death of Brutus. Shakspeare desired to interest us in the event
of his drama only as it related to Brutus, just as he has
presented Brutus to us only in relation to the event. The fact
which furnishes the subject of the tragedy, and the character
which accomplishes it, the death of Cæsar and the character of
Brutus--this is the union which constitutes Shakspeare's dramatic
work, just as the union of soul and body constitutes life, both
elements being equally necessary to the existence of the
individual. Before the death of Cæsar was planned, the play does
not begin; after the death of Brutus, it ends.
It is, then, upon the character of Brutus, the soul of his drama,
that Shakspeare has stamped the impress of his genius; and it is
all the more admirable in this picture, because, while remaining
faithful to history, he has made it also a work of creation, and
has presented Plutarch's Brutus to us as truthfully and
completely in the scenes which the poet has imagined, as in those
which the historian had supplied. That dreamy spirit ever busied
in self-examination, that disturbance of a stern conscience at
the first indications of a duty that is still doubtful, that calm
and resolute firmness as soon as the duty becomes certain, that
profound and almost painful sensibility, ever restrained by the
rigor of the most austere principles, that gentleness of soul
which never disappears for a single moment amid the most cruel
offices of virtue--in fine, the character of Brutus, as its idea
is present to us all, proceeds animate and unchanging through the
different scenes of life in which we meet it, and in which we can
not doubt that it appeared under the very aspect with which the
poet has clothed it.
Perhaps this historical fidelity may have occasioned the coldness
of Shakspeare's critics regarding the tragedy of "Julius Cæsar."
They could not discover in it those features of almost wild
originality which strike us in the works which Shakspeare has
composed upon modern subjects, foreign to the actual habits of
our life, as well as to the classical ideas upon which the habits
of our mind nave been formed.
{212}
The manners of Hotspur are certainly more original to us than
those of Brutus, and they are also more original in themselves.
The grandeur of the characters of the Middle Ages is strongly
impressed with originality; the grandeur of the ancients arises
with regularity upon the basis of certain general principles,
which leave no other sensible difference between individuals than
the difference of elevation to which they attain. This was felt
by Shakspeare; he merely thought to enhance Brutus, and not to
make him singular. The other personages, being placed in an
inferior sphere, resume somewhat of the liberty of their
individual character, because they are free from that rule of
perfection which duty imposes upon Brutus. The poet also seems to
play around them with less respect, and to allow himself to
ingraft upon them several forms which belong to himself rather
than to them. Cassius, disdainfully comparing the bodily strength
of Cæsar to his own, and running through the streets of Rome by
night in the midst of the storm, to assuage the fever of dangers
which devours him, bears much greater resemblance to a comrade of
Canute or of Harold than to a Roman of the time of Cæsar; but
this barbarian tint throws over the irregularities of Cassius an
interest which would not, perhaps, arise with such liveliness
from the historical resemblance. M. Schlegel, whose opinions upon
Shakspeare always deserve great consideration, seems to me,
however, to fall into a slight error when he remarks that "the
poet has pointed out with great nicety the superiority of Cassius
over Brutus in independent volition and discernment in judging of
human affairs."
{213}
I think, on the contrary, that Shakspeare's admirable art
consists, in this piece, in preserving to the principal personage
an entire superiority, even when he is mistaken, and in making
this evident by the very fact that he falls into error, and yet
is deferred to, and that the reason of the others yields with
confidence to the mistake of Brutus. Brutus goes so far as to do
himself a wrong; in his quarrel with Cassius, overcome for a
moment by terrible and secret grief, he forgets the moderation
which becomes him; in fine, Brutus is wrong once, and yet Cassius
humbles himself, for Brutus has in fact continued greater than
he.
Cæsar's character may perhaps appear to us rather too much
disfigured by that boastfulness which is common to all barbarous
times in which individual force, incessantly called upon to
engage in the most terrible struggles, can sustain itself only by
a lofty consciousness of its own power, and even has need to be
supported by the idea which others entertain of it. It was
necessary to display in Cæsar the force which had subjugated the
Romans, and the pride which crushed them; Shakspeare had only one
position in which he could manifest this state of the soul of his
hero; and he, consequently, laid the color on too thickly.
Nevertheless, his Cæsar, I confess, does not appear to me more
false than our own. Shakspeare even seems to me to have better
preserved, in the midst of his rhodomontades, those forms of
equality which the despot of a republic ever maintains toward
those whom he oppresses.
The tone of "Julius Cæsar" is more generally sustained than that
of most of the other tragedies of Shakspeare. Scarcely,
throughout the whole of the part of Brutus, do we meet with a
single vulgar image; and the only one at all open to the charge
of vulgarity occurs when he gives way to anger.
{214}
The visible care which the poet has taken to imitate the laconic
language which history attributes to his hero has very rarely led
him into affectation, unless perhaps in the speech of Brutus to
the people, which is a model of the scholastic eloquence of the
age in which the author lived. The language of Cassius, more
figurative because it is more passionate, and distinguished by a
less simple loftiness than that of Brutus, is nevertheless
equally exempt from triviality. Antony's harangue is a model of
adroitness, and of the feigned simplicity of a skillful tactician
who is desirous to gain the minds of a coarse and changeful
multitude. Voltaire blames Shakspeare, at least with severity,
for having presented under a comic form the scene at the feast of
Lupercal, the substance of which, he says, "is so noble and
interesting." Voltaire sees here nothing but a crown demanded of
a free people who refuse it; but Cæsar making himself, in
presence of the people, the actor of a farce prepared for his own
aggrandizement, and in despair at the applause bestowed on the
manner in which he acts his part, was in truth, to the wits of
Rome, something extremely comic, which could not be presented to
them under any other form.
The action of the piece comprises the period from the triumph of
Cæsar, after the victory gained over young Pompey, until the
death of Brutus, which gives it a duration of nearly three years
and a half.
There is in English another tragedy on "Julius Cæsar," composed
by Lord Sterline, and known to the public, as it would appear,
several years before Shakspeare composed his drama, so that he
may have borrowed some ideas from it. This tragedy ends with the
death of Cæsar, which the author has thrown into the narrative
form.
{215}
A Doctor Richard Eedes, celebrated in his time as a tragic poet,
had also written a Latin play on the same subject, which was
printed, it is said, in 1582, but which has been lost, as well as
an English play entitled "The History of Cæsar and Pompey," which
was written before the year 1579. In 1607, a play was printed in
London under the title of "The Tragedie of Cæsar and Pompey, or
Cæsar's Revenge." This drama, which extends from the battle of
Pharsalia to that of Philippi, was performed at a private theatre
by some students of Oxford, and it is supposed that it was
printed in consequence of the successful performance of
Shakspeare's tragedy, which Malone's chronology refers to the
same year, 1607.
"Julius Cæsar" was performed, as corrected by Dryden and
Davenant, under the title of "Julius Cæsar, with the Death of
Brutus," and was printed in London in 1719.
The Duke of Buckingham also remodeled this same tragedy, dividing
it into two parts; the first under the title of "Julius Cæsar,"
with many alterations, a prologue, and a chorus; and the second
under the title of "Marcus Brutus," with a prologue and two
choruses. Both were printed in 1722.
{216}
Othello.
(1611.)
"There was once in Venice a Moor of great merit, who, for his
personal courage, and the proofs he had given of his conduct, as
well as his vigorous genius in the affairs of war, was held in
great esteem by the lords of the republic. It happened that a
virtuous woman, of great beauty, called Desdemona, not drawn by
female appetite, but by the virtue of the Moor, fell in love with
him; and he, subdued by the charms and noble sentiments of the
lady, became equally enamored of her. Their passion was so
successful that they were married, although her relations did all
in their power to make her take another husband. They lived
together in such peace and concord while they were at Venice,
that there never passed between them either word or action that
was not expressive of affection. The Venetians, resolving to
change the garrison which they maintain in Cyprus, selected the
Moor to the command of the troops which they destined for that
island. Although he was extremely pleased with the honor proposed
to him, yet was his joy diminished when he reflected on the
length and inconvenience of the voyage. His wife was very much
vexed at seeing the Moor disturbed; and, not knowing the reason,
said to him one day at dinner, 'How can you be so melancholy,
after having received from the Senate so high and so honorable a
distinction?'
{217}
'My love for you, Desdemona,' replied the Moor, 'disturbs my
enjoyment of the rank conferred upon me, since I am now exposed
to this alternative--I must either endanger your life by sea, or
leave you at Venice. The first will be terrible, as I shall
suffer extremely from every fatigue you undergo, from every
danger that threatens you; the second would render me
insupportable to myself, as parting from you would be parting
from my life.' 'Ah! husband,' returned Desdemona, 'why do you
perplex yourself with such idle imaginations? I will follow you
wherever you go, though it were necessary to pass through fire
instead of only going by water in a safe and well-equipped
vessel.' The Moor then tenderly embraced his wife, saying, 'May
Heaven long preserve us in this degree of reciprocal affection!'
Soon afterward, he went on board the galley with his wife, and
sailed for Cyprus with a favorable wind.
"He had in his company an ensign of a very amiable outward
appearance, but whose character was extremely treacherous and
base. This rascal had also conducted his wife with him to Cyprus,
who was a handsome and discreet woman; and, being an Italian,
Desdemona was so fond of her that they passed the greatest part
of their time together. In the same company was also a
lieutenant, to whom the Moor was much attached. The lieutenant
went often to the Moor's house, and dined frequently with him and
his wife. Desdemona, seeing that the Moor was so fond of him,
showed him every mark of attention and civility, with which the
Moor was much pleased. The detestable ensign, forgetting his duty
to his own wife, and violating all the laws of friendship, honor,
and gratitude with which he was bound to the Moor, fell
passionately in love with Desdemona, and sought by all the
private means in his power to make her conscious of his love.
{218}
But she was so entirely taken up with the Moor that she thought
neither of him nor of any one else; and all that he did to engage
her affections produced not the least effect. He then took it
into his head that this neglect arose from her being pre-engaged
in favor of the lieutenant; and not only determined to get rid of
him, but changed his affection for her into the most bitter
hatred. He studied, besides, how he might prevent in future the
Moor from living happily with Desdemona, should his passion not
be gratified. Revolving in his mind a variety of methods, all
impious and abominable, he at last determined to accuse her to
the Moor of adultery with the lieutenant. But knowing the Moor's
great affection for Desdemona, and his friendship for the
lieutenant, he determined to wait till time and place afforded
him a fit opportunity for entering on his wicked design; and it
was not long before the Moor degraded the lieutenant for having
drawn his sword and wounded a soldier upon guard. This accident
was so painful to Desdemona that she often tried to obtain for
him her husband's pardon. In the mean time, the Moor had observed
to the ensign that his wife teased him so much in favor of the
lieutenant that he feared he should be obliged at last to restore
to him his commission. 'Perhaps,' said the villain, 'Desdemona is
fond of his company.' 'And why?' said the Moor. 'Nay,' replied
he, 'I do not choose to meddle between man and wife; but if you
watch her properly, you will understand me.' Nor would he, to the
earnest entreaties of the Moor, afford any further explanation."
[Footnote 27]
[Footnote 27: See Giraldi Cinthio's "Hecatommithi," printed
in Payne Collier's "Shakspeare's Library," vol. ii.]
{219}
The novelist then goes on to relate all the practices of the
perfidious ensign to convince Othello of Desdemona's infidelity.
There is not a single detail in Shakspeare's tragedy which does
not occur also in Cinthio's novel. The handkerchief of Desdemona,
that precious handkerchief which the Moor had inherited from his
mother, and which he had given to his wife during the early days
of their love; the manner in which the ensign obtains possession
of it, and leads to its discovery in the chamber of the
lieutenant, whom he is desirous to ruin; the Moor's insistence
upon having this handkerchief produced, and the trouble into
which Desdemona is thrown by its loss; the artful conversation of
the ensign with the lieutenant, to which the Moor listens at a
distance, and fancies he hears all that he dreads; the plot of
the duped Moor and the wretch who is deceiving him, to
assassinate the lieutenant; the blow which the ensign strikes him
from behind, and which cuts off his leg; in a word, all the
facts, whether important or not, upon which the various scenes of
the play successively rest, have been supplied to the poet by the
novelist, who had doubtless added a great number of
embellishments to the historical tradition which he had
discovered. The _dénouement_ alone is different; in the
novel, the Moor and the ensign together murder Desdemona during
the night, pull down the ceiling on the bed in which she slept,
and say she has been crushed by this accident. The true cause of
her death long remains unknown. Ere long the Moor conceives a
dislike to the ensign, and dismisses him from his army. Another
adventure leads the ensign, on his return to Venice, to accuse
the Moor of the murder of his wife. The Moor is recalled to
Venice and put to the torture, but he denies the charge; he is
banished, and the relatives of Desdemona have him assassinated in
his exile.
{220}
A new crime leads to the arrest of the ensign, and he dies racked
with tortures. "The ensign's wife, who had been informed of the
whole affair," says Giraldi Cinthio, "after his death, thus
circumstantially related this story."
It is clear that this _dénouement_ could nob be brought on
the stage; and Shakspeare changed it because it was absolutely
necessary to do so. In other respects, he has retained and
reproduced every incident; and not only has he omitted nothing,
but he has added nothing. He seems to have attached almost no
importance to the facts themselves; he took them as he found
them, without giving himself the trouble to invent the slightest
addition, or to alter the slightest incident.
He has, however, created the whole; for, into the facts which he
has thus exactly borrowed from another, he has infused a vitality
which they did not inherently possess. The narrative of Giraldi
Cinthio is complete; it is deficient in nothing that seems
essential to the interest of a recital; situations, incidents,
progressive development of the principal event, external and
material construction, so to speak, of a pathetic and singular
adventure--all these things are contained in it, ready for use;
and some of the conversations even are not wanting in a natural
and touching simplicity. But the genius which supplies the actors
to such a scene, which creates individuals, imparts to each his
peculiar figure and character, and enables us to witness their
actions, to hear their words, to anticipate their thoughts, and
to enter into their feelings; that vivifying power which commands
facts to rise, to go onward, to display themselves and to effect
their accomplishment; that creative breath, which, diffusing
itself over the past, resuscitates it, and fills it in some sort
with a present and imperishable vitality; this is what Shakspeare
alone possessed; and by means of this, from a forgotten novel, he
made "Othello."
{221}
All subsists, in fact, and yet all is changed. We no longer hear
of a Moor, a lieutenant, an ensign, and a woman, the victim of
jealousy and treason. We behold Othello, Cassio, Iago, and
Desdemona real and living beings, who resemble no other, who
present themselves in flesh and bone before the spectator--all
entwined by the bonds of a common position, all carried away by
the same event, yet each having his own personal nature and
distinct physiognomy, and each co-operating to produce the
general effect by ideas, feelings, passions, and acts which are
peculiar to him, and result from his individuality. It was not
the fact, it was not the position which struck the poet, and from
which he sought to obtain all his means of a wakening interest
and emotion. The position appeared to him to possess the
conditions of a great dramatic scene; the fact struck him as a
suitable frame-work into which life might be appropriately
introduced. Suddenly he gave birth to beings complete in
themselves, animated and tragic, independently of every
particular position and every determinate fact; he brought them
forth capable of feeling, and of displaying beneath our eyes all
that the special event in which they were about to take part
could make human nature experience and produce; and he launched
them forth into this event, feeling very sure that, whatever
circumstances might be furnished him by the narrative, he would
find in them, as he had made them, a fruitful source of pathetic
effects and of truth.
{222}
Thus the poet creates, and such is poetical genius. Events, and
even positions, are not what he deems most important, or what he
takes delight in inventing; his power aims at exercising itself
otherwise than in searching after incidents of a more or less
singular character, and adventures of a more or less touching
nature; it manifests itself by the creation of man himself; and
when it creates man, it creates him complete, armed at all points
as he should be, to suffice for all the vicissitudes of life, and
to present the aspect of reality in every sense of the word.
Othello is something far more than a blind and jealous husband,
urged to commit murder by his jealousy; this is only his position
during the play, and his character goes far beyond his position.
The sun-burned Moor, with ardent blood, and a keen and brutal
imagination, credulous by the violence of his temperament as well
as by the excess of his passion; the successful soldier, proud of
his fortune and his glory, respectful and submissive to the power
from which he holds his rank, never forgetting the duties of war
in the blandishments of love, and bitterly regretting the joys of
war when he loses all the happiness of love; the man whose life
has been harsh and agitated, for whom gentle and tender pleasures
are something novel which astonishes while it delights him, and
which does not inspire him with a feeling of security, although
his character is full of generosity and confidence; Othello, in a
word, delineated, not only in those portions of himself which
have a present and direct connection with the accidental position
in which he is placed, but in the whole extent of his nature, and
as he has been made by the entire course of his destiny; this is
what Shakspeare enables us to see. In the same manner, Iago is
not merely an irritated enemy desirous of revenge, or an ordinary
rascal anxious to destroy a happiness which he can not
contemplate with satisfaction; he is a cynical and reasoning
wretch, who has made for himself a philosophy of egotism and a
science of crime; who looks upon men merely as instruments or
obstacles to his personal interests; who despises virtue as an
absurdity, and yet hates it as an injury; who preserves entire
independence of thought, while engaged in the most servile
conduct; and who, at the very moment when his crimes are about to
cost him his life, still enjoys, with ferocious pride, the evil
which he has done, as if it were a proof of his superiority.
{223}
Pass in review all the personages of the tragedy, from its heroes
down to the least important characters--Desdemona, Cassio,
Emilia, Bianca; we behold them appearing, not under vague
aspects, and with those features only which correspond to their
dramatic position, but with precise and complete forms, and all
the elements which constitute personality. Cassio is not
introduced merely to become the object of Othello's jealousy, and
as a necessity of the drama; he has his own character,
inclinations, qualities, and defects; and from what he is
naturally flows the influence which he exercises upon what occurs
to him. Emilia is not merely an attendant employed by the poet as
an instrument either of the entanglement or of the discovery of
the perfidies which lead to the catastrophe; she is the wife of
Iago, whom she does not love, and whom she obeys because she
fears him; but although she distrusts him, she has actually
contracted, in the society of that man, somewhat of the
immorality of his mind; nothing is pure either in her thoughts or
in her words; and yet she is kind-hearted and attached to her
mistress, and detests evil and deeds of darkness. Bianca herself
has her own physiognomy, entirely independent of the little part
which she plays in the action. Forget the events, set aside the
drama, and all these personages will continue real, animated, and
distinct; they possess inherent vitality, and their existence
will not disappear with their position. In them is displayed the
creative power of the poet, and the facts, to him, are only the
stage upon which he bids his characters appear.
{224}
Just as the novel of Giraldi Cinthio, in Shakspeare's hands,
became "Othello," so, in the hands of Voltaire, "Othello" became
"Zaire." I do not wish to compare the two works; such comparisons
are almost always vain _jeux d'esprit_, which prove nothing,
except the personal opinion of the judge himself. Voltaire also
was a man of genius; the best proof of genius is the empire which
it wields over men; wherever the power of interesting, moving,
and charming a whole people is displayed, this fact alone answers
every objection; genius is there, whatever fault may be found
with the dramatic system or the poet. But it is curious to
observe the infinite variety of the means by which genius
manifests itself, and how many different forms the same
ground-work of positions and feelings may receive from it.