Among Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe period this pattern frequently appears. As You Like It, Troilus and Cressida, King Lear, and, in some respects, Antony and Cleopatra reveal such a form. In As You Like It, Lear, and Troilus and Cressida, it is particularly well defined. Although this type of organization is best adapted to plays with double plots, it is only a little less effective in other plots. As You Like It, while it possesses rudimentary double plots in the Orlando-Oliver story and the Duke Frederick-Rosalind story, relies principally upon the balance of love relationships that grow in the Forest of Arden. Lear, on the other hand, contains a full double plot. The parallel of the two stories with the balance of cruelty of father-to-daughter and son-to-father is too well known to need repetition here. It is sufficient to point out that in situation after situation one story highlights and reflects the other. The stories join in the storm scenes, separate, join again when blind Gloucester meets mad Lear, separate, and join again when Edgar’s defeat of Edmund leads to the disclosure of the plot against Lear and Cordelia. If the form does not appear to be as mechanical as I have described it and if much of the cross-reflection is implicit in the poetry and characterization, this is attributable to Shakespeare’s genius, not to the absence of structural underpinning.
V. SCENE STRUCTURE IN SHAKESPEARE
In an earlier part of this chapter I emphasized the importance of the separate scenes as distinct units. At this point I should like to draw attention to certain characteristics of the scenes. Usually a portion of one action or story is not followed by an advance or counteraction, but by a new line of development, often containing completely different characters. This we take for granted in Elizabethan drama. The absence of liaison is emphasized by the way in which scenes are arranged. Some scenes, such as the one which Hamlet brings to a close with the cry
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
[II, ii, 632-633]
conclude with a strong emotional lift at the same time as they thrust the interest forward. Some scenes, which I shall call “leading” scenes, produce a forceful dramatic or theatrical pointing. The brief scene in which Artimedorus prepares to give Caesar a petition warning him of the conspirators is such a scene; so is the one in which Duke Frederick thrusts Oliver out of doors until he can produce Celia. These “leading” scenes are usually brief and drive the story forward with great energy. But most scenes in Shakespeare contain an anticlimactic conclusion: they are rounded off, relaxed, brought to a subdued end. Here we must distinguish between dramatic force and story development. It is the dramatic force that is softened at the same time that the story line is brought to the fore. Upon Viola’s first visit Olivia falls in love with the “youth” (I, v). She sends a ring after “him” through Malvolio, then closes the scene with four lines:
I do I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.