THE SHAKESPEARIAN REVIVAL.• Jun. at the close of this restless
century, when everything in art, literature, and science alike is pointing to a new develop- ment, there are signs of a singular revival of the Shakespearian legend, both in the study and upon the stage. Written essentially for acting, it is by their popularity as acting-plays that the vitality of the Shakespearian dramas must in the first case be tested, and in that form they live down rivalry. The traditions have descended in one unbroken line through a succession of sovereigns, from Burbage down to Phelps, with whom the long reign ended for a brief time. But the crown was soon held again by a new dynasty, which Irving may be said to have founded, and founded upon new lines. His successor is yet uncertain among the many competitors who
• (1.) A Book about Shakespeare. By J. N. WIN-rains (Jean Forsyth). London : Nelson and Sons.—(2.l The Light of Shakespeare. By Clare Lsilidon. Londou : Elliot Stock.—[3.) The Geom.) of Shakespeare's Art. By &min James Dunning. Boston : Lee and Shepard.
are making their Shakespearian bids for office amongst diverse scenes, but there are no signs whatever of any fleet-
ing fashion of revolution damaging that serene and majestio power. There could be no clearer rebuke to the little knot of enthusiasts who, atoning by noise for deficiency in number, are always talking of the mysterious gospel with which they are entrusted to the world. Reduced to its primal elements, it comes to little more than the fact that the most successful living dramatist amongst ourselves produced, in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, a clever and popular piece of work, and that the plays of Ibsen, through the combined force of novelty of subject, of stage-craft, and of poetry, have obtained a certain footing here in spite of their supremely disagreeable nature. The rest of the gospel is mere talk and imitation. The " problems " come, and go—much quicker, for the most part, than they come—bat every new generation wants its Shakespeare as part of its life; and to watch the eager and attentive crowds hanging once more upon the world-old words of Hamlet, as spoken by the last scholarly representative of the famous character, was contradiction enough to the reiterated complaint of the tiresome tribe that the long- suffering public decline good plays. At the same time, it must be admitted that the very greatness of the man has been, and always will be, a great stumbling-block in the way of all other aspirants to the poet's laurel on the stage. From Marlowe to Tennyson, none has been able to live against him, for comparison is as unavoidable as it is cruel. It is to pure melodrama that we must look, outside the fields of comedy, for any plays that have won anything like a standard posi- tion. Nor can Comedy herself be quite excepted. The same manager who has given us the last Hamlet gave us also the last School for Scandal, and the flavour seemed but musty, well as the thing was done. The School for Scandal seemed an older play than Hamlet.
The three little books before us, chiefly American, are in- stances of the lasting charm which Shakespeare exercises upon the student, apart altogether from the stage. One is a kind of attempt at constructing the poet's life out of his plays, and out of as much as is known of his story, and attains but moderate success in interesting us. His carelessness about his work, and his modest ambition to retire on a comfortable competence to his native place, are the attractive points of his story which need no retelling, and the critical examination of his plots and tales elicits nothing new, except the writer's carious theory that Cleopatra is the greatest achievement amongst Shakespeare's heroines. We should say that she was decidedly the least successful of all of them, altogether too loose and uncertain of drawing to live for an hour by the side of Rosalind and Portia. Miss Langton's book is one of extracts merely, but very artistically and completely done. She has grouped her posies by an ingenious arrange- ment of subjects which invites us to linger as we turn them over. Justice, charity, mercy, worldliness, all find them- selves set forth in turn, and there seems scarcely a topic known to men which does not serve for at least a few examples. The passages on " Immortality" are all divinely beautiful, and " Patriotism " takes so fine a place that Mr. Chamberlain's curious discovery of the fact that the word itself is never met with in Shakespeare, and therefore must have been coined after his day, recurs to us with all the greater interest. The third book of our Shake- pearian group is concerned with the sonnets and the poems only, and is the work of a loving student, who finds more, perhaps, in the intentions and purposes of the singer than the singer himself can ever have purposed. We should like ourselves to see a work written from another point of view, which should deal with certain salient characteristics of the man which seem to escape notice, as, for instance, his extreme directness and simplicity. If we are in doubt about his meaning, except in cases where the text is uncertain, the fault must always be our own. Hamlet leaves us in no doubt whatever that his purpose, which becomes the purpose of the play, is to act the madman, and so he does throughout, except when he is alone or in Horatio's company. "Now I am alone," he says in one place, to give the key to his serious musings. Yet whether Hamlet was really mad or not has been the commentator's constant theme. To lend mysterious and impracticable meanings to the asinine pomposities of Malvolio, or to Touchstone's hearty Rabelaisian jollity, has been another facile temptation ; nor have the black and uncompromising lines upon which the villainous character of the Jew Shylock
is drawn, in thorough accordance with the theories of the day, which no man ever expressed more thoroughly than Shake- speare, prevented critics and actors from painting him in sympathetic colours as far as they could, on the strength of one line about a lost turquoise. And yet this man, who was waiting in religion's name to cut off a pound of flesh from a man's heart, was ready to give up his creed for that detested Christianity in a moment, to save half his money. On the other hand, Antonio, a man of a melancholy nature, but the young bright intimate of Bassanio and his friends, the most perfect and honourable of gentlemen by Shakespeare's own description, and the true hero of the story, is used as a kind of foil to Shylock, and assigned to the most approved and elderly proser of the theatrical troop. Antonio, like Horatio, has yet to be acted; and it is on the unacted parts of Shakespeare, amongst other things, that we should like to see an expert comment wisely. How many have there been, again, who on the stage or off it have fairly grasped the character of "honest Iago," or connected with it the straightforward, blunt, and soldierly manner which Shakespeare has set down as the essence of his meaning ? The pages of the poet teem with neglected verities. His Mercutio—Benedick—Jaques- are underlined by his own hand; nor have we met with any estimate of Orlando's character which shows him as a kind of rustic Cymon, brought up amongst the herds and servants, and given no education but the athlete's, whom the charms of the delicious Rosalind seduce into those first efforts at uncultured rhyme which made Touchstone the courtier laugh, while her eyes alone detect the gentleman through the rustic covering. Orlando and Rosalind should be played like a new Cymon and Iphigenia, and would repay the experiment.
But we are tempted by the example of the books before us to emulate some of the writers' offences, and might run on "till our eyelids could no longer wag" upon the many fields of tempting thought which Shakespeare opens up to us. We could enlarge upon the strange power of the monosyllable which he wielded so well that in one passage he could set down no less than five consecutive blank-verse lines, with never a break in the monosyllables,—unless a " heav'n," the last word of them but four, should be held to limit the number to forty-eight. We shall not betray our secret, but leave the curious to verify the fact, and find the instance, for them- selves. Still more should we like to dwell upon the magnifi- cent carelessness which sprang of his wealth of power, and made him at times inconsistent beyond the power of reconciliation. His stories ran away with him, and he forgot how he began. No man could be wiser or statelier than the Polonius of the opening scenes of Hamlet, nobody a more doddering nuisance later on. Shakespeare took his stories as he found them, and improved into characters of his own making, as he went on, what he began upon the lines of his original. Polonius's twaddle tempted him, even as he forgot at the end the kind of Ophelia from whom he and his story started. And indeed an essay might be written upon that same Polonius family, which wrought such harm to Hamlet, longing from his heart of hearts for nothing so much as sincerity. And with these idle meditations we take leave of our little band of Shakespearian authors, apologising to them for having rather added ourselves to their ranks than given to their theories and their study the full consideration for which we set forth. They will be the first to forgive us for the strength of the temptation.
Previous page
