[Chorus, 117-122]
Both uses of the image reveal that the reflection is to be of the times and to be directed at the spectator. That the mirror is inherent in the thinking of the Elizabethan age not only as the purpose but as the method of poetry is expressed even more clearly in Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie. In objecting to the mingling of the qualities of lightheaded or “phantasticall” men with poets, which “the pride of many Gentlemen and others” insist on to the derision of poetry, Puttenham writes that the poet’s brain “being well affected, [is] not onely nothing disorderly or confused with any monstruous imaginations or conceits, but very formall, and in his much multiformitie uniforme, that is well proportioned, and so passing cleare, that by [the mind], as by a glasse or mirrour, are represented unto the soule all maner of bewtifull visions.” Later: “There be againe of these glasses that shew thinges exceeding faire and comely; others that shew figures monstruous & illfavored.”[6] Here the poet’s mind, utilizing invention and imagination, is a mirror by which the soul receives vision.
The “mirror” had two principal functions in the Elizabethan period. One was to represent experience, in short, to achieve verisimilitude. Miss Doran demonstrates that the Elizabethans did not expect particular realism but universal truths. The other was to bring together many kinds of experience. Jonson clearly means to have the mirror turn this way and that in order to reflect a multiple image of the times. Shakespeare implies that in showing “virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,” the mirror held up to nature reflects the allegorical figure Virtue, at the same time as it reflects her evil sister, Scorn. The actual practices of the plays illustrate that the poets sought to project multiple aspects of a situation—Puttenham’s multiformitie—as it were by a mirror. Consequently, they tended to give equal emphasis to the various elements of the drama, that is, to produce a coordination rather than a subordination of parts. What “coordination of parts” means in dramaturgy may be seen by contrasting the relative dominance and integration of character, plot, language, and theme in classical and Renaissance drama.
In classical and modern “realistic” construction, plot, or the structure of incidents, is dominant. It is an imitation of an action to which character and language are subordinated. Although Francis Fergusson rightly points out the difficulty of defining the word “action,” nevertheless, he makes it clear that Aristotle specifies that plot is the prime embodiment of the action.[7] In this Aristotle describes the actual practice of ancient Greek drama. The incidents embrace the total significance of a play, for if plot, the structure of incidents, imitates the action which is the soul of tragedy, it must also contain the meaning of that action. Through plot the meaning radiates into character and language. Such a pyramid of emphasis, in which certain dramatic elements are subordinated, ensures genuine unity of action. If Greek drama did not always realize such an ideal form, it aspired toward such a realization.
In Renaissance construction, however, with its independent parts and coordinated accents, unity of action is not really possible. The structure of incidents does not implicitly contain the total meaning of the play. Character and thought have degrees of autonomy. They are not subordinate but coordinate with the plot. Therefore, the plot is not the sole source of unity. Instead, unity must arise from the dynamic interaction of the various parts of the drama: story, character, and language. Our task is to discover how this was accomplished.
Two habits of composition characterized the Elizabethan dramatists. First, the poets turned to popular romance and history for the sources of their plots. Baldwin saw one of the major problems of the dramatists to be the shaping of narrative material to dramatic ends, and this he believes was accomplished through the Terentian five-act structure. Both Hardin Craig and Doran regard the romantic story as the formative influence in English drama.[8] Following Manly, Doran sees the miracle play as the main source of the romantic story and, as such, a principal forerunner of the Elizabethan drama. Secondly, in utilizing these materials, “English dramatists almost without exception adopted the sequential method of action, and all the weight of classic drama did not prevail to change their minds about it.”[9] The importance of this factor in the molding of drama is further emphasized in Miss Doran’s suggestion that the source material, or the story, “is often the chief determinant of whether or not a play is well organized.”[10] A glance at the play list of the Globe’s company reveals that with the possible exception of Every Man Out of His Humour and A Larum for London, story plays a decisive part in the flow of the drama. But so was story or fable the groundwork of ancient Greek drama. The differences arise from the ways in which the dramatists of each age treated their stories.
To begin with, the English dramatists retained a very large portion of a given story. They arranged but did not eliminate. In fact, they frequently supplied additional events. In A Larum for London we find scene after scene illustrating the awful fate that befell the people of Antwerp at the hands of the Spanish. A copious montage of horrors passes across the stage. This multiplicity of events is a prime characteristic of this drama. To the Lear story Shakespeare adds the tale of Gloucester, to that of Helena and Bertram the story of Parolles.
Having taken a bustling story as his basis, the poet had to arrange all the events in dramatic order. According to Doran he had to find “a different method from the classical in two central problems of form: how to get concentration, and how to achieve organic structure, that is, how to achieve an action causally connected from beginning to middle to end.”[11] However, Bradbrook has rightly pointed out that in Elizabethan drama “consecutive or causal succession of events is not of the first importance.” With this observation, she dismisses narrative as not being one of the first concerns of the dramatists.[12] Certainly Bradbrook is right about the absence of Aristotelian causality, as the briefest review of most Elizabethan plays will show. The events leading to Cordelia’s death are without cause unless we choose chance as the cause. It is by chance she is captured, it is by chance that Edmund confesses too late.
The issue, however, is joined incorrectly. Organic structure, in this type of drama, is not a product of “causally connected events.” Nor can the absence of such connection minimize the dependence of Elizabethan dramaturgy upon narrative progression. To appreciate this point of view, we must comprehend the difference between how we usually expect a play to be linked causally and how the Elizabethans employed dramatic causation.
I believe that I follow most critics in deriving the concept of dramatic causation from Aristotle’s admonition that “the plot ... must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.” The Aristotelian plot is compressive and retrospective. Its method is to submit man to an intolerable pressure until there is a single bursting point that shatters life. A single act, invariably occurring before the play begins, initiates a series of events which, linked together in a probable and necessary sequence, produces the catastrophe, which once again casts back to the original source of momentum. Such linear intensification is promoted by the exertion of tremendous will on the part of the leading characters. Antigone’s willful piety clashes with Creon’s statism, Philoctetes’ desire for revenge and Ulysses’ desire for victory at Troy combine within Neoptolemus in a conflict between honor and duty. All incidents develop out of the wills of the characters. Incident counteracts incident. For example, before Oedipus can fully digest the charge of Tiresias, he accuses Creon of treachery. Creon responds to the charge, but before their conflict can be resolved, Jocasta tries to reconcile them, the very act of which brings Oedipus closer to the awesome truth. Focus is upon the drama mounting to the climax: the scenes leading to Oedipus’ discovery, the struggle leading to Neoptolemus’ decision, or the near disaster leading to the ultimate revelation of Ion’s origin. To sum up, a play linked causally dramatizes all the crucial causes of major actions, maintaining due balance between the force of the motive and the intensity of effect, the action mounting from cause to effect to cause, so that at any point we are aware of what circumstances led to one and only one result. Suspense is a natural corollary of such organization, and concentration of effect is its aim.