I
Mr. Crosby's article 1 on Shakespeare's attitude toward the working
classes suggested to me the idea of also expressing my own
long-established opinion about the works of Shakespeare, in direct
opposition, as it is, to that established in all the whole European
world. Calling to mind all the struggle of doubt and
self-deceit,—efforts to attune myself to Shakespeare—which I went
through owing to my complete disagreement with this universal
adulation, and, presuming that many have experienced and are
experiencing the same, I think that it may not be unprofitable to
express definitely and frankly this view of mine, opposed to that
of the majority, and the more so as the conclusions to which I
came, when examining the causes of my disagreement with the
universally established opinion, are, it seems to me, not without
interest and significance.
My disagreement with the established opinion about Shakespeare is
not the result of an accidental frame of mind, nor of a
light-minded attitude toward the matter, but is the outcome of many
years' repeated and insistent endeavors to harmonize my own views
of Shakespeare with those established amongst all civilized men of
the Christian world.
I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I
expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read,
one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear,"
"Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no
delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium, and
doubted as to whether I was senseless in feeling works regarded as
the summit of perfection by the whole of the civilized world to be
trivial and positively bad, or whether the significance which this
civilized world attributes to the works of Shakespeare was itself
senseless. My consternation was increased by the fact that I always
keenly felt the beauties of poetry in every form; then why should
artistic works recognized by the whole world as those of a
genius,—the works of Shakespeare,—not only fail to please me, but
be disagreeable to me? For a long time I could not believe in
myself, and during fifty years, in order to test myself, I several
times recommenced reading Shakespeare in every possible form, in
Russian, in English, in German and in Schlegel's translation, as I
was advised. Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and
historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings:
repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before
writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I
have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of
Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus
and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with
even greater force, the same feelings,—this time, however, not of
bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the
unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys,
and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers
and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits,—thereby
distorting their esthetic and ethical understanding,—is a great
evil, as is every untruth.
Altho I know that the majority of people so firmly believe in the
greatness of Shakespeare that in reading this judgment of mine they
will not admit even the possibility of its justice, and will not
give it the slightest attention, nevertheless I will endeavor, as
well as I can, to show why I believe that Shakespeare can not be
recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average
author.
For illustration of my purpose I will take one of Shakespeare's
most extolled dramas, "King Lear," in the enthusiastic praise of
which, the majority of critics agree.
"The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of
Shakespeare," says Dr. Johnson. "There is perhaps no play which
keeps the attention so strongly fixed, which so much agitates our
passions, and interests our curiosity."
"We wish that we could pass this play over and say nothing about
it," says Hazlitt, "all that we can say must fall far short of the
subject, or even of what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to
give a description of the play itself, or of its effects upon the
mind, is mere impertinence; yet we must say something. It is, then,
the best of Shakespeare's plays, for it is the one in which he was
the most in earnest."
"If the originality of invention did not so much stamp almost every
play of Shakespeare," says Hallam, "that to name one as the most
original seems a disparagement to others, we might say that this
great prerogative of genius, was exercised above all in 'Lear.' It
diverges more from the model of regular tragedy than 'Macbeth,' or
'Othello,' and even more than 'Hamlet,' but the fable is better
constructed than in the last of these and it displays full as much
of the almost superhuman inspiration of the poet as the other
two."
"'King Lear' may be recognized as the perfect model of the dramatic
art of the whole world," says Shelley.
"I am not minded to say much of Shakespeare's Arthur," says
Swinburne. "There are one or two figures in the world of his work
of which there are no words that would be fit or good to say.
Another of these is Cordelia. The place they have in our lives and
thoughts is not one for talk. The niche set apart for them to
inhabit in our secret hearts is not penetrable by the lights and
noises of common day. There are chapels in the cathedrals of man's
highest art, as in that of his inmost life, not made to be set open
to the eyes and feet of the world. Love, and Death, and Memory,
keep charge for us in silence of some beloved names. It is the
crowning glory of genius, the final miracle and transcendent gift
of poetry, that it can add to the number of these and engrave on
the very heart of our remembrance fresh names and memories of its
own creation."
"Lear is the occasion for Cordelia," says Victor Hugo. "Maternity
of the daughter toward the father; profound subject; maternity
venerable among all other maternities, so admirably rendered by the
legend of that Roman girl, who, in the depths of a prison, nurses
her old father. The young breast near the white beard! There is not
a spectacle more holy. This filial breast is Cordelia. Once this
figure dreamed of and found, Shakespeare created his drama....
Shakespeare, carrying Cordelia in his thoughts, created that
tragedy like a god who, having an aurora to put forward, makes a
world expressly for it."
"In 'King Lear,' Shakespeare's vision sounded the abyss of horror
to its very depths, and his spirit showed neither fear, nor
giddiness, nor faintness, at the sight," says Brandes. "On the
threshold of this work, a feeling of awe comes over one, as on the
threshold of the Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling of frescoes by
Michael Angelo,—only that the suffering here is far more intense,
the wail wilder, and the harmonies of beauty more definitely
shattered by the discords of despair."
Such are the judgments of the critics about this drama, and
therefore I believe I am not wrong in selecting it as a type of
Shakespeare's best.
As impartially as possible, I will endeavor to describe the
contents of the drama, and then to show why it is not that acme of
perfection it is represented to be by critics, but is something
quite different.
II
The drama of "Lear" begins with a scene giving the conversation
between two courtiers, Kent and Gloucester. Kent, pointing to a
young man present, asks Gloucester whether that is not his son.
Gloucester says that he has often blushed to acknowledge the young
man as his son, but has now ceased doing so. Kent says he "can not
conceive him." Then Gloucester in the presence of this son of his
says: "The fellow's mother could, and grew round-wombed, and had a
son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed." "I have
another, a legitimate son," continues Gloucester, "but altho this
one came into the world before he was sent for, his mother was fair
and there was good sport at his making, and therefore I acknowledge
this one also."
Such is the introduction. Not to mention the coarseness of these
words of Gloucester, they are, farther, out of place in the mouth
of a person intended to represent a noble character. One can not
agree with the opinion of some critics that these words are given
to Gloucester in order to show the contempt for his illegitimacy
from which Edmund suffers. Were this so, it would first have been
unnecessary to make the father express the contempt felt by men in
general, and, secondly, Edmund, in his monolog about the injustice
of those who despise him for his birth, would have mentioned such
words from his father. But this is not so, and therefore these
words of Gloucester at the very beginning of the piece, were merely
intended as a communication to the public—in a humorous form—of the
fact that Gloucester has a legitimate son and an illegitimate
one.
After this, trumpets are blown, and King Lear enters with his
daughters and sons-in-law, and utters a speech to the effect that,
owing to old age, he wishes to retire from the cares of business
and divide his kingdom between his daughters. In order to know how
much he should give to each daughter, he announces that to the one
who says she loves him most he will give most. The eldest daughter,
Goneril, says that words can not express the extent of her love,
that she loves her father more than eyesight, space, and liberty,
loves him so much that it "makes her breath poor." King Lear
immediately allots his daughter on the map, her portion of fields,
woods, rivers, and meadows, and asks the same question of the
second daughter. The second daughter, Regan, says that her sister
has correctly expressed her own feelings, only not strongly enough.
She, Regan, loves her father so much that everything is abhorrent
to her except his love. The king rewards this daughter, also, and
then asks his youngest, the favorite, in whom, according to his
expression, are "interess'd the vines of France and the milk of
Burgundy," that is, whose hand is being claimed by the King of
France and the Duke of Burgundy,—he asks Cordelia how she loves
him. Cordelia, who personifies all the virtues, as the eldest two
all the vices, says, quite out of place, as if on purpose to
irritate her father, that altho she loves and honors him, and is
grateful to him, yet if she marries, all her love will not belong
to her father, but she will also love her husband.
Hearing these words, the King loses his temper, and curses this
favorite daughter with the most dreadful and strange maledictions,
saying, for instance, that he will henceforth love his daughter as
little as he loves the man who devours his own children.
"The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved.
As thou, my sometime daughter."
The courtier, Kent, defends Cordelia, and desiring to appease the
King, rebukes him for his injustice, and says reasonable things
about the evil of flattery. Lear, unmoved by Kent, banishes him
under pain of death, and calling to him Cordelia's two suitors, the
Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, proposes to them in turn
to take Cordelia without dowry. The Duke of Burgundy frankly says
that without dowry he will not take Cordelia, but the King of
France takes her without dowry and leads her away. After this, the
elder sisters, there and then entering into conversation, prepare
to injure their father who had endowed them. Thus ends the first
scene.
Not to mention the pompous, characterless language of King Lear,
the same in which all Shakespeare's Kings speak, the reader, or
spectator, can not conceive that a King, however old and stupid he
may be, could believe the words of the vicious daughters, with whom
he had passed his whole life, and not believe his favorite
daughter, but curse and banish her; and therefore the spectator, or
reader, can not share the feelings of the persons participating in
this unnatural scene.
The second scene opens with Edmund, Gloucester's illegitimate son,
soliloquizing on the injustice of men, who concede rights and
respect to the legitimate son, but deprive the illegitimate son of
them, and he determines to ruin Edgar, and to usurp his place. For
this purpose, he forges a letter to himself as from Edgar, in which
the latter expresses a desire to murder his father. Awaiting his
father's approach, Edmund, as if against his will, shows him this
letter, and the father immediately believes that his son Edgar,
whom he tenderly loves, desires to kill him. The father goes away,
Edgar enters and Edmund persuades him that his father for some
reason desires to kill him. Edgar immediately believes this and
flees from his parent.
The relations between Gloucester and his two sons, and the feelings
of these characters are as unnatural as Lear's relation to his
daughters, or even more so, and therefore it is still more
difficult for the spectator to transport himself into the mental
condition of Gloucester and his sons and sympathize with them, than
it is to do so into that of Lear and his daughters.
In the fourth scene, the banished Kent, so disguised that Lear does
not recognize him, presents himself to Lear, who is already staying
with Goneril. Lear asks who he is, to which Kent answers, one
doesn't know why, in a tone quite inappropriate to his position: "A
very honest-hearted fellow and as poor as the King."—"If thou be as
poor for a subject as he is for a King, thou art poor enough—How
old art thou?" asks the King. "Not so young, Sir, to love a woman,
etc., nor so old to dote on her." To this the King says, "If I like
thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet."
These speeches follow neither from Lear's position, nor his
relation to Kent, but are put into the mouths of Lear and Kent,
evidently because the author regards them as witty and
amusing.
Goneril's steward appears, and behaves rudely to Lear, for which
Kent knocks him down. The King, still not recognizing Kent, gives
him money for this and takes him into his service. After this
appears the fool, and thereupon begins a prolonged conversation
between the fool and the King, utterly unsuited to the position and
serving no purpose. Thus, for instance, the fool says, "Give me an
egg and I'll give thee two crowns." The King asks, "What crowns
shall they be?"—"Why," says the fool, "after I have cut the egg i'
the middle, and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When
thou clovest thy crown i' the middle, and gavest away both parts,
thou borest thine ass on thy back o'er the dirt: thou hadst little
wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I
speak like myself in this, let him be whipp'd that first finds it
so."
In this manner lengthy conversations go on calling forth in the
spectator or reader that wearisome uneasiness which one experiences
when listening to jokes which are not witty.
This conversation was interrupted by the approach of Goneril. She
demands of her father that he should diminish his retinue; that he
should be satisfied with fifty courtiers instead of a hundred. At
this suggestion, Lear gets into a strange and unnatural rage, and
asks:
"Doth any here know me? This is not Lear:
Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
Are lethargied. Ha! 'tis not so.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?"
And so forth.
While this goes on the fool does not cease to interpolate his
humorless jokes. Goneril's husband then enters and wishes to
appease Lear, but Lear curses Goneril, invoking for her either
sterility or the birth of such an infant-monster as would return
laughter and contempt for her motherly cares, and would thus show
her all the horror and pain caused by a child's ingratitude.
These words which express a genuine feeling, might have been
touching had they stood alone. But they are lost among long and
high-flown speeches, which Lear keeps incessantly uttering quite
inappropriately. He either invokes "blasts and fogs" upon the head
of his daughter, or desires his curse to "pierce every sense about
her," or else appealing to his own eyes, says that should they
weep, he will pluck them out and "cast them with the waters that
they lose to temper clay." And so on.
After this, Lear sends Kent, whom he still fails to recognize, to
his other daughter, and notwithstanding the despair he has just
manifested, he talks with the fool, and elicits his jokes. The
jokes continue to be mirthless and besides creating an unpleasant
feeling, similar to shame, the usual effect of unsuccessful
witticisms, they are also so drawn out as to be positively dull.
Thus the fool asks the King whether he can tell why one's nose
stands in the middle of one's face? Lear says he can not.—
"Why, to keep one's eyes of either side 's nose, that what a man
can not smell out, he may spy out."
"Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?"
"No."
"Nor I either; but I can tell why a snail has a house."
"Why?"
"Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters and
leave his horns without a case."
"——Be my horses ready?"
"Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars are
no more than seven is a pretty reason."
"Because they are not eight?"
"Yes, indeed: thou would'st make a good fool."
And so on.
After this lengthy scene, a gentleman enters and announces that the
horses are ready. The fool says:
"She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure,
Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter."