Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist / A Popular Illustration of the Principles of Scientific Criticism

by Richard G. Moulton

The opening scene has put before us, not in words but figured in action, a problem in human affairs: the violation of moral equity has set up an unnatural arrangement of power—power taken from the good and lodged in the hands of the bad. Here is, so to speak, a piece of moral unstable equilibrium, and the rebound from it is to furnish the remainder of the action. The very structure of the plot corresponds with the simple structure of a scientific proposition. The latter consists of two unequal parts: a few lines are sufficient to enunciate the problem, while a whole treatise may be required for its solution. So in King Lear a single scene brings about the unnatural state of affairs, the consequences of which it takes the rest of the play to trace. The 'catastrophe,' or turning-point of the play at which the ultimate issues are decided, appears in the present case, not close to the end of the play, nor (as in Julius Cæsar) in the centre, but close to the commencement: at the end of the opening scene Lear's act of folly has in reality determined the issue of the whole action; the scenes which follow are only working out a determined issue to its full realisation.

The solution of the problem in a triple tragedy.

We have seen the problem itself, the overthrow of conscience by imperiousness and the transfer of power from the good to the bad: what is the solution of it as presented by the incidents of the play? The consequences flowing from what Lear has done make up three distinct tragedies, which go on working side by side, and all of which are essential to the full solution of the problem. First, there is the nemesis upon Lear himself—the double retribution of receiving nothing but evil from those he has unrighteously rewarded, (1) Tragedy of Lear. and nothing but good from her whom, he bitterly feels, he has cruelly wronged. (2) Tragedy of Cordelia and Kent.But the punishment of the wrong-doer is only one element in the consequences of wrong; the innocent also are involved, and we get a second tragedy in the sufferings of the faithful Kent and the loving Cordelia, who, through Kent as her representative, watches over her father's safety, until at the end she appears in person to follow up her devotion to the death. When, however, the incidents making up the sufferings of Lear, of Kent, and of Cordelia are taken out of the main plot, there is still a considerable section left— (3) Tragedy of Goneril and Regan.that which is occupied with the mutual intrigues of Goneril and Regan, intrigues ending in their common ruin. This constitutes a third tragedy which, it will be seen, is as necessary to the solution of our problem as the other two. To place power in the hands of the bad is an injury not only to others, but also to the bad themselves, as giving fuel to the fire of their wickedness: so in the tragedy of Goneril and Regan we see evil passions placed in improper authority using this authority to work out their own destruction.

An underplot on the same basis as the main plot.

To this main plot is added an underplot equally elaborate. As in The Merchant of Venice, the stories borrowed from two distinct sources are worked into a common design: and the interweaving in the case of the present play is perhaps Shakespeare's greatest triumph of constructive skill. The two stories are made to rest upon the same fundamental idea—compare i. i, fin.that of undutifulness to old age: what Lear's daughters actually do is that which is insinuated by Edmund as his false charge against his brother.

i. ii. 76, &c.

I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

So obvious is this fundamental connection between the main and the underplot, that our attention is called to it by a personage in the play itself: iii. vi. 117.'he childed as I father'd,' is Edgar's pithy summary of it when he is brought into contact with Lear. The main and underplot parallel and contrasted throughout.But in this double tragedy, drawn from the two families of Lear and of Gloucester, the chief bond between its two sides consists in the sharp contrast which extends to every detail of the two stories. In the main plot we have a daughter, who has received nothing but harm from her father, who has unjustly had her position torn from her and given to undeserving sisters: nevertheless she sacrifices herself to save the father who did the injury from the sisters who profited by it. In the underplot we have a son, who has received nothing but good from his father, who has, contrary to justice, been advanced by him to the position of an elder brother whom he has slandered: nevertheless, he is seeking the destruction of the father who did him the unjust kindness, when he falls by the hand of the brother who was wronged by it. Thus as the main and underplot go on working side by side, they are at every turn by their antithesis throwing up one another's effect; the contrast is like the reversing of the original subject in a musical fugue. The underplot an Intrigue Action:Again, as the main plot consisted in the initiation of a problem and its solution, so the underplot consists in the development of an intrigue and its consequences. The tragedy of the Gloucester family will, if stated from the point of view of the father, correspond in its parts with the tragedy in the family of Lear. It must be remembered, however, that the position of the father is different in the two cases; Gloucester is not, as Lear, the agent of the crime, but only a deceived instrument in the hands of the villain Edmund, who is the real agent; if the proper allowance be made for this difference, involving a triple tragedy parallel with that of the main plot.it will be seen that the three tragedies which make up the consequences of Lear's error have their analogies in the three tragedies which flow from the intrigue of Edmund. (1) Tragedy of Gloucester.First, we have the nemesis on Gloucester, and this, in analogy with the nemesis on Lear, consists in receiving nothing but evil from the son he has so hastily advanced, and nothing but good from the other son whom, he comes gradually to feel, he has unintentionally wronged. (2) Tragedy of Edgar.In the next place we have the sufferings of the innocent Edgar. (3) Tragedy of Edmund.Then, as we before saw a third tragedy in the way in which the power conferred upon Goneril and Regan is used to work out their destruction, so in the underplot we find that the position which Edmund has gained involves him in intrigues, which by the development of the play are made to result in a nemesis upon his original intrigue. And it is a nemesis of exquisite exactness: for he meets his death in the very moment of his success, at the hands of the brother he has maligned and robbed, while the father he has deceived and sought to destroy is the means by which the avenger has been brought to the scene.

Complexity of plot not inconsistent with simplicity of movement.

We have gone far enough into the construction of the plot to perceive its complexity and the principal elements into which that complexity can be analysed. Two separate systems, each consisting of an initial action and three resulting tragedies, eight actions in all, are woven together by common personages and incidents, by parallelism of spirit, and by movement to a common climax; not to speak of lesser Link Actions which assist in drawing the different stories closer together. As with plot generally, these separate elements are fully manifest only to the eye of analysis; in following the course of the drama itself, they make themselves felt only in a continued sense of involution and harmonious symmetry. It is with passion, not with plot, that the present study is concerned; and the train of passion which the common movement of these various actions calls out in the sympathy of the reader is as simple as the plot itself is intricate. In the case both of the main plot and the underplot the emotional effect rises in intensity; moreover at this central height of intensity the two merge in a common Climax. The construction of the play resembles, if such a comparison may be allowed, the patent gas-apparatus, which secures a high illuminating power by the simple device of several ordinary burners inclined to one another at such an angle that the apexes of their flames meet in a point. from ii. iv. 290 to iii. vi. with the interruption of iii. iii, iii. v.So the present play contains a Centrepiece of some three scenes, marked off (at least at the commencement) decisively, in which the main and underplot unite in a common Climax, with special devices to increase its effect; The different trains of passion focussed in a central Climax.the diverse interests to which our sympathy was called out at the commencement, and which analysis can keep distinct to the end, are focussed, so far as passion is concerned, in this Centrepiece, in which human emotion is carried to the highest pitch of tragic agitation that the world of art has yet exhibited.