(Matthew Arnold: “Shakespeare.”)
In such a study as this, dealing largely with the work of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, it is to be hoped that it will not be out of place to centre the concluding portion around Shakespeare himself. It is but one aspect of our study to compare our greatest dramatist and his fellows with respect to their presentation of madness, and it is throwing a dim light on Shakespeare’s greatness to make the comparison in such a trivial sphere. Our conclusion is thus doubly insignificant, yet we enter upon it nevertheless. For if it tells us nothing that is new, it serves at least to strengthen our present convictions, and this from an entirely new standpoint. We shall, then, compare Shakespeare and his contemporaries from three points of view: in their general ideas and sentiments concerning madness, in their dramatic use of madness, and in their representation of mad folk as complete figures, the Elizabethan dramatists bow one and all before their master.
General Ideas and Sentiments.
1. To a certain extent, in madness as in other departments of life, Shakespeare took over the general notions of his day and introduced them fairly liberally into his work. He could hardly do otherwise, for the subject of lunacy was so commonplace and found so ready a way into ordinary conversation that the dramatist who, like Shakespeare, mirrored the life and speech of every day, would find himself, even against his will, borrowing figures from Bedlam. Many of these we have already noticed; a very few more will show the diversity of the references. The shipwrecked mariners in “The Tempest,” “felt a fever of the mad and play’d Some tricks of desparation.” Theseus speaks of “The lunatic, the lover and the poet” as being “of imagination all compact.” Rosalind mentions “the dark house and the whip,” Romeo the prison, the bonds and the torments, Othello the popular view of the influence of the moon. This breadth of treatment in casual allusions alone might be contrasted with the meagre work of his contemporaries. But we must pass on to notice that Shakespeare himself was far in advance of his time, seeing in some way features of insanity which were commonly overlooked, and using remedies which we consider quite “modern,” even to-day. His tests
for insanity are certainly somewhat crude, but they occur rather as allusions, where, as we have seen, he adopted the ideas of his day, than in full-length portraits, in which he is remarkably exact. A physician of the last century[178:1] remarks on Lear: “Lear’s is a genuine case of insanity from the beginning to the end, such as we often see in aged persons. On reading it we cannot divest ourselves of the idea that it is a real case correctly reported.” This is high praise; and although Shakespeare hardly requires such commendation, it is interesting to notice the small details which are true to life. We have such phrases in “King Lear” as
“O Lear, Lear, Lear!
Beat at this gate that let thy folly in,
And thy dear judgment out,”[178:2]
where the old king beats his head, as