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Editura Funda iei Romania ae Maine, 2007

(GLWXU DFUHGLWDW ae Ministerul Eauca iei ,i Cercet rii
prin Consiliul Na ional al Cercet rii Stiin ifice
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R spunaerea pentru con inutul ,i originalitatea textului
revine exclusiv autorului/autorilor.







Redactor: Andreea Gabriela DINU
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Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Na ionale a Romniei
/HFWXUHV RQ &ODVVLFDO (QJOLVK /LWHUDWXUH/ George Volceanov
(coord.), Cristina Crisan, Ramona Mih il , Anamaria Schwab
Bucuresti: Editura Funda iei Romania ae Maine, 2007
ISBN: 978-973-725-987-5
I. Volceanov, George (coord.)
II. Crisan, Cristina
III. Mih il , Ramona
IV. Schwab, Anamaria
821.111.09821.111(73).09
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Editura Funda iei Romania ae Maine
Bucuresti, 2007


5


&217(176





Preface .......................... 7
Part one: ENGLISH DRAMA UP TO 1625
(George Jolceanov)

Drama as a Dual Art. The Historical Origins oI Drama ..... 11
Conventions, Themes, Forms oI Drama ........... 15
English Medieval Drama ................. 19
The Renaissance: Shakespeare`s Predecessors (1) ....... 21
John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge .... 22
The Elizabethan World Picture ................ 26
Shakespeare`s Predecessors (2) ................ 28
Christopher Marlowe ................... 28
Thomas Kyd .................... 32
Shakespeare the Playwright .................. 35
Shakespeare`s Great Tragedies ............. 45
Shakespeare`s Comedies ................ 54
Shakespeare`s Chronicles ............... 59
Shakespeare`s Roman Plays .............. 63
Shakespeare`s Romance Plays ............. 65
Shakespeare in the Light oI Recent Critical Perspectives ..... 69
How to Analyze a Play by Shakespeare ........... 72
Analyzing Shakespeare`s Comedies ........... 75
Analyzing a Historical Play by Shakespeare ........ 80
Analyzing a Tragedy by Shakespeare ............ 81
Shakespeare`s Contemporaries (Jacobean Drama): Jonson, Heywood,
Webster .........................

83
Further Analyzing Heywood and Webster .......... 89

6
Part two: THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH
CENTURY ENGLISH AND AMERICAN NOVEL
(Cristina Cri,an)

The Rise oI the Novel. A Social and Literary Perspective .... 93
Narrative Strategies in the Eighteenth Century Novel ...... 96
Laurence Sterne`s Revolutionary Novel. A Precedent oI Postmodern
Literature ........................

104
The British and American Nineteenth Century Realistic Novel ... 108
Uses oI Realism in the Classical Victorian Novel: Charles Dickens 118
Versions oI Victorian Realism in George Eliot`s Fiction: The
Philosophical and Intellectual Novel .............

124
Thomas Hardy: the Last Phase oI the Victorian Realistic Novel 130
Nineteenth Century American Fiction: The Dark Voyage. Nathaniel
Hawthorne: Puritan Background and Symbolism .........

136
Herman Melville (1819-1891) A National Literature and Romantic
Individualism ........................

141
Part three: ELEMENTS OF NARRATOLOGY
(Ramona Mih il )

Literary Approaches in Analyzing Characters oI the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Century American and English Novel .......

149
Physical Description ..................... 151
Dialogue to Reveal Characters ................. 157
Insiders/Outsiders Characters ................ 159
Plot and the Narrator .................... 167
Myth, Archetype and Symbolic Setting ............ 174
Part Iour: CHRONOLOGY
(Anamaria Schwab)

Chronology ....................... 181
Bibliography ........................ 191




7


35()$&(






Lectures on Classical English Literature is a textbook specially
aevisea for the first- ana secona-year unaergraauates who stuay
English language ana literature at the Spiru Haret University of
Bucharest. It covers the first-term syllabus of English literature, which
focuses on the earlier phases of English (ana American) arama ana
fiction, respectively.
This hanabook is one of the several textbooks proaucea by the
English Language ana Literature Department that aims at teaching
English literature by using a genre-basea approach. This aoes not mean
that chronology has been completely aiscaraea. On the contrary, the
book presents, chronologically, some of the most significant moments in
the aevelopment of the English language arama ana fiction along the
centuries. Moreover, the last section of the book proviaes
unaergraauates with a chronology that will help them to contextuali:e
the moment when certain mafor literary works were proaucea.
Speaking of a genre-basea approach, the authors of the
hanabook emphasi:e the importance of the specific constituents of
each genre presentea in this book. Part One, which aeals with English
arama up to 1625, proviaes unaergraauates with the aiscussion of key
concepts like arama as a performance art, elements of construction
(plot, characters, symbols, themes, conventions, imagery), ana types
of arama. Several lectures present the historical evolution of arama in
Englana, the social, political ana economic context in which it
evolvea, ana critical interpretations of important works. However,
unaergraauates are not encouragea to bow to well-establishea critical
opinions, they ought to use the theoretical elements in the course in an
attempt to reach a personal interpretation of the texts incluaea in the
manaatory bibliography. Neealess to say, the course is not only genre-
orientea but also text-orientea. That is why, several brief chapters of

8
Part One are about how we shoula try to analy:e a comeay or a
trageay, a chronicle play or a aomestic trageay by authors ranging
from Shakespeare to Webster ana Heywooa.
The secona part of the book is aeaicatea to the rise of the
English novel in the eighteenth century ana its aevelopment up to the
ena of the nineteenth century. It incluaes chapters aeaicatea to the
most important novelists that contributea to the American novel as
well. The genre-orientea approach is obvious in the aiscussion of the
novel as a aistinct genre from several viewpoints (literary, social,
etc.). The chapter on narrative strategies proviaes unaergraauates
with a number of theoretical elements without which one cannot
unaerstana the aistinctive features of the authors ana novels selectea
for aiscussion.
The thira part of the book combines pure theory with appliea
criticism: key concepts of narratology such as point of view, types of
narrators (omniscient, obtrusive, reliable, etc.), symbols, setting,
characters (rouna ana flat ones), beginnings ana enaings, are all
aiscussea with concrete reference to the works of canonical novelists
such as Defoe, Fielaing, Jane Austen, Dickens, ana so on. This part is
extremely useful for seminar activities, for inaiviaual work auring the
reaaing of the novels in the manaatory bibliography, ana, in the long
run, for the unaergraauates training with a view to the licence
examination.
All in all, this hanabook combines literary history ana literary
theory in an attempt to arm the ailigent, self-conscious unaergraauate
with essential clues that must enable him to proviae a logical ana
coherent interpretation of any literary work belonging to one genre or
another.



9











Part one:
ENGLISH DRAMA UP TO 1625

10

11


DRAMA AS A DUAL ART.
THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF DRAMA




The course covers the Iirst centuries oI English drama. It starts
with the Middle Ages and the religious drama that Iirst Ilourished
under the patronage oI the Catholic Church and it goes down to the
post-Renaissance age oI the civil war that led to the closing down oI
the Iondon theatres in 1642. The course is not necessarily history-
oriented, which means that the students will not be stiIled with
historical data. On the contrary, the course, as the students will come
to learn in due time, is basically text-oriented. This means that the
undergraduates are supposed to read a corpus oI works belonging to
the dramatic genres as well as some critical works and to get Iamiliar
with the specific, distinctive Ieatures oI drama as a genre so diIIerent
Irom, say, the epic and the lyrical genre.
Drama can be studied as a historical evolution oI Iorms, styles,
and conventions (in terms oI literary history), as well as a basic
literary genre or Iorm (in terms oI the theory oI genres, which is a part
oI literary theory). We can study drama chronologically or we can
study it as a speciIic genre, which has its own rules, which sets a
speciIic horizon oI expectations.
Drama, unlike Iiction (prose) or poetry, is an essentially dual art.
It is, on the one hand, a Iundamental literary genre (contrasted with
the epic and the lyrical) and, on the other hand, a visual art, one oI the
perIorming arts (it is perIormed by actors, in theatre-halls, in Iront oI
an audience). It addresses its receivers both as readers and spectators.
Drama is more than literature. It is also a complex visual art that
combines language, body language, choreography, light eIIects, aural
eIIects, music, dance, pantomime (or dumb-show), painting, specially
designed settings, costumes, architecture, etc. A play viewed on stage
triggers a diIIerent response Irom the one experienced by a reader in
his room at home or in a public reading room. A reader will enjoy the

12
plot, view it in his mind`s eyes, and construct the setting and the
appearance oI his characters. A reader will Iurther analyze a play in
literary terms, discussing its plot, themes, motiIs, imagery,
characterization, sources, inIluences, topical allusions, language, style,
etc. He will also accept situations otherwise incredible due to his/her
awareness that a play is based on theatrical conventions. These are
superbly treated in Muriel Bradbrook`s Themes ana Conventions of
Eli:abethan Trageav. Some oI them are discussed in my book
Methinks Youre Better Spoken (the soliloquy, the aside, the play-
within the play, etc.). Conventions make possible the very idea oI
drama as spectacle, as perIormance.
Genre has been deIined by theorists as a type, species, or class
oI composition. According to Chris Baldick, a literary genre is a
recognizable and established category oI written work employing such
common conventions as will prevent readers or audiences Irom
mistaking it Ior another kind. Genre is used to describe the most basic
modes oI literary art: lyric, epic, dramatic. In Romanian we use the
word species Ior more specialized sub-categories, but in English we
use the same word genre when we speak about literary sub-
categories as sonnet, novel, satire, science-Iiction, Iolktale, etc.
The concept oI genre implies a certain set oI expectations to be
IulIilled by the writer. To read generically means to read with
expectations partly conIirmed and partly contradicted. The writer as a
creator cannot ignore what others did beIore him. There is a tradition
he has to take into account. He has to stay within a tradition and to
depart Irom tradition, to invent previously unemployed elements, in
order not to be just an epigone. Writing within the conIines oI a genre
displays the dialectics oI tradition and innovation. As Ior the reader`s
viewpoint, it is obvious that the genre oI a work in itselI sets up our
expectations. When we go to the theatre to watch a perIormance oI
Hamlet, or when we stay at home and read the play, we know that the
play is about the Iall and death oI a noble character. Conversely, when
we read or watch, say, As You Like It, we know that there is laughter
in store Ior us as readers or spectators, as the play presents a story Iull
oI comic events and comic characters, with a happy ending.
Performing arts include all the arts that take their shape thanks
to the action oI perIormers: drama, ballet, opera, etc.
Drama has been deIined in textbooks oI literary criticism as that
genre oI imaginative literature in which characters act out their roles,

13
conventionally on a stage, although some dramas are meant primarily to
be read. Drama is the general term Ior perIormances in which actors
impersonate the actions and speech oI Iictional characters (or non-
human entities) Ior the entertainment oI an audience, either on a stage or
by means oI a broadcast (Baldick). Drama is usually expected to
represent stories showing situations oI conIlict between characters.
Monodrama is an exception to the rule; it is a special case in which only
one perIormer speaks. Marin Sorescu provides us with excellent
examples oI monodrama with his Iona and Paracliserul. Northrop
Frye`s concise deIinition oI drama is: Drama is a mimesis oI dialogue
or conversation. But drama is not just chat, conversation, or dialogue.
It is not made up oI words alone. As an imitation oI liIe, it presents
people in action, people interacting with one another, displaying various
attitudes in various situations. Countenance, gestures, body language,
and intonation are equally important in perIormance.
As a dual art, drama is both literature (literary art) and
perIorming art. Not all oI the drama is, however, literature. Drama
includes non-literary Iorms like the mime or the dumb-show.
Romanian actors like Mihai M laimare and Dan Puric are just two oI
the promoters oI the non-literary Iorms oI drama.
The origins oI drama as a perIorming art can be tracked down to
the ancient Greeks. According to the German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche, the Greek tragedy was born out oI the pagan rites perIormed
in honour oI Dionysus, the god oI wine and Iertility. Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, the Iounders oI the ancient Greek tragedy are
still considered some oI the greatest playwrights ever. The Iirst theorist
oI literature, Aristotle, gave us the Iirst deIinition oI tragedy and the Iirst
expert commentary on the structure oI a tragedy.
Tragedy is a serious play about the downIall and death oI a
central character, the protagonist. According to Aristotle, tragedy is
the imitation oI an action that is serious and complete, achieving a
catharsis (puriIication) through incidents arousing pity and terror. The
downIall oI the hero is triggered by a Iatal mistake he deliberately or
unwittingly makes. The Greek term Ior error or Iailure is hamartia.
Chris Baldick draws our attention to the Iact that the term has oIten
been translated as tragic Ilaw, i.e. a personal deIect oI character, but
this translation does not suit Aristotle`s emphasis on the protagonist`s
action, which could be brought about by misjudgement, ignorance, or
some other cause.

14
The extreme Iorm oI hamartia is hubris, which in Greek means
insolence or aIIront. It reIers to the arrogance or pride oI the
protagonist in a tragedy in which he or she deIies the moral laws or
the prohibitions oI the gods. The protagonist`s downIall may be
understood as divine retribution or punishment, which the Greeks
called nemesis. The agent carrying out such a punishment was oIten
personiIied as Nemesis, a minor goddess responsible Ior executing the
vengeance oI gods against erring humans.
Nemesis partly overlaps the notion oI poetic fustice, which
rewards the virtuous characters in a literary work with a happy Iate and
punishes the vicious characters Ior their misdeeds. Did Shakespeare
apply the notion oI poetic justice to his tragedies? II we consider the
Iate oI Hamlet, Cordelia, Desdemona, and other virtuous characters,
we may observe that Shakespeare did not care too much about
Aristotle`s theory oI the tragedy.
Another aspect in which Shakespeare diverges Irom Aristotle`s
Poetics is his lack oI concern Ior the unity oI place (the action oI a
Shakespeare play may simultaneously take place in several countries,
several parts oI a country, etc.), unity oI time (with the exception oI
The Tempest all oI Shakespeare`s plays take more than 24 hours; the
action oI Pericles and The Winters Tale unIold in nearly 20 years),
and unity oI action (many Elizabethan and Jacobean plays have a main
plot and a subplot, two parallel actions).

15


CONVENTIONS, THEMES,
FORMS OF DRAMA





In this lecture, we will discuss some oI the conventions that
represent structuring elements oI drama and make drama possible as a
visual art oI spectacle or perIormance. By convention, I mean an
agreement between writers and readers (or dramatists and spectators).
The Iirst thing we should bear in mind is that drama is imitation oI
liIe, not liIe itselI. When Hamlet kills Claudius and Iaertes kills
Hamlet, those who die on stage are Hamlet and Claudius, the Iictional
characters in a Iictional story, not the actors that impersonate them.
So, the Iirst rule oI attending a drama in perIormance should be what
the Romantic poet and literary critic Coleridge called the suspension
oI disbelieI. We must pretend that we believe in the reality oI the
story unIolding on stage; we take the story Ior granted, no matter how
improbable or absurd it may appear to us.
One oI the most important conventions we must take Ior granted
in a play is the soliloquy or monologue. The two terms deIine the same
convention, but, quite curiously, Chris Baldick gives two diIIerent
deIinitions in his Concise Oxfora Dictionarv of Literarv Terms. The
monologue is deIined as an extended speech deIined by one speaker,
either to others or as iI alone. Sometimes a whole play may be written
in the Iorm oI the monologue: the monodrama. The soliloquy is a
dramatic speech uttered by one character speaking aloud while alone on
the stage (or while under the impression oI being alone.) The soliloquist
thus reveals his or her inner thoughts or Ieelings to the audience, either
in supposed selI-communion or in a consciously direct address
(Baldick). Soliloquies oIten appear in plays Irom Shakespeare`s age,
notably in his Hamlet and Macbeth.
II we were to cross the borders oI the generally accepted
convention, we should concede that one`s speaking to oneselI is could
be interpreted in terms oI neurotic or psychotic symptoms. A man that

16
speaks by himselI is usually labelled as a schizophrenic. But in a
drama such a man is only allowed to express his Ieelings or thoughts
in a verbal version oI his stream oI consciousness. The development
oI technology enabled twentieth-century stage managers to use a tape-
recorded voice superimposed on an actor`s silent perIormance instead
oI the traditional soliloquy.
Back to Shakespeare, Muriel Bradbrook claims that Shakespeare
used soliloquy Ior the statement oI the moral in his great tragedies.
But according to many critics, including Harold Bloom, Fintan
O`Toole, and. Nietzsche, Shakespeare was an amoral writer, a writer
not interested in teaching lessons oI morality. In Methinks Youre
Better Spoken (see Bibliography) I have shown that Shakespeare used
soliloquy not only in his tragedies but also in his comedies, even in his
early ones, not Ior the sake oI morals but to show the Iears, anxieties,
vacillations, and mental disturbance oI his characters (see pp. 67-71).
Another dramatic convention is the asiae, a short speech or
remark spoken by a character in a play, directed either to the audience
or to another character, which by convention is supposed to be inaudible
to the other characters on stage. It is as iI the audience alone heard the
inner voice oI a character, not the rest oI the characters on stage. This is
one oI Shakespeare`s Iavourite conventions, who, unlike some oI his
contemporaries, constructed the plot oI his comedies around characters
who take the audience as their accomplices. Other comedians, like
Ben Jonson, chose to keep the audience in the dark and to introduce
elements oI surprise at the end oI their comedies. This diIIerence may
explain why Shakespeare`s comedies are still so popular nowadays. For
more details about the asiae in Shakespeare`s plays, see George
Volceanov, Methinks Youre Better Spoken, pp. 72-76.
The epilogue and the prologue are also structuring elements, and
at the same time conventions, in a play. In the Elizabethan and
Jacobean age, there were actors simply called Prologue or Epilogue
who recited these introductory or concluding speeches. Sometimes the
action oI the play was preceded by a longer introductory scene written
in the Iorm oI a dialogue or even a shorter play (called the Induction),
as in Shakespeare`s The Taming of the Shrew. In the latter case, the
story oI Katharina and Petruchio becomes a play-within-a play. The
play-within-a play was a Iavourite convention oI Shakespeare`s age:
some characters are turned into spectators that watch a play played in
the play. Such plays are The Mousetrap in Hamlet: Hamlet, Claudius,

17
Gertrude, Ophelia, Polonius, and the other Danish courtiers become
the spectators oI a play-within-Hamlet. Theseus and Hippolyta
become the spectators oI the play Pvramus ana Thisbe played by a
troupe oI amateur actors led by Bottom the Weaver; and so on. This
plays have several Iunctions: one oI them is to remind the spectators
that drama is Iiction and spectacle, not reality. In Hamlet it becomes
part oI a psychological experiment aimed at exposing a criminal. In A
Miasummer Nights Dream it becomes a subtle means oI satirizing the
excesses / Ilaws oI acting in Shakespeare`s time.
The Chorus, borrowed Irom the ancient Greek tragedy, IulIils
the role oI a collective character, expressing public opinion, spreading
rumours, or summing up the Iorthcoming events oI an act. In
Shakespeare`s plays the Chorus is no longer represented by a group oI
actors but by a single actor (named Rumour in 2 Henrv IJ, Gower in
Pericles, Chorus in Romeo ana Juliet, etc.).
In the previous chapter we tackled the deIinition oI tragedy. We
shall now try to deIine comedy in opposition to tragedy. The
development oI comedy can be pursued on the axis Aristophanes
Menander (Greek comedy) Plautus Terence (Iatin comedy)
Shakespeare, and so on. According to Northrop Frye, comedy is a low
mimetic mode: the characters are normal people like us, not exceptional
heroes, as in tragedy. The main structuring element oI the plot is
anagnorisis (or discovery), the crystallization oI a new society around
the hero. Frye considers that there are two ways oI developing the Iorm
oI comedy: either by throwing emphasis on the blocking characters (the
comedy oI manners) or by Iocusing on the scenes oI discovery and
reconciliation (as in Shakespeare and the romantic comedy). The
blocking characters (those who oppose the protagonists) are absurd;
they can be constructed on the basis oI the theory oI humours.
According to other theorists, like Marilyn French, comedy
presents a generalized, universal picture oI society. Comedy illustrates
the Ieminine principle, the pole oI sex and pleasure, opposed to the
masculine principle oI tragedy, the pole oI power. Tragedy is
Iocused on the struggle Ior power among men. It leads to the death oI
a hero, one who becomes the scapegoat oI an entire community in his
attempt to do away with chaos and restore order and harmony.
Tragedies deal with particular cases, with the Iate oI individuals.
Comedy presents a generalized, universal picture oI society. The
societies depicted in various comedies are not essentially diIIerent

18
Irom one another. Moreover, comedy does not Iocus on a single
protagonist; it presents the conIlicting interests oI several groups oI
characters. Woman holds a privileged position in comedy as she
guarantees the consolidation oI a new order through marriage and
procreation; she is a symbol oI stability and reconciliation.
The Iact that Shakespeare`s comedies have been dubbed by
literary historians high romantic comeaies is due to two aspects: they
are about love between young men and women (hence, romantic);
and they Ieature mostly people oI noble birth (hence, they are high).
Shakespeare also wrote aark comeaies, in which people sometimes die
and, despite their happy ending, the sombre atmosphere oI the plot is
pervasive, leaving spectators with a gloomy view on the society
depicted in them.
One oI the most popular dramatic Iorms in Shakespeare`s time
was the revenge plav, a kind oI tragedy in which the protagonist tries to
avenge the murder oI a loved one, sometimes at the prompting oI the
victim`s ghost. Thomas Kyd`s The Spanish Trageav, Christopher
Marlowe`s The Jew of Malta, Shakespeare`s Titus Anaronicus and
Hamlet, and John Webster`s The Duchess of Malfi are notable
examples. The sensationalist character oI these plays, originally derived
Irom Kyd`s imitation oI Seneca`s tragedies made historians label them
as blooa-ana-thunaer tragedies. Domestic trageav is quite a diIIerent
type oI tragedy, in which the leading characters belong to the middle
class rather than to the royal or noble ranks usually represented in
tragedies. The action concerns strictly Iamily aIIairs, not public matters
oI state. The best examples are the anonymous Araen of Feversham
(sometimes attributed to Kyd, Marlowe, and Shakespeare) and Thomas
Heywood`s A Woman Killea with Kinaness.

19


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA





The history oI English drama begins with the elaboration oI the
ecclesiastical liturgy in mutually answering dialogues. Other sources
are considered to be:
the pre-Christian Iestivals;
the Saint George and Robin Hood plays;
the Maypole dances;
various Iolk activities.
This means that English drama has both religious and secular
origins. As Ior its religious origins, the ritual oI the Christian church
with its two Iestivals oI Christmas and Easter, with Christ`s career
Irom birth to resurrection was inherently dramatic. The liturgy or
biblical story contributed to the development oI simple plays with
characters Irom both the New and the Ola Testament.
It is not quite a paradox that the Iirst two dramatic poems in the
French language, namely Aaam and Resurrection were written in
England in the twelIth century. AIter the Norman Conquest, drama
had been perIormed in Iatin by the pupils oI monastery schools. The
English Hilarius, a pupil oI Abelard`s, is one oI the Iirst dramatists oI
the eleventh century, who wrote in Iatin.
In 1264 the Corpus Christi Iestival was started by the Roman-
Catholic Church; it was a procession in which various craIts or guilds
perIormed scenes in the Iorm oI pageants.
The plays were originally perIormed in the closed space oI a church,
which was a diIIicult task to accomplish; thereIore, they moved out into the
churchyard, next into the market-place oI towns and, Iurther on, into a
convenient meadow. Iatin was gradually replaced by vernacular.
Three species are characteristic oI English medieval drama:
A. The mvsteries (the word has a French etymology) were
originally dumb-shows concerned with the liIe, death and resurrection
oI Christ.

20
B. The miracles presented the lives oI Christian saints and
martyrs. These biblical stories were perIormed on wagons known as
pageants`. Each pageant belonged to a certain craIt and presented just
one scene oI a whole cycle; the wagons Iollowed one another and
halted at certain spots where the crowds gathered to see their
perIormance. The Slaughter oI the Innocent` was Iollowed by The
Raising oI Iazarus` which, in turn, was Iollowed by The Iast
Supper`, and so on.
C. The moralities (or moralitv plavs) emerged some time later;
they did not deal with biblical stories and characters, but with
personiIied abstractions oI virtues and vices who struggle Ior man`s
soul. The battle Ior soul as a literary theme had its origin in the
allegorical epic Psvchomachia written by the Iatin poet Prudentius (c.
400 A. D.). Here virtues and vices appear in pairs: Ira versus Patientia;
Superbia versus Humilitas; Iibido versus Pudicitia, etc.
The Castle of Perseverance (c. 1425) presents the Iight between
the Good Angel versus the Bad Angel and the Seven Deadly Sins
throughout a man`s liIe, Irom birth to the Iast Judgement.
Evervman, possibly the adaptation oI a Dutch text, treats the
hour oI death. Knowledge is Everyman`s IaithIul Iriend to the last
moment oI his liIe, while Good Deeds will stay with him even aIter
his death. The philosophical depth oI this text accounts Ior its
universal echoes and Irequent comparisons with Oedipus, King Iear,
Arthur Miller`s Ioman, Voltaire`s Candide, Bunyan`s Christian or
various characters oI the theatre oI the absurd.
John Skelton, considered by Andrew Sanders to be the Iirst rap
poet oI all times (the IiIteenth century), is also known as the author oI
Magnificence, another outstanding morality play.
Towards the end oI the IiIteenth century a new dramatic Iorm
emerges: the interluae. It abounds in realistic and comic details and
has a secular character. This kind oI Iarcical show was best illustrated
by the works oI John Heywood.

21


THE RENAISSANCE. SHAKESPEARE`S
PREDECESSORS (1)





The second halI oI the sixteenth century mostly coincides with the
reign oI Queen Elisabeth I, hence its labelling as the Elizabethan age.
Gorboauc by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, c. 1561-1562,
is the Iirst remarkable English tragedy. It is the tale oI a divided
kingdom, civil war and the awIul consequences oI split authority. The
theme was derived Irom the mythical region oI early English history
(later explored by Shakespeare in King Lear and Cvmbeline).
The movement Irom the religious to the secular drama, in the
second halI oI the sixteenth century, led to the building oI outdoor
theatres like the Iamous The Globe, where Shakespeare`s Iellow-actors
played his Iamous tragedies and comedies. The typical Elizabethan
theatre was hexagonal in shape. It had three rooIed galleries encircling
an open courtyard. The plain, high stage projected into the yard, where
it was surrounded by the audience oI standing groundlings`. Two doors
were at the back Ior the actors` entrances and exits. Above these doors
was a balcony used Ior the musicians who sometimes provided
instrumental interludes, or Ior acting the above` scenes. Over the stage
was a thatched rooI, supported on two pillars. It seems to have been
painted with the sun, moon, and stars Ior the heavens`. A curtain
concealed a space underneath. It was used by actors who could ascend
or descend through a trap-door in the stage. Costumes and properties (or
props) were kept backstage, in the so-called tiring house`. The
Elizabethan stage did not use rich settings Iamiliar to modern
theatregoers. That is why the actors` words oIten explained the location
and the time oI the day where and when the action took place.
Acting on the Elizabethan stage was quite diIIerent Irom acting
in modern times. The Elizabethan actors had to express emotion in a
Ilamboyant style, mimicking various states oI mind with the
appropriate rhetoric, with the brows gathered in a menacing Irown,

22
teeth clenched, the right Iist shaken, the Ieet stamped to reinIorce the
violence oI emotion (Bertram Joseph). On the other hand, the actor
had to enable his listeners to experience the literary quality oI what
was pronounced. The voice was careIully trained by means oI
exercises similar to those used by modern opera singers. Voice and
gesture were equally important in perIormance in the process oI
turning rhetoric, style and Iigures, into characterisation.
The increasing interest in dramatic perIormances is mirrored by
the activity oI the proIessional companies oI actors. The Iirst such
company was set up in 1583 and, being employed in the queen`s
service, it was known as the Queen`s Men; another troupe, Iord
Strange`s Men changed its patron and name in 1594, when it became
the Iord Chamberlain`s Men. Iater, in 1603, it became the King`s
Men under the rule oI James I. A rival company was known as the
Iord Admiral`s Men. Several theatres were successively opened in
Iondon in the 1580s: The Theatre, The Curtain, The Rose, The Swan;
The Globe in 1595 and BlackIriars aIter 1600.
Most oI Shakespeare`s immediate predecessors belonged to the
group oI so-called university wits, proIessionals with academic degrees.
This chapter is dedicated to some oI the most important Elizabethan
novelists and playwrights that were Shakespeare`s contemporaries. Most oI
them started their literary careers a Iew years earlier than Shakespeare did
and died earlier than he did. That is why I have conventionally labelled
them as Shakespeare`s predecessors. This chapter is very important insoIar
as it shows that Shakespeare was not a solitary genius but one oI the many
great talents participating in a Ilourishing art and trade. Shakespeare`s
extraordinary work cannot be understood properly unless we place it in a
wider cultural context. Names like those oI Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd,
Thomas Nashe, and Christopher Marlowe are essentially related to the
development oI the Elizabethan drama. Without their contribution,
Shakespeare would not have been the great Shakespeare we are celebrating
today. The greatest oI these precursors is doubtless Christopher Marlowe.
His premature death is considered the greatest loss in the whole history oI
English literature. He exerted a strong inIluence on Shakespeare`s art
throughout the latter`s career.
1ohn Lyly (1553-1606) got B. A. and M. A. degrees in OxIord
and an M. A. in Cambridge.

23
In 1579 he published Euphues ana His Anatomv of Wit, a
successIul novel written in a complicated, highly artiIicial style
derived Irom the Iatin syntax oI Cicero.
Iyly replaced the Iourteeners oI his predecessors and he
established artiIicial prose as the means oI expression in comedy. His
most important contribution is the Iact that he was the Iirst to bring
together on the English stage the elements oI high comedy, thereby
preparing the way Ior Shakespeare`s Much Aao about Nothing and As
You Like It.
High comedy deals with cultivated people, aristocratic people
with subtle, reIined Ieelings. Iove is not the intense passion leading to
chains oI murders; it is not physical appetite, either. Iove is
sublimated, mere wishIul thinking, as in Campaspe.
Iyly`s Euphuism has its continental counterparts in Gongorism
(in Spain) and Marinism (in Italy). Shakespeare parodied Iyly`s
artiIicial style in Loves Labours Lost and Hamlet in the speech oI
characters such as Don Armado, HoloIernes and Osric.
George Peele (1558-1597) got his B. A. and M. A. in OxIord.
He started writing Ior money (and he only wrote when he was in need
oI it!).
The Ola Wives Tale (1589) is a Iairy-tale at Iirst narrated by the
wiIe oI a blacksmith; the stage is then populated by the characters and
the story is turned into a play. The passage Irom reality to Iiction and
illusion will be later employed by Corneille in L Illusion comique.
The invasion oI real liIe by Iiction and vice versa was also tackled by
Tom Stoppard in his parody The Real Inspector Houna in the 1960s.
Peele`s play is a clever satire on the romantic plays oI the day
criticized by Sidney in his Defence of Poesie Ior their conIusing,
tangled plot, their lack oI cause and their excessive use oI surprise. It
is the Iirst play oI dramatic criticism (or theatre oI theatre) and it is as
conIusing as any one oI the plays which it ridicules.
Peele is also remembered Ior his Iine poetry oI The Arraignment
of Paris.
Robert Greene (1558-1592) got his B. A. in Cambridge Iollowed
by an M. A. in Cambridge and OxIord. A natural-born bohemian spirit,
Greene ran away Irom home, Irom a wiIe who had been trying to
reIorm him; he got into various troubles at the universities he graduated;
and he died because oI too much wine and salted Iish.

24
Greene travelled extensively (to Italy, Spain, France, Germany,
Poland and Denmark). He read Castiglione, Ariosto and Machiavelli
at Iirst hand. He was a novelist, a pamphleteer and a playwright.
His plays are a skilIul mixture oI a realistic native background
and an atmosphere oI romance. Thomas Nashe called him a master oI
his craIt in the art oI plotting. Greene also had the ability to portray a
heroine who is charming as a personality, attractive as a woman and
convincing as a human being.
Friar Bacon ana Friar Bungav was written in answer to
Marlowe`s Doctor Faustus. The main character has been suggested by
Roger Bacon (1214-1292). Bacon, the Iamous Franciscan Iriar, was a
philosopher, linguist and visionary scientist with modern views such as
the much quoted Theory without practice is useless, practice without
theory is blind. Greene`s play is science-Iiction avant la lettre.
According to thirteenth century rumours, Bacon succeeded in creating a
robot, a talking head, by means oI magic and science. The subplot is
taken Irom the old romance oI Mellisant, a maid who had two suitors
and who preIerred the gentleman to the knight. In Greene`s play, the
Iair maid Margaret preIers Iacy, the Earl oI Iincoln, to the King.
Greene cleverly creates interest and suspense in binding together stories
and episodes that occur in OxIord, SuIIolk and at the Court.
In James IJ and Alphonsus he turns historical characters into
Iictional ones, inventing romantic episodes.
In George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefiela, the historical
background oI the plot is a revolt oI the treacherous lords helped by the
Scots against the king; characters such as Robin Hood, Maid Marian
and the pinner express the democratic views oI the lower classes.
Robert Greene had an essential contribution to the development
oI English drama. In his plays the love story becomes the central
element oI drama (everything else revolves around it). His Iemale
characters are as complex as Shakespeare`s Rosalind or Imogen and
Thomas Nashe called Greene the Homer oI Women. The main
Ieatures oI Greene`s plays are the perIect plot, their verisimilitude and,
above all, their simple human Ieeling. Finally, Greene is the Iather oI
the lower romantic comedy.
Although Greene bitterly attacked Shakespeare in a Iamous
pamphlet (A Groats Worth of Wit), calling him a Shake-scene, an
upstart crow and a Johannes Iactotum, Shakespeare paid a tribute

25
to Greene`s memory by using Greene`s pastoral romance Panaosto as
a source oI his The Winters Tale (1611).
Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) was a Cambridge graduate. As an
active pamphleteer, he was involved in all the political scandals oI the
age. Diao, Queen of Carthage was jointly written by him and
Marlowe. He also wrote The Isle of Dogs, now a lost play, Ior which
he was censured and nearly imprisoned.
Nowadays, Nashe is mostly remembered Ior the rich inIormation
stored in his pamphlets concerning his contemporaries and Ior what is
usually considered the Iirst English picaresque and realistic novel: Jack
Wilton or the Unfortunate Traveller (1594). It tells the humorous
adventures oI a page who travels across Europe; he accompanies Henry
Howard, Earl oI Surrey to Italy. In Rotterdam, they meet Erasmus and
Sir Thomas More; in Wittenberg, they meet Martin Iuther and the
Iamous magician Cornelius Agrippa. At Venice, Jack elopes with a
magniIico`s wiIe. In Florence, he meets his master again, the latter
entering a tournament. In Rome, the page is horriIied by the atmosphere
oI plague, robbery and murder, sodomy and rape; Castiglione`s ideal
courtier is considered the epitome oI Italian hypocrisy.
Nashe was not indebted to the Spanish La:arillo ae Tormes,
written at about the same time. In mingling history with Iiction, Nashe
proves to be original; his style is natural, Iamiliar. Nashe did not aim
at reIinement; sometimes he was even too vulgar in his colloquialism.
Shakespeare parodied this big-mouthed, arrogant enfant terrible
oI his age in Loves Labours Lost, in which Moth the page seems to
embody Nashe.
Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), an OxIord graduate, is the author
oI several pamphlets (deIending the stage), poems, sonnets, two
historical romances, some unimportant plays, and a novel, Rosalvnae,
the main source oI Shakespeare`s romantic comedy As You Like It.
Iodge brought his own literary career to a sudden end and gave
up writing. Perhaps he was aware oI his lack oI talent and preIerred to
earn his living as a physician.

26


THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE






The main idea underlying the Elizabethan world picture is that
oI oraer or degree. Edmund Spenser views order as opposed to
mutability; Shakespeare and his Iellow-dramatists view order as
opposed to chaos.
Order was perceived in three diIIerent ways. First, as the Great
Chain oI Being. This concept derives Irom Plato`s Timaeus via
Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists. Arthur O. Iovejoy in his study The
Great Chain of Being was the Iirst to theorize this universal concept
which survived Irom Plato up to the eighteenth century: no element
can be understood or, indeed, be what it is apart Irom its relation to all
the other components to which it belongs. The links in the chain are
displayed on the vertical, in the Iollowing order:
1) The angels, despite Copernicus`s revolutionary theories, were
regarded as the inhabitants oI the heavens as opposed to the sublunary
regions. They had a hierarchy oI their own, which had been discussed
by Dante. Plato and Genesis stated that man could hear the music oI
the celestial spheres beIore the Fall.
2) The stars and Iortunes. The stars conditioned man`s Iortune.
Fortune was perceived as a wheel.
3) The Iour elements: Iire, air, water and ground (earth);
4) Man as the result oI the Iour humours corresponding to the
Iour elements:
melancholy earth
phlegm-water
choler Iire
blood air
Man`s brain contained:
the Iive senses;
common sense, Iancy, memory;

27
reason (the combination oI wit, i. e. understanding, and will).
According to this pattern, Shakespeare`s Iear and Othello lack
wit, while Hamlet and Macbeth lack will.
5)Animals, plants and minerals.
The Great Chain oI Being is discussed by Ulysses in his Iamous
speech on degree` in Troilus ana Cressiaa by Shakespeare; it is also
reIerred to by Alexander Pope in his Essav on Man. It was minutely
depicted in E.M.W. Tillyard`s book The Eli:abethan Worla Picture.
Tillyard`s view, much discredited nowadays, promoted the image oI
Shakespeare as an entirely conventional thinker, whose plays
necessarily express the political, moral and philosophical outlook oI
those who ruled his world.
Secondly, the corresponding planes, displayed on the horizontal,
connected:
celestial powers to other creations;
macrocosm to body politic (as in Shakespeare`s chronicle plays);
macrocosm to microcosm (as in King Lear);
body politic to microcosm (as in Macbeth).
Thirdly, creation was viewed as a dance, the cosmic dance,
another metaphor Ior cosmic order and cosmic harmony.

28


SHAKESPEARE`S PREDECESSORS (2)




Christopher Marlowe
Marlowe (1564-1593), the son oI a Canterbury shoemaker, took
his M. A. in Cambridge. He lived an adventurous liIe: he was a soldier
in the Netherlands, and a secret agent oI the English crown. He was
murdered Ior his would-be heretical or atheistic views, at the order oI
the Privy Council (the Queen`s secret police).
Once considered one oI Marlowe`s minor works, The Massacre
at Paris is being now reconsidered as an important text Iocusing on
the struggle Ior political power. The play, oI which only Iragments
have survived, deals with the bloody events oI St. Bartholomew`s
Night (1572).
The Trageav of Diao, Queen of Carthage a joint eIIort, with
Nashe as a co-author, is written in a bombastic language later parodied
by Shakespeare in Hamlet. The heroine appears to have a true-to-liIe
psychology, anticipating Shakespeare`s Iemale characters. The play
tackles the theme oI pity as the Iirst step towards love, also developed
by Shakespeare in the love story oI Miranda and Ferdinand, in The
Tempest.
Marlowe`s great tragedies present titanic characters with whom
many literary critics have tried to identiIy Marlowe himselI and his
aspirations.
^ Tamburlaine the Great (Part I and Part II) presents the exploits
oI a great conqueror. The play has an epic structure, it is a sequence oI
successive scenes without a plot. Tamburlaine is a proud, ambitious,
selIish, paranoid, cruel tyrant, who does not hesitate to kill even his
own son. Tamburlaine calls himselI the scourge oI God. This phrase
had been Iirst used by Europeans during the Hunic invasion led by
Attila in the IiIth century A. D. People regarded him as a punishment
inIlicted by God. Tamburlaine`s only human Ieelings concern
Zenocrate (who evolves Irom being a captive to becoming his wiIe).

29
Her evolution reminds us oI Chrtien de Troyes`s Iodinia in Yvain
and Shakespeare`s Princess Anne in Richara III (both widows oI the
slain knights become the wives oI their Iormer husbands` murderers).
Tamburlaine, in Stephen Greenblatt`s words, is a machine, a
desiring machine that produces violence and death.once set in
motion, this thing cannot slow down or change course; it moves at the
same Irenzied pace until it Iinally stops. He is proud, arrogant and
blasphemous; he lusts Ior power, betrays his allies, overthrows
legitimate authority, and threatens the gods; he rises to the top oI the
wheel oI Iortune and then steadIastly reIuses to budge.(.) The
slaughter oI thousands, the murder oI his own son, the torture oI his
royal captives are all without apparent consequence . Tamburlaine`s
violence reduces the world to a map, the very emblem oI abstraction.
Tamburlaine constructs his own identity out oI phrases picked up or
overheard: I that am term`d the Scourge and Wrath oI God` (Part I,
II.3). Iike the gold taken Irom uncautious travellers or the troops lured
away Irom other princes, Tamburlaine`s identity is something
appropriated, seized Irom others. He can Iinally be deIeated only by
illness and death.
Tamburlaine`s unequalled success made many envious detractors
attack his bombast and brag.
^ Marlowe`s next success was Doctor Faustus. Marlowe`s
immediate source was the German Faustbuch by an anonymous
author, published by Johann Spiess in 1587. The same story was later
used by Goethe. Faustus, a German quack, Iirst appears in literature in
a brieI poem by Hans Sachs. With Marlowe, the tragical history oI
Doctor Faustus is a boldly drawn study oI the pride oI intellect.
Marlowe`s Faustus is a learned man thirsting Ior absolute knowledge
and power (John Keats will later assert, too, that knowledge is
power). Faustus signs a contract with the devil; the latter will become
the master oI Faustus`s soul aIter the lapse oI 24 years during which
he must satisIy Faustus`s requests. As Stephen Greenblatt has noticed
in his essay Marlowe ana the Will to Absolute Power, the hero
concludes the signing oI the Iatal deed with the words Consummatum
est`. The Gospel oI John in the New Testament describes Christ`s
death as Iollows: When Jesus thereIore had received the vinegar, he
said it is Iinished (consummatum est): and he bowed his head, and
gave up the ghost`. Christ`s thirst is not identical to the body`s normal
longing Ior drink, but an enactment oI that longing, so that he may

30
Iully accomplish the role darkly preIigured in the Ola Testament. The
drink oI vinegar is the Iinal structural element in the realization oI his
identity. Faustus`s use oI Christ`s words evokes the archetypal act oI
role-taking. His blasphemy is an ambiguous equation oI himselI with
Christ, Iirst as God, then as dying man.
Faustus begins a course oI restless wandering, but at the close oI
twenty-Iour years, he Ieels a compulsion to return to Wittenberg.
Nothing in the signed agreement or in any oI the devil`s speeches
requires that Faustus has to pay his liIe where he originally contracted
to sell it; the urge is apparently in Faustus, as iI he Ielt there were a
Iatality in the place he had undertaken his studies, Ielt it appropriate
and even necessary to die there and nowhere else. Marlowe closely
sticks to the plot oI his German source. The battle oI the angels is
reminiscent oI the morality plays and their psvchomachia. Faustus is
ultimately a prototype oI the man oI science (hence Robert Greene`s
response with his Friar Bacon). In Ieon Ievi chi`s opinion, book is
the key-word oI a play dealing with books oI magic, books oI science
and the Scriptures.
The Iirst edition oI the play was published long aIter Marlowe`s
death, which makes it impossible to establish the extent oI
interpolations (i. e. additions), deletions and revisions by other authors.
The comic scenes must have been added by someone else in an attempt
to meet the taste oI the audience and to mitigate Marlowe`s challenging
attitude.
^ The Jew of Malta is Marlowe`s only revenge play. The
action takes place in the enclosed space oI an island. The plot evolves
around the evil scheming oI a strong, ambitious character: Barabas.
Iike Tamburlaine, he, too, kills his progeny (his daughter) without a
bit oI remorse. Barabas`s Iortune is seized by the governor oI Malta
and paid as a tribute to the Turks. His revenge mirrors Machiavelli`s
principle that the aim justiIies the means.
Machiavelli himselI appears in the Prologue. Barabas is subtler
than Tamburlaine, he can subdue his Iury and plot quietly, he is
intelligent. Barabas exalts the power oI gold; Timon (in Shakespeare)
will later curse it, but Volpone will share Barabas`s views (in Ben
Jonson`s comedy). The Iather-daughter relation (Barabas vs. Abigail)
was again a source oI inspiration Ior Shakespeare (see Shylock vs.
Jessica in The Merchant of Jenice).

31
Beyond Barabas`s personal revenge, The Jew of Malta also
depicts Renaissance international relations as a kind oI gloriIied
gangsterism, a vast protection racket, in which the Turks exact
tribute Irom the Christians, the Christians expropriate money Irom the
Jews and the religious orders compete Ior wealthy converts. Thus,
Barabas`s very identity is determined by the Christian society around
him. His actions are always responses to the initiatives oI others: not
only is the plot oI the whole play set in motion by the Governor`s
expropriation oI his wealth, but each oI the Jew`s particular plots is a
reaction to what he perceives as a provocation or a threat.
An interesting parallel might be drawn between the language oI
Barabas and that oI Shakespeare`s wicked Richard III. M. C.
Bradbrook has noticed that Richard`s language, like his person, is
diametrically opposed to the main pattern oI the play. It is proverbial,
Iull oI old saws, the diction oI common liIeused as disguised`, while
Greenblatt suggests that proverbs in The Jew of Malta are recurrently
used by Barabas to de-individualize him`, to render him more and
more typical.
^ The Troublesome Reign ana Lamentable Death of Eawara II is
based on Raphael Holinshed`s chronicle. This play came to be
considered a tragedy without a hero. The gay king is deposed by
Queen Isabella, his wiIe, and Young Mortimer, her lover; then, he is
imprisoned and murdered. These events are also told by Maurice
Druon in Les Rois mauaits. Eawara II is the Iirst important English
chronicle play, with the main Ieatures oI this dramatic species,
namely:
the didactic intention;
the patriotic motiI awakening a strong national consciousness;
the romantic intention (the artistic relieI Irom contemporary
conditions).
The chronicle play is an eIIort to analyze, by dramatic means,
the development oI character. It is a study oI character. Unlike
Marlowe`s previous characters, Edward II is not a titanic Iigure, but a
weak man. He has been oIten compared with Shakespeare`s Richard
II. Marlowe`s chronicle does not reach the imaginative range oI
Tamburlaine or Faustus; nor does it reach the height oI great tragedy;
and, yet, as an eIIort to interpret history on the stage, it is one oI the
best in genre.

32
Marlowe`s heroes, perhaps like Marlowe himselI, Iashion
themselves not in loving submission to an absolute authority but in selI-
conscious opposition: Tamburlaine against hierarchy, Barabas against
Christianity, Faustus against God, Edward against the sanctiIied rites
and responsibilities oI kingship, marriage and manhood. For Marlowe,
all objects oI desire are Iictions, theatrical illusions shaped by human
subjects.
^ Marlowe`s style appears as compact, continuous. Unlike
Shakespeare, Marlowe did not have time enough to evolve as an artist.
One cannot distinguish several phases oI his style, a youthIul phase
Irom a mature one. His style is characterized by the persistent use oI
hyperbole, the weak construction oI his plays, the lack oI humour, the
one-man and no-woman limitations. And yet, Marlowe`s art (despite all
its exaggerations and lack oI empathy) is a prooI that the Iundamental
structure oI Elizabethan drama lies not in the narrative or in the
character, but in the words. Marlowe`s verse is epic, at times lyrical,
rarely dramatic. Ben Jonson wrote about Marlowe`s mighty line.
Marlowe`s vigorous verse is the iambic pentameter, the blank verse
inherited Irom Henry Howard. He transIormed it Irom a stiII and
monotonous into a Ilexible and varied meter; he reduced the number oI
end-stopped lines in Iavour oI the run-on lines; he mingled iambic Ieet
with various other Ieet. Shakespeare and Milton Iurther contributed to
the Ilexibility oI the blank verse.
^ Many critics claim that Marlowe may have had a hand in the
composition oI Shakespeare`s early plays Titus Anaronicus, Henrv JI
(Part II and Part III) and Richara III.
1homas Kyd
Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) was the son oI a city scrivener. In
school, he was Edmund Spenser`s Iellow and later on he shared his
Iondon lodging with Marlowe. He was involved in the dubious
circumstances that led to Marlowe`s death and he himselI mysteriously
disappeared one year later, never to be seen anymore.
Together with Marlowe, Kyd was the most popular pre-
Shakespearean dramatist oI his age.
The Spanish Trageav Iollows the Senecan pattern oI revenge
play as established in Thvestes. Kyd inaugurates the blood-and-
thunder type oI tragedy, the main elements oI which are IOVE,

33
CONSPIRACY, MURDER and VIOIENCE. The theme oI revenge
Irequently occurs in two types oI tragedies:
a) the rise and Iall tragedies oI ambition;
b) the Italianate tragedies oI intrigue.
Kyd`s play inaugurated a long series oI Elizabethan revenge plays
including, among others, Marlowe`s Jew of Malta, Shakespeare`s Titus
Anaronicus and Hamlet, etc. In spite oI its long rhetorical outbursts, the
speed oI action in The Spanish Trageav is tremendous, event Iollowing
on event. The play abounds in so-called purple passages oI good
poetry. The speedy dialogue is achieved by the Irequent use oI
stichomythia, the rapid Iiring oI one-line cues. As Ior the characters,
they are sketchy, simply divided into positive and negative, good and
bad ones.
The Spanish Trageav is Hamlet`s direct Iorerunner in many
respects:
the revenge theme is introduced by the appearance oI a ghost;
the staging oI a play-within-a play, with the characters acting
as audience;
the real or Ieigned madness oI the hero;
the Machiavellian malicious plotting;
Hieronomo and Hamlet as revengers have become a commonplace
oI academic studies.
Kyd`s style is also detectable in the style oI Shakespeare`s early
tragedies, characterized by the use oI schemata and patterned speech
(i.e. repetition and parallelism, Senecan rhetoric not typical oI
Marlowe and Greene, but highly developed in Kyd). Compare
Hieronimo`s outburst
O eyes, no eyes, but Iountains Iraught with tears!
O liIe, no liIe, but lively Iorm oI death!
O world, no world, but mass oI public wrongs,
ConIused and Iilled with murder and misdeeds!
with Queen Margaret`s lament in Shakespeare`s Richara III:
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill`d him;
I had a Harry, till a Richard kill`d him;
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill`d him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill`d him.
Unlike Kyd, Shakespeare was inIluenced by Senecan philosophy
rather than Senecan tragedy. Hamlet is no longer a mere blood-and-
thunder play. It is also a tragedy oI power, a historical play, a political

34
play, a philosophical play. Hamlet`s philosophy resembles in turn that
oI Montaigne, Sartre, Camus, KaIka or Malraux. His revenge becomes
a tragic dilemma; he is overwhelmed by his assignment, by his
responsibility: The time is out oI joint. O, cursed spite! / That ever I
was born to set it right.
The old Hieronimo, on the other hand, moves Iast in settling his
accounts with the murderers oI his son.
One oI the Iascinating mysteries oI English literature is the still
unsolved Ur-Hamlet controversy. Could Thomas Kyd be the author
oI an unpublished, now lost play entitled Hamlet? Thomas Nashe, in
his 1589 PreIace to Robert Greene`s pastoral novel Menaphon, alludes
to a Hamlet in his attack against Kyd. This means that Shakespeare`s
play might be just an extensively revised version oI an older text.
Thus, Hamlet could be interpreted as an inverted mirror oI The
Spanish Trageav. Ten characters die in both plays and each character
in one play has his or her counterpart in the other play; these
characters going in pairs belong to diIIerent generations. The Spanish
Trageav, with its abrupt, horrible ending lacks two essential
characters: one who should tell the story to the dissatisIied (i. e. a
Horatio) and one to set things right (i. e. a Fortinbras).

35


SHAKESPEARE THE PLAYWRIGHT





^ The text oI Shakespeare`s plays poses a number oI diIIicult
questions. What we read today is not exactly what Shakespeare
himselI wrote centuries ago. The dramatists used to sell their plays to
theatrical companies; the author regarded himselI as having no Iurther
rights in them.
Several great editors contributed throughout the centuries to the
present day Iorm oI the Shakespeare Canon.
Nicholas Rowe published Shakespeare`s plays in six octavo
volumes in 1709. One oI his Iamous emendations turned the Iollowing
cue in Twelfth Night, Some are become great into Some are born
great.
The neo-classical poet Alexander Pope, despite his pretentious
preIace, proved to be a mediocre editor: he purged the irrelevant
passages Irom the text, transIorming them into Iootnotes (1725).
Iewis Theobald, with his 1734 edition, remains Shakespeare`s
most important emendator.
Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his 1765 edition, proved to be skilled
in interpreting obscure passages.
Edward Capell (1768) elaborated stage directions and improved
the previous correction oI disarranged meter. He was the Iirst to ascribe
Eawara III to Shakespeare (in 1760).
George Steevens (1773) granted Pericles a place in the canon
Ior good; he was the Iirst to write an essay on the chronology oI
Shakespeare`s plays.
The process oI emending is an on-going process; every new
edition oI a Shakespeare play brings in new conjectures, new
explanations, new readings. That is why editing Shakespeare requires
both much knowledge and plenty oI time.
^ In his Iamous Eulogv, Ben Jonson wrote that Shakespeare knew
small Iatin and less Greek. The allusions in his plays show that

36
Shakespeare was a reader rather than a scholar. And yet, his readings
were varied and vast. He read translations rather than original versions.
He was acquainted with the works oI Iatin authors such as Ovid
(the most popular Iatin poet during the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, especially due to his Amores and Metamorphoses), Vergil,
Terence, Plautus (whose Menaechmi he adapted in The Comeav of
Errors) and Seneca. As Ior the latter`s inIluence, Polonius`s speech to
Iaertes, This above all, is inspired by Seneca`s Letters to Lucilius.
Shakespeare`s small Iatin and less Greek also reIers to the
Iact that he extensively used the translations oI Plutarch`s Lives and
Homer`s Iliaa (the Iormer by North, the latter by Chapman).
As Ior French, Shakespeare spoke it well. This Iact is proved by
the long passages in Henrv J written in French. Montaigne`s Essavs
inIluenced Shakespeare`s philosophy oI liIe and Rabelais`s Gargantua
is explicitly mentioned in As You Like It.
The Italian novella (or short-story) exerted a strong inIluence on
the content oI Elizabethan drama. As Ior Shakespeare, he borrowed
the subject oI Cvmbeline, Alls Well That Enas Well and The
Merchant of Jenice Irom Boccaccio; the subject oI Romeo ana Juliet,
Much Aao about Nothing and Twelfth Night Irom Bandello; the
subject oI Measure for Measure and Othello Irom Giraldi Cinthio.
English literature also provided literary Iorms and authors worth
learning Irom. The English popular ballads, the medieval romances,
Chaucer, Gower, Iodge and Greene are part oI a literary tradition that
helped Shakespeare emerge as the greatest literary creator oI all times.
Philip Sidney`s Arcaaia oIIered Shakespeare the subplot oI King
Lear, while Edmund Spenser`s The Faerie Queene oIIered him a
version oI the story oI Iear. It is hard to say that Shakespeare
plagiarized his contemporary Iellow-dramatists, but he oIten quoted
Kyd, Iyly and Peele line by line, and was also plundered, in turn, by
his colleagues.
One cannot overlook the Bible as a major source oI inspiration
Ior all authors in all ages.
*
In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom contends that Shakespeare`s
genius dwarIs all oI his predecessors, and yet, every now and then, he is
ready to admit that Shakespeare`s Aaron the Moor, Richard III, and
Shylock owe something to Marlowe`s hero-villains; that, although the

37
Freudian map oI the mind is Shakespeare`s`, The Canterburv Tales
anticipates depth psychology in contrast to moral psychology`; that the
WiIe oI Bath and the Pardoner serve as prototypes Ior Shakespeare`s
FalstaII and Iago, respectively; that, like Iago, Chaucer`s Pardoner
combines the giIts oI dramatist or storyteller, actor and director, being a
supreme moral psychologist and a pioneering depth psychologist.
As one can easily notice, Bloom discards Marlowe quite hastily.
He wrongly names Marlowe a precursor`; next, resorting to his own
jargon constructed around the anxiety oI inIluence`, Bloom views
Shakespeare`s characters as a strong misreading or creative
misinterpretation oI Marlowe`s villains`; then, he Iinally dumps
Marlowe on grounds that with the advent oI FalstaII (.) Marlowe
became only the way not to go, on the stage as in liIe`. The same
contemptuous tone Ior Marlowe reverberates throughout A.I. Rowse`s
Shakespeare the Man.
While Harold Bloom has overtly chosen to deIine Christopher
Marlowe as a man who can be meditated upon endlessly, as the plays
cannot`, Jonathan Bate (shall we read this academic discord as an
instance oI Oedipal struggle?) has strongly contended that Bloom`s
anxiety oI inIluence is more applicable to the relationship between
Shakespeare and Marlowe than Bloom himselI admits. Unlike Bloom,
who excludes Shakespeare Irom his argument about the anxiety oI
inIluence on the grounds that his prime precursor was Marlowe, a
poet very much smaller than his inheritor`, Bate is not so sure that
Shakespeare knew that he was very much greater than Marlowe`. Bate
painstakingly and convincingly argues that some oI Shakespeare`s
works are not merely antithetical readings oI Marlovian precursors,
but they are his verv anxiety about Marlowe, that some oI his most
characteristic thinking about reading, writing, and theatricalizing
occurs during his engagements with Marlowe, (.) that one oI
Shakespeare`s key metaphors Ior such thinking is murder`. Moreover,
Bate also suggests that Shakespeare only became Shakespeare
because oI the death oI Marlowe. And he remained peculiarly haunted
by that death`. The idea is not original, it has been upheld by many
biographers and Iilm-script writers; it is part and parcel oI the popular,
established view oI the relationship between the two authors. So, the
more surprising is Harold Bloom`s attitude. What is original in Bate`s
approach is the long series oI textual parallels he patiently analyses in
order to endorse his view that Shakespeare was born as a dramatist by

38
way oI his strong (mis)reading oI Marlowe, and that he matured as an
author by grace oI the (mis)Iortune oI his dramatic brother`. Bate
implicitly replaces the Iather-son Oedipal struggle by a struggle
between siblings, two authors born in the same year, 1564. He also
extends the period oI Shakespeare`s anxiety to the date when he wrote
The Tempest. It was then that Shakespeare could at last shake oII the
Ietters oI Marlovian inIluence: Doctor Faustus` black magic was
overthrown by Prospero`s white magic. This means that the liberated`
Shakespeare only had time to write (or, rather, co-write) two more
plays, Henrv JIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Sentimentally
speaking, Ior anyone who really loves Shakespeare, Marlowe`s ghost
will always be there, in the tissue oI the Shakespearean text.
But here is the other side oI the coin: some scholars have
detected Shakespearean echoes in Marlowe`s work, and thus have
overthrown the traditional view that it was only Shakespeare who had
to learn Irom Marlowe. Muriel Bradbrook noticed long ago that in
Eawara II Marlowe
was developing very rapidly, both technically and in the more
important senses. It might even be hazarded that he was
developing towards a more Shakespearean` style, Ior in Eawara
II there can be Iound the most Iormalised qualities oI Ieeling and
the most naturally human.
A.I. Rowse noticed that at the date when Shakespeare had his
Jenus ana Aaonis published by Richard Field, Marlowe`s Hero ana
Leanaer was unIinished. The Marlovian` echoes in Shakespeare may
turn out to have been Shakespearean` inIluences on Marlowe. The
best guess in this case is that, perhaps, the two poets were engaged in
an amicable competition and not only knew oI each other`s work but
also closely consulted one another. This would explain Shakespeare`s
anxiety voiced in the eight sonnets wherein the rival poet` is a strong
presence. It would also explain Shakespeare`s aIIection Ior the dead
shepherd` he evokes in As You Like It. II Shakespeare aia inIluence
Marlowe beIore Marlowe`s untimely death, the early start` theory is
to gain more credibility. Honigmann contends (and his view is
endorsed by Nye among others) that between 1587 and 1593
Shakespeare had written no less than nine plays, that is plenty oI
material to inIluence a developing Marlowe. Ur-Hamlet, the early
version oI Hamlet, alluded to by Nashe in 1589 would be the tenth

39
play on this list. The idea oI Marlowe and Shakespeare`s mutual
inIluence should gain ground in the aItermath oI the latest studies in
stylometry (or, computational stylistics). Plays previously appended to
the Shakespeare apocrypha (Araen of Faversham, Locrine) turned out
to suggest the possibility oI Marlowe as a candidate Ior authorship`.
One oI the very Iew issues in which Shakespeare scholars seem
to have reached some consensus oI opinion is the Iact that
Shakespeare`s status as a proIessional actor was the one trump card that
was unavailable to his contemporary Iellow-dramatists. Anthony
Burgess, Robert Nye, and Peter Thomson, among others, insist on this
aspect. Burgess, in his quasi-Iictional biography oI Shakespeare
imagines a tavern dialogue between the Author and Richard Burbage, in
which the two men discuss the diIIerence between Ilat characters and
round characters, between timeless characters and characters bound by
the then Iashionable theory oI the Iour humours that determine human
behaviour. Robert Nye also points out that many oI Shakespeare`s
heroes are the biological alter egos (in age and capabilities) oI Burbage
the actor. Many parts in Shakespeare`s plays were precisely written Ior
some oI the dramatist`s Iellow-actors: they were adapted to serve the
skills oI, say, Will Kemp, Robert Armin, or Augustine Phillips. Both
Marlowe`s and Shakespeare`s characters Iashion their identities by
assuming roles. The Iormer never stop to think that such roles are
precisely Ilimsy theatrical impersonations`, while the latter usually stop
to overhear themselves, as Bloom would put it. This capacity oI selI-
reIlection and selI-transIormation allows Iago and Viola to say, I am
not what I am`, but, as Iionel Trilling has remarked, almost every one
oI Shakespeare`s most memorable characters could have said that, as
well:
Rosalind is not a boy, Portia is not a doctor oI law, Juliet is not a
corpse, the Duke Vincentio is not a Iriar, Edgar is not Tom o`
Bedlam, Hermione is neither dead, nor a statue, Helena is not
Diana, Mariana is not Isabella.
Marlowe`s characters invest everything in their aspirations;
Shakespeare`s are more Ilexible, they are not what they are.
*
II we examine the political context in which Shakespeare wrote,
conIining ourselves to the realm oI literature and leaving aside the
political conspiracies oI various Iactions, we will be amazed at the high

40
incidence oI persecution by the crown among the literati oI
Shakespeare`s age. Most oI these were Shakespeare`s acquaintances,
Iellow-artists, and even Iriends. Christopher Marlowe murdered at the
age oI twenty-nine; Ben Jonson imprisoned several times, branded Ior
murder and interrogated Ior having to do with people involved in the
Gun Powder Plot; Thomas Kyd threatened with torture by the Privy
Council; Thomas Nashe persecuted Ior The Isle of Dogs, obliged to
take reIuge in Yarmouth (today not only the text oI that play is lost but
we do not have the slightest idea about its very subject, either);
Ferdinando, Iord Strange, an active patron oI actors poisoned;
Chapman and Marston imprisoned Ior having written a satirical play;
the Iord Chamberlain`s Men investigated Ior having perIormed
Richara II on the eve oI the Essex rebellion; Everard Guilpin`s satiric
poem Skialatheia (1598) burnt at the order oI the authorities; the
manuscript oI Fulke Greville`s Antonv ana Cleopatra burnt by the
poet himselI lest he should be accused oI allusions to Essex and
Elizabeth; John Hayward imprisoned in the Tower because oI a
dedication to Essex on the Iirst page oI a historical writing about Henry
IV; the active suppression oI any perIormance oI Troilus ana Cressiaa
during Shakespeare`s liIetime; the suppression oI Gowrv (possibly by
Shakespeare), oI Ben Jonson`s Sefanus, and George Chapman`s Biron;
Thomas Nashe`s Irequent complaints about the obsession oI the
authorities to hunt Ior allusions all these cases obviously prove that
Shakespeare did not live and write in propitious circumstances. It was a
time Ior measuring one`s survival instincts against the circumstances:
John Dover Wilson`s Merry England was, in Iact, almost a proto-
Gulag.
The mechanism oI censorship in Shakespeare`s age was eIIicient
and ubiquitous. It covered the two main areas oI supply side oI culture,
i.e. the theatrical activities oI the actors` companies and the printing oI
books. The Revels` OIIice as a permanent agency had been established
in 1545. The Stationers` Company, Iounded in 1557, were obliged to
present the authorities the title and subject oI each and every printed
book. No book could be actually printed without the prior consent oI the
authorities. Ecclesiastic censors could prohibit, or stay` the issue oI
undesirable texts. This mechanism partly explains such anomalous
incidents as the near-suppression oI Troilus ana Cressiaa and the
successIul suppression oI Pericles Irom the First Folio. According to
recent studies, almost no play by Shakespeare managed to escape either

41
brutal censorship (suppression, massive reshaping, postponed printing:
Eawara III, Pericles, Troilus ana Cressiaa, the lost play Loves
Labours Won, etc.) or suggestions oI having passages rewritten (the
second, posthumous edition oI King Lear is the best example).
Eawara III by William Shakespeare alone, or by Shakespeare and
an anonymous collaborator, was certainly a suppressed text. The play`s
author Iaded into convenient anonymity oI his own accord. As one oI
the King`s Men, Shakespeare chose instead to Ilatter his sovereign
every now and then. He knew what had happened to Thomas Nashe,
whose books were banned by John WhitgiIt, the Archbishop oI
Canterbury in June 1599. And he could also witness the great scandal oI
1605, when George Chapman and Ben Jonson were imprisoned Ior
having written Eastwara Ho', a play that satirized the rapacity and
ambition oI the Scottish upstarts invading Jacobean Iondon. In the
introduction to the Romanian translation oI the play I contend that had
Eawara III been revived with all due amendments and cuts during the
reign oI King James, it still might have been censored by the Master oI
the Revels on several grounds.
The absence oI Pericles Irom the 1623 Folio has been explained
by most editors and critics on grounds oI double, uncertain authorship
and oI copyright complications. Back in 1976 Willem Schrickx did
revive an earlier theory that had established disturbing connections
between Shakespeare`s romance play and Catholicism. Schrickx
discovered Pericles listed in a handwritten catalogue oI books dated
1619, which had been in the possession oI the English Jesuit mission
established in Saint-Omer. The 124 books are mostly concerned with
attacking the considerable body oI anti-Catholic legislation passed by
Parliament in the wake oI the Gunpowder Plot oI November 1605.
Pericles is the only play in the catalogue. Schrickx deplored the Iact that
an earlier article by C.J. Sisson had passed unnoticed by the modern
editors oI Pericles. According to Sisson, the play was perIormed by a
Catholic provincial company led by the actor William Harrison: Their
travelling career was chequered by Iear oI arrest, by pursuits, Ilight and
escape, because oI the part they played in the religious conIlicts oI the
time, Ior they were Catholics and their persuasion and that oI the most
oI their audiences was reIlected in their perIormance`.
Being persecuted by the Star Chamber, they played Irom printed
books only, not Irom prompt books. Four titles have come down to us

42
Irom the repertory oI this Catholic troupe: Saint Christopher, Pericles,
The Travels of the Three English Brothers, and King Lear.
Now, coincidences start piling up: 1) George Wilkins is one oI the
co-authors oI The Travels of Three English Brothers; 2) the same
George Wilkins is the co-author oI Pericles, a play that he later rewrote
as a prose narrative; 3) in 1608 Wilkins was charged with being a
recusant in Iondon; 4) both Pericles and The Travels of the Three
English Brothers appealed to a Catholic audience by emphasising the
themes oI patience and redemption, typical Ieatures oI a saint`s liIe; 5)
Pericles was perIormed on two Iestive occasions, in honour oI the
visiting ambassadors oI Venice and France, both oI which were
Catholics; 6) it is not only the cyclical pattern oI loss-suIIering-reunion
that points to hagiography and Catholic dogma, but the use oI emblems
in the tournament scene (II. 2), a regular Ieature oI the receptions
organized by the Jesuit colleges Ior visiting princes`; 7) the Jesuits
themselves perIormed plays in English at their theatre in Saint-Omer,
and Pericles may well have been on the repertory oI the Jesuit theatre`.
All these details dovetail with the latest theories about Shakespeare`s
crypto-Catholicism.
The Cambridge editors acknowledge that, the notion, then, that
Heminge and Condell might have stayed their hands on Pericles because
they knew it to be collaborative is hard to sustain` but they reIrain Irom
adhering to the suppression theory. However they provide a clue that
Iurther substantiates Schrickx`s and Sisson`s Iindings: Wilkins` The
Travels of the Three English Brothers was perIormed by Queen Anne`s
Men. And most historians now agree that Anne oI Denmark was a
Catholic. Her circle oI Iriends and associates included notorious papists
such as the Earl and the Countess oI Huntly, the Duke oI Iennox, and
Alexander Seton. When Anne became Queen oI England, she included
among her Iavourites Southampton, a Iormer Catholic, and Ben Jonson,
the intermittently Catholic Poet Iaureate. During her liIetime, she had a
tolerant husband, who entertained the idea oI reuniting the divided
Christendom. The King went as Iar as establishing diplomatic contacts
with the Pope. However, aIter the Queen`s demise in the spring oI 1619,
King James was Iaced with growing anti-Catholic pressure, which came
to be sanctioned by Parliament in 1621. Publishing Pericles in 1623 may
have turned out to be a hot issue. It had to wait until the second print oI
the Third Folio issued in 1664. The Ilip side oI the 1623 possible
suppression is that Pericles was the Iirst play to be perIormed in 1660,

43
when the Stuarts returned Irom their eleven-year exile. Fiction and reality
overlapped as King Charles II`s career obviously echoed Pericles` trials
and tribulations, those oI a young and admirable ruler, unjustly driven
Irom his country, reduced at one point to dressing in the clothes oI poor
Iishermen, but ultimately restored to happiness and power`.
Shakespeare, as a possible crypto-Catholic, was more cautious
than any oI his Iellow-dramatists and subsequently was his own Iirst
censor (especially as a distant relative oI Edward Arden, who had
been beheaded and quartered back in 1583); that Shakespeare was
neither as neutral, nor as complicit with the oIIicial ideology oI his
day, as New Historicists and cultural materialists usually claim; that,
on the contrary, he had strong aIIiliations with inIluential personalities
that, under diIIerent circumstances, might have attempted to change
the course oI history.
*
Being a capitalist, a Ireelance entrepreneur depending on the
economic dimension oI his corporate activity as a main share holder in
the leading theatrical company oI the age, Shakespeare had to cater to
the public taste, to IulIil his audience`s horizon oI expectations. Today
it is clear that he sought to gain immortality through the two poems
dedicated to Southampton, while his plays were wrought` to the good
purpose oI immediate proIit.
The business success oI the acting companies depended on the
players` Iame rather than on the authors`. David Scott Kastan has
remarked upon the irony oI a telling exchange unIolding in the Iilm
Shakespeare in Love: Who`s that?` No one. The author.` The very
idea oI authorship was contested beIore 1616. When Ben Jonson took
the pains to collect his plays in a Iolio titled Works he incurred the irony
and contempt oI many a Iellow-dramatist. Plays were hardly regarded
as works`. The lack oI Shakespeare`s name Irom the title page oI his
plays published beIore 1598 substantiates the Iact that drama was still
subliterary`. Moreover, most published plays advertised their theatrical
auspices`, emphasizing the Iact that even Ior published plays` the
readership was understood primarily as theatregoers`.
ThereIore, not surprisingly, Shakespeare has been censured
repeatedly Ior his indiscriminate pandering to the vulgar taste oI the
groundlings. Among Shakespeare`s twelve Iaults listed by Samuel
Johnson in his Iamous PreIace to the 1765 edition oI Shakespeare`s

44
Plays, there are some that point to the Iact that the dramatist was
morally unprincipled and opportunistic: he sacriIices virtue to
convenience and is so much more careIul to please than to instruct that
he seems to write without any moral purpose`, the jests oI his comic
characters are commonly gross and their pleasantry licentious`, while
sonorous epithets and swelling Iigures` accompany disappointing
trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas`, etc. In 1907, Iollowing in the steps
oI Johnson and oI an irate Ieo Tolstoy, Robert Bridges condemned
Shakespeare as a genius that prostituted his art to please his public. The
telling title oI Bridges` essay was The Influence of the Auaience on
Shakespeares Drama.
The Marlovian repository oI themes and characters, the censorship
oI the age, the demand oI the Elizabethan and Jacobean public
(theatregoers), and Shakespeare the Actor are the strongest inIluences that
shaped the artistic identity oI Shakespeare the Playwright in his liIetime.
^ Shakespeare Our Contemporary has become a
commonplace, a stock phrase. It was coined by Jan Kott in the late
nineteen IiIties in an attempt to prove that Shakespeare`s art
transcends all trends and all Iashions.
Rewriting Shakespeare has always been a challenging task Ior
dramatists throughout the centuries: Dryden wrote an improved version
oI Antonv ana Cleopatra in 1680, entitled All for Love; it was a complete
Iailure. King Lear was thoroughly mended by Nahum Tate in the
second halI oI the seventeenth century; Tate endowed it with a happy
ending in which the surviving Cordelia married Edgar; Edward Bond, in
his Lear (1980), changed the names oI the elder sisters and politicized the
plot. A convinced socialist with Marxist views, Bond populated the world
oI the play with workers and soldiers; it is these anonymous low class
heroes that ultimately decide the outcome oI events; George Bernard
Shaw, obsessed with Shakespeare`s leading position in English drama,
wrote Caesar ana Cleopatra; Tom Stoppard parodied Hamlet rewriting it
in Beckett`s style, in Rosencrant: ana Guilaenstern Are Deaa. Arnold
Wesker has recently accused Shakespeare oI anti-Semitism; in his
Shvlock, the Venetian usurer is turned into a kind-hearted, generous Jew
at odds with circumstance. Michael Hamburger`s brieI poem The
Tempest An Alternative replaces Shakespeare`s happy ending and
chooses a gloomy, pessimistic, cynical denouement.
Several great novels oI the twentieth century, including The Souna
ana the Furv by William Faulkner, Brave New Worla by Aldous Huxley,

45
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck, and Eric Knight`s This
above All quote Iamous Shakespearean lines in their titles.
In Prosperos Cell, an autobiographic book and a monograph oI the
isle oI CorIu, Iawrence Durrell tackles the hypothesis oI Shakespeare`s
possible voyage to CorIu in 1608 the year when his Sonnets were
published seemingly without his consent. This voyage may have helped
him visualize the setting oI the plot in The Tempest. Durrell`s theory is
supported by the Iact that Sycorax (the name oI Caliban`s mother) is the
anagram oI Corcyra (CorIu).
^ Sister Miriam Joseph wrote in Shakespeares Use of the Arts
of Language that Shakespeare used no less than 297 Iigures oI speech.
Shakespeare`s Iavourite stylistic devices were the antonyms and the
linguistic repetitions.
The combination oI linguistic repetition and antonyms results in
numerous puns or wordplays. More than 200 puns occur in Loves
Labours Lost and more than 100 in Alls Well that Enas Well.
Dr. Samuel Johnson was actually exasperated by Shakespeare`s
exaggerated use oI puns: a quibble (i.e. a pun) is to Shakespeare what
luminous vapours are to the traveller (.) A quibble, poor and barren
as it is gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the
sacriIice oI reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the Iatal
Cleopatra Ior which he lost the world and was content to lose it.
Although Voltaire and Tolstoy, among others, vehemently
contended that Shakespeare`s characters all speak alike and are not
linguistically diIIerentiated, Samuel Johnson, in his Iamous PreIace oI
1765 showed that perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more
distinct Irom each other`, while M.C. Bradbrook never misses the
opportunity to show that Shakespeare`s characters are deIined by their
individual accent and idiom; the tone and imagery oI their speech
constitutes the characters`; in Loves Labours Lost, Ior instance, the
varieties oI speech.are more sharply diIIerentiated than elsewhere:
style is a garment, indeed, and each character dresses in his own
Iashion`, while in Richara II each character is contrasted not only in
Iunction but in temper and idiom`.
Shakespeare`s Creat 1ragedies
^ Hamlet has been the subject oI more than 40,000 critical
works. It is an extremely complex text which can be analysed and
interpreted in the light oI various critical methods.

46
The HISTORICAI-BIOGRAPHICAI approach advocated by
A. I. Rowse considers Hamlet highly topical and autobiographical.
Ophelia`s Iamous characterization oI Hamlet is intended to suggest the
Earl oI Essex. Claudius`s observation on Hamlet`s madness and his
popularity with the masses also points to Essex. Elizabeth`s old Iord
Treasurer Burghley appears in the guise oI Polonius. In Shakespeare`s
age, Gertrude`s marriage to Claudius would have been considered
incestuous (the way Hamlet regards it). Iaertes said that he would cut
throat in church in order to deprive Hamlet oI the possibility to repent
and conIess his sins, thus sending him to Hell. Recent research has
pointed out that Hamlet`s Denmark is not entirely Shakespeare`s
England, but a world ruled by Scandinavian elective principles. This
means that Claudius is not necessarily a usurper and hence the conIusion
in Hamlet`s mind.
According to the MORAI-PHIIOSOPHICAI approach supported
by some critics, Hamlet is an idealist temperamentally unsuited Ior liIe;
a soul shattered by successive devastating discoveries (he Iinds himselI
surrounded by ambitious, oversexed people; his Iiance and his Iormer
schoolmates become tools in the hands oI his murderous uncle).
Other critics consider Hamlet to be a man oI action. Some critics
have labelled him as a manic-depressive neurotic or psychotic. The
heart oI my mystery, as Hamlet describes it to Guildenstern
(III.2.368) has remained an unsolved riddle Ior centuries. The French
philosopher Jacques Iacan has called Hamlet an hommelette rather
than a Iully-rounded homme, whose identity is a vacuum waiting to be
Iilled with modern interiority. At the centre oI Hamlet, in the interior
oI his mystery, there is, in short, nothing. This is why in order that the
play may end, a second Hamlet must be introduced: the man oI action
and the Hamlet who delays is replaced by one who simply waits.
The idea oI Hamlet`s subjective hollowness is not new; Dr.
Samuel Johnson precedes Iacan`s ideas and, indirectly, excuses
Shakespeare`s shortcomings when he writes that in the Elizabethan
age speculation had not yet attempted to analyze the mind, to trace
the passions to their sources (.) or sound the depths oI the heart Ior
the motives oI action.
(.) Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet.
The FORMAIISTIC approach places emphasis on the detection
and the discussion oI key-words such as world, nature, man`s
place in the great chain oI being (cosmos state nature man).

47
Denmark is a prison. The critical distinction between seem and
be is another structural key. In a world Iull oI uncertainties, is the
Ghost an evil Iorce? Hamlet seems to be mad and the people
surrounding him seem to be hostile, to be his enemies (which is not
quite true). Night is another key-word that emphasizes the dark side
oI the plot. Taking Hamlet`s words maimed rites (V. 1. 215.) as the
key-phrase oI the play, Roger
Sales has convincingly argued that Hamlet is a political play
made up oI a series oI broken ceremonies. The splendour and the
glamour oI Claudius`s court continuously invite to Iestive events and
yet, all these events appear truncated, broken, maimed. Hamlet, on
Iirst meeting his uncle who has crowned himselI a king, spoils the
ceremony oI his reception. Claudius, by interrupting the Players`
perIormance oI The Muraer of Gon:ago, spoils another Iestivity. His
prayer Ior redemption is again a broken ceremony, since he Iails in his
attempt to reach atonement. Polonius is buried in haste, without proper
Iuneral, while Ophelia`s Iuneral lacks a priest and prayers (because oI
her alleged suicide). The skull oI the dead Yorick implies the absence
oI a jester in oIIice at the court which again is something abnormal.
The duel between Iaertes and Hamlet in the Iinal scene is a broken
ceremony because oI the gap between essence and appearance,
substance and show. An odious attempted murder is turned into a
theatrical or sporting event Ior the on-stage audience. Hamlet`s death
speech is leIt unIinished and so is the entire play, which ends with the
announcement oI the preparation Ior Hamlet`s Iuneral but not the
Iuneral itselI.
Sales regards the Danish court as the scenery oI a cold war in
which the opponents ambush one another by subtly devising scripts
which are then stage-managed and acted. Hamlet assumes the risks oI
this invisible duel; in a theatrical world he oIten appears as an author,
stage-manager, actor, impresario, prompter and spectator. It is his taste
Ior theatricality that makes him go to death with his eyes open.
A Iamous and perhaps not very convincing example oI
PSYCHOIOGICAI approach is Ernest Jones`s diagnosis according to
which Hamlet presents a case oI manic-depressive hysteria combined
with abulia (an inability to exercise will power and come to a
decision), a case oI neurotically repressed Oedipus complex. Jones
sees Hamlet as a little Oedipus who cannot bring himselI to kill
Claudius because he stands in the place oI his own desire, having

48
murdered Hamlet`s Iather and married his mother. The diIIerence
between Oedipus and Hamlet is that Oedipus unknowingly acts out oI
his Iantasy, whereas Ior Hamlet it is represssed into the unconscious,
revealing itselI in the Iorm oI inhibition and the inability to act. The
repression oI his incestuous impulses explains his misogyny and latent
homosexuality. For Jones, Get thee to the nunnery means Get thee
to a brothel. Ernest Jones, one oI Freud`s disciples, launched this
theory back in 1910. Freud himselI includes Hamlet in that group oI
plays which rely Ior their eIIect on the neurotic in the spectator,
inducing in him or her the neurosis watched on the stage, crossing
over the boundaries between onstage and oIIstage.
More recently, in 1982, Andr Green deIined Hamlet as an act
oI exorcism which enabled its author to give his hero`s Iemininity
cause oI his anxieties, selI-reproaches and accusations an acceptable
Iorm through the process oI aesthetic creation. (.) to reconcile
himselI with the Iemininity in himselI. Which is as much as to say
that Shakespeare was a hermaphrodite. The Romanian psychiatrist Al.
Olaru has compiled a synthesis oI psychiatric interpretations oI
character and plot. The second edition oI Shakespeare ,i psihiatria
aramatic was printed in 1997.
MYTHICAI and ARCHETYPAI approaches view the story oI
Hamlet not as the playwright`s invention, but as an illustration oI a
myth. Gilbert Murray compares Hamlet with Orestes, who revenges his
Iather`s death. (Murray reIers to the plot oI Agamemnon by Aeschylus).
Hamlet acts a magic old rite oI selI-sacriIice in which he becomes the
saviour oI his own people. In ancient myths, good is liIe, vitaly,
propagation, health; evil is death, impotence, disease. Social disorder
and chaos are associated with disease. (Anarchy, civil wars and political
instability are viewed by Shakespeare as diseases oI the body politic: in
Richara III and 2 Henrv IJ time`s sick and the body oI the state
suIIers Irom burning Iever and incurable maladies).
Hamlet is the archetypal mystery oI the liIe cycle itselI.
Claudius, whom the Ghost identiIies as The Serpent, bears the
primal blood-curse oI Cain. Hamlet`s role is that oI the Prince-Hero
who must oIIer himselI up as a royal scapegoat. The bloody climax oI
the tragedy is not merely spectacular melodrama, but an essential
element in the archetypal pattern oI sacriIice-atonement-catharsis. The
archetypal imagery employed to convey this motiI is darkness and
blood. The hero appropriately wears black, the colour oI melancholy.

49
For T. S. Eliot Hamlet is the Mona Iisa oI literature. Eliot
theorizes the concept oI the objective correlative, the aesthetic
matching oI emotion to object by reIerring to Gertrude; in his opinion,
Gertrude is not suIIicient as a character to carry the weight oI the
aIIect which she generates in Hamlet.
Dr. Johnson`s characterization oI Polonius, as a blend oI much
wisdom and much Iolly, is one oI the best to the present day: a man
bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observation,
conIident oI his knowledge, proud oI his eloquence, and declining into
dotage (.). Such a man excels in general principles but Iails in the
particular application. He is knowing in retrospect and ignorant in
Ioresight. While he depends upon his memory and can draw Irom his
repositories oI knowledge he utters weighty sentences and gives useIul
counsel; but as the mind in its enIeebled state cannot be kept long
busy and intent, the old man is subject to sudden dereliction oI his
Iaculties, he loses the order oI his ideas and entangles himselI in his
own thoughts (.).
Samuel Johnson also comments on Claudius`s drunkenness, a
Ieature permanently emphasized by Shakespeare to Voltaire`s
disapproval.
The submissive Ophelia who equally reveres her king, Iather and
Iianc is, in Coleridge`s view, a girl who Ieels too much, who drowns in
Ieeling. Her madness has been interpreted in terms oI hysteria,
schizophrenia, and more recently, revolt against Iamily and social order.
^ Macbeth has been considered Shakespeare`s most Senecan
tragedy. It has a quick movement oI the plot and condensed action.
The rhythm oI this movement alternates courage-Iear-and again
courage (this time a desperate courage). Fear is the pervading Ieeling
throughout the play. The supernatural Iramework, the Weird Sisters,
the spirits, apparitions, Iiends, couriers oI the air create a gloomy
atmosphere.
Macbeth is the tragedy oI the rise and the Iall oI an individual
rather than a chronicle play, since Shakespeare does not stick to the
historical truth. (The real Macbeth usurped Duncan`s throne by killing
him in single combat). The movement oI the plot is that oI a wheel
swinging a Iull circle: old order-disorder-new order. Macbeth is in this
case the rider oI the wheel oI Fortune. Banquo, his best Iriend, later
turned into one oI his victims, plays the part oI Macbeth`s conscience
or alter-ego. He is said to be the Dr. Jekyll side oI the hero`s

50
conscience, while Iady Macbeth is the Mr. Hyde side oI his ego. She
is one oI Shakespeare`s very Iew negative Iemale characters (the other
two are Goneril and Regan). Even so, she is a IaithIul, good wiIe. The
Romanian counterparts oI Shakespeare`s regicides are Hasdeu`s
R zvan and Vidra, the heroes oI a Moldavian tragedy oI rise and Iall.
Macbeth`s Iirst murder triggers a whole chain oI murders. Friends,
women, children are mercilessly slaughtered. Macbeth becomes a
murder-addict and this addiction seeks its justiIication in each and
every new encounter with the Weird Sisters. More than any other
Shakespearean tragedy, this one is Iorward rather than backward-
looking. Macbeth scrutinizes the Iuture more intently in his soliloquies
than any other tragic hero (including Hamlet). The tragedy oI Macbeth
deals with a man who tries to control the Iuture which, ironically,
invades his imagination and turns tables on him. Greek tragedy had
partly anticipated this idea (see Oedipus`s attempt to cheat on his
Iuture). The Iuture in Macbeth seems to be less deIined than Greek
Iate or destiny and it is a potent presence in the play.
Shakespeare`s tragic heroes are endowed with heightened awareness
in their central scenes. Some are driven to the verge oI madness or
beyond it (Othello, Iear), yet Macbeth never loses his wits. Macbeth
diIIers Irom Iear in understanding clearly he only chooses badly.
Macbeth`s Iinal conclusion is that liIe is a walking shadow . it
is a tale told by an idiot, Iull oI sound and Iury, signiIying nothing.
With Macbeth`s death, the time is Iree again, in MacduII`s words.
Traditionally considered a morality play or a play about evil,
Macbeth is also highly topical. M. C. Bradbrook suggests that it
registered the impact oI two powerIul and incompatible events
Shakespeare`s introduction into the royal service at the coronation oI
James I and the Gunpowder Plot oI 5 November 1605. ConIusion now
hath made his masterpiece!, the Iamous cue uttered by MacduII aIter
the murder oI Duncan, reIlects the mood oI 1605. King James` s
Demonologie (1591) and royal theory oI sacred kingship also account
Ior the witch episodes and Duncan`s portrait. As in Hamlet, succession
was not necessarily hereditary; Macbeth seems to be elected by the
thanes.
As Alan SinIield suggests, Macbeth displays many negative
traits Iormerly attributed to Mary Stuart. SinIield also comments on
the cyclic structure oI Macbeth: MacduII at the end stands in the same
relation to Malcolm as Macbeth did to Duncan in the beginning. He is

51
now the king-maker on whom the legitimate monarch depends, and
the recurrence oI the whole sequence may be thus anticipated. (This is
an arguable viewpoint, though).
^ King Lear is completely diIIerent Irom other Shakespearean
tragedies:
it has a Iully developed double plot;
it has a tragic hero who suIIers but hardly initiates action at all;
physical disguise, involving disguised speech, is much
more prominently used;
it is Shakespeare`s only mature tragedy to resemble Titus
Anaronicus as regards madness and stage violence.
The play lacks Iorward-looking suspense since the hero has no
plans Ior the Iuture and is given no task to perIorm, as are Brutus,
Hamlet or Macbeth; equally, the villains have no clearly deIined
intentions, such as Iago`s.
Jan Kott has drawn a parallel between King Lear and Samuel
Beckett`s Enagame. Both plays have their roots in a larger tradition that
goes back to the Greeks the drama oI the man who wants to
understand the universe. He tries to understand the injustice oI gods,
man`s inhumanity to man, and sometimes embarks on a journey leading
to redemption, or selI-knowledge. (Such is the case oI Oeaipus, Peer
Gvnt, Evervman). In such works the hero is, characteristically, a sinner
who becomes a thinker. He suIIers rather than initiates action.
G. Wilson Knight similarly compares King Lear with The Book of
Job, in which the hero raises the question: is Justice an universal
principle? According to E. A. J. Honigmann, the main concern oI the
play is not hearing properly. While the audience Iinds everything
Iear says Iascinating, the characters on stage do not listen to him any
longer, when he loses his grip on things. During the encounters oI Iear,
the Fool and Edgar disguised as Poor Tom, each oI the three seems to
speak Irom inside a private world. They all talk to themselves. During
these storm-scenes, the speakers are Iurther insulated Irom each other
by the noise oI wind and thunders. The loss oI the communicative
Iunction oI language anticipates the twentieth century theatre oI the
absurd. The outer storm seems to emerge Irom Iear`s inner storm;
it insulates him Irom human contact. It symbolizes the chaos oI the
moral universe that Iear tries to understand.
King Lear resembles Shakespeare`s romance plays, where
symbolism and mythic resonances also compete with the mere plot.

52
The storm-scenes prepare the resonant silences oI the Iear-Cordelia
scene, where, again, so much is said without words.
Another meaningIul resonance is the sub-plot (Gloucester`s story)
which clearly echoes the main plot: two Iathers, their children, nature,
ingratitude, patience, blindness. Iear kneeling to Cordelia reminds oI
Gloucester`s kneeling to Edgar. King Lear is not necessarily the story oI
Cinderella: Goneril and Regan may be beautiIul as well.
The play is a tragic version oI mankind: the equal number oI good
versus evil characters (i. e. Cordelia, Albany, Kent, the Fool, Edgar
versus Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, Oswald, Edmund) is true to liIe; in a
way, it suggests Purgatory. Nature is ubiquitous and the play abounds in
descriptions oI the various links oI the Great Chain oI Being. It also
abounds in elements oI Iolklore: the plot advances against a background
oI rural customs, legends, ballads and superstitions. Iear and Edgar,
turned vagrants, undergo a puriIying experience oI return to Nature,
while Edmund, Gloucester`s bastard, calls Nature his guardian goddess.
King Lear is a pagan play. The plot occurs a hundred years
beIore the Iounding oI Rome, in a world oI legend in which the
archaic mode permits an archaic level oI relationships, archaic Iears
and needs to come to surIace. The Iinal battle between the two sons oI
Gloucester belongs not to the archaic tribal society oI the main action,
but to a medieval society oI knights and heraldry.
King Lear is, together with Julius Caesar, the play with the
greatest number oI stoic characters (Kent, Iear, the Fool, Edgar).
Edmund, Iear and Cordelia correspond to the three stages in the
evolution oI man: primitive; civilized; ideal. Iear`s lines
You do me wrong to take me out o` th` grave
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel oI Iire. (IV. 7. 45-7)
oIIer the concentrated metaphors oI Cordelia as an angel and Iear as
an eternally tormented Ixion (the latter, possibly, an echo oI Pindar`s
Oaes).
The death oI Cordelia at the end comes as a hazard oI blind
chance. It is gratuitous and Shakespeare`s Iear is the only version in
which Cordelia dies. M. C. Bradbrook draws a parallel between the
language oI Ben Jonson`s masques perIormed at the court and the
language oI court Ilattery commanded so readily by Regan and
Goneril. What they say to Iear was similar to what the masquers
regularly said to James.

53
^ In Othello Shakespeare used the convention oI the slanderer
believed which is as old as the biblical story oI Joseph and Potiphar`s
wiIe. The unnatural plot oI the play, the only possible motive Ior
Iago`s behaviour in destroying Othello and Desdemona is explained
by dr. Ernest Jones through the rancour oI the rejected and jealous
lover oI the Moor. The twentieth century has witnessed the academic
dispute between A. C. Bradley and F. R. Ieavis as regards Othello`s
character. Bradley supports the idea oI the noble Moor; Ieavis, on
the contrary regards Othello as a brutal egotist, claiming that
Othello does not really love Desdemona, that Othellos supposed love
is rather a matter oI selI-centred and selI-regarding satisIactions
pride, sensual possessiveness, appetite, love oI loving.
Both critics recognize two Othellos in the play: the real Othello
and another. According to Bradley, the real Othello appears at the
beginning oI the play. Ieavis claims that the real Othello emerges in
the temptation scene. Iago`s power, to quote Ieavis, is that he
represents something that is in Othello. the essential traitor is within
the gates.
Recent criticism has questioned the notion that dramatic
characters develop; it is sometimes urged that they do not so much
develop as gradually reveal themselves.
The most convincing interpretation oI Othello (at least in my
opinion) is that oI Alessandro Serpieri. The play is deIined as a private
and psvchological drama evolving around a continuous game oI assertion
and negation played by Iago. Iago aIIirms through irony and emphasis in
order to negate, while he negates through litotes and aetractio in order to
aIIirm. This technique oI hidden persuasion engenders the great scene oI
private and psychological seduction. Iago resorts to litotes, a Iigure which
insinuates an aIIirmation by emphasizing it under the guise oI a negation,
an unreal aIIirmation which thereIore cannot be expressed directly: that
Desdemona has betrayed Othello.
There is a social opposition, oI rank, which also turns out to be
an anthropological and racist opposition between the white Iago and
black Othello. Blackness used to be an outward symbol oI someone`s
diabolic nature; see the Iigure oI Aaron in Titus Anaronicus. Othello is
a remarkable innovation in this respect. The play poses the problem oI
discrimination and oI the clash between I` and the others, Iramed
within the anthropological and historical category oI extraneity, in

54
which the individual Iinds himselI in continual struggle with the
others Ior his own survival.
The strategy oI Iago is not that oI open conIrontation but oI
indirect attack. Iike Viola in Twelfth Night, Iago admits, I am not
what I am. This may be interpreted both as a game between
appearance and reality, and as the possible loss oI identity. Iago is
tormented by unspeakable desires originating in his Irustrated sexual
impulses. The obscenity oI his language is constantly designed to
deny the positiveness oI Eros, to represent Othello as the repulsive
black champion oI a degraded hyperbolical sexuality, and to expose
Desdemona as an insatiable whore. He is jealous oI Othello, who is
supposed to have betrayed him with his wiIe Emilia; he is jealous oI
Cassio Ior the same reason; he is in love with Desdemona. In the
courtroom oI his puritanical and schizophrenic mind, Iago accuses
himselI oI as great a sin.
Othello, on the other hand, is a cultured barbarian, used and subtly
discriminated against by Venetian society. He represents himselI as a
humanistic and epic hero. What dominates in him is selI-representation.
Othello is not able to represent himselI in the Ilow oI the present. While
Iago is condemned to a continuous mental present oI thinking, oI
projecting, oI seducing, Othello tends to elude the present in symbolic
certainties. He cannot escape the weakness oI the precariously cultured
alien, oI the stranger. To conclude, iI Iago is thereIore the perverse
rhetorician oI the proIound, Othello is the Iragile bard oI an idealized
reality. Or, to quote Serpieri again, the two characters look at each
other as in a mirror, as the negative or positive image oI the same tragic
cultural mask.
Shakespeare`s Comedies
Shakespeare`s comedies may be regarded as the result oI
blending long established literary tradition with genuine innovation.
OI all Iatin authors oI comedy, Plautus and Terence exerted a
strong inIluence on the comedy oI the English Renaissance. The Iirst
English regular comedy Ralph Rovster Dovster is largely indebted to
Plautus. (Classical comedies had not been acted in Europe during
almost the whole period oI the Middle Ages, and the original texts oI
the representatives oI Greek and Iatin comedy had been at best
studied at school, Terence being one oI the Iavourites.)

55
Four main trends precede the Iirst regular English comedy:
1) the Iragments oI humorous dialogue inserted between the
serious parts oI mysteries or miracles stand prooI oI the gradual
secularization oI the religious dramatic Iorms;
2) the interludes, originally short humorous episodes or Iarces
acted between the acts oI a morality play (best represented by John
Heywood);
3) Iolk dramas were, probably, current in the IiIteenth century.
William Iangland had already mentioned the tumblers and jesters who
used to perIorm ballads;
4) the dramatic elements and dramatic dialogues Iound in
various medieval literary productions such as debates, popular ballads,
Chaucer`s poems, etc.
Iyly, Greene and Peele are Shakespeare`s immediate
predecessors.
^ According to N. Coghill, Vincent de Beauvais` Iormula best
describes the true basis oI Shakespearean comedy: a tale oI trouble
that turns to joy; with the implication that it is not only the shape oI
a human comedy, but also oI ultimate reality. There are many
controversies as to the number and the chronology oI Shakespeare`s
comedies. Some critics include his romance plays and so-called
problem plays among his comedies.
^ In The Anatomv of Criticism, Northrop Frye discusses comedy
as a literary Iorm inherited Irom the Greek New Comedy. It implied
anagnorisis or discovery, i.e. the crystallization oI a new society
around the hero. Comedy is characterized by movement Irom one
social centre to another, in which the blocking characters are either
repudiated or reconciled. There are two ways oI developing the Iorm
oI comedy:
either by throwing emphasis on the blocking characters
(resulting in studies oI manners);
or by throwing emphasis on the scenes oI discovery and
reconciliation (which is the case with Shakespeare and the romantic
comedy).
The blocking character`s absurdity was explained by Ben
Jonson`s theory oI humours.
Characterization depends on Iunction; the dramatic Iunction oI a
character depends on the structure oI the plot, whereas the latter
depends on the category oI the play. Northrop Frye distinguishes six

56
phases oI comedy between the extremes oI irony and romance. The
movement Irom the world oI experience into the ideal world oI
innocence and romance belongs to phase 4. The action is perIormed
on two social planes, oI which one is preIerred and consequently
idealized. It is the case oI Shakespeare`s drama oI the green world.
As You Like It, with its atmosphere oI English countryside, is a
complete picture oI the communion between man and Nature.
Shakespeare`s deep interest in external nature as well as in the
relationship between it and man brings to the Ioreground the idea oI
Nature as a possible remedy Ior social and moral deterioration. The
Iorest is a Iavourite environment and it solves problems. The Forest oI
Arden in As You Like It is a consistent illustration oI external nature
being a place both Ior reIuge and oI moral improvement. In spite oI its
pastoral setting, As You Like It departs Irom previous superIicial
pastoral literature, as well as Irom its direct source, Thomas Iodge`s
Rosalvnae. The wood is described by Duke Senior with a peasant`s
realism it is a hard school where men can drop their vices by
learning the sweet uses oI adversity.
In A Miasummer Nights Dream the conIlicts between children
and parents, between the rigours oI the Athenian law and normal
human emotions, or between rulers and ruled are solved in a Iorest
near Athens. But all this has been possible only through the inIluence
oI the Athenian Iorest with its Iairy-world on men`s imagination, and
on their selves or identities.
Frye labels phase 5 oI comedy as a less Utopian and more
Arcadian world corresponding to Shakespeare`s romances and sea-
comedies. External nature sometimes has a retributive or punitive
Iunction. This is obvious in The Tempest, where the sea storm raised
by Prospero with the help oI Ariel and the magic art Iinally ends in the
metaphorical storm raging in the souls oI men.
^ The world as it is in Shakespeare`s comedies comprises
many evil aspects such as
wars (indirectly condemned in Alls Well That Enas Well);
the corruption oI the ruling classes and
usurpation (in As You Like It);
hypocrisy oI magistrates (in Measure for Measure);
the rulers` lack oI interest in urgent state problems (in Loves
Labours Lost);
racial discrimination (The Merchant of Jenice);

57
lack oI real love, mutual respect and trust in the relations
between man and woman (The Taming of the Shrew, The Merrv Wives
of Winasor);
the unnatural relations between parents and children, the latter
being oIten considered as mere objects or commodities by the
Iormer (in The Taming of the Shrew, A Miasummer Nights Dream,
The Merchant of Jenice);
drunkenness (The Taming of the Shrew).
^ The problem oI change or loss oI identity is amply dealt with
in Shakespeare`s comedies. In The Comeav of Errors (much more
than a simple extension oI Plautus` Menaechmi) mistaken identity, i.e.
qui pro quo, determines the whole development oI the plot.
In his next comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare
reverts to the Iundamental idea that there are human beings who, in
accordance with the proverb Appearances are deceptive, are
considered to be negative by their Iellows although their inward
reality is positive and, on the other hand, there are those who, very
much appreciated by others, are characteristically wicked at the
bottom. It is the case oI Kate versus Bianca, with the outer social
maniIestation oI the two sisters, so very contradictory to their real
selves. Christopher Sly`s problem oI identity is much more serious.
The drunken tinker`s transIormation into another selI has been long a
topic oI psychological approaches.
A Miasummer Nights Dream is another comedy in which
identity occupies a central place. The pairs oI lovers can easily change
their aIIections as a result oI imagination. Here, Shakespeare draws
the Iamous parallel between the lunatic, the lover and the poet who
are oI imagination all compact.)
The Merrv Wives of Winasor derives much oI its Iun Irom the
deliberate change oI identity to which the jealous Mr. Ford resorts in
order to spy on his wiIe by disguising himselI as Mr. Brook. Disguise,
with all its humorous consequences is also used by FalstaII.
Twelfth Nights takes up disguise as an important agent in the
Iurther development oI the plot, the mistakes it causes bringing about
both troubles and happy endings. The dark comedy Alls Well That
Enas Well resumes the problem oI identity: this time disguise is
connected with tragic issues and it takes the Iorm oI the bed-trick
(later employed in another dark comedy, Measure for Measure, too), a
device derived Irom Iolk-tales.

58
Alls Well That Enas Well tackles the question oI true nobility
and the relation oI birth to merit. Bertram`s high birth is opposed to
Helena`s native merit. The theme oI unrequited love (the rejected
lover) is also present in The Two Gentlemen of Jerona (Proteus and
Julia), A Miasummer Nights Dream (Hermia and Iysander, Helena
and Demetrius), etc.
^ Revenge, as a motive Iorce in Shakespeare`s tragedies is also
present in the comedies. The theme oI revenge is strongly emphasized
in The Merchant of Jenice and Much Aao about Nothing.
^ Troilus ana Cressiaa has been considered one oI the most
controversial Shakespearean texts Ior centuries. The interpretations oI
this problem-play diIIer Irom one critic to another.
G. Wilson Knight`s thematic approach suggests the dichotomous
presentation oI human values vs. human weakness, intellect versus
intuition, reason versus emotion.
The Trojans, heroic and chivalrous, are dominated by intuition.
They somehow belong to the world oI medieval romance. The Greeks,
on the other hand, live in the world oI Renaissance disillusionment
and satire. The Trojans` main concern is love; the Greeks` is war; and
Thersites is the character who reveals the Iutility and stupidity oI both
these irrational occupations.
In Ieon Ievi chi`s opinion, Troilus ana Cressiaa implicitly
illustrates Bacon`s ideas contained in his philosophical essay On Love.
The main theme oI the play (as in Othello and King Lear) is the gap
between essence and appearance. The dichotomous aspects oI love are
selIless love vs. selI-love. Human values are the author`s main concern
and almost one third oI the entire text consists oI characterization,
assessments, evaluations, opinions concerning both brothers-in-arms
and enemies. Both armies are populated by idols (i.e. illusions, errors,
misjudgments). Achilles and Ajax are male idols indulging in selI-love
and egomania; they always overestimate their own worth; Helen,
Polixenia and Cressida are Iemale idols. Unlike the paranoid male idols,
Cressida is an intelligent, selI-aware human being. The conclusion oI
Ieon Ievi chi`s approach is that Shakespeare seeks real human values
beyond the veil oI appearances and Iiercely attacks the idea oI hero
worship.
According to a traditional interpretation, Troilus ana Cressiaa
was intended as Shakespeare`s most topical play, bringing to stage
his contribution to the on-going war oI the theatres waged by

59
Iellow-dramatists Jonson, Dekker and Marston. Contemporary
sources identiIy the boastIul Ajax with Ben Jonson and the cynical,
inIirm Thersites with John Marston.
Jane Adamson`s Iormalistic approach oI this.tragicomedy,
satirical comedy, heroic Iarce, satirical tragedy and problem play
Iocuses on conflict as a key-word. The conIlicts maniIest in the style
and design oI the play are neither reconciled nor reconcilable. The war
between the Trojans and the Greeks, the conIlict between Agamemnon
and Achilles, the conIlict between the two Iactions oI Troy (those
willing and those unwilling to continue the war Ior the sake oI Helen),
the conIlict within Troilus`s heart, all suggest an impasse, a stalemate.
The title characters appear in extremely Iew scenes, they are not the real
protagonists (like Romeo and Juliet, or Antony and Cleopatra).
Troilus`s complaint about the Iact that the will is inIinite and the
execution conIin`d; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to
limit (III.2.78-80) mirrors the inevitable Iailure oI human aims and the
Iutility oI all aspirations. The sudden death oI Patroclus and Hector
exposes the terrible Irailty oI the human body, the rude brevity oI
human liIe. The ambushed spectator is discomIorted in the end by the
annihilation oI every heroic ideal.
For my interpretation oI Troilus ana Cressiaa as a meta-dramatic
experiment and a political play, a play about actors, impersonation and
censorship, read the Introduction to my book Methinks Youre Better
Spoken: A Stuav in the Language of Shakespeares Characters
(Institutul European, 2004).
Shakespeare`s Chronicles
II Marlowe is the Iather oI the English historical or chronicle
play as such, Shakespeare is the one who invented the history cycle.
Henrv JI (Parts 1,2 and 3), to which Marlowe may have collaborated
in Shakespeare`s early days, and Richara III make up a cycle
depicting the evils oI disorder and divided rule. They look back upon
the chaos oI the IiIteenth century. These history plays are designed as
moral exemples. History is interpreted morally, seen as a guide to the
present. The structure oI these plays is that oI the secular morality play
in which Iactions or troubles show a contention between order and
chaos Ior the state oI man.

60
^ While the Iirst part oI Henrv JI chronicles in a nationalistic
tone and manner (much criticized by Bernard Shaw) the war with
France and the capture oI the witch oI Orleans (i.e. St. Joan), the
second and the third parts deal with the civil war waged between the
houses oI York and Iancaster. The monstrous Richard oI Gloucester
(the Iuture King Richard III) emerges as the Machiavellian villain in 3
Henrv JI, where he kills the king. His soliloquy in V.6 anticipates his
Iuture chain oI horrible crimes.
York`s great tirade against Queen Margaret, the she-wolI oI
France and King Henry`s lament on the burden oI kingship are the
most memorable scenes oI the play.
^ The title character oI Richara III is depicted as a monstrous
monarch in an age when every other author endeavoured to Ilatter
Queen Elizabeth (Gloriana, Astraea, Britomart, etc.) by all means.
Richard`s language, like his person, is diametrically opposed to the
main pattern oI the play. It is proverbial, Iull oI old saws, used as
disguise. In this respect, he resembles Marlowe`s Barabas. He has a
touch oI Mark Antony`s oratory and at the base oI his character there is
a touch oI Iago`s envy. Richard III is one oI the earliest examples oI
Shakespeare`s particular skill in portraying the aevelopment oI a
character.
^ Richara II, Henrv IJ (Parts 1 and 2) and Henrv J make up
Shakespeare`s second history cycle.
In Richara II, the trampled garden is a central metaphor standing
Ior the image oI bad government. The play represents a great step
ahead in Shakespeare`s art; the previous use oI schemata and
patterned speech is replaced by the so-called symphonic or recurrent
imagery. Richard appears as a withering rose or the setting sun in the
trampled garden oI his land. The mirror, or the looking-glass, is
another essential metaphor. The play begins with the banishment oI
Bolingbroke, the king`s cousin.
Uncle, even in the glasses oI thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart (III.1.208-9)
says Richard to the lamenting John oI Gaunt, Bolingbroke`s Iather.
Richard`s long journey Irom carelessness and serenity to grieI and
selI-knowledge reaches its climax in the Iamous deposition scene, or
mirror scene (IV.1.253-300) in which the Ilatt`ring glass reIuses
to show his wrinkles, blows, sorrow and deeper wounds.
Richard breaks the glass while the shadows oI unseen grieI remind

61
us John oI Gaunt`s pain in the early scenes. Richard`s melancholy
Ioreshadows Hamlet and Brutus. Bolingbroke, the man who deposes
him and is responsible Ior his death, is largely built as a character
Irom what he does not say.
^ Bolingbroke, crowned as Henry IV, has a guilty conscience:
he is Iamous Ior his soliloquy on sleeplessness. The illegitimate
deposition oI Richard has resulted in Ieudal anarchy and civil war,
hence Henry`s insomnia. However, the two parts oI Henrv IJ and
Henrv J are about human relationships and heroic acts, not about
politics. The main characters are Hotspur, FalstaII, Prince Hal and
Henry IV seen in relation to each other. The action takes place in the
tavern (at The Boar`s Head), at the court and in the country. Hal, the
Prodigal Prince turned into a PerIect Governor as King Henry V, is
one oI Shakespeare`s great actors who (like Hamlet) displays an
inIinite number oI masks or selves in relation with the characters he
meets. He is a great observer oI human nature, hence his versatility as
an actor. His alleged inconsistency as a character and his miraculous
metamorphosis (the underground idler turned a skilIul politician and
military leader) has been the topic oI many academic disputes. The
title oI William Babula`s essay Whatever Happenea to Prince Hal?
sums up the tone oI these disputes. Stephen Greenblatt describes his
career as that oI an agent provocateur who spends his time among the
thieves oI Iondon only to better control them in due time. M.C.
Bradbrook also notices that Hal is reIormed Irom the beginning. His
notorious Iirst soliloquy announces a policy oI moral disguise akin to
physical disguise, which the ruler so oIten assumes in Elizabethan
drama, not only Ior the purpose oI revelry, but also Ior the purpose oI
attaining knowledge, knowledge about his Iuture subjects.
FalstaII, the most popular Shakespearean character throughout
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has been labelled as a miles
gloriosus, aiabolus in loco parentis, a clown, a medieval grotesque,
the Devil, the Vice, the Iord oI Misrule. Some critics have, thereIore,
interpreted Henrv IJ as a morality play. Dr. Samuel Johnson
characterizes FalstaII as Iollows: .a character loaded with Iaults,
and with those Iaults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thieI
and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak
and prey upon the poor; to terriIy the timorous and to insult the
deIenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirizes in their

62
absence those whom he lives by Ilattering. He is Iamiliar with the
Prince only as an agent oI vice. etc.
Hal`s reIormation and the subsequent rejection oI FalstaII is a
painIul moment Ior both readers and spectators, but Johnson justly
remarks that the Iat knight has never uttered one sentiment oI
generosity and with all his power oI exciting mirth has nothing in him
that can be esteemed.
^ Henrv J presents Hal as a charismatic leader and national
hero. National solidarity and good Iellowship, the patriotic Iervour,
the bold subject and the popular king remind us oI Robert Greene`s
George-a-Greene. And yet, Henrv J is at once a celebration and a
deeply disturbing study oI the problems oI rule and government
(M.C. Bradbrook), it is only in one sense about national unity: its
obsessive preoccupation is insurrection(Jonathan Dollimore and Alan
SinIield). Although a play oI monarchic propaganda, Henrv J presents
the unacknowledged anxieties oI a ruler. Henry, the mirror oI all
Christian kings, the victor at Agincourt, walks disguised as a plain
soldier in his camp, imitates the action oI a tiger in battle, and woos
the Princess in simple terms, like a soldier and a plain king,
adapting himselI to a great variety oI situations. His taste Ior
theatricality is only equalled by Hamlet.
^ Henrv JIII, written in collaboration with John Fletcher, is
remembered Ior its rich and costly costumes and scenery, which
caught Iire during a show leading to the destruction oI the Globe. Iike
all the other later plays, Henrv JIII resorts to the Iashionable insertion
oI masques in its plot, the earthly masque in which the King woos
Anne Boleyn being contrasted with the heavenly masque that comIorts
the dying Katharine.
^ Eawara III, which has only recently been included into the
Shakespearean canon, is one oI Shakespeare`s early plays. The play is
concerned with a key Shakespearean theme: you think the danger will
come Irom without (e.g. the Turk in Othello) but really it is within the
gates (Iago). King Edward III is the Iorerunner oI Angelo in Measure
for Measure, in his attempt to seduce the Countess oI Salisbury,
whose husband at the time is Iighting in France. His rhetoric oI
seduction is also very close to that oI Tarquin in The Rape of Lucrece.
II the Countess is precursor to Isabella in Measure for Measure,
Edward III also anticipates Hal`s career and evolution Irom idleness to
political and military glory. Structurally speaking, the Countess scenes

63
in Edward III, ending in the King`s realization oI the Iolly oI his
attempt to seduce the Countess (I am awaked Irom this idle dream),
prepare the way Ior Hal`s descent Irom a prince to a prentice. They
make possible his encounter with FalstaII. The English victory at
Crcy Ioreshadows the victory oI Agincourt.
Shakespeare`s Roman Plays
Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antonv ana Cleopatra deal with
the military and political career, with the public and the private liIe oI
ancient heroes. Shakespeare`s immediate source was Thomas North`s
translation oI Plutarch`s Lives: all his deviations Irom the original can
be easily traced in Shakespeare`s text, too.
^ Coriolanus is a problem play concerned with the relationship
between the leader (the embodiment oI a strong personality) and the
ordinary people. It invites the audience to take sides Ior or against the
hero, leaving a wide variety oI interpretations open. When acted at the
Comdie Franaise in the nineteen-thirties, the Communists rioted
because they thought it a satire on the plebs, and the Fascists because
they thought it a satire on dictators. Whatever the reading, the central
Iigure dominates.
The cynical Bernard Shaw considered this play the best oI
Shakespeare`s comedies. T.S. Eliot dedicated two poems to Coriolanus,
applying his story to modern history.
^ C.I. Barber has termed Antonv ana Cleopatra a Iestive
tragedy: it presents an open situation, which has many elements oI
comedy; and Shakespeare explores the resources oI the Elizabethan
stage in the restless movement organized around the deep structural
opposition oI Rome and Egypt.
The idea oI vast space is enhanced by the brevity and rapid
succession oI the scenes.
Antony is no longer a subtle politician and determined military
leader as in Julius Caesar; he is a mixture oI spiritual youth and
physical decay. Cleopatra is considered by G. Wilson Knight to be the
most complex Iemale character in Shakespeare`s plays. She displays
an essential Iemininity; she is not aIraid oI death: Ior her, death and
love are one and the same thing.
^ Wilson Knight`s traditional approach describes Julius Caesar
as a play primarily concerned with the opposition oI the strong spirit

64
and the Ieeble body. IiIe is the main theme oI the play despite all the
instances oI bloodshed, disease and physical decay. In a more recent
approach, E.A.J. Honigmann has convincingly argued that in Julius
Caesar Shakespeare presents a Roman world highly conscious oI the
power oI rhetoric, one where the skilled orator uses words as weapons
that can change the course oI events. It is Shakespeare`s play oI big
speeches which make will triumph over reason. Shakespeare shows
that a leader oI men, whether Caesar or Brutus, may misunderstand
people, arguments, and even the very situation in which he Iinds
himselI, and yet can dominate others, who see more clearly, by sheer
force of will. Perpetually switching Irom speech-making to talk, Irom
one register to another, Shakespeare draws attention to rhetoric as a
basic Iact oI Roman liIe. Mark Antony, aware oI the power oI words,
rubs his hands at the end oI the Iamous Forum scene:
Now let it work. MischieI, thou art aIoot,
Take thou what course thou wilt. (III.2.261-2)
Much along the same lines, Alessandro Serpieri interprets Julius
Caesar as a political and public drama that represents an exemplary
clash oI axiological and ideological models. As usual, Shakespeare does
not commit himselI directly to either ideological option. He limits
himselI, rather, to an attentive comparison oI the ideologies in question.
The play begins and culminates with a persuasion oI the crowd as Iorce,
as material, on which to try out the transIormation oI ideology into
power (in the Iirst scene the republican ideology oI the tribunes; in Act
III, the republican ideology with Brutus as its spokesman, and the
Caesarian-monarchical ideology espoused by Antony).
Brutus, the real hero oI the tragedy, the idealist dreamer, is an
imperIect man oI noble grandeur. He commits various political errors
such as sparing Antony`s liIe and conceding to Antony himselI the right
to speak at Caesar`s Iuneral. His oration in the Forum (III.2) is in Iact a
theorem, logical but tautological, brieI but redundant. He requests the
crowd`s attention without interruptions: Be patient till the last line.
Antony will let himselI be interrupted oIten, thus allowing the crowd to
believe itselI protagonist oI the oratorical (emotional, ideological,
political) event. Antony has to overturn the assertion according to which
Caesar was ambitious and Brutus is honourable into an opposite
assertion. Iike Iago in Othello, Anthony resorts to a technique oI
hidden persuasion in Shakespeare`s greatest scene oI public and
ideological seduction. His discourse employs litotes (the constant

65
negation oI each and every aIIirmation), the obsessive repetition oI
honest, honourable and ambitious, the implicit antonymy
(contradicting the assertion that Brutus is an honourable man), and, as
Roman Jakobson suggests, subtle paronyms such as Brutus brutish
beasts.
Antony`s speech is a triumph oI oratory, it is the triumph oI the
Word that makes History. Antony`s brieI remark when he is Iinally
leIt alone exposes the mystiIication on which it is Iounded.
Shakespeare`s Romance Plays
Although oIten included by critics among Shakespeare`s comedies,
this group oI late plays including Pericles, Cvmbeline, The Winters Tale,
The Tempest and The Two Noble Kinsmen deserves a special attention.
OIten criticized Ior their departure Irom a naturalistic and mimetic
treatment oI their subject, these plays represent a special moment in
Shakespeare`s art and in the evolution oI Jacobean drama.
^ Pericles marks Shakespeare`s turning away Irom realism and
the exploration oI human tragedy towards miracle, myth and symbol.
The play is the story oI an epic journey, both real and spiritual,
undertaken by Pericles, Prince oI Tyre, in his search Ior true happiness.
This derives Irom an ancient tale oI Greek origin told by the Iourteenth
century poet John Gower in his Confessio Amantis. The introduction
oI magic, Iolklore and mythology reinIorces the atmosphere oI a
remote, Iairy-tale world. The spectacular storm represents the tragic
Iorces to which the hero must submit, while the sea is a symbol oI
puriIication. Iike in King Lear, too, the relationship between Iather
and daughter is a central theme.
Pericles loses both his wiIe and his daughter only to Iind himselI
reunited with his loved ones in a cyclical movement oI birth, death
and regeneration. By telling her own liIe history, Marina, his long lost
daughter, revives Pericles Irom a state oI death-in-liIe. By conIessing
his own liIe story at Diana`s altar he then regains his lost wiIe.
HimselI a musician, Pericles is revived Iirst by Marina`s song, then by
her tale. This leads up to his hearing the heavenly music oI the spheres
which heralds the appearance oI the goddess Diana. This, then, is a
journey Irom Hell to Heaven, is the conclusion drawn by M.C.
Bradbrook.

66
^ Dr. Samuel Johnson condemned the unresisting imbecility
oI the plot oI Cvmbeline, while the eighteenth century novelist
Charlotte Iennox criticized the absurdities in the plot and unnatural
manners in the characters oI the same play. Indeed, in Cvmbeline
Shakespeare mingled a great variety oI artiIicial scenes and times
resulting in Iunny anachronisms; Ior instance,
Cymbeline`s reign coincides with the birth oI Christ;
the Roman legions include an Italian Iiend, brother oI the
duke oI Siena;
an innocent Elizabethan country gentleman is lost among
supersubtle Italians;
Jupiter appears on his eagle;
Antony and Cleopatra appear depicted as history on Imogen`s
mantelpiece;
Imogen, disguised as a page, inIorms the Roman Iucius that
she had been the servant oI the good knight Richard du Champ.
The play is triple-centred; Imogen`s bedchamber, Rome, and the
Welsh mountains represent court, city and country, the threeIold division
oI Jacobean England. Cvmbeline displays extreme psychological
inconsistencies in character delineation. Although Cymbeline declares
himselI Caius Iucius`s Iriend, he orders a general massacre oI the Roman
prisoners, only to throw away victory and concede the tribute due to
Rome. The characters in Cvmbeline carry round a certain atmosphere or
quality oI the sort oI play in which their type occurs. Imogen and her
brothers belong to romance, Iucius to Roman history and Iachimo to the
Jacobean city comedy.
Despite its so many would-be Ilaws, Cvmbeline brings to stage
one oI Shakespeare`s most brilliant Iemale characters: Imogen. Iike
Rosalind and Viola, she is compelled to undergo a change oI identity,
but she does not participate in a wooing game. Imogen as the wiIe oI
Posthumus (a caricature oI the jealous Othello) belongs in situation,
rather, with Desdemona and Webster`s Duchess oI MalIi.
^ The Winters Tale, with its plot taking place in a Bohemia
located somewhere at the seaside (!), was with all its absurdities, very
entertaining in Samuel Johnson`s opinion.
The Winters Tale is a diptych in which Part I moves Irom court
to country and the kings are replaced by shepherds. Part II moves Irom
country back to court. The double structure used by Shakespeare in his
romances one halI dark, the other bright seems to imitate the

67
double structure oI Jonson`s masques. The climax oI the plot shows
how the statue oI one thought dead might be stone no more
(V.3.99). This metamorphosis and revival was not a novelty Ior the
Elizabethan spectators: in one oI Francis Beaumont`s masques acted at
the Inner Temple, statues came to liIe, too. However, contrary to all
precedents in Shakespeare, the audience could not Ioresee the miracle;
they did not share the secret: this in itselI is in the tradition oI the
masque rather than the theatre, Ior in masques an element oI shock
and wonder was integral to the eIIect.
^ The Tempest was undoubtedly written aIter the wreck oI the
Sea Jenture on the islands oI Bermuda in 1609. The shipwrecked
crew Iound themselves on an inhabited island, a utopian world in
which liIe could be lived at leisure. Shakespeare`s play tells the story
oI a usurpation Iollowed by revenge, punishment through Iorgiveness,
and the restoration oI the old order and a new beginning granted by
the marriage oI the young Miranda and Ferdinand. As in the other
romances, magic (Prospero`s white magic), music and mythology (the
wedding masque during which Juno, Ceres, Iris and certain nymphs
are conjured by Prospero) hold an essential part. Iike Hamlet and
Henry V, Prospero is more than an actor and a stage-manager; he is
the very author oI the script according to which all the other characters
in the play perIorm the ascribed roles.
A more traditional approach advocated by Frank Kermode suggests
that in The Tempest Shakespeare oIIers an exposition oI the themes oI
Fall and Redemption by means oI analogous narrative. Kermode`s
picture oI Prospero is that oI a selI-disciplined, reconciliatory, white
magician.
However, the cultural materialistic approaches oI the nineteen
eighties read The Tempest as one oI the Iirst literary echoes oI the
English colonial ventures. Caliban, the monster turned Prospero`s slave,
astonishes Stephano and Trinculo with his bizarre appearance. A
strange Iish!, they exclaim. The same astonishment had been
experienced by the English colonists when they Iirst met the
Amerindians. The appearance oI the other denies the coherence oI the
European order. That is why the Indians, the symbols oI disorder and
incoherence must be subdued and made to serve the European world.
This is, incidentally, Caliban`s story, too. He is the Iormer master oI
Prospero`s island. Prospero`s misIortunes can be read as an illustration
oI English colonialism. The Tempest deals with several actual or

68
attempted usurpations oI authority: 1) Antonio`s usurpation oI
Prospero`s dukedom; 2) Caliban`s attempted rape oI Miranda; 3) the
conspiracy oI Antonio and Sebastian against Alonso`s liIe; 4) Caliban`s
insurrection, with Stephano and Trinculo, against Prospero`s
domination oI the island. For Prospero, the beginning oI the story is the
usurpation oI his oIIice by Antonio; but Ior Caliban, the beginning oI
the story is the moment oI his being enslaved by Prospero. The act oI
enslaving the other was something quite normal: the white man was
born to rule, the other to supply Iood and labour Iorce. This truth is
acknowledged by Prospero himselI:
We cannot miss him : he does make our Iire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in oIIices
That proIit us (I.2.313-15)
Caliban`s revolt triggers oII Prospero`s only moment oI disturbance
in the play, and he has to suddenly interrupt the masque with goddesses
and nymphs. Reinterpreted in the light oI post-colonial discourse, and in
terms oI otherness, Prospero is both usurped and usurper.
In Secret Shakespeare, a study published in 2004, the British
scholar Richard Wilson claimed that The Tempest has nothing to do
with the New World. Its action is clearly located by Shakespeare
somewhere between Tunis and Naples. In Wilson`s opinion, the play
should not be read as a tale oI magic but rather as a tale oI piracy with
the Mediterranean as its setting. The great pirate oI the 1600s in the
area was Robert Dudley jr., the son oI Queen Elizabeth`s Iavourite
courtier oI the same name. Dudley was disinherited during King
James` reign. He became an exile (just like Prospero) and the head oI
pirates who looted the English merchant vessels. Does Robert Dudley
jr.`s portrait suit Prospero`s characterization? The answer is deIinitely
yes. BeIore exile, Dudley had been the best designer oI ships in
England. He designed the Iastest ships in the world and he had lost his
lands to his cousins because he had neglected his political duties,
being a scholar that spent most oI his time in the library. He was also
known as the best cartographer oI his time, and as a man with
pharmaceutical preoccupations, who produced potions and medicine
Ior the cure oI various diseases. For Wilson, The Tempest is an
allegory oI the anti-English looting activities conducted by the
disinherited English nobleman who tried throughout his liIe, up to
1646, to obtain the English crown`s Iorgiveness.

69
^ Shakespeare`s very last work, long neglected by critics, is The
Two Noble Kinsmen, written in collaboration with John Fletcher. The
plot is borrowed Irom Chaucer`s Knights Tale; it is a humorous and
moving dramatization oI the conIlicting claims oI love and Iriendship.
Palamon and Arcite love the same woman: Emilia, Theseus`s sister-
in-law. Their liIetime Iriendship turns to rivalry and hatred, and yet
they never betray the ideals oI chivalry. M.C. Bradbrook calls this
play Shakespeare`s last and most ritualistic treatment oI love, war
and death. Despite its mythological setting, the play is one oI
Shakespeare`s most topical works, the death oI the warlike Arcite
echoing the unexpected death oI Henry, Prince oI Wales. (Chapman`s
excellent translations oI Homer`s epics had been dedicated to the
young warlike prince, too). The gallant, popular prince, only eighteen
years oI age died oI typhoid Iever at the beginning oI his sister`s
wedding Iestivities. In The Two Noble Kinsmen the joys oI liIe and the
sorrow oI death oIten intersect one another: Theseus`s wedding
preparations are interrupted by the three mourning queens, who ask
Ior the revenge oI their dead husbands, killed in the siege oI Thebes.
Military action and Iuneral rites postpone the Iestivities. The end oI
the play again combines the wedding oI the widowed bride Emilia, to
Palamon, with the Iuneral oI Arcite. Some critics read this romance as
a tragic counterpart oI A Miasummer Nights Dream, the comedy that
also Ieatures Theseus and Hippolyta. The Jailer`s Daughter is a She-
Fool and a parody oI Ophelia, in her unrequited love Ior Palamon.
Shakespeare`s much debated authorship in this collaborative play is
obvious in lines such as
This world`s a city Iull oI straying streets
And Death`s the market place, where each one meets.
(I.5.15-16)
Shakespeare in the Light of Recent Critical Perspectives
The past three decades have brought to the Ioreground a dozen
or so new critical methods applied to the interpretation oI
Shakespeare`s work (Neo-Marxism, New Historicism, cultural
materialism, Ieminism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, etc.). The
critics advocating these methods are no longer concerned with the
traditional elements or blocks that make up a literary structure (i.e.
character, plot, language, genre and response). They usually invent a

70
jargon oI their own and encourage a tunnel vision oI the text they
interpret in terms oI ideology, the state oI society, the Renaissance,
gender interrelationships, etc. The result oI such an approach is oIten
predictable, being no more than an ideological grid placed over the
text.
Such predictability makes one easily guess, even beIore reading a
Ieminist essay on any oI Shakespeare`s comedies, that Shakespeare`s
heroines are dominated by men, being eternally persecuted in a patriarchal
society. Moreover, the radical Ieminists contend that Shakespeare, too, is a
perIect representative and supporter oI the patriarchal world, i.e. a male
chauvinist. (Some time ago, traditional criticism used to accuse Shakespeare
oI an insane gynaecolatry, oI exaggerated idealization oI his heroines).
Here is another example oI predictability: any Neo-Marxist
study takes Ior granted the idea oI Shakespeare`s appropriation by the
dominant classes and the interpretive manipulation oI his texts Ior
ideological purposes such as upholding the legitimacy oI the ruling
classes and the immutability oI the given social order. Neo-Marxists
and New Historicists usually start their approach by the Iierce
rejection oI E.M.W. Tillyard`s Eli:abethan Worla Picture. Next, they
reduce their interpretation to concepts such as aiscourse and power.
The Iormer implies that Shakespeare`s works should be read as part oI
a larger corpus oI texts produced during the Renaissance; the latter
discusses all texts in terms oI subversion and containment, opposition
to governing Iorces and the strategies whereby the governing Iorces
control and contain their opponents. Hence, Greenblatt`s Iamous
reading oI Prince Hal as an agent provocateur.
In a Iamous essay on the deconstruction oI Shakespeare`s
comedies, Malcolm Evans has justly revealed the danger oI placing a
grid (actually one and the same grid) over several texts: This is not
only a brand new reading oI an old text, but a brand new old reading.
Worst oI all, post-structuralist readings Irequently accuse Shakespeare
oI racism (because oI Othello), anti-Semitism (because oI The Merchant
of Jenice), reactionary colonialism (because oI The Tempest).
According to such revolutionary readings, Shakespeare no longer
deserves a central place in the canon oI Western culture (his central
position being the result oI the systematic ideological activity oI several
generations oI upper class representatives, boot-licking critics,
academics, etc.). It is no wonder why the key-words oI such readings
are deIlating, debunking, desecrating, de-canonizing; however,

71
one should be more circumspect when reading the theoretical sources oI
these critical trends Ior, while rejecting an entire tradition oI Anglo-
Saxon studies in Shakespeare (the critical legacy oI Tillyard, Bradley,
Frye, Wilson Knight, J. Dover Wilson, etc.), post-structuralist critics
most oIten reIer to the enlightening texts oI Foucault, Derrida,
Iyotard, Iacan, etc., as iI Shakespeare could no longer be discussed
outside French thinking and French methodology. The denial oI general
and universal values endorsed by Shakespeare is yet another Ieature oI
post-structuralist criticism.
Charles R. Forker oIIers a synthetic round-up oI the new critical
perspectives:
Obsessive class and gender consciousness make Ior a kind
oI inverse snobbery. One would never guess Irom reading these
commentaries that sacriIicial love, selI-surrender, renunciation,
Iorgiveness, chastity, unselIishness, chivalric courage, or Christian
humility and submission could have any honourable place in
Shakespeare`s complex oI values. Power and oppression become
exclusively and reductively the theme. Implicit also in this school oI
academic discourse is the arrogant assumption that the interpretative
act, iI it can be suIIiciently startling and revisionist, somehow
displaces and ought to displace the work interpreted, even iI (or
perhaps because) it comes Irom the pen oI Western civilization`s
supreme literary genius. Such voices are not singular. Harold Bloom,
the best-known representative oI a revived traditionalist trend,
describes himselI as one oI the Iew proIessors Irom Yale Irom a
working-class background who can smell a hypocrite in these
matters Irom a considerable distance. Who are these hypocrites? They
are pseudo-Marxists, pseudo-Ieminists, watery disciples oI Foucault
and other French theorists. In The Western Canon (recently translated
in Romanian, too), Bloom Iinds it absurd and regrettable that the
current criticism, oI Shakespeare (.) has abandoned the quest Irom
his aesthetic supremacy and works at reducing him to the social
energies` oI the English Renaissance.
Ironically enough, Dr. Samuel Johnson oIIers us an excellent
diagnosis oI this on-going academic war, a diagnosis dated.1765:
The Iirst care oI the builder oI a new system is to demolish the
Iabrics which are standing (.) The opinions prevalent in one age, as
truths above the reach oI controversy, are conIuted and rejected in

72
another, and rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human
mind is kept in motion without progress.
As Ior my opinion, I hope my students will take my advice: read
one book oI post-structuralist Shakespearean criticism, and you have
read them all.
How to Analzye a Play by Shakespeare
The plays are written in verse. So, they can be discussed Irom
the viewpoint oI prosodic elements (rhythm, rhyme, line-endings) or
stylistics (Iigures oI speech). II we regard these plays as some vast
poems, a suitable approach is the attempt to deIine a play as a whole.
When we speak about a play as a whole the Iirst question that
instantly comes to our mind is what is the play about? So, the
holistic approach aims at identiIying the main theme oI a play. We
can easily notice that the ideational world oI a play is not made up oI a
single theme. A play is a complex texture in which several themes
(and oIten sub-themes, as well) are interwoven. The best way to
identiIy the themes oI a play is to read it and to write down a list oI
personal opinions and conclusions. The themes are sustained by the
imagery and vocabulary oI the respective play. John Webster`s The
Duchess of Malfi abounds in animal and diabolic images. The eyes are
also key symbols in understanding the poetry oI this play. In
Hamlet the images associated with night and darkness are the key
words. In Shakespeare`s plays the mirror, the rose, the crow, etc., are
powerIul symbols with countless meanings. For the importance oI the
mirror as a central Shakespearean metaphor, trope, and symbol, read
George Volceanov, `The Eve Sees Not Itself but bv Reflection, which
will help you appreciate the importance oI words in an Elizabethan /
Shakespearean play.
The plays can also be dealt with as narratives. A narrative is a
story or an account oI events (The BBC English Dictionarv, Harper
Collins Publishers, Iondon, 1993, p. 734). The architectonic
dimension oI any narrative is its plot. The plot has content and the
content is the change on a cause-eIIect axis. This means that we are
supposed to recognize causes Ior eIIects. While reading a play by
Shakespeare, we realize that more or less expected events keep
occurring. So, we must connect one event to another and we must
keep asking questions like, Ior instance, Why does Macbeth kill

73
Duncan?` or Why does Macbeth kill Banquo?` (in Macbeth), Why
does Viola get disguised as a boy?` (in Twelfth Night), Why does
Ophelia die?` or Why does Hamlet not kill Claudius when he sees
him kneeling in prayer beIore the altar?` Such questions, despite their
apparent simplicity, can help us a lot in understanding the unIolding oI
events in a play. Theorists oI the novel have deIined the plot oI a
novel as a temporal synthesis among three Iactors: action, character,
and thought. The same deIinition can be applied to the interpretation
oI a play by Shakespeare. You cannot disengage and oppose character
and plot. A plot is meaningless without an agent. A character is not
relevant unless something occurs to him. A plot should take the
character in action. These aspects were acknowledged by the great
Shakespeare critic A.C. Bradley a century ago. He Iamously wrote
that in Shakespeare`s plays the action ensues Irom character and the
character issues in action`. Thought is also important in the plot.
Various characters uphold diIIerent, contradictory, opposed ideas.
Which are right and which are wrong in their choices? Reading a play
by Shakespeare, the students will realize that no single character in
Shakespeare is one hundred percent good or one hundred percent bad.
Shakespeare`s characters are not personiIications oI virtues and / or
vices, they are representations oI human beings, oI human identities,
and when we come to speak about real liIe, we must admit that
nobody is perIectly virtuous or completely wicked. Shakespeare has
been considered by many great thinkers the inventor oI modern
identity. This idea has been recently endorsed by the great American
critic Harold Bloom in a book tellingly titled Shakespeare: The
Invention of the Human. Says Bloom: Shakespeare invented us all.
That is why it is easy Ior a modern reader to identiIy himselI / herselI
with so many oI Shakespeare`s characters. Ana that is whv mv
stuaents are requirea to relate their Shakespearean reaaings to their
own life experience, not to critics that thev can haralv unaerstana'
Speaking about Shakespeare`s characters we should bear in
mind that they are the Iirst characters in world literature preoccupied
with self-reflection or self-introspection. They sound the depth oI their
own psychology and hear the voice oI their own conscience. Bloom
claims that Shakespeare Iounded psychoanalysis long beIore Freud.
They are `self-overhearers, complex psychological entities with an
inner liIe independent oI the text which generated them. Nietzsche
calls Shakespeare`s characters Iree artists oI themselves.

74
Shakespeare`s characters are sometimes individuals aware oI
their own human value, people who reIuse to play the marginal role
that the ossiIied Ieudal hierarchies ascribe them. They are selI-
assertive persons who Iight Ior a higher position in the social structure
and can be labelled as over-reachers.
The concept oI iaentitv may be useIul in characterizing
Shakespeare`s heroes and heroines. Who am I? and What am I?
are the questions that may help us in explaining the meaning oI
identity. A character`s (and a real person`s) identity is a sum oI
Ieatures like sex, age, ethnicity, religious belieIs, education, social or
proIessional status, etc. Sex is a biological given; gender is a social
construct. One can only change his / her sex by surgery; gender can be
changed by transvestism or cross-dressing. Identity is constructed by
means oI words. We are what we tell other people we are; sometimes
there is a gap between what one really is and what one wants to be
taken Ior by his entourage. Both Viola and Iago say I am not what I
am, which is quite true. Identity is not only a matter oI words and
appearance. One`s identity is given by one`s decisions and choices.
IiIe is a long labyrinth Iull oI crossroads, oI decisions to make. These
decisions shape one`s identity. Success or Iailure in love, proIession,
aspirations, liIe is another criterion oI identity shaping. Erik Eriksson
discusses identity as the result oI the way in which man (throughout
the seven stages oI his liIe) manages or Iails to solve the crises
speciIic oI each stage. Shakespeare`s plays provide us with countless
examples oI characters who try to deIine their identity, or reshape
their identity by suiting themselves to circumstances, who undergo
identity crises and even cases oI lost identity.
Shakespeare`s Iemale characters are as wise, witty and brave as
their masculine counterparts, and yet most oI them are presented by a
dominant patriarchal world. They must obey man`s orders in a man`s
world. They must be meek, humble, patient. Most oI them are an
issue oI negotiation between Iather and Iuture husband. They are
treated like objects, like commoaities. However, Shakespeare also
created powerIul Ieminine characters that are representatives oI the
New Woman, oI the emancipated, liberated woman. John Webster`s
Duchess oI MalIi is the best example oI such a woman.
As Ior Shakespeare`s masculine heroes, Bruce R. Smith has
distinguished Iive types oI masculine characters: the humanist man oI
moderation (highly intellectual, reIlexive, modest); the saucy jack

75
(vulgar, obscene, usually a trickster); the prince merchant (a character
who combines military skills and exploits with economic interests);
the Herculean hero (a man oI great physical strength that lacks wit and
morality); and the chivalric knight, an idealist hero representative oI a
past age and past traditions, not suited to the modern times oI
mercantile capitalism.
Shakespeare`s modernity is also visible in his extraordinary
representation oI mercantile capitalism in his plays. All oI his plays,
whether apparently about politics or love, can be said to revolve
around economic issues. Money is the driving Iorce that sets in motion
the plot oI plays like As You Like It, Twelfth Night and The Tempest.
The Merchant of Jenice and Timon of Athens are primarily about
money; but the theme oI money can be detected in all oI
Shakespeare`s plays.
Another important Ieature oI the plays is their presentation oI
the social hierarchy, oI central versus marginal characters, oI the latent
tensions or violent clashes that ensue Irom class division. Centre and
margin, power and discourse (legitimizing authority by means oI
propaganda), struggle Ior power, subversion and containment (i.e.
keeping subversion under control) are some oI the recent clichs used
by neo-Marxist and New Historicist criticism in analyzing a
Shakespeare plays.
Here is a quotation Irom one oI the greatest Shakespeare
scholars, Ernest Honigmann, that may serve as a summary oI this
lecture: The problems Iorce me to look at the plays. and investigate
what I consider the building blocks oI Shakespearean drama
character, plot, language, genre, response that is, questions that
were asked by Shakespeare`s Iirst audiences and that will continue to
intrigue the world in centuries to come. By response, we mean each
reader`s, spectator`s, student`s own opinion and ideas about a play.
Analyzing Shakespeare`s Comedies
The following lectures are something unexpectea for most of mv
unaergraauates: thev represent the INTERACTIJE SIDE of this course.
These lectures Iocus on the study oI some oI Shakespeare`s most
important plays. The plays must be studied individually, by each and
every student. In my opinion, a better understanding oI these plays can
be attained iI we read and study them in pairs. There will be no proper

76
lecturing but rather several tasks the students will have to IulIil as
their assignment. In the previous lecture I emphasized the importance
oI each reader`s/spectator`s response to the plays oI Shakespeare and
his contemporaries.
The selected texts Ior getting Iamiliar with the themes, devices
and mechanisms oI Shakespeare`s comedies are As You Like It and
Twelfth Night. The students must read the plays careIully, with a pen
in hand, always ready to write notes oI their own. Then, they must
solve a number oI assignments I will mention here.
First, write down the themes and sub-themes oI the two plays
and the aramatis personae (that is, draw up the list oI characters).
Think oI what the two plays are about. You will notice that some oI
your colleagues will share your opinions, while others will come up
with diIIerent suggestions. Despite the inevitable diIIerences in your
personal lists oI themes and sub-themes, you will see that some oI the
themes are the same with all oI you. This means that you are able to
track down the essential meaning oI a play but also that each
individual can interpret a text in diIIerent ways, depending on his / her
previous cultural experience.
Next, try to pin down the place, the location where the action
takes place. Space and time are extremely important elements in the
architecture oI any literary text. The characters move and act in time
and space. Think oI the characters` names and oI other Iunny details
(like, Ior instance, the presence oI a lioness in the European wood
named Arden Forest). Try to place the plot oI the two plays on a
geographical map. Is the space oI Shakespeare`s comedies an
identiIiable geographical space or is it a Iantasy land? Try to decide
whether Shakespeare sticks to realistic geographical details or invents
a Iictional world in which several cultures and traditions are Ireely
mingled.
Next, draw a list oI similarities and diIIerences between the two
texts. There are, indeed, striking similarities between them. (I will let
you enjoy discovering them all by yourselves). Then, starting Irom the
similarities, draw a list oI diIIerences between the two stories,
characters, place oI action, comic events, etc. I am sure you will enjoy
sorting out these details.
II you want to go deeper with your analysis, think oI the opposing
groups oI characters in the two plays. How many groups have we got in
each play? Do they live in the same place? Find the conIlicts that build up

77
the plot in its cause-eIIect relation. Give a thought to the characters`
iaentitv. Iaentitv is an essential concept in discussing literary characters. It
means who you are. Are the characters in Shakespeare`s plays always
who they are`? Do they have to pretend, to dissemble, to put on various
masks (personae) and be something diIIerent Irom what they are? Think
oI Viola and Rosalind. Next, think oI the way in which these characters
use language as a means oI communicating/concealing their true
intentions. What are the uses oI language in Shakespeare`s plays? Try to
Iind the answer to these latter questions by reading my book, `Methinks
Youre Better Spoken: A Stuav in the Language of Shakespeares
Characters and the article Disguise, Mimicry, Dissimulation: Jesuitical
Strategies oI Survival in Shakespeare`s Plays, published in my book
`The Eve Sees Not Itself but bv Reflection: A Stuav in Shakespeares
`Catoptrics ana Other Essavs (Editura Universitar , 2006).
Think oI the vocabulary oI the two comedies. What kind oI
language do the characters speak? Are they diIIerentiated by their
speech? Do they all speak the same language or is language a means
oI individualizing them? Is their any particular image, symbol or
metaphor that has struck you? Are there recurrent words or images
used Ior a certain purpose?
Discuss the types oI women and men that appear in the two
comedies. What human types do they represent? Why does Viola
disguise herselI? And why does Rosalind disguise herselI? What is the
Fool`s role in the two comedies?
Next, think oI the way in which Shakespeare uses the generic
conventions discussed in the earlier theoretical lectures oI this course.
Think about the use oI the monologue and the aside in the two comedies.
Think about the previously discussed element oI Shakespeare`s
modernity. Try to Iind textual evidence supporting the idea that
Shakespeare`s characters are self-overhearers: that they have an inner
dialogue with themselves, that they sound their depth psychology. Try to
prove that the mechanism oI mercantile capitalism (the question oI
money) is important even in the so-called romantic comedies. Try to
visualize the social pyramid in each comedy and to draw a line between
what we call central marginal characters. Try to detect the social tensions
between diIIerent social classes, or groups, in the two plays. Are there
characters in the comedies who are selI-assertive and think about
themselves as deserving more than liIe has oIIered them? II you solve

78
these assignments, it means you have taken a great step Iorward in
understanding Shakespeare`s art.
*
Undergraduates can develop their critical skills by studying
another pair oI comedies that have many things in common. Go through
exactly the same stages oI research as in the case oI the aIorementioned
plays and identiIy the themes as well as the similarities and diIIerences
between A Miasummer Nights Dream and The Tempest. Think oI the
two plays in terms oI reality and illusion / imagination, think again oI
Shakespeare`s unique way oI constructing the geography oI his plays,
think oI the social pyramid presented in the plays, oI the relationships
between the representatives oI the various social groups. Think oI the
novelty added by the author to these plays, something that did not
appear in the other two comedies. Give a thought to the importance oI
the Iestive and spectacular elements present in the two plays, oI the
plays-within-the plays or the spectacles perIormed by various
characters. Try to decide which pair oI plays is more realistic and which
more Iairy-tale-like. Then, think oI the way in which love is depicted by
the author: is it a spontaneous Ieeling, is it volatile, or is it everlasting?
How do lovers maniIest their erotic Ieelings?
Try to decide whether the two plays are just about love. Try to read
in-between the lines and to detect the sexual, social, and political themes
hidden behind the love stories. What is the true nature oI the relationship
between Theseus and Hippolyta? What is the relationship between Iathers
and daughters? How do Iathers treat daughters in these plays? Why is
there no mother in all oI the Shakespeare comedies discussed up to this
point? What is the relationship between the political centre (the characters
representing power / authority) and the marginal characters? How are the
tensions represented (iI there are tensions at all)? And how are they
solved? Can we speak about subversion in these plays?
The Tempest was traditionally labelled as a romance. The word
romance was coined by Edward Dowden in 1870 to describe
Shakespeare`s late comedies. The so-called romances were written
aIter Shakespeare`s company, the King`s Men, started to perIorm in an
in-door theatre, the BlackIriars. They depart Irom a naturalistic and
mimetic treatment oI their subject and lay emphasis on the spectacular
side oI perIormance, on the special eIIects made possible by an in-door
theatre. In his romances, Shakespeare oIIers his audience the ingredients

79
oI romantic Iiction: stolen inIants, wicked stepmothers, wronged wives,
Italian villains, shipwrecks, tearIul reunions (does it not sound like a soap
opera or a telenovella?), oracles, witches, magic potions, airy spirits,
tournaments, and a voracious bear (in Cvmbeline, Pericles, The Winters
Tale, The Tempest, and The Two Noble Kinsmen). The limitation oI
earlier comedies is replaced with ampliIication, simplicity with
extravagance, mimesis with poesis. Shakespeare`s poetic style is
reconIigured by the exploitation oI the mid-line caesura, the juxtaposition
oI long and short sentences, the Irequency oI ellipsis, the inversion oI
subject, verb, and object, the introduction oI long digressions, etc.
Among the notable stimuli to which Shakespeare may have
responded when writing his romances there are three outstanding
ones: 1) Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, with their
sensationalist melodramatic plays started altering the audiences`
tastes about the year 1607; 2) Queen Anne`s promotion oI the
masque was changing the shape oI theatre at court; 3) the King`s
Men were about to expand in new directions, perIorming Ior
diIIerent audiences at the in-door BlackIriars theatre. |The masque is
a spectacular kind oI in-door perIormance combining poetic drama,
music, dance, song, lavish costumes and costly stage eIIects, which
was Iavoured by royalty in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries. Members oI the court would enter disguised, taking the
parts oI mythological persons and enact a simple allegorical plot,
concluding with the removal oI masks and a dance joined by
members oI the audience. Shakespeare included a short masque
scene in The Tempest and a dance borrowed Irom a highly popular
masque by Beaumont in The Two Noble Kinsmen.|
Coming back to our mutton, the two comedies we shall try to
discuss now must be read and dissected in a step by step analysis
similar to the one dealing with As You Like It and Twelfth Night. AIter
you set up the similarities and diIIerences between A Miasummer
Nights Dream and The Tempest, go a step Iurther and try to Iind
similarities between these two plays and the comedies discussed
previously. Try to Iind Iacts or aspects that recur in all oI these
comedies and may be considered the ingredients that represent
Shakespeare`s unique style. Find common elements that link each oI the
play to the other three comedies; they are the invariants that make up
the structure oI these plays.


80
Analyzing a Historical Play by Shakespeare
This chapter aims at introducing students to the atmosphere oI the
medieval world depicted by Shakespeare in his historical plays. This
year I have selected a text with the theme oI war, war with France, to
be more precise, Eawara III. Iast year the historical play included in
the mandatory (compulsory) bibliography was Henrv V but although
this is my Iavourite historical play, and Ieatures one oI my Iavourite
Shakespearean characters, I have noticed that my students Iound it too
diIIicult Ior them to analyze and understand. That is why I have
switched to Eawara III, an easier text. One oI the advantages oI this
change is that we now have a Romanian translation oI this play issued
by Paralela 45 Publishing House in 2003, with a reprint in 2006. The
translation is preceded by a huge Introduction that may provide students
with a real insight into the interpretation oI Eawara III. Moreover, the
Romanian version oI the play, directed by Alexandru Tocilescu, is
currently being staged by the National Theatre in Bucharest, with Ion
Caramitru in the title-role. The play deals with the heroic deeds oI a
hero-king and his son on the battleIields oI France during the One
Hundred Year War. The play poses a series oI interesting questions that
the undergraduates are expected to answer: the monarch as public /
private person; the legitimacy / illegitimacy oI rulers` claims to crowns
and territories; the struggle Ior power and its consequences; the Iate oI
the lower classes in times oI war; the cyclic patterns discernible in
history; the blending oI comedy, tragedy and grotesque; the author`s
attitude towards monarchy (was he a supporter or a dissenter?), etc.
Think oI the various ethnic groups present in the play and oI their
attitude towards one another. Was Shakespeare a nationalist? II so, can
we Iind any excuse in this respect?
The love-section oI Eawara III has some oI the Iinest
Shakespearean passages: purest poetry is mischievously combined with
irony and selI-irony, the male characters write love poems and discuss
about the strategy oI poetry writing. The King is no better than Orlando,
the author oI the love poems in As You Like It. Shakespeare shows us that
he can write love poetry in the courtly tradition oI the Italian, French, and
English imitators oI Petrarch, but that he also distances himselI Irom the
worn-out Petrarchan model. Many scenes in the play can be linked to
scenes in other great plays: Warwick`s speech containing his advice to his
daughter, the Countess oI Salisbury, anticipates Polonius` speech to
Iaertes in Hamlet. The symmetry oI some episodes and the ceremonial

81
scenes also anticipate later plays like Pericles and The Two Noble
Kinsmen.
The students should read the passages in my book `The Eve
Sees Not Itself but bv Reflection in which I discuss Shakespeare`s
treatment oI the symbol oI the mirror in Eawara III, to see how close
or diIIerent Irom other plays and poems it is.
The students must identiIy the sub-themes apart Irom the themes
oI war and love already mentioned here.
Discuss especially the types oI masculinity presented in this
play, and the attitude oI men towards women in a patriarchal world.
What types do the King, the Black Prince, and Iord Audley embody
in the play?
Discuss the types oI Ieminine characters that appear in this play
and make their own comment on Shakespeare`s attitude towards
women: is the author a patriarchal, reactionary man himselI or does he
take sides with his heroines?
What heroes / heroines Irom other plays do the characters Irom
Eawara III remind us oI?
Another issue that needs to be examined by the students is: how
does Shakespeare build the atmosphere oI the great battles in the play?
How does he build suspense? How does he build the dramatic
tension in the crucial scenes oI the play?
Can the plot oI Eawara III be turned into a successIul Iilm
script? Give a yes / no answer and argue your viewpoint.
Analyzing a 1ragedy by Shakespeare
This chapter is an attempt to invite undergraduates to analyze
Shakespeare`s greatest tragedies, the two plays that are considered the
world`s greatest tragedies: Hamlet and King Lear. Shakespeare did not
invent the story oI these plays; he borrowed them Irom Danish history
and Welsh Iolklore, and Irom authors who had recounted them in earlier
works (Saxo Grammaticus, BelleIorest, Sir Philip Sidney, etc.). The
original tales had happy endings. Shakespeare curiously turned them into
gloomy tragedies, in which the spectators` / readers` Iavourites, Hamlet
and Cordelia, must die. Shakespeare does not apply the rule oI the poetic
justice. His preIerence Ior the pessimistic endings can be explained in
biographical terms: Hamlet`s sad story was interpreted as an allegory oI
Essex`s Iall shortly beIore Shakespeare wrote the tragedy oI the Danish
prince, while the tragic end oI Cordelia and Iear expresses Shakespeare`s
gloomy vision oI mankind aIter the Gunpowder Plot oI 1605, when

82
Catholics like Shakespeare were more and more badly persecuted by the
authorities, and England seemed to collapse into complete chaos,
conIusion, and intolerance.
Hamlet and King Lear are grouped together because they share
some obvious similarities: the parent-child relationship is the central
theme oI both plays; and both Hamlet and Edgar resort to disguise in
order to deceive and ambush their enemies.
Undergraduates are requested to go back to the Aristotelian
terms that are used to describe the ancient Greek tragedy and to try to
notice how diIIerent Shakespeare is Irom his illustrious Greek
Iorerunners.
Can we speak about divine retribution in Shakespeare`s plays?
Are these two plays personal tragedies or public (national)
tragedies?
To what extent do personal matters have an impact on a wider
community? As such, are the plays political plays?
What are the means by which the characters struggle Ior power?
What is the woman`s position in such political plays? Are they
marginal, excluded characters, or do they share man`s thirst Ior power?
Does the tragedy in King Lear have its roots in the ungrateIul
daughters` behaviour or in the old king`s insanity? Argue your
viewpoint.
Is Iaertes a positive or a negative character? Is he a manipulator
or a manipulated man? Is he entitled to try to kill Hamlet by all means?
Is Claudius a negative character? Does he have no positive trait?
Is he a good or a bad ruler / husband in public / private liIe?
Is Hamlet a man oI action or an idealist unsuited to action?
Is Edmund a representative oI the old Ieudal order or a selI-
assertive overreaching man that ushers in a new mentality?
Is Polonius an old scheming Iool or a good Iather and politician?
How does Gertrude construct her identity as a mother, widow,
wiIe, and queen? Is she a criminal or not? II she has a Ilaw at all, what
would that be in your opinion?
What is the Iunction oI the subplot in King Lear?
To what extent can we compare Edgar to Hamlet, and Iaertes to
Hamlet?
Read Hamlet careIully and decide the number oI Iather-son
couples reIerred to in the text oI the play.
Can we speak oI a journey leading to selI-knowledge in Hamlet`s
and Iear`s case?


83


SHAKESPEARE`S CONTEMPORARIES
(1acobean Drama)





^ Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was the Iirst and, perhaps, the
greatest English literary dictator. A liIetime Iriend and rival oI
Shakespeare, Jonson has oIten been compared (mostly in the negative)
with Shakespeare. In 1668, in his Essav of Dramatic Poesie, Dryden
wrote: Shakespeare was the Homer or Iather oI our dramatic poets;
Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern oI elaborate writing; I admire him,
but I love Shakespeare.
Jonson was the more learned writer, obsessed by Iormula and
pattern, by rules, by the imitation oI the classics. BeIore becoming an
actor and a playwright, Jonson was a bricklayer and a soldier. As a
soldier, he Iought on the side oI William the Silent against the Spanish
troops in the Netherlands. In 1598 he was imprisoned Ior murdering a
Iellow-actor (Gabriel Spencer) in a duel. On his release, Jonson was
accepted as a collaborator by the Iord Chamberlain`s Men, in which
Shakespeare was a prominent share holder.
His very debut play, Everv Man in His Humour (1598), with
Shakespeare in the cast, was his most successIul play. It is a realistic
and satirical comedy, which oIIers a vivid picture oI his age. It is a
return to the common types oI characters in Plautus. The original setting
oI the play was Italy, but it was later changed into Iondon. The
Prologue is an attack against the themes and conventions oI
contemporary drama, against the lack oI unity oI time, space and action
(with obvious hints to Shakespeare`s Henrv J). Captain Bobadil the
miles gloriosus type acts like FalstaII and speaks like Captain
Fluellen. The play is written in prose, in John Iyly`s Iashion. The word
humour had been employed in the Jonsonian sense by George
Chapman beIore Jonson`s use oI it.
The comedy oI humours itselI is a heightened variety oI the
comedy oI manners which presents liIe viewed at a satirical angle. In

84
Shakespeare`s The Merrv Wives of Winasor all characters are
conceived in the spirit oI humours, so is Malvolio in Twelfth Night,
but never a too important personage.
Jonson`s successors degraded the humour into oddity oI speech
and eccentricity in a long series oI works including the anonymous
Everv Woman in Her Humour, George Chapman`s A Humorous Davs
Mirth, John Day`s Humour out of Breath, John Fletcher`s The
Humorous Lieutenant and, Iinally, Jonson`s own Everv Man out of His
Humour and The Magnetic Laav or Humours Resuscitatea.
Everv Man out of His Humour (1599) shows Jonson as a
conscious theorist Iighting the conventions oI romantic comedy. His
characters are dominated and even obsessed by one particular quirk.
Jonson`s insistence on the humours contradicted his realistic intentions.
His characters are actually caricatures (jealous husbands, hypocritical
Puritans, aIIected courtiers, vainglorious knights). Jonson`s comedy
thus becomes satire. According to some literary historians, this play was
Jonson`s Iirst contribution to what Thomas Dekker called the
poetomachia or war oI the theatres. The method oI personal attack by
actual caricature oI a person on the stage is almost as old as drama.
Aristophanes lampooned Euripides in The Acharnians and Socrates in
The Clouas. The literary quarrel was started by John Marston who
wrote a satire in imitation oI the ancient poets; Jonson`s epigrams
Irequently accused Marston oI cowardice and plagiarism; Marston
satirized Jonson in Histriomastix, Jack Drums Entertainment and What
You Will; Jonson, in turn, attacked him in Everv Man in His Humour,
Cvnthias Revels (wherein Thomas Iodge and Samuel Daniels are also
ridiculed), and The Poetaster. Dekker put an end to the quarrel with his
victorious Satiromastix and Shakespeare himselI took part in the war by
satirizing Jonson in Troilus ana Cressiaa (where Jonson appears in the
guise oI the stupid and boastIul Ajax) and by staging Dekker`s plays
with his company.
Jolpone, or the Fox (1605) is Jonson`s greatest comedy,
exploiting the theme oI aupers ana aupes. The plot derives Irom
Petronius, who had written about the captatores (i. e. legacy hunters).
The very names oI the characters reveal their moral portrait. Mosca
proves to be the superduper, cheating Volpone in the end. The dupers
are punished in the end. Ieon Ievi chi pointed out that Mosca`s
comments on gold are reminiscent oI Timon`s soliloquy.

85
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609) is a gigantic Iarce oI the
most ingenious construction, a huge joke. It is the story oI an avaricious
old man who cannot stand noise and marries a young girl who is
supposed to be quiet all day long. She turns out to be an incessant talker
and a boy in disguise, a Iriend oI the old man`s disinherited nephew.
The Alchemist (1610) borrows ideas and details Irom Giordano
Bruno`s Il Canaelaio and Plautus`s Mostellaria in a way which made
Dryden call Jonson a learned plagiary and imitator. The motiI oI
aupers ana aupes has a new setting this time: Iondon. The duper is a
quack alchemist, Subtle; Face, his provider oI gullible clients, is the
superduper. Some critics have objected to the Iact that the only honest
person is discomIited and the greatest scoundrel oI all is approved in
the end (Face is pardoned by his master). Written in blank verse, with
rapid dialogues, it satirizes both alchemy and the Puritans, oIIering a
realistic picture oI Jonson`s Iondon. Subtle`s black magic apparently
echoes Prospero`s white magic in The Tempest.
Bartholomew Fair (1614) is Jonson`s most English play in
atmosphere. It is inventive, Iull oI liIe and colour. A happy comparison
has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens:
both were men oI the people, lowly born and hardly bred;
both knew the Iondon oI their time;
both represented it intimately and in elaborate detail;
both were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated
method oI humour and caricature.
In the Induction to his play, Jonson criticizes Shakespeare again,
this time Ior the inconsistencies oI his romance plays (such as the
lapse oI twenty years between two acts oI The Winters Tale; or the
presence oI ridiculous monsters, such as Caliban, in The Tempest) and
Ior the handling oI time in Henrv JI.
All in all, Jonson was one oI the most proliIic authors oI city
comedies, a dramatic species with Iondon as the setting oI its plots.
Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton and Philip
Massinger also contributed to the Ilourishing oI this particular species
which never attracted Shakespeare`s attention.
Sefanuss Fall (1603) is Jonson`s only remarkable tragedy.
Jonson, as a scholar and classical antiquarian, wrote Sefanus strictly
sticking to its sources: Tacitus, Suetonius, Dion Cassius, Juvenal and
other authorities are oIten quoted line by line or word by word in order
to reconstruct historical Iacts, setting and atmosphere. It is a tragedy oI

86
rise and Iall, oI ambition and power. The atmosphere during
Tiberius`s reign is that oI a police state. Jonson`s play precedes
Camus`s Caligula by Iour centuries and a halI. Tiberius`s reign is an
age in which everyone is spying and inIorming on everyone else.
Jonson`s other dramatic works include Eastwara Ho', a
collaborative play written with Marston and Chapman (the three
authors were imprisoned Ior openly mocking at Scots!) and several
masques played at the court. The masques are spectacular shows that
poetry, music, choreography and stage design (the latter produced by
the Iamous royal architect Inigo Jones). Masked actors perIormed
such shows about heroes and heroines oI classical mythology.
Jonson`s Ilattering masques were dedicated to the royal couple,
Jonson being the Iavourite court poet. King James was praised as the
descendant oI Troy and the great paciIier oI two hostile kingdoms
(England and Scotland), while Queen Anne herselI held the leading role
in The Masque of Blackness. Jonson`s indoor perIormances and the
technical opportunities provided by the closed theatre strongly
inIluenced Shakespeare`s late works: masques are spectacular interludes
in the plot oI The Tempest, Henrv JIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
The inIluence was, as usual, a mutual one: Shakespeare`s witches in
Macbeth contributed to Jonson`s invention oI the antimasque, a species
Ieaturing non-sublime characters such as witches, gypsies, etc.
Jonson as a poet wrote epigrams, epistles, odes. His most oIten
mentioned poems are To Celia, the egocentric Oae to Himself and
especially To the Memorv of Mv Belovea, the Author (also known as
Jonson`s Eulogy). Jonson is the Iather oI the cavalier (neo-classical)
trend oI the English poetry opposed to the so-called metaphysical or
baroque trend best represented by Donne and Marvell.
^ Thomas Heywood (1570-1641) claimed to have written 220 plays
out oI which only 23 have survived. The small number oI extant plays is
explained by the Iact that Heywood was one oI the dramatists who
opposed the idea oI having their works published and who criticized
pirate editions. A published play triggered the readership`s lack oI interest
in a certain perIormance. Ben Jonson, on the other hand, deIended the
idea oI having his plays published: he was the Iirst dramatic author to
have some oI his plays collected in a Iolio edition, in 1616.
Heywood`s most important play, A Woman Killea with Kinaness
(played in 1603, published in 1607) is considered the best English
domestic tragedy oI his age.

87
The Elizabethan domestic tragedy as a distinct species had been
established by the anonymous Araen of Faversham (printed in 1592),
oIten attributed to Kyd, Marlowe and/or Shakespeare. It tells the story
oI a gentleman murdered by his wiIe and her lover in 1551. The cool,
detached, objective presentation oI events allows the spectator to Ieel
no pity Ior the murdered man.
Another Iamous play, A Yorkshire Trageav, recently attributed
to Thomas Middleton is a 1605 story in which an insane Iather
murders his children and injures his wiIe, and is Iinally executed by
pressing to death.
The main plot in A Woman Killea with Kinaness is Iictional,
invented by Heywood himselI: it is a story oI adultery in which a sinIul
wiIe is Iorgiven by her cuckold husband and dies Iull oI remorse. The
title oI the play may have been suggested by Petruchio`s cue in The
Taming of The Shrew: This is a way to kill a wiIe with kindness.
Punishment through Iorgiveness is a central theme in Shakespeare`s The
Tempest, too. Nicholas, the IaithIul servant, plays the role that Iago
merely assumes. He is the one who reveals his mistress`s inIidelity to
his master and the one who can never Iorgive her. The moment when
FrankIord, the cuckold husband, approaches the marital bed which is
being deIiled by his wiIe and his best Iriend, Wendoll, has been
compared by critics with Faustus`s last hour: FrankIord knows the
irrevocable nature oI the division to be made between him and Ann, the
Iact that their divorce will be eternal. The sub-plot, borrowed Irom a
Bandello novella, contributes to an antithetic structure, presenting a
virtuous maid who Iights hard to preserve her honour. Her virtue is
Iinally rewarded when her brother`s greatest Ioe Ialls in love with her,
releases her brother Irom jail and marries her. This episode anticipates
the bourgeois reward oI virtue in Richardson`s eighteenth century novel
Pamela. The subplot is also reminiscent oI the medieval morality
Evervman: the girl`s rejection by her rich kinsmen in times oI trouble
reminds us oI Everyman`s pleas beIore his death.
^ John Webster (1580-1625), with his two Iamous tragedies The
White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1614) best illustrates
the Italianate type oI Jacobean tragedy. Both plays have Italian
novellas as sources, narrating real historical events. Both are episodic
in structure and in both the author exploits with brilliant poetic eIIect
the terror, the grandeur and the pathos oI each and every moment.

88
In Webster`s plays, the theme oI revenge undergoes complete
changes: the revengers are no longer the heroes but the villains oI the
story; the sympathy oI the audience goes with the victims rather than with
the avengers. Nemesis also acts upon the avengers. This means that
Webster is less interested in plot and rather concerned with his characters.
Webster`s principle oI unity` is the atmosphere` developing in the
course oI his tragedies. His characters are complex and the audience is
made aware oI their depths oI consciousness and subconsciousness. The
characters are made to reIlect upon each other in antonymous pairs or
groups.
The White Devil presents a world oI villains with no moral
characters in it. The characters acting as judges and executioners are
corrupt and ambitious. Neo-Marxist critics contend that The White
Devil deals with the demystiIying oI state power and ideology. It
demolishes the myth oI courtliness, the myth which disguises the real
nature oI the court. Vittoria, the assertive woman in the play utters
this memorable cue:
O happy they that never saw the court
Nor ever knew great men but by report.
Somewhere else she says:
Glories, like glow-worms, aIar oII shine bright
But look`d to near have neither heat nor light.
Flamineo is the dominant true villain who achieves dignity in
dying. Brachiano`s death closely resembles the Iinal scene in Negruzzi`s
Alexanaru L pu,neanu.
The Duchess of Malfi displays the epitome oI Jacobean
mischievous characters (including Iago, Edmund, Flamineo) in
Bosola`s character. He is the master oI the horror, oI psychic torture
and ordeal. Ferdinand`s cue Cover her Iace; mine eyes dazzle; she
died young is one oI the most oIten quoted lines in English literature.
F.W. Bateson called it a single-sentence masterpiece, a miniature-
three-act play. The Iace is to be covered in order that it may not be
visible now, but beIore it is covered its dazzling beauty has already
been revealed, and it is only aIter the revelation oI her beauty that we
discover the young Duchess is dead.
Catherine Belsey has compared the Duchess with Iady MacduII
in Macbeth, both are loving mothers oI Iamilies whose innocence and

89
aIIection constitute evidence Ior the audience oI the wanton tyranny oI
those who destroy them.
Webster`s characters have more than ordinary human ambitions
and lusts they are Faustian, killing, betraying, scheming and plotting
Ior very vague reasons.
As Ior Webster`s stvle, Webster is second to Shakespeare only as
a dramatic poet. His language shows inIluences oI both Shakespeare`s
vocabulary (the use oI somatic elements, words, comments on themes
such as death, gold, etc.) and Donne`s baroque conceits and unexpected
images. Webster`s dialogue is loaded with similes, enumerations,
apostrophes, antitheses, puns, rhetorical questions and many other
Iigures oI speech. Webster is the rare dramatist who is obviously
literary without ceasing to be wholly dramatic. The gloomy atmosphere
oI Webster`s plays anticipates that oI the eighteenth century Gothic
novel.
For Iurther details about Shakespeare and Webster`s mutual
inIluence, read the essay Shakespeare versus Webster; Or,
Shakespeare ana Webster? published in my book `The Eve Sees Not
Itself but bv Reflection: A Stuav in Shakespeares `Catoptrics ana
Other Essavs.
Further Analyzing Heywood and Webster
AIter the undergraduates have read A Woman Killea with
Kinaness and The Duchess of Malfi, which are part oI their mandatory
bibliography, they should to answer the Iollowing questions:
Is the Duchess oI MalIi, like Hamlet, a Iounder oI modern
identity? Is she similar to, or diIIerent Irom other Elizabethan heroines,
Shakespeare`s women included?
Are their recurrent images, types oI characters, and dramatic
situations in the plays oI Shakespeare, Heywood and Webster?
Does A Woman Killea with Kinaness have tele-novellistic
Ieatures?
Is the story oI this domestic tragedy still credible Ior a twenty-
Iirst century audience?
What is the Iunction oI the double plot (main plot and subplot)
in Shakespeare`s and Heywood`s plays?
Are there degrees oI evil in the characterization oI the male
characters in The Duchess of Malfi?

90
What Shakespearean character would you compare Sir Charles
MountIord with?
What Shakespearean character would you compare Bosola with?
What does Bosola share in common with Hamlet and Edmund (Irom
King Lear)?
Which is your Iavourite scene / character Irom A Woman Killea
with Kinaness? Explain why.
Comment on the Webster`s animal and diabolic imagery in The
Duchess of Malfi, and on the symbol oI the eyes.
How do Shakespeare, Heywood, and Webster use the mirror as a
symbol in their plays? Are there similarities between Shakespeare`s
and Webster`s use oI this symbol?




























91











Part two:
THE EIGHTEENTH AND
NINETEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH
AND AMERICAN NOVEL



92

93


THE RISE OF THE NOVEL. A SOCIAL
AND LITERARY PERSPECTIVE





The first lecture accounts for the appearance of the novel in
English literature from a social, philosophical ana literarv perspective.
It aescribes the main innovative literarv aevices as well as the changes
brought bv the new genre within the context of Enlightenment.
The eighteenth

century is generally considered to be the Iirst
literary age during which we can speak oI the novel as a well-
established genre in British literature. The period is diIIicult to name;
it was called by its contemporaries the Augustan or Neoclassical Age
(as writers strove to identiIy themselves with the classical Roman
model), or by other names such as Enlightenment, the Age oI Reason.
Eighteenth century philosophers, such as Iocke, Berkeley,
D.Hume, Diderot or Voltaire stated the signiIicance oI the rational,
positive spirit. In their opinion, human knowledge is empirical, based
on the perception oI the senses, hence its subjectivity and limits. Order
was another Iirst-rate value in the Augustan hierarchy. It was
associated with thoughtIul conduct, eIIiciency instead oI complexity,
scientiIical discoveries, acquiring connotations such as unity,
harmony, precision, clarity.
On the literarv scene, the most inIluential genre that developed
during the period was the novel. It was inIluenced by similar
developments on the continent, among which Cervantes`s Don
Quixote, which was translated in 1700, the writings oI Rabelais, or oI
Iesage, particularly Gil Blas. The ordinary man became the norm,
consisting oI a variety oI individuals, such as the energetic merchant,
the country gentleman directing his Iarms or estates, the lady in her
social calls, the doctor, the lawyer, soldier, servant, labourer, in their
occupations, the traveller observing liIe at home and abroad, and the
writer including all these as his public and characters. Economic
specialization provided a particular kind oI audience the lower and

94
middle classes saw their lives and interests represented with a
sympathy and seriousness that had hitherto been accorded only to their
betters on the social scale. As A. Sanders has shown in his Short
Oxfora Historv of English Literature, the new style emphasized Ior
the most part the everyday experience oI men and women in society.
Enlightenment philosophy required a simple, unequivocal
instrument oI expression, making use oI a plain, native language to
record experiments and conclusions. No rhetoric, exhuberant prose
was permitted to obscure common sense, as writers (such as D. DeIoe)
wanted to communicate their ideas without aiming at a literary
distinction. As Ian Watt also shows in his study The Rise of the Novel,
the appearance oI writers such as D. DeIoe, S.Richardson, H.Fielding
within a single generation was probably due to the Iavourable
conditions oI the time. eighteenth century literary historians have seen
realism as the deIining characteristic which diIIerentiates their work
Irom previous Iiction (the term was apparently used as an aesthetic
description in 1835 to denote the vrit humaine oI Rembrandt as
opposed to idalit potique). Primarily used as the antonym oI
idealism, the term would trace down all possible continuity to
earlier works that portrayed low liIe and where the economic and
social motives were given a lot oI space in the presentation oI human
behaviour. Fiction is not a new invention, there is a great number oI
Middle Age prose stories, oI Renaissance romances, allegories,
character-studies or picaresque tales. Yet, Iiction`s relation to liIe was
peripheral, a mere idealization or satire.
DeIoe and Richardson are the Iirst great writers in English literature
who did not take their plots Irom mythology, history, legend or previous
literature. In this respect, they diIIer Irom Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare
who used traditional plots. However, besides the plot, much else had to be
changed in the tradition oI Iiction: the actors in the plot and the scene oI
their actions had to be placed in a new literary perspective. The plot had
to be acted in particular circumstances, rather than as had been common
in the past by general human types against a background determined by
the appropriate literary convention. The novel is distinguished Irom other
genres by the amount oI attention it generally allots both to the
individualisation oI its characters and to the presentation oI their
environment. It is also related to the epistemological status oI proper
names as the expression oI a particular identity (medieval or Renaissance
writers preIerred either historical or type names).

95
The principle oI individuation accepted by Iocke was that oI
existence in space and time; Northrop Frye has seen time and
Western man as the deIining characteristic oI the novel compared
with other genres. Philosophical and literary innovations must be seen
as resulting in a circumstantial view oI liIe, a Ieature oI the new
prose. The narrative methoa that embodies this view is called Iormal
realism, the premise that it is an authentic report oI human experience,
giving its readers details concerning the individuality oI actors,
particulars oI their actions, through a more reIerential use oI language
than is common in other literary Iorms. The diIIerence to earlier
Iiction consists in the Iact that such passages were relatively rare,
while the plot was traditional and highly improbable.

Topics for discussion
1. The eighteenth century is also named the Augustan Age.
Which are the aesthetic ideals that best characterize this period?
2. Describe the main Ieatures oI the eighteenth century novel.



96


NARRATIVE STRATEGIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY NOVEL





The second lecture aiscusses the narrative techniques usea in
various tvpes of the eighteenth centurv novel (the confessional,
autobiographical one ana the memoir convention, the comic heroic,
Bilaungsroman, picaresque, epistolarv ones), as well as in relatea genres,
such as the satirical or false travelogue (Swifts Gullivers Travels). It
also focusses on the language, character, point of view pertaining to each
of the novels approachea.
The proper creators oI the British classical novel as we understand
it today were Defoe, Richardson, Fielding. They belonged to the
middle class and wrote oI its interests and problems. At the same time,
there was a direct interaction between author and his readers; this is
visible in the direct Iorms oI address, rhetorical questions and generally
in the constant presence oI the authors` assumptions on the reactions oI
their readers.
Daniel Defoe created a more complex sort oI novel. In his work,
the internal quest is doubled by an external quest, and the reader is
invited to share in the hero`s dreams, visions and disillusions. His
previous journalistic experience inIluenced both his style and choice oI
characters. DeIoe`s language is simple, plain, and expressive, also
owing to the precision required by journalistic writing, authenticity
being a demand. Despite the popularity oI some oI his other writings,
such as Moll Flanaers (a low-born heroine`s progress towards middle-
class respectability), undoubtedly the work by which posterity
remembers Daniel DeIoe remains Robinson Crusoe (1719). As to its
narrative strategies, it can be interpreted as the synthesis oI two existing
traditions: the picaresque novel and the personal journal/memoir
(conIessional autobiography). The Iirst presents the adventures oI one
individual in his journey towards maturity and respectability. The
second narrates the psychological processes that shape the liIe oI its

97
heroes, having a subjective, introspective character. This Ieature could
also be linked to a general tendency oI Puritanism, selI-examination/
scrutiny as well as the habit oI interpreting everyday reality in order to
reveal the intentions oI Providence.
Robinson Crusoe is regarded not only as a classic travel and
adventure story, but also as the prototype oI the novel, because oI its
emphasis on the daily, external and internal activities oI ordinary
people, using the formal realism technique. It was inspired by the real
story oI the survival oI Alexander Selkirk, a sailor who had been
shipwrecked Ior a number oI years on a desert island. It is presented as a
story told by an old man about his adventurous liIe: his experiences on
several sea voyages, his adventures as a slave with the Moors, as a
planter in Brazil, as a castaway on a desert island, and Iinally his rescue
by a ship and return to civilization. The novel covers thirty-Iive years,
twenty eight oI which cover Robinson`s stay on the desert island. His
help and servant is a native he names Friday, and his other companion is
a parrot. DeIoe`s book was rooted in the rise oI the modern capitalist
society. This odyssey oI a middle class individual became a myth oI
bourgeois society. It oIIers the reader a small version oI the larger
processes that were reshaping the Iace oI the world everywhere in the
eighteenth century: the Western spirit colonizing the world, dominating
nature, civilizing` both the wilderness and its inhabitants.
The novel can also be read as a metaphor oI colonialism, the
relationship between Robinson and Friday appearing as the archetype oI
colonial relations. Crusoe treats other human beings as commodities;
when he meets them, they are transIormed into his servants or slaves.
He doesn`t ask Friday his name, he gives him one. The novel points to
the mercantile mentality oI the expanding British empire, to the
assumed superiority oI civilized man and to the nature oI the Savage
(consider issues such as British/imperial versus marginal, civilized
versus barbarian, colour, race).
Robinson`s experiences describe the internal journey oI a
Protestant individual, as in DeIoe`s vision, the western entrepreneurial
spirit is connected to religion. DeIoe, a born Puritan, also lived in a
sphere oI utilitarian action. Yet, the other side oI individualism is
solitude ( consider Robinson`s inner isolation).
Henry Fielding constructs the action in his novel Tom Jones
(1749) on a larger scale, combining various literary techniques. Tom
Jones appears as a comedy oI manners, a picaresque narrative written in

98
the third person as well as a Bildungsroman. It Iollows Tom`s evolution
Irom an unruly youth to a mature nature and his reunion with Sophia. The
Bildungsroman is a literary genre that started in Germany, and is, in many
respects, equivalent to a Iictional autobiography. We consider to be
Bildungsromans all the novels that deal with the development oI a young
man (or in some cases a young woman). According to the deIinitions oI
Websters Dictionarv, a Bildungsroman is a novel dealing with the
education and development oI its protagonist. There are variations
within the genre, and one or more elements may be leIt out oI a particular
novel, which makes it that novels such as Joyce`s Ulvsses, Dickens`s
Davia Copperfiela or Charlotte Bronte`s Jane Evre can be included in the
category.
Fielding also used a serious amount oI organization, so that his
novels are well constructed and symmetrical. There is a system oI
polar symmetries in the strucure oI the characters: Tom (positive)
versus BliIil (cunning, scheming, hypocritical). Fielding describes
tvpes, thereIore the names are mostly allegorical (Tom Jones a
common name), Allworthy (All-Worthy), Sophia (Wisdom). From a
narratological point oI view, the author is omniscient (he knows
everything about the characters, is everywhere, in possession oI truth).
He is a parental authority that guides the readers, using a bill-oI-Iare
to the Ieast (the metaphor oI literature as Iood to be consumed). The
novel has a meta-textual quality (is selI-reIlexive), being Iramed by
introductory chapters to its books. Fielding is the Iirst author to
consciously talk about the new genre, about the way to write a novel,
being aware oI his double position as theorist and writer.
He considers himselI to be the Iounder oI a new province oI
writing, pleading Ior realism, truth, a new ethos (the bourgeois taste),
emancipated Irom the old type oI romance (medieval, imaginary
styles). The new kind oI literature, called a comic epic poem in
prose should have balance, dynamism, useIulness it is thereIore a
shiIt Irom the aristocratic kind oI writing to the democratic one.
Samuel Richardson is the creator oI epistolarv novels, which are
novels created through the interplay oI letters, and represent a popular
genre in Augustan England. Art in his opinion, as well as in Fielding`s,
was made to instruct, to oIIer a model to be imitated, to educate while
amusing. Through his Iirst person narratives, the author pries inside his
characters` consciousness. Richardson shows a close attention to the
various pressures that society and morality placed on women, and the

99
eIIects oI these pressures on their psyches (through his depiction oI
characters such as Clarissa and Pamela). An epistolary novel is written
as a series oI documents, usually letters, although diary entries,
newspaper clippings can also be used. An aspect oI the epistolary novel
is that it allows the writer a realist approach to several points oI view,
while avoiding the use oI the omniscient narrator. Pamela, published in
1740, tells the story oI a virtuous servant who resists the advances oI
her master. In the end, conquered by her purity, the master marries her.
The readers were sympathetic oI Pamela`s honour being threatened, and
satisIied to see her virtue rewarded in the end. The novel appears
thereIore as a moralistic story. Pamela`s innocence may appear selI-
conscious and premeditated, which represents the consequence oI the
hard, calculating and almost cynical view oI virtue and vice that is
visible throughout the book. She does not rebel against the system, but
joins it, and through this, Richardson can be said to have been able to
both destroy and support the patriarchal order oI the novel: he destroyed
it in having his Ieminine character resist the persecution oI her (male)
aristocratic oppressor, but he upheld it in having her marry him a
convenient Iorm oI happy ending.
The same tension between individualism and the values oI a
patriarchal Iamily are explored on a more tragic tone in Richardson`s
other novel, Clarissa. Clarissa Harlowe, the heroine oI the novel, is a
virtuous and intelligent young woman oI an upper middle class Iamily,
who, aIter the death oI her grandIather, has become the heiress oI his
estate. Interestingly, in Richardson`s world, property oIIers no power
Ior Clarissa. SigniIicantly she gives control oI her Iortune to her Iather,
thus continuing in the position oI economic and Iamilial subordination
to him. Robert Iovelace is an attractive, witty, iI morally dubious
aristocrat, courting Arabella, Clarissa`s sister. Clarissa`s Iamily try to
make Clarissa marry a man oI their choice, whom she detests. Scared at
the prospect, she runs away to Iondon under the protection` oI
Iovelace, who is in Iact planning to simply add her to the list oI his
conquests. She resists his advances, and in time, Iovelace becomes
more and more impressed by her virtue and her personality. In an access
oI passion he rapes her, she manages to escape him but remains ill and
eventually dies, but she does so in Iull consciousness oI her virtue, and
hoping Ior a better lot in the aIterliIe. Iovelace will die too, in a duel
with Clarissa`s cousin and in the end the girl`s Iamily realize the
misIortune their decisions have caused their daughter.

100
As in his other work, in Clarissa, Richardson sets to work an
ethic based primarily on reason. Pamela is a calculated virtuous
woman, yet Clarissa`s case is more complicated. In Clarissa,
Richardson preserved the basis on which the moral code oI his heroine
was constructed, yet he presented it in a more sympathetic manner.
Morality is assessed rationally, and Clarissa opposes cold reason to
the passion that Iovelace displays. At the same time, Clarissa and
Iovelace are not just opposed individuals; they each represent a class,
a moral code, and a way oI liIe. We are again conIronted with the
contrast between the bourgeois middle class virtuous woman and the
promiscuous wealthy aristocrat that Pamela had dealt with. From this
perspective, Clarissa is about the tension between the middle class
and the aristocracy; this tension is visible at many levels, but
Richardson also constructs it as a complex struggle between two
individuals who each try to attract the other into their own culture. A
Ieminist reading oI the novel would emphasize the double pressure
exerted on Clarissa as woman in eighteenth century England: that oI
her Iamily and that oI Iovelace, both imposing their wills and trying
to use her to their ends. However, Richardson rejected the path oI
Iemale emancipation or active Ieminism. Clarissa`s plight is connected
to her own progress into the depths oI the conventional Iemale role oI
victim. She does not try to Iree herselI Irom her Iate, but succumbs to
it step by step; Irom eloping, to being raped, to dying, Clarissa
emerges as a powerIul stereotype, that oI the suIIering virtuous virgin.
A very schematic construction oI womanhood Iollows: into black and
white. On the other hand, however there are many ways in which
Richardson validates the individualism oI his heroine. Indeed, the
novel can be read as an epic oI resistance to the reduction oI women to
objects or instruments by a patriarchal society. Even iI at an external
level she is a victim, at a psychological level every act oI oppression
against Clarissa makes her stronger in her own belieIs. As pointed out
earlier, when she dies, she dies certain oI her virtue and oI her
rightIulness, so that Irom this perspective even her death represents a
triumph over her enemies. The story oI her suIIerings, careIully
analyzed and described by Richardson, anticipates the writing oI such
modernist masters as James Joyce and Virginia WoolI.
Although the epistolary novel as a genre Iailed to develop in
English literature in the centuries to come, it is considered to have

101
anticipated and laid the grounds Ior the stream oI consciousness
technique and the interior monologue.
1onathan Swift`s Gullivers Travels (1726) is not a novel proper;
it is a satire with a direct address to his contemporary England.
Although it is Iull oI allusions to contemporary historical events, it is as
valid today because its objects are man`s moral nature and the deIective
political, economic and social institutions. SwiIt adopts the Iorm oI the
imaginary, Iantastic voyage, in a parody oI traditional travel literature. It
looks like Robinson Crusoe but it is not similar to it. It has as objective
the creation oI a Iictional world that seems real. The moment Gulliver is
shipwrecked in Iilliput we realize, Irom the description oI the little
inhabitants oI the country, that it is not a realist Iictional work, but a
Iantasy.
Gulliver goes on Iour voyages, all oI which end disastrously and
which allow Ior SwiIt to satirize Iour aspects oI the British society oI
the time. In the Iirst part oI Gullivers Travels, SwiIt satirizes the court
oI George I. His primary satirical device here is allegory the
Iilliputian government leaders stand Ior Whig leaders in the tumultuous
years between 1708 and 1726.
In Part II, a voyage to Brobdingnag, the country oI the giants, it
is Gulliver who represents the English attitudes which SwiIt wishes to
criticize, when conIronted with the good giants that stand Ior the ideal
oI the enlightened monarchy. From the attitudes and practices oI the
Iilliputians SwiIt makes his readers realize in how many ways these
doll-like creatures are small. Their physical dimensions are symbolic
by their meanness, pettiness and narrow-mindedness. In this small
world Gulliver is the giant. The perspective changes dramatically in
the second voyage when SwiIt`s character is shipwrecked on the
Brobdingnag shore. Not only does he become Iilliputian compared to
the king oI Brobdingnag, but also he is petty, mean and shallow in
comparison. The giants` monstrous appearance is in Iact a hint at their
broadness oI mind and their goodness, as SwiIt transposes literally the
qualities oI the spirit.
When he appeared in the land oI Iilliput, in many ways Gulliver
was disgusting, repulsive and grotesque. Yet Iinally it was the delicate,
tiny Iilliputians, who proved to truly be grotesque. As Iar as the
Brobdingnagians are concerned, physically they are just as repulsive to
Gulliver as he was to the inhabitants oI Iilliput. Yet it is the giants
compared to Gulliver who are reIined, sophisticated and generous.

102
Their big bodies hide big hearts and wide horizons. In his creation oI
the two parallel worlds oI Iilliput and oI Brobdingnag, SwiIt
accomplishes two things. The Iilliputians are literally small; they are
also Iiguratively small (small-minded and narrow oI spirit). Outwardly
they may seem attractive, yet their smallness` makes them repulsive to
the spirit. The inhabitants oI Brobdingnag are literally and Iiguratively
big (large in their sympathies, big-hearted, open-minded).
In Part III, the inhabitants oI the island oI Iaputa are allegories
Ior certain members oI the Royal Society, whom SwiIt was attacking
satirically, thus criticizing the exaggerations that the Iascination Ior
science could attract. This third part oI Gulliver`s adventures is
thereIore constructed as an attack against the extremes oI theoretical
and speculative reasoning, which SwiIt criticizes because he believes
that such excessive interest in science can lead those involved in it to
lose touch with reality. The Iaputans and Projectors are isolated
scientists, cut oII Irom the world because they are so concerned with
abstract matters and with their individual abstract preoccupations.
In Part IV, the allegories are not so clear-cut; the Yahoos and the
Houyhnhnms are both exaggerated representations. Both represent two
opposite tendencies that naturally live side by side in the human spirit,
namely instinct and reason, a contrast dear to the hearts oI the
Augustans. II a healthy mix oI instinct and reason is human, pushing to
the extreme in one or the other direction may have monstrous results.
SwiIt presents us with the Iruits oI such an experiment: the Yahoos,
who are the embodiment oI a humanity ruled by instinct only are just as
repulsive as the Houyhnhnms, who are intelligent horses, embodiment
oI a cold humanity, ruled by reason only. At the same time, this part is
also a satire directed against mankind and against its extremes. Owing
to their great stores oI reason, the Houyhnhnms have done away with
Ilaws such as lying, corruption, inIidelity, Irom their world. In certain
ways theirs is an ideal world. Yet such a society which is governed
entirely by reason appears under SwiIt`s pen as less attractive, less
desirable, less human, because it lacks any human warmth, any human
Ieeling oI love, aIIection, devotion, generosity. As an interesting
comment on such a society governed by cold reason only, SwiIt dwells
on the Iact that to the Houyhnhnms even liIe itselI seems less precious,
as both birth and death are natural things, inevitable, common and
thereIore indiIIerent to everyone. Due to his mix oI reason and Ieeling,
Gulliver sees himselI as neither a Yahoo nor a Houyhnhnm. Caught

103
between these two contrasting worlds, SwiIt`s character an
embodiment oI common humanity Iinds it impossible to identiIy with
either oI them.
Although it is written in the Iirst person, and the reader has access
to the realities described in the text only by means oI the consciousness
oI the main character Gulliver the book lacks the internal coherence
oI a novel. There is no uniIying plot, and no uniIying personality.
Indeed, Gulliver, although the main character, is not a hero, but a
persona. In literature, a persona is a mask, a device used by the writer
to express his own opinions in a text. It is not a true character, but rather
a particular point oI view Irom which to write. Gulliver lacks a coherent
psychology, we do not Iollow his development, there is no element oI
growth as a result oI his explorations, as he merely represents the means
by which SwiIt constructs his satire. II we were to compare him with
Robinson Crusoe, Ior instance, it becomes obvious the extent to which
in this novel its author, Daniel DeIoe, dealt with the inner workings oI
his hero`s mind, the transIormations his personality underwent as a
result oI his adventures, while Gulliver merely describes and comments
on the realities he encounters. SwiIt`s work may be interpreted as a
human allegorv, even a avstopia. It is a philosophical meditation,
showing in an ironic tone the errors, Irailties, vanities, absurdities that
human beings may be prone to. This is realized in SwiIt`s style, which
is very characteristic oI his age: clear, pointed, precise. In the
neoclassical tradition, there are no rhetorical Ilowerings, no repetitions
or studied eIIects.
Topics for discussion
1. Explain why DeIoe`s Robinson Crusoe is generally taken as a
paradigm oI colonial relations.
2. Focuss on the various literary techniques employed by H.
Fielding in Tom Jones. What is the Iunction oI his introductory
chapters? Discuss the allegorical character/structure oI the novel.
3. Why are Richardson`s novels viewed as an early exploration
oI the heroine`s psychology?

104


LAURENCE STERNE`S REVOLUTIONARY NOVEL.
A PRECEDENT OF POSTMODERN LITERATURE





Sternes experiments with the novelistic form. In his main work,
Tristram Shanav, the main interaction seems to be between the narrator
ana the reaaers, rather than among the characters in the book, while the
aisruption of chronological time, plot ana of the narrative conventions
make it an interesting earlv commentarv on the strategies of writing. It
has become a significant preceaent for later twentieth centurv writers ana
literarv critics alike.
By the time Sterne (1713-1768) started writing, the psychological
elements began to be perceived as more important both in art and in
philosophy. The individuality oI the writers impressed itselI more and
more unreservedly upon the development oI this aspect which, in the
days oI DeIoe and even Richardson, had been dealt with primarily Irom
outside. Sterne`s work will bear the mark oI this new tendency in
British thought and aesthetics.
Tristram Shanav is an unusual creation that mocks all the
conventions oI the new genre oI the novel. Its importance Ior
contemporary literary criticism lies in the Iact that it is a precursor oI a
very modern phenomenon, the anti-novel with an anti-hero, with
Iailure` as one oI its major themes. This is due to its original structure
that does not respect the conventions oI story-telling, as well as to the
special relationship between author and reader that it proposes. By
manipulating the idea oI readership as he pleases, Sterne shows us that a
book is Iirst and Ioremost an object directed to an audience, and at the
same time, Tristram Shanav is also a reminder that a novel is a material
object, not just a transparent story. It is no accident, then, that Sterne`s
creation should have exerted a proIound inIluence on the Iiction oI
James Joyce, because both Sterne and Joyce liked to use the
possibilities oI prose Iiction and mould it into something very diIIerent
Irom the ordinary novel. We can thereIore say that by using caricature,

105
digressions, by employing sometimes absurd language to describe the
most ordinary things, tricks, and by his rich distribution oI strange,
eccentric characters, Iaurence Sterne`s play with conventions
announces modernist strategies and explains why Tristram Shanav
enjoys critical attention even today.
This nine-volume-comic meta-novel remains one oI the most
interesting reIlections on the nature oI the novel. Tristram Shanav is a
metanovel because ultimately it is an extended meditation on story-
telling, having as central premise the idea that what the story is about
is oI secondary importance to how it is told. As a result, digression is
central to the author`s narrative logic and it is the central narrative
strategy oI the book, thus giving it an unusual structure. The so-called
narrative intrusions and comments actually Iorm a linear narrative
whose subject is the composing of a narrative. The text intends to be
an autobiography oI Tristram, but instead ends up to be a long
digression that never manages to tell the story it sets out to tell. The
birth oI the hero, which the author sets about to discuss on the Iirst
page, does not Iinally occur until volume Iour, and instead the novel
largely deals with events and characters Irom before the hero`s birth.
Tristram`s biography was never Iinished, as the story oI Tristram`s liIe
is not told by the end oI the ninth volume.
In their own ways, the previous authors, Irom DeIoe to Fielding or
Richardson, had all Iollowed the realist trend. Sterne however rejects
the temptation oI mimesis (imitation oI reality), and in Tristram Shanav
he sets out to undermine all the subgenres that had become established
as part oI the novelistic tradition. This new trend is visible Irom the title;
The Life ana Opinions: it was not merely a story oI the liIe oI Tristram
Shandy, but oI the extraneous elements that constituted his opinions.`
One interesting characteristic oI Tristram Shanav is its use oI
heterogeneous materials, which Iorce the reader to become involved in
the act oI reading and re-writing` oI the text in Iashions the usual prose
oI Sterne`s contemporaries do not. For instance, a black page is
supposed to signiIy the mourning caused by the death oI Yorick, blank
pages appear to represent pages torn out while an empty page is oIIered
to the reader who is asked to write his own description oI Widow
Wadman`s beauty, since Sterne acknowledges the subjectivity oI ideal
beauty, and wants each oI his readers to use their own ideal oI such
beauty. Moreover, apparently misplaced chapters suddenly appear out
oI sequence, thus maintaining constant the connection between the

106
author and his reader and drawing attention on the Iact that the text is
not transparent, but opaque and needing interpretation. As a result oI
this original technique, Sterne`s book is particularly useIul Ior a clear
understanding oI such narratological concepts as the distinction between
storv and plot, the narrative time, the chronological time, or the speed oI
the narrative. Storv is a chronologically-ordered representation oI all the
primary and essential inIormation concerning characters, events and
settings. It is an abstract version oI events (the historical truth, so to
speak), but it can be structured into the matter oI the novel, namely into
the plot. One can say that the storv is the rough material awaiting the
organizing hand oI the writer that will transIorm it into plot. As distinct
Irom the story, that respects the main chronological assumptions oI a
narrative, the plot is subject to the transIormations that the author
chooses to make to the structure, sequence oI description oI the events.
Thus the events can be arranged in a sequence which can diIIer Irom the
strict chronological sequence; the amount oI time which is allotted in
the novel (the plot) to the various elements oI the story is determined
with respect to the amount oI time which these elements take in the
story; when presenting the events, a choice is made Irom among the
multiple points of view Irom which they can be narrated. As Iar as the
relationship between text and time in the plot is concerned, we can
identiIy three major aspects oI temporal manipulation in the movements
Irom story to plot: the oraer, which represents the relation between the
assumed sequence oI events in the story and their actual order oI
presentation in the novel; the auration, which is the relation between the
extent oI time that events are supposed to have actually taken up; and
the frequencv, which reIers to the relation between the number oI times
an event happened in the story, and the number oI times it is narrated in
the plot.
From this narratological perspective it is easy to see that Sterne
uses many techniques that contradict the apparent naturalness oI its
conversational tone and expose the distinction between the storv he is
trying to tell (the liIe oI Tristram Shandy) and the plot he constructs
(the nine-volume digression that hardly tells us what happened` to
Tristram). In his construction oI the plot, Sterne manipulates time,
playing with order, duration and Irequency (a surprising time-
scheme). From Iocke, Sterne learned that the true liIe is lived in the
mind, and each mind has its own private sense oI time, so that he
understands time not as an objective, external element, but rather as a

107
private, subjective element. The writer is able to manipulate it,
twisting the story into plot, inserting digressions, moving ahead oI the
story, anticipating events that are going to happen, and thus drawing
the reader`s attention to the text, which reIuses to be transparent, in
the realist Iashion. As pointed out earlier, Sterne`s attention to
subjectivism, psychological time, and the perpetual present make him
the ancestor oI the thought oI Henri Bergson, Andre Gide, Thomas
Mann, Marcel Proust, and oI course James Joyce. Thus, Iaurence
Sterne remains a clear innovator and an original precursor oI the
modern novel, in his attempt to reproduce the Ilow oI time in unusual
patterns oI narrative, memory, and thought, as well as in his emphasis
on the constructedness oI the plot, on the relationship between author
and reader, and on the direct involvement oI the reader in the process
oI imaginatively constructing the text.

Topics for discussion
1. Account Ior Sterne`s challenge oI mimetic conventions in
Tristram Shanav.
2. Tristram Shanav as Iictional autobiography.


108


THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN NINETEENTH

CENTURY NOVEL





The next lecture presents the cultural ana intellectual backgrouna
of the nineteenth centurv British (Jictorian) ana American novel. The
recurrent features of the two variants are comparativelv consiaerea, as
well as their relation to previous narrative forms/ tvpes/techniques. The
aominant moaes (realism vs. romance) are illustratea taking into
account the mafor literarv works of the perioa as well as moaern critical
assumptions.
Conventionally, the British nineteenth century novel is also
called the Victorian novel. The Victorian age overlaps with the reign oI
Queen Victoria, Irom her coronation, in 1837, to her death, in 1901.
From a geopolitical point oI view, it stands Ior the age oI the British
empire which occupied then one third oI the world. Britain`s
geopolitical power in the nineteenth century was a consequence oI its
being the first inaustriali:ea countrv in the world, due to the scientiIic
and technological progress it had been involved in since the end oI the
eighteenth century. Urbanization changed the countryside, with the
aisplacement of the rural population: this was reflectea in literature bv
the nostalgic rememberance of the rural past in many Victorian novels.
From a sociological point oI view, the aominant miaale-class
ethics of progress involvea materialistic optimism but also excessive
pragmatism and mercantilism. Moral autv remained an imperative
with most people, whether it be supported by selI-interest or Christian
principles. But it also involved cultural ambition, an urge oI the
middle classes Ior instruction; culture will be used as a public service,
with a didactic purpose. The Jictorian state was essentially considered
as being liberal, non-interventionist, however, the liberal legislation
was considered as impoverishing or oppressive towards the working
class. This led to a social unrest, requiring the adoption oI a number oI
ReIorm Bills which enIranchised the man oI property but also meant

109
the modernization oI British society. The acts passed in their Iavour
were partlv aue to the works of the novelists of the aav who revealed
the harsh existence oI children as well as the cruel methods oI
education.
In the mid-Victorian epoch, there was no national educational
system and little provision Ior the secondary education oI girls.
However, the Victorians managed to increase the participation oI
masses to the phenomenon oI culture. They demanded universal
primary education and the inclusion oI modern sciences and languages
in the curriculum. The movement Ior the emancipation oI women
became more accentuated in the last thirty years oI the Victorian age
(J.S. Mill wrote The Subfection of Women in 1869, supporting their
social and proIessional emancipation, providing an impetus to the
Ieminist movement oI his time). The Victorian Age can be considered
modern in so Iar as it included generalised mass literacy and the
modernization oI education as well as quality journalism reIlected in
the wide circulation oI prestigious magazines. One monthlv issue of a
literarv perioaical would contain scientiIic or general critical essays,
poetry and serialised Iiction. Among the eIIects oI the Victorian sense
oI a useful culture is the didactic tone oI Victorianism, adapted to the
utilitarian view oI culture as a gain Irom the greatest happiness oI the
greatest numbers standpoint.
We should also Iocus on man`s position in the universe during
the Victorian age in order to understand Victorianism. The orthoaox
puritanism oI the average man was an uncritical ethically religious
doctrine that pragmatically invoked Biblical spirituality to support the
ascent oI the imperial, most civilized nation. Utilitarianism, the
speciIic Victorian ideology corresponding to this social component,
was based on the 1776 treaty The Wealth of Nations, written by the
Scottish economist Adam Smith and it assumed that progress oI
civilization should be associated to increasing national wealth. But the
other component oI the Victorian cultural background was less
optimistic, implying secularism, rationalism based on the study oI
science and its revelations. Charles Darwin`s On the Origin of Species
(1859) challenged the Victorian perception upon liIe and old
explanations in the Iield oI biology or geology. The evolutionary
theory led to the questioning oI man`s role and importance in the
world and inIluenced the doctrines oI important novelists, such as
George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. It was an age oI controversies and

110
conIlicting attitudes that were also expressed in the essav, a Iavourite
literary Iorm with the outstanding thinkers oI the age, tackling a great
variety oI topics. Thus, in the prose oI ideas, we should mention the
ideological contribution oI J.S. Mill`s Utilitarianism, starting Irom
J.Bentham`s Introauction to the Principles of Morals ana Legislation
oI 1789, as well as his essay On Libertv(1859) stating the rights oI the
individual in relation to society, tradition, constituted government.
Thomas Carlyle had aIIinities with the romantics, pleading Ior
transcendentalism, medievalism as reactions against the industrialized,
urbanized environment oI his days. Another protest against the
materialistic Iaith came Irom Matthew Arnold`s 1869 essay Culture
ana Anarchv which advocates a neo-classicist cult oI Hellenism.
Arnold`s criticism oI the materialistic present corresponds to later
Victorian criticism oI the pervading materialism, expressed as
hedonism revivea bv the poets of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhooa or
by Walter Pater, aestheticism ana Utopian socialism introduced by
John Ruskin, Oscar Wilde and William Morris.
The Victorian reading public Iirmly established the novel as the
dominant literary Iorm oI the era. The outstanding characteristics of
the Jictorian novel were:
a) The English novel originated as a miaale-class genre, and it
was the logical reading matter Ior the nineteenth century bourgeoisie.
b) Unburdened by tradition or status, the novel was Ilexible, and
hence adaptable to the portrayal oI the multitude oI changing
situations in Victorian liIe.
c) Escapism had become a psychological necessity to an era
troubled by chaotic industrialism.
d) Realism was the justiIication Ior the conscious reader as
escapism was the actual satisIier oI his unconscious needs. Victorian
novelists appealed to their audience with the appearance oI the real
world.
e) The earnest Victorians sought and Iound in contemporary
novels instruction Ior living amid great complexity and change.
I) The novel assumed Ior the nineteenth century the mission
IulIilled in earlier eras by the epic: Iormulation oI the `mvth oI the
age. There was no Spenser or Milton to perIorm such a task in verse
Ior the Victorian age. The most ambitious attempt to do this in verse
was Tennyson`s Iavlls of the King, but a common novel reader can
name a dozen Victorian novels oI greater myth-making power.

111
The outstanding characteristics of the Jictorian novel were:
a) Acceptance oI middle-class ethics and morals. The good
characters conIorm to principles oI bourgeois orthodoxy and are
properly rewarded.
b) Social orientation. The major human problem treated by the
Victorian novelists is the adjustment oI the individual to his society.
c) Emphasis upon characters. The Victorian novelists strove to
produce Iascinating characters who resembled people their readers
knew or would like to know. Most characters were middle class, in
middle class settings, and with the typical middle-class preoccupations,
even in historical novels. Their complexity was almost wholly
emotional. Iower class Iigures were usually subordinate, treated
patronizingly.
d) The hero. The central Iigure, though proving human weakness,
is moulded to the Victorian ideal oI the rational man oI virtue. Human
nature is believed to be Iundamentally good and deviations Irom the
bourgeois code are errors oI immature judgement to be corrected when
becoming mature.
David Iodge shows that the Victorian novel is a svnthesis of
pre-existing narrative traaitions (the comic vein oI Henry Fielding`s
narratives, Richardson`s sentimental/didactic or Clara Reeve`s
Gothic/romantic) rather than a continuation of one of them or an
entirelv new literarv phenomenon and underlines the Iact that the
dominant mode, the synthesising element is realism (in the tradition
oI D.DeIoe). The novel appeared as a reaction against miraculous tales
and stories oI chivalrous deeds, its essence being the parody oI so-
called elevated genres and the expression oI the truth of evervaav life.
According to M.Bahtin, it is closest to reality and it reIlects more
proIoundly and essentially, with greater sensitiveness and rapidity, the
ever-changing social process itselI. The novel has become the main
hero oI the drama oI literary evolution in modern times just because it
expresses in the best way the evolution oI the new world, because it is
the only genre born in this new world and akin to it. It anticipates the
Iuture evolution oI the whole literature. Becoming predominant, the
novel contributes to the renewal oI all the other genres. Discussing
the nature oI the novelistic discourse as it was established in the
Victorian epoch, Henry James argues in his Art oI Fiction that the
air oI reality the solidity oI speciIication seems to me to be the
supreme virtue oI a novel the merit on which all the other merits

112
(including the conscious, moral one) helplessly and submissively
depend. II it be not there, they are all as nothing, and iI these be there,
they owe their eIIect to the success with which the author has
produced the illusion oI liIe. The cultivation oI this success, the study
oI this exquisite process Iorm, to my taste, the beginning and the end
oI the art oI the novelist. They are his inspiration, his despair, his
reward, his torment, his delight. It is here, in very truth, that he
competes with liIe; it is here that he competes with the painter in his
attempt to render the look oI things, the look that conveys their
meaning, to catch the colour, the relieI, the expression, the surIace and
the substance oI the human spectacle. All liIe solicits him, and to
render the simplest surIace, to produce the most momentary illusion,
is a very complicated business.
Eighteenth century novelists had also used techniques oI travel
stories, biographies, diaries, historical writings. The idea was that the
novel must adhere to truth and probability. The history oI the novelistic
genre reIlects the oscillation between two tendencies, represented by the
realistic vein and the romance, the latter being illustrated in medieval
English literature by the legends oI King Arthur, collected by Sir
Thomas Mallory in his Morte aArthur (1485).
Clara Reeve, a Gothic and sentimentalist novelist oI the later halI
oI the eighteenth century, stated the diIIerence between the two genres
in an oIten quoted Iragment introductory to her Iiction (in the eighteenth
century, the meaning oI the word Cothic pointed to the wild, barbarous
and crude; the Iashion oI the Gothic novel reached its highest limit in
the 1790s and the early years oI the nineteenth century they were tales
oI the macabre, Iantastic and supernatural, usually set amid haunted
castles, graveyards, ruins, wild picturesque landscapes):
The Novel is a picture oI real liIe and manners and oI the times
in which it was written. The Romance in loIty and elevated language
describes what never happened nor is likely to happen. The Novel
gives a Iamiliar relation oI such things, as pass every day beIore our
eyes, such as may happen to our Iriend, or to ourselves; and the
perIection oI it is to present every scene, in so easy and natural a
manner and to make them appear so probable, as to deceive us into a
persuasion (at least while we are reading) that all is real, until we are
aIIected by the joys or distresses oI the persons in the story, as iI they
were our own.

113
It Iollows that the romance is oriented towards mythic, allegorical
or symbolic Iorms, being less committed to the immediate and IaithIul
reIlection oI reality than the novel. The American nineteenth century
novelist N. Hawthorne declares in his preIace to The House of the
Seven Gables, that the novel aims at a minute Iidelity not merely to the
possible, but to the probable and ordinary course oI man`s experience
whereas when a writer calls his work a romance, it need hardly be
observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its Iashion
and material, which he wouldn`t have Ielt himselI entitled to assume
had he proIessed to be writing a novel |. | The romance - while, as a
work oI art, it must rigidly subject itselI to laws, and while it sins
unpardonably so Iar as it mav swerve asiae from the truth of the human
heart, has Iairly a right to present that truth under circumstances to a
great extent, oI the writer`s own choosing or creation. He will be wise,
no doubt, to make a very moderate use oI the priviliges here stated, and,
especially, to mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, delicate and
evanescent Ilavour, than as any portion oI the actual substance oI the
dish oIIered to the public.
In British literature, Charlotte Bront`s (1816-1855) Iiction
might be estimated in terms oI the predominance oI the romance
within the novel Iorm, oI the romantic heritage which involves
exaltation oI the Iaculty oI Ieeling and imagination, an intense
dramatism, lyricism. Her novel Jane Evre is the story oI a search Ior
identity in the Victorian environment. The novel is a blend oI Realism
(the harsh living conditions oI the ill-Iavoured classes) and romance
elements (Gothic characters and landscapes). Formally regarded, it is a
realism oI sensibility, not quite a common mimetism oI existence, but
a subjective transcription oI experience. Emily Bront(1818-1848)
dramatizes in Wuthering Heights what Freud calls the id (hidden, most
obscure part oI the human personality), embodied in her main
characters, in HeathcliII and to a certain degree in Catherine, as the
secret well-spring oI vitality. It is a novel based on an opposition
between, on the one hand, the elemental and on the other hand, the
socially tamed nature. We could recognise here a Victorian opposition
between Carlylean vitalism with its emotional excesses and
utilitarianism with its moderation. The novel has a romantic tinge,
mixing reality (Victorian authenticity) with an archetypal/elemental
nature that reaches into the Iabulous realms oI imagination. The

114
presence oI the two narrators is a device used Ior the integration oI a
mythical story into a realistic environment.
Victorian writers are conventionally divided as the Iirst and the
second generation oI novelists, according to the main Ieatures relevant
to their works. The Iirst generation is represented by W.M.Thackeray,
Ch. Dickens, Elisabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, the Bront sisters
and George Eliot. These writers were conIident in progress and the
moral improvement oI the individual. The second generation,
represented by Samuel Butler, George Meredith, Thomas Hardy,
turned against Victorian orthodoxy as pessimism and satire appeared
in their Iiction. They marked the transition to modernism, being
inIluenced by European literature and philosophy.
ThereIore, realism marked the need oI cultivating truth in art, be
it social, economic or individual and oI a minute documentation
undertaken by the writer seen as a man oI science. George Eliot
discussed in one oI her Essavs the nature oI truth as a key concept:
Art is the nearest thing to liIe; it is a mode oI ampliIying experience
and extending our contact with our Iellow-men beyond the bounds oI
our personal lot. All the more sacred is the task oI the artist when he
undertakes to paint the liIe oI the people. FalsiIication here is Iar more
pernicious than in the more artiIicial aspects oI liIe... The thing Ior
mankind to know is not what are the motiIs and inIluences which the
moralist thinks ought to act on the labourer or the artisan, but what are
the motiIs and inIluences that do act on him.

Henry Iewes, an inIluential critic oI the age, also believed that
realism is the basis oI all Art, and its antithesis is not Idealism, but
Falsism. W.M. Thackeray wrote parodies and burlesques oI romantic
historical novels, assessing in his introduction to Penaennis: I ask
you to believe that this person writing strives to tell the truth. II there
is not that, there is nothing.Thus the province oI the novel was
extended to include the ordinary, the humble, the lower classes. The
genre gained a more elevated status, becoming a debate on the urgent
matters oI the day. In Oliver Twist, Dickens proIessed that he adopted
this principle in the name oI the truth (although Northrop Frye
believes that Dickens`s novels undeniably stamped by realism are
nevertheless Iairy tales in the low-mimetic displacement).
Publication oI novels in monthly installments enabled the poor to
purchase their novels. The part-issue Iorm oI publication and the
periodical novel increased the role of suspense as the solution to the

115
previous crisis was expected. This manner oI publication created a close
connection between reader-author. However, writing in installments
might have proved damaging to the unity oI the novel since the author
had to cope with the demands oI serialization.
The new accuracy in rendering truth and reality was determined
by the social and economic conditions oI the age and it was also due
to the development oI sciences, oI biology and mechanics in
particular, whose inIluence was increasing. But Realism appears to the
twentieth century critic as a mere convention according to which the
novel strives to constitute an authentic report oI human experience.
Does a realist text proper actually exist? The novel is obviously an
arteIact and there cannot be an absolute objectivity. However, Ior the
Victorians, realism implied the relationship reality-Iiction, not that
between teller and his tale. The audience had a complete trust in the
narrator, sharing the same values. Realists took nevertheless many
elements Irom romance, such as Dickens`s romantic treatment oI
characters within realistic settings (used in many oI his bestsellers) or
the Bronts` use oI Cothicism.
Northrop Frye`s Anatomv of Criticism may be used Ior analysing
Victorian Iiction, as its Iirst essay structures literature typologically into
moaes: 1- the divine, mythical mode: gods, 2- the mode oI romance,
centered on demigods, heroes in extraordinary circumstances 3- the
high mimetic mode- human heroes endowed with exceptional Ieatures,
Iunctioning in natural circumstances, 4- the low-mimetic mode,
characters whose status is oI ordinary human beings in recognisable
social environments, 5- the ironic mode, man looked down Irom a
satirical perspective. In Frye`s opinion, Victorian literature combines
the low-mimetic mode oI realism proper with some traces oI high-
mimetic, romance or the serious, ironic mode perspective. What the
structuralist critic Hillis Miller identiIies as the original point Ior the
Victorian character, his painIul separation/alienation oI the community
in order to become re-integrated at the end oI the novel corresponds to
Frye`s characterization oI low-mimetic literature as a a sort oI comeav
in which the new order is triumphantly installed at the end. The
predictable narrative plots have been read by N.Frye as archetvpal
manifestations of romance analysed as the mvthos of summer in his
third essay. A quest myth is central to romance, Iollowing the
sequence oI the agon, the pathos and the recognition/anagnorisis. In
romance, situations are oIten symbolic, exemplary or representative

116
Irom a general or typological point oI view. Characters are Iairy-tale
like, demons, dragons, angels. The Victorian novel oscillates between
comic Iorms at the beginning oI the age (Dickens, Thackeray), Iorms
belonging to the tradition oI the high-mimetic (George Eliot), or
mythically ironical (Thomas Hardy).
Nevertheless it may be hard to draw a line between the novel
proper (the realistic mode) and the romance (IanciIul Iiction). Richard
Chase shows in his study The American Novel ana its Traaition that
American Iiction oI the same age has deIined itselI by incorporating
an element oI romance. This tradition,inevitably springing Irom
England has a native quality that tends to diIIer Irom the English
tradition by its perpetual reassessment and reconstitution oI romance
within the novel Iorm.
In order to estimate the distinctly American qualitv oI the
literature produced in the United States in the nineteenth century, one
should take into account the relation in which it stands to the British
traaition. In the Iirst halI oI the nineteenth century, America, an
independent political state since 1776, was increasingly gaining ground
Ior the Iull assertion oI a national cultural consciousness. American
culture reached this point at a time when the Romantic movement still
dominated Europe. In R.Spiller`s words, the even more ardent
nationalism that Romanticism assumed came to the United States at
the moment oI an awakening national consciousness. However,
American literature has its roots in the English tradition. Spenser,
Bunyan, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope have all been assimilated
by American literature. The Pilgrims Progress should be viewed as a
determining link between English and American literature.
The intellectual pattern oI New England included, alongside
Puritanism, reIorm movements such as Abolitionism and
Transcendentalism (a philosophic movement started by Emerson which
implied a strong belieI in individual self-reliance, initiating a revolt
against the Puritan inheritance). Inspired by English Romanticism and
German idealism, it acknowledged God`s benevolence as the sole
characteristic oI the Supreme Being, laying emphasis on the importance
oI the Ireshness oI perception opposed to cultivation oI the past . As Ior
the writers oI the period, they were drawn to romance rather than the
novel proper. This narrative tradition appeared to be better suited Ior the
type oI investigation that preoccupied them and also to the interest which
they took in the self.

117
It is the solitary individual that stands at the centre oI such
writings as The Scarlet Letter or Mobv Dick. By compelling the
individual to take the course oI selI-scrutiny, American Iiction evolved
as an investigation oI metaphysical, psychological and moral nature as
against the analysis oI manners and morals that inIorms an important
tradition oI the English novel (but this distinction is not so sharp iI we
take into consideration Wuthering Heights, considered as an example oI
pure romance within the English novel). The typical American Iorm
signiIies an assumed Ireedom Irom the ordinary novelistic requirements
oI verisimilitude, development and continuity, a tendency towards
melodrama and idyll, a tendency to plunge into the underside oI
consciousness.
However, the best American novelists, among whom Hawthorne
and Melville hold a prominent place, have Iound uses Ior romance Iar
beyond the Iantasy and sentimentality oIten associated with it. They
have used it to introduce into the novel the introspection oI Puritanism
as well as the imaginative Ireedom oI Transcendentalism. In their
opinion, the power oI romance lies in the ability to express dark and
complex truths unavailable to realism. As R.Chase also stated, the
history oI the American novel is not only the history oI the rise oI
realism, but also oI the repeated rediscovery oI the uses oI romance.
This tradition is major in the history oI the American novel, but minor
in the history oI the English novel. II the classic English novel is
preoccupied with the illusion oI liIe and solidity oI speciIication,
the continuity oI events and the characters` sense oI events, to use
Henry James`s terms, the Americans have a marked preIerence Ior
svmbolism. It allows them to Iormulate moral truths oI universal
validity.

Topics for discussion
1. Why is Victorian Iiction considered to be a blend oI realism
and romance?
2. What is the relationship author-reader and its impact on the
Iictional narrative in the Victorian age?
3. American literature and its relation to the British tradition.





118


USES OF REALISM IN THE CLASSICAL VICTORIAN
NOVEL: CHARLES DICKENS





This presentation outlines the wav Dickens emplovs the moae of
social realism, starting from concrete social elements ana his use of
narrative strategies (point of view, language, character). It aiscusses the
rhetorical aevices (suspense, humour, pathos, artificial motivations,
meloaramatic effects, iaentifving phrases), his archetvpal, mvthical,
allegorical imagerv, as well as his appeal to fantasv, fairv-tale
characters, in a mixture between realism ana romance.
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth.
He spent the Iirst 11 or 12 years oI his childhood in Portsmouth which
remained a pastoral setting later evoked in his novels. The inIluence
on his writing oI his unhappy childhood experiences can be seen in the
Iate oI his many lost, abandoned and orphaned children (Oliver Twist
is a child brought up in a workhouse, David CopperIield is abandoned
by his Iamily in a hostile world, Cissy Jupe is placed into the hands oI
hard, mercantile persons), in his liIelong interest in prisons and
imprisonment. The experience can be seen in his mature work as an
indictment oI a society that is parentless, usurped by greed Ior money,
social position and power in its many Iorms. Iater on, he became
acquainted with the legal system oI England, which he denounced in
some oI his novels. His occupation as journalist developed the
inclination to render with minute details the speech of people, their
physical appearance. His Iirst novel, Pickwick Papers, was devised as
a series oI comic misadventures oI a group oI middle class gentlemen,
making use oI the device oI the club meant to provide a link among
the desultory incidents presented in instalments. Pickwick Papers was
Iollowed by a series oI novels in which comedy oIten existed side by
side with biting social criticism: Oliver Twist (1837-39), Nicholas
Nicklebv (1838-39), The Ola Curiositv Shop (1840-41) and Martin
Chu::lewit (1843-44).

119
Dombev ana Son (1846-48) was Iollowed by his Iamous Davia
Copperfiea (1849-50) which presents a disguised account oI his early
upbringing. Bleak House (1852-53), the Iirst oI what have been called
the dark novels oI his mature period is a complex vision oI society,
Iormally distinguished by the device oI having two narrative voices,
the Iirst person Esther Summerson, and a third person narrator who
conveys the panoramic vision oI the judicial system which Esther can
only glimpse partially. Hara Times (1854) is Dickens`s shortest novel,
and the only one set wholly outside Iondon; its setting in the
industrial north was the vehicle Ior his attack on utilitarian abuses in
the schoolroom as much as the Iactory. He also wrote one oI his most
admired works, Great Expectations (1860-61), combining an unusual
degree oI psychological realism with a complex vision oI society.
From 1858 on he made a number oI successIul tours, reading his own
work with the mastery oI a great public perIormer. He made two
important trips to America, the Iirst in 1842, and the second, a reading
tour, in 1867-68. It was as a result oI such tours that he produced a
travelogue: American Notes (1842), Iollowed by the novel Martin
Chu::lewitt, whose setting was partially non-British. He also wrote a
Christmas parable called A Christmas Carol, a popular Iantasy meant
Ior children as well as grown-ups.
Dickens enjoyed a wide popularity as a spokesman oI his age, a
social critic as well as an inventor oI comic characters and plots. His
powerIul imagination is Iascinated by details oI social observation on
which he builds chapters, characters or themes that mould his novels.
As documents, his writings point to speciIic institutions and realities oI
nineteenth century England: child labour, workhouses, the Courts oI
Iaw, schools, the debtors` prison. His comic inventiveness has created
an enormous variety oI caricatures, oI eccentric and highly coloured
characters. They seem intenser than human beings, being associated
with symbolic art and the literature oI the absurd. According to N. Frye,
the structure that Dickens uses Ior his novels is the New Comedy
structure, the main action being a collision oI two societies which we
may call Ior convenience the obstructing and the congenial society

.
Actually he Iuses the myths oI spring/comedy and summer/romance
with characters that may belong to the high- mimetic on the background
oI Victorian low-mimetic Iiction.
Exploring the mode oI social realism, his observations start Irom
obvious themes which are recreated as new entities or aefamiliari:ea, as

120
the Russian Iormalist critics would call them. Such is the case, Ior
instance oI his Iictional emblems called Mr.Podsnap in Our Mutual
Friena (pompous and empty type oI gentleman), Uriah Heep in Davia
Copperfiela (scheming hypocrite), Mr. Gradgrind (excessive Utilitarian
spirit, absence oI emotion or Iantasy) and Bounderby in Hara Times, the
Deportment in Bleak House (humans turned into machines, the bleak
shadow oI social power deIended by the Iorces oI a rotten state as typiIied
by the legal institution). The novelist creates almost palpable Iictional
characters, situations and imaginative idioms, unparallelled in Victorian
Iiction., endowed with an emotional intensity. Although these characters
have been called by E.M. Forster Ilat characters, types or caricatures,
as they are constructed round a single idea or quality,

yet the author
succeeds ,to achieve eIIects that are not mechanical and a vision oI
humanity that is not shallow.
Dickens`s characters begin by being a cast oI stock characters
engaged in conIlicts, such as orphans/heroes, villans, upstarts and
hypocrites/alazons, social tvpes that are Iurther on turned into highly
symbolic emblems compelling the imagination, rich with signiIicance.
These changes are operated by svmbolic transIormations which add
imaginative associations as well as oIten dramatic, comic ones. We may
remark that Dickens`s reputation rests upon fantastic fertilitv in
character creation, the aepiction of chilahooa ana vouth (David
CopperIield and Pip are unmatched elsewhere in British Iiction), robust
comic creation (in the tradition oI SwiIt, Fielding, Smollett, Iaurence
Sterne, Richard Sheridan; he usually relies on rhetorical devices such as
the eIIects oI suspense, sympathy, pathos, the character`s behaviour,
gestures, language, identiIying phrases), unconscious artistrv in his
archetypal, mythical symbols, deeply ingrained in the psyche, that grip
the reader`s imagination and appeal to his Iantasy ( pointing to
Dickens`s allegiance to romantic devices). The elements oI concrete
social realities acquire the signiIicance oI nightmarish Iorces, haunting
the mind. Chesterton seems to have sensed this quality oI Dickens`s art:
Dickens uses reality while aiming at an eIIect oI romance; whereas
Thackeray used the loose language and ordinary approaches oI
romance, while aiming at an eIIect oI reality.
Dickens`s early experiences were deeply imprinted upon his
conscience and one must take them into account when interpreting his
Iiction. His novels present orphans who have been cut oII Irom their
Iamilies, Irom their support. Many oI his main heroes are children,

121
virtuous and rather Ilat as they do not experience inner conIlicts.
Tortured by grotesque monsters, their situation is pathetic, evoking
nightmarish Iorces, inhuman conditions. Meloaramatic eIIects are
usually achieved by means oI the child-hero who is also an important
element in fairv-tales this brings them close to moralities ana
allegories. His novels are Iables about good and evil, depicting
characters in pairs oI opposites as in the traditional morality. To
achieve that, he resorts to coincidences, sensational elements, artificial
motivations, miraculous discoveries, secrets oI birth, lost or Iorged
wills, Iinal discoveries that explains the puzzling situations. The moral
has deIinite educational purposes and provides poetic justice. Thus, in
building up his characters, the novelist reduces them to their main
Ieatures but also grants them a symbolic value. With Dickens, the evil
is not the given essence oI the world, but only an aspect oI it which
might be removed, replaced by a positive system oI values.
In Great Expectations, both Pip and Estella are orphans that
initially belong to diIIerent social and psychological categories. Pip is
the village orphan, helped by a series oI lower-class, virtuous
beneIactors: his uncle Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, Abel Magwitch,
the convict, Herbert Pocket, his impoverished urban Iriend. Estella, on
the other hand has been educated by her beneIactress a vengeIul
aristocrate, Miss Havisham.
The mysterious construction oI the plot makes Pip assume that
she is his unnamed beneIactor who through lawyer Jaggers provides
money to send him to Iondon to become a gentleman. This deceptive
beneIaction aIIects Pip`s outward and inward progress in liIe and than
Estella`s. Miss Havisham will eventually admit her own villany not
only in respect to Pip but also in respect to Estella, whom she has
spiritually maimed. She hypocritically uses her wealth and social
status to harm both Pip and Estella, while playing the role oI
beneIactress. At Iirst, Pip is turned into an urban snob addressed by
Joe as Mr. Pip. His pretenses oI gentility, his great expectations
make him intolerable, but his whole appearance oI gentility is a sham
built upon the generosity oI the coarse criminal Magwitch. Magwitch,
whose other name is Abel, is the only real social beneIactor and at the
same time social victim (not Miss Havisham, a marriage-victim,
abandoned by Compeyson). There is a connection between Pip, the
helpless orphan and Magwitch, the convict, as both are socially weak
human beings. Pip`s great expectations oI becoming a gentleman

122
are critically retold by old, maturer Pip, the novel being a sort oI
penance Ior earlier subservience to Ialse values. Pip`s gentility appears
as parasitism, the work condemning the leisure-class ideal oI
contemporary society. Dickens achieves here a memorable success in
depicting psychic growth, spiritual transIormation and ripening oI his
central character.
Davia Copperfiela, semi-autobiograhical, is one oI the best-loved
novels in English and Dickens`s Iavourite among his works. It traces the
development oI David Irom childhood through his widowed mother`s
re-marriage to Mr. Murdstone, leaving him with a memory oI a happy
old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again. School
Mr. Creakle`s establishment, like that oI Dr.Blimber in Dombev ana
Son Iorms part oI Dickens`s attack on unimaginative methods oI
education. The author traces the character`s progress, Iollowing his brieI
employment and toil at his step-Iather`s business, relieved only by the
amiable but improvident Micawber Iamily (prototypes oI his own
parents), salvation at the practical hands oI his aunt Betsey Trotwood.
Age and experiece have certainly given his aunt a wisdom and Ieistiness
which combine to make her one oI the stongest, most independent-
minded oI all Dickens`s Iictional characters. Iodging with the
WickIields, he is attracted by Agnes WickIield and repelled by Uriah
Heep, the obsequious clerk. Shadowing this evolution is a less
developed but more autobiographical trajectory as David works Iirst as
a recorder oI parliamentary business and then as an increasingly
succesIul novelist.
The sense oI time in Copperfiela is private, subjective, lyrical,
Iocussed in the consciousness oI the narrator as he sets down the
written memory oI his liIe. The long rhythm oI his memory makes
possible the shiIt Irom picaresque to bilaungsroman in this novel. The
picaresque plot oI Iortune is still there in the story oI an orphan boy
who makes his way through the world, but this progess is enriched by
the complex process oI memory. It looks like an early Victorian
success-story enIorcing the values oI hard work, earnestness, prudence
tempered by kindliness. David survives early hardships, but others
don`t. There is the death oI his mother at the hands oI the Murdstones,
the destruction oI the Yarmouth home oI Peggotty and Iitle Em`ly by
SteerIorth, the crippled lives oI Rosa Dartle and SteerIorth`s mother,
the death oI Dora. Memory uniIies the tone oI the novel, while its
structure owes much to Dickens`s exploitation oI the serial Iorm that

123
links together a large cast oI characters in relationship to the central
subfect, that oI growing up, in a hauntingly poetic creation.
Hara Times eschews a vast canvas in Iavour oI a relatively small
number oI characters. Thomas Gradgrind, Member oI Parliament Ior
Coketown a city in a perpetual shroud oI industrial smoke, resounding
constantly with the unceasing rhythm oI Iactories, has brought up his
children as to believe and acknowledge only Iacts and proIit. The novel
is an attack against intransigent Utilitarianism; their philosophy means
worship oI Iacts that are to suppress imagination, emotion, humanity.
For Josiah Bounderby, Mr.Gradgrind`s son-in law, human beings are
statistical tables, percentage marks, machine tenders. He is a man with a
deIormed mind whose inclination may Iit into the character oI the
traditional braggart Irom the Greek New Comedy onwards. Only some
poor circus perIormers radiate the natural creative Iorce that in the
person oI Cissy Jupe will bring some comIort to the desolate
Gradgrinds. What remains with the reader is a sense oI a masterIully
created comic work, dominated by oppression which will Iinally be
discharged.
Very Iew oI Dickens`s characters are simply humorous creations
or eccentrics, as they carry the weight oI their symbolic meaning
which dramatically inIorms his Iiction.

Topics for discussion
1. Explain the Iairy-tale quality oI Dickens`s Great Expectations
/Can Pip be considered a Victorian picaro? Great Expectations as a
Bildungsroman.
2. Coincidence and accident in Dickens`s Iiction.
3. Narrative strategies in Dickens`s Iiction.



124


VERSIONS OF VICTORIAN REALISM IN GEORGE
ELIOT`S FICTION: THE PHILOSOPHICAL
AND INTELLECTUAL NOVEL




Eliots fictional methoa reflects the characteristics of realism as
aefinea bv the author herself: the inclusion of ranaom aetails of
evervaav life, `the moaest virtues ana vices of the humble folk, `a
religion of truth, a concern with obscure, unheroic people, placea in
a aeterministic environment. The low-mimetic lowers the high-mimetic
ana the romance (confrontation between gooa ana evil) moaes,
weakening them in the service of realistic purposes. Much of her
intellectual backgrouna is carriea into her fiction, focussing on ones
capacitv to svmpathi:e with inaiviaual suffering.
As a Victorian emancipated and lucid intellectual, George Eliot
began by writing Ior the Westminster Review and in this capacity she
became acquainted to the philosopher Herbert Spencer and to the writer,
publisher and dramatic critic George Henry Iewes. In the same year she
translated Feuerbach's Essence of Christianitv, the only one oI her
writings to which she attached her real name (Ior Fuerbach, God was an
ideal substitute Ior the real world). In 1846, George Eliot engaged in her
Iirst literary work, the completion oI a translation begun by Mrs.
Hennell oI David Strauss's Life of Jesus, a representative work Ior the
higher criticism oI the Bible (investigation that points to the role oI
imagination and myth in the creation oI religious thought).
It was not until 1857 that The Saa Fortunes of the Rev. Amos
Barton appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. It was Iollowed by Mr.
Gilfils Love Storv and Janets Repentance, all three being reprinted as
Scenes from Clerical Life; Aaam Beae was published in 1859, The
Mill on the Floss, in its earlier chapters largely autobiographical, in
1860, Silas Marner, in 1861. These novels showed another side oI her
creative concern, the nostalgic desire to present the regional liIe oI the
countryside, to recover the past and cultivate the religion oI the heart,
oI Ieelings and human compassion. Romola, a historical tale oI the

125
times oI Savonarola (15
th
century) appeared in 1863 in the Cornhill
Magazine, Iollowed by Felix Holt the Raaical, a political novel set in
1830s. Miaalemarch, a Stuav of Provincial Life, which appeared in
parts in 1871-72, was by many considered to be one oI her greatest
works. Daniel Deronaa, which came out in 1874-76 was her last
novel. George Eliot will probably always retain a high place among
writers oI Iiction. Much oI her intellectual backgrouna is carried into
her Iiction, replacing the belieI in supernatural Iorces by humanism
and one`s capacity to sympathize with individual suIIering.
There are also feminist ideas in her novels, implied in the
condition oI her heroines. Her great power lies in the minute painting
oI character, chieIly among the lower middle classes, shopkeepers,
tradesmen, country Iolk oI the Midlands and her descriptions oI rural
scenes that have a singular charm. Chapter XJII Irom Aaam Beae
presents her artistic creed under the Iorm oI an imaginary conversation
with a genteel reader who yearns about heroic deeds. The author
states her desire to present average people and their anonymous
dramas, to analyse human nature in its complexity:
Iet us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret oI
proportion, but in the secret oI deep human sympathy. Paint us an
angel, iI you can, with a Iloating violet robe, and a Iace paled by the
celestial light.but do not impose on us any aesthetic rules which
shall banish Irom the region oI Art those old women scraping carrots
with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a
dingy pot-house, those rounded backs and stupid weather-beaten Iaces
that have bent over the spade and done the rough work oI the world
those homes with their tin pans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs
and their clusters oI onions. In this world there are so many oI these
common, coarse people, who have no picturesque sentimental
wretchedness! It is so needIul we should remember their existence,
else we may happen to leave them quite out oI our religion and
philosophy, and Irame loIty theories which only Iit a world oI
extremes. ThereIore let Art always remind us oI them; thereIore let us
always have men ready to give the loving pains oI liIe to the IaithIul
representing oI commonplace things men who see beauty in these
commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly the light oI
heaven Ialls on them.
Critics have shown George Eliot`s sympathy Ior the rare quality
oI truthfulness to be Iound in Dutch paintings, her interest in an almost

126
photographic accuracy, her examination oI subjects Ior the beneIit oI
truth. Her Iirst volume, Aaam Beae, is thereIore a pastoral novel,
presenting the regional liIe oI the countryside against a background oI a
somewhat idyllic nature. In her essay on The Natural Historv of
German Life, George Eliot states that the task oI an author concerned
with social or political issues is to devote himselI to studying the natural
history oI the social classes, especially oI the simple people: tenant-
Iarmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, artisans, peasantry, the degree in
which they are inIluenced by religious doctrines, the interaction oI the
various classes, and what are the consequences oI their position towards
development. She was a proponent oI the positivism oI the French
philosopher Auguste Comte, who believed the older concepts oI Iaith
and immortality should be discarded in Iavour oI a religion oI
humanity. From Comte she also adopted the scientiIic attitude towards
social behaviour (he was the Iounder oI sociologv as a new science).
Her systematic analysis oI characters` motives, oI their hidden drives
resembles the accurate methods used in natural sciences.
The world in which her imagination Iinds itselI at its greatest ease
is that oI the province, typiIying the universe oI her own childhood. The
Mill on the Floss describes the emotional and intellectual evolution over
a period oI ten years oI Maggie Tulliver, whose Iather possesses a mill
near the town oI St.Ogg`s. It probes into the liIe oI a brother and sister
presented with great sensitiveness. Maggie, a passionate and intelligent
nature, reacts against the patterns oI provincial liIe, against the coarse
values oI the boy. The author relies on the qualities oI the omniscient
narrator but her method contains oral overtones because the narrator
oIten addresses the implied reader and invites him to take a look at the
places and people described in the novel. Her omniscience maniIests
itselI as a degree oI Iamiliarity with the characters` innermost thoughts,
presence in location where characters are not accompanied, knowledge
oI what happens in several places at the same time, oI the past, present
and Iuture

. The story is based on the recollections oI the narrator but it

is also the outcome oI imagination.
Through the presentation oI two Iamilies, the Tullivers and the
Dodsons, Eliot investigates middle-class mentality based on decorum
and tradition, conventional, unimaginative. Romantic visions, wild,
uncontrollable passions, wide perspectives are unknown to these people.
The accumulation oI property seems their main concern in liIe. In its
debased version, the analysis reIers to the anatomy oI stupidity, having

127
comic eIIects. Every important event is judged according to Iamily
history. ReIerring to Mr.Tulliver`s sudden death, Mrs. Glegg remarks:
There were never any Iailures, nor lawing, nor wasteIulness in our
Iamily nor dying without wills.
Tom Tulliver, Maggie`s brother, takes aIter the Dodsons, both in
his appearance and his tastes. He shares also the Dodson`s lack oI
imagination, their Philistinism, but also their inIlexibility and stern
judgements oI Maggie`s deviations Irom Iamily decorum. He seems
incapable oI abstract thinking and theoretical demonstration. Iatin and
Euclid prove useless Ior him as he decides to start learning book-keeping.
The narrator`s reIerences contain ironic tones in the description oI these
people, as they construct a world oI respectable, thriIty but also Ilat
characters, concerned with the division oI property. However, Eliot`s
interpretation also Iinds special qualities in them Ior which a whole nation
should be thankIul, as they conduct themselves with propriety and have
a certain IaithIulness to admitted rules and thoroughness oI work.
Matthew Arnold`s criticism in Culture ana Anarchv may be associated to
this analysis, as a protest against the pettiness and emotional narrowness
oI the English middle class, oI their lack oI interest in ideals and rigid
principles. On the other hand, Eliot admits their rectitude oI purpose and
honesty. The writer`s concern with unheroic, obscure people is supported
by her belieI in scientific aeterminism.
Maggie`s drama unIolds against the background oI this rigid
provincial mentality. A sensitive child with artistic tastes, she has the
intellectual resources Ior which her environment doesn`t provide much
encouragement. A generous and ardent nature, endowed with a strong
capacity Ior Ieeling, Maggie craves Ior a larger world oI the mind and oI
the emotions, and oI her dedication to selI-service. Her drama is based
on the incongruity between her character and the surroundings. Even her
deep love Ior her brother Tom is thwarted by his inIlexibility. Actually,
those around see her as unIit Ior their patterns. Mrs. Pullet says to
Mrs.Tulliver: You haven`t seen the end oI your trouble wi` that child,
Bessie.; she`s beyond everything Ior boldness and unthankIulness and
Mr. Wakem characterizes her as being dangerous and unmanageable.
Even Ior her parents, Maggie is a straight black-eyed wench
(Mr.Tulliver). One may point out that the narrative deconstructs the motiI
oI the expelled or outcast soul, the lonely or unique hero whose
knowledge, character and thought transcends its own background.

128
Four characteristics may be Iound in Maggie that deIine her as
the central element oI the motiI and oI the plot: her susceptibility to
music, her introspectiveness, her response to punishment, her ties to the
past. Admiration oI music is one oI the strong bonds in her Iriendship to
Philip Wakem, the hunch-backed son oI the neighbouring lawyer in
which she Iinds a sensitive and artistic nature like her own. But her
emotional involvement is severely criticized by Tom because having
gone bankrupt as a result oI a litigation, in which Wakem deIended the
other side, Mr. Tulliver developed a hatred oI the lawyer. Her Ilight to
the gypsies, which was her actual response to punishment in childhood
is recalled Irom the days beIore she had learned selI-renunciation, aIter
having read Thomas a Kempis. It will turn later into self-blame: I
wouldn`t like to punish anyone even iI they`d done me wrong; they`ve
done myselI wrong too oIten.
Her liIe seems to be predetermined by cultural constructs
imposed by men. From a Ieminist perspective, it seems that her
intellectual abilities and even her independence have been undermined
by the men around her. Her brother said to her: Girls never learn such
things. They are too silly. Taking reIuge into romance reading does
not provide a solution Ior her marginal Iemale condition as she would
preIer real learning and wisdom, such as great men know. The
relationship between Maggie and her cousin Iucy is also an attack on
romantic illusion and conventional heroines.
No reconciliation with the narrow world is possible. The conIlict
may be viewed as the opposition between a natural and spontaneous
passion and the allegiance to duty, to the past. She decides to adopt the
pattern oI selI-renunciation and sacriIice her happiness. In her last
temptation, victory is won by memories that no passion could no
longer quench: the long past came back to her, and with it pity and
aIIection, IaithIulness. She will act to save her brother in accordance
with her own ethical nature and conceptions. Again Matthew Arnold`s
criticism may be used as he shows that culture in contrast to the
limited aspirations oI provincial mentalities- may oIIer a larger sense
oI human possibilities. Maggie and Philip acknowledge the supremacy
oI spiritual values as they both value poetry, art, music. But, in
M.Arnold`s opinion, society needs a balance between these two
elements as they are both essential Ior the development oI the spirit.
Maggie`s experience may be seen as a rite of passage Irom innocence
to maturity, but this progress is contradictory: while looking ahead to

129
maturity, Maggie longs Ior a period oI relative comIort, the past, seen
as a regressive movement and she doesn`t Iinally undergo a typical
evolution plot. Although the end may seem abrupt, it could be
interpreted as the Iinal reunion between brother and sister, between the
two principles, aspiration and reality, implying conventional
existence, social determinism.
In The Mill on the Floss as well as in Miaalemarch, George
Eliot subjects the vertical, the ideal to the test oI the horizontal
conventionality, projecting her high-mimetic protagonists (Maggie,
Dorothea, Iydgate) endowed with a potential heroic stature, on the
background oI the disenchanted low-mimetic plots in which they get
intimately involved and trapped by deterministic relationships. The
low-mimetic lowers the high-mimetic ana the romance (conIrontation
between good and evil) modes, weakening them in the service oI
realistic purposes.

Topics for discussion
1. Why is George Eliot`s Mill on the Floss considered a
philosophical and intellectual novel?
2. The utilitarian vs. humanitarian perspective in G. Eliot`s Iiction.



130


THOMAS HARDY: THE LAST PHASE
OF THE VICTORIAN REALISTIC NOVEL





Although Harav creates a fictional universe basea on the
conventions of Realism, with a aocumentarv precision, aaaressing
contemporarv issues, his vision assumes tragic as well as ironic, poetic
unaertones. The tvpical Haravesque novel seems a labvrinth, trapping
characters in a worla of aeterminism, pessimism, religious skepticism.
This vision reauces plots to a meloaramatic level, the human being
allowea onlv a marginal position. His novels are set in a fictional worla
that abounas in signs of ill-omen, acciaents, unhappv coinciaences. His
fiction suffers a strange aistortion of the munaane worla, abunaing in
powerful archetvpal situations (the scapegoat in The Mavor of
Casterbriage, the night fournev, the aving goa, the rebirth theme). After
Juae the Obscures unfavourable reception, Harav aeciaea to revert to
writing poetrv.
Thomas Hardy can be seen as a poet and novelist at the same time.
He was born at Dorset, the Wessex oI his novels, on June 2, 1840. He
became acquainted with Schopenhauer`s work, which had an impact
upon his outlook. BeIore his Iirst great novel, Far from the Maaaing
Crowa (1874), he had published Desperate Remeaies (1871), Unaer the
Greenwooa Tree (1872) which was a great success. It was Iollowed by
the masterpiece The Return of the Native (1878). Next he published The
Mavor of Casterbriage (1886), Tess of the DUrbervilles, in 1891, Juae
the Obscure in 1895. According to his own classiIication, his novels
divide themselves into 1) Novels oI character and environment, such as
The Mavor of Casterbriage (1886) 2) Romances and Iantasies, The Well-
Belovea (1892), Two on a Tower (1882) 3) Novels oI ingenuity,
Desperate Remeaies. Hardy challenged Victorian conventionalism, so his
novel Juae the Obscure was received with hostility by the authorities oI
the day because oI its pessimism and the treatment oI new subjects. It was
a denial oI Victorian conIormism and respectability. He put an end to

131
novel-writing and began to publish poetry and drama. His Wessex
Poems oI 1898 was an edition oI collected poems, some written several
years beIore, Iollowed by Poems of the Past ana Present in 1901.
Hardy`s artistic vision has oIten been associated to philosophical
scepticism, Darwinism as well as to his deep love Ior rural Wessex,
which gave his novels a local Ilavour. His works are oIten set against a
background oI immemorial traditions and customs with ancient
monuments such as Stonehenge, creating an impression oI man`s struggle
with natural Iorces, with Iate or his own instincts. He showed harmony oI
view with Huxley, Spencer, Comte, Hume, and deIined his ideas as
evolutionary Meliorism , based on the attempt oI perIecting liIe. There
is an aIIinity between his view and Schopenhauer`s concept oI the
immanent or blina Will. His chieI Iictional techniques are oIten described
as his use oI coincidence, symmetrical positioning oI characterization,
archaic and sometimes awkward vocabulary, while his distinctive stylistic
signature lies in the picturesque.
Man`s struggle and the conIlict between instinct and reason take
place in a world dominated by omens, unhappy coincidences, accidents.
He has been compared to the Greek dramatists. As in the Greek tragedy,
Michael Henchard`s downIall (in The Mavor of Casterbriage) is brought
about by a Ilaw in his nature, although he doesn`t intend or enjoy doing
harm. The background suits his nature, suggesting some oI his
predispositions: Man`s character is his personal destiny or daimon. The
novel has a dramatic intensity, a Shakespearian grandeur, especially in the
description oI the wild Egaon Heath (the same atmosphere will be
recreated in the ample description oI the heath scorched by the sun and
plunged into darkness in The Return of the Native). Themes oI guilt, sin,
responsibility and remorse are typical Ior his Iiction.
Tess of the DUrbervilles, a Pure Woman renders the basic
themes oI Hardy`s work, Irom concrete physical details to the social,
psychic, cosmic Iorces shaping human existence. From the beginning oI
the novel, the relationship man collectivity - cosmos is apprehended;
the local Iestivity oI May Day is reminiscent oI the old Roman
agricultural Iertility rites. Tess`s destiny comes to the reader as an
accumulation oI omens which are interpreted in terms oI Iolk
superstition, myth and dramatized through svmbols. Hardy`s village is
not iavllic, it is rather the cradle oI Iatal conIlicts, destructive passions.
Fate is ascribed the role oI a cruel and capricious Iorce that plays with
the lives oI mortals (Gods may be cruel ironists). There are mvthical,

132
irreaucible conflicts between man and his Iate. Human beings appear to
be crushed by a superior Iorce: Iirst oI nature, then oI society or the
characters` own errors. Also, according to E.M. Forster in Aspects oI
the Novel and Wellek and Warren`s Theory oI literature, the
narrative levels are represented by the plot, the characters, the settings
and situations as well as the narrator`s voice. We shall assume that in
Hardy`s Iiction, settings and situations are oIten svmbolic or exemplarv
(in a high-mimetic mode, according to N. Frye`s Anatomv of Criticism),
remaining in a low-mimetic one simply representative or emblematic
Irom a general or typological point oI view, that is socially, historically,
naturally, artistically representative (emblematic). Tess is the daughter
oI a poor and Ioolish villager oI Blackmoor vale, whose head is turned
by learning that he is a descendant oI the ancient Iamily oI the
DUrbervilles. She is seduced by a young man who bears the surname
D`Urbervilles with a doubtIul right to it. Alec D`Urbervilles symbolizes
the new bourgeois intrusion into the English countryside, usurping the
name oI the old-landed gentry. There are highly poetized descriptions oI
personiIied nature, which takes a symbolic, active part in the dramatic
unIolding oI events (Ior instance in the last but one episode oI the novel,
describing the sacriIicial altar oI Stonehenge, the Celtic temple
dedicated to the sun).
Tess`s Iuture tragedy is Ioreshadowed by an episode early in the
book the death oI Prince, the Iamily horse: The pointed shaIt oI the
cart had entered the breast oI the unhappy Prince like a sword and
Irom the wound his liIe`s blood was spouting in a stream and Ialling
with a hiss into the road. Tess immediately put her hand upon the
wound with the only result that she became splashed Irom Iace to
skirt with the crimson drops. In this scene we can almost see Tess`s
whole liIe; the death oI the horse is a blow to the precarious economic
situation oI her Iamily and Ioretells its gradual degradation. The
commentary oI Tess`s Iamily regarding similar catastrophes reveals
their Iatalistic view:It was meant to be. Her image suggests the
murder oI Alec D`Urbervilles in an access oI Iury and revenge as well
as her Iinal apprehension by the authorities, in consequence oI the
perpetrated murder.
The loveliness oI the green and sunny Talbothay`s Iarm (where
she meets Angel Clare, a clergyman`s son) is soon contrasted to the
sombre barrenness oI Flintcomb-Ash (a drab and desolate site, its
natural resources being exhausted). Angel has a reIined nature in

133
comparison to Alec, the latter portrayed as a villain without scruples.
Yet, with all his attempted independence oI judgement, this advanced
man was the slave oI custom and conventionality.
The novel also has a closely-woven pattern oI unIortunate
incidents and Iolk superstitions: Angel Clare didn`t get the letter
which she, in her haste, had thrust beneath the carpet and the crowing
oI the cock in the aIternoon was interpreted by Mrs. Crick as a sign oI
ill-omen. When returning Irom Brazil, Angel Iound Tess with Alec as
she had been Iorced to accept his protection. Dorothy van Ghent
believes the subject oI this novel is mythological as the human
opposes preternatural, inimical powers. Stonehenge suggests ritual
sacriIice as she looked like an innocent victim oIIered to the gods on
an altar.
However, there seems to be no ascent and cathartic puriIication
in Hardy`s novels which leave the reader Irustrated and having a sense
oI the injustice perpetrated. There is rather a devastating projection oI
man`s marginal position in the universe, being crushed by both Iate
and society. We may thereIore consider that Hardy`s novels belong,
using Frye`s terminology, to the mythos Iollowing that oI autumn or
tragedy, namelv to the mvthos of winter, which joins satire and irony.
Strong individuals with strong untameable souls are contradicted by
strong social Iorces, the Iorces oI history or human civilization.
According to the deIinition given by Frye to tragic ironv, the mythos
oI winter reduces tragic situations to mere comedies oI the
grotesque. The primaeval Wessex, Hardy`s region oI the mind, is the
garden oI Eden aIter the Iall.
In Juae the Obscure, we are presented with the story oI the
downIall oI a man animated by scholarly ambition, by humanitarian
ideals, a man who believes in values oI spiritual emancipation but ends
up discovering they are hollow and Ialse. Hardy described his work as
a deadly war waged between Ilesh and spirit, his attempt being to
point at the tragedy oI unIulIilled aims. The intellectual aspirations oI
the young Wessex villager Jude Fawley are crushed by his own
sensuality, his passion Ior Arabella Donn, the embodiment oI instinctual
desires and oI his weakness, the inclination to drinking. The play oI
circumstances also took its toll. Iater on, Jude meets Sue Bridehead, his
cousin and the opposite oI Arabella. Sue is an almost phantasmal,
bodiless creature that questions the conventions oI her time (Hardy`s
sensitive portrait oI a modern, independent, agnostic type oI woman).

134
When she meets Jude, Sue views him as tragic Don Quixote, as the
dreamer oI dreams. His Iormer principles drop away. He cannot bear
the burden oI earlier mistakes and besides, he has too many passions in
conIlict with one another. He views himselI in a larger context, being
aware oI his social disadvantages and Iinally goes through a downIall.
The novel Ioreruns twentieth century literature through the density oI
psychic liIe images, oI introspection, oI inner torments and the
description oI a hostile society.
The heroic element decreases as the ironic increases. The
archetypal orders oI existence that Frye revises in his Anatomy oI
Criticism, the third essay, as the divine, the human, the animal, the
vegetable, the mineral they are all present in a distorted manner in
Hardy`s Iiction. At the divine level, we are oIIered representations oI hell
and oI the ungodly villains that occupy the godly position: they are called
Time, The President oI the Immortals, Iittle Father Time (in Juae the
Obscure, he strikes an ominous note by killing Sue and Jude`s children
and himselI). At the human level, the characters are engaged in a relation
oI annihilation, trapped. Marriage appears as a destructive machine in
most oI Hardy`s novels and short-stories (e.g. Lifes Little Ironies), as a
social institution ruined by conditions in contemporary British society.
But all institutions cooperate in Hardy`s Iiction Ior the destruction oI
man: the institution oI learning in Juae the Obscure (a parody oI OxIord
university, Iictionally called The Universitv of Christminster, where Jude
aspired to study in order to become a bishop or a scholar), the Christian
earthly church in Juae and Tess, the proIessions in The Mavor of
Casterbriage, the city versus the countryside. The vegetable world is
more oIten than not symbolic oI modern hells as in The Return of the
Native or Tess. The city oIIers the embodiment oI a Iortress that hides
villains, such as Alec D`Urbervilles, the city (the French ville) being
set in opposition to the Iield in Alec and Tess`s names, respectively.
Plot contrives against the character, giving it an archetypal value (in
Frye`s terms). The characters are destroyed by their natures as well:
Tess`s wild, passionate heritage, Jude Fawley`s vulnerability, his tragic
Ilaws, Michael Henchard`s Iormer mistake (oI having sold, in a Iit, his
wiIe and children to a sailor - his morally improved character aIter the
incident as well as his temperance and virtue didn`t mean the end oI his
suIIerings and eventually he ended up alone and alienated).
There is no doubt that Hardy`s reliance on the workings oI
chance and cosmic irony dealt a blow at Victorian complacency.

135
Unlike Thackeray or George Eliot, who were committed to a normal
world and avoided extremes oI social behaviour, Hardy`s novels
introduced the tormented hero, later re-discovered by authors such as
J. Conrad, D. H. Iawrence, Camus.

Topics for discussion
1. Comment on the impact oI rural nature in Hardy`s Tess of the
DUrbervilles.
2. The archetypal/mythic/cosmic dimension oI Hardy`s Iiction.



136


NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION: THE
DARK VOYAGE. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE -
PURITAN BACKGROUND AND SYMBOLISM




Two American nineteenth centurv writers whose main works are
structurea on the moael of the romance will be aiscussea further on.
The presentation also witnesses its transformation into a svmbolic as
well as psvchological stuav of characters or into a hvbria - epic
romance with poetical/meloaramatic overtones. It focusses on two
literarv texts -The Scarlet Letter ana Mobv Dick- that have acquirea
aifferent interpretations bv means of the multiple choice perspective.
In 1630, the Iirst oI Nathaniel Hawthorne`s colonial ancestors,
William Hathorne (Hawthorne added the w), arrived in Salem -
grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned. In the preIace
to The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne relates how this soldier, legislator;
judge ruthlessly persecuted the Quakers and was stained by the blood
oI the witches he judged and condemned. Writing two hundred years
aIter the events had occurred, Hawthorne Ielt compelled to express his
sense oI regret and pray that any curse incurred by them.. May be
now and henceIorth removed. The writer rejected many aspects oI his
Puritan inheritance, especially its dogmatic Calvinism and
intolerance. But he retained the Puritan consciousness oI the problem
oI evil and the nature oI sin, and in his Iiction he saw man darkly. The
young Hawthorne grew in company oI books, chieIly those oI Scott,
Bunyan, Spenser. What he wrote, however, became his Iirst volume oI
stories, Twice-Tola Tales (1837). His solitary years enabled Haw-
thorne to learn the essentials oI his craIthow to shape a style and
how to create an image oI man.
A supporter oI the Jacksonian Democrats, Hawthorne gained
political appointments to the Boston Custom House (18391840) and
to the Salem Custom House (1846-1849). During these years he
published the works which secured his literary reputation: a second
volume oI tales, Mosses from an Ola Manse (1846), his greatest novel,

137
The Scarlet Letter (1850) as well as two other novels, The House of
Seven Gables (1851), and The Blitheaale Romance (1852).
Energetic and productive, socially acute, Hawthorne would seem
to have become a typical mid-century American. His sensibility, how-
ever, was atypical, Ior, like his Concord neighbours, the
transcendentalists, Hawthorne never abandoned his enduring interest
in the truth oI the human heart.
The characters in his tales and romances are in eIIect symbolic
(or allegorical) Adams and Eves thrust into archetvpal struggles
between good and evil, reason and emotion, pride and humility, man
and nature. OIten they attain the threshold oI salvation, rarely are they
saved. Except Ior those - like Ethan Brand, Rappacini, Hollingworth
and Chillingworth - guilty oI want oI love and reverence Ior the
human soul (Hawthorne`s unpardonable sin), the Iallen remain
only obscurely conscious oI why they have Iailed. This ambiguity
suggests the mystery oI Hawthorne`s power as a writer oI deep
psychological insight. Evading the platitude oI moral statement with
its apparent but unreal Iinality, Hawthorne leaves open and
encourages the possibility oI continued analysis and interpretation.
He never denied the latent nobility oI man. But he understood
him too well-both his past and his present-to accept the overly
generous notion oI the transcendentalist. Emerson`s perpetual smile
irritated him; Hawthorne believed that Emerson ought to wait Ior
something to smile at. Yet both men were cordial neighbours and,
within the limits oI their polarity, admired one another. More
signiIicantly, both represented their timeone its light, the other its
darkness.
The emphasis that is being laid today on Hawthorne`s critical
views is likely to recommend him as a critical authority as well,
concerned with the nature oI Iiction. He deIines the status and claims a
place equal to that oI the novel Ior his type oI Iiction, described as
romance. A romancer has a licence with regard to every-day
probabillity typical oI the novel, in view oI the improved eIIects
which he is bound to produce thereby (preIace to Blitheaale
Romance). His argument is the reverse oI that Iollowed by George
Eliot at the close oI the same century which saw the publication oI
Aaam Beae as well as oI Hawthorne`s romances (Scarlet Letter, The
House of Seven Gables, The Marble Faun, Blitheaale Romance). His
Iamous preIaces to these works appear as a counterpart to G. Eliot`s

138
texts about British realism. AIter pleading Ior the romancer`s right to
disregard the laws oI the novel, he continues adding that In writing a
romance, a man is always or ought to be carrering on the utmost verge
oI a precipitous absurdity, and the skill lies in coming as close as
possible without actually tumbling over.
Hawthorne understands the claims oI this Iiction as an attempt to
balance both Imagination and Reality: It is a neutral territory,
somewhere between the real world and the Iairy land, where the
Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itselI with the
nature oI the other . The Iavourite locations oI the neutral territorv
are either the legendary mist oI the past or a country such as Italy
which has a long tradition and history behind it; the passage oI time
may also provide the writer with a perspective. The historical perioa
to which he oIten resorted in his romances and tales was that oI the
colonial past of New Englana. According to Henry James`s analysis,
Puritanism and its moral percepts were Ior him only a point oI view
to be Iurther explored, used Ior an artistic and literary purpose.
Nevertheless, the exploration of the nature of evil, sin ana guilt lies at
the core oI Hawthorne`s writings.
The world that the writer seeks and builds is generated by
contemplation oI the svmbol. The Puritan way oI interpreting reality is
allegorv, in which anything may stand Ior something else. The
Puritans believed that every occurrence was a sign to be translated.
But the meaning oI the allegory is fixea, there is only one correct
translation. Although the allegorical mode was deeply engrained in
him by his inheritance and readings, Hawthorne used allegory in the
service oI scepticism ana search and in the process transIormed it into
a symbolic method. The characters appear as representatives,
picturesquely imagined, oI a moral type or as phantasms, not endowed
with the reality oI liIe, pictures rather than persons.
The Scarlet Letter is built upon the symbolism oI the letter A
which stands in close connection to all the Iour characters : Hester
Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and Pearl. In
keeping with the Puritan tradition, such a letter was the compulsory
accesory oI the woman that committed adultery. At a Iirst reading, the
theme oI the romance seems to be sin, its consequences and
retribution. But the American imagination seems less interested in the
problems oI good and evil than in the dramatization oI the inner
conIlicts, oI the tension implied. Sin (in this case, adultery) appears as

139
a source oI deepened understanding and development, as an initiation
into moral awareness through evil. Probing deeper into the nature oI
sin, Hawthorne discloses a complexity which resists any attempt at a
rigorous demarcation. The complete isolation to which the scarlet
letter condemns her made Hester more perceptive oI the suIIering oI
others, oI the predicament oI the human condition. Her liIe aIter the
Iall illustrates moral growth, as Hester is not overwhelmed by it. She
dedicates herselI to acts oI charity and devotion to other people. The
initial concept is changed and the image acquires diIIerent
interpretations: A starts to signiIy Able, Aamirable, Angel, Abel,
Artist, America, anything else than Adulteress. Hawthorne uses here
the device oI multiple choice, presenting a variety oI symbolical
connotations.
Dimmesdale`s relation to the letter is equally signiIicant, as his
awareness oI guilt reaches deeper levels. The symbol emerges as a
psychosomatic token on his breast, a scarlet token on his naked
breast. His agony is spiritual since he cannot accept either the
popular version oI adultery or Hester s. As a result, he suIIers Irom a
disease caused by the qualms oI conscience that torture him. But his
suIIering gives him an intimate knowledge oI the sinIul brotherhood
oI mankind , the power to enlarge his sympathy and vision as well as
attain a deeper moral truth. Pearl, as Hawthorne reiterates many times,
is the embodiment oI the letter both physically and mentally. She is a
kind oI commentary on the symbol itselI, a living hieroglyphic. The
narrator dwells on the elusiveness, the indeIinable quality oI the girl
which couldn`t be made amenable to rules. She reminds Hester oI
a witch-baby or one oI the Iairies, whom we have leIt in our dear old
England, a sad reIlection oI the rich Iolklore banished by the
Puritans.
Chillingworth acts as the personiIication oI the unparaonable sin,
which in Hawthorne`s view is the separation oI the intellect Irom the
aIIections, the intellectual detachment gained at the expense oI love Ior
the human soul. He is inseparable Irom Dimmesdale, bent on taking
revenge on the man that wronged him bitterly. Iacking in human
tolerance, he devotes himselI to experimenting with Dimmesdale`s
condition, inIlicting pain upon the minister. He is unconsciously
throwing himselI into the character oI Satan in the myth oI the Fall.
Employing his intellectual resources solely to the purpose oI
manipulating others, he is in Hawthorne`s view the worst oI all sinners.

140
The Scarlet Letter may yet be interpreted as having Ieminist
connotations iI we consider Hester`s belieIs. Her liIe turns Irom
passion and Ieeling to thought, she assumes a Ireedom oI
speculation then common enough on the other side oI the Atlantic, but
which our IoreIathers would have held to be a deadlier crime than that
stigmatized by the scarlet letter . She hopes that the whole relation
between man and woman will be established on a surer ground oI
mutual happiness. Hawthorne`s narrative oI the interaction oI these
diIIerent points oI views is intended as a drama oI ideas, interesting
because the points oI view represented comprise a kind oI symbolic
history oI the American conscience. The truth oI the heart pictured
by romance acquires also a universal human signiIicance.

Topic for discussion
Analyse the multiple levels oI signiIicance suggested by the
letter A in Hawthorne`s Scarlet Letter. Why is it called a romance?








141


HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) - A NATIONAL
LITERATURE AND ROMANTIC INDIVIDUALISM





BeIore Melville kindled his alchemic Iires aboard the Pequod
(Mobv Dick appeared in 1851), he had served a long apprenticeship as
a sailor. He sailed in 1837 on a trading vessel bound Ior Iiverpool. In
the quasi-autobiographical novel, Reaburn (1849), Melville recounts
how viciousness among the sailors, poverty and crime in Iiverpool
wrecked his romantic illusions about a sailor`s liIe. By 1841 his
everlasting itch Ior things remote overcame him and he sailed again,
this time aboard the Acushnet, the whaler that was to be his Yale
College and Harvard. Eighteen months later, disgusted by the
tyranny oI the ship`s captain, Melville jumped ship at the Marquesas
Islands and lived with cannibals in the valley oI Typee Ior a month
until he was rescued by an Australian whaler. AIter a mutiny aboard
that ship, Melville again deserted. For two years aIterwards, he
wandered, lived, and worked like a picaresque hero-on the islands oI
Tahiti and Hawaii and aboard whaling ships in the regions oI Japan.
His sailing days ended, Melville began to read books about the
South Seas and to write oI his own experiences (oIten more IanciIully
than Iactually). His early books Tvpee (1846), Omoo (1847), Marai
(1849), and While-Jacket (1850) re-count his adventures episodically
but excitingly. Most oI his readers enjoyed these tales chieIly as travel
narratives, largely ignoring Melville`s pointed criticism oI American
civilization Ior its cruelty aboard naval vessels and its intolerant
imposition oI western civilization upon noble savages.
Iiving at his uncle`s Iarm in PittsIield, Massachusetts, and
working on a book about whaling, Melville came to know Hawthorne,
who lived nearby in Ienox. Their conversations altered more than the
plan oI Melville`s book-they aIIected his entire liIe. Hawthorne has
dropped germinous seeds into my soul, he wrote. In Iact, rather,
Hawthorne helped those seeds to burgeon which had long since been

142
planted: Melville`s Calvinist heritage (in Marai he had already spoken
oI evil as the chronic malady oI the universe) and his extensive
reading - the Bible (especially Job and Ecclesiastes, Shakespeare (King
Lear above all), the metaphysical poets, and Carlyle`s Sartor Resartus.
In Mobv Dick, Melville`s consciousness burst into surprising awareness
and sensibility. I have written a wicked book, and Ieel spotless as the
lamb, he wrote to Hawthorne when Mobv Dick was Iinished. The
universe he had created, however, was dark, stained with evil. Man also
was blemished by his demonic rebelliousness and Ilawed by his
irreverent pride. But the opaque symbolism and maniIest pessimism oI
Mobv Dick estranged his readers. When Melville Iollowed this novel
with others no less searching Pierre, or the Ambiguities (1852) and
The Confiaence Man (1857) he lost his audience entirely. Few readers
even examined his tortured but vigorous poetry or splendidly tragic
novellas like Bartlebv (1853), The Encantaaas (1854), or Benito Cereno
(1855). These too explored the shadowy regions oI the heart, those
grim, spiritual wastelands whose dwellers sought vainly to distinguish
appearance Irom reality and light Irom dark.
Not until the 1920`s did his writing begin anew to arouse
enthusiasm. Since then, Melville`s readers have discovered in his
work a powerIul sense oI the tragedy oI human experience, and, as
well, a proIound religiousness and an impassioned democratic spirit.
Melville`s posthumously published novella, Billv Buaa, written during
his latter years, Iinds him wrestling with the same angels and demons
he had loosed nearly a halI century beIore. As Hawthorne wrote,
Melville could neither believe, nor be comIortable in his unbelieI;
and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other.
Melville`s pronouncements on the status oI the American writer
and the lines along which it was developing at that time, expressed in
his review oI Hawthorne`s Mosses from an Ola Manse (1850) or
included in his last novel The Confiaence-Man (1857) as well as in his
letters, plainly state his opinion. His review oI Hawthorne may be read
as an expression oI his overconIidence in the huge possibilities oI the
American writer as well as his rejection oI the European tradition. He
underlines the idea that the development oI American literature claims
that America`s cultural dependence on England should come to an
end. The writer pleads against the imitation oI Ioreign models
(levelling charges at writers such as Washington Irving). On the other

143
hand, he praises Hawthorne Ior the depth oI his psychological insight,
comparing him with Shakespeare.
Melville`s experience has leIt its impress upon his work,
structured around the theme oI the vovage as an exploratory act. Mobv
Dick is structured round the journey motiI, implying the quest Ior the
white whale. It is preIaced with several pages oI Extracts about
whales Irom the literature oI the world, beginning with quotations Irom
the Bible, namely reIerences to the Book oI Job. They express the
maniIold and mysterious aspects oI the whale, immense and Iormidable,
Iabulous, real, intelligent, malignant, useIul and dangerous to man at the
same time. Establishing the legendary character oI the whale, it also
turns the story oI a real whale`s chase into a svmbolic one. Ishmael, the
narrator oI the story, is an Everyman-type who searches the world
around him and whose Iunction is to introduce the reader to this
mysterious adventure. The book may be called a battle between the mad
captain Ahab oI the whaler Pequoa and the mightiest oI whales, the
white monster Moby Dick. In a previous encounter Ahab had been
deIeated and bears the symbol oI his deIeat in a Ialse leg; swearing
revenge, he sets out towards a second encounter in which he will allow
only total victory or total destruction. His obsession draws all his crew
into the orbit oI his passion, some willingly, some passively, some
reluctantly.
Other characters are grouped around these three: Ishmael, Ahab,
the Whale. The three mates oI the Pequoa represent three types oI
human intelligence and capability. Starbuck, the Iirst mate, Iears God
and hunts whales only Ior a livelihood. Although he is brave, he is no
crusader aIter perils. Stubb, the second mate, is a mere proIessional
sea-hunter, completety suited to his occupation. The third mate, Flask,
whose leading trait is ignorant unconscious Iearlessness, Iollowed
these Iish Ior the Iun oI it. The three harpooners are all primitives:
the Indian Tashtego, the Negro Dagoo and the Polynesian Queequeg.
Closer to Ahab are the mysterious Parsee Fedallah and the innocent
Negro cabin boy Pip. The rest oI the Pequod`s company are a
polyglot crew Irom all countries and climates, but mostly men oI
island origin who seem to make the best whalemen. Starbuck
represents in the story conventional Christianity, Queequeg primitive
pagan morality, but neither can overcome Ahab`s will; nor can the
warnings oI passing ships that have encountered the object oI his
search or the numerous omens present in the narrative.

144
Although saturated in the Iacts oI whaling and an almost
encyclopedic account oI the whale in all its aspects, Melville made his
work into an enquiry oI the problem oI man conIronting his destiny. His
captain appears as a titan who deIies both God and Nature. Fact
becomes symbol and incident acquires universal meaning. Ahab, then,
appears as a Promethean Iigure, a conception as grand as Milton`s
Satan, with both oI whom he has strong aIIinities. Named aIter the
sinIul king oI the Old Testament who worshipped Baal and went into
battle at the behest oI Ialse prophets, he assumes superhuman
dimensions. Through him, Melville seems to warn oI the consequences
oI Emersonian selI-reliance when carried to its utmost limit. Fixity oI
purpose, based on his conIidence in the boundless possibilities oI selI,
sets Ahab at the other extreme Irom Ishmael. II Ishmael is selI, Ahab is
anti-selI. He turns out to be totally incapable oI readjusting his vision: to
him, the whale invariably conveys one meaning the omnipresence oI
evil. Hence, his determination to hunt at all costs the inscrutable malice
sinewing. He is the extreme case oI the nineteenth century egoist or in
its Hawthornesque variant, the Unpardonable Sinner who turns into a
slave to will or intellect and abandons his potential Ior Iellow Ieeling.
Ahab denies his crew any identity oI their own, considering them to be
but instruments oI his will, an extension oI his own selI: Ye are not
men, but my arms and legs and so obey me. To Maurice Friedman, he
is the most thoroughgoing example oI the monological man; he can
hear no other human voice because his own is high liIted. He is called
by one oI the characters a grand, ungodly, godlike man. However,
despite his gigantic and Romantic stature resting entirely upon his will,
Ahab seems to be lacking a true Promethean dimension.
But how are we to take Moby Dick ? For Starbuck, he is a mere
dumb brute. Ahab`s obsessive hatred seems to him blasphemous and
mad. He cries: Vengeance on a dumb brute! That simply smote thee
Irom blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,
Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous. Ahab replies: All visible
objects, man, are but masks. But in each event - in the living act, the
undoubted deed there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts
Iorth the mouldings oI its Ieatures Irom behind the unreasoning mask.
II man will strike, strike through the mask: How can the prisoner reach
outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale
is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there`s naught
beyond. But tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him

145
outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That
inscrutable thing is what I chieIly hate; and be the white whale agent,
or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk
not to me oI blasphemy, man. I`d strike the sun iI it insulted me. For
could the sun do that, then could I the other since there is ever a sort oI
Iair play herein, jealously presiding over all creations. But not my
master, man, is even that Iair play. Who`s over me? Truth has no
conIines.
For the Shaker sailor Gabriel oI the Jeroboam, Moby Dick is no
less than the incarnation oI God himselI. Mobv Dick exploits myth in
order to load the whale with all the attributes oI mystery and power.
The whalemen believe it is immortal and Melville equates him with
Job`s whale. Indeed, the ambiguitv oI everything in the novel is
insisted upon throughout the novel. Ishmael`s symbolic vision enables
him to ask questions oI ontological and epistemological relevancy;
and although he is tempted to give tentative answers, it is the
questioning rather than the attempt to reach a deIinite conclusion that
makes his exploration meaningIul. Ishmael`s relation to it is deIined
by the great Ilexibility oI his point oI view. Adopting the biological,
sociological, historical, paleontological, anatomical and economic
perspective, he is able to aproximate the object oI his exploration,
without, however, assessing it in all its complexity. The anatomy oI
the whale, Ior instance, occupying the middle chapters, gives Ishmael
ample opportunity to describe each part oI him and Melville to use all
the amount oI inIormation about whaling. Still, he conveys his sense
oI utter helplessness when conIronted with it. The Iorehead pleated
with riddles or the wrinkled brow

reinIorce his sense oI the whale`s
inscrutability, conveyed likewise by his pyramidical silence.
Through Ishmael, Melville asserts the otherness, the inscrutability oI
nature in relation to man.
The whale may also be regarded as both death dealing and liIe
giving. According to Newton Arwin that much as he can be
destructive, he can also be beneIicient to man

( the light giving oil
and ambergris are among his precious giIts). The benignity oI Moby
Dick is also emphasized by Iawrence Iar Irom being wicked, the
warm-blooded Ieviathan is to him a projection oI the white man`s
deepest blood nature and deepest blood being. In chapter 42, The
Whiteness oI the whale, the narrator says that it was the whiteness
oI the whale that above all things appalled me. As R. Chase puts it,

146
the meaning oI whiteness, the paradoxical colour involves all the
contradictions that Melville attributes to nature. He makes an
impressive catalogue oI the signiIications oI the whale`s blankness,
which is not so much a colour as the visible absence oI colour, and at
the same time the concrete oI all colours. It points to nothingness, to
indeIiniteness oI purpose. Speculating on what the whale means Ior
Ahab, Ishmael believes that the meaning(s) oI the whale is but an
outward projection oI a subjective consciousness.
It is commonly assumed that several inIluences were at work
upon Melville in 1850 when he was writing the book. Thomas Carlyle`s
Sartor Resartus, On Heroes, German Romance helped determine
the symbolic structure (as his device oI multiple choice proves it). R.
Chase calls it an epic romance, epic as it celebrates occupations and
types oI heroic humanity characteristic oI the culture in which they
appear. It is true that in several respects, the account might Iit the
pattern oI an epic romance the journey motiI which reaches its climax
in the attempt to kill the Ieviathan is certainly remindIul oI the mode oI
romance as described by Northrop Frye. Time in Mobv Dick,
comprising the months Irom Christmas ( winter solstice) to summer
solstice during which the journey is consumed, Iits the time scheme in
romance. But it can not be considered a romance proper. N. Frye
considers it a blend oI romance and anatomy. The Iorm that it Iinally
takes Iits no clear classiIication; it is a hybrid it may be considered a
symbolist poem, containing melodramatic iI not Iully tragic elements
while the particulars oI whaling give it a solidity oI speciIication.
When the chase is over, Ahab has gone to his death helplessly tied
to the back oI the white whale, the Pequod has sunk and every member
oI the crew is drowned except Ishmael. The saga oI the white whale
essentially deals with a philosophic problem: it is the search Ior a true
explanation oI man`s relationship with God in the universe and the
white whale is the very embodiment oI the ultimate mystery.

Topics for discussion
1. Which are the mythological, cetological, economical
connotations in Mobv Dick?
2. The initiation journey in Mobv Dick. The Mythic dimension
oI Melville`s Iiction.
3. How does the multiple perspective device Iunction in
Melville`s/Hawthorne` s work?

147











Part three:
ELEMENTS OF NARRATOLOGY


148


149


LITERARY APPROACHES IN ANALYZING
CHARACTERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH
AND NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN
AND ENGLISH NOVEL



The analysis oI a novel should take into account that a work oI
Iiction is a narrative with (main and minor) characters, with a
(symbolic) setting, told by a narrator (omniscient, 1
st
person narrative,
3
rd
person narrative, multiple point oI view). The most important aspect
oI character analysis is determining how the author presents and
establishes the character in accordance with the two basic methods Ior
conveying character: telling that involves direct intervention and
commentary by the author and showing.
Characters in a novel are generally designed to search and
discover certain aspects oI human experience. Characters oIten depict
particular traits oI human nature; they may show only one or two traits
or they may be involved in very complex emotions, conIlicts and
experiences. As in the use oI Iigurative language, representations oI
reality or symbolic settings, the signiIicance oI a character can vary
Irom the particular, the inner struggle oI a unique individual, to the
most general and symbolic.
In the 19
th
century novel, author, text and reader, converge as
middle class identities, with the author, reader-oriented and the reader
depending on the author`s omniscience controlling the text to observe
the society`s rules and literary conventions. A novelist is involved
implicitly or explicitly in a social, historical, cultural commentary oI
both the Iictional time and oI his time.
The novel Iocuses on the main character`s inner liIe (Thomas
Hardy, Tess of the aUrbervilles), the character`s behaviour is
determined by the public/society (Maggie in George Eliot, The Mill on
the Floss), the main character`s behaviour is determined by his/her
private values (Isabel in Henry James, The Portrait of a Laav), the
character is a non-hero (a real hero rather than an imagined one,
Walter Scott, Rob Rov), the character is an anti-hero (Iaurence Sterne,

150
Tristam Shanav), the character is rounded/complex, like real people
has complex, multi-dimensional personalities. Major characters in
Iiction are usually round (Pip in Charles Dickens, Great
Expectations), Ilat characters, who are not shallow, they vibrate with
liveliness (Dickens`s characters: the Gargeries, Wemmick, Betsey
Trodwood, Pegotty in Davia Copperfiela or miser Scrooge in A
Christmas Carol), the character is static/does not change during the
story (Catherine Sloper in Henry James, Washington Square), the
character is portrayed through actions (Michael Henchard in Thomas
Hardy, Mavor of Casterbriage), the character is portrayed through
verbal descriptions (Isabel in Henry James, The Portrait of a Laav),
the character is dynamic/changes during the story (Mark Twain`s
Huckleberrv Finn). In Nathaniel Hawthorne`s The Scarlet Letter,
Hester and Dimmesdale as archetypes oI sinning do morally develop;
they are not Irozen in stereotypes.

151


PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION






Physical description: the way Pip portrayed his sister:
My sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older
than I, and had established a great reputation with herselI and the
neighbours because she had brought me up by hand`. Having at that
time to Iind out Ior myselI what the expression meant, and knowing
her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit oI
laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe
Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a
general impression that she made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe
was a Iair man, with curls oI Ilaxen hair on each side oI his smooth
Iace, and with eyes oI such a very undecided blue that they seemed to
have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-
natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, Ioolish, dear Iellow a sort oI
Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a
prevailing redness oI skin, that I sometimes used to wonder whether it
was possible she washed herselI with a nutmeg-grater instead oI soap.
She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron,
Iastened over her Iigure behind with two loops, and having a square
impregnable bib in Iront, that was stuck Iull oI pins and needles. She
made it a powerIul merit in herselI, and a strong reproach against Joe,
that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why
she should have worn it at all: or why, iI she did wear it at all, she
should not have taken it oII every day oI her liIe.
***
In relation to his history, the omniscient narrator moves Irom one
character to another, giving himselI access to his characters` thoughts
and Ieelings whenever he wants and providing inIormation only when

152
he wishes. As selI-conscious narrators, i.e. aware oI themselves as
tellers, Henry Fielding and George Eliot employed the omniscient
obtrusive point of view in their novels, Tom Jones, respectively The Mill
on the Floss and they address openly the reader to comment or evaluate
on what is happening in the story. (In Tristam Shanav, Iaurence Sterne
tells the reader to turn back several pages and read a passage second
time. He also invites the readers to interpret syntactical, layout and
typographical innovations such as unIinished sentences, blank pages
and dashes or asterisks. Other oddities that appear throughout the novel
include black page when Yorick dies, parallel texts in Iatin and
English, the hand marbled page where each side is uniquely diIIerent,
one sentence chapters, misplaced chapters and missing chapters as in
volume 4, where the pagination jumps Irom page 146 to 156 instead oI
missing chapter 24, thereby misnumbering all the subsequent right hand
pages as even).
***
The thira person narrative technique does not imply the author
to stay outside his narrative. He may interrupt his own commentaries
or he chooses a character and the story is related in terms oI that
character in such a way that the imagined story is conIined to him or
her alone (Strether in Henry James`s The Ambassaaors). In Jane
Austen`s novel, Emma, the narrator is independent, looking down on
the characters Irom a point outside the action. At other times it is
clearly Emma`s point oI view that is expressed.
***
In his novel The Portrait of a Laav, Henry James oIIers a new
perspective, the multiple point of view, applicable when a person`s
character is known through his or her actions but also through the
response oI the others. In this novel, the main Iunction oI the
secondary characters is to explain the main character e.g. two
witnesses at Isabel`s actions (Madame Merle: She`s beautiIul,
generous and, Ior an American, well-born. She`s also very clever and
has a handsome Iortune . I want you oI course to marry her or
Gilbert Osmond: I like her very much. She`s all you described her .
She has only one Iault |.| She has too many ideas). In the PreIace`
oI his novel, Henry James presents this point oI view as the house oI
Iiction with many windows. Each window oIIers a diIIerent
perspective on the landscape. The windows are the author`s and the

153
character`s points oI view that build the solid construction oI the
house/novel. He also alternates the scene which is a direct
conIrontation, with dialogue and the interval which is a part oI
narrative that through silent meditation on some person`s part -
covers a longer period oI time, Isabel`s vigil beIore the Iire, Iollowing
the scene with Osmond, is an example oI such an interval. James
added this thing in the PreIace` to the New York edition: My young
woman`s extraordinary meditative vigil on the occasion that was to
become Ior her such a landmark, is obviously the best thing in the
book. What she sees (understands) under the spell oI recognitions,
is the truth oI her liIe, her marriage, her husband, and herselI.
***
First person narrative implies that the story is told in the Iirst
person by one oI the characters (Danile DeIoe`s Moll Flanaers or
Robinson Crusoe, Mellville`s Mobv-Dick, Dickens`s Great
Expectation or Davia Copperfiela, Mark Twain`s Huckleberrv Finn,
Conrad`s Heart of Darkness).
First person narrative commonly associated with non-Iictional
literary Iorms such as biography, memoirs or diaries. When used in
Iictional works, e.g. in Great Expectation or Davia Copperfiela, it
lends authenticity to the story. So, the person/narrator telling the story
has a bias and the reader can trust what he or she is saying. In many
cases the viewpoint is restricted to a minor character within the story
(Nelly Dean and Mr Iockwood in Emily Bront`s Wuthering Heighs).
The reader does not have direct access to the thoughts and Ieelings oI
the main character oI the story; the inIormation he learns are like
pieces oI a puzzle and he has to piece them together (Nick Carraway
in The Great Gatsbv).
Other cases present various combinations oI points oI view
(Joseph Conrad in Lora Jim alternates the Iirst person narration oI the
main character, Jim, with the third person narration oI diIIerent
narrators as Marlow or Charles Dickens who shiIts his viewpoint
continually in Bleak House, the third person narration with some
Iragments narrated by character-narrators like Esher Summerson).
First-person characters may be reliable, telling the truth, seeing
things right or they may be unreliable, lacking in the perspective or
selI-knowledge. II a narration by an omniscient external narrator
carries the readers into the thoughts oI a character in the story, that

154
character is known as a reIlector character: such a character does not
know he or she is a character, is unaware oI the narration or the
narrator (Jane Austen`s Emma).
The characters may also be constructed as being too (much)
positive (Allworthy in Henry Fielding`s Tom Jones, or Tom in Harriet
Beecher Stowe`s Uncles Tom Cabin) or too (much) negative
Murdstone (Charles Dickens, Davia Copperfiela).
***
Writers may reveal character through phvsical aescription, i.e.
use the character`s physical traits to convey inIormation about his or
her identity. The physical description may be extremely detailed, the
writer may repeatedly reIer to some aspect oI a character`s
appearance, or the description may be caricatural and thereIore
exaggerate physical traits which reIlect aspects oI personality. (Mr
Gradgrind in Dicken`s Hara Times). Through caricature authors
ridicule a person by exaggerating and distorting his most prominent
Ieatures and characteristics. The works oI Jane Austen (Mr Collins in
Priae ana Prefuaice), Fielding, Smollett, Dickens, Thackeray or
Surtees are especially rich in them.
What a character says in the Iorm oI a aialogue provides
inIormation about his personality, Ieelings, moral values, education
and social class. Writers use dialogue to reveal characters (Dr Sloper
and Morris Townsend in Henry James`s Washington Square).
The names a writer chooses Ior his character have strong
connections and can also provide inIormation about a character`s
Iamilial, social, economic and ethnic background. These allusive or
svmbolic names establish a connection with another real or Iictional
Iigure. The protagonist oI Melville`s novel Mobv Dick is named aIter
a King Irom the Old Testament and he is introduced to the readers at
the beginning oI the novel, Peleg: He`s Ahab, boy; and Ahab oI Old,
thou knowest, was a crowned king!`
***
The symbolism in the novel The Scarlet Ietter
Think oI the symbolic meanings oI the word scarlet: blood,
love, wound and as a colour: burning, Iire, danger.
Chapter The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter
People oI New England!` cried he, with a voice that rose over
them: high, solemn, and majestic yet had always a tremor through it,

155
and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out oI a Iathomless depth oI
remorse and woe ye, that have loved me! - ye, that have deemed
me holy! behold me here, the one sinner oI the world! At last! at
last! I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have
stood, here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength
wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me at this dreadIul
moment Irom groveling down upon my Iace! Io, the scarlet letter
which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk
hath been wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to
Iind repose it hath cast a lurid gleam oI awe and horrible repugnance
round about her. But there stood one in the midst oI you, at whose
brand oI sin and inIamy ye have not shuddered!`(.)
With a convulsive motion he tore away the ministerial band
Irom beIore his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to
describe that revelation. (Nathaniel HAWTHORNE The Scarlet
Letter)
***
Read the Iollowing excerpt and demonstrate that The Scarlet
Ietter is a romance.
Conclusion
Most oI the spectators testiIied to having seen, on the breast oI
the unhappy minister, a SCARIET IETTER he very semblance oI
that worn by Hester Prynne imprinted in the Ilesh. As regarded its
origin there were various explanations, all oI which must necessarily
have been conjectural. Some aIIirmed that the Reverend Mr
Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne Iirst wore her
ignominious badge, had begun a course oI penance which he
aIterwards, in so many Iutile methods, Iollowed out by inIlicting a
hideous torture on himselI. Others contended that the stigma had not
been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger
Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear,
through the agency oI magic and poisonous drugs. Others, again and
those best able to appreciate the minister`s peculiar sensibility, and the
wonderIul operation oI his spirit upon the body whispered their
belieI, that the awIul symbol was the eIIect oI the ever-active tooth oI
remorse, gnawing Irom the inmost heart outwardly, and at least
maniIesting Heaven`s dreadIul judgement by the visible presence oI
the letter. The reader may chose among these theories.

156
***
In The Concept of Ironv (1841), Kierkegaard elaborated the idea
that irony is a mode oI seeing things, a way oI viewing existence.
Authors like Fielding, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, Thomas
Hardy, Mark Twain, Henry James noticed that the most Iorms oI irony
involved the perception oI awareness oI a diIIerence between words
and their meaning, or between actions and their results, or between
appearance and reality. The irony used by authors in characterizing
their heroes or heroines may be verbal or irony oI situation. The Iirst
kind oI irony involves saying what one does not mean (such ironies
are hyperbole or liotes).
Characters partly derive Irom the tradition oI mimesis, i.e. external
signs in their looks, such as physiognomy, idiosyncratic gestures, clothing
or language, psychotic cases (Charles Dickens`s Quils, Creakle,
Murdstone, Fagin). In the traditional romance, love stories or historical
(with both historical and Iictional characters) e.g. Walter Scott`s,
J.F.Cooper`s, character is shallow, stereotyped, polarized.
The caricature is a Iorm oI the stereotype, which also isolates
and exaggerates a Iew Ieatures (the correct and inhibited Englishman
with tightly rolled umbrella or the spinster in old-Iashioned clothes).
Caricature in Iiction will work so long as the reader accepts the
bargain and so long as no important action, which would be
impossible to be a more complete personality, is made to hinge on the
exaggerated Ieature.
Caricatures are in some degree ridiculous, proper targets Ior
laughter even iI the reader condemns them. The laughter implies that
in some sense we see them as not seriously mattering. But that is true
only iI we discriminate between the reader`s view and the view taken
by Iigures in the Iiction.
For example, while Elizabeth Bennet sees Mr. Collins with
contemptuous amusement our view oI him as a caricature and her view
oI him as within the Iictional world a real person are not noticeably
diIIerent. When, however, he proposes, and Mrs. Bennet`s urgent
pressure turns the proposal into a genuine threat, then we have to
recognize that although he remains a joke Ior us he has become no joke
Ior Elizabeth. Nor is he a joke Ior her when Charlotte Iucas marries
him. The handling oI him as a caricature is a convention between author
and readers; the other Iictional Iigures are not party to it.

157


DIALOGUE TO REVEAL CHARACTERS






What a character says in the Iorm oI a dialogue provides
inIormation about his personality, Ieelings, attitude towards selI and
others, moral values, origins, education and social class (Jane Austen,
Priae ana Prefuaice)
The dialogue is oIten crisply theatrical in quality.
- stage dialogue: Come here, child, cried her Iather, as she
appeared..ao.
Iaugher Irom the auditorium would carry the scene Iorward, but
there is something oI a drop in the continuity passage which actually
Iollows: Elizabeth could not but smile . disappointed. (chapter 20)
Several other scenes, conducted mainly in dialogue, have the
quality oI set pieces: Mr. Collin`s proposal, Mr. Darcy`s Iirst proposal,
Iady Catherine and Elizabeth conIronting each other in the little
wilderness. In scenes like this there is a suggestion oI stage dialogue
which contrasts with the greater naturalness oI conversation and
indirectly reported speech in Mr. Darcy`s second proposal or in
Elizabeth`s interview with her Iather aIter Darcy has asked his
consent. In these latter scenes the technique oI the novel is in control.
But the inIluence oI the 18
th
century theatre in some parts oI the novel
is consistent with the very strongly marked caricature oI some Iigures
and a rather sharp transition Irom them to the seriously portrayed
characters. (see the novel Emma, too)
***
In Nathaniel Hawthorne`s vision, romance transIorms the
ordinary world into cold allegorv and then back into the impression oI
liIe. In the PreIace` oI The Scarlet Letter, the author`s metaphors Ior
romantic realism and romance are moonlight and Iirelight and the
Iloor is the neutral territory between reality and Iairy land, where the
Actual and the Imaginary meet the Iuse. The character oI Pearl (The

158
Scarlet Letter) has a symbolic Iunction connected with the scarlet
letter: it was The Scarlet Letter in another Iorm; The Scarlet Letter
endowed with liIe (102)
In chapter 17 oI Aaam Beae, (1997: 149) subtitled In Which the
Story Pauses a Iittle, George Eliot deIended the doctrine oI Realism
in Iiction saying that she is so content to tell her simple story, without
trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing,
indeed, but Ialsity, which, in spite oI one`s best eIIorts, there is reason
to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so diIIicult. The pencil is
conscious oI a delightIul Iacility in drawing a griIIin the longer the
claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but the marvelous Iacility
which we mistook Ior genius is apt to Iorsake us when we want to
draw a real exaggerated lion.
In choosing models Ior her characters she turned Irom cloud-
borne angels, prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an old woman
bending over her Ilower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner, while the
noonday light, soItened perhaps by a screen oI leaves, Ialls on her
mob-cap, and just touches the rim oI her spinning wheel, and her stone
jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious
necessaries oI liIe to her or I turn to that village wedding, kept
between Iour brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the
dance with a high-shouldered, broad Iaced bride, while elderly and
middle-aged Iriends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and
probably with quart pots in their hands, but with an expression oI
unmistakable contentment and goodwill. Foh!` says my idealistic
Iriend what vulgar details! What good is there in taking all these
pains to give an exact likeness oI old women and clowns? What a low
phase oI liIe! what clumsy, ugly people!`
***
Iater, Henry James deIined the psychological realism constructing
characters involved in a personal struggle Isabel Archer (The Portrait of a
Laav), Maggie (The Golaen Bowl), or melodramatic realism Millie
(The Wings of the Dove).


159


INSIDERS/OUTSIDERS CHARACTERS







Edith Wharton`s Iiction can be approached Irom the perspective
oI a particular type oI character present in a pattern oI novelistic
practice that appears in most oI her writingsIrom the Iirst novel, The
Jallev of Decision, to her last, unIinished one, The Buccaneers. I will
call this special type oI character an "insider". The insiaers may be
deIined as persons who have transgressed the boundaries oI their
social class and thereIore, in one way or another, they have placed
themselves outsiae their social milieu becoming "inside observers" oI
the new social and human environment. They are always diIIerent
Irom the characters typical oI the particular social milieu whose
borders they crossed-usually the aristocratic milieu oI older wealth-
either because oI their social background or because they disregard
some social rules and conventions.
Not all oI Wharton`s novels and short-stories gravitate around
an insiaer and not all oI her insiders act in the same way, but the
pattern oI border transgression and the presence oI the insider as
instrument oI this transgression are suIIiciently common to support an
inquiry which would eventually lead to certain conclusions relevant to
Wharton`s entire work.
1he insiders have a close relationship to the author and as
means oI dramatizing the novel, instruments oI the author`s
eIIacement. One oI their basic roles is to inIiltrate a particular social
milieu (usually old New York, controlled by money and rank) observe
it Irom the inside and provide a criticism oI that society and its values.
In other words, their presence is central to both the social criticism
that the book contains and the values it provides. They always make a
conventional member oI the respective society reevaluate his or her
world and they also make the reader judge that society Irom the
insiaer`s perspective: the point oI view is embodied in the insiaer. In

160
this respect her point-oI-view technique resembles that oI her older
Iriend and Iellow New Yorker, Henry James, who inspired and
encouraged much oI her work.
Starting with Wharton`s Iirst novel, The Jallev of Decision, a
parable oI old New York which sets the pattern oI the inside observer,
and the dialectic oI the inside/outside worlds, the type oI the insider is
never quite the same. Some are social climbers like Iily Bart in The
House of Mirth, or Undine Spragg in The Custom of the Countrv. In
other novels, such as, The Age of Innocence, The Reef, The Chilaren
the Iemale insider (Ellen Olenska, Sophy Viner, Judith Wheater) is
part oI a love triangle, in which a man must choose between her and a
conventional innocent woman and there are novels with double
insiders like The Fruit of the Tree.
Most oI the insiaers are women, Iily Bart (The House of Mirth),
Ellen Olenska (The Age of Innocence), Judith Wheater (The Chilaren),
Sophy Viner (The Reef), Mattie Silver (Ehan Frome) or Justine Brent
(The Fruit of the Tree), but there are quite a Iew male insiaers, too,
like Iawyer Royall (Summer) who Iailed in the outsiae world, John
Amherst in (The Fruit of the Tree) or simple witnesses like Norcutt
(Her Son) or Waythorn (The Other Two).
Depending on each novel or short story, the insiaers are seen
Iirst as outsiaers in relation to the other characters` world because oI
their lack oI social status (Iily Bart and Mattie Silver, Ior instance,
whose poverty makes it impossible Ior them to Iind a husband) or
because they have broken the society`s strict rules (Ellen Olenska
Ilees Irom an unhappy marriage, Justine Brent euthanizes her Iriend).
Wharton oIten sets her insiaers in contrast to conventional women so
as to disclose the mechanisms by which women are trapped in society.
She also invests her insiaers with moral values missing Irom the
society described in the respective novel or short story, letting her
protagonists Iace their identity in a social milieu governed by strict
rules.
The society described by the insiders is one totally controlled by
the power oI money. The economic dependency oI women is
presented within the marriage system. In Wharton`s world, women
can achieve recognition only by getting married to a wealthy man, as
Iily Bart (The House of Mirth) acknowledges when she describes the
society as a "revolting body which is apt to be judged according to its
place in each man`s heaven" (p.39). This societv not only represents

161
the background Ior the characters but also a powerIul Iorce that tries
to make all its members obey. Ironically, Edith Wharton places
aristocracy in a hothouse underlying the artiIicial quality oI their rules
and conventions The dreary limbo oI dinginess lay all around and
beneath that little illuminated circle in which liIe reaches its Iinest
eIIlorescence, as mud and sleet oI a winter night enclose a hot-house
Iilled with tropical Ilowers. All this was in the natural order oI things,
and the orchid basking in its artiIicially created atmosphere could
round the delicate curves oI its petals undisturbed by the ice on the
panes` (The House of Mirth, p. 153). The beautiIul orchid is Iily Bart,
waiting to be picked by a rich man. She is like some rare Ilower,
grown Ior exhibition (p. 332), an organism as helpless out oI its
narrow range as the sea-anemone torn Irom the rock (p. 312). Iike all
the young women oI her class, Iily was brought up to be ornamental
and have as a main object in liIe Iinding oI a rich husband Irom her
own class.
When the Barts lost their Iortune, Mrs.Bart was especially
careIul to avoid her old Iriends and the scenes oI her Iormer successes.
To be poor seemed to her such a conIession oI Iailure that it amounted
to disgrace; and she detected a note oI condescension in the Iriendliest
advances (p. 26). She taught her daughter to use her beauty, the last
asset in their Iortunes, to marry a wealthy man in order to gain social
approval and a secure social status. Although Iily lives with the rich,
she is not one oI them; she is an outsider who is trying, all along the
novel, to get insiae this selIish world oI pleasure whence, so short a
time since, her poverty had seemed to exclude her (p. 39). Her dual
outsider/insider Iunction conIuses Iily in her search Ior identity. She
admits that there are "two selves in her, one she had always known,
and a new abhorrent being, to which it Iound itselI chained" (123).
And this other selI seems like a disIigurement, a hideous change
that has come to her while she slept. (139). It is (her)selI transIormed
into an outsiaer brought into relation with a category oI people she
knows she does belong to. Iily rebels against the traditions oI the old
New York aristocratic society asking herselI: Why must a girl pay so
dearly Ior her least escape Irom routine? Why could one never do a
natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure oI
artiIice? (p. 11).She Iails in her attempt to conIorm to local
conventions, Iails to gain social approval or to secure a high social
status Ior herselI. Instead, she discovers that her suitor, Percy Gryce,

162
the rich collector oI Americana, would have added her to his
collection, because she is a creature oI diIIerent race . with all sorts
oI intuitions, sensations, and perceptions that they don`t even guess
the existence oI (p.48). Marrying him she would have become
another oI his possessions: she determined to be to him what his
Americana had hitherto been; the one possessions in which he took
suIIicient pride to spend money on it (p. 48)
***
In many cases Wharton chooses as the voice oI consciousness a
character that is already insiae the society, such as Iawrence Selden
(The House of Mirth) and Newland Archer (The Age of Innocence),
who play the role oI insiae agents. Outsiders like Iily Bart and Ellen
Olenska, who try to rise above repressive conventions in their search
Ior social status, manage to bring them into their world.
A new Iace oI the outsider is presented in the novel The Age of
Innocence where the outsiaer, Ellen Olenska, is part oI a love triangle
and Newland Archer must choose between her and May Welland, his
Iiance. The aristocratic society oI this novel is characterized by a
seeming innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the
heart against experience. (p. 145) and all the New Yorkers lived in a
kind oI hieroglyphic, where the real thing was never said or done or
even thought, but only represented by a set oI arbitrary signs (p. 45).
This is the society to which Ellen returns aIter leaving Europe running
away Irom an unhappy marriage. Coming in contact with Newland she
changes his ideas about liIe, love and marriage stirring up old settled
convictions and set them driIting dangerously through his mind (p.
43). She helps him discover Ior the Iirst time that his marriage to May
would become what most oI the other marriages about him were: a
dull association oI material and social interests held together by
ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other (43-44).
Edith Wharton, also, writes about the appearance oI this new
class, the nouveau riche, the people who with their newly gained
wealth make their way into the late 19
th
centurv New York societv that
is seen as a pyramid in which, as yet, hardly a Iissure had been made
or a Ioothold gained. At its base was a Iirm Ioundation oI what Mrs
Archer called plain people, an honorable but obscure majority oI
respectable Iamilies who (as in the case oI the Spicers or the
IeIIertses or the Jacksons) has been raised above their level by

163
marriage with one oI the ruling clans. People, Mrs Archer always said,
were not as particular as they used to be; and with old Catherine
Spicer ruling one end oI FiIth Avenue, and Julius BeauIort the other,
you couldn`t expect the old traditions to last much longer.
Firmly narrowing upward Irom the wealthy but inconspicuous
substratum was the compact and dominant group which the Mingotts,
Newlands, Chiverses and Mansons so actively represented. Most
people imagined them to be the very apex oI the pyramid; but they
themselves (at least those oI Mrs Archer`s generation) were aware
that, in the eyes oI the proIessional genealogist, only a still smaller
number oI Iamilies could lay claim to that eminence . the van the
Iuydens, who stood above all oI them, had Iaded into a kind oI
superterrestrial twilight, Irom which only two Iigures impressively
emerged; those oI Mr and Mrs Henry van der Iuyden. (1044-1045).
All these people live on their inherited places that are situated in
the strictly limited areas oI houses stretching Irom Washington Square
considered the birthplace oI Society (The Custom of the Countrv, p.
74) along FiIth Avenue as Iar as Fortieth Street. Edith Wharton
underlines the diIIerent behavior oI two oI her characters in the Age
of Innocence by situating them outside this area. Mrs. Manson
Mingott, who lives in University Square, says nobody else wants to be
diIIerent, they`re as scared oI it as the small-pox. (p. 1029). Her
granddaughter, Ellen Olenska, hires a house Iar down West Twenty-
third Street, which is a strange quarter where small dressmakers,
bird-stuIIers and people who wrote were her nearest neighbors (p.
59). Newland Archer explains her moving there to Ned Winsett, She
doesn`t care a hang about.any oI our little social signposts (p.1004).
When Ellen Olenska returns to New York aIter leaving her
husband, only members oI her Iamily are on her side and when they
arrange a party to welcome her, nobody comes. The aristocracy oI
New York considers a scandal that Ellen`s Iamily takes her to the
opera or shows her in public. The critic eyes oI the society also
analyze and disapprove Countess Olenska`s behavior. At a party,
Ellen, aIter sitting Ior a while next to the Duke oI St. Austrey, gets up,
walks across the drawing room and sits down at Archer`s side breaking
the social rules: It was not the custom in New York drawing rooms Ior
a lady to get up and walk away Irom one gentleman in order to seek the
company oI another. Etiquette required that she should wait, immovable
as an idol, while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded

164
each other at her side. (The Age of Innocence, p.1032). She is also
criticized Ior appearing at the opera in a dress revealing as she leaned
Iorward, a little more shoulder and bosom than New York was
accustomed to seeing, at least in ladies who had reasons Ior wishing to
pass unnoticed. (p.1007)
In the short story The Other Two, Edith Wharton aIIirms, a
New York divorce is in itselI a diploma oI virtue and all the divorced
upper class women oI the societv novels, Carry Fisher in The House of
Mirth, Ellen Ollenska in The Age of Innocence, and Halo Tarrant in
The Goas Arrive, are ostracized because society has not yet adapted
itselI to the consequences oI divorce, and that till the adaptation takes
place every woman who uses the Ireedom oI the law accords her must
be her own social justiIication. (p. 1444) Carry Fisher with her two
divorces is accepted in the aristocratic circles because oI her
personality but the hostesses should not invite the most traditional
people when she is present.
***
In the novel The Fruit of the Tree there is an inversion oI the
rich insiaer/ poor outsiaer pattern because here the woman is the one
who has the money. The Westmore mill`s owner, the young widow
Bessy Westmore marries the manager oI the mill, John Amherst, an
idealistic young man, who hopes to improve the working conditions at
the mill by using his wiIe`s money. Amherst marries Bessy to IulIill
his ambitions: Money! He had spurned the thought oI it in choosing
his work, yet he now saw that, without its aid, he was powerless to
accomplish the object to which his personal desires had been
sacriIiced (p. 97). When she realizes that her love is not reciprocated,
she restricts his access to her money, thus transIorming their marriage
in an endless battle over money matters. Their unhappiness is
witnessed by Justine Brent, a Iormer classmate oI Bessy`s who was
living with them as governess to Bessy`s daughter. Justine who was a
child when her Iamily lost their Iortune, had to earn her living and
now she no longer Iits into the upper reaches oI the society. She is an
outsider in the social world oI Iynbrook, the Westmore Iamily home,
and she hopes Ior a liIe in which high chances oI doing should be
mated with the Iiner Iorms oI enjoying (p.223).
When Amherst Iinally leaves Bessy she consoles herselI riding
an uncontrollable horse named Impulse which throws her oII the

165
saddle, damaging her spine irrevocably. Returning to her real
proIession as a nurse, Justine takes care oI the sick woman and
watches helplessly as Bessy dies a painIul slow death. When Bessy
begs her to be relieved Irom her misery, Justine, struggling with the
ethical norms, gives her a lethal dose oI morphine.
A year and a halI later, when Justine marries Amherst she steps
insiae the world oI money, which both herselI and her husband regard
as a means oI doing philanthropy. Thus money becomes the deepest
bond between them: their duties had the rarer quality oI constituting,
precisely, the deepest, Iinest bond between them (p. 472). But when
Amherst discovers what Justine has done to his Iirst wiIe he condemns
her Ior violating the society`s law even iI she explains that her
motive had been normal, sane and justiIiable completely justiIiable
(p.525). As she concludes, her Iault lay in having dared to rise above
conventional restrictions, her mistake in believing that her husband
could rise with her (p. 525)
Even though Wharton was perceived especially as a portrayer oI
the New York and Newport elite, rich society, she constructs quite a
Iew heroes and heroines coming Irom outside her aristocratic circles,
Irom such countryside places as StarkIield in rural Massachusetts
(Ehan Frome) or North Dormer (Summer) and she explores the
limitations imposed on them by the communal standards oI rural New
England. Mattie Silver (Ethan Frome), the poor cousin oI Ethan
Frome`s wiIe, Zeena, comes Irom another village, StamIord, to help
Zeena with the housework. Getting inside the mute and cold as a
gravestone world oI the Fromes and oI StarkIield, she disrupts its
silence by her vitality, her presence being like the lighting oI a Iire on
a cold hearth (p. 33). She transIorms Ethan`s liIe, determines him to
love liIe again, makes him Ieel that all his liIe was lived in the sight
and sound oI Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive oI its
being otherwise (p. 39). When his wiIe, Zeena, throws Mattie outsiae
this world, Ethan, trapped inside it, does not have the power to Iollow
her along the only way out, which is death.
An inquiry into the pattern oI the insider/outsider character as it
evolves within variations on such recurrent themes as the international
subject and the marriage system reveals the dynamics oI the changing
genteel and conventional society oI America (particularly New York
City) in the latter halI oI the 19
th
and the beginning oI the 20
th
century,
which was the main target oI Wharton`s criticism and satire.

166
The struggle and sometimes the Iailed attempts oI these characters
to break Iree Irom restrictive social conventions and traditional
expectations as well as the values and limitations oI Wharton`s inner
circles expose the opposite terms around which they are constructed:
marriageable/unmarriageable girls, conventional/unconventional women,
entrapped/Iree people, poverty/wealth. They also expose the
psychological and social grounding oI a Ialse, careIully cultivated
innocence which appears to be particularly destructive oI women.
Conventional virginal women-Irom May Welland, whose Iace has the
vacant serenity oI a young marble athlete, to May`s mother, a middle-
aged image oI invincible ignorance` (The Age of Innocence, p.1142) are
presented by the inside observer as a Iactious purity cunningly
manuIactured by a conspiracy oI mothers and aunts and grandmothers
and long-dead ancestresses (p.10 46). These married women remain
seemingly untouched by real liIe experience and their innocence gives
their husbands the opportunity to exercise their lordly pleasure in
smashing it like an image oI snow (p. 1046).
Instead oI telling us about the social entrapment oI women and
the price oI getting one`s Ireedom, Wharton uses her insiaer/outsiaer
characters to show us in a most convincing way the intricacies,
conventions and restrictions in which women`s lives were entangled.

167


PLOT AND THE NARRATOR





Plot
The term plot reIers to the way a writer arranges the events that
make up a story. The plot oI a work is not necessarily the same as the
story. The plot does not always Iollow a chronological order. Many
writers choose to mix events up in order to provoke speciIic responses
in the reader. They may, Ior example, start in the middle oI things (in
meaias res Iaurence Sterne - Tristram Shanav) and use Ilashbacks
(Emily Bront, Wuthering Heights) or dialogue to reIer to previous
events (Jane Austen, Priae ana Prefuaice).
***
Artificial, contrived plot (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations).
The need to maintain the public interest Irom one episode to the next
oIten led to improbable twists in the tales. The Iact that up to a month
could pass between one installment and the next explains why some
readers may Iind some oI the storytelling repetitive and redundant.
The publication oI novels in monthly installments enabled even
the poor to purchase them.
The Victorian novel appealed to readers because oI its:
- realism
- desire to describe the everyday liIe which the reader can recognize
- presenting the characters with all their virtues and vices
- expressions oI emotion: love, hate melodrama, humor, suspense.
The narrator
The first-person narrators Iall into two main categories:
- first person narrator who is the central character in the
story. He/she speaks as I and usually talks about himselI/herselI
although he/she may also narrate a story about other people.
- first person narrator who is a minor character and who has
a part in the story. When the Iirst person narrator is a minor character,

168
the reader does not have access to the thoughts and Ieelings oI the
main characters oI the story what he learns he must piece together
Iorm the inIormation that is provided. (Nick Carraway in Scott
Fitzgerald, Great Gatsbv)
Central character narrator and minor character narrator engage
the reader in diIIerent ways.
When a central character tells his story, the reader has direct
access to the main Iocus oI interest in the story. The I narrator, who
tells his own story generally explains his thoughts, analyses his
emotions and motivates his action and, thereIore, usually wins the
reader`s sympathy and involves him emotionally in his tale.
My Iather`s Iamily name being Pirrip, and my Christian name
Philip, my inIant tongue could make oI both names nothing longer or
more explicit than Pip. So, I called myselI Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my Iather`s Iamily name, on the authority oI his
tombstone and my sister Mrs Joe Gadgery, who married the
blacksmith. As I never saw my Iather or my mother, and never saw
any likeness oI either oI them (Ior their days were long beIore the days
oI photographs), my Iirst Iancies regarding what they were like, were
unreasonably derived Irom their tombstones. The shape oI the letters
on my Iather`s, gave me an old idea that he was a square, stout, dark
man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn oI the
inscription, Also Georgiana WiIe oI the Above`, I drew a childish
conclusion that my mother was Ireckled and sickly. To Iive little stone
lozenges, each about a Ioot and a halI long, which were arranged in a
neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory oI Iive
little brothers oI mine who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly
early in that universal struggle I am indebted Ior a belieI I
religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with
their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in
the state oI existence. (Charles DICKENS Great Expectations)
x Is perceived the 1
st
person narrator (Pip) as a reliable or an
unreliable narrator (Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Ironv)?
Think oI Huck (Mark Twain, Huckleberrv Finn), Benjy
(William Faulkner, The
Souna ana the Furv), Holden CaulIield (Jerome Salinger, The
Catcher in the Rve).

169
***
First person narrator as a minor character: Mr. Iockwood in
Emily Bront, Wuthering Heights: The ledge where I placed my
candle, had a Iew mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was
covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however,
was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds oI characters, large and
small Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine
HeathcliII, and then again to Catherine Iinton.
x Is Mr Iockwood more reliable than Pip?
***
In Form ana Meaning in Fiction, Norman Friedman says: There
is an editorial omniscience (complete liberty), a neutral one (the
narrator`s attitude is more subtle and indirect), an ~I as witness, an
~I as protagonist, a multiple selective omniscience (oI one
character), a dramatic mode (only the observables are given, there is
no access to the characters consciousness), and the camera mode (total
absence oI selection, shaping, or any evidence oI human interIerence).
- The third-person narrator stands outside the story. He
always reIers to the characters by name or uses the third-person
pronouns he, she or they. In this Iorm oI narration the person
who is telling the story is like an observer who is witnessing or has
witnessed what has happened, but plays no part in the events.
- This kind oI narrator was particularly popular in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.
- The narrative technique 1ane Austen uses in Emma is a
development oI the third-person narrative. Sometimes the narrator is
omniscient, at other times it is clearly Emma`s point oI view that is
expressed.
The third-person narrator may be omniscient or non-
omniscient.
- The omniscient narrator knows everything about the Iictional
world he/she is describing. He/she reports on all the characters and
events and knows not only what characters do but also their thoughts
and motivations. (Jane Austen, Priae ana Prefuaice)
- The non-omniscient narrator tells the story in the third
person, but limits himselI / herselI to what is experienced, thought and
Ielt by a single character or at most by a very limited number oI
characters in the story.

170
The narrator may be also intrusive or non-intrusive:
- The omniscient obtrusive narrator is both a storyteller and a
commentator. He/she interrupts the narrative and uses it as a starting
point Ior some comment or generalization he wishes to make. The
omniscient intrusive narrator may step into the story Ior various
reasons. He/she can:
- sum up past events and anticipate Iuture developments in the
story;
- provide missing inIormation;
- comment on what is happening in the story;
- make generalizations;
- moralize and philosophize;
- guide the reader`s interpretations;
- digress on subjects: Ior example: Mr Tulliver was speaking
to his wiIe, a blond comely woman in a Ian-shaped cap (I am aIraid to
think how long it is since Ian-shaped caps were worn they must be
so near coming in again. At that time, when Mrs Tulliver was nearly
Iorty, they were new at St Ogg`s, and considered sweet things).
(George EIIOT The Mill on the Floss)
***
Henry Fielding described Tom Jones as a comic epic in prose`.
It is indeed epic in length and describes a huge cross-section oI people
in a humorous way. Fielding had an in-depth knowledge oI human
nature and depicted his characters with all their vices and virtues. As
an intrusive narrator, Henry Fielding (Tom Jones) openly addresses
the reader (sometimes right Irom the titles of the chapters) to
comment or evaluate on what is happening in the story. The novel
contains XVIII Books and the narrator engages the reader in a
dialogue all along the book.
Book I (Chapters 1-13)
Chapter 4: The reader`s neck brought into danger by a description
(.)
Chapter 7: Containing such grave matter that the reader cannot
laugh once through the whole chapter, unless peradventure he should
laugh at the author
Chapter 9: Containing matters which will surprise the reader
Chapter 12: Containing what the reader may, perhaps, expect to
Iind in it

171
Book JII (Chapters 1-15)
Chapter 14: A most dreadIul chapter indeed, and which Iew
readers ought to venture upon in an evening, especially when alone
Book XII (Chapters 1-12)
Chapter 11: In which the reader will be surprised
Book XJIII (Chapters 1-12)
Chapter 1: A Iarewell to the reader
Right Irom the beginning oI the novel Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
announces: Reader, I think proper, beIore we proceed any Iarther
together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress through this whole
history as oIten as I see occasion; oI which I am myselI a better judge
than any pitiIul critic whatever. And here I must desire all those critics
to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with aIIairs or works
which no ways concern them; Ior till they produce the authority by
which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their jurisdiction.
(p. 31) or As this is one oI those deep observations which very Iew
readers can be supposed capable oI making themselves, I have thought
proper to lend them my assistance; but this is a Iavour rarely to be
expected in the course oI my work. Indeed I shall seldom or never so
indulge him, unless in such instances as this, where nothing but the
inspiration with which we writers are giIted can possibly enable any one
to make the discovery.
***
- The non-intrusive narrator does not comment or evaluate.
He remains impartial and describes without intruding.
***
- Free indirect speech: Although the narrating voice remains
outside the story, the phrase: This would soon have led to something
better oI course, was her consoling reIlection, any thing interests
between those who love; and any thing will serve as introductionto
what is near the heart. II I could but have kept longer away is
obviously an expression oI Emma`s point oI view.
- This technique makes the reader Ieel less detached Irom the
story. Also, because much oI the story is told Irom the partial viewpoint
oI one oI the character, the reader gets the idea that anything can happen
in the course oI the novel, just as it can in real liIe.
- Free inairect speech is widely used in modern novel writing.

172
***
In A Portrait of a Laav, Henry James explores through the
thoughts of the characters such themes as the contrast between
Americans and Europeans, the corruption oI innocence, the selIishness
and possessiveness. Isabel Archer marries Gilbert Osmond believing
that he has been unjustly deprived oI wealth; in Iact he marries her Ior
her money. Suddenly Isabel realizes what kind oI person she has
married and the prison she is in the shadows had begun to gather; it
was as iI Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly had put out the
lights one by one.
Think how the words light, moon, shadow contribute to
the description oI Isabel`s awakening.
She knew oI no wrong he had done; he was not violent, he was
not cruel: she simply believed he hated her. That all she accused him oI,
and the miserable part oI it was precisely that it was not a crime, Ior
against a crime she might have Iound a redress. He had discovered that
she was so diIIerent, that she was not what he had believed she would
prove to be. He had thought at Iirst he could change her, and she had
done her best to be what he would like. But she was, aIter all, herselI
she couldn`t help that; and now there was no use pretending, wearing a
mask or a dress, Ior he knew her and had made up his mind .
She had eIIaced herselI when he Iirst knew her; she had made
herselI small, pretending there was less oI her than there really was
because she had been under the extraordinary charm that he on his
side, had taken pains to put Iorth. He was not changed; he had not
disguised himselI, during the year oI courtship, any more than she.
But she had seen only halI his nature, as one saw the disk oI the moon
when it is partly masked by the shadows oI the earth. She saw the Iull
moon now she saw the whole man .
He was better than anyone else. The supreme conviction had
Iilled her liIe Ior months, and enough oI it still remained to prove to
her that she could not have done otherwise. The Iinest in the sense oI
being the subtlest - manly organism she had ever known had become
her property, and the recognition oI her having but to put out her
hands and take it had been originally a sort oI act oI devotion. She had
not been mistaken about the beauty oI his mind; she knew that organ
perIectly now. She had lived with it, she had lived in it almost it
appeared to have become her habitation. II she had been captured it
had taken a Iirm hand to seize her; that reIlection perhaps had some

173
worth. A mind more ingenious, more pliant, more cultivated, more
trained to admirable exercises, she had not encountered; and it was
this exquisite instrument she had now to reckon with.
He said to her one day that she had too many ideas and that she
must get rid oI them. He had told her that already, beIore their
marriage; but then she had not noticed it: it had come back to her only
aIterwards. This time she might well have noticed superIicially; but
when in the light oI deepening existence she had looked into them
they had then appeared portentous. He had really meant it he would
have liked her to have nothing oI her own but her pretty appearance.
She had known that she had too many ideas; she had more even than
he had supposed, many more than she had expressed to him when he
had asked her to marry him. (.) What he had meant had been the
whole thing - her character, the way she Ielt, the way she judged. This
was what she kept in reserve; this was what he had known until he had
Iound himselI with the door closed behind, as it were set down
Iace to Iace with it. She had a certain way oI looking at liIe which he
took as a personal oIIence.

174


MYTH, ARCHETYPE AND SYMBOLIC SETTING





Writers oIten imagine their characters involved in diIIicult
situations that remind oI myths and archetypes, The Fall Biblical
event in which Adam and Eve were expelled Irom Paradise and started
a liIe oI toil and hardship (Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter),
The Flood Biblical event caused by God to rid the world oI its
sinIul people (George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss), Stonehenge
one oI the major European Megalithic sites and was built by Celtic or
pre-Celtic peoples. (Thomas Hardy 1ess of the d`Urbervilless) The
Ring based on the Maumbury Ring, on the outskirts oI Dorchester, the
Roman Amphitheatre (Thomas Hardy, The Mayor oI Casterbrigge),
The 1udgement Day (Charles Dickens, Bleak House).
***
Symbolic setting is oIten used as a mirror to reIlect the
psychological state oI the characters. The descriptions are usually
detailed or extensive, or the writer uses particularly striking or poetic
language.
The Iinal episode oI Thomas Hardy`s novel Tess oI the
d`Urbervilles, is set in the prehistoric temple oI Stonehenge. What is
the symbolic signiIicance oI this choice?
***
Though the sky was dense with cloud a diIIused light Irom some
Iragment oI a moon hitherto helped them a little. But the moon had now
sunk, the clouds seemed to settle almost on their heads, and the night
grew as dark as a cave. However, they Iound their way along, keeping
as much on the turI as possible that their tread might not resound, which
it was easy to do, there being no hedge or Ience oI any kind. All around
was open loneliness and black solitude, over which a stiII breeze blew.
They had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles Iurther
when on a sudden Clare became conscious oI some vast erection close
to his Iront, rising sheer Irom the grass. They had almost struck
themselves against it.

175
What monstrous place is this?` said Angel.
It hums,` said she. Hearken!`
He listened. The wind, playing upon the ediIice, produced a
booming tune, like the note oI some gigantic one-string harp. No other
sound came Irom it, and liIting his hand and advancing a step or two,
Clare Ielt the vertical surIace oI the structure. It seemed to be oI solid
stone, without joint and moulding. Carrying his Iingers onward he
Iound that what he had come in contact with was a colossal
rectangular pillar; by stretching out his leIt hand he could Ieel a
similar one adjoining. At an indeIinite height over-head something
made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance oI a vast
architrave uniting the pillars horizontally. They careIully entered
beneath and between; the surIaces echoed their soIt rustle; but they
seemed to be still out oI doors. The place was rooIless. Tess drew her
breath IearIully, and Angel, perplexed, said
What can it be?`
Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar,
square and uncompromising as the Iirst; beyond it another and
another. The place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by
continuous architraves.
A very Temple oI the Winds,` he said.
The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others
were prostrate, their Ilanks Iorming a causeway wide enough Ior a
carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a Iorest oI monoliths
grouped upon the grassy expanse oI the plain. The couple advanced
Iurther into this pavilion oI the night till they stood in its midst.
It is Stonehenge!` said Clare.
The heathen temple, you mean?`
Yes. Older than the centuries; older than the d`Urbervilles!
Well, what shall we do, darling? We may Iind shelter Iurther on.`
But Tess, really tired by this time, Ilung herselI upon an oblong
slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered Irom the wind by a
pillar. Owing to the action oI the sun during the preceding day the
stone was warm and dry, in conIronting contrast to the rough and chill
grass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes.
I don`t want to go any Iurther, Angel, she said.

Aature in Hardy`s novels
Hardy`s nature is as an entity that includes people, animals and
inanimate states oI existence. There are a lot oI parallels and

176
correspondences between diIIerent levels oI the entity. The parallel
between equilibrium in society and in individual is only one aspect oI
this organic unity. Certain Ieatures oI landscape are compared to certain
Ieatures oI character. Anne`s (The Trumpet-Mafor) curls are compared
to swallows` nests under eaves (The Trumpet-Mafor, p.34); Tess,
(Tess of the Durbervilles) oIten treated as a complex human being,
sometimes becomes merely a Ieature oI the landscape or a product oI
nature, and her experience is paralleled by theirs: Another year`s
installment oI Ilowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, Iinches, and such
ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago
others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than
germs and inorganic particles (Tess of. the Durbervilles, p.46). She
becomes: a Ily on a billiard-table oI indeIinite length, and oI no more
consequence to the surroundings than that Ily. (p.62)
Both her grieI and her pleasure have their analogies in nature:
She was, Ior one thing, physically and mentally suited among these
surroundings. The sapling which had rooted down to a poisonous
stratum on the spot oI its sowing had been transplanted to a deeper
soil (p.67) Her Iaith values are in nature, too: She heard a pleasant
voice in every breeze, and in every bird`s note seemed to lurk a
joy...recollecting the Psalter that her eyes had so oIten wandered over
oI a Sunday morning beIore she had eaten oI the tree oI knowledge,
she chanted O ye Sun and Moon...O ye Stars...O ye Green Things
upon the Earth. (p.71)
Another example is Manston`s wooing oI Cyntherea in Desperate
Remeaies, where the stillness oI the landscape oppresses Cyntherea and
reduced her to mere passivity: There was the Iragment oI the hedge-
all that remained oI a wet old garden-standing in the middle oI the
mead, without a deIinite beginning or ending, purposeless and
valueless. It was overgrown, and choked with mandrakes, and she could
almost Iancy she heard their shrieks. Should she withdraw her hand?
No, she could not withdraw it now; it was too late, the act would not
imply reIusal. She Ielt as one in a boat without oars, driIting with closed
eyes down a river-she knew not whither.
So, the stillness and passivity oI the landscape is used to indicate the
temperament oI Cytherea`s own passivity. (Desperate Remeaies, p.34)
The rejection oI social standards as it appears in Tess and Juae is
made because society`s ways do not correspond with the natural
environment. Howard Babb has seen Far From the Maaaing Crowa
as the portrayal oI a struggle between rural, or natural, surroundings,

177
and urban or civilized values.
2)
II the natural world is that one
unaIIected by civilization, unsophisticated , then the human nature, oI
Weatherbuty Iolk is seen to be merely unsophisticated, but partially
corrupt. Iocal Iolk people Ieel as belonging to the class oI society
which casts its thoughts into the Iorm oI Ieeling, and its Ieeling into
the Iorm oI commotion. (p.79)
AIter Bathsheba had discovered the existence oI Fanny Robin`s
child, she spends a night in the open, sheltered by a brake oI Iern:
From her Ieet, and between the beautiIul yellowing Ierns with their
Ieathery arms, the ground sloped downwards to a hollow, in which was
a species oI swamp, dotted with Iungi (Far From the Maaaing Crowa,
p.107). Batsheba`s emotions are correlated with nature. The hollow and
the swamp may represent the despair into which she had Iallen.
Hardy uses the implacable Iate in describing his Iemale
characters. Most oI the women are looking Ior a moral purity (Tess of
the aUrbervilles, a Pure Woman). Those who do not live according to
the society rules have a tragic end. He uses the symbols oI places to
illustrate how the Ieminine characters identiIy themselves within and
out oI their inhabitance space. The Ieatures oI these places help in
constructing the Ieminine characters against rural or urban community.
Hardy moves his protagonists Irom one town to another, Irom one
village to another showing a large display oI local backgrounds like
Overcombe, a typical village community oI the early nineteenth century
(The Trumpet-Mafor), a dairy Iarm, Flintcomb Ash, Temple oI
Stonehenge (Tess of the aUrbervilles), Egton Heath, hillsides and
Iarms oI Weatherbury (The Return of the Native), the Blackmoor woods
(The Wooalanaers).
Hardy describes most oI his peasants working in order to
emphasize how hardworking they are. Marty South is Iirstly presented
seated on a willow chair, and busily working by the light oI the Iire,
which was ample and oI the wood. With a bill-hook in one hand, and a
leather glove, much too large Ior her, on the other, she was making
spars, such as are used by thatches, with great rapidity. She wore a
leather apron. On her leIt hand lay a bundle oI the straight, smooth
hazel rods.On her right, a heap oI chips and ends.in Iront, a pile oI
the Iinished articles.She took up each gad, looked critically at it
Irom end to end, cut it to length, split it into Iour, and sharpened each
oI the quarters with dexterous blows.The young woman laid down
the bill-hook.and examined the palm oI the right hand which.was
red and blistering. (The Wooalanaers)

178

179











Part four:
CHRONOLOGY

180

181


CHRONOLOGY






Events Literary works
450 The coming oI the Saxons to
England

c.720 IindisIarne Gospels
731 Bede, Ecclesiastical Historv
of the English People
735 Death oI Bede
793 First Viking raid
871 AlIred becomes King oI Wessex
899 Death oI AlIred

992 lIric, Catholic Homilies
c.1000 The Iour major surviving
manuscripts oI Anglo- Saxon
poetry: Vercelli, Exeter, Caedmon
and Beowulf MSS
1042 Accession oI Edward the
ConIessor
1066 Death oI Edward the
ConIessor;
Harold succeeds to the throne;
Battle oI Hastings;
William oI Normandy becomes
King oI England

c. 1138 GeoIIrey oI Monmouth,
Historv of the Kings of Britain
1154 Accession oI Henry II
1170 Murder oI Becket

1184-6 Andreas Capellanus, De
Amore

182
1189 Death oI Henry II
1204 Ioss oI Normandy

1215 Magna Carta
1221-24 Arrival oI Dominican and
Franciscan Iriars in England

c.1275 Guillaume de Iorris,
Roman ae la rose
1327 Accession oI Edward III
1337 The Hundred Years War
begins
c.1343 Birth oI Chaucer
1346 Battle oI Crecy
1348 First occurrence oI Black
Death in England

1376 Iirst record oI the York
Mystery Plays in York, England
1377 Death oI Edward III;
accession oI Richard II

1377 Iangland, Piers Plowman
1387 Chaucer begins The
Canterburv Tales
1400 Death oI Chaucer; murder
oI Richard II
1413 Death oI Henry IV; accession
oI Henry V
1415 Battle oI Agincourt
1422 Death oI Henry V

1422 A record oI Chester Mystery
Plays
1455 First battle in the Wars oI
the Roses
1483 Accession oI Richard III
1485 Richard III killed

1485 Malory, Morte Darthur
1492-1504 Voyages oI Columbus
1506 Columbus dies in Spain
aIter Iour voyages to America

1516 More, Utopia


183
1517 Iuther publishes the 95
theses at Wittenberg
1529 More becomes Iord
Chancellor
1533 Henry VIII divorces
Catherine oI Aragon and marries
Anne Boleyn
1543 Abolition oI Pope`s
authority in England; Henry
becomes Head` oI the Church oI
England
1535 Thomas More executed
1536 Anne Boleyn executed;
union oI England and Wales
1536-9 Dissolution oI the
Monasteries
1547 Death oI Henry VIII;
accession oI Edward VI
1549 Act oI UniIormity
1558 Ioss oI Calais; death oI
Mary; accession oI Elizabeth I
1570 Excommunication oI
Elizabeth

1578 Iyly, Euphues
1581 Sidney, Astrophil ana
Stella, Defence of Poetrv
1587 Marlowe, Tamburlaine
1587 Execution oI Mary Queen
oI Scots;
opening oI Rose Theatre
1588 DeIeat oI Spanish Armada

1588-1592 Shakespeare`s early
plays (including Taming of the
Shrew, Loves Labour Lost,
Richara III)
1589 Marlowe, The Jew of Malta,
Doctor Faustus
1592 Kyd, The Spanish Trageaie
1594 Shakespeare, Sonnets

184
1594-1600 Shakespeare, plays
including Miasummer Nights
Dream, As You Like It, Merrv
Wives of Winasor, 1, 2 Henrv IJ,
Julius Caesar
1596 Spenser, Faerie Queene
1597 Bacon, Essavs
1601-1604 Shakespeare plays
including Hamlet, Twelfth Night,
Measure for Measure
1603 Death oI Elisabeth;
accession oI James
VI as James I; union oI the
crowns oI
England and Scotland

1604-1608 Shakespeare plays
including Othello, King Lear,
Macbeth, Antonv ana Cleopatra,
Coriolanus
1606 Ben Jonson, Jolpone
1607 First English settlers arrive
at Jamestown (America)

1608-1613 Shakespeare`s last
plays including Tempest, Winters
Tale, Henrv JIII
1610 Iirst perIormance oI
Jonson`s The Alchemist
1612 Webster, The White Devil
1614 Webster`s The Ducess of
Malfi Iirst perIormed
1616 Death oI Shakespeare
1618 Beginning oI Thirty Years
War
1619 First blacks arrive in
Virginia
1620 Pilgrim Fathers sail Ior
America

1621 Burton, Anatomv of
Melancolv

185
1633 Donne, Poems
1625 Death oI James I; accession
oI Charles I
1629 Charles I dissolves
Parliament
1636 Harvard College is
established
1640 Iong Parliament summoned
1642 King begins Civil War
1644 Victory oI Parliamentary
Army
1649 Trial and execution oI
Charles
1649-52 Cromwell`s campaigns
in Ireland and
Scotland
1649 Closing oI theatres by the
Puritans

1651 Hobbes, Leviathan
1653 Cromwell becomes Iord
Protector
1658 Death oI Cromwell
1660 Restoration oI Charles II;
reopening oI theatres
1622 Restoration oI Church oI
England
1665 Plague in Iondon
1666 City oI Iondon destroyed
by the Great Fire
1667 Milton, Paradise Iost
1685 Death oI Charles II;
accession oI James II

1687 Newton, Principia
1688 Glorious Revolution; James
II Ilees
1689 Rebellions break out in
Massachusetts, New York and
Maryland



186
1690 Iocke, Essav Concerning
Human Unaerstanaing
1700 Congreve ,The Wav of the
Worla
1701 War oI Spanish Succession;
Great Britain allied against France

1704 SwiIt, The Battle of the
Books, A Tale of a Tub
1706 Birth oI Benjamin Franklin
1707 Act oI Union between
England and Scotland

1709 Steele (and others) The
Tatler
1712 Pope, The Rape of the Lock
1713 End oI Spanish Succession
1719 DeIoe, Robinson Crusoe
1722 DeIoe, Moll Flanaers,
Journal of the Plague Year
1726 SwiIt, Gullivers Travels
1732 Colony oI Georgia is
established;
birth oI George Washington
1740 Beginning oI the War oI
Austrian succession



1740 Richardson, Pamela
1742 Fielding, Joseph Anarews
1749 Fielding, Tom Jones
1756 Seven Years War begins
1757 Conquest oI India begins
1757 Burke, A Philosophical
Enquirv into the Origin of our
Iaeas of the Sublime ana Beautiful
1759-1767 Sterne, Tristram
Shanav
1763 Seven Years War ends;
British gains in India and North
America

1776 American Declaration oI
Independence signed
1783 Independence oI American
Colonies recognized by Peace oI
Paris; British evacuate New York
City


187
1787 Constitution oI the United
States signed
1799 George Washington dies
1784 James Watt invents the
steam engine; the power loom is
invented
1789 French revolution;
Declaration oI the Rights oI Man
1789 Blake, Songs of Innocence
1793 Execution oI Iouis XVI;
Reign oI Terror (France); Britain
and France at war
1794 Blake, Songs of Experience
1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge,
Lvrical Ballaas
1795 Directory established in
France
1799 Napoleon, First Consul
1800 Act oI Union with Ireland
1801 Thomas JeIIerson elected
president (America)
1804 Napoleon, Emperor oI France
1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne is born
1807 Abolition oI the slave trade
in the British Empire
1807 Wordsworth, Poems
1811 Prince oI Wales becomes
Regent
1811 Austen, Sense ana
Sensibilitv
1812 Byron, Chilae Harolas
Pilgrimage
1813 Austen, Priae ana Prefuaice
1812 America`s Declaration oI
war against Great Britain
1814 Napoleon abdicates;
restoration oI Iouis
XVIII; Stephenson`s steam
locomotive
1815 Battle oI Waterloo

1815 Wordsworth, Poems


188
1816 Coleridge, Kubla Khan,
Austen, Emma
1817 Coleridge, Biographia
Literaria; Byron, Manfrea; Keats,
Poems
1818 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
1819 Birth oI Herman Melville,
American novelist

1820 Shelley, Prometheus
Unbouna
1833 Abolition oI slavery
1835 Municipal ReIorm Act

1836-1837 Dickens, Iirst number
oI Pickwick Papers
1837 Dickens, Oliver Twist
1837 Accession oI Queen
Victoria

1842 Tennyson, Poems;
Browning, Dramatic Lvrics
1847 Charlotte Bront, Jane Evre;
Emily Bront, Wuthering
Heights; Thackeray, Janitv Fair
1843 Henry James is born
1848 Foundation oI Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood;
revolutions in France, Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Romania and
Italy; Second Republic proclaimed
in France

1849 Dickens, Davia Copperfiela
1850 Hawthorne, The Scarlet
Letter
1851 Melville, Mobv-Dick
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe`s
antislavery novel Uncle Toms
Cabin published in America; the
novel becomes a best-seller
1854 Dickens, Hara Times;
Thoreau`s Walaen published

189
1857 Thackeray, The Jirginians
1858 India transIerred to
British Crown

1859 Eliot, Aaam Beae; Mill, On
Libertv; Darwin, The Origin of
Species
1860 Eliot, The Mill on the Floss;
Dickens, Great Expectations
1861 Outbreak oI American Civil
War

1864 Dickens, Our Mutual Friena
1865 Assassination oI Iincoln 1865 Carroll, Alice in
Wonaerlana
1870 Death oI Dickens
1871 Paris Commune

1871 Eliot, Miaalemarch
1874 Hardy, Far From the
Maaaing Crowa
1875 Agricultural Depression
1878 Hardy, The Return of the
Native
1880 James, Washington Square
1881 James, The Portrait of a
Laav
1884 James, The Art oI Fiction`
1885 Radio waves discovered;
internal combustion engine
invented

1886 Stevenson, Dr Jekvll ana
Mr Hvae
1887 Queen Victoria`s Golden
Jubilee
1887 Arthur Conan Doyle, Iirst
Holmes story published
1889 Yeats, The Wanaerings of
Oisin
1890 Parnell Ialls as leader oI
Irish Home Rule Party

1891 Death oI Melville 1891 Hardy, Tess of the
DUrbervilles
1893 Second Home Rule Bill
rejected by The House oI Iords


190
1895 X-rays discovered 1895 Wilde, The Importance of
Being Earnest and An Iaeal
Husbana; Wells, The Time
Machine
1896 Wireless telegraphy
invented
1896 Hardy, Juae the Obscure
1897 Queen Victoria`s Diamond
Jubilee
1897 Stoker, Dracula
1900 Conrad, Lora Jim
1901 Death oI Victoria; accession
oI Edward VII











191


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