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The Types of English Literature

EDITED BY

WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON

TRAGEDY

BY

ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE




TRAGEDY

BY ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF "THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUMONT
AND FLETCHER ON SHAKSPERE"

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge


COPYRIGHT 1908 BY ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM

_Published May 1908_

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Transcriber's Note: Underscores indicate italics and tildes (~) indicate
bold in this text.


PREFACE


This book attempts to trace the course of English tragedy from its
beginnings to the middle of the nineteenth century, and to indicate the
part which it has played in the history both of the theatre and of
literature. All tragedies of the sixteenth century are noticed, because of
their historical interest and their close relationship to Shakespeare, but
after 1600 only representative plays have been considered. The aim of this
series has been kept in view, and the discussion, whether of individual
plays or of dramatic conditions, has been determined by their importance in
the study of a literary type. Tragedy in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries has attracted very little critical attention, and in those fields
the book is something of a pioneer. The Elizabethan drama, on the contrary,
has been the subject of a vast amount of antiquarian, biographical, and
literary research, without which such a treatment as I have attempted would
be almost impossible. In order, however, to keep the main purpose in view,
it has been necessary to omit nearly all notice of the processes of
research or the debates of criticism, and to give only what seem to me the
results. To indicate at every point my reliance on my own investigations or
my indebtedness to the researches of others would, indeed, necessitate
doubling the size of the book. Its readers will not require an apology for
its brevity, but I regret that I can offer only this inadequate
acknowledgment of the great assistance I have received not merely from the
studies mentioned in the Bibliographical Notes, but also from many others
that have directly or indirectly contributed to my discussion.

I am indebted to Dr. Ernest Bernbaum, who very kindly read chapters viii
and ix, and made a number of suggestions. I have also the pleasure of
expressing my great obligations to Professors Brander Matthews, Jefferson
B. Fletcher, and William A. Neilson, who have read both the manuscript and
the proof-sheets and given me the generous benefit of their most helpful
criticism.

A. H. T.

NEW YORK, March, 1908.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I. DEFINITIONS                                     1

CHAPTER II. THE MEDIEVAL AND THE CLASSICAL INFLUENCES     21

CHAPTER III. THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAGEDY                    48

CHAPTER IV. MARLOWE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES                77

CHAPTER V. SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES            136

CHAPTER VI. SHAKESPEARE                                  181

CHAPTER VII. THE LATER ELIZABETHANS                      196

CHAPTER VIII. THE RESTORATION                            243

CHAPTER IX. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY                       281

CHAPTER X. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT                         326

CHAPTER XI. CONCLUSION                                   366

      INDEX                                              379




TRAGEDY




CHAPTER I

DEFINITIONS


There is little difficulty in selecting the plays that should be included
in a history of English tragedy. Since the middle of the sixteenth century
there have always been plays commonly received as tragedies, and others so
closely resembling these that they require consideration in any
comprehensive study. How far these plays present the common characteristics
of a type, how far they constitute a clearly defined form of the drama, and
how far they may be connected from one period to another in a continuous
development--are questions better answered at the book's end than at its
beginning. Some questions of the definition of tragedy, however, may well
be preliminary to a study of its history. The very term "English tragedy"
involves two precarious abstractions. It separates tragedy from the drama
of which it is a part, and it separates English tragedies from those of
other languages to which they are related in character and origin. In
attempting a definition, we may question the reality of these abstract
separations by which our later discussions are to be conveniently limited;
for a definition can be attained only through the distinction of tragedy
from other forms of the drama, and through a consideration of the varying
conceptions of tragedy in different periods and nations.

We may begin very empirically with an element common to all tragedies and
roughly distinguishing them from other forms of drama; noticed, indeed, in
all theoretical definitions, though its importance is often blurred and it
receives only scant attention from Aristotle. He refers to the third part
of the plot as "the tragic incident, a destructive or painful action, such
as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds, and the like." If his meaning
of "a destructive or painful action" is extended to include mental as well
as physical suffering, we have a definition of an indispensable element in
tragedy and a conspicuous distinction from comedy.

This definition has had ample recognition in practice and in popular
opinion, as in the sixteenth-century idea of a tragedy as a play involving
deaths, and in the present common conception of tragedy as requiring an
unhappy ending. These uncritical opinions, however, introduce amendments
that are not quite corollaries. The happy ending has never been completely
excluded. Aristotle, while pronouncing in favor of the unhappy ending as
best suited to producing tragic effect, recognized the possibility and
popularity of a conclusion that limited punishment to the vicious. In
modern times the salvation of the virtuous in tragedy has had warm
defenders, including Racine and Dr. Johnson; and the essentiality of either
an unhappy ending or of deaths has been generally denied. Evidently either
is a natural but not inevitable accompaniment of suffering and disaster. A
tragedy may permit of relief or even recovery for the good, or it may
minimize the external and physical elements of suffering; but its action
must be largely unhappy though its end is not, and destructive even if it
does not lead to deaths.

Our working definition, however, does not attempt to indicate the qualities
necessary to excellence in tragedy or to particularize in respect to the
treatment of the action. It offers no distinction, where recent critics
have been careful to make one, between tragedy and what we to-day call
melodrama.[1] The relation between the two is similar to that between
comedy and farce. Melodrama is more sensational, less serious; it attains
its effects by spectacles, machines, externals, while tragedy deals with
character and motive; it reaches its conclusions through accidents and
surprises, while tragedy seeks to show the cause of every effect. But the
distinction is general and relative rather than specific and absolute. The
use of witches to foretell actions and characters would of itself be a
melodramatic device, and so it is in Middleton's "Witch," but not in
"Macbeth." Congreve's "Mourning Bride" is a melodrama, judged by our
standards at present, but for many years it was considered one of the great
tragedies in the language. A stage presentation, in fact, almost
presupposes external, spectacular, and sensational effects, which must
vary according to the theatrical conditions and the taste of the day, as
well as in response to the artistic purpose and treatment. The distinction
between melodrama and tragedy, in short, is hardly more than between bad
tragedy and good, or between a lower and a higher type. So far as a
separation of the two has been made, it has been the result of centuries of
experience. It cannot readily be fixed by rule or definition; it requires
historical treatment.

Our definition, again, affords a rough rather than an exact separation from
comedy. The two species cannot, indeed, be absolutely distinguished. In the
theatre to-day there are many plays which one hesitates to classify as
either tragedy or comedy. And there have always been, even in the Greek
theatre, classes of plays recognized as neither the one nor the other.
Again, a play presenting various persons and incidents is necessarily
complex in material and emotional effect, and may mingle suffering and ruin
with happiness and success, so that whether its main effect is tragic or
comic may depend on its point of view or its general tone. The divisions of
tragedy and comedy are neither mutually exclusive, nor are they together
inclusive of all drama. Theoretically, there is perhaps ground for doubting
whether other divisions might not be established more essential and more
comprehensive. Comedy in particular comprises plays differing so widely in
every respect that almost no common characteristics can be found. Yet
tragedy and comedy have long been, and still are, accepted as the main
divisions of the drama. The very names of the other forms, "tragicomedy,"
"_Schauspiel_" "emotional drama," "social drama," "_drame_," or merely
"play," by their lack of distinctiveness, testify to the significance of
the division of dramatic action and effects into the two classes, tragic
and comic. From merely a theoretical point of view, indeed, we may
recognize that a dramatic action, through its brevity and its stage
presentation, if for no other reasons, has a suitability for these effects
not possessed by other forms of literature. But the importance and
definition of the two forms, and especially that of tragedy, depend less on
theory than on historical origins and development.

If we attempt to fortify our working definition so that it may more
effectively separate tragedy on the one hand from melodrama and on the
other from comedy and the more or less neutral species, we are driven to
consider the numerous and shifting conceptions that have marked the
progress of the classical tradition in modern Europe. Although some
approach to the tragic may have been manifest from the beginnings of the
drama in the mimetic ceremonies of primitive culture, our present
distinction between tragedy and comedy traces back to Athens, where tragedy
as a form of literature had its first great development and where it
received its first critical definition. Nothing closely corresponding to
the two forms, as there developed and defined, is to be found in the dramas
of China, India, or medieval Europe. Tragedy is an inheritance from Greece
and Rome, not received by Western Europe until the Renaissance. There was,
to be sure, much that was tragical in the widespread religious drama of the
Middle Ages; and there were a number of plays that in content and effect
might claim a place with later tragedies; but it was not until the revival
of the classics that the revelation of a highly developed form of drama led
to the creation of a distinct species called tragedy, in the vernacular
literatures of Spain, Italy, France, and England.

The classical tradition in the beginning was affected by the mistaken
theories of medieval encyclopedists and by humanistic misinterpretations of
the classics. In every nation it came into conflict with the traditions of
the medieval drama, and underwent great modifications; in England an
amalgamation of the two traditions resulting in a tragedy widely different
from either. During four centuries the changing theatrical conditions, the
changing social conditions, the diversity of national peculiarities, have
resulted in ideas of tragedy at variance with one another and with the
classics. Shakespeare's conception of tragedy was very different from
Aristotle's, and very different from Brunetiere's or Ibsen's. Indeed, the
conceptions formed by various of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Sidney,
Marlowe, Jonson, Chapman, and Fletcher, so far as we can determine, have
pronounced differences though they have common resemblances. It would
require a larger book than the present one to consider adequately the
differences and agreements merely of critical theory and dogma in modern
Europe. Yet the literary tradition, in spite of all these changes and
variations, has remained continuous. Whether fixed in the form of rules, or
discernible only in the general resemblances of current practices, or
represented by the great models of Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Racine, it
has influenced every playwright. He has striven to write more or less in
accord with some critical theory, in imitation of some author, or in
conformity to some fashion; or he has written in opposition to theory,
example, or fashion.

It is the purpose of this book to trace the course of this tradition in the
English drama, to appraise the inheritance of each age from the preceding
ages, its borrowings from other national inheritances, and the profit and
loss due to its own invention or industry. All that may be attempted here
by way of preliminary definition is a glance at the main European course of
the classical tradition to see what have been from time to time considered
the essentials of tragedy and to ask how far there has been any agreement
in regard to these essentials.

The basis for much of modern theorizing has been Aristotle's tentative yet
searching analysis of Athenian tragedy. Many of the peculiarities of
Athenian tragedy--its structure without acts but with a chorus, its
limitation of three actors on the stage at once, its narrow range of
mythological subjects--are evidently not essential to securing tragic
effect. Even the unities, whether as observed in the Greek theatre or as
defined by French and Italian critics, may, after generations of debate, be
safely relegated as nonessential. Omitting, then, what no one would now
insist upon as requisite, we may derive from the "Poetics" something like
the following:--

Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the emotions of pity and fear. Its
action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune,
involving persons renowned and of superior attainments, and it should be
written in poetry embellished with every kind of artistic expression.

Much more than this has been derived from Aristotle by modern theorists,
but this much of the classical conception has generally survived in modern
tragedy. If the meaning of "a single and complete action" be stretched a
little, this definition includes the plays of Shakespeare as well as those
of Racine, and nearly all tragedies from the Renaissance to the present.

In one important respect, however, this definition falls short of
describing Greek tragedy, and is still more inadequate for modern.
Aristotle emphasized the action above the characterization, and devoted
much attention to the requirements of the plot. He did not, moreover,
recognize the importance of the element of conflict, whether between man
and circumstance, or between men, or within the mind of man. The Greek
tragedies themselves had not failed to exhibit such conflicts; the medieval
drama, notably in the moralities, emphasized moral conflict; and
Renaissance tragedy, wherever it showed any independence, particularly in
England and Shakespeare, took for its theme the conflict of human will with
other forces. The importance of this modification of the Aristotelian view
received only slow critical recognition. But it was everywhere exemplified
in practice, in French classical drama as well as in Shakespeare, in plays
imitating the Greeks as well as in plays revolting from their models. After
a time this modification of the classical tradition came to have a distinct
place in literary theory. Hegel gave it philosophical elaboration, and, in
the romantic movement, when dramatists in different languages turned to
Shakespeare for a model, they naturally assumed what may be called the
Shakespearean definition. This important amendment to the tragic tradition
may be briefly stated:--

The action of a tragedy should represent a conflict of wills, or of will
with circumstance, or will with itself, and should therefore be based on
the characters of the persons involved. A typical tragedy is concerned with
a great personality engaged in a struggle that ends disastrously.

In the Aristotelian tradition thus amended by the Shakespearean or modern
conception we have a definition of tragedy that, in spite of differences of
theorists and variations in practice, is extraordinarily comprehensive.
This will appear if we consider briefly the separate elements of the
definition. First: Though the range of emotions has been greatly widened in
modern tragedy in comparison with classical, and though the importance
given to love and the admission of comedy and even farce have complicated
emotional effect in a way that Sophocles could hardly have conceived, yet
"pity and fear" still serve as well as any other terms to describe the
emotional appeal peculiar to tragedy. The word [Greek: phobos], however,
hardly indicates the emotions of admiration, awe, hate, horror, terror,
despair, and dismay, which belong to tragedy, and modern tragedy has
appealed more largely than classical to pity and sympathy. Second: The
reversal of fortune has been usually found in tragedy, though in the sense
of a fall of the mighty, long the favorite theme, it cannot be regarded as
the essential kernel of a tragic action. Third: Though the action of modern
tragedies has usually been less simple than that of the Greeks, and though
double plots and many complications have been common, yet, after the
Elizabethans and the Romanticists, the tendency to-day seems to be toward a
return to the simplicity that Aristotle had in mind. Only in rare
instances, as in "The Doll's House," has a dramatist ventured to leave the
action in a state that might be called incomplete. Fourth: Though themes
have changed and widened in range, still the great majority have been
confined to extraordinary events and illustrious persons. Renaissance and
pseudo-classical theorists interpreted Aristotle to limit the persons of
tragedy to princes or men of the highest rank; and tragedy, even in
England, long adhered to this superficial restriction. But already in the
sixteenth century there were authors who wrote tragedies of ordinary men
and contemporary events; and realism has broken away from the literary
tradition in every generation since. Fifth: Tragedy has generally been
reserved for poetry, and often for poetry of the most embellished kind; but
here again realism has resorted to a bare style, and, particularly in the
last century, to prose.

On examination, then, the particulars of the classical tradition have shown
extraordinary powers of survival, but not one of