Part II, from its revival on December 19, 1594. Typical of the

Elizabethan theater would be the performance of Part II of a play

the day after Part I. We should have been particularly fortunate

in seeing the _Tamberlaines_, for these performances were to be

the last in this revival. On Friday, November 14th, we could have

attended the premiere of _A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies_, which

proved to be a moderately successful piece. _The Seven Days of

the Week_, a very successful play, which had opened the previous

June, would receive its fourteenth performance on Saturday, and was

to continue to hold the stage until the following December 31st,

totaling twenty-two performances in all. There was to be no playing

on Sunday, which was usual, nor on Monday, which was unusual.

From Tuesday through Thursday, November 18th-20th, we should have

seen _Crack Me This Nutte_, _Barnardo and Fiametta_, and _Wonder of

a Woman_, all recent plays. The first had opened as a new play the

previous September 5th and enjoyed some success. In 1601 it would

be revived. The second play had had its premiere several weeks

earlier, on October 30th, and was not as successful as the first.

The third piece also had opened recently, on October 16th, and it

too had excited only a moderate response. On Friday, a week after

its premiere, we would have had the chance to hear _A Toy to Please

Chaste Ladies_ once again. It was to continue in the repertory

for another year, with a total of nine performances, making it an

average success. Finally, on Saturday, November 22nd, at the end

of our two-week visit, _Seleo and Olempo_ was on the bill, a play

which had opened initially the 5th of the previous March. This

performance, its eighth, would bring it near the end of its run of

ten performances. On February 19, 1596, a little less than a year

after its opening, the play would leave the boards, its prompt-book

lost in the dust of the Rose playhouse.

Thus, in two weeks we could have seen eleven performances of ten

different plays at _one_ playhouse. On no day would we have found

the theater repeating the play of the day before. Among the plays

the majority, six of the ten, would have been new works, produced

since the return of the company from its summer tour. Two others

were carry-overs from the previous spring and two were older

plays which had been revived. Nor would these plays have appeared

regularly in the succeeding weeks. If we had remained in London for

two additional weeks, we should have found some repetition of the

plays we had already seen as well as some plays that would be new

to us.

Again there would be eleven performances in two weeks.[4] Five

performances would repeat works of the previous fortnight’s bill.

The remaining six performances would have been divided among five

plays: a new play for two performances; another play which had

opened that autumn; two parts of a play from the previous spring,

whose performances, like those of _Tamberlaine_, would have been

arranged on successive days; and a play which would appear once and

disappear. Altogether, in four weeks we should have been able to

see fifteen different plays, only five of which would be repeated,

and one of which would attain three performances. Most of the

plays would be less than one season old, a few, holdovers from the

previous season, and only two or possibly three could be considered

“old” plays. Of the fifteen, two would have been completely new

plays, and, in fact, the only play to have had three performances

in four weeks would have been a recent addition to the repertoire,

_A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies_.

The alternation of the plays was irregular. The choice of play

from day to day must have followed the exigencies of the moment.

Over an extended period, on the other hand, a broad pattern may

be observed. A new play or revival usually opened to a good house

despite the doubling of admission prices. Several days or a week

later a second performance would be given, and then, depending on

the enthusiasm of the audience response, the play would be repeated

several times a month at first, then less frequently, the intervals

between performances becoming longer and longer until the play

would be presented once a month. Within a year or a year and a

half, it would fade from the theater. Such was the usual course.

Naturally, a popular work would continue longer and be revived more

often, whereas a “flop” would leave the boards almost immediately.

In the total winter season from August 25, 1595, through February

28, 1596, of which we have considered four weeks, the company gave

one hundred and fifty performances of thirty different plays.

Eighty-seven performances, or 58 per cent of the total, were of

the fourteen new plays produced that season. Five performances,

3.3 per cent, were of one play, _The Jew of Malta_, revived that

season. Forty-six performances, or 30.7 per cent, were given by the

eight plays from the previous season which were less than a year

old, counting from December 1, 1594. Only twelve performances, 8

per cent, were of the seven plays which were more than a year old.

This distribution, which is similar for all the seasons covered by

Henslowe’s records, emphasizes how dependent the company was on the

continuous addition of new plays to its stock in order to maintain

itself in London.

The sheer volume of production is staggering. How strenuous the

demands must have been upon the actors! Although we are familiar

with the extensive repertory which an opera singer must command,

at least it is a repertory which in large measure has assumed

classical limitations. The Elizabethan actor, on the contrary, had

to remember the old and learn the new at the same time. He had to

retain the lines of the older plays, for not only might he wait

weeks and months between performances of a particular play, but

occasionally he might be asked to give a single performance of a

long neglected play.[5] He also had to commit to memory an amazing

number of new plays each season. In the three-year period from June

5, 1594, to July 28, 1597, a leading actor of the Lord Admiral’s

company, such as Edward Alleyn or Thomas Downton, had to secure

and retain command of about seventy-one different roles, of which

number fifty-two or fifty-three were newly learned.

The manner in which the acting companies secured new plays has been

fully discussed by Greg and Chambers[6] so that a brief summary

will suffice. Sometimes the actors would buy a finished book, as

evidenced by the purchase of _Strange News Out of Poland_ for

£6 on May 17, 1600. However, the more usual way of dealing with

the impecunious poets who supplied them with scripts was for the

Admiral’s men to approve a plot outline of a play, upon which

approval they would pay the playwright or playwrights an advance.

As portions of the book were received, further advances were given

until the entire work was submitted and full payment, usually £6

in this period, was made. Although the names of a large number of

playwrights appear in Henslowe’s records, most of the new plays

performed by the Admiral’s men came from the pens of less than a

dozen men.[7]

Three different types of relationships seem to have existed between

actors and the playwrights. In one type Shakespeare and Heywood,

actors of their companies, presumably wrote for their own fellows

exclusively. In another Ben Jonson went free-wheeling in his

passage from one company to another and back again. Between these

extremes was a man like Dekker who generally confined his writing

to the Admiral’s men, at least at this time, although he did write

occasionally for other companies.

Upon receipt of the play from the author, the actors put it into

production without much delay. Of the eighty-eight new plays

presented during this period by the Admiral’s men, Henslowe

records data on the purchase of both the book and properties

for twenty-eight of them.[8] Only one, _Polyphemus_, shows a

substantial lapse between the final payment for the script on

February 27, 1599, and the purchase of “divers thinges” for

production on October 5, 1599. Since the purchase of these

“divers thinges” only totaled 8_s._, the play may very well have

been produced earlier, the later entry relating to properties or

costumes which were added to the production. Of the twenty-seven

other plays, the time between final purchase of the manuscript and

the first indication of production extends from three to fifty-one

days, the average duration being a little over twenty days. That

many of the payments were for costumes which had to be tailored

indicates that the time lapse was even less than the records show.

For example, the longest delay, fifty-one days, came between the

purchase of _Brute_ on October 22nd and the payment for “cottes of

gyantes” for the same play on December 12, 1598. Probably the order

for the coats had been placed considerably earlier.

Three special cases, those of _Two Angry Women of Abington_, Part

II, and _Thome Strowd_, Part II, of the Admiral’s men, and _A Woman

Killed with Kindness_ of Worcester’s men, demonstrate that in some

instances production was begun before the writing was completed.

The book of _Two Angry Women_ was paid for in full on February 12,

1599, although gowns had been paid for on January 31st and “divers

thinges” on February 12th. Payment in full is recorded for _Thome

Strowd_ on May 5, 1601, although suits had been bought on April

27th. Lastly, Heywood received £3 as final payment on _A Woman

Killed with Kindness_ on March 6, 1603, although costumes had been

paid for on February 5th and March 7th.

The entire conception of play producing reflected here is one

of continuous presentation. As soon as a poet turned over his

play to the actors, they would introduce it into the repertory

with very little delay. There is no indication that special

occasions provided the moment for unveiling a new play or that

long-range planning for a season was part of the Elizabethan

or Jacobean scheme. Immediate concerns, the nature of which we

know too little, probably dictated the day-to-day program of the

theatrical fraternity. Responsive to the vicissitudes of political,

hygienic, and economic conditions, the players within their

strictly traditional guild organization maintained an empirical,

nontheoretical, professional attitude.

Let us turn back to the winter season of 1595-1596 to trace the

introduction of new plays into the repertory. Four days after the

opening of the season, on August 29th, _Longshank_ was presented.

Six days later, on September 5th, it was followed by _Crack

Me This Nutte_, another play followed on September 17th (_The

New World’s Tragedy_), and still another on October 2nd (_The

Disguises_). For the rest of this season there were premieres

on October 16th (_Wonder of a Woman_), October 30th (_Barnardo

and Fiametta_), November 14th (_A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies_),

November 28th (_Henry V_), and in 1596 on January 3rd (_Chinon

of England_), January 16th (_Pythagoras_), January 23rd (_Seven

Days of the Week_, Part II), and February 12th (_Blind Beggar of

Alexandria_). The longest interval between the production of new

plays was thirty-five days, November 28th to January 3rd, though

the intervening performances numbered only twenty. The shortest

interval, of six days, occurred twice, at the beginning and near

the end of the season. Obviously the lack of regularity, apparent

in other aspects of production, also existed in the frequency with

which new plays were presented.

Nor does the study of the year-to-year pattern reflect any greater

regularity. For example, in December, 1594, three new plays were

presented, in December, 1595, none, in December, 1596, four. The

presentation of so many new plays in the latter year was owing

without doubt to the absence of any new plays in November, 1596.

Consequently, though we cannot determine a fixed number, we can

calculate the average number of new plays introduced into the

repertory in one year.

Over the three-year period 1594-1597 the actors of the Admiral’s

company had an average interval of 14.7 days or roughly two weeks

between the opening of new plays. While the interval ranged from

two days to fifty-seven, the mean interval was 13 days. Thus it

would be accurate enough to say that the company produced a new

play every two weeks during the playing season. For the years

1597-1603 we have evidence of the number of new plays produced each

year but not of the number of performances given. Consequently, to

correlate all the evidence it is necessary to calculate not only

the average intervals between premieres of new plays but also the

average number of plays produced from 1594 to 1597. The _Diary_

reports the lists of performances continuously from June 5, 1594,

to July 28, 1597, a total of three years and fifty-three days.

Since 1596 was a leap year, the entire period consisted of 1,149

days during which fifty-four new plays were produced, averaging

one play for every 21.3 days. Thus, about seventeen new plays were

presented each year by the Lord Admiral’s men.

Chambers, describing the repertory of the Admiral’s men from

1597 to 1603, estimates that they added seventeen new plays in

1597-1598, twenty-one in 1598-1599, twenty in 1599-1600, seven

in 1600-1601, fourteen in 1601-1602, and nine in 1602-1603. If

we exclude the figures for 1602-1603, a season shortened by the

death of Elizabeth, an average for the five years comes to 15.8

new plays each year. The unusually meager count of seven plays for

1600-1601 may reflect, as Chambers suggests, a reliance on the

older repertory after Edward Alleyn’s return to the company. Or it

might indicate that the company toured extensively that year.

Until now we have considered only one company. Fortunately Henslowe

served as banker for Lord Worcester’s men from August 17, 1602,

to March 16, 1603, a period of 212 days. During that time they

commissioned twelve new plays. A simple equation based on the

ratio of 12 plays to 212 days as x plays are to 365 days yields us

twenty plays as the total this company would have reached if they

had continued to produce new works at the same rate for the rest

of the year. However, since the period covered by the accounts

was the most active part of the theatrical year, it is likely

that the total would have been nearer to seventeen. Furthermore,

the average interval between the openings of new plays by the

Worcester’s men comes to 16.6 days. Allowing for the uncertainty

of the length of this particular season, calculated as it is on

expense payments, not actual performances, this average is in line

with the earlier figure of 14.7 days between openings. Thus two

of the three important public playhouses in London each presented

about seventeen new plays a year, grouping them in two seasons so

that a new play was presented every fourteen or fifteen days.

The evidence for the third of these companies, the Lord

Chamberlain’s men, is scanty; to determine whether or not it

followed the system of the other two companies is hazardous at

best. As Greg aptly noted more than half a century ago, “We

know practically nothing of the internal workings of the Lord

Chamberlain’s company.”[9] Yet, here and there, links between this

company and the others suggest that in general all of them followed

the same repertory practices.

Between June 5th and 15th, 1594, the Lord Admiral’s and Lord

Chamberlain’s men played together at Newington Butts. Henslowe’s

performance list does not clarify whether they functioned as one

company or two. In fact, only the excellent deduction of Greg, who

followed Fleay in this, made it clear that the combination ceased

after that date, for the list of subsequent performances proceeds

without a break. Of the ten performances, five were of plays now

generally ascribed to the Chamberlain’s men.

Fleay, extolling the virtues of the Chamberlain’s men at the

expense of the Admiral’s, asserts that he has been unable to trace

at any time “more than four new plays produced by [the former

company] in any one year.”[10] This conclusion might stem from

a recollection of a note by Malone: “It appears from Sir Henry

Herbert’s office-book that the King’s company between the years

1622 and 1641 produced either at Blackfriars or the Globe at

least four new plays every year.” He goes on: “ ... the King’s

company usually brought out two or three new plays at the Globe

every summer.”[11] Both statements indicate that no less than

four plays were produced annually. A study of Herbert’s list of

licenses supports them. From July, 1623, to July, 1624, licenses

for thirty-five plays are recorded. Four may be discarded for

our present purposes.[12] Of the remaining thirty-one, eleven

were licensed for the Palsgrave’s company, seven (six new and one

old) for the Prince’s men, eight (six new and two old) for the

King’s men, four (three new and one old) for the Lady Elizabeth’s

servants, and one for the Queen of Bohemia’s company. G. E. Bentley

very persuasively accounts for the greater number of plays licensed

for the Palsgrave’s men by pointing out that the fire at their

playhouse, the Fortune, on December 9, 1621, deprived them of their

prompt-books and that in 1623-1624 they were striving to repair the

damage to their repertory.

The discrepancy between the six new plays of 1623-1624 and the

estimated seventeen of 1594-1603 is not a mark of conflict in the

evidence. Times had changed. The King’s men needed only a third of

the new plays that they had produced in earlier years. The use of a

private theater largely accounts for this change, for the seats of

Blackfriars could be filled four or five times over by the audience

from a single performance at the Globe. What is really significant

is that the King’s men presented the same number of new plays as

the Prince’s men, and that the practices of Shakespeare’s fellows

were in harmony with those of other companies.

Only an idolatrous love of Shakespeare can lead us to conclude

that from 1599 to 1609 the Lord Chamberlain’s men produced

appreciably fewer plays than the other companies did. All were in

lively competition, in which, as Platter noted, “those which play

best obtain most spectators.” To maintain that the Globe company

produced only four or five new plays a year, we must prove that

Shakespeare’s plays were of such popularity that they could be

repeated again and again while other companies had to change their

bills daily. However, we have no evidence to show that this was

the case. Certainly, Falstaff was a perennial favorite, but so

was Barabas the Jew. A play such as _Richard II_ was old by 1601.

_Twelfth Night_, or _Malvolio_, held the stage, it seems, but so

did _The Spanish Tragedy_, or _Jeronimo_. Yet Henslowe’s schedule

reveals that the old war horses such as _Jeronimo_, _The Jew of

Malta_, _Faustus_, and _Tamberlaine_, altogether, provided no

more than 11 per cent of the performances of the Lord Admiral’s

company throughout the entire recorded period and no more than 6

per cent in any one year (see Appendix A, chart ii). We should like

to think that Shakespeare’s work had more commercial appeal than

Marlowe’s or Kyd’s. But can we suppose that it had a popularity,

let us say, five or six times greater? A sobering thought on the

enigma of popularity must strike us when we realize that _Pericles_

was, if its succession of quartos offers any evidence, more popular

than _Antony and Cleopatra_, and that _The Winter’s Tale_, if

Court performances are any measure, appealed to royalty more than

_King Lear_. Furthermore, once we eliminate the plays which in

all likelihood were given few performances, such as _Troilus and

Cressida_, _All’s Well_ and _Measure for Measure_, we are left with

too few Shakespearean plays to sustain a theatrical company in

the London of 1600. A reference to the list of Court performances

between 1603 and 1642 verifies the pattern reflected in Henslowe’s

records. Aside from their first appearances before James, when they

presented many old stand-bys, the King’s men usually offered the

latest plays to Their Majesties, and when Shakespeare died, the

works of other writers rapidly superseded his at Court.[13] Like

the commonalty, royalty expected to see the current “hit.”

The plays we now regard as great literary works were struck off

in the harassing atmosphere of a commercial enterprise. Most of

the plays were failures or temporary successes. Most of those

produced by the Admiral’s men played their few, in many cases

very few, performances and passed away without any further trace

but the notation by a shrewd businessman. Of the one hundred

and thirteen plays listed by Henslowe between 1592 and 1597,

sixty-seven would certainly be unknown without the _Diary_ and

another twelve would probably be unknown (see Appendix A, chart

i). However, among the thirty-four plays that would be otherwise

known, only twenty-seven are extant, or about 24 per cent of the

plays listed by Henslowe. By assuming that the twenty-nine extant

Globe texts represent a similar percentage of the Globe repertory,

we arrive at a conclusion that 116 plays were actually produced

by the company between 1599 and 1609. But during these years the

theater suffered closings of extraordinary duration because of

the plague.[14] In addition, the Globe period is calculated from

September, 1599, to March, 1609. Actual playing time, therefore,

amounted to about seven and a half years. This estimate divided

into the 116 new plays gives us a result of 15.6 plays as the

average number of new works offered by the Globe company each year.

Actually, in estimating these figures, some allowance must be made

for Shakespeare’s superiority. How much, however, is virtually

impossible to say. Nor is an actual figure necessary as long as

we realize that the repertory systems of all three companies were

fundamentally the same. In effect, the figures that we have for the

Lord Admiral’s and Worcester’s men are a far safer guide to actual

Globe practice than any other evidence.

As lovers of literature, we need be grieved little by the

disappearance of 75 per cent of the plays, at least judging from

contemporary response. Generally the plays that have come down

to us were the more popular pieces. Either they were printed, or

discussed, or alluded to. At the same time they were played more

frequently. The seventy-nine plays which we know only through

Henslowe provided 496 performances in five years. The other

thirty-four played 403 performances in the same period. On an

average we find the plays otherwise known to us played nearly twice

as many performances as those mentioned by Henslowe.

Those pieces that attained popularity and whose stage life

extended over a period of years run like strong threads through

the repertory of an Elizabethan company. But between the strands

there was much filler, plays which spoke their brief piece upon

the platform and departed within a few months. Seven to eight

performances were the average number for a play. Many did not

attain even this many representations. Three out of every ten

plays had no more than one or two performances. Less than one out

of ten went beyond twenty performances. An extensive and actually

wonderful process of winnowing out the chaff was at work. This

process was the repertory system. As a result of it, the plays that

could bring back an audience year after year survived to speak for

the age (see Appendix A, chart ii).

The process of winnowing out the ineffectual pieces was

supplemented by the custom of revivals. Periodically, plays of the

recent past would be brought back to the stage for another run.

Usually the pattern of performances for a revival would follow

that of a new play: close-packed performances at first and a

tapering off until representation ceased. _The Spanish Tragedy_,

or as Henslowe entitles it, _Jeronimo_, offers a clear example of

the process at work. In March, 1592, it was presented for three

performances, in April, again for three performances, in May it

reached its peak with five performances, and in June played twice.

The hiatus in the summer and fall of 1592 interrupted the normal

cycle. On resumption of playing in December, _Jeronimo_ appeared

again, was repeated twice in January for the last times. These

performances were by Strange’s men. Four years later, on January 7,

1597, the Lord Admiral’s men revived it as a “new” play, indicating

that it had been substantially revised. Subsequent performances

followed with diminishing frequency with intervals of 4, 6, 5, 9,

10, 28,[15] 14, 21, 26, 29 days. The play was further revived in

September or October of 1601, this time with additions by Jonson.

Twenty plays in Henslowe’s list show definite evidence of revival,

either during the 1593-1597 period or the 1599-1601 period. Only

_Doctor Faustus_ shows continual performance from 1594 to 1597.

Originally revived on October 2, 1594, it was performed from time

to time by the Lord Admiral’s company which did not allow more

than four months to elapse between performances. There was a later

revival toward the end of 1602.

Among the nineteen remaining plays the manner of revival varied

somewhat. Nine of them seem to have been altered or enlarged

considerably for the revival. Usually these plays had been off the

stage for several years. _Fortunatus_ was reworked by Dekker in

November, 1599, after it had lain idle for three and a half years.

_Jeronimo_, as we saw already, had not been offered for four years

when it was revived as “new” in January, 1597. _Tambercame_, Part

II, was three and a half years old when presented as “new” on

June 11, 1596. Two of the plays, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_

and _Phaethon_, show evidence of alteration as do the rest, but

specifically for Court performances. Though there is no certainty

that revivals in the public playhouse occurred at the same time, it

is not unlikely, as we shall discover.

One advantage of the Elizabethan method of revivals--abetted by

the absence of copyright laws--was that it enabled a writer to

rework his own or someone else’s work. Through how many versions,

for example, did the narrative of _Hamlet_ pass to reach its final

stage? We know of three at least: the one played by the “Lord

Admeralle men & Lorde Chamberlen” at Newington Butts on June 11,

1594; the one contained in the 1603 Quarto; the one announced as

“newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was,

according to the true and perfect Coppie.” The constant sifting of

the repertory not only screened out hack pieces, it also provided

time for the refinement of masterworks.

In instances where no proof of literary revision exists, there is

evidence sometimes of theatrical revision. Four plays from four to

six and a half years old were revived after 1597. The purchase of

properties for them indicates that they received new productions.

Of the last six of the twenty plays revived, only the cessation of

playing and, after an extended lapse of time, the resumption of

performances tell us that they were revived.

Revived plays, for all practical purposes, were treated as new.

Instead of maintaining a play in continuous repertory over an

extended period of time during which performances of the work would

be given at regular intervals, the players permitted a work to

fade out of the repertory for a time, to be restored later with

or without changes for another cycle of performances. That this

was also the method of the Lord Chamberlain’s men is attested to

in a letter written by Sir Walter Cope to Sir Robert Cecil in

1604. Upon inquiring for a new play for the Queen, Sir Walter was

informed by Richard Burbage that Her Majesty had seen their new

plays, “but they have Revyved an olde one Cawled _Loved Labore_

lost.”[16] Whether or not this “olde play” had been presented

since its performance at Court in 1597-1598, we do not know. But

its description as an old play suggests that it had lain dormant

for some time before its revival in 1604.

In the same letter Sir Walter complains of difficulty in finding

“players Juglers & Such kinde of Creaturs” to perform for the

Queen. Yet, according to the formula which appears in the Privy

Council minute of February 19, 1598, the Lord Chamberlain’s men

were permitted to stage plays so that “they might be the better

enhabled and prepared to shew such plaies before her Majestie

as they shalbe required at tymes meete and accustomed, to which

ende they have bin cheefelie licensed.” Why were they not ready

then? Just what was the relationship between the public players

and the Court? To what extent did the players prepare their plays

specifically for the nobility? More than one scholar has been

tempted to demonstrate that particular plays were prepared for the

Court or courtly occasions. Usually the demonstration has had to

rely on allusions in a script, for external evidence indicates that

such a practice was extremely rare.

For example, we can trace the career of _Fortunatus_ with

minuteness. Its first performance is recorded in Henslowe’s _Diary_

on February 3, 1596; thereafter it runs through a normal cycle

of six performances until May 26th. Between November 9th and

November 30th, 1599, Dekker received £6 for rewriting the play.

We may presume that it underwent a complete revision since £6 is

the usual payment for a new work. On December 1st, he received an

additional £1 for altering the work, and on December 12th £2 for

“the eande of fortewnatus for the corte.” In addition, sometime

between December 6th and 12th £10 were laid out “ffor to by thinges

for ffortunatus.” The entries indicate clearly that a revival

for the public playhouse had been planned, for which Dekker was

commissioned to rewrite the play. The performance at Court could

not have been the initial reason for the revival; otherwise the

book would not have needed a new ending so soon. After the revision

was completed, perhaps even before the Court performance had been

spoken for, the play was publicly produced. Yet, when the company

was called upon by the Queen in holiday season, it hurriedly had

Dekker furbish up a graceful and complimentary conclusion for

performance before the Queen on December 27, 1599.

While it is true that the plays chosen for Court performance had

been proven _in_ public, it is equally true that the plays were

geared _to_ the public. Usually with slight alteration, though

occasionally with much, the essentially public play was readied

for Queen Elizabeth, and later for King James and his family. The

Admiral’s men paid Middleton 5_s._ for a prologue and epilogue for

_Friar Bacon_ “for the corte” on December 14, 1602, surely a small

sum to invest in pleasing a sovereign. Of course, for the holidays

of 1599-1600, the company had paid Dekker fully £2 for alterations

to _Phaethon_ for the Court. An additional pound was laid out for

“divers thinges” for the Court. Yet when the play was brought out

two years earlier £5 had been spent on its furnishings for public

presentation.[17]

Few plays produced by the professional players received their

first performances at the Court. Reference to the summary of court

performances (Appendix A, chart iii) will show that, of 144 plays

presented at Court between 1590 and 1642, only eight seem to have

been intended especially and initially for the Court. Two were

presented in 1620, five after 1629. Only one comes from the first

decade of the seventeenth century.[18]

During the holiday season of 1602-1603 the Lord Admiral’s men gave

three plays at Court. Presumably one of these was _As Merry As

May Be_, for on November 9, 1602, John Day was given 40_s._ “in

earneste of a Boocke called mery as may be for the corte” and on

November 17th, Day, Smith, and Hathway were paid £6 more. What

the occasion was for this extraordinary procedure we cannot now

discover. The Admiral’s men were at Court on December 27, 1602,

March 6, 1603, and possibly March 8th. On which of these nights

_As Merry As May Be_ was played, we do not know. Considering the

practice of the Admiral’s men, it is not impossible that, despite

the entry by Henslowe, the first performance of _As Merry As May

Be_ was at the Fortune.

All other plays, in one way or another, show the marks of public

performance. In many instances insufficient evidence prevents

us from concluding with any certainty whether or not a Court

performance was initially envisioned; so many plays exist only as

titles in the warrants. But where evidence appears, it supports

the contention that public performance preceded Court performance.

In eight cases we have the date of the licensing of a play by Sir

Henry Herbert as well as the date of its first Court performance.

Naturally, in each case the licensing came first. Herbert’s records

give substantial support for the assumption that the plays were

acted the day they were licensed.[19] For example, Malone notes

against the license for July 29, 1629: “_The Northern Lass_,

which was acted by the King’s Company on the 29th of July, 1629.”

Moreover, for _The Witts_ by Davenant we have confirmation of

public performance before Court performance. Licensed on January

19, 1634, the King having rejected some of the severities of

Herbert’s censoring on the 9th, Mildmay saw it acted at Blackfriars

only three days later, on January 22nd. On the 28th it was given at

Court.[20]

The type of theatrical presentation especially conceived and

executed for a courtly audience was different in tone and character

from that of the popular plays. Masques and entertainments, in

their symbolic spectacles, learned allusions, and elaborate

compliments delighted royalty through novelty and flattery.

Interspersed with debate, music, and dance, these forms bore but a

cousinly relationship to the drama. Professional writers such as

Jonson, who wrote masques, had to alter their methods, for works

commissioned for royal pleasure demanded that the poet practice his

art with a difference. Sixty years later we find the same dichotomy

occurring in the work of Molière.

Being commercial enterprises, the public theaters must have

directed their energies to satisfying the customer who paid best.

Some simple calculations will demonstrate that the players were

dependent far more upon their public than their Court receipts.

The involved estimates in determining the basis for the income of

the various companies have been undertaken elsewhere and need not

be repeated here. Briefly, we can adopt the results of various

scholars.[21] From 1594 through 1596 the average number of playing

days per year, according to Henslowe’s _Diary_, was 195⅔ (1594,

206; 1595, 211; 1596, 170). Consequently, about two hundred

playing days a year in London may be regarded as average. Baldwin

concluded that the return to the actors for a 300-performance year

was £1260. On this basis the income for the minimum of 200 playing

days a year would come to £840. Harbage concludes that the average

daily attendance at the Rose was 1,250 persons. Since he divides

the total capacity of 2,494 into 870 persons in the yard at one

penny, 1,408 persons in the penny-gallery, and 216 in the two-penny

gallery (at two- and three-penny admissions respectively), the

average daily attendance in each section yields 436, 705, and

108 persons each by a simple proportionate equation. The average

daily income would then be £9.0_s._10_d._, the actors’ share being

£7.2_s._5_d._ Consequently, by multiplying this figure by 200 we

have the average yearly income for the actors of £1,424.3_s._4_d._

A final estimate, employing Harbage’s attendance figures of 1250

and John Cranford Adams’ arrangement of the Globe playhouse, yields

an income to the actors of £8.12_s._5_d._ daily, exclusive of the

Lords’ rooms, or £1724.3_s._4_d._ for 200 days. The Lords’ rooms

brought them 37_s._6_d._ additional each day, or £375 a year. In

estimating income for the Globe company, we must remember that at

least five of the sharers of the Chamberlain-King’s men were also

housekeepers and derived income from the playhouse directly.

From Elizabeth, and later from James, the Chamberlain-King’s men

received £873 between 1599 and 1609, of which amount £70 was for

relief of the company during plague time, and £30 for reimbursement

for expenses incurred during unusually lengthy travel to and from

the Court. Thus the annual average for playing was £77.6_s._, with

the court payments in the later years substantially greater than

in the early ones. Grants from Elizabeth never totaled more than 5

per cent of the income the company earned at the Globe.[22] Under

James the percentage rose to a high of about fifteen by 1609. The

increase in Court support, evident in these figures, ultimately

led the Globe company to appeal increasingly to an aristocratic

audience. But throughout the decade we are considering, the actors

depended on the pence of a large, heterogeneous public more than

upon the bounty of their prince.

The players certainly tendered courtesy and respect to the Court,

which after all was their main defense against puritanical

suppression. No doubt, at the behest of the sovereign, each

company eagerly fulfilled the service required of it. The players’

well-being in and about London as well as their prestige depended

to a significant extent on their relationship with the prince. Yet

the historical, literary, and economic evidence does not support

the attempts to demonstrate that such plays as _Macbeth_, _The

Merry Wives of Windsor_, or _Twelfth Night_ were first presented

at Court. For example, Leslie Hotson’s thesis that _Twelfth

Night_ was a tribute to the ambassador, Virginio Orsino, Duke of

Bracciano, has been challenged by Frances Keen who has reexamined

the documents.[23] Except for _Troilus and Cressida_, it is not

likely that any Shakespearean play of the Globe decade was given

its premiere anywhere else than at the Globe.

I have dealt with the repertory system at length because

insufficient attention has been paid to it. In reconstructing the

staging of any company, the character of this system cannot be

ignored. For the Globe company as well as for the other companies,

the staging of plays was conditioned by the irregular alternation

of plays, the large number of plays that had to be ready for

performance at one time, the rapidity with which new ones were

added to the repertory, the probability of revivals, and the

reliance upon the public playhouse for theatrical well-being.

Allowance for these conditions must be made in any discussion of

the play, the stage, and the actor.

Chapter Two

THE DRAMATURGY

Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe years are the highest forms of

drama to result from a century of evolution. The long-fought battle

between popular and private taste was to go on, finally to the

defeat of popular taste in the rise of the private theaters. But

in the ten years of the Globe, before the King’s men saw their

theatrical future in appealing to a Blackfriars trade, the artistic

possibilities of the popular narrative drama were abundantly

realized.

As the poet created the play, the actors rehearsed it--or very

shortly thereafter. At the Globe playhouse the intimacy between

Shakespeare and his colleagues gave unparalleled opportunity for

artistic collaboration. Through changes in status and physical

surroundings, they maintained warm personal and professional

relations. From a common creative act arose the plays that

Shakespeare penned and the productions that his friends presented.

The record of this partnership is contained in the extant scripts,

not merely in stage directions or in dialogue, but in the very

substance of the dramatist’s craft, the structure of the incidents.

To know this structure of incidents is no simple matter. Little

contemporary Elizabethan theory of the dramatist’s craft exists.[1]

Of the few contemporary essays on poesy which treat the drama,

Sidney’s The _Defence of Poesie_ (c. 1583), is not only the best

known but also the most thorough. In measuring pre-Shakespearean

drama by neoclassic standards, Sidney concludes that the early

plays lack order. Yet the characteristic that Sidney so roundly

condemned is the very one which, as we shall see, was so

skillfully mastered by the turn of the century: the narration of

an extended history covering much time and many places. By then

classicism was no longer a fixed standard. This is nowhere more

evident than in the words of Ben Jonson. The most classical of

all the Elizabethan playwrights, with the possible exception of

Chapman, Jonson contains in his remarks on the drama contradictory

tendencies not fully reconciled in theory.

The chorus to _Every Man Out of His Humour_, a Globe play, provides

the clearest expression of his views on the drama. Citing the

precedent of the Greek poets, Jonson asserts, through the choral

figure of Cordatus, that he does not see why the English poets

should not enjoy “the same licence, or free power, to illustrate

and heighten our invention as [the Greeks] did; and not bee tyed to

those strict and regular formes, which the nicenesse of a few (who

are nothing but forme) would thrust upon us” (Chorus, 267-270).

Earlier, obliged to explain the absence of the traditional forms

of classical drama, Cordatus remarks that there is no necessity

to observe them. Yet, in setting the play in England, Cordatus

quibbles over the nature of unity of place. He finds it acceptable

for the author to have “a whole Iland to run through” but scorns

those authors who, in one play, by showing “so many seas,

countries, and kingdomes, past over with such admirable dexteritie

... out-run the apprehension of their auditorie” (Chorus, 279-286).

Later in the play, despite his previous deprecation of classical

authority, Jonson justifies the almost tragic scene of Sordido’s

attempted suicide (III, ii) by resorting to the authority of

Plautus (III, viii, 88 ff.). At another point he cites Cicero’s

definition of comedy to demolish the citadel of romantic comedy

(III, vi, 202-207). Throughout, Jonson maintains a double standard,

eluding adherence to classical prescription when it suits him to

do so, citing classical authority when it supports his practice,

but at all times aware that mere imitation is neither possible nor

desirable. For, it is significant to note, Jonson does not oppose

classical form to no form at all, but “strict and regular” form to

personal invention.

Dramatic theory of the Elizabethan period is particularly

deceptive because the little that exists is usually classical

in vocabulary and orientation. Baldwin has attempted to equate

the use of classical terms with the creation of the equivalent

form. He cites Jonson’s use of the critical terms _epitasis_ and

_catastrophe_ in _Every Man Out of His Humour_, together with

similar evidence from _The New Inn_, as proof that “Jonson knows

and observes ‘the Law of Comedy’ as it has been laid down by

the sixteenth century commentators on Terence.” The epitasis is

variously defined as “the intension or exaggeration of matters” or

“the most busy part of a comedy” or “the progress of the turbations

... the knot of error.”[2] However, these generalizations have

little to do with the way in which a play is shaped. For that

we must go back to actual models. At once we see that the terms

cannot be applied to both Terence and Jonson, and yet mean the

same things. The interplay between Simo and Davus in _The Woman of

Andros_, as they attempt to outwit each other, produces a tightly

drawn comedy of situation. The display of foolery which infuriates

Macilente results in an ambling satirical comedy. Comparison

discloses that not only in tone and content but also in function

and effect the epitasis or the “busie part of the subject” differs

in each case. Clearly, in no substantial way did the Elizabethans

derive their dramatic forms from classical tradition.

In the absence of such a tradition and with the lack of a generally

accepted alternative, the theory has persisted that Elizabethan

drama lacks structural form. “The events ... are produced without

any art of connection or care of disposition,” wrote Samuel Johnson

of _Antony and Cleopatra_. Substantially the same charge has been

leveled against Shakespeare’s plays in particular and Elizabethan

drama in general. The art of Elizabethan drama, it is said, must

be sought in the characterization, in the poetic expression, in

the myth-making patterns of ideas, but not in the structure of

events. In a currently fashionable form, this view is stated quite

straightforwardly by M. C. Bradbrook. “The essential structure of

Elizabethan drama lies not in the narrative or the characters but

in the words.... [The structure] was purely poetic.”[3]

It is true that Elizabethan dramatic structure appears to be

irregular in form and haphazard in progression. Conditions of

presentation, described in the previous chapter, indicate that any

conscious artistic purpose must have been difficult to pursue. The

speed of composition, the prevalence of collaboration, and the

absence of formal standards contributed to what might be called

pragmatic dramatization. However, pragmatic dramatization did

not necessarily prevent the appearance of distinctive dramatic

forms. In fact, the winnowing process of the repertory system was

evolutionary, ensuring the development of drama in response not to

abstract theory but to the deeply ingrained artistic practices of

the age.

I. PREMISES FOR A STUDY OF SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATIC FORM

In her constantly stimulating book _Endeavors of Art_ Madeleine

Doran introduces a new and provocative approach to the examination

of Elizabethan dramatic structure. Adopting the thesis of Heinrich

Wölfflin, expounded in his _Principles of Art History_, Doran

extends it to apply to the literary artist. Wölfflin argues that

“the art of one age differs from that of another because the

artists have different modes of imaginative beholding ... [As a

result], any change in representational content from one period to

[another is] less important to the effect of difference than the

change in style arising from difference in decorative principle”

or way of beholding.[4] Thus, the intent of the art work is less

evident in the subject treated than in the arrangement effected.

In comparing the “modes of imaginative beholding” in Renaissance

and Baroque art, Wölfflin differentiates the two styles in terms of

five categories of visual opposites, one of which is diffusion of

effect (multiplicity) versus concentration of effect (unity). This

category is the one most relevant to a consideration of dramatic

literature. By demonstrating that Renaissance art “achieves its

unity by making the parts independent as free members [and by

relating them through a] coordination of the accents,” Wölfflin

reconciles the opposites of multiplicity and unity in a concept of

“multiple unity.”[5]

In the Elizabethan age the recurrent and popular expression of this

concept is found in the image of art as a “mirror.” Hamlet’s use

of this image need not be quoted. Substantially it was anticipated

by Jonson in _Every Man Out of His Humour_:

ASPER. Well I will scourge those apes;

And to these courteous eyes [of the audience] oppose a mirrour,

As large as is the stage, whereon we act:

Where they shall see the times deformitie

Anatomiz’d in every nerve, and sinnew,

With constant courage, and contempt of feare.

[Chorus, 117-122]

Both uses of the image reveal that the reflection is to be of

the times and to be directed at the spectator. That the mirror

is inherent in the thinking of the Elizabethan age not only as

the purpose but as the _method_ of poetry is expressed even

more clearly in Puttenham’s _The Arte of English Poesie_. In

objecting to the mingling of the qualities of lightheaded or

“phantasticall” men with poets, which “the pride of many Gentlemen

and others” insist on to the derision of poetry, Puttenham writes

that the poet’s brain “being well affected, [is] not onely

nothing disorderly or confused with any monstruous imaginations

or conceits, but very formall, and in his much multiformitie

_uniforme_, that is well proportioned, and so passing cleare, that

by [the mind], as by a glasse or mirrour, are represented unto the

soule all maner of bewtifull visions.” Later: “There be againe of

these glasses that shew thinges exceeding faire and comely; others

that shew figures monstruous & illfavored.”[6] Here the poet’s

mind, utilizing invention and imagination, is a mirror by which the

soul receives vision.

The “mirror” had two principal functions in the Elizabethan

period. One was to represent experience, in short, to achieve

verisimilitude. Miss Doran demonstrates that the Elizabethans did

not expect particular realism but universal truths. The other was

to bring together many kinds of experience. Jonson clearly means

to have the mirror turn this way and that in order to reflect a

multiple image of the times. Shakespeare implies that in showing

“virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,” the mirror held up

to nature reflects the allegorical figure Virtue, at the same time

as it reflects her evil sister, Scorn. The actual practices of the

plays illustrate that the poets sought to project multiple aspects

of a situation--Puttenham’s multiformitie--as it were by a mirror.

Consequently, they tended to give equal emphasis to the various

elements of the drama, that is, to produce a coordination rather

than a subordination of parts. What “coordination of parts” means

in dramaturgy may be seen by contrasting the relative dominance and

integration of character, plot, language, and theme in classical

and Renaissance drama.

In classical and modern “realistic” construction, plot, or the

structure of incidents, is dominant. It is an imitation of an

action to which character and language are subordinated. Although

Francis Fergusson rightly points out the difficulty of defining

the word “action,” nevertheless, he makes it clear that Aristotle

specifies that plot is the prime embodiment of the action.[7] In

this Aristotle describes the actual practice of ancient Greek

drama. The incidents embrace the total significance of a play,

for if plot, the structure of incidents, imitates the action

which is the soul of tragedy, it must also contain the meaning of

that action. Through plot the meaning radiates into character and

language. Such a pyramid of emphasis, in which certain dramatic

elements are subordinated, ensures genuine unity of action. If

Greek drama did not always realize such an ideal form, it aspired

toward such a realization.

In Renaissance construction, however, with its independent parts

and coordinated accents, unity of action is not really possible.

The structure of incidents does not implicitly contain the total

meaning of the play. Character and thought have degrees of

autonomy. They are not subordinate but coordinate with the plot.

Therefore, the plot is not the sole source of unity. Instead, unity

must arise from the dynamic interaction of the various parts of the

drama: story, character, and language. Our task is to discover how

this was accomplished.

Two habits of composition characterized the Elizabethan dramatists.

First, the poets turned to popular romance and history for the

sources of their plots. Baldwin saw one of the major problems

of the dramatists to be the shaping of narrative material to

dramatic ends, and this he believes was accomplished through the

Terentian five-act structure. Both Hardin Craig and Doran regard

the romantic story as the formative influence in English drama.[8]

Following Manly, Doran sees the miracle play as the main source

of the romantic story and, as such, a principal forerunner of the

Elizabethan drama. Secondly, in utilizing these materials, “English

dramatists almost without exception adopted the sequential method

of action, and all the weight of classic drama did not prevail to

change their minds about it.”[9] The importance of this factor

in the molding of drama is further emphasized in Miss Doran’s

suggestion that the source material, or the story, “is often the

chief determinant of whether or not a play is well organized.”[10]

A glance at the play list of the Globe’s company reveals that with

the possible exception of _Every Man Out of His Humour_ and _A

Larum for London_, story plays a decisive part in the flow of the

drama. But so was story or fable the groundwork of ancient Greek

drama. The differences arise from the ways in which the dramatists

of each age treated their stories.

To begin with, the English dramatists retained a very large portion

of a given story. They arranged but did not eliminate. In fact,

they frequently supplied additional events. In _A Larum for London_

we find scene after scene illustrating the awful fate that befell

the people of Antwerp at the hands of the Spanish. A copious

montage of horrors passes across the stage. This multiplicity of

events is a prime characteristic of this drama. To the Lear story

Shakespeare adds the tale of Gloucester, to that of Helena and

Bertram the story of Parolles.

Having taken a bustling story as his basis, the poet had to

arrange all the events in dramatic order. According to Doran he

had to find “a different method from the classical in two central

problems of form: how to get concentration, and how to achieve

organic structure, that is, how to achieve an action causally

connected from beginning to middle to end.”[11] However, Bradbrook

has rightly pointed out that in Elizabethan drama “consecutive

or causal succession of events is not of the first importance.”

With this observation, she dismisses narrative as not being one of

the first concerns of the dramatists.[12] Certainly Bradbrook is

right about the absence of Aristotelian causality, as the briefest

review of most Elizabethan plays will show. The events leading to

Cordelia’s death are without cause unless we choose chance as the

cause. It is by chance she is captured, it is by chance that Edmund

confesses too late.

The issue, however, is joined incorrectly. Organic structure,

in this type of drama, is not a product of “causally connected

events.” Nor can the absence of such connection minimize the

dependence of Elizabethan dramaturgy upon narrative progression. To

appreciate this point of view, we must comprehend the difference

between how we usually expect a play to be linked causally and how

the Elizabethans employed dramatic causation.

I believe that I follow most critics in deriving the concept of

dramatic causation from Aristotle’s admonition that “the plot ...

must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union

of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced

or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.” The

Aristotelian plot is compressive and retrospective. Its method

is to submit man to an intolerable pressure until there is a

single bursting point that shatters life. A single act, invariably

occurring before the play begins, initiates a series of events

which, linked together in a probable and necessary sequence,

produces the catastrophe, which once again casts back to the

original source of momentum. Such linear intensification is

promoted by the exertion of tremendous will on the part of the

leading characters. Antigone’s willful piety clashes with Creon’s

statism, Philoctetes’ desire for revenge and Ulysses’ desire for

victory at Troy combine within Neoptolemus in a conflict between

honor and duty. All incidents develop out of the wills of the

characters. Incident counteracts incident. For example, before

Oedipus can fully digest the charge of Tiresias, he accuses Creon

of treachery. Creon responds to the charge, but before their

conflict can be resolved, Jocasta tries to reconcile them, the

very act of which brings Oedipus closer to the awesome truth.

Focus is upon the drama mounting to the climax: the scenes leading

to Oedipus’ discovery, the struggle leading to Neoptolemus’

decision, or the near disaster leading to the ultimate revelation

of Ion’s origin. To sum up, a play linked causally dramatizes

all the crucial causes of major actions, maintaining due balance

between the force of the motive and the intensity of effect, the

action mounting from cause to effect to cause, so that at any

point we are aware of what circumstances led to one and only one

result. Suspense is a natural corollary of such organization, and

concentration of effect is its aim.

It is apparent that the Elizabethan dramatists did not address

themselves to the organization of that type of sequence. Very

few plays of theirs can be found where closely linked causation

produces the denouement. First, the causes for significant

changes are frequently assumed or implied and not dramatized. Why

Lear divides his kingdom, why Cleopatra flees the battle, why

Angelo repents remain unrevealed. Iago promises to show Roderigo

“such a necessity in his [Claudio’s] death that you shall think

yourself bound to put it on him” (IV, ii, 247-248), and later

Roderigo, waiting to assail Claudio, affirms that Iago “hath

given me satisfying reasons” (V, i, 9). Between the scenes some

justification, unknown to us, was given Roderigo by Iago. The

revelation of Lady Macbeth’s haunting nightmares actually serves

as a _peripeteia_ which, Aristotle warns, must be “subject always

to our rule of probability, or necessity.” But this reversal is

not the result of a succession of events leading to a necessary

end, unless we regard it as having taken place off-stage. Such an

end may be probable, of course, but we are given no insight into

the forces that make it probable. Nor apparently did Shakespeare

feel it incumbent upon him to show these forces. That we accept the

sleep-walking scene is not so much because it is either inevitable

or likely, but because of all things in the realm of possibility

that could have befallen the woman, her nightmares so perfectly

satisfy both our sense of justice and our inclination toward pity

at the same time.

Secondly, the causes for significant changes, when dramatized, are

not always commensurate with the effects. To make itself felt, a

dramatic cause, in the Aristotelian sense, must have sufficient

weight to produce the effect it does; a great cause must not

produce a puny effort, nor a puny effort a great result. Yet this

lack of proportion occurs often in Shakespeare. The ease with

which Iago secures Desdemona’s handkerchief from Emilia, though she

wonders at the purpose of his request, does not balance the awful

consequences. Brutus’ and Cassius’ meager dispute over whether or

not to allow Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral is overshadowed by

the fatal results. Here, as elsewhere, the perfunctoriness of the

struggle between two antagonists is out of proportion to the effect

that follows. The appearance of such imbalance, however, is not the

result of ineptitude, but of artistic choice. Interest was not in

the conflict leading to a decision, but the effect of the decision

itself. The causes of action, therefore, tended to be taken for

granted or conveyed with minimum emphasis; in other words, they

were not regarded as being of first importance and so did not need

to be dramatized with particularity. This attitude contributed

largely to the looseness with which parts of a play are joined.

Causation, of course, was not completely abandoned, but it was

generalized. Largely it resided in the given circumstances of the

initial action, as Lear’s pride leading him to reject Cordelia

or Cleopatra’s womanhood causing her to flee. For, within the

Elizabethan scheme of man’s relation to his action, tightly linked

causation was incomprehensible.

Nor was the alternative to causal succession, episodic structure,

“a stringing together of events in mere temporal succession [where]

each complication is solved as it arises.”[13] For dramatic

causation of the parts, the Elizabethan substituted a rhythmic

framework for the whole. The dramatization of a complete story

employing many characters meant that within the scope of the

narrative lay many plausible events. This gave the poet a wide

choice of incidents with which to arrange his plot, the scope of

the narrative imparting a limit of its own. Concurrently, the

tendency for “mirroring” nature led him to choose scenes which

would contrast or echo others or which would illustrate various

facets of a single experience.

In such a drama the first scenes perform a vital function. They

establish the premises upon which the action will be built. Little

exposition is necessary, for not much has happened before the

play opens. It is curious to note that almost all the principal

characters are in a state of inertia at the beginning of the

action. Hamlet, sorely distressed by his mother’s marriage, is

not about to act. Rosalind, Cordelia, Lear, Antony, Cleopatra,

Brutus, Macbeth, Timon all are uncommitted to anything but the

state, happy or troubled, wherein we first see them. Usually some

force, either early in the first scenes or just before them, impels

the characters to act. This type of opening contributes to the

impression, first, that the play is a self-contained microcosm and,

second, that the first scenes are illustrations.

_Antony and Cleopatra_ offers a model for such an opening.

The comments of Demetrius and Philo provide the frame for the

illustration-premise of Antony’s love for Cleopatra and his

rejection of Rome. Though the messenger from Rome does propel the

action forward, calling Antony to Caesar, his arrival is handled in

a ritualistic manner. We might consider this demonstration of the

premise as analogous to the statement of a theme in music. Just as

a composer announces his musical idea, the Elizabethan dramatist

illustrates his dramatic idea, proceeding from it to the variations

which occupy the balance of the play.[14]

Stemming from these premises are two lines of progression,

one narrative, one dramatic. The first, which is essentially

concerned with what _happens_ to the characters, follows a line

of development to the very last scene. The second, which involves

what the characters _undergo_, reaches fullness somewhere near the

center of the play.

The narrative line, what happens, proceeds linearly to the finale.

In _Lear_, this is concerned with the story of two fathers deceived

by certain of their children; through deception they give these

children their trust and power; they suffer at their hands;

ultimately they are vindicated by their faithful children. All the

plots and intrigues are part of the narrative. Not until Edgar

fells Edmund are these plots unmasked.

The dramatic line, what the characters undergo, extends to heights

of passion at the center of the play and then contracts. This line

in _Lear_ is concerned with how a proud man endures curbs on his

nature and is reduced to humility. In the first half of the play

Lear, asserting his arrogance to the fullest, passes to the limits

of madness. In the second, he acquiesces to suffering, one might

say, becomes detached from it. Extension and contraction is the

pattern, extension of the potentialities of the premises of the

action, contraction of the effects after they have reached their

fulfillment.

Such parallel development of a play’s action produces contradictory

impulses in the drama. On one hand there existed the impulse to

complete the story, on the other there persisted the temptation

to dilate upon the effect of the action upon the individuals. One

reason why modern audiences suffer from “fourth act fatigue” in

witnessing a Shakespearean play stems from the fact that their

interest in the play is disproportionate. They have a greater

interest in the dramatic line than in the narrative. For the

Elizabethan audience the interest must have been more evenly

balanced. For them the finale, the completion of the narrative

line, had as much appeal as the “climax,” the height of the

dramatic line.

II. FORM AND FUNCTION IN THE FINALES OF THE GLOBE PLAYS

We find a surprising similarity in the finales. Almost every one

of the Globe plays contains a public resolution. Seldom is the

conclusion private. The final scene of _Every Man Out of His

Humour_ containing the last of Macilente’s purgations is one of

the exceptions, as are the conclusions of _A Larum for London_

and in some respects of _The Devil’s Charter_. In the latter

play a spectacular conclusion representing the damnation of Pope

Alexander is appended to a grand finale. All the other eleven

non-Shakespearean plays terminate in a finale that is ceremonious

and public. Of the fifteen Shakespearean plays produced between

1599 and 1609 only _Troilus and Cressida_ clearly dispenses with

this type of finale. Thus, of the twenty-nine plays presented by

the Globe company, twenty-five have a public accounting for the

preceding action.

The importance of ending a play with a public exhibition is

demonstrated by the amount of contrivance effected in some plays to

ensure a grand finale. In the _Fair Maid of Bristow_, King Richard

suddenly grants Anabell the right to produce a champion for

Vallenger. By doing so, however, he permits a last, grand discovery

and sacrifice scene to be played. Other examples can be found in

Shakespeare’s plays. One of the objections to _Measure for Measure_

has been the forced manner in which the Duke succeeds in bringing

the conclusion to public trial. This may equally well be the charge

against _All’s Well_. Yet, whether or not it evolves logically from

the preceding action, the great closing scene is a marked formal

characteristic of this drama.

Several things may happen in the finale, either separately or

jointly. In romance and comedy love triumphs. Any punishment that

deserves to be meted out is usually tempered. Angelo “perceives

he’s safe” in _Measure for Measure_ and Malvolio will be entreated

to a peace. In tragedy justice prevails, even though the hero may

die in the process. In comedy, the substance of the finale is the

working out of the complications or confusions which impede love,

in tragedy, the overcoming of evil forces that destroy a just

order. In some instances, notably _Measure for Measure_, both love

and justice triumph.

Common to all the Globe plays are:

(1) a means for bringing about justice or of winning love: the most

frequent means are discovery of the identity of disguised persons,

trial, execution, repentance, single combat, suicide;

(2) a judge-figure who pronounces judgment: he may either deliver

the verdict and/or grant mercy or, after the action has occurred,

declare the purport of the action; in finales of combat he may

serve as the avenging arm of justice;

(3) a ranking figure who reasserts order: invariably the person

of highest authority, in many plays he is identical with the

judge-figure. It is a convention of Elizabethan drama that the last

lines of a play, excluding epilogues and songs, be spoken by the

ranking figure.

In the non-Shakespearean plays, discovery, trial and/or execution,

and repentance appear most often. _Fair Maid of Bristow_ employs

both discovery and execution, _The London Prodigal_, discovery

and repentance. Excluding _Every Man Out of His Humour_, all the

non-Shakespearean plays have judge-figures. In the _Merry Devil_ it

is the father, in _Volpone_ the justices, in _Fair Maid of Bristow_

King Richard, in _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, Scarborrow

himself.[15]

This figure, sometimes central to the story, sometimes not,

usually referees the conflict and, at the conclusion, either

passes judgment or grants mercy. In two plays the formal agency

for bringing judgment about is indirect. In the brilliant reversal

scene in _Sejanus_ judgment is exercised through the absent figure

of the Emperor Tiberius. His letter read to the convocation of

senators provides the means. In turn, his judgment illustrates the

caprice of fortune and the descent of nemesis. The other play,

_Thomas Lord Cromwell_, likewise makes use of an indirect agency

as a substitute for the judge: King Henry’s delayed reprieve for

Cromwell.

Each of Shakespeare’s plays, excluding _Troilus and Cressida_,

also employs a final scene in which judgment is meted out and/or

love is won. The content of the finale may be one or a combination

of discovery, single combat, preparation for suicide, trial, and

siege.[16] In seven of his Globe plays discovery untangles the knot

of error which separated the lovers. Usually reserved for comedy,

it is employed to make Othello comprehend the horror of his act.

Discovery is also combined with repentance in _All’s Well_ and with

trial in _Measure for Measure_. In _Timon_ the framework of the

siege contains a trial.

In his use of formal agents Shakespeare is more subtle than his

fellow playwrights. Only six plays contain judge-figures central

to the action: the King in _All’s Well_, the “lords o’ the city”

in _Coriolanus_, Alcibiades in _Timon_ and, in an ingenious use

of this device, Hymen in _As You Like It_, and finally the Dukes

in _Measure for Measure_ and _Twelfth Night_. In describing

Shakespeare’s use of the Duke as a type figure, C. B. Watson points

out that “at the end of a play the role of the Duke is threefold:

he acts to resolve the conflict in the interests of justice; he

grants mercy to the offenders; and finally he plays the host at

the festivities which are presumably to follow on the successful

resolution of the dramatic conflict.”[17]

Into the other eight plays Shakespeare introduced more subtle

methods of passing judgment. Two of them show a common pattern.

Although a judge-figure is present, the true judgment is made

by the hero. Antony is the judge-figure in _Julius Caesar_, and

Octavius in _Antony and Cleopatra_, but in each case the hero by

committing suicide substitutes his or her own judgment for that of

other authority. Both Brutus and Cleopatra prepare for self-death

elaborately. It becomes a means of warding off ignominy and gaining

glory. In _Othello_ suicide serves the same purpose with only

this difference, that Othello’s own strong sense of justice makes

it unnecessary to have a judge-figure. The ranking figure, in

each of these plays, is handled differently. In _Julius Caesar_,

Octavius has this role, in _Othello_, Lodovico, and in _Antony and

Cleopatra_, Octavius is both judge and ranking figure.

In each of three other plays, _Lear_, _Macbeth_, and _Hamlet_, true

judgment is rendered through a fateful single combat in which one

combatant represents the forces of light, the other of darkness. In

_Merry Wives_ we find a double judgment. Mockery is the judgment

passed on Falstaff and forgiveness that awarded Fenton and Ann.

Like _Othello_, _Pericles_ lacks a judge-figure during the finale.

Instead, the goddess Diana (V, i) has played that role in the act

of directing Pericles to the discovery of Thaisa. Thus, in both the

Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean plays the same kind of formal

conclusion rounds out the story. This particular kind of conclusion

reflects the moral ideals of Elizabethan society, the achievement

of salvation or order or love through judgment.

Another characteristic of the concluding scene is that it is a

narrative conclusion in which the initial situation is brought

to a complete close rather than a thematic conclusion in which

the implications of the theme are ultimately dramatized. Several

elements of the narrative are introduced early in _As You Like

It_. They are Oliver’s alienation of Orlando’s heritage, Duke

Frederick’s usurpation of his brother’s throne, and the love of

Rosalind and Orlando. The thematic elements are indirectly related

to the plot. They make themselves felt obliquely. But they are not

embodied in the main action of the finale, nor, being contrasting

expressions of the quality of love rather than moral injunctions,

can they be so embodied. In fact, the thematic elements are absent

from the finale, which is concerned with the tying of many a

lover’s knot and the appropriate resignation of Duke Frederick. The

same holds true for _Hamlet_. The true issue, Hamlet’s inability

to “set things right,” is resolved when Hamlet comes to a tranquil

peace with his soul and accepts the guidance of providence in the

scene with Horatio immediately preceding the duel (V, ii). However,

the story has to be completed, and ironically Hamlet achieves by

chance what he could not gain by design. In only a few plays do

the thematic and narrative issues merge in the final moments of

the action. _Othello_ of all Shakespeare’s plays offers the finest

example of this concurrence, and perhaps because of this fact many

critics regard _Othello_ as Shakespeare’s finest piece of dramatic

construction. Such regard, however, is founded upon Aristotelian

premises. For an Elizabethan the concurrence was incidental.

Particularly vital to our understanding of the conclusion is the

place that climax or catastrophe occupies in the last scenes.

The finales of Shakespeare’s Globe plays often fail to produce a

climactic effect because the completion of the narrative does not

arise from the conflicting forces of the theme or action. Instead

ceremony frequently serves as a substitute for climax. By the time

the last scene began, the Elizabethan audience knew how the story

would end. But it satisfied the Elizabethan sense of ritual to see

the pageant of the conclusion acted out. The appeal of this pageant

is clearly illustrated in _Measure for Measure_, _Macbeth_, and

_As You Like It_. In these plays the rendition of judgment through

trial or combat or revelation respectively supplied the excitement

that a dramatic climax would have afforded. Nor should we

underestimate the interest such conclusions held for an Elizabethan

audience. Knight, in pointing out that the tragedies reach a climax

in Act III, suggests that the “military conflicts [at the end] were

probably far more important to an Elizabethan” than to us.[18]

But this statement has a wider applicability. Ceremony, such as

Orsino’s visit to Olivia or trial-by-combat in _Lear_ or a parley

in _Timon_, is often the frame for the finale. Because ceremony

played so vital a role in Elizabethan life, it had an unusually

strong appeal for the audience who saw it represented on the stage.

III. THE NATURE AND FORM OF THE “CLIMAX” IN THE GLOBE PLAYS

The impulse to complete the story is satisfied in the finale, as we

have seen. The impulse to dilate upon the story achieves maximum

expansion in the center of the play. The presence of scenes of

extreme complication and intense emotion at this point in the

Shakespearean plays has led to the development of the theory of a

third act climax. It has been expressed in various ways by various

scholars. Knight merely notes this grouping of intensifications.

Lawrence, anticipating Baldwin’s thesis of the five-act structure,

assumes a third act climax. Baldwin would call it the imitation

of the Terentian epitasis, and Moulton speaks of it as the center

piece at the point of a regular arch.[19]

Certainly there is marked emotional intensification at the center

of a Shakespearean play. However, if we are to call it a climax, we

must redefine our term, taking care that it not be confused with

the climax in classical or modern drama. There the climax is taken

to be a single point of extreme intensity where the conflicting

forces come to a final, irreconcilable opposition. At that point

a dramatic explosion, leading to the denouement, is the direct

outcome of the climactic release. Hedda Gabler has schemed to

accomplish the glorious ruination of Lövborg. At the very moment

when she expects to exult, she discovers that she has failed. The

climax occurs when she learns that instead of controlling others,

she herself is controlled. The denouement, her death, is a direct

consequence. Causally-linked drama, by its very nature, drives

to a “highest” point. In Greek drama it is usually a moment of

recognition and/or reversal. That is why we must be cautious of

speaking of a climax in Shakespearean drama.

If we endeavor to isolate such a climax in Elizabethan

tragedy, we run into many difficulties. For example, is the

play-within-the-play scene, the prayer scene, or the closet scene

the climax of _Hamlet_? All contain some reversal; all are highly

intense; we are emotionally swept along by them, caught up in

the melodrama of Hamlet’s device, in his mad exultation at its

effect upon Claudius, in the pathos of Claudius’ contrition, and

in the tortured uncertainty of Gertrude. But none of these scenes

alone reveals a point of climax. If there is either recognition or

reversal, it arises from accumulation of effect.

A more extended example of this diffusion of climax can be found

in _Lear_. Commencing with the famous “Blow, winds” speech, there

are four painfully intense scenes: three of Lear on the heath,

one of the blinding of Gloucester, interspersed by two brief

scenes leading to that cruel act. The Lear and Gloucester scenes

alternate. In some ways the emotional hysteria of Lear’s

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples,

drown’d the cocks!

[III, ii, 1-3]

is the most intense moment, and yet the dramatic intensification

brought about by weaving together the trials of Lear and those of

poor Tom has yet to occur. Moulton regards the meeting of those

two as the climax.[20] But in which scene? The first outside the

hovel, or the second in the shelter, where Lear arraigns his

false daughters? Granville-Barker selects an exact moment for the

climax, in the second of the storm scenes “when the proud old king

kneels humbly and alone in his wretchedness to pray. This is the

argument’s absolute height.”[21] Must, as Granville-Barker goes

on to suggest, the tension relax then during the two scenes Lear

plays with mad Tom? The reading of the storm scenes should make

it obvious that instead of a point of intensity with subsequent

slackening, we have a succession of states of intense emotional

experience: Lear’s self-identification with raging nature, Lear’s

pathetic lucidity and new-forged humility, Lear’s ultimate madness

during a fantastic trial. Each high point subsides before the next

bursts forth, not like a solitary cannon shot but like the ebb and

flow of the pounding sea. The truth seems to be that we find not

a climactic point in the center of a Shakespearean play, but a

climactic plateau, a “coordination of intense moments” sustained

for a surprisingly extended period.

_Othello_ alone of the tragedies does not have that complete

relaxation of intensity after the central “plateau.” But here it is

a matter of degree, for though the wringing of Othello’s heart by

Iago effects the maximum reversal of attitude, Othello continues

to oscillate between doubt of and belief in Desdemona’s guilt.

Thereafter, while intensity mounts to Desdemona’s death, the tone

changes. Instead of the struggle of the giant to break the bonds of

his strangling jealousy, we find a painful pathos arising from the

gap between Othello’s misconception and Desdemona’s innocence.

Those plays in which the climactic plateau is most easily

perceived, in addition to _Lear_ and _Hamlet_, are _Twelfth Night_,

III, i-iv; _Troilus and Cressida_, IV, iv, v; V, i;[22] _Macbeth_,

III, iv; IV, i; and _Antony and Cleopatra_, III, xi-xiii. Both

_Julius Caesar_ and _Coriolanus_ have intense centers of action in

the third act. In these plays, however, the crucial scenes seem

to take on the nature of a climax in the Greek sense. Antony’s

speech and the banishment of Coriolanus are points of reversal.

A closer examination, however, reveals that these peaks are

blunted. Antony does not seem to wish to let the mob depart. There

are several moments when he rouses them to action, only to pull

them back for further inspiration. The climax of _Coriolanus_ is

muted even more because Coriolanus and his friends struggle with

the tribunes over the same issues twice (III, i, iii). The final

banishment merely brings to an end a conclusion already foregone.

In each scene Coriolanus’ patrician pride causes him to defy both

friend and enemy. These last two plays contract the plateau only

in degree, _Julius Caesar_ moving furthest toward a single moment

of intensity. Generally in Shakespeare we will find the centers of

action dispersed rather than concentrated, sustained rather than

released.

As we might expect, a change in the duration and level of the

climax produces a change in its nature. Lines of action leading to

crisis are foreshortened, thereby throwing fuller emphasis on the

response of the character, often expressed in lyrical ecstasy.

The center of intensity in _Lear_ demonstrates this qualitative

change. The impellent occasion for the storm scenes occurs in Act

II, scene iv. Goneril and Regan’s determination to divest him of

his royal position is brought home to Lear. He rushes into the

raging storm after the words:

You think I’ll weep:

No, I’ll not weep.

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

[II, iv, 285-289]

His heart and mind have been shaken by rejection, but this is

only the prelude to madness. The succeeding scenes on the heath

(III, ii, iv, vi) are a prolonged reaction to the rejection.

_Lear_ does not mount steadily to another stage of madness, but

reveals multiple effects of this madness: rage, bewilderment,

fantasy, vengefulness, helplessness. Instead of self-realization

at the climax, we find passionate release. Lear exceeds the limit

of emotional endurance; he can go no further in anguish. That is

the reason why he disappears from the play for the succeeding six

scenes (III, vii; IV, i-v).[23] During this absence Gloucester

loses his sight, the disguised Edgar comes to nurse his father,

Goneril and Regan separately conspire to satisfy their passions for

Edmund, and the British and French armies prepare to do battle.

After the climactic plateau comes story progression.

The distinctness of this central climactic grouping is less clear

in the non-Shakespearean plays, but the elements are there, if only

in rudimentary form. Even where the “plateau” is not sustained, the

intensification of action and the change of direction in the middle

of a play are present. Perhaps the clearest and most consistent

evidence of this is the split structure of many plays, that is,

the progression of the story in one direction, followed by a full

or partial shift of direction after the first half. _A Larum for

London_, a not particularly well constructed play, is composed of

such interlocked halves. The first half deals with the Spanish

conquest of Antwerp through the improvidence and selfishness of

the city’s burghers (scenes i-vii). At this climactic point the

Spaniards revel in their triumph as the Duke d’Alva parcels the

town among the conquering leaders. The second half concerns the

hopeless, yet valiant struggle of a lame soldier to fight for the

town (scenes viii-xv). This same type of division is reflected in

_The London Prodigal_. Scenes i-viii relate the trick by which

Flowerdale gains the hand of Luce; scenes ix-xii depict his descent

into the depths of prodigality before he is finally redeemed.

Here, however, the climactic scene (scene viii) involves more

anticipation than response though there are three relatively equal

heights of intensity: the father’s rejection of the daughter who

remains faithful to her husband the prodigal, the daughter’s plea

for her husband’s freedom from arrest, and the prodigal’s abuse of

his wife. Among the other plays which display the split structure

are _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ and, in part, _The Revenger’s Tragedy_.

Of all the non-Shakespearean plays, Jonson’s _Sejanus_ comes

closest to duplicating Shakespeare’s use of the climactic plateau.

The rise of Sejanus is steady. He encompasses the death of Drusus,

he effects the destruction of his opponents, and finally he

attempts the conquest of Tiberius himself by seeking permission

to marry Livia of the imperial house. Blocked in this, he urges

Tiberius’ departure from Rome, and in a closing soliloquy, seeing

himself conqueror of those who hate him, exults:

For when they see me arbiter of all,

They must observe: or else, with Caesar fall.

[III, 621-622]

Sejanus shows excessive pride in his own power, a joyous release of

self-esteem. After this speech he disappears from the play until

the opening of the fifth act. Meanwhile, Tiberius secretly turns

to Marco as a supplementary and independent agent, thus effecting

a change of direction in the play. Just when Sejanus expects to

“draw all dispatches through my private hands,” Tiberius crosses

him. Jonson, following the classical models more closely than

Shakespeare, has his greatest climax fall during the last scene.

Nevertheless, clear traces of a “center of action” can be found.

The architectonic superiority of Shakespeare can be seen in the way

he raises his entire center of action to a markedly intensified

level. Potential climactic “plateaus” can be found in all the Globe

plays cited, but some are underdeveloped and do not reach the rich

florescence that makes the center of a Shakespearean play such an

overwhelming dramatic experience. Perhaps the absence of superior

poetic powers prevented the minor playwrights from realizing the

full possibilities of this form. Nevertheless, despite the gap

between the levels of their achievements, Shakespeare and his

fellow playwrights of the Globe generally built their plays along

the same structural lines.

IV. STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN THE DRAMATIC NARRATIVE

The absence of linked causation naturally meant that the action

was not linear. Incidents leading to the finale or to the

climactic plateau did not follow one another in a succession of

tightly meshed events but in a series of alternating scenes. To

illustrate, between the first expression of Maria’s scheme against

Malvolio (II, iii) and the first working of the scheme (II, v)

intervenes the lyrical scene between Viola and Orsino (II, iv).

Such separation of parts of the story encouraged the independence

of one scene from another, the very thing complained of by some

scholars. Schücking suggests that Shakespeare shows “a tendency

to episodic intensification,” that is, the development of a scene

at the expense of the whole.[24] F. L. Lucas expresses the same

idea in his introduction to the works of Webster, asserting that

the Elizabethan audiences reacted to separate scenes rather than

to a whole play. The tendency to which they refer can be found

in the three Falstaff-Merry Wives scenes. In the first of the

scenes, Falstaff, caught in his love-game, hides in the buck

basket, only to be dumped into the Thames. Here we have a complete

action. Falstaff makes an advance, and he is repulsed. There is no

counteraction on his part. If he were in a Roman comedy, he would

have plotted how to punish his offenders or how to encompass

the women again, and thus the second scene would have resulted

from a counteraction on the part of Mistress Ford and Mistress

Page. Instead Falstaff is persuaded to repeat the same adventure

with similar results. The second scene is not more farcical or

more extravagant than the first; it is merely different. In place

of intensification we find fresh invention. The third scene

again does not grow out of the preceding scene, but out of the

husbands’ decision to shame the fat man publicly. All of the

Falstaff-Mistress Page-Mistress Ford scenes have a beginning, a

middle, and an end. They make themselves felt at the conclusion not

by intensification but by accumulation.

Though in other plays of Shakespeare the scenes may be more closely

joined, yet there is always a sense of their independence from

one another. As I have said, _Othello_, of all the tragedies, is

probably the most closely interwoven in plot. The deception scene

(III, iii) is an example of an extended scene tying together

several actions. But even in this play, we find an autonomous

scene, and that near the end of the play. Half mad, playing the

gruesome mockery of a visitor to a brothel, Othello questions

first Emilia, then Desdemona (IV, ii). Othello arrives convinced

of Desdemona’s guilt; he leaves with the same conviction. It is

neither augmented nor dispelled. That the scene does not advance

the action in no way detracts from its dramatic effectiveness, but

it does reflect on the handling of the story. In the advancement of

the classical drama, all scenes are integrated into a single line

of action. In the progression of the Shakespearean play, scenes may

be regarded as clustering about the story line. If this suggests

an image of a grapevine, perhaps it is apt, for the scenes often

appear to be hanging from a thread of narrative.

But a scene that may be semiautonomous insofar as the story line

is involved may be central insofar as the climactic plateau is

concerned. Such is the closet scene in _Hamlet_. Note how quickly

Shakespeare disposes of Polonius. The murder of the old man does

advance the plot, of course, for it causes Ophelia’s madness and

brings Laertes back from France. But the murder is a minor part of

the closet scene. Of its entire 217 lines, the action involving

Polonius occupies, both at the beginning and at the end, forty

lines (1-33, 211-217). Another eleven lines are occupied with

Hamlet’s recollection that he must go to England (199-210). The

remaining 166 lines are devoted to the relation of mother and son

and the visitation of the ghost. Certainly the scene is dramatic,

in fact, one of the most dramatic in all literature. Yet it does

not carry the action on to a new stage, but allows Hamlet to

express his disapproval and suspicion of his mother. In fact,

the central portion of the scene leaves no trace on the plot.

Though Gertrude is shaken by Hamlet’s accusations against his

uncle and herself, there is no indication that her attitude toward

Claudius changes as a result. Nor is Hamlet purged by the meeting.

Neither is the decision to send Hamlet to England brought about

by it, for the King had determined to send him there immediately

after the nunnery scene (III, i, 175-183). The closet scene

opens with Polonius’ murder and closes with a return to Hamlet’s

responsibility for the act. In between Hamlet relieves his soul of

the stifled passion against his mother.

Certainly a drama composed of these semiautonomous scenes loses

not unity necessarily, but compression. What it foregoes in that

direction it makes up for in extension. Instead of the story

eliminating incidents not strictly contributing to a final climax,

it serves as a point of departure. When Orestes meets his mother,

his behavior must follow the demands of the plot, and Aeschylus

allows him only one pitiful question to Pylades: Must he kill

his mother? The Elizabethan form permits the full relationship

of the mother and son to be explored. Like a mirror the scene

casts an additional reflection of the image that is Hamlet. For

this advantage of multiplicity of implication the Elizabethan

sacrificed concentration of effect. Unable to grasp this shift in

emphasis, many critics have treated the lack of concentration in

Shakespearean structure as evidence that the poet did not know

how to construct plays. As we saw, Dr. Johnson dismissed the

construction of _Antony and Cleopatra_ with the comment that the

events “are produced without any art of connection or care of

disposition.” Schücking, about a hundred and fifty years later,

dismisses Shakespeare’s structural practices as primitive. The

conclusion is the same though the reasons may differ. But until we

can meet Elizabethan structure on its own terms, we really do not

know what its failures were. When we deprecate the skill of the

playwrights, let us remember that the University Wits, men trained

in the Terentian, Plautine, and Senecan manner, were the ones who

developed the popular Elizabethan mode. The fate that awaited them

if they did not adhere to it is keenly illustrated by Kyd’s failure

as a classicist.

Within the general form of extension and contraction, extension

to a climactic plateau, contraction to a ceremonious finale,

appear variant structural patterns. To reduce the total structural

pattern of Elizabethan drama to a single form, or even to two or

three forms, is virtually impossible. The age was multiple in its

artistic means. Yet the inability to do this does not mean that

no structural form existed, but that many existed. Not only was

there structural variety in the works of different men, but there

were differences within the work of one man. Nevertheless, certain

dominant patterns emerge, and while the following descriptions are

not exhaustive, they include a large proportion of the Globe plays.

Three structural patterns recur frequently in the Globe plays:

the episodic, the “river,” and the “mirror” patterns. In a crude

form the episodic pattern can be found in the early Shakespearean

histories. There its basic nature can be anatomized. On the thread

either of a historical or of a biographical sequence a series of

events is arranged in succession. The most marked characteristic

of this form is that one event or incident is completed before

another one is begun. Among the Globe plays of our period _Thomas

Lord Cromwell_ is a typical example of this type. Cromwell passes

through a series of events complete in themselves: his kindness to

a distraught woman in Antwerp, his succor of an Italian merchant,

his success in freeing the Earl of Bedford from capture, his

service to Wolsey, and his downfall at the hands of Gardiner.

Although the Earl of Bedford reappears during Cromwell’s conflict

with Gardiner, and remembering his rescue, endeavors to help

Cromwell, the two sections of the play are not really joined. In

this play, despite the fact that Cromwell himself provides the

mechanical unity that binds the play, the dramatic unity, if there

is any, is multiple. The various scenes reflect Cromwell’s virtues

of honesty, humanity, and loyalty, thus giving a thematic wholeness

to the entire play.

Since Aristotle penned his notes called _Poetics_, the episodic

play has been in disrepute. Today it is difficult to imagine that

it could rise to dramatic heights. Yet if we closely examine the

structure of such a play as _Macbeth_, we shall realize that it is

episodic in form. Of course, there are vital alterations in that

form. Primarily, there is preparation for on-coming events. Instead

of one event being completed before another one is initiated, we

find that brief scenes are planted earlier to make the development

plausible. The potential danger of Banquo to Macbeth’s ambitions

is established by the witches. It is touched on before the murder

of Duncan, but it is not woven into the fabric of the action at

that time. At first, the overwhelming emphasis is upon the triangle

of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the crown. Once Duncan is disposed

of, the Banquo action comes into prominence, and full attention is

devoted to it. Early hints of Macduff’s defection are introduced,

but not until Banquo is dead does the play really concentrate on

Macduff. For Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches there is

almost no preparation. Until the end of the banquet scene, we

do not even know he is aware of their abode. Until this moment,

although the play reveals an episodic structure, it is more tightly

knit than most of Shakespeare’s other works. After the visit of

Macbeth to the witches’ hovel, the episodic pattern becomes more

distinct. The conception of Macbeth as a character accents the

episodic quality. He struggles only to reach the immediate goal;

there is no ultimate point in the universe toward which he moves.

Sejanus, in comparison, reduces the episodic quality of his drama

because his eyes are always upon becoming Caesar, the symbol of

a god on earth. Immediate intrigues are but part of the larger

aim. For this concentration Jonson lost the opportunity for those

very magnificent scenes which make _Macbeth_ a great play. Among

other of Shakespeare’s plays of this period which employ the

episodic pattern are _Hamlet_, _Coriolanus_, and _Julius Caesar_.

What strikes many critics as a lack of unity in _Hamlet_ is its

particular pattern. Once the conditions imposed on Hamlet by the

Ghost are revealed, we witness the following sequence: the place

of love in Hamlet’s mind, the testing of Claudius at the play, the

relation of mother and son. Each event is prepared for, but each

in turn gains full emphasis. Nor does one event bear causative

relationship to another. Though Claudius is suspicious of Hamlet

at the conclusion of the nunnery scene, he indicates no unusual

watchfulness over Hamlet during the play-within-the-play scene. It

is as though the conflict of the previous scene has been resolved

with Claudius’ determination to send Hamlet to England. As a point

in the story this idea is established and comes into the play when

needed at the end of the closet scene. And, of course, the closet

scene is not a dramatic result of the play scene. The idea that

Hamlet be summoned to his mother is advanced by Polonius earlier,

and whether or not Hamlet had offended the King, the meeting would

have taken place. Here, then, is a skillful manipulation of the

structural characteristics of the episodic pattern.

The second pattern I have named the “river” pattern. I use the

term because its dramatic action resembles the flow of various

tributaries into a single stream. Perhaps the best example of

this type of structure can be found in _Twelfth Night_. Two

streams of action are of almost equal breadth and depth; the

third is merely a trickle until it joins the main flow. One main

stream we may call the Orsino-Olivia-Viola action. The other

is the Toby-Andrew-Malvolio action. The minor stream is the

Antonio-Sebastian sequence. The principal determinant of such a

structure is the length of time during which each action remains

independent of the others. The first two actions remain completely

independent through Acts I and II. A slight link is provided in