It is apparent that the Elizabethan dramatists did not address themselves to the organization of that type of sequence. Very few plays of theirs can be found where closely linked causation produces the denouement. First, the causes for significant changes are frequently assumed or implied and not dramatized. Why Lear divides his kingdom, why Cleopatra flees the battle, why Angelo repents remain unrevealed. Iago promises to show Roderigo “such a necessity in his [Claudio’s] death that you shall think yourself bound to put it on him” (IV, ii, 247-248), and later Roderigo, waiting to assail Claudio, affirms that Iago “hath given me satisfying reasons” (V, i, 9). Between the scenes some justification, unknown to us, was given Roderigo by Iago. The revelation of Lady Macbeth’s haunting nightmares actually serves as a peripeteia which, Aristotle warns, must be “subject always to our rule of probability, or necessity.” But this reversal is not the result of a succession of events leading to a necessary end, unless we regard it as having taken place off-stage. Such an end may be probable, of course, but we are given no insight into the forces that make it probable. Nor apparently did Shakespeare feel it incumbent upon him to show these forces. That we accept the sleep-walking scene is not so much because it is either inevitable or likely, but because of all things in the realm of possibility that could have befallen the woman, her nightmares so perfectly satisfy both our sense of justice and our inclination toward pity at the same time.
Secondly, the causes for significant changes, when dramatized, are not always commensurate with the effects. To make itself felt, a dramatic cause, in the Aristotelian sense, must have sufficient weight to produce the effect it does; a great cause must not produce a puny effort, nor a puny effort a great result. Yet this lack of proportion occurs often in Shakespeare. The ease with which Iago secures Desdemona’s handkerchief from Emilia, though she wonders at the purpose of his request, does not balance the awful consequences. Brutus’ and Cassius’ meager dispute over whether or not to allow Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral is overshadowed by the fatal results. Here, as elsewhere, the perfunctoriness of the struggle between two antagonists is out of proportion to the effect that follows. The appearance of such imbalance, however, is not the result of ineptitude, but of artistic choice. Interest was not in the conflict leading to a decision, but the effect of the decision itself. The causes of action, therefore, tended to be taken for granted or conveyed with minimum emphasis; in other words, they were not regarded as being of first importance and so did not need to be dramatized with particularity. This attitude contributed largely to the looseness with which parts of a play are joined.
Causation, of course, was not completely abandoned, but it was generalized. Largely it resided in the given circumstances of the initial action, as Lear’s pride leading him to reject Cordelia or Cleopatra’s womanhood causing her to flee. For, within the Elizabethan scheme of man’s relation to his action, tightly linked causation was incomprehensible.
Nor was the alternative to causal succession, episodic structure, “a stringing together of events in mere temporal succession [where] each complication is solved as it arises.”[13] For dramatic causation of the parts, the Elizabethan substituted a rhythmic framework for the whole. The dramatization of a complete story employing many characters meant that within the scope of the narrative lay many plausible events. This gave the poet a wide choice of incidents with which to arrange his plot, the scope of the narrative imparting a limit of its own. Concurrently, the tendency for “mirroring” nature led him to choose scenes which would contrast or echo others or which would illustrate various facets of a single experience.
In such a drama the first scenes perform a vital function. They establish the premises upon which the action will be built. Little exposition is necessary, for not much has happened before the play opens. It is curious to note that almost all the principal characters are in a state of inertia at the beginning of the action. Hamlet, sorely distressed by his mother’s marriage, is not about to act. Rosalind, Cordelia, Lear, Antony, Cleopatra, Brutus, Macbeth, Timon all are uncommitted to anything but the state, happy or troubled, wherein we first see them. Usually some force, either early in the first scenes or just before them, impels the characters to act. This type of opening contributes to the impression, first, that the play is a self-contained microcosm and, second, that the first scenes are illustrations.
Antony and Cleopatra offers a model for such an opening. The comments of Demetrius and Philo provide the frame for the illustration-premise of Antony’s love for Cleopatra and his rejection of Rome. Though the messenger from Rome does propel the action forward, calling Antony to Caesar, his arrival is handled in a ritualistic manner. We might consider this demonstration of the premise as analogous to the statement of a theme in music. Just as a composer announces his musical idea, the Elizabethan dramatist illustrates his dramatic idea, proceeding from it to the variations which occupy the balance of the play.[14]
Stemming from these premises are two lines of progression, one narrative, one dramatic. The first, which is essentially concerned with what happens to the characters, follows a line of development to the very last scene. The second, which involves what the characters undergo, reaches fullness somewhere near the center of the play.
The narrative line, what happens, proceeds linearly to the finale. In Lear, this is concerned with the story of two fathers deceived by certain of their children; through deception they give these children their trust and power; they suffer at their hands; ultimately they are vindicated by their faithful children. All the plots and intrigues are part of the narrative. Not until Edgar fells Edmund are these plots unmasked.
The dramatic line, what the characters undergo, extends to heights of passion at the center of the play and then contracts. This line in Lear is concerned with how a proud man endures curbs on his nature and is reduced to humility. In the first half of the play Lear, asserting his arrogance to the fullest, passes to the limits of madness. In the second, he acquiesces to suffering, one might say, becomes detached from it. Extension and contraction is the pattern, extension of the potentialities of the premises of the action, contraction of the effects after they have reached their fulfillment.
Such parallel development of a play’s action produces contradictory impulses in the drama. On one hand there existed the impulse to complete the story, on the other there persisted the temptation to dilate upon the effect of the action upon the individuals. One reason why modern audiences suffer from “fourth act fatigue” in witnessing a Shakespearean play stems from the fact that their interest in the play is disproportionate. They have a greater interest in the dramatic line than in the narrative. For the Elizabethan audience the interest must have been more evenly balanced. For them the finale, the completion of the narrative line, had as much appeal as the “climax,” the height of the dramatic line.