MA (English), I- Semester

Session 2020-2021
PAPER VI
SHAKESPEARE- ENM-406
Credits: 04

Background / Purpose / Significance:

The plays of Shakespeare represent significant aspects of literature, culture, theatre and language. In all
times and places, Shakespeare has consistently been open to fresh vistas of intellectual inquiries and
researches. This paper will take the students into the world of Shakespearean characters, plots, themes,
intrigues, dialogues/speeches, monologues, soliloquies, sonnets and the relevant critical works on him. The
paper will consider these plays within different contexts, including performance history as well as literary
history. The paper will present for students an assessment of Shakespeare‘s lasting cultural impact.

COURSE OUTCOMES:

By the end of the course, the students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a proper grounding in Shakespearean studies.

2. Assess Shakespeare‘s oeuvre as embodiment of Elizabethan and Renaissance spirit.
3. Produce critical readings in the light of various schools of Shakespearean
criticism.
4. Exhibit productively a holistic knowledge of theatre and performance dimensions of Shakespeare‘s
plays.

Introduction

o Background
o Introduction to the idea of Shakespeare
o Shakespeare and his role in English theatre and poetry

Plays (Histories, Tragedies, Romance, Comedies)

o Measure for Measure (1603-04)

o Hamlet (1602) King Lear (1606)
o Twelfth Night (1601-1602)
o Winter's Tale (1610-1611)

Sonnets and Poems

o Sonnet 106 (When in the chronicle of wasted time)

o Sonnet 138 (When my love swears that she is made of truth)
o Sonnet 29 (When, in disgrace eith fortune and men‘s eyes)
o Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer‘s day?)
o Sonnet 86 (So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse)
o Sonnet 104 (To me, fair friend, you never can be old)
o Excerpts- ―Venus and Adonis‖ and ―The Rape of Lucrece"

Criticism (Excerpts):

o Coleridge, S. T. ―On The Characteristic Excellencies of Shakespeare‘s Plays‖, 1813

o Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy.(1904)
o Brook, Peter. King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
o Dryden, John. ―Of DramatickPoesie‖ (1668)
o Dowden, Edward. Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1875)
o Hazlitt, William. Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays. (1817)
 o Knights, L. C. Hamlet and other Shakespearean Plays. (1979) Theobald, Lewis. Shakespeare
Restored (1726).
o Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980)
o Johnson, Samuel. ―Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth‖ (1745) from Johnson
on Shakespeare.
o Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire. Routledge. 2001.
o Parker, Patricia. Shakespeare from the Margins: Language, Culture,
o Context (1996)

Suggested Reading:

Henry V (1599)
Greenblatt, Stephen, Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in
Renaissance England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)
‚‘Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair’: The Radical Ambivalence of
Macbeth.‛ Ambivalent Macbeth, by R.S. White, Sydney University Press, AUSTRALIA,
2018, pp. 33–58. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv19x5cq.6.
“AN ESSAY BY HAROLD BLOOM.” Hamlet, by William Shakespeare et al., Yale University
Press, New Haven; London, 2003, pp. 229–244. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1njkw8.6.
‚Cosmetics and Poetics in Shakespearean Comedy.‛Cosmetics in Shakespearean and
Renaissance Drama, by Farah Karim-Cooper, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh,
2006, pp. 132–151. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r2572.10.
‚Hamlet.‛ How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage: Power and Succession in the
History Plays, by PETER LAKE, Yale University Press, NEW HAVEN; LONDON, 2016, pp.
511–533. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gxxpsd.28.
‚Performance: Macbeth.‛ Shakespeare, by Gabriel Egan, Edinburgh University Press,
Edinburgh, 2007, pp. 180–202. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g0b374.12.
‚Shakespeare and His Stage.‛Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 5, 1997, pp. 548–550.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2871319.
Barroll, Leeds. ‚A New History for Shakespeare and His Time.‛Shakespeare Quarterly,
vol. 39, no. 4, 1988, pp. 441– 464.JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2870707.
Bate, Jonathan, and Dora Thornton (eds), Shakespeare: Staging the World (London:
British Museum, 2012)
Briggs, Julia, This Stage-Play World: English Literature and its Background, 1580-
1625 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983)
o Crawforth, Hannah.et all. Shakespeare in London (London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2015)
o Dent, Robert W. ―Shakespeare in the Theater.‖ Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 3, 1965, pp.
154–182. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2867593.
o Farrelly, James P. ―Johnson on Shakespeare: ‗Othello.‘‖ Notre Dame English Journal, vol. 8, no. 1,
1972, pp. 11–21. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40066592.
o Harris, Duncan. ―Tombs, Guidebooks and Shakespearean Drama: Death in the Renaissance.‖
Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1982, pp. 13–28.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24777744.
o Holland, Peter, ‗Shakespeare, William (1564–1616)‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2013)
o Hunter, G.K. English Drama 1586-1642: The Age of Shakespeare.1997.
o JACKSON, MACD. P. ―Shakespeare's ‗Richard II‘ and the Anonymous ‗Thomas of Woodstock.‘‖
Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 14, 2001, pp. 17–65. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/24322987.
o Matheson, Lister M. ―English Chronicle Contexts for Shakespeare's
o Death of Richard II.‖ From Page to Performance: Essays in Early English
o Drama, edited by John A. Alford, Michigan State University Press, 1995, pp. 195–220. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt7zt7mq.14.
o McNeir, Waldo F. ―Comedy in Shakespeare's Yorkist Tetralogy.‖ Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 9,
1974, pp. 48–55. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1316569.
o Petronella, Vincent F. ―The Place of Ecstasy in ‗The Merchant Of Venice.‘‖ CEA Critic, vol. 48,
no. 2, 1985, pp. 68–77. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44377392.
 o Reibetanz, John. ―Theatrical Emblems in King Lear.‖ Some Facets of King Lear: Essays in
Prismatic Criticism, edited by ROSALIE L. COLIE and F.T. FLAHIFF, University of Toronto
Press, TORONTO; BUFFALO, 1974, pp. 39–58. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1gxxrc5.6.
o Stenson, Matthew Scott. ―Unlocking Meaning: The Act of Reading in Shakespeare's The Merchant
of Venice.‖ Christianity and Literature, vol. 64, no. 4, 2015, pp. 377–399. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/26194855.
o Tebbetts, Terrell L. ―Shakespeare's Henry V: Politics and the Family.‖ South Central Review, vol.
7, no. 1, 1990, pp. 8–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3189210.
o Weis, René, Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography (London: John Murray, 2007)

Assessment Plan:
End Semester Examination: 70 Marks
Continuous Assessment: 30 Marks (as detailed below)

i. Diagnostic Test (MCQ / A small Quiz) carrying 05 Marks

ii. Presentation carrying 10 Marks, in a group of 4-5 students, but evaluation to be done of
individual students on the basis of their performance
iii. A small Quiz / MCQ carrying 05 Marks, to test understanding or for revision
iv. An Assignment carrying 10 Marks, to be given at least three weeks in advance, as a part of
teaching and not after teaching.
v. A Sessional (as a Make up Test) to be conducted in last week Important Notes:

1. Suggestions To Students On Reading / Expectations From Students:

a. Each student will join the course with a prior understanding of the nature of the course and mode of
teaching / learning
b. Students will come to the class with a prior reading of the prescribed text / essential study materials /
suggested study material that the teacher wishes to discuss in the classroom.
c. Students need to be aware of the developments in the classroom.
d. students need to read additional materials on research methodology and research ethics
2. Suggestions To Students On Writing Assignments / Expectations From Students:

a. Students need to meet the deadlines for each instruction / assignment given by the teacher.
b. Students need to follow the detailed guidelines for each assignment and presentation as provided by the
teacher.
c. Students need to follow research methodology and ethics and avoid any stance of plagiarism. cases of
plagiarism will be penalised as per the gazette notification of government of India, as adopted by AMU.

3. Teacher’s Role:

a. Teachers will provide the syllabus, guidelines, study materials (except prescribed materials) in the form
of hard or soft copies.
b. Teachers will announce each test / quiz / assignment / sessional well in advance.
c. Teachers need to be prepared with diagnostic test, Quiz / MCQ / A4 size detailed guidelines for
presentation & assignment.
d. Teachers will share the answer scripts and provide feedback if the students want to have it.
e. Marks obtained by students for all tests / continuous assessments will be announced by the teacher. f.
The teacher will destress students by explaining the students that continuous assessment is not an
examination, rather it is a part of teaching and learning where they get marks for their efforts and
contributions in the form of assignments / presentations. they have an opportunity to improve their grade by
taking a makeup test.
4. Class Policies:

i. Policy on late and unsubmitted tasks: those students who submit their assignments will not get same /
better marks than those whose submit in time. Teachers are always receptive to any emergency
situations.
ii. Class attendance: as per university rules, 75% attendance is mandatory.

5. Additional Weekly, Post Class Discussion Sessions:

Students may arrange additional classes in consultation with the teacher concerned, if time and situation
permits.
Note: The teacher reserves the right to make changes in the syllabus during the semester as s/he deems
necessary.

****************
 Chapter 1
William Shakespeare

Structure

1.0 Objectives

1.1 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A Partial Chronology

1.2 Shakespeare and his works

1.3 Shakespeare and his age: Politics, Renaissance and Reformation

1.4 Shakespeare’s Life

1.5 Trends in Literature: Drama and theatre Before Shakespeare

1.6 Shakespeare’s Career

1.7 Questions

1.8 Suggested Readings

1.0 OBJECTIVES

This chapter aims to provide you with essential background information about the author and his
works, drama and theatre at the time the author wrote and, the historical and socio-political
trends so that you could understand and analyze the author with close textual analysis.

1.1 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A PARTIAL CHRONOLOGY

26 April 1564 baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon

28 November 1582 marriage licence issued for William Shakespeare and
Anne Hathaway
26 May 1583 baptism of Susanna, their daughter
2 February 1585 baptism of Hamnet and Judith, their twin son and
daughter
1592 Robert Greene refers to Shakespeare as an ‗upstart
crow‘
1593 publication of Venus and Adonis
1594 publication of The Rape of Lucrece
15 March 1595 Shakespeare named as joint payee of the Lord
Chamberlain‘s Men, founded in 1594
11 August 1596 burial of Hamnet Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon
October 1596 draft of the grants of arms to John, Shakespeare‘s father
4 May 1597 Shakespeare buys New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon
1598 Shakespeare listed as one of the ‗principal comedians‘ in
Jonson‘s Every Man in his Humour
– mention of Shakespeare in Francis Meres‘s Palladis
Tamia
1599 building of the Globe

8 September 1601 burial of John Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon

2 February 1602 John Manningham notes performance of Twelfth Night
at the Middle Temple
1 May 1602 Shakespeare pays ￡320 for land in Old Stratford
1603Shakespeare named among the ‗principal tragedians‘ in
Jonson‘s Sejanus
May 1603 Shakespeare named in documents conferring the title of
the King‘s Men on their company
24 July 1605 Shakespeare pays ￡440 for an interest on the tithes in
Stratford
5 June 1607Susanna Shakespeare marries John Hall
1608the King‘s Men take over the indoor Blackfriars theatre
9 September 1608 burial of Mary, Shakespeare‘s mother, in Stratford

1609 publication of the Sonnets

1612 Shakespeare testifies in the Belott–Mountjoy case

10 March 1613 Shakespeare buys the Blackfriars Gatehouse
1613 Globe burns down during a performance of All is True
(Henry VIII)
September 1614 Shakespeare involved in enclosure disputes in Stratford
10 February 1616 Judith Shakespeare marries Thomas Quiney
25 March 1616Shakespeare‘s will drawn up in Stratford
25 April 1616 Shakespeare buried in Stratford (the monument records
that he died on 23 April)
8 August 1623 burial of Anne Shakespeare in Stratford
1623 publication of the First Folio
16 July 1649burial of Susanna Hall in Stratford
9 February 1662burial of Judith Quiney in Stratford
1670 death of Shakespeare‘s last direct descendant, his
grand-daughter Elizabeth, who married Thomas Nash
in1626 and John (later Sir John) Bernard in 1649
1.2 CONJECTURAL CHRONOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS
It is particularly difficult to establish the dates of composition and the relative chronology of the
early works, up to those named by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia of 1598. The following
table is based on the ‗Canon andChronology‘ section in William Shakespeare: A Textual
Companion, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery
(1987), where more detailed information and discussion may be found.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona 1590–1
The Taming of the Shrew 1590–1
The First Part of the Contention (Henry VI, Part Two) 1591
Richard Duke of York (Henry VI, Part Three) 1591
Henry VI, Part One 1592
Titus Andronicus 1592
Richard III1592–3
Venus and Adonis1592–3
The Rape of Lucrece1593–4
The Comedy of Errors 1594
Love’s Labour’s Lost 1594–5
Richard II 1595
Romeo and Juliet 1595
A Midsummer Night’s Dream1595
King John 1596
The Merchant of Venice 1596–7
Henry IV, Part One 1596–7
The Merry Wives of Winsdsor1597–8
Henry IV, Part Two 1597–8
Much Ado About Nothing 1598
Henry V 1598–9
Julius Caesar 1599
As You Like It 1599–1600
Hamlet 1600–1
Twelfth Night 1600–1
Troilus and Cressida 1602

The Sonnets1593–1603
A Lover’s Complaint 1603–4
Sir Thomas More 1603–4Measure for Measure 1603
Othello 1603–4
All’s Well that Ends Well1604–5
Timon of Athens1605
King Lear 1605–6
Macbeth 1606
Antony and Cleopatra 1606
Pericles 1607
Coriolanus 1608
The Winter’s Tale 1609
Cymbeline1610
The Tempest 1611
Henry VIII (All is True) 1613
The Two Noble Kinsmen1613–14

1.3 Historical background: Politics, Renaissance and Reformation

In order to understand a literary period and a literary figure it is always advisable and
fruitful to understand the historical, religious and political currents of the age in consideration.
William Shakespeare, the giant literary genius, belonged to the Elizabethan age which saw the
full flowering of the Renaissance in England. Shakespeare was a versatile personality, and the
age in which he was born had something to do with it. Therefore it is perfectly well for us to
begin our study of Shakespeare with the study of the historical background of his age.

At the end of the 1400s, the European world changed. Two key dates can mark the beginning of
modern times. In 1485, the War of the Roses came to an end, following the invention of printing
by the Chinese and first time used by William Caxton in Europe. In 1492, Christopher Clumbus‘
voyage to Americas opened European eyes to the existence of the New World. New worlds, both
geographical and spiritual, are key to the Renaissance, the rebirth of learning and culture, which
reached its peak in Italy in the early sixteenth century and in Britian during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, from 1558 to 1603.

England emerged form the Wars of the Roses with a new dynasty in power, the Tudors. As
with all powerfull rulers, the question of the successionn became crucial to the continuation of
power (like Shakespeare‘s Henry IV and his son Prince Hall). In his contined attempts to father
a son and heir to the line, Henry VIII married six times. But his six wives gave him only one son
and two daughters, who bacame king Edward VI, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I. The
need for the annulment of his first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, brought Henry into direct
conflict with the Catholic Church, and with Poper Clement VII in particular. In reaction to the
Catholic church‘s rulings, Henery took a decisive step which was to influence every aspect of
English, then Brritish, life and culture form that time onwards. He ended the rule of the Catholic
church in England, closed and largely destroyed the monastries – which had for centures been
the repository of learning, history and culture- and established himself as both the head of the
church and head of state. This led to a movement called the Reformation.

Reformation

The Reformation had begun in England nearly two centuries before with Wycliffe. The spirit of
emancipation of conscience from priestly control was strengthened by the example of German
and Swiss reformers. In 1534 Henry VII enforced political separation from Rome on the
occasion of the annulment of his first marriage. It provided an opportunity for radical theological
reforms. Hugh Latimer was a powerful spokesman of the spirit of Reformation. His writings
represent a development of popular English prose. The Reformation and various religious and
political controversies gave rise to the writing of pamphlets, serious and satirical. The translation
of the Bible by William Tyndale and Miles Caverdale is a significant development in English
prose. During Henry‗s reign the court emerged as a great patron of learning, art and literature.
The atmosphere of peace and calm which began to prevail after long turmoil and chaos paved the
way for extraordinary development of literary activity.

Literally, ‗reformation‘ means an act of reforming, amending and improving. Capitalised and
preceded by the definite article, ‗The Reformation‘ identifies that period and process in the
16thCentury in Europe which saw the doctrine and power of the Roman Catholic Church
challenged and in many cases replaced by the various forms of Protestant religion. However,
political and economic factors also determined its course and nature: the hostility of rulers and
jurists to the temporal encroachments of the Vatican; the growing wealth of the clergy, and the
religious and moral laxity of many; the development of printing, which assisted the spread of
ideas; and related to this, the humanism of the Renaissance, which encouraged a new critical
and enquiring attitude of mind. The individualism at the heart of Reformation religions,
combined with their embattled location in diverse Northern European states, also helped to foster
the growth of nationalism and the economic prosperity of the mercantile classes. The Dutch
humanist scholar, Erasmus, who introduced a Greek edition of the Scriptures in 1516 to replace
the Vatican‘s Latin one, is usually regarded as the principal intellectual force behind the
Reformation (as, indeed, behind the later Renaissance, too). Whilst not attacking the authority of
the Pope himself, Erasmus nevertheless castigated the Church for its abuses (selling pardons and
religious relics) and for its pedantry (e.g. in Praise of Folly, 1509). The start of the Reformation
proper is normally dated to 1517, when the German theologian, Martin Luther, nailed his 95
Theses against the Sale of Papal Indulgencies to a church door in Wittenberg. Unlike Erasmus
(who was to attack the reformers‘ zeal in 1523), Luther refused to submit to the Pope‘s authority,
which led to his excommunication in 1521, and the consequent spread of Protestantism across
much of Northern Europe. The Lutheran reformers sought to restore Christianity to its early
purity, their main tenets being justification by faith and the absolute authority of the Scriptures in
all matters of faith, in contradistinction to ecclesiastical tradition (i.e. that of the authority of the
Roman Catholic Church). The new religion was then driven by the far stricter religious and
moral teachings of, for example, the French reformer, Jean Calvin, based in the middle years of
the 16th Century in Geneva, from where was exported a widely influential, severe and
doctrinaire brand of Protestant individualism (including the doctrine of predestination).
Calvinism flourished in Switzerland, the Low Countries, and in Scotland under John Knox. The
reaction against such developments in Roman Catholic Europe is known as the ‗Counter-
Reformation‘. The English Reformation should be seen in the context of the European
movement, but it was rather differently motivated and inflected. In 1519, Henry VIII had written
a book against Luther entitled Defence of the Seven Sacraments. For this, the Pope bestowed on
him the title, ‗Fidei Defensor‘ (‗Defender of the Faith‘), but the failure of Henry‘s marriage to
Catherine of Aragon to produce a male heir led him to seek permission from Rome to divorce
her, so that he could marry the already pregnant Ann Boleyn. The Vatican demurred; Henry
married Ann regardless and was excommunicated. He made Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of
Canterbury, and by the Act of Supremacy in 1534, declared himself ‗the only supreme head on
earth of the Church of England‘. Although Henry continued to claim to be a Catholic, from 1536
to 1539, he carried out the Dissolution of the Monasteries, whereby the hundreds of religious
houses in England were ransacked for their wealth, their abbeys often destroyed, and their lands
confiscated and sold.
During the minority reign of his son, Edward VI, who succeeded Henry at the age of nine,
the powerful men in his Protectorate introduced stringent Protestant reforms which inclined the
country towards Calvinism. On Edward‘s death, Mary I attempted to reintroduce Catholicism as
the national religion with considerable support, but her unpopular marriage to the king of
Catholic Spain, together with the increasing ferocity of the persecution of Protestants (Bishops
Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, amongst many others, were burnt at the stake), turned the tide
against her. Her half-sister, Elizabeth I, succeeded her in 1558, and managed, in the course of her
long and eventful reign, to effect a compromise between Catholic liturgy (which she enjoyed)
and Protestant faith (which she believed in). A major Catholic uprising occurred in the north of
England in 1569 (it was suppressed), but after 1570, in reaction to Rome‘s deeply resented
declaration that Elizabeth was illegitimate, the so-called Elizabethan Church Settlement
increasingly gained popular support.
The Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII provoked a similarly overwhelming crisis in
England in the sixteenth century. England‘s identity began to be separate and distinct from
Europe. The nation was to affirm its individuality historically in two ways: in the savage
conquest of Empire, and in the domination of the seas,, achieved ruthlessly during the reign of
Henry‘s daughter Elizabeth I.
After the Reformation, the relationship between man and God, and consequently the place
of man in the world, had to be re-examined. This was a world which was expanding. In 1492,
Columbus travelled in search of the Indies, landing first in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
For many years he was credited with having ‗discovered‘ the Americas. Over the next century or
so, Copernicus and Galileo would establish scientifically that the Earth was not the centre of the
universe. This expansion was reflected in the mental explorations of the time. The figure of the
Dutch philosopher Erasmus also takes on considerable importance here. His humanist thinking
had a great influence on generations of writers whose work placed man at the centre of the
universe. It was not by accident that neo-Platonic philosophy, form the great age of classical
Greece, became dominant in the Renaissance. Its ideals of the harmony of the universe and the
perfectibility of the mankind, formulated before the birth of Christianity, opened up the humanist
ways of thinking that pervaded much European and English Renaissance writing.

THE (ENGLISH) RENAISSANCE

The noun ‗renaissance‘, from the French ‗renascence‘, literally means ‗rebirth‘. Capitalised, and
with the direct article, ‗The Renaissance‘ defines the artistic, literary and scientific revival which
took place in Europe from the 14th Century to the mid-17th Century (the end-date is disputed).
This period has been seen as an intermediate period between the Middle Ages and the full
development of the modern world (even so, its later phases are now more usually described by
historians as belonging to ‗the Early Modern Period‘, a less loaded term than ‗The
Renaissance‘).The movement originated in Italy, where the word ‗rinascità‘ was in use by the
mid-16th Century to describe the great flowering of the Italian arts in the 14th Century
(‗Quattrocento‘), and later spread throughout Europe. However, the term was first used in
English only in 1840, and its general currency was established in the mid-19th Century by the
Swiss historian, Jacob Burckhardt, in his work, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
(1860). ‗Renaissance‘ can also be used as an adjective, as in ‗Renaissance painting‘ or
‗Renaissance Man‘. In general terms, the Renaissance was characterised by the renewed
influence of classical culture and values; a new humanism in part derived from these; and the
beginning of objective scientific enquiry. It represents a contrast to the Church-centred culture of
the medieval period in its celebration of humanity and individuality; but although the notion of
‗rebirth‘ suggests a sudden rupture with the past, the Renaissance is probably better thought of as
a process of gradual change. In 14th-century Italy, a humanist and classical literary revival began
with the writings of Petrarch and Boccaccio, while Giotto established the foundations of
Renaissance painting. In the 15th Century, Byzantine scholars founded a Platonic Academy in
Florence, and with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, Greek scholars brought
classical manuscripts to Italy, the invention of printing thereafter allowing the ‗new learning‘ to
spread throughout Europe. Fifteenth-century Italian art includes the work of Fra Angelico,
Mantegna and Botticelli in painting, Donatello and Ghiberti in sculpture, and Brunelleschi in
architecture, while at its height in the 16th Century, the great names of the Italian Renaissance
are: in painting and sculpture, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Giovanni
Bellini; in literature,
Tasso and Ariosto; in political thought, Machiavelli; and in music, Palestrina. It is the multiple
talents of, for example, Michaelangelo (painter, poet, architect, sculptor) and da Vinci (painter,
anatomist, scientific inventor) which give us the notion of Renaissance Man: someone equally
capable of high success in several different fields of expertise, and himself both an exemplar and
celebrant of that proud humanity, physical and mental, which characterises the Renaissance
world-view and which is otherwise expressed in its valorisation of the fully rounded ‗gentleman‘
or ‗courtier‘ (Castiglione‘s Il Cortegiano; translated into English by Sir Thomas Hoby in 1552–
3). Elsewhere in Europe, this is also the period of such writers as Ronsard, Rabelais, Lope de
Vega, Cervantes and Montaigne, and visual artists, Dürer, El Greco, Holbein and the Bruegel
family. In experimental science, mathematics, geography and astronomy, too, a new inquiring
spirit was developing which freed human beings to explore, understand and enjoy the physical
world in ways impossible under the medieval Church‘s dispensation. Copernicus placed the sun,
not the earth, at the centre of the universe, which Galileo was later to verify using a telescope,
and all sorts of other instruments for investigating and measuring the universe were invented; the
Spanish and Portuguese ‗discovered‘ the New World of the Americas and first circumnavigated
the globe; anatomy developed rapidly; Erasmus and other scholars promoted a neo-classical
humanism in philosophical thinking based on notions of a harmonious universe with Man at the
centre of it, of a more heroic humanity capable of perfectibility, reason not religion as the
principle governing human behaviour, and above all, an elation mixed with anxiety about the
apparently boundless freedom to think everything anew: as John Donne famously put it: ‗The
New philosophy calls all in doubt.‘
 The English Renaissance is normally dated from either c.1476, with the introduction of
printing into England by William Caxton, or 1485 with the arrival of the Tudor dynasty, and
reaching its apogee in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. There were signs of the times in
Henry VIII‘s reign: Sir Thomas More, a friend of Erasmus, published his Utopia; another
humanist, Sir Thomas Elyot, published The Boke named the Govenour; King Henry himself had
the education, abilities and tastes of a Renaissance ‗courtier‘ [see above]; the poetry of John
Skelton, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, belongs to this period; and a
number of colleges at Oxford and Cambridge Universities were founded. But cultural historians
believe that the effects of the Reformation slowed the Renaissance process down in England, and
there is certainly no achievement in the visual arts to match that of 15th-and 16th-century Italy.
The height of the English Renaissance, then, and especially so in literature (although also in
music, architecture and art), belongs to the later Elizabethan period, indicative events in the late
1570s and early 1580s being the building and opening of the first public theatres in London and
the composition by Sir Philip Sidney, a quintessential type of the Renaissance ‗gentleman‘, of his
Arcadia (the ‗Old‘ version) and Defence of Poetry. However, general characteristics of cultural
developments throughout the period would include: as a reflex of the Reformation, a great
increase in printed works in the English language, resulting in a rapid rise in literacy; the
enforced spread of English in Wales and Ireland, and then its exportation to the New World; a
new sense of national identity and pride which fostered confidence in using English for serious
writing (rather than Latin) and for the creation of a national literature which would compete with
those in classical and other European languages; a huge expansion in vocabulary (it is estimated
that during the century and a half from c.1500, exploration, trade, translation and scholarship
caused well over 10,000 new words to enter English from Latin, Greek, European and other
languages, as well as neologisms created by native authors); a consequent linguistic exuberance
and innovativeness in literary style, form and genre; and the development of a literature which
enthusiastically explored the social, political, religious, cultural and emotional implications of
newly liberated, human-centred experience.
Elizabethan:
As an adjective, ‗Elizabethan‘ designates the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland,
1558–1603, and the literature, art, music and architecture produced in those years; as a noun, it
identifies someone living during the period – although it tends to be used more specifically for
the literary writers of the second half of the era (‗Sidney and Spenser were distinguished
Elizabethans‘).
On the death of Mary I, Elizabeth acceded to the throne, and immediately faced religious strife,
economic instability and war with France. But while the history of her reign shows the resolution
of many such problems, it is also marked throughout by domestic unrest and rebellion in Ireland,
hostile relations with much of continental Europe, and religious opposition by, and suppression
of, both Catholics and Puritans. Nevertheless, it is also witness to a great enhancement of
national identity and pride, the major achievements of the English Renaissance, an increase in
English international power, and the inception of a capitalist economy.
Key Narratives
�Religion The re-establishment of the Church of England on a moderate basis; a string of
Catholic plots against Elizabeth, focused after 1568 around the exiled and imprisoned Mary,
Queen of Scots (finally executed in 1587), the severe repression of English Catholics, and the
related chronic crisis about the succession throughout the unmarried and childless Elizabeth‘s
reign; relations with Protestant Scotland; the increasing opposition of the Puritans to
Anglicanism, their growing power in Parliament and resistance to the Crown, and the resulting
attempts to suppress them.
�Ireland and Europe The ‗planting‘ (colonising) of Ireland by English and Scottish
Protestants, and the series of Irish revolts from 1569 until the reconquest and ‗pacification‘ of
1600–3; strained relations with Catholic Europe over religion and the execution of Mary, Queen
of Scots, but also exacerbated by England‘s rapid development as a major maritime power – both
in terms of international trade and of the licensed piracy of, for example, Sir John Hawkins and
Sir Francis Drake who plundered Spanish ships in the Americas – culminating in the defeat of
the Spanish Armada in 1588.
�North America The start of the settling and colonising of North America with Sir Walter
Raleigh‘s ventures in Virginia.
�Social and Economic Developments The beginnings of social legislation in Parliament in
respect of Poor Relief Acts and associated initiatives; the physical and symbolic expansion of
London as capital city; the development of banking and other financial institutions to facilitate
and expand a fledgling capitalist economy, but also economic depression and social unrest
caused by a combination of Elizabeth‘s fiscal policies, heavy taxation and a series of bad
harvests in the 1590s.
�Literary and Cultural Events The continued founding of new schools, Oxbridge colleges and
libraries; the widespread translation of religious, classical and other literary works into English;
the extensive building of theatres in London, and the rapid upsurge in dramatic writing; the
appearance in the later part of the period not only of a significant literature in English, but also
accompanying it, a literary critical discourse in which to discuss and promote it; developments in
English painting (especially portraiture), music (especially songs and madrigals), and
architecture (especially the erection of great houses and other public buildings across the
country).
1.4 Shakespeare’s Life:

The Elizabethan age, the crown of the Renaissance in England, produced the greatest poet of
English literature, and the giant intellect of all literature, William Shakespeare. Baptized April
26th, 1564, his birthday being probably April 23d, William Shakespeare was the third child, and
first son of John and Mary Shakespeare. John Shakespeare was a glover and although unable to
write, was highly respected and filled the offices of bailiff and alderman of Stratford. He
afterwards became involved in pecuniary troubles and was deprived of his position. He is
supposed to have been largely dependent upon his son William in his later days. The name of
Shakespeare occurs for some hundred years before our great dramatist appeared, but there is
nothing in any way remarkable connected with it until then.
About the life of William Shakespeare himself we can quote Stevens' familiar summary: "All
that is known with any degree of certainty concerning Shakespeare is that he was born at
Stratford-upon-Avon, married and had children there ; went to London, where he commenced
actor and wrote poems and plays; returned to Stratford made his will, died and was buried." And
though this summary may be somewhat too brief, it is, nevertheless, representative to us of our
limited acquaintance with the actual facts of our great poet's life. Very nearly everything else
concerning Shakespeare with which we are familiar, is merely anecdote. The story of his
beginning his theatrical career by holding gentlemen's horses before the door of the theatre, and
that of the deer stealing, as well as several less savory ones, cannot be authenticated, and must be
dismissed from all serious consideration. Attempts have been made to show that Shakespeare
was a wool-stapler, a butcher, a farmer, a school-teacher, a lawyer's apprentice, a surgeon's
apprentice, and a soldier. Also he has been proven (?) to have been respectively a Protestant, an
Atheist, and a Catholic. On the questions of his religion, and the manner in which his early youth
was passed, we must be content to remain in ignorance.
It is common to regard Shakespeare as a man of very little learning, and his works as the
productions of a wild, irresistible genius. This idea is based partly on Jonson's well known
remark of Shakespeare knowing "little Latin and less Greek"; partly to the mistaken opinions so
boldly asserted by the commentators of succeeding ages, who were so little able to understand
his genius and who so servilely followed the French school. But the truth seems to be that
Shakespeare was a well educated man. The very fact of his knowledge of Greek and Latin,
though imperfect, goes to prove that he was not the illiterate savage he was long considered.
Besides there are few men long out of the walls of their schools who retain much more than a
slight remembrance of the classical languages. Also his acquaintance with French and Italian is
undisputed, and it is probable that he may not have been wholly ignorant of Spanish. Add to this
a wide and varied knowledge of men and their callings, of the phenomena of nature, mythology,
and history, and recalling his remarkable vocabulary, a proof of his extensive reading, and no
sane man can longer refuse to Shakespeare the claim of having been well educated. Unless,
indeed, we are to measure a man's learning by the number of years spent within the walls of a
school and the degrees conferred upon him by the universities.
Certain it is that Shakespeare was married before he was nineteen years old to Anne Hathaway, a
woman some eight years his senior. Anne bore him three children: Susanna, Judith and Hamlet,
the last two being twins. Hamlet died at the age of eleven. The last descendants of Susanna and
Judith died before the close of the seventeenth century. So there survive no immediate
representatives of the great poet. Late in 1586 Shakespeare left Stratford for London, whether on
account of domestic infelicity, a deer-stealing expedition, or simply an attachment conceived for
the stage, we are not able to say. Suffice it that he went to London, and in three years became a
sharer in the Blackfriar's Theatre. Peele at this time was a member of the same company, the
Lord Chamberlain's Players, and as he was then at the height of his fame and popularity as a
dramatist, it is probable that Shakespeare's services were utilized as an actor rather than a play-
wright. There is every reason to believe that he was a good actor. His instructions to the players
in " Hamlet " alone stamp him as familiar with the theory of his art. He is recorded as playing the
ghost in " Hamlet," and tradition speaks of him as Adam in " As You Like It." After Peele left
the Lord Chamberlain's Players, Shakespeare was called upon to show his skill as a dramatist,
and as his talent in this line became apparent, he was left little time for acting. The great
popularity of his plays, and his published poems "Venus and Adonis " and " Lucrece," soon
placed him in the first rank of poets and dramatists. By his talents, and from what we can learn,
his sobriety and industry, Shakespeare elevated a despised calling, and acquired a considerable
fortune. That he counted amongst his friends and patrons such gentlemen as the Earl of
Southampton and Pembroke, is one proof of the higher tone of his life when compared with his
contemporaries and predecessors. In time he was able to purchase considerable property at
Stratford, and retire in plenty from the stage. The remainder of his life was passed in producing
the mature works of his genius while living quietly with his family at New Place in Stratford.
"The latter part of his life," says Rowe, ―was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may
be, in ease, retirement and the society of his friends." As to his personal attractions we are told
that he was a handsome, agreeable and witty gentleman. These are the main reliable facts in the
life of William Shakespeare: actor, author, manager, and gentleman. And from these we will
learn that there is little to interfere with the noblest idea we can form of his character and
conduct. The custom of attaching unsavoury anecdotes to the name of a great man cannot be
sufficiently frowned upon. Man's life is filled with enough real mistakes and weaknesses, and
there is no necessity to accept pure tradition in order to prove him human.
Many stories circulated in Shakespeare‘s lifetime and after his death from less well-informed
sources – the ‗Shakespeare mythos‘. They portrayed him as a poacher, a hard drinker, a lover,
and of course a master at repartee. There may well be some truth in some of these anecdotes, or
are they too good to be true? John Manningham recorded one in his diary in 1602. When
Burbage played Richard III, a woman in the audience made an assignation with him to come that
night unto her by the name of [i.e. using as password] Richard the Third. Shakespeare,
overhearing their conclusion [arrangement], went before, was entertained and at his game ere
Burbage came. Then message being brought that Richard the Third was at the door, Shakespeare
caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third. A story
more in character with the ethos of the plays, though not of the
Sonnets, we owe to Sir Nicholas L‘Estrange (mid-seventeenth century). Shakespeare was
godfather to one of Ben Jonson‘s children, and after the christening, being in a deep study,
Jonson came to cheer him up and asked him why he was so melancholy. ‗No, faith, Ben,‘ says
he, ‗not I. But I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to
bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last.‘ ‗I prythee what?‘ says he. ‗I‘faith, Ben,
I‘ll e‘en give him a dozen good latten spoons, and thou shalt translate them.‘ Notice two puns.
Translate could mean ‗transform‘; godfathers usually gave silver spoons, latten being a cheap
alloy. Here Shakespeare appears to smile at Jonson‘s condescending view of his rival‘s small
Latin and less Greek. Shakespeare died on 23April 1616, his widow on 6August 1623. Their
daughters outlived them – Susanna till July 1649, Judith till February 1662. Judith‘s
three sons died without issue; Susanna‘s only child, Elizabeth, was married twice, first to
Thomas Nash, and after his death to John (later Sir John) Bernard. Elizabeth died childless: with
her death in 1670 the descent from Shakespeare became extinct. The story of Shakespeare‘s life
includes many unsolved puzzles, explained differently by different biographers. My account will
displease traditionalists on many points – John Shakespeare‘s ‗difficulties‘, William‘s possible
sojourn in Lancashire, his marriage, the relentless ant, his carefulness with money, the ‗early
start‘ of his writing career, his will, his relationship with his wife, his personality as revealed in
the Sonnets, his possible homosexuality, his religion. I
have discussed these matters elsewhere, at greater length. Of course, I agree with traditionalists
more often than I disagree. ‗He was indeed honest‘, Jonson summed up after Shakespeare‘s
death, ‗and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions and gentle
expressions.‘ Like so many other allusions, this one needs to be translated into modern English.
Jonson probably meant ‗He was indeed an honourable man, and of an unreserved and
spontaneous nature; had an excelling imagination, fine ideas and admirable ways of expressing
himself.
Before looking at Shakespeare‘s dramatic career, it will be appropriate to understand the theatre
and drama before Shakespeare.

1.5 Drama and theatre Before Shakespeare:

For the proper understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare one should have certain
knowledge of theatre and drama before him. Without a certain knowledge of the stage and
audience for which Shakespeare wrote we cannot be said to have a thorough knowledge of
Shakespeare himself. Much that is otherwise inexplicable or at least apparently superfluous
reveals at once its significance and importance. Therefore we will begin with a cursory
examination of the theatre.
In the beginning the drama had no permanent home. There were no buildings set aside for
such a purpose. The Mysteries were exhibited in churches or on movable platforms in the streets.
The Moralities and Interludes were given in corporation halls, great lord's castles, or at inn yards.
The first plays, such as " Gammer Gurton's Needle," were produced in the universities. The plays
were presented by priests first and latter by tradesman and scholars. There were no regular
theatre, neither was there any regular, that is professional acting. For a long time the ideas of
acting and breadwinning were not connected. However, they began to be associated with the
advent of the Interlude, and with the decline of the clown and the minstrel. Companies of actors
sprang into existence. Some were attached to great households, others roved from place to place.
The custom of a powerful baron maintaining such a company, which called itself his servants,
became very popular. Even the Court kept its actors, and Mary is said to have spent large sums
on their maintenance. In an age without newspapers, next to the pulpit, the stage, however rude,
was the most popular and influential educator and guide. On account of this the actors were at
times licensed, at times restricted,
at times prohibited in their performances. But despite all interferences and persecutions,
supported by the people, the nobility and the Court, the stage thrived. When prohibitory
proclamations were issued the representations did not cease, they simply became clandestine.
Recognizing the fact that the English drama was an outgrowth of the English nature, and that all
proclamations and laws issued against it would be ineffectual to suppress it, Elizabeth and her
counsellors merely attempted to regulate the stage and restrain it from excesses. Companies had
to be licensed or attached to some great nobleman. Subjects pertaining to religion or politics
were rigorously prohibited. During the time of Common Prayer and the Plague plays were
forbidden. Unless these conditions were complied with actors were considered as vagrants. In
spite of the active opposition of a certain class, under the patronage of the Court, the stage
obtained a permanent footing in London. A Royal Grant was conferred upon the Earl of
Leicester's players, who were headed by James Burbage, father of the celebrated Shakespearean
actor, Richard Burbage.
Hostility was soon rife between the stage and its mother, the church. On the score of
ungodliness theatrical performances were excluded from the city by the Common Council. Open
warfare was at once declared between Court and city. The Privy Council commanded the Lord
Mayor that he should permit six companies to play in London, " By reason that they are
appointed to play this Christmas before her Majesty." Finally, under the powerful protection of
the Queen, the players were installed in permanent buildings in the suburbs of London, in
Shoreditch, at Blackfiiars, and on Bankside.
In 1576 the Lord Mayor gave, unwillingly, a tacit consent to the erection of the first theatre
in England. From this year may be said to date the modern English drama, for in this year the
drama ceased to be nomadic. The first building put up for theatrical purposes was in Shoreditch,
and was appropriately styled, the Theatre. Early theatres were crude, wooden structures. In 1593,
the most famous theatre in the history of the stage, as being the scene of Shakespeare's exploits,
the Globe, was erected on the Bankside by Richard Burbage, leader oi the Lord Chamberlaine's
Men. It was constructed of wood ; hexagon-shaped without and round within. There were two
doors, one leading into the body of the house, the other to the actors' dressing-room. However,
the Globe was burned in 1613 during a performance, probably, of Shakespeare's " Henry VIII.,"
and in the following year was rebuilt, this time with a tiled roof. Burbage's company played here
in the summer, and at the Blackfriar's in the winter. The Globe was only one kind of Elizabethan
playhouse; in 1608 Shakespeare‘s company moved into a second theatre which had been in the
possession of the Burbage family since before the Globe was built: the Blackfriars playhouse.
The theatre took its name from the old precinct in which it stood, an extensive group of medieval
buildings originally belonging to the Dominican friars, to the south and west of St Paul‘s
Cathedral, on the slope of Ludgate Hill. The playhouse was set up within the old frater
(refectory), a large hall with stone walls and gothic windows. Unlike the Globe, then, the
Blackfriars was an entirely enclosed theatre, without the benefit of natural light from the sky
above, but also without the consequent disadvantages of bad weather: wet and cold conditions
would have reduced business at theatres like the Globe.
In the years before playhouses were built in London actors performed in spaces temporarily
adapted for theatrical use, and during Shakespeare‘s lifetime they continued to do so, either when
they were commissioned to entertain for special occasions or when they embarked on their
regular tours of the English provinces. Some of the most important people of the realm saw plays
not in the playhouses but in their own great houses and palaces. Othello was presented before
King James, for example, in November 1604 within the Banqueting House at Whitehall, a large
rectangular hall quite unlike the Globe. The performance was at night, and was lit by a great
array of chandeliers hanging over the entire auditorium and stage. Even the legal society of the
Middle Temple called the actors to perform before them in their own hall, where Twelfth Night
was presented in February 1602. When the actors visited provincial cities or towns – Norwich,
Leicester, and Bristol, among many other places – they may have performed in theatrical spaces
set up outdoors in inn yards, or within enclosed guildhalls and town halls. Temporary theatres, of
a variety of sizes, shapes, and character, constitute a further category of Shakespearian playing
space. Shakespeare‘s working life as an actor, then, would have made him well aware that his
plays had to be capable of adaptation to larger or smaller stages, and more or less elaborate
facilities. All theatres of the period, indoors or outdoors, permanent or temporary, had to be
provided with two essential features: a stage, on which the actors moved and spoke, and abutting
it a tiring house, or backstage space, separated from the stage by a wall or curtain, through which
entries and exits were made. (The tiring house was so called because it was there that the actors
dressed, or [at]tired themselves; changing costumes was an important matter, as we shall see.)
These two simple physical elements accommodated most of the action of most of Shakespeare‘s
plays.
Another famous theatre was the Fortune, which was the most commodious and elegant of any
that had then been built in England. In 1623 it was rebuilt—it is thought of brick. The opposition
to the stage manifested by certain classes, and which resulted in the censorship of the Master of
the Revels, a still prevailing custom, had, nevertheless, a beneficial effect. To it we may ascribe
the comparative purity of moral tone contrasted with the contemporaneous drama of France and
Italy ; also its total lack of political and religious satire. Moreover, the actor became more
respectable and wealthy, and altogether the drama and its appurtenances made rapid progress.
The theatres were either private or public. The first were smaller in size, roofed over and
frequented by a more select audience. Blackfriar's was a private, the Globe and the Fortune
public theatres. The performances were given in the afternoon, beginning at three o'clock and
usually lasted about two hours. This was in order to let the audience get home before dark. When
a play was going to begin flags were hoisted and trumpets blown. The piece of the day was
generally closed with an address to the sovereign. Then followed a farce. Playbills were used to
announce the show ; those of tragedies being in red letters. Entrance prices varied according to
the theatre, location, etc. For ordinary shows three pennies were paid. There was a two-penny
gallery in the larger theatres, which fee was probably additional to the one for admission. The
stage was narrow, projecting into the yard and surrounded by the audience. There being no
scenery, the poet had to fill out much with description. A raised platform at the back represented,
castle walls, balconies, etc. Painted boards announced the location cf the scene. The wardrobe
was rich and varied but not correct. Dramatists were often actors and managers, as Shakespeare,
Jonson, Heywood, Marlowe, etc. Boys acted female characters. Actresses were seen but once on
the stage until the Restoration, in 1668.

1.6 Shakespeare’s Career:

Shakespeare's career as a dramatist probably began with working over old plays. Then he very
likely turned his attention to dramatizing popular novels and the stories of the Chronicles. And it
was only late in life that he took the trouble to invent his own plots. This may be accounted for
by a number of reasons. Plays were demanded in rapid succession. Older favorites were called
for, but with new embellishments. Freshness of treatment rather than freshness of story was
expected. The popularity of the novels translated from the Italian made their dramatization
profitable.
Looking upon " Titus Andronicus " as an old play simply retouched by Shakespeare, we perceive
that his first works were comedies and histories, the sources of which were easily obtainable
from the Chronicles and Italian novels, and the treatment of which by a young poet of genius
would naturally be happy. Previous to 1600 he composed but two tragedies proper, and only one
of these, "Romeo and Juliet," has been accepted as entirely his own. This is the proper
development. Comedy calls for less skill and experience in both matter and manner than tragedy
,and serves to evolve the latent genius and strengthen the poet for the severer demands of the
serious drama. It may be objected that "John" and "Richard III." are tragedies. But here much
was supplied by history that could have been evolved otherwise only with long years of
experience. And these tragic attempts of his early career, though wondrously rich in language
and burning thoughts, show many faults of versification and construction not to be found in his
later works. Rime, from which Shakespeare did not for a long time free himself, is particularly
noticeable all through this first period, and while not inconsistent with the lighter work of
comedy, is at variance with, and so, as a rule, offensive to, the spirit of tragedy. In Shakespeare's
grandest tragedies, as "Macbeth " and "Antony and Cleopatra," there is almost a total absence of
rime, being only used where it becomes at once an ornament and a necessity. All through this
first period the freshness, boldness and light-heartedness of youth is constantly bubbling forth.
There is a wild exuberance of fancy and imagination which nothing can restrain. Only age is able
to check and hold this within its properbounds.
In the second period we are at once struck by the preponderance of tragedy. We have but one
history, Henry VIII., and this by its treatment shows the poet to have grown rather weary of
working over the English Chronicles. There is a decided tendency in it for the imagination to
leave the region of the actual. And in the comedies likewise the sombre or the fantastical strive
for place. " Twelfth Night " and " As You Like It," succeeding closely the " Midsummer Night's
Dream," are permeated with the same idyllic character which was to reach its height in the "
Tempest." In both is perceivable also the serious phase which becomes so comprehensive in "
Measure for Measure " and " The Winter's Tale " as almost to remove them from the field of
comedy. Shakespeare found now the proper scope for his developed powers to be afforded best
by tragedy. Here he could depict heroic characters, gigantic sins and crimes and inmeasurable
suffering. The legends and histories of the world were called upon to furnish him with themes
upon which he should pour forth his majestic imagery and poetry. Roman history gave rise to
what Ulrici has called the Roman cycle, viz.: " Coriolanus," "Julius Csesar," "Antony and
Cleopatra " and " Timon of Athens." " Pericles " and " Troilus and Cressida " came from the east.
" Hamlet " and " Macbeth " from the north. " Othello " from the south. " Lear " and " Cymbeline
" were indigenous. And of these nine are masterpieces of dramatic poetry.
In his comedies and tragedies Shakespeare's genius was ever on the ascending scale. The last
were his greatest. In the historical plays, however, the height of this? style is reached in Henry V.
The remaining plays are inferior to that in merit. And this may be traced to a very apparent
cause. Ulrici has pointed out that each play was given a central, life-bestowing idea ; that in the
working out of this there must be an increase in interest and in action, until the climax, the
catastrophe is reached, after which there is necessarily a decrease of interest,
and the chief object is to dispose of affairs as rapidly and consistently as possible. Now in the ten
historical plays, while each is complete in itself, yet they are all related to one another, and go to
make up a grand whole. That is, each has its own individual permeating idea, but subservient to
one grand idea, which runs through them all, connecting them as by a thread. Accepting then the
theory that these ten histories are to be considered respectively as so many actsof one great play,
the central idea running through them must ever increase in interest and importance, until the
climax is reached, after which we hasten towards our conclusion.
This drama, whose central idea is the usurpation of the throne by the house of Lancaster,
has for its prologue " King John," and for its epilogue " Henry VIII." The pinnacle of fame for
his house was reached in the glorious reign of Henry V. From this all that followed was a rapid
descent. A like effort has been made to discover a connection between the four tragedies,
"Coriolanus," "Julius Caesar," "Antony and Cleopatra," and " Timon of Athens," and a very
ingenious result has been obtained. Ulrici states these plays to form a cycle, whose object is the
representation of the rise and fall of the Roman sovereignty. "Coriolanus "depicts the struggle
between patricians and plebeians. " Julius Caesar," the destruction of the republic. "Antony and
Cleopatra," the victory of the empire." Timon of Athens," the corruption, which in its turn is to
destroy that empire.
In his comedies what infinite charm of poetry and poetic feeling! What delicate touches
and what beautiful imagery! What sustained humor and exquisite lyrics! What sympathy with
and understanding of character! And lastly what comprehensive treatment of the whole. Ulrici
makes two general groups of comedies under the heads of fancy and intrigue, according as the
one or the other predominates. The comedies of fancy he places without the range of possibility
although with its every seeming. And here he would range " Midsummer Night's Dream " with
its fairies, " The Tempest " with its magic, " As You Like It," with its idyllic and impossible
forest of Arden, " Twelfth Night," v/ifh its fantastic events. The second class, the comedy of
intrigue, includes " Love's Labour's Lost with its conflict of inclination and duties, "Comedy of
Errors" with its bewildering pairs of twins, " The Winter's Tale,'' " Measure for Measure " and "
Merchant of Venice " where life, honor and happiness are at stake.
Shakespeare is fond of contrasting characters. Opposite the shrew he places the master. The
faithful wife and the false husband are confronted ; the virtuous maid and the licentious suitor.
But the most beautiful contrast Ulrici has shown to be in " The Merchant of Venice,'' which he
says represents human life as a great law-suit, with Shylock impersonating revenge, and Portia
mercy, with the ultimate triumph of the latter. In this phase of the drama Shakespeare delights in
making a woman the principal character, and what charming types does he present us! The spoilt
but magnificent Katherine ; the loving and devoted Helena ; the wise and womanly Portia ; the
brilliant and sarcastic yet tender-hearted Beatrice ; the gentle but charming Viola ; that
personification of caprice and mischief, Rosalind ; the faithful and suffering Hermione ; the
noble and chaste Isabella. Nor are these women simply types of an age. They are types of
womankind for all ages. Shakespeare perceived that woman with her natural tendency to
intrigue, her capriciousness, rashness and inconsistency is especially suited to be the central
figure about which a comedy may be composed.
Of Shakespeare's maturest efforts, of his great tragedies, what can one say, what can anyone
say, what is there left to be said? Is it not enough to remark that since he dealt with the subjects,
so enticing and full of interest to the dramatist, of the eleven tragedies of his second period but
few have ever been handled by English play-wrights.
As women were the principal figures of his comedies, so are men of his tragedies. Their superior
strength, greater opportunities, higher development, wider ambition, more brutal courage, made
them naturally fitter objects for such a purpose. The deeply philosophical Hamlet, whose reason,
not his irresolution, makes for him a hell of earth. Lear, the fond father, stubborn and blind he
lives, blind and heart-broken he dies. Noble Othello, "whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a
pearl away richer than all his tribe." Ambitious, bloody and conscience-stricken Macbeth, whose
punishment while living leaves to that which may be hereafter but few horrors. Arrogant,
haughty, heroic Coriolanus, that would not yield to the demands or prayers of a people, yet
submitted to the voice of a woman. Antony, who sold the world for his mistress. But though the
interest is centered in man, Shakespeare did not neglect the serious opportunities of woman, but
has complemented his tragic picture of man with one of woman, which, if not equally great, fails,
because of her nature, not because of the artist. Beside Hamlet we find the unfortunate Ophelia.
By Lear is the beautiful Cordelia. Othello has his Desdemona, lovely in her innocence and
sorrow. Cymbeline gives us Imogen. Coriolanus, Volumnia, the Roman matron. By Troilus is
placed the false Cressida; by Macbeth the majestic, star-aspiring, yet affectionate. Lady Macbeth.
By Antony's side that most wonderful, most incomprehensible, most fascinating woman that ever
existed in life or literature, Cleopatra. As she was, so Shakespeare paints her, or else she never
was.
In answer to the charge of immorality sometimes brought against our author, let us read what
Coleridge says : " Shakespeare may sometimes be gross, but I boldly say that he is always moral
and modest. Alas !in our day decency of manners is preserved at the expense of morality of
heart, and delicacies for vice allowed, while grossness against it is hypocritically, or at least
morbidly, condemned." And this is the judgment of a man whose understanding of Shakespeare
is unquestioned. Schlegel, the eminent German critic, says : " The objection that Shakespeare
wounds our feelings by the open display of the most disgusting moral odiousness, unmercifully
harrows up the mind, and tortures even our eyes by the exhibition of the most insupportable and
hateful spectacles, is one of great and grave importance. He has, in fact, never varnished over
wild and blood-thirsty passions with a pleasing exterior—never clothed crime and want of
principle with a false show of greatness of soul ; and in that respect he is in every way deserving
of praise. The reading, and still more the sight of some of his pieces, is not advisable to weak
nerves any more Lhan was the ' Eumenides,' of Aeschylus ; but is the poet who can only reach an
important object by a bold and hazardous daring to be checked by consideration for such persons
? If effeminacy is to serve as a general standard of what tragical composition may properly
exhibit to human nature, we shall be forced to set very narrow limits, indeed, to art, and the hope
of anything like powerful effect must at once and forever be renounced." When we consider the
plain speech customary in his age, and when we behold in the works of his contemporaries,
predecessors and successors, a manner of language and thought unutterably vicious, we will no
longer censure him on the moral score, but rather wonder at the purity and cleanness of such
works as are beyond doubt his
During his life Shakespeare's plays were remarkably popular, and enabled him to retire
in comfort before old age overtook him. Yet his great genius was really recognized by only a few
patrons and some of his literary contemporaries, chiefly dramatists. Of his thirty-seven plays
only eighteen were published before his death, the first collection seven years afterwards in
1623. With the growth of Puritanism Shakespeare's fame waned, and with the Revolution all
representations ceased. However, Shakespeare was not forgotten, as he still continued to reign in
the hearts of the people. The Restoration revivified the well-nigh lifeless drama, and the stage
again became an important factor in the life of the people. The strong characters in Shakespeare's
plays made them attractive to ambitious actors, and once more they were performed. But
unfortunately, the false taste acquired from the French, caused them to be looked upon as
remarkable, but exceedingly faulty, productions, and managers, actors and authors did not
hesitate to adapt, re-arrange, improve and generally mutilate them. Dryden, D'Avenant,
Granville, D'Urfey, Lacy, etc., were foremost in this ghoulish work. We find even the titles
changed. " Cymbeline " becomes " The Injured Princess, or The Fatal Wager " ; " Antony and
Cleopatra," " All for Love " ," The Merry Wives of Windsor," " The Comical Gallant, or The
Amours of Sir John Falstaff." But the most remarkable transformation was when John Lacy
dubbed "Taming of the Shrew " Sauny the Scot,"and changed Grumio into a Scotchman, and the
verse of the play into prose.
After the Stuarts were expelled, the king and people withdrew their favor from the excessively
licentious drama, and foreign plays and models came into vogue. The Italian Opera was
introduced. Corneille, Racine and Moliere were translated and imitated. Addison's "Cato "
appeared. But in all merely imitative literary periods attention and study is directed to former
achievements, and that is what occurred in William's reign. Nicholas Rowe, and then Pope,
edited Shakespeare's plays, and a fresh impetus was given to his popularity. Gradually actors,
managers and learned men, came to understand the greatness and worth of our dramatist.
Editions rapidly followed one another. The attention of other nations was attracted to the works
of a man whom they deemed a kind of savage genius. But the greatest impulse to an appreciation
of Shakespeare was given by an actor, David Garrick. During his management of Drury Lane
(1747-1776) he produced in the original texts twenty-four of Shakespeare's works, and appeared
himself in seventeen different Shakespearean characters. Although he is not free from the charge
of mutilating the plays in some degree, yet Garrick performed an invaluable benefit to the drama
and to literature in reviving the original works, and in spreading broadcast a profound admiration
and respect for our greatest dramatist and poet.
However, it was not until the early part of this century that Shakespeare came to be regarded in
his true light, from a literary point of view. Before Coleridge English writers generally had
criticized unmercifully the construction, the non-observance of unities, the moral tone, the
verbiage and the grossness to be found in Shakespeare's works. But Coleridge in England, Hugo
in France, Lessing, Schlegel, Tieck and Ulrici in Germany, soon proved that Shakespeare had
been entirely misunderstood and that he is guilty of few, if any, of the sins accounted to him.
Since then all study of our author has been accompanied by veneration, and instead of wilfully
mutilating and mercilessly criticizing, editors now labour to restore and elucidate his texts. His
works in part or in whole have been translated into Italian, Portugese, Danish, Swedish, Dutch,
Frisian, Bohemian, Hungarian, Wallachian, "Moslem Greek," Polish, Russian and Bengalee.
Truly, Shakespeare is not the mouth-piece of simply one people, but of the whole civilized
world,

1.7 Questions

1. Critically analyze the impact of Shakespeare‘s contemporaries on his dramatic career?

2. Describe the features of drama and of stage in the Elizabethan age?
3. What is Renaissance? Describe its impact on the literature of Shakespearean age.
4. What are the salient features of Shakespearean drama?
5. What is Reformation?

1.8 Suggested Readings

Edward Albert. History of English Literature.Oxford University Press,1979.

Margaret Drabble (ed). Oxford Companion to English Literature..Oxford University Press, 2000.
Roland Carter and John McRae.The Routledge History of Literature in English.Routledge 1997.
David Daiches. A Critical History of English Literature , Vols I and II. Mandarin Paperbacks
1994.
Peter Widdowson. The Palgrave Guide to English Literature and its Contexts: 1500-2000.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

Chapter-2
Measure for Measure
2. Measure for Measure
2.0 Introduction to Measure for Measure

2.1 Act Wise Summary of Measure for Measure

2.1.1 Act I
2.1.2 Act II
2.1.3 Act III
Since then all study of our author has been accompanied by veneration, and instead of wilfully
mutilating and mercilessly criticizing, editors now labour to restore and elucidate his texts. His
works in part or in whole have been translated into Italian, Portugese, Danish, Swedish, Dutch,
Frisian, Bohemian, Hungarian, Wallachian, "Moslem Greek," Polish, Russian and Bengalee.
Truly, Shakespeare is not the mouth-piece of simply one people, but of the whole civilized
world,

1.7 Questions

1. Critically analyze the impact of Shakespeare‘s contemporaries on his dramatic career?

2. Describe the features of drama and of stage in the Elizabethan age?
3. What is Renaissance? Describe its impact on the literature of Shakespearean age.
4. What are the salient features of Shakespearean drama?
5. What is Reformation?

1.8 Suggested Readings

Edward Albert. History of English Literature.Oxford University Press,1979.

Margaret Drabble (ed). Oxford Companion to English Literature..Oxford University Press, 2000.
Roland Carter and John McRae.The Routledge History of Literature in English.Routledge 1997.
David Daiches. A Critical History of English Literature , Vols I and II. Mandarin Paperbacks
1994.
Peter Widdowson. The Palgrave Guide to English Literature and its Contexts: 1500-2000.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

Chapter-2
Measure for Measure
2. Measure for Measure
2.0 Introduction to Measure for Measure

2.1 Act Wise Summary of Measure for Measure

2.1.1 Act I
2.1.2 Act II
2.1.3 Act III
 2.1.4 Act IV
2.1.5 Act V

2.2 Analysis of the play

2.2.1 Form in Measure for Measure
2.2.2 Subplot in Measure for Measure
2.2.3 The Substitute Bed Partner in Measure for Measure

2.3 Important characters in Measure for Measure

2.3.1 Isabella
2.3.2 Angelo
2.3.3 The Duke
2.3.4Lucio
2.3.5 Escalus
2.3.6 Claudio

2.4 Questions

2.5 Suggested Readings

2.0 Introduction to Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is considered a comedy, which is sometimes misleading. Some critics
consider it a particularly "dark" comedy for its bitterness and cynicism. The play certainly raises
important moral issues in its detailed descriptions of Christianity. The structure is based around
secret identities and a lot of manipulation. First, the Duke disguises himself as a friar, and many
problems are resolved when he discloses his identity. Second, the Duke advises other characters
to carry out two other secret plans involving mistaken identity: Mariana takes Isabella's place,
and the head of a dead pirate is sent in place of Claudio's. The plot is therefore complexly
woven, and the resolution of the play comes with the unraveling of the layers of intrigue created
by the Duke.

The Duke, then, functions as a kind of master of ceremonies in the play. Although he has placed
another man in his position during his absence, he is still manipulating all the occurrences in
town. He is unfailingly wise in a way that most Shakespearean characters are not. He is a good,
kind, devoted leader, but his one fault lies in his inability to maintain order. For this he calls in
Angelo, and through this he pardons him.

Measure for Measure can also be called a problem play, because it brings up a difficulty and
then seeks to solve it. However, the difficulty lies in misunderstandings and hidden identities, not
in the real moral questions of the play. No character comes to reconsider his or her beliefs about
freedom, justice, sexual relationships, or morality. A very intriguing question--whether or not
Isabella should commit a sin in order to save her brother--is never discussed in any great detail.
Isabella thinks she should not and never really considers the option. Claudio thinks she should,
and so he begs her to save him. The Duke tells her that she is virtuous and that the option is not
really open to her anyway, and closes off the discussion by giving her a new plan. The Duke is
correct in thinking that Angelo's proposal is not entirely honest, and Isabella emerges faultless;
the audience, even if it considers Isabella too cold in not saving her brother, must come to the
conclusion that she would have sacrificed her virginity for nothing.

2.1 Act wise summary of the play

2.1.1 Act I Summary

The duke of Vienna meets with his aged advisor, Escalus, to discuss his own imminent departure
and a commission that he has for Escalus. The duke's appointment of Angelo to take his place is
mentioned, Escalus agreeing that Angelo is worthy of the honor. The latter arrives and is
appointed to rule Vienna in the duke's absence in spite of his own suggestion that he be further
tested before being so honored.

The duke declines the offers of Angelo and Escalus to escort him part of the way on his journey.
Commenting on his distaste for crowds, he departs. Escalus and Angelo leave together to discuss
their respective duties in the duke's absence, and the scene closes.

Lucio and two other young gentlemen, lounging in the street, exchange wisecracks in a vulgar
tone. Mistress Overdone, a whorehouse keeper known to the three, approaches and tells them of
the fate of a mutual acquaintance. Young Claudio, arrested for getting Juliet with child, is to be
executed some three days hence, at the command of the new deputy, Angelo. Lucio and the
others leave to "learn the truth of it" (I. ii. 82).

Claudio now comes onstage, guarded by the provost and his officers. Juliet is also listed in the
stage directions as entering at this point. Lucio and his companions return to question Claudio
about his arrest. Through Lucio, Claudio sends for his sister Isabella, who is on the point of
entering a convent. It is the young man's hope that she will be able to persuade Angelo to be
lenient.

The duke, seeking refuge at a monastery, explains his purpose to Friar Thomas. Having led
Angelo and his people to think he has gone to Poland, he now wishes to disguise himself as a
friar in order to go unrecognized among his subjects. He has allowed the "strict statutes and most
biting laws, / The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds" (I. iii. 19-20) to go unenforced
over a period of several years. The laws have been openly flaunted and must now be brought to
bear. When the friar gently suggests that it is for the duke himself, rather than his deputy, to do
so, the duke agrees. However, since the fault is his for allowing the people too much scope, he
feels it would seem "too dreadful" in him to turn suddenly strict. For this reason, he has
deputized Angelo. He now wishes to observe his deputy's rule. As the scene closes, the duke
implies that, having reason to doubt Angelo's character, he has made this a sort of test.

In a convent of the sisterhood of Saint Clare, Isabella is about to take her vows. She is
interrupted in a conversation with Sister Francisca by a man's voice outside. The nun leaves
Isabella to open the door to Lucio, who has come to tell her of Claudio's plight. Although at first
she doubts her ability to sway Angelo's judgment, Lucio convinces her to go to him and plead for
mercy.

2.1.2 Act II Summary

Escalus attempts to convince Angelo that he should treat Claudio's case with mercy, but Angelo
remains adamant. Calling in the provost, he orders him to see to Claudio's execution early the
following morning.

At this point, Elbow, a constable, enters with the pimp Pompey and Froth, a gentleman bawd.
Elbow accuses the two of some villainy. They respond to Escalus' questioning with an account of
their activities so tedious and nonsensical that Angelo withdraws in disgust, leaving Escalus to
judge the affair. The elder statesman at last excuses Pompey and Froth with a warning, and upon
learning that Elbow has served in his office over seven years, Escalus determines to appoint a
new constable in the ward.

The provost comes to Angelo to verify his order for Claudio's execution on the following
morning. Angelo angrily reiterates the command.

Accompanied by Lucio, Isabella arrives to beg the deputy to reconsider her brother's sentence.
Angelo stands firm but finally suggests that Isabella return on the following day. After her
departure, his closing soliloquy reveals that he has been shaken by the temptation her
maidenhood represents.

The duke, in his role as a friar, comes to the provost in the prison to offer his services to the
prisoners there. Juliet enters, and the duke plays his role by questioning her repentance of the sin
she has committed with Claudio. He then promises to go to Claudio "with instruction" before his
execution.

Scene 4 opens with a soliloquy by Angelo on the subject of his inability to pray sincerely while
tempted by Isabella's appeal. That lady then arrives to ask whether he has relented toward her
brother. Angelo tells her subtly that Claudio must die unless she will yield her body to him. She
fails to understand and Angelo speaks plainly. Isabella refuses, threatening to expose Angelo,
who says he will deny her charges. Isabella leaves to tell Claudio he must prepare himself for his
execution.

2.1.3 Act III Summary

In the prison, the duke, disguised as a friar, attempts to comfort Claudio and prepare him for his
death with assurances of the ephemerality of life. The duke exits when Isabella arrives on the
scene to tell Claudio of Angelo's treachery and her inability to save him. When he begs her to
meet Angelo's demands, Isabella upbraids him and leaves in anger.

The duke, having eavesdropped on their conversation, returns to tell the prisoner that Angelo's
offer was no more than a test: The execution is inevitable. The duke then goes apart with Isabella
to suggest a plan that he declares will save Claudio and be of some help to Mariana. The latter,
betrothed to Angelo, was deserted by him when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck. Mariana, if
she consents, will be a substitute for Isabella in meeting Angelo's demands. Isabella agrees to the
plan.

The duke finds Pompey being led off to prison by the constable, Elbow. Ascertaining that he is a
bawd, the duke in his friar's guise lectures Pompey. When Lucio arrives on the scene, Pompey
appeals to him to take his part, but that gentleman merely condemns him further, refusing even to
go bail for him. Elbow leads Pompey away, and Lucio launches into an attack on the duke's own
virtue. The duke challenges him to repeat his remarks to the duke's face when he has returned.
Lucio leaves, uttering still more damning remarks. Escalus now comes on the scene with
Mistress Overdone in custody. Convinced that Lucio has informed against her, she charges him
with getting a bawd with child and failing on his promise to marry her. In discussion with
Escalus after she has departed, the duke claims to be a friar of another country, come to Vienna
on special church business. He questions Escalus about the duke and hears his praises. Having
discussed Claudio's state of mind on the eve of his execution, Escalus exits and the duke delivers
a soliloquy on the subject of false virtue.

2.1.4 Act IV Summary

Upon his entry, the duke finds Mariana at her home at Saint Luke's, listening to a boy singing a
love ballad. Isabella soon arrives, and Mariana leaves the two to discuss their plans. She returns
to meet Isabella and then goes aside with her while Isabella outlines the duke's idea of a
substitute bed partner. Mariana agrees to the plan upon the duke's assurances of its propriety.

Given the choice of serving a prison term or becoming an executioner's assistant, Pompey
chooses the latter, exiting with Abhorson to learn his new trade. The provost informs Claudio
that he is to die on the following day, along with a condemned murderer. The duke arrives,
expecting to hear of Claudio's pardon, only to be on hand as a letter is received from Angelo
urging an early morning execution. The duke, however, persuades the provost to spare Claudio,
sending the murderer's head in his place.

In his new trade as executioner, Pompey finds many of his former customers housed in the
prison. At Abhorson's command, he calls Barnardine to be executed, but he refuses his
execution. The duke enters and attempts to persuade Barnardine to accept his fate, but the
prisoner merely reiterates his lordly refusal and returns to his cell.
Disturbed by Barnardine's unreadiness to die, the duke is relieved when the provost arrives with
a solution. Another prisoner, similar to Claudio in coloring and age, has died of a fever. It is
agreed that his head will be a substitute, and Barnardine will be hidden along with Claudio.
When Isabella arrives, the disguised duke allows her to think that her brother's execution has
gone forward. He tells her that the duke is returning and she must be present at the gates along
with Angelo in order to reveal the truth and have her revenge. Lucio arrives, expressing honest
grief at Claudio's death. Isabella departs, and Lucio attaches himself to the disguised duke,
slandering the absent ruler as they leave together.

Escalus and Angelo are confused by the letters they have received from the duke, each
contradictory. Now, on the verge of a return to the city, the duke sends word that they should
meet him at the gates, giving advance notice that any with grievances should be there also.
Angelo considers the possibility that Isabella may take this opportunity to accuse him but
concludes that her shame and her inability to prove her claims will prevent her.

Giving some letters to Friar Peter, the duke asks him to deliver them and to call Flavius,
Valentinus, Rowland, and Crassus to him. Varrius arrives as the friar is going off on his mission.
The duke greets him and tells him other friends are expected, and the two walk off together.

Isabella describes to Mariana what the duke expects of them in the coming scene at the gates,
and Friar Peter leads them away to accuse Angelo.

2.1.5 Act V Summary

In a confrontation at the gates of the city, the duke reveals the truth and administers merciful
justice to all.

Isabella accuses Angelo, but Mariana comes forward to claim that she was with him herself. The
duke charges the two, along with Friar Peter, with being persuaded to their accusations by the
absent Friar Lodowick (the duke). He leaves their case to Escalus and Angelo, exiting to return
shortly, disguised again as a friar. Lucio accuses him of slanders against the duke and is helping
to lead him off to prison when his hood comes off revealing the duke.

The duke then deals quickly with the cases at hand. He orders Angelo married at once to Mariana
and then sentences him to death. Isabella pleads on his behalf, but the duke seems impervious.
He has the provost bring out Claudio (his face covered) and Barnardine. The latter is pardoned,
and when the former is revealed, the duke pardons both Angelo and Claudio. Threatening Lucio
with whipping and hanging, the duke lets him off with marriage to the whore he has got with
child. He promises a higher office to the provost for his services and tops off the scene by asking
for Isabella's hand in marriage

2.2 Analysis of the play

2.2.1 Form in Measure for Measure
Although included in the comedy section of the First Folio, Measure for Measure has been called
tragedy, tragicomedy, satire, and allegory by its critics. Scholars have argued that the play is a
comedy only by the force of the contrived happy ending. Its theme, characters, and action are
tragic, and only the manipulations of the duke, who acts as a deus ex machina, bring the play to a
happy conclusion. The eloquent poetic passages on the ephemerality of life and the fear of
death's unknown realm are cited as indications of the tragic style.
The play has been related to Shakespeare's personal life. The poet is said to have been immersed
in a tragic vein at the time Measure for Measure was written. He was in the midst of the creative
flow which produced his great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. A "sex
nausea" is said to have overcome him at this period. Scholars have seen the evidence of
collaboration in the play as implication that Shakespeare's devotion to the play was half-hearted,
that he had no stomach for comedy at this time of his life. Biographical evidence is slight,
however, and theories are based mainly upon the content of the plays and sonnets. It is only
speculation to assume that the play suffered from its author's depression, sex revulsion, or tragic
mood.
In considering what genre the play exemplifies, it is well to note that comedy in Shakespeare's
time was chiefly identified by its happy ending. Conventions of romantic comedy of the
seventeenth century included an idealized heroine, love as the basic theme, and a problem
brought to happy conclusion. Tragicomedy offered a tragic theme with a happy close brought
about by the intervention of a deus ex machina. Conventions included characters of noble rank,
love as the central theme (its ideal forms contrasted with the vulgar), disguise, and virtue and
vice thrown into sharp contrast. Clearly, Measure for Measure might fall into either category and
may reasonably be considered both romantic comedy and tragicomedy.

Numerous modern critics have objected to the abrupt appearance of a happy ending, but the
reader should keep in mind that this was a convention of romantic comedy with which
Shakespeare's audience was well acquainted.

2.2.2 Subplot in Measure for Measure

The characters and action of the subplot parallel to some extent those of the plot. Pompey and
Mistress Overdone suffer from the sudden enforcement of Vienna's morality laws, as does
Claudio. Elbow, the simple-minded constable, enforces the laws in the subplot as Angelo does in
the main plot. The subplot, however, is not developed to the extent that it might stand alone, as is
frequently the case in Shakespeare's plays. The low characters provide more of an undercurrent
than a minor plot. Their chief role is to provide comic relief from the tragedy which pervades the
plot, for while the play is a comedy, much of its action is of a tragic nature.

The minor characters are earthy, lively, and amusing. Although some critics see them as vulgar
and obscene representatives of a society rotten with moral corruption, the humor they invoke and
the sympathy they command lend weight to the argument that their creator is pleased with them.
A director might manipulate his actors to make the low characters either funny or disgusting, but
the harmlessness of their wit seems to indicate that Shakespeare meant them to be amusing.

2.2.3 The Substitute Bed Partner in Measure for Measure

Mariana's substitution for Isabella in Angelo's bed (sometimes called the bed trick) has received
considerable attention from scholars. Isabella has been sharply criticized for her willingness to
allow Mariana to make such a sacrifice. The heroine's purity has been challenged on the basis of
her easy compliance with the duke's scheme, which calls for Mariana to commit the very sin
which so repulses Isabella. The duke's character has been maligned for the perpetration of this
vulgar trick. He is, critics charge, as immoral as the play's corrupt setting. Even the gentle
Mariana has been attacked for her role in the deception.

Before making a judgment on the characters or their creator, however, it is important to gain an
understanding of the conventions operating on Shakespeare's contemporary audience. When the
play was written in 1604, it was customary to have a formal ceremony of betrothal some time
before the actual wedding celebration. The betrothal involved repetition of vows and gave
conjugal rights to the betrothed. By this custom, it was no more immoral for Angelo and Mariana
to share a bed than if they had actually been married.

Claudio and Juliet's secret betrothal, on the other hand, did not carry with it the conjugal rights
since it was simply an exchange of promises, not formally witnessed or celebrated. For this
reason, Claudio and Juliet are guilty of a crime and immorality, while Mariana's union with
Angelo carries with it no stigma.

An awareness of the custom of betrothal casts a new light on the play. Not only does it clear the
duke, Isabella, and Mariana of impurity, but it also has the effect of lessening Claudio's crime
since there is only a question of a formal public betrothal between crime and convention.

The bed trick is admittedly a contrived bit of dramatic foolery, requiring an audience to believe
that a woman can, without discovery, go to bed with a man who knows her and expects another.
It further requires that an audience credit the woman's willingness to take part in such a
deception after being heartlessly cast off by the man years previously. And finally, the existence
of a Mariana who can be Isabella's proxy without smirching her own character is itself an
unlikely bit of coincidence.

However, coincidence and the failure of a man to recognize his lover were established
conventions of Renaissance drama. The deserted wife's return in disguise to her husband was
traditional. Shakespeare's audiences were accustomed to accepting in the theater what they
would have scoffed at in real life. The modern reader, then, should bear in mind that the bed trick
would not have seemed as extraordinary to Shakespeare's original audience as it does now.
Although contrived, it is certainly necessary. In order to bring the play to its final dramatic
conclusion, while maintaining Isabella's virtue, Shakespeare had to devise a way to allow her to
refuse Angelo's demands while making him think they had been met. Actual compliance would
have stained Isabella's purity, damaging her as a symbol of good and destroying the dramatic
effect of virtue set against corruption. A flat refusal would have meant that Claudio's execution
would go forward unhindered, bringing the play to a conclusion with no opportunity for
repentance, forgiveness, and the application of justice with mercy which together form the play's
theme.

2.3 Important characters in Measure for Measure

2.3.1 Isabella

A novice, sister to Claudio. When she first appears, Isabella is about to enter the order of Saint
Clare. Shakespeare portrays her as very pure and strictly moral. The audience first hears of her
from her brother, who tells Lucio that she has "a prone and speechless dialect, / Such as move
men; beside, she hath prosperous art / When she will play with reason and discourse, / And well
she can persuade" (I. ii. 188-91). When Lucio asks her to turn this persuasion to her brother's
good, he says to her:

I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted,

By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
And to be talk'd with in sincerity,
As with a saint. (I. iv. 34-37)

The duke, after knowing her briefly, regards her highly enough to offer her marriage.

Critics have held diabolically opposed views of Isabella's character. One faction sees her as one
of Shakespeare's strongest and best female characters, a woman of great virtue and magnificent
purity. They point to her brilliant speeches with Angelo on Christianity, power, and mercy, and
to her fiery denunciation of Angelo's treachery and her brother's cowardice. She is seen as the
symbol of goodness and mercy set against a background of moral decay. The other faction sees
her as self-righteous and hypocritical. They point out that she seems little concerned by her
brother's crime but is too horrified of committing the same transgression herself--even to save
her brother's life. She apparently suffers no qualms, however, in asking Mariana to share
Angelo's bed.

The reason for which she has been most strongly criticized is her seeming lack of sympathy for
Claudio when he pleads with her to save him by giving in to Angelo's desire. She turns upon him
violently, revolted by his weakness. After a scathing speech in which she tells Claudio that he is
no true son of their father, she leaves him in a rage, never to speak to him again in the play.
Isabella's supporters point out that looks and actions can speak as loudly as words, and the way
in which brother and sister act in the last scene might substantially soften the earlier friction
between them. They further point out that the kind of deep Christian conviction and commitment
that Isabella had, in combination with a sincere fondness for her brother, would cause her no
little anguish when met with Angelo's demands. Certainly she was under great emotional strain
during the prison scene with her brother. Perhaps the wrath which she shows him is merely her
way of bolstering herself to place religious convictions above love for her brother. Her genuine
affection for Claudio might also explain her failure to react with horror upon learning of his
crime. In going, first, to Angelo to beg mercy for Claudio, she expresses her conflicting feelings
of disgust for the crime and love for the man:

There is a vice that most I do abhor,

And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war 'twixt will and will not. (II. ii. 29-33)

2.3.2 Angelo

Deputy to the duke. Angelo is subject to two main interpretations. He can be viewed as a
thoroughly evil man, hypocritical in his pose of morality, whose lust for Isabella is true to
character; or he can be seen as a basically moral man who succumbs to temptation upon one
occasion.

In support of the first view, critics point out his treacherous and heartless desertion of Mariana,
prior to the action of this play, showing a history of immorality. The duke, suspecting the
corruption beneath Angelo's facade of righteousness, leaves him in charge to test his true
character. Angelo proceeds to convict Claudio of a most human crime. He is deaf to Isabella's
pleas for mercy but promises to save her brother if she will have sexual intercourse with him.
Believing that Isabella has shared his bed, Angelo compounds his crime and cruelty by ordering
Claudio's execution.

It can be argued, however, that the duke leaves Angelo in charge because of a genuine regard for
his judgment and virtue. Angelo tries to resist the temptation Isabella presents, seeking aid
through prayer (in which his detractors see no sincerity). His final repentance is seen by some as
evidence of his basic goodness and by others as an insincere token apology.

Perhaps a true reading of Angelo's character lies somewhere in between, sincere in his adherence
to the letter of the law, he neglects mercy. His tightly contained lower instincts burst forth with a
vengeance when too strong a temptation is thrown in his path. Horrified at his own crime, he
orders Claudio's execution to save himself, confident that Claudio is, after all, guilty. When the
truth is discovered, he is relieved to end the deception and begs that justice without mercy be his
punishment.

It is well to remember here that Shakespeare's Angelo is milder than the deputies of the sources.
If Shakespeare intended to present a completely evil man, why did he not have Angelo send
Claudio's head to Isabella as his counterparts did?

2.3.3 The Duke

Vincentio, Duke of Vienna. He leaves Vienna in Angelo's charge and returns disguised as Friar
Lodowick to watch developments while incognito. Of some 2,600 lines in Measure for
Measure, the duke speaks nearly 800, only slightly less than one-third. He acts as a deus ex
machina to turn the play from tragedy to comedy. In his omnipresence, he has been compared to
a puppeteer or divinity. The godlike disguised ruler was conventional to contemporary drama.
Although he controls the other characters and their actions, the duke himself is very shallow of
characterization. His purpose in leaving Vienna to his deputy and returning in disguise is unclear.
He explains his motive to Friar Thomas as a wish to see long-ignored laws of morality enforced,
without himself appearing as a tyrant. This implies a fatal weakness in him belied by his
vigorous manipulations of the entire cast throughout the rest of the play, culminating in a
dramatic confrontation of his own contriving. Angelo's critics suggest that the duke, sensing his
hypocrisy, left him in charge to test him. Possibly he saw his deputy-and-disguise method as
capable of making a dramatic issue of the moral decay of Vienna and the need for law and order,
while at the same time emphasizing mercy and humanity. Finally, however, it must be confessed
as possible, if not actually probable, that the duke had no logical, consistent reason for his action;
perhaps he himself was a puppet of Shakespeare, who needed a device which would allow
Isabella to give in to Angelo and yet maintain her virtue. The duke is manipulated by
Shakespeare into a position whence he can manipulate the other characters.

2.3.4 Lucio

A gentleman of birth who keeps company with pimps, bawds, and whores. Lucio is a flip, light-
minded young man, more interested in tossing off a quip than in justice, friendship, or honesty.
Although he comes to Claudio's assistance by making his difficulties known to Isabella, he
seems to enjoy his role as cheerleader when she makes her plea to Angelo. He blithely gives
evidence against Pompey and even testifies against Isabella in the final scene. An almost
conscienceless joker, he provides the audience with much humor in the form of slanders against
the duke, which he unwittingly addresses to the duke himself. Lucio's familiarity with the
characters of the underworld and society alike makes him an effective link, tying the plot and
subplot together.

2.3.5 Escalus
An aged and trusted advisor to the duke, left second in command when the duke goes into
disguise. Escalus' chief role is to act as a foil to Angelo, arguing mercy against Angelo's
determination for strict enforcement of the law.

2.3.6 Claudio

A young gentleman who has gotten Juliet with child, for which crime he is sentenced to death.
He appears prominently only in Act III, Scene 1, when he speaks eloquently about his fear of
death. Although he is the cause of the play's action, he himself is not fully characterized. He
comes to life in this scene as an intelligent and sensitive young man, only to be almost invisible
throughout the remainder of the play.

2.4 Questions:

1) Discuss Measure for Measure as a problem play?

2) Measure for Measure is about the moral dilemma of its characters. Elaborate the statement
in light of the main characters of the play?
3) What is the relation and importance of sub-plot in the play to its main plot?
4) What are the prominent thematic patterns of the play Measure for Measure?

2.5. Suggested Readings;

1) Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. The Arden Shakespeare, Ed. by J.W. Lever.
London: Methuen & Co, Ltd, 1965.
2) Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead
Books,1998.
3) Baines, Barbara. ―Assaying the Power of Chastity in Measure for Measure.‖ Studies in
English Literature, 1500-1900. Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring 1990), pp. 283-301.
4) Tambling, Jeremy. ―Law and Will in Measurefor Measure.‖ Essays in Criticism. Vol 59,
No. 3 (July 2009)
 Chapter-3

Hamlet

3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction to Hamlet
3.2 Act Wise Summary Hamlet
3.2.1 Act I
3.2.2 Act II
3.2.3 Act III
3.2.4 Act IV
3.2.5 Act V
3.3 Important characters in Hamlet
3.3.1 Hamlet
3.3.2 Claudius
3.3.3 Gertrude
3.3.4 Ghost
3.3.5 Horatio
3.3.6 Laertes
3.3.7 Ophelia
3.4 Themes
3.4.1 Revenge
3.4.2 Sexual, Moral, and Physical Corruption
3.4.3 Madness and Melancholy
3.4.4 Random Fortune or Divine Master Plan?
3.5 About the Play
3.6 Questions
3.7 Suggested Readings
3.0 Objectives

This section will enable you to study Hamlet, the famous play of Shakespeare, in depth
by drawing your focus to its historical relevance and the Main plot. Character analysis is done to
have a clear-cut idea of the play, and to examine Shakespeare as a dramatist and how the
dramatist employs a variety of effects in it.

3.1 Introduction to Hamlet

Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English language. Probably written in
1601 or 1602, the tragedy is a milestone in Shakespeare‘sdramatic development; the playwright
achieved artistic maturity in this work through his brilliant depiction of the hero‘s struggle with
two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father‘s murder. Shakespeare‘s
focus on this conflict was a revolutionary departure from contemporary revenge tragedies, which
tended to graphically dramatize violent acts on stage, in that it emphasized the hero‘s dilemma
rather than the depiction of bloody deeds. The dramatist‘s genius is also evident in his
transformation of the play‘s
literary sources—especially the contemporaneous Ur-Hamlet—into an exceptional tragedy. The
Ur-Hamlet, or ―original Hamlet,‖ is a lost play that scholars believe was written mere decades
before Shakespeare‘s Hamlet, providing much of the dramatic context for the later tragedy.
Numerous sixteenth-century records attest to the existence of the Ur-Hamlet, with some
references linking its composition to Thomas Kyd, the author of The Spanish Tragedy. Other
principal sources available to Shakespeare were Saxo Grammaticus‘s Historiae Danicae (circa
1200), which features a popular legend with a plot similar to Hamlet, and François de
Belleforest‘s Histoires Tragiques, Extraicts des Oeuvres Italiennes de Bandel (7 Vols.; 1559-80),
which provides an expanded account of the story recorded in the Historiae Danicae. From these
sources Shakespeare created Hamlet, a supremely rich and complex literary work that continues
to delight both readers and audiences with its myriad meanings and interpretations.
In the words of Ernest Johnson, ―the dilemma of Hamlet the Prince and Man‖ is ―to disentangle
himself from the temptation to wreak justice for the wrong reasons and in evil passion, and to do
what he must do at last for the pure sake of justice.… From that dilemma of wrong feelings and
right actions, he ultimately emerges, solving the problem by attaining a proper state of mind.‖
Hamlet endures as the object of universal identification because his central moral dilemma
transcends the Elizabethan period, making him a man for all ages. In his difficult struggle to
somehow act within a corrupt world and yet maintain his moral integrity, Hamlet ultimately
reflects the fate of all human beings.

3.2 Act Wise Summary

3.2.1 ACT I
Most of the action of play occurs in and around the castle at Elsinore in Denmark. King Hamlet
is dead, and Prince Hamlet has returned to Denmark from school in Wittenberg, Germany, only
to discover that Queen Gertrude, his mother, has married his Uncle Claudius. Claudius has had
himself crowned king. Hamlet is informed that what is apparently the ghost o f his dead father
has appeared to the palace guards (I, ii). When he later confronts the ghost, Hamlet learns that
Claudius murdered his father and hastily married Queen Gertrude (I, v). Throughout the play, the
ongoing border disputes and political machinations amongst Denmark, Norway, and Poland
serve as a backdrop for the action in the Danish court (I, ii; II, ii; IV, iv; V, ii). Prince Fortinbras,
whose father was killed by Hamlet‘s father, is a man of action, and his character serves as a foil
to the contemplative Prince Hamlet.
Polonius (Lord Chamberlain), his son Laertes and daughter Ophelia are also important characters
in this drama. Polonius and Laertes are concerned about Ophelia‘s romantic involvement with
Prince Hamlet and caution her against such a relationship. Polonius also provides fatherly advice
to Laertes as he leaves for Paris (I, iii).

3.2.2 ACT II

Hamlet‘s emotional turmoil over his father‘s murder has left him in a visibly agitated condition,
which some members of the court have interpreted as madness. Claudius and Gertrude,
concerned for his welfare, summon two of Hamlet‘s oldest friends, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, in the hopes that they can learn what is troubling him. (II, ii). Hamlet is
immediately skeptical about their surprise visit.
Anxious to confirm his own suspicions regarding the source of Hamlet‘s trouble, Polonius
arranges a meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet, as he is convinced that Hamlet‘s love for
Ophelia is the cause of his suffering (II, ii). When Polonius approaches Hamlet, Hamlet answers
his questions although he believes Polonius to be a foolish old man. When a group of players
arrives at the Danish court to entertain, Hamlet arranges for them to perform The Murder of
Gonzago with the addition of lines Hamlet has written. What Hamlet hopes is to prove
Claudius‘s guilt in the murder by watching his reaction to the drama the players will stage (II, ii).
3.2.3 ACT III
When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report back to Claudius that they have no explanation for
Hamlet‘s strange behavior, Claudius decides to eavesdrop with Polonius on the meeting between
Hamlet and Ophelia. Although Hamlet treats Ophelia irrationally, Claudius is suspicious of his
behavior and makes plans to sent Hamlet to England (III, i). The players perform their drama in
which the events portrayed, with Hamlet‘s alterations, almost duplicate the circumstances
surrounding King Hamlet‘s death. Hamlet observes that Claudius is visibly upset by the play.
When he leaves abruptly, Claudius confirms his guilt in the eyes of Hamlet and his friend,
Horatio (III, ii). Out of concern for Hamlet‘s welfare, Queen Gertrude meets privately with her
son in her chambers. Polonius, however, is eavesdropping behind a wall tapestry. Hamlet‘s
rebukes cause Gertrude to cry out, and Polonius cries out as well, fearful for her welfare.
Believing he has heard Claudius, Hamlet stabs through the tapestry, killing Polonius (III, iv).
3.2.4 ACT IV
Polonius‘s death provides Claudius with the opportunity to send Hamlet to England, under the
false pretense ofprotecting his life, when in reality, he has asked the King of England to kill
Prince Hamlet (IV, iii). Grief-stricken b y their father‘s death, Laertes and Ophelia solicit
Claudius‘s assistance in finding his murderer (IV, v). Meanwhile, Hamlet sends word to Horatio
that he has been taken prisoner by pirates who have returned him to Denmark and asks Horatio
to join him (IV, vi). In order to remove Hamlet as a threat, Claudius now plans an exhibition duel
in which Laertes will use a sword tipped with poison (IV, vii).

3.2.5 ACT V

Ophelia‘s madness and subsequent drowning (IV, v; IV, vii) precipitate a confrontation between
Laertes and Hamlet at her grave (V, I), but Claudius intervenes, privately assuring Laertes that
his revenge will come in the duel which has been arranged. Hamlet seals the fate of Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern by substituting another letter in the envelope which originally contained his
own death orders, requesting that the King of England put them to death (V, ii). In spite of
Horatio‘s concern, Hamlet agrees to the duel with Laertes and appears before the court as
requested. Not only does Claudius poison the tip of the sword, he also offers Hamlet a drink
from a poison cup. Instead, Gertrude drinks from the cup and swoons from the effect of the
poison, her dying words warning Hamlet of the plot against him. As the duel progresses, Laertes
and Hamlet inadvertently exchange swords during a scuffle; consequently, both are mortally
wounded, although Hamlet manages to fatally wound Claudius as well.
As the play closes, Fortinbras arrives, victorious over Poland, and the dying Hamlet names him
as the new king. Fortinbras pays tribute to Hamlet and arranges for an appropriate burial.

3.3 Important characters Hamlet

3.3.1 Hamlet

The character of Hamlet dominates Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, yet Hamlet at the
start of the play is not a commanding figure. Indeed, when we first see the Prince, his posture is
defensive, Hamlet taking a passive, if resentful, stance toward the events that have befallen him.
Slow to the conviction that the ghost is his dead father and that Claudius is guilty of regicide,
Hamlet does not go straight to the task at hand.
Hamlet's delay or procrastination is something about which critics have wondered and that the
character himself agonizes, his self-reproach reaching an apex in Act IV, scene iv, which
concludes with the words "O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"
(lines 65-66). The question remains: Why doesn't Hamlet act?
One response to this question stresses Hamlet as a man of thought and words, as opposed to
deeds.
Shakespeare's Danish prince is one of the most intelligent protagonists in tragic drama. Unlike
many other Elizabethan revenge tragedy heroes, Hamlet is given to philosophy and abstraction.
At times, it seems that the play is less about Hamlet taking action in the external world, than it is
about his grappling with the key existential problems of human existence. From this standpoint,
Hamlet does not act immediately because he is too preoccupied with analyzing his situation and
himself in the broadest terms imaginable.
Hamlet is also a melancholy figure, given to depression, who is victimized by a cruel fate and
compelled to undertake a revenge mission for which he is not prepared. Not only are Hamlet's
musings about life extensive, they are uniformly dark. Seen in this light, Hamlet does not act
because he lacks the emotional fortitude to do so, depression and courage being difficult to
reconcile.
There are, however, good reasons for Hamlet to avoid acting precipitously. The story of Old
Hamlet's murder is known to him only through the agency of a ghost, and killing the king on the
word of an apparition is plainly a problematic (and possibly mistaken) act. Claudius explains his
exile of Hamlet to England by referring to the Prince's popularity among the Danish people. But
the Danish people are a fickle lot; many of them come to Laertes' cause against the Prince.
Killing a king is a weighty matter, and many modern critics have argued that, in his particular
circumstances, Hamlet is wise to defer action.
In the end, Hamlet does act, defying augury in accepting the challenge to duel with Laertes. But
the change in Hamlet's character takes place in scene i of Act V, and is expressed in his self-
assertion that he is "Hamlet the Dane." It is not in the final scene, but in the graveyard scene
immediately proceeding it that a "new," self-defined Hamlet appears on the stage, ready for
action however it may be directed by divine will or by chance. A complex personality at the
play's start, Hamlet is all the more fascinating because he undergoes dramatic character
development.

3.3.2 Claudius

Claudius is the king of Denmark and brother of the dead king, which makes him Hamlet's uncle.
Claudius has killed his brother to gain the throne and has married his brother's wife, Gertrude.
Throughout the play, the nature of Claudius's kingship is displayed. Because Claudius is shrewd
and able, though not always ethical or moral, Hamlet describes the contest of intelligence and
will between them as that of ''mighty opposites'' (V.ii.62).
Claudius is clearly the source of the rottenness that pervades Denmark. He is a clever "monster,"
who is able to devise plots and plans that conceal his intentions and to manipulate others into
furthering them. On the other hand, as in the "confession" scene of Act III, Claudius has a
conscience, realizing full well that his crime "is rank" and "smells to heaven" (III.iii). Claudius
deserves his fate; killed by the very instruments that he (and Laertes) have devised; still, in his
remorse and his affection toward Gertrude, Claudius is not completely beyond redemption.
Additionally, Claudius's character provides perhaps the best illustration of the theme of
appearance versus reality in Hamlet. Initially, Shakespeare depicts Hamlet's uncle as the
consummate monarch who justifies his ascent to the throne and his marriage to Gertrude with
confident eloquence and who competently handles Fortinbras's threat to Denmark. But as the
play progresses, Claudius's villainy becomes more apparent, revealing that he is little more than
an evil hypocrite.
Claudius has a number of foreign and domestic problems to contend with. One of the first
internal problems is to have the country accept him as king. This is handled by having the
Council support his marriage to Gertrude and his kingship, and Claudius refers to their support—
that they ''have freely gone / With this affair along" (I.ii.15-6)—in his opening remarks as he sits
in state.
The Danish kingdom is threatened from without by young Fortinbras, son of the old ruler of
Norway, who was killed by Hamlet's father. Old Fortinbras's defeat and death resulted in a
forfeiture of lands to Denmark; however, young Fortinbras wants the lands returned and thinks to
take advantage of the upheaval in Denmark, occasioned by King Hamlet's death, to mount an
attack. Claudius sends ambassadors to young Fortinbras's uncle (the brother of that country's
dead king and presumably the current king of Norway), asking him to restrain his nephew and
make him abide by the heraldic rules of the conflict between old Fortinbras and old Hamlet.
The king has noticed that Hamlet has been depressed since his father's funeral two months ago,
and advises him that it is against heaven, the dead, and nature itself to continue immoderate
grieving. Claudius names Hamlet as his immediate heir to the throne of Denmark and urges him
to remain in Denmark as the ''chiefest courtier'' (I.ii.117) rather than returning to school in
Wittenberg.
Meanwhile, the ghost appears to Hamlet, who subsequently vows revenge for the death of his
father. Hamlet however avoids acting on this promise.
The king sends for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, friends of Hamlet from his youth, to try to
learn what is troubling him. Claudius also listens to Polonius's claim that Hamlet is troubled by
lovesickness for Ophelia. He agrees to test this theory by observing Hamlet in conversation with
Ophelia. Though Polonius continues to be convinced of his own view, the king alertly dismisses
this view after their concealed observation of Hamlet. He says: "Love? his affections do not that
way tend" (III.i.162) and realizes "There's something in his soul / O'er which his melancholy sits
on brood" (III.i.164-5). Claudius plans to send Hamlet to England for a change of scene. He even
agrees to Polonius's suggested intermediate step of having Hamlet talk to the queen about his
changed demeanor.
In III.ii, the king witnesses his own crime in a play performed before the royal court. When one
of the actors pours poison in another actor's ear, the king rises enraged, calling for lights, and
leaves. Alone in his room, Claudius tries to pray for forgiveness for his misdeeds but
acknowledges to himself that he is not truly penitent because he still enjoys, ''those effects for
which I did the murther [murder]: / My crown, my own ambition, and my queen" (III.iii.54-55).
Fearing for his own safety, the king commissions Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to take Hamlet
to England as soon as possible. However, he does not tell Gertrude that he has given Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern sealed letters to the English king calling for Hamlet's execution in England.
Concern about public opinion regarding the quick burial of Polonius, the removal of Hamlet
from the Danish realm, Ophelia's madness, and Laertes's return from France, compound the
king's problems. However, the king is adept in handling Laertes, who initially suspects the king's
involvement in the death of Polonius. Claudius says very majestically that "divinity doth hedge a
king" (IV.v.124) and appears unafraid by the menacing manner of Laertes. He directs an angry,
amazed, and grieving Laertes to let Laertes's wisest followers judge whether the king was
involved directly or indirectly in Polonius's death. In a gesture of bravado, the king says he will
give up his kingdom, crown, life, and all to Laertes if the followers implicate him in Polonius's
death. He further explains to Laertes that no public inquiry was possible because the queen loves
Hamlet and also because the public regards Hamlet so well. When the king and Laertes discover
together that Hamlet is returning to Denmark, Claudius announces his plan to have Hamlet
killed, and Laertes expresses his desire to be a part of that plan. As the details are discussed,
Claudius persuades Laertes to agree to a plan less straightforward than Laertes's desire to "cut his
[Hamlet's] throat i' the' church" (IV.vii.126). In
the end, Claudius is tripped up by his own multiple plots against Hamlet; his queen dies by
drinking the poisoned wine, intended to be a back-up plan to kill Hamlet, and Claudius himself is
killed when Hamlet wounds him with the poisoned sword.

3.3.3 Gertrude

Gertrude, queen of Denmark, is the widow of the late King Hamlet and the mother of Prince
Hamlet, who is the title character of the play. Gertrude has recently married her brother-in-law.
Claudius, the new king, is the brother of the late king and thus Prince Hamlet's uncle.
Gertrude is central to the action of the play, despite the fact that she has relatively few lines.
Hamlet's disgust with his mother's marrying less than two months after his father's death and
marrying Claudius is one of the main subjects of his agonized reflections in the course of the
play. Not only does Hamlet consider Claudius inferior to his father in every respect, but in
Shakespeare's time, it was considered a form of incest for a widow to marry her brother-in-law.
Just how deeply Gertrude is involved in her second husband's plot to kill Old Hamlet is unclear;
by the final scene, it seems that the Queen was ignorant of the crime. Nevertheless, she marries
her brother-in-law only a few months after her husband's death. Clearly, while he is directed by
the Ghost to refrain from harming his mother, Hamlet views her (and women at large) with
contempt. Far more so than her consort, Gertrude has "redeeming" qualities; she appears to be
truly concerned by her son's depression and madness, and she displays a deep (if ill-placed) love
toward Claudius.

3.3.4 Ghost

Of the other major characters in Hamlet, the Ghost is important because his demand for revenge
sets the plot into motion. The apparition's ambiguous role in the drama reflects the general
confusion about spirits in Shakespeare's day. Throughout the tragedy, the Ghost is alternately
viewed as an illusion, a portent foreshadowing danger to Denmark, a spirit returning from the
grave because of a task left undone, a spirit from purgatory sent with divine permission, and a
devil who assumes the form of a dead person to lure mortals to doom. While Hamlet is chiefly
concerned with this last possibility, each of these perspectives are put to the test at some point in
the play.
Before the play begins, King Hamlet of Denmark has been found dead. His brother Claudius has
become king and has married the widowed queen, Gertrude. Prince Hamlet, grieving the loss of
his father and his mother's hasty and incestuous (by Elizabethan standards) remarriage, has
descended into a deep melancholy. Moreover, on two consecutive nights the ghost has appeared
in armor to palace guards on the battlements of the castle. The two guards have told no one about
the ghost except Hamlet's friend Horatio, who has agreed to stand guard with them to see if the
ghost appears again.
In I.i, the ghost appears to the two guards and Horatio. Horatio commands the ghost to speak, but
it does not.
It then reappears and seems about to speak to Horatio, but when a cock crows, signaling
daybreak, the ghost vanishes. Horatio resolves to tell Prince Hamlet about the sighting. Hamlet is
startled by Horatio's story and decides to watch for the ghost himself.
In I.iv, the ghost reappears in the presence of Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus and beckons
Hamlet to withdraw privately with it. When they are alone in I.v, the ghost tells Hamlet that it is
the spirit of Hamlet's father, murdered by Claudius. The ghost denounces Claudius for seducing
Gertrude and calls for Hamlet to avenge his death but not to harm Gertrude. The ghost then
vanishes. When Horatio and Marcellus appear, Hamlet repeatedly orders them to swear that they
will not reveal what they have seen. Hamlet vows vengeance, but later expresses doubt about the
ghost's identity, speculating that it could be a devil appearing in his father's form to tempt him to
sin. This reaction characterizes his attitude toward the ghost until the play scene (III.ii).
Hamlet's own uncertainty is mirrored in the critical debate about the nature of the ghost. Most
critics agree that Shakespeare intended audiences to accept the apparition as the ghost of
Hamlet's father, but some contend that it may be an illusion or a demon. Some critics argue that
the ghost is in fact a devil whose object is to lure Hamlet to his own demise by arousing his
passion for vengeance. Another interpretation is that the ghost is a hallucination seen by only a
few characters.
The ghost makes a final appearance in III.iv, shortly after Hamlet stabs Polonius, who has been
secretly listening to a confrontation between Hamlet and Gertrude. The ghost reminds Hamlet
that he is sworn to vengeance, and as they talk Hamlet expresses his shameful regret that he has
not yet acted against Claudius.
The ghost then draws Hamlet's attention to Gertrude's "amazement" and urges him to assist her
in her moral struggle. Gertrude claims to neither see nor hear the ghost, and this supports the
critical interpretation that the apparition Hamlet describes to her is a symptom of his madness.
Gertrude's apparent inability to see the ghost has led some critics to suggest that Shakespeare
wanted his audience, too, to interpret the ghost as a hallucination. Most critics, however, agree
with the view that prevailed during the first three centuries after the writing of Hamlet, that the
ghost was meant to be taken literally.

3.3.5 Horatio
Horatio is Hamlet's closest friend, a former fellow-student at Wittenberg. Horatio has come to
Elsinore from Wittenberg for the funeral of old King Hamlet. He is described by Marcellus as a
"scholar" (I.i.42). Horatio enjoys the absolute trust of those who know him: it is Horatio whom
the guards ask to witness the appearance of the ghost, it is Horatio with whom Hamlet trusts his
suspicions regarding Claudius, and even Claudius trusts Horatio to look after and further restrain
Hamlet after Hamlet attacks Laertes at Ophelia's funeral. In III.ii.54-87 Hamlet professes his
faith in Horatio and praises his qualities of judiciousness, patience, and equanimity.
Horatio is initially skeptical about the ghost. He believes it is a ''fantasy'' (I.i.23) of the watch.
After seeing and attempting to communicate with the ghost, Horatio speculates that its
appearance might be related to possible impending war with Norway. In speaking to the ghost,
Horatio implores it to tell him if he can do anything to help it, or to avoid trouble befalling his
country. Noting that the ghost looks like the dead King Hamlet and seemed about to speak when
it vanished with the dawn, Horatio resolves to tell Hamlet about the apparition.
Horatio worries that the ghost may lead Hamlet to suicide or madness, so he and Marcellus try
unsuccessfully to prevent Hamlet from meeting with the ghost. After Hamlet's private conference
with the ghost, Horatio tells Hamlet that he is speaking in "wild and whirling words" (I.v.132-
33), and even jokes grimly that some of what Hamlet claims the ghost has told him is common
knowledge: "There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave / To tell us this" (I.v.125).
Hamlet does not reveal the true substance of the ghost's claims—that he is the ghost of Hamlet's
father, murdered by Claudius—to Horatio until later in the play. Hamlet asks Horatio to watch
King Claudius during the staging of a play that will recreate a similar murder in order to judge,
by the king's responses, whether he seems guilty. He and Hamlet compare notes on the king's
behavior afterwards. Horatio is one of the few fixed points in the play: he remains from first to
last a loyal friend to Hamlet, trusted by all. He attempts suicide when Hamlet is dying, but
Hamlet asks him to remain alive to give a full account of the tragic events at the Danish court.
The least complicated "good" character in the play, Horatio is calm and stoical. He furnishes
Hamlet with an anchor, and his allegiance to the prince is so great that he offers to die alongside
his friend

3.3.6 Laertes

Laertes is Polonius's son and Ophelia's brother. He has come to Denmark for King Claudius's
coronation. In his first appearance in I.ii, he seeks permission to return to France.
When he appears again in I.iii, Laertes bids his sister Ophelia farewell and warns her about
Hamlet. He advises her that Hamlet can't choose a mate for himself alone, but, being the prince,
must think of the state. Thus, he cautions Ophelia to protect her virtue. Polonius then enters and
advises his son on how to conduct himself while in France. When his father is finished, Laertes
leaves for France.
Laertes returns to Denmark after Polonius's death, bursting into the room with a group of
followers and addressing Claudius, "O thou vile king" (IV.v.116), and vowing revenge for his
father's death. Claudius assures Laertes that he played no role in the death of Polonius and asks
him if he is prepared to know the truth, if in his desire for vengeance he will look to both "friend
and foe" (Iv.v.143). Ophelia then enters, and Laertes realizes that his sister has gone mad.
The king then tells Laertes that he will give up the kingdom, his crown and his life if Laertes and
his followers find that he was involved in Polonius's death. Later, Claudius explains to Laertes
that there was no formal inquiry into Polonius's death due to the queen's love for Hamlet and due
to the high regard the people have for the prince. During this scene (IV.vii) a messenger arrives
bearing a letter from Hamlet; Laertes and Claudius learn that the prince has returned to Denmark.
The king speaks of a plot to kill Hamlet, and Laertes expresses his wish to be a part of it. When
Claudius asks Laertes ''What would you undertake / To show yourself indeed your father's son /
More than in words?" Laertes replies that he would cut Hamlet's throat in the church (IV.vii.124-
26). After further discussion, a plan evolves in which Laertes will fight Hamlet with a poisoned
rapier; and, as an additional measure, Claudius will offer a cup of poisoned wine to Hamlet, if it
appears as though Hamlet might be winning the match.
After Ophelia's funeral, during which Laertes and Hamlet leap into Ophelia's grave, Laertes and
Hamlet prepare to duel. In the course of the duel, just before Laertes wounds Hamlet with the
poisoned rapier, Laertes says in an aside ''And yet it is almost against my conscience" (V.ii.296).
After a scuffle the two change rapiers. Laertes is then wounded with the poisoned rapier by
Hamlet. At the same moment, the queen, who has drunk from the cup of poisoned wine, falls and
warns Hamlet that the drink is poisoned. Laertes then tells Hamlet the truth about the king's
layered plots. He asks Hamlet for forgiveness and in turn forgives Hamlet for his own and his
father's death.
Unlike Hamlet, Laertes is rash and bold, crashing his way into Elsinore. Laertes is not, however,
an admirable character; he actively conspires with Claudius to determine the outcome of his duel
with Hamlet. On the other hand, it is at Laertes' behest that he and Hamlet forgive each other
before dying.

3.3.7 Ophelia

Ophelia is the sister of Laertes and the daughter of the king's councillor, Polonius. As I.iii opens,
Ophelia has apparently confided to her brother that Prince Hamlet has declared his love for her.
Laertes, who is saying goodbye to his sister as he leaves for France, warns Ophelia not to take
Hamlet's professions of love seriously.
Pointing out that the weddings of princes are usually arranged for reasons of state rather than for
love, he cautions her to guard her virginity. Ophelia promises to take his words to heart but also
urges her brother to follow his own advice and to avoid "the primrose path of dalliance" (I.iii.50).
Polonius enters and adds his warnings to those of Laertes. He orders Ophelia not to spend time
with Hamlet or even to talk to him. Ophelia promises to obey.
Ophelia next appears in II.i, when she tells Polonius that Hamlet has frightened her by entering
her room and behaving in a bizarre manner. Convinced that Ophelia's refusal to speak to Hamlet
has caused the prince to lose his mind, Polonius hurries to Claudius and Gertrude, who have also
noted Hamlet's odd behavior and are in the process of instructing Hamlet's old friends
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find out the reason for it.
Polonius and Claudius arrange to spy on a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia so that they can
determine if love for Ophelia is really the cause of his apparent madness. This meeting occurs in
III.i, and follows Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. Ophelia greets Hamlet and tries to
return his gifts to her. Hamlet denies having given her anything and subjects her to several
vehement and disjointed statements commenting on the falseness of women and questioning the
nature of marriage. Hamlet tells Ophelia that he "did love [her] once" (III.i.114). To her
response, ''Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so" (III.i.115), he answers: "You should not
have believ'd me" (III.i.116). Because Hamlet repeatedly charges Ophelia to "Get thee to a
nunnery" (III.i.120), with the possible double meaning of "brothel," this scene is often referred to
as the "nunnery scene." Although Polonius continues to believe that unrequited love has caused
Hamlet's madness, Claudius is not convinced, and resolves to send Hamlet to England.
During the play '"The Mousetrap," Hamlet sits next to Ophelia and responds to her attempts at
conversation with angry and sexually suggestive remarks. When Ophelia next appears, in IV.v,
Hamlet has killed her father and has himself been sent away to England, and Ophelia has gone
mad. She comes before the king and queen singing snatches of songs about death, love, and
sexual betrayal. She exits briefly, then returns after the arrival of Laertes and distributes various
herbs and wildflowers with symbolic meanings. Two scenes later, Gertrude interrupts a meeting
between Claudius and Laertes with the news that Ophelia has drowned, an apparent suicide.
Blaming Hamlet for the deaths of both his father and his sister, Laertes plots with Claudius to
obtain revenge by killing Hamlet.
At the beginning of Act V, two gravediggers discuss the appropriateness of Ophelia being given
"Christian burial" even though her death is believed to have been suicide. Hamlet, who has
escaped his uncle's plot to have him killed in England and has returned unexpectedly to
Denmark, enters with Horatio. Unaware of Ophelia's death, he engages a gravedigger and
Horatio in a discussion of mortality. As the funeral procession approaches, Hamlet and Horatio
hide. When Laertes shows his grief by leaping into the grave, Hamlet, realizing that the funeral is
Ophelia's, follows suit, claiming that his own love for Ophelia was far greater than Laertes's. The
two men grapple and have to be separated by the other mourners.
A completely innocent and naïve young woman, Ophelia is easily dominated by her father and
lapses just as easily into madness after his death. Ophelia is a pathetic character, abused by
circumstances and confused by Hamlet's alternating professions of love and disdain for her.
Ophelia's character represents the ideals of youth and innocence that are ultimately corrupted by
the Danish court in Hamlet. Her descent into madness begins as the result of the "nunnery scene"
(Act III, scene i), where she is manipulated by her father and cruelly abused by Hamlet. At the
outset, Ophelia trusts both Hamlet's nobility and Polonius's wisdom, but by the end of the
episode her emotions are damaged and she loses faith in both men. Ophelia's insanity and tragic
drowning thus illustrate how the Danish court has degenerated to the point that it poisons even
the purest form of beauty and innocence.
Ophelia is sometimes seen as an excessively weak character: first, because she obeys her father
so
unquestioningly, even to the point of helping him to spy on Hamlet; and second, because she
loses her mind. Many critics, however, have defended both Shakespeare's choice of making
Ophelia the character that she is, and Ophelia's behavior within the play.

3.4 Hamlet – Themes

3.4.1 Revenge

“If thou didst ever thy dear father love,

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” The Ghost, I.5.23-5
Plays based on acts of personal revenge became very popular in Shakespeare‘s day. This form
came to be known as the revenge tragedy, a genre which most often included some or all of the
following:
• the ghost of a murdered family member who demands that the hero take revenge
• the revenger must take the law into his own hands and commit an evil act to get revenge, which
inevitably leads to his own death
• scenes involving real and/or pretended madness
• a play within a play
• a graveyard scene
• much violence and many deaths, (thus its alternate name ―the tragedy of blood‖!)
Hamlet contains all of these elements; in fact, the play is structured around a double revenge.
Both Hamlet and Laertes seek to avenge a father‘s murder, but while Hamlet is the revenger in
the main plot, he is the target of Laertes‘s revenge is the subplot, and this dual role for Hamlet
makes it very difficult for us to tell the good guys from the bad guys. This is one way in which
Shakespeare moves well beyond the usual revenge tragedy form in this play. It is completely
dominated by his remarkably complex characterization of Hamlet, the brooding and brilliant
Prince of Denmark, through whom the traditional form is opened up to become a meditation on
the deep mystery at the heart of life. The recent film Titus from director Julie Taymor is a very
original, stylized treatment of Shakespeare‘s Titus Andronicus, a much more conventional work
in the revenge tragedy genre.

3.4.2 Sexual, Moral, and Physical Corruption

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Marcellus, I.4.90

Actions and images on the theme of corruption abound in Hamlet. The relationship between
Claudius and Gertrude that so disgusts and enrages Hamlet brings the taint of sexual infidelity
and incest to the very center of life in the Danish court. Add to that Claudius‘ additional sins of
fratricide (killing of one‘s brother) and regicide (killing of one‘s king), and the moral corruption
he embodies becomes truly monstrous. And his corrupting influence is contagious: Polonius,
Laertes, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern all seem to lose their moral sense while doing
his bidding, with fatal consequences for themselves. Hamlet compares the evil Claudius
represents to a ―canker in our nature‖ that must be removed.
Ideas about the physical decay and corruption of the body also constantly recur in much of the
imagery in Hamlet. These include poison and its effects; sickness and disease in nature and in the
body; maggots/worms breeding and feasting on flesh; and the famous meditation over Yorick‘s
skull in the graveyard scene.

3.4.3 Madness and Melancholy

“I am but mad north-north-west.‖ Hamlet, II.2.347

Elizabethans found the wild and unpredictable behaviour of the insane entertaining both onstage
and off. The infamous asylum St. Mary of Bethlehem (known as Bedlam for short) opened its
doors so people in search of a diverting spectacle could pay to view the inmates. Many plays
written at this time feature characters whose madness makes it possible for them to say and do
outlandish things not normally permitted in polite society.
Hamlet‘s ―antic disposition‖ -- his make-believe madness -- is a pose he hides behind while he
contemplates his revenge. But his actual state of mind seems terribly unstable at several points
throughout the play and it is difficult to know for certain whether or not he ever actually slips
over the edge into genuine madness. In a production the actor and director working together
would have to make a decision about the extent of Hamlet‘s madness. Hamlet does display the
classic symptoms of another kind of mental disorder: melancholy, a pessimistic and cynical
mindset, a tendency to ruthless self-criticism, depressed mood and persistent thoughts of suicide.
Ophelia‘s madness in Act IV, scene 5 is indisputable. Having been given more than she can cope
with when her father is murdered by the man she loves, she really does lose touch with reality.
Her mad ravings suggest the deeper preoccupations that have claimed her mind: the death of a
loved one and the utter thwarting of her longing to have her love for Hamlet returned. While
Hamlet merely talks about taking his own life, Ophelia actually does allow her own to slip away
while in the grip of the madness to which his actions have driven her.

3.4.4 Random Fortune or Divine Master Plan?

“There is a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will --” Hamlet, V.2.10-11
Overwhelmed by his own grief and the apparent triumph of good over evil in this world, Hamlet,
for much of the play, feels like a victim of a random, indifferent universe ruled by the whims of
fortune. All human actions seem meaningless in a world governed by the perpetual, externally
imposed cycle of successes and failures symbolized by the image of the goddess Fortune‘s
turning wheel in II.2. But Hamlet undergoes a spiritual journey during the course of the play; in
Act V he confides in Horatio his belief in the existence of a divine order underlying events in the
world, even ―the fall of a sparrow‖ (V.2.215).
He can accept the necessity of killing Claudius, finally, when he can believe he is acting as the
instrument of a divine justice at work in the world, not in senseless and brutal retaliation.
Whether Shakespeare himself shared this essentially Christian vision of human destiny is the
matter of on-going critical debate.

3.5 About the Play

Hamlet was written sometime between 1599 and 1601 and is often considered the greatest
achievement of the world‘s greatest playwright. It has been performed and translated more than
any other play in the world. It has had more written about it – and has inspired more parodies and
spin-offs -- than any other literary work. Its famous ―To be or not to be‖ is the most quoted
phrase in the English language. Hamlet has inspired 26 ballets, six operas and dozens of musical
works. There have been more than 45 movie versions, including those by Laurence Olivier, Mel
Gibson and Kenneth Branagh.
Hamlet is Shakespeare‘s longest play. Uncut, it would take between four and a half and five
hours to perform. Hamlet himself has 1,530 lines -- more than any other Shakespearean
character.
Three different texts of Hamlet were published in Shakespeare‘s time. The Revenge of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark was entered in the Stationer‘s Register in 1603 and is now known as the First
Quarto. It is considered to have been a pirated edition, assembled from the memories of actors,
and is full of inaccuracies. A second Quarto appeared in 1604. Believed to have been printed
from Shakespeare‘s own manuscript, it was inscribed: ―newly imprinted and enlarged to almost
as much gaine as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie.‖ This version is the source of
most modern editions. A revised, cut, version of the Second Quarto appeared in the First Folio of
1623. This version is believed to have been revised from a prompt book or actor‘s copy of the
script, since the lines that have been cut are literary rather than dramatic.

3.6 Questions

1. Discuss different critical approaches to Hamlet?

2. What is the significance of the speech which Hamlet requests from the actor, taken from
the story of the Trojan War?
3. What is the significance of the play‘s title, ―The Mousetrap‖?
4. Discuss Hamlet as a tragedy of character?
5. Analyze critically T S Eliot‘s approach to Hamlet?

3.7 Suggested Readings

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, edited by Edward Hubler.
New York: Signet Classic, 1963.
Barnet, Sylvan. ‗‗Shakespeare: Prefatory Remarks,‘‘ in William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of
Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark, edited by Edward Hubler. New York: Signet Classic, 1963 (viixx).

Craig, Hardin. ‗‗Hamlet as a Man of Action,‘‘ in The Huntington Library Quarterly XXVII, No.
3 (May 1964): 229-37. Examines the nature of Hamlet‘s procrastination, focusing on the
protagonist as he appeared in the literary sources of Hamlet, and on major critical interpretations
of his character.

Dessen, Alan C. "Hamlet‘s Poisoned Sword: A Study in Dramatic Imagery,‘‘ in Shakespeare

Studies V (1969): 53-69. Discusses the symbolic role of Hamlet‘s sword in the play.

Chapter- 4

King Lear

Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction to King Lear
4.2 Act Wise Summary of King Lear
4.2.1 Act I
4.2.2 Act II
4.2.3 Act III
4.2.4 Act IV
4.2.5 Act V
4.3 Historical Background of King Lear
4.4 Elements of Tragedy in King Lear
4.5 King Lear: Principal Topics
4.5.1 Double Plot
 4.5.2 Language and Imagery
4.5.3 Love
4.5.4 Madness
4.6 King Lear: Character Analysis
4.6.1 Albany
4.6.2 Cordelia
4.6.3 Edgar
4.6.4 Edmund
4.6.5 Gloucestar
4.6.6 Goneril
4.6.7 King Lear
4.7 About the Play
4.8 Questions
4.9 Suggested Readings

4.0 Objectives

The objective of this chapter is to familiarize the students with one of the most famous
plays of Shakespeare i.e. King Lear. This chapter aims to provide Act Wise Summary in brief so
that you could approach The Tragedy of King Lear critically. Some major themes and characters
are also discussed analytically to have a clear understanding

4.1 Introduction to King Lear

King Lear is widely regarded as Shakespeare's crowning artistic achievement. The scenes in
which a mad Lear rages naked on a stormy heath against his deceitful daughters and nature itself
are considered by many scholars to be the finest example of tragic lyricism in the English
language. Shakespeare took his main plot line of an aged monarch abused by his children from a
folk tale that appeared first in written form in the 12th century and was based on spoken stories
that originated much further into the Middle Ages. In several written versions of "Lear," the king
does not go mad, his "good" daughter does not die, and the tale has a happy ending.
This is not the case with Shakespeare's Lear, a tragedy of such consuming force that audiences
and readers are left to wonder whether there is any meaning to the physical and moral carnage
with which King Lear concludes. Like the noble Kent, seeing a mad, pathetic Lear with the
murdered Cordelia in his arms, the profound brutality of the tale compels us to wonder, "Is this
the promised end?" (V.iii.264). That very question stands at the divide between traditional critics
of King Lear who find a heroic pattern in the story and modern readers who see no redeeming or
purgative dimension to the play at all, the message being the bare futility of the human condition
with Lear as Everyman.

4.2 Act-Wise Summary

4.2.1 Act I

The Earls Kent and Gloucester discuss the division of King Lear's kingdom. Lear has divided the
kingdom into three parts, allotting the largest to Cordelia, his most favored of the three
daughters. Lear first addresses his two eldest daughters, asking them to express their love for him
before they and their husbands will receive the land he has allotted for them. It is a selfish
request and Goneril, the eldest, responds readily. Regan answers his request next, attempting to
outdo her sister, and thus says that she has given all of her love to Lear. Cordelia finds her sisters
extremely boorish in their exaggerated and completely insincere flattery and refuses to
participate. Upon her turn, she tells Lear that she loves him as her duty as a daughter requires but
no more, as she will save some of her love for her soon to be husband. Lear becomes extremely
angry but Cordelia still refuses to stoop to the level of her sisters. As a result, Lear strips
Cordelia of her inheritance and her title. Kent steps in to support Cordelia's behavior but Lear
will hear none of it. Insulted by Kent's opposition, Lear banishes him from the kingdom. The
suitors then learn of Cordelia's position. Burgundy cannot accept her as a mate without the
promised entitlements but France finds her more endearing in her sincerity and makes her his
wife, Queen of France. Goneril and Regan plot to take all of Lear's power out of his hands
quickly.

Edmund, Gloucester's bastard son, vows to steal the land and legitimacy of his half brother Edgar
by manipulating both father and brother against each other. His father sees him hiding a letter he
is carrying and forces him to show it. It is a fabricated letter from Edgar asking for Edmund's
help in overturning their father. Gloucester is enraged but Edmund tells him to not jump to
conclusions until he can arrange a meeting between himself and Edgar. Edmund then finds Edgar
and alerts him to Gloucester's anger, suggesting he flee to Edmund's house and stay armed.

Lear resides with Goneril, who plans to drive him out of her residence and to her sister's by
pretending that his knights and servants are creating havoc. She orders her servants to treat Lear
coldly. Kent returns disguised and becomes Lear's servant, Caius. Lear is outraged at Goneril's
charges and the coldness against him and his train. He curses Goneril and her unborn children
before leaving for Regan's home. Albany reproaches Goneril for her treatment of Lear. Goneril
sends her servant, Oswald, to warn her sister.

4.2.2 Act II

Edmund hears from a courier that there are rumors of conflict between Albany and Cornwall. He
uses this idea when he encounters Edgar, informing him that he has offended both parties and is
in danger. Upon hearing Gloucester, Edmund has Edgar draw his sword and then run off.
Edmund wounds himself and pretends it was received in his duel with Edgar because Edgar had
wished to kill Gloucester. Gloucester sends men out to capture Edgar and promises Edmund the
land to which he has never been privileged. Regan and Cornwall, who have traveled to
Gloucester's castle to escape Lear's arrival, hear of Edgar's betrayal and place their trust with
Edmund.
Oswald and Kent meet at Gloucester's castle, both delivering messages. Kent insults him for his
previous treatment of Lear and begins to strike him. The noise brings Cornwall, Regan,
Gloucester, and Edmund. Cornwall and Regan place Kent in the stocks as punishment. Lear
arrives to find him there but cannot believe his own daughter and son-in-law were responsible.
His Fool continuously ridicules his choices: chastising Cordelia, trusting his other daughters, and
giving up his authority. Lear sends Gloucester for Regan and Cornwall but they refuse to see
Lear until he threatens to wake them himself. They feign happiness in seeing him. Lear entreats
Regan to feel sympathy for him because of Goneril's treatment of him but Regan instead says he
should return to her for the intended month and apologize.

As Goneril arrives, he finally asks who put Kent in the stocks. Cornwall admits to it. Goneril and
Regan unite to oppose Lear, claiming that he does not need one hundred knights and servants.
When Regan proclaims that he could only have twenty-five with her, he wishes to return to
Goneril whose previous promise of fifty must mean she loves him more. The two sisters then
lower the size of a train they will allow to ten, then five, and then none. Lear is outraged and
wishes to be with neither daughter, escaping out into the woods. Gloucester pleads with them to
allow Lear back inside as a storm is approaching, but they refuse.

4.2.3 Act III

Kent encounters one of Lear's train and sends him to Dover with his purse and a ring to show
Cordelia if he sees her. He is to fill her and the others in as to Lear's condition and treatment.
Lear is quickly becoming one with the storm as he approaches madness, though he reasons that
the heavens owe him less than his daughters did. He rages on and on about betrayal and filial
ingratitude. Lear admits that he has sinned but recognizes too that he was even more sinned
against. Kent tries to get Lear inside a hovel for shelter. The Fool prophecies that when men are
honest and sincere, England will fall apart. Lear sends the Fool into the hovel first but he comes
out screaming when he meets Edgar disguised as the beggar, poor Tom of Bedlam. Tom's babble
illustrates his demonic madness and Lear believes that he must have suffered from ungrateful
daughters. Tom tells his history as a serving man given over to lust, bringing Lear to question the
makeup of man. Lear himself approaches unaccommodated, essential man. He attempts to strip
off his clothes but the Fool stops him.

Gloucester confides in Edmund that he has received a letter with news of a movement to avenge
the King. He tells him to remain silent on the issue. Gloucester then goes to find Lear, unable to
follow the orders of Regan and Goneril, and hopes to take Lear to shelter. Lear would rather stay
to talk with Tom, the "philosopher". Kent suggests that Tom accompany Lear to shelter and they
move to it. The Fool, Lear, and Tom muse over the definition of a madman. Lear decides to hold
a mock trial for Regan and Goneril and indict them for their offenses, placing the Fool and Tom
as the judges. Lear has lost his wits. Gloucester returns with news of Regan and Goneril's plot
against Lear's life. He has secured transportation for him and sends him off to Dover. Edgar
remains.
Edmund eagerly uses Gloucester's confidence to forward his means by divulging it to Cornwall.
He pretends to be sad that he is betraying his father. Cornwall makes him the new Earl of
Gloucester, accepts him as a son, and calls for a search for Gloucester. He then sends Goneril
and Edmund to Albany so that Edmund will not be present for his father's punishment. Regan
and Goneril call for Gloucester to be hanged or blinded. Gloucester is brought to Regan and
Cornwall, who tie him up. Gloucester is shocked by the rudeness of his guests. Once they tell
him they have his letter, he admits that he has sent Lear to Dover because of the horrible cruelty
of his daughters. Cornwall blinds one of Gloucester's eyes. A servant interjects angrily,
wounding Cornwall, and Regan slays him. Cornwall then blinds the other eye as well and Regan
notifies Gloucester that Edmund was the one who informed against him. Gloucester realizes that
he has wronged Edgar. He is turned out into the storm, aided by a few loyal servants.

4.2.4 Act IV

Gloucester is led by an old man though he wishes to be left alone. He prays to be able to see his
son Edgar again. When they come upon poor Tom, Gloucester chooses to allow Tom to lead him
because the time had come where madmen were leading the blind. Gloucester asks to be taken to
a high cliff in Dover where he can commit suicide. He gives Tom his purse in an effort to better
balance the economic inequality of the world. When they reach Dover, Edgar tricks his father
into thinking his has climbed the steep hill. Thus when he tries to fall of the cliff, he merely falls
flat. Before he falls, he blesses Edgar. Edgar runs back to him, pretending to be another stranger,
and tells him that it was a miracle that he fell and did not die. He explains that a spirit left him at
the summit, insinuating that poor Tom was a spirit and Gloucester believes him, though
depressed that he is not even allowed death.

Goneril and Edmund are greeted by Oswald who alerts them to Albany's reverse in attitude. He
is pleased by the invasion of France and displeased by Edmund. Goneril sends Edmund back to
Cornwall, with a vow to unite as mates and rulers. She finds her husband enraged against her for
the treatment he has heard she and Regan bore against Lear. He would tear her apart if she were
not a woman. He then learns that Gloucester has been blinded and that Cornwall died from a
wound caused by the servant defending him. Goneril feels torn about Cornwall's death. Albany
learns that Edmund informed against Gloucester and he promises to avenge Gloucester's
blindness. Regan is then greeted by Oswald. She remarks that they should have killed Gloucester
as his situation arouses too much sympathy. Edmund is supposed to be looking for him. She is
worried that Edmund and her sister are planning to become intimate and she warns Oswald to
remind Edmund of the promises he has made to her.

Kent meets the gentleman he sent ahead to Dover and learns that the King of France has had to
return, though Cordelia and others remain. He asks how Cordelia received his message and is
told that she was a mixture of smiles and tears. Lear has not yet been reconciled to Cordelia
because he is too ashamed to face her. She worries that he has gone completely mad but the
doctor assures her that rest should help. Lear stumbles upon Gloucester and Edgar, rambling
about the manipulation of his daughters and the evil nature of women. He recognizes
Gloucester's voice and mentions, ignorant of Edmund's betrayal, how his adulterous ways have
been more fortunate than Lear's legitimate ones. Lear tells him that blindness should in fact help
him to see and that pretense is the largest flaw of most in authority. Cordelia's gentlemen find
Lear and try to bring him to her but he thinks he is being captured and runs away.

Oswald tracks Gloucester down and hopes to kill him. Edgar intercedes. They fight and Oswald
falls. He tells Edgar to give the letter he was carrying to Edmund. Edgar is infuriated to find that
the letter is from Goneril and is in reference to her wish to kill Albany and marry Edmund. Lear
has been found and given a sleeping drug by Cordelia's doctor. Cordelia thanks Kent for all of
his support and goodwill toward the King. She bemoans the the horrific treatment her sisters
have shown him. Lear is brought into them, barely awake and does not recognize them. Finally
he understands that he is with Cordelia but is still very confused.

4.2.5 Act V

Regan questions Edmund as to his relationship with Goneril. He promises that he is not
intimately involved with her. Goneril notes that she would rather lose to France than to her sister
for Edmund's hand. Goneril and Albany discuss the importance of being united with Regan to
face France. Edgar, still disguised, finds Albany and passes on the letter from Goneril. Edgar
tells him to call by herald if he is needed again. Edmund soliloquizes on the question of which
sister to choose and decides to takes Goneril if she manages to kill Albany. He is most concerned
with ruling a reunited Britain.

The battle begins. Cordelia and Lear lead one army. Edgar leaves Gloucester safely while he
fights on their side. Edgar returns after the quick off stage war with the news that Lear and
Cordelia have been taken prisoner. Edmund is in charge of them and has them sent away to
prison. Cordelia tries to be strong and Lear hopes the time will be one where they can catch up
and talk about life. Edmund hands a death note to a captain of his to carry out. Albany praises
Edmund for his acts of battle but reminds him he is a subordinate. Edmund lies, saying that
Cordelia and Lear are merely being retained. Regan declares that as her new partner Edmund is
an equal, which incites Goneril's jealousy. Albany responds with a claim of treason and
challenges Edmund to a duel. Ill, Regan is escorted out. The herald sounds the trumpet three
times and a disguised Edgar appears to fight Edmund. Edmund falls but Albany spares him until
he can incriminate him. Albany quiets Goneril with the her letter though she maintains she is
above any law as she is the ruler of it. She flees his anger. Edmund admits his guilt and Edgar
reveals himself. In response to Albany's questioning, Edgar explains how he had been disguised
as a beggar and that he has led and cared for Gloucester until his death. He died, overwhelmed
by happiness and sadness, shortly after Edgar revealed his identity to him. Edgar was then met
by Kent who also told of his disguise, Lear's state, and his own coming death.

A gentleman brings in the knife Goneril used to kill herself after admitting that she poisoned
Regan. The bodies are called for. Kent comes hoping to bid Lear goodbye which reminds Albany
to ask about Lear and Cordelia's condition. Edmund informs them that he and Goneril had
ordered Cordelia hanged so that it would look like a suicide. A servant tries to stop it but Lear
enters with Cordelia's body. He had killed the man who hanged her but she does not live. Lear is
inconsolable. Kent tries to say goodbye to him but Lear barely recognizes him and likely does
not understand that he has been undercover as his servant Caius all along. They are told Edmund
is dead. Albany gives Lear back absolute rule and Kent and Edgar their rights. Still swooning for
Cordelia, Lear dies. Albany then gives Kent and Edgar shared rule but Kent notes he will soon
follow Lear, thus leaving Edgar as the next King.

4.3 King Lear: Historical Background

Shakespeare‘s work can be understood more clearly if we follow its development as a reflection
of the
rapidly-changing world of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in which he lived. After
the colourful reign of Henry VIII, which ushered in the Protestant Reformation, England was
never the same. John Calvin and Michelangelo both died the year Shakespeare was born, placing
his life and work at the peak of the Reformation and the Renaissance in Europe. When Queen
Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, the time was right to bring in ―the golden age‖ of English
history. The arts flourished during the Elizabethan era.
Some of Shakespeare‘s contemporary dramatists were such notables as Christopher Marlowe and
Ben
Jonson. King James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth to the throne after her death in 1603
uniting the kingdoms of England and Scotland. The monarch‘s new title was King James I.
Fortunately for Shakespeare, the new king was a patron of the arts and agreed to sponsor the
King‘s Men, Shakespeare‘s theatrical group. According to the Stationers’ Register recorded on
November 26, 1607, King Lear was performed for King James I at Whitehall on St. Stephen‘s
night as a Christmas celebration on December 26, 1606. The legend of King Lear, well-known
in Shakespeare‘s day, was about a mythical British king dating back to the obscurity of ancient
times. It was first recorded in 1135 by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Britonum.
In 1574 it appeared in A Mirror for Magistrates and later in Holinshed‘s Chronicles in 1577. The
subplot, which concerned Gloucester and his sons, was taken from Philip Sidney‘s Arcadia. An
older version of the play called The True Chronicle History of King Leir first appeared on the
stage in 1590. Comments on public response to the play in Shakespeare‘s day would necessarily
be based on conjecture but in 1681, an adaptation of the original play was published by Nahum
Tate, a dramatist of the Restoration period. Tate‘s sentimental adaptation gives the play a happy
ending in which Lear and Gloucester are united with their children. Virtue is rewarded and
justice reigns in Tate‘s version. It was not until 1838 that Macready reinstated Shakespeare‘s
original version on the stage.

4.4 Elements of Tragedy in King Lear

True to Shakespearean tradition, King Lear borrows its tragic elements from several types of
tragedies that were popular during the Elizabethan Renaissance. Even though King Lear is
classified as a chronicle play (a type of drama which draws its English historical materials from
the sixteenth-century chronicles—such as Holinshed‘s), Shakespeare uses elements of Senecan
tragedy sometimes called Classical tragedy, and the morality play.
As a tragedy, King Lear portrays a protagonist whose fortunes are conditioned by his hamartia.
As defined by Aristotle, the protagonist of a tragedy should be a person ―who is not eminently
good or just, yet whose fortune is brought about by some error or frailty.‖ This error is not
necessarily a flaw in character; hamartia can be an unwitting misstep in definite action or the
failure to perform a definite action. Lear‘s hamartia is the capricious division of his powers and
kingdom before his death—more particularly, the disavowal of Cordelia because she will speak
―nothing.‖ To enhance this chronicle with a tragedy of character, Shakespeare incorporates a few
Senecan elements: (1) the use of stock characters—a faithful male servant (Kent); (2) the
employment of sensational themes drawn from Greek mythology, involving much use of ―blood
and lust;‖ and (3) stichomythia—dialogue that is conducted by two characters speaking in
alternate lines (though strict regularity is not maintained). To balance the stock characters,
Shakespeare also used characters that were consistently good or evil in their intent, echoing the
pattern of a morality play. Edmund, Regan, and Goneril embody avarice, envy, anger, lust, and
pride; while Edgar and Cordelia embody faithfulness and unconditional love.
Other elements which became unique to Elizabethan tragedy make King Lear a psychologically
horrific viewing: most horrors are executed off stage to be reported by a messenger, yet
Shakespeare keeps the blinding of Gloucester in full view of the audience, pandering to popular
tastes. In all, the Senecan influence on English tragedy is seen most in drama as a field for the
study of human emotion.

4.5 King Lear: Principal Topics

4.5.1 Double Plot

Commentary on the double plot or subplot in King Lear frequently combines discussion of its
function in the play with critiques of Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund. Historically, critics have
pointed out the many parallels between the two plots, as well as the verbal echoes and cross-
references from one story to the other. In the judgment of most modern critics, the subplot Is
much more than a repetition of the principal story. They see it as intensifying or heightening the
central themes of the play, including the ingratitude of children, disorder in the family, human
fallibility, the concept of individual identity, and the notion of spiritual development and rebirth.
Two scenes in the secondary plot have received the most attention: the blinding of Gloucester
and his attempt to kill himself. Earlier critics found the blinding scene so vicious that they felt it
ought to have taken place offstage. Modern critics, however, generally insist that audiences must
experience its full horror to appreciate its implications: the evil that Lear and Gloucester struggle
against is nothing short of monstrous.
Commentators agree that Gloucester's physical blindness corresponds to Lear's moral blindness.
The scene in which Edgar first deludes his sightless father into believing that they are not
standing in a flat field but rather on the verge of a steep cliff, and then that he has miraculously
survived a plunge from that cliff onto the sands below, has evoked a broad range of responses
from critics. Some have interpreted it as the last step in Gloucester's progress toward spiritual
renewal. Several others, acknowledging that it is a rather cheap theatrical device on Edgar's part,
believe it has an allegorical significance, perhaps imitating Lear's own fall from grace into the
abyss of human suffering. Many commentators have noted that the event does produce a miracle,
bringing Gloucester to the realization that he must accept his suffering with a stoical or Christian
patience.
There is general agreement that Gloucester is portrayed as slower-witted than Lear. Some critics
argue that in early scenes he is evidently a very foolish, gullible man. Others see evidence of
pride or arrogance in his make-up and emphasize his sensuality. There is a variety of opinion
about Edgar's role in the play. For some commentators, he is a means of bringing about certain
events and commenting on others—a poetic representation rather than a psychologically realistic
figure. He has also been described as an agent of justice or retribution. Many find his chorus-like
comments flat and insipid, and they condemn his moralistic speech to the dying Edmund.
Gloucester's younger son is frequently associated with malevolent Nature. Edmund's vivacity
and brashness in the first half of the play are frequently remarked on, and commentators point
out that audiences often find him attractive, even sympathetic. As with many other aspects of the
subplot, Edmund's intrigues with Goneril and Regan are not presented in detail; readers and
audiences alike are left with only a few clues or hints on which to base any conclusions.

4.5.2 Language and Imagery

King Lear is notable for the relative plainness or simplicity of its language. Compared with other
Shakespearean tragedies, the number of extended poetic speeches is meager, and there is a
noticeable absence of ornate passages. Some critics believe that this naturalistic or unmannered
style emphasizes the limitations of language to express the depths of human feelings. Words are
inadequate in the face of the cruelty and suffering that Lear must endure. And the final image of
the murdered Cordelia is truly an unspeakable horror. Many commentators have called attention
to several words that appear repeatedly in the play. Among such key-words are "nothing," "fool,"
and "nature." Each of these has a wide range of meaning or significance. For example, Cordelia's
use of the word "nothing" is different from Edgar's. Several critics have pointed out that the word
"fool" is associated, on one occasion or another, with every virtuous character in King Lear,
Others have suggested that a principal issue in the play is the contrast—and close relation—
between folly and wisdom.
In the judgment of most commentators, "nature" is central to the design of Lear. Many critics see
the world of the play as comprising several levels of nature. Others focus on the meaning of
"natural" and "unnatural" in the Lear world, or evaluate the connection between nature and the
theme of order and disorder.
Appraisals of imagery patterns in King Lear—the form and meaning of particular images or
groups of images within the context in which they appear—often highlight recurring images
from nature. These images frequently occur in ferocious or violent forms. Allusions to animals
emphasize their untamed, savage, or predatory aspects. Such natural elements as the storm
appear in their most extreme or turbulent state. For many critics, these associations emphasize
the cruelties and unnaturalness of the Lear world. Another important set of images in the play
relates to sight or vision. These images help underscore the issue of moral and physical blindness
in Lear and Gloucester. Yet another set of contrasts is provided by images of clothing and
nakedness, which many critics see as a means of highlighting the question of essence or identity.

4.5.3 Love

There is almost a complete absence of passionate or romantic love in King Lear. The King of
France speaks movingly of this kind of love when he becomes betrothed to Cordelia, but he
disappears from the play at the end of the first scene. Edmund's liaisons with Goneril and Regan
combine political scheming with eroticism, and they are not central to the dramatic action. Yet
many critics assert that love is the principal focus of King Lear. The play's emphasis on family
relations and love between members of a family has been pointed out by many commentators.
Several have noted the importance of the Elizabethan concept of the parallels between the family
and the state. This is especially relevant with respect to the issue of the bonds that hold together
each of these institutions.
The value of love—its ability to console the suffering, to affirm life, to redeem evil and restore
order to nature—is a chief issue in commentary on King Lear. The play may be seen as
presenting compassion for others as the highest form of love and, indeed, as the chief virtue
humanity is capable of attaining. Some have argued that in its fullest manifestation, human love
becomes a reflection of divine love, as demonstrated by Cordelia. Her love may be interpreted as
infinitely patient, forgiving, and the ultimate source of Lear's spiritual redemption. For some
commentators, her love symbolizes God's limitless and redeeming love for erring humanity.
Lear's own conception of love is also a central issue. His use of the love test in the first scene of
the play has been variously interpreted as revealing a shallow notion of love or as demonstrating
a pathetic need for reassurance. His reaction to Cordelia's refusal to give him a public assurance
of her love may be motivated by humiliation, egoism, or genuine dismay by her response.
Several critics have seen in Lear's reaction an unnatural possessiveness, an unfatherly wish to
have all of a married daughter's love, perhaps even incestuous desire.

4.5.4 Madness

Commentary on the topic of madness in King Lear frequently begins by pointing out that in none
of the earlier versions of the story is there a suggestion that the king loses his sanity. Shakespeare
introduced this element. His first audiences would undoubtedly include people familiar with the
earlier dramatization of the Lear story or with the chronicle histories that covered the reign of
this legendary king. This background would not have prepared them for the spectacle of a lunatic
monarch onstage. Furthermore, madness was generally considered comical, and the image of a
man—even a king—"fantastically dressed with wild flowers," as the Folio stage direction
indicates, might well have evoked laughter rather than pity. Critics propose that the many
references to madness by Kent and Lear himself in the first two acts of the play represent careful
preparation for the events of Acts III and IV.
A central issue relating to Lear's madness is the question of when it begins. This question has
drawn responses from physicians and psychologists as well as literary critics. Some earlier
commentators suggested that Lear shows evidence of insanity in the first scene of the play. They
contended that giving up his royal title, challenging his daughters to a love test, and banishing
Kent and Cordelia are symptomatic of senile dementia.
Most modern critics, however, take a different view of Lear in this scene, fixing the
responsibility for his behavior on pride, arrogance, vanity, misjudgment, or some other
characteristic. The majority see his madness as progressive: his moments of irrationality in the
first two acts represent a prelude to his madness in the scenes on the heath. Many commentators
identify Lear's abrupt encounter with Edgar as Poor Tom as the moment at which he loses his
hold on sanity. There is a minority, however, who argue that his madness is not fully evident
until he appears in Act IV, scene vi.
What drives Lear mad, and what is the dramatic function of his madness? Critics have suggested
several causes including his daughters' ingratitude, his frustration in confronting the lack of
justice in the world, and guilt when he realizes the consequences of his actions. A number of
commentators have called attention to the correspondence between the storm on the heath and
the storm in Lear's mind. Many have also remarked on the theme of "reason in madness,"
verbalized by Edgar in Act IV, scene vi. And while most critics agree that the reconciliation with
Cordelia shows Lear restored to sanity, a few have suggested that he is driven mad once again by
Cordelia's murder.

4.6 Important characters King Lear

4.6.1 Albany

The duke of Albany is Goneril's husband. He is a nobleman with lands of his own, but he inherits
half of Lear's kingdom through Goneril. Because Lear's kingdom is divided, tension exists
between Albany and Cornwall, Regan's husband. It is rumored that Cornwall and Albany might
war against each other. Instead, they end up combining their efforts against the French
contingent which has landed at Dover and is trying to redeem Lear and reinstall him as king at
the direction of Cordelia. When Lear goes to live with Goneril and Albany, Albany finds out
after the event that Goneril has cast her father out. He sympathizes with Lear, but since Lear is
Goneril's father, he does not actively intervene. Later, after Goneril and Regan have forced Lear
out into the storm, Albany criticizes Goneril's treatment of her father. He says to her, ''You are
not worth the dust which the rude wind / Blows in your face" (IV.ii.30-31). He calls Goneril and
Regan "Tigers, not daughters" (IV.ii.40) and accuses them of making Lear, "a gracious aged
man" (IV.ii.41), mad. Goneril, in turn, calls Albany a "Milk-liver'd man! / That bear'st a cheek
for blows" (IV.ii.50-51).
Albany bears it patiently when Goneril flirts with Edmund in front of him. He has received
letters from Edgar, taken from the dead Oswald, which reveal that Goneril and Edmund are
hatching a plot on his life. Although Albany does not know Edgar's true identity, he agrees to
summon him after the battle that Edgar might prove Edmund is a traitor. Albany is depicted as a
good-hearted optimist. When he receives word that Cornwall has died of the wound inflicted by
his own servant, Albany declares,
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! (IV.ii.78-80)
But Albany's optimism is not born out at the end of the play. The wicked are punished, but so are
the good. Albany announces his intention to restore Lear's absolute power, but Lear dies before
that noble gesture can be realized.

4.6.2 Cordelia

Cordelia is Lear's youngest daughter. When her turn comes to outdo her sisters in their protests
of great love for Lear, she is strangely silent. Lear reacts with passion and withholds her
inheritance, casting her fortune to fate since he will have nothing more to do with her. We might
question why Cordelia does not say what Lear wants to hear when to do so would take little
effort on her part. She demonstrates her deep love for her father later in the play. Why, then, does
she not demonstrate this love at the beginning and save her father the torment that follows? The
answer to this question may be that Lear has chosen an awkward and arguably inappropriate
moment to ask his only unwed daughter to declare him the sole object of her love. Cordelia has
two potential suitors, Burgundy and France, waiting in the wings. Since the transfer of a
daughter's dependence from father to husband was a critical moment in her life, it would not do
for Cordelia to reveal a willingness to cater to a father's every demand, when those demands
might conflict with those of the future husband. Goneril and Regan do not have this particular
concern since they are already married. Another explanation might be that Cordelia sees the
gross flattery of her sisters as hollow and degrading, true expressions of love best delivered in a
private not a public forum. Additionally, perhaps Cordelia feels that her love for her father is an
obvious fact of their close relationship (which her sisters discuss later: "He always
loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly"
[I.i.290-92]), a fact which need not be stated verbally and put up for comparison with her sisters'
relationship with their father.
Despite Lear's harsh treatment of her, Cordelia remains a loyal and loving daughter. She
convinces her husband the king of France, who has graciously embraced her penniless and
untitled condition, to mount an effort to save Lear from the cruelties of Goneril and Regan.
When that effort fails and Cordelia and Lear are captured, Cordelia suffers for the love she has
extended to her father. Yet she remains somewhat standoffish, never too openly or too profusely
professing that love in words. In this reserve, she remains consistent with the reserve she has
demonstrated at the beginning of the play. When Lear expresses his glee at the prospect of their
life in prison together, Cordelia again is silent. We might imagine that her loyalties are again
divided between husband and father, but Cordelia, perhaps, does not relish the thought of
imprisonment as much as Lear. Cordelia says to her father, "For thee, oppressed king, I am cast
down; / Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown" (V.iii.5-6). She is more concerned for
her father than for herself, and, as always, she has expressed her love in actions rather than
words.
Moreover, it has been suggested that Cordelia is meant to be seen, partly, as a Christ figure.
When a
messenger informs her that the English troops have assembled to oppose her own, she says, "O
dear father, / It is thy business that I go about" (IV.iv.23-24). She is on a spiritual mission to save
her father's soul, and her words recall those of Christ in the Temple. And like the love Christ
extends to humanity, Cordelia's love to Lear is extended freely; it is never a matter of question
and cannot be commanded. It is always there for Lear to accept or reject.
In V.iii.244-48, Edmund renounces his decree to have Cordelia and Lear executed, but only a
few lines later, Lear enters with Cordelia's body.

4.6.3 Edgar

Edgar is Gloucester's legitimate son. His half-brother Edmund frames him, letting on to
Gloucester that Edgar is impatient for his inheritance and means to kill his father. Edgar is forced
into hiding, and he adopts the disguise of "Poor Tom," a mad Bedlam (from Bethlehem hospital,
an asylum for the insane) beggar. During the raging storm into which Goneril and Regan have
forced Lear, Edgar finds himself in the same hovel with the mad king and Lear's Fool. Acting
mad is perhaps the best disguise for Edgar since the insane were invisible in Elizabethan society,
quickly dismissed and rarely scrutinized. Edgar is forced to give up his identity as Gloucester's
son and heir just as Lear struggles to come to grips with his own conflicting sense of identity: the
feigned madness of Edgar parallels the real madness of Lear. Lear, in his confusion, assumes that
Poor Tom's madness must result from the same cause as his own. He asks of Edgar, "Has his
daughters brought him to this pass?" (III.iv.63) Lear is wrong about the cause, but his remark
heightens the sense that madness is the inevitable cause of identity loss.
At the end of the play, Edgar appears in yet another disguise, a suit of armor. He fights and kills
his bastard brother to prove him a traitor, while none of the onlookers realize who he is. It is only
after he has demonstrated his nobility that he can reveal his true identity. Like that of Cordelia
and Kent, Ed gar's nobility must be proved in action and not in words.

4.6.4 Edmund

Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester and half-brother to Edgar, commits a number of
villainous acts
throughout the course of the play: he forces his brother, Edgar, into hiding, telling Gloucester
that Edgar means to kill him; he betrays his father and leaves him to the barbarous treatment of
Cornwall and Regan; he encourages both Goneril and Regan to believe he loves the one to the
exclusion of the other, causing them to quarrel and, ultimately, die as a consequence; and he
orders the execution of Lear and Cordelia.
At the beginning of the play, Gloucester acknowledges to Kent that Edmund is his bastard son.
Gloucester says, "Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for,
yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be
acknowledged'' (I.i.21-24). Edmund's nativity is the subject of good sport and joking. He has
probably endured a lifetime of being treated this casually and contemptibly. It is no wonder,
then, that such a constantly reinforcing experience might have embittered him not only toward
his father and half-brother but also toward the world. Edmund compares himself to Edgar and
finds that he is his equal in all but the name and legitimacy that is conferred not on the basis of
one's qualities, but only on the basis of social convention. Edmund denies that social convention
and abandons the dictates of any higher authority. He says, "Thou, nature, art my goddess, to thy
law / My services are bound" (I.ii.1-2).
He will operate only by the laws of nature—the survival of the fittest—without any sense of
compassion for the suffering of others. He means to get that which he feels has been denied him
by the circumstances of his birth, apparently believing ruthless ambition to be a fair
compensation for his social exile. Edmund's attitude toward his father and the society his father
represents is best illustrated by his dismissal of his father's belief that the stars influence people's
lives. When Gloucester learns of Lear's banishment of Kent and Cordelia, he believes Lear's rash
behavior to be a consequence of "These late eclipses in the sun and moon" (I.ii.103). Gloucester
also believes that one's nature is determined by the placement of stars and planets at one's birth.
The consequence of such reasoning is the belief that people's actions are predetermined. Edmund
takes the opposite view. He says, "An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition on the charge of a star!" (I.ii.126-28). In denying Gloucester's belief, Edmund
endorses the opinion that man can make of himself anything he chooses, an endorsement that fits
well with his Machiavellian behavior. It is curious, then, that at the end of the play Edmund
should desire to save the lives of Cordelia and Lear. When he says, "Some good I mean to do, /
Despite of mine own nature" (V.iii.244-45), he contradicts his earlier stated position. Perhaps he
has been influenced by the noble behavior of many around him.

4.6.5 Gloucester

The earl of Gloucester is the father of Edgar and Edmund. As a character, Gloucester connects
the main plot with the subplot of the play. His situation parallels the situation of Lear. He
mistakenly believes Edmund when the latter pretends to read a letter that is falsely said to be
written by Edgar. In that letter, Edgar supposedly tells Edmund of his impatience to inherit
Gloucester's estate. Gloucester, like Lear, responds emotionally, immediately denouncing his
legitimate son (Edgar) and trusting in the son who really intends to do him wrong (Edmund).
And like Lear, Gloucester is to be punished for his lack of insight or moral vision.
That punishment comes in the form of a brutal incident wherein his eyes are ruthlessly plucked
out by
Cornwall. The physical blinding of Gloucester is symbolic of both his own and Lear's blindness
to the truth about their children.
When the old man, a longtime tenant of Gloucester and Gloucester's father, tries to assist
Gloucester because he cannot see his way, Gloucester replies, "I have no way, and therefore
want no eyes; / I stumbled when I saw" (IV.i.18-19). He can see better now that his eyes are
gone, and he sees that he has placed his trust in the wrong son. He has reached the depth of
despair, feeling there is no way to undo what he has done. It is this despair that compels him to
say, "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. / They kill us for their sport" (IV.i.36-37).
Edgar, in disguise, leads Gloucester to the Cliffs of Dover, from which Gloucester intends to hurl
himself and commit suicide. Edgar deludes Gloucester, making him think he has, in fact, fallen
from a great height. This scene would be comical if not for the serious intention Edgar has in
doing what he does. He wants to cure Gloucester of his despair, a despair that still blinds
Gloucester even though he thinks he now sees the truth about his life.
Both Gloucester's despair and Lear's madness are conditions which allow the two old men to
evade one of the inevitable realities of aging. At some point, parents need to depend on their
adult children. Both Gloucester and Lear eventually emerge from those conditions which have
blinded them and accept the necessity of that dependence. Edgar is able to report at the end of
the play that, when finally revealing himself to his father, Gloucester's heart "'Twixt two
extremes of passion, joy and grief, / Burst smilingly" (V.iii.198-99). Again, like Lear, Gloucester
dies in the grip of two emotional extremes, but at least he has learned that joy is possible when
one accepts the love and devotion of another human being.

4.6.6 Goneril

Goneril is Lear's eldest daughter. She seems to understand that her father sometimes acts in a
petty manner, and she knows how to please him. If she can inherit a third of Lear's kingdom by
simply telling him that she loves him profoundly, she will gladly do it. To do so costs her
nothing. Unlike Cordelia, Goneril knows how to cover her true feelings with high-blown
rhetoric. Later in the play, Goneril treats Lear severely and appears quite monstrous.
After Lear's angry responses to the behaviors of Cordelia and Kent, Goneril and Regan discuss
Lear's state of mind. In an effort to explain that state of mind, Goneril says, "He always loved our
sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly" (I.i.290-
92). Regan replies, "'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself"
(I.i.293-94). The two have obviously been subjected to Lear's whims before, and they feel what
is perhaps an understandable resentment at his previous favoring of their younger sister. At first,
Goneril and Regan unite against Lear in self defense. It is only later that their behavior becomes
inexcusable.
Goneril's increasingly cruel treatment of Lear is proof of the adage that "power corrupts." Her
request of Lear to conduct himself civilly in her home is not an unreasonable one. At first,
perhaps, she wants to force a confrontation with Lear in order that he might alter his behavior,
but when she sees that she can manipulate her weakened father, the sense of her own power
seems to go to her head. She apparently does not feel remorse for causing her father anguish,
because, in her mind, he deserves it. Inheriting half of Lear's kingdom has also put her on a
different, more equal, footing with her husband, Albany. In opposing the threat posed by the
French forces at Dover, Goneril's wealth and influence are needed. She abandons all obedience
to her husband, calling him a "Milk-liver'd man!" (IV.ii.50). She appears to be attracted to Edgar
because he represents the raw desire and unapologetic quest for power she seems to now find so
thrilling. In her quest for power, she will stop at nothing, even poisoning her sister Regan. In the
end, it is reported that Goneril commits suicide after confessing that she has poisoned Regan.

4.6.7 King Lear

As the play opens we learn that King Lear is getting on in years and has decided to divide his
kingdom among his three daughters. Lear is already demonstrating his eccentric nature.
Although he has previously determined that the realm will be equally divided, he insists that each
of his three daughters try to outdo the others in her proclamation of love for him. When Cordelia
fails to satisfy his desire for praise and need for love, he immediately reacts in a purely emotional
way, disinheriting her and refusing to listen to the reasonable arguments of Kent, whom Lear
also banishes quickly without thinking the matter through.
Lear's expectations about his life in retirement are unrealistic. Lear, who uses the royal "we" to
refer to himself, announces that 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death. (I.i.38-41)
Lear wants to regain the untroubled life of a second childhood, yet he does not want to relinquish
the authority and respect that he has become accustomed to as king. Lear intends that "Only we
shall retain / The name, and all the additions to a king" (I.i.135-36). He wants the best of both
worlds, the perks of kingship without its responsibilities. When Lear resides with Goneril, it
quickly becomes apparent to her that Lear cannot have both. Although he has supposedly given
up authority, he still acts like he is in charge. Both Goneril and Regan realize that Lear has no
real power without his knights, and they quickly strip Lear of those. Regan says quite pointedly,
"I pray you, father, being weak, seem so" (II.iv.201). But Lear, long conditioned to think of
himself as king, cannot reconcile his current condition with his lifelong self-image.
It is this slippage in Lear's self-image which contributes to Lear's descent into madness. He
associates
weakness with women and scolds himself for his impotence and crying. He tells Goneril, "I am
ashamed / That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus" (I.iv.296-97). When Lear says,
"Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow, / Thy element's below!" (II.iv.57-58), he is
specifically identifying the feelings that threaten to overwhelm him as feminine, since hysterica
passio, or "the mother," was an affliction of the womb, obviously affecting only women. For
Lear, a masculine response to emotion is to harden oneself against feeling. The ultimate crisis of
identity comes when he sees Goneril and Regan allied against him. At that moment he realizes
the extent of his reliance on others and begins to feel guilt for having treated Cordelia so
unfeelingly. Lear's raging against the storm he cannot control reflects his inner struggle against
unfamiliar emotions.
When Lear emerges from his mad state, through the gentle ministrations of Cordelia's doctors, he
seems to have a different image of himself. In response to Cordelia's request that Lear bless her,
he says, "Pray, do not mock me: / I am a very foolish fond old man" (IV.vii.58-59). He has
learned to be weak. Admitting that weakness and relinquishing the need to control events, Lear
can enjoy that second childhood which he so desires. As he and Cordelia are ushered off to jail
after their capture, Lear sees their future imprisonment as a time when he and his daughter can
"pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh" (V.iii.12), a carefree time in which the intimate
bonds of childhood can be regained. Even in his last moments, at the height of his sorrow at his
youngest daughter's death, Lear acts somewhat childishly, distractedly bragging that he has
killed one of Cordelia's hangmen, though he also acknowledges the guilt he feels at her death,
saying that he "might have saved her" (V.iii.271). Lear dies grieving over his daughter's corpse.
Critical assessment of Lear varies widely. One of the main issues surrounding his character is the
question of whether Lear is a victim of others or other forces or is responsible for his own tragic
downfall. What elements of his own nature contribute to what happens to him in the play? Some
argue that his decision to abdicate his throne and divide his kingdom violates natural order and
that this act condemns him. Others fault Lear for his early treatment of Cordelia, for his pride,
and for his rash nature. Some people wonder whether or not Lear learns anything about himself
during the play. It has been argued that during the scene on the heath, as Lear survives the
physical storm, he also transcends his own emotional despair and comes to understand himself
and his guilt. Other people are not convinced and allow that Lear has only gained a limited
understanding of the consequences of his actions. Lear's ending leaves people with the same
uncertainty as do these other issues.
A few commentators have asserted that Lear actually dies happy, believing that Cordelia lives.
Others believe that while Lear does not actually die happy, he is reconciled with what is
ultimately a benevolent universe. Finally, many audiences and critics alike feel that Lear's ending
offers a mixed message: while evil does not prevail at the play's end, neither does good.

4.7 About the Play

King Lear was written in 1604 or 1605, as far as can be established. It certainly incorporates
material from Samuel Harsnett's A Declaration of Several Popish Impostures, London, (1603),
an exposure of a fraudulent case of spirit possession, and it was registered with the Company of
Stationers on 26th November 1607. The Quarto was published by Nathaniel Butler at the sign of
the Pied Bull in 1608, and a significantly different version included in the Folio of 1623.
King Lear was rewritten in 1681, twenty-one years after the re-introduction of the Monarchy.
The play was no longer considered suitable in Shakespeare's version, and Nahum Tate rewrote it
in line with Restoration notions of 'decorum'. Although Tate's version is justly reviled, it is in
some ways truer to its sources (Raphael Holinshed's The Third Volume of Chronicles (1587) and
an anonymous play King Leir) in allowing Cordelia and Lear to survive. However, in the
Holinshed version, Cordelia does eventually hang herself in prison. King Lear was undoubtedly
too uncomfortable for Restoration tastes, and it remains a troubling and harrowing play.
Shakespeare's version was not restored in performance until 1838.
The range of critical opinion expressed on King Lear in nearly four hundred years is obviously
too extensive and varied to detail here. In particular the vast expansion of literary criticism in the
Twentieth Century renders an inclusive review impossible. As usual, there are no contemporary
accounts of Shakespearean performances, and the first critical response is implied, therefore, in a
wholesale rewriting of the play by Nahum Tate in 1681. Although the critical response is varied
almost all critics agree on three points; King Lear is 'great'; King Lear is bleak; as Maynard
Mack says, 'King Lear is a problem.

4.8 Questions

1. Discuss King Lear as a Shakespearean tragedy?

2. Where has Edgar been living since he fled from his father‘s castle?
3. Fool is the most intellegent character in Shakespeare. Discuss?
4. ―Ripeness is All‖. Discuss with reference to King Lear‘s character?
5. Is Shakespearean tragedy a tragedy of character or of fate? Analyze with reference to King
Lear.

4.9 Suggested Readings

Adelman, Janet. ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of King Lear. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978.
Booth, Stephen. King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1983.
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy, New York: St. Martin‘s Press, Inc., 1992.
Knights, L. C. Some Shakespearean Themes. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press,
1960.
 Chapter-5
Twelfth Night
Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction to Twelfth Night
5.2 Act Wise Summary Twelfth Night
5.2.1 Act I Scene I
5.2.2 Scene II
5.2.3 Scene III
5.2.4 Scene IV
5.2.5 Scene V
5.2.6Act II Scene I
 5.2.7. Scene II
5.2.8 Scene III
5.2.9 Scene IV
5.2.10 Scene V
5.2.11 Act III Scene I
5.2.12 Scene II
5.2.13 Scene III
5.2.14 Scene IV
5.2.15 Act IV
5.2.16 Scene I
5.2.17 Scene II
5.2.18Scene III
5.2.19 Act V Scene I

5.3 Important characters in Twelfth Night

5.3.1 Sir Andrew Aguecheek
5.3.2 Sir Toby Belch
5.3.3 Malvolio
5.3.4 Olivia
5.3.5 Orsino
5.3.6 Sebastian
5.3.7 Viola
5.3.8 Antonio
5.4 Issues in Twelfth Night
5.4.1 The Games of Love in Twelfth Night
5.4.2 Chaos and Order in Twelfth Night

5.5 About the Play

5.6 Questions
5.7 Suggested Readings

5.0 Objectives

This section brings to you the Scene wise Acts of the play to simplify the most complicated
comedy of Shakespeare. The unit also draws the leading issues to your comprehension to
examine and distinguish it from other Comedies of the age.

5.1 Introduction to Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night or What You Will is an interesting blend of the sadness of separation between
brother and sister, romance as each of them falls in love, farcical comedy filled with mostly
gentle sarcasm and irony, and a bang-up happy ending for the brother and sister, re-united and
also now loved by the one each loves. In between there is the intriguing complexity of mistaken
identities, plots to fool foolish characters, and a couple of pompous characters who get what they
deserve.
Thus, although some of the conventions of Shakespeare‘s time give the play a twist different
from a similar comedy of our own time, there is much in the play that resembles a light and
entertaining movie or television special. Handled in this way rather than as an icon to be paid
homage to, Twelfth Night has much in it to appeal to the sentimental, the silly, and the critical in
most modern high school students. And, of course, there is the character of Malvolio, exactly the
type of pompous prig that teenagers especially seem to love to see put down by those he has
picked on and preached to.
As the play progresses, one can almost hear teenagers yelling, ―But he‘s a she! Can‘t you tell,
you fool!‖ It is equally easy to hear them warning Sebastian and cheering when Sir Andrew and
Sir Toby and especially Malvolio get their just desserts and as the mix-up of brother and sister
and who‘s in love with whom is straightened out at the end. And throughout, these teenage
readers laughing, jeering, sighing at romantic spots perhaps, expressing enjoyable disbelief that
anything so mixed up could ever really happen or—if it did, be straightened out so conveniently
in five acts—will be reacting to the play as its original audiences did.
The title of the play seems to refer to the last twelve days of Christmas, as in the song we hear so
often during that holiday period. The last day—or twelfth night—was in Shakespeare‘s time a
day of celebration and foolishness. The subtitle, What You Will, sounds suspiciously like the
currently popular ―whatever‖ used to say more or less, ―I don‘t care‖; or, as has been suggested,
when asked for a title, Shakespeare may have said ― Twelfth Night or call it what you will.‖ If
this is the case—
and there are other, more complex interpretations—then perhaps Shakespeare is saying to us and
to our students, ―Well, here it is in all its sentimentality, foolishness, lack of realism, insight into
the folly of humankind or whatever you want to make of it.‖ If he is indeed giving us that
freedom, then we and our students can sit back, laugh, make fun of characters, and see them as
just like so and so—perhaps a teacher who is just like Malvolio—and make of it what we will.

5.2 Act-Wise Summary

5.2.1 ACT I, SCENE I

The play begins with what is one of its two most familiar passages (the other being Malvolio‘s
sense of himself in Act II,
Scene v), as the Duke of Illyria, Orsino, pining for the love of the Countess Olivia, says:
If music be the food of love, play on!
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall.
O, it came o‘er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour. Enough! No more!
‗Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe‘er,
But falls into abatement and low price
Even in a minute! So full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
As he finishes that lament, the gentleman Valentine enters to tell him that Olivia thinks only of
her dead brother and no one else.

5.2.2 SCENE II

On the seacoast Viola has confirmation that she also has lost a brother, her twin Sebastian. Now
in Illyria, she learns from a sea captain that the Duke Orsino is the ruler of the country and—an
important piece of information dropped into the conversation—that he is a bachelor who loves
Olivia. Viola decides that she wants to serve as a page to the Countess.
When the captain makes it clear that Olivia is in seclusion, Viola decides to disguise herself as a
man and seek to serve as a page in Orsino‘s court.

5.2.3 SCENE III

The action shifts to Olivia‘s home, where we meet her uncle Sir Toby Belch, his friend Sir
Andrew Aguecheek, and the Maria, a servant to Olivia. Sir Andrew, we will learn, considers
himself a possible suitor for Olivia. In the foolishness that follows, Sir Toby persuades Sir
Andrew to continue seeking the hand of Olivia, and each of them in slightly different ways show
that they mostly love parties and festivities.

5.2.4 SCENE IV

Having introduced us to most of the main characters directly or through references in the
conversation, the play moves quickly ahead, as Viola enters, now dressed as a page and using the
name Cesario. Viola as Cesario has become a favourite of the Duke Orsino. Still in love with
Olivia, the Duke sends Viola on a mission to Olivia to tell her of his love. Speaking to herself,
Viola reveals that she has fallen love with the Duke.

5.2.5 SCENE V
Back at Olivia‘s we meet Feste, the Clown, who will, from time to time, comment ironically on
the characters and action; and Malvolio, the head of Olivia‘s household and a pompous ass,
appears with the Countess. Sir Toby, now drunk, wanders in. At this point, Olivia gives in to
Cesario‘s (Viola‘s) messages that he/she must see her. After Viola unsuccessfully represents
Orsino‘s love and leaves, the Countess discovers that she is falling in love with—not the Duke—
but Viola as Cesario and sends Malvolio to carry a ring to Viola and ask her to return the next
day.

5.2.6 ACT II, SCENE I

Back on the sea coast, Viola‘s twin brother, Sebastian, who has re-named himself Roderigo,
considers himself cursed to suffer more bad luck, and sets off for Orsino‘s court with Antonio, a
sea captain.

5.2.7 SCENE II

On a street somewhere, Malvolio catches up with Viola, still disguised as a page, and delivers
the ring, saying it must be hers left behind. After denying she left the ring, Viola realizes that the
Countess is in love with her. The scene ends with Viola‘s version of the play‘s subtitle, ―What
You Will‖: ―O time! Thou must untangle this, not I./ It is too hard a knot for me t‘untie!‖

5.2.8 SCENE III

Back at Olivia‘s, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Feste wander in after midnight still deep in partying.
Feste sings one of Shakespeare‘s most famous songs, ―O mistress mine, where are you
roaming?‖ and the others laugh and make friendly fun of his singing. Maria joins them, and then
Malvolio shows up to tell them off for their drunken loudness. When he stalks out, the three plan
revenge by forging a letter from Olivia that Malvolio will find and, thinking he is the subject of
the letter, believe that Olivia‘s letter is about him and she‘s in love with him.

5.2.9 SCENE IV

Back at the Duke‘s, Viola delivers the rejection from Olivia to the Duke. The two discuss love,
its pain and joy; and Viola shares her own sadness, pretending it is the story of her sister. The
scene ends, with the Duke sending Viola back to Olivia with a jewel and a new message of love.

5.2.10 SCENE V

Having given the plot against Malvolio a chance to develop, Maria drops the forged letter in
Olivia‘s garden, where Malvolio is bound to find it. Malvolio then enters and, as Sir Toby and
Sir Andrew listen, talks of how things would be if he married Olivia, whom, we discover, he
already suspects is in love with him. He finds the letter and reads it aloud.
Completely taken in, he leaves, having resolved to smile and smile as the forged letter suggests
he should and dress in a fashion the letter praises but, in fact, Olivia dislikes. The letter contains
the famous passage, ―some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon ‗em,‖ which Malvolio will quote to Olivia shortly.

5.2.11 SCENE I

The scene begins with an exchange between Viola, still masquerading as Cesario, and the
Clown, that contains mostly joking but ends with a thoughtful passage by Viola about the
Clown‘s insight into the people he mocks. Olivia joins them in the garden; and, when they are
alone, Cesario attempts again to represent the Duke to Olivia. Olivia, however, tells Cesario that
she has fallen in love with him, not the Duke. Still pretending to be Cesario, Viola tells her that
―no woman has; nor never none/Shall mistress be of it, save I alone,‖ a statement with strong
double meaning.

5.2.12 SCENE II

Sir Toby and Fabian convince Sir Andrew, who still sees himself as a suitor for Olivia, to
challenge Cesario to a duel. Maria joins them to let them know that the plot against Malvolio is
working: he‘s dressed himself as they suggested, in what they know—but he doesn‘t—are
clothes Olivia detests.

5.2.13 SCENE III

Sebastian and the sea captain Antonio discuss Sebastian‘s problems, and the sea captain gives
him money for a room. They plan to meet later, and one might guess that brother and sister will
soon be mixed up by the others.

5.2.14 SCENE IV

This scene rapidly moves ahead the several mistaken understandings that keep us wondering
how and when it‘s all going to work itself out. Malvolio, now completely dressed in the clothes
Olivia hates and acting with words and gestures that we know will offend her, speaks to her of
the love he thinks she has for him.
Olivia, knowing nothing of the phony letter, thinks he has lost his mind. Then Olivia learns that
Cesario is back and leaves, and Malvolio lets us know that he thinks he‘s done a great job of
winning her and also leaves. In come Sir Toby, Fabian, and Maria to move along the other plot,
Sir Andrew‘s challenge of Cesario to a duel. When Sir Toby reads the letter challenging Cesario,
he refuses to deliver it as too stupid to be believed, but, getting a chance to talk with the page,
warns him that Sir Andrew is a bad guy and then warns Sir Andrew that Cesario is really tough.
They then taunt Cesario and Sir Andrew, and the duel starts. But, as one might expect, it doesn‘t
progress very far before something stops it: Antonio, the sea captain and friend of Sebastian,
wanders in, thinks Cesario (Viola) is Sebastian and challenges Sir Andrew himself. That duel
doesn‘t go very far either, because a couple of cops come in, recognize Antonio as an old enemy
of the Duke, and arrest him. Naturally, Antonio asks Cesario for his money back. Cesario doesn‘t
have a clue what he‘s talking about—but Antonio mentions rescuing ―Sebastian‖ as he pleads for
Cesario to do what is right and give him
the money. That gives Cesario hope that his (her) brother lives.

5.2.15 SCENE I

The Clown runs into Sebastian on the street and, thinking he is Cesario, tries to get him to go
back to Olivia. Sebastian, not knowing what the Clown is talking about, gives him some money
to go away. Just then Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, and Fabian wander in, think Sebastian is Cesario,
and attack him. Sebastian proves to be a much stronger fighter than Cesario; but Olivia also
comes by, stops the fight, and takes Sebastian away with her.

5.2.16 SCENE II

Malvolio, thought to be mad by Olivia, has been locked up in a dark room. With the help of Sir
Toby and Maria, the Clown, disguised as the parson, Sir Topas, makes fun of Malvolio.

5.2.17 SCENE III

In the garden, Sebastian worries about Antonio, who didn‘t meet him as planned, and wonders
about Olivia‘s love for him. She, of course, still thinks he is Cesario. Olivia then enters with a
priest, and she and Sebastian go into her chapel to be married.

5.2.18 SCENE I

This act has only one scene, but what a scene it is! Starting with Fabian and the Clown, each of
the characters enter in front of Olivia‘s home. Duke Orsino arrives with his page Cesario (Viola)
to try once more to win Olivia. The cops bring in Antonio, who speaks angrily of Sebastian‘s
lack of gratitude, thinking that Cesario (Viola) is Sebastian. Then Olivia appears and tells the
group that she and Cesario (Viola) are married since she still believes that Sebastian is Cesario.
Cesario (Viola) clearly doesn‘t understand and claims that he (she) isn‘t married to Olivia; but
the angry Duke rebukes him (her) and fires him. At this crucial moment, Sir Andrew and Sir
Toby arrive to complain that Sebastian has attacked them and hurt them. Sebastian comes in
right behind them, wanting to apologize to Olivia for hurting her uncle. And there they are, the
twins. All is resolved when Olivia decides she is happy with Sebastian as her husband and Duke
Orsino realizes that he is in love with Viola, formerly Cesario. The clown brings a letter from
Malvolio that begins to reveal the
plot that has landed him in the dark room, and the Duke and Olivia have him brought before
them. Malvolio has kept the letter he thinks was from Olivia and hands it to her. Then all is
revealed as Fabian and the Clown confess. Malvolio rushes out vowing revenge; the Duke sends
the rest after him to try to talk out his anger. The Clown, left alone, ends the play with a slightly
cynical song.

5.3 Major Character Analysis

5.3.1 Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a friend of Sir Toby Belch, a suitor to Sir Toby's rich niece Olivia, and
a participant in the play's subplot. (A subplot is a secondary or subordinate plot which often
reflects on or complicates the major plot in a work of fiction such as a play.) In I.iii.20, Toby
praises Sir Andrew Aguecheek for being gallant, or "as tall a man as any's in Illyria." He defends
his friend as cultured and talented, claiming that Sir Andrew knows how to play a musical
instrument and can speak "three or four languages word for word" (I.iii.25-28). Maria, on the
other hand, calls Sir Andrew a "fool and a prodigal," a "great quarreller," and a
"coward," who spends his nights getting drunk with Toby (I.iii.24,30,31,36-37). What Sir Toby,
in fact, values about his friend is his money, for Sir Andrew has a comfortable income of "three
thousand ducats a year," and he spends it generously (I.iii.22).
Aguecheek—whose name suggests that he has a thin or pinched face as though he had a chill, or
an ague—makes his first appearance in I.iii.44-139, where he shows himself to be indeed foolish.
When, for example, Toby introduces him to Maria with the admonishment to "accost" or greet
her, Sir Andrew mistakenly thinks that Maria's last name is "Accost" (I.iii.49,52). In response to
a question in French, Sir Andrew proves that, contrary to Toby's claim, he has little knowledge
of foreign languages, revealing instead his other, less academic interests: ''What is pourquoy? do
or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and
bear-baiting" (I.iii.91-93).
Sir Andrew's principal grievance in the play is that he is wasting his time and money courting
Olivia, when she clearly has no interest in him but is in fact more attentive to Duke Orsino's
page, Viola/ Cesario. Off and on during the play, he threatens to abandon his suit and go home,
but Sir Toby flatters him, exploiting his love of "masques and revels" to convince Aguecheek to
stay longer and spend more money (I.iii.93-94). In III.ii, he even persuades the cowardly Sir
Andrew to challenge Viola/Cesario to a duel. At the close of the play
(V.i.173-208), Aguecheek's money has been used up, and his head has been bloodied in a sword
fight with Sebastian (whom he had mistaken for Viola/Cesario). Sir Toby, who has also been
injured, takes the opportunity to tell Sir Andrew what he really thinks of him and calls the knight
"an ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull!" (V.i.206-07).

5.3.2 Sir Toby Belch

Sir Toby Belch is Olivia's uncle and a co-director of the play's subplots involving Aguecheek and
Malvolio. (A subplot is a secondary or subordinate plot which often reflects on or complicates
the major plot in a work of fiction such as a play.) Sir Toby embodies the riot of the Christmas
season. He is drunk throughout the play and gives full vent to his whims and passions. In this
sense, Uncle Toby is a positive character who is placed in opposition to the grumpy Malvolio.
Believing that "care's an enemy to life," Toby indulges in food, drink, and song, and hopes to do
so as long as there is "drink in Illyria" (I.iii.2-3, 40). His last name is appropriate to his dissipated
manner of living, and his dissipation is in keeping with the play's festive title.
He is also a freeloader who lives off his niece and takes money from his friend, Sir Andrew
Aguecheek. While Toby's antics are amusing, his plans for Olivia come close to those of a pimp,
for he wishes to "sell" his niece to the eminently foolish Sir Andrew, a fop whom Toby can
easily control. Sir Toby Belch is annoyed with Olivia, who has "abjured the company / And sight
of men" and has chosen instead to spend seven years of her young life hidden and in mourning
for her dead brother (I.ii.40-41).While characters like Viola and Feste comment on the passing of
time and the decay of youthfulness, and while Olivia spends her hours keeping her brother's
memory alive with her tears, Sir Toby alters time to suit his own purpose. During a long night of
partying, for example, he announces to Sir Andrew that "Not to be a-bed after midnight is to be
up betimes"—or that staying up late is the same as getting up early. He then cites a Latin quote
which claims that being up before dawn is good for one's health (II.iii.1-3). Shortly
afterward,when Olivia's steward, Malvolio, chastises him for being unconcerned about where he
is or how late it has gotten ("Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?"), Sir Toby
retorts that he has indeed been keeping time—in the "catches," or round songs which he and his
friends have been singing by turns (II.iii.91-92, 93).

5.3.3 Malvolio

Malvolio is Olivia's steward. Just as there is a downside to Sir Toby, there is an upside to
Malvolio. To be sure, Olivia's steward is a self-inflated, pompous man, and it is precisely these
character traits that make him vulnerable to the joke set up by Toby, Maria and the other light-
hearted figures of the play and amplifies the humor when the plot reaches its climax. Malvolio
wishes that the riot of Christmas would stop altogether.That being so, he is essentially a blocking
figure who stands in the way of passion and is, in his own mind, an obstacle to the union of
Olivia with any other man, including Cesario and her brother, Sebastian. Malvolio does not take
part in the wedding festivities that concludes Twelfth Night, and his final words of revenge are
discordant with the play's ending. There is, however, the "Malvolio problem." Overly dour in
disposition and harboring an inflated opinion of himself, Malvolio's only crime lies in his
character. We may view him as a mere butt of jest; we may alternatively see him as a man who
has been treated unfairly.Malvolio's name means "ill will." He wears dark clothing and has no
sense of humor, both of which are appropriate to Olivia's observance of mourning. The countess
values Malvolio as a servant because he "is sad [serious] and civil" (III.iv.5). However, she also
chides him for being "sick of self-love," and—in a remark which looks ahead to Malvolio's
gulling and his subsequent bitterness—Olivia adds that "To be generous, guiltless, and of free
disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon bullets"—something
Malvolio is unable to do (I.v.90, 91-93).Olivia's servant Fabian dislikes Malvolio for bringing
him "out o' favour" with the countess (II.v.7-8). Sir Toby Belch feels particularly antagonistic
toward the steward because he condemns Toby's drunkenness, sabotages fun, and has ideas
above his social station in life. Feste and Malvolio are complete opposites—in names and
professions as well as their personalities. The steward has nothing but contempt for Feste's word
games and riddles: "I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal," Malvolio tells
the countess (I.v.83-84).
Thus the stage is set for the "gulling," or fooling, of Malvolio in I.v and all that it entails: his
smiles, yellow stockings, and crossed garters which astound Olivia in III.iv; and his
imprisonment for apparent madness by Toby and Maria in IV.ii. Both the festival of Twelfth
Night and Shakespeare's play of the same name are about the inversion of social and personal
expectations. Malvolio had hoped to rise above his social status and become a count; instead, he
falls so low that by IV.ii he has been locked in a dark room and is being badgered by a fool
dressed in a fake beard and priestly robes. Seeking to be released from the dark room, Malvolio
finds himself in the humiliating and ironic situation of having to "convince" Feste that he is not
insane. ''I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art,'' he tells the jester, to which Feste replies,
"Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in your wits than a fool" (IV.ii.88,89-90).

5.3.4 Olivia

Olivia, of course, is the main female role, the object of amorous intentions by the Duke, by Sir
Andrew, by Malvolio and, eventually, by Sebastian. She is obviously a beautiful young woman
of proper breeding who disapproves of Sir Toby's tipsy rabble-rousing but nonetheless
generously tolerates his presence in her household. Her kindness is also evident in Olivia's
efforts to bring Malvolio back into the wedding society at matter of posturing than of genuine
mourning. We note, for example, that her devotion to her brother'smemory is jettisoned in short
order after she meets Cesario, and that she switches her love from Cesario to "his" brother,
Sebastian, in a heartbeat.
Olivia is a rich countess who is loved by Orsino even though she does not feel the same way
about him. In I.i.23-31, we learn that Olivia plans to spend seven years mourning for her dead
brother, during which time she will hide her face with a veil, reject any declarations of love, and
weep daily to keep her brother's memory alive. Orsino considers the countess beautiful but cruel
(II.iv.80-86). Viola's friend the captain describes Olivia as "a virtuous maid" (I.ii.36).
Viola/Cesario calls her beautiful but "too proud" and scolds her for refusing to marry and for
thus failing to "leave the world [a] copy" of her beauty by having children(I.v.243,250-51).
Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch, is impatient with her: ''What a plague means my niece, to take the
death of her brother thus?" he wonders in I.iii.1-2. Feste, who is Olivia's professional clown, or
fool, argues that she is in fact the real fool since she wastes her youth and beauty in seclusion
while weeping for a brother whose "soul is in heaven" (I.v.69-72).When Viola/Cesario arrives
with messages of love from the duke, Olivia is prepared to reject them as calmly as she has
always done; and indeed she announces yet again that she "cannot love'' Orsino and that "He
might [or should] have took his answer long ago," since she has consistently sent him the same
negative reply (I.v.263-64). Olivia is not prepared, however, for her own infatuation with the
duke's page (that is, the young gentlewoman, Viola, disguised as the youth, Cesario). "How
now?" Olivia asks herself, "Even so quickly may one catch the plague? / Methinks I feel this
youth's perfections / With an invisible and subtle stealth / To creep in at mine eyes" (I.v.294-98).
Critics have pointed out that like several other characters in the play (Sebastian and Viola, for
example), Olivia quickly accepts what happens to her as part of her fate. "Well, let it be," she
concludes; "Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe: / What is decreed must be; and be
this so!"(I.v.298,310-11).
By the time she sees Viola/Cesario again, Olivia is passionately in love and determined to win
the page's affections, even at the cost of her own pride. Orsino earlier described Olivia as cruel,
and she in her turn accuses Viola/Cesario of being scornful and proud (III.i.144-51).
Viola/Cesario pities the countess for her mistake and for the "thriftless sighs" which Olivia's
unrequited love will wring from her (II.ii.39). Twelfth Night is, however, a comedy: Renaissance
comedies are meant to end in marriages and happiness. Thus when Olivia encounters Sebastian
in IV.i, she mistakes him for Viola/Cesario, takes him home, and in IV.iii she marries him. At
the close of the play, her new husband, Sebastian, suggests that by falling in love with his
disguised twin sister, Olivia was merely proving that nature meant for her all along to love
someone like Sebastian (V.i.259-63).

5.3.5 Orsino

Also: Duke Orsino, also known as the Count Orsino is the duke of Illyria. It is to Duke Orsino
that Shakespeare assigns the highest poetical lines of Twelfth Night, the ruler of Illyria being
given to philosophical statements in lyrical terms. There is, in this, a certain self-consciousness.
Nevertheless, the Duke is basically a good fellow who bonds with the lost Cesario and pardons
Antonio. Like Olivia, the Duke is fickle, for he quickly embraces the revealed Viola and forgets
about Olivia as soon as the mechanical confusion of the play is resolved.Although Orsino
appears less often than most of the other major characters, his speeches are important to the
play's assessment of love and human nature. When the play begins, Orsino is so preoccupied
with unrequited love for Olivia that he feels unable to do anything but listen to music. "If music
be the food of love, play on," he tells his musicians, "Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, / The
appetite may sicken and so die" (I.i.1-3).
He hopes to kill his feelings for Olivia by letting them gorge themselves to death on music—
which has been described as the "food of love." Unfortunately, his feelings tire of the music
before they can be sickened by it, and so his love for Olivia survives. Several lines afterward, the
duke compares his lovesick heart to a "hart" (deer) which has been attacked by "cruel" hunting
dogs (I.i.17-22). Later, when he hears that Olivia is in mourning for her dead brother and refuses
to care for anyone else for the next seven years, Orsino is impressed with her ability "To pay this
debt of love" to someone who is simply a brother; and his mind boggles when he thinks about
how great Olivia's devotion will be when she someday receives a wound from Cupid's "rich
golden shaft," or the gold-tipped arrow of romantic love (I.i.32-38). As the scene closes, the duke
decides to indulge rather than kill his love by surrounding himself with the heady fragrance of
flowers (I.i.39-40).Orsino's use of elaborate, poetic language to identify his feelings indicates
that he is experiencing courtly love—a system of romantic love which flourished during the
Middle Ages. According to this system, a man falls deeply in love, usually at first sight and,
initially at least, without his affection being returned. The woman who is the object of this love is
extraordinarily beautiful but also extremely cruel for her refusal to reciprocate. The spurned
lover feels ill and loses sleep; he alternately burns and freezes from the intensity of
his passion. He is, as Orsino explains to Viola/Cesario, "Unstaid and skittish" in all of his
thoughts and emotions "Save in the constant image of the creature / That is belov'd" (II.iv.18,19-
20). In conformity with tradition, the heartsick courtly lover often prefers to be alone,
contemplating his unhappiness. As Duke Orsino puts it, "I myself am best / When least in
company" (I.iv.37-38). When the afflicted lover finds himself with other people, he spends much
of his time debating the nature of love. So, for example, in II.iv.29-41 and89-109, the duke
discusses with Viola/Cesario the differences between male and female affections and fidelity.
Orsino does not in fact appear in any scenes with his adored Olivia until the final one (V.i), when
he gives up on her and at last falls in love with his former page, Viola. Although Olivia had
never once been in love with him (according to Sir Toby, she refuses to marry anyone who is
older than she is or whose income or social rank is higher than hers [I.iii.109-11]), she
acknowledges that Orsino is noble, good-looking, well-educated, brave, and admired by his
people (I.v.258-62). As for Orsino's own affections, critics have observed that the duke is more
devoted to love than he ever is to Olivia and that his feelings are sterile and lack self-
awareness.Thus as the play closes, he is able to shift instantly from idolizing Olivia to loving
Viola, especially since in the meantime, through her sensible conversations and her fidelity,
Viola has taught Orsino the enduring connection between love and friendship.

5.3.6 Sebastian

Sebastian is Viola's twin brother. The two of them were victims of a shipwreck, and each
believes the other has been drowned at sea. Unlike his sister, Sebastian makes only a few, short
appearances in the play. He is essentially a minor character whose nature as a "good young man"
is subordinated to the demands of the plot.He first enters in II.i accompanied by his devoted
rescuer, Antonio. Mourning the apparent death of Viola and feeling aimless in the foreign
country of Illyria, Sebastian initially decides to head for Duke Orsino's court but then in III.iii
opts instead for touring the local sights.
Sebastian has been called a passive character. His argument for setting off on his own in II.i is
that he has been the victim of bad luck and does not want the "malignancy" of his own fate to
influence Antonio's luck. In IV.i.24-43, he fights with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, but only
because they attack him first after mistaking him for Viola/Cesario. When Olivia offers to take
him to her home afterward, he is amazed but goes along without questioning her, agreeing to be
"ruled" by her request and concluding that "If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!" (IV.i.64,63).
His reaction to Olivia's proposal of marriage in IV.iii is the same—even though he is astonished
by her behavior, he submits to a hasty wedding. In IV.iii.1-21, Sebastian describes his state
ofmind: sometimes he thinks he is the victim of a misunderstanding, while at other times he
wonders whether he or the citizens of Illyria are insane. In any case, Sebastian wishes that
Antonio were with him and observes that "His counsel now might do me golden service"
(IV.iii.8).It is made clear in the play that Sebastian is a very young man. Antonio refers to him as
a "young gentleman" and a "boy" (III.iv.312; V.i.77), and he affectionately lends Sebastian a
purseful of money with which to buy souvenirs (III.iii.44-45). Once the confusion regarding
Viola and her brother has been solved in V.i.263, Sebastian himself refers to his youthfulness,
telling Olivia that she has married "a maid," or virgin, as well as a man. This reference to a maid
highlights his resemblance to (and hence confusion with) his sister, Viola, but it also emphasizes
Sebastian's youthfulness.

5.3.7 Viola

Viola is a gentlewoman from a country called Messaline and also the twin sister of Sebastian.
Whether disguised as the young man Cesario or in her true identity as Sebastian's sister, Viola is
the central character of the play. Not only does the main plot dilemma hinge upon Viola, she is
the only one of the characters (or at least the first) who knows its kinks. In this sense, Viola has
greater wisdom than the others do, for she is ableto objectively evaluate (most) of the events that
take place while others remain in the dark. Resourceful, loving and loyal, Viola is an attractive
young woman. Nevertheless, she too is subject to instantaneous love, falling for Duke Orsino
immediately after arriving at his court.Viola first appears on the coast of Illyria in I.ii,
accompanied by the captain who saved her from drowning in a shipwreck, and concerned about
the fate of her missing brother who had been traveling with her. "And what should I do in
Illyria?"—she wonders—"My brother he is in Elysium [heaven]" (I.ii.3-4). Once the captain
gives her reason to hope that her brother is still alive, Viola sets about the business of fending for
herself in a foreign country. At the close of I.ii, Viola has decided to disguise herself and seek
employment with Duke Orsino; I.ii is the first and last time that Viola appears in women's
clothing. For the rest of the play she wears men's clothing appropriate to her disguise as Orsino's
page, Cesario.By her next appearance in the play and after only three days, Viola/Cesario has
become the duke's favourite attendant. Orsino sends her to court Olivia for him, with strict
instructions to "stand at her doors" and insist upon admittance (I.iv.16). In an aside,
Viola/Cesario confesses that she has herself fallen secretly in love with the duke: "Yet a barful
strife! / Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife (I.iv.42). (An aside occurs when a character
speaks to the audience without being overheard by the other characters onstage. Asides are used
toreveal the character's inner thoughts.) In spite of her own feelings, Viola/Cesario loyally
persists until she is allowed to deliver her message to Olivia, leading Malvolio to complain that
Orsino's page is "fortified against any denial" (I.v.145). Olivia promptly rejects the duke's
lovesick message, but she is intrigued with his messenger's boldness; by the end of the interview,
the countess has fallen in love with Viola/Cesario, with chaotic results.

5.3.8 Antonio

Antonio is the sea captain who rescues Sebastian and is more of a full-fledged character than
Viola's twin, Sebastian. Antonio is a helping character who demonstrates the Christian quality of
placing his own life in jeopardy for the sake of his friend. He becomes Sebastian's devoted friend
after rescuing him from a shipwreck. Antonio's discussion with his new friend in II.i introduces
the fact that Sebastian and his sister, Viola, are twins who were "born [with] in an hour" of one
another (II.i.19). Antonio's affection for Sebastian is so strong that he decides to follow the
young man to Orsino's household, even though Antonio has "manyenemies in Orsino's court"
and would face danger if he went there (II.i.45-48).When he catches up with Sebastian in III.iii,
Antonio explains that he was once in a sea battle against the count's galleys and is wanted in
Illyria for piracy. Antonio's status as an outlaw is significant to the action of Twelfth Night
because it means that he must often leave Sebastian and not "walk too open" or he might be
arrested (III.iii.37). Inevitably, during one of these separations, he encounters Viola/Cesario and
thinks that she is her brother, Sebastian, adding to the chaos in this play of shifting identities and
miscommunication. Scholars have remarked that during the Renaissance, friendship was
considered more important than was sexual love, and that friendship is in fact one of the themes
in Twelfth Night. Antonio repeatedly expresses his affection for Sebastian.
In III.iii, he worrie about Sebastian's safety in a foreign land and helps him out by securing him
room and board at a local inn; he even lends Sebastian a purse full of money for buying
souvenirs (III.iii.38-46). Thus Antonio feels deeply hurt when, mistaking her for Sebastian, he
defends Viola/Cesario against Sir Andrew Aguecheek, only to be recognized and arrested by
Orsino's men, and to have the astonished Viola/Cesario declare that she's never seen him before
(III.iv.312-57). Feeling betrayed, the unhappy Antonio rethinks his definition of friendship. He
concludes that he had been misled by Sebastian's good looks into thinking that he was a worthy
companion, but now realizes that an honorable mind is more important when it comes to
friendship than a pleasing exterior: "In nature there's no blemish but the mind; / None can be
call'd deform'd but the unkind" (III.iv.367-68).When he is delivered over to the duke in V.i,
Antonio again reproaches Viola/Cesario for her apparent betrayal. Shortly afterward, it is his turn
to be astonished when the real Sebastian appears, prompting Antonio to exclaim as he looks
wonderingly at Viola and her brother, "How have you made division of yourself? / An apple,
cleft in two, is not more twin / Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?" (V.i.222-24).

5.4 Issues in Twelfth Night

5.4.1 The Games of Love in Twelfth Night

According to Patrick Swinden in his book, An Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies, a

comedy does not demand "the degree of concentration and belief" required by tragedy. As a
result, an audience of a play "is amusedly aware that it's all a play, a game that they are sharing
with the actors". In Twelfth Night, it is the characters, almost without exception, who, in varying
degrees, are involved in deception. Swinden says, "Whether we look in the plot that Shakespeare
took (indirectly) from the Italian, or the plot he made up to put beside it, we shall discover deceit
piled on deceit." Cesario/Viola deceives Olivia, Orsino, Sir Andrew, and Sir Toby, while Maria,
Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Feste deceive Malvolio.
In an intricate pattern of "concealment" and "revealment" the play spins dizzily toward its happy
resolution with all the deceptions that had, and had been, concealed revealed. Is the end of the
play really a happy ending? What dynamic in the process of deception could cause Sir Andrew to
disappear or force Malvolio to declare, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" (V.i.380)?
Are the characters bettered or changed by their experiences when they arrive at the end of Act V
than when they started at the beginning of Act I?
Whether it be a practical joke or a clever disguise, the games being played in Illyria
simultaneously result from and protect each character's deception not only of others but also,
more importantly of themselves. The clearest examples are Duke Orsino and Olivia.
The games begin with Orsino's opening lines to the play:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and die (I.i.1-4).
As Orsino continues to wax rhetorical and hysterical about being in love, it rapidly becomes
apparent that he is playing a game with himself, which he will continue throughout the play. He
is not in love, but in love with love. Olivia is unattainable and she has told him so repeatedly. Yet
Orsino persists in making himself suffer, listening to sad love songs, writing to her, staying
awake at night and crying into his pillow because he believes that this is the way someone in
love acts. We almost want to shout at him "Get over it. Move on." It is part of the game that
while it may appear that Orsino is rhapsodizing about Olivia, he is actually concentrating on
himself. The words "I," "me," and "mine" occur ten times in the opening passage, culminating
with:
How will she love...
... when live, brain, and heart,
Those sovereign thrones, are all supplied and filled
Her sweet perfections with one selfsame king! (35-39).
Shakespeare's use of "selfsame" intensifies not only Orsino's description of Olivia, but also his
focus on himself. Throughout these lines there is a sense that Orsino's sexual identity, encased in
a male body, has not yet been clearly defined, hence his necessity for adopting what he thinks are
the affectations of a successful lover.Although Orsino says that he heard only a "piece of song"
(II.iv.2), he also notes that it is an "old and antique song" (II.iv.3), indicating that he knows it in
its entirety. Its tune and sentiment are so powerful that it remains with him the next morning. It is
possible that the song reminds Orsino that he is no longer young enough to pursue an amorous
campaign, and that there will be neither lover nor child to mourn him as Olivia mourns her
brother. In modern pop-psychology terminology, Orsino appears to be having a mid-life
crisis.Orsino's game reaches a breaking point when Cesario interrupts his rhetoric with, "Ay, but
I know" (II.iv.99). Orsino is shocked that this young man may have love experiences to which he
has not been privy. He questions what Cesario knows about love and women and is eager to hear
the boy's "blank" (II.iv.106) story.
Yet, Orsino remains oblivious to Cesario's confession: "I am all the daughters of my father's
house, And all the brothers, too" (II.iv.116-117). Orsino seems to be uncomfortable with this
very personal, very intense revelation from another man since his "Ay, that's the theme"
(II.iv.119) appears to restore his concentration to the safety and comfort of the pursuit of
Olivia.Orsino decides to discard his affectations and goes to speak directly with Olivia.
Whatever has transpired between him and Cesario in their "three months" (V.i.88) silence of
Acts III and IV has given him the strength to declare that he "will be so much a sinner to be a
double-dealer" (V.i.27).Many productions have offered Orsino actually falling in love with
Cesario, such as the 1994 Royal Shakespeare Company version which had the events of Act II
scene iv take place in Orsino's bed. Orsino and Cesario share a passionate kiss that surprises
them both, but the kiss also seems to flow from the action and its location. Trevor Nunn's 1996
film moves the moment of passion to the scene during which Feste sings a love madrigal in a
stable. Feste who coughs at the critical moment of their lips almost touching breaks the
momentum. The interpretation is a valid one based on Orsino's customarily rhetorical
proclamations of love for Cesario:
Why should I not ... Kill what I love. (V.i.106, 108)
...This your minion ... whom, by heaven I swear I tender dearly (V.i.114-115)
... the lamb that I do love (V.i.119).
Has Orsino fallen out of love with love and in love with Cesario? His proclamations arise from
his anger at Olivia's very public rejection of them as "fat and fulsome to mine ear / As howling
music" (V.i.98-99), the same music that he has found so soothing. This anger is not generated by
some newfound awareness. Swinden comments: "He is talking about Cesario, not Olivia... The
presence on stage of both partners during the tirade brings out very delicately the ambiguity of
Orsino's shift in feeling. He fails to distinguish the object of hisanger from the object of his
love."
Even when Cesario is revealed to be Viola, his acceptance of a "share in this most happy wrack"
(V.i.250) seems to be dependent on his seeing her in "woman's weeds" (V.i.257). Yet it is to
Viola still dressed as Cesario to whom Orsino offers his hand, not once but twice. That Orsino
will not accept Viola unless she looks like a proper woman and yet offers his hand to the male
vision suggests that Orsino has not surrendered completely his comfortable sexual cocoon into
which he has only admitted Cesario and then only with restraint. This reticence is confirmed at
the play's end when Orsino admits:
... Cesario come -
For so you shall be while you are a man,
But when in other habits you are seen
Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen (V.i.362-365).
In his essay, "The two Antonios and Same-Sex Love in Twelfth Night and The Merchant of
Venice," Joseph Pequigney explains that, "[Orsino's] attraction to Olivia, where he is
heterosexually straight, like the other would-be wooers Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio, is
a disaster. The love Cesario could not have changed instantaneously with the revelation of his
femaleness; if it is erotic, then it would have been erotic before; what does change is that
marriage suddenly becomes possible, hence the immediate proposal." This proposal is followed
by a mournful song from Feste on the stages of a love life, which brings the play back to the
beginning. Clearly, Orsino has not changed from the man he was: he will still have his "fancy."
He is as he was at the beginning of the play: he cannot totally abandon his own sexual game. In
all likelihood, Viola will now become an Olivia substitute, "his fancy's queen."As Orsino hides
behind the game of love, Olivia hides behind the game of grief cut off from love, adopting an
Orsino version of mourning behaviour. Her entire household is in mourning and she daily goes to
her brother's grave. As long as she grieves for her dead bother, her sexual desires can be put on
hold. Grieving gives her the perfect excuse for rejecting Orsino's suit and relieves her of making
a sexual investment in any man until she chooses "the sight / And company of men" (I.ii.40-41).
Unlike Orsino, Olivia has put a seven-year limit on her mourning for her father and brother of
which "twelvemonth" has already elapsed when Viola lands in Illyria.
In addition, Olivia differs from Orsino significantly since she can:
sway her house, command her followers,
Take and give back affairs and them dispatch
With such a smooth, discreet and stable bearing (IV.iii.17-19).
She is generous and tolerant, boarding Sir Toby and his guest, Sir Andrew, and positive in her
view of the repressed Malvolio. With Feste's logical and systematic stripping away of her facade,
with Olivia's consent, Olivia is free in a way that eludes Orsino. She demonstrates keen judgment
about the affectations of love:
"'Tis not that time of the moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue" (I.v.164-
165). She has an agile mind and is able to counter Cesario's metaphors as quickly as he issues
them. She is inquisitive and only asks Cesario the necessary questions. She seems to be a realist,
offering "divers schedules of my beauty" (I.v.200-201) in response to Cesario's lyricism. These
qualities refuse to be submerged even as she finds herself falling in love with Cesario:
... Not too fast! Soft, soft!
... Even so quickly may one catch the plague.
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. (I.v.248, 250-253)
Olivia thus chooses to abandon the safety of her game and pursue Cesario with complete
abandon and confidence in her womanhood. In her pursuit, free from her facade, Olivia is
naively honest with herself and Cesario. She confesses in Act III scene i that she sent "a ring in
chase of" him (III.i.98). She asks him honestly, "I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me"
(III.i.123). Cesario attempts to repay this honesty, "That you do think you are not what you are"
(III.i.124). Because of her naïveté, Olivia takes the phrase literally and assures Cesario that she is
not mad. However, the line also points out that Olivia, the noblewoman, has fallenin love with a
manservant, though a "gentleman," and that that gentleman is actually a gentlewoman. Even so,
Olivia is rational enough to realise that, "wit nor reason can my passion hide" (III.i.137). Unlike
Orsino, Olivia embraces the opportunity for sexual fulfilment with such enthusiasm that she will
attempt to overcome every obstacle with actions, not moaning and words. She is quite lucid on
love, "Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better" (III.i.141). In this sense, she is the
sexual positive to Orsino's negative.Olivia's views will be challenged, however, when confronted
by Sebastian. Since fraternal identical twins are a biological impossibility, it would seem that
Olivia would note some difference between Cesario and Sebastian. But in the throes of
sacrificing love, she would rather soothe her beloved's ire with tales of "how many fruitless
pranks" have been instigated by Sir Toby than launch an investigation into any differences that
may exist between the sister and brother.For his part, Sebastian seems to think that nature caused
Olivia's consistency in being sexually attracted to a woman who looks just like him. But like
Orsino, Olivia is eager for the sexual experience promised by marriage. Olivia is actually very
much steeped in Orsino's "selfsame" deception. She was in love with the image of a man, not a
man, admitting she was suffering from "a most extracting frenzy of mine own" (V.i.265). With
this admission, Olivia too returns to being as she was at the beginning, involved in a self-
deceiving sexual game, as Cesario had lamented: "Poor lady, she were better love a dream"
(II.ii.23).
Although Sebastian notes that he sees the reality and thinks it a dream, Olivia's relationship with
Sebastian will ostensibly have to be redefined, as will Orsino's with Viola. Pequigney
observes:Like Orsino, Olivia goes through a homoerotic phase that lasts through and beyond
betrothal; both have experiences that evince their bisexuality. Nor do they ever pass beyond it,
for the sine qua non of their psychological development - his away from fruitless doting on her,
hers away from fixation on a dead brother - and it has a crucial, integral, and unerasable part in
both their love stories, that of Orsino with Cesario/Viola and that of Olivia with
Cesario/Sebastian. Twelfth Night not only asks the comic question, "How does an individual get
out of tune with society?" But also the tragic question, "Why does the individual behave this
way, and why does society insists upon its standards." This play is unique in that it asks these
questions simultaneously, and within the context of the sexual games of the play, the answers
can be found in the most basic and defining activity of human kind: sex.

5.4.2 Chaos and Order in Twelfth Night

The only reference to Twelfth Night during Shakespeare‘s own lifetime is to a performance on
February 2, 1602. A law student named John Manningham wrote in his diary about a feast he
attended at the Middle Temple in London where he was a law student and where ―we had a play
called Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will." This was likely to have been an early performance
since it is generally agreed that the play was probably written in 1601. In 1954 Sir Leslie
Hotson‘s book, The First Night of Twelfth Night, sought to identify the exact date of the first
performance of Twelfth Night. He used the evidence of old records to suggest that Queen
Elizabeth asked for a new play for the last night of the Christmas 1600-01 season, the Feast of
the Epiphany on January 6, and that Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night accordingly.
Among other evidence for this conclusion cited by Hotson is the information that during this
period Queen Elizabeth was entertaining at court one Don Virginio Orsino, the Duke of
Bracciano, who supposedly gave his name to the chief male character in the play. Hotson‘s
conclusion is that this play was written specifically for this occasion – hence the title. Whether or
not this was indeed the case, and the play did in fact gain its primary title from the date of its first
performance, has continued to be a source of disagreement for critics, directors, and actors, some
of whom, like Samuel Pepys, agree that the play is ―not at all related to the name of that day."
The title is therefore not necessarily helpful in ascribing time, or even place to Twelfth Night. It
has been variously presented onstage at any time of the year from the deepest and bleakest
English midwinter to the height of "midsummer madness" on a Greek island. I would like to
address two issues: firstly, what kind of relationship the play has with its title, and secondly,
where, or rather what, Illyria is.
The festival of Twelfth Night is the Roman Saturnalia, the Feast of Fools. There can be little
doubt that the license that marked this occasion had its origin in very ancient pagan customs. As
Christianity spread across Europe, the church subsumed the old pagan festivals and replaced
them with celebrations of religious significance. However the old traditions took centuries to die
out, and the feast of the Epiphany on January retained a Saturnalian flavour for many centuries.
Even superficially, it is quite clear that Twelfth Night echoes this religious and cultural
"compromise" by highlighting notions of order and chaos: the order of accepted religious and
social morals, and the chaos of pagan Saturnalian licence. It is certainly possible from Leslie
Hotson‘s extensive research that the play was indeed performed on this date, but I suggest that
the title has more to do with the atmosphere surrounding the play than the actual date of the
original performance. Unlike Samuel Pepys, I cannot contend that the play has nothing to do
with the feast – indeed I will argue that the
festival of Twelfth Night and the traditions surrounding it are central to both the sustaining mood
of the play as well as its final outcomes.
The world of Twelfth Night is often seen to be a utopia of "Olde Englande," where the old
traditions are given free reign and where that elusive "happy ever after" quality can be achieved.
Yet there are disquieting elements in Illyria that in many ways reflect the situation in early
seventeenth century England. Despite the exotic and distant sound of its name, Illyria is in fact a
peculiarly English setting and the play is sprinkled liberally with references to the social life and
customs of Jacobean England: Antonio and Sebastian lodge at the Elephant (probably an inn
south of the Thames in London); Fabian is in trouble with Olivia for a "bear-baiting," Sir
Andrew is a ―great eater of beef‖ (I.iii.81); Sir Toby talks heartily of beagles, staniels and
bumbailies; and we hear variously of spinsters, tinkers, tosspots, peascods, bawcocks and
woodcocks. The disquieting element comes with the revelation that despite Sir Toby‘s freedom
to drink and make merry, despite Malvolio‘s strict adherence to puritanical doctrine and despite
Orsino‘s romantic inclinations not one of them is truly happy; in fact nobody in Illyria is happy.
Society cannot function normally because the extremes of social and religious life depicted by
Sir Toby Belch and Malvolio cannot co-exist.
What we see therefore is that Twelfth Night refers not to the time of year at which the events in
the play take place, nor perhaps even the time at which it was first performed. Twelfth Night is
not about the end of the Christmas festivity period when the decorations come down and
"normal" life is resumed, it is instead a picture of the chaos and order created by extremism at
both ends of the spectrum. By association, the place in which the play is set is not geographically
representative of any actual place, but of a hypothetical state in which the norms and order of
everyday life are absent, and the chaos of excess runs unchecked. The opposing elements of
liberalism and Puritanism espoused by the chief characters of the play, and the way in which the
multi-plots of Twelfth Night rely heavily on the elements inherent in the historical festivities of
Twelfth Night show that the title has much more to do with the pervading "anything goes" spirit
of festival; the "What You Will" of the subtitle.

5.5 About the Play

Twelfth Night, like Shakespeare‘s other plays, is usually treated with a kind of reverence, much
like standing in a gallery and looking in awe at a statue—looking with awe but with no other
feelings. Wade and Sheppard in their study, ―How Teachers Teach Shakespeare,‖ make the point
that ―it is futile for teachers to impose their own experiences upon students, because, at best,
responses will be uniform and diluted. Establishment of a personal relationship with the text
must be the first step, and students‘ own responses and interpretations must be considered valid
and worthwhile‖ (p. 23). They go on to conclude that ―first-hand, dramatic experience leads to
personal response and...exploration of a text through performance is an enjoyable way of
illuminating communication between Shakespeare the playwright and his audiences‖ (p. 23).
After an analysis of what a group of teachers indicated on a questionnaire, they conclude,
―Despite recent changes, our findings are that for this sample of English teachers the most
popular teaching methods remain the traditional and transmissional ones. The danger is that an
elitist, high-culture, purely literary model of Shakespeare is presented through
play-reading, literary critical analysis and scene summarizing‖ (p. 27).Yet Shakespeare meant
Twelfth Night to be a romance that is funny in itself because of the many mistaken identities:
Olivia falls in love with Viola, thinking she‘s Cesario, and then marries Sebastian, who has been
using the name Roderigo, because she thinks he is his twin Viola disguised as Cesario. And
Cesario (Viola) has fallen in love with the Duke but, of course, being disguised as a man, can‘t
admit her love. All this confusion and mistakes makes us feel superior to these dense characters
and, so, we laugh at them. The play is meant to be a true comedy as defined by incongruity; that
is, acharacter like Malvolio, so full of self love, falls into the humiliation of being duped and
treated as insane, exactly the opposite of the lofty state he sees for himself.
Consequently, students should come to the play seeing it as a comedy where they laugh at the
silly behavior of some characters with sympathy, like the Duke and Olivia, and others with none,
like Malvolio and, to a lesser extent, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. As suggested earlier, if they can
see the play as a modern mixed-up, slightly crazy movie in Elizabethan dress, the play is likely
to succeed with them.

5.6 Questions

Q.1 What are the major themes of the play Twelfth Night?

Q.2 Shakespeare perfected the romantic comedy of Elizabethan age. Discuss with reference to
Twelfth Night?
Q.3 Shakespeare has created one of the few greatest heroines in English literature. Analyze?

Q.4 What is the source of imagery used by Sir Toby, Andrew, Maria, and Fabian to
characterize Malvolio‘s situation?

Q.5 Give a character sketch of Olivia?

5.7 Suggested Readings

Markels, Julian. "Shakespeare's Confluence of Tragedy and Comedy: Twelfth Night and King
Lear."
Shakespeare Quarterly.no. 15, 1964.

Pequigney, Joseph. "The Two Antonios and Same-Sex Love in Twelfth Night and The Merchant
of Venice."

Shakespeare and Gender: A History. Deborah Barker and Ivo Kamps, eds. London: Verso, 1995.
Swinden, Patrick. An Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies. London: Macmillan, 1973.

Chapter-6
The Winter’s Tale
Structure
6.1 Introduction to The Winter’s Tale
6.2 Act Wise Summary of TheWinter’s Tale
6.2.1 Act I
6.2.2 Act II
6.2.3 Act III
6.2.4 Act IV
 6.2.5 Act V
6.3 Analysis of the play
6.4 Important characters in The Winter’s Tale
6.4.1 Antigonus
6.4.2 Autolycus
6.4.3 Camillo
6.4.4 Hermione
6.4.5 Leontes
6.4.6 Perdita
6.4.7 Polixenes
6.4.8 Paulina
6.5 Questions
6.6 Suggested Readings

6.1 Introduction to The Winter’s Tale

The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's final plays. Composed and performed around 1610-11,
it joins Pericles , Cymbeline , and The Tempest in the list of genre-defying later plays that are
usually referred to as romances, or tragicomedies. Each of these productions has a happy ending
that sets them apart from earlier histories and tragedies, but each emphasizes the danger and
power of evil in the world, and death, while never finally victorious, is an ever-present force in
the stories. In The Winter's Tale, we are given a joyous ending, but the playwright demands that
we endure the savage madness of Leontes, and the deaths of three innocent people before we
reach the happy resolution.

There is no one source for The Winter's Tale, although Shakespeare relies heavily on the works
of Richard Greene, a London writer in the 1580s and '90s. (Greene may have been the author of a
1592 pamphlet attacking Shakespeare, which makes the Bard's borrowings from the deceased
writer particularly appropriate.) From Pandosto, Greene's 1588 prose romance, Shakespeare
borrowed most of the characters and events of the first three acts; and the character and habits of
Autolycus seem to be drawn from Greene's pamphlet accounts of criminals in Elizabethan
London. The story of the abandoned royal baby, meanwhile, owes much to popular folklore of
the time, and the seasonal themes touched` on in Act IV echo Ovid's Metamorphoses—Perdita is
associated with Proserpina, whose emergence from the Underworld in Greek myth was supposed
to herald the return of spring. Finally, the resurrection of Hermione in Act V owes an obvious
debt to the Pygmalion story, in which a sculptor's work comes to life through divine intervention.

6.2 Act Wise Summary of The Winter’s Tale

6.2.1 Act I, Summary

In the kingdom of Sicilia, King Leontes is being visited by his childhood friend, King Polixenes
of Bohemia. One of Leontes's lords, Camillo, discusses the striking differences between the two
kingdoms with a Bohemian nobleman, Archidamus. The conversation then turns to the great and
enduring friendship between the two kings, and the beauty and promise of Leontes's young
son,Mamillius.

These two lords go out, and Leontes comes in, along with his wife Hermione (who is pregnant),
Mamillius, and Polixenes, who is making ready to depart for home. Leontes pleads with him to
stay a little longer in Sicilia, but his friend refuses, declaring that he has been away from
Bohemia for nine months, which is long enough. Hermione then takes up the argument, and
Polixenes yields to her entreaties, promising to stay for a little longer. He tells the Sicilian queen
how wonderful his childhood with Leontes was—how "we were, fair queen / Two lads that
thought there was no more behind / But such a day tomorrow as today / And to be boy
eternal"(I.ii.63-66).

Leontes, meanwhile, tells Hermione that she has never spoken to better effect than in convincing
Polixenes to stay—save for once, when she agreed to marry him. But as his wife and his friend
walk together, apart from him, he feels stirrings of jealousy, and tells the audience that he
suspects them of being lovers. He turns to his son and notes that the boy resembles him, and this
reassures him that Mamillius is, in fact, his son and not someone else's; his suspicion of his wife
remains, however, and grows quickly, until he is certain that she is sleeping with Polixenes. He
sends the two of them to walk in the garden together, promising to join them later, and then calls
Camillo over, asking if he has noticed anything peculiar about Polixenes's behavior lately.
Camillo says that he has not, and Leontes accuses him of being negligent, and then declares that
Hermione and Polixenes have made him a cuckold—that is, a betrayed husband. Camillo,
appalled, refuses to believe it, but his king insists that it is true, and orders the lord to act as
cupbearer to Polixenes—and then poison him at the first opportunity.

Camillo promises to obey, but his conscience is greatly troubled, and when Leontes has gone and
Polixenes reappears, the Bohemian king realizes that something is amiss. Saying that Leontes
just gave him a peculiar and threatening look, he demands to know what is going on, and
Camillo, after a moment of anguish, tells him of the Sicilian king's suspicions and desire to have
him poisoned. He begs protection of Polixenes, who accepts him as a servant, and they decide to
flee the country immediately by sneaking out of the castle and taking ship for Bohemia. Camillo
promises to use his authority in Sicilia to help their escape, and the two men slip away together.

6.2.2 Act II, Summary

Hermione asks her little boy, Mamillius, to sit by her and tell her a story. Meanwhile, Leontes
storms in, having just learned of Polixenes's escape and Camillo's role in accomplishing it. To his
diseased mind, this is proof positive that his suspicions were correct—he decides that Camillo
must have been in Polixenes's pay from the beginning. He orders Mamillius taken away from
Hermione, and then accuses his wife of being pregnant with the king of Bohemia's child.
Hermione, astonished, denies it vigorously, but to no avail, and her husband orders her taken
away to jail, along with her ladies-in-waiting. When she has been dragged off, the lords of Sicilia
plead with Leontes, declaring that he is mistaken and his queen is innocent; Hermione's most
vocal defender is a lord named Antigonus. The king will have none of it, however—he is certain
of his own rightness, and says that anyway, the matter is none of their concern. However, he
does promise to ask the celebrated oracle of Apollo, at Delphi, for a verdict before proceeding
against his wife.

In prison, Antigonus's wife Paulina attempts to visit Hermione, but is rebuffed by the guards. She
is, however, allowed to speak with one of the queen's ladies, Emilia, who reports that her
mistress has given birth to a beautiful daughter. Overriding the uncertain jailer, Paulina decides
to take the child from the cell and bring it to Leontes, in the hopes that the sight of his new-born
daughter will release the king from his madness.

Meanwhile, Mamillius has fallen ill since Hermione's imprisonment. Leontes, of course,
attributes his son's ailment to shame over his mother's infidelity; meanwhile, he angrily wishes
that Polixenes had not managed to escape his wrath. Paulina brings the child to the king, and he
grows furious with her, demanding of Antigonus why he cannot manage to control his wife
better. Paulina, instead of falling silent, argues with Leontes, defending Hermione's honor and
then laying the baby before the angry king before she departs. When she is gone, Leontes orders
Antigonus to take the child away and throw it into the fire, so that he will never have to see
another man's bastard call him father. His lords are horrified by this order, and beg him to recon
sider. He relents after a moment, but only a little—instead of burning the infant, he tells
Antigonus to carry it into the wilderness and leave it there. As the unhappy nobleman takes the
child and departs, word arrives that his messengers to the Oracle of Delphi have returned,
bringing with them the divine verdict on the matter.

6.2.3 Act III, Summary

Making their way back from Delphi, the lords Dion and Cleomenes discuss events in their native
Sicilia, and express their hope that the message they bring from the Oracle will vindicate the
unfortunate Hermione. Meanwhile, Leontes convenes a court, with himself as judge, in order to
give his wife a fair trial. She is brought from the prison to appear before him, and the indictment,
charging her with adultery and conspiracy in the escape of Polixenes and Camillo, is read to the
entire court. Hermione defends herself eloquently, saying: that she loved the Bohemian king "as
in honor he required"(III.ii.62), but no more, certainly not in a sexual fashion; that she is ignorant
of any conspiracy; and that Camillo is an honest man. Leontes, paying little heed to her words,
declares that she is guilty, and that her punishment must be death. Hermione laughs bitterly at
this and says that given her sufferings so far, death would be a blessed release.

At this juncture, the two lords arrive with the Oracle's message. It is unsealed and read aloud—
"Hermione is chaste," it reports, "Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous
tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is
lost be not found"(III.ii.131-34). The courtiers rejoice, while Leontes refuses to believe it; at that
moment, however, a servant rushes in with word that Mamillius has died, and the enormity of the
king's mistake suddenly comes crashing down on him. Hermione faints, and she is quickly
carried away by her ladies and Paulina, who are frantically attempting to revive her. Leontes,
now grief-stricken, pours curses upon his own head, and Paulina re-enters and tells him that
Hermione, too, has died, and that he has murdered her. One of the lords rebukes her, but Leontes
accepts her accusation as no more than his due. Ordering a single grave for the body of his wife
and son, he pledges to spend the rest of his life doing penance for his sin.

Unaware of the Oracle's revelations, Antigonus has arrived on the desolate Bohemian coast,
bearing the infant princess. He tells the audience how Hermione appeared to him in a dream,
telling him to name the babe Perdita, and declaring that he would never see his home, or his wife
Paulina, again. He lays the infant down in the woods, and places gold and jewels beside her, and
a note telling the child's name, and then makes ready to depart. A storm has come up, however,
and a bear appears and chases him off stage. After a time, a Shepherd comes in and finds the
baby; he is joined by his son, a Clown, who reports seeing a man (Antigonus) killed by a bear,
and a ship (Antigonus's vessel) go down in the storm. The two men then discover the wealth left
with Perdita, and they rejoice in their good fortune and vow to raise the child themselves.

On the empty stage, an actor appears, playing Time, and announces that in the space between
acts, sixteen years have passed. The scene shifts to Polixenes's castle in Bohemia, where the king
is conversing with Camillo. Camillo asks leave of Polixenes to return to his native Sicily, since
sixteen years away have made him homesick—and besides, the still-grieving Leontes would
welcome him home with open arms. Polixenes replies that he cannot manage the kingdom
without Camillo's assistance, and the two men discuss the king's son, Florizel, who has been
spending a great deal of time away from court, at the house of a wealthy shepherd—a shepherd
whose daughter is reputed to be a great beauty. Somewhat worried, Polixenes decides that they
will visit this shepherd's house, but in disguise, and see what Florizel is up to.

Meanwhile, in the Bohemian countryside, a jovial vagabond, peddler, and thief named Autolycus
is wandering along a highway and singing loudly. He comes upon the Clown on his way to
market, counting a substantial sum of money with which he plans to buy supplies for a country
sheepshearing (a great event in the area). Autolycus accosts him and pretends to be the victim of
a robbery. As the Clown commiserates with him, the crafty thief picks his pocket, and when his
victim has gone on his way, Autolycus resolves to make an appearance at the sheepshearing—in
a different disguise, of course.
6.2.4 Act IV, Summary

On the day of the sheepshearing, Perdita and Florizel walk together outside her home. She is
decked out in flowers, and he compliments her on her grace and beauty. It quickly becomes
apparent that the couple is deeply in love, but Perdita expresses concern over the possibility of
their eventual union, pointing out that Florizel's father is bound to oppose it. The prince reassures
her, declaring that "I'll be thine, my fair, / Or not my father's"(IV.iv.42-43). As they talk together,
the Shepherd comes in with a huge crowd, including the Clown, a group of shepherdesses, and
the disguised Polixenes and Camillo. The Shepherd tells his adoptive daughter to act the hostess,
as is proper, and so she busies herself distributing flowers to the new arrivals, which leads to a
discussion of horticulture with Polixenes. Watching and listening to her, Florizel is inspired to
another effusive declaration of his love. At this point we learn that he is going by the alias of
Doricles. Polixenes remarks to Camillo that Perdita is "the prettiest lowborn lass that ever / ran
on the greensward. Nothing she does or seems / But smacks of something greater than herself,
too noble for this place"(IV.iv.156-59). He asks the Shepherd about "Doricles," and the Shepherd
tells him that his daughter's suitor is some high-born fellow, and that the two are deeply in
love—"I think there is not half a kiss to choose / Who loves another best"(IV.iv.175-76).
Meanwhile, a peddler arrives, with the promise of entertaining the company with songs. He is
allowed in—it is Autolycus, in a peddler's costume—and sets about selling ballads to the Clown
and the shepherdesses, and then singing for the entire group. As he does so, Polixenes asks
Florizel why he has not bought anything for his love, and the prince replies that he knows that
Perdita does not desire such silly things as the peddler is offering. He then decides to take this
moment to ask the Shepherd to seal their betrothal, and the old man gladly agrees to do so.

Before they make the compact, however, Polixenes asks Florizel why he does not consult his
father before getting engaged, and the prince (still unaware of whom he is speaking with) replies
that there are reasons, which he dares not share, why his father cannot know of his betrothal. He
urges the Shepherd to "mark our contract"(IV.iv.16), but the king now casts aside his disguise
and declares that the betrothal shall not go forward: the Shepherd will be executed for allowing a
prince to court his daughter; Perdita's beauty shall be "scratched with briers"(Iv.iv.424); and
Florizel will be disinherited if he ever speaks of her again. He relents slightly, after a moment,
and decides to spare the life of the Shepherd and the face of his daughter, but tells them that if
they ever see the prince again, there lives will be forfeit. Polixenes then departs, ordering his son
to follow him to court, and leaving everyone horrified.

Both Perdita and the Shepherd despair, with the latter cursing Florizel for deceiving him and then
storming off. The prince is remarkably unfazed, however, and assures Perdita that he will not be
separated from her—that he is willing to give up the succession and flee Bohemia immediately.
Camillo advises him against it, but Florizel insists that he will not break his oath to Perdita for
anything in the world. This resolve gives Camillo an idea, and he advises the prince to flee at
once to Sicilia, where Leontes, believing him sent from Polixenes, will give him a good
welcome. In the meantime, Camillo promises to bring Polixenes around to the notion of his son
marrying a commoner. In truth, however, Camillo hopes that the king will follow his son to
Sicilia, and bring him along, thus allowing him to return to his native land.

Florizel agrees to the old lord's plan, but points out that he does not have an appropriate retinue
to appear in the court of Sicilia as Polixenes's son. While they discuss this problem, with Camillo
promising to furnish the necessary attendants and letters, Autolycus comes in, bragging to
himself about all the cheap goods he sold and all the purses he stole during the sheepshearing.
Noticing him, Camillo asks the rascal to exchange clothes with Florizel. Autolycus, baffled,
agrees, and the prince puts on the peddler's rags, which, he hopes, will enable him to reach a ship
undetected by his father. This done, Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo leave Autolycus alone on
stage. The crafty peddler/thief declares that he has figured out their business from listening to
them, but will not go and tell the king, since that would be a good deed—and good deeds are
against his nature.

As Autolycus talks to himself, the Clown and the Shepherd come in. Seeing an opportunity for
mischief, he pretends to be a nobleman (he is still wearing Florizel's clothing). The Clown is
advising the Shepherd to tell King Polixenes how he found Perdita in the forest years before—
since if she was a foundling, he is not her real father and therefore not responsible for her
actions. Hearing this, Autolycus tells them that the king has gone aboard a nearby ship, and
sends them in that direction. In fact, he sends them to the ship that Florizel and Perdita are taking
to Sicilia.

6.2.5 Act V, Summary

In Sicilia, Leontes is still in mourning for Hermione and Mamillius, although some of his lords
urge him to forget the past, forgive himself, and marry again. Paulina, however, encourages his
continued contrition, and extracts from him a promise that he will never take another wife until
she gives him leave. Word comes of the arrival of Prince Florizel and his new wife Perdita from
Bohemia, and the couple is ushered into Leontes's presence and greeted eagerly—since the
Sicilian king has had no word from Bohemia for years. Everyone remarks on the beauty and
grace of Perdita, and Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission from his father. As they
talk, however, a lord brings news that Polixenes himself, along with Camillo, are in the city, in
pursuit of Florizel—and that they have the Shepherd and the Clown (who came to Sicilia on
Florizel's ship) in their custody. Leontes, stunned, immediately resolves to go down and meet his
former friend, bringing the despairing Florizel and Perdita with them.

What follows is told second-hand, by several lords of Leontes's court to the newly-arrived
Autolycus. Briefly, once the Shepherd tells everyone his story of finding Perdita on the
Bohemian coast, and reveals the tokens that were left on her, Leontes and Polixenes realize who
she is; both kings—but especially Leontes—are overcome with joy, and there is general
rejoicing. The lords also tell Autolycus that the happy group has not yet returned to court, since
Perdita expressed a wish to see a statue of her mother, recently finished in Paulina's country
house. Then the Clown and Shepherd come in, having both been made gentlemen, and Autolycus
pledges to amend his life and become their loyal servant.

The scene shifts to Paulina's home, and she unveils the statue, which impresses everyone with its
realism and attention to detail—as well as the fact that the sculptor made Hermione look exactly
sixteen years older than the queen was when she died. Leontes is overcome by the sight of her,
and tries to touch the statue's hand. Paulina keeps him back, saying that she did not expect it to
move him to such grief, and offers to draw the curtain, but the king refuses to allow it. Paulina
then offers to make the statue come down from the pedestal—and, to everyone's amazement,
there is music and the statue moves. It steps down, and embraces Leontes: it is the real
Hermione, alive again. She blesses her daughter, saying that she hoped to see her again, and then
Leontes, now overcome with happiness, betrothes Paulina and Camillo and then leads the
company out, rejoicing in the apparent miracle

6.3 Analysis of the play

The Winter's Tale is a perfect tragicomedy. Set in an imaginary world where Bohemia has a
seacoast, and where ancient Greek oracles coexist with Renaissance sculptors, it offers three acts
of unremitting tragedy, followed by two acts of restorative comedy. In between, sixteen years
pass hastily, a lapse which many critics have taken as a structural flaw, but which actually only
serves to highlight the disparity of theme, setting, and action between the two halves of the play.
The one is set amid gloomy winter, and illuminates the destructive power that mistaken jealousy
exercises over the family of Leontes, King of Sicilia; in the second half, flower-strewn spring
intervenes, and all the damage that the King's folly accomplished is undone—through
coincidence, goodwill, and finally through miracle, as a statue of his dead wife comes to life and
embraces him.

As the force behind the tragedy stems from Leontes's belief that his wife, Hermione, and best
friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia, are lovers, so Leontes has attracted more critical interest than
any other character in the play. An Othello who is his own Iago, he is a perfect paranoiac,
convinced that he has all the facts and ready to twist any counter-argument to fit his (mistaken)
perception of the world. Perhaps because of its uncertain origin, Leontes's madness is a terrifying
thing: he becomes a poet of nihilism, demanding, when told that there is "nothing" between
Hermione and Polixenes, "Is this nothing? / Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing, /
The covering sky's nothing, Bohemia nothing, / My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these
nothings, / If this be nothing"(I.ii.292-296). The roots of his jealousy seem to run too deep for the
play to plumb—there are hints of misogyny, of dynastic insecurity, and of an inability to truly
separate himself psychologically from Polixenes, but no definitive answers. Indeed, the only
answer is his own—in one of Shakespeare's finer images, Leontes says "I have drunk, and seen
the spider"(II.i.45).
To balance his morbid, brooding nihilism and sexual jealousy, Shakespeare makes Leontes's
daughter Perdita a poet of spring, rebirth, and revitalization, whose own lover (Polixenes's son
Florizel) is as constant and generous as Leontes is suspicious and cruel. She appears decked in
flowers, and when she dispenses them to everyone around her, the play links her with Proserpina,
Roman goddess of the spring and growing things. If Leontes is a tragic hero, then she is a fairy-
tale heroine, a princess reared among commoners who falls in love with a prince and—
eventually—lives happily ever after. Leontes casts her out as an infant in Act III, when he is in
the grip of darkness; in Act V she returns to him, and restores him to happiness. The miracle of
Hermione's resurrection at the play's close is only a fitting close to the spirit of rebirth that
Perdita brings into the story.

The play is also notable for its rich group of supporting characters. Hermione is an exemplary
and eloquent figure, despite the fact that she spends the play defending herself against unjust
accusations, and her friend Paulina is the voice of sanity while Leontes is mad and then the voice
of reminder and penance once he regrets his crimes. The rustic Shepherd who takes in Perdita
and the ever-faithful lord, Camillo are both sympathetic characters, too, but none can match
Autolycus, the peddler, thief and minstrel who is a harmless villain (he robs, lies, and cheats)—
so harmless, in fact, that the audience forgives and even applauds him as he sings, dances, and
robs his way through the play, contriving even to find time to provide a helping hand to the other
characters as they struggle toward their happy ending.

6.4 TheWinter'sTale –Characterizations.

6.4.1 Antigonus

Antigonus is a Sicilian lord married to Paulina. He opposes the brutal way Leontes
treatsHermione and the baby girl to which Hermione has just given birth. He protests that
Hermione has been faithful to Leontes and says, "If it prove / She's otherwise, I'll keep my
stableswhere / I lodge my wife"(II.i.133-35), suggesting that if one as ideally gracious
asHermione has given in to lustful desires, all women are suspect, theirsexual drive differing not
at all from the notoriously lusty horses in the stables. When Paulina openly accuses the Sicilian
king of being ignorant and obstinate, Leontes chargesAntigonus to silence hiswife. Antigonus,
however, either cannot or does not immediately silence her, and Leontessays, "Thou dotar, thou
art woman-tir'd, unroosted / By the Dame Partlet here"(II.iii.75-76). Leontes issuggesting that
Antigonus is henpecked and unable to control hiswife, eventually threatening Antigonuswith a
charge of treason if the latter does not do what Leontescommands. Antigonusswears his
allegiance to Leontes and agrees to take the baby girl to some remote place and abandon it to live
or die.

Antigonus next appears in the wilderness of Bohemia. Hermione has appeared to him in a dream,
instructing him to name the baby Perdita and informing him that he will neversee Paulina again
for his part in the cruelty done Perdita. He laysPerdita down and places a bundle next to her. The
bundle contains gold, letterswritten by Antigonus explaining Perdita's birthright, and tokens
ofHermione verifying that Perdita is of the nobility. He leaves the infant, heading off in the storm
toward the ship that waitsfor him off the fantastical Bohemian coast. Antigonus's departure
isfollowed by the much cited stage direction—"Exit, pursued by a bear"(III.iii.58). We
immediately learn from the clown that the bear has torn Antigonus to pieces and that the storm
hassunk the ship and drowned the marinerswho waited for him.

6.4.2 Autolycus

Autolycus is a rogue and a thief. He encounters the clown (Perdita's adoptive brother), who is on
hisway to buy goodsfor the sheep-shearing festival to be held at the clown'sfather's home.
Autolycus pretends to have been robbed, evoking the clown'ssympathy. Autolycus then proceeds
to pick the clown's pocket. When Autolycusfinds out about the planned rustic festivities, he
determines to attend and steal even more money. He is a huge success at the festival, selling
hiswares and picking the pockets of the guests there. The old shepherd and his clown son are just
too gullible forAutolycus to leave them alone. As they make theirway to Polixenes, intending to
inform the Bohemian king of the secret surrounding Perdita's origin, Autolycus pretends to be a
courtier and offers to be their advocate with the king. He misdirects them to the ship which is
about to carry Perdita and Florizel to Sicilia, hoping that he can gain favorwith the prince by
revealing the existence of the mysterious bundle found by the infant Perdita'sside. The prince,
however, is concerned with Perdita'sseasickness and pays little attention to Autolycus. When the
contents of that bundle later confirm Perdita'sroyalty, benefiting the old shepherd and the clown
in the process, Autolycus is chagrined to learn that he has done some good despite hisselfish and
dishonest intentions.

Autolycus contrastssharply with the other characters in the play struggling to demonstrate their
nobility. He knows exactly who he is and claims to be nothing more. At hisfirst appearance in the
play, Autolycusreveals that he hasserved Prince Florizel and says, "My father nam'd me
Autolycus; who being, asI am, litteredunderMercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered
trifles"(IV.iii.24-26). In short, he carries on hisfather's tradition of thievery. Referring to the
revelations offered by Perdita's bundle near the end of the play, Autolycussays, "had I been the
finder-out of thissecret, it would not have relish'd among my other discredits"(V.ii.121-23). He
realistically admits that even if the prince had opened the bundle when Autolycusfirst suggested
he do so, the praise and thanksAutolycuswould have received would not have made up for his
numerous villainies. As others around him are elevated to new and greatersocial status,
Autolycus knows that he is a thief by nature, not likely to change for the better, even though he
promises the old shepherd and hisson that he will change hisways if they commend him to Prince
Florizel.

6.4.3 Camillo

Camillo is a Sicilian lord and trusted advisor to Leontes. He agrees to poison Polixeneswhen
Leontes insists that he do so. But Camillo cannot bring himself to carry out the task when the
time comes. He informsPolixenes of Leontes's plot to kill him and agrees to guide Polixenesfrom
Sicilia to safety, Polixenes assuring him that he will compensate the favor by awarding Camillo
the same social status and financial security in Bohemia as he now enjoys in Sicilia. Leontes
accuses Camillo, in his absence, of being a traitor, but Apollo's oracle absolves Camillo of those
charges. When the play shifts to Bohemia, we find Camillo some sixteen years later pining for
the friendship of Leontes. He feelssorry for Leontes, who has been grieving for his deceased wife
and son and regretting his harsh treatment of his infant daughter. Camillo wants to visitLeontes,
but Polixenes convinces him to put that visit off, enlisting Camillo in an effort to discoverwhy
Florizel spendsso much time at the home of the old shepherd. He and Polixenes discover that
Florizel is in love with Perdita, one whom they believe is a lowly shepherd girl, and
Polixenesstrenuously objects to the marriage and even threatensPerdita and her adoptive family.
Camillo then counselsFlorizel to take Perdita

andsail to Sicilia. In his effort to find a way to visit Leontes, he knowingly putsFlorizel and
Perdita in danger of being found by Polixenes; Camillo hopes that once Polixenes
discoverswhere hisson and Perdita have fled to, Polixeneswill follow them and will take Camillo
with him.

At the end of the play, Leontesselects Camillo to be Paulina's husband, referring to Camillo as
one "whose worth and honesty / Isrichly noted"(V.iii.144-45). Leontes's description of Camillo
issomewhat ironic considering that Camillo hasso recently and openly deceived the young
Prince Florizel. Although Camillo's counsel actually benefits the young couple, Camillo does
not know that when he proposes, they flee the wrath ofPolixenes. He is motivated by his own
desires to return to his home and hisfriends in Sicilia. Camillo acts nobly in refusing to poison
Polixenes, but his deception ofFlorizel somewhat offsets that noble action.

6.4.4 Hermione

Hermione is the queen ofSicilia, Leontes'swife. Leontes asks her to try and convince Polixenes to
extend his visit in Sicilia a bit longer, and Hermione does it a little too well. She, at least in
Leontes's view, is a little too convincing as the gracious and flattering wife, engaging in an
exchange of praiseswith Polixenes. Like the others around her, Hermione is amazed at
Leontes'ssudden and unstoppable hatred of her. He imprisons her, takes away her newborn
infant, and causes hisson to die of grieffor his mother. At her trial, Hermioneappears to be a
beaten and fragile woman. She feels her pleas of innocence will fall on deaf ears and thinks it
unfair that she issummoned to answerridiculous charges against herwhen she isstill weak from
childbirth. She entrusts herfate to the decision of the oracle, which proclaims her innocent, an
innocence Leontes continues to refute. But after it is announced that Mamillius has died,
Hermione swoons and is taken away.Paulina reenters and saysHermione, too, has died. Hermione
is not seen again until the end of the play when a statue of her allegedly comes to life. Even then,
she is hesitant to be friendly with Polixenesforfear that Leontes might be upset. But Leontes
encouragesPolixenes and Hermione to embrace; he has learned his lesson.

Hermione is glorified and placed on a pedestal, both figuratively and literally, after her presumed
death. In life she appears, like many people, to be desirous of praise and pleased to be the center
of attention. When Leontes tells her that she hasspoken to good purpose on two occasions, she
knows one of those occasions to be her persuasion ofPolixenes to stay, and she will not rest until
she isfurtherflattered. She says, "I pr'ythee tell me; cram'swith praise, and make's / Asfat as tame
things"(I.ii.91-92).

The hoax she perpetuates at Leontes's expense, letting him believe forso many years that she is
dead, hasreceived mixed reactionsfrom audiences and critics. While some people believe
Hermione's actionsshould be condemned, othersfeel that Leontes's actions—his cruel treatment
of herwhich results in the death of theirson and the banishment of a helpless infant—make
Hermione's actionssomewhat justifiable, if a little unusual.

6.4.5 Leontes

Leontes is the king ofSicilia. His jealousy ofHermione and Polixenes precipitates the tragedy of
the first part of the play. He acts irrationally against the evidence that showsHermione to have
been completely faithful to him. He plots to poison Polixenes, he imprisonsHermione, and he
sends his defenseless infant child to a remote area of Bohemia to live or die asfate would have it.
At the trial of hiswife, Leontes denounces thetruth of the oracle that proclaimsHermione innocent
of adultery. Immediately following Leontes'srashspeech, young Prince Mamillius dies, and it is
announced that Hermione dies aswell. For nearly twenty years, Leontes presumes hiswife to be
dead, and he seems to suffer great remorse forwhat he has done to both her and his children. At
the end of the play, he is miraculously reunited with his daughter, Perdita, and a statue
ofHermione comes to life and embraces him; she is not dead after all.

In his extreme jealousy, Leontes is like Shakespeare'sOthello. But unlike Othello's jealousy
which resultsfrom the external manipulations of the evil Iago, Leontes's jealousy seems to
stem wholly from within himself. In the end, though, the distinction does not hold, for both
men are in the powerful grip of the same human emotion.

We can almost feel that emotion when Leontes describes hisreaction to Hermione placing her
hand in the hand ofPolixenes. He says in an aside,

Too hot, too hot!

 To mingle friendship far is mingling
bloods.I have tremor cordis on me;
my heart dances; But not for joy; not
joy.
(I.ii.108-11)

His pounding heart makes the rush of blood stop his ears to any rational explanation of
hiswife's behaviorwith his best friend. Leontes identifiesso completely with his boyhood friend
that he perhaps becomes confused and projects his own great affection forPolixenes onto
Hermione. PerhapsPolixenes and Leontes are so alike in Leontes's mind that ifHermione loves
the latter, she cannot help but feel the same way about the former.

It isreported that Leontes and Polixeneswere very much alike as youngsters, and they are also
alike as adults. Polixenesreacts emotionally to Florizel's desire to marry Perdita and will not be
stopped in his efforts to prevent their marriage. He misreads the truth of the situation in the same
way that Leontes misreadsHermione's behavior. Neither man will listen to reason; both follow
the dictates of the truth they perceive emotionally. The different consequences of each man's
actions is dictated only by genre. Leontes acts in the domain of tragedy, the consequences of his
actions only partially compensated in the play's comic ending, Mamillius isstill dead. Polixenes
operates in the domain of comedy, the destructive potential of his actions completely allayed by
the comic ending of the play, in which a happy marriage brings union, harmony, and dissolution
of all problems.

6.4.6 Perdita

Perdita is the daughter ofHermione and Leontes, born while her motherwas held in prison at the
direction ofPerdita'sfatherwho thought Hermione an adulteress and Perdita a bastard. Her name
means"the lost one," a name given to her by Antigonus afterHermione had appeared to him in a
dream, instructing him to do so. Antigonus, on the orders of Leontes, left Perdita in the barren
wilds of Bohemia where she was discovered and raised by an old shepherd. Perdita displays a
beauty and grace that belies her homely origins. When Polixenes complains that hisson, Florizel,
spends too much time at the home of the old shepherd thought to be Perdita'sfather, Camillo
says, "I have heard, sir, ofsuch a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is
extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage"(IV.ii.41-43). Perdita has
gained a reputation for qualitiesfarsurpassing hersocial class. Even the old shepherd cannot
refrain from praising her. When Polixenessays that she danceswell, the old shepherd says, "So
she does anything; though Ireport it, / Thatshould be silent"(IV.iv.177-78).

The ultimate endorsement of her grace and beauty is the fact that Prince Florizel falls in love with
her. He steadfastly persists in that love for her, despite Polixenes's efforts to keep them apart.
Perdita lovesFlorizel with equal intensity. The old shepherd says, "I think there is not half a kiss
to choose / Who loves anotherbest"(IV.iv.174-75). But Perdita believesherself to be the daughter
of a shepherd and is uneasy that Polixeneswill not approve of her as a wife to his noble son. She
is correct. Polixenes is extremely angry when he discovers the affair between Perdita and
Florizel. He cannot, however, prevent the inevitable. Perdita's origins are discovered, and she
isreunited with Leontes. She is now a suitable match for the Bohemian prince. At the end of the
play, after being reunited with her mother, Perdita isstrangely silent; but she has performed
herfunction in the play, fulfilling the oracle and providing comic resolution to the entanglements
and problems presented in the play.

6.4.7 Polixenes

Polixenes is the king of Bohemia. At the beginning of the play, he is visiting Leontes, the king
ofSicilia. The two kings have been friendssince childhood, Polixenesfondly remembering that
childhood as one of carefree innocence as yet untempered by the realities of the world. The two
were then indistinguishable in their innocence and energy. Polixenesreminds Leontes, "We were
as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun / And bleat the one at th' other"(I.ii.66-67). Polixenes
announces that he must return home, and Leontes insists that he stay longer. Polixenes, however,
stubbornly refuses to give in to Leontes'srequest; he misses his own young son and must attend
to affairs ofstate in Bohemia. Polixenes, though, relentswhen Hermione implores him to stay.
Leontes interpretsHermione's ability to influence Polixenes as proof that the two are intimately
involved. When Camillo informsPolixenes of Leontes's plan to kill him, Polixenes cannot
understand what has happened to the friend who has ever been close to him and so much like
himself. He flees to Bohemia.

Polixenes is more like Leontes than he would, perhaps, like to think. The world has hardened the
two men in similarways. Both are made self-indulgent by the power they wield. When Polixenes
discovers that hisson, Florizel, means to marry Perdita, one whom Polixenes believes is a low
classshepherd girl, he breaks out in a burst of passion. He threatens both Perdita and hershepherd
relatives and expresses disgust with hisson's deception. Polixenes is motivated by a passion
which is, arguably, every bit as irrational and destructive as Leontes's earlier jealousy. He
followsPerdita and Florizel to Sicilia, callsfor their arrest, and makes life miserable for the old
shepherd and the clown, threatening them with torture. A tragedy similar to that produced by
Leontes's purely emotional responses—the death ofMamillius and Leontes'ssixteen-
yearseparation from hiswife and daughter—is avoided only by the comic elements of the second
part of the play that reveal Perdita to be ofroyal blood.

6.4.8 Paulina
Paulina is the wife ofAntigonus. When she learns that Leontes has imprisoned Hermione on
charges of adultery, Paulina goes to the prison to visit the queen. Learning that Hermione has
just delivered a baby girl, Paulina takes the child to Leontes, hoping to evoke pity and a change
of attitude from him. Leontesdeclares the child a bastard, and Paulina becomes incensed.
Leontes has chosen the wrong woman to make angry; Paulina isrelentless in her opposition to
hisrash and illogical behavior. AfterHermione is declared dead, Paulina hounds Leonteswith her
memory forsixteen years, functioning as his conscience, keeping him constantly remorseful and
contrite. In the last act, several of Leontes's counselors urge him to marry and produce an heir to
his kingdom. Paulina objects, reminding him of the oracle's pronouncement that he would
remain without an heir until what was lost had been found. She encourages Leontes to choose
an heir as the great Alexander did, on merit. Leontes agreeswith her and dutifully admits that
had he listened to her years

ago, Hermione would still be alive. In his preface to this admission, he refers to Antigonus'swife
as"Good Paulina / Who hast the memory ofHermione … "(V.i.49-50). This description is exactly
correct. Paulina is the keeper ofHermione, both her memory and her living person. It isPaulina
who announces that Hermione has died, and it isPaulina who keeps the statue ofHermione—a
statue which, according to the gentleman at V.ii.104-08, Paulina has visited two or three times a
day since Hermione supposedly died. What Paulina has done is unmistakable: she has kept, either
on her own or in collusion with Hermione, the knowledge ofHermione's continued existence a
secret from Leontes. At the play's end, Leontesselects Camillo to bePaulina's new husband.

6.5 Questions

1. Romantic conventions appear in many sections of The Winter's Tale. Name three influences
on events at the sheep-shearing feast. Identify Romantic conventions in relation to some settings
in this play. Comment on any which might have damaged the ending of this play.
2. Identify at least three parallels between the main plot and the subplot in The Winter's Tale. Is
the effect an enhancement or a redundancy?
3. How does Autolycus gather passengers into the boat which is sailing from Bohemia?
4. Identify the major conflict in The Winter's Tale. How is the conflict resolved?
5. Paulina has often been described as a character whose actions grow from motivation. What is
her motivation? Is she likable?
6. Is it unrealistic to portray a man, like Leontes, who kills indiscriminately because of
unjustifiable jealousy?
6.6 Suggested Readings

1) Barber, C. L. Shakespeare‘s Festive comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relations
to Social Custom. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1959.
2) Ribner, Irving. William Shakespeare: An Introduction to His Life, Times, and Theatre.
Waltham, Massachusetts: Blaisdell Publishing co., 1969.
3) Egan, Robert. "The Art Itself Is Nature:The Winter's Tale." InDrama Within Drama;
Shakespeare's Sense of His Art inKing Lear, The Winter's Tale,andThe Tempest, New
York Columbia University Press,1975.
4) Orgel, Stephen. Introduction toThe Winter's Tale, by William Shakespearepp. 1-83.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
5) Ornstein, Robert. "The Winter's Tale." InShakespeare's Comedies: From Roman Farce to
Romantic Mystery,". Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986.
6) Nelson, Thomas Allen. "The Winter's Tale: Pastoralism and Shakespearean
Comedy."Shakespeare's Comic Theory. A Study of Art and Artifice in the Last Plays,
The Hague: Mouton, 1972.
 Chapter- 7
Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems
Structure

7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction to Sonnets
7.2 Life and background of the poet
7.3 An overview of the Sonnets
7.4 Summary of Sonnets
7.4.1 Sonnet 106
7.4.2 Sonnet 138
7.4.3 Sonnet 29
7.4.4 Sonnet 18
7.4.5 Sonnet 86
7.4.6 Sonnet 104
7.5 Probable Questions

7.6 Venus and Adonis

7.6.1 Introduction
7.6.2 Summary
7.6.3 Major Themes
7.6.4 Probable Questions

7.7 Rape of Lucrece

7.7.1 Introduction
7.7.2 Summary
7.7.3 Major Themes
7.7.4 Probable Questions

7.6 Suggested Readings

7.0 Objectives

The section will give background of the poet as well as his sonnets. The unit contains Critical
analysis and Commentary on the lines of the Shakespearean Sonnets to comprehend the sonnets in depth.
This section will enable you to study Shakespeare’s Sonnets and poems, the famous sonnets of
Shakespeare, in depth by drawing your focus to its historical relevance. Summary and Themes
are given to have a clear-cut idea of the sonnets and the poems, and to examine Shakespeare as a
poet and how the poet employs a variety of effects in it.
7.1 Introduction to Sonnets
Sonnet.A lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an
intricate rhyme scheme. There are two major patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in the English
language:
(1) The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet (named after the fourteenth century Italian poet Petrarch)
falls into two main parts: an octave (eight lines) rhyming abbaabba followed by a sestet (six
lines) rhyming cdecde or some variant, such as cdccdc. Petrarch's sonnets were first imitated in
England, both in their stanza form and their subject—the hopes and pains of an adoring male
lover—by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early sixteenth century. (See Petrarchan conceit.)The
Petrarchan form was later used, and for a variety of subjects, by Milton, Wordsworth, Christina
Rossetti, D. G. Rossetti, and other sonneteers, who sometimes made it technically easier in
English (which does not have as many rhyming possibilities as Italian) by introducing a new pair
of rhymes in the second four lines of the octave.
(2) The Earl of Surrey and other English experimenters in the sixteenth century also developed a
stanza form called the English sonnet, or else the Shakespearean sonnet, after its greatest
practitioner. This sonnet falls into three quatrains and a concluding couplet: abab cdcd efef gg.
There was one notable variant, the Spenserian sonnet, in which Spenser linked each quatrain to
the next by a continuing rhyme: abab bebe cdcd ee.
The rhyme pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet has on the whole favoured a statement of problem,
situation, or incident in the octave, with a resolution in the sestet. The English form sometimes
uses a similar division of material, but often presents a repetition-with variation of a statement in
each of the three quatrains; in either case, the final couplet in the English sonnet usually imposes
an epigrammatic turn at the end. In Drayton's fine Elizabethan sonnet in the English form "Since
there's no help, come let us kiss and part," the lover brusquely declares in the first quatrain, then
reiterates in the second, that he is glad that the affair is cleanly ended, but in the concluding
couplet suddenly drops his swagger to make one last plea. Here are the last quatrain and couplet:
Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes;
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.
Following Petrarch's early example, a number of Elizabethan authors arranged their poems into sonnet
sequences, or sonnet cycles, in which a series of sonnets are linked together by exploring the varied
aspects of a relationship between lovers, or else by indicating a development in the relationship
that constitutes a kind of implicit plot. Shakespeare ordered his sonnets in a sequence, as did Sidney in
Astrophel and Stella (1580) and Spenser in Amoretti (1595). Later examples of the sonnet sequence on
various subjects are Wordsworth's The River Duddon, D. G. Rossetti's House of Life, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and the American poet William Ellery Leonard's Two Lives.
Dylan Thomas' Altarwise by Owl-light (1936) is a sequence of ten sonnets which are meditations on the
poet's own life. George Meredith's Modern Love (1862), which concerns a bitterly unhappy marriage, is
sometimes called a sonnet sequence, even though its poems consist not of
fourteen but of sixteen lines. On the early history of the sonnet and its development in England
through Milton, see Michael R. G. Spiller, The Development of the Sonnet: An Introduction (1992). See
also L. G. Sterner, The Sonnet in American Literature (1930); J. B. Leishman, Themes and Variations in
Shakespeare's Sonnets (1963); Michael R. G. Spiller, The Sonnet Sequence: A Study of the Strategies
(1997); Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1997). Arthur Marotti relates the vogue of the
sonnet sequences to the politics and system of literary patronage in Elizabethan England, in "Love Is Not
Love: Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences and the Social Order," ELH, Vol. 49 (1982). (M. H. Abrams and
Geoffrey Galt Harpham, 2012)
Although the entirety of Shakespeare‘s sonnets were not formally published until 1609 (and even then,
they were published without the author‘s knowledge), an allusion to their existence appeared eleven years
earlier, in Francis Meres‘ Palladis Tamia (1598), in which Meres commented that Shakespeare‘s
―Sonnets‖ were circulating privately among the poet‘s friends. Approximately a year later, William
Jaggard‘s miscellany, The Passionate Pilgrim, appeared, containing twenty poems, five of which are
known to be Shakespeare‘s—two of the Dark Lady sonnets (Sonnets 138 and 144) and three poems
included in the play Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Apparently these five poems were printed in Jaggard‘s miscellany (a collection of writings on various
subjects) without Shakespeare‘s authorization. Without question, Shakespeare was the most popular
playwright of his day, and his dramatic influence is still evident today, but the sonnet form, which was so
very popular in Shakespeare‘s era, quickly lost its appeal. Even before Shakespeare‘s death in 1616 the
sonnet was no longer fashionable, and for two hundred years after his death, there was little interest in
either Shakespeare‘s sonnets, or in the sonnet form itself.
The text of Shakespeare‘s sonnets generally considered to be definitive is that of the 1609 edition, which
was published by Thomas Thorpe, a publisher having less than a professional reputation. Thorpe‘s
edition, titled Shake-speare’s Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted, is referred to today as the ―Quarto,‖ and is
the basis for all modern texts of the sonnets.
The Quarto would have lapsed into obscurity for the remainder of the seventeenth century had it not been
for the publication of a second edition of Shakespeare‘s sonnets, brought out by John Benson in 1640. A
pirated edition of the sonnets, Benson‘s version was not a carefully edited, duplicate copy of the Quarto.
Because Benson took several liberties with Shakespeare‘s text, his volume has been of interest chiefly as
the beginning of a long campaign to sanitize Shakespeare. Among other things, Benson rearranged the
sonnets into so-called ―poems‖—groups varying from one to five sonnets in length and to which he added
descriptive and unusually inept titles. Still worse, he changed Shakespeare‘s pronouns: ―He‘s‖ became
―she‘s‖ in some sonnets addressed to the young man so as to make the poet speak lovingly to a woman—
not to a man.
Benson also interspersed Shakespeare‘s sonnets with poems written by other people, as well as with other
non-sonnet poems written by Shakespeare. This led to much of the subsequent confusion about
Shakespeare‘s order of preference for his sonnets, which appear to tell the story, first, of his adulation of a
young man and, later, of his adoration of his ―dark lady.‖
The belief that the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a man and that the rest are addressed to a woman has
become the prevailing contemporary view. In addition, a majority of modern critics remain sufficiently
satisfied with Thorpe‘s 1609 ordering of those sonnets addressed to the young man, but most of them
have serious reservations about the second group addressed to the woman.
Another controversy surrounding the sonnets is the dedication at the beginning of Thorpe‘s 1609 edition.
Addressed to ―Mr. W. H.,‖ the dedication has led to a series of conjectures as to the identity of this
person. The two leading candidates are Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, and William
Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke.
Because Shakespeare dedicated his long poem ‖Venus and Adonis‖ to Southampton, and because the
young earl loved poetry and drama and may well have sought out Shakespeare and offered himself as the
poet‘s patron, many critics consider Southampton to be ―Mr. W. H.‖ The other contender for the object of
the dedication is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Shakespeare dedicated the First Folio of his works,
published in 1623, to Pembroke and Pembroke‘s brother Philip. Pembroke was wealthy, notorious for his
sexual exploits but averse to marriage, and a patron of literary men. Critics who believe that Mary Fitton,
one of Queen Elizabeth‘s maids of honour, was the Dark Lady of Sonnets 12 – 54, are particularly
convinced that Pembroke is ―Mr. W. H.,‖ for Pembroke had an affair with Fitton, who bore him a child
out of wedlock; this extramarital affair is considered to parallel too closely the sexual relationship in the
sonnets to be mere coincidence.
In addition to their date of composition, their correct ordering, and the object of the dedication, the other
controversial issue surrounding the sonnets is the question of whether or not they are autobiographical.
While contemporary criticism remains interested in the question of whether or not the sonnets are
autobiographical, the sonnets, taken either wholly or individually, are first and foremost a work of
literature, to be read and discussed both for their poetic quality and their narrative tale. Their appeal rests
not so much in the fact that they may shed some light on Shakespeare‘s life, nor even that they were
written by him; rather, their greatness lies in the richness and the range of subjects found in them.

7.2 LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE POET

Born in 1564, William Shakespeare was the eldest son of John and Mary Shakespeare. Shakespeare‘s
father was a landowner who raised sheep, and a well-respected guild member in Stratford- Upon-Avon.
The prestige and respect Mr. Shakespeare earned in his lifetime afforded him and his descendants the
honour of being granted a coat of arms in 1596, a promotion from commoner to gentry status.
In 1582, William Shakespeare‘s name appears on a marriage certificate at Trinity Church along with his
wife Anne Hathaway. They had three children, Susanna , and twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died in
1596. Shakespeare apparently left for London around 1586. Although it cannot be known with certainty,
his first plays—Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, and The Comedy of Errors—were performed in London
sometime between 1588 and 1594. His mythological love poem ―Venus and Adonis‖ was published in
1593, followed the next year by ―The Rape of Lucrece,‖ both dedicated to the Earl of Southampton.
Theaters in London were closed due to the plague, leaving Shakespeare time to write poetry. It‘s believed
he wrote most of the sonnets during this period, as well.
Shakespeare‘s greatest writing period ranged from 1599 to 1608, when he wrote such masterpieces as
Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. All told, Shakespeare is known to have written
thirty seven plays, two narrative poems, and the sonnets from 1588 through 1613.
On March 25, 1616, William Shakespeare revised his last will and testament. He died on April 23 of the
same year, and his body was buried within the chancel and before the altar of Trinity Church in Stratford.
A rather wry inscription is chiselled into his tombstone:
Good friend for Jesus‘ sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he who moves my bones.
The last direct descendant of William Shakespeare was his
Grand daughter, Elizabeth Hall, who died in 1670.

7.3 AN OVERVIEW OF THE SONNETS

Although Shakespeare‘s sonnets can be divided into different sections numerous ways, the most apparent
division involves Sonnets 1–126, in which the poet strikes up a relationship with a young man, and
Sonnets 127–154, which are concerned with the poet‘s relationship with a woman, variously referred to as
the Dark Lady, or as his mistress.
In the first large division, Sonnets 1–126, the poet addresses an alluring young man with whom he has
struck up a relationship. In Sonnets 1–17, he tries to convince the handsome young man to marry and
beget children so that the youth‘s incredible beauty will not die when the youth dies. Starting in Sonnet
18, when the youth appears to reject this argument for procreation, the poet glories in the young man‘s
beauty and takes consolation in the fact that his sonnets will preserve the youth‘s beauty, much like the
youth‘s children would.
By Sonnet 26, perhaps becoming more attached to the young man than he originally intended, the poet
feels isolated and alone when the youth is absent. He cannot sleep. Emotionally exhausted, he becomes
frustrated by what he sees as the youth‘s inadequate response to his affection. The estrangement between
the poet and the young man continues at least through Sonnet 58 and is marked by the poet‘s fluctuating
emotions for the youth: One moment he is completely dependent on the youth‘s affections, the next
moment he angrily lashes out because his love for the young man is unrequited.
Despondent over the youth‘s treatment of him, desperately the poet views with pain and sorrow the
ultimate corrosion of time, especially in relation to the young man‘s beauty. He seeks answers to the
question of how time can be defeated and youth and beauty preserved. Philosophizing about time
preoccupies the poet, who tells the young man that time and immortality cannot be conquered; however,
the youth ignores the poet and seeks other friendships, including one with the poet‘s mistress (Sonnets
40–42) and another with a rival poet (Sonnets 79–87). Expectedly, the relationship between the youth and
this new poet greatly upsets the sonnets‘ poet, who lashes out at the young man and then retreats into
despondency, in part because he feels his poetry is lacklustre and cannot compete with the new forms of
poetry being written about the youth. Again, the poet fluctuates between confidence in his poetic abilities
and resignation about losing the youth‘s friendship.
Philosophically examining what love for another person entails, the poet urges his friend not to postpone
his desertion of the poet—if that is what the youth is ultimately planning. Break off the relationship now,
begs the poet, who is prepared to accept whatever fate holds. Ironically, the more the youth rejects the
poet, the greater is the poet‘s affection for and devotion to him. No matter how vicious the young man is
to the poet, the poet does not—emotionally cannot—sever the relationship. He masochistically accepts
the youth‘s physical and emotional absence.
Finally, after enduring what he feels is much emotional abuse by the youth, the poet stops begging for his
friend‘s affection. But then, almost unbelievably, the poet begins to think that his newfound silence
toward the youth is the reason for the youth‘s treating him as poorly as he does. The poet blames himself
for any wrong the young man has done him and apologizes for his own treatment of his friend. This first
major division of sonnets ends with the poet pitiably lamenting his own role in the dissolution of his
relationship with the youth.
The second, shorter grouping of Sonnets 127–154 involves the poet‘s sexual relationship with the Dark
Lady, a married woman with whom he becomes infatuated. Similar to his friendship with the young man,
this relationship fluctuates between feelings of love, hate, jealousy, and contempt. Also similar is the
poet‘s unhealthy dependency on the woman‘s affections. When, after the poet and the woman begin their
affair, she accepts additional lovers, at first the poet is outraged. However, as he did with the youth, the
poet ultimately blames himself for the Dark Lady‘s abandoning him. The sonnets end with the poet
admitting that he is a slave to his passion for the woman and can do nothing to curb his lust. Shakespeare
turns the traditional idea of a romantic sonnet on its head in this series, however, as his Dark Lady is not
an alluring beauty and does not exhibit the perfection that lovers typically ascribe to their beloved.

Shakespearean sonnets

The sonnets were probably written, and perhaps revised, between the early 1590s and about
1605. Versions of Sonnets 128 and 144 were printed in the poetry collection The Passionate
Pilgrim in 1599. They were first printed as a sequence in 1609, with a mysterious dedication to
‗Mr. W.H.‘ The dedication has led to intense speculation: who is ‗W.H.‘? Is he the young man of
the sonnets? As with the ‗Dark Lady‘, various candidates have been proposed, such as William
Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, and Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. No conclusive
identification has been made, and it may never be, because it is not clear that the sonnets are
even about particular historical individuals. Moreover, since this dedication is by the printer, not
Shakespeare, and we don‘t know if Shakespeare was involved in the 1609 printing of his
Sonnets, it may have no relationship to the series of feelings, relationships and anguishes that the
poems map out.

Shakespeare‘s sonnets are composed of 14 lines, and most are divided into three quatrains and a
final, concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. This sonnet form and rhyme scheme is
known as the ‗English‘ sonnet. It first appeared in the poetry of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
(1516/17–1547), who translated Italian sonnets into English as well as composing his own. Many
later Renaissance English writers used this sonnet form, and Shakespeare did so particularly
inventively. His sonnets vary its configurations and effects repeatedly. Shakespearean sonnets
use the alternate rhymes of each quatrain to create powerful oppositions between different lines
and different sections, or to develop a sense of progression across the poem. The final couplet
can either provide a decisive, epigrammatic conclusion to the narrative or argument of the rest of
the sonnet, or subvert it. Sonnet 130, for example, builds up a paradoxical picture of the
speaker‘s mistress as defective in all the conventional standards of beauty, but the final couplet
remarks that, though all this is true,

And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,

As any she belied with false compare.

7.4 Summary of Sonnets

7.4.1 Sonnet 106 (When in the chronicle of wasted time)

Summary

Sonnet 106 is addressed to the young man without reference to any particular event. The poet
surveys historical time in order to compare the youth's beauty to that depicted in art created long
ago. Not surprisingly, he argues that no beauty has ever surpassed his friend's. Admiring
historical figures because they remind him of the youth's character, the poet contends that what
earlier artists took for beauty was merely a foreshadowing of the youth's unsurpassed
appearance: "So all their praises are but prophecies / Of this our time, all you prefiguring."

In the final couplet, the poet compares historical time with the present and finds that, although he
has criticized his forerunners for their lack of definitive descriptions of beauty, he, too, is unable
to describe adequately the young man's beauty. In lines 11 and 12, he surmises that earlier
artisans never would have been able to do artistic justice to the young man: "And, for they
looked but with divining eyes, / They had not still enough your worth to sing." However, he
admits in the sonnet's last two lines that he doesn't have the necessary skills either: "For we,
which now behold these present days, / Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise." Note the
parallel imagery in the sonnet's last four lines, in which the past and the present are contrasted:
"Eyes" are capable of viewing the youth's beauty, but previous artisans didn't have the skill "to
sing" about the young man, and neither has the poet the skill "to praise" him adequately.

7.4.2 Sonnet 138 (When my love swears that she is made of truth)

Summary

Sonnet 138 presents a candid psychological study of the mistress that reveals many of her
hypocrisies. Certainly she is still very much the poet's mistress, but the poet is under no illusions
about hercharacter: "When my love swears that she is made of truth, / I do believe her, though I
know she lies." He accepts without protest her "false-speaking tongue" and expects nothing
better of her. Cynically, he too deceives and is comforted by knowing that he is no longer fooled
by the woman's charade of fidelity to him, nor she by how young and simpleminded he presents
himself to be.

In a relationship without affection or trust, the two lovers agree to a relationship based on mutual
deception. Both agree never to voice the truth about just how much their relationship is built on
never-spoken truths: "But wherefore says she not she is unjust? / And wherefore say not I that I
am old?" Note that the sentence construction in these two lines is identical, similar to how both
the poet and the woman identically feign lying when each knows that the other person knows the
truth.

The main theme of the concluding two lines is lust, but it is treated with a wry humor. The poet
is content to support the woman's lies because he is flattered that she thinks him young — even
though he knows that she is well aware of just how old he is. On the other hand, he does not
challenge her pledges of faithfulness — even though she knows that he is aware of her infidelity.
Neither is disposed to unveil the other's defects. Ultimately the poet and the woman remain
together for two reasons, the first being their sexual relationship, the second that they are
obviously comfortable with each other's lying. Both of these reasons are indicated by the pun on
the word "lie," meaning either "to have sex with" or "to deceive": "Therefore I lie with her and
she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be."

7.4.3 Sonnet 29 (When, in disgrace eith fortune and men’s eye)

Summary

Resenting his bad luck, the poet envies the successful art of others and rattles off an impressive
catalogue of the ills and misfortunes of his life. His depression is derived from his being
separated from the young man, even more so because he envisions the youth in the company of
others while the poet is "all alone."

Stylistically, Sonnet 29 is typically Shakespearean in its form. The first eight lines, which begin
with "When," establish a conditional argument and show the poet's frustration with his craft. The
last six lines, expectedly beginning in line 9 with "Yet" — similar to other sonnets' "But" — and
resolving the conditional argument, present a splendid image of a morning lark that "sings hymns
at heaven's gate." This image epitomizes the poet's delightful memory of his friendship with the
youth and compensates for the misfortunes he has lamented.

The uses of "state" unify the sonnet's three different sections: the first eight lines, lines 9 through
12, and the concluding couplet, lines 13 and 14. Additionally, the different meanings of state —
as a mood and as a lot in life — contrast the poet's sense of a failed and defeated life to his
exhilaration in recalling his friendship with the youth. One state, as represented in lines 2 and 14,
is his state of life; the other, in line 10, is his state of mind. Ultimately, although the poet
plaintively wails his "outcast state" in line 2, by the end of the sonnet he has completely reversed
himself: ". . . I scorn to change my state with kings." Memories of the young man rejuvenate his
spirits.

7.4.4 Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?)

Summary

One of the best known of Shakespeare's sonnets, Sonnet 18 is memorable for the skillful and
varied presentation of subject matter, in which the poet's feelings reach a level of rapture unseen
in the previous sonnets. The poet here abandons his quest for the youth to have a child, and
instead glories in the youth's beauty.

Initially, the poet poses a question — "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" — and then
reflects on it, remarking that the youth's beauty far surpasses summer's delights. The imagery is
the very essence of simplicity: "wind" and "buds." In the fourth line, legal terminology —
"summer's lease" — is introduced in contrast to the commonplace images in the first three lines.
Note also the poet's use of extremes in the phrases "more lovely," "all too short," and "too hot";
these phrases emphasize the young man's beauty.

Although lines 9 through 12 are marked by a more expansive tone and deeper feeling, the poet
returns to the simplicity of the opening images. As one expects in Shakespeare's sonnets, the
proposition that the poet sets up in the first eight lines — that all nature is subject to imperfection
— is now contrasted in these next four lines beginning with "But." Although beauty naturally
declines at some point — "And every fair from fair sometime declines" — the youth's beauty
will not; his unchanging appearance is atypical of nature's steady progression. Even death is
impotent against the youth's beauty. Note the ambiguity in the phrase "eternal lines": Are these
"lines" the poet's verses or the youth's hoped-for children? Or are they simply wrinkles meant to
represent the process of aging? Whatever the answer, the poet is jubilant in this sonnet because
nothing threatens the young man's beautiful appearance.

Then follows the concluding couplet: "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long
lives this, and this gives life to thee." The poet is describing not what the youth is but what he
will be ages hence, as captured in the poet's eternal verse — or again, in a hoped-for child.
Whatever one may feel about the sentiment expressed in the sonnet and especially in these last
two lines, one cannot help but notice an abrupt change in the poet's own estimate of his poetic
writing. Following the poet's disparaging reference to his "pupil pen" and "barren rhyme" in
Sonnet 16, it comes as a surprise in Sonnet 18 to find him boasting that his poetry will be eternal.

7.4.5 Sonnet 86 (So oft have I invoked thee for my muse)

Summary

Unlike the previous sonnets dealing with the rival poet, this last sonnet in the rival-poet sequence
is written in the past tense and indicates that the rival is no longer a threat. Up to this point, the
rival was shown gaining on the poet for the youth's affection, and the youth's encouragement of
the rival poet deflated the poet's creative powers: "But when your countenance filled up his line, /
Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine." The young man's inattention to the poet weakened
the verse that the poet wrote during the youth's absence.

The image of the ship in the first two lines — "Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, /
Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you" — makes clear the rival poet's real threat to the poet,
but the poet argues — perhaps too staunchly, indicating more insecurity than he would have us
believe — that at no time did his rival's poetic successes affect the poet's own verse: "No, neither
he, nor his compeers by night / Giving him aid, my verse astonished." After completing a
satirical portrait of his nemesis, the poet mocks the rival's pretensions — his solemnity, his
bombast, and his delusions — and finally drops him from the sonnets' story line.
7.4.6 Sonnet 104 (To me, fair friend, you never can be old)

Summary

Sonnet 104 indicates for the first time that the poet and young man's relationship has gone on for
three years. Evoking seasonal imagery from previous sonnets, the poet notes that "Three winters
cold / . . . three summers' pride, / Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned / In process
of the seasons I have seen." Only now is the poet willing to question whether the youth's beauty
remains as it was "when first your eye I eyed": "So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth
stand, / Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived." No matter, though, the poet argues in the
concluding couplet, if the youth's beauty has deteriorated: No beauty has ever equaled the youth's
appearance, nor will anything in the future outshine his lovely visage.

7.5 Probable Questions

Q.1 What is sonnet? How does Shakespearean sonnet differ from other types of sonnets?

Q.2 Discuss the theme of immortality as presented in the sonnets, citing specific lines as support for your
views.

Q.3 How does Shakespeare treat love as revealed in his sonnets?

Q.4 How does Shakespeare present the universal theme of time and the ravages of decay as they affect
human life?

7.6 Venus and Adonis

Venus and Adonis [But, lo! from forth a copse]
William Shakespeare - 1564-1616

But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,

A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,

And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder;
The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth
 Controlling what he was controlled with.

His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane

Upon his compass'd crest now stand on end;
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.

Sometime her trots, as if he told the steps,

With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried;
And this I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'

What recketh he his rider's angry stir,

His flattering 'Holla,' or his 'Stand, I say?'
What cares he now for curb of pricking spur?
For rich caparisons or trapping gay?
He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.

Look, when a painter would surpass the life,

In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed;
So did this horse excel a common one,
In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone

Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,

Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;

Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
To bid the wind a race he now prepares,
And whe'r he run or fly they know not whether;
 For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;

She answers him as if she knew his mind;
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

Then, like a melancholy malcontent,

He vails his tail that, like a falling plume
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.
His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.

His testy master goeth about to take him;

When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there.
As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.

I prophesy they death, my living sorrow,

If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;

Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:
Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,
And on they well-breath'd horse keep with they hounds.

"And when thou hast on food the purblind hare,

Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns with winds, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
 "Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

"For there his smell with other being mingled,

The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.

"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,

Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch

Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never reliev'd by any.

"Lie quietly, and hear a little more;

Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,
Applying this to that, and so to so;
For love can comment upon every woe."

7.6.1 Introduction
With Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare launched his career as a poet. The poem is a minor epic, a
genre that many poets in the 1590s chose for their first efforts. Characters in a minor epic usually
come from the periphery of myth or legend; its interest is in eroticism, sophistication, and wit.
Within this genre, Venus and Adonis was so successful that it was Shakespeare's most popular
published work throughout his lifetime.
7.6.2 Summary
In Ovid‘s Metamorphoses, the boy hunter Adonis is the willing lover of Venus, the goddess of
love, and dies accidentally. Shakespeare has Adonis reject Venus—an ironic and comic
development for early readers. Venus endlessly argues for making love, with Adonis uttering
petulant protests.

For modern readers who might forget that Venus is a goddess, it is easy to focus on Adonis as
the uneasy object of desire by a matron. In its terms, however, the poem is a deliberately
artificial retelling of a then-familiar myth, playing with the notion of what would happen if the
goddess of love were refused.

Although minor epics fell out of fashion long ago, Venus and Adonis commands appreciation for
its dazzling verbal surface, as a piece of fine baroque art. It also lets us see the young
Shakespeare exploring love in a way that later yielded his romantic comedies.

In Ovid‘s Metamorphoses, the boy hunter Adonis is the willing lover of Venus, the goddess of
love, and dies accidentally. Shakespeare has Adonis reject Venus—an ironic and comic
development for early readers. Venus endlessly argues for making love, with Adonis uttering
petulant protests.

For modern readers who might forget that Venus is a goddess, it is easy to focus on Adonis as
the uneasy object of desire by a matron. In its terms, however, the poem is a deliberately
artificial retelling of a then-familiar myth, playing with the notion of what would happen if the
goddess of love were refused.

Although minor epics fell out of fashion long ago, Venus and Adonis commands appreciation for
its dazzling verbal surface, as a piece of fine baroque art. It also lets us see the young
Shakespeare exploring love in a way that later yielded his romantic comedies.

7.6.3 Major Themes

Love
Like many of Shakespeare's plays, and almost all of his poems, the central theme of Venus and
Adonis is love. The main reason for this is that Venus is the Goddess of Love, and this is
therefore her reason for being. The poem features almost every kind of love that is imaginable.
The first is love at first sight; Venus catches sight of Adonis and is so captivated by his beauty
that she comes down to earth specifically to be with him. Then comes unrequited love - Venus
loves Adonis but he does not reciprocate her feelings - in fact, he is pretty obtuse when it comes
to taking her hints and entreaties on the matter. We also see some manipulation in terms of
Venus' manipulating the situations that she finds herself in to create romantic or passionate
moments with the object of her affections. Even the horses in the poem fall in love; their interest
in each other means that Adonis can't go hunting that day, and they therefore also become party
to Venus' plan to capture his heart.

Unrequited Love
If love is unrequited, it means that it is not reciprocated by the other person. There are many
reasons for this, and Shakespeare's plays develop all of these reasons into full storylines. In this
particular poem, Adonis is not repelled by Venus, merely disinterested in her, and seemingly
disinterested in love all together since it does not seem to captivate him in the way that hunting
does. He is also therefore incapable of noticing the romantic cues that Venus constantly sets up
for him. The more he seems indifferent to her desires, the more attractive Venus finds him.

Love as a Tragic Emotion

Venus has only experienced love as a happy and pleasurable thing, and because of this, so have
earthly lovers. Now that she has experienced pain and loss, she creates magic that turns love into
something that is only positive into something that has the potential to be tragic, and henceforth,
love has the capacity to be both kind and unkind. Instead of being an innocent feeling, love will
now be mixed with feelings of fear, loss, loneliness and suspicion.

Lust Versus Love

Adonis, when he eventually listens to Venus, does not believe that she can have fallen in love
with him; in fact he offers a lecture on the differences between lust and love. Whilst Venus
unquestionably lusts after him - after all, it was his extraordinary physical beauty that attracted
her in the first place - she is absolutely certain that she is in love with him in addition to her
feelings about his physical appearance. Adonis is not convinced and believes that lust and love
are different emotions that can exist independently of each other.

7.6.4 Probable Questions

1. Write a critical appreciation of the poem Venus and Adonis.
2. Throw some light on the idea of ‗love‘ discussed in the poem.
3. Discuss the major themes of the poem.

7.7 The Rape of Lucrece

7.7.1 Introduction
The Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem written by William Shakespeare in 1594 about the
legendary Lucretia. The poem opens with a dedication written in prose and addressed to the Earl
of Southampton directly. The poem is set in 509 BC, just before the establishment of the Roman
Republic, in the towns of Ardea, twenty-four miles south of Rome, and Collatium, ten miles east
of Rome.
7.7.2 Summary
The poem starts with a conversation between two Roman leaders, Tarquin and Collatine. They
are in Ardea, where the Romans are fighting. Collatine starts to describe his beautiful young
wife, Lucrece. He praises her so highly and describes her beauty in such detail that Tarquin starts
to feel that he is developing a romantic attraction towards the woman.

The next morning, Tarquin leaves Ardea and journeys to Collatium, where the unsuspecting
Lucrece welcomes him as one of her husband‘s friends. Tarquin recounts many tales of
Collatine‘s prowess in battle, all the while gazing admiringly at Lucrece. By the end of their
conversation, he has decided that she is the most beautiful woman in Rome.

That night, while everyone else in the house is asleep, Tarquin lays in his bed, feeling restless.
He feels guilty for his unbridled desire for Lucrece, and dreads the dishonor that would come
with being discovered should he act on his feelings. This leads him to pace about his room,
trying to sort out his feelings. As a military man, he feels that he should maintain control and not
be at the mercy of his feelings. Still, he feels that his desire is overwhelming, and increasing by
the minute.

Finally, his emotions triumph over all reason. Tarquin sets out to enact his fantasy, but on the
way is troubled by many petty annoyances. The locks on the doors are resistant to his efforts, and
his footsteps sound loudly on the threshold beneath the door. Suddenly, the wind picks up and
threatens to extinguish his torch, and he pricks his finger on a needle. In spite of these numerous
bad omens, Tarquin persists. Instead of interpreting these as bad signs, he sees them as a trial that
will only make his reward that much sweeter.

As he approaches Lucrece‘s chamber door, he begins to pray for success. In the midst of prayer,
he realizes that heaven will not help him in his sinful endeavor, and declares love and fortune his
gods. He enters the room and spots Lucrece sleeping peacefully. He reaches out to touch her
breast and she suddenly awakens, crying out in fear. He attempts to calm her, telling her that her
beauty has captured his heart and that neither of them has a choice in the matter, she must submit
to his will.

He first threatens Lucrece with force, telling her that if she refuses to submit to him he will kill
her and dishonor her name. He tells her of his intention to murder one of her slaves and place
him in her arms, and then to tell everyone that he killed them after witnessing Lucrece embracing
the man. If she gives in to him, he promises he will keep the whole affair a secret, and they will
be the only two to know what has happened.

Lucrece begins to weep, pleading with Tarquin. She tells him that he must pity her and refrain
from committing this sinful act, as she has shown him great hospitality in welcoming him into
her home, and also because of his friendship with her husband, as well as Tarquin‘s own position
as a warrior. Her tears and pleading only serve to fan the flames and increase Tarquin‘s lust; he
proceeds to smother her cries with the bed linen while he rapes her.

After the fact, Tarquin is filled with shame. He leaves Lucrece who is revolted and horrified that,
come daylight, her sin will be revealed. She thinks of her husband who will be brought to shame.
She longs for a weapon with which to kill herself, thinking it to be the only way to save her soul.

With the arrival of the dawn, Lucrece has come to terms with her own death, but resolves not to
commit suicide before telling Collatine everything so that he may avenge her. She sends
Collatine a letter instructing him to return home immediately.

Upon his arrival, Collatine finds Lucrece dressed entirely in black. She weeps as she tells him of
her shame, but does not reveal the man‘s name. After she finishes, Collatine demands to know
the name of the man. She names Tarquin before drawing a knife from her bosom and stabbing
herself.

Collatine is heartbroken and says he will kill himself as well, but his friend Brutus intervenes and
convinces him not to. The soldiers leave the palace, carrying the body of Lucrece through Rome.
The indignant citizens banish Tarquin and all his family.

7.7.3 Major Themes

War, Violence and Conquer

In The Rape of Lucrece, there is one theme throughout the poem, and that is to conquer. The
themes of war, violence, and the evidence of Tarquin‘s sexual conquest remain constant.
However, this is present specifically with the physical rape of Lucrece itself and the parading of
her body around Rome after her death.

Sex and Power

The constant air of sex and power dominates this poem. Lucrece is used as a political symbol
that must be conquered throughout the entirety of the reading. The Rape of Lucrece displays the
idea of male dominance and female silence in Tarquin‘s powerful rage and Lucrece‘s ability to
be dominated.

Male dominance
 In the time of the Renaissance society, men often held positions of power over women. Women
were not seen as having an independent voice, as they were often seen as property of their fathers
before they were married. In The Rape of Lucrece, Tarquin is able to control Lucrece and
silence her. The physical act of raping her is able to dominate her physically and emotionally,
and that is what remains constant throughout this poem. If Lucrece has anything, it is her
chastity which holds great power, and that is stolen from her in such a grotesque way. However,
before the physical act can occur there are several obstacles that must be conquered before
Lucrece herself can be taken. This adds to the idea constant idea of war and power through
conquest. ―The locks between her chamber and his will, each one by him enforced, retired his
ward; But as they open they all rate his ill. Which drives the creeping thief to some regard. The
threshold grates the door to have him heard‖ (302-306). This scene is the first obstacle that must
be overcome in the attempt to proceed with his final act.

Honor

Honor is, of course, a theme that is rampant throughout tales set during the height of Roman
civilization. What sets Shakespeare‘s treatment of this time-honored theme, if you will, is that it
a woman‘s honor at the center of the narrative. Even more startling is that this woman‘s honor is
a thing a commodity in the possession of a man. Lucrece‘s honor has been stained—at least in
her eyes-and it is Lucrece who both fights valiantly to retain that honor and, when it is corrupted,
it is Lucrece who goes about dealing with the consequences.

Suppression

One of the major themes in the poem is the suppression of women. An offshoot of the thematic
implications of honor is that it is not the stain upon her own honor that drives her to suicide, but
the stain that the rape of her own body has on her husband‘s honor. The subservient position of
women in the patriarchal social system of Roman has interpellated. Lucruce fully into its deviant
and abominable ideology. So fully has she accepted the domination position of all men over
every woman that she actually grieves over the thought of how her rather loutish husband will
ever be able to deal with her defilement by another man!

Compulsive Psychology

The rapist in this poem is actually one of the most interesting villains in all of Shakespeare and,
in fact, foreshadows such complex figures in later dramas from Macbeth to Othello. What
elevates Tarquin above the generally low character of most who commit the same crime is that
he reveals significant signs of obsessive compulsive behavior. Tarquin is not just some mere
psychopath unable to distinguish between right and wrong, nor is here merely the logical
extreme produced by the demented sexuality of a hardcore patriarchy. He is fully aware that
raping Lucrece will be every bit as devastating to his own honor and reputation as to anyone else
involved. He is so conflicted about actually going through with it that Lucrece honestly believes
for awhile that he can be talked out of it. And yet, he can‘t. And he won‘t.

7.7.4 Probable Questions

1. Write a critical appreciation of the poem Rape of Lucrece.
2. Discuss the major themes of the poem.
3. Summarize the poem in your own words.

7.8 Suggested Readings

DUNCAN-JONES, KATHERINE. ―What Are Shakespeare‘s Sonnets Called?‖ Essays in Criticism 47.1
(January 1997)

VENDLER, HELEN. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1997.

BLOOM, HAROLD, ed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems. Broomall,PA. Chelsea House Publishers,
1999.
 Chapter-8

Shakespearean Criticism

Structure

8.0 Objectives

8.1 Shakespeare Criticism: Johnson and Coleridge

8.1.1 Extracts from ‘Preface to Shakespeare’ by Samuel Johnson

8.1.2 Summary of Samuel Johnson’ criticism of Shakespeare

8.2 Coleridge’s criticism of Shakespeare

8.3 Extracts from Shakespeare’s Criticism: A Selection Ed. D. Nichol Smith
8.3.1 John Dennis: On the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare. 1711
8.3.2 Sir Thomas Hanmer: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1744
8.3.3 Alexander Pope: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1725
8.4 Questions

8.5 Suggested Readings

8.0 Objective

The Unit intends to introduce you to the different critical and theoretical approaches to Shakespeare and
shows how different critics in different periods have responded to Shakespeare and his works.

8.1 Shakespeare Criticism: Johnson and Coleridge

8.1.1 Extracts from ‘Preface to Shakespeare’ by Samuel Johnson

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid
to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to
truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment
upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter
themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time…Nothing can
please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known
to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of
fanciful invention may delight a-while, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in
quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the
stability of truth. Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature;
the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not
modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of
studies or professions, which canoperate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions
or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always
supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general
passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in
motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is
commonly a species.It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is derived. It is this
which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical axioms and domestick wisdom. It was said of
Euripides, that every verse was a precept and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be
collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of
particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to
recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his
house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. . . . The censure which he has incurred by
mixing comick and tragick scenes, as it extends to all his works, deserves more consideration. Let the fact
be first stated, and then examined. Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either
tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature,
which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and
innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is
the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner
burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and
many mischief and many benefits are done and hindered without design.

8.1.2 Summary of Samuel Johnson’s criticism of Shakespeare

In his preface to his edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, Johnson begins by noting that we often
seem to cherish the works of the past and to neglect the present. Praises, he writes, are often ―without
reason lavished on the dead ―as a result of which it sometimes seems that the ―honours due only to
excellence are paid to antiquity‖. Everyone, Johnson suggests, is ―perhaps . . . more willing to honour past
than present excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age‖. Time is the test of
genius, Johnson contends:

―To works . . . of which the excellence is not absolute and definite, but gradual and comparative; to works
not raised upon principles demonstrative and scientific, but appealing wholly to observation and
experience, no other test can be applied than length of duration and continuance of esteem. What mankind
have long possessed they have often examined and compared; and if they persist to value the possession,
it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. . . . [I]n the productions of
genius, nothing can be styled excellent till it has been compared with other works of the same kind‖.

With this test in mind, Johnson suggests that Shakespeare meets these criteria and ―may now begin to
assume the dignity of an ancient, and earn the privilege of established fame and prescriptive veneration‖
because he has ―long outlived his century, the term commonly used as the test of literary merit‖. That he
deserves such acclaim can be verified by ―comparing him with other authors‖. The question which arises,
given the fallibility of ―human judgment‖, is ―by what peculiarities of excellence Shakespeare has gained
and kept the favour of his countrymen?‖

Johnson argues that Shakespeare‘s perhaps most important skill concerns accurate characterisation: he
offers ―representations of general nature‖ rather than of ―particular manners‖ peculiar to individuals or
particular places and times. In a view of Shakespeare that has come to be constantly regurgitated, he
praises the Bard‘s characterisation in particular for its fidelity to human nature in general:

―Shakespeare is above all writers . . . the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful
mirror of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places,
unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies and professions . . .; or by the accidents
of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as
the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the
influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated. . . . In the writings of
other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species‖.
Where other dramatists offer ―hyperbolic or aggravated characters‖, Shakespeare‘s ―scenes are occupied
only be men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the
same occasion.‖ Characterisation ―ample and general‖ in this way, that is, his ―adherence to general
nature‖, is supplemented by appropriate strokes of individuality: ―no poet ever kept his personages more
distinct from each other. . . . [T]hough some may be equally adapted to every person, it will be difficult to
find any that can be properly transferred from the present possessor to another claimant‖. However,
Johnson hastens to add, Shakespeare ―always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he
preserves the essential character, is not very carefully of distinctions superinduced and adventitious.‖

Even when dealing with supernatural matters, Johnson stresses, Shakespeare ―approximates the remote,
and familiarises the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were possible, its
effects would probably be such as he has assigned‖. All in all, Shakespeare ―has not only shewn human
nature as it acts in real exigencies , but as it would be found in trials , to which it cannot be exposed‖.
Whatever his subject matter, as Shakespeare‘s ―personages act upon principles arising from genuine
passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all
times and to all places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal
habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a distinct, without
any remains of former lustre; but the discriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they
pervade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them‖. As such, his ―drama is
the mirror of life‖ from which other writers can learn much simply ―by reading human sentiments in
human language, by scenes from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confess
or predict the progress of the passions.‖

Moreover, if his characterisation is realistic, so too are his dialogues. Johnson, the editor of the first
dictionary of the English language, argues that Shakespeare has captured the enduring spirit of the
English language: there is ―in every nation, a style which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of
phraseology so consonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language as to
remain settled and unaltered; this style is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among
those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching
modish innovations, and the learned depart from established forms of speech, in hope of finding or
making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar. . . .[B]ut there is a conversation above
grossness and below refinement, where propriety resides, and where this poet seems to have gathered his
comic dialogue‖. The speech of each of Shakespeare‘s characters is ―so evidently determined by the
incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much ease and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to
claim the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out of common conversation, and
common occurrences.‖

Johnson then turns his attention to the criticisms commonly made of Shakespeare‘s plays, not leas t that
he did not follow the prescribed rules. Firstly, he deals with the view that Shakespeare is guilty of
blurring the genres of tragedy and comedy which ought to be distinct. Johnson argues that the ancient
poets, out of the ―chaos of mingled purposes and casualties‖ and ―according to the laws which custom had
prescribed‖, had ―selected, some crimes of men, and some their absurdities; some the momentous
vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occurrences; some the terrors of distress and some the gaieties of
prosperity‖. It was for this reason that there ―rose two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy
and comedy, compositions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and considered . . . little
allied‖. More recently, Johnson contends, there has been a tendency to divide Shakespeare‘s work into
tragedies, comedies and histories but that these are not distinguished ―by any very exact or definite ideas‖.
For these, comedy was defined simply as an ―action which ended happily to the principal persons,
however serious or distressful through its intermediate incidents‖. To be a tragedy, similarly, ―required
only a calamitous conclusion‖, as a result of which ―plays were written, which, by changing the
catastrophe, were tragedies today, and comedies tomorrow‖. Histories were viewed as plays consisting of
a ―series of actions, with no other than chronological succession, independent of each other‖. Histories,
Johnson argues, are ―not always very nicely distinguished from tragedy.‖ Johnson argues that
Shakespeare‘s plays, however, through ―all these denominations of the drama‖, are neither tragedies nor
comedies in the strict sense of these terms, but ―compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state
of sublunary nature which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of
proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the
loss of the one is the gain of the other‖. Shakespeare has ―united the powers of exciting laughter and
sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition‖ as a result of which almost all his plays are
―divided between serious and ludicrous characters‖. Shakespeare‘s ―mode of composition‖ is always the
same: an ―interchange of seriousness and merriment, by which the mind is softened at one time, and
exhilarated at another.‖

Johnson justifies Shakespeare‘s ―mingled drama‖ on the grounds that the mixture of sorrow and joy is
more realistic and, thus, morally instructive: ―there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature; . . .
the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the instruction of
tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alteration of exhibition and
approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life‖.

Johnson then proceeds to list all the defects which many have detected in Shakespeare‘s plays. The most
important of these is his failure to respect the unities of action, time and place. Johnson is on
Shakespeare‘s side in these respects. With regard to the unity of action, Johnson argues that the laws
applicable to tragedies and comedies are not applicable to Shakespeare‘s histories. All that is required of
such plays is that the ―changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various
and affecting, and the characters consistent, natural, and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore
none is sought‖. In the other plays, there is unity of action: ―his plan has commonly what Aristotle
requires, a beginning, middle and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclusion
follows by easy consequence‖. The ―end of the play is the end of expectation‖.

With regard to the unities of time and place, Johnson argues that these ―are not essential to a just drama‖
even though they arise from the ―supposed necessity of making the drama credible‖. The argument is that
the ―mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction loses its force w hen it departs from the resemblance
of reality‖ as a result of which the failure to depict on stage one location and a duration corresponding to
the length of the audience‘s presence in the auditorium is dramatic heresy. All this does not matter,
Johnson argues, because ―spectators are always in their senses and know . . . that the stage is only a
stage‖. Resemblance is not adversely affected, firstly, b y changes in location: the ―different actions that
complete a story may be in places very remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing
that space to represent first Athen, and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor
Athens, but a modern theatre?‖, he asks. Secondly, he argues, time is ―obsequious to the imagination; a
lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of
real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation‖. All in
all, the ―delight of tragedy proceeds from the consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons
real, they would please no more‖. ―Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for
realities, but because they bring realities to mind.‖

One of Dr. Johnson‘s greatest concerns focuses on the moral purpose of Shakespeares plays.
Although he finds Shakespeare an accomplished writer, Johnson cannot refrain from claiming that
the English bard ―has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other
merit.‖ The first impression one gets about this passage is that Johnson is keen on dethroning
Shakespeare. Further on, the critic raises Shakespeare‘s greatest defect to the height of a sin: ―His first
defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men.‖ Johnson explains why it is
so: ―He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct,
that he seems to write without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system of social duty
may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms
drop casually from him.‖ The ethical dimension of Johnson‟s criticism is evident; a literary work that
fails to meet the moral expectations of its age falls into disgrace. In his eyes, artistic talent pales if the
writer neglects issues of morality. These apparently narrow and ethicist views could have easily
obscured Johnson‟s merits as a critic, but he acknowledges the historical conditions in which
Shakespeare wrote his plays: ―the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time
of stateliness, formality and reserve; yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very
elegant.‖

8.2 Coleridge’s criticism of Shakespeare

I. ‘Shakespeare, A Poet Generally’

Clothed in radiant armour, and authorized by titles sure and manifold, as a poet, Shakspeare came forward
to demand the throne of fame, as the dramatic poet of England. His excellences compelled even his
contemporaries to seat him on that throne, although there were giants in those days contending for the
same honour. Hereafter I would fain endeavour to make out the title of the English drama as created by,
and existing in, Shakspeare, and its right to the supremacy of dramatic excellence in general. But he had
shown himself a poet, previously to his appearance as a dramatic poet ; and hadno Lear, no Othello, no
Henry IV., no Twelfth Night ever appeared, we must have admitted that Shakspeare possessed the chief,
if not every, requisite of a poet,deep feeling and exquisite sense of beauty, both as exhibited to the eye in
the combinations of form, and to the ear in sweet and appropriate melody ; that these feelings were under
the command of his own will ; that in his very firstproductions he projected his mind out of his own
particular being, and felt, and made others feel, on subjects no way connected with himself, except by
force of contemplation and that sublime faculty by which a great mind becomes that, on which it
meditates. To this must be added that affectionate love of nature and natural objects, without which no
man could have observed so steadily, or paintedso truly and passionately, the very minutest beauties of
the external world:

And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,

Mark the poor wretch ; to overshoot his troubles,
How he outruns the wind, and with what care,
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles :
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
Sometimes he runs among the flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell ;
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep.
To stop the loud pursuers in their ^'ell ;
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer :
Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear.
For there his smell with others' being mmgled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt.
Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled.
With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out,
Then do they spend their mouths ; echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.
By this poor Wat far off, upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear.
To hearken if his foes pursue him still :
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear,
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore-sick, that hears the passing bell.
Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way :
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay.
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low, never relieved by any.
Venus and Adonis.
And the preceding description :—
But lo !from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young and proud, &c.
is much more admirable, but in parts less fitted for quotation. Moreover Shakspeare
had shown that he possessed fancy, considered as the faculty of bringing together
images dissimilar in the main by some one point or more of likeness, as in such a
passage as this : —
Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A lily prisoned in a jail of snow.
 Or ivory in an alabaster band :
So white a friend ingirts so white a foe !Ih

---------------- The subject of the Venus and Adonis is unpleasing ; but the poem itself is for that very
reason the more illustrative of Shakspeare. There are men who can write passages of deepest pathos and
even sublimity on circumstances personal to themselves and stimulative of their own passions ; but they
are not, therefore, on this account poets. Read that magnificent burst of woman's patriotism and
exultation, Deborah's song of victory ; it is glorious, but nature is the poet there. It is quite another matter
to become all things and yet remain the same,—to make the changeful god be felt in the river, the lion and
the flame ; this it is, that is the true imagination. Shakspeare writes in this poem, as if he were of another
planet, charming you to gaze on the movements of Venus and Adonis, as you would on the twinkling
dances of two vernal butterflies. Finally, in this poem and the Rape of Lucrece, Shakspeare gave ample
proof of his possession of a most profound, energetic, and philosophical mind, without which he might
have pleased, but could not have been a great dramatic poet. Chance and the necessity of his genius
combined to lead him to the drama his proper province : in his conquest of which we should consider both
the difficulties which opposed him, and the advantages by which
he was assisted.

II. ‗Of the Characteristics of Shakespeare’s Drama’

Summary
In Coleridge's practical criticism of Shakespeare's poetic language and dramatic characters, one
can get a better glimpse of the characteristics of his critical writings. The objectivity Eliot
recommends in his description of the real critic "a literary critic should have no emotion except
those immediately evoked by a work of art" (Note 28) is not always found in his criticism. In
dealing with Shakespeare's characters, Coleridge sometimes allows himself to have full empathy
or identification with the character in question and does not maintain the distance that has to be
kept between the writing subject and the material given. His acknowledgement that he himself
has "a smack of Hamlet" (Note 29) is too well-known and recurrent a statement to be elaborated
further. The reason for Coleridge's admiration of Hamlet's character is a matter of personal
predilection or idiosyncrasy. It is a point
that needs to be verified critically but Coleridge does not feel bound to support his claims except
that which appeals to him. The greatness of Hamlet, so runs Coleridge's argument, lies in the fact
Shakespeare here "intended to portray a person in whose view the external world, and all its
incidents and objects, were comparatively dim, and of no interest in themselves, and which
began to interest only when they were reflected in the mirror of his mind. Hamlet beheld external
things in the same way that a man of vivid imagination, who shuts his eyes, sees what has
previously made an impression on his organs." (Note 30) not this a self- reflection of the critic
himself in his ceaseless shutting his eyes about the painful realities of his domestic and public
life rather than the situation of the dramatis persona? Indeed, it is this particular trait in
Coleridge's criticism that debilitates a lot of his critical arguments and inevitably arouses
apprehensions as regards their objectivity. He is nowadays viewed as representing the contrast to
Dr. Johnson or Dryden in that he represents a personal and particular, rather than a general,
sensibility when he speaks for his ideal reader," His criticism tends to be about
himself; sometimes it is all too literally." (Note 31) Be that as it may, it is arguments of this sort
that render Coleridge's criticism psychological as he dabbles here in one of the tricky and murky
areas in literature, "the Mona Lisa of literature", in Eliot's phrase. (Note 32) Therefore,
Coleridge's criticism betrays a careful synthesis
between "the psychological and metaphysical"(Note 33) which represents a persistent dilemma.
Coleridge himself hints at this particular point since he is after all his own critic when he
specifies the ingredients of his own criticism as lying in the blend between two realms
"metaphysics and psychology have long been my
habby-horse." (Note 34) His psychological interests date back to the time when "he came under
the spell of the associationist psychology of David Hartley and David Hume and their
mechanistic view of the formation of
human character and personality." (Note 35) However, he undertakes to fulfill a hard task here,
i.e., to rectify many fallacies pertaining to one of the great names in literature, i.e., to give
evidence that "Shakespeare (is) no mere child of nature." (Note 36) The intellectual and
psychological side of Shakespeare's achievement embedded in his statements drives Coleridge to
give very uncommon and egotistic conclusions, "I am deeply convinced that no man, however
wide his erudition, however, patient his antiquarian researches, can possibly understand, or be
worthy of understanding the writings of Shakespeare." (Note 37) The tone of self-complacency
and excessive pride is too obvious. But his own judgments of Shakespeare's writing do not
substantiate these claims and sometimes run counter to them. Consider the following example in
his comment on the language of Shakespeare in his "Venus and Adonis", Coleridge finds that
Shakespeare writes "as if he were of another planet, claiming you to gaze on the movements of
Venus and Adonis as you would on the twinkling dances of two vernal butterflies." (Note 38)
Here, criticism does not fully elucidate; rather it becomes itself a poetic piece instead of serving
and clarifying another. What is noteworthy here is that Coleridge's own identification with the
material discussed is projected on what he sees. Shakespeare's success in creating memorable
characters like Hamlet, Lear or Othello is due to the trait in Coleridge's disposition, the
identification with the dramatic personae. In Othello's famous lines,
Let him do his spite:
My services, which I have done the signori,
Shall out tongue his complaints. T'is yet to know,
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
I shall promulgate, I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege ... (I, ii, 16-21)
Coleridge has the following to say, "I ask where was Shakespeare to observe such language as
this? If he did
observe it, it was with the inward eye of mediation upon his nature: for the time he became
Othello, and spoke as Othello, in such circumstances, he must have spoken." (Note 39) This
contradicts his views of Shakespeare as
the writer who keeps his personal self aloof from his writings "Shakespeare is the Spinozistic
deity an omnipresent recreativeness." (Note 40) The yardstick in assessing Shakespeare's
success, as has become evident
by now, is the skillful use of imagination in both fictional character and writer. Coleridge judges
Mercutio's character in Romeo and Juliet in accordance with the degree of "feeling" and "poetic
nature" manipulated. Once
again the great extent of subjectivity is evident in his assessment of this character "He is a man
possessing all the elements of a poet: the whole world was, as it were, subject to his law of
association . . . This faculty, moreover, is combined with the manners and feelings of a perfect
gentleman, himself unconscious of his powers. By his loss, it was contrived that the whole
catastrophe of the tragedy should be brought about." (Note 41) This is an indirect way of saying
that the whole play is defective as the minor character outweighs the protagonist, which is not
the case as any fair reading or assessment of the play shows. Elsewhere, Coleridge identifies
Shakespeare's success as a great dramatist in the synthesis which he deems indispensable for any
successful literary creation: keen observation of the factual and imaginative faculty that
assimilates anything in its workshop and changes it into a lasting creation. Again he sees in
Shakespeare's achievement a struggle between the intellectual andimaginative, a projection of his
own status as an artist "the creative power and the intellectual energy wrestle as in a war
embrace. Each in its excess of strength seems to threaten the extinction of the other. At length in
the drama they were reconciled and fought each other with its shield before the breast of the
other." (Note 42) Although written in prose, a statement of this sort betrays the highly poetic
latent in Coleridge and definitely shows that prose is not always functional as he states: it can be
enjoyed for its own sake, not for anything beyond it.

8.3 Extracts from Shakespeare Criticism: A Selection Ed. D. Nichol Smith.

8.3.1 John Dennis: On the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare. 1711

Letter I.
Sir, Feb. 1. 1710/11.
I here send you the Tragedy of Coriolanus, which I have alter'd from the Original of Shakespear, and
with it a short Account of the Genius and Writings of that Author, both which you desired me to send to
you the last time I had the good Fortune to see you. But I send them both upon this condition, that you
will with your usual Sincerity tell me your Sentiments both of the Poem and of the Criticism. Shakespear
was one of the greatest Genius's that the World e'er saw for the Tragick Stage. Tho' he lay under greater
Disadvantages than any of his Successors, yet had he greater and more genuine Beauties than the best and
greatest of them. And what makes the brightest Glory of his Character, those Beauties were entirely his
own, and owing to the Force of his own Nature; whereas his Faults were owing to his Education, and to
the Age that he liv'd in. One may say of him as they did of Homer, that he had none to imitate, and is
himself inimitable. His Imaginations were often as just, as they were bold and strong. He had a natural
Discretion which never cou'd have been taught him, and his Judgment was strong and penetrating. He
seems to have wanted nothing but Time and Leisure for Thought, to have found out those Rules of which
he appears so ignorant. His Characters are always drawn justly, exactly, graphically, except where he
fail'd by not knowing History or the Poetical Art. He has for the most part more fairly distinguish'd them
than any of his Successors have done, who have falsified them, or confounded them, by making Love the
predominant Quality in all. He had so fine a Talent for touching the Passions, and they are so lively in
him, and so truly in Nature, that they often touch us more without their due Preparations, than those of
other Tragick Poets, who have all the Beauty of Design and all the Advantage of Incidents. His Master-
Passion was Terror, which he has often mov'd so powerfully and so wonderfully, that we may justly
conclude, that if he had had the Advantage of Art and Learning, he wou'd have surpass'd the very best and
strongest of the Ancients. His Paintings are often so beautiful and so lively, so graceful and so powerful,
especially where he uses them in order to move Terror, that there is nothing perhaps more accomplish'd in
our English Poetry. His Sentiments for the most part in his best Tragedies, are noble, generous, easie, and
natural, and adapted to the Persons who use them. His Expression is in many Places good and pure after a
hundred Years; simple tho' elevated, graceful tho' bold, and easie tho' strong. He seems to have been the
very Original of our English Tragical Harmony; that is the Harmony of Blank Verse, diversifyed often by
Dissyllable and Trissyllable Terminations. For that Diversity distinguishes it from Heroick
Harmony, and, bringing it nearer to common Use, makes it more proper to gain Attention, and more fit
for Action and Dialogue. Such Verse we make when we are writing Prose; we make such Verse in
common Conversation - - - - - -.

8.3.2 Sir Thomas Hanmer: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1744

What the Publick is here to expect is a true and correct Edition of Shakespear's works cleared from the
corruptions with which they have hitherto abounded. One of the great Admirers of this incomparable
Author hath made it the amusement of his leisure hours for many years past to look over his writings with
a careful eye, to note the obscurities and absurdities introduced into the text, and according to the best of
his judgment to restore the genuine sense and purity of it. In this he proposed nothing to himself but his
private satisfaction in making his own copy as perfect as he could: but as the emendations multiplied
upon his hands, other Gentlemen equally fond of the Author desired to see them, and some were so kind
as to give their assistance by communicating their observations and conjectures upon difficult passages
which had occurred to them. Thus by degrees the work growing more considerable than was at first
expected, they who had the opportunity of looking into it, too partial perhaps in their judgment, thought it
worth being made publick; and he, who hath with difficulty yielded to their perswasions, is far from
desiring to reflect upon the late Editors for the omissions and defectswhich they left to be supplied by
others who should follow them in the same province. On the contrary, he thinks the world much obliged
to them for the progress they made in weeding out so great a number of blunders and mistakes as they
have done, and probably he who hath carried on the work might never have thought of such an
undertaking if he had not found a considerable part so done to his hands. ------------------ With these
several helps if that rich vein of sense which runs through the works of this Author can be retrieved in
every part and brought to appear in its true light, and if it may be hoped without presumption that this is
here effected; they who love and admire him will receive a new pleasure, and all probably will be more
ready to join in doing him justice, who does great honour to his country as a rare and perhaps a singular
Genius: one who hath attained an high degree of perfection in those two great branches of Poetry,
Tragedy and Comedy, different as they are in their natures from each other; and who may be said without
partiality to have equalled, if not excelled, in both kinds, the best writers of any age or country who have
thought it glory enough to distinguish themselves in either.
Since therefore other nations have taken care to dignify the works of their most celebrated Poets with
the fairest impressions beautified with the ornaments of sculpture, well may our Shakespear be thought to
deserve no less consideration: and as a fresh acknowledgment hath lately been paid to his merit, and a
high regard to his name and memory, by erecting his Statue at a publick expence; so it is desired that this
new Edition of his works, which hath cost some attention and care, may be looked upon as another small
monument designed and dedicated to his honour.

8.3.3 Alexander Pope: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1725

It is not my design to enter into a Criticism upon this Author; tho' to do it effectually and not superficially
would be the best occasion that any just Writer could take, to form the judgment and taste of our nation.
For of all English Poets Shakespear must be confessed to be the fairest and fullest subject for Criticism,
and to afford the most numerous as well as most conspicuous instances, both of Beauties and Faults of all
sorts. But this far exceeds the bounds of a Preface, the business of which is only to give an account of the
fate of his Works, and the disadvantages under which they have been transmitted to us. We shall hereby
extenuate many faults which are his, and clear him from the imputation of many which are not: A design,
which, tho' it can be no guide to future Criticks to do him justice in one way, will at least be sufficient to
prevent their doing him an injustice in the other. ------------ If ever any Author deserved the name of an
Original, it was Shakespear. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of
Nature; it proceeded thro' Ægyptian strainers and channels, and came to him not without some tincture of
the learning, or some cast of the models, of those before him. The Poetry of Shakespear was Inspiration
indeed: he is not so much an Imitator, as an Instrument, of Nature; and 'tis not so just to say that he speaks
from her, as that she speaks thro' him.
His Characters are so much Nature her self, that 'tis a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name
as Copies of her. Those of other Poets have a constant resemblance, which shews that they receiv'd them
from one another, and were but multiplyers of the same image: each picture, like a mock-rainbow, is but
the reflexion of a reflexion. But every single character in Shakespear is as much an Individual as those in
Life itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or affinity in any
respect appear most to be Twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct. To this life and
variety of Character, we must add the wonderful Preservation of it; which is such throughout his plays,
that had all the Speeches been printed without the very names of the Persons, I believe one might have
apply'd them with certainty to every speaker. --------- Nor does he only excel in the Passions: In the
coolness of Reflection and Reasoning he is full as admirable. His Sentiments are not only in general the
most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between
Penetration and Felicity, he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument turns, or
the force of each motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of no education or experience in
those great and publick scenes of life which are usually the subject of his thoughts: So that he seems to
have known the world by Intuition, to have look'd thro' humane nature at one glance, and to be the only
Author that gives ground for a very new opinion, That the Philosopher, and even the Man of the world,
may be Born, as well as the Poet. -------- It must be allowed that Stage-Poetry of all other is more
particularly levell'd to please the Populace, and its success more immediately depending upon the
Common Suffrage. One cannot therefore wonder, if Shakespear, having at his first appearance no other
aim in his writings than to procure a subsistance, directed his endeavours solely to hit the taste and
humour that then prevailed. The Audience was generally composed of the meaner sort of people; and
therefore the Images of Life were [050] to be drawn from those of their own rank: accordingly we find
that not our Author's only but almost all the old Comedies have their Scene among Tradesmen and
Mechanicks: And even their Historical Plays strictly follow the common Old Stories or Vulgar Traditions
of that kind of people. In Tragedy, nothing was so sure to Surprize and cause Admiration, as the most
strange, unexpected, and consequently most unnatural, Events and Incidents; the most exaggerated
Thoughts; the most verbose and bombast Expression; the most pompous Rhymes, and thundering
Versification. In Comedy, nothing was so sure to please, as mean buffoonry, vile ribaldry, and
unmannerly jests of fools and clowns. Yet even in these our Author's Wit buoys up, and is born above his
subject: his Genius in those low parts is like some Prince of a Romance in the disguise of a Shepherd or
Peasant; a certain Greatness and Spirit now and then break out, which manifest his higher extraction and
qualities. ----- To judge therefore of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules, is like trying a man by the Laws of
one Country, who acted under those of another. He writ to the People; and writ at first without patronage
from the better sort, and therefore without aims of pleasing them: without assistance or advice from the
Learned, [051] as without the advantage of education or acquaintance among them: without that
knowledge of the best models, the Ancients, to inspire him with an emulation of them; in a word, without
any views of Reputation, and of what Poets are pleas'd to call Immortality: Some or all of which have
encourag'd the vanity, or animated the ambition, of other writers. -------.
8.4 Questions

1. Define ‗Objective Correlative‘ and what are the limitations which T S Eliot finds in the play Hamlet?

2. Critically analyze Johnson‘s ‗Preface to Shakespeare‘?

3. Describe Alexander Pope‘s appraisal of Shakespeare as a great dramatist?

4. Discuss the 18th century criticism of Shakespeare?

8.5 Suggested Readings

D. Nichol Smith. Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare.James MacLehose and Sons, 1903

Michael Hattaway (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays. Cambridge
University Press, 2002.

Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells (eds). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare.Cambridge
University Press, 2001.

Hugh Grady. The Modernist Shakespeare: Critical Texts in a Material World. Clarendon Press, 1991.

A C Bradley.Shakespearean Tragedies.Oxford University Press.

E I Fripp.Shakespeare, Man and Artist, 2 Vols. Oxford University Press, 1938.

Coleridge’s Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists. New York:
E P Dutton and Co. 1914. (In this book the reader can find all the essays, lectures, and notes by Coleridge
discussing Shakespeare dramatic genius)