Shakspeare and His Times

by François Guizot

It can not be doubted that, between historical dramas and tragedies, properly so called, Shakspeare's genius inclined in preference toward the latter class. The general and unvarying opinion which has placed "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet," "King Lear," "Macbeth," and "Othello" at the head of his works, would suffice to prove this. Among his national dramas, "Richard III." is the only one which has attained the same rank, and this is an additional proof of the truth of my assertion; for it is the only work which Shakspeare was able to conduct, in the same manner as his tragedies, by the influence of a single character or idea. Herein resides the fundamental difference between the two kinds of dramatic works; in one class, events pursue their course, and the poet accompanies them; in the other, events group themselves around a man, and seem to serve only to bring him into bold relief. "Julius Cæsar" is a true tragedy, and yet the progress of the piece is framed in accordance with Plutarch's narrative, just as "King John," "Richard II.," and "Henry IV." are made to coincide with Holinshed's Chronicles; but in the first-named piece, Brutus imparts to the play the unity of a great individual character. In the same manner, the history of "Richard III." is entirely his own history, the work of his design and will; whereas, the history of the other kings with whom Shakspeare has peopled his dramas is only a part, and frequently the smallest part, of the picture of the events of their time.

This arises from the fact that events were not what chiefly occupied Shakspeare's mind; his special attention was bestowed upon the men who occasioned them. He establishes his domain, not in historical, but in dramatic truth. Give him a fact to represent upon the stage, and he will not inquire minutely into the circumstances which accompanied it, or into the various and multiplied causes which may have combined to produce it; his imagination will not require an exact picture of the time or place in which it occurred, or a complete acquaintance with the infinite combinations of which the mysterious web of destiny is composed. These constitute only the materials of the drama; and Shakspeare will not look to them to furnish it with vitality. He takes the fact as it is related to him; and, guided by this thread, he descends into the depths of the human soul. It is man that he wishes to resuscitate; it is man whom he interrogates regarding the secret of his impressions, inclinations, ideas, and volitions. He does not inquire, "What hast thou done?" but, "How art thou constituted? Whence originated the part thou hast taken in the events in which I find thee concerned? What wert thou seeking after? What couldst thou do? Who art thou? Let me know thee; and then I shall know in what respects thy history is important to me."

Thus we may explain that depth of natural truth which reveals itself, in Shakspeare's works, even to the least practiced eyes, and that somewhat frequent absence of local truth which he would have been able to delineate with equal excellence if he had studied it with equal assiduity. Hence, also, arises that difference of conception which is observable between his historical dramas and his tragedies. Composed in accordance with a plan more national than dramatic, written beforehand in some sort by events well known in all their details, and already in possession of the stage under determinate forms, most of his historical plays could not be subjected to that individual unity which Shakspeare delighted to render dominant in his compositions, but which so rarely holds sway in the actual narratives of history. Every man has usually a very small share in the events in which he has taken part; and the brilliant position which rescues a name from oblivion has not always preserved the man who bore it from sinking into a nullity. Kings especially, who are forced to appear upon the stage of the world independently of their aptitude to perform their part upon it, frequently afford less assistance than embarrassment to the conduct of an historical action. Most of the princes whose reigns furnished Shakspeare with his national dramas, undoubtedly exercised some influence upon their own history; but none of them, with the exception of Richard III., wrought it out entirely for himself. Shakspeare would have sought in vain to discover, in their conduct and personal nature, that sole cause of events, that simple and pregnant truth, which was called for by the instinct of his genius. While, therefore, in his tragedies, a moral position, or a strongly conceived character, binds and confines the action in a powerful knot, from whence the facts as well as the sentiments of the drama issue to return thither again, his historical plays contain a multitude of incidents and scenes which are destined rather to fill up the action than to facilitate its progress. As events pass in succession before his view, Shakspeare stops them to catch some few details, which suffice to determine their character; and these details he derives, not from the lofty or general causes of the facts, but from their practical and familiar results. An historical event may originate in a very exalted source, but it always descends to a very low position; it matters little that its sources be concealed in the elevated summits of social order, it ever reaches its consummation in the popular masses, producing among them a widely-diffused and manifest effect and feeling. At this point, Shakspeare seems to wait for events, and here he takes his stand to portray them. The intervention of the people, who bear so heavy a part of the weight of history, is assuredly legitimate, at least in historical representations. It was, moreover, necessary to Shakspeare. Those partial pictures of private or popular history, which lie far behind its great events, are brought by Shakspeare to the front of the stage, and placed in prominent relief; indeed, we feel that he relies upon them to impart to his work the form and coloring of reality. The invasion of France, the battle of Agincourt, the marriage of a daughter of France to a king of England, in whose favor the French monarch disinherits the dauphin, are not sufficient, in his opinion, to occupy the whole of the historical drama of "Henry V.;" so he summons to his aid the comic erudition of the brave Welshman, Fluellen, the conversations of the king with the soldiers, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, all the subaltern movement of an army, and even the joyous loves of Catharine and Henry. In the two parts of "Henry IV.," the comedy is more closely connected with the events, and yet it does not emanate from them. Even if Falstaff and his crew occupied less space, the principal facts would not be less determinate, and would not follow another course; but these facts have only supplied Shakspeare with the external conformation of the drama; the incidents of private life, the comic details, Hotspur and his wife, and Falstaff and his companions, give it life and animation.

In true tragedy, every circumstance assumes another character and another aspect; no incident is isolated, or alien to the very substance of the drama; no link is slight or fortuitous. The events grouped around the principal personage present themselves to view with the importance which they derive from the impression that he receives of them; to him they address themselves, and from him they proceed; he is the beginning and the end, the instrument and the object of the decrees of God, who, in the world which He has created for man, wills that every thing should be done by the hands of man, and nothing according to his designs. God employs the human will to accomplish intentions which man never entertained, and allows him to proceed freely toward a goal which he has not selected. But though man is exposed to the influence of events, he does not fall into subjection to them; if impotence be his condition, liberty is his nature; the feelings, ideas, and wishes with which he is inspired by external objects emanate from himself alone; in him resides an independent and spontaneous power which rejects and defies the empire to which his destiny is subjected. Thus was the world constituted, and thus has Shakspeare conceived tragedy. Give him an obscure and remote event; let him be bound to conduct it toward a determinate result, through a series of incidents more or less known; amid these facts he will place a passion or a character, and put all the threads of the action into the hands of the creature of his own origination. Events follow their course, and man enters upon his; he employs his power to divert them from the direction which he does not wish them to pursue, to conquer them when they thwart him, and to elude them when they embarrass him; he subjects them for a moment to his authority, to find them soon acting with greater hostility toward him in the new course which he has forced them to take; and at last he succumbs entirely in the struggle in which his destiny and his life have gone to wreck.

The power of man in conflict with the power of fate—this is the spectacle which fascinated and inspired the dramatic genius of Shakspeare. Perceiving it for the first time in the catastrophe of "Romeo and Juliet," he felt his will suddenly terror-struck at the aspect of the vast disproportion which exists between the efforts of man and the inflexibility of destiny—between the immensity of our desires and the nullity of our means. In "Hamlet," the second of his tragedies, he reproduces this picture with a sort of shuddering dread. A feeling of duty has prescribed to Hamlet a terrible project; he does not think that any thing can permit him to evade it; and from the very outset, he sacrifices every thing to it—his love, his self-respect, his pleasures, and even the studies of his youth. He has now only one object in the world—to prove and punish the crime which had caused his father's death. That, in order to accomplish this design, he must break the heart of her he loves; that, during the course of the incidents which he originates in order to effect his purpose, a mistake renders him the murderer of the inoffensive Polonius; that he himself becomes an object of mirth and contempt—he cares not, does not even bestow a thought upon it; these are the natural results of his determination, and in this determination his whole existence is concentrated. But he is desirous to accomplish his plan with certainty; he wishes to feel assured that the blow will be legitimate, and that it will not fail to strike home. Henceforward accumulate in his path those doubts, difficulties, and obstacles which the course of things invariably sets in opposition to the man who aims at subjecting it to his will. By bestowing a less philosophical observation upon these impediments, Hamlet would surmount them more easily; but the hesitation and dread which they inspire form part of their power, and Hamlet must undergo its entire influence. Nothing, however, can shake his resolution, nothing divert him from his purpose: he advances, slowly it is true, with his eyes constantly fixed upon his object; whether he originates an opportunity, or merely appropriates one already existing, every step is a progress, until he seems to border on the final term of his design. But time has had its career; Providence is at its limit; the events which Hamlet has prepared hasten onward without his co-operation; they are consummated by him, and to his own destruction; and he falls a victim to those decrees whose accomplishment he has insured, destined to show how little man can avail to effect, even in that which he most ardently desires.

Already more inured to the contemplation of human life, Richard III., at the commencement of his sanguinary career, contemplates, with steady gaze, that immense disproportion before which the thought of the courageous but inexperienced Hamlet had incessantly quailed. Richard merely promises himself greater pride and pleasure from the subjugation of this hostile power; and resolves to give the lie to fate, which appeared to have destined him to abasement and contempt. In fact, we behold him ruling, like a conqueror, the chances of his life; events spring from his hands bearing the impress of his will; just as his thought conceives them, his power accomplishes them; he completes what he has projected, raises his existence to a level with his ambition, and falls at the moment appointed by inflexible destiny, to render the punishment of his crimes more striking, by inflicting it in the midst of his successes. Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus, all equally active and blind in the conduct of their destiny, bring down upon themselves, in the same manner, with all the force of a passionate will, the event which is fated to crush them.