by that time it has offered us, at least by powerful suggestions, some erotic alternatives, without
condemning such possibilities as inherently unnatural. And, depending upon how some of these key
scenes are played, a production of As You Like It can evoke in the audience some very interesting and
(perhaps) ambivalent feelings about mature sexuality.

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This point seems to be emphasized in the epilogue spoken by the newly married Rosalind,
where the boy actor playing the role calls attention to the fact that he is not a woman, as if to remind
us (maybe) that the happy union of Orlando and Rosalind in which we take such delight has explored
other possibilities than heterosexuality. This point can be underscored strongly if Orlando is present
with Rosalind during this epilogue (say, holding her in his arms) and the actor playing Rosalind is
removing his make up (e.g., wig). And, of course, if the actor playing Rosalind has made some erotic
connections with the audience, then his final revelation in the Epilogue will force the audience
member to confront some of his own feelings about gender attachments.

As I say, it’s rare to see Rosalind nowadays played by a boy, although there have been all-
male productions in modern times. And so the epilogue is often omitted or edited. As it stands, the
boy actor’s offer to kiss the desirable grown men in the audience (“If I were a woman”) gives the last
words of the play an ironic and erotic resonance that challenges gently the heterosexual weddings we
have just celebrated.

A Comment on Touchstone

As You Like It features, like so many of Shakespeare’s plays, a professional clown,


Touchstone, and it’s worth paying some attention to his role for what it contributes towards
establishing and maintaining the upbeat comic spirit of the play. For the jester is the constant
commentator on what is going on. His humour, pointed or otherwise, thus inevitably contributes to the
audience’s awareness of what is happening, and the way in which other characters treat him is often a
key indicator of their sensibilities.

Touchstone is one of the gentlest and happiest clowns in all of Shakespeare. He comments on
the action, makes jokes at other people’s expense, and offers ironic insights about their situation. But
throughout As You Like It, such traditional roles of the fool are offered and taken with a generosity of
spirit so that his remarks never shake the firm comic energies of the play. When he ridicules
Orlando’s verses, Rosalind laughs along with him. When he points out to Corin (in 3.2) that the
shepherd must be damned for never having lived at court, Corin takes it as good natured jesting
(which it is). When Touchstone takes Audrey away from her rural swain, William, there are
apparently no hard feelings (although much here depends on the staging). In this play, the professional
jester participates in and contributes to a style of social interaction which is unqualified by any more
sober and serious reflections. This makes Touchstone very different from the bitter fool of King
Lear or from the most complex fool of all, the sad Feste of Twelfth Night, both of whom offer
comments that cast either a shrewd, melancholy, or bitter irony on the proceedings.

Touchstone himself becomes the target of much humour by his immediate attraction to
Audrey, the “foul” country lass. There is something richly comic here, seeing the staunch apologist
for the sophisticated life of the court fall so quickly to his animal lust. But the satire here is very good
humoured. Touchstone himself acknowledges the frailty of his vows and does not attempt to deceive
anyone about his intentions. He knows he is serving his lusts and that that is no good basis for a
lasting and significant marriage. But the play builds up no severe indictment against what he is doing,
and Audrey herself makes no protest. So this most unlikely of unions becomes part of the celebration
of love at the end of the play, an expression of the comic variety of the experience, rather than
offering any ironic commentary.

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Introductory Lecture on Shakespeare’s Hamlet

A. Introduction

Shakespeare’s Hamlet, written around 1600, is one of the most problematic texts in all of
literature. With the exception of certain Biblical texts, no other work has produced such a continuing,
lively, and contentious debate about how we are supposed to understand it. In fact, one could very
easily construct a thorough and intriguing history of modern literary criticism based upon nothing
other than various interpretative takes on Hamlet (a task which has already been carried out by at least
one historian of ideas).

Given this critical confusion, we might as well admit up front that we are not going to arrive
at anything like a firm consensus on what the play is about and how we should understand it.
However, wrestling with this play is a very important and stimulating exercise, because it puts a lot of
pressure on us to reach some final interpretation (that is, it generates in us a desire to make sense of all
the elements in it, to find some closure), and, even if that goal eludes us, we can learn a great deal
about reading poetic drama and interpreting literature from a serious attempt to grasp this most elusive
work. If one of the really important functions of great literature is to stimulate thought-provoking
conversations which force us to come to grips with many things about the text and about ourselves,
then Hamlet is a particularly valuable work.

I should also add that many of the difficulties we wrestle with (like the age of the characters,
for example) can only be temporarily resolved by witnessing and responding to a production of the
play. Because there is so much ambiguity and uncertainly about many key elements, Hamlet offers a
director a great deal of creative scope, and hence the variety in productions of this play is unmatched
in all of Shakespeare, perhaps in all tragic drama.

In this introductory lecture (and I stress the word introductory) I would like to discuss three
things: (a) first, I would like to outline what the “problem” with this play is, the source key of the
disagreement, (b) second, I would like to review some of the attempts to resolve this initial problem,
and (c) third, I would like to outline three of the main issues raised by the play, matters which any
coherent and reasonably complete interpretation has to deal with. If there is time, I might offer a few
suggestions along the way about the approach which I personally find particularly persuasive.

B. Hamlet: What’s the Problem?

So what is the source of the difficulties with this play? Well, we can begin by acknowledging
that Hamlet is a revenge play. That is, the story is based upon the need to revenge a murder in the
family. In a typical revenge plot, there are no authorities to appeal to, either because the original
criminal is too powerful (e.g., has become king) or those in a position to act do not know about or
believe in the criminality of the original villain. Thus, the central character has to act on his own, if
any justice is to occur.

Hamlet clearly falls into this conventional genre. There is a victim (Hamlet Senior), a villain
(Claudius), and an avenger (Hamlet). Early in the play the details of the murder become known to
Hamlet, he vows to carry out his revenge, and eventually he does so, bringing the action to a close.
The major question which arises, and the main focus for much of the critical interpretation of Hamlet
is this: Why does Hamlet delay so long? Why doesn’t he just carry out the act?

Now, revenge dramas, from the Oresteia to the latest Charles Bronson Death Wish film, are
eternally popular, because, as playwrights from Aeschylus on have always known, revenge is
something we all, deep down, understand and respond to imaginatively (even if we ourselves would
never carry out such a personal vendetta). The issue engages some of our deepest and most powerful

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feelings, even if the basic outline of the story is already very familiar to us from seeing lots of revenge
plots (for the basic story line doesn’t change much from one story to another).

Typically, the avenger assumes the responsibility early on, spends much of the time
overcoming various obstacles (like having to find the identity of the killer or dealing with the barriers
between the avenger and the killer, a process which can involve a great deal of excitement and
violence of all sorts), and concludes the drama by carrying out the mission, a culmination which
requires a personal action (usually face to face). The revenge, that is, must be carried out in an
appropriate manner (just getting rid of the villain any old way or reporting the villain to the authorities
is not satisfying). This formula, which is very old, popular, and, if done well, a smash at the box
office, was a staple of Greek theatre (not just in Aeschylus), common in Elizabethan drama before
Shakespeare, and characterizes an enormous number of Western movies and detective fictions, among
other genres. So there’s nothing new about that in this play.

The puzzle here is why Hamlet just does not go ahead a carry out the revenge. He vows to do
so as soon as he hears the news of the his father’s murder in Act I and repeatedly urges himself on to
the deed. But it takes him many weeks (perhaps months) before the revenge is carried out. What’s the
problem? The attempts to deal with this question have sparked a huge volume of criticism.

C. Why the Delay? A Survey of Answers

Some critics attempt to resolve the difficulty by magically waving it away. They maintain, for
example, that there is no delay, that Hamlet carries out the murder as soon as he can conveniently do
so (e.g., Dover Wilson). Others (e.g., E. E. Stoll) argue that the delay is simply a convention,
something we are not supposed to get hung up on, because if there’s no delay, there’s no play
(obviously the carrying out of the revenge is going to be the final action of the story, so if that occurs
very quickly, the play will last only a few minutes).

Whatever plausibility one might find in such interpretations is seriously undercut by many
parts of the play. Hamlet himself is constantly calling attention to the delay; he worries about it all the
time. The ghost has to remind him of it. In other words, the delay is not a concept of our imagination,
something we impose on the play; it is, by contrast, an issue repeatedly raised by the play itself. So it
cannot so simply be conjured out of existence.

In addition, although we do not know the exact time frame of the play, it does seem that a
long time goes by between the opening act and the conclusion. There is always a lot happening; that’s
one of the most theatrically appealing aspects of the play (Dr Johnson call it Shakespeare’s most
“amusing” play, by which he meant, not that it was funny, but that it always held our attention with its
speed and variety). At the same time we get unequivocal signals that time is passing: the envoys have
gone to Norway and come back, Hamlet has sailed away and returned, we are told at the start that it is
two months since the funeral of Hamlet Senior and in the play within the play that it is now twice two
months since the funeral, and so on.

Given these details (and there are others), I would conclude that these first two approaches to
the problem are unacceptable.

In this connection, we should note that the play has two other revengers: Fortinbras and
Laertes, both of whom have to avenge insults to or murder done on their fathers. They act
immediately, with effective resolution and courage. Given that they are about the same age as Hamlet,
it would seem that we are invited to see in Hamlet’s response to his father’s murder something quite
different from what a normal prince with a sense of honour might do. Hence the play itself puts a lot
of pressure on us to recognize in Hamlet’s conduct an unusual problem.

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Others maintain that, as in many conventional revenge dramas, Hamlet has external obstacles
to overcome in order to carry out the revenge. There is a delay, but only because Hamlet is not in a
situation where he can easily carry it out. He has to wait for an opportune moment.

This position, too, is hard to sustain, given the facts of the play. Hamlet has ready access to
Claudius, he even meets him in an unguarded moment (at prayer), and there is no suggestion from
Hamlet himself that there are any such external difficulties. In his fretting about his delay, Hamlet
never mentions the existence of such external obstacles. And, as if to underscore the point, when
Laertes returns to avenge his father, he has no trouble in confronting Claudius instantly in a situation
where he might easily have killed him. If Laertes can so quickly put Claudius’s life in jeopardy, why
cannot Hamlet do the same? So this line of inquiry does not seem all that helpful.

The vast majority of critics on this play have agreed with the analysis on this point, and have
thus argued that, in the absence of any serious external obstacles, Hamlet’s troubles must be internal,
and the major debates about the play thus turn into a character analysis of the young prince. What is
going on inside of him to make the carrying out of this revenge so difficult?

There are many suggestions concerning what this internal condition might be. And the
possibilities range from the silly to the intriguing. I would like to review some of these, beginning
with some fairly implausible suggestions and moving at the end to some serious possibilities.

Some have maintained that Hamlet is a coward and that his delay is a manifestation of his fear
of getting hurt. This seems inherently unlikely. He’s capable of very decisive action when necessary
(as in the killing of Polonius, the confrontation with the ghost, or the duel scene). So I think we can
safely lay that suggestion to rest. There are too many occasions when Hamlet reveals a spontaneous
and active courage, even, in the eyes of his companions, a foolhardy valour.

Certain medically minded interpreters have suggested that Hamlet’s problem is physical,
perhaps an excess of adipose tissue around the heart (hence his reference to having trouble breathing)
or that he is just mad. Such suggestions do nothing to resolve our desire to understand this character.
If he is clinically abnormal, then so far as I am concerned he is of little interest to me, except as a
clinical specimen. To paste a convenient abnormal label over Hamlet is to explain nothing, it is to beg
the question which we are seeking to answer. If one of the chief attractions of the this play is the
quality of Hamlet’s intelligence, which comes through in many of his soliloquies and in his verbal
dexterity and so on, then simply writing him off as a bit of a mental freak is inherently unsatisfactory.
If we are tempted to see, as many are, that there is something strange or significant about Hamlet’s
emotional state, then we need to explore that further, rather than just writing him off as crazy. The
task is to find some emotional coherence in his thoughts and actions, some illuminating insight into
his behaviour. Casual medical terms which close off such an explorations are of no analytical use.

If we stray into the realm of off-the-wall suggestions about Hamlet, we might want to
consider the idea that Hamlet is really a woman raised as a man. Her troubles stem from the fact that
she is in love with Horatio. We probably wouldn’t pay any attention to this interpretation if there was
not a film based upon it, an early silent movie. In the concluding scene, as Horatio grasps the dying
Hamlet in his arms, he inadvertently clutches her secondary sexual characteristics. At that point the
written script reads something to the effect “Ah, Hamlet, I have discovered your tragic secret.”

If you find that suggestion interesting you might want to investigate the suggestions that the
key people in the play are Horatio’s wife or girl friend Felicity (“If thou didst ever hold me in thy
heart,/ Absent thee from felicity a while” the dying Hamlet urges Horatio) or Hamlet’s invisible Irish
companion, Pat (to whom Hamlet is clearly speaking when he sees Claudius at prayer, “Now might I
do it pat. . . .”). And so on.

In my view the realm of serious possibilities begins with the claim that Hamlet has great
trouble in carrying out this revenge because he is too good for this world, he is too sensitive, too

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poetical, too finely attuned to a difficulties of life, too philosophically speculative or too finely
poetical. This line of criticism has often been offered by people who feel themselves rather too finely
gifted to fit the rough and tumble of the modern world (like Coleridge, for example). A particularly
famous example of this line of interpretation comes from Goethe:

Shakespeare meant . . . to represent the effects of great action laid upon a soul unfit for the
performance of it. . . . A lovely, pure, noble and most moral nature, without the strength of
nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear and must not cast
away. All duties are too holy for him; the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been
required of him; not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds and turns, and
torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at
last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts; yet still without recovering his peace of
mind.

This view has a good deal to commend it. After all, Hamlet is much given to moody poetical
reflections on the meaning of life, he is a student (and therefore by definition too good for this world),
and he seems to spend a great deal of time alone wandering about Elsinore talking to himself or
reading books. He has a tendency to want to explore large universal generalizations about life, love,
politics, and the nature of human beings. From his first appearance on stage, it is quite clear that he
doesn’t much like the political world of Elsinore; he is displaced from it. Again and again he talks
about how he dislikes the dishonesty of the world, the hypocrisy of politics and sexuality and so on.
So there is a case to be made that Hamlet is just too sensitive and idealistic for the corrupt double
dealing of the court and that his delay stems from his distaste at descending to their level.

An interpretation which belongs with these explanations links Hamlet’s inability to act with
his sense that the world is simply too brutal, meaningless, and chaotic to justify any active
intervention in human affairs. Hamlet, as it were, has seen into the true nature of things and has no
redeeming illusion, no faith in anything, on the basis of which he can act. A well-known expression
of this approach is the following comment from Friedrich Nietzsche (in The Birth of Tragedy, Section
7, Johnston translation):

In this sense the Dionysian man has similarities to Hamlet: both have had a real glimpse into
the essence of things. They have understood, and it disgusts them to act, for their action can
change nothing in the eternal nature of things. They perceive as ridiculous or humiliating the
fact that they are expected to set right again a world which is out of joint. The knowledge kills
action, for action requires a state of being in which we are covered with the veil of illusion—
that is what Hamlet has to teach us, not that really venal wisdom about John-a-Dreams, who
cannot move himself to act because of too much reflection, because of an excess of
possibilities, so to speak. It’s not a case of reflection. No!—the true knowledge, the glimpse
into the cruel truth overcomes every driving motive to act, both in Hamlet as well as in the
Dionysian man. Now no consolation has any effect any more. His longing goes out over a
world, even beyond the gods themselves, toward death. Existence is denied, together with its
blazing reflection in the gods or in an immortal afterlife. In the consciousness of once having
glimpsed the truth, the man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of being; now
he understands the symbolism in the fate of Ophelia; now he recognizes the wisdom of the
forest god Silenus. It disgusts him.

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Against this group of interpretations, of course, is the very clear evidence that Hamlet is quite
capable of swift decisive action should the need arise. He kills Polonius without a qualm and proceeds
to lecture his mother very roughly over the dead body. He can dispatch Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
to their deaths, without a scruple. He is very gifted at dissembling, at playing the Machiavelli-like
figure. And he has no hesitation in taking Laertes on in a duel. In addition, there is a violent streak in
Hamlet (especially where women are concerned). So on the basis of the evidence there is a good deal
to suggest that the vision of Hamlet as a soul too good for this world might be problematic. However,
that is one you might like to consider.

Allied to this view of Hamlet as too poetical or reflective is the idea that he is just too weak
willed to make the decision to undertake the revenge. Again the evidence does not seem to bear out
the contention that Hamlet is, by his very nature, incapable of making decisions. Once he sets his
mind to the play within the play or tricking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or undertaking the duel or
facing the ghost he can act quickly and decisively.

Then, too, there is the ever popular notion that Hamlet has to delay because he’s not sure
whether or not the ghost is from heaven or hell. That is, he must confirm the validity of the ghost’s
information and his mission, and his delay is therefore a necessary part of the revenge plan. In
assessing this idea you have to be prepared to sort out the complex issue of whether what Hamlet says
on the point is sincere or whether it is just one more excuse for delay. For the fact is that Hamlet
entertains absolutely no doubts about the ghost’s honesty when he first encounters it, and the idea of
testing it more or less pops into his head when he is wrestling with his own failure to carry out the
deed. Moreover, even after he has confirmed the truth of the ghost with the play within the play he
does not carry out the murder, although immediately after the play and the confirmation of the ghost’s
story he has a supreme opportunity to do so. In addition, of course, if the motive of checking out the
ghost’s credentials is the major motive for the delay, then how do we account for the anguish that
Hamlet seems to go through in thinking about the delay? Why isn’t that reason more in evidence?

This, in fact, is a crucial point and one that makes Hamlet so very interesting. Why is he
himself so insistently guilty about not being able to go through with it? Any interpretation of the play
which suggests either that there is no delay or that there is a perfectly justified reason for it comes
crashing down on one overwhelming fact of this play, which we have to confront again and again,
especially in the soliloquies: Hamlet himself agonizes over his inability to carry out the deed and is
constantly searching for reasons why he is behaving the way he is. He doesn’t himself understand
why he cannot carry out the revenge. That point, I would suggest, is one of the main reasons we are
interested in the prince—he is in the grip of something that he cannot fully understand, no matter how
much he rationalizes the matter.

And in this connection I really want to repeat a critical question that you are going to have to
wrestle with in order to sort out where you stand with the prince. When Hamlet says something, does
he really mean it or is he deliberately inventing another reason for the delay? Is, for example, his
concern about the validity of the ghost a real concern or just a convenient rationalization for his strong
emotional reluctance to carry out the deed? Similarly, is his excuse for not killing Claudius at prayer a
convincing reason or just one more excuse? Such questions are crucial to an understanding of
Hamlet’s character, yet they are not easy to answer on the basis of the text itself. I mention this point
here in order to stress that one has to be very careful before accepting whatever Hamlet says as an up
front truth—it may be an evasion or evidence that he very poorly understands himself and the world
around him.

All of these suggestions (and I’m cutting a long story short) drive one to a tempting
conclusion put forward most famously by Ernest Jones, the famous disciple of Freud. Jones argues
that Hamlet has no doubts about the ghost, is perfectly capable of acting decisively, and yet delays
and delays and agonizes over the delay. Why? If he has motive, opportunity, the ability to act
decisively, and a strong desire to carry out the action, then why doesn’t he? Jones’s conclusion is that
there’s something about this particulartask which makes it impossible for Hamlet to carry out. It’s not

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that he is by nature irresolute, too poetical or philosophical, or suffers from medical problems or a
weakness of will. It is, by contrast, that this particularassignment is impossible for him.

That leads Jones to posit the very famous and very persuasive suggestion that Hamlet cannot
kill Claudius because of his relationship with his mother. He has (now wait for it) a classical Oedipus
Complex: he is incapable of killing the man who sleeps with his mother because that would mean that
he would have to admit to himself his own feelings about her, something which overwhelms him and
disgusts him. Jones’s argument in the book Hamlet and Oedipus (especially in the first half) is a very
skillful piece of criticism, always in very close contact with the text, and it is justly hailed as the great
masterpiece of Freudian criticism. Just to point out one salient fact: Jones indicates, quite correctly,
that Hamlet can kill Claudius only after he knows that his mother is dead and that he is going to die.
Hence, his deep sexual confusion is resolved; only then can he act. Up to that point, he constantly
finds ways to evade facing up to the task he cannot perform, because to do so would be to confront
feelings within himself that he cannot acknowledge (by killing Claudius he would make his mother
available and be attacking the ideal nobility of his real father).

I’m not going to put forward a defense of the Jones’s thesis, except to suggest that the initial
logic of his argument seems quite persuasive: Hamlet does have a very particular inability to carry
out this action and that this inability is not a constitutional incapacity for action but stems from some
very particular feelings within Hamlet, feelings which he himself has trouble figuring out and which
he often thinks about in explicitly sexual terms (whether we follow Jones in identifying these feelings
with an Oedipus Complex is another matter), terms which insist upon a pattern of disgust with female
sexuality and with himself.

So for me the question of Hamlet’s delay boils itself down to trying to answer the following
question: What is it about this situation that turns an intelligent, active, and often decisive person into
some emotional paralytic? Where are we to locate the source of the difficulties Hamlet is constantly
acknowledging?

In order to answer this question, we have to take into account some important facts of the
play, that is, first of all, we have to acknowledge the particular evidence we have to work with. In this
play, that is not always easy. But the test of any interpretation of the key question is going to depend
upon its ability to coordinate in a plausible way what we are given. So at this point, let me review
three of the more salient facts. However you interpret this play, you are going to have to take into
account these issues.

Please note that I am not suggesting that these are the only important facts one has to account
for. However, they are of central importance and, it seems to me, present the major challenges to any
interpretation.

D. The Facts of the Case

Hamlet’s Language

One of the most obvious features of Hamlet is that the hero is a compulsive talker, who
processes experience and wrestles with his feelings and copes with other people primarily through
language. In the context of that earlier lecture about Richard II, Hamlet has many of the
characteristics of a chatterer, a person who uses words to protect himself from coming to grips with
the reality of his situation and the need for action. Hamlet, among some critics, has acquired a
reputation as something of a philosopher, a profound thinker. But how profound are Hamlet’s inner
speculations? He tackles big issues, to be sure, but where do his thoughts take him? Does the
philosophical content of his speculations ever move very far beyond the platitudinous? Might it be the
case that he ismerely talking in order not to have to act (rather like Richard II)? I raise this as a
question because one’s response to Hamlet’s soliloquies (and he has more than any other
Shakespearean character) will shape our understanding of him more than any other factor in the play.

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Hamlet’s use of language, in fact, is obviously a crucial key to his character. Having
introduced a comparison with Richard II (and one could include Jaques from As You Like It in any list
of Shakespearean chatterers), one needs to remain alert to the distinctions as well as the similarities.
For Hamlet’s language reveals that he is constantly wrestling with something inside, something which
torments him, something at times he clearly would not like to think about but which he cannot dispel
from his thoughts. This quality sets him apart from Richard and Jaques, both of whom use language
very complacently to close themselves off from external complexities, to impose upon the world their
own given sense of what it all means or of what really matters and what does not (and to drown out
any competing understanding which might come to them from outside). Hamlet’s language, in that
sense, does not reassure him or calm him down: it is an expression of and a contribution to his
suffering. That’s the reason the emotional quality of his language commands so much more attention
than does the emotional quality of anything Richard or Jaques say.

For Hamlet is not quite like these two in how his language registers. If, like them, Hamlet
shows little inclination to listen to other people sensitively and to learn from their conversations with
him and if there is a sense that he frequently uses language as a shield to protect himself from
interacting with the world (as he clearly does with his often nonsensical patter), Hamlet is also at
times trying to find some way of expressing what he feels and is constantly frustrated by his inability
to formulate exactly what it is that is troubling him. In that sense, his habit, for example, of summing
up issues with sweeping reductive generalizations about the world (and women in particular) is linked
to serious inner turmoil and registers as, in some sense, a desperate way to hold in check the pressures
of his inner contradictions (rather than as some fixed and firmly held opinion).

That point helps to explain the curious and significant pattern of Hamlet’s soliloquies, which
are marked by sudden changes of subject, self-urging to put something out of his mind accompanied
by an inability to do so, attacks on himself for all his verbalizing, and a sense of despair that all this
talk is getting him no closer to any sort of answer which will clarify the world sufficiently to enable
him to act. It may also account for his habit of lashing out verbally (and sometimes physically) when
the world presses against him too closely (and for the fact that such lashing out characteristically
occurs in the face of those who love him most or who are most concerned about him, e.g., Gertrude
and Ophelia).

In addition to these characteristic rhythms in Hamlet’s language (especially in his soliloquies)


there is the matter of the images he fixes upon to express his inner turmoil. From his very first
soliloquy in 1.2, these images typically insist upon the wholesale corruption of the world. As often as
not, they carry with them a sense of powerful disgust with sexuality, especially women’s sexuality (a
view which clearly issues from his feelings about his mother), a revulsion so powerful that it fills him
with a desire for suicide in the face of the worthlessness a life which reduces all of us to an empty
skull, dust, and a foul smell.

Allied to this feature, of course, is Hamlet’s vocabulary, which characteristically features


short colloquial words evocative of a mood of exhaustion, contempt, disgust—a range of feelings of
extreme unpleasantness: “fardels,” “grunt,” “sweat,” “nasty sty,” “vicious mole,” “rank and gross,”
“slave’s offal,” and so on. How we determine what such a language has to reveal to us about
Hamlet’s maturity, intelligence, emotional sensitivity (especially in relation to his situation) will play
a major role in how we resolve some of the interpretative difficulties of the play.

However we explore the details of Hamlet’s character and seek to find some ways of
describing it, we need to account for these prominent features of his language, which are hard to
reconcile with the idea of a settled, noble, philosophical frame of mind. And a central issue in our
evaluation will almost certainly be trying to determine if the language indicates a morbid over-
reaction to a set of harsh circumstances or is in some ways a worthy response which can be justified
without an appeal to serious deficiencies in the prince’s emotional make up.

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The Politics of Machiavellianism

Any assessment of the prince’s character, however, has to take into account his setting, the
royal court of Elsinore, simply because Hamlet thinks of himself very much in relation to the political
life around him. We can easily acknowledge that Elsinore is a very political place, in a very
Machiavellian sense. In this court, we are in a political realm based on duplicity, power, and fear, and
the outcome of the political actions is serious: the security of the kingdom. Everyone is constantly
eavesdropping on everyone else (behind the arras, outside a door, on a battlement above). This spirit
is best exemplified in the person of Polonius, the most important and successful courtier, who is a
master spy, subordinating all the concerns of life to a quest for knowledge and the power which
knowledge brings.

Polonius’s instinctive response to any problem is to spy out the solution. If that means
running the risk of dishonoring his son or using his daughter as bait, that doesn’t bother him. If one
has to spread lies abroad in order to gain the knowledge necessary for power, then that is quite
acceptable, as he tells Reynaldo:

See you now—

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

With windlasses and with assays of bias,

By indirection find directions out. (2.1)

Polonius’s operating principle is fear. If one doesn’t attend to finding out what is going on, if
one is not very careful, then trouble will come quickly. One needs to be constantly on guard, vigilant,
and careful of any serious consequences of any action:

This must be known; which, being kept close, might move

More grief to hide than hate to utter love. (2.1)

This ethic of Polonius is prepared to ride roughshod over any emotional problems. When
Ophelia confesses her love for Hamlet and his for her, Polonius dismisses the matter as rubbish: all
Hamlet’s romantic declarations she must treat as simply tricks to get her into bed to satisfy his lust.
Love, for Polonius, like everything else, can be understood in the lowest common denominator of
human activity as a power struggle. Hence, Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet is potentially
dangerous politically and must be stopped. He tells Ophelia she’s to stay away from Hamlet, because
he’s not telling the truth. The implication is clear: in the power political world of Polonius, love has
no place. That’s why he can simply manipulate her into trying to engage Hamlet in conversation while
he and Claudius listen in while concealed. The fact that at the end of that conversation Ophelia is
crying in great distress he hardly notices—his daughter’s emotional dismay is inconsequential; what
really matters is the political implication of what he and Claudius have witnessed: “How now,
Ophelia?/ You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said./ We heard it all” (3.1.178).

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It’s significant, I think, that in sorting out what must be done about Ophelia’s confessions
about Hamlet’s relationship to her, his immediate response is a military metaphor:

Set your entreatments at a higher rate

Than a command to parley. (1.2)

For Polonius all of life, including love, is a power struggle, and the operative principle is fear.
Human beings are motivated only by self-interest; thus, Ophelia’s notion that Hamlet may be in love
with her is simply the immature response of a foolish adolescent, unaware of the brutal
competitiveness of a world in which the basic rules of human interaction are what’s in it for me and
fear of what someone with power might do to you.

Similarly in his famous speech to his son, there is a remarkable absence of a certain kind of
advice. Polonius’s words have acquired for some reason the reputation of being good moral advice,
but the most remarkable thing about the speech is the absence of any moral exhortation. What he says
is good hard-headed practical advice for success in a rough and dangerous public world: avoid
trouble, conceal feelings and intentions, and control one’s environment through one’s appearance.
The most frequently quoted part of the speech one needs to consider very carefully:

This above all—to thine own self be true,

And it must follow as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man. (1.3.78)

Think about this for a while. It is not a sound piece of moraladvice—and Polonius’s conduct
makes that clear throughout the play: in serving his own interests, in following his vision of being true
to himself he is prepared to hurt anyone, even members of his own family. Polonius, I think, cares
deeply about his family. That is not the issue here. It is the quality of the care, the characteristic
manner in which he shapes his understanding of what are the problems in life and what must be done
about them. That is what seems curiously narrow. The fact that he does not believe that dealing with
people in this way is not being false to them tells us a great deal about Polonius and about the world in
which he functions with such apparent success.

In exploring this issue, we need to acknowledge that Polonius does not appear to be interested
in his own personal power. He sees himself as a loyal servant of the royal family and as a loving
parent. And he is both of those. But in serving both his royal masters and his family, Polonius
interprets the world as a dangerous place where one needs to have one’s wits about one and walk
carefully, without taking any unnecessary chances of giving anything away.

Many people are deceived by Polonius’s external pose as something of a doddering old fool.
After all, in many scenes, he plays the role of someone who is a bit silly. But we have to keep asking
ourselves what’s going on underneath. And there we can sense a shrewd and hard-headed political
imagination for whom the all important issue of life is political survival in a complex and deceptive
world. An essential part of that is a deceptively innocent external mask.

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Polonius, we should note, is an important political figure, the executive arm of the king. And
his position (and Claudius’s endorsement of Polonius in words of high praise) tell us clearly that
Polonius’s tactics work in Elsinore; they bring success. Moreover, as I have mentioned, he is not an
evil man. He has the best interests of his family and his monarch at heart and puts his talents to work
on their behalf. He has no agenda to capture or wield more power than he has already. In a sense, he
is a recognizably normal person, quite at home in the adult world of business and politics.

Claudius, too, is a very shrewd and successful political operator, who understands, like
Polonius, that the political world requires deception and betrayal. He employs Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet, agrees readily enough to Polonius’s various spying suggestions, and
finally is prepared to deceive Hamlet into going to his own death.

This Machiavellian quality in Polonius and Claudius makes them very effective political
operators. When Polonius challenges Claudius to name one occasion on which he has been wrong,
Claudius concedes that Polonius is unmatched in his ability to find out the truth of a situation.
Claudius, we know (especially from his superb performance in 1.2, when we first meet him), is no
fool, and this firm endorsement of Polonius should alert us to recognize that the frequently foolish
pose is just that, a pose. We should note, too, that Claudius has the full support of the court. That is a
mark that he is recognized as an effective, perhaps even a popular leader. No one in the play, except
Hamlet, ever makes the suggestion that Claudius is not an effective monarch (and Shakespeare in
other plays typically allows us to see growing discontent in quiet conversations between malcontents).
In fact, during the course of the play we see his policies about the political problems with Norway
work to the evident approval of those around him.

In this connection, it’s important to pick up on the fact that the monarch in Elsinore has been
elected by the council. So Claudius is king because he was chosen by the senior politicians in
Elsinore. And, equally important, as he makes clear very early on, there has been no political
opposition to the marriage with Gertrude. If he had wanted to, Shakespeare could obviously have
provided clear evidence that people in general think that this remarriage was immoral. The fact that
there is no such suggestion, that by and large everyone has approved of the remarriage is an important
fact when we consider the extreme language with which the ghost and Hamlet describe it. For
example, if the remarriage is truly incestuous, then there would have been hostility to it (we see that
the clergy here are not above challenging the court). So the general harmony of the court, which we
witness in the first scenes tells us that Claudius is perceived as an effective and perhaps even a
popular ruler and that, so far we can tell, the people in Elsinore see nothing wrong with the marriage.

One final point about the political world of Elsinore. It does not seem to be a place where
women matter very much, where they have much of a say in anything. The movers and shakers in this
world are all men, and where necessary they are prepared to use women, even their own family, in the
power political game. The chief example of this, of course, is Ophelia, who spends much of the play
bewildered about what is happening around her, as she tries to follow what her father, brother, and
Hamlet tell her to do. Gertrude, too, initiates very little from any political power base. In Elsinore,
Claudius and Polonius call the shots.

But Claudius does love Gertrude and respects her opinion. He clearly has all the power, but
he often involves her in the conversations, asks her advice, and defers to her. Early in the play, the
stand together as equals. Gertrude appears to have very little political imagination (she is not a power
player and at times is clearly out of the loop), and we don’t get any suggestion that she knows
anything about the murder of her first husband. The fact that Claudius makes so much of her is one of
those qualities that makes Claudius, in some ways, a more sympathetic character (much here
obviously depends upon how they behave together, so that we have to witness a production to make
an informed judgment).

And both women die. Ophelia’s death is particularly significant, because she is clearly driven
to it by events over which she, as a young woman, has no control. In this connection it might be

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worth asking some pointed questions about Ophelia as a victim of life in Elsinore and, in particular, of
Hamlet himself. If we see her, as I think most people do, as an innocent young girl trying to sort out
her feelings about people in a complex and difficult world where she is constantly told what to do and
how to think by various men (Hamlet, Polonius, and Laertes), and if there is some substance to the
love between her and Hamlet, there may very well be an explicit sexual edge to the frustration which
drives her into madness. That seems certainly possible in the light of the sexual bullying (not too
strong a term) which seems to be such a constant feature of the advice men around constantly direct at
her, and the sexual innuendo in her lunatic songs lends support to the idea.. Such a view gives some
weight to Robert Speaight’s remark that no part in Shakespeare has suffered more than Ophelia from
the sentimental evasion of sexuality (a comment recorded in Peter Brook: A Biography by J. C.
Trewin, London, Macdonald, 1971, p. 92).

We don’t have to see Ophelia this way, of course, but if we give her behaviour that edge
(something entirely consistent with the evidence of the text) her destruction acts as a powerful
indictment of the corrupting effects of the male-dominated political realm of Elsinore, which simply
has no room in it for love.

Appearance and Reality

Given this nature of Elsinore, which is impossible to ignore, we come to a second important
fact of the play, namely, that people in this world have to live two lives, the one they present to the
world and the inner world of their own thoughts and feelings. For Elsinore is a world where the
appearance of things does not always or often mesh with the inner reality. Claudius, for example, is
on the outside a smooth, popular, and effective political operator; inside he is tormented by his own
guilt and carries, as he puts it, the most serious sin of all, a brother’s murder. Polonius appears to be
something of a bumbling fool; inside he is a capable Machiavel always unerringly on the trail of new
information. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are apparently Hamlet’s university friends; but in reality
they are spies in the service of Claudius, especially commissioned to ferret out the truth about Hamlet.
And so forth.

This is a deceptive world. One can never be sure whether someone is spying or
eavesdropping. Elsinore is full of nooks, arrases, upper galleries where someone may be lurking in
secret. It’s a place where you have to keep your wits about you if you want to survive. When someone
approaches you with a smile on his face, you can never be sure whether he is a friend or a foe,
whether what he is saying to you is what he really means or whether it is all just a temporary role he is
playing in this dangerous and duplicitous game.

In this connection, I think one of the most important moments is the very first line of the play.
In the first scene we see someone whom we don’t know alone, wandering about in the dark, cold and
lonely and scared in a foggy night, where one has difficulty seeing clearly. Suddenly a figure emerges
out of the mist. The first response is defensive: “Who’s there?” And figure hailed is equally
suspicious: “Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.” And if you read the scene aloud, you notice
in the short, choppy lines a nervous intensity, a jitteriness, which sets the mood for the world of
Elsinore. In one way or another that question “Who’s there?” shouted out into a fog which makes
clear perception impossible haunts the play.

Who in this play is not acting a role? Well, those that do not seem to be, that is, Ophelia and
Gertrude and perhaps Horatio, stand rather on the sidelines or get pushed around by the action.
Ophelia, in particular, is a really pathetic victim of so many people in the play, because she is so
innocent, so naive, so ill equipped to understand, let alone deal with, the world around her. In this
world, as in so much of Shakespeare, innocence is never enough, and those who have only that to
guide them in a complex political world, who are not able to develop a survival strategy of some kind,
are going to suffer. Gertrude, too, appears much of the time painfully bewildered. Those two ladies
are poorly equipped to deal with Elsinore, in part because they cannot hide their feelings in an
effective public role.

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One key element in the roles people play is the language they use to interact with others. In
public, Claudius is smooth, polished, confident; in private or with Gertrude he is a troubled spirit; in
public Polonius is frequently something of a verbal buffoon; in private he is matter of fact and
shrewd. Hamlet plays all sorts of roles, shifting gears from one scene to the next, using language as a
survival tool to keep the people he interacts with off guard, puzzled, on the defensive. His famous
“antic disposition” is part of a world where you have to play a public role in order to guard your
innermost thoughts and plans. He clearly uses his famous “wit” to erect a defensive barrier between
himself and others and at times to lash out cruelly at them. That is the reason why, in reading Hamlet,
we have to be very careful about immediately believing what people say to each other: they may not
be telling the truth.

That may also be the reason why everyone enjoys the arrival of the actors so much. Hamlet is
never happier in this play than when he is with the actors. He gets excited and, for the first time,
displays a passionate and joyful interest in something going on around him. With the actors we do get
our only strong sense of what a giving and amusing character Hamlet might be. And this has nothing
to do with his plans for the play within the play (that comes later). No, the suggestion is clearly that he
can in some ways deal with the actors differently from anyone else. With them, and this is very
noticeable in the scene, Hamlet can relax and let his imagination, wit, and intelligence play without
worrying about the consequences. And I would suggest that in a world like Elsinore, where almost
everyone is playing various roles in a dangerous game, the professional actors are a huge relief
because you know exactly where you stand with them. They do not conceal the fact that they are
taking on roles; there is thus nothing duplicitous about them. Those who professionally pretend to be
other people are, in a sense, the only ones in this play whose actions one can clearly sort out, because
they are what they appear to be, with no inner agenda working against the role they play.

Hamlet’s Relationship to Elsinore

The third fact about this play which I would like to consider is particularly obvious: that in
some fundamental way Hamlet feels alienated in the court of Elsinore. He physically and emotionally
refuses to take part in the proceedings, and generally acknowledges to others that he is profoundly
dissatisfied with the court, with Denmark, and even with life itself. This is made very clear to us
before he learns anything about the ghost, the murder, and the need for revenge. The first soliloquy (in
1.2) makes the initial stance of Hamlet clear enough (while raising some important questions about
the cause of this behaviour, given that he’s much more upset about the remarriage of his mother than
the murder of his father). The behaviour of Hamlet towards the normal business going on at Elsinore
is a source of great puzzlement to his mother and to Claudius.

Now, a great deal of the interpretation we favour about this play is going to turn on how we
deal with this displacement of Hamlet from the normal world around him. Prima facie, it strikes me
that there are three immediately obvious possibilities. My description of these is going to be
oversimple, but I think it will be enough to make the point and perhaps get your interpretative
imaginations working.

E. Some Interpretative Possibilities

Given these facts, there are a number of routes we might explore (and which have been
explored) to seek to find some interpretative unity in this frequently ambiguous work. The following
list is not meant to be exhaustive, but it does chart some of the main paths interpreters have followed:

Hamlet as a Noble Prince in a Corrupt and Evil World

First, we can see Elsinore as an essentially corrupt place, an environment in which the nobler
aspects of human life have been hopelessly compromised by the excessive attention to duplicity,
double dealing, and Machiavellian politics, that, in a sense, Claudius and Polonius are clearly the
villains of the place and wholly responsible for the unsatisfactory moral and emotional climate there;

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they are the source of the something rotten in the state of Denmark. If that is so, if, that is, we see
Elsinore and the prevailing powers in it, Claudius and Polonius, as in some sense degenerate
specimens of humanity, then Hamlet’s rejection of that world becomes something with which we can
sympathize. He is right to feel about that world the way he does; his inability to adjust to an evil
environment is a sign of his noble nature. He is being emotionally hammered by a cruel and corrupt
world, and he is trying to hang onto his integrity.

Such an approach would make much of Hamlet’s apparently “philosophical” nature, his
intellectual superiority which enables him to place the actions of Elsinore in a much wider and fairer
context. And it would emphasize the degenerate nature of Claudius and Polonius. Given this quality,
we readily enough understand why Hamlet cannot accept a world of deceit, compromise, and short-
term power grabs. He has to displace himself from this world in order to survive, in order to protect
himself from the general rottenness, while he tries to sort out how he is to act in a world which he
finds so morally unacceptable.

Such an initial displacement would of course be powerfully reinforced by the news about the
murder, since it would simply confirm for Hamlet the nature of the world he does not want to enter.
So his anguish comes from the inner conflict of a spirit who wants to understand the ultimate
significance of human actions, especially his own, before acting in a world empty, so far as he can
see, of significant value. He has looked at life in Elsinore and has become disgusted by what he sees,
and we can sympathize with that because Elsinore is, thanks to the actions of particular people, an evil
place.

This stance, one might maintain, is the source of Hamlet’s cruelty (and he can be very cruel,
especially to Ophelia). Once he suspects that she is complicit in the corruption around her, he lashes
out. Whatever hopes he might have entertained about there being an alternative to the world he sees
around him have been disappointed; she is part of the problem and must be pushed away. Similarly
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in his view, betray his friendship and thus deserve to be dealt with
harshly. His rough treatment of his mother, too, may well stem from a sense that she has collaborated
in the murder of his father (he virtually accuses her of the deed, although it seems clear to us from her
reply that that is the first she has heard of that matter), and her remarriage is a constant reminder of
the emptiness of promises and honest relationships in the world of the court.

In this connection, it’s worth remarking that Hamlet never finally decides to kill Claudius,
formulating a plan and carrying it out. Whatever it is that his holding him back from acting decisively
in the political world retains its hold over him until the very end when he learns that his mother is
dead and that he has only a few minutes to live. Then he kills, just as he killed Polonius, with a
spontaneous speed that does not pause to ground itself in reason. What this establishes about the
moral quality of the Prince’s character, I’m not sure, but it is a significant fact of the play.

Hamlet as a Death-Infected Source of the Rottenness in Elsinore

A second possibility concerning Hamlet’s estrangement from the goings on in Elsinore is that
the source of the problem is not the corruption in Elsinore but some deep inadequacy in Hamlet
himself. The world of Elsinore is indeed full of compromises and evasions and political intrigue. But
it is a recognizably normal adult world, and it does possess some important worth in the love of
Gertrude and Claudius, in the respect and popularity of Claudius, in his political effectiveness, and
perhaps in the loyalty of Polonius to the King and in his concern for his own family (even if we find
that concern often overly pragmatic and emotionally limiting). Hamlet’s displacement from that world
is thus, not so much an indication of his noble, sympathetic character, as a sign of his emotional or
intellectual inadequacy. He is, more than anyone else, the source of something rotten in the state of
Denmark.

In exploring this possibility we might like to consider, for example, that Hamlet is a multiple
killer, who takes seven lives for one. He kills without any compunction, a response that surprises even

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Horatio. He has what one critic (Wilson Knight) has called a “death infected” imagination, always
dwelling on the futility, aridity, and pointlessness of life. Far from having an uplifting philosophical
or poetical nature, he is morbidly obsessed with the fact that he can find no adequate reason for living
in the he world. He is also, in a very real sense, the biggest liar in the play. For all his talk of the
deceptive world of Elsinore and the tactics of Polonius, Hamlet himself is always acting, deceiving,
lying, shielding himself from people and using people to promote his own ends. And most significant
of all, he has a very warped sense of female sexuality, talking of it always in gross terms which
indicate an enormous disgust. Hamlet’s actions are destructive of others and ultimately self-
destructive. For example, in any comparison between Claudius and Hamlet as moral creatures, it
would not be hard to make the case that Claudius is clearly the superior of the two, with a much more
intelligent sense of personal responsibility and a searing sense of his own sinfulness.

This line of interpretation would encourage us to see in Hamlet’s cruelty to Ophelia, to


Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and to Gertrude the expression of a sensibility corrupted by its own
inadequate feelings. His disgust for female sexuality, for example, would stem from a basic
immaturity rather than from a sense of betrayal. Hamlet cannot accept that his mother is a creature
with an active sexual life. And he cannot accept that because he has come to see sexuality as
something depraved, animal like, and disgusting. The response to such feelings is to lash out at her
verbally and perhaps even physically.

It’s particularly interesting that the only other person to talk with such disgust about sexuality
is the ghost. And if we are interested in the origins of Hamlet’s emotionally insecure nature, that scene
with his father is of pivotal importance. We know that Hamlet idealizes his father excessively
(constantly comparing him to a god), and in the similarity of their sentiments on some things and even
in their manner of frequently speaking in triplets (“Words, words, words,” “Remember me, remember
me, remember me,” and so on), there seems to be a strong link between the two, as if to underscore
the idea that for the deficiencies of Hamlet’s character, his father bears a major responsibility.

Those who favour this sense of a significantly corrupting quality in Hamlet’s character and
who wish to link it to his parentage often cite as the “theme” of the play a particularly interesting
passage which comes just before the appearance of the ghost:

So, oft it chances in particular men,

That for some vicious mole of nature in them,

As, in their birth—wherein they are not guilty,

Since nature cannot choose his origin—

By the o’ergrowth of some complexion,

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,

Or by some habit that too much o’er-leavens

The form of plausive manners, that these men,

Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,

Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star,—

Their virtues else—be they as pure as grace,

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As infinite as man may undergo—

Shall in the general censure take corruption

From that particular fault: the dram of eale

Doth all the noble substance of a doubt

To his own scandal.

Enter Ghost (1.4)

Hamlet is here, as usual, making a generalization about human nature or about one particular
character type. The fact that he makes this speech just before the encounter with his father would
seem to underline the fact that there might be a vicious mole of nature in the character of Hamlet
Senior or Hamlet junior or both (this device of making the speech immediately before the entry of a
character carry a strong ironic implication about that character is very common in Shakespeare)..

I should mention here that one very important decision one has to make in one’s imaginative
interpretation of these two possibilities is Hamlet’s age. For that is going to determine to a large
extent whether we see his reaction to Elsinore as something with which we can readily sympathize or
as something fundamentally immature or emotionally inappropriate. Now, we are told Hamlet’s
precise age by the gravedigger, of course, but that piece of specific information is often overlooked in
the interests of a particular interpretation. After all, if Hamlet is, say, eighteen years old, then his
disgust with the political world, with its hypocrisy and double dealing, with his mother’s sexuality and
apparent betrayal of his father, is much easier to accept as a natural reaction by an intelligent and
sensitive personality. If, on the other hand, he is in his mid- thirties then this response might seem an
overreaction, something about which we would expect someone at that stage of life to have reached a
more mature understanding. He might still find it very distasteful, but it would not paralyze his
emotional faculties in quite the same way as in an adolescent, unless there were something wrong.

The Real Villain: The Condition of the World

A third possibility to account for Hamlet’s odd relationship with the court at Elsinore (there
are others), and the one I tend to favour, is that this is a particularly bleak play in which all the
characters, in one way or another, fail, because in the world of Elsinore there is no possibility for a
happy fulfilled life; the conditions of life are loaded against the participants and, in a sense, they are
all victims of a world which will just not admit of the possibilities for the good life in any creative and
meaningful sense.

I find, for example, that in the world of Elsinore my sympathies are constantly aroused and
then canceled out in various ways. I admire and respect Claudius at first, I respond with admiration to
his evident love and affectionate and courteous treatment of Gertrude, but I recognize that he is an
evil man, guilty of a horrible crime, and then I see him wrestling with an enormous guilt, which is a
factor only because he is a deeply religious person who believes in his own damnation and will not
take an easy way out. This is not a simple villain, but a complex human being locked into a situation
where there is simply nothing he can do.

Hamlet, similarly, constantly arouses conflicting responses. One of the great attractions of this
play is the protean quality of the Prince’s character. His mind is always interesting, and his suffering
is very genuine. Like Claudius he is wrestling with the world, and he is not being very successful. He

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does not see any way out of his distress, and when he reflects on the final meaning of everything, he
can reach no joyful conclusion. All of this makes Hamlet an immensely interesting and sympathetic
character. On the other hand, he is so often brutal, in language and deed, especially to those who love
him, he is so deceitful and vacillating, that again and again I find myself questioning his moral
sensitivity.

Gertrude also is in a similar situation. She genuinely loves Hamlet and Claudius. But the two
men in her life are on a downward spiral and so is she. Life is too much for her. What she seems to
want is something very basic: a happy family. But life is denying her that, no matter how she tries.

In this play, it doesn’t matter how people try to deal with life: they all fail. Life is too much
for them. Whether they embrace the conditions of Elsinore, like Polonius, and seek to operate by the
Machiavellian principles of the political world, or seek for love, like Ophelia or Gertrude, or try to
find some intellectual understanding of things, like Hamlet, life defeats all of them. They all die in the
mass killing at the end. The two main survivors, Horatio and Fortinbras, are interesting exceptions.
The first is essentially a spectator of life, a student, perhaps even a Montaigne like figure, a friend of
Hamlet but unable to offer any useful insights into what might be done and someone who initiates
nothing. The other is a mindless romantic militarist, who defines his life in terms of pointless
conquests in the name of glory. Life does not seem to trouble him because he comes across as an
unreflecting man who asks nothing of life except that it provides him with some barren ground which
he and his troops can fight over in the name of military glory.

Who is happy in this play? Who has life figured out? I can see only one character leading a
fully realized happy life, and that is the gravedigger. He spends his life surrounded by death, by the
disintegrating remains of his friends and companions. And what does he do? He sings, he jokes, he
turns what he has into a joyous acceptance of the world. He is the only person in the play with a
creative sense of humour, using language and wit, not to protect himself from encounters with life but
to transform the horror of his surrounding into an affirming human experience. It’s important to note
that his humour is quite different from Hamlet’s. The latter is essentially a rhetorical defense, often
bitter and caustic, an expression of an unwillingness to engage the world. The gravedigger’s humour,
by contrast, is affirming and transforming, something playful, healthy, and creative. I don’t think it’s
an accident that the gravedigger is the only person whose humour is clearly superior to Hamlet’s. But
he is only a gravedigger, and his spirit is entirely absent from the court.

When Fortinbras takes over Elsinore at the end of the play, what has been resolved? What
sense of moral order does he bring with him? None whatsoever. This is a world which does not admit
complex, peaceful, and satisfying visions of the good life. It answers only to the realities of military
power. And those who try to demand more from life, as Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Opheila, and
Polonius do, end up destroying each other and becoming victims in their turn.

I sense that Fortinbras’s triumphant entry at the end is a reassertion of the world of Hamlet
Senior, who was, we know, also a warrior who devoted his life to military glories. My own sense of
the ghost is that Hamlet Senior was something of a nasty piece of work—an egocentric, hard, and
unforgiving misogynist—successful in the very narrow terms of this armour-plated world, which has
little room in it for love, understanding, forgiveness, or anything but those pointless power exercises
which increased his own glory. Once I have seen Hamlet Senior and heard him talk, I have immense
sympathy for Gertrude and no difficulty at all in understanding how she could really love a man like
Claudius. It also makes very suspect the extraordinarily idealized vision of the dead king which
Hamlet carries around. The fact that Hamlet Senior is consistently motivated more by a desire to hurt
Gertrude for loving another man than to avenge his own murder simply confirms in my mind the
overwhelmingly hard egocentricity and misogyny of the famous king.

It may well be that Hamlet’s distress stems, in large part, from a desire to see his father in an
idealized light when part of him knows well enough that that’s a fiction. As an obedient son, he wants
to carry out the old warrior’s commands; he is desperate to follow his father’s wishes. But that

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requires him to see his mother as the guilty party, and part of him surely knows that the moral balance
of his parents’ marriage was not that simple. That’s why he just will not listen to his mother. He will
lecture her, but he doesn’t give her much of a chance to reply. If he starts to listen to her, he is going
to have to rethink entirely his relationship with his father.

The one moment, in my view a decisively significant one, when Gertrude almost gets a
chance to answer Hamlet’s suspicions comes in 3.4, her bedroom, when his aggressive verbal attack
on her drives her to shout “No more.” I sense here that there’s only one place for this conversation to
go, that is, Gertrude will reply to Hamlet’s charges with some important confessions about her past
life, some truths about herself and Hamlet’s father. This does not happen, of course, because the ghost
enters at ends that part of the conversation.

There are two things about this entry of the ghost of Hamlet Senior I find intriguing (apart
from the timing of his entrance). The first is that Gertrude cannot see him. How are we to interpret
this point? My assumption is that the Ghost has some control over who sees him and who doesn’t, and
for some reason he does not want to confront his wife in their old bedroom. The second point is the
stage direction, “in his nightgown.” The authority of this stage direction is disputable, but I find it a
fertile suggestion. He has abandoned his armour, the symbol of his warrior status, and is now dressed
for bed. But he is not going to face his wife, let her see him and exchange words with her. Perhaps
this is a place where he knows his authority is suspect, where he has failed. And he certainly does not
want some revelation of his relationship with Gertrude to be given to his son Hamlet, the agent (let us
remember) of his revenge. It’s important, at this point, to recall that the Ghost also wants revenge
against Gertrude. He may tell Hamlet not to harm his mother, but he also makes it clear that, as a
result of the revenge against Claudius, Gertrude will have to sleep alone or, to use the Ghost’s own
language, that the only “prick in her bed” will be her conscience.

Why then has he come? The reason is clear. He wants to stop the conversation between
Hamlet and Gertrude and get Hamlet back on the focused track of revenge. And his intervention is
effective. Gertrude loses her growing emotional intensity (a quality which might well have led her, as
I say, to answer Hamlet with some telling indication of her past life), and for most of the rest of the
scene lets Hamlet do the talking.

I often wonder what might have happened (a fruitless but intriguing exercise) if Hamlet and
Gertrude had been allowed to have a real conversation where Gertrude really confronted her son with
the truth of her feelings about Hamlet Senior and Claudius, where she had at least once tried to make
him see her side of the story and where Hamlet actually listened carefully. The fact that the Ghost
makes sure that doesn’t happen suggests to me that the results would not have been particularly
flattering to him and might have acquainted Hamlet with some facts of life which would have made
the revenge impossible.

My own view is that the ghost of Hamlet Senior and what that symbolizes are, more than
anything else, responsible for the conditions in Elsinore and for the climate which makes everyone in
this play a victim. Claudius and Gertrude tried to create a different form of life, Hamlet tries to sort
out just where one might find a different form of life, but the ghost is ultimately too much for them.
Hamlet Senior, together with his reincarnation in Fortinbras, is the spirit of the world, and Hamlet’s
suspicions were right: the Ghost comes from the Devil, who is responsible for the world of Elsinore
against which no one can struggle successfully.

[In a recent (2008) production of Hamlet in New York City (directed by Oskar Eustis) this
harsh aspect of the play was particularly emphasized at the end when Fortinbras uttered the line “Go,
bid the soldiers shoot.” In response to the order, one of his officers pulled out a pistol and killed
Horatio, thus cancelling out any final tribute to Hamlet.]

I’m not suggesting that this particular reading of the play is especially privileged over any
other. As I have said repeatedly, this is a very complex and ambiguous work which admits of many

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possibilities. But I like this third main possibility because it answers to my immediate response to the
play, that combination of sympathy and distaste which every main character in it elicits from me, the
sense that they are all in the grip of something which they cannot fully understand or fight
successfully against. That interpretation makes this play a particularly bitter and despairing vision of
life, without the potential affirmations of traditional comedy or tragedy. But for me it makes the best
sense of the puzzling ambiguities at the heart of our most elusive literary work.

One Postscript: A Caveat

The view sketched out above sees the Ghost as a (perhapsthe) key to understanding a great
deal of what matters in this play. In dealing with this character, one has to be careful about appeals to
context, explaining away the complexities by references to James I’s interest in the supernatural or to
what people in Shakespeare’s time believed, and so on. Such appeals can be used to prove almost
anything about the Ghost, as William Empson reminds us:

The official Protestant position was that all apparent Ghosts are devils trying to instigate sin;
also that Purgatory does not exist, so that this Ghost in saying it has come from Purgatory
must be lying. . . . From the point of view of James I, as I understand, any usurper once
legally crowned had the Divine Right, and only a devil could supernaturally encourage
murder of him. (“Hamlet” in Essays on Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p.
111)]

This may be true enough, but we have no idea whether Shakespeare subscribed to such a view
or whether his audience were all orthodox. Nowadays, of course, we have a different “official” view
of witches, ghosts, and devils, but that doesn’t stop artists from using them very successfully in fiction
or the audience from entering fully into the world of that fiction. The challenge in Hamlet (as in all of
the plays) is to let one’s understanding of the character arise from the details of the text, not to make
up one’s mind and then impose that view upon the text with some contextual reinforcement. What
matters is not the Jacobean view of the supernatural but our response to this Ghost as a dramatic
character.

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Speak What We Feel: An Introduction to King Lear

Introduction

Anyone setting out to deliver a lecture on King Lear begins with a sense of inadequacy: How
is one to capture properly this amazingly complex and powerful vision of human life? It’s clear that
anything I say here is going to be seriously inadequate. That’s true, of course, about any lecture on
Shakespeare (or on any other work of great literature), but for obvious reasons the issue is particularly
acute with King Lear. So I am here not going to attempt anything like a comprehensive introduction.
What I offer are a few remarks to encourage you to recognize some general things in this play, so that
your next reading of it may be more rewarding. I am not here, any more than anywhere else, offering
what I take (or anyone else should take) as a final word.

Some Obvious Points

In King Lear, as in so many great works of literature, many of the most important elements
are the most obvious, and we should not, for the sake of exploring particular complexities, lose sight
of these elements.

First and foremost, King Lear is the story of an old man who moves from a position of
enormous power, status, wealth, responsibility, social complexity, and security step by step into a
terrible isolation from his fellow human beings, his family, and nature itself, suffers horribly from the
stripping away of his entire identity, goes mad as a result of his experience, recovers briefly, and then
becomes insane again in the moment before his death. In no other work of fiction (not even
in Oedipus or Macbeth) do we witness a total transformation from such magnificence to total despair
rendered with such emotional intensity. That intensity is heightened by the fact that Lear’s story is
underscored throughout by the similar experiences of the Duke of Gloucester.

Second, King Lear is in many respects a relatively simple story, and its structure has some
obvious similarities with old folk takes (“Once upon a time, there was an old man who had three
daughters. Two of them despised him, but the youngest one loved him very much. One day he
decided to test their love. . . . And so on). This apparent simplicity is brought out also in the elements
of a morality play surrounding the King. The forces of good and evil are grouped around him in
almost equal numbers, and the action of the play can be viewed as a struggle for the life of the old
man, since to a large extent these rival groups define themselves by their attitudes to the suffering
king. These elements give the particularity of Lear’s unique narrative a much wider and more timeless
quality. What we are dealing with here is not just a single old man (important as that point of view is),
but with human beings generally.

Third, the central struggle in the play (other than the main one going on in Lear’s own mind)
is between people who see their relationship with Lear and with others from different perspectives.
Those who seek to assist Lear and strive to combat the forces who wish to abuse him (e.g., Kent,
Cordelia, the Fool, Edgar, Gloucester, and eventually Albany) are motivated principally by a
traditional sense of love, respect, and allegiance—a complex set of virtues summed up in the
important terms “bond” and “ceremonious affection.” These people see themselves as defined in large
part by their significant relationships with other people, especially with Lear himself.

The other group is made up of those who serve primarily themselves, whose attitude towards
others is largely determined by their desire to use people for their own self-advancement (e.g., Regan,
Goneril, Cornwall, Edmund, Oswald). For them, traditional notions of the importance of bonds are
illusions, outmoded conventions standing in the way of their individual desire for power. Thus, they
are ready to violate established bonds (like those between a father and child or between a husband and

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wife or between a king and subject) in order to pursue their own agendas. In the context of the
vocabulary we have been using for other plays, these characters are recognizably Machiavels.

Fourth, by the end of the play, the opposing forces have largely annihilated each other. Those
remaining have very little to say. Unlike the end of other Shakespearean tragedies, there is no clear
and confident voice of authority directing things (e.g., Fortinbras, Malcolm), and there is no attempt
to sum up what has happened or to offer any sort of a tribute to the dead hero. We will be looking
later at different interpretative possibilities with the closing moments of King Lear, but if we simply
confine our attention to the text, there is little sense of a communal coming together at the end with
hopes for a healthy regeneration. Whatever the action adds up to is thus left for us to figure out.

The Denial of an Easy Moral Understanding of King Lear

Given the strongly allegorical basis to the groupings of characters in the play, it might be
tempting to see the most important feature of King Lear as the illustration of some sort of “lesson” as
the working out of some theme or other. This approach, it should be clear from our dealings with
other plays, I would like to avoid at all costs, since (as I have repeatedly stressed) Shakespearean
tragedy at its finest cannot be reduced to some easy moral summation, some statement about the
“meaning” of what we have just witnessed.

Now, one interesting feature of King Lear is that the author seems to have gone out of his way
to make any such tendency to moralize the story difficult to carry out. And one obvious (and
interesting) way he does that is to have particular characters in the story offer their own moral
evaluations of what they are going through (or putting others through). These evaluative statements
attempt to invoke some simple moral explanation to account for what is going on. Here is a sample of
what I mean:

O, sir, to willful men,

The injuries that they themselves procure

Must be their schoolmaster. (3.1.296-298)

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;

They kill us for their sport. (4.1.57-58)

This shows you are above,

You justicers, that these our nether crimes

So speedily can venge! (4.2.79-81)

It is the stars,

The stars above us, govern our conditions: (4.3.31-32)

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Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither;

Ripeness is all. (5.2.9-11)

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to plague us. (5.34.169-170)

These moral generalizations attempt to place the sufferings that are going on into some
conventional framework of justice. The sayings range from a sense that the gods are irrationally cruel
(“They kill us for their sport”) to a sense that there is a providential justice at work in events, to a call
for Stoical resignation. But the point is, I think, that they all fail to capture the totality of our
experience of what is going on. We recognize such moments for what they are: attempts to rationalize
the emotional suffering that is going on, to place it in some familiar conceptual framework. But we
also recognize the inadequacy of such quick and easy moral summations of events, for the action
going on here simply is too complex, ironic, and particular to be contained by a short formula. The
pattern of these moments is designed to put pressure on us to recognize that, however we make sense
of this play, we are going to have to attend to its detailed particularity and complexity, which will not
be fitted easily into the usual simple moral categories upon which we rely most of the time.

This point becomes explicit in the closing lines of the play (spoken by Edgar or Albany,
depending on the edition you are using):

The weight of this sad time we must obey;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest hath borne most; we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long. (5.3.322.325)

All one can do, these lines suggest, is seek to honour one’s own deepest feelings about the
drama we have witnessed. At such times whatever our moral framework of belief (what “we ought to
say”) must give way before the genuine expression of our imaginative sympathies, which may well be
difficult to formulate clearly.

With this insight in mind, I shall avoid trying to offer a rational explanation of what King
Lear is “about.” Instead I will offer some separate observations of things which, it strikes me, are
central to any reflections about this play.

The Issue of Lear’s Identity: The Descent Into Madness

At the start of the play King Lear has rich, powerful, and complex social identity. He is both
king of his country and patriarch of his family, the lynch pin which holds together the structure of the
society, which the opening scene presents to us in full formal splendour. Everyone looks to him as the
source of order and meaning in the society. The opening scene of this play, like the opening scene

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in Richard II, serves to give us a full visual symbol of the society united in a shared vision of what
matters in the human community. This is the only time in the play where such a vision of the human
community stands in working order in front of us. Before the first scene is over, it has already started
to fracture.

Lear himself is very powerfully aware of his importance. His vision of himself is perfectly
satisfied because the world gives back to him the image of himself that he has, an image which he
obviously likes a great deal, because his chief purpose at this stage is to hang onto it. Lear’s sense of
himself is clear enough if we ask ourselves just what he is doing in this opening scene. Officially he is
transferring the power and the responsibilities of the throne onto his children: he is resigning. We are
not given an explicit reason other than that Lear wants to spend the rest of his life free of the cares
which come with the position of king. He has carefully arranged an unnecessary ritual in order to
celebrate his own importance.

But in surrendering the position, Lear has no intention of ceasing to be treated as if he is, in
fact, still the king: He is not going to alter his identity:

Only we still retain

The name, and all the additions to a king. . . (1.1.135-136)

Lear clearly believes that his identity as king is something separable from the actions, duties,
and responsibilities which are required of a king (i.e., from his social actions), just as he thinks his
authority as a father is something separable from the duties of a father. This suggests initially a very
limited understanding, not only of the people he is dealing with, but also of how the society he has
been in charge of (or indeed, any society or family) is held together. Cordelia invokes the term
“bond,” and we shall have more to say about the word later on. Lear’s sense of social or family
bonding seems clearly to be that the bonds work in one direction only, that is, they indicate what
people owe him. And he assumes by reflex that such one-way bonding can continue once he ceases to
discharge the duties of king. So initially there is a strong sense that Lear’s identity, his sense of
himself, rests on no firm understanding of other people and his relationships to them.

Some critics make much of the fact that Lear’s decision to divide up the kingdom is a sign of
foolishness (symbolized by the division of the crown between Albany and Cornwall) and the fact that
the ritual Lear sets up before granting the various allocations of territory (which have been decided in
advance) is designed totally to reinforce his powerful ego. But neither of these actions in itself need
lead to disastrous consequences, and no one seems to object to them.

The real cause of the sequence of events which leads ultimately to Lear’s death is Lear’s
inability to tolerate any view of himself except the one he himself has. What’s important is not that he
quarrels with Cordelia for spoiling his self-flattering court pageant but the way he quarrels with her.
The extraordinary speed and violence of his response tell us at once that we are witnessing here an
enormously powerful ego which simply cannot accept any external check on his sense of how he
should be treated because of who he is.

We know from the actions of France (who is the only one on stage equal in social status to
Lear) and Kent (who speaks very bluntly and stops only when Lear charges him on his “allegiance”)
and from the remarks of the sisters at the end of the scene, that Lear is making an enormous
misjudgment. But we also realize clearly enough that at this point that Lear simply cannot hear or see
anything which does not fit his own conception of himself. The strength of this solitary ego manifests

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itself in the extraordinarily powerful and brutal images with which Lear expresses his anger at
Cordelia’s refusal to play along with his game:

The barbarous Scythian,

Or he that makes his generation messes

To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom

Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved,

As thou my sometime daughter. (1.1.116-119)

The language here and the emotions it expresses are so incommensurate to the surface events
which have prompted it, so in excess of the cause, that there can be only one explanation: Lear is so
passionately wrapped up in a particular conception of himself that he simply explodes emotionally
when any form of a challenge (however politely framed) from any quarter manifests itself.

The anger here launches the story, which, from this point on, focuses (among other things) on
the stripping away of all those things that Lear has always relied upon to reinforce his sense of his
own importance, of his identity, until he is left alone, naked, and mad running through nature away
from all society. Because Lear cannot tolerate Cordelia’s apparent failure to live up to what he
requires from her for his own self-gratification, he unleashes a chain of events which ultimately
removes everything from him which reassures him who he is.

It’s in the context of this step-by-step loss of his earlier identity (or the external
manifestations of it) that the question of Lear’s hundred knights becomes a central issue. The hundred
knights are not, in themselves, at all necessary to Lear’s daily routine and comforts (as the sisters
point out, quite correctly). But they are essential to his sense of his identity as the leader, the person to
whom others defer and give allegiance. They are there to give back to him the image of himself he
wants to maintain.

Regan and Goneril are quite correct to resent Lear’s huge retinue and to sense that their father
is gripped by a self-image which has no accurate perception of the new reality. Depending upon how
the knights behave in any production of the play, the audience can see the truth in their objections. In
Brook’s famous film of King Lear, the behaviour of Lear and his knights is disgraceful; they spend all
their time making a great deal of noise, eating and drinking (or demanding more), and in general
throwing the palaces into turmoil. So it’s not necessarily the case that denying Lear his knights makes
the two sisters bad people. Here again, what matters (as we shall see later) is how they handle the
issue.

Lear’s story is a tragedy because, faced with external circumstances which increasingly do
not support his vision of himself, Lear refuses to compromise. He will not listen to what the fool is
telling him, he resists his own growing awareness that he might have made a mistake, and, most
important, he will not adjust his desires or his conduct to fit what his daughters are prepared to do for
him. He would sooner take on the natural world alone and endure the enormous suffering that brings
upon him than compromise with his sense of himself in the face of political realities.

This characteristic makes him, of course, a passionately egocentric, loud, and in many
respects unsympathetic character. But what redeems him is the quality of his passion and his
willingness to suffer. He has launched himself on a voyage exploring what it means to be a human

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being once one strips away all the extras that help to tell him what he is. That’s not his conscious
purpose, of course, but that is the direction in which the logic of his passions leads him. He is not
going to compromise his sense of himself to suit the world; he’d sooner reject the world or, more
immediately, move away and create his own.

That impetus pushes Lear out into the storm. To return to the castle would be to concede
defeat, to admit he no longer is King Lear (as he sees himself), because he would be living by
conditions imposed by someone else. Instead he will try to impose his sense of himself on the
elements of nature. If he cannot find justice in his family and in his kingdom, he will seek it from the
gods:

Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o’er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulgéd crimes,

Unwhipped of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;

Thou perjured, and thou simular of virtue

That are incestuous. Caitiff, to pieces shake,

That under covert and convenient seeming

Hast practiced on man’s life. Close pent-up guilts

Rive your concealing continents, and cry

These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man

More sinned against than sinning. (3.2.47-58)

At this stage, Lear sees the storm as a possible manifestation of divine anger at the way he has
been treated. He is searching for a sign from the gods that he is right. His stance is (to us) absurd
(although we have probably all known some old men with a similar tendency to scream at the world if
they don’t get their way), but his sense of outrage is so powerful, he is filled with such a passionate
self-pity, that he is, like Job, demanding justice from the chaos of natural forces all around him,
seeking an answer from God.

But there’s more to Lear’s passion here than his demand for justice. He is also fighting a war
against himself, against the growing awareness that he, too, might be a sinner. Earlier, he has given
some brief signs that a sense of his own culpability is growing within—for example, the cryptic
statement “I did her wrong—” (1.5.20), and his repeatedly expressed sense that he may be starting to
lose his mind indicates that his rage at the storm is, in part, an increasingly desperate demand for
something to protect his own sense of his identity as king-victim against the corrosive effects of a new

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awareness of his own responsibilities. His extraordinarily powerful language is his attempt to
compensate for a lack of physical power to bring his vision of justice upon those who have offended
him as well as his attempt to project his personality out into the world so he will not have to deal with
his inner doubts, which make him very afraid, because they force him to rethink who he is.

In this regard, it is significant that, the moment before he goes mad, Lear for the first time
stops thinking about himself and calling attention to his own sense of injustice. Instead for the first
time he expresses some genuine feeling for the sufferings of others:

Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,


That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall our houseless heads and unfed sides,
You looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! (3.4.29-34)

That final sentence is something we have not heard from Lear before, an assumption of
responsibility, a piece of unprompted self-criticism. But this hint is not something that leads, as it
might in a comic character, to some growth in his understanding, for the instant later he goes mad. It’s
as if he can no longer hang onto the identity he has been defending for so long and he has nothing to
put in its place or is incapable of seeing what he might put in its place.

The sight of Edgar disguised as Poor Tom, the naked madman, drives Lear beyond any sense
of a sane identity. Having no place in which to find a suitable reflection of himself, Lear throws
himself on the insanity of the world. He asked for justice from nature, and it threw a madman in his
face.

Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide,
the sheep no wool, that cat no perfume. Ha! Here’s three on’s are sophisticated! Thou are the
thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.
Off, off, you lendings! come unbutton here. (Tearing off his clothes) (3.4.95-101)

The act of tearing off his clothes (which, as we shall discuss, Lear repeats at the very end of
the play) is the forcible rejection of the last element of civilized life which gives him a sense of who
he is and where he belongs. It signifies, among other things, Lear’s inevitable surrender to the torment
in his mind which has desperately been seeking for some reassurance. Having found none, he
acknowledges the absurdity of the world by joining it, not as the result of reflecting upon what he
might have learned and consciously deciding, but because he cannot hang onto any reliable indication
of who he is. This formulation may be too neat, however, for there is a sense that the tearing off of his
clothes and the leap into madness is something willed. He makes the decision to go mad (which, in
itself, may be a sign of madness), thus retaining control over his own life (rather like Oedipus
determining to punish himself by gouging out his eyes and banishing himself from the city). Since he
feels as if the world has gone insane and since Lear always responds instantly to his most powerful
feelings, he commits himself to the full isolation of insanity.

The fact that the sight of Edgar in disguise prompts the action is interesting. Perhaps there’s a
sense that Lear recognizes in Poor Tom the nearest image of himself, an “unaccommodated man,” that

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is, a man without any mark of society upon him, for he lacks the most basic of all the things which
help to tell us who we are, clothing and organized speech.

Just as the order in the natural world is rendered absurd by the storm, so the order in the social
world is rendered absurd by the absence within it (for Lear) of any vestige of justice, any of that order,
ceremonious affection, allegiance, and mutuality which define us in terms of our relationships with
others. Lacking the customary social components of his identity, Lear loses any sense of who he is
and, consequently, surrenders his grip on reality.

The situation, however, is more complex than this, because, of course, Poor Tom is not really
mad and Kent is not really who is appearing to be. And Gloucester is doing what he can to assist. In
other words, the social relations necessary to foster a rich identity are present. For Kent truly loves
Lear, as does the Fool, and Gloucester has a firm sense of love and duty to the old king. Edgar, too, is
only pretending to be mad as a way of protecting himself. So, in a sense, the very thing that Lear most
needs are readily available to him.

The problem is that he not attuned to recognize these qualities in others (as the repeated
metaphors of seeing and blindness remind us). His old identity only enables him to see what he wants
to see. What doesn’t fit doesn’t enter his consciousness, and he dismisses it, drowns it out, or doesn’t
listen to it sufficiently to recognize what he later comes to understand when he wakes up in Cordelia’s
camp. Act III of King Lear is a vision of world gone mad, not because there is no significant love or
trust or courage or virtue in the world, but because King Lear himself is not at this stage equipped to
recognize those things. He has tried so hard to impose his will on the world and received no response
other than the meaningless storm, that he determines to join it.

A high point of Lear’s initial madness comes in 3.6, in the mock trial scene, in which the mad
Lear, the apparently mad Edgar, the disguised Kent, and the Fool set up a court of justice to arraign
and try Regan and Goneril, while the storm rages outside the hovel. On the page a good deal of this
scene makes little sense, and it certainly loses much of its impact. But we should see its point readily
enough. In the world Lear has entered, the world of unaccommodated man, human beings reduced to
the minimal humanity of their naked bodies, justice becomes absurd. The demand for justice may be
as powerful as ever, but the process by which one seeks it out and the language appropriate to that
have become a cruel farce or a meaningless game which simply prolongs the suffering of the players
(it’s possible to see in Act 3 of King Lear an anticipation of the Theatre of the Absurd, in which a
central concern is the often cruel games people invent simply to convince themselves they are passing
the time appropriately).

The intense psychological cruelty of this absurd farce is powerfully underscored by the next
scene, one of the most painful in all English theatre, the gouging out of Gloucester’s eyes. This, too, is
a “justice” scene, in the sense that someone is being judged and punished. The scene is not played out
in the midst of the storm by a bunch of isolated social outcasts, but the physical cruelty of the
arbitrary punishment matches the psychological absurdity of the scene in the hovel. Lear’s madness
leaves him incapable of dealing with reality, but this scene insists that reality itself has become
equally mad, equally unjust, equally cruel. The punishment of Gloucester is carried out in the name of
policy by important political officials in a measured and calculated way in the name of self-interested
“policy,” for there is no passionate personal animosity involved here. And it has been made possible
by a son’s betrayal of his father. It is a vision of life every bit as arbitrary and absurd as the
punishment the inner and outer storms are inflicting on Lear (or, rather, which Lear is bringing down
upon himself in the storm).

The full terrible absurdity of both of these stories comes together in 4.6, when the blind
Gloucester, immediately after his attempted suicide, meets the solitary Lear “fantastically dressed
with wild flowers.” Lear at this stage is still evidently completely mad, having lost all faith in any
sense of order, meaning, or stablity in the world, obsessed with the intimate connection between evil
and female sexuality and the total perversion of justice everywhere.

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Yet Gloucester recognizes him (from his voice) as the king, and Lear acknowledges that title
(“Aye, every inch aking!” 4.6.105), but for him the very notion of kingship has become absurd; there
is no significant place any more for what a king represents and carries out, so he refuses Gloucester’s
offer to kiss his hand and torments Gloucester about the loss of his eyes (even though he does admit at
last that he recognizes Gloucester). The possibility of sharing something with Gloucester, of
acknowledging Gloucester’s love and loyalty or even sympathizing with his obvious suffering (and
perhaps being acknowledged in return) Lear rejects in a passionate frenzy against the injustice of the
world.

Here it’s as if Lear, reduced to nothing but his overpowering sense of betrayal and loss, can
come up with only one way of dealing with the world: “Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.” What will
not answer to his sense of who he is and how the world ought to be can only be destroyed. Rather than
destroy within himself the egocentric will which demands that the world answer to him, Lear prefers
to will the destruction of the world.

By why is it that Lear cannot see Gloucester and accept him as an extraordinary victim? In a
well known essay on this play, Stanley Cavell suggests that all of Lear’s actions, from the very
opening to the end of the play, stem from a desire to avoid shame, to avoid accepting the world (rather
than demanding it answer to him), because accepting the world would mean that he would have to
allow the world to recognize him for who he is. Lear’s persistent refusal to express love and let others
(especially Cordelia) express their love openly and honestly (which is something quite different from
wanting the world to perceive him as a beloved father and king, the motivation for the opening staged
ritual) stems from something he senses about himself and does not wish to reveal to the world. Cavell
further suggests that Lear’s extraordinary rage at seeing Gloucester comes from his being confronted
directly with a consequence of his own attempts to avoid shame. This is not simply a matter of the
mutilation of Gloucester but also a merging of Gloucester’s and Lear’s characters. In a sense, Cavell
argues, Gloucester is for Lear an image of what Lear has done to himself. (See “The Avoidance of
Love: A Reading of King Lear” in Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare)

Whether we accept Cavell’s argument or not, it is clear in this extraordinary scene that Lear is
still far too preoccupied with his own agenda, with discharging his passionate anger out into the
world, to pay attention sympathetically to anything going on in the world. The way in which he teases
Gloucester about the loss of his eyes may be more than just the effects of madness (an expression
which explains nothing); the black humour functions as a protection for Lear. So long as he can joke
about Glouchester’s condition, he does not have to do anything about it and can, with increasing
desperation, protect himself. He has to push away Gloucester’s offer to pay allegiance in order to
make that possible; if he lets Gloucester too close he may have to really look at him and reveal to
Gloucester who he really is and acknowledge that to himself, as well.

The Forces of Evil

Lear, of course, does not himself willingly bring down upon his head the forces which drive
him out into the heath. His fault (if that is the right word) is to create a situation where others can give
rein to their desire to promote their own individualistic interests, their quest for power, against the
normal bonds which restrain them. Lear is not the source of the immediate forces which create his
enormous suffering, but he is responsible for giving those who oppose him an opportunity to act
successfully against him and his followers.

King Lear thus is the culmination of a frequent Shakespearean theme, the idea that the forces
of evil require for their operation the willed neglect or ignorance of or carelessness about the
responsibilities which sustain justice in the human community. It’s as if, to invoke the image of order
in Ulysses’s speech on degree, the collapse of the moral order which sustains normal life always
begins with an important lapse in the responsiblity of those charged with maintaining it. This lapse
may come from selfishness, ignorance, an egotistical preoccupation with one’s own importance, or

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any other such cause. The important point is that once that occurs those whom the moral order
normally can deal with have opportunities to violate the traditional rules.

However, the vision of evil here is different in some respects. Evil in King Lear is not a
metaphysical presence, as it is in Macbeth, nor is it some personification of the Devil loose in the
land, as in Richard III. One of the most reverberating issues in this play is the sense that evil is
somethingnormal, residing in the hearts of people all around us, those on the surface indistinguishable
from ourselves, people whom we would have no reason to suspect of being capable of evil acts and
who, were circumstances different, might very well not turn to evil.

Regan and Goneril, after all, are not witches. Their most distinctive characteristic is, in some
ways, their normality. They are ambitious women who have waited a long time to receive the power
which is to be their inheritance. And once they have the power, they are anxious to use it for their own
immediate self-interest. No special opprobrium attaches to them for telling their father how much they
love him. What they say is obviously an exaggerated lie, but they are playing a game which he has set
up. And, as I have mentioned above, their objections to Lear’s retinue are (or can be seen as) largely
justified. One can even have some sympathy for their sense that if they turn their father loose with all
those knights, there may be some political trouble.

The source of their evil is an absence of love or respect for their father, both as a father, a
king, and a human being. Lear may very well be a difficult person to deal with—a strong egotist with
excessive demands. But Regan and Goneril, once they have power, have no further interest in Lear as
a person. He is simply a nuisance. We do not need to demonize this attitude, because Lear clearly is a
nuisance. But the casual way in which they rationalize away their neglect of him speaks volumes.
They set their own interests above those of anyone else, including their father. This does not spring
from any particular desire to hurt their father. It is simply an expression of their pre-eminent concern
for their own interests, a concern which enables them to treat anyone who has nothing they want as an
object. But the habit, once initiated, leads step by step to conduct of extreme cruelty (like the putting
out of Gloucester’s eyes) and his banishment to Dover.

Regan and Goneril thus represent a particular vision of evil as stemming from a self-
interested quest for power and self-interest which simply ignores any limits which an attention to
traditional “bonds” might require (other than a duplicitous pretense to honour such bonds when it
serves their interests). This origin is common enough; that it leads logically enough to uncommonly
cruel conduct is something this play makes us contemplate.

Edmund’s attitude is precisely the same. He is not a diabolically evil person, a devil incarnate
like Richard of Gloucester. And he has no specific agenda. He is a recognizably normal person who
wants to get on the world and who is prepared to abandon ancient communal traditions in order to
secure an advantage for himself. He’s not all that interested in being cruel to others or killing them
just for sake of hurting others, but he’s not going to let any traditional notions of obligation, respect,
virtue, or bonding prevent him from making what he can of his opportunities.

Edmund’s soliloquy at the opening of 1.2 repays close scrutiny, because it indicates his basic
attitude to life. For him the idea of “Nature” signifies a world without legitimacy. One is entitled to
whatever one can gain by one’s wits. He relishes the notion of being a bastard because that is the most
obvious manifestation of his commitment to denying traditions. For him, as for Regan and Goneril,
there is no standard of virtue which determines the value of one’s life. People are what they are, and
that is simply a compound of desires and talents to seize opportunities. The prose soliloquy at the end
of the scene brings this point out very explicitly:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit
of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we

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were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by
spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion
of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father
compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major,
so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the
maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. (1.2.109-122).

This prose soliloquy indicates Edmund’s sense of the total absence of a controlling
metaphysical or moral component to human life. Human beings are what they are—and, in Edmund’s
view, they are anything but admirable, simply one more greedy animal with a “goatish disposition.”
That being the case, his task, as he sees it, is to create for himself out of the materials at hand his own
life to suit his individualistic desires.

This, for most of us, is such a natural stance, that we don’t initially have too much trouble in
seeing the logic of Edmund’s position. He wants to fashion his own life, rather than being held back
by traditional customs which have labeled him unfit or ineligible to attain the sort of life he wants for
himself. He sees himself as just as intelligent and able as his older brother and therefore is not willing
simply to concede that the customs which will make his brother a duke while leaving him on the
sidelines, just because he was born illegitimately fourteen months later than Edgar, should have any
bearing on what he chooses to do.

Edmund expresses himself with a rough and candid vigour tinged with self-deprecating
humour and a cynical intelligence which is (at first) quite attractive. We can feel in this character
something of the same intimacy with the audience as we felt in Richard of Gloucester. In a play which
features such characters as Lear and Gloucester, so out of touch at first with the living heart of the
bonds which link human beings, so complacent about their own patriarchal authority, Edmund’s
response does not lack some justification.

And it’s important to note that Edmund (unlike Richard of Gloucester or Macbeth) does not
have his eye fixed on any final goal. He wants to stir things up so that he can improvise his way to a
better position, which for him means attain more power and prestige. As he says, “Let me, if not by
birth, have lands by wit;/ All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit” (1.2.167-169). He has no particular
desire to injure his father or his brother; he just wants them out of his way, so he can be what he wants
to be. His later complicity in the torturing of his father is a logical extension of this attitude to life, not
part of his original desire to mutilate Gloucester. But his willingness to betray his father indicates just
how much he sees other people merely as instruments to be manipulated to his own ends.

As mentioned above, Regan and Goneril are much the same. It’s not that they bear any
special animosity against Lear. They are not seeking revenge or anything like that. They just want him
out of the way so that they can create their own lives, without the need to attend to Lear’s demands.
Like Edmund, they have some justification for this attitude initially, for Lear is in some ways really
difficult to deal with. But the logic of their self-interest leads to conduct which most of us reject (that
fact that we may at first have some sympathy or admiration for Edmund, Regan, and Goneril, which is
later cancelled out when we see the consequences of that attitude more clearly, is one way
Shakespeare forces us to recognize, not just the normality of evil, but also the superficial
attractiveness of the attitude which can lead to it).

I’m stressing this point in order to underline the presentation of evil in this play. Part of the
disturbing power of King Lear comes from the fact that Edmund, Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall are at
first so normal in their vision of themselves and their actions. We all know people like them, and we
can even feel some genuine sympathy for how they initially behave. What this play forces us to
consider, however, is where this individualistic, aggressive self-fashioning stance logically leads.
Everything that Edmund and the sisters do in this play is quite consistent with their initial attitude, so

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that we are invited to consider how the grossest of evils arise out of something we see all around us
and perhaps even feel from time to time in ourselves.

In the twentieth century we have become familiar with his vision of evil, largely as the result
of World War II, in which horrific evil was organized, carried out, and justified by ordinary people,
who often began by simply wanting to “get ahead.” The best known example is Adolf Eichmann, for
whom Hannah Arendt, in her study of his trial (Eichmann in Jerusalem), coined the phrase “The
Banality of Evil.” The frequent attempt to demonize such individuals, that is, to make them as
abnormal and unnatural as possible, is one indication of how uncomfortable we are with the notion
that they are recognizably normal.

The Forces of Goodness

The way in which Shakespeare here anchors the origins of evil in certain practical, common
attitudes with which we are all familiar applies also to much of his treatment of those who seek to
oppose Edmund, Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall. The play, in other words, explores the normality or,
one might say, the banality of goodness, by which I mean that opposition to evil comes from
recognizably normal sources all around us..

Before looking at this in more detail, however, we need to acknowledge that in Cordelia we
have a symbol of traditional goodness, unambiguously and clearly presented to us. Cordelia’s name
and some of her utterances (and normally also her appearance) suggest that we are to see her, in large
part, as the purest form of Christian love in action. She loves her father unreservedly and acts
immediately to relieve his suffering, an action which costs her her life. In that sense, King Lear offers
us an vision of traditional goodness as an ideal, based on a firm acknowledgment of the essential
bonding between human beings, especially between parents and children. She is in the moral realm
what Richmond is in the political realm in Richard III.

But what I want particularly to call attention to here is that in this play other people work
against the forces of evil in quite a different manner. They are not unambiguous symbols of goodness,
but much more naturalistically rendered human characters who have to wake up to their moral
responsibilities and act on them. And in this play, such action really matters.

Take, for example, one of my favorite characters in all of Shakespeare, a man whose brave
and suicidal actions have a decisive effect on the final outcome. He does not even have a name, but
when his moment comes he embodies for us the normality of goodness. I refer to Cornwall’s First
Servant in 3.7 who steps forward to intervene in the blinding of Gloucester:

Hold your hand, my lord:


I have served you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold. (3.7.73-76)

He is a lowly servant, without any power other than his own person, and he has been a servant
all his life, trained to obey his master. But he cannot stand by and see his master so degrade himself.
He recognizes what everyone in the room knows: that what is going on here is deeply wrong. But he
doesn’t rationalize away the danger or remain silent, neutral on the sidelines, or give in to his fear. He
acts to intervene. The action costs him his life and does not save Gloucester’s eyes. But his brave
moral stance has its effects, for he wounds Cornwall so badly that the latter is not around for the battle
at the end of the play.

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Let me remind you of how when we looked at Richard III I called attention to the moral
evasions of many characters in that play, a pattern which suggests that Shakespeare wants us to
witness how the success of evil in the world relies upon the cowardice, ignorance, and self-interest of
others who are in a position to stand up against it. This is a similar moment, except that here the
anonymous First Servant acts to prevent what his moral sense cannot tolerate.

Moments like these remind us that the moral vision in Shakespeare’s plays so often is all-
encompassing. We may be dealing for most of the time with kings, dukes, and various nobles, but the
issues which fracture the human community do not leave anyone on the sidelines. Innocence or
neutrality is never enough. Whatever our role, however low we may be in the power structure, we still
have a moral role to play if we choose to do so.

We see this point made very explicit in the play by the very interesting role played by Albany,
Goneril’s husband. Initially he seems politically and morally confused and ignorant, and his wife
dismisses him as a weak person. Events take place around him which he does not appear fully to
understand, and Goneril clearly wields the power in the relationship. But we see him wake up to his
moral responsibilities. He does not let the injustice he witnesses around him dull his moral sense; nor
does he evade the issues. Throughout the play, his development is marked by a steady moral growth
until he is, at the end, a transformed individual who has played a decisive part in dealing with the evil
in the kingdom.

Other characters like Edgar and Kent also manifest an active commitment to goodness, at
considerable risk to themselves and with much ingenuity. Their conduct, together with that of the
people I have just mentioned, suggests that there is nothing automatic about good overcoming evil in
this world. There is no providential system of history here which will guarantee that harmonious order
is restored eventually, no controlling divine justice which will right all wrongs if we are only patient.
Instead there is the vision that evil can be resisted only if active, intelligent, brave, and resourceful
people are prepared to put their lives on the line to counter the spreading triumphs of those who want
to use other people as instruments for their own power seeking. Where such people come from there
is no way of telling. What turns one man into Cornwall or Oswald and another into Albany or Kent?
There is no magic formula about it, nor any divine assistance.

In this connection, it might be worth noting that Cordelia, the idealized vision of goodness in
the world, fails. She not only fails to defeat those who are working against her father, but she loses her
life in the attempt. The battle in King Lear is speedily concluded, Cordelia and Lear are seized, and
taken away (more about this later). There seems to be here perhaps a deliberate emphasis on the fatal
weakness of mere idealized virtue, virtue as some ideal at work in the world, virtue as a symbolic
embodiment of the highest Christian values. For the really effective work of combating the evil is
carried out by much more naturalistically rendered characters, like the First Servant, Edgar, and
Albany.

King Lear as an Allegory

I have been stressing the naturalistic elements of King Lear, and I began this lecture by
reminding us that the most important thing about this play is that it is the story of the suffering of one
particular old man. Thus, I am not encouraging a view which interprets this play primarily as an
allegory, a vision in which the illumination of the clash of concepts is a more important issue than the
particular human conflicts presented.

However, King Lear has attracted allegorical interpretations. And it is easy to see why. The
fairy-tale nature of much of the story, the clearly positioned groups of “good” and “bad” people
around Lear, and the constant reference to words like “bond,” “allegiance,” “nature,” and to questions
of the self invite some consideration of allegorical possibilities.

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For instance (and I am here looking very cursorily at some ideas suggested by J. F. Danby), if
we choose (for the moment) to subordinate the particularity of the characters to the major conceptual
concerns of the play, we can see here as a major component of the play at least two rival versions of
human life working against each other. The one we might label the traditional communal Christian
view, which stresses faith, hope, and charity (that is, mutual love) built upon the sense of a human
society held together by “bonds.” A human life most fully realized lives up to the responsibilities of
those bonds which tie together the family and the larger social group. Such a view stresses the
essential roles of giving and receiving spontaneously and honestly and confers upon individuals a rich
sense of a social identity where each person’s place in a hierarchical order is publicly recognized and
honoured.

Over against this view is what we might call the new individualism manifested in Edmund,
Regan, Goneril, and Cornwall. This sees the good life for human beings as principally a matter of
shaping one’s future to fit one’s own sense of oneself. We need not rest on what the community tells
us we are; instead, we may actively seek to change what we are by applying our wit to alter our given
circumstances as opportunities arise.

The clash between these two groups hinges on the different interpretations of the word
“nature.” For the first group, nature is an ordered moral construct in which the signs of the
constellations and the actions of the heavens are manifestations of structure in which human societies
participate. Its faith is based on an inherent divinely sanctioned system of meaning in the world (that
sense of order which Ulysses appeals to in his speech on degree in Troilus and Cressida). The second
sees no moral order in the world. What the world is will be what we make of it for ourselves. The first
view sees the good life as essentially a matter of service to traditional ideals; the second sees the good
life as an aggressive assertion of one’s own individuality.

It is possible to locate this debate historically. And some have argued that Shakespeare’s age,
the early 17th century, was a time in which the rising energies of individualism and capitalism were
challenging the older order in a contested vision of political and social life and that Shakespeare’s
play is, in part, a debate between these two competing visions (between, if we wish to put names onto
the debate, the rival visions of Hooker and Hobbes).

If we want to view the play in this manner, and the text of the play invites us to do so in part
(how important we make this conceptual level of the play is open for debate), then we may well
wonder about whether the play leads us to any firm conclusion. Does Shakespeare take sides in this
dispute or resolve it in any firm way?

My sense from the text is that his treatment of such a thematic concern is part of the play’s
power, especially the power of its bleaker possibilities. Even if we say, as we might, that there is a
sense of nobility and traditional warmth in the vision of the old order, in its ceremonious affections
and firm sense of community, it is clear here that the old order is insufficient because some of its most
important members do not live up to its demands. They are blind (that central metaphor is, of course,
crucial) to their own obligations, insensitive to the complex dynamics of human interaction, and
tyrannically addicted to their own power. Gloucester can joke in public about the “sport” he had in
conceiving a bastard son and talk about how he has kept him away from court life, and Lear can rage
at Cordelia for not playing the role he has determined for her in his self-flattering game. Like Richard
II before them, they have an insufficiently intelligent and sensitive appreciation for the demands of
virtue on which the old order rests and thus inevitably contribute to fostering a situation in which that
old order falls apart.

The new order, in its turn, once self-assertive individualism has room to maneuver, breaks all
customary ties, creates temporary alliances for power, and ends up with everyone pursuing his or her
own agenda. In the process, sisters murder sisters, sons betray their fathers, and the quest for power
leads to its inevitable conclusion, self-destruction.

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King Lear offers no sense of a permanently established natural order from which human
beings can devise some sense of how they ought to behave towards each other, how they ought to live
their lives. When Lear goes out to seek justice in the storm, nature answers with an unintelligible and
threatening tempest, from which the only sane thing to do is to huddle down in the nearest hovel and
pass the time playing absurd games. Unlike the power of nature in As You Like It, which offers a place
full of sunshine and fertility where people can discover in a newly invigorating way who they really
are and what relationships matter most to them, nature in King Lear is harsh and unresponsive to
human beings’ search for a reassuring moral order. In the Forest of Ardenne, the courtiers, through
conversation and song, repair themselves so that they can return to society to lead better lives. On the
heath, where there is no conversation only howls of anger and pain, the only thing Lear learns is that
life, reduced to its basic elements, is insane.

Nature and Female Sexuality

Before moving to consider in some detail the ending of the play, I would like to raise an
obvious but deeply ambiguous element in the play, the emphasis on (perhaps even the obsession with)
female sexuality as a key element in Lear’s rage. This issue emerges unmistakably in Lear’s
passionate denunciations of his daughters and seems even to extend beyond that to include all women
in general. What we are to make of this, I’m not sure, but that it’s a key element in the play is surely
unquestionable.

To begin with, we note that neither Lear nor Gloucester is married: there is no female partner
in their families, and their firmly patriarchal male control thus does not have to answer to any
countervailing female presence. Gloucester can therefore joke easily and crudely about the “sport” he
had in making Edmund, and Lear can assert his dominating sense of himself from a position of total
male control.

Lear’s initial rage is generated by a young woman, his daughter Cordelia, because she speaks
up for herself. Many critics have speculated about her motivation, but that seems to me a rather
pointless exercise. What Cordelia is doing, as her asides make clear, is speaking her own mind,
declaring her own understanding of how she should live her life. This challenge to Lear’s ego exerts
its effect not just because it demolishes his tidy little self-gratifying ritual but also because it’s coming
from a young woman, who is also his child. The rage is the reflex power of a male ego that will not
accept unwelcome responses from children, women, or subordinates.

His rage at Cordelia, which summons up the horrific vision of parents eating their own
children, begins with an invocation to “the mysteries of Hecate,” and that’s an interesting allusion,
because it is precisely the mysteries of that enigmatic and powerful female goddess of the moon, a
graphic symbol of the female principles at work in the cosmos, that Lear is least in touch with. So
there’s a powerful irony that he should invoke such a figure in the very process of demonstrating just
how incapable he is of even imagining such a presence.

His denunciation of Cordelia, however, is, in some respects, mild compared to the tirades he
launches against Goneril and Regan and, beyond them, against women generally. Here the emphasis
is explicitly sexual. He wants their femininity and fertility blasted away, as if that is somehow the
source of the problem and therefore a suitable punishment for not answering to his wishes.

Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear!


Suspend they purpose, if thou didst intend
Top make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;

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And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honor her! (1.4.252-266)

And at the height of his madness in the storm, at the very centre of Lear’s destructive rage is a
violent sense of the sexuality of women (especially of Regan and Goneril) as the source of all the evil
which is tormenting him:

Behold yond simpering dame,


Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasures name;
The fitchew, nor the soiléd horse, goes to ‘t
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above.
But to the girdle do the gods inherit.
Beneath is all the fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness,
There’s the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding,
Stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie! pah! pah! (4.6.115-126)

Locating hell in a woman’s sexuality, seeing in women’s sexual organs the devil’s home and
the source of all the hypocrisy introduces a powerfully disturbing sense of how much Lear’s ego, that
hard masculine shell he has encased himself in, rests on a fear of what he cannot understand. The very
process of summoning up the image seems to drive him into even deeper agony (as the closing words
indicate). As Joyce Carol Oates has pointed out, there’s no particular reason to locate the source of
Regan’s and Goneril’s betrayal of him in their sexuality. Their treatment of him springs much more
from their masculine qualities (if we can use that term), than from any deeply rooted source of evil
unique to women’s sexual life. So Lear’s passionate desire to see in their sexuality the source of his
torments (and the world’s evil) links the suffering in this play to a significantly displaced
understanding of women. There’s a sense that Lear, unable to understand, accept, or control female
sexuality, releases all his pent-up hatred of the world on that, for precisely that reason.

Now, we should be used to this in Shakespeare by now, especially from our reading
of Hamlet. For in that play, Hamlet repeatedly generalizes from his emotional distress a sweeping and
often harsh indictment of women’s sexuality (which presumably is the source of his violence against
Ophelia and Gertrude). But, in comparison with Lear, we might want to argue that Hamlet has more
understandable grounds. For Gertrude, his mother, now sleeps with Claudius. But this does not apply
to Lear, who is, one assumes, beyond the age where savage sexual jealousy (of the sort which later
affects Regan and Goneril) is an important element in his life. The fact that the female sexuality he is
objecting to so violently belongs to his daughters (and thus is directly linked to the future of his
family) makes the denunciation all the more striking.

We might also want to think for a moment about how different Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
are in this respect. They give every indication of understanding very well the importance of sexuality
as a creative force in the natural process of things. There is a sense in which they might very well be a
sexually compatible couple. That’s why, in planning the murder, Lady Macbeth has to pray to be
“unsexed” and Macbeth has to go against his sensitivity to the natural processes of life in order to
steel himself for the murder. And unlike Hamlet and Lear (and Othello), Macbeth does not express his
tragic suffering in terms which set women’s sexuality up as the source of his torment. In that sense, he

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seems to have a maturer sense of sexuality than the others, even if he sacrifices that sense to attain his
goals. For the fact that the close union of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth falls apart after the murder of
Duncan is one of the many painful consequences of their desire to be unnatural. And there’s a deep
irony in the fact that after that prayer to violate nature, Macbeth cannot abide the thought of Banquo’s
descendants will get the crown.

If we further recall the language of some of the Dark Lady sonnets, those astonishingly
passionate denunciations of sexuality (“lust”) as the source of the spiritual torment of the speaker, we
can better understand why most interpreters want to date them at about the same time as the tragedies
and why others see a need for some important biographical event which might trigger such a
pronounced shift (especially in comparison with As You Like It).

What we are to make of this I am not sure. But it strikes me that the violence against
particular women (verbal and physical), the death of so many women, even those entirely innocent
(like Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia, and Lady Macduff), and the absence of any women at the end of
so many of the tragedies (other than the witches in Macbeth) establish a strong link between the tragic
vision of life and self-assertive and distinctively male ego. One point at the very ending of King
Lear which seems to emphasize this possibility is the way that the play brings back the bodies of
Regan and Goneril (who have died offstage), so that the final image insists upon the deaths of all the
women in the family.

There may be other reasons for bringing back the dead bodies (to present a reminder of the
opening scene, for example, or to lend a corrosive irony to Edmund’s dying words about how he was
“beloved”), but the firm insistence on what this tragedy has cost in the multiple killings of women
introduces gender issues which are hard to ignore.

The Ending of King Lear

I have many times suggested that King Lear offers us a particularly bleak view of human
existence. It shakes our assumptions in many of the most cherished illusions we hang onto in order to
confer significance on our lives. But I don’t want to conclude this lecture before looking in more
detail at the ending, for there is an important and interesting critical debate about how to read the
ending of the play. Is it, in fact, as I have described it, or are there some more optimistic and life-
affirming possibilities?

Without exploring many alternatives, I would like to consider some of the material in the
closing moments of this play which feeds this debate. The central point concerns Lear’s
“regeneration,” his waking up a transformed person in the arms of Cordelia. Here he is apparently
very different person from the loud egoist of most of the play. He begs for forgiveness and has a
genuine sense of that important virtue, humility. There is clearly a sense here that Lear has discovered
or rediscovered his capacity to love and to recognize in that bond the most important element of life.

Thus, when he and Cordelia are captured and sent off to prison, he accepts the event because
now being with Cordelia, sharing their love together, is far more important than any question of
justice or injustice in the world. His poetry on this occasion is memorable. In response to Cordelia’s
practical question, “Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?” Lear replies,

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison.


We two alone will sing like birds i’the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

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Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, and who’s out;
And take upon ‘s the mystery of things,
As if we were Gods’ spies; and we’ll wear out,
In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon. (5.3.8-19)

How are we to read these lines? On the one hand, they seem to indicate a transformed
understanding within Lear, some transcendent awareness of new priorities which place human love,
“bonds,” far above the meaningless power political world of the court with which Lear has been so
obsessed. They invite us to think that Lear’s suffering has at last given him a magnificent insight into
something of enormous and lasting value.

On the other hand, the speech is also a turning away from any practical action to deal with
their present situation (after all, Cordelia’s question is a request to sort out what they should do next).
So we can also read the speech as one more illusion Lear is constructing in order to keep control of
his life. The enormous distance between the metaphysical power he is here claiming for himself (“As
if we were Gods’ spies”) and the reality of his situation is underscored by Edmund’s line immediately
following this speech, “Take them away,” a curt manifestation of the real power at work in the world.
So if we want to see in this speech some important earned insight into the nature of life, we also have
to recognize that it’s an insight that takes no account of what needs to be done and is, in fact, impotent
in the face of armed antagonism, in the face of the historical facts of his situation.

There may well be a suggestion here of a theme we have met already (particularly in Hamlet)
and are going to encounter again, namely, that love and politics are mutually incompatible. For
politics of the modern sort requires an ethic like that of Polonius. And if Lear goes to negotiate with
the sister, he will have to descend to their level and, if he is to be successful in any way, to adopt the
Machiavellian tactics which guide the world in which the sisters live. Such a world crushes the
spontaneous giving on which the highest forms of love depend. On the other hand, to say, as Lear
does here, that love is the higher priority and to turn one’s back on one’s political situation is to leave
one totally vulnerable to those who make politics their first and only priority. So even if we see Lear’s
awareness here as full of a visionary understanding of the mystery of love, there’s a powerful irony
underneath that declaration, a tone which insists upon the fact that such insight comes at the high
price of political impotence.

And whatever Lear has learned about life is insufficient to sustain him, once Cordelia is
killed. He may have thought his newly discovered sense of love would enable him to transcend the
world of politics and rest finally on some deeper understanding of the world, but whatever he has
learned cannot cope with the sudden destruction of the object of his love. And so his newly found
mental equanimity collapses, and he returns just before his death into a fit of insanity, seeing in
Cordelia’s death the denial of any significance to human life:

No, no, no life!


Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look her lips,
Look there, look there! (5.3.304-310)

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And he dies in a mad fit, tearing off his clothes (the same gesture which signaled the onset of
his insanity in the storm), still trying to convince himself that Cordelia cannot be dead. He thought he
had come to some new awareness, but that insight is removed. The mystery of life is not so
benevolent as Lear thought it might be (and as we may have been seduced into thinking by the beauty
of Lear’s declaration of love). Hence, the hope of a significant transforming insight is cancelled, and
we are left in ambiguous doubt. The remaining characters say very little, and there is no clear
assumption of authority by anyone. Kent’s comment salutes Lear’s death as something to be
welcomed:

Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him much
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer. (5.3.312-314)

That image of Lear’s life as a torture session does not encourage us to build much hope upon
Lear’s earlier declaration of love for Cordelia (of the sort which might be fostered if Kent had said
something like “Well, at least he found love again before he died”). If the survivors see nothing of
value in what has taken place, we are not given any encouragement to find something on which to
build any final reassuring insight.

If the text leaves us little to build any hope upon, the staging of the final moments of King
Lear can indicate something to us of where this human community goes from here. And if you ever
witness a production of this play, on stage or film, it is worth paying close attention to the final
movement. You need to be particularly attentive to whether or not the Fool is present and what he is
doing.

The Fool: Dead or Alive?

Lear’s Fool is one of the most interesting characters in the play, and his presence in the
ending will exercise an important interpretative effect. In the text, the Fool apparently disappears in
3.6 with the cryptic final line, “And I’ll go to bed at noon” (3.6.78). From the text, he does not seem
to reappear. One standard historical explanation for this is that the character playing the Fool also
plays the role of Cordelia, and since she is about to reappear, the Fool has to disappear. This, of
course, is not an issue for modern productions, where the roles are hardly ever doubled. And so the
question arises: What has happened to the Fool?

Lear’s comment near the very end, “And my poor Fool is hanged!” (5.3.304) is normally
taken as a reference to Cordelia, although there are those, like Goddard, who maintain that this is a
reference to the Fool. So the text is quite ambiguous on the fate of the Fool, and anyone mounting a
production of the play will have to decide.

Why should this matter? Well, it matters, in large part, because it’s important for us to know
whether the qualities that the Fool brings into the play survive or not. And to assess the importance of
this point, we need to consider some aspects of the character’s role in the play.

The Fool has no power other than his language. He is attached to Lear by a strong bond,
although he knows that honoring this bond is physically dangerous, for he is fully aware of the
consequences of what Lear is doing in his dealings with his daughters and his headstrong rush away
from the castle into the storm. As a fool, his role is to provide a stream of riddling verbal commentary
on the action, to expose the truth under the words of others. But his commentary is curiously bitter
and sad. He knows that his words are ineffective; they may express important truths, but they will
never penetrate Lear’s consciousness or do much to change the situation as it unfolds. At a time when

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the ruling facts of life are clashes of power (military and natural), the Fool’s language has no
significant effect on the action. The professional manipulator of language counts for very little when
so many others are twisting words to suit their own purposes.

But words are all he has. Faced with the destructive collision of the rival groups and the
ensuing suffering and chaos, the Fool does what he can to transform the harshness of events to some
form of linguistic play, not because he has any solution to offer but simply because that’s his way of
dealing with suffering. So long as one can talk and make jokes (even bitter ones) about experience,
one can, to an extent, endure that experience. The sadness of the Fool comes from his awareness of
the inadequacy of his language to do anything more than hold back the chaos momentarily and of the
necessity of making the attempt, because to stop talking would be to surrender to the meaninglessness
of the storm. As Edgar observes, “the worst is not/ So long as we can say ‘This is the worst’“ (4.1.27-
28).

The Fool is significantly the only source of music in the play. And we should recognize by
now that music plays a really important role in Shakespeare’s style as a symbol for human creativity,
hope, and joy. The Fool’s songs, like his jokes, are sad, riddling, and thin (nothing like the robust
harmonious group singing in As You Like It), but they express at least the human attempt to impose
some ordered and creative meaning on the chaotic flux of life, to salvage something from the
absurdity of history. They offer us in symbolic form a vision of an impulse upon which it might be
possible to construct something valuable. So long as there is music, human feeling will find ordered
expression and seek to communicate that to others (at least, that is the hope brought out by music).

That is why the fate of the Fool at the ending of this play matters. His death adds to the
quantity of needless suffering which has extinguished love, community, and possibilities for beauty
and meaning. The music is over, and nothing rests but the silence of total destruction. His survival,
especially if he is given a pivotal role in the closing moments, sets quite a different tone.

Here I want to refer to two film versions of King Lear, both very famous and both very
different. The first one, by Peter Brook (which is available at Van Isle Video on Northfield Road)
provides a really stark vision of the play. The ending of Brook’s version is a scene of desolation, with
the survivors (no women among them) huddled together facing a harsh bleak landscape and no sense
of where any form of regeneration is to come from. The landscape around them is chillingly hostile.
The ending really brings out how the destruction of that original unity has left no remnant from which
something healthy might spring. There is no Fool present. He has been destroyed alongside all the
others. What remains is absurdity.

The second film is the version of the celebrated Russian director of Shakespeare in film,
Grigori Kozintsev (a film which incidentally had its North American premiere in Vancouver in 1971,
at a Shakespeare conference which I attended). Kozintsev has, throughout the film, associated the
Fool with music, specifically with playing a small wooden flute. In the closing moments of the film,
we hear the Fool playing his music above the desolation, and as he plays, we see the crowds of people
(including, significantly, women) slowly and tentatively start to pick up things and move towards the
beginning of some reconstruction.

Incidentally, the music in this film (composed by Shostakovitch) is truly memorable, one of
the most eloquent reminders in the history of Shakespeare film production of the importance of music
in shaping and sustaining a particular interpretative mood.

This final image of the common people initiating a process of rebuilding has important
implications for the political sense we take from this play (something I will not be discussing in any
detail). For it suggests that the old order of patriarchal feudalism has now gone. Most of its leading
members are dead or about to die, and the few remaining (Edgar and Albany) are so isolated that there
is no rich social hierarchy for them to repair. The aggressive self-serving individuals are also dead.
Hence, the future of the community is going to be in the hands of the people, the ones who earlier in

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the film looked to the imposing figures of the court for security and guidance. Such a vision would, of
course, accord well with any Marxist view that this play envisions the destruction of both the feudal
aristocracy (which lacks any intelligent sense of virtue) and the new individualism (which turns
everyone loose against everyone else). Any hope for the future thus rests with the common people
working, as they are here, together, in harmony.

At the presentation of his film, Kozintsev spoke eloquently about how his vision of Lear had
been shaped by the experience of the siege of Leningrad, the site of particularly painful and sustained
suffering in World War II. And, as I recall, he referred to how a sense of the recuperative powers of
humanity, as presented in King Lear, had sustained him during that horrific time. In the light of that,
his subsequent comments on the music in the closing moments of his film were particularly
significant. And I can think of no better last word for this lecture than the reflections of this wise artist
on Shakespeare’s most famous fool:

Symbols change. The Fool’s cap and bells have long since gone out of fashion. Perhaps the
Fool’s foolery isn’t quite what it used to be either? I imagined a paradoxical situation. The
Fool is laughed at, not because he is foolish, but because he speaks the truth. He is the one
who shams idiocy—no longer a court comedian but an urchin taken from among the most
humble. The least significant tells the most mighty that he’s a fool because he doesn’t know
the nature of his own daughters. Everyone laughs—but it is the truth.

For these people nothing is funnier than the truth. They roar with laughter at the truth, kick it
like a dog, hold it on a leash and make a laughing stock of it—like art under a tyrannical
régime. I am reminded of stories about how, in a Nazi concentration camp, an orchestra of
prisoners was got together. They were forced to play outside in the compound. They were
beaten so that they would play better. This was the origin of the Fool-musician—a boy taken
from an orchestra composed of men condemned to death.

This was the origin of the particular tone of the film, its voice. In King Lear, the voice of
human suffering is accorded more significance than the roar of thunder. Working on the score
with Dmitri Shostakovitch, I dismissed the idea of dignified fanfares and the roll of drums.
We were carried away by ideas of a completely different kind of instrumentation—the sound
of a wooden pipe, which the Fool has made for himself. I’d asked for the film titles to be
written on coarse, torn sacking. This linkage of ideas acted as kind of key. Rags, and the soft
sound of the pipe—the still voice of suffering. Then, during the battle scenes, a requiem
breaks out, then falls silent. And once again the pipe can be heard. Life—a none too easy
one—goes on. Its voice in King Lear is a very quiet one, but its sad, human quality sounds
distinctly in Shakespeare’s work. (from “‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear’: Stage and Film,”
in Shakespeare 1971: Proceedings of the World Shakespeare Congress Vancouver, August
1971 [Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1972]: 190-199).

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Introduction to Macbeth

Some Introductory Considerations

Macbeth, as I have already mentioned, is in some respects a relatively simple play.


Like Richard III and numerous pre-Shakespearean plays, its structure follows a standard conventional
form: the rise and fall of a great man. The first part of the play follows Macbeth’s rise to power. By
3.1 he has assumed the kingship. The rest of the play follows the disintegration of all he has achieved,
a process which culminates with his death and the installment of new king. In that sense, there is very
little difference in the structure between Richard III and Macbeth.

But, of course, they are vastly different plays. And in this lecture I want to focus, in
particular, on the key difference, the psychological portrait of the hero. Earlier, in the lecture
on Richard III, I strongly suggested that in Richard there is an amalgam of different theatrical
depictions of evil and that, from my point of view, the predominant one was the Vice-Machiavel, the
Devil incarnate, who is presented in such a way that we are not encouraged to probe very much into
his motivation, his psychological response to events as they unfold, and his disintegration. We do
have some clear hints at a possible psychological source for Richard’s conduct (the opening soliloquy
points to his deformity and his inability to love), but I suggested that these are more symbols of his
evil than their cause. This approach to Richard’s character allows us to develop in more detail an
appreciation for how much the effects of this play depend upon Richard’s theatricality, on his outward
behaviour (which he invites us to admire in a shared understanding of how clever he is in comparison
with everyone else), rather than on any inward complexity.

Macbeth is totally different. There is nothing at all theatrical about the presentation of his
character. He does not, like Richard, confide in us or seek to establish any cozy relationship with the
audience. There is nothing in Macbeth’s character or conduct which invites us to see any black
humour in the play (other than the brief scene with the porter). Instead there is an astonishingly
penetrating development of Macbeth’s character. The focus here is directly upon what he is thinking
and feeling, why he acts the way he does, and what consequences his own evil brings about upon
himself. And the profundity of Shakespeare’s examination of these questions makes this play
immeasurably more complex than Richard III. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most compelling
characters, and the play is, of all Shakespeare’s great tragedies, the one which responds most
immediately to character analysis. One quality, in comparison with Richard III which makes this
difference very apparent, is that in Richard III most of the really effective drama takes place in the
first half, during Richard’s rise to power (where the focus is squarely on Richard’s devilishly clever
actions); in Macbeth, by contrast, the second half of the play, which features the disintegration of
Macbeth’s world, compels even more attention than the first half.

So I would like to begin by examining some key questions of Macbeth’s character. I don’t
want to suggest that there are not some vitally important themes being explored here, but I would like
to defer an examination of those until we have dealt with the protagonist.

Macbeth as a Tragic Character

Macbeth’s story is obviously a tragedy in the formal sense. At the start of the play he is a very
successful and highly esteemed member of a social group, loaded with honours and enjoying every
prospect of further commendation. He has a loving wife and a secure home in his castle at Inverness.
As the play opens, we learn of his heroic actions in defense of the kingdom. We see him interact with
other nobles, and their friendship and esteem are evident, as is Duncan’s high regard, which expresses
itself in terms of fertile growth, the beauty of natural processes, and spontaneous generosity (with
promises of more to come).

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At the end of the play Macbeth is totally alone. He has lost all his friends, he is universally
despised, his wife is dead, and all his most eager hopes have been disappointed. He is a man without a
place in the social community. He has become totally isolated. In Roman Polanski’s film, Macbeth
stands alone in his castle to fight the entire army coming in to kill him, one by one. That image seems
entirely appropriate given what has happened.

All this loss of things which made him a great man has come about because of his own free
decisions. Nothing that Macbeth does in the play is forced upon him, and he is never deceived by
some human agent (someone manipulating him). In that sense, he alone is the architect of his own
destruction, and the more he tries to cope with what he senses is closing in on him, the more he
aggravates his deteriorating condition. His death is thus the inevitable consequence of what he has
chosen to do for his own reasons. Whatever the nature of his challenge to life, he destroys himself.

The Murder of Duncan

So one might usefully begin with the obvious question: Why does Macbeth decide to launch
his bloody career by murdering Duncan? Why is he not sufficiently happy with the high social
position he occupies and the honoured status he has acquired among his peers? There is a very
simplistic answer to this (much beloved some teachers who do not wish to wrestle with complex
issues), and that is to say his problem is that he is too ambitious. Ambition is a sin, of course, and
therefore Macbeth is punished for his sins. If we are not prepared to probe much more deeply, this
response to the question is almost entirely unsatisfactory, because it is much too simple and neat. It
turns the work from an extraordinarily complex study of evil into a straightforward morality play and
closes off discussion of the most challenging aspects of the work.

Now, there is some evidence for the charge of ambition. Macbeth does want to become king,
and he refers to that desire as ambition (“I have no spur/ To prick the sides of my intent, but only/
Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself/ And falls on th’other” (1.7.25-28). But we need to be careful
here not automatically to take a character’s own estimate of his motivation for the truth, or at least for
a completely adequate summary statement of all that needs to be said. We need to “unpack” just what
that concept of ambition contains in the character to whom we apply it.

For a fascinating aspect of Macbeth’s motivation is that he is in the grip of something which
he does not fully understand and which a part of him certainly does not approve of. This makes him
very unlike Richard Gloucester, who announces his plans with glee and shows no scruples about what
he has to do (quite the reverse: he looks forward to doing away with his next victim and invites us to
share his delight). Clearly a part of Macbeth is fascinated with the possibility of being king. It’s not
entirely clear where this desire comes from. The witches (whom we will discuss later) put the
suggestion into the play, but there is a strong hint from Lady Macbeth that she and her husband have
already talked about the matter well before the play begins—”What beast was’t then/ That made you
break this enterprise to me?” (1.7.48-49). In that case, the appearance of the witches may be, in part, a
response to some desire in Macbeth. He has not exactly summoned them, but they are responding to
his innermost imaginative desires (more about this later).

What seems clear is that Macbeth is constantly changing his mind. His imagination is in the
grip of a powerful tension between his desire to see himself as king and his sense of the immorality of
the act and of the immediate consequences, which he knows will be disastrous. Part of the great
fascination we have with Macbeth’s character is that he has a very finely honed moral sense and never
seeks to evade the key issues (rather like Claudius at prayer in Hamlet). He is no hypocrite in this
respect. He knows he will have to violate what he believes. Moreover, he is intelligent enough to
appreciate the public consequences of killing Duncan. In that sense he is totally different from
Richard who seems to believe that once he is king he will have all that he wants. Macbeth knows,
even before he does the deed, that he will have to pay and that the cost will be high. But he cannot
shrug off the desire.

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It’s not that Macbeth is averse to killing. He is famous as a warrior, and the first thing we hear
about him, well before he enters, is that he is drenched in blood and has slit someone open from the
nave to the chaps. His high social status comes from his effectiveness as a bloody warrior. So it’s not
a compunction about killing that holds him back. It is rather a clear awareness that in killing Duncan
he will be violating every rule that holds his community together. This awareness is accompanied by
an intelligent appreciation for the immediate consequences to himself:

But in these cases


We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions which, being taught, return
To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.

To act on his desire to become king is to drink from a poisoned chalice. No one knows that
better than Macbeth. And when that awareness is uppermost in his mind, he determines not to carry
out the murder but to enjoy his newly won social honours.

The problem is that his imagination just will not let go of the possibility that he can become
king. Banquo, too, is also tempted by the witches (he would like to talk further about what they said),
and, it seems clear, likes to remember what they have prophesied for him. But Banquo puts at the
front of his consciousness an awareness that if he should try to act to bring about that favourable
event, he will compromise his honour, that is, his place in the social community). So the rosy prospect
of a royal line of descendants does not grip Banquo’s imagination; it does not, in a word, obsess him,
as it does Macbeth, who cannot put from his mind so easily the vision of himself as king; it’s a
possibility which will not leave him alone.

One of the chief functions of Lady Macbeth in the early part of the play is to keep this vision
alive within him by any means at her disposal. She taunts him to act on his desires. What she is
saying, in effect, is that he must not let any communal scruples stand in the way of his realization of
everything which he wants for himself (in other words, he should not be like Banquo). Unlike
Macbeth, she has no countervailing social conscience. In fact, she expressly repudiates the most
fundamental social aspect of her being, her role as a woman, wife, and mother. Interestingly enough,
part of her tactics with Macbeth is to urge him to be more of a man. She identifies his scruples as
something unmanly.

We should not on that account blame her for Macbeth’s actions. He freely chooses to kill
Duncan in response to his own deepest desires. Neither his wife nor the witches compel him to do
what he does, and he is free at any time to refuse to carry out the murder or, having carried it out, to
seek out various courses of new action. But his decision to carry out the deed is marked by a curious
indecision. In a sense, Macbeth is never entirely satisfied with or firm about what he needs to do to
become king or what he really wants to do. When he goes out to commit the murder, he is
hallucinating the sight of a dagger leading him toward the deed, and he is filled with a sense of horror
at what he is about to do. He is, it seems, in the grip of his imagination and is not serving some
conscious rational decision he has made. But, in the very act of letting his imagination lead him on, he
is aware that what he is doing is wrong. It’s as if the dagger is pulling him toward the murder (against
his will)—he’s following an imagined projection of his desires, rather than being pushed into the
murder by some inner passion.

For that reason, for a long time I found it difficult entirely to accept the fact that Macbeth is
capable of killing Duncan. How can a man in such an odd state, with so many huge reservations about
what he has to do, a man who is pulled toward his victim in a virtual trance, actually commit the
violent act? My doubts were not resolved until I saw the Polanski film of Macbeth, which, unlike

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theatrical productions, shows us the murder. In that film, the moment is brilliantly realized, one of the
greatest scenes in the history of movies of Shakespeare’s plays for the interpretative insight it
provides.

Macbeth enters with the daggers, looks down on Duncan, and hesitates. It’s as if he suddenly
realizes just what he is about. He starts to draw back, as though refusing to undertake something so
horrible, changing his mind, as he has done before. Then, and this is an extraordinarily revealing
interpretative moment, Duncan wakes up. He sees Macbeth standing over him with the daggers and is
about to cry out. Macbeth now knows he has little choice. By following his imaginative vision and
entering the room, he has already compromised himself; he has, in effect, already surrendered to evil,
and to protect himself he murders the king (in a very bloody scene).

This interpretation of the murder is, as I say, quite brilliant, because it brings out something
central to this entire play: Macbeth has freely chosen to embrace evil in his imagination. He has not
resisted the impulse to imagine himself king and what needs to be done in order for that to come about
(or he has not resisted it sufficiently). But he vacillates, knowing full well what the act means. For as
long as he has not actually killed Duncan, he thinks he is free to imagine what being king would be
like, that is, he is free to indulge in his evil desires, and yet he is also free to change his mind (as he
does). But before he realizes it, his commitment to his evil desires has trapped him. By taking
pleasure in imaginatively killing Duncan and letting that vision lead him into Duncan’s bed chamber,
he creates a situation where he has to carry out the murder without having actually decided once and
for all to do so. His imagination has committed him to evil before his conscious mind realizes that the
decision has been made. As I shall mention later, this moment seems to me to express something
powerful and complex about the nature of evil in the play.

It’s important to stress the imaginative tensions in Macbeth’s character before the murder and
to appreciate his divided nature. That’s why summing up his motivation with some quick judgment
about his ambition is something one should resist. That resolves the issue too easily. Macbeth, in a
sense, is tricked into murdering Duncan, but he tricks himself. That makes the launching of his evil
career something much more complex than a single powerful urge which produces a clear decision.

After all, one needs to notice clearly how he is filled with instant regret at what he has done.
If driving ambition were all there was to it, one would think that Macbeth and his wife would not
become morally confused so quickly. Macbeth’s entrance after the killing brings out really strongly a
sense that if he could go back to the speech about the imaginary dagger, he would not carry out the
murder. Lady Macbeth thinks a little water will solve their immediate problem; Macbeth knows that
that is too easy. He cannot live with what he is done and remain the same person.

Macbeth As King

The tragic element of Macbeth’s character emerges most clearly from his career after the
killing of Duncan, above all in his decision that, having violated all the most important rules of
communal society by killing Duncan, he will continue in the same course of action, even if that
means, as it obviously does, that he will simply bring upon himself even greater suffering than the
killing of Duncan occasions.

It worth asking ourselves what in Macbeth commands our attention throughout the second
half of this play. After all, he is in many respects the least admirable tragic hero of all. In characters
like Othello, Romeo, Cleopatra, Lear, Antony, Hamlet (to say nothing of Oedipus, Ajax, or
Clytaemnestra) we can usually find something to admire. We may not like them (they are not very
likable people), but there is something in their characters or their situation on which we can hang
some sympathy, even if there is not enough for us to rationalize away their actions. But Macbeth is a
mass murderer, who does away with friends, colleagues, women and children, often for no apparent
reason other than his own desires. Why do we keep our attention focused on him?

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The answer, I think, has to do with the quality of his mind, his horrible determination to see
the entire evil business through. Having, with the murder of Duncan, taken charge of the events which
shape his life, he is not now going to relinquish the responsibility for securing his desires. The most
remarkable quality of the man in this process is the clear-eyed awareness of what is happening to him
personally. He is suffering horribly throughout, but he will not crack or seek any other remedy than
what he alone can deliver. If that means damning himself even further, then so be it.

This stance certainly does not make Macbeth likable or (from our perspective) in many
respects admirable. But it does confer a heroic quality upon his tragic course of action. He simply will
not compromise with the world, and he will pay whatever price that decision exacts from him, even
though as his murderous career continues he becomes increasingly aware of what it is costing him.

It seems clear that what his murder has cost him is the very thing that made him great in the
first place. For no sooner has he become king than he becomes overwhelmed with fear, nameless
psychological terrors which will not leave him alone. We know that Macbeth has had enormous
courage before, but there’s a powerful irony manifesting itself in the fact that his evil has made him
terrified of his inner self. He stands up to that fear and that terror—in fact throughout most of the
second half of the play Macbeth is obsessed with removing his inner torment. His later murders are
motivated by that far more than by any political considerations or any desire for physical security. The
fascination we have with his character stems, I think, from his increasingly futile attempts to resolve
the inner pain which he has brought upon himself (and his accurate diagnosis of what is going on
inside him). Those attempts lead finally to his self-destruction.

This quality sets him clearly apart from his wife. She has thought that a little water and a few
lies will clear them of the murder of Duncan, but she cannot evade the psychological consequences of
what she has encouraged Macbeth to do. She lacks his will power, his determination to continue, his
ability to withstand the inner torment. And so as he becomes more and more determined to keep
killing his way to some final solution, she falls apart. This begins with her fainting spell as soon as the
news of Duncan’s death becomes public, continues in her anxious fretting before and after the
banquet scene, reaches its clearest expression in her sleepwalking, and culminates in her suicide. This
lack of inner will to confront fully the consequences of her and Macbeth’s actions makes her story one
without the tragic significance of her husband’s.

The phrase “lack of inner will” above is not meant to indicate some serious limitation in Lady
Macbeth. For at the root of her difficulty is her inability to divorce herself from her own human
nature. She had thought that she could unsex herself, push away from her any of her deepest feelings
about, for want of a better word, love of others, and become a pure agent of destruction. So long as
the murders have not started, she plays that role with great rhetorical effectiveness (especially in her
taunts about Macbeth’s manhood). But once Duncan is dead, she finds herself in the grip of the most
powerful human feelings, without any of her husband’s determination to act to resolve those feelings.
With this in mind, her reference to Duncan looking like her father takes on an important resonance.

What’s particularly noticeable, too, is the way in which, following the murder of Duncan,
their relationship becomes estranged. We have every reason to believe that before Duncan’s murder,
they are very close. Certainly Macbeth shares all his thoughts and feelings with her, and she feels
quite equal to speaking candidly to him about what she thinks he must do. They are (and this, in my
view, is an important point for a production to bring out) at first a very close and loving couple.

But right after the coronation of Macbeth, just before the banquet scene, Macbeth and his wife
are clearly changing in different directions. He has further murders planned (of Banquo and Fleance),
but he is not telling her about them. He is resolved to proceed alone, to do whatever is necessary to
ease his mind without any moral scruple (although his body is still fighting that commitment to evil,
hence the frequent references to a lack of sleep).

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But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
Whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy.

This declaration is worth close scrutiny. Macbeth cares less about the future of the world than
he does about his own determination to “resolve” his inner torment. He is determined to set his life in
order, to obtain what he set out to acquire with the first murder. And nothing in the world is going to
stop him. The murder of Banquo and Fleance stem from this desire. It’s not that they present any
immediate threat. Macbeth appears secure on the throne, and there is no talk anywhere of any
immediate rebellion. But his mind is not at ease, and that is Macbeth’s overwhelming concern. The
emphasis here is totally psychological rather than political.

However, he has not lost his moral sense. Again, he is under enormous tension, for he still
feels the pull of the “that great bond.” His dreadful prayer to the night—a passage particularly
eloquent for its evocation of the horror of what is happening—is a plea for the suppression or the
elimination of the scruples he still might have:

Come, seeling night,


Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. (3.3.47-51)

Just as his wife does before the murder of Duncan, Macbeth is here urging the dark powers of
the night to take away any vestiges of human feeling he still has for the communal standard, the “great
bond” which links him to his fellow creatures. Lady Macbeth made the prayer, but could not sustain
that urge. Macbeth ends the speech with a key statement:

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

What matters increasingly to him is not whether something is good or bad; for he is willing
himself beyond those moral categories into a state of being in which acting on his own desires is all
that concerns him. What matters now is the strength to keep going on the course where he imposes his
desires on the world, even at the expense of any lingering connections he may feel to that society of
which he was, only a short while ago, a very honoured part.

What we witness, as Macbeth continues to murder his way in the frantic desire for peace of
mind, is his gradual dehumanization. His loss of physical relationships is accompanied by something
even more horrible, his loss of any power to feel sensitively about life. In a sense, he gets what he has
prayed for. The great bond that links him to other human beings does virtually disappear, so that the
pursuit of his desire for inner peace makes him care less and less for anything life has to offer. In

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other words, the successful attainment of his human desires creates a life with no human value in it.
What is the point of realizing one’s desires when there is nothing left in the world one finds desirable?

I have lived long enough. My way of life


Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have, but in their stead
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath
Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not. (5.3.23-29)

That is the reason why, when he receives the news that his wife is dead, he response is so low
key and bitter. In one of the very greatest speeches in all of Shakespeare, he accepts the news with a
horrifying calm:

She should have died hereafter.


There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (5.5.16-27)

This famous speech acknowledges fully the empty mockery his life has become. Once again,
the remarkable quality of this passage is Macbeth’s refusal to evade the reality of the world he has
created for himself. His life has become an insane farce, not because he no longer has any power or
physical security (he has both and, as he remarks earlier, could easily withstand the siege), but
because he has ceased to care about anything, even about his wife. There is no one to blame but
himself, and he has learned too late the truth of what he understood would happen if he gave into his
desires and killed Duncan. It’s not surprising that immediately after this speech, once he hears about
the moving wood, he decides to end it all in a final battle, not because he has any desire to win but
because wants to take charge of the final event, his own death. The life he has created for himself
leaves him with nothing else to do.

As many people have observed, the theatrical metaphor in this famous speech resonates
throughout the play. Macbeth has, in a sense, tried to seize control of the script of his life, to write it
in accordance with his desires, in the clear knowledge that that’s probably going to be disastrous.
Instead of living out his life, as normal people (including Banquo) do, in a drama out of his total
control, he seeks to change the plot. And the result is a play that leaves him feeling increasingly
pained, disoriented, and afraid (that we in modern terminology might call inauthentic). His returns to
the witches and the murders that result are frantic attempts to keep rewriting the script, to turn it into
something answering his needs. But all he succeeds in doing is to turn the play into a sinking

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nightmare of strutting and fretting (in which, interestingly enough, there are frequent references to
how his clothes, like a poorly cut theatrical costume, just don’t fit).

This point above about Macbeth’s bringing about his own death is an important element in his
tragedy. Having set himself above all conventional morality and prudence to tackle life on his own
terms in answer to his desires, Macbeth will remain in charge until the end. Like so many other great
tragic heroes (Oedipus, Lear, Coriolanus, Othello, and so on), he self-destructs (this makes his ending
significantly different from Richard III’s). He has come to the full recognition of what taking full
charge of his own life, without any concessions to his community, really means. And that realization
fills him with a sense of bitterness, futility, and meaninglessness.

The Witches: Agents of Evil?

No discussion of Macbeth would be satisfactory which did not make some attempt to deal
with its most famous symbols: the coven of witches whose interactions with Macbeth play such a vital
role in his thinking about his own life, both before and after the murder of Duncan. Banquo and
Macbeth recognize them as something supernatural, part of the landscape but not fully human
inhabitants of it. They have malicious intentions and prophetic powers. And yet they are not active
agents in the sense that they do anything other than talk and offer visions and potions. They have no
power to compel. So what are we to make of them?

A good place to begin is to dispel at once any temptation to indulge in that misleading
exercise which encourages us to think that we can only adequately deal with these witches by appeals
to historical facts, like the beliefs of a seventeenth-century audience or the intense interest of James I
in witches. All that may be true, but we are not in the seventeenth century, and the purpose of these
lectures is not to take us back there. If we are to explore the significance of these witches we must do
so by treating them as vital poetic symbols in the play, essential manifestations of the moral
atmosphere of Macbeth’s world (like the ghost in Hamlet), and every bit as intelligible to a modern
audience as to Shakespeare’s.

The most obvious interpretation of the witches is to see them as manifestations of evil in the
world. They exist to tempt and torment people, to challenge their faith in themselves and their society.
They work on Macbeth by equivocation, that is, by ambiguous promises of some future state. These
promises come true, but not in the way that the victim originally believed. The witches thus make
their appeal to Macbeth’s and Banquo’s desire to control their own future, to direct it towards some
desirable ends. They have no power to compel belief, but they can obviously appeal strongly to an
already existing inclination to force one’s will onto events in order to shape the future to fit one
deepest desires.

Banquo’s importance in the play stems, in large part, from his different response to these
witches. Like Macbeth, he is strongly tempted, but he does not let his desires outweigh his moral
caution:

But ‘tis strange,


And oftentimes to win us to our harm
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles to betray’s
In deepest consequence. (1.3.120-124)

Macbeth cannot act on this awareness because his desires (kept alive by his active
imagination and his wife’s urging) constantly intrude upon his moral sensibilities. Hence, he seizes

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upon the news that he has just been made Thane of Cawdor, using that information to tell him what he
most wants to believe, that the witches tell the truth.

This supernatural soliciting


Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor. (1.3.129-132)

But Macbeth’s inner question here has already been answered by Banquo a moment before
(in the quotation immediately above). Macbeth’s framing the question in this way is an indication, not
that he has not heard what Banquo has just said, but that he doesn’t want to believe it.

The witches, in other words, appeal to what Macbeth wants to believe. They don’t make him
believe it. And they do not tell him what to do in order to achieve what they prophesy. They say
nothing about killing Duncan (or anyone else). In that sense, they cannot be the origin of the idea of
the murder. They may be appealing to that idea (which we are given to believe originates in Macbeth
some time previously), but they do not create it.

The same is true of their later prophecies about Birnam Wood and about no one of woman
born being able to harm Macbeth. These confirm for Macbeth the fact that acting on his desires will
keep him secure, that he can take charge of his future with nothing to fear. But these prophecies do
not offer any specific instructions about immediate actions. We must, thus, I think, resist any
temptation to see Macbeth’s actions as determined or controlled by the witches. He is always free to
choose how he is going to act.

Hence, these witches exist as constant reminders of the potential for evil in the human
imagination. They are ineluctably part of the natural world, there to seduce anyone who, like
Macbeth, lets his imagination flirt with evil possibilities. They have no particular abode and might
pop up anywhere, momentarily, ready to incite an eternal desire for evil in the human imagination, the
evil which arises from a desire to violate our fellow human beings in order to shape the world to our
own deep emotional needs.

It’s important to note that the witches are not dealt with in this play. By the end, Macbeth has
been defeated and killed, but the witches are still around, somewhere. Years ago, when I directed a
production of Macbeth I considered the fact that nothing is said about the witches in the resolution
and that the audience will naturally wonder about them. It struck me then that they must be observing
the final celebration, there on the stage hovering around the solemn pieties and celebration at the end,
and thus lending a powerful note of irony to the triumph of the forces of good over Macbeth. It’s as if
such a conclusion is saying something like, “Yes, you have dealt with one evil man, but if you think
you have therefore dealt with evil, you are indulging in illusory hopes.”

Polanski’s film of the play makes such a irony in the end even stronger by concluding the film
with a scene of Donaldbain riding alone in to meet the witches, a scene which brings out a sense that
the cycle we have witnessed is going to continue. Polanski links that with the rebellion of the Thane
of Cawdor, so that we get a vision of human life which is a series of manifestations of evil and the
corresponding efforts to deal with those who respond to it. Macbeth’s story thus is simply one episode
in an endlessly bloody and repetitive struggle.

The cyclical nature of the recurrent visions of evil may be underscored by a predominant
contrast throughout the play between light and darkness.Macbeth is an intensely dark play,
metaphorically and literally. After Duncan’s conversation about the natural pleasantness of Macbeth’s
castle, such references to nature as benevolent disappear, and we are plunged into a world of twilight
and darkness, a constant sense that Macbeth’s prayers to the evil in the world are bringing out the

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gradual extinction of any life-sustaining light and growth. The forces of Malcolm are described in
terms of regeneration and a newer and healthier vitality (the miraculous power of the English king to
heal illness is an important image of that point). But there may be (depending on how the play is
staged) no firm sense that the final triumph of the forces of goodness over this manifestation of evil
have done anything to alter the recurring cycle. For the play has not banished the darkness; it has
simply brought back a circle of light.

Postscript I: The Vision of Evil in Richard III and Macbeth

It should be clear from some of the above remarks that the vision of evil in Macbeth is
considerably more complex than the vision in Richard III. The latter play places the evil in a
particularly evil personality who, nevertheless, carries out God’s work in punishing past evildoers,
like Clarence, Edward, Hastings, and so on, before he himself is finally destroyed by the forces of
goodness. As I mentioned in the lecture on Richard III, this vision is a traditional allegorical
understanding of history as the working out of God’s providence, a system in which evil itself works
towards God’s final purposes in history.

I mentioned in our consideration of Richard III that there is a sense that Shakespeare, in
writing the play, found this vision of evil in some respects too easy, for there are moments (like the
seduction of Anne or Clarence’s dream) where we do sense much more complex reverberations. But
such moments are not sustained, and the final movement which brings closure to the first history cycle
is almost formulaic.

Macbeth offers us something much more complex and challenging. Here the potential for
evil, manifested in the witches, is a permanent feature of the landscape, with no redeeming higher
moral purpose like some providential scheme. The witches thus exist as a permanent threat, not only
to particular individuals but also to the human community. They exert their effect through the deepest
desires of human beings to set aside their shared sense of communal values, and they deceive those
who listen to them with equivocating promises: they punish (if that is the right word) those whom
they successfully tempt by giving them what they want, by living up to their promises, only to reveal
just how empty and self-destructive life becomes for those who surrender to their egocentric desires.

Is Macbeth, then, a Christian play? There are many explicitly religious references and some
strong suggestions of a Christian morality at work (especially alluding to Malcolm, the English King,
and the forces moving against Macbeth). But the overt Christian belief system is not insisted upon
(there is no institutionalized religious presence in the play, as there is in the history plays), and the
sense that evil has an objective existence, over and apart from any divine purposes, both in the
landscape and in the imaginations of individuals, is disturbing in a profoundly un-Christian sense.
And there is no insistence at all upon any future judgment. The sense is explicitly that the judgment
upon Macbeth is “here,” in this world, that Macbeth’s affirmation of himself at the expense of any
communal morality brings its social and psychological consequences in this life. The great bonds of
nature which Macbeth and his wife violate might be interpreted, I suppose, from a Christian
perspective, but the play does not require that, and to the extent that such a Christian interpretation
might ease the unsettling complexities of the vision of evil in the world (by imposing a reassuring
doctrine upon the conclusion of the play), I would tend to reject it. If we see the metaphysical
questions about good and evil as central to a religious sensibility, thenMacbeth is a profoundly
religious play, but it does not deliver an explicitly Christian message (here again there is an important
difference perhaps between Macbeth and Richard III).

That may be the reason why in his extremely effective interpretation of the play, Polanski
set Macbeth back in pagan times, in a very tough militaristic society dominated by assertions of force
amid an unforgiving natural setting. Such a vision helps us see even more clearly (as many of the best
tragedies almost always do) the fragile and perhaps illusory nature of those social institutions which
we like to believe in at those moments when we feel we need an ordered and morally significant
community. Macbeth’s decision to move beyond that morally significant community has failed, his

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attempt to impose a new order based on murder has failed, but his attempt has exposed the falseness
of any complacent assumptions about the effectiveness of traditional order to hold evil easily at bay.

How we interpret the ending of Macbeth will, in large part, depend upon how we see the role
of the witches at the end. Some (e.g., Goddard) see the end as an unambiguous triumph of good over
evil. Scotland has been cleansed by the combined forces of the Christian English king, who has
miraculous powers to cure disease, and the Scottish nobility. My own sense is that the ending is a
good deal more ambiguous, for the witches are still around and have not been dealt with. If they are
present on stage as the lights fade, then the victory over Macbeth will be a good deal more ironic.

I tend to see this play as insisting that the human community exists in a small arena of light
surrounded by darkness and fog. In this darkness and fog, the witches endlessly circle the arena of
light, waiting for someone like Macbeth to respond to his imaginative desires and perhaps natural
curiosity about what lies beyond the circle. There will always be such people, often among the best
and the brightest in the human community. So overcoming one particular person is no final triumph of
anything. It is a reminder of just how fragile the basic moral assumptions we make about ourselves
can be. In that sense, Macbeth, like all great tragedies, is potentially a very emotionally disturbing
play. It does not reassure us that the forces of good will always prevail, rather that the powers of
darkness are always present, for all our pious hopes and beliefs.

One final point. To talk this way about a vision of evil is to offer a comment upon a thematic
concern of the play. But one should not therefore think that Macbeth is somehow a coherent
philosophical statement of such a theme, something which invites rational analysis. Macbeth is a work
of art, and if it is effective, it does its work through our emotional responses to the poetry (and the
action in a performance), not by making some closely argued case about the nature of the world.

Postscript 2: The Witches Once More: The Revenge of the Proletariat or The Revenge
of the Id?

The above interpretative suggestions about the witches has deliberately ignored questions a
modern reader might well raise: What about the witches as people? Why are they women? Is there any
point to examining the social and political implications of the presence of these characters?
Traditionally, these questions have not mattered very much, for the various approaches
to Macbeth have treated them very much the way I have above (as symbolic manifestations of the
potential for evil). However, an eminent modern literary critic, Terry Eagleton, raises a new
possibility:

To any unprejudiced reader—which would seem to exclude Shakespeare himself, his


contemporary audiences and almost all literary critics—it is surely clear that positive value
in Macbeth lies with the three witches. The witches are the heroines of the piece, however
little the play itself recognizes the fact, and however much the critics may have set out to
defame them. (William Shakespeare, p. 2)

For Eagleton, the social reality of the witches matters. They are outcasts, living on the fringe
of society in a female community, at odds with the male world of “civilization,” which values military
butchery. The fact that they are female and associated with the natural world beyond the aristocratic
oppression in the castles indicates that they are excluded others. Their equality in a female community
declares their opposition to the masculine power of the militaristic society. They have no direct
power, but they have become expert at manipulating or appealing to the self-destructive
contradictions of their military oppressors. They can see Macbeth’s destruction as a victory of a sort:
one more viciously individualistic, aggressive male oppressor has gone under.

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This suggestion is not (I think) entirely serious (Eagleton observes that the play does not
recognize the issue he is calling attention to), but it underscores a key point in the tragic experience of
Macbeth, its connection to a willed repudiation of the deep mysterious heart of life, the place where
sexuality and the unconscious hold sway. This aspect of life is commonly associated with and hence
symbolized by women, for complex reasons which there is not time to go into here (but which would
seem to be intimately bound up with women’s sexuality and fertility, contacts with the irrational
centres of life which men do not understand and commonly fear). In seeking to stamp his own willed
vision of the future onto life, the tragic hero rejects a more direct acquaintance with or acceptance of
life’s mystery. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth intuit this point, because they both pray to the gods
to make them “unnatural.” And they both pay the price, for nature will never subordinate herself for
long to the individual’s desire to exercise control over her. In that sense, Macbeth, like other
tragedies, might be said to call attention to the “unnatural” or “oppressive” understanding of life
inherent in traditional tragedy.

The notion that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are, in a sense, punished by some life force drew
a short comment from Freud (in Some Character-types Met With in Psycho-analytical Work, 1916), in
response to questions about the accuracy of Shakespeare’s depiction of their motivation and
subsequent psychic breakdown. While confessing himself at something of a loss to account for the
characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in detail, Freud sees an important suggestion in the notion
of childlessness:

It would be a perfect example of poetic justice in the manner of talion if the childlessness of
Macbeth and the barrenness of his Lady were the punishment for their crimes against the
sanctity of generation—if Macbeth could not become a father because he had robbed children
of their father and a father of his children, and if Lady Macbeth suffered the unsexing she had
demanded of the spirits of murder. I believe Lady Macbeth’s illness, the transformation of her
callousness into penitence, could be explained directly as a reaction to her childlessness, by
which she is convinced of her impotence against the decrees of nature, and at the same time
reminded that it is through her own fault if her crime has been robbed of the better parts of its
fruits.

Freud notes that the compressed time frame of the play does not invite this analytical
conclusion, so he does not push home this possibility. And he concludes his short remarks with the
suggestion (developed from Ludwig Jekels) that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are, in effect, a single
personality, so that, considered as a unit, “Together they exhaust the possibilities of reaction to the
crime, like two disunited parts of a single psychical individuality, and it may be that they are both
copied from the same prototype.” This final suggestion might help us to see that the impact of the
tragedy is, in part, conveyed to us by the falling apart of the couple who, when we first meet them,
seem entirely in harmony with one another (a point mentioned earlier).

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You Can Go Home Again, Can’t You? An Introduction to The Tempest

Introduction

Today I wish to provide something of a short introduction to Shakespeare’s Tempest, first, by


acknowledging some of the interpretative richness of this play and, second, by outlining two very
different approaches. The contrast between them will serve as a final reminder of something we have
(I hope) discovered many times in this course, the interpretative fecundity of Shakespeare’s work.

Let me begin by acknowledging an interesting point about this play: interpretations of


the Tempest tend to be shaped quite strongly by the particular background which the interpreter brings
to it. This point sounds like a truism (and it is), but I simply want to point to the fact that this play,
more so than many others, tends to bring out in interpreters what their particular interests are in a way
that other plays often do not (at least not to the same degree). At least that has been my experience.

In part, this happens because this play puts a good deal of pressure on us to treat it
allegorically, that is, to find a conceptual framework which will coordinate our understanding of what
goes on in the play. I think we feel this mainly because there is little complex characterization in
the Tempest (except perhaps for the figure of Prospero himself) and there are many elements which
we cannot simply account for by taking the action naturalistically. So we want to know what they
stand for: What exactly is Prospero’s magic? What does Caliban represent? Is the island a depiction of
the new world or a world of the imagination or something else? And so on. The answers to these
questions, in my experience, tend often to depend upon the major interests of the person seeking to
understand the play.

So, for example, those, like me, with a strong interest in reading Shakespeare, a lively interest
in theatrical productions of Shakespeare, and what many might take to be an old-fashioned humanist
perspective, tend to emphasize the extent to which the main focus in the Tempest is on the nature of
art and illusion, especially theatrical art. This tendency is powerfully reinforced by the fact that this
play is almost certainly Shakespeare’s last full work, so that the Tempest is, in effect, his farewell to
the stage. No doubt there is a certain sentimentality in this view (certainly in my case there is).

People with a strong interest in politics, however, often take a different slant, and see the play
as having less to do with an exploration of theatre than with a probing artistic analysis of important
political issues, especially those relevant to the oppression of the inhabitants of the new world (that is,
the issue of colonialism) or to the relationship between the intellectual and the political world. So, for
example, the play has been presented as a statement about colonial attitudes in North or South
America or as an exploration of the role of the intellectual in post-glasnost Eastern Europe. Other
interpreters dismiss those suggestions and see in the play a vital exploration of education (the nature
versus nurture dispute) or theories of politics or knowledge or whatever. I hope to touch on some of
these possibilities (in addition to my own preferences) in the remarks below).

The Tempest as an Exploration of the Nature of Art

By way of introducing the first popular interpretative approach to the Tempest, I want to
begin with a very obvious point. The Tempest is a very theatrical play, that is, it is obviously a
wonderful vehicle for displaying the full resources of the theatre: dramatic action, special effects,
music, magic, monsters, dancing, storms, drunken humour, and so on. Anyone who wants a
Shakespearean play to produce mainly as an extravagant theatrical tour de force (say, a rock and roll
extravaganza or an opera) would turn naturally to this play, which, among Shakespeare’s works, is
rivaled only by Midsummer Night’s Dream in this respect. And a number of productions, past and
modern, have stressed mainly that element, without bothering about anything else. Musical
adaptations of The Tempest have a long tradition.

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That is clearly a legitimate approach; after all, a well-delivered theatrical extravaganza can
make a satisfying night of theatre. And it is clear that The Tempest does depend for much of its
effectiveness on a wide range of special effects—sound, lighting, fantastic visions, a whole realm of
“magic” (it may well have been written in response to the changing theatrical tastes of an audience
that was requiring more theatrical effects in the presentation of dramatic productions). But I think
there’s more to the theatricality of the play than just its style. In my view, a central issue of
the Tempest is an exploration into the nature of theatre itself.

For those who have read a certain amount of Shakespeare, the theatrical theme gets
considerable impetus from the fact that The Tempest seems, in some ways, to revisit many earlier
Shakespearean themes and characters, so that at times it comes across almost as a final summary look
at some very familiar material, something Stephen Greenblatt calls “a kind of echo chamber of
Shakespearean motifs”:

Its story of loss and recovery and its air of wonder link it closely to the group of late plays
that modern editors generally call “romances” (Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline), but it
resonates as well with issues that haunted Shakespeare’s imagination throughout his career:
the painful necessity for a father to let his daughter go (Othello, King Lear); the treacherous
betrayal of a legitimate ruler (Richard II, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth); the murderous
hatred of one brother for another (Richard III, As You Like It, Hamlet, King Lear); the passage
from court society to the wilderness and the promise of a return (A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, As You Like It); the wooing of a young heiress in ignorance of her place in the social
hierarchy (Twelfth Night, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale); the dream of manipulating others by
means of art, especially by staging miniature plays-within-plays (1 Henry IV, Much Ado
About Nothing, Hamlet); the threat of a radical loss of identity (The Comedy of
Errors, Richard II, King Lear); the relation between nature and nurture (Pericles, The
Winter’s Tale); the harnessing of magical powers (. . . [2 Henry VI], A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Macbeth).

So, given this rich allusiveness to other plays, at the end of a course like this there is a natural
tendency to want to link the concerns of the play with a celebration of the wonderful achievement we
have been studying so far.

But there is more to this approach to the play than simply nostalgia. To give you a sense of
what I mean, let me mention two questions that puzzled me about this play when I first read it. The
first is this: If Prospero’s power is so effective against his opponents as it appears to be, then why
didn’t he use it back in Milan to avoid having to be exiled in the first place? And the second one,
which arises naturally from that first one, is this: Given that Prospero is so keen on his magic and
takes such delight in it and that it gives him so much power, why does he abandon it before returning
to Milan?

I puzzled over these questions until I came to what seems to me the most satisfying answer. It
is a very obvious one: the magic does not work in Milan; it is effective only on the island, away from
the Machiavellian world of the court, where plotting against each other, even against one’s own
family, for the sake of political power is the order of the day and where, if you take your mind off the
political realities for very long, you may find yourself in a boat with a load of books heading to an
unknown exile. Prospero’s magic can only become effective in a special place, a world of spirits, of
illusion, song, and enchantment, on a magic island—in other words, in the theatre.

After all, look what happens in this play. A bunch of political types and all their attendants
(sailors, butlers, and so on) from the busy court of Naples and Milan are lured away from their power

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political business into a world of illusion, where they are led around by strange powers (above all,
music and apparitions) they do not fully comprehend but whom they cannot resist until they all come
together inside Prospero’s magic circle. Prospero controls the entire experiment through his ability to
create and sustain illusions. He is throughout the master of the action, and there is never any suspense
(well, almost none), since he has such absolute control of human beings through his control of what
they see and hear and experience.

[There’s a similar sense in the recent film Shakespeare in Love, where daily life in London is
often a hard business, with arranged marriages to brutal men, hateful money lenders, and so on; all
that changes in the theatre, where miraculously things always come right, at least for a time, even
money lenders become enthusiastically cooperative and supportive and a love impossible in the world
outside can thrive]

If we accept this possibility as an interpretative metaphor, then we need to explore how that
might make sense of other elements in the play. Remember that in such questions the Principle of
Inclusiveness is an important guiding rule: the interpretation should make sense of as much of the
play as possible, and in any conflict between rival interpretative possibilities one important criterion
for judgment is the adequacy of each interpretation at providing a coherent and consistent sense of as
much of the play as possible.

In order to pursue this idea of the Tempest as an celebratory exploration of the nature of
theatrical art, I want to turn for a while to what happens in the play.

Prospero’s Experiment

The Tempest, it is clear, features an experiment by Prospero. He has not brought the
Europeans to the vicinity of the island, but when they do come close to it, he has, through the power
of illusion, lured them into his very special realm. The experiment first of all breaks up their social
solidarity, for they land in different groups: Ferdinand by himself, the court group, Stephano and
Trinculo by themselves, and the sailors remain asleep. The magic leads them by separate paths until
they all meet in the circle drawn by Prospero in front of his cave. There he removes the spell of the
illusions; the human family recognizes each other, and together they resolve to return to Italy, leaving
behind the powers of the magic associated with the island.

Before considering the purpose of Prospero’s experiment, we should note how central to all
his magic Ariel is. And Ariel is not human but a magical spirit who has been released from natural
bondage (being riven up in a tree) by Prospero’s book learning. The earlier inhabitants of the island,
Sycorax and Caliban, had no sense of how to use Ariel, and so they simply imprisoned him in the
world which governs them, raw nature. Prospero’s power depends, in large part, on Ariel’s release
and willing service. In that sense, Ariel can be seen as some imaginative power which makes the
effects of the theatre (like lightning in the masts of the boat) possible. One of the great attractions of
this view of the play as a celebration of the powers of theatre is that it makes the best sense of Ariel’s
character, something which, as we shall see, is not quite so straightforward in other approaches.

What is the purpose of Prospero’s experiment? He never gives us a clear statement, but it
seems clear that one important element in that purpose is Miranda. He wants to arrange things on her
behalf, and of all the people in the play, her situation is the most transformed: she is going back to
Europe a royal bride, filled with a sense of enthusiasm and joy at the prospect of living among so
many fine people in a society that, quite literally, thrills her imagination. It seems that Prospero’s
major intention includes a recommitment to civilized life in Milan, so that his daughter can take up
her rightful place in society. As with As You Like It, there is no sense here that any appropriate life
could be based on remaining on the island when they no longer have to.

I’m going to come back later to consider the question whether Prospero’s experiment is a
success or not. But however we judge it, it seems clear that one great success is the marriage of

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Ferdinand and Miranda. The experiment brings them together, awakens their sense of wonder at the
world and at each other, and is sending them back to Milan full of the finest hopes for the world.
These two young people carry with them the major weight of the optimistic comic hopes of the play’s
resolution. Their love for each other, which is presented to us as a true love firmly under the control of
their moral feelings, will, in a sense, regenerate Milan.

Another success in Prospero’s experiment is the change of heart which takes place in his
earlier enemy Alonso. Prospero’s actions bring Alonso face to face with his past evil conduct and
prompt him to repent and reconcile himself with Prospero, even to the point of surrendering the
political power he took away so long ago. Moreover, we might want to argue that there’s is the
beginning of a similar change in the animalistic Caliban, who at least comes to realize something of
his own foolishness in resisting Prospero in favour of two drunken European low lifes.

The most complex change in the play, however, takes place within Prospero himself. In
considering his motives for undertaking the experiment, we cannot escape the sense that Prospero
harbors a great deal of resentment about his treatment back in Milan and is never very far from
wanting to exact a harsh revenge. After all, he has it in his power significantly to injure the parties that
treated him so badly. What’s very interesting about this is that Prospero learns that that is not the
appropriate response. And he learns this central insight from Ariel, the very spirit of imaginative
illusion, who is not even human. Speaking of the fact that all of Prospero’s enemies are now in his
power and are painfully confused, Ariel says: “if you beheld them now, your affections/ Would
become tender.” Prospero replies: “Does thou think so spirit?” to which Ariel responds: “Mine would,
sir, were I human.” At this point Prospero delivers one of the most important speeches of the play:

And mine shall.


Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply
Passion as they, be kindlier mov’d than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury
Do I take part. The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance. (5.1. 18-28)

Here, the imaginative sympathy for the sufferings of others leads to an active intervention
based upon “virtue” rather than “vengeance.” This is a key recognition in the play: virtue expressed in
forgiveness is a higher human attribute than vengeance. And in the conclusion of the play, Prospero
does not even mention the list of crimes against him. He simply offers to forgive and accept what has
happened to him, in a spirit of reconciliation. Unlike earlier plays which featured family quarrels, the
ending here requires neither the death nor the punishment of any of the parties. Here that change is
initiated by Ariel’s remarks.

Prospero’s Magic as the World of the Theatre

It makes sense to me to see in this Shakespeare’s sense of his own art—both what it can
achieve and what it cannot. The theatre—that magical world of poetry, song, illusion, pleasing and
threatening apparitions—can, like Prospero’s magic, educate us into a better sense of ourselves, into a
final acceptance of the world, a state in which we forgive and forget in the interests of the greater
human community. The theatre, that is, can reconcile us to the joys of the human community so that
we do not destroy our families in a search for righting past evils in a spirit of personal revenge or as
crude assertions of our own egos. It can, in a very real sense, help us fully to understand the central

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Christian commitment to charity, to loving our neighbour as ourselves. The magic here brings about a
total reconciliation of all levels of society from sophisticated rulers to semi-human brutes,
momentarily holding off Machiavellian deceit, drunken foolishness, and animalistic rebellion—each
person, no matter how he has lived, has a place in the magic circle at the end. And no one is asking
any awkward questions.

In the same way, Prospero’s world can awaken the young imagination to the wonder and joy
of the human community, can transform our perceptions of human beings into a “brave new world,”
full of beauty, promise, and love, and excite our imaginations with the prospects of living life in the
midst of our fellow human beings.

In the world of the Tempest, we have moved beyond tragedy. In this world Hamlet and
Ophelia are happily united, the Ghost comes to life again and is reconciled with his brother, the old
antagonisms are healed. Lear learns to lessen his demands on the world and to accept it with all its
threats to his own ego. This is not a sentimental vision, an easily achieved resolution. It takes time—
in this case sixteen years—and a measure of faith in the human community that one is prepared to
hold onto in the face of urgent personal demands. This play seems to be saying that theatrical art, the
magic of Prospero, can achieve what is not possible in the world of Milan, where everyone must
always be on guard, because it’s a Machiavellian world ruled by the realities of power and injury and
there is no Ariel to serve us with the power of illusions.

On this reading of the play, what would we make of Caliban, who stands in opposition to
Prospero’s power and who is its most immediate victim? This reading would probably stress (as many
productions have always done) Caliban’s dangerous, anarchic violence. He is an earth-animal (some
intermediate form perhaps) who represents a clear and present danger, because he is not capable of
being educated out of the state he was born into. Prospero’s “civilizing” arts keep him in control,
though with difficulty. Caliban is at times quite sensitive to the emotional qualities of Prospero’s
magic, especially the wonderful music he hears, but is too much in the grip of his raw instincts for
rape and rebellion to respond with anything other than anger to his condition.

Caliban might well be considered in some sense a natural slave (as D. H. Lawrence pointed
out) because his idea of freedom from Prospero seems to involve becoming the slave of someone else,
someone who will kill Prospero. So Caliban throws in his lot with two drunken Europeans, not having
the wit to see them for what they are. Caliban is thus not so much interested in freedom as he is in
rebellion; his violence is natural to him and is not an outgrowth of the way he is treated. Hence,
Prospero’s control of him through his magic is not only justified but necessary.

Does Caliban undergo any sort of significant change at the ending of the play? There’s a
suggestion that he has learned something from the mistakes he has made, and his final comment (“I’ll
be wise hereafter,/ And seek for grace”) may be a cryptic acknowledgment of some restraint. But he
doesn’t go with the Europeans and remains on his island. Caliban’s future life has always sparked
interest among certain writers, for there is a tradition of sequels to the Tempest in which Caliban is the
central character (notably Browning’s long dramatic monologue “Caliban on Setebos”).

For all the potentially warm reconciliations at the end of the play, however, it is not without
its potentially sobering ironies. And there is a good deal of discussion of just how unequivocal the
celebration is at the end. For Prospero is no sentimentalist. He recognizes the silence of Sebastian and
Antonio at the end for what it is, an indication that they have not changed, that they are going to
return to Naples and Milan the same people as left it, political double dealers, ambitious and
potentially murderous power seekers, just as Stephano and Trinculo are going back as stupid as when
they left. Prospero’s theatrical magic has brought them together, has forced them to see themselves,
but it has had no effect on some characters (unless the staging of the end of the play conveys in non-
verbal ways that the two noble would-be killers are as contrite as Alonso appears to be).

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If we see the irony here as present but not totally corrosive, then by bringing us such a
reconciliation, theatre (Prospero’s experiment in the play and The Tempest itself) can help to maintain
our best hopes for a meaningful life, faith that in time we will work things out, that, in spite of evil,
the end of our story will manifest a pattern of moral significance. Locked into the contingencies of
history in our political and business lives, where competition and deceitful self-interest hold sway, we
may easily lose this faith. The theatre is, in a sense, a place which can restore us.

But that restoration is provisional and fragile, more of a hope than a robust certainty. That’s
why in acknowledging the most famous single line quotation from the play, one needs also to
examines the four words which immediately follow: Miranda, overwhelmed with the wonder and
delight of seeing so many finely dressed civilized Europeans cries out, “O brave new world/ That has
such people in’t!” to which the more sober minded and mature Prospero comments only, “‘Tis new to
thee.” Those four words of Prospero are wonderfully pregnant. In them he acknowledges his earned
awareness into the nature of human beings, into the complexity of human life, which does not always
(or usually) answer to Miranda’s joyous affirmation.

But he is not about to deliver Miranda another sermon, for he knows that the sense of joyful
and optimistic wonder which she, as a young woman, is carrying back to Italy is the world’s best
hope. It may be, as he well knows, naive, for Miranda has, as yet, no sense of the evils that lurk back
in the political world of the city. She sees only the attractive exterior of her human surroundings with
no sense yet of the potential deceptions within. But she is as well equipped as he can make her, and it
is not up to him to sour her youthful enthusiasm with a more complex and less affirming mature
reflection. That is something she will have to discover in her turn.

One might argue that if Prospero’s experiment is designed to make everyone better, then it’s a
failure in large part. And it may be, as I mentioned above, that Prospero recognizes that fact. It is not
unusual to stage this play in such a way that the conventional comic structure of the ending is
seriously undercut by the sense of sadness in Prospero, who is returning to Milan to die. I’m not
pressing this interpretation. All I want to call attention to at this point is that the ending of this play
may not be the unalloyed triumph of the comic spirit that we are tempted to see there. Prospero’s
sober awareness of what the silence of Sebastian and Antonio means qualifies our sense of joy by
indicating that the eternal problem of human evil has not been solved or dismissed. One major
interpretative decision any director of the play has to make concerns this ending. Just how evident and
serious should those ironies be: non-existent, a light shadow under the communal joy, or a heavy
reminder of what is in store back in Italy?

The strength of this sobering irony at the end will determine the particular tone which governs
the return. In some productions, the irony is hardly noticeable and the celebration is thus dominant. In
others, the irony is sufficiently strong to introduce an ominous note into the whole proceedings, even
to the point of suggesting that Prospero’s experiment has, in a sense, failed. Yes, Miranda and
Ferdinand will be happily married, but the political world they are returning to (where Prospero will
soon die) is unchanged and will remain much the same.

Prospero’s Farewell to the Stage

The theatre metaphor also helps to explain why, in the last analysis, Prospero has to surrender
his magical powers. Life cannot be lived out in the world of illusions, delightful and educative as they
can often be. Life must be lived in the real world, in Milan or in Naples, and Miranda cannot thus
entirely fulfill herself on the island. The realities of life must be encountered and dealt with as best we
can. The world of the theatre can remind us of things we may too easily forget; it can liberate and
encourage youthful wonder and excitement at all the diverse richness of life; it can, at times, even
wake people up to more important issues than their own Machiavellian urge to self-aggrandizement,
and, most important of all, it can educate us into forgiveness. But it can never finally solve the
problem of evil, and it can never provide an acceptable environment for a fully realized adult life.

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Prospero, as I see it, doesn’t start the play fully realizing all this. He launches his experiment
from a mixture of motives, perhaps not entirely sure what he going to do (after all, one gets the sense
that there’s a good deal of improvising going on). But he learns in the play to avoid the twin dangers
to his experiment, the two main threats to the value of his theatrical magic.

The first I have already alluded to, namely, the danger of using of his powers purely for
vengeance. Prospero, like Shakespeare, is a master illusionist, and he is tempted to channel his
personal frustrations into his art, to exact vengeance against wrongs done in Milan through the power
of his art (perhaps, as some have argued, as Shakespeare is doing for unknown personal reasons
against women in Hamlet and Lear). But he learns from Ariel that to do this is to deny the moral value
of the art, whose major purpose is to reconcile us to ourselves and our community, not to even a
personal score.

The second great threat which we see in this play is that Prospero may get too involved in his
own wonderful capabilities, he may become too much the showman, too proud of showing off his
skill to attend to the final purpose of what he is doing. We see this in the scene in which Prospero puts
on a special display of his theatrical powers for Ferdinand and Miranda—his desire to show off makes
him forget that he has more important issues to attend to, once again putting his art in the service of
the social experiment. And it’s interesting to note that it was his self-absorption in his own magic that
got Prospero in trouble in the first place in Milan (as he admits), when he neglected his
responsibilities for the self-absorbing pleasures of his books. There’s a strong sense in this play that,
whatever the powers and wonders of the illusion, one has to maintain a firm sense of what it is for,
what it can and cannot do, and where it is most appropriate. It can never substitute for or conjure away
the complexities of life in the community.

This approach helps me to understand, too, the logic behind Prospero’s surrender of his
magic. He has done all he can do. Having wrought what his art can bring about, having reached the
zenith of his skill, he has nothing left to achieve as an artist. He is going home, back to the human
community, perhaps to die, perhaps to enjoy a different life, now able to appreciate more fully what
he did not understand so long ago, the proper relationship between the world governed by magic and
illusion and the world in which most of us have to live most of the time—the compromised world of
politics, alcohol, buying and selling, family strife. So he releases Ariel; he has no more work for him
to do, and Ariel does not belong in Milan.

Of course, it is critically illegitimate and no doubt very sentimental to link Prospero’s giving
up of his art with Shakespeare’s decision to give up writing plays and to return to Stratford to enjoy
life with his grandchildren (in fact, he did not give up the theatrical life immediately after writing this
play). But it’s a very tempting connection, especially in the light of the wonderful speech in 4.1, one
of the most frequently quoted passages in the play, a speech which has come to be called
“Shakespeare’s Farewell to the Stage.”

I’d like to conclude this part of the lecture by reading this speech, urging you to remember
that Shakespeare’s theatre, called the Globe, was destroyed by fire very soon after the Tempest was
first performed (a facsimile has just been reconstructed on the banks of the Thames very close to the
original site and is now open for business).

Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. 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-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

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Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Dreams may be the stuff of life, they may energize us, delight us, educate us, and reconcile us
to each other, but we cannot live life as a dream. We may carry what we learn in the world of illusion
with us into life, and perhaps we may be able, through art, to learn about how to deal with the evil in
the world, including our own. But art is not a substitute for life, and it cannot alter the fundamental
conditions of the human community. The magic island is not Milan, and human beings belong in
Milan with all its dangers, if they are to be fully human. Life must be lived historically, not
aesthetically.

The Tempest as a Study of Colonialism

For over a century, and particularly in the past twenty years, a number of interpreters have
taken a very different approach to this play, seeing in it the exploration of some particularly relevant
political issues. The English critic, William Hazlitt, was the first to point out (in 1818) that Prospero
had usurped Caliban from his rule of the island and was thus an agent of imperialism. Since then such
an approach to the play (with various modifications) has remained more or less current, although only
in recent decades has it become widespread in North America.

Some of these arguments are quite simple and reductive; others are a good deal more
sophisticated. I cannot do full justice to these interpretations here, but I would like to consider some of
the main points in order to raise a few questions in your minds.

[Those who would like to read a useful historical survey of these treatments of the play
should consult Vaughan, Alden T. and Virginia Mason Vaughan, Shakespeare’s Caliban: A Cultural
History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. I have taken historical information from this book]

This approach to The Tempest also begins with some obvious features of the play. Prospero is
a European who has taken charge of a remote island. He has been able to do this because he brings
with him special powers. With these he organizes a life for himself, gets the local inhabitants (Ariel
and Caliban) to work for him, and maintains his control by a combination of painful force or threats of
force, wonderful spells, and promises of freedom some day. In taking charge of a place which is not
his and in exerting his European authority over the strange non-European creatures, compelling them
to serve him and his values, Prospero, so the argument runs, is obviously a symbol for European
colonial power, with which England was growing increasingly familiar during Shakespeare’s lifetime
(not just in the New World but also in Ireland).

The key figure in this treatment of the play naturally is Caliban, the island native who regards
himself as the rightful owner of the place, who is forced against his will to serve Prospero and
Miranda, and who constantly proclaims his unwillingness to do so. Initially, Prospero extends to
Caliban his European hospitality, teaches him language, and, in return, is shown all the natural
resources of the island by Caliban, in an act of love. But Caliban refuses to live by Prospero’s rules,
tries to rape Miranda (he still wants to), and their relationship changes to one of master and slave. The
gift of language, Caliban now says, is good only because it enables him to curse. Prospero may
control Caliban (with painful torments), but he has not vanquished his resistance.

For Prospero, the main problem with Caliban is that he is incapable of being educated
(although Caliban’s command of beautiful poetry might make us wonder about that). He is thus (for
Prospero) some lower life form (like a native of Ireland, for example, many of whom were in

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Shakespeare’s day not considered fully human): deformed, evil smelling, treacherous, rapacious, and
violent. Unlike Ferdinand, who is a suitable lover for Miranda because he can discipline himself to
work to earn her, Caliban has no restraint. Hence, Prospero feels himself morally entitled to exercise
his control over him; indeed, the safety and security of his and Miranda’s life depend upon such
enforced obedience (as Prospero says, they need Caliban’s labour to survive).

There is obviously much here one might point to as an allegory on European colonial or
capitalist practices. One might well argue that the presentation of Caliban is itself a very European
perception of alien New World cultures, and thus Prospero’s moral authority rests on a complete
inability to see the natives as fully cultured human beings, in other words, on his European mind set,
which automatically labels those different from Europeans as ugly, uncivilized, and threatening
“others.” The gift of language is not a gift but an imposition, a common means of enforcing colonial
rule on recalcitrant subjects.

[In a well known production of this play in 1974 (in the National Theatre in London), the
actor playing Caliban had the two halves of his face made up in different ways: one side was that of a
noble-looking Native American; the other side was that of a grotesque ape-like man. Depending upon
which way the actor turned, the audience’s perception of the character changed entirely. This
theatrical device obviously invited the audience to consider the importance of cultural perceptions in
our evaluative judgments in dealing with people from “primitive” non-Europeanized societies].

If we pursue such a political basis for the allegory, can we come to any conclusions about
Shakespeare’s vision of colonial practices? What, if anything, is the play offering as a vision of
European imperialism? For me, the emotional logic of the action suggests that Shakespeare is offering
a defense of colonial practices which he then undermines. Caliban may, indeed, offend every
European moral principle, but in some ways he is more intelligent and more open than some of the
Europeans (like the drunken idiots Stephano and Trinculo and the deceitful murderous conspirators).
He may resist Prospero’s authority, but that authority is something we can call into question,
especially by looking closely at the way it is enforced. In his renunciation of magic and return to
Europe, Prospero would appear to be finally conceding that continuing on the island is wrong.
Significantly, among his last words is the potentially pregnant comment (about Caliban) “This thing
of darkness I/ Acknowledge mine.” If this means, as it might, some recognition of a bond between
Prospero and Caliban, then Prospero’s leaving the island to Caliban and renouncing his magic (the
source of his power) would seem to be a tacit apology for the master-slave basis for their earlier
relationship which Prospero enforced.

That said, however, there are one or two interesting problems which such a political
interpretation of the play (which I have not had time to present fairly) generally has some trouble
with. In the first place, it requires us to see Caliban as representative of an oppressed culture or class
(either a Native American Indian or an Irish peasant or a member of the proletariat). Yet he is the only
one of his kind (that is made very clear to us), and is a relatively recent arrival there. He has no culture
matrix, no family, and no cultural history. So I’m not sure that the image of cultural oppression is
particularly clear.

Consider, for example, the key issue of language. In this play, it’s not the case that the
Europeans forced Caliban to forget his language and learn theirs. Before they came Caliban had no
language at all. This is surely a key point. One can imagine how very different the impact of this play
would be if Caliban had some other island natives with him and if they shared their own language and
customs, which Prospero then forcibly suppressed. Then the issues of cultural oppression would be
irresistibly there. As it stands, making Caliban the representative of a native culture would seem to
require putting in the play something that not only is not there but which is expressly excluded.

So if I have to choose between a vision of Caliban which sees him as a semi-human brute
(pure nature with no nurture) and a vision which sees him as a misunderstood and oppressed native
person, then on the evidence of the play, I would tend to favour the first (although I’m ready to be

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persuaded by a superb production that the colonialist allegory can make effective dramatic sense of
the play as written).

Significantly some of the earliest attempts to see The Tempest as a colonialist allegory
identified Caliban, not with the original inhabitants of the New World, but with the European bosses
left behind by the original explorers. This view was especially pronounced in South American
countries which had a long and brutal history of oppression by American capitalist companies, and
Caliban, in some critics’ eyes, looked far more like a Yankee managing director than a noble savage.
This is an interesting possibility, but it does leave one wondering then about the native inhabitants on
the island, since they would not be present at all.

[In viewing Caliban as an oppressed person, one might mention a recent view that he is a
“reluctant student” in a play about education. I don’t take this view particularly seriously, but it does
remind us that ideological approaches to the Prospero-Caliban interaction can often quite easily fit
into the play a number of different views of various kinds of authority, just or otherwise]

The second problem the political interpretation faces is Ariel. What are we to make of him?
One production based on a colonialist theme (directed by Jonathan Miller) made Ariel the “good”
native, the intelligent servant of the European masters (in contrast to Caliban the “bad” native). The
contrast was heightened by making Ariel an East Indian and Caliban an African (thus duplicating
some of the racial realities in post-colonial African states). At the end of this production Ariel picked
up Prospero’s abandoned instruments of magic and the curtain closed with a sense of him now as the
oppressing power over Caliban.

But such political approaches to the play all have trouble with the most obvious element in
Ariel’s character, his non-human nature and his magical powers, which contribute so massively to the
play’s action and its theatrical effects. After all, if we are going to apply some allegory of colonialism
to the play, then we need to be able to account for such an important part of it (and for Prospero’s
“release” of Ariel from imprisonment in nature). We cannot simply ignore such points because they
don’t fit. For that reason, it may be significant that political treatments of the Tempest tend to give
Caliban far more space than Ariel (who often hardly gets mentioned).

One possible interpretation (which I have not come across, although I’m sure someone must
have offered it somewhere) is to combine both the theatrical and the political approaches and explore
the play as some vision of the theatrical basis for political power, an issue that is currently very much
alive in interpretations of Renaissance drama and politics. This approach would link The Tempest to
other plays we have read in which an essential element in maintaining power is the development of
politics as public theatre (obviously an important element in the education of Prince Hal in Henry IV).
Seizing power and ruling (oppressing?) others (whether New World natives or Irish peasants or
naturally rebellious animalistic human beings of the ur-proletariat) requires, more than anything else,
control over images which divert, punish, seduce, and, in general, confirm in people’s minds the
absolute mastery of the power of the ruler. Governing the island is thus a natural extension of
governing Milan (or Henry V’s England or Octavius’s empire), and the most obvious tool is public
theatre. Thus, Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage might be seen as an ironic deflation of or farewell to
the role of theatre and its power of seizing people’s imaginations, not simply for entertainment and
moral enlightenment, but equally (or more importantly) for their oppression through pleasing images
of patriarchal colonialist or capitalist ideology.

I’m not sure if one could sustain such an interpretation of the play, and I have not thought it
through sufficiently (particularly the ending where the illusion-making power is discarded). So I tend
to return to the first understanding of the play as a celebration of theatre (with a strong biographical
link). But with the Tempest, as with so many of Shakespeare’s plays, other complex possibilities will
not leave my imagination alone.

Postscript on the Tempest

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In the context of the other plays we have studied this semester (and the lectures on them), we
might want to see the ending of this play as a movement beyond the tragic vision. I mentioned
(following Stanley Cavell) in discussing Antony and Cleopatra how Cleopatra’s suicide is inherently
theatrical, opposing the drama of her personal commitment to Antony to Octavius’s planned political
theatre featuring her in his triumphal march through Rome. I mentioned at that time that if this view
has any merit, there is still a tragic sense in the end of that play because such personal theatre is
possible only in death.

We might want to see in The Tempest a gentler sense that the theatre of personal fulfilment in
human relationships is opened up to us a living possibility, not simply a script for a final scene. If so,
then the play might be offering a hope that, even if there is no certain answer about life’s most
important questions in the world of politics, there are important possibilities which can be realized (if
only temporarily) in personal commitments to love and forgiveness (whether fostered by theatrical art
or not). The ambiguous ironies at the end of the play suggest to me that, if such a vision is at work
here, it is not given to us as a robust affirmation, perhaps more as a fervent hope.

Afterword [added in December 2001]

In my remarks above I suggested that interpreting the Tempest as an allegory about art seems
to make more sense of the play than approaching it as an allegory about colonial powers, but that
there might be an interesting possibility of combining the two around the notion that artistic
celebration and political practice are not mutually exclusive (especially in Shakespeare, where
dramatic depictions of royal power are an important political tool). I also (implicitly) suggested that
the most difficult interpretative problem facing someone who wishes to emphasize the political
dimensions of the play is Ariel, a non-human agent who plays a major role in arranging and
conducting the theatrical events we witness and whose remarks to Prospero mark a decisive point in
his life on the island. Any decision to make Ariel merely human (in order to give him secular
political weight)—as in Jonathan Miller’s production—obviously removes something central to the
text (and might well create something of a puzzle about Ariel’s powers).

Recently (about two years ago) a student of mine, Ms Alison Miller, wrote an extremely
interesting paper addressing this issue. She explored the notion that the Tempest is, indeed, dealing
with colonial issues, but that the guiding spirit of the experiment is not Prospero but Ariel, who is, in
effect, a version of the Trickster figure in First Nations mythology.

I don’t want to rehearse her argument here (in any case, I no longer have the paper in front of
me), but I call attention to this suggestion because it does bridge very nicely the apparent gap between
politics and art (and reminds us that one should never rule out interpretative possibilities). In her
interpretation Ms. Miller argued that Ariel’s function in the play is to emerge from captivity (a
common Trickster theme) and educate Prospero and Caliban (and others), through his magical
powers, into a new and better awareness of how to deal with each other. Thanks to Ariel, Prospero
decides to leave the island, and Caliban is left (now in charge of Prospero’s apparatus) to govern
himself and the island with his newly discovered sense of himself.

I’m not sure if such an approach to the play has ever been the basis for a dramatic production,
but, I must admit, the theatrical possibilities are very tempting, since this entry into the play seems to
offer a complex and challenging synthesis of both the political and the theatrical possibilities of the
play, and it certainly turns Ariel into an extraordinarily interesting figure, the guiding spirit of the
encounter between European visitors and native owners.

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Lecture on Shakespeare’s Transformation of Medieval Tragedy and an
Introduction to Richard III

The Medieval Christian Tradition of Tragedy

Medieval Christianity has a difficult time with the traditional classical view of tragedy
(characterized by the features we considered in the last lecture), simply because for the Christian the
life of the individual does not end with death and the notion of an individual’s life having value apart
from the shared vision of life of the Christian community makes no sense other than as a form of sin.
For Christians death is the gateway through which we move to the communal life hereafter. And that
future life is determined by the way we have lived our lives in our communities. Obviously, any sense
of eternal rewards and punishments is going to require from the believer an adherence to the
communal rules which earn the happier reward. If I suffer horribly in the name of that faith, well then,
I am going to a worthy reward. The story is not over.

Tragedy in the traditional classical sense requires a firm sense of death as an ending.
Whatever the significance of the hero’s life, that life is now over, except perhaps in the memory of his
or her people. There is no assumption of a life after death that is in any way a reward or punishment.
Hence, the lament over the hero’s body in the closing stages of the tragedy is never a reflection on
what lies in store for him. It is, by contrast, a lyrical evocation of what his life (now over) has meant,
what it has revealed about the mystery of existence for those who remain. In a sense, where a comic
conclusion looks forward to a better life together, the tragic conclusion looks back at the heroic life
which has just concluded, leaving the audience to ponder its significance.

The Christian emphasis on the communal after life, like the Jewish emphasis on the
overwhelming importance of the survival of the community in its historical progress to the promised
land, means that there are no tragic Biblical heroes in the Greek sense of the word. Neither religious
vision of life has much time for the individual who isolates himself from all inherited cultural
meanings and determines to face life on his own terms no matter what the cost. There are no tragic
figures in the Bible, because none of the major heroic figures is willing to maintain his own individual
sense of what is right in the face of whatever life offers. The closest figure we have of this sort is Job,
and he finally relents and bows to the will of the Lord (i.e., compromises for the sake of his faith and
survival). He will not, like Oedipus or Achilles, refuse to compromise with his passionate integrity
even in the face of death and certain destruction. Nevertheless, the potentially tragic stance that Job
maintains throughout most of his story raises some very unsettling questions (which the rushed ending
attempts to smooth over).

The fact that the full tragic vision may not be compatible with orthodox Christianity may help
to explain why, in many of his greatest tragedies Shakespeare moves back in time out of the clearly
Christian culture of, say, the history plays. Macbeth and King Lear are set in pre-Christian cultures
(although there are many Christian references throughout), and the Roman tragedies (Titus
Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus) take place in pagan times.

It’s not that Christian or Jewish heroes are not capable of great suffering or heroic conduct. In
fact, in the lives of many martyrs, Christianity celebrates their memory, just as the Jewish tradition
celebrates those who fought heroically for Palestine. But these people died in the service of the faith,
in anticipation of what lay in store for them in the afterlife or in the future of their community. They
were, as the name martyr suggests (meaning witness), adherents to a group belief, not tragically
isolated individuals answering to no one but themselves. Their life and death therefore confirm the
value of an existing communal belief. The Greek tragic hero, by contrast, in his individual attempt to
confront the mystery of the world, in a sense calls all such communal faiths into question.

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Hence, what was called tragedy in the middle ages was something rather different.
Essentially, the tragic story focused on a moral example of a great person who comes to a disastrous
ending. Sometimes the sufferings of a great man were linked to the explicit morality of Christianity,
and so the form became a study in divine punishment for defying orthodox doctrine. Typically, the
tragic hero was a famous pagan who came to a bad end (Julius Caesar, for example). Associated with
this idea is the notion that the rise and fall of a great historical personage helped to reveal the
fickleness of fortune, the transience of earthly glory. Hence, the downfall of the great person might
not be an explicitly moralized punishment for sin; it might simply be another example of the vanity of
earthly ambition, more evidence that fortune is indeed like a wheel, lifting people up and then hurling
them down.

The most famous definition of this view of tragedy (commonly called a de casibus play,
from de casibus virorum illustrorum, which means “concerning the fall of great men”) occurs in
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in the opening of the Monk’s Tale:

I wol biwaille, in manere of tragedie,


The harm of hem that stoode in heigh degree,
And fillen so ther nas no remedie
To brynge hem out of hir adversitee,
For certein, what that Fortune list to flee,
Ther may no man the cours of hire withholde.
Lat no man truste on blynd prosperitee;
Be war by thise ensamples trewe and olde.

The monk then goes on to tell very abbreviated stories of a series of famous people whose
glorious rise to power has then been followed by a catastrophic fall: Lucifer, Adam, Sampson,
Hercules, Nabugodonosor, Balthasar, Cenobia, Petro, King of Spain, Peter, King of Cyprus, Barnabo
de Lumbardia, Hugelyn, Comite de Pize, Nero, Oloferno (Holofernes), Antiochus, Alexander, Julius
Caesar, and Croesus, King of Lydia. There were plays about the rise and fall of many of these
characters in the theatrical tradition which Shakespeare inherited.

The stories of these historical characters, in other words, are set up to illustrate a preconceived
moral scheme of things (either punishment for sin or the eternally changing nature of fortune or both).
Typically the play falls into a clear two part structure: the first half is taken up with all the things the
character does to get power or do away with enemies, and the second half follows the stage-by-stage
disintegration of that power, to the central character’s suffering and death, clearly punishments for all
the sins of the first part or else the result of changing fortune, or both. The play might conclude with
an explicit moral commentary directing the audience to derive from the story the appropriate moral
lesson.

This, in a sense, is a narrative formula which can be applied almost mechanically to confirm
an important part of the Christian vision of life, either the providential view of history, the idea that
evil does exist in the world but that with the passage of time God punishes sinners (in fact, He permits
the sinners to exist and to flourish for a while to foster faith in His powers manifested in His divine
punishment) or else the transience of earthly glory. Dramas based on this moral formula are thus the
major way of explaining to people the existence of evil in the world and reconciling them to it or of
encouraging humility.

In writing his First History Cycle, Shakespeare quite clearly adopts this providential view of
history as an organizing framework (whether he endorses it, as we shall see, is another matter).
The Henry VI plays feature a series of stories about the rise and fall of various characters involved in

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the Wars of the Roses. In each of their careers, there is a period in which they rise to power, followed
by a descent (usually quite swift) which is often accompanied by a moral reflection on the
providential workings of God or the fickleness of fortune.

It is clear (as we shall see in more detail later) that this vision is basic to the design of Richard
III, the last play in the series. Many elements in the play link the destruction Richard does to earlier
events, seeing in his killing of others the fulfillment of God’s providential plans. For many of the ones
he kills have committed evil deeds themselves earlier in the story. And the presence in the play of
Queen Margaret (who is often left out of productions) seems mainly concerned with lengthy poetical
reminders of the working out of providence as a moral force in the sometimes bewildering series of
successes and disasters.

Theatrical Depictions of Evil: The Overreacher

I mentioned above that the Christian view of tragedy, either in a poetical narrative like the
Monk’s Tale or in dramatic presentations, saw the literary form as one way of reinforcing Christian
doctrine about the existence of evil in a providential scheme of history or of reminding every one of
the fickleness of fortune. This tradition existed well before Shakespeare’s time, but it had been given
an astonishing new theatrical vigour in the years immediately preceding Shakespeare’s first plays by
the work of his contemporary Christopher Marlowe.

Marlowe took this tradition of formulaic tragedy as a Christian morality piece and
enormously extended the theatrical power of the protagonist, the central figure in the morality story.
For Marlowe’s central characters are not just typical bad types, motivated by sin (although they may
be that), or formulaic invocations of past illustrious figures: they are also supercharged with personal
energy, full of a restless spirit to break through the stale conventionality of the world around them.
And so they typically give full rein to their considerable political or intellectual passion and come to
grief because they aim so high. This new form of tragic hero has been called the Overreacher. The
best known example of it is Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (a play some of you may have studied in English
200).

Marlowe did not decisively break with the traditional view of tragedy (after all, Faustus is
dragged off to hell by various devils at the end of the play), but in putting so much poetic energy and
fire into his central characters he begins to shift the balance, making the motivation and character and
energy of the central heroic figure more impressive and interesting than the moral message delivered
by the conclusion of the play. In fact, to some extent the attractiveness of some aspects of that central
character can cast some ironic pressure on the basic moral structure which condemns that character to
an unsuccessful ending. Marlowe doesn’t really succeed in using this new emphasis very skillfully to
explore a more penetrating vision of tragedy, but his plays (which were extremely popular) certainly
helped to prepare the audience for what the greater poet, his junior contemporary, was going to
attempt.

Theatrical Depictions of Evil: The Vice

There is a second theatrical tradition which we need to attend to briefly in any discussion of
Shakespeare’s immediate inheritance, and that is what has come to be called the Morality Play. The
Morality Play, as the name suggests, was an allegorical theatrical presentation of Christian doctrine.
In its simplest (and most famous form) it depicts a central character called Everyman who is tempted
by a procession of various figures with names like Lust, Greed, Avarice, and so on. Two angels stand
by Everyman, the Good Angel and the Bad Angel (Devil), the former urging him to be true to his
Christian morality, the second urging him to take the luscious and tempting offers as they march by.
The conflict emerges, obviously enough, from Everyman’s struggle to resist temptation (this image of
the good and the bad angels is explicit in Sonnet 147).

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The purpose of such a play is clear enough: it serves to illustrate, often in a theatrically
amusing way, the central moral struggle of the Christian soul to remain true to the teachings of the
Church (the sight of an Everyman who gave in to temptation being dragged off by a group of devils
into hell at the end would make the point clearly enough). As such, the Morality Play was a major
form of popular instruction in an age when most people were illiterate; it put very popular public art
in the service of orthodox doctrine.

There is little doubt that the most popular and influential figure in the Morality Play was the
figure of the Devil (or Vice, as the character was more commonly known). His task in the play was to
make things theatrically interesting, and so he is often a figure of much energy and fun, the source of
all sorts of naughty suggestions and various tricks and deceptions designed to get Everyman to
succumb to temptations. In addition, the Vice figure would commonly establish a close rapport with
the audience (sometimes, it seems, running around among the members of the audience), letting them
in on his plans, insulting them, making jokes at their expense, scaring them, inviting them to visit his
dwelling place, and generally making sure their attentions were engaged during the performance. The
typical Vice figure seems to have been a fat clown equipped with a wooden dagger or sword (as
Falstaff’s references to himself as a Vice suggest). He brings into the play a good deal of comic
business, often featuring fights between him and his gang of associates (all the different sins). But his
main attraction is that he is the source of the action and, in the words of Bernard Spivak, his efforts
“create the action of the play as game or sport for the playgoer” (191).

The defeat of the Vice at the end of the Morality Play (when that occurred) was obviously a
highlight of the show, as he was painfully and amusingly dismissed or dragged back to hell or beaten
from the stage. We still have evidence of the popular appeal of this figure in the modern rage for
professional wrestling, where much of the action is taken up with various “bad” figures who interact
all the time with the audience and whose antics add much (perhaps most) of the theatricality. In fact,
the theatrical high jinks and the rapport established between the audience and such figures would
seem to constitute an important part of the appeal of this professional sport/entertainment.

Parenthetically, one might observe here that the presence of the Devil figure in the popular
imagination of Christianity is curious. After all, Christianity is a monotheistic religion, maintaining
that God, who is all powerful and good, created all things. This creates a major philosophical problem
for Christians in explaining the existence of evil in the world. How can we reconcile the existence of
evil with the goodness of God? The Devil, the chief agent of evil, is difficult to explain, because the
only way we can account for his existence is to make him part of God’s creation. And that seems
problematic, since we might want to know why God, who is perfectly good, could be the source of
evil.

However, the Devil is essential in popular Christianity, because his presence converts
Christianity (unofficially) into a Manichaean religion, in which there are two forces in conflict. With
this conflict in our minds we can readily understand the existence of evil as the work of the Devil,
without bothering our minds about complex theological questions about the origin of evil. And the
existence of the devil makes religious drama possible, because now we have at hand a ready source of
conflict. Hence, those concerned with educating the illiterate to be faithful to Christian teaching have
always relied a great deal on the Devil. In fact, some historians claim that the entire concept was
invented and developed by Christians in order to increase the popular appeal of Christianity.

The Devil/Vice figure as a representation of evil is not like the Overreacher, however,
because the Devil is not human. Thus, we are not invited, as spectators, to speculate about the
motivations he might have for his nefarious deeds. This is an important point, as we shall see
in Richard III, where we have to decide just how much we need to analyze Richard’s character. To
present the evil figure in the play allegorically as the Devil (or as the three witches in Macbeth) is to
symbolize evil as a force in the world but not to locate it in the particular psychological make up of
the evil figure. No one who has read Macbeth spends any time worrying about what the witches feel

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like or what their motivation is for acting the way they do or what their childhoods might have been
like. They are witches: that fact explains their function and their actions.

Theatrical Depictions of Evil: The Machiavel

But the most important depiction of evil in society in Shakespeare’s plays is a figure called
the Machiavel, and no consideration of Shakespeare’s works can avoid spending a great deal of time
on this figure, in all its many manifestations. In fact, there is no more fascinating character type in
Shakespeare than the Machiavel. Shakespeare returns to it again and again, so often and in so many
different ways that one might almost say that his entire work is an exploration of and (perhaps) a
response to what this figure represents.

The term Machiavel is derived from the name of Machiavelli, one of the first great modern
voices in political and moral theory. He lived in Italy almost one hundred years before Shakespeare
(from 1469 to 1527) and was most famous (or notorious) for a book called The Prince, which is a
short work providing political advice to the modern ruler. There is no time here to elucidate
Machiavelli’s political philosophy in detail, and there is no need to, because it is very unlikely that
Shakespeare had any first-hand knowledge of Machiavelli’s writing. The Machiavelli he was drawing
upon and responding to was the popular conception of Machiavelli, which was inevitably a simplified
and exaggerated version of what Machiavelli was saying but which also contained an important part
of the truth of his political philosophy.

Machiavelli’s fame or notoriety rested (and rests) on the fact that he insisted as a first
prerequisite of effective political rule that the ruler should forget about traditional notions of virtue
and morality. The essential quality of a ruler was the effective use of power to guarantee his own
survival. And The Prince is full of advice on how the ruler should skillfully use whatever resources
are available to maximize his own power and to reduce the power of his enemies. Machiavelli is the
great exponent of the popular maxim “The end justifies the means,” and the end he has in mind is the
continuing political survival of the ruler. If, to stay in office, one needs to lie, cheat, deceive, or kill,
that is all part of what the ruler must do without moral scruple. This requires, Machiavelli insists, a
complex set of practical abilities (what he calls virtu), and it may well require the appearance of virtue
(because that is a useful cloak to wrap oneself in for public consumption). But it does not require any
strict adherence to old-fashioned notions of charity, honesty, clemency, or other components of
traditional Christian virtue. Hence comes the old saying, with Machievelli there is no virtue in virtu.

The Machiavel figure in the English theatre, which originated before Shakespeare (Marlowe
even has Machiavelli as a character in one of his plays), is thus primarily a person who puts his own
personal survival and power above any traditional moral restraint. He is a person who believes that the
assertion of his individual desires is more important than observing any traditional ways of dealing
with people and who is prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve his personal desires. He is, thus, a
self-interested individualist with no traditional scruples about communal responsibilities and morality.
The Machiavel is thus commonly an inherent source of social disorder.

In carrying out his plans, the Machiavel typically demonstrates many of the particular skills
which Machiavelli talks about. He is, above everything else, a really fine actor, a consummate
hypocrite, who can adjust his looks and his talk to meet any particular situation. He is a superb
manipulator of people (especially those who take his appearance for the truth). He has a really
impressive practical intelligence, being able to assess people and situations to his advantage, and he
uses people’s credulity, stupidity, fear, ambition, and ignorance always to his own advantage. In many
cases, he does not have a clear plan of action; he initiates discord (or takes advantage of chaotic times)
and then improvises his way through, using an impressive range of efficient skills to get his way.

What separates the Machiavel figure from the Vice or the Overreacher are the very human
qualities of his psychology. The Machiavel figure is a much more naturalistic portrait of evil than the
Vice, and is generally a much cleverer and more subtle and convincing figure than the Overreacher

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(although the two may not be that easy to distinguish, since an Overreacher may well use
Machiavellian tactics to get his way). With the Machiavel figure, the theatrical presentation of evil
takes on a very human personality and character, and evil becomes a product, not of extraordinary
passionate heroes or Devil figures, but of the all-too-common actions of the man or woman next door.

Many of Shakespeare’s heroes and villains are clearly Machiavel figures, in tragedies,
comedies, and history plays: Bolingbroke, Richard III, Macbeth, Don John, Iago, Claudius, Regan and
Goneril, Edmund, and others. These figures all demonstrate a preoccupation with their own advantage
and an unscrupulous way of achieving what they want. They also share many Machiavellian skills,
especially the ability to act whatever role and use whatever language they think the situation requires.
What makes them often such complex embodiments of evil is that they are all, to a greater or lesser
extent, recognizably normal; we meet such people in the world all around us. Their success, in many
cases, depends upon other people failing to see them as anything but ordinary. In some cases,
Shakespeare’s presentation of them makes them, in some ways (initially, at least), quite likable and
amusing (e.g., Iago, Edmund).

But what makes Shakespeare’s treatment of this Machiavel figure so fascinating is that
Shakespeare is no sentimental traditionalist deploring the immorality of modern individualism (as so
many critics of Machiavelli were). For he is acutely aware that in the modern state certain
Machiavellian qualities are essential for political efficiency and peaceful community. It is no longer
the case that traditional virtues will be enough to keep a ruler in power. Hence, in Shakespeare’s work
there is also an exploration of the necessary qualities the Machiavel figure brings to political rule.
This, indeed, is one of the great themes of the second history cycle (as we shall see in our study
of Henry IV, Part 1): Prince Hal’s education in how to become king requires him to learn and to use
many of the qualities we associate with the Machiavel. The fascinating question Shakespeare explores
in this history cycle, particularly in the last play, is the complex issue of what a commitment to
Machiavellian tactics does to the humanity and the personality of the Machiavel (more about that later
in the course). In other plays, of course, the Machiavellian origins of disorder in a particular human
personality are seen as much more immediately evil (e.g., Iago, Edmund).

Preliminary Observations on Richard III and Macbeth

Many of the above remarks will become much clearer once we start to have a close look
at Richard III and Macbeth. Let me first offer a few remarks on why these two form our first pair of
plays.

The most obvious reason these two plays belong together is that structurally they are almost
identical. By that I mean that they both focus squarely upon a central hero who sets out to capture the
crown. The first half (approximately) of each play concerns itself with the various stages in the hero’s
successful attempt to do away with everything that stands between him and his goal. The second half
of each play looks at the step-by-step disintegration of that achievement, the stripping away of all that
the hero has worked so hard to achieve. And both conclude with his death in battle at the hands of a
military adversary who is associated with a rejuvenation of virtue in the land.

Such a plot structure, I have argued above, is very traditional and would be thoroughly
familiar to Shakespeare’s audience. What I want us particularly to look at as we put these two plays
onto the table for discussion, however, is not the similarity but the extraordinary differences. Richard
III is clearly an apprentice work. Much of it is very laboured, conventional, theatrically rather dull. It
does, however, have a formidable hero, one of the most powerful and popular of all the characters
Shakespeare created. But even the presentation of Richard is very erratic. Macbeth, by contrast, is one
of Shakespeare’s greatest masterpieces, in many people’s eyes the finest of all the plays. It suffers
from none of the problems we see in Richard III, and it is justly famous as one of the most
fascinating, penetrating, and poetically rich explorations of evil ever written.

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Putting these two plays together like this, right at the start of our study of Shakespeare, will, I
hope, help us to learn something of the amazing development of his art from the early apprentice
years to his full tragic maturity. Only thirteen years separate the creations of these two plays, but the
transformation of the form is extraordinary (as is the amazing development of Shakespeare’s blank
verse). In reading Richard III we are still clearly in the world of the medieval morality play (with
some important exceptions): in reading Macbeth we are aware that we have left any simple formulaic
shaping moral principles far behind.

The “Juvenility” of Richard III

One of the commonest observations about Richard III is that the play is characterized by
some of very conventional characters and poetry as well as by some flashes of pure genius, moments
when we get a glimpse of the full power of Shakespeare’s art about to burst forth. As Goddard puts it,
the play is marked by “juvenility and genius” (35). In our discussions of the play, I would like to deal
with the juvenility first and rather quickly so that we can concentrate our time on the genius
component of this remarkable play.

Clearly, in the conception and execution of this play, Shakespeare relied a good deal on some
rather stale conventions. The play obviously is designed on a typical de casibus form as the final rise
and fall in the sequence of the First History Cycle. Richard is evil and murders his way to the crown,
whereupon his power gradually disintegrates until his final death in battle. This common form is
accompanied by all sorts of moral reflections by various people, like Margaret, Buckingham, and
Hastings, to the effect that there is a moral purpose working itself throughout the action. In that sense
Richard is both an agent of God’s providence (because he punishes a lot of wrongdoers, like Clarence
and Hastings) and a sinner who is justly punished by God. All this is delivered more or less according
to the formula.

The reader can see that much of this aspect of the play is quite conventional. Most of the
characters in the play are rather wooden and often indistinguishable (e.g., Stanley, Hastings,
Buckingham, the Archbishop, Elizabeth, Margaret). They often speak at unnecessary length in
relatively uninspired verse. The play is brought to its conclusion by Henry Tudor, who is little more
than a conventionally pious agent of God’s justice. If one imagines oneself thinking about putting on a
production of this play, the first thing one would want to do is to edit the text extensively, because so
much of it comes across as flat and uninspired, almost a mechanical carrying out of the formula
(significantly, Margaret and the Duchess of York, Richard’s mother, are often cut or severely
curtailed). Some critics have suggested that there’s a real sense that Shakespeare has lost interest in
the original design and purpose of the play well before the end. These points, I think, are clear
enough.

Richard III: The Portrayal of Richard

But the play has one extraordinary character, the protagonist Richard, one of Shakespeare’s
most enduringly popular creations, his first truly memorable character, and one of the greatest acting
roles in the history of English theatre. Clearly, something about this character fired Shakespeare’s
imagination, because the imaginative energy, poetic power, and theatricality of this character are
astonishing. One is almost tempted to speculate that with this character Shakespeare began to unlock
the full power of his creativity.

Why should that be the case? The question is impossible to answer. I have a hunch that it
might have something to do with the legend that Richard was deformed (with a withered arm, a limp,
and a hump on his back) and notorious as a bloodthirsty killer. Hence, his evil is linked to some
particular human characteristics or to the fact that he is the devil in human form (or both). Whatever
the reason, as soon as Richard makes his appearance in theHenry VI plays he brings onto the stage an
individual presence which makes him memorably different from the processions of historical rebels
and their opponents.

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Richard is quite clearly an amalgam of different traditions, and we can see in the play that
these elements of his ancestry are not seamlessly fused. One of the first challenges facing anyone
thinking of mounting a production of this play is to determine which feature of his stage personality is
going to predominate, and different productions of the play have stressed different aspects.

Richard, for example, is obviously, in part, a Vice figure, an embodiment of pure evil. And he
brings to the role many of the most theatrically effective elements of that type, above all his
ruthlessness, his beguiling involvement of the audience, and, most notably, his sardonic sense of
humour. Early on he establishes a cozy intimacy with the audience, invites us to see him succeed
among so many credulous nobles, jokes with us about his actions and intentions, and celebrates with
us when he is successful. He even tells us that he is the traditional Vice character: “Thus like the
formal Vice, Iniquity,/ I moralize two meanings in one word” (3.1.82-3). The fact that Richard is,
particularly in the first half of the play, very funny is one of the most intriguing and appealing aspects
of the role. Richard’s loss of his sense of humour well before the end of the play may be one reason
why his downfall does not compel the same attention as his rise to power.

Richard also comes straight from the tradition of the Machiavel. In a soliloquy near the end
of Henry VI, Part 3 (parts of which are often added to the opening soliloquy of Richard III) he
identifies himself with the Machiavel, and his actions are a demonstration of the standard tactics of
the Machiavel at work. He is a wonderful actor, can lie to suit any occasion, has no compunction
about killing members of his family and young children, and is an expert manipulator of people. Most
important (as we shall see), he has an unerring sense for the weaknesses of other people, which he
constantly exploits. He has no master plan of how to get the crown. His entire scheme is basically
inspired improvisation. It is significant that when he has no one left to deceive or manipulate, he
doesn’t know quite what to do.

A good deal of the popularity of this play rests on the way in which, in the first half, this
Vice-Machiavel carries out his plan. There is an energy and imaginative zest in the writing and the
plotting which are, I think, a key to our interest in the work. For that reason, the second half is less
successful. Once Richard’s power begins to fall apart and we come upon the moral working out of
God’s purposes in defeating Richard, there is a perceptible loss of dramatic power and interest. I’ll
have more to say about that in a moment.

But there is a third element in Richard’s character, too, namely, the deformed and malevolent
outsider. This is a new psychological dimension which makes the character sharply human rather than
an allegorical devil figure or a typical Machiavel. We are invited in the opening soliloquy to see
Richard’s evil as a manifestation of his physical and mental crippling, particularly in his inability to
love. He tells us at the very opening that, now the war is over, he has nothing to do, because love
forswore him in his mother’s womb and his physical shape precludes his finding any interest in love.
His resolve to be evil, he tells us, is a decision arising from his sense of inadequacy.

This third element complicates things a good deal for anyone who wants to strive for a
coherent interpretation of Richard’s character (or for the actor or director who wants to bring the
character to life on the stage). The complication can be summed up with a question, the answer to
which will decisively shape the presentation of the character: Is Richard’s deformity the symbol of his
evil or is it the cause? In other words, are we to take Richard as an allegorical presentation of the devil
(and not worry too much about the psychological complexities of his character, because his deformity
is simply an indication of the Devil) or are we to see Richard’s evil as a human response to the
psychological pressures of being horribly unlike everyone else?

The answer to this question is important, because it will determine the tone of the play and set
the level of the audience’s sympathy with Richard. If Richard is indeed the Devil in human form, then
we can treat him as such and sit back and enjoy the spectacle of pure evil inviting us to share a
bravura performance of duping a bunch of people far less practically and politically intelligent than

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himself. With such an understanding of the main character, we can really bring out the most
noteworthy feature of this play, the sardonic humour.

On the other hand, if we want to stress the psychological torment of the main character, we
will probably have to tone down the humour. It may still be there verbally, but that will always be
undercut by our sense that we are dealing with a person in pain, whose plotting is not the zestful and
amusing expression of a thoroughly evil type but rather a compensation for physical and
psychological inadequacy. This may complicate Richard’s character, but the price will be very high,
for we will be sacrificing the quality that, more than anything else, has sustained the popularity of this
play over the centuries, the sense of fun Richard and the audience share in his exploits.

Are these two view mutually incompatible? Well, it takes a brave interpreter to make any
absolute rule about such a matter, because there may well be a manner of carrying off such a marriage
of what look like incompatible approaches to the play. In practice, however, it seems that the choice
between the two options is inevitable. And we have two excellent examples. In one of the most
famous production of Richard III, Laurence Olivier decided to go for the gusto (in a theatrical
production in the late 1940’s, which for a generation of theatre goers defined the role). Some years
later he made a film of that production. The film has many flaws (as a film), but it does establish in an
unforgettable way the theatrical power of Richard as the Vice figure and really brings out the black
humour in the play. It also leaves a memorial to one of the greatest interpretations of a Shakespearean
role in the history of English theatre.

Recently (1995), Ian McKellen brought Richard to the screen again in a very different
interpretation. This time, Richard is a mean spirited, twisted, bitter military dictator, whose actions
seem much more closely linked to a generally inadequate personality. Gone from the portrayal is the
grim shared humour of the Olivier interpretation. This interpretation may owe a good deal to the
influence of some Eastern European critics (notably Jan Kott) who see in this play a political vision in
tune with the police states of the Fascist and post-war Communist states. The result of the decision to
portray Richard this way, however, seems conclusive: the play and the character lose much of their
interest for us. Richard seems to work much better on stage as a traditional Vice figure than as some
recognizably human evil produced by physical and psychological deformity. Simply put, the
interpretation which strives to bring out Richard’s sense of “fun” (if that is the right word) holds our
attention more. Of course, one needs to remark that this may well be a fault of the film itself rather
than an inherent flaw in this line of interpretation. Or it may be the case, as Jan Kott has remarked,
that only an audience which has itself lived in fear of the secret police knocking on the door in the
early hours of the morning can respond adequately to the full horror of the second Richard.

I’m not saying the psychological dimension is not there. Clearly it is. Shakespeare invokes it
in the opening soliloquy, and later in the play, when we witness Richard’s nightmares, we are
apparently intended to see him suffering some pangs of conscience, a quality that would not seem to
fit the devil very well. It hardly seems credible that the Richard we have been following in the first
half would be worried about the fact that no one loves him or that his victims visit him in his dreams.
We can see what Shakespeare might be trying to do here, but that sense of Richard suffering guilt
feelings hardly squares with what we have come to learn about the character earlier in the play. What
I am claiming here is that this human dimension of Richard clashes somewhat with his allegorical
power as the Devil in disguise and that, of the two features of his character, the latter seems to be the
more theatrically effective.

It’s as if Shakespeare in producing this character in a traditional way starts to get interested,
not just in the presentation of evil theatrically, but in the more complex question of the origins of evil
in the human personality. But he is not ready to deal with that yet. Hence, there is no coherent and
dramatically compelling insight into Richard’s character (although some critics have tried to find
one). His theatrical strength comes from what he represents and how he acts, not from who he is or
why he behaves the way he does.

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Put another way, if we see Richard as the embodiment of evil in this play, there are two rival
conceptions of evil at work here: one is the traditional one, evil as the Devil incarnate, and the other is
something new, evil as a manifestation of genuinely human qualities. The alliance between them is
uneasy, for the author is not yet ready to take his understanding of evil away from the traditional
allegorical depictions of it.

Here a comparison with Macbeth may be useful. Macbeth is, in many respect, as I have
mentioned before, exactly the same play structurally as Richard III, but the later play is entirely
different in its emphasis. Here there is no allegorical power at work in the depiction of the central
character and there is no bravura humour in the various ways Macbeth acquires power. What takes its
place is a psychological complexity of character that links the evil that Macbeth does and its
consequences at every stage to the particular features of a human personality. The evil acts in this play
are entirely the product of particular feelings of a recognizably human character, and Macbeth, unlike
Richard, is one of the most compelling psychological portraits in the history of theatre. This quality
makes the second half of Macbeth (where his world falls apart) chillingly convincing, for his decline,
like his rise, is always presented to us primarily in terms of Macbeth’s psychological responses to
events.

What I would argue, therefore, is that in writing Richard III, Shakespeare began to become
imaginatively excited by the complexity of evil in the human character but that he was not ready to
deal with it yet. And so, in effect, he concluded the play according to his original design, perhaps with
a declining interest, for many of the later scenes in the play have little creative passion underlying
them, particularly the wooing of Elizabeth (4.4) and the portrayal of Richmond (which seems almost
perfunctory). Shakespeare then waited thirteen years before tackling the story again. And this time,
his mature powers are ready to handle what his imagination had responded to inadequately all those
years before.

To conclude this point, it might be worth remembering that authors write from two important
sources, their conscious intentions and their irrational imaginations. We see both at work in Richard
III. The conscious intentions set this play up in the same conventional moral framework as the Henry
VIplays, but the imagination is roused by some elements in the play and, to some extent, jars with
those conscious intentions. What I have said above suggests that Shakespeare is not yet ready to let
his imagination go—he is sounding new depths but not yet ready to shape those into some coherent
whole. And so, the flashes of imaginative genius are intermittent, and he concludes the play
conventionally, holding to the intentions he started out with (of course, given the nature of the story,
he had relatively little freedom to alter it, since Richmond, who becomes Henry VII, is Queen
Elizabeth’s grandfather and his victory over Richard establishes the Tudor royal family on the throne).

Richard III: The Increasing Complexity of the Moral Vision

There is, however, in addition to the dramatic power of the chief character, another feature
of Richard III which is remarkably new (in comparison with the Henry VI plays) and which also
indicates something of the imaginative power in store. This quality I call the increasing complexity of
the moral vision, and what I mean by that curious phrase is that as we follow Richard’s career, our
understanding of his evil opens our eyes to something more challenging than simply the talents of a
successful allegorical Devil-Machiavel figure.

The quality I wish to refer to this: Richard’s successful climb to power in this play is not
simply a tribute to his own skill; it is also a manifestation of the moral weaknesses of others in the
play. And this aspect also seems to have seized Shakespeare’s imagination intermittently (especially
in the first half), as if that, too, is an insight which he is not fully prepared to develop yet but which is
going be a prominent feature of later plays.

For Richard’s victims are not simply innocent dupes outwitted by an irresistible Devil-
Machiavel. Again and again, we see that they simply fail to recognize what they are confronted with

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and, even when they do sense what Richard is doing, for various reasons they evade the moral issue.
The result is that we are forced to recognize here that Richard’s success depends upon the refusal of
others to stand up to him and what he represents. This play thus initiates what we are to witness again
and again in Shakespeare: the point that evil succeeds in this world because of the moral complicity of
others.

Let me consider a few examples. Early in the play, Richard plots the killing of Clarence.
When the murderers arrive at the prison where Clarence is held, they present their pass to the head
officer of the prison, Brackenbury, who has just shared an intensely moving scene with Clarence in
which the latter has made clear to all the intense suffering he is going through. Brackenbury is now
faced with a choice: Should he let the murderers in to kill Clarence or not? His answer is significant.
He says, as he reads over the commission, “I will not reason what is meant hereby,/ Because I will be
guiltless of the meaning” (1.4.89-90). Notice carefully what this is saying. Brackenbury will not pause
to reflect upon what is going on (and will thus not have to act upon any such reflection), because he
wants to preserve his innocence. But he knows perfectly well what is going to happen. This is a moral
evasion of great magnitude. Because of it, Clarence dies, Richard enjoys another success and thus
confirms his strategy. Brackenbury may think this evasion makes him innocent; quite clearly it does
not. Richard’s successful murder of Clarence and what follows thus stem to a large extent from
Brackenbury failure to act.

Earlier we have seen a similar incident in the wooing of Lady Anne (1.2). She has every
reason to recognize Richard for what he truly is. After all, he has murdered her father-in-law and her
husband and helped to kill her father. She is in the midst of mourning for the dead Henry VI. And yet
within a few moments she has capitulated and given him encouragement to continue his courtship of
her. This transformation provides Richard with his first success, and he is elated by it. It confirms that
he is right to have set out on the evil journey he has undertaken.

Why does Anne so suddenly capitulate? That we can only know clearly if we see the scene
acted out, but it seems that she has given into Richard’s flattery and perhaps sex appeal (she tells us
later in the play that she had grown grossly captive to his honeyed words). There is no force involved
here, other than the force of Richard’s personality. Confronted with Richard, Anne is unable to
maintain her strong rejection of him. Admittedly his tactics are brilliant (and very dangerous to him
personally since he risks death). But he judges her weakness superbly and brings her, not simply to
the edge of an emotional collapse, but also to be his betrothed.

Now it’s worth asking why Shakespeare includes this scene in the play. After all, Anne has no
particularly important function in the story, Richard does not love her, and his plan to reach the throne
does not need to involve her. He refuses to divulge his motive, and once he has married her he seems
to dispose of her almost immediately. It is difficult to see why the story of Richard would require this
scene. And yet no production of the play would ever leave it out, because it is such a profound
psychological confrontation, which explores a theme much more complex than most of the rest of the
play. Anne is innocent, yes, but she is weak. And in a world which contains evil in the form of
Richard, it is not enough to be innocent. One has to keep one’s guard up, to be careful of one’s own
feelings, because (and this is the key point) evil succeeds, not just because evil is clever but, more
pertinently, because other people are weak or stupid or afraid. Thus, however much sympathy we may
feel for Anne (who is a very minor player in the world of the court), she bears her share of the
responsibility for Richard’s later successes.

[A short digression. To get a sense of what I have been talking about in relation to the scene
with Lady Anne, one need only compare it to the scene later in the play which involves the wooing of
Elizabeth (4.4). Now, this is a potentially much more serious political matter, since Richard’s decline
requires some immediate assistance and he thinks such an alliance might help. But the scene is
excessively long and for most readers very tedious (it is commonly cut severely or omitted). One
wonders why Shakespeare felt the need to go on at such great length about a non-event (unless it is to

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establish the rectitude of Queen Elizabeth I’s ancestors). Whatever else gave rise to this scene, it did
not spring from Shakespeare’s imagination.]

This pattern of moral evasion I have been talking about occurs repeatedly. The Archbishop,
for example, has the power to prevent Richard from getting his hands on one of the young princes, the
next king, who has gone to sanctuary. But he allows Richard to overrule his mind and denies the
young prince the Church’s protection. As a result, the young princes are murdered. Lord Hastings is
warned by Lord Stanley of Richard’s dangerous plans, but Hastings ignores them (in Olivier’s film
this dismissal of the warning is linked directly to Hastings’s adulterous fascination with Mistress
Shore, which underscores the point of Hastings’s negligence). So Hastings, a powerful man in the
kingdom, goes to his death, and Richard enjoys one more success.

The most obvious place where all this pattern of moral evasion is summed up occurs in the
curious little scene where the Scrivener appears with the indictment of Lord Hastings, which he has
been writing out so that it can be reviewed and discussed. But Hastings has already been arrested and
taken off to be executed. The moral perversion of this process is clear to the lowly Scrivener, who
comments as follows:

Here’s a good world the while! Who is so gross


That cannot see this palpable device?
Yet who so bold but says he sees it not? (3.6.10-13)

He has no doubt about the matter and points his finger squarely at the issue: Who has the
courage to confront evil when it manifests itself so clearly? In bringing this to our attention, the
Scrivener is requiring us to consider how all of those whose ignorance or cooperation is necessary to
Richard’s success bear, to some extent, a responsibility for what happens. This would obviously
include Richard’s active collaborators, like Buckingham and Catesby, but it also refers to all those
who refuse to see what they don’t want to see: Anne, Hastings, the Archbishop, the Lord Mayor, and
so on.

Incidents like this significantly deepen our understanding of the way political evil manifests
itself in the world and the reasons for its frequent success. And this becomes a major theme in many
Shakespeare plays: in this world you have to keep your wits about you; innocence is never enough.
Purity of conscience without courageous action and an intelligent sense of what is going on around
one does not leave one blameless or free from harm. And some of my favorite characters in
Shakespeare are those, like the Duke of Albany in King Lear, who start off relatively blind and
uninvolved (and therefore complicit in the evil) but who wake up to their moral responsibility and
then act courageously upon it. And what is particularly Shakespearean about this theme is that it
applies not only to the great and the powerful (like the Archbishop and Lord Hastings), but also to
lesser officials and common folk. The entire plot of King Lear, as we shall see, might be said to hinge
on the moral actions of a single anonymous servant who risks his life and dies trying to prevent what
for him is unacceptably evil conduct. Standing up against evil in the world is everyone’s
responsibility.

Now, this conception of the active success of evil in the world is considerably more
naturalistic and sophisticated than what I have argued is the original conception of the play which has
Richard’s success attributable to his devilish characteristics and his punishment due entirely to the
providential justice of God (acting through Richmond). The latter is a much simpler (perhaps even
simplistic) vision of life, as is its corollary that the overcoming of evil will occur through God’s
actions in history (rather than through the courageous actions of particular individuals). In Richard
III these two visions of evil exist side by side, and, to judge from the second half of the play, it seems

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as if Shakespeare is not quite ready to handle the more sophisticated version fully. For the portrayal of
Richmond comes across as quite wooden, a conventionally good figure, associated with God’s
purposes, of little interest as a sharply etched human character.

We do not witness in Richard III any character wrestling with his conscience about how to act
in a morally complex world (with one notable exception which I will come to in a moment). In that
sense, the moral vision of the play, in spite of the frequent scenes of moral evasion, remains quite
simple, and thus the vision of tragedy never moves very far from the conventional medieval vision.
As I have mentioned earlier, some interpreters have sensed that Shakespeare became rather bored with
this easy way of understanding evil and finished the play quickly and conventionally without pushing
his deeper insights.

Clarence’s Murder

Before leaving this issue of the divided nature of Richard III, I would like to call our attention
briefly to what is probably the most extraordinarily poetic and complex scene in the play, once again
by way of pointing out how, in the midst of the conventional structure and poetry of much of this play
we get clear indications of the full potential of the later works. The scene I refer to is 1.4, Clarence’s
dream and subsequent murder.

Clarence has been a relatively minor character in the First History Cycle. One of the sons of
the Duke of York, he briefly switches sides, but then returns to the family fold. As the elder brother to
Richard, he stands between Richard and the throne. Hence his murder is essential to Richard’s
ambitious scheme. But instead of having Clarence done away with in the usual manner, Shakespeare
gives us a long scene with him and, in his murder, raises the sorts of issues that are going to be a
feature of many later plays.

The scene opens with Clarence recounting a dream he has had to Brakenbury, the keeper. The
poetry of this dream is an extraordinarily evocative exploration of a tormented soul trying to come to
grips with his unconscious awareness of what he has done in his past life and what awaits him.

O Lord! Methought what pain it was to drown,


What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,
What sights of ugly death within my eyes.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great ouches, heaps of pearl,”
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept—
As ‘twere in scorn of eyes—reflecting gems,
Which wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered there. (1.4.21-33)

Clarence is a suffering person, trying to come to grips with that suffering. He has no clear
sense of what his dream vision means, and he is not offering some pithy moral about the meaning of
life. His words convey a growing unconscious sense within him of the vanity of everything he and his
family have spent their murderous lives trying to acquire. The image of all those earthly riches lying
among dead men at the bottom of the sea, where the only life is the fish gnawing the flesh of the dead,

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suggests that some important insight is struggling within Clarence and that he is resisting the
awareness as strongly as he can (hence the sense of drowning).

Recounting his dream brings Clarence up against his own past complicity, something he is
unwilling to face squarely:

Ah, Brackenbury, I have done those things,


That now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward’s sake; and see how he requites me. (1.4.66-68)

Notice here how his desire to blame Edward indicates the distance he still has to travel before
fully understanding and accepting what he has done. What we are witnessing here is something much
more complex and interesting than the rather simple invocations to God’s providence which other
people use when they sense their lives are in danger. The experience of evil, including one’s own, is
becoming much more deeply personalized, and the pressure here is on us to recognize that its
presence in our lives cannot be so easily subsumed under easy allegorical categories.

In the confrontation with the murderers which then follows, we witness Clarence’s
desperately pleading for his life, falling back on all the arguments his frantic mind can come up with.
He tries appealing to the law, to religious feeling, to family values. But the murderers repeatedly point
out that Clarence is appealing to all those moral principles which he has spent his own life time
violating. He is, they are suggesting, now a victim of the very situation which he himself helped to set
up. In terms of that long quotation from Troilus and Cressida (Ulysses’s speech on degree), Clarence
was happy enough to contribute to disturbing the civil and moral order by killing others in order to
advance his own interests; he cannot now appeal to them, since they do not exist in the world where
power answers only to power, a world which Clarence helped to create. Finally Clarence is left with
nothing other than the naked and desperate plea of one human being facing fellow human beings and
asking for some vestige of human pity.

Here again, what’s interesting about the scene is that the attention paid to Clarence’s murder
is out of all proportion to Clarence’s dramatic importance in this play or in the First History Cycle.
But something seized Shakespeare’s imagination here and pushed him to use the murder of Clarence
as an exploration of the emotional torment of a guilty soul trying to come to terms with his own evil
in the face of his imminent death. What we see here reaches its culmination in the astonishingly
powerful speeches of Macbeth as he comes closer and closer to the realization of what is closing in on
him as a result of his own flawed nature.

We might also note that the murder of Clarence also features a debate between the murderers
on the nature and the effects of conscience. Here for the first, but not the last, time, Shakespeare
presents the commission of an evil act by two anonymous professional killers in terms of their
immediate feelings and moral sensibilities. And he suggests, in the way the feelings of the murderers
shift around, that living with one’s own evil, adjusting one’s mind to what one has done or is about to
do, is a far more dramatically fertile and complex business than the simpler allegorical form might
suggest. The active presence of evil in the world is becoming something much more deeply
psychologically rooted in the particular natures of human agents, who bring with them an ambiguous
tension with which most of us are all too familiar (if not to the same degree).

Works Cited

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Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1970.

Spivak, Bernard. Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil: The History of A Metaphor in
Relation to His Major Villains. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.

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Some Observations on Shakespeare’s Dramatic Verse in Richard
III and Macbeth

To read, one immediately after the other, a play from Shakespeare’s earliest work and a play
from his mature tragic period (e.g., Richard III and Macbeth) is to become aware of an astonishing
development in the quality of Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry. Paying some attention to a few fairly
obvious features of this development not only gives one a finer appreciation for the quality of
Shakespeare’s best work but also can serve as a very useful educational exercise in the criticism of
poetry generally.

Initial Observations on Dramatic Poetry

The phrase Dramatic Poetry or Poetic Drama very simply refers to poetic language spoken
aloud by characters in a drama or, in the case of individual poems, poetic language which suggests a
strongly dramatic context (e.g., poetry directed to a particular listener in a specific setting, as in
dramatic monologues). This definition is very loose, but for our purposes, what is particularly
important is that Shakespeare’s dramatic language is largely poetry, and thus a full appreciation for
what matters in any particular play needs to take into account the poetic quality of the spoken
language.

Traditional dramatic poetry differs from dramatic prose mainly in the formal construction of
the poetic utterance, which is organized on the basis of a repetitive rhythmic structure for each line.
Until this century (with the development of free verse), that regularly repeating rhythmic structure
clearly differentiated virtually all poetry from prose. In addition, poetic language often tends to make
much more frequent use of figures of speech (similes, metaphors, and images) and a range of special
linguistic devices, most importantly, rhyme, alliteration, and specific patterns in the arrangements of
words. Dramatic poetry, in other words, gives us spoken language which departs considerably from
naturalistic speech patterns, mainly because the poetry is more tightly and formally organized (i.e.,
patterned).

Interpreting plays written in dramatic poetry thus requires the interpreter to take into account
various features of poetic language in order to understand fully the meaning of any particular
utterance. It is not enough simply to grasp the literal denoted meaning of what a particular character
says. One needs also to attend carefully to the ways in which the various poetic qualities of the
language evoke an emotional understanding in the listener of the utterance. This point is crucial. With
many characters, what matters is not so much the literal meaning of what they say (or not just that),
but the patterns in the language they use to express their thoughts. That language indicates to us their
emotional intelligence, the particular nature of their feelings about what they are saying, the sense of
values uppermost in their minds. Language, in other words, does not just reveal factual information; it
also communicates to us a sense of the emotional attitude and intelligence of the speaker. This point is
no less true of prose than poetry, but responding to this emotional quality in poetic speech generally is
more challenging than doing the same with prose speech.

In some cases, this emotional factor may be decisive in the evaluation of a particular
character. For example, to evaluate Hamlet’s character intelligently, we need to attend, not just to
what he literally says about his mother’s remarriage, but to the way in which he expresses himself. In
other words, we have to interpret his poetic utterances to explore the emotional intelligence at work in
the character (and we need to account for the fact that his speech poetic patterns are, in some respects,
very like those of his father).

One way of emphasizing this matter is to point out that, in examining dramatic speech, we
should not fall into the easy habit of separating style and substance, talking first about what someone
says and then about how the character expresses herself. The reason for this is the old principle that

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style is part of the substance. The way a character expresses her opinions is as much a part of the
substance of what she is saying as is the information conveyed. To expresses that information in a
different style is to say something different. Hence we need to remain alert to what the different styles
of utterance reveal about the people acting out the drama.

Such interpretation is not always easy, and most new readers of Shakespeare require
considerable practice before they are able to speak meaningfully about the poetic qualities of the text.
However, no study of Shakespeare would be adequate without some attempt to introduce students to
some ways of dealing with the basic medium of the plays, Shakespeare’s poetic language.

Blank Verse

The most obvious poetic feature of Shakespeare’s plays is the regularly repeating rhythmic
arrangement of lines. The standard line contains ten syllables, five of which are stressed (i.e.,
emphasized) and five unstressed (i.e., not emphasized). The lines normally do not rhyme with those
before or after (although, as we shall see, there are exceptions).

In the most regular form of Shakespeare’s verse, the ten syllables are arranged so that every
second one is stressed (i.e., the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables are stressed), and the
others are unstressed. Such a line is called an iambic pentameter (the iamb is a pair of syllables in
which the first is unstressed and the second is stressed; the pentameter refers to the fact that there are
five such iambs in the line of blank verse). This basic line (the unrhymed iambic pentameter) is
called blank verse, and it is the standard form for an enormous amount of English poetry, from well
before Shakespeare until very modern times (when there was a deliberate attempt to break what some
perceived as the tyranny of blank verse in English poetic styles). The iambic pentameter is
particularly suitable for English dramatic verse because normally spoken English often falls into an
iambic pattern.

Here is an example from a pre-Shakespearean play of a series of lines, each of which is a


perfect iambic pentameter. If you read this aloud, you will notice that the stress falls always on the
even numbered syllables (underlined in the following lines).

Your lasting age shall be their longer stay,


For cares of kings, that rule as you have ruled,
For public health and not for private joy,
Do waste man’s life, and hasten crooked age,
With furrowed face and with enfeebled limbs,
To draw on creeping Death a swifter pace. (Gorboduc)

The effect of such regular rhythm is to lend a certain formality to the utterance (in comparison
with normal prose). The cadence of the lines is governed by a regularly repeating beat, and the
punctuation (as in the above passage) can tend to encourage regular pauses (e.g., at the ends of lines).

[Parenthetically, one should observe that scanning blank verse, that is, indicating the pattern
of stressed and unstressed syllables (and observing the stresses in reciting the lines) is partly a
subjective matter. One can really emphasize the regularity by stressing every alternate syllable, even
when that violates how one would normally pronounce the words. At the other extreme, one can
pronounce the words as one normally would (given the dramatic context) and, if necessary, violate the
regular rhythm, hence sacrificing some of the formal poetic cadence. At different times in the history
of producing Shakespeare, these two different styles of speaking blank verse have been predominant.
In the past fifty years (at least) the prevailing tendency has been the second of the two options

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outlined above, that is, letting the accent fall where it sounds most natural. In the above passage
fromGorboduc, this is not a problem, because in each line the accent falls on the second syllable quite
naturally]

The formality of blank verse in contrast to regular prose can be a significant feature in some
of Shakespeare’s plays, nowhere more so than in Henry IV, Part 1, where the contrast between the
controlled political world of the court and the free-wheeling fun of the tavern is brought out
repeatedly by the sudden change in language from formal poetry to colloquial prose. Part of the sense
of anarchic freedom we sense in the tavern comes from the unfettered use of colloquial language. And
Rosalind’s decided preference for prose in As You Like It is an important indication of her attitude to
love in contrast to the variously “poetic” styles of love adopted by those around her.

This formality can be considerably heightened by introducing a regular rhyme scheme so that
the blank verse becomes rhyming iambic pentameter couplets or triplets:

My life thou shalt command, but not my shame.


The one my duty owes, but my fair name,
Despite of death that lives upon my grave,
To dark dishonour’s use thou shalt not have.
I am disgraced, impeached and baffled here,
Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear. . . . (Richard II)

Shakespeare does not make frequent use of rhyming couplets, but when they do occur, the
effect, as in this scene from Richard II, is generally to heighten the formality of the speech and thus to
bring out more the ceremonious and ritualistic nature of the scene (an important point in the opening
of Richard II, as we shall see in our discussions of that play). This is particularly the case when the
lines have punctuation (i.e., pauses) at the end, as in the above selection, so that the pause forces one
to dwell upon the emphatic and regular rhyme (more about this later). The effect of such regular
rhythm, strong rhyme, and end punctuation is to bring out emphatically the regular cadence in the
lines (and in the above passage the astute reader will also notice how the alliteration contributes to
that same effect).

There are moments in Richard III where Shakespeare quite deliberately draws upon this
formal quality of regular rhyming iambic pentameter to create a moment of high ritual:

Children: Ah, for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!
Duchess of York: Alas, for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
Queen Elizabeth: What stay had I but Edward, and he’s gone?
Children: What stay had we but Clarence, and he’s gone?
Duchess of York: What stays had I but they, and they are gone?
Queen Elizabeth: Was never widow had so dear a loss!
Children: Were never orphans had so dear a loss!
Duchess of York: Was never mother had so dear a loss! (2.2.72-79)

Here’s a similar example from later in the play:

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Queen Margaret: I had an Edward, till a Richard killed him;
I had a husband, till a Richard killed him.
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him.

Duchess of York: I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;
I had a Rutland too, and thou holpst kill him.

Queen Margaret: Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard killed him. (4.4.40-46)

This shift to a suddenly much more formal pattern (virtually a group chant) seems
deliberately designed to enhance the role of the grieving women and children as a ceremonial and
ritualistic chorus which places the actions of this play into the context of the entire sequence of family
killing depicted in the First History Cycle and thus to remind us of the long-term vision of history
central to the tetralogy. I’m not sure how effective this technique is (and the lines are often omitted in
productions), but the shift in the pattern of the blank verse seems to have that choral intention.

Now, blank verse as formally regular as the selection from Gorboduc or Richard III above
obviously can become monotonously regular and thus emotionally inert. Hence, a great deal of the
challenge of dramatic blank verse is varying the basic rhythm in significant ways, so that the pattern
of stressed and unstressed syllables serves to express appropriate states of feeling in a more vital and
interesting way. In other words, the mere presence of blank verse does not convey artistic merit upon
dramatic poetry; the form has to be used skillfully and flexibly, often in unexpected ways, so that the
full poetic effects of patterned speech can be realized. It is important to remember that blank verse,
like any artistic convention, needs to be put to significant use and not simply employed in a
predictable and boring way.

One common experience in moving directly from Richard III to Macbeth should be a sense of
how much better the blank verse sounds in the latter play. For a great deal of the blank verse
in Richard III is very conventionally written, without much rhythmic variety or interest. Many
(perhaps most) of the speeches sound very much the same, even at times of heightened emotions, and
it is far less easy in this play, as in later works, to recognize a particular speech pattern as belonging to
a particular character (other than Richard himself, whose character seems to have inspired
Shakespeare to invest his lines with a particular energy). As we shall see in a moment, this point is not
simply a matter of rhythm alone, for other important factors are involved, but the remarkable shift in
the poetic quality of the two plays indicates, among other things, Shakespeare’s development in his
use of blank verse.

One way to notice this as you read is to think about how overwritten a great deal of Richard
III is. There are many scenes which prompt one to reach for the editor’s pencil (none more so than the
excessively long and inconclusive attempt of Richard to win Elizabeth as his wife in 4.4). And
productions of the play routinely excise large portions of text as unnecessary. With Macbeth, on the
other hand, it is very difficult to imagine removing anything from the poetry.

One should notice, too, how flexible the blank verse has become in Macbeth. Shakespeare has
clearly learned not to be imprisoned by the demands of the iambic pentameter but to use it to evoke
the mood appropriate to a particular moment, often deliberately violating the regular pattern:

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Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

A cursory comparison of the rhythms of this speech with those from Gorboduc or almost any
passage from Richard III provides a fine example of how, in Shakespeare’s hands, the formal
patterning of blank verse becomes something much more than simply a standard convention for
patterning poetical language.

The Importance of Punctuation

Shakespeare’s text is an acting script, and the punctuation is there primarily as an aid to
speaking the lines. If you are in the habit, as you should be, of trying to read the verse aloud from time
to time, it is really important that you respect the punctuation (and that means, among other things,
that you do not provide any of your own where there is none, particularly at the ends of lines).

The major purposes of punctuation in Shakespeare’s verse are to control the rate at which the
speaker moves through the lines and to enhance the rhythm by forcing pauses (long or short) at
particular words. The punctuation thus helps to set what I like to call the momentum of the verse, the
accumulating energy which a sentence may or may not develop, depending upon how the pauses
control the speaking rate. And by controlling the emphasis on certain words or patterns of words, the
punctuation helps to establish sound patterns and emotional reverberations which are essential to
understanding the speaker’s feelings.

Here’s a very obvious point, but one worth paying attention to. A punctuation mark which
forces a major pause (i.e., a full stop or a semi-colon) very frequently (e.g., at the end of every line or
every other line) will effectively prevent the momentum of the verse from gathering energy. The
emotional power of the utterance will be kept firmly under control with a standard stop/start rhythm.
This is an important feature of much eighteenth-century verse (the heroic couplet style, very frequent
in Alexander Pope’s poetry), where dispensing with the excessively emotional power of poetry is an
important artistic principle. On the other hand, a punctuation which allows the sentence to uncoil over
many lines can release certain energy which accumulates as the sentence progresses (a very common
feature of Milton’s and Wordsworth’s best poetry).

Let us consider some particular examples. Here’s a case in which a heavy punctuation,
combined with certain patterns of words expressing strong feelings, can create a sense of extremely
intense emotion:

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame


Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust. . . . (Sonnet 129)

The power of the feelings expressed in the third and fourth lines here comes, not simply from
the meaning and sound of the words (important as those are), but also from the way in which the
punctuation forces the reader to slow down and dwell on each one individually. But there is no
complete pause, and so one has to keep moving (in fact the first twelve lines of this sonnet form a
single unrolling sentence). To read these lines out loud, paying attention to the strong rhythms and the
punctuation, is to get a sense of the powerful self-hatred which the speaker of the poem is expressing

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about his own desires. What matters here is not the translated meaning (“Lust is a bad thing”) but the
range of emotional responses to his own lust which the speaker’s patterning of the language evokes.

Here’s another example of how the punctuation, in combination with the sentence structure,
helps to create a very particular and powerful effect:

Then everything includes itself in power,


Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. (Troilus and Cressida 1.3)

Here the single sentence is quite frequently but lightly punctuated in a way that emphasizes
the repetition (power,/Power . . . will, will . . .appetite;/ And appetite), so that the feeling of a slowly
developing but inexorably powerful process builds up. Here again, the denoted meaning of the
passage is simple enough (“The quest for power leads to self-destruction”), but the quality of the
utterance comes from the way the structure of the lines brings with it an emotional sense of irresistible
momentum, coming to rest only on the key point, “eat up himself.” Notice here how the rhythm
(especially that established by the repetition of words) is emphasized by the punctuation.

Learning to read with a careful attention to the combined effects of the rhythm (especially the
variations in the rhythm) and the punctuation, especially as these contribute to the characteristic
momentum of a speech takes a good deal of practice. And we do not expect all students to be experts.
But it is important that one begins to get a sense of how the formal arrangement of words in dramatic
poetry contributes to an understanding of its emotional content. That point becomes increasingly
important, as Shakespeare masters the medium and develops it to its fullest potential, because patterns
of speech become indicators of emotional qualities in the character (a key point in Richard II and
many other plays).

To repeat a point made earlier, one can quickly sense that much of the dramatic verse
in Richard III is fairly conventional and uninspired. With the exceptions of the speeches of Richard
himself and some other instances (like Clarence’s dream and the seduction of Lady Anne), there is
nothing in this play to suggest the sort of quality we witness in Macbeth. More about this later.

A Note on Shakespeare’s Imagery

The same point stressed above, about the astonishing improvement in the quality of the verse
as one moves from Richard III to Macbeth, applies also to the imagery and the use of figures of
speech (similes and metaphors). These, of course, are a crucial element in all poetry, since pictures
and comparisons are essential in any communication which seeks to illuminate a state of feeling. The
comparisons people use to express how they feel about themselves or other people reveal important
things about their own sensibilities, emotional states, and intelligence. Hence, interpreting dramatic
verse requires some attention to imagery and figures of speech.

Now, images and figures of speech, like blank verse rhythms, can be used conventionally and
predictably or intelligently and with original significance. And, as a general observation, we can note
that in his early plays Shakespeare relies very heavily on imagery and comparisons which are very
conventional, that is, they are part of the stock in trade of being a poet and there is nothing particularly
remarkable about them (as in much conventional popular song writing today).

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Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
And now—instead of mounting barbèd steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries—
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasings of a lute.

For all the interesting poetic quality in the language here, there is nothing very remarkable
about the imagery, the opening comparison of the son of York to the arrival of the summer sun or the
personification of war capering about to the sound of a lute. The images are familiar and expressed
expansively, that is, there is nothing compressed or surprising about them. They are developed over a
few lines each and are easy enough to follow. Compare these images with the following:

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,


Till thou applaud the deed.—Come seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

The first thing one notices about the imagery here is the compression. There is nothing
expansive or loose about the image of night as a monster which blinds the light of the world so that
evil may initiate its destructive course of mutilation. And the extraordinarily compressed metaphor in
the phrase “Light thickens,” together with the vision of the “good things of day” slowly falling asleep
as the agents of evil set about their work, is anything but conventional or unexpected or easy to pass
by. The emotional pressure of Macbeth’s fully conscious commitment to evil is here evoked
unforgettably. This is a single example, and the comparison is perhaps not entirely fair, but the
contrast between the imagery in the two passages is stark.

Following the development of Shakespeare’s use of imagery and figures of speech is a


complex and very detailed business. But there are some general trends worth remarking upon. In his
very early style, Shakespeare, as one might expect from a poet still learning his craft, relies heavily on
the conventions which he inherits (and which his listeners are used to). There are many classical
references, the majority of them taken from Ovid’sMetamorphoses or from handbooks advising poets
of appropriate comparisons (as sly as Ulysses, as talkative as Nestor, as tearful as Niobe, as beautiful
as Helen of Troy, and so on). Often there is a sense that they have been included merely to display the

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poet’s ability to write the same sorts of metaphors as his colleagues. There is often little sense of
emotional pressure or compression behind the imagery.

This style quickly matures into something far more interesting, so that, by the time we read,
say, Richard II, the importance of particular images and their emotional impact is becoming much
more important. When we read Macbeth or the finest poems in the sequence of sonnets, we see,
among other things, the culmination of Shakespeare’s ability to communicate emotions with
extraordinary power in apparently simple language. Gone is the reliance on relatively stale inherited
conventions of imagery and metaphor. In their place appears a greater proportion of images from
nature but present in newly evocative ways. Many of the images may be drawn from common
traditional sources, but the treatment of them (as is that example from Macbeth) is startlingly original
and evocative.

The most distinctive pattern of images in Richard III concerns the various animals with which
Richard is associated by his enemies. For the most part these are relatively unsubtle and repetitive and
make more or less the same point, that Richard is a destructive beast lacking essential human
qualities. There is very little of the later complexity we find in Shakespeare’s finest style. Notice the
two examples below, which both express the same general sense in the hero of the destructive futility
of his actions:

Richard: I must be married to my brother’s daughter,


Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
Murder her brothers, and then marry her?
Uncertain way of gain, but I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin. (Richard III 4.2.62-66)

Macbeth: I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er. (Macbeth 3.4.135-7)

The image in the second passage, in which Macbeth envisions himself wading through a river
of blood so far that he might as well keep going as stop and return confronts us with a much more
complex and disturbing emotional sense than Richard’s similar but unevocative picture of himself so
far in blood that the sins will prompt more sins. Notice, too, the economy of the language in
the Macbeth quotation, two and a half lines summoning up a complex and unforgettable image of
Macbeth pushing himself through the river of his own murders. Macbeth’s sense of frustration and
boredom with what his commitment to evil has turned his life into is here made emotionally explicit.

As I have mentioned before, interpreting the quality of images and metaphors is not always
easy, and it tends to require considerable practice, so that one can distinguish more readily the
conventional image from the more effective figures of speech. But it is important to start to pay
attention to such figures of speech, especially when they reveal a pattern in the utterances of a
particular character or even in an entire play. In Shakespeare’s maturing and mature style, particular
characters often have favorite patterns of imagery, and understanding their characters fully requires
some attention to these patterns (e.g., Richard II’s “conceited” style, Hamlet’s constant use of images
of disease and death, Othello’s love of lofty poetical language, Hotspur’s “blood and honour” rhetoric,
and so on).

Shakespeare’s Poetic Vocabulary

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However, the single most remarkable feature about Shakespeare’s poetic language is his
extraordinary vocabulary, his choice of particular words to convey particular emotional attitudes.
Earlier I have had occasion to note that Shakespeare’s working vocabulary is enormous (about 25,000
words, more than twice as many as his nearest rival, John Milton). More important than that, however,
is the way in which the particular words he chooses evoke, through their sound and their meaning,
very specific and often complex associations.

One feature, for example, which makes Richard far more interesting than any other character
in Richard III (a characteristic which strongly suggests that Shakespeare’s imagination was fired up
by this character) is the energy in his language. Much of the poetry Richard speaks may have
relatively conventional imagery, but his vocabulary has a robust energy which makes the other
characters sound flat by comparison.

In the opening speech of the play (to which I have already referred), the imagery may be
relatively conventional, but what commands our attention immediately is Richard’s vocabulary, full
of emotional energy in his language: “capers nimbly,” “To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph,”
“Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,/ Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time/ Into this
breathing world scarce half made up—” and so on. Throughout the play (with some exceptions),
Richard sustains this quality in his language, in a way that sets him apart from the other characters.

This feature of the play is particularly obvious in a comparison between Richmond’s address
to his soldiers before the final battle and Richard’s speech in the next scene:

Richmond: Then if you fight against God’s enemy,


God will, in justice ward you as his soldiers.
If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain.
If you do fight against your country’s foes,
Your country’s foison pays your pains the hire.
If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors.
If you do free your children from the sword,
Your children’s children quites it in your age. (5.5.207-216)

Richard: Let’s whip these stragglers o’er the seas again,


Lash hence these overweening rags of France,
These famished beggars, weary of their lives,
Who—but for dreaming on this fond exploit—
For want of means, poor rats, had hanged themselves.
If we be conquered, let men conquer us,
And not these bastard Bretons, whom our fathers
Have in their own land beaten, bobbed, and thumped,
And in record left them the heirs of shame. (5.7.57-65)

No one would pretend that Richard’s speech here is truly moving poetry, but it has an energy
characteristic of Richard, and that energy comes very largely from the force of his vocabulary,
especially verbs like “whip,” “lash,” “beaten, bobbed, and thumped,” all short, common words with
sounds which enhance the energy in the lines. The same point can be made about words like “rags,” “
rats,” “bastard Bretons.” Notice, too, the way the punctuation lets the momentum of Richard’s
language gather strength (as does the rhythm)—especially in the last four lines.

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Richmond’s speech, by contrast, seems deflated, a limp necessary gesture. The verse is
regular, the tone unvaryingly formal, and the sentences are structured in a repetitive pattern.
Richmond’s vocabulary is generally quite inert and marked by rather odd words like “quites” and
“foison.” What we lack is any sense of a particular emotional personality speaking lines appropriate to
a moment of high drama.

I don’t want to belabour this comparison, because, as I say, neither passage, is particularly
outstanding. But I do want to offer again the observation that Shakespeare’s vocabulary, his choice of
particular words and word patterns, is almost always worth attending to. He has an uncanny knack, as
his style develops, of choosing simple words which bring with them strong connotations of particular
emotional attitudes. And, generally speaking, the more his style matures, the more apparently simple
the vocabulary. This point is particularly true of the sonnets, as well.

There is no time to go into a series of examples, but consider this selection from one of the
very greatest of all Shakespeare’s plays:

Out, out, brief candle.


Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Nothing could be apparently more simple than the choice of language here. This is a key
moment in the play, Macbeth’s response to the news that his wife is dead. And yet there is no high
rhetoric, no lofty declamation. But notice the enormous emotional power of this utterance, an
expression of Macbeth’s sense of the total emptiness and uselessness of life. The emotional power is
conveyed in a number of ways, particularly in words like “struts and frets,” and “idiot.” If you read
this passage aloud, attending to the rhythm, you observe how these words (and their sounds) are
emphasized. And the punctuation forces one to keep moving beyond the end of the lines, coming to
rest on “no more” and “nothing.” The key image at work here is a very conventional one, life as a
staged drama, but there’s nothing conventional about this use of it to convey an unforgettable
expression of an emotional state.

The Courtly and the Plain Style

By way of bring all these points together into some more or less coherent framework, I’d like
to focus for a while on a very important and common distinction between poetic styles generally. This
is the well known difference between what have come to be called the Courtly (or sometimes the
Petrarchan) Style and the Plain Style. These terms refer specifically to sixteenth century poetry, but
I’d like to begin by placing them in a much wider context.

All artistic expression (and perhaps all human activity of any value) is a complex compound
of two essential features: passion and skill. By passion I mean imaginative excitement—the source of
whatever it is that the artist has to express, his or her sincerely felt insights into a particular subject
matter like love, hate, despair, anger, joy, melancholy, and so on, the very basis of the emotional
understanding of life which prompts artistic expression of value. But such imaginative passion is

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clearly not enough; the artist also requires skill to shape the medium in order to construct an adequate
symbolic equivalent of this emotional understanding. In a poet, such skill will obviously require a
high level of ability to pattern language in evocative ways, so that the reader or listener responds to
the creation (the poem) with a heightened understanding of the feelings the poet is exploring.

All poetic art thus has at its heart a creative tension between, on the one hand, the emotional
and imaginative intensity and intelligence which prompt the work and, on the other hand, the formal
patterns of the language (the shaping of the medium of expression). And the success of the work will
depend upon an appropriate synthesis between them. It is clear that there are and have always been
very imaginatively gifted writers who lack writing skill, whose abilities to shape language do not
match the profundity of their insights. Alternatively, it is equally clear that there are writers who have
an enormous skill with language but who have little of interest to say—their imaginative resources are
not a match for their sophisticated command of the medium.

This distinction should not be difficult to grasp, for it is commonly observed in many areas of
popular culture. In a good deal of popular music and jazz for example, one can make distinctions
between very gifted musicians who are worth listening to for their skill but whose work does not seem
to take one anywhere beyond that style (they lack, as the saying has it, “soul”) and other musicians
who are passionately sincere about what they play or sing but whose music is often excessively
simple and unsophisticated (and therefore often boring).

Anyone who makes a decision to become an artist spends a great deal of time learning the
various skills associated with expressing insights into human feeling in the particular medium of that
art. Schools and teachers often have trouble providing inspiration ready made; that quality must come
from the individual’s inner self (although inspired teaching can often nurture such natural gifts). Much
of this technical training can be very repetitive (like learning musical scales or writing practice
poems), but the purpose of it is obvious: it is designed to make sure the would-be artist has the right
tools and facility in using them, so that when inspiration strikes he or she will have the immediate
means to shape that inspiration in a skillful manner. To dedicate oneself to being a creative artist is, in
most cases, to commit oneself to a life of constant practice in the medium, so that one is ready when
inspiration comes. An artist who writes only when inspired will probably never use the medium
enough to develop the technical skill necessary to the finest expressions in the art form. This point is
as true of the art of teaching as of everything else.

Now, I mention these points in order to stress a point about Elizabethan poetry (in sonnets and
drama). It was a highly sophisticated technical art form. No one is born with the ability to dash off
iambic pentameters and compose complex poetic images in poems with fixed rhyme schemes.
Mastering this art form takes a lot of practice, and one cannot wait for inspiration to strike before
setting down to compose. The result is that a great deal of Elizabethan poetry is an exercise in
developing and displaying technical skill, the ability of the poet to do clever things with words, to
manipulate them in new ways (e.g., with startling new images or the skillful use of multiple
meanings). To these sorts of stylistic techniques, the Elizabethans gave the general all-purpose term
“wit,” and displays of wit in poetry became an important quality if one was interested in showing off
one’s poetic skill.

Out of this tendency arose what has come to be called the Courtly Style. This rather general
label refers to a popular form of poetry which stressed witty love poems answering to aristocratic
ideals. The basic experiential requirements set out in the poem were generally quite simple: a
declaration of love to a noble and generally unattainable (and often cruel) lady. The challenge was to
frame one’s tribute in language which displayed one’s cleverness (one’s wit) as a poet. In other
words, this style tended to encourage a preponderance of wit over substance, or, alternatively put, it
invited the poet to sacrifice sincerity for technical ingenuity.

This point may become clearer if we think about certain forms of music. There are styles of
jazz, for example, where the primary purpose is to show off one’s technical versatility (e.g., be-bop),

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and an important element in any jazz solo improvisation is clearly to show off the technical skill of
the player. In many cases, that is much more important than anything else. And most of us can think
of musical artists who really impress us with their technical ability but who do not challenge us
emotionally.

So it is in some forms of Elizabethan poetry. Here is a particularly famous example of


Shakespeare’s wit employed in such a style:

Why all delights are vain, but that most vain


Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain;
As painfully to pour upon a book
To seek the light of truth while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile. (Love’s Labour’s Lost 1.1.72-77)

The extraordinary technical complexity of the last line, where the word “light” is used four
times to refer to four different things, is an example of Elizabethan “wit” at its most complex. It has
the effect of calling attention to the intricacy of the language and the multiple meanings cleverly
invoked rather than to any significant sense of inner feeling.

This technique of sophisticated wit is common also in many of early sonnets, as well:

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,


For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow’s form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!

Here again, there is a clear sense of the great sophistication in the skillful use of the medium,
but there’s a sense that the poet’s display of his own wit is more important to him than any sincerely
passionate communication about his feelings. The same point holds for Sonnet 135, which is
constructed around the various meanings of Will.

The point I wish to stress here (and it’s a vitally important interpretative principle) is that a
skillful style can at times get in the way of the poem’s achieving any deeper insights into the feelings
about the experience being evoked. One leaves such a poem with great admiration for the technical
skill on display but without any sense of having been moved by an insight into something important.

As I say, if you pause to reflect for a moment, you can probably think of a number of similar
examples from popular music or jazz (especially the latter), where the great technical skill of the artist
is the most memorable feature of a particular work. The pleasure one derives come from the medium
itself, not from any message. Clearly, it is not easy to write poetry or music like this, but one often
senses that there’s something essential missing, some deeper imaginative pressure to put all this skill
in the service of something insightful.

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At the extreme opposite the wit of the Courtly Style is what has come to be called the Plain
Style. This (again very general) label refers to a style in which the emotional insights are expressed in
a plain and unvarnished language, where the wit is kept firmly in check, so that the language does not
call attention to itself. In the Plain Style, the full resources of the medium are not on ostentatious
display. A particularly obvious example is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry:


As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to die I leave my love alone.

This poem has a traditional sonnet structure and a series of poetic images and metaphors. But
the language is very simple (perhaps excessively so), with a repetitive structure to the lines and no
attempt to startle the reader with some daringly witty double or triple meanings. In this poem, by
contrast with the selections quoted earlier, the speaker’s mood of despondency at the world’s
unfairness prevails over the skill in the language (although the poem clearly is not so plain as it might
appear, since it still has the form of a conventional sonnet).

Now, this poem should suggest to a number of readers both the strength and the potential
weakness of the Plain Style. It puts the reader immediately in touch with something that really
matters—the sincerely felt emotional response of the speaker to a living situation. But at the same
time there’s a repetitive simplicity in the language and structure which (for some readers) may run out
of steam before the end. That is to say, the Plain Style runs the risk of becoming predictable and inert,
in a word, too plain. I’m not saying that this poem necessarily suffers from these qualities, but one can
see the possibility (especially if this poem were to go on for much longer).

The greatest single example of the sustained Plain Style in English is the translation of the
King James Bible, which deliberately eschewed any attempt at rhetorical excess or wit (although it
was produced in an age in which such excess was a marked feature of a great deal of writing in poetry
and prose). The translators established and maintained throughout a direct plainness in the style
(short, plain sentences, a familiar common vocabulary, direct and relatively simple imagery),
sacrificing any chances to embellish the sacred text with linguistic inventiveness. And the enduring
preference English speakers for the Plain Style owes more to the King James Version than to anything
else.

The Plain Style, it should be clear, seeks to harness language in such a way that it does not
preempt our sense that there is something important being communicated here. The Courtly Style, by
contrast, tends to celebrate the possibilities of language over and above anything the language might
be communicating. Both styles (in their extreme versions) can produce unsatisfactory works: the Plain
Style poem can be too plain, repetitive, rhetorically uninventive, and, well, boring, so that, for all the

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sincerity in the speaker, we turn set the book down; the Courtly Style can so insist on the preeminence
of wit in the language over anything else that we turn away seeking something with more content.

The best poetry (to come to the main point of these remarks) is obviously a combination of
both passion and skill. The work conveys a sense of sincerity and a commitment to the feelings being
explored and yet, at the same time, is sufficiently sophisticated that the style hold our attention
(without calling attention to itself in a manner which makes us doubt the writer’s intention). This
point applies to more than just Elizabethan poetry, of course. We can apply it to the use of language
generally (including lectures posted on the Internet): it should be prompted by a genuine and sincere
imaginative desire to communicate something and also be sufficiently skillful so that we continue to
be interested.

Students of English literature may be already familiar with some well-known writers who are
more celebrated for their stylistic accomplishments than for having anything to say. It is not
uncommon to see, say, Spenser or Ezra Pound so described, writers who had a truly inventive
command of the medium but who had little to communicate (a more controversial name here might
also be James Joyce in his later works). These writers are often called poets’ poets, a term which calls
attention to their value for those who wish to learn about the full range of resources in that medium.
Over against these we can set someone like, say, John Bunyan, who was passionately committed to
communicating insights of central importance and who did so often in a style which does not sustain
interest.

A good deal of modern poetry (and jazz and painting) is dominated by people with much skill
but little vision (perhaps that comes about because it’s much easier to acquire skill in a poetic medium
than to acquire imaginative insight into something important). This gave rise to a famous indictment
of some modern poets: “They’ve got the bridle and the bit all right/ But where’s the bloody horse?” A
rider may have much skill for us to admire, but if she has no large powerful beast to carry her
forward, the attractions of her art are somewhat limited.

Let me end this section with what I hope will be a contemporary illustration, if people still
remember the Beatles. Their extraordinarily popular style at their best was clearly a synthesis of two
very different approaches to music and song, Paul McCartney’s wit, sophistication, and inventive
musicality and John Lennon’s passionate sincerity. When these two worked together, the results were
often truly memorable songs, sophisticated and passionate, witty and sincere. When they broke up,
McCartney’s music lost much of its emotional interest, but retained its skillful musicality; Lennon’s
music lost its inventiveness and became so plain that at times his songs are hard to distinguish from
prose. I could extend this comparison, but I fear it may be badly outdated (as would a similar analytic
reference to another great popular artist whose work exhibits the same polarity and synthesis, Bob
Dylan).

Back to Shakespeare

These remarks about the different styles in poetry are directly relevant to Shakespeare’s work
for two reasons: first, his own style shows a marked development away from the Courtly Style in
some of the earliest plays and poems towards an increasing plainness (especially in the vocabulary
and imagery), and, second, an exploration of the uses and abuses of language in the expression of
feeling is a key feature of some of the plays.

Shakespeare’s earlier work is often mark by an abundance of witty, sophisticated, courtly


poetical moments. This is particularly true of some of the early sonnets (which are dated early largely
on the basis of that characteristic), some plays (especially Love’s Labour’s Lost, which may have been
written for a private audience of young urban “wits”), and some of the early poems (Venus and
Adonis). As his style matures, such moments become less and less frequent, and he tends to
subordinate his desire for displays of stylistic sophistication to the demands of the emotional moment
(although the excess often remains in the prose humour, much to the disgust of some later critics).

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However, it’s not a case that an extreme Plain Style takes over. The style still demonstrates a
complex skill at work, but the skill rarely calls attention to itself. One will search, say, Macbeth in
vain to find a passage of complex verse which is not first and foremost concerned with an expression
of the feeling of a particular character. In fact, if one wants to sum up Shakespeare’s preeminent
genius in a single observations one might observe that no other writer has ever managed such a
synthesis of skill and imaginative power. His formidable powers of language are put into the service
of a profound vision of human life.

What I have been discussing is an important element in many plays, where one of the major
points is either a contrast between characters based, in part, on the language they use to express
themselves (e.g., Richard II and Bolingbroke or Othello and Iago) or, beyond that, the need for
someone to learn to use the right sort of language in order to understand what emotional honesty is all
about. In Shakespearean comedy for example (especially inAs You Like It) one of the central issues
which must be taken care of before the lovers can move to their final union is that the hero must learn
to correct the errors of poetical attitudinizing, that is, using language in false ways to communicate a
sentimentalized vision of love. This invariably means learning to drop a courtly style and take up a
much plainer and more directly sincere way of expressing one’s own feelings. One of the most
delightful things about Rosalind in As You Like It is her attitude to language and the zest with which
she sets out to correct Orlando’s false notions of the language most appropriate to love. There is an
important idea at work in the comic business: that until one learns to express oneself in the most
appropriate language one cannot truly understand one’s own feelings of love.

The same thing happens in Romeo and Juliet. At the start of the play, Romeo is a moon-struck
lover fond of composing elaborate images to express his sense of his powerful love (which is not, of
course, for Juliet at this point). By the end of the play, he has dropped that style of expressing himself
and substituted something much plainer (“Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight”).

We see this theme taken up in the very famous Sonnet 130:

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;


Coral is far more red than her lips’ red.
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. . . .

Here the plain style comes out in a direct repudiation of the conventional images associated
with the Courtly Style in love poetry. And the point which emerges is, among other things, that really
passionate love does not require the conventional wit. What matters is a language more appropriate to
the urgent sincerity of feeling for the experience (as opposed to the conventional linguistic
attitudinizing, however cleverly carried out).

And this point, we might add, is central to understanding why Shakespeare’s best sonnets are
among the most eloquent, evocative, and moving poems every written. They explore a conventional
subject, the speaker’s feelings about love. But Shakespeare’s commitment to the sincere passion of
the Plain Style transforms a conventional situation (the speaker in despair at or in love with his lady)
into something uniquely felt, urgently experienced. Here the sophistication in the form and the
language is put fully into the service of an imaginative insight, so that we witness the extraordinary
inventiveness in the poetic language and at the same time explore the complexities of a vital and
important experience—a perfect fusion of style and substance.

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Contents

Introduction to Shakespeare Studies ....................................................................................................... 1


Critical Approaches to Shakespeare: Some Initial Observations .......................................................... 16
A Brief Note on the Historical Background to Shakespeare’s .............................................................. 26
First and Second History Cycles ........................................................................................................... 26
On Scholarship and Literary Interpretation: An Introductory Note ...................................................... 30
The Foxes, The Lion, and the Fat Knight: Introduction to Henry IV, Part 1........................................ 43
Variations on a Theme of Love: An Introduction to As You Like It ..................................................... 66
Introductory Lecture on Shakespeare’s Hamlet .................................................................................... 78
Speak What We Feel: An Introduction to King Lear............................................................................ 96
Introduction to Macbeth ...................................................................................................................... 117
You Can Go Home Again, Can’t You? An Introduction to The Tempest .......................................... 129
Lecture on Shakespeare’s Transformation of Medieval Tragedy and an Introduction to Richard III 140
Some Observations on Shakespeare’s Dramatic Verse in Richard III and Macbeth .......................... 155

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