Francis Asbury Smith

“ For us and for all men and women, Shakspere has created the character of Imogen, as of Perdita and Miranda, and her "individual traits" are clear enough, to those who have had the happiness of her acquaintance, to show that neither in feature or dress, neither in manners or morals, did she "imitate" any of the heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher. But even as a critic we must differ from Professor Thorndike ”

“ After a hasty review of the early drama, he says of Shakspere:—
"The better one knows his surroundings, the more clearly one begins to perceive that his chief peculiarity, when compared with his contemporaries, was a somewhat sluggish avoidance of needless invention. When anyone else had done a popular thing, Shakspere was pretty sure to imitate him and do it better. But he hardly ever did anything first. To his contemporaries he must have seemed deficient in originality, at least as compared with Lilly, or Marlowe, or Ben Jonson, or Beaumont and Fletcher. ”

“ Ulrici says that "Lilly's works in fact contain nothing but witty words; the actual wit of comic characters, situations, actions, and incidents is almost entirely wanting. Accordingly, his wit is devoid of dramatic power, his conception of comedy still not distinct from the ludicrous, which is always attached to one object; he has no idea of a comic whole." ”

“ But English criticism is not conclusive for us without the indorsement of American scholars. Let me quote what Emerson says:—"He is the father of German literature. Now, literature, philosophy, and thought are Shaksperean. His mind is the horizon beyond which we at present do not [14] see. Our ears are educated to music by his rhythm. He cannot step from his tripod, and give us anecdotes of his inspiration. He is inconceivably wise; the others conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain and think from thence, but not into Shakspere's." ”

“ Therefore, there is but one "Lear": his madness was never imitated outside of Bedlam; but one Lady Macbeth, and we have seen her walking in her awful dream. Beaumont and Fletcher in six romances delineate "love-lorn maidens," "conventionalized types," who differ little from each other, except that three of them "masquerade in boy's clothing" and three do not. They have "little individuality," "are utterly romantic," "utterly removed from life"; all are presented to produce novel situations leading up to a startling climax. ”

“ The play contradicts the Chronicle, and therefore cannot be called a chronicle history. Hollinshed, the source of all Shakspere's histories, says of Queen Eleanor: "She was a godly and modest princess, full of pity, and one that showed much favor to the English nation, ready to relieve every man's grief that sustained wrong, and to make those friends that were at discord, so far as in her lay." ”

“ If the "Comedy of Errors" is an "imitation" of Plautus, "Paradise Lost" is an "imitation" of Moses. If "Paradise [74] Lost" is not an "imitation" but "something utterly apart," "something almost superhuman ... in its grand solitude"; if Milton has "so placed the spoils of masterpieces in his own work that they seem truly and admirably a part of it," then "Love's Labour's Lost" is not an "imitation" of Lilly, nor "Henry VI." of Greene or Peele or Marlowe, nor "Titus Andronicus" of Kyd. ”

“ There is the type of the "love-lorn maiden," of "the lily-livered" hero, of the faithful friend, of the poltroon. It is supposed by many that such types repeated in play after play do not mark the highest original power, but rather poverty of invention, weak and shadowy conception, indistinctness of coloring. Professor Thorndike, [104] however, cannot too much commend this style, because it gives such wide scope for intense passion, startling situation, and successful stage effect, and proceeds to seek for similar types in Shakspere's "romances" as further proof that he "imitated" "Philaster." ”

“ Did Milton imitate Dante in "Paradise Lost" because he describes the same scenes in different words? Did he imitate the author of Genesis because he reproduces the Garden of Eden in majestic poetry? "Paradise Lost" seems to Professor Wendell "almost superhuman," but when any suggestion of transcendent power is applied to Shakspere, it assumes an "unnecessary miracle." ”

“ They can be true only if Professor Thorndike's theory is correct,—that the delineation of character is solely for stage effect. There is another theory announced and recorded by Shakspere himself, and illustrated in every drama he wrote,—that the sole end and aim of the stage itself and of the characters it represents, is "to hold the mirror up to nature," and therefore his characters are not "types"; they are men and women who were born, not manufactured; each is a separate, individual human being ”

“ The argument of Knight has been before the critical world for many years, and its careful arrangement of facts and its logical conclusions from them, have well-nigh overcome the prejudices of English scholars who for many years after the appearance of Malone's "Dissertation" adopted his theory that the two parts of the "Contention" contained nothing from Shakspere's hand. But because American writers are constantly seeking reputation for learning by repeating Malone's argument, it will be useful, in the interest of truth, to state Knight's answer. ”

“ From such premises, Professor Thorndike concludes that "it is only natural to expect that the genius who brought many of these forms to their highest perfection should not have been so much an inventor as an adapter"; "We may naturally expect," he says, "that Shakspere's transcendent plays owe a considerable debt to the less perfect but not less original efforts of his contemporaries." ”

“ Ulrici maintains that "Jeronimo" itself may be treated as a play in three parts connected only externally: first, the war between Portugal and Spain; second, the [65] life and death of Don Andrea, and third the acts of Jeronimo, who is, however, only a subordinate character. But whether the play be treated as a whole or as composed of substantially separate parts, its action and interest are centred in the story of the love of Don Andrea and Bellimperia; Lorenzo, her brother, persecutes both because he is jealous of Andrea's success. Andrea is finally killed ”

“ Peele's "Arraignment of Paris, a Pastorall" is a court drama in the style of Lilly, intended to flatter the Queen, "poor in action but all the richer in gallant phrases, provided with songs, one in Italian, and with all kinds of love scenes between shepherds and shepherdesses, nymphs and terrestrial gods"; the diction is interesting, because it shows revolt from the prevailing "euphuism," and [55] therefore Peele must be given the praise of first opposing Lilly's affected style.
The subject and action are as far removed from history as earth from heaven ”

“ New actions have been brought on the ground of newly discovered evidence; counsel have summed up the testimony from all lands, from whole libraries and literatures, and the great jury of mankind have uniformly rendered a verdict of no cause of action. ”

“ The merits of the charge, whether of direct or indirect imitation, must be determined solely by the priority in date of the two plays. Meanwhile, the critic's argument would have more force if he had told us how "Cymbeline" shows a "puzzling decadence," how "the structure is like Fletcher's," how the struggle to overcome the difficulty of its novelty appears. As the argument stands [112] it reminds one of Lowell's remark in relation to this style of criticism: "Scarce one but was satisfied that his ten finger tips were a sufficient key to those astronomic wonders of poise and counterpoise ... ”

“ Shakspere influenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they influenced him? Which on its face is more likely to be the original, 'Cymbeline' or 'Philaster'?"
If "Cymbeline" was first written, then "Philaster" becomes not an original but a copy, adaptation, imitation, plagiarism, if you will. The similarities remain the same, the argument is reversed. We have shown that the evidence is conclusive, in the opinion of the best critics, that "Cymbeline" preceded "Philaster." ”

“ The statement that "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative" is unwarranted, because it has been successfully challenged and disproved by the eminent critics Hermann Ulrici and Charles Knight; it is supported only by the guesswork of Clark, Wright, Halliwell and others who assume to find a divided authorship from assumed divergencies of style. The result shows the futility of the method. What Shakspere is assumed not to have written is assigned to Marlowe, Greene, Peele or Lodge. ”

“ Much has been written of Shakspere's impersonality, and we have been taught to think that his dramas are utterly silent as to his own experience. But now and then one finds in them a glimpse of it, as the lightning flash in the darkest night for an instant shows the heavens and the earth. That others attempted to imitate him is clear enough; that he imitated others, and least of all Beaumont and Fletcher, nobody can reasonably believe who reads his opinion of the imitator in "Julius Cæsar":
"A barren spirited fellow ”

“ If, then, "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative," a "chronicle history of the earlier kind," as Professor Wendell expressly asserts, it ought to be shown for our certain instruction who was Shakspere's collaborator in the three parts of that drama. This neither he nor any other critic has yet done. Malone says it was Greene or Peele, but, in spite of the established fact that we have abundant remains of both, he cannot determine between them from style, or rhythm, or other peculiarities; Collier "supposes" it was Greene; Dyce "conjectures" it was Marlowe. ”

“ The 'Edward I.' of Peele is a gross tissue of absurdity with some facility of language, but nothing truly good." Nobody but Professor Wendell has ever even intimated that Shakspere imitated it. [59]
It is hardly necessary to consider "The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe," published in 1599, because, in the deliberate opinion of those who have studied the subject most deeply, it was not written till "Romeo and Juliet" was upon the stage in 1592. In it there are distinct traces of Shakspere's influence. ”

“ Jeronimo is consequently seized with madness, which, however, suddenly turns into a well calculated and prudent action. The conclusion of the piece is a general massacre, in which Jeronimo, after having killed Lorenzo, bites off his own tongue, stabs the Duke of Castile, and then himself with a penknife."
It can hardly seem strange that the critic should add: "This at once explains why no piece was more generally ridiculed by contemporary and younger poets, than "The Spanish Tragedy."" ”

“ Professor Thorndike says that later editions have strictly followed it, and in Knight's edition, which he certifies to be a reprint of the [86] first folio, "'em" as a contraction for "them" occurs just once and no more. Thus far, then, the new "test" seems to give us no satisfactory aid.
It may be permitted an ordinary reader to wonder how any critic can persuade himself that Fletcher wrote the speech of Wolsey on his downfall, or the prophecy of Cranmer at the christening of Elizabeth. ”

“ Comparison between these, or either of the others doubtfully attributed to him, and "Titus Andronicus," shows beyond question that the only similarity between the most [70] similar is that both are "tragedies of blood." There is no likeness of plot, characterization, action or diction. There is in "Titus" none of Kyd's "huffing, bragging, puft" language. A ghost concludes "Jeronimo" whose "hopes have end in their effects" "when blood and sorrow finish my desires," "these were spectacles to please my soul." ”

“ His bad schemes are always successful; but the action proceeds without connection, the characters come and go without apparent cause; the three Jews, the monks and nuns, the mother of Don Mathias "appear and disappear so unexpectedly, and are interwoven with the action in so entirely an external manner, that the defects of the composition are at once apparent."
If this seems a good model for Shakspere's Shylock, it will seem impossible, when Barabas shows us his own portrait:
"As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights,
And kill sick people groaning under walls ”

“ The next point made is that the two parts of the "Contention" were written by the author of "Richard III." Malone studiously avoided any comparison between them, and yet it is entirely clear that with the "first Part of Henry VI." they form one drama. "'Richard III.' stands at the end of the series as the avowed completion of a long tragic history. The scenes of that drama are as intimately blended with the scenes of the other dramas as the scenes that belong [26] to the separate dramas are blended among themselves. ”

“ We come at last to the end of the argument. Professor Thorndike, premising that the historical portion of "Cymbeline" and the exile of Posthumous have no parallels in "Philaster," institutes a detailed comparison between the plots, characters, and composition of the two plays, and shows that they are so strikingly similar as to justify the positive conclusion that "Shakspere influenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they influenced him." ”

“ Malone's first assumption was therefore without foundation. Even Collier only claims that "it is plausibly conjectured" that Shakspere did not write the "First Part of Henry VI." but that it is an old play most likely written about 1589. Who did write it, was before Knight and Ulrici the theme of endless debate. Hallam was "sometimes inclined to assign it to Greene." Gervinus [25] in his "Commentaries," took the same view, but subsequently changed it. Knight has shown that the three parts of "Henry VI." are "in the strictest sense" Shakspere's own, and Ulrici agrees with Knight. ”