II. FORM AND FUNCTION IN THE FINALES OF THE GLOBE PLAYS
We find a surprising similarity in the finales. Almost every one of the Globe plays contains a public resolution. Seldom is the conclusion private. The final scene of Every Man Out of His Humour containing the last of Macilente’s purgations is one of the exceptions, as are the conclusions of A Larum for London and in some respects of The Devil’s Charter. In the latter play a spectacular conclusion representing the damnation of Pope Alexander is appended to a grand finale. All the other eleven non-Shakespearean plays terminate in a finale that is ceremonious and public. Of the fifteen Shakespearean plays produced between 1599 and 1609 only Troilus and Cressida clearly dispenses with this type of finale. Thus, of the twenty-nine plays presented by the Globe company, twenty-five have a public accounting for the preceding action.
The importance of ending a play with a public exhibition is demonstrated by the amount of contrivance effected in some plays to ensure a grand finale. In the Fair Maid of Bristow, King Richard suddenly grants Anabell the right to produce a champion for Vallenger. By doing so, however, he permits a last, grand discovery and sacrifice scene to be played. Other examples can be found in Shakespeare’s plays. One of the objections to Measure for Measure has been the forced manner in which the Duke succeeds in bringing the conclusion to public trial. This may equally well be the charge against All’s Well. Yet, whether or not it evolves logically from the preceding action, the great closing scene is a marked formal characteristic of this drama.
Several things may happen in the finale, either separately or jointly. In romance and comedy love triumphs. Any punishment that deserves to be meted out is usually tempered. Angelo “perceives he’s safe” in Measure for Measure and Malvolio will be entreated to a peace. In tragedy justice prevails, even though the hero may die in the process. In comedy, the substance of the finale is the working out of the complications or confusions which impede love, in tragedy, the overcoming of evil forces that destroy a just order. In some instances, notably Measure for Measure, both love and justice triumph.
Common to all the Globe plays are:
(1) a means for bringing about justice or of winning love: the most frequent means are discovery of the identity of disguised persons, trial, execution, repentance, single combat, suicide;
(2) a judge-figure who pronounces judgment: he may either deliver the verdict and/or grant mercy or, after the action has occurred, declare the purport of the action; in finales of combat he may serve as the avenging arm of justice;
(3) a ranking figure who reasserts order: invariably the person of highest authority, in many plays he is identical with the judge-figure. It is a convention of Elizabethan drama that the last lines of a play, excluding epilogues and songs, be spoken by the ranking figure.
In the non-Shakespearean plays, discovery, trial and/or execution, and repentance appear most often. Fair Maid of Bristow employs both discovery and execution, The London Prodigal, discovery and repentance. Excluding Every Man Out of His Humour, all the non-Shakespearean plays have judge-figures. In the Merry Devil it is the father, in Volpone the justices, in Fair Maid of Bristow King Richard, in Miseries of Enforced Marriage, Scarborrow himself.[15]
This figure, sometimes central to the story, sometimes not, usually referees the conflict and, at the conclusion, either passes judgment or grants mercy. In two plays the formal agency for bringing judgment about is indirect. In the brilliant reversal scene in Sejanus judgment is exercised through the absent figure of the Emperor Tiberius. His letter read to the convocation of senators provides the means. In turn, his judgment illustrates the caprice of fortune and the descent of nemesis. The other play, Thomas Lord Cromwell, likewise makes use of an indirect agency as a substitute for the judge: King Henry’s delayed reprieve for Cromwell.