But a scene that may be semiautonomous insofar as the story line is involved may be central insofar as the climactic plateau is concerned. Such is the closet scene in Hamlet. Note how quickly Shakespeare disposes of Polonius. The murder of the old man does advance the plot, of course, for it causes Ophelia’s madness and brings Laertes back from France. But the murder is a minor part of the closet scene. Of its entire 217 lines, the action involving Polonius occupies, both at the beginning and at the end, forty lines (1-33, 211-217). Another eleven lines are occupied with Hamlet’s recollection that he must go to England (199-210). The remaining 166 lines are devoted to the relation of mother and son and the visitation of the ghost. Certainly the scene is dramatic, in fact, one of the most dramatic in all literature. Yet it does not carry the action on to a new stage, but allows Hamlet to express his disapproval and suspicion of his mother. In fact, the central portion of the scene leaves no trace on the plot. Though Gertrude is shaken by Hamlet’s accusations against his uncle and herself, there is no indication that her attitude toward Claudius changes as a result. Nor is Hamlet purged by the meeting. Neither is the decision to send Hamlet to England brought about by it, for the King had determined to send him there immediately after the nunnery scene (III, i, 175-183). The closet scene opens with Polonius’ murder and closes with a return to Hamlet’s responsibility for the act. In between Hamlet relieves his soul of the stifled passion against his mother.
Certainly a drama composed of these semiautonomous scenes loses not unity necessarily, but compression. What it foregoes in that direction it makes up for in extension. Instead of the story eliminating incidents not strictly contributing to a final climax, it serves as a point of departure. When Orestes meets his mother, his behavior must follow the demands of the plot, and Aeschylus allows him only one pitiful question to Pylades: Must he kill his mother? The Elizabethan form permits the full relationship of the mother and son to be explored. Like a mirror the scene casts an additional reflection of the image that is Hamlet. For this advantage of multiplicity of implication the Elizabethan sacrificed concentration of effect. Unable to grasp this shift in emphasis, many critics have treated the lack of concentration in Shakespearean structure as evidence that the poet did not know how to construct plays. As we saw, Dr. Johnson dismissed the construction of Antony and Cleopatra with the comment that the events “are produced without any art of connection or care of disposition.” Schücking, about a hundred and fifty years later, dismisses Shakespeare’s structural practices as primitive. The conclusion is the same though the reasons may differ. But until we can meet Elizabethan structure on its own terms, we really do not know what its failures were. When we deprecate the skill of the playwrights, let us remember that the University Wits, men trained in the Terentian, Plautine, and Senecan manner, were the ones who developed the popular Elizabethan mode. The fate that awaited them if they did not adhere to it is keenly illustrated by Kyd’s failure as a classicist.
Within the general form of extension and contraction, extension to a climactic plateau, contraction to a ceremonious finale, appear variant structural patterns. To reduce the total structural pattern of Elizabethan drama to a single form, or even to two or three forms, is virtually impossible. The age was multiple in its artistic means. Yet the inability to do this does not mean that no structural form existed, but that many existed. Not only was there structural variety in the works of different men, but there were differences within the work of one man. Nevertheless, certain dominant patterns emerge, and while the following descriptions are not exhaustive, they include a large proportion of the Globe plays.
Three structural patterns recur frequently in the Globe plays: the episodic, the “river,” and the “mirror” patterns. In a crude form the episodic pattern can be found in the early Shakespearean histories. There its basic nature can be anatomized. On the thread either of a historical or of a biographical sequence a series of events is arranged in succession. The most marked characteristic of this form is that one event or incident is completed before another one is begun. Among the Globe plays of our period Thomas Lord Cromwell is a typical example of this type. Cromwell passes through a series of events complete in themselves: his kindness to a distraught woman in Antwerp, his succor of an Italian merchant, his success in freeing the Earl of Bedford from capture, his service to Wolsey, and his downfall at the hands of Gardiner. Although the Earl of Bedford reappears during Cromwell’s conflict with Gardiner, and remembering his rescue, endeavors to help Cromwell, the two sections of the play are not really joined. In this play, despite the fact that Cromwell himself provides the mechanical unity that binds the play, the dramatic unity, if there is any, is multiple. The various scenes reflect Cromwell’s virtues of honesty, humanity, and loyalty, thus giving a thematic wholeness to the entire play.
Since Aristotle penned his notes called Poetics, the episodic play has been in disrepute. Today it is difficult to imagine that it could rise to dramatic heights. Yet if we closely examine the structure of such a play as Macbeth, we shall realize that it is episodic in form. Of course, there are vital alterations in that form. Primarily, there is preparation for on-coming events. Instead of one event being completed before another one is initiated, we find that brief scenes are planted earlier to make the development plausible. The potential danger of Banquo to Macbeth’s ambitions is established by the witches. It is touched on before the murder of Duncan, but it is not woven into the fabric of the action at that time. At first, the overwhelming emphasis is upon the triangle of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the crown. Once Duncan is disposed of, the Banquo action comes into prominence, and full attention is devoted to it. Early hints of Macduff’s defection are introduced, but not until Banquo is dead does the play really concentrate on Macduff. For Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches there is almost no preparation. Until the end of the banquet scene, we do not even know he is aware of their abode. Until this moment, although the play reveals an episodic structure, it is more tightly knit than most of Shakespeare’s other works. After the visit of Macbeth to the witches’ hovel, the episodic pattern becomes more distinct. The conception of Macbeth as a character accents the episodic quality. He struggles only to reach the immediate goal; there is no ultimate point in the universe toward which he moves. Sejanus, in comparison, reduces the episodic quality of his drama because his eyes are always upon becoming Caesar, the symbol of a god on earth. Immediate intrigues are but part of the larger aim. For this concentration Jonson lost the opportunity for those very magnificent scenes which make Macbeth a great play. Among other of Shakespeare’s plays of this period which employ the episodic pattern are Hamlet, Coriolanus, and Julius Caesar. What strikes many critics as a lack of unity in Hamlet is its particular pattern. Once the conditions imposed on Hamlet by the Ghost are revealed, we witness the following sequence: the place of love in Hamlet’s mind, the testing of Claudius at the play, the relation of mother and son. Each event is prepared for, but each in turn gains full emphasis. Nor does one event bear causative relationship to another. Though Claudius is suspicious of Hamlet at the conclusion of the nunnery scene, he indicates no unusual watchfulness over Hamlet during the play-within-the-play scene. It is as though the conflict of the previous scene has been resolved with Claudius’ determination to send Hamlet to England. As a point in the story this idea is established and comes into the play when needed at the end of the closet scene. And, of course, the closet scene is not a dramatic result of the play scene. The idea that Hamlet be summoned to his mother is advanced by Polonius earlier, and whether or not Hamlet had offended the King, the meeting would have taken place. Here, then, is a skillful manipulation of the structural characteristics of the episodic pattern.
The second pattern I have named the “river” pattern. I use the term because its dramatic action resembles the flow of various tributaries into a single stream. Perhaps the best example of this type of structure can be found in Twelfth Night. Two streams of action are of almost equal breadth and depth; the third is merely a trickle until it joins the main flow. One main stream we may call the Orsino-Olivia-Viola action. The other is the Toby-Andrew-Malvolio action. The minor stream is the Antonio-Sebastian sequence. The principal determinant of such a structure is the length of time during which each action remains independent of the others. The first two actions remain completely independent through Acts I and II. A slight link is provided in Act III, scene i, when Malvolio courts Olivia. The full merging of the two actions takes place in Act III, scene iv. Meanwhile, the Antonio-Sebastian thread was introduced into the story in Act II, scene i, and in Act III, scene iii, and partly integrated with the main action in Act III, scene iv. In the fourth act the development of the two main threads remains suspended, Viola disappearing from the stage to enable the Sebastian element to be more fully integrated with the Olivia-Orsino-Viola triangle. Finally, in the fifth act, every element is brought together, including the Malvolio sequence, even though this necessitates the unprepared revelation that Viola’s womanly garments are in the hands of a captain who “upon some action/Is now in durance, at Malvolio’s suit” (V, i, 282-283).
Although this form is not as prevalent as either the episodic or the “mirror,” it can be found in a number of Globe plays, for example, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and partly in All’s Well. Twelfth Night remains, however, its model.
Last of the three dominant forms and the most popular one is the “mirror” pattern. Usually it consists of two stories, almost equal in emphasis. Both are introduced independently and maintain a large degree of independence throughout the play, sometimes never fully coming into plot relation with each other. Their fundamental connection derives from a similarity of theme and story development. Through sharp comparison or contrast one story casts reflections upon the other as though one were the image in the mirror and one the reality. The distinctness of each story is sometimes obscured by the fact that the same individual may appear in both stories and yet maintain independence of action in each case, at least early in the play. For example, through the first two acts Gloucester functions independently in each of the two stories in Lear.
Fair Maid of Bristow, among the works of the Globe repertory, is an excellent example of this pattern. In fact, here we have striking evidence of the structural care with which a minor play could be organized, despite Bradbrook’s assertion that structure is possible only through “literary means.” This play follows the mirror pattern almost slavishly. In the first scene Challener shows his beloved Anabell to Vallenger who falls in love with her. The two men come to blows over the girl. Challener wounds Vallenger and then flees while Vallenger is taken into Anabell’s house by her father. In the second scene Harbart tries to persuade Sentloe not to remain with the courtesan, Florence. But Sentloe, blind to her fickleness and confident of her devotion, rejects Harbart. Harbart vows to follow Sentloe in disguise. In the third scene Vallenger gains the promise of Anabell’s hand. In the fourth scene Challener, learning of the impending marriage, returns to Bristow in the disguise of an Italian doctor. In the fifth scene Sentloe engages Blunt alias Harbart as a servingman, and Sentloe and Florence are invited to Anabell’s wedding. At this point in the play we can identify two parallel centers of action. Each contains a “loving” couple, and a friend in disguise. In one Challener hates Vallenger and loves Anabell; in the other Harbart hates Florence and loves Sentloe.
Scene vi (nearly the middle of the play, since there are fourteen scenes in all) dramatizes the first blending of the two actions. Immediately after his marriage, Vallenger falls in love with Florence and suborns the doctor to poison Sentloe and Anabell. Later, in scene vii, Florence seduces Blunt to slay Sentloe. In each case the sworn protector is asked to commit the murder. In scene vii we have a typical “digression,” a comic courting scene of two servants. The theme, however, is faithfulness. Douse, the maid, asks whether Frog, after their marriage, “will ... not prove unkind?” Frog, in comic doggerel, vows, among other things, that only “when Lawiers have no tongues at all” will he prove unkind. The idea contrasts with the succeeding scenes in which Vallenger proves unkind to Anabell, only to have Florence subsequently prove unkind to him. The two stories are more tightly joined when Blunt contrives to have Vallenger arrested for the “death” of Sentloe. The rest of the play proceeds by contrasting action. Anabell seeks to save the life of Vallenger and Blunt seeks to have Florence held responsible for her part in Sentloe’s “death.” The finale is brought about when King Richard, the judge-figure, permits a champion to appear for the condemned Vallenger. The final contrast comes when Anabell assumes a disguise to free Vallenger, and Challener throws off his disguise for the same purpose. Only when Florence is moved to contrition by the nobility of Anabell and Challener, does Blunt unveil the still-living Sentloe, thus assuring a happy conclusion. Throughout, one line of development balances the other, and though the symmetry is not perfect, as it is rarely perfect in any Elizabethan play, the basic situations contrast with one another. Obviously the author had taken some care in organizing the plot. The disguises are well worked out, as are the balancing and interweaving of the two stories. Further evidence of the care in plotting can be seen in the foreshadowing of King Richard’s appearance in the plot when Harbart, in scene ii, urges Sentloe to abandon Florence and join Richard in the Holy Land. Richard’s first words are a blessing for being permitted by God to return home. Both in the larger construction and in smaller details the anonymous poet formed his work with care. What the play lacks is not organization of the story but strength of characterization, richness of poetic texture, and fresh outlook upon the prodigal son theme.