The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

But Regan's views on this point are seconded and sustained, and there seems to be but one opinion on the subject among those who happen to have that castle in possession; at least the timid owner of it does not feel himself in a position to make any forcible resistance to the orders which his illustrious guests, who have 'taken from him the use of his own house,' have seen fit to issue in it. 'Shut up your doors, (says Cornwall),

'Shut up your doors, my lord: 'tis a wild night. My REGAN COUNSELS well; COME OUT O' THE STORM.'

And it is because this representation is artistic and dramatic, and not simply historical, and the Poet must seek to condense, and sum and exhibit in dramatic appreciable figures, the unreckonable, undefinable historical suffering of years, aad lifetimes of this vain human struggle,—because, too, the wildest threats which nature in her terrors makes to man, had to be incorporated in this great philosophic piece; and because, lastly, the Poet would have the madness of the human will and passion, presented in its true scientific relations, that this storm collects into itself such ideal sublimities, and borrows from the human passion so many images of cruelty.

In all the mad anguish of that ruined greatness, and wronged natural affection, the Poet, relentless as fortune herself in her sternest moods, intent on his experiment only, will bring out his great victim, and consign him to the wind and the rain, and the lightning, and the thunder, and bid his senses undergo their 'horrible pleasure.'

For the senses, scorned as they had been in philosophy hitherto, the senses in this philosophy, have their report also,—their full, honest report, to make to us. And the design of this piece, as already stated in the general, required in its execution, not only that these two kinds of suffering, these two grand departments of human need, should be included and distinguished in it, but that they should be brought together in this one man's experience, so that a deliberate comparison can be instituted between them; and the Poet will bid the philosophic king, the living 'subject' himself, report the experiment, and tell us plainly, once for all, whether the science of the physical Arts only, is the science which is wanting to man; or whether arts—scientific arts—that take hold of the moral nature, also, and deal with that not less effectively, can be dispensed with; whether, indeed, man is in any condition to dispense with the Science and the Art which puts him into intelligent and harmonious relations with nature in general.

It was necessary to the purpose of the play to exhibit man's dependence on art, by means of his senses and his sensibilities, and his intellectual conditions, and all his frailties and liabilities,— his dependence on art, based on the knowledge of natural laws, universal laws,—constitutions, which include the human. It was necessary to exhibit the whole misery, the last extreme of that social evil, to which a creature so naturally frail and ignorant is liable, under those coarse, fortuitous, inartistic, unscientific social conglomerations, which ignorant and barbarous ages build, and under the tyranny of those wild, barbaric social evils, which our fine social institutions, notwithstanding the universality of their terms, and the transcendant nature of the forces which they are understood to have at their disposal, for some fatal reason or other, do not yet succeed in reducing.

It is, indeed, the whole ground of the Scientific Human Art, which is revealed here by the light of this great passion, and that, in this Poet's opinion, is none other than the ground of the human want, and is as large and various as that. And the careful reader of this play,—the patient searcher of its subtle lore,—the diligent collector of its thick-crowding philosophic points and flashing condensations of discovery, will find that the need of arts, is that which is set forth in it, with all the power of its magnificent poetic embodiment, and in the abstract as well,—the need of arts infinitely more noble and effective, more nearly matched with the subtlety of nature, and better able to entangle and subdue its oppositions, than any of which mankind have yet been able to possess themselves, or ever the true intention of nature in the human form can be realized, or anything like a truly Human Constitution, or Common-Weal, is possible.

But let us return to the comparison, and collect the results of this experiment.—For a time, indeed, raised by that storm of grief and indignation into a companionship with the wind and the rain, and the lightning, and the thunder, the king 'strives in his little world of man,'—for that is the phrasing of the poetic report, to out-scorn these elements. Nay, we ourselves hear, as the curtain rises on that ideal representative form of human suffering, the wild intonation of that human defiance—mounting and singing above the thunder, and drowning all the elemental crash with its articulation; for this is an experiment which the philosopher will try in the presence of his audience, and not report it merely. With that anguish in his heart, the crushed majesty, the stricken old man, the child-wounded father, laughs at the pains of the senses; the physical distress is welcome to him, he is glad of it. He does not care for anything that the unconscious, soulless elements can do to him, he calls to them from their heights, and bids them do their worst. Or it is only as they conspire with that wilful human wrong, and serve to bring home to him anew the depth of it, by these tangible, sensuous effects,—it is only by that means that they are able to wound him.

'Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters,'

that is the argument.