In Shakespeare the generic types are blended and enriched. An examination of all the characters in the Globe Shakespearean plays reveals the presence of a definite group of related characters. They are more than the repeated figures of any author’s art, for they hark back to the traditional types. The most frequently recurring and most sharply marked are the lovers, villains, clowns, gulls, loyal advisers, faithful friends, chaste maids, faithful wives, tyrant fathers, tyrant princes, and politic princes. One could go on multiplying subsidiary classes of characters as Polonius does classes of drama. Though certain types, such as the faithful servant (Adam, Provost in Measure for Measure, Corin in As You Like It), recur with some frequency, many do not. One type, the elderly grande dame, has only two representatives: the Countess in All’s Well, and Volumnia in Coriolanus. Nor do the types recur in the same form. Horatio is the faithful friend in Hamlet; Kent is also the faithful friend, but he has something of the court adviser in him too. From this it follows that the types are not differentiated clearly. Antony in Julius Caesar has some of the faithful friend in him, but as his character develops, he reveals something of the Machiavellian politician, and in battle shows himself the honest soldier. Furthermore, the same generic type may show strong differences in temperament. Lafeu, the court adviser of All’s Well, is a merry gentleman; Escalus, the same type of adviser in Measure for Measure, is sober and serious. They are both members of the same type whose quality is dictated by the function that it performs in the story. But the full range of the character does not remain within the confines of the types.
The combination of distanced action and generic type served to romanticize and symbolize the Shakespearean stage figures. No matter how reminiscent of a contemporary Londoner a character may have been, the audience reposed in the fiction that he was an Italian, a Roman, or an ancestor. With the Elizabethan’s insularity, the fiction took on imaginative reality and tinted the action of the plays with romance. The characters of this romance, who had a generic base, were not only individuals but also symbols of the host of kings, lovers, and clowns who peopled the world. Again, this is a reflection of the Elizabethan habit of seeing similarities rather than differences in human behavior. The interaction of these two qualities alone would have elevated the action into a wondrous world of imagination, untouched by real experience. But, as we shall see, other elements were at work.
Within the broad boundaries of the generic type, individualization of character took place. But in what manner was this accomplished by the dramatists, particularly by Shakespeare? Today we place great stress on motivation. Our plays constantly search the past to explain the present. In A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche is revealed and drawn in terms of her tortured past and her unfulfilled desires. In the Elizabethan period, as we found, there was little awareness of specific motivation. The plays reflect this condition. The motivation is usually generalized. Viola wishes to love and be loved, and Sir Toby wants to have an easy life. Antony wishes to love Cleopatra, Coriolanus to satisfy his pride. But little attention is directed to probing or developing these motivations. At the conclusion of these plays we do not understand the motives of these characters one whit better. Motivation is often assumed, as in Lear’s partition of his kingdom, or promised for the future, as in Othello when Iago persuades Roderigo to kill Cassio. In the same type of character there is little distinction in motivation. The motives for Horatio’s loyalty to Hamlet are no different from the motives for Kent’s loyalty to Lear. In the prodigal son plays, the motivations for the prodigality are barely noted. It is considered a condition to which all youth is liable. Motives for any act were so often assumed that they could not have demanded concentrated attention by the actors.
Another way in which the modern playwright individualizes character is through speech and gesture. This does not seem to have been a regular practice at the Globe playhouse. Here and there are hints that status may have been indicated by carriage and accent. In As You Like It Orlando questions “Ganymede” about his life.
Orl. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so
removed a dwelling.
Ros. I have been told so of many. But indeed an old religious uncle
of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland
man.
[III, ii, 359-363]