Chapter Two

THE DRAMATURGY

Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe years are the highest forms of drama to result from a century of evolution. The long-fought battle between popular and private taste was to go on, finally to the defeat of popular taste in the rise of the private theaters. But in the ten years of the Globe, before the King’s men saw their theatrical future in appealing to a Blackfriars trade, the artistic possibilities of the popular narrative drama were abundantly realized.

As the poet created the play, the actors rehearsed it--or very shortly thereafter. At the Globe playhouse the intimacy between Shakespeare and his colleagues gave unparalleled opportunity for artistic collaboration. Through changes in status and physical surroundings, they maintained warm personal and professional relations. From a common creative act arose the plays that Shakespeare penned and the productions that his friends presented. The record of this partnership is contained in the extant scripts, not merely in stage directions or in dialogue, but in the very substance of the dramatist’s craft, the structure of the incidents.

To know this structure of incidents is no simple matter. Little contemporary Elizabethan theory of the dramatist’s craft exists.[1] Of the few contemporary essays on poesy which treat the drama, Sidney’s The _Defence of Poesie_ (c. 1583), is not only the best known but also the most thorough. In measuring pre-Shakespearean drama by neoclassic standards, Sidney concludes that the early plays lack order. Yet the characteristic that Sidney so roundly condemned is the very one which, as we shall see, was so skillfully mastered by the turn of the century: the narration of an extended history covering much time and many places. By then classicism was no longer a fixed standard. This is nowhere more evident than in the words of Ben Jonson. The most classical of all the Elizabethan playwrights, with the possible exception of Chapman, Jonson contains in his remarks on the drama contradictory tendencies not fully reconciled in theory.

The chorus to _Every Man Out of His Humour_, a Globe play, provides the clearest expression of his views on the drama. Citing the precedent of the Greek poets, Jonson asserts, through the choral figure of Cordatus, that he does not see why the English poets should not enjoy “the same licence, or free power, to illustrate and heighten our invention as [the Greeks] did; and not bee tyed to those strict and regular formes, which the nicenesse of a few (who are nothing but forme) would thrust upon us” (Chorus, 267-270). Earlier, obliged to explain the absence of the traditional forms of classical drama, Cordatus remarks that there is no necessity to observe them. Yet, in setting the play in England, Cordatus quibbles over the nature of unity of place. He finds it acceptable for the author to have “a whole Iland to run through” but scorns those authors who, in one play, by showing “so many seas, countries, and kingdomes, past over with such admirable dexteritie ... out-run the apprehension of their auditorie” (Chorus, 279-286). Later in the play, despite his previous deprecation of classical authority, Jonson justifies the almost tragic scene of Sordido’s attempted suicide (III, ii) by resorting to the authority of Plautus (III, viii, 88 ff.). At another point he cites Cicero’s definition of comedy to demolish the citadel of romantic comedy (III, vi, 202-207). Throughout, Jonson maintains a double standard, eluding adherence to classical prescription when it suits him to do so, citing classical authority when it supports his practice, but at all times aware that mere imitation is neither possible nor desirable. For, it is significant to note, Jonson does not oppose classical form to no form at all, but “strict and regular” form to personal invention.

Dramatic theory of the Elizabethan period is particularly deceptive because the little that exists is usually classical in vocabulary and orientation. Baldwin has attempted to equate the use of classical terms with the creation of the equivalent form. He cites Jonson’s use of the critical terms _epitasis_ and _catastrophe_ in _Every Man Out of His Humour_, together with similar evidence from _The New Inn_, as proof that “Jonson knows and observes ‘the Law of Comedy’ as it has been laid down by the sixteenth century commentators on Terence.” The epitasis is variously defined as “the intension or exaggeration of matters” or “the most busy part of a comedy” or “the progress of the turbations ... the knot of error.”[2] However, these generalizations have little to do with the way in which a play is shaped. For that we must go back to actual models. At once we see that the terms cannot be applied to both Terence and Jonson, and yet mean the same things. The interplay between Simo and Davus in _The Woman of Andros_, as they attempt to outwit each other, produces a tightly drawn comedy of situation. The display of foolery which infuriates Macilente results in an ambling satirical comedy. Comparison discloses that not only in tone and content but also in function and effect the epitasis or the “busie part of the subject” differs in each case. Clearly, in no substantial way did the Elizabethans derive their dramatic forms from classical tradition.

In the absence of such a tradition and with the lack of a generally accepted alternative, the theory has persisted that Elizabethan drama lacks structural form. “The events ... are produced without any art of connection or care of disposition,” wrote Samuel Johnson of _Antony and Cleopatra_. Substantially the same charge has been leveled against Shakespeare’s plays in particular and Elizabethan drama in general. The art of Elizabethan drama, it is said, must be sought in the characterization, in the poetic expression, in the myth-making patterns of ideas, but not in the structure of events. In a currently fashionable form, this view is stated quite straightforwardly by M. C. Bradbrook. “The essential structure of Elizabethan drama lies not in the narrative or the characters but in the words.... [The structure] was purely poetic.”[3]

It is true that Elizabethan dramatic structure appears to be irregular in form and haphazard in progression. Conditions of presentation, described in the previous chapter, indicate that any conscious artistic purpose must have been difficult to pursue. The speed of composition, the prevalence of collaboration, and the absence of formal standards contributed to what might be called pragmatic dramatization. However, pragmatic dramatization did not necessarily prevent the appearance of distinctive dramatic forms. In fact, the winnowing process of the repertory system was evolutionary, ensuring the development of drama in response not to abstract theory but to the deeply ingrained artistic practices of the age.

I. PREMISES FOR A STUDY OF SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATIC FORM

In her constantly stimulating book _Endeavors of Art_ Madeleine Doran introduces a new and provocative approach to the examination of Elizabethan dramatic structure. Adopting the thesis of Heinrich Wölfflin, expounded in his _Principles of Art History_, Doran extends it to apply to the literary artist. Wölfflin argues that “the art of one age differs from that of another because the artists have different modes of imaginative beholding ... [As a result], any change in representational content from one period to [another is] less important to the effect of difference than the change in style arising from difference in decorative principle” or way of beholding.[4] Thus, the intent of the art work is less evident in the subject treated than in the arrangement effected. In comparing the “modes of imaginative beholding” in Renaissance and Baroque art, Wölfflin differentiates the two styles in terms of five categories of visual opposites, one of which is diffusion of effect (multiplicity) versus concentration of effect (unity). This category is the one most relevant to a consideration of dramatic literature. By demonstrating that Renaissance art “achieves its unity by making the parts independent as free members [and by relating them through a] coordination of the accents,” Wölfflin reconciles the opposites of multiplicity and unity in a concept of “multiple unity.”[5]

In the Elizabethan age the recurrent and popular expression of this concept is found in the image of art as a “mirror.” Hamlet’s use of this image need not be quoted. Substantially it was anticipated by Jonson in _Every Man Out of His Humour_:

ASPER. Well I will scourge those apes; And to these courteous eyes [of the audience] oppose a mirrour, As large as is the stage, whereon we act: Where they shall see the times deformitie Anatomiz’d in every nerve, and sinnew, With constant courage, and contempt of feare. [Chorus, 117-122]

Both uses of the image reveal that the reflection is to be of the times and to be directed at the spectator. That the mirror is inherent in the thinking of the Elizabethan age not only as the purpose but as the _method_ of poetry is expressed even more clearly in Puttenham’s _The Arte of English Poesie_. In objecting to the mingling of the qualities of lightheaded or “phantasticall” men with poets, which “the pride of many Gentlemen and others” insist on to the derision of poetry, Puttenham writes that the poet’s brain “being well affected, [is] not onely nothing disorderly or confused with any monstruous imaginations or conceits, but very formall, and in his much multiformitie _uniforme_, that is well proportioned, and so passing cleare, that by [the mind], as by a glasse or mirrour, are represented unto the soule all maner of bewtifull visions.” Later: “There be againe of these glasses that shew thinges exceeding faire and comely; others that shew figures monstruous & illfavored.”[6] Here the poet’s mind, utilizing invention and imagination, is a mirror by which the soul receives vision.

The “mirror” had two principal functions in the Elizabethan period. One was to represent experience, in short, to achieve verisimilitude. Miss Doran demonstrates that the Elizabethans did not expect particular realism but universal truths. The other was to bring together many kinds of experience. Jonson clearly means to have the mirror turn this way and that in order to reflect a multiple image of the times. Shakespeare implies that in showing “virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,” the mirror held up to nature reflects the allegorical figure Virtue, at the same time as it reflects her evil sister, Scorn. The actual practices of the plays illustrate that the poets sought to project multiple aspects of a situation--Puttenham’s multiformitie--as it were by a mirror. Consequently, they tended to give equal emphasis to the various elements of the drama, that is, to produce a coordination rather than a subordination of parts. What “coordination of parts” means in dramaturgy may be seen by contrasting the relative dominance and integration of character, plot, language, and theme in classical and Renaissance drama.

In classical and modern “realistic” construction, plot, or the structure of incidents, is dominant. It is an imitation of an

## action to which character and language are subordinated. Although

Francis Fergusson rightly points out the difficulty of defining the word “action,” nevertheless, he makes it clear that Aristotle specifies that plot is the prime embodiment of the action.[7] In this Aristotle describes the actual practice of ancient Greek drama. The incidents embrace the total significance of a play, for if plot, the structure of incidents, imitates the action which is the soul of tragedy, it must also contain the meaning of that action. Through plot the meaning radiates into character and language. Such a pyramid of emphasis, in which certain dramatic elements are subordinated, ensures genuine unity of action. If Greek drama did not always realize such an ideal form, it aspired toward such a realization.

In Renaissance construction, however, with its independent parts and coordinated accents, unity of action is not really possible. The structure of incidents does not implicitly contain the total meaning of the play. Character and thought have degrees of autonomy. They are not subordinate but coordinate with the plot. Therefore, the plot is not the sole source of unity. Instead, unity must arise from the dynamic interaction of the various parts of the drama: story, character, and language. Our task is to discover how this was accomplished.

Two habits of composition characterized the Elizabethan dramatists. First, the poets turned to popular romance and history for the sources of their plots. Baldwin saw one of the major problems of the dramatists to be the shaping of narrative material to dramatic ends, and this he believes was accomplished through the Terentian five-act structure. Both Hardin Craig and Doran regard the romantic story as the formative influence in English drama.[8] Following Manly, Doran sees the miracle play as the main source of the romantic story and, as such, a principal forerunner of the Elizabethan drama. Secondly, in utilizing these materials, “English dramatists almost without exception adopted the sequential method of action, and all the weight of classic drama did not prevail to change their minds about it.”[9] The importance of this factor in the molding of drama is further emphasized in Miss Doran’s suggestion that the source material, or the story, “is often the chief determinant of whether or not a play is well organized.”[10] A glance at the play list of the Globe’s company reveals that with the possible exception of _Every Man Out of His Humour_ and _A Larum for London_, story plays a decisive part in the flow of the drama. But so was story or fable the groundwork of ancient Greek drama. The differences arise from the ways in which the dramatists of each age treated their stories.

To begin with, the English dramatists retained a very large portion of a given story. They arranged but did not eliminate. In fact, they frequently supplied additional events. In _A Larum for London_ we find scene after scene illustrating the awful fate that befell the people of Antwerp at the hands of the Spanish. A copious montage of horrors passes across the stage. This multiplicity of events is a prime characteristic of this drama. To the Lear story Shakespeare adds the tale of Gloucester, to that of Helena and Bertram the story of Parolles.

Having taken a bustling story as his basis, the poet had to arrange all the events in dramatic order. According to Doran he had to find “a different method from the classical in two central problems of form: how to get concentration, and how to achieve organic structure, that is, how to achieve an action causally connected from beginning to middle to end.”[11] However, Bradbrook has rightly pointed out that in Elizabethan drama “consecutive or causal succession of events is not of the first importance.” With this observation, she dismisses narrative as not being one of the first concerns of the dramatists.[12] Certainly Bradbrook is right about the absence of Aristotelian causality, as the briefest review of most Elizabethan plays will show. The events leading to Cordelia’s death are without cause unless we choose chance as the cause. It is by chance she is captured, it is by chance that Edmund confesses too late.

The issue, however, is joined incorrectly. Organic structure, in this type of drama, is not a product of “causally connected events.” Nor can the absence of such connection minimize the dependence of Elizabethan dramaturgy upon narrative progression. To appreciate this point of view, we must comprehend the difference between how we usually expect a play to be linked causally and how the Elizabethans employed dramatic causation.

I believe that I follow most critics in deriving the concept of dramatic causation from Aristotle’s admonition that “the plot ... must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.” The Aristotelian plot is compressive and retrospective. Its method is to submit man to an intolerable pressure until there is a single bursting point that shatters life. A single act, invariably occurring before the play begins, initiates a series of events which, linked together in a probable and necessary sequence, produces the catastrophe, which once again casts back to the original source of momentum. Such linear intensification is promoted by the exertion of tremendous will on the part of the leading characters. Antigone’s willful piety clashes with Creon’s statism, Philoctetes’ desire for revenge and Ulysses’ desire for victory at Troy combine within Neoptolemus in a conflict between honor and duty. All incidents develop out of the wills of the characters. Incident counteracts incident. For example, before Oedipus can fully digest the charge of Tiresias, he accuses Creon of treachery. Creon responds to the charge, but before their conflict can be resolved, Jocasta tries to reconcile them, the very act of which brings Oedipus closer to the awesome truth. Focus is upon the drama mounting to the climax: the scenes leading to Oedipus’ discovery, the struggle leading to Neoptolemus’ decision, or the near disaster leading to the ultimate revelation of Ion’s origin. To sum up, a play linked causally dramatizes all the crucial causes of major actions, maintaining due balance between the force of the motive and the intensity of effect, the

## action mounting from cause to effect to cause, so that at any

point we are aware of what circumstances led to one and only one result. Suspense is a natural corollary of such organization, and concentration of effect is its aim.

It is apparent that the Elizabethan dramatists did not address themselves to the organization of that type of sequence. Very few plays of theirs can be found where closely linked causation produces the denouement. First, the causes for significant changes are frequently assumed or implied and not dramatized. Why Lear divides his kingdom, why Cleopatra flees the battle, why Angelo repents remain unrevealed. Iago promises to show Roderigo “such a necessity in his [Claudio’s] death that you shall think yourself bound to put it on him” (IV, ii, 247-248), and later Roderigo, waiting to assail Claudio, affirms that Iago “hath given me satisfying reasons” (V, i, 9). Between the scenes some justification, unknown to us, was given Roderigo by Iago. The revelation of Lady Macbeth’s haunting nightmares actually serves as a _peripeteia_ which, Aristotle warns, must be “subject always to our rule of probability, or necessity.” But this reversal is not the result of a succession of events leading to a necessary end, unless we regard it as having taken place off-stage. Such an end may be probable, of course, but we are given no insight into the forces that make it probable. Nor apparently did Shakespeare feel it incumbent upon him to show these forces. That we accept the sleep-walking scene is not so much because it is either inevitable or likely, but because of all things in the realm of possibility that could have befallen the woman, her nightmares so perfectly satisfy both our sense of justice and our inclination toward pity at the same time.

Secondly, the causes for significant changes, when dramatized, are not always commensurate with the effects. To make itself felt, a dramatic cause, in the Aristotelian sense, must have sufficient weight to produce the effect it does; a great cause must not produce a puny effort, nor a puny effort a great result. Yet this lack of proportion occurs often in Shakespeare. The ease with which Iago secures Desdemona’s handkerchief from Emilia, though she wonders at the purpose of his request, does not balance the awful consequences. Brutus’ and Cassius’ meager dispute over whether or not to allow Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral is overshadowed by the fatal results. Here, as elsewhere, the perfunctoriness of the struggle between two antagonists is out of proportion to the effect that follows. The appearance of such imbalance, however, is not the result of ineptitude, but of artistic choice. Interest was not in the conflict leading to a decision, but the effect of the decision itself. The causes of action, therefore, tended to be taken for granted or conveyed with minimum emphasis; in other words, they were not regarded as being of first importance and so did not need to be dramatized with particularity. This attitude contributed largely to the looseness with which parts of a play are joined.

Causation, of course, was not completely abandoned, but it was generalized. Largely it resided in the given circumstances of the initial action, as Lear’s pride leading him to reject Cordelia or Cleopatra’s womanhood causing her to flee. For, within the Elizabethan scheme of man’s relation to his action, tightly linked causation was incomprehensible.

Nor was the alternative to causal succession, episodic structure, “a stringing together of events in mere temporal succession [where] each complication is solved as it arises.”[13] For dramatic causation of the parts, the Elizabethan substituted a rhythmic framework for the whole. The dramatization of a complete story employing many characters meant that within the scope of the narrative lay many plausible events. This gave the poet a wide choice of incidents with which to arrange his plot, the scope of the narrative imparting a limit of its own. Concurrently, the tendency for “mirroring” nature led him to choose scenes which would contrast or echo others or which would illustrate various facets of a single experience.

In such a drama the first scenes perform a vital function. They establish the premises upon which the action will be built. Little exposition is necessary, for not much has happened before the play opens. It is curious to note that almost all the principal characters are in a state of inertia at the beginning of the

## action. Hamlet, sorely distressed by his mother’s marriage, is

not about to act. Rosalind, Cordelia, Lear, Antony, Cleopatra, Brutus, Macbeth, Timon all are uncommitted to anything but the state, happy or troubled, wherein we first see them. Usually some force, either early in the first scenes or just before them, impels the characters to act. This type of opening contributes to the impression, first, that the play is a self-contained microcosm and, second, that the first scenes are illustrations.

_Antony and Cleopatra_ offers a model for such an opening. The comments of Demetrius and Philo provide the frame for the illustration-premise of Antony’s love for Cleopatra and his rejection of Rome. Though the messenger from Rome does propel the

## action forward, calling Antony to Caesar, his arrival is handled in

a ritualistic manner. We might consider this demonstration of the premise as analogous to the statement of a theme in music. Just as a composer announces his musical idea, the Elizabethan dramatist illustrates his dramatic idea, proceeding from it to the variations which occupy the balance of the play.[14]

Stemming from these premises are two lines of progression, one narrative, one dramatic. The first, which is essentially concerned with what _happens_ to the characters, follows a line of development to the very last scene. The second, which involves what the characters _undergo_, reaches fullness somewhere near the center of the play.

The narrative line, what happens, proceeds linearly to the finale. In _Lear_, this is concerned with the story of two fathers deceived by certain of their children; through deception they give these children their trust and power; they suffer at their hands; ultimately they are vindicated by their faithful children. All the plots and intrigues are part of the narrative. Not until Edgar fells Edmund are these plots unmasked.

The dramatic line, what the characters undergo, extends to heights of passion at the center of the play and then contracts. This line in _Lear_ is concerned with how a proud man endures curbs on his nature and is reduced to humility. In the first half of the play Lear, asserting his arrogance to the fullest, passes to the limits of madness. In the second, he acquiesces to suffering, one might say, becomes detached from it. Extension and contraction is the pattern, extension of the potentialities of the premises of the

## action, contraction of the effects after they have reached their

fulfillment.

Such parallel development of a play’s action produces contradictory impulses in the drama. On one hand there existed the impulse to complete the story, on the other there persisted the temptation to dilate upon the effect of the action upon the individuals. One reason why modern audiences suffer from “fourth act fatigue” in witnessing a Shakespearean play stems from the fact that their interest in the play is disproportionate. They have a greater interest in the dramatic line than in the narrative. For the Elizabethan audience the interest must have been more evenly balanced. For them the finale, the completion of the narrative line, had as much appeal as the “climax,” the height of the dramatic line.

II. FORM AND FUNCTION IN THE FINALES OF THE GLOBE PLAYS

We find a surprising similarity in the finales. Almost every one of the Globe plays contains a public resolution. Seldom is the conclusion private. The final scene of _Every Man Out of His Humour_ containing the last of Macilente’s purgations is one of the exceptions, as are the conclusions of _A Larum for London_ and in some respects of _The Devil’s Charter_. In the latter play a spectacular conclusion representing the damnation of Pope Alexander is appended to a grand finale. All the other eleven non-Shakespearean plays terminate in a finale that is ceremonious and public. Of the fifteen Shakespearean plays produced between 1599 and 1609 only _Troilus and Cressida_ clearly dispenses with this type of finale. Thus, of the twenty-nine plays presented by the Globe company, twenty-five have a public accounting for the preceding action.

The importance of ending a play with a public exhibition is demonstrated by the amount of contrivance effected in some plays to ensure a grand finale. In the _Fair Maid of Bristow_, King Richard suddenly grants Anabell the right to produce a champion for Vallenger. By doing so, however, he permits a last, grand discovery and sacrifice scene to be played. Other examples can be found in Shakespeare’s plays. One of the objections to _Measure for Measure_ has been the forced manner in which the Duke succeeds in bringing the conclusion to public trial. This may equally well be the charge against _All’s Well_. Yet, whether or not it evolves logically from the preceding action, the great closing scene is a marked formal characteristic of this drama.

Several things may happen in the finale, either separately or jointly. In romance and comedy love triumphs. Any punishment that deserves to be meted out is usually tempered. Angelo “perceives he’s safe” in _Measure for Measure_ and Malvolio will be entreated to a peace. In tragedy justice prevails, even though the hero may die in the process. In comedy, the substance of the finale is the working out of the complications or confusions which impede love, in tragedy, the overcoming of evil forces that destroy a just order. In some instances, notably _Measure for Measure_, both love and justice triumph.

Common to all the Globe plays are:

(1) a means for bringing about justice or of winning love: the most frequent means are discovery of the identity of disguised persons, trial, execution, repentance, single combat, suicide;

(2) a judge-figure who pronounces judgment: he may either deliver the verdict and/or grant mercy or, after the action has occurred, declare the purport of the action; in finales of combat he may serve as the avenging arm of justice;

(3) a ranking figure who reasserts order: invariably the person of highest authority, in many plays he is identical with the judge-figure. It is a convention of Elizabethan drama that the last lines of a play, excluding epilogues and songs, be spoken by the ranking figure.

In the non-Shakespearean plays, discovery, trial and/or execution, and repentance appear most often. _Fair Maid of Bristow_ employs both discovery and execution, _The London Prodigal_, discovery and repentance. Excluding _Every Man Out of His Humour_, all the non-Shakespearean plays have judge-figures. In the _Merry Devil_ it is the father, in _Volpone_ the justices, in _Fair Maid of Bristow_ King Richard, in _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, Scarborrow himself.[15]

This figure, sometimes central to the story, sometimes not, usually referees the conflict and, at the conclusion, either passes judgment or grants mercy. In two plays the formal agency for bringing judgment about is indirect. In the brilliant reversal

## scene in _Sejanus_ judgment is exercised through the absent figure

of the Emperor Tiberius. His letter read to the convocation of senators provides the means. In turn, his judgment illustrates the caprice of fortune and the descent of nemesis. The other play, _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, likewise makes use of an indirect agency as a substitute for the judge: King Henry’s delayed reprieve for Cromwell.

Each of Shakespeare’s plays, excluding _Troilus and Cressida_, also employs a final scene in which judgment is meted out and/or love is won. The content of the finale may be one or a combination of discovery, single combat, preparation for suicide, trial, and siege.[16] In seven of his Globe plays discovery untangles the knot of error which separated the lovers. Usually reserved for comedy, it is employed to make Othello comprehend the horror of his act. Discovery is also combined with repentance in _All’s Well_ and with trial in _Measure for Measure_. In _Timon_ the framework of the siege contains a trial.

In his use of formal agents Shakespeare is more subtle than his fellow playwrights. Only six plays contain judge-figures central to the action: the King in _All’s Well_, the “lords o’ the city” in _Coriolanus_, Alcibiades in _Timon_ and, in an ingenious use of this device, Hymen in _As You Like It_, and finally the Dukes in _Measure for Measure_ and _Twelfth Night_. In describing Shakespeare’s use of the Duke as a type figure, C. B. Watson points out that “at the end of a play the role of the Duke is threefold: he acts to resolve the conflict in the interests of justice; he grants mercy to the offenders; and finally he plays the host at the festivities which are presumably to follow on the successful resolution of the dramatic conflict.”[17]

Into the other eight plays Shakespeare introduced more subtle methods of passing judgment. Two of them show a common pattern. Although a judge-figure is present, the true judgment is made by the hero. Antony is the judge-figure in _Julius Caesar_, and Octavius in _Antony and Cleopatra_, but in each case the hero by committing suicide substitutes his or her own judgment for that of other authority. Both Brutus and Cleopatra prepare for self-death elaborately. It becomes a means of warding off ignominy and gaining glory. In _Othello_ suicide serves the same purpose with only this difference, that Othello’s own strong sense of justice makes it unnecessary to have a judge-figure. The ranking figure, in each of these plays, is handled differently. In _Julius Caesar_, Octavius has this role, in _Othello_, Lodovico, and in _Antony and Cleopatra_, Octavius is both judge and ranking figure.

In each of three other plays, _Lear_, _Macbeth_, and _Hamlet_, true judgment is rendered through a fateful single combat in which one combatant represents the forces of light, the other of darkness. In _Merry Wives_ we find a double judgment. Mockery is the judgment passed on Falstaff and forgiveness that awarded Fenton and Ann. Like _Othello_, _Pericles_ lacks a judge-figure during the finale. Instead, the goddess Diana (V, i) has played that role in the act of directing Pericles to the discovery of Thaisa. Thus, in both the Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean plays the same kind of formal conclusion rounds out the story. This particular kind of conclusion reflects the moral ideals of Elizabethan society, the achievement of salvation or order or love through judgment.

Another characteristic of the concluding scene is that it is a narrative conclusion in which the initial situation is brought to a complete close rather than a thematic conclusion in which the implications of the theme are ultimately dramatized. Several elements of the narrative are introduced early in _As You Like It_. They are Oliver’s alienation of Orlando’s heritage, Duke Frederick’s usurpation of his brother’s throne, and the love of Rosalind and Orlando. The thematic elements are indirectly related to the plot. They make themselves felt obliquely. But they are not embodied in the main action of the finale, nor, being contrasting expressions of the quality of love rather than moral injunctions, can they be so embodied. In fact, the thematic elements are absent from the finale, which is concerned with the tying of many a lover’s knot and the appropriate resignation of Duke Frederick. The same holds true for _Hamlet_. The true issue, Hamlet’s inability to “set things right,” is resolved when Hamlet comes to a tranquil peace with his soul and accepts the guidance of providence in the scene with Horatio immediately preceding the duel (V, ii). However, the story has to be completed, and ironically Hamlet achieves by chance what he could not gain by design. In only a few plays do the thematic and narrative issues merge in the final moments of the action. _Othello_ of all Shakespeare’s plays offers the finest example of this concurrence, and perhaps because of this fact many critics regard _Othello_ as Shakespeare’s finest piece of dramatic construction. Such regard, however, is founded upon Aristotelian premises. For an Elizabethan the concurrence was incidental.

## Particularly vital to our understanding of the conclusion is the

place that climax or catastrophe occupies in the last scenes. The finales of Shakespeare’s Globe plays often fail to produce a climactic effect because the completion of the narrative does not arise from the conflicting forces of the theme or action. Instead ceremony frequently serves as a substitute for climax. By the time the last scene began, the Elizabethan audience knew how the story would end. But it satisfied the Elizabethan sense of ritual to see the pageant of the conclusion acted out. The appeal of this pageant is clearly illustrated in _Measure for Measure_, _Macbeth_, and _As You Like It_. In these plays the rendition of judgment through trial or combat or revelation respectively supplied the excitement that a dramatic climax would have afforded. Nor should we underestimate the interest such conclusions held for an Elizabethan audience. Knight, in pointing out that the tragedies reach a climax in Act III, suggests that the “military conflicts [at the end] were probably far more important to an Elizabethan” than to us.[18] But this statement has a wider applicability. Ceremony, such as Orsino’s visit to Olivia or trial-by-combat in _Lear_ or a parley in _Timon_, is often the frame for the finale. Because ceremony played so vital a role in Elizabethan life, it had an unusually strong appeal for the audience who saw it represented on the stage.

III. THE NATURE AND FORM OF THE “CLIMAX” IN THE GLOBE PLAYS

The impulse to complete the story is satisfied in the finale, as we have seen. The impulse to dilate upon the story achieves maximum expansion in the center of the play. The presence of scenes of extreme complication and intense emotion at this point in the Shakespearean plays has led to the development of the theory of a third act climax. It has been expressed in various ways by various scholars. Knight merely notes this grouping of intensifications. Lawrence, anticipating Baldwin’s thesis of the five-act structure, assumes a third act climax. Baldwin would call it the imitation of the Terentian epitasis, and Moulton speaks of it as the center piece at the point of a regular arch.[19]

Certainly there is marked emotional intensification at the center of a Shakespearean play. However, if we are to call it a climax, we must redefine our term, taking care that it not be confused with the climax in classical or modern drama. There the climax is taken to be a single point of extreme intensity where the conflicting forces come to a final, irreconcilable opposition. At that point a dramatic explosion, leading to the denouement, is the direct outcome of the climactic release. Hedda Gabler has schemed to accomplish the glorious ruination of Lövborg. At the very moment when she expects to exult, she discovers that she has failed. The climax occurs when she learns that instead of controlling others, she herself is controlled. The denouement, her death, is a direct consequence. Causally-linked drama, by its very nature, drives to a “highest” point. In Greek drama it is usually a moment of recognition and/or reversal. That is why we must be cautious of speaking of a climax in Shakespearean drama.

If we endeavor to isolate such a climax in Elizabethan tragedy, we run into many difficulties. For example, is the play-within-the-play scene, the prayer scene, or the closet scene the climax of _Hamlet_? All contain some reversal; all are highly intense; we are emotionally swept along by them, caught up in the melodrama of Hamlet’s device, in his mad exultation at its effect upon Claudius, in the pathos of Claudius’ contrition, and in the tortured uncertainty of Gertrude. But none of these scenes alone reveals a point of climax. If there is either recognition or reversal, it arises from accumulation of effect.

A more extended example of this diffusion of climax can be found in _Lear_. Commencing with the famous “Blow, winds” speech, there are four painfully intense scenes: three of Lear on the heath, one of the blinding of Gloucester, interspersed by two brief scenes leading to that cruel act. The Lear and Gloucester scenes alternate. In some ways the emotional hysteria of Lear’s

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! [III, ii, 1-3]

is the most intense moment, and yet the dramatic intensification brought about by weaving together the trials of Lear and those of poor Tom has yet to occur. Moulton regards the meeting of those two as the climax.[20] But in which scene? The first outside the hovel, or the second in the shelter, where Lear arraigns his false daughters? Granville-Barker selects an exact moment for the climax, in the second of the storm scenes “when the proud old king kneels humbly and alone in his wretchedness to pray. This is the argument’s absolute height.”[21] Must, as Granville-Barker goes on to suggest, the tension relax then during the two scenes Lear plays with mad Tom? The reading of the storm scenes should make it obvious that instead of a point of intensity with subsequent slackening, we have a succession of states of intense emotional experience: Lear’s self-identification with raging nature, Lear’s pathetic lucidity and new-forged humility, Lear’s ultimate madness during a fantastic trial. Each high point subsides before the next bursts forth, not like a solitary cannon shot but like the ebb and flow of the pounding sea. The truth seems to be that we find not a climactic point in the center of a Shakespearean play, but a climactic plateau, a “coordination of intense moments” sustained for a surprisingly extended period.

_Othello_ alone of the tragedies does not have that complete relaxation of intensity after the central “plateau.” But here it is a matter of degree, for though the wringing of Othello’s heart by Iago effects the maximum reversal of attitude, Othello continues to oscillate between doubt of and belief in Desdemona’s guilt. Thereafter, while intensity mounts to Desdemona’s death, the tone changes. Instead of the struggle of the giant to break the bonds of his strangling jealousy, we find a painful pathos arising from the gap between Othello’s misconception and Desdemona’s innocence.

Those plays in which the climactic plateau is most easily perceived, in addition to _Lear_ and _Hamlet_, are _Twelfth Night_, III, i-iv; _Troilus and Cressida_, IV, iv, v; V, i;[22] _Macbeth_, III, iv; IV, i; and _Antony and Cleopatra_, III, xi-xiii. Both _Julius Caesar_ and _Coriolanus_ have intense centers of action in the third act. In these plays, however, the crucial scenes seem to take on the nature of a climax in the Greek sense. Antony’s speech and the banishment of Coriolanus are points of reversal. A closer examination, however, reveals that these peaks are blunted. Antony does not seem to wish to let the mob depart. There are several moments when he rouses them to action, only to pull them back for further inspiration. The climax of _Coriolanus_ is muted even more because Coriolanus and his friends struggle with the tribunes over the same issues twice (III, i, iii). The final banishment merely brings to an end a conclusion already foregone. In each scene Coriolanus’ patrician pride causes him to defy both friend and enemy. These last two plays contract the plateau only in degree, _Julius Caesar_ moving furthest toward a single moment of intensity. Generally in Shakespeare we will find the centers of

## action dispersed rather than concentrated, sustained rather than

released.

As we might expect, a change in the duration and level of the climax produces a change in its nature. Lines of action leading to crisis are foreshortened, thereby throwing fuller emphasis on the response of the character, often expressed in lyrical ecstasy.

The center of intensity in _Lear_ demonstrates this qualitative change. The impellent occasion for the storm scenes occurs in Act II, scene iv. Goneril and Regan’s determination to divest him of his royal position is brought home to Lear. He rushes into the raging storm after the words:

You think I’ll weep: No, I’ll not weep. I have full cause of weeping, but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad! [II, iv, 285-289]

His heart and mind have been shaken by rejection, but this is only the prelude to madness. The succeeding scenes on the heath (III, ii, iv, vi) are a prolonged reaction to the rejection. _Lear_ does not mount steadily to another stage of madness, but reveals multiple effects of this madness: rage, bewilderment, fantasy, vengefulness, helplessness. Instead of self-realization at the climax, we find passionate release. Lear exceeds the limit of emotional endurance; he can go no further in anguish. That is the reason why he disappears from the play for the succeeding six scenes (III, vii; IV, i-v).[23] During this absence Gloucester loses his sight, the disguised Edgar comes to nurse his father, Goneril and Regan separately conspire to satisfy their passions for Edmund, and the British and French armies prepare to do battle. After the climactic plateau comes story progression.

The distinctness of this central climactic grouping is less clear in the non-Shakespearean plays, but the elements are there, if only in rudimentary form. Even where the “plateau” is not sustained, the intensification of action and the change of direction in the middle of a play are present. Perhaps the clearest and most consistent evidence of this is the split structure of many plays, that is, the progression of the story in one direction, followed by a full or partial shift of direction after the first half. _A Larum for London_, a not particularly well constructed play, is composed of such interlocked halves. The first half deals with the Spanish conquest of Antwerp through the improvidence and selfishness of the city’s burghers (scenes i-vii). At this climactic point the Spaniards revel in their triumph as the Duke d’Alva parcels the town among the conquering leaders. The second half concerns the hopeless, yet valiant struggle of a lame soldier to fight for the town (scenes viii-xv). This same type of division is reflected in _The London Prodigal_. Scenes i-viii relate the trick by which Flowerdale gains the hand of Luce; scenes ix-xii depict his descent into the depths of prodigality before he is finally redeemed. Here, however, the climactic scene (scene viii) involves more anticipation than response though there are three relatively equal heights of intensity: the father’s rejection of the daughter who remains faithful to her husband the prodigal, the daughter’s plea for her husband’s freedom from arrest, and the prodigal’s abuse of his wife. Among the other plays which display the split structure are _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ and, in part, _The Revenger’s Tragedy_.

Of all the non-Shakespearean plays, Jonson’s _Sejanus_ comes closest to duplicating Shakespeare’s use of the climactic plateau. The rise of Sejanus is steady. He encompasses the death of Drusus, he effects the destruction of his opponents, and finally he attempts the conquest of Tiberius himself by seeking permission to marry Livia of the imperial house. Blocked in this, he urges Tiberius’ departure from Rome, and in a closing soliloquy, seeing himself conqueror of those who hate him, exults:

For when they see me arbiter of all, They must observe: or else, with Caesar fall. [III, 621-622]

Sejanus shows excessive pride in his own power, a joyous release of self-esteem. After this speech he disappears from the play until the opening of the fifth act. Meanwhile, Tiberius secretly turns to Marco as a supplementary and independent agent, thus effecting a change of direction in the play. Just when Sejanus expects to “draw all dispatches through my private hands,” Tiberius crosses him. Jonson, following the classical models more closely than Shakespeare, has his greatest climax fall during the last scene. Nevertheless, clear traces of a “center of action” can be found.

The architectonic superiority of Shakespeare can be seen in the way he raises his entire center of action to a markedly intensified level. Potential climactic “plateaus” can be found in all the Globe plays cited, but some are underdeveloped and do not reach the rich florescence that makes the center of a Shakespearean play such an overwhelming dramatic experience. Perhaps the absence of superior poetic powers prevented the minor playwrights from realizing the full possibilities of this form. Nevertheless, despite the gap between the levels of their achievements, Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights of the Globe generally built their plays along the same structural lines.

IV. STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN THE DRAMATIC NARRATIVE

The absence of linked causation naturally meant that the action was not linear. Incidents leading to the finale or to the climactic plateau did not follow one another in a succession of tightly meshed events but in a series of alternating scenes. To illustrate, between the first expression of Maria’s scheme against Malvolio (II, iii) and the first working of the scheme (II, v) intervenes the lyrical scene between Viola and Orsino (II, iv). Such separation of parts of the story encouraged the independence of one scene from another, the very thing complained of by some scholars. Schücking suggests that Shakespeare shows “a tendency to episodic intensification,” that is, the development of a scene at the expense of the whole.[24] F. L. Lucas expresses the same idea in his introduction to the works of Webster, asserting that the Elizabethan audiences reacted to separate scenes rather than to a whole play. The tendency to which they refer can be found in the three Falstaff-Merry Wives scenes. In the first of the scenes, Falstaff, caught in his love-game, hides in the buck basket, only to be dumped into the Thames. Here we have a complete

## action. Falstaff makes an advance, and he is repulsed. There is no

counteraction on his part. If he were in a Roman comedy, he would have plotted how to punish his offenders or how to encompass the women again, and thus the second scene would have resulted from a counteraction on the part of Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Instead Falstaff is persuaded to repeat the same adventure with similar results. The second scene is not more farcical or more extravagant than the first; it is merely different. In place of intensification we find fresh invention. The third scene again does not grow out of the preceding scene, but out of the husbands’ decision to shame the fat man publicly. All of the Falstaff-Mistress Page-Mistress Ford scenes have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They make themselves felt at the conclusion not by intensification but by accumulation.

Though in other plays of Shakespeare the scenes may be more closely joined, yet there is always a sense of their independence from one another. As I have said, _Othello_, of all the tragedies, is probably the most closely interwoven in plot. The deception scene (III, iii) is an example of an extended scene tying together several actions. But even in this play, we find an autonomous scene, and that near the end of the play. Half mad, playing the gruesome mockery of a visitor to a brothel, Othello questions first Emilia, then Desdemona (IV, ii). Othello arrives convinced of Desdemona’s guilt; he leaves with the same conviction. It is neither augmented nor dispelled. That the scene does not advance the action in no way detracts from its dramatic effectiveness, but it does reflect on the handling of the story. In the advancement of the classical drama, all scenes are integrated into a single line of action. In the progression of the Shakespearean play, scenes may be regarded as clustering about the story line. If this suggests an image of a grapevine, perhaps it is apt, for the scenes often appear to be hanging from a thread of narrative.

But a scene that may be semiautonomous insofar as the story line is involved may be central insofar as the climactic plateau is concerned. Such is the closet scene in _Hamlet_. Note how quickly Shakespeare disposes of Polonius. The murder of the old man does advance the plot, of course, for it causes Ophelia’s madness and brings Laertes back from France. But the murder is a minor part of the closet scene. Of its entire 217 lines, the action involving Polonius occupies, both at the beginning and at the end, forty lines (1-33, 211-217). Another eleven lines are occupied with Hamlet’s recollection that he must go to England (199-210). The remaining 166 lines are devoted to the relation of mother and son and the visitation of the ghost. Certainly the scene is dramatic, in fact, one of the most dramatic in all literature. Yet it does not carry the action on to a new stage, but allows Hamlet to express his disapproval and suspicion of his mother. In fact, the central portion of the scene leaves no trace on the plot. Though Gertrude is shaken by Hamlet’s accusations against his uncle and herself, there is no indication that her attitude toward Claudius changes as a result. Nor is Hamlet purged by the meeting. Neither is the decision to send Hamlet to England brought about by it, for the King had determined to send him there immediately after the nunnery scene (III, i, 175-183). The closet scene opens with Polonius’ murder and closes with a return to Hamlet’s responsibility for the act. In between Hamlet relieves his soul of the stifled passion against his mother.

Certainly a drama composed of these semiautonomous scenes loses not unity necessarily, but compression. What it foregoes in that direction it makes up for in extension. Instead of the story eliminating incidents not strictly contributing to a final climax, it serves as a point of departure. When Orestes meets his mother, his behavior must follow the demands of the plot, and Aeschylus allows him only one pitiful question to Pylades: Must he kill his mother? The Elizabethan form permits the full relationship of the mother and son to be explored. Like a mirror the scene casts an additional reflection of the image that is Hamlet. For this advantage of multiplicity of implication the Elizabethan sacrificed concentration of effect. Unable to grasp this shift in emphasis, many critics have treated the lack of concentration in Shakespearean structure as evidence that the poet did not know how to construct plays. As we saw, Dr. Johnson dismissed the construction of _Antony and Cleopatra_ with the comment that the events “are produced without any art of connection or care of disposition.” Schücking, about a hundred and fifty years later, dismisses Shakespeare’s structural practices as primitive. The conclusion is the same though the reasons may differ. But until we can meet Elizabethan structure on its own terms, we really do not know what its failures were. When we deprecate the skill of the playwrights, let us remember that the University Wits, men trained in the Terentian, Plautine, and Senecan manner, were the ones who developed the popular Elizabethan mode. The fate that awaited them if they did not adhere to it is keenly illustrated by Kyd’s failure as a classicist.

Within the general form of extension and contraction, extension to a climactic plateau, contraction to a ceremonious finale, appear variant structural patterns. To reduce the total structural pattern of Elizabethan drama to a single form, or even to two or three forms, is virtually impossible. The age was multiple in its artistic means. Yet the inability to do this does not mean that no structural form existed, but that many existed. Not only was there structural variety in the works of different men, but there were differences within the work of one man. Nevertheless, certain dominant patterns emerge, and while the following descriptions are not exhaustive, they include a large proportion of the Globe plays.

Three structural patterns recur frequently in the Globe plays: the episodic, the “river,” and the “mirror” patterns. In a crude form the episodic pattern can be found in the early Shakespearean histories. There its basic nature can be anatomized. On the thread either of a historical or of a biographical sequence a series of events is arranged in succession. The most marked characteristic of this form is that one event or incident is completed before another one is begun. Among the Globe plays of our period _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ is a typical example of this type. Cromwell passes through a series of events complete in themselves: his kindness to a distraught woman in Antwerp, his succor of an Italian merchant, his success in freeing the Earl of Bedford from capture, his service to Wolsey, and his downfall at the hands of Gardiner. Although the Earl of Bedford reappears during Cromwell’s conflict with Gardiner, and remembering his rescue, endeavors to help Cromwell, the two sections of the play are not really joined. In this play, despite the fact that Cromwell himself provides the mechanical unity that binds the play, the dramatic unity, if there is any, is multiple. The various scenes reflect Cromwell’s virtues of honesty, humanity, and loyalty, thus giving a thematic wholeness to the entire play.

Since Aristotle penned his notes called _Poetics_, the episodic play has been in disrepute. Today it is difficult to imagine that it could rise to dramatic heights. Yet if we closely examine the structure of such a play as _Macbeth_, we shall realize that it is episodic in form. Of course, there are vital alterations in that form. Primarily, there is preparation for on-coming events. Instead of one event being completed before another one is initiated, we find that brief scenes are planted earlier to make the development plausible. The potential danger of Banquo to Macbeth’s ambitions is established by the witches. It is touched on before the murder of Duncan, but it is not woven into the fabric of the action at that time. At first, the overwhelming emphasis is upon the triangle of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the crown. Once Duncan is disposed of, the Banquo action comes into prominence, and full attention is devoted to it. Early hints of Macduff’s defection are introduced, but not until Banquo is dead does the play really concentrate on Macduff. For Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches there is almost no preparation. Until the end of the banquet scene, we do not even know he is aware of their abode. Until this moment, although the play reveals an episodic structure, it is more tightly knit than most of Shakespeare’s other works. After the visit of Macbeth to the witches’ hovel, the episodic pattern becomes more distinct. The conception of Macbeth as a character accents the episodic quality. He struggles only to reach the immediate goal; there is no ultimate point in the universe toward which he moves. Sejanus, in comparison, reduces the episodic quality of his drama because his eyes are always upon becoming Caesar, the symbol of a god on earth. Immediate intrigues are but part of the larger aim. For this concentration Jonson lost the opportunity for those very magnificent scenes which make _Macbeth_ a great play. Among other of Shakespeare’s plays of this period which employ the episodic pattern are _Hamlet_, _Coriolanus_, and _Julius Caesar_. What strikes many critics as a lack of unity in _Hamlet_ is its

## particular pattern. Once the conditions imposed on Hamlet by the

Ghost are revealed, we witness the following sequence: the place of love in Hamlet’s mind, the testing of Claudius at the play, the relation of mother and son. Each event is prepared for, but each in turn gains full emphasis. Nor does one event bear causative relationship to another. Though Claudius is suspicious of Hamlet at the conclusion of the nunnery scene, he indicates no unusual watchfulness over Hamlet during the play-within-the-play scene. It is as though the conflict of the previous scene has been resolved with Claudius’ determination to send Hamlet to England. As a point in the story this idea is established and comes into the play when needed at the end of the closet scene. And, of course, the closet

## scene is not a dramatic result of the play scene. The idea that

Hamlet be summoned to his mother is advanced by Polonius earlier, and whether or not Hamlet had offended the King, the meeting would have taken place. Here, then, is a skillful manipulation of the structural characteristics of the episodic pattern.

The second pattern I have named the “river” pattern. I use the term because its dramatic action resembles the flow of various tributaries into a single stream. Perhaps the best example of this type of structure can be found in _Twelfth Night_. Two streams of action are of almost equal breadth and depth; the third is merely a trickle until it joins the main flow. One main stream we may call the Orsino-Olivia-Viola action. The other is the Toby-Andrew-Malvolio action. The minor stream is the Antonio-Sebastian sequence. The principal determinant of such a structure is the length of time during which each action remains independent of the others. The first two actions remain completely independent through Acts I and II. A slight link is provided in

## Act III, scene i, when Malvolio courts Olivia. The full merging of

the two actions takes place in Act III, scene iv. Meanwhile, the Antonio-Sebastian thread was introduced into the story in Act II,

## scene i, and in Act III, scene iii, and partly integrated with the

main action in Act III, scene iv. In the fourth act the development of the two main threads remains suspended, Viola disappearing from the stage to enable the Sebastian element to be more fully integrated with the Olivia-Orsino-Viola triangle. Finally, in the fifth act, every element is brought together, including the Malvolio sequence, even though this necessitates the unprepared revelation that Viola’s womanly garments are in the hands of a captain who “upon some action/Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit” (V, i, 282-283).

Although this form is not as prevalent as either the episodic or the “mirror,” it can be found in a number of Globe plays, for example, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, _The Revenger’s Tragedy_, and partly in _All’s Well_. _Twelfth Night_ remains, however, its model.

Last of the three dominant forms and the most popular one is the “mirror” pattern. Usually it consists of two stories, almost equal in emphasis. Both are introduced independently and maintain a large degree of independence throughout the play, sometimes never fully coming into plot relation with each other. Their fundamental connection derives from a similarity of theme and story development. Through sharp comparison or contrast one story casts reflections upon the other as though one were the image in the mirror and one the reality. The distinctness of each story is sometimes obscured by the fact that the same individual may appear in both stories and yet maintain independence of action in each case, at least early in the play. For example, through the first two acts Gloucester functions independently in each of the two stories in _Lear_.

_Fair Maid of Bristow_, among the works of the Globe repertory, is an excellent example of this pattern. In fact, here we have striking evidence of the structural care with which a minor play could be organized, despite Bradbrook’s assertion that structure is possible only through “literary means.” This play follows the mirror pattern almost slavishly. In the first scene Challener shows his beloved Anabell to Vallenger who falls in love with her. The two men come to blows over the girl. Challener wounds Vallenger and then flees while Vallenger is taken into Anabell’s house by her father. In the second scene Harbart tries to persuade Sentloe not to remain with the courtesan, Florence. But Sentloe, blind to her fickleness and confident of her devotion, rejects Harbart. Harbart vows to follow Sentloe in disguise. In the third scene Vallenger gains the promise of Anabell’s hand. In the fourth scene Challener, learning of the impending marriage, returns to Bristow in the disguise of an Italian doctor. In the fifth scene Sentloe engages Blunt alias Harbart as a servingman, and Sentloe and Florence are invited to Anabell’s wedding. At this point in the play we can identify two parallel centers of action. Each contains a “loving” couple, and a friend in disguise. In one Challener hates Vallenger and loves Anabell; in the other Harbart hates Florence and loves Sentloe.

## Scene vi (nearly the middle of the play, since there are fourteen

scenes in all) dramatizes the first blending of the two actions. Immediately after his marriage, Vallenger falls in love with Florence and suborns the doctor to poison Sentloe and Anabell. Later, in scene vii, Florence seduces Blunt to slay Sentloe. In each case the sworn protector is asked to commit the murder. In

## scene vii we have a typical “digression,” a comic courting scene

of two servants. The theme, however, is faithfulness. Douse, the maid, asks whether Frog, after their marriage, “will ... not prove unkind?” Frog, in comic doggerel, vows, among other things, that only “when Lawiers have no tongues at all” will he prove unkind. The idea contrasts with the succeeding scenes in which Vallenger proves unkind to Anabell, only to have Florence subsequently prove unkind to him. The two stories are more tightly joined when Blunt contrives to have Vallenger arrested for the “death” of Sentloe. The rest of the play proceeds by contrasting action. Anabell seeks to save the life of Vallenger and Blunt seeks to have Florence held responsible for her part in Sentloe’s “death.” The finale is brought about when King Richard, the judge-figure, permits a champion to appear for the condemned Vallenger. The final contrast comes when Anabell assumes a disguise to free Vallenger, and Challener throws off his disguise for the same purpose. Only when Florence is moved to contrition by the nobility of Anabell and Challener, does Blunt unveil the still-living Sentloe, thus assuring a happy conclusion. Throughout, one line of development balances the other, and though the symmetry is not perfect, as it is rarely perfect in any Elizabethan play, the basic situations contrast with one another. Obviously the author had taken some care in organizing the plot. The disguises are well worked out, as are the balancing and interweaving of the two stories. Further evidence of the care in plotting can be seen in the foreshadowing of King Richard’s appearance in the plot when Harbart, in scene ii, urges Sentloe to abandon Florence and join Richard in the Holy Land. Richard’s first words are a blessing for being permitted by God to return home. Both in the larger construction and in smaller details the anonymous poet formed his work with care. What the play lacks is not organization of the story but strength of characterization, richness of poetic texture, and fresh outlook upon the prodigal son theme.

Among Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe period this pattern frequently appears. _As You Like It_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _King Lear_, and, in some respects, _Antony and Cleopatra_ reveal such a form. In _As You Like It_, _Lear_, and _Troilus and Cressida_, it is particularly well defined. Although this type of organization is best adapted to plays with double plots, it is only a little less effective in other plots. _As You Like It_, while it possesses rudimentary double plots in the Orlando-Oliver story and the Duke Frederick-Rosalind story, relies principally upon the balance of love relationships that grow in the Forest of Arden. _Lear_, on the other hand, contains a full double plot. The parallel of the two stories with the balance of cruelty of father-to-daughter and son-to-father is too well known to need repetition here. It is sufficient to point out that in situation after situation one story highlights and reflects the other. The stories join in the storm scenes, separate, join again when blind Gloucester meets mad Lear, separate, and join again when Edgar’s defeat of Edmund leads to the disclosure of the plot against Lear and Cordelia. If the form does not appear to be as mechanical as I have described it and if much of the cross-reflection is implicit in the poetry and characterization, this is attributable to Shakespeare’s genius, not to the absence of structural underpinning.

V. SCENE STRUCTURE IN SHAKESPEARE

In an earlier part of this chapter I emphasized the importance of the separate scenes as distinct units. At this point I should like to draw attention to certain characteristics of the scenes. Usually a portion of one action or story is not followed by an advance or counteraction, but by a new line of development, often containing completely different characters. This we take for granted in Elizabethan drama. The absence of liaison is emphasized by the way in which scenes are arranged. Some scenes, such as the one which Hamlet brings to a close with the cry

The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. [II, ii, 632-633]

conclude with a strong emotional lift at the same time as they thrust the interest forward. Some scenes, which I shall call “leading” scenes, produce a forceful dramatic or theatrical pointing. The brief scene in which Artimedorus prepares to give Caesar a petition warning him of the conspirators is such a scene; so is the one in which Duke Frederick thrusts Oliver out of doors until he can produce Celia. These “leading” scenes are usually brief and drive the story forward with great energy. But most scenes in Shakespeare contain an anticlimactic conclusion: they are rounded off, relaxed, brought to a subdued end. Here we must distinguish between dramatic force and story development. It is the dramatic force that is softened at the same time that the story line is brought to the fore. Upon Viola’s first visit Olivia falls in love with the “youth” (I, v). She sends a ring after “him” through Malvolio, then closes the scene with four lines:

I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force! Ourselves we do not owe. What is decreed must be--and be this so! [327-330]

Yet compare this with her feeling before she sends Malvolio off:

How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. [313-317]

Clearly there is a diminution of intensity toward the end. The same thing occurs in the center of the play (III, iv). Viola denies knowing Antonio, but after his arrest she realizes that he has confused her with Sebastian. The scene does not end on that uplift of discovery. Viola goes off in delight; Toby sends Andrew after to beat the page. Fabian and Toby remain for a moment:

FABIAN. Come, let’s see the event. TOBY. I dare lay any money ’twill be nothing yet. [III, iv, 430-431]

The final remark is almost desultory. By gradual stages the emotional pitch of the scene is lowered. Shakespeare could easily have given Toby a final line that would have carried the play forward with more vigor. But this was not the way of Shakespeare or, for that matter, of his colleagues.

The falling off of intensity toward the end of a scene is even more marked in the tragedies. In sequence the arrangement of the subdued and pointed endings of scenes helps determine the rhythm of the play. For example, the “plateau” in _Hamlet_ is unified by the way in which the endings of the play-within-the-play scene and the prayer scene point forward, not only in story but in emotional level, each one concluding with Hamlet passionately wrought. Another variation, vital to the rhythm of performance, occurs in the “climactic plateau” of _Lear_. The first storm scene (III, ii) with Lear ends subdued. It is followed by a “leading” scene of only twenty-six lines in which Edmund decides to betray his father. The next storm scene (III, iv) also ends subdued after Lear’s meeting with poor Tom. Another leading scene, again of twenty-six lines, drives forward with Edmund’s betrayal of Gloucester to Cornwall who orders him to “seek out” his father. The last storm scene (III, vi) concludes with Edgar’s realization of the similarity of his plight to that of Lear. Though the end is keyed low, the note struck is ominous. The very next scene rises to a pitch of frenzy in the blinding of Gloucester. In the Folio it concludes abruptly with Cornwall’s order to drive out Gloucester, but the Quarto has a dialogue between two servants which, serving to round out the

## action, seems more typical of Shakespeare.

Within the framework of an Elizabethan scene, perhaps the most marked characteristic is the placement of emphasis not on the growth of action but on the character’s response to crisis. This, as we noted before, was a distinguishing feature of the climactic plateau. Anticipation means little to the Elizabethan dramatist. This is no more clearly seen than in the handling of the individual scenes. Even where suspense is inevitable, it is muted. _The Revenger’s Tragedy_ contains a scene (III, v) in which Vindice, at long last, plans to take revenge upon the lascivious old Duke who murdered his beloved. The trap is set, the Duke is near. Vindice strains forward,

So, so; now nine years’ vengeance crowd into a minute. [III, v, 124]

The Duke dismisses his train; the trap in the guise of a “lady,” actually a poisoned manikin, is sprung; the Duke kisses “her” and falls. All this occupies twenty-five lines. In this it reminds us of the closet scene. Once the Duke is poisoned, Vindice and his brother, Hippolito, triumph over the dying man; they reveal the trap and then Vindice unmasks himself. To top these horrors Vindice discloses to the Duke that his bastard son “rides a-hunting in [his] brow,” and moreover that the son and the Duchess are about to hold a rendezvous at the very spot:

[Your] eyes shall see the incest of their lips. [III, v, 192]

They arrive. The father-husband watches their love-making, hears their mockery of him, and, immediately after their departure, dies. All this takes eighty-three lines. In the structure of the scene, intensification comes from double response: the horror and pain of the Duke and the diabolical delight of the revengers as they witness his pain.

Elizabethan scenes are not unique merely because they give more time to response to a situation rather than to its development. Their uniqueness comes from the fact that the full intensity and implication of the theme is realized not in the accomplishment of the event but in the effects it produces. After Caesar is assassinated, Antony comes to terms with the conspirators. Dramatic though his meeting with them is, the most intense moments are not where Antony composes his differences with Brutus and Cassius, but where he views the body of Caesar. The most compelling section of the scene is Antony’s soliloquy where he envisions the ravages of war which will plague the earth as revenge for the foul deed. A glance at the proportion of lines devoted to the various parts of the scene indicates where Shakespeare placed his emphasis. Seventy-seven lines are devoted to all the tension leading to the assassination, 220 to the reactions and realignments that are its results. Ultimately we find Shakespeare dispensing completely with showing the act of murder and concentrating wholly on the psychological and philosophical responses, as in _Macbeth_.

VI. DRAMATIC UNITY IN THE GLOBE PLAYS

The repetition of dramatic forms in the Globe plays shows that there is a structural foundation for the concept of multiple unity, that unity can be found not in compression of action but in its extension. The story line links the experiences but is not identical with them. Rather the events frequently are extensions of the implications of the story exactly as the shattering of glass may be the effect of an explosion. Consequently, as the scenes seek to reach beyond the limits of the subject, it becomes requisite that means be discovered to set limits to the extension of story and theme. The Elizabethans were well aware that the dimensions of the plays threatened to overwhelm the audience. This is the essence of serious charges by Sir Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson against the popular drama. In this they may well have been following Aristotle who introduced into his definition of tragedy the concept of “magnitude.” A work of art must be able to be perceived as a totality by the audience. Here, of course, we have the true determinant of unity. Training in witnessing the extended sequences of miracle plays or in listening to Sunday sermons must have contributed to a broadness of perception. Nevertheless, a major problem of the Elizabethan playwright was to observe a proper magnitude, to keep within the bounds that his plays always threatened to break. To aid him in maintaining proper magnitude he had several means at his disposal.

One of these means is the story itself; it is always brought to a conclusion. Another means, and one I have not discussed, was the concentration on character. The fact that the story is happening to Hamlet or Vindice or Sejanus is in itself a unifying factor. But I shall discuss the relevance of character to the play in the chapter on Elizabethan acting. Three other means contributed to keeping the play within perceptible bounds.

The first of these, unity through poetic diction, has been amply treated by present-day critics. Both Stoll and G. Wilson Knight have written of Shakespeare’s plays as metaphorical forms.[25] Bradbrook sees the only unity as a poetic unity. Yet verbal expression is but one element of structural multiple unity. There is a close link between the dramatic form of the climactic plateau and the poetic expression, for the second requires the first. Where the playwright fails as a poet, the climactic extensions result in rant and sentimentality. But it is this form that enables the poetry to range freely, or perhaps we may consider that the same compulsion which drove the Elizabethans to copious, lyrical expression caused them to develop this particular dramatic form.

The second means relevant to multiple unity has been the subject of this chapter, precisely the arrangement of scenes about the story line. Some of the scenes that a playwright chooses to dramatize are those primarily concerned with propelling the play, such as the play-within-the-play scene in _Hamlet_. Some scenes develop traits of a character, as in the scene of Portia’s plea to Brutus for confidence. But a central, repeating element within the rhythmic pattern of extension-contraction is the arrangement of scenes or incidents in a combination of contrasting and comparable circumstances. Whether the scenes used are central or peripheral to the story, they repeatedly gain illumination through mirroring similar situations. Hamlet unable to avenge his father is contrasted with Laertes too ready to avenge his father, Hamlet mad is contrasted with Ophelia mad, Rosalind’s mocking love-play is heightened by comparison with Phebe and Silvius as well as with the earthy affection of Touchstone and Audrey, while Touchstone’s professional mockery of the pastoral life casts light upon Jaques’ melancholy. One could go on endlessly pointing out the contrast of situation with situation. Frequently we encounter scenes whose only relationship to the story is to provide dramatic contrast. I have cited the scene in _Fair Maid of Bristow_ in which the servants woo each other. The Porter’s scene in _Macbeth_, about which there has been “much throwing about of brains,” is an example. Another is the scene where Ventidius refuses to outshine Antony, another the lynching of Cinna the poet or the valor of Lucilius (_Julius Caesar_, V, iv). Great events produce many ripples. These ripples, which found expression in the Greek choral odes, the Elizabethans sought to dramatize.

Contrast in the Globe plays, it is essential to note, is a contrast of situations, not a contrast of characters. It is true that Hamlet is contrasted with Laertes as well as Fortinbras, but the character contrast is effected by the participation of each in distinct though related incidents. In _Fair Maid of Bristow_ Challener’s conflict with Vallenger is contrasted with Harbart’s relationship to Sentloe. Vallenger’s asking the disguised Challener to murder Sentloe and Anabell parallels Florence’s attempt to seduce Blunt alias Harbart to murder Sentloe. Modern drama like classic drama, however, contrasts characters caught within a single situation. Antigone and Ismene face the same dramatic circumstance; so do Electra and Chrysothemis. Character contrast is achieved through the different ways in which each person reacts to the same crisis. Lövborg and Tesman are sharply differentiated: in their reactions to the same appointment, their manner of loving, the kinds of books they write. The same holds true for Stanley and Mitch in _A Streetcar Named Desire_, or even for Stella and Blanche. But in Shakespearean drama not only is light thrown on the comparison of situations, but at times the characters are aware of this inter-reflection. At the end of the last storm scene in _Lear_, Act III, scene vi, Edgar has a speech which appears only in the Quarto. After witnessing the sorrow of Lear, he soliloquizes:

When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes. * * * * * How light and portable my pain seems now, When that which makes me bend makes the King bow, He childed as I fathered! [108-116]

Certainly the Elizabethans felt that one event mirrored another, and probably that together they mirrored the common meaning of both events. This interconnection of reflected incidents contributed metaphorically to a unified impression.

The final means of achieving unity is the most difficult to define, the method of handling theme. For that reason let us turn to a play where the theme is clearly expounded. _A Larum for London_ has a simple, obvious point to make: the English people will be destroyed by external enemies (the Spanish) and internal treachery unless they become aware of their dangers, forego their desire for personal profit at the expense of the defense of the commonwealth, and rally the faithful honest citizens and soldiers to their support. The point is made through dramatizing the siege of Antwerp. The scenes that are introduced arise from the initial force that propels the story: the determination of the Spanish to take advantage of the improvidence of the citizens of Antwerp. Individual scenes, however, are not causally linked. Rather they are chosen because they reflect and illustrate the basic theme. A burgher, formerly unkind to the hero, is rescued by him. This is the only scene in which the burgher appears. The play is episodic in structure but unified in theme. But the unity is a multiple one. Instead of employing the story of one family and one incident to illustrate the ravages of war, as Gorki did in _Yegor Bulichev and Others_, this play uses a multiple reflection of its theme in a number of independent scenes, each having equal emphasis. Thus the single theme is given multiple dramatization.

The weaker plays of the Globe reveal obvious ways of treating a theme. Dramas of the prodigal son reiterate their morality _ad infinitum_, providing multiple reflections of fall and redemption. The otherwise haphazardly constructed play, _The Devil’s Charter_, is bound together by the theme of Man’s soul sold to the devil and the final retribution that befalls him. Jonson’s predilection for purging mankind with a pill of satire imposes thematic unity on disparate incidents in _Every Man Out of His Humour_. But in his other plays as well as in the plays of Shakespeare there is a more subtle interweaving of structure and theme. At the core of each play there seems to be a point of reference of which the individual scenes are reflections. Though a play moves temporally toward a conclusion, each scene may like a glass be turned toward a central referent. G. Wilson Knight has expressed fundamentally the same idea.[26] Unfortunately, he divorces this concept from the dramatic organism, with the result that his projected productions of Shakespeare’s plays seem like academic and sophomoric, if not fantastic, exercises. But Shakespeare seems to have avoided, at least in his later plays, so schematic an illustration of theme as in _Richard III_. Instead, he allows the theme to permeate the characters, situations, and poetry. He concentrates on the dramatic situations and on the characters, allowing the theme to be struck off indirectly like spark from flint. That is perhaps the reason that it is so difficult to reduce the theme of any Shakespearean play to a concise statement. _Macbeth_ certainly deals with the theme of the source and effects of evil, yet no single statement of this idea is sufficient, because Shakespeare dramatizes various aspects of this subject. Since, to the Elizabethan, the world was a manifold manifestation of a God whom he was unable to compress into one idea or image, in a similar way the Shakespearean play was a manifold reflection of a theme irreducible and unseen. Yet every element in a great Shakespearean play--character, structure, speech--individually and collectively, is brought into an artistic unity through a structural and poetic expression of an unseen referent at its center.