Shakespeare- a Complete Introduction

by Michael Scott

  ‘The conclusion towards which these stories tend is not the cynical abandonment of all hope for decency in public life, but rather a deep scepticism about any attempt to formulate and obey an abstract moral law, independent of actual social, political, and psychological circumstances. This scepticism set Shakespeare at odds with the dominant currents of ethical reflection in his period. It is not that he set out, like Marlowe, to swim against these currents or to stage violent protests against them; he seems simply to have found them incompatible with his art.’

  Greenblatt, S. (2010: 82), Shakespeare’s Freedom. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press

  Greenblatt perhaps does not give enough credit here to the ethical dimension of Michel de Montaigne’s influence, particularly his essay ‘Of the Cannibals’ (1580, trans. Florio 1603). Shakespeare may well have been familiar with Montaigne’s writings through the translations of John Florio, tutor to the young Earl of Southampton who some think is the subject of the first 17 of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Many late twentieth-century interpretations of the play sought to emphasize the play’s colonial context. Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith, for example, point to a particular production that changed theatrical interpretations:

  ‘After Jonathan Miller’s 1970 staging of the play it has been difficult to recover a sympathetic Prospero unmarked by colonial guilt. As reviewers described that landmark production, Prospero was “a solemn and touchy neurotic, the victim of a power complex” who ‘has arrogated to himself the god-like power of the instinctive colonist…by the end the cycle of colonialism is complete: Ariel, the sophisticated African, picks up Prospero’s discarded wand, clearly prepared himself to take on the role of bullying overlord. Recent Prosperos have tended to be so unpleasant that any association with Shakespeare would reflect very badly on the playwright himself.’

  Maguire, L. and Smith, E. (2013: 135), 30 Great Myths about Shakespeare. Malden, Oxford and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, quoting reviews by Eric Shorter and Michael Billington, recorded in excerpts in O’Connor, J. and Goodland, K. (2007: 1357–8), A Directory of Shakespeare in Performance, 1970–2005. Vol. 1: Great Britain, 1970–2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

  This, however, is now as much a theatrical commonplace as associating Shakespeare with Prospero, and new interpretations are likely to emerge as new ‘spirits’ are conjured by Shakespeare’s revels in modern critical evaluations and theatrical production. What remains relatively steady, however, is the play’s firm structure and narrative.

  Spotlight

  Shakespeare displays in Prospero iconographic characteristics in his manipulation of a world portrayed through the metaphor of a dream. Shakespeare seems to have gone back to the dream plays of his early comedies, and to the iconic frame of plays such as Richard II and Henry V. What we find in The Tempest is a gallery of characters who all have a particular relationship with the icon Prospero, who in turn reflects images of an audience watching the play. Shakespeare does this in a virtuoso display while he actually returns to the neoclassical rules of the three Unities – place, time and action – which he had more or less abandoned after The Comedy of Errors. He appears to be foregrounding his art as intrinsic not only to the progress of the narrative but as an important thematic element of that narrative. The play does not so much reference the dramatist himself, but rather the function of a play written by a playwright and performed by actors.

  DANCE OF DEATH?

  In conventional readings of the play, Prospero appears to control everything, as does an author writing a play or other work, but do they? In a crude sense the symbol of his total command is found in Caliban as the representative of the earth:

  …– What ho, slave! Caliban,

  Thou earth, thou: speak!

  (1.2.14–15)

  Within the creation of the two contrasting characters, Caliban and Ariel, Shakespeare could be staging twin resistances to the magician’s authority, but equally he might also be expressing the dual constitutive elements of the icon’s identity, which at the end of the play are allowed to go their separate ways: Caliban, the body, remains firmly of the earth; the other, Ariel, takes to the air.

  …Then to the elements

  Be free, and fare thou well!

  (5.1.319–20)

  Thus an argument can be made that The Tempest works as a dance of death with the breaking of the staff at the end of the concluding dance of the play, representing the moment of death itself. The iconic Prospero takes centre stage in a dreamlike dance that will result in release.

  THE TIME LIMIT

  The narrative of the story, however, limits the credibility of such an interpretation since the plot doesn’t demand that Prospero die but return to Milan, where he will resume his dukedom. He does so within a play that not only observes the Unities but does so, as Jan Kott (1967: 238–9) proposes, by using a time limit which actually coincides with how long it will take for the play to be performed. Within this tight time limit, the action is also limited. There is the shipwreck, the dispersal of the passengers, the meeting of Ferdinand and Miranda, the plot against Alonso, the plot against Prospero and the recognition of all when at the magician’s cell.

  THE DREAM MOTIF

  That tight structure allows yet again for the Shakespearean dream motif – a state of mind that distorts reality and its otherwise mundane temporal order. It is through this dream that Shakespeare reveals the artistic power of Prospero. He is the controller of everyone’s sleep. He instructs his daughter:

  …Here cease more questions.

  Thou art inclined to sleep; ’tis a good dullness,

  And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.

  (1.2.184–6)

  Similarly, Ferdinand, hearing strange music and seeing veiled sights, says:

  My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.

  My father’s loss, the weakness which I feel,

  The wreck of all my friends, nor this man’s threats

  (To whom I am subdued) are but light to me, (1.2.487f.)

  Gonzalo, Adrian and Francisco are charmed into sleep in Act 2, soon followed by Alonso and, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the implication is clear that the play itself is as a dream:

  …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;

  …

  We are such stuff

  As dreams are made on, and our little life

  Is rounded with a sleep.

  (4.1.147–50, 156–8)

  The relationship between the play, the dream and life merge, so that the question of reality itself is raised – the ‘parted eye’ of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is reflected also by Miranda when talking of her early childhood as being:

  …rather like a dream than an assurance

  That my remembrance warrants.

  (1.2.45–6)

  Shakespeare here reworks his tried and trusted formula, utilizing the dream in different ways, as we have seen through many of his plays. The controller of the dream finally includes himself in his fantasy: ‘We are such stuff/As dreams are made on’. He is the dreaming artist.

  The structure of the dream defies logic – in dreams the movement of images challenge the seeming coherence of the narrative. Thus it is with Prospero, who, still as controller is enrapt in the revels, distractedly enjoying them to the point that he ‘…had forgot that foul conspiracy/Of the beast Caliban and his confederates/Against my life’ (4.1.139–41).

  Francis Barker and Peter Hulme argue that ‘…conventional criticism has no difficulty in recognizing the importance of the themes of legitimacy and usurpation for The Tempest… However, these rebellions, treacheries, mutinies and conspiracies, referred to here collectively as usurpation, are not simply present in the text as extractable “Themes of the Play”. Rather, they are differentially embedded there, figural traces of the text’s anxiety concerning the very mat
ters of domination and resistance.’ (p. 198). Earlier in their essay they contend that criticism points not only to the presence in the text of alternative viewpoints to the dominant one of Prospero but through ‘Discourse’, which is ‘the field in and through which texts are produced’:

  ‘Instead of having meaning, statements should be seen as performative of meaning; not as possessing some portable and “universal” content but, rather, as instrumental in the organization and legitimation of power-relations – which of course involves, as one of its components, control over the constitution of meaning.’

  Drakakis, J. (1985: 196–7), Barker, F. and Hulme, P., ‘Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish: the discursive contexts of The Tempest’

  Shakespeare has Prospero elucidate the meaning of the ‘revels’ within the framework of dream and play, but Prospero isn’t actually the only authority in the play, nor is his discourse isolated. The danger is that we fall into the trap of the play and believe him to be the sole arbiter of meaning.

  TAUNTING, COMFORTING, IDEALISTIC, CRUEL

  A creative experience is found within the conduct of this remarkable play, which reflects a mutability within the discipline of Aristotelian or neoclassical structure, allowing the dream to be ambiguous: simultaneously taunting, comforting, idealistic and cruel:

  ARIEL [SINGS] Full fathom five thy father lies,

  Of his bones are coral made;

  Those are pearls that were his eyes,

  Nothing of him that doth fade

  But doth suffer a sea-change

  Into something rich and strange.

  Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.

  SPIRITS Ding dong.

  ARIEL Hark, now I hear them.

  SPIRITS Ding dong bell.

  (1.2.397–405)

  It is the play which is the song, which suffers the sea-change, that through the tightness of its structure retains a valid trans-historical continuity. Even though the performance ends and Prospero’s books are to be discarded at the culmination of his sojourn, the play will continue to be re-enacted. It will emerge from the waters of time through interpretation, debate and discourse as rarified as the corals and the pearls that we now see and discuss. The Tempest, through its form and function, is a prophetic play.

  28

  The Winter’s Tale (1610–11)

  As we come to the end of our journey through the plays, we discuss the play of winter, in which life decays and is ultimately regenerated from the seemingly dead earth. The play is centrally concerned with a process of atonement for a woman deeply wronged, but although a ‘sad’ tale is thought best for winter, the action points forward to new growth in spring and to a rapprochement between the generations that, as we have seen, is characteristic of Shakespeare’s comedies.

  An ‘improbable fiction’

  Have we lost our sense of the wonder of Shakespeare’s plays? This is a question that has nagged at me through the writing of this complete introduction. No more is this so than in The Winter’s Tale. So many critics appear to want to ‘condemn it as an improbable fiction’ (Twelfth Night, 3.4.128), rather than accept it as such and admire and enjoy its wonder, ‘Like an old tale still,’ (The Winter’s Tale, 5.2.62).

  The first time I encountered the play was in Trevor Nunn’s 1968 RSC production, with Judi Dench playing both the role of Hermione and of Perdita, and the two great actors Charles Wood as Leontes and Richard Pasco as Polixenes. I did not know the story and was advised not to read it or a synopsis of it before I went. It was good advice. Even as I write, I can see Judi Dench’s Hermione slowly crumple to the floor as Leontes’ jealousy showed no regard for the oracle. Nunn used an ultraviolet light to depict the jealousy that led his wife to her ‘death’. She was, for all I knew, dead until that final scene when not only did she move but she spoke in a soft voice that almost cracked as the words were delivered. Here was the wonder of breaking through the ‘pity of it’ (Othello), the ‘rough magic’ (The Tempest) of Shakespeare in performance.

  In 2015, having seen many good (and some not so good) performances in the meantime, I had the privilege of seeing Judi Dench in the play once more on this occasion, again playing two roles, Paulina and the Chorus, Time. The person who crumpled in this production at Hermione’s ‘death’ was Kenneth Branagh’s Leontes. It was a beautifully staged, romanticized production that made no apologies or excuses for the play’s improbabilities but rather allowed the narrative to work its wonder. Sadly, as the exhilarated audience left the West End theatre that Friday night, 13 November 2015, news started to filter through about the so-called Islamic State atrocities and murders in Paris. We had all experienced such beauty, presented by some of the greatest actors of our generation, while others in our allied European city had experienced a tragedy and horror for which no theatrical performance could ever compensate. So much in Shakespeare is about ‘remembrance’ and my lasting memory of that night will be a fracturing between art, as we had seen it so professionally enacted, and the barbarity of which human beings are capable.

  The impact of history on the play

  Throughout this book we have been considering how the plays work and how they allow for a variety of meanings and interpretations that can emerge through performance, criticism, discussion and reflection. We have looked at history and histories, at tragedy and romantic comedy and at what Northrop Fry refers to as a ‘diptych’ in which comedy is followed by tragedy or tragedy is resolved by comedy. We have also seen epic narrative translated into drama; we have challenged some long-held perceptions about the nature of drama and genre, and we have looked at comparisons with other plays and fictions and at history in many of its manifestations.

  It is with the last of these that I would encourage you to begin your consideration of The Winter’s Tale, a late play that concentrates on the jealousy of a king. As implied in earlier chapters, it is hard, if not impossible, for us to imagine fully the horrific impact of the reign of Henry VIII on Tudor England: his decision to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled and then, further, his accusations, made through Cromwell, of Anne Boleyn’s adultery and incest, that led to her execution. As with the brutal execution of his chancellor, Thomas More, Anne Boleyn’s demise was an act of unwavering royal pragmatism that exemplified the masculine power game in which Henry was engaged. Jealousy, the consuming desire for a male heir, and the abuse of power all manifested themselves in the accusations of adultery which condemned Anne to death at a trial, which like that of Sir Thomas More was ‘fixed’ in accordance with the King’s authority. As you no doubt will have realized, I am offended by any popular sentimentality that some might have extended towards Henry VIII.

  Spotlight

  Catherine of Aragon’s defence and Anne Boleyn’s last words find their echo in Shakespeare’s drama, as we have seen in our discussion of the collaborative play written with Fletcher, Henry VIII. In The Winter’s Tale we have a similar defence, offered by Hermione:

  Since what I am to say, must be but that

  Which contradicts my accusation, and

  The testimony on my part, no other

  But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me

  To say ‘not guilty’: mine integrity,

  Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

  Be so receiv’d. (3.2.21f.)

  It is the plea of a queen against accusations that she knows it will be to no avail to counter, just as in history such appeals were to no avail before Henry. Voltaire was later to note that it is difficult for the innocent to be right when those in power are wrong. The Winter’s Tale comments on Tudor history but also, perhaps, on the Stuart king, James I.

  ‘Leontes’ mad claim that “There is a plot against my life, my crown;” (2.1.47) echoes James’s paranoid fear that he was surrounded by assassins, just as his method of disposing of those he distrusted may well be reflected in Leontes’ plan to have Camillo poison Polixenes’s drink.’

  Lucas, J., ‘Freedom and Hospitality in The
Winter’s Tale’, Loughborough University Conference Paper. See Overton, B. (1989: 63), The Critics Debate

  In similar vein, Bill Overton argues that Shakespeare cleverly exposes the King’s proclivities without James realizing it, through the very theatricality and the progress of the narrative, which is very different from what happens in, say, Hamlet’s ‘mousetrap’. He references Simon Shepherd’s (1981) point that in Polixenes’ condemnation of Florizel in 4.4.420f., there is an historical parallel with an event in 1610–11 when the King’s refusal to allow his cousin Arabella Stuart to marry William Seymour was disobeyed, leading to their imprisonment.

  The power of kings in essence was such that they could enforce their will, as the husband Petruchio did over his wife Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, to make the sun the moon and the moon the sun. This may have been a problem for some of King James’s courtiers, as it proves to be for Camillo in the play.

  ‘Possessed by jealousy, Leontes has in effect the power to define reality according to his fantasy…Through a show trial he seeks to impose belief on his subjects, who can resist only at personal hazard. Camillo…cannot believe Leontes’ charge against Hermione, and his outspoken denial (1.2.282–3)…is a dangerous risk. When Leontes insists even more violently, only one reply will keep Camillo safe: “I must believe you, sir” (333). Here “must” can mean compulsion as well as conviction.’

  Overton, B. (1989: 60), The Winter’s Tale: The Critics Debate. Basingstoke: Macmillan

  Shakespeare, as we have seen so many times, was in The Winter’s Tale once again treading on dangerous political ground, and yet he always managed to survive.