SHAKESPEARE was an innovator, an iconoclast. He cared nothing for the
authority of men or of schools. He violated the "unities," and cared
nothing for the models of the ancient world.
The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend
to the catastrophe. They did not believe in the episode--in the sudden
contrasts of light and shade--in mingling the comic and the tragic.
The sunlight never fell upon their tears, and darkness did not overtake
their laughter. They believed that nature sympathized or was in harmony
with the events of the play. When crime was about to be committed--some
horror to be perpetrated--the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the trees
shivered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming event.
Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and
currents of universal life--that Nature cares neither for smiles nor
tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins
as on cradles.
The first time I visited the Place de la Concorde, where during the
French Revolution stood the guillotine, and where now stands an
Egyptian obelisk--a bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its
might.--Nature forgets.
One of the most notable instances of the violation by Shakespeare of the
classic model, is found in the 6th scene of the I. Act of Macbeth.
When the King and Banquo approach the castle in which the King is to be
murdered that night, no shadow falls athwart the threshold. So beautiful
is the scene that the King says:
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."
And Banquo adds:
"This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
The air is delicate."
Another notable instance is the porter scene immediately following
the murder. So, too, the dialogue with the clown who brings the asp to
Cleopatra just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning.
I know of one paragraph in the Greek drama worthy of Shakespeare. This
is in "Medea." When Medea kills her children she curses Jason, using the
ordinary Billingsgate and papal curse, but at the conclusion says: "I
pray the gods to make him virtuous, that he may the more deeply feel the
pang that I inflict."
Shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. He was intense. He put noons
and midnights side by side. No other dramatist would have dreamed of
adding to the pathos--of increasing our appreciation of Lear's agony,
by supplementing the wail of the mad king with the mocking laughter of a
loving clown.