THE PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD--COMEDY AND HISTORY
It is difficult for us of to-day to realize that Shakespeare was ever
less than the greatest dramatist of his time, to think of him as the
pupil and imitator of other dramatists. He did, indeed, pass through
this stage of his development with extraordinary rapidity, so that its
traces are barely perceptible in the later plays of his First Period.
In the plays of his Second Period even these traces disappear. If his
portrayal of Shylock shows the influence of Marlowe's Jew of Malta, it
is in no sense derivative, and it is the last appearance in
Shakespeare's work of characterization clearly dependent upon the plays
of his predecessors. However much Shakespeare's choice of themes may
have been determined by the public taste or by the work of his fellows,
in the creation of character he is henceforth his own master. Having
acquired this mastery, he uses it to depict life in its most joyous
aspect. For the time being he dwells little upon men's failures and
sorrows. He does not ignore life's darker side,--he loved life too
well for that,--but he uses it merely as a background for pictures of
youth and happiness and success. Although among the comedies of this
period he wrote also three historical plays, they {154} have not the
tragic character of the earlier histories. They deal with youth and
hope instead of crime, weakness, and failure. In the two parts of
_Henry IV_ there is quite as much comedy as there is history; in _Henry
V_, even though the comic interest is slighter, the theme is still one
of youth and joy as personified in the figure of the vigorous,
successful young king. For convenience' sake, however, we may separate
the histories from the comedies. To do this we shall have to depart
somewhat from chronological order, and, since there are fewer
histories, we shall consider them first.
+Henry IV, Part I+.--To the development of Henry V from the wayward
prince to one of England's most beloved heroes, Shakespeare devoted
three plays, _Henry IV_, _Parts I_ and _II_, and _Henry V_. The
historical event around which the first of these centers is the
rebellion of the Percies, which culminated in the defeat and death of
Harry Percy, 'Hotspur,' on Shrewsbury field. In _Richard II_,
Shakespeare had foreshadowed what was to come. The deposed king had
prophesied that his successor, Henry Bolingbroke, crowned as Henry IV,
would fall out with the great Percy family which had put him on the
throne; that the Percies would never be satisfied with what Henry would
do for them; and that Henry would hate and distrust them on the ground
that those who had made a king could unmake one as well. And this
prophecy was fulfilled. Uniting with the Scots under Douglas, with the
Archbishop of York, with Glendower, who was seeking to reestablish the
independence of Wales, and with Mortimer, the natural successor of
Richard, {155} the Percies raised the standard of revolt. What might
have happened had all things gone as they were planned, we can never
know; but Northumberland, the head of the family, feigned sickness;
Glendower and Mortimer were kept away; the Archbishop dallied; and
failure was the result. This situation gave Shakespeare an opportunity
to paint a number of remarkable portraits; but the scheming, crafty
Worcester, the vacillating Northumberland, the mystic Glendower, are
all overshadowed by the figure of Hotspur, wrong-headed, impulsive, yet
so aflame with young life and enthusiasm, so ready to dare all for
honor's sake, that he is almost more attractive than the Prince
himself. Over against the older leaders of the rebellion stands the
lonely figure of Henry IV, misunderstood and little loved by his sons,
who has centered his whole existence upon getting and keeping the
throne of England. To this one end he bends every energy of his
shrewd, strong, hard nature. Such a man could never understand a
personality like that of his older son, nor could the son understand
the father. Prince Hal, loving life in all its manifestations, joy in
all its forms, could find small satisfaction in the rigid etiquette of
a loveless court so long as it offered him an opportunity for little
more than formal activity. When the rebellion of the Percies showed
him that he could do the state real service, he seized his opportunity
gladly, gayly, modestly. On his father's cause he centered the
energies which he had previously scattered. With this new demand to
meet, he no longer had time for his old companions. His old life was
thrown off like a coat discarded under stress of work. {156} Even
before that time came, however, Hal was not one who could enjoy
ordinary low company; but the friends which had distracted him were far
from ordinary. In Falstaff, the leader of the riotous group,
Shakespeare created one of the greatest comic figures in all
literature. Never at a loss, Falstaff masters alike sack,
difficulties, and companions. He is an incarnation of joy for whom
moral laws do not exist. Because he will not fight when he sees no
chance of victory, he has been called a coward, but no coward ever had
such superb coolness in the face of danger. Falstaff's conduct in a
fight is explained by his contempt for all conventions which bring no
joy--a standard which reduces honor to a mere word. So full of joy was
he that he inspired it in his companions. To be with him was to be
merry.
+Date+.--The play was entered in the Stationers' Register, and a quarto
was printed in 1598. Meres mentions the play without indicating
whether he meant one part or both. The evidence of meter and style
point to a date much earlier than Meres's entry, so that 1597 is the
year to which Part I is commonly assigned.
+Source+.--For the serious plot of this play, Shakespeare drew upon
Holinshed. He had no scruples, however, against altering history for
dramatic purposes. Thus he brings within a much shorter period of time
the battles in Wales and Scotland, makes Hal and Hotspur of
approximately the same age, and unites two people in the character of
Mortimer. The situations in the scenes which show Hal with Falstaff
and his fellows are largely borrowed from an old play called _The
Famous Victories of Henry V_, but this source furnished only the barest
and crudest outlines, and gave practically no hint of the characters as
Shakespeare conceived them. The reference in Act I, Sc. ii, to
Falstaff as the 'old lad of the castle' shows that his name was
originally {157} Oldcastle, as in _The Famous Victories_. Oldcastle
was a historical personage quite unlike Falstaff, and it is supposed
that the change was made to spare the feeling of Oldcastle's
descendants.
+Henry IV, Part II+.--This part is less a play than a series of loosely
connected scenes. The final suppression of the rebellion, which had
been continued by the Archbishop of York, the sickness and death of
Henry IV, and the accession of Prince Hal as Henry V, are matters
essentially undramatic and incapable of unified treatment, while the
growing separation of Hal and Falstaff deprived the underplot of that
close connection with the main action which it had in the preceding
play. Feeling the weakness of the main plot, Shakespeare reduced it to
a subordinate position, making it little more than a series of
historical pictures inserted between the scenes in which Falstaff and
his companions figure. He enriched this part of the play, on the other
hand, by the introduction of a number of superbly poetical speeches,
the best known of which is that beginning, "O Sleep, O gentle Sleep."
To the comic groups Shakespeare added a number of new figures, among
them the braggart Pistol, whose speech bristles with the high-sounding
terms he has borrowed from the theater, and old Justice Shallow, so
fond of recalling the gay nights and days which are as much figments of
his imagination as is his assumed familiarity with the great John of
Gaunt. By placing more stress upon the evil and less pleasing sides of
Falstaff's nature, Shakespeare evidently intended to prepare his
readers' minds for the definite break between old Jack and the new
king; but in this wonderful man he had created a character so
fascinating that he could not spoil it; and {158} the king's public
rejection of Falstaff comes as a painful shock which, impresses one as
much with the coldly calculating side of the Bolingbroke nature as it
does with the sad inevitability of the rupture.
+Source and Date+.--The sources for this play are the same as those of
its predecessor. Although the first and only quarto was not printed
until 1600, there is a reference to this part in Jonson's _Every Man
Out of his Humour_, which was produced in 1599. It must, therefore,
have been written shortly after Part I, and it is accordingly dated
1598.
+Henry V+.--In this, which is really the third play of a trilogy,
Shakespeare adopted a manner of treatment quite unlike that which
characterizes the other two. _Henry V_ is really a dramatized epic, an
almost lyric rhapsody cast in the form of dialogue. Falstaff has
disappeared from view, and is recalled only by the affecting story of
his death. This episode, however, brief as it is, reveals the love
which the old knight evoked from his companions, while the narrative of
his last hours is the more pathetic for being put in the mouth of the
comic figure of Dame Quickly. Falstaff's place was one which could not
be filled, and the comic scenes become comparatively insignificant,
although the quarrels of Pistol and the Welshman Fluellen have a
distinctive humor. A figure which replaces the classic chorus connects
the scattered historical scenes by means of superb narrative verse.
Each episode glorifies a new aspect of Henry's character. We see him
as the valiant soldier; as the leader rising superior to tremendous
odds; as the democratic king who, concealing his rank, talks and jests
with a common soldier; and {159} as the bluff, hearty suitor of a
foreign bride. In thus seeing him, moreover, we see not only the
individual man; we see him as an ideal Englishman, as the embodiment of
the type which the men of Shakespeare's day--and of ours, too, for that
matter--loved and admired and honored. In celebrating Henry's
victories, Shakespeare was also celebrating England's more recent
victories over her enemies abroad, so that the play is a great national
paean, the song of heroic, triumphant England.
+Date and Source+.--Like its predecessors, _Henry V_ is founded on
Holinshed, with some additions taken from the Famous Victories. The
allusion in the chorus which precedes Act V to the Irish expedition of
the Earl of Essex fixes the date of composition between April 14 and
September 28, 1599. A quarto, almost certainly pirated, was printed in
1600 and reprinted in 1602, 1608, and 1619 (in the latter with the
false date of 1608). The text of these quartos is, therefore, much
inferior to that of the Folio.
+The Merchant of Venice+.--As usually presented on the modern stage,
_The Merchant of Venice_ appears to be a comedy, which is overshadowed
by one tragic figure, that of the Jew Shylock, the representative of a
down-trodden people, deprived of his money by a tricky lawyer and
deprived of his daughter by a tricky Christian. Students, on the other
hand, have maintained that to the Elizabethans Shylock was merely a
comic figure, the defeat of whose vile plot to get the life of his
Christian debtor, Antonio, by taking a pound of his flesh in place of
the unpaid gold, was greeted with shouts of delighted laughter. As a
matter of fact, Shylock, then as now, was a human being, and by virtue
{160} of that fact both ridiculous and pathetic. In any case, whatever
the dominant note of his character, he is not the dominant figure of
the play. If he were, the fifth act, which ends the play with
moonlight and music and the laughter of happy lovers, would be
distinctly out of place. Yet it is in reality the absence of such
defects of taste, the ability to bring everything into its proper
place, to make a harmonious whole out of the most various tones, which
best characterizes the Shakespearean comedy of this period. Instead of
being a play in which one great character is set in relief against a
number of lesser ones, _The Merchant of Venice_ is a comedy in which
there is an unusually large number of characters of nearly equal
importance and an unusually large number of plots of nearly equal
interest. There is the plot which has to do with Portia's marriage, in
which the right lover wins this gracious merry lady by choosing the
proper one of three locked caskets. There is the plot which deals with
the elopement of the Jew's daughter, Jessica. There is the plot which
relates the story of the bond given by Antonio to the Jew in return for
the loan which enables Antonio's friend, Bassanio, to carry on his suit
for Portia's hand, the bond, which, when forfeited, would have cost
Antonio his life had not Portia, disguised as a lawyer, defeated
Shylock's treacherous design. There is the plot which tells how
Bassanio and his friend Gratiano give their wedding rings as rewards to
the pretended lawyer and his assistant, really their wives Portia and
Nerissa in disguise,--an act which gives the wives a chance to make
much trouble for their lords. And all these plots are worked out with
an abundance of {161} interesting detail, and are so perfectly
interwoven that the play has all of the wonderful harmony of a Turkish
rug, as well as its brilliant variety. No play of Shakespeare's
depends more for its effect on plot, on the sheer interest of the
stories, and no one has, consequently, situations which are more
effective on the stage. It is, perhaps, an inevitable result that the
individual characters have a somewhat less permanent, less deeply
satisfying charm than do those of the comedies which follow. None of
these successors, however, presents a larger or more varied group of
delightful men and women.
+Date+.--The later limit of the date is settled by the mention of this
play in Meres's catalogue, and by its entry in the Stationers' Register
of that same year. Basing their opinion on extremely unsubstantial
internal evidence, some scholars have dated the play as early as 1594,
but the evidence of style and construction make a date before 1596
unlikely. Two quartos were printed, one in 1600; the other, though
copying the date 1600 upon its title-page, was probably printed in 1619.
+Source+.--The story of the pound of flesh and that of the choice of
caskets are extremely ancient. The former is combined with that of the
wedding rings in Fiorentino's _Il Pecorone_ (the first novel of the
fourth day), a story which Shakespeare probably knew and may have used.
Alexander Silvayn's _The Orator_, printed in English translation in
1596, has, in connection with a bond episode, speeches made by a Jew
which may be the source of some of Shylock's lines. The combination of
these plots with those of Jessica and Nerissa is, so far as we can yet
prove, original with Shakespeare; but we cannot be certain how much
_The Merchant of Venice_ resembles a lost play of the Jew mentioned in
Gosson's _School of Abuse_ (1579), "representing the greediness of
worldly chusers, and bloody mindes of Usurers."
+The Taming of the Shrew+.--_The Taming of the Shrew_ is only in part
the work of Shakespeare. Just how {162} much he had to do with making
over the underplot, we shall probably never know; but, in any case, he
did not write the dialogue of this part of the play, and its
construction is not particularly remarkable. The winning of a girl by
a suitor disguised as a teacher is a conventional theme of comedy, as
is the disguising of a stranger to take the place of an absent father
in order to confirm a young lover's suit. The main plot Shakespeare
certainly left as he found it. It tells how an ungovernable, willful
girl was made into a submissive wife by a husband who assumed for the
purpose a manner even wilder than her own, so wild that not even she
could endure it. This story is presented in scenes of uproarious farce
in which there is little opportunity for subtle characterization or the
higher sort of comedy. What Shakespeare did was to give to the hero
and heroine, Petruchio and Katherine, a semblance of reality, and to
add enormously to the life and movement of the scenes in which they
appear. Some of these scenes are very effective on the stage, but they
are not of a sort to reveal Shakespeare's greatest qualities. The
induction, the framework in which the play is set, is, however, quite
another matter. The story of the drunken tinker, Sly, unfortunately
omitted in many modern presentations, is a little masterpiece. A
nobleman returning from the hunt finds Sly lying in a drunken stupor
before an inn. The nobleman has Sly taken to his country house, has
him dressed in rich clothing, has him awakened by servants who make him
believe that he is really a lord, and finally has the play performed
before him. The outline of this induction was in the old play which
Shakespeare revised; but {163} he developed the crude work of his
predecessor into scenes so delightfully realistic, into
characterization so richly humorous, that this induction takes its
place among the great comic episodes of literature.
+Date+.--No certain evidence for the date of this play exists, even the
metrical tests failing us because of the collaboration. It is commonly
assigned to the years 1596-7, but this is little more than a guess.
+Source+.--As has already been indicated, this play is the revision of
an older play entitled _The Taming of a Shrew_. The latter was
probably written by a disciple of Marlowe, and was first printed in
quarto in 1594. The chief change which the revision made in the plot
was that which gave Katherine one sister instead of two and added the
interest of rival suitors for this sister's hand. Stories concerning
the taming of a shrewish woman are both ancient and common, but no
direct antecedent of the older play has been discovered, although some
incidents seem to have been borrowed from Gascoigue's _Supposes_, a
translation from the Italian of Ariosto.
+Authorship+.--The identity of Shakespeare's collaborator is unknown,
nor is it possible to define exactly the limits of his work. It is
practically certain, however, that Shakespeare wrote the Induction; II,
i, 169-326; III, ii, with the possible exception of 130-150; IV, i,
iii, and v; V, ii, at least as far as 175.
+The Merry Wives of Windsor+.--_The Merry Wives_ is the only comedy in
which Shakespeare avowedly presents the middle-class people of an
English town. In other comedies English characters and customs appear
through the thin disguise of Italian names; in the histories there are
comic scenes drawn from English life; but only here does Shakespeare
desert the city and the country for the small town and draw the larger
number of his characters from the great middle class. {164} A
tradition has come down to us, one which is supported by the nature of
the play, that Queen Elizabeth was so fascinated by the character of
Falstaff as he appeared in _Henry IV_ that she requested Shakespeare to
show Falstaff in love, and that Shakespeare, in obedience to this
command, wrote the play within a fortnight. Unless this tradition be
true, it is difficult to explain why Shakespeare should have written a
comedy which is, in comparison with his other work of this period, at
once conventional and mediocre. The subject--the intrigues of Falstaff
with two married women, and the wooing of a commonplace girl by two
foolish suitors and another as commonplace as herself--gave Shakespeare
little opportunity for poetry and none for the portrayal of the types
of character most congenial to his temperament. The greatest blemish
on the play, however, from the standpoint of a student of Shakespeare,
is that the man called Falstaff is not Falstaff at all, that this
Falstaff bears only an outward resemblance to the Falstaff of the
historical plays. If we may misquote the poet, Falstaff died a martyr,
and this is not the man. The real Falstaff would never have stooped to
the weak devices adopted by the man who bears his name, would never
have been three times the dupe of transparent tricks. The task
demanded of Shakespeare was one impossible of performance. Falstaff
could not have fallen in love in the way which the queen desired. Nor
is there much to compensate for this degradation of the greatest comic
figure in literature. Falstaff's companions share, although to a
lesser degree, in their leader's fall, while the two comic figures
which are original with this play are {165} comparatively unsuccessful
studies in French and Welsh dialect. Judged by Shakespeare's own
standard, this work is as middle-class as its characters; judged by any
other, it is an amusing comedy of intrigue, realistic in type and
abounding in comic situations which approach the borderland of farce.
+Date+.--This play was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company
January 18, 1602. It was certainly written after the two parts of
_Henry IV_, and if, as is most probable, the character of Nym is a
revival and not an imperfect first sketch, the play must have succeeded
_Henry V_. On these grounds the play is best assigned to 1599. It was
first printed in quarto in 1602, but this version is extremely faulty,
besides being considerably shorter than that of the First Folio. The
quarto seems to have been printed from a stenographic report of an
acting version of the play, made by an unskillful reporter for a
piratical publisher.
+Source+.--The main plot resembles a story derived from an Italian
source which is found in Tarlton's _News out of Purgatorie_. For the
underplot and a number of details in the working out of the main plot,
no source is known.
+Much Ado About Nothing+.--In this play, as nowhere else, Shakespeare
has given us the boon of laughter--not the smile, not the uncontrolled
guffaw, but rippling, melodious laughter. From the beginning to the
end this is the dominant note. If the great trio of which this was the
first be classified as romantic comedies, we may perhaps say that in
speaking of the others we should lay the stress on the word 'romantic,'
in this, on the word 'comedy.' As regards the main plot, _Much Ado_
is, to be sure, the most serious of the three. When the machinations
of the villainous Prince John lead Claudio to believe his intended
bride {166} unfaithful, and to reject this pure-scaled Hero with
violence and contumely at the very steps of the altar, we have a
situation which borders on the tragic. The mingled doubt, rage, and
despair of Hero's father is, moreover, undoubtedly affecting.
Nevertheless, powerful as these scenes are, they are so girt about with
laughter that they cannot destroy our good spirits. Even at their
height, the manifestations of human wickedness, credulity, and weakness
seem but the illusions of a moment, soon to be dissipated by the power
of radiant mirth. It is not without significance that the deep-laid
plot should be defeated through the agency of the immortal Dogberry,
most deliciously foolish of constables. Nor is it mere chance that
Hero and Claudio are so constantly accompanied by Beatrice and
Benedick, that amazing pair to whom life is one long jest. In the
merry war which is constantly raging between these two, their shafts
never fail of their mark, but neither is once wounded. Like magnesium
lights, their minds send forth showers of brilliant sparks which hit,
but do not wound. But their wit is something more than empty sparkle.
It is the effervescence of abounding life, a life too sound and perfect
to be devoid of feeling. Their brilliancy does not conceal emptiness,
but adorns abundance. When such an occasion as Hero's undeserved
rejection called for it, the true affection of Beatrice and the true
manliness of Benedick appeared. Hence, although both seem duped by the
trick which forms the underplot, the ruse which was to make each think
the other to be the lovelorn one, it is really they who win the day.
Their feelings are not altered by this merry plot; they {167} are
merely given a chance to drop the mask of banter and to express without
confusion the love which had long been theirs. Thus the play which
began with the silvery laughter of Beatrice ends in general mirth which
is yet more joyous.
+Date+.--Since _Much Ado_ is not mentioned by Meres, it can hardly have
been written before 1598. Entries in the Stationers' Register for
August 4 and 24, 1600, and the appearance of a quarto edition in this
same year limit the possibilities at the other end. Since the
title-page of the quarto asserts that this play had been "sundry times
publicly acted," we may assign the date 1599 with considerable
confidence.
+Source+.--The main plot was derived originally from the twentieth
novel of Bandello, but there is no direct evidence that Shakespeare
used either this or its French translation in Belleforest. In this
story Benedick and Beatrice do not appear; there is no public rejection
of Hero; there is no discovery of the plot by Dogberry and his fellows;
and the deception of Claudio is differently managed. Shakespeare's
treatment of this last detail has its source in an episode of the fifth
book of Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_, a work several times done into
English before Shakespeare's play was written. There is considerable
reason for assuming the existence of a lost original for _Much Ado_ in
the shape of a play, known only by title, called _Benedicke and
Betteris_; but it is, of course, impossible to say how much Shakespeare
may have owed to this hypothetical predecessor.
+As You Like It+.--Of this most idyllic of all Shakespeare's comedies,
the Forest of Arden is not merely the setting; it is the central force
of the play, the power which brings laughter out of tears and harmony
out of discord. It reminds us of Sherwood forest, the home of Robin
Hood and his merry men; but it is more than this. Not only does it
harbor beasts and trees never found on English soil, but its shadowy
{168} glades foster a life so free from care and trouble that it
becomes to us a symbol of Nature's healing, sweetening influence. Here
an exiled Duke and his faithful followers have found a refuge where,
free from the envy and bickerings of court, they "fleet the time
carelessly, as they did in the Golden Age." To them comes the youth
Orlando, fleeing from the treachery of a wicked elder brother and from
the malice of the usurping Duke. To them comes Rosalind, daughter of
the exiled Duke, who has lived at the usurper's court, but has, in her
turn, been exiled, and who brings with her Celia, the usurper's
daughter, and Touchstone, the lovable court fool. And through these
newcomers the Duke and his friends are brought into contact with a
shepherd and shepherdess as unreal and as charming as those of Dresden
china, and with other country folk who smack more strongly of the soil.
In the forest, Rosalind, who has for safety's sake assumed man's
attire, again meets Orlando, and the love between them, born of their
first meeting at court, becomes stronger and truer amid scenes of
delicate comedy and merry laughter. Once in Arden, Orlando ceases to
brood morosely over the wrongs done him; Rosalind's wit becomes sweeter
while losing none of its keenness; and Touchstone feels himself no
longer a plaything, but a man. So we are not surprised when Oliver,
the wicked brother, lost in the forest and rescued from mortal danger
by the lad he has always sought to injure, awakens to his better self;
nor when the usurping Duke, leading an armed expedition against the man
he has deposed, is converted at the forest's edge by an old hermit,
abandons the throne to {169} its rightful occupant, and enters upon the
religious life. Thus the old Duke comes into his own again, wiser and
better than before; and if, among the many marriages which fill the
last act with the chiming of marriage bells, there are some which seem
little likely to bring lasting happiness, the magic of the woods does
much to dissipate our doubts. Only Jaques, the melancholy philosopher,
fails to share in the general rejoicing and the glad return. He has
been too hardened by the pursuit of his own pleasure and is too shut in
by his delightfully cynical philosophy to feel quickly the forest's
touch. Yet not even his brilliant perversities can sadden the joyous
atmosphere; it is only made the more enjoyable by force of contrast.
Since Jaques wishes no joy for himself, we wish none for him, and with
little regret we leave him as he has lived, a lonely, fascinating
figure.
+Date+.--Like _Much Ado_, _As You Like It_ is not mentioned by Meres,
and was entered in the Stationers' Register on August 4, 1600. Some
critics have placed this play before _Much Ado_, but, although there is
little evidence on either side, the style and tone of the play incline
us to place it after, dating it 1599-1600.
+Source+.--_As You Like It_ is a dramatization of Lodge's pastoral
novel entitled _Rosalynde_, which was founded in its turn on the _Tale
of Gamelyn_, incorrectly ascribed to Chaucer. Shakespeare condensed
his original to great advantage, leaving out many episodes and so
changing others as to give the subject a new and higher unity. The
atmosphere of the forest is all of his creation, as are many of the
characters, including Jaques and Touchstone.
+Twelfth Night, or What You Will+.--In _Twelfth Night_ romance and
comedy are less perfectly fused than in {170} the comedy which preceded
it. Here there are two distinct groups of characters, on the one hand
riotous old Sir Toby and his crew leading the Puritanical steward
Malvolio into the trap baited by his own egotism; on the other, the
dreaming Duke, in love with love rather than with the beautiful Olivia
whom he woos in vain, and ardently loved by Viola, whose gentle nature
is in touching contrast with the doublet and hose which misfortune has
compelled her to assume. There is, however, no lack of dramatic unity.
In Olivia the two groups meet, for Toby is Olivia's uncle, Malvolio her
steward, the Duke her lover, Viola--later happily supplanted by her
twin brother Sebastian--the one she loves. Thus the romantic and comic
forces act and react upon each other. Yet this play, by reason of its
setting, the court of Illyria, was bound to lack the magical atmosphere
of the forest, which inspired kindly humor in the serious and gentle
seriousness in the merry. If Peste is as witty as Touchstone, he is
less of a man; if Viola is more appealing than Rosalind, she has a less
sparkling humor. Here the love story is more passionate, the fun more
uproarious. Toby is not Falstaff; he is overcome by wine and
difficulties as that amazing knight never was; but it is a sad soul
which does not roar with Toby in his revels; shout with laughter over
the duel which he arranges between the shrinking Viola and the foolish,
vain Sir Andrew; and shake in sympathy with his glee over Malvolio's
plight when that unlucky man is beguiled into thinking Olivia loves
him, and into appearing before her cross-gartered and wreathed in the
smiles {171} which accord so ill with his sour visage. All the more
affecting in contrast to this boisterous merriment is the frail figure
of Viola, who knows so well "what love women to men may owe." Amid the
perfume of flowers and the sob of violins the Duke learns to love this
seeming boy better than he knows, and easily forgets the romantic
melancholy which was never much more than an agreeable pose.
+Date+.--In the diary of John Manningham for February 2, 1602, is a
record of a performance of _Twelfth Night_ in the Middle Temple. The
absence of the name from Meres's list again limits the date at the
other end. The internal evidence, aside from that of style and meter,
is negligible, while the latter confirms the usually accepted date of
1601.
+Source+.--The principal source of the plot was probably _Apolonius and
Silla_, a story by Barnabe Riche, apparently an adaptation of
Belleforest's translation of the twenty-eighth novel of Bandello.
There was also an Italian play, _Gl' Ingannati_, acted in Latin
translation at Cambridge in 1590 and 1598, which has a similar plot. A
German play on the same subject, apparently closely connected with
Riche, has given rise to the hypothesis that a lost English play
preceded _Twelfth Night_; but this is only conjectural, and there is
some evidence that Shakespeare was familiar with Riche's story. If
this be the original, Shakespeare improved on it as much as he did on
_Rosalynde_, condensing the beginning, knitting together the loose
strands at the end, and introducing the whole of the underplot with its
rich variety of characters. The only hint for this known is a slight
suggestion for Malvolio's madness found in another story of Riche's
volume.
{172}