Poet and Dramatist
The Janus of Poets, Being an essay on the Dramatic Value of Shakspere's Poetry, both good and bad. By Richard David. (Cambridge University Press. 5s.)
A FEW minutes spent in looking at the late Professor Saints- . bury's chapter on Shakespeare, in the Cambridge history of English Literature (recently re-issued in the Cambridge Mis- cellany), will be found to be of interest before beginning to read Mr. David's little book, The Janus of Poets. It will be seen that the Professor devotes only a bare page to his con- sideration of Shakespeare's style, and after a number of uneasy general statements acknowledges defeat. " In fact, it is possible to talk about Shakespeare's style for ever;" he concludes, " but impossible in any way to define it ; " and, with a brief passing word as to its universality, he passes on happily to some four pages on Shakespeare's versification and the mysteries of equivalence and unresolved feet.
Yet Shakespeare's style cannot thus be • passed by, and students have recently tried'to come more closely to grips with it. Mr. Middleton Murry has contributed a revealing essay on Shakespeare's use of the word " dedication" ; • Mr. Wilson Knight has written some valuable pages such as those on "The Othello Music " ; Miss Caroline Spurgeon has encouraged us to believe that a careful study of Shakespeare's imagery will help us to understand the: tone and significance of many passages ; and Mr. George Rylands, both in his Words and Poetry and in his later writings, has emphasised the develop- ment of Shakespeare's style, and his adventures with this " exacting and imperious Mistress." Now a pupil of his, Mr. Ii ichard David, examines Shakespeare's verse in order to see " how he met the advantages and disadvantages • that a dramatic poet incurs, how he used, poetry to aid his drama- tisation and dramatic effect to aid his poetry ; to judge, in short, how far this title of Dramatic Poetry does indeed become him." The first section of his book, " Poetry and Drama," considers Shakespeare's work up to the time of Romeo and Juliet, and argues that whatever else is to be said, the plays have
one common characteristic—they are literary rather than dramatic. Their verse is adequate, though with little flexi- bility or power of variation, and their poetry belongs to what Mr. David calls " the heaven-battle-thunder-devils or' the rose-lily-ivory-and-gold school." It is not until Richard 11 that a new drive and staying power in the verse is noticed.
It is uncontrolled, uneconomical and patchy, and still net organic, so that the poetic flights may be thought of as " cadenzas." The poet and, the dramatist arc not yet one, and this fusion came about as the result of Shakespeare's
practice in the next few years. The results of this may be given in Mr. David's own words : " Controlled.energy. is indeed the natural end of all these tendencies in Shakspere's development. The rhetorical experiment had made the poetry organic to the action and to the speaker, so that he was now able to take it in his stride, instead of pausing and, with folded hands, launching into the lyrical flight. The cultivation of prose had shown the possibility of a new vigour, dependent on restraint, and manifested both on-a more poWerful and various rhythm which might break up the measured regularity of the verse, and also in a new forcefulness- of language.- And these are chief among the qualities of $hakspere's mature verse."
From this we are led ,to an enquiry into Shakespeare's methodi of giving his verse both greater freedom and greater concentration, and Mr. David examines with care and delicacy many passages to shoW how laboured simile is abandoned fox swift metaphor ; how pace_ and tone-variations are achieved ;
how " the full translation of the great prose qualities into verse is accomplished." All thiS is done with skill and grace and gives us many new lights on familiar passages. But Mr. David is not content to be another Commentator on the margin of Shakespeare's text. He comes out boldly with his modifica- tion of DriYden's description of 'Shakespeare as a Janus-faced poet who is "many' timeS flat and insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast."
Mr. David asserts that with Shakespeare above all writers, " if the effects he required could best be achieved by primitive
methods lie was not afraid to use them at any stage in his career "--that-is to say that instead of " degenerating into elehelies. and • swelling into bombast " deliberately uses these' early inanaers as and when he needs them. It is obvious that if Mr. David's view be the true one much revision of' the work of the " disintegrators " and of attempts to date the plays by so-called early and late verse.will require to be modi- fied. He attempts to establish his case first by an examination of Shakespeare's use of prose and of the rhymed couplet and then of his use of bombast throughout his career.
Whether Shakespeare was conscious of the way in which he used verse scenes and prose scenes to make his pattern Mr. David admits is an open question, and throughout he shows himself aware of the many dangers besetting his investigation, dependent as it is almost entirely on the critic's own taste and ear. But he gives us chapter and verse for his views which will be read with interest, although not always with complete
assent. When, for example, he is dealing with the difficult question of the ability of the Elizabethan audience to respond
to the constant emotional and dramatic changes in any one play he is more confident as to their powers than some critics would feel possible. The Elizabethan audience, despite some
interesting recent investigationS, is 'still something of an enigma to us. It has been argued by Mr. L. C. Knights that for the most part the audience came to the theatre as trained listeners, as men versed in the subtleties of language and accustomed by sermons and other means to follow and to appreciate argument and the use of figures and rhetorical terms. What percentage of the audience was thus equipped, and whether the dramatists anticipated and wrote for such an 'audience requires further probing, and it is one of the many merits of Mr. David's book that he endeavours to do this and gives us a most intelligent and sensitive commentary on those passages he believes support his contentions.
H. S. BENNETT.
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