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ED 020 163 TE 000 413 SHAKESPEARE--KING OF INFINITE SPACE. BY-MCCURDY, HAROLD PUB DATE APR 68 MRS PRICEMF-$0.25 HC NOT AVAILABLE FROM EDRS. 6P.

DESCRIPTORS- *DRAMA, *ENGLISH INSTRUCTION, *LITERATURE, *PSYCHOLOGICAL PATTERNS, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, LITERARY ANALYSIS, PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION, SYMBOLS (LITERARY), TRAGEDY, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGISTS LOOK FOR SUBSTANTIAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN A WRITER'S LITERARY WORK AND THE EXTERNALS OF HIS LIFE, A PRACTICE THAT ENGLISH SCHOLARS ESCHEW. HOWEVER, A USEFUL KIND OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY MAY BE FOUND IN THE WORKINGS OF SHAKESPEARE'S IMAGINATION THROUGHOUT MOST OF HIS PLAYS. SHAKESPEARE, IN HAMLET'S WORDS, CAN BE CONCEIVED AS "A KING OF INFINITE SPACE, WERE IT NOT...(FOR) BAD DREAMS." RECURRENT BAD CREAMS REFLECTED IN HIS PLAYS ARE (1) A MALE BIAS, IN WHICH WOMEN ARE OUTNUMBERED AND OUTTALKED AND IN WHICH MEN ARE DEEPLY DISTURBED, LARGELY THROUGH THEIR OWN. COMPOUNDING, (2) A PATTERN OF SEXUAL BETRAYAL, ILLUMINATING THE EVIL THAT BEFALLS THOSE GUILTY OF SELF-DECEPTION,(3) A MOTIF OF INFIDELITY, IN WHICH LOVE RARELY COMES INTO ITS OWN, AND (4) THE SPECTRE OF A WORLD "FULL OF SOUND AND FURY," LACKING A DIVINE HIERARCHY OF POWER. IN ADDITION, SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS INTIMATE SPECIFIC EVENTS IN HIS LIFE. FOR EXAMPLE, HE COMPOSED "HAMLET" AND "CORIOLANUS," TWO MOURNING PIECES WHICH EXPLORE FILIAL DUTY, AT THE TIMES OF HIS FATHER'S AND MOTHER'S DEATHS RESPECTIVELY. THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN "PSYCHOLOGY TODAY," VOL. 1(APRIL 1968), 39-41, 66-68.) (JB) twe 'A * rt,...,115r.r.,...-e.v.f...1.....7mr,/

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respondents averaged about 2.3 to one in That Shakespeare lived in and favor of their own sex, the female re- by his imagination not even a spondents about 1.7 to one in favorof hardened Shakespeare scholar theirs.In a recent small sample of would deny. And yet, inevitably, there dreams collected from another college are intrusions onthe world which imag- though less with class the same bias occurs, ination creates. Hamlet sums it up strongly: the persons appearing in the passionate precision: "0 Cod, Icould dreams of the men were predominantly be bounded in a nutshell and count my- male in the ratio of 1.7 to one, inthe self a king of infinite space, were it not dreams of the women predominantly that I have bad dreams." female in the ratio of 1.2 to one. Various the play- Do we dare to suppose that explanations come to mind, but I will for theater wright, in constructing plays here merely affirm that the bias in Sha! :e- audiences in London, was making a con- be more pronounced Stratford? speare appears to fession about the man from than usual, though less than in Marlowe. To claim that Shakespeareimagination, his plays, Masculine though Shakespeare's working through the fabric of world is, a woman from time to time has produced a more truthfulautobiog- assumes a dominant role in it.When that raphy than we can weave fromthe verifi-each of 32 plays, I found that these 384 ( actually the number is ahappens, as it does in five of the 32 plays able facts of his life would generate considered here, a quality of mercy tem- controversy in everyEnglish Depart-little indefinite because of duplications and agglomerations) could be dividedpers the action.Portia, Rosalind, Viola, ment from London toBerkeley. Helena and Imogen, the heroinesof Nevertheless, I believe we can exam-with fair accuracy into 303 males and The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, ine the plays asadequately as we can81 females, a ratio of 3.74 to one. If we within limits, dogo at the business abit differently, andTwelfth Night, All's Well That Ends examine anything and, Well and Cymbeline, are faithful, gentle, repeatable and confirmable ways.assign weights to the individualsby so in loving and wise, and exercise in their We can try to definethe sort of worldfiguring the amount of their speech his plays,activity, we find that the males outtalkvarious ways a healing functionpartic- Shakespeare reigned over in ularly Portia and Helena, the one by and we can go on toask what badthe females by a ratio of 4.1 to one. In What connectionsshort, Shakespeare's personal world haslaw, the other by medicine. In the 27 dreams troubled it. other plays the top-ranking character did Shakespeare's imaginaryworld havea distinctly male bias. "real world" that we, The bias is not peculiar to Shake- ( the one who speaks the most) is a man, with the theoretical and the general impression made by playing the history gamewith fragmen-speare. Scraps of evidence suggestthat imagine to have existed?similar biases may mark all personalthese men is far different from the im- tary documents, pression made by the five women just Suppose we startwith a simple, fairlyworlds. For example, the male-female How many andratio for Marlowe is 5.66 to one,formentioned. They may be lovers or they manageable question. may be warriors,but they are nearly what kinds ofpeople populate the worldSophocles 2.45 to one. The bias for Char- , always disturbed and. disturbing, often of the Shakespeareanplays? We run intolotte Monte (female, but not particularly and defining, as infeminine) is in the other direction, in thecynical, sometimes outright paranoids; problems of counting involved, at any rate, in a sea of troubles any census,but it is an approximationratio of 1.27 women to one man. that there are over I can cite a few other facts. When athat they themselves have helped stir up. of the truth to state There's not a man among them as un- 800 of variousshapes and sizes andclass of college students once jotted In a sample limited todown for me as rapidly as possible thedivided in soul as Portia, Rosalind, Viola, moral conditions. Helena or Imogen. The nearest we get the 12 mostprominent characters innames of people they knew, themale 39 to such integrity is in The Tempest, cousin Beatrice/lib the assistance ofsworn to remain "the loyal'st husband where Prospero from the beginning aims a priest and other friends, arranges tothat did e'er plight troth." The chal- at forgiveness and reconciliation. Yetkeep Hero in hiding until the mysterylenge, congenial to Iachimo since he be- even Prospero is not above terrifying of the incriminating evidence fabricatedlieves in the universal badness of women, those he intends to benefit and often inby Don John can be cleared up, whileis all the more attractive from the glow- his agitation has to take a turn throughcirculating the rumor in the meantimeing account that Posthumus has given of the garden to still his beating mind. that Hero has died of grief. A confes-his wife's beauty and chastity. They Shakespeare, king of infinite space sioniseventually extracted fromstrike a bargain, Posthumus setting the except for bad dreams, reigns over 'a Borachio that vindicates her completely.terms, saying, "if you make your voyage largely masculine and largely unhappy But Claudio's distrust of Hero is the realupon her and give me directly to under- world, very witty and stirring, sweet- cause of her suffering. Not until he hasstand that you have prevailed, I am no ened now and then by birdsong andpaid humble tribute at her pretendedlonger your enemy; she is not worth our the fragrance of country flowers, buttomb and been thoroughly chastened bydebate," though he adds, to be sure, charged with turmoil, disappointment, a realization of his guilt and his loss doesthat if the enterprise fails "for your ill rage and defeat. At times the blackness Hero at last reappear and become re-opinion and the assault you have made is hellishly black, as in Macbeth, where united with her astonished and penitentto her chastity you shall answer me the brief candles intensify the darkness, loVer. with your sword." or in Lear, where the gleam that comes Six years later Shakespeare gives a Posthumus clearly goes much further from Cordelia is snuffed out in the most darkly tragic rendering of the same plotthan Claudio or Othello in setting the patheticsceneinliterature.Love's in Othello (1604-1605). The pattern isengine of betrayal in motion. Iachimo's magic, reconciling and healing and similar, but Iago is more villainous thanattempt against Imogen's virtue is fruit- resurrecting, comes into its own only Don John, Othello more truly murderousless but, managing to conceal himself in occasionally, although toward the end,in his distrust than Claudio. Not onlyher bedroom, he takes note of certain in Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale in the grimly tragic mood, however, isdetails of the room and of Imogen's body and The Tempest, it begins to prevail. Othello different from Much Ado About(a mole on her breast) and steals a Nothing; the guilt of the man is alsobracelet from her arm as she sleeps. By much greater. Othello builds distrust onthese tokens he is able on his return to Thepangsof slighter evidence. He has to suspect anconvince Posthumus that his wife has oldfriendinsteadof a debauchedplayed him false. despised love" stranger, he has to disbelieve a loyal Thereupon Posthumus bursts out in wife instead of a relatively untrieda tirade against all womankind. The On reading the plays in chronologicalfiancee, in order to come to the damning,language he uses makes an extraordi- order one finds that certain themes (and false) conclusion that his belovednary commentary on the dynamics of develop as they are repeated. Conspicu-has betrayed his love. Claudio, a youngShakespeare's imagination. Recall that ous among them is the theme of sexualman with limited experience of hisin the five plays where women are the betrayal. It spans nearly the whole 20woman's character, has apparent directdominant figures (Imogen being one of years of dramatic production through aeyewitness evidence to justify him. Inthem), mercy and love and peace seem series of eight plays from The Twocontrast, Othello, mature, with signalto be guaranteed by the healing influ- Gentlemen of Verona to The Winter's proofs of his wife's devotion, weaves hisence of their integrity. Conceive of these Tale. Especially worth our attentionarecase against her out of trifles and hiswomen as constituting important fem- the four plays in which it is most centralown jealous nature. Yet the blame is notinine components of Shakespeare'sown Much Ado About Nothing, Othello,Othello's alone, any more than it waspersonality. Then reflect on these words Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale. Claudio's. The process that underminesemitted by Posthumus in a fit of puri- In Much Ado About Nothing ( 1598-his faith in his wife originates in thetanical rage: 1599) Claudio is fervently in love withwicked mind of another. Othello is, in aCould I find out Hero. The smooth course of their ro- sense, only the instrument of Iago. The woman's part in me! For there'sno mance isinterrupted by the cynical Some five years later, in Cymbeline motion Don John, who contrives to make it (1609-1610), a further step is takenThat tends to vice in man, but I affirm appear that Hero, on the very eve oftoward implicating the lover in theIt is the woman's part: be it lying, note her wedding, is having a clandestinemachinery of infidelity. Posthumus, it, affair with the scoundrelly Borachio, oneexiled from his wife Imogen because ofThe woman's; flattering, hers.; deceiving, of Don John's companions in evil. Per-the anger of her father Cymbeline, King hers;. . . suaded by the subtle Don John ofof Britain, makes a wager with the vil-Ambitions, covetings,,change of prides, Hero's infidelity and indeed debauchery, lain Iachimo that amounts to an invita- disdain, Claudio contemptuously renounces hertion to go to Britain and test his wife'sNice longing, slanders, mutability, at the altar before the assembled wed-virtue by attempting to seduce herAll faults that may be named, nay, that ding guests and leaves her in a state ofthis in spite of the fact that, on parting hell knows, collapse on the floor of the chapel. Herfrom Imogen to go into exile, he had(Continued on page 66). 41 11111.01,LI.PB,

(Continued frompage 41) daughter to his friend's son Florizel. tic Apperception Test, a set of pictures Why, hers, in part or all; but rather, all; In a series of four plays, then, overselected and used by Murray to elicit For even to vice a period of 12 or so years, we find thatimaginative stories from many different They arc not constant, but are changingthe pattern of tensions centering in apeople from a variety of backgrounds. still man's distrust of a woman changes pro-At his Harvard Psychological Clinic over One vice, but of a minute old, for one gressively toward the conclusion that thea period of years he and his associates Not half so old as that. I'll write againstevil that befalls the man is largely of hisstudied the connection between these them, own compounding. If we could squeezeTAT stories and the autobiographies of Detest them, curse them.... the four principal male characters intotheir authors. He found that psycholog- Vitriol! There follows an order from one and have this one distill the wisdomically experienced judges could success- Posthumus to his old, servant Pisanio, of the four into a single subjective state-fully match stories and autobiographies whom he has left in Britain as Imogen'sment, it might well run this way: "I waswithout knowing who had written them. protector, to kill her. Though Pisanio isnot the victim of the falsehood andHe further concluded that even the most loyal to his master, he will not carry out infidelity of others; I suffered insteadegocentric of the Harvard college stu- this mad commission, but helps Imogenfrom my own self-deception." dents studied in his clinic, under more hide and pretend deatha death that or less formal laboratory conditions, were almost becomes real through the hostility not so egocentric, so prone to identify of the queen and the lust of her brutal "Look here, with their fictional heroes and give vent son Cloten. Eventually, Posthumus and through them to their own feelings and Imogen are reunited, and Iachimo con-uponthis picture,motives, as many professional authors fesses and is forgiven. In sum, in this such as Herman Melville and Thomas version of the old plot, the lover imagines andonthis" Wolfe. The proposition is not that a himself to be betrayed because of evi- simple one-to-one correspondence occurs dence that he himself has done much to Can we take a formula like this asbetween the externaldetailsof an generate, being now no longer the victim directly applicable to Shakespeare him-author's life and the contents of his and instrument of another but usingself and postulate a relation between theliterary works. Something much more another as the instrument of his owncharacters in Shakespeare's imaginarycomplex than that is meant ("in explain- viciousness. world and his own feelings concerninging the contents of works of art one may Finally, a year or two later in Thewomankind or some particular woman,have to include -in one's formulation Winter's Tale (1610-1611),the fusion ofperhaps his own wife? Should we sup-archetypal tendencies, certaincritical betrayer and betrayed is complete. It ispose that Shakespeare, playing insituations of childhood, the fantasies Leontes, the husband, who initiates theone person many people, incorporatingarising out of them, a host of later experi- thought of infidelity, implements it byhimself in Claudio, Othello, Posthumusences, and the artist's immediate situa- the yeasty working of his imagination,and Leontes, by means of them livedtion"), but the connection is held by and brings down the terrible conse- through the hell of distrust, jealousy andMurray, and many other psychologists, quences upon himself. On practically norage of any unhappy husband to the con-to be substantial. grounds at all, simply by a suspiciousclusion that the fault was in himself It seems highly unlikely that the rela- interpretation of his wife Hermione'srather than in the woman? tions between Will Shakespeare and hospitality to his own lifelong friend PracticallyallprofessionalShake- Anne Hathaway, as viewed by Will him- Polixenes, Leontes attempts to poison hisspearean scholars disparage and resistself, could be adequately rendered in friend, imprisons his wife and condemns such hypotheses, while simultaneously,an account drawn up by a modern her to death (he is King of Sicily andclinical psychologists of various brandspositivist historian working from such regards her supposed adultery as treasonact toward the dreams and fantasies ofprimary sources as the marriage, bap- against the throne), and sends his new-their clients as if, in principle, it wastismal, and burial records, the legal born daughter out with a servant to besound procedure to look for substantialpapers, dubious portraits and the gossip exposed in the wilderness to die. Theconnections between imagination andof Stratford, and the typography but not mistreatment of Hermione causes thebiographical fact. No doubt Freud's in-the content of the First Folio. Any of death of his young son NIamillius, andfluence is very considerable here, but itus can test out the likelihood of that by this event, combined with a messageis not necessary to invoke his name inconsidering what sort of story of his own from the Oracle at Delphi, at last revealssupport of this psychological orientation. domestic experience would emerge from to him his folly. The penitent man, how-Indeed it is rather embarrassing to doa similar compilation of the documents ever, now receives the news that Her-so, not only because of the controversialand fingerprints he has left scattered mione, who had fallen into a coma at the character of Freudian symbolism, butabout in county courthouses, the offices announcement of the death of her littlealso because his views on Shakespeareof the Internal Revenue Service, and the son, is dead. The story in fact is a ruseare so oddly mixed; On the one hand,files of the FBI. Our livesare dramas; by the faithful Paulina to protect herhe wrote a famous note in his The Inter-the events are loaded with personal mistress, and Leontes, not aware thatpretation of Dreams that connectedmeaning and intertwined by complicated his vengeful schemes have been merci-Hamlet with the death of Shakespeare'splots. When all the living reality is win- fully thwarted( Mamillius alone hasfather, and, on the other hand, he tendednowed out and only the husks of legal died), must endure 16 years of penitenceto favor the belief that the Shake-documents remain, our story ,falls apart before Hermione is restored to him, hisspearean plays were written by Sirinto incoherence or achieves a coherence friend Polixenes returns, his daughter Francis Bacon! uncannily remote from us. If weare to Perdita is found, and the joys of reunion More pertinent, in any case, is theenter into intimacy with Shakespeare it are capped by the betrothal of hiswork of Henry Murray with the Thema-must be by reading his plays rather than 66 by reading an "objective" biography. dramatist would have been preoccupiedand with dramatic intensity the pattern Even so, there is reason to argue thatwith thoughts of his father at that pe-of tensions lived through by Shakespeare Shakespeare's plays touch down hereriod. We know that he busied himselfas a boy, andfelt still by Shakespeare and there on the objective plane atwith his father's affairs before that time.the man, that emanated from hisfather's points that would be mentioned in anyFrom at least as early as October 1596decline and fall in Stratford.William biography of him, whether written byhe was persistent in application for a coatwas four years oldwhen his father rose Shakespeare himself or by a 20th Cen-of arms for the old man and in 1597 hein 1568 to the office ofbailiff. During tury scientific scholar of the bare facts.joined him in a lawsuit against his cousin,that year John Shakespeare officially John Lambert, in another vain effort towelcomed on two occasions companies regain property inherited by his motherof traveling actors, the Queen'sand the "Yourmonumentfrom her father and lost to his uncle,Earl of Worcester's, thus becoming asso- Edmund Lambert (his mother's brother -ciated with the sort of gorgeousnessand shall bemy in -law), in the general decline ofJohnpomp most suited, onewould suppose, Shakespeare's fortunes in 1578. to arouse the interest of afour-year-old gentle verse" In this context it seems a pertinentboy, and to add luster to the father's fact that Henry IV, composed in 1597-eminence. When William was seven,his 1598, gives an account of the reforma-father was chief alderman; and in that Two such points are the death of born, Shakespeare's father in 1601 and thetion of a scapegrace son, PrinceHal,year, 1571, his sister Anne was death of his mother in 1608. The trage-conscience-driven to justify himself inthe last of the daughters, notable for the dies of Hamlet and Coriolanus, writtenthe eyes of his father the King. Thisfact that her birth occurred in her father's ascendancy and her death at the close to these dates, can be understoodhe does in the first part by heroic feats without strained interpretation as mourn-on the battlefield,where he rescues histime of his eclipse. For in November of ing pieces, by which I do not mean sen-father from imminent death and in single1578, when William was 14, his father his wife's timental funeral orations but poignantcombat kills Percy, whom his father hadwas compelled to mortgage analyses of the son's relations with theseheld up before him as a model of trueWilmcote property to Edmund Lambert, important human beings, as seen inmanhood, and in the second part by histhe brother-in-law (and consequently the perspective of actual or impendinggrief at his father's death, his austereWilliam's wicked uncle, as Claudius was Hamlet's), and five months later Anne bereavement. assumption of his kingly duties, and his To put it briefly, Hamlet tells us renunciation of the licentious companionsdied. All in all it was a disastrous year about a son unwillingly involved inof his playboy youth, namely Falstafffor 'William and his family, this year in carrying out vengeance for a deadfather and his hangers-on. which he experienced his father's ruin against an uncle of whom he is notfond In short, there is evidence that in theand his sister's death, the only death and a mother of whom he is very fond years preceding hisfather's death Shake-that he had yet personally known in indeed, albeit the fondness has beenspeare's concern for him, and for justify-the family. bitterly laced with horror and disgust.ing himself to him, was morethan It was an uncanny year, too, by reason Coriolanus tells us about a son spurrednominal. This concern becomes moreof two drownings in the Avona certain William Shaxsper (!), son of a Warwick on to heroicmilitary exploits by a proudintelligible when we consider that Shake- mother until he finds himself an outlawspeare's father had scaled the heights ofshoemaker, in June, and a certain Kath- laying siege to his own city, which heglory possible for a merchant in the littleerine Hamlett (1)in December. The would have destroyed had it not beentown of Stratford and alsoexperiencedlatter event, according to one cautious for the pleading of this very mother, the depths of humiliation. He had risenShakespearean scholar, "may have given who thus unmans him by thwarting theto be its chief citizen duringShake-a hint for Ophelia's end." Indeed! motive by which he lives. To put it evenspeare's boyhood, as much of a king as To take these materials some 20 years later and weave them together with a more briefly,Hamlet is a story about ahe could be there, and then had so son's duty to his father, Coriolanus aboutsharply declined in wealth and influenceDanish legend into the play Hamlet, a son's duty tohis mother. In both casesthat his wife's property had to be sacri-where a dead father demands revenge the duty involves the son in actionsthatficed and he was incapable of meetingon a murderous uncle and a colluding wreck his lifein particular, his life assmall financial obligations (such as amother and where the son in conse- lover of Ophelia in Hamlet and of Vir-contribution of fourpence for the reliefquence loses his Ophelia, hiskingdom, gilia in Coriolanus. When one recognizes of the poor, expected of a member of theand his life in futile and confusing how central the son-parent relationshiptown council). From thatdecline Johnmaneuvers, seems an appropriate way is in these plays, it T-ecomes ahighlyShakespeare never recovered, andfor a great poet to mourn not only his significant fact that .Thakespeare com- neither, we may surmise, did William.father's death but his own sorrows and posed Hamlet around the time of hisThat is, William seems to have felt itdefeats as well. The ambiguities of father's death and Corio lanus around thenecessary to try to build uphis father'sHamlet gain further illumination from considering the double image of a father time of his mother's. image (the coat of arms) and to exact Shakespeare's father, John Shake-tribute from his father's enemies (thethat Shakespeare had before him, per- speare, was buried inStratford on Sep-lawsuits against the Lamberts) in a stylehaps in "real life" and certainly in Henry tember 8, 1601. The exact date of theunderstandable by Stratfordians, whileIV, where the old monarch is a severe composition c,f Hamlet is uncertain,butsimultaneously engaged in a kindredfather demanding that the Prince live scholarly consensus places it within aenterprise on the high dramatic level ofvirtuously and Falstaff is a debauched year of John Shakespeare'sdeath, eitherHenry IV and Hamlet. rival father drawing him off into slightly before or slightly after. In either It makes persuasive sense to say thatdepravity in imitation of himself. case, it is reasonable to guessthat theHamlet recapitulates in dramatic form In due time comes Coriolanus. Writ- 67 Prospero any of Marythat he loved the town, or was itthat heIs the prophetic voice of ten in or around 1608, the year different from the despairingvoice of death. (She waswanted to put the Shakespeares on top Arden Shakespeare's Macbeth? buried in Stratford on September 9,again? At any rate, he purchasedNew Place, the second largest house inStrat-Out, out, brief candle! a 1608), the play centers upon therela- Life's but a walking shadow, a poor militaryford, in 159'7. This was the same year tionship between the Roman player hero Coriolanus and his motherVolum-in which he joined forceswith his father the LambertsThat struts and frets his hour uponthe nia, who is devoted tohim but not in-in bringing suit against daughter-for recovery of his mother'spatrimony, stage dulgent. As she puts it to her And then is heard no more: it is atale hus-the Wilmcote property. Healso sued in-law Virgilia, "if my son were my and heTold by an idiot, full of soundand fury band, I should freelier rejoice inthatStratfordians for small sums, than inappears to havebeen among those ex-Signifying nothing. absence wherein he won honour The human imagination does notsim- the embracements of his bedwhere hecessive maltsters and engrossersof corn whomply reflect some abstract or concrete would show most love." Whenbanishedin a time of local famine against it was complained in 1597that they wereworld known to reason or sensory expe- from Rome because of hisaristocratic rience. It builds a worldof its own, Coriolanus"wyked people ... morelyke to wolves contempt for the citizens, marked by individual personalbiases, proniises his mother that hewill achieveor cormerantsthan to natural! men" even though "in estymacion of worshipp."Theand this in turn affects our expectations an uncommonfame, and then he sets fact that and revengenotion does not seemexaggerated thatand our behavior. The scientific himself to conquer Rome the human population of theearth is himself for the affront to hispride. Hehe was waging a sort of campaign hisabout equally divided betweenmale and sweeps all oppositionbefore him and isagainst the town that had witnessed father's disgrace and perhapsexiledfemale does not prevent theworld of at the gates of the citywhen the Roman being him forWilliam in his deer-poaching youth,andShakespeare's imagination from emissaries come out to beseech populated chiefly by men andboys. againstit is possible that his mother,like Vol- favorable terms. He is adamant Again, no matter how muchfidelity there them. Finally his mother,humbling herumnia, had mitigated her son's rancor against his kinsmen andfellowmay actuallybe in the world, the world own pride,kneels at his feet, saying, riddled townsmen. of Shakespeare's imagination is There's no man in the world with infidelity, and fidelity appears more More bound to's mother; yethere he as a miraclethan as a routine occurrence. lets, me prate In that world, "most friendship isfeign- Like one r the stocks, "Out, out!" ing, most loving mere folly."Finally, and where others have failedshe suc- life Rome. His whether or not it is true that human ceeds. He makes peace with The high pitch of fury of a mandoes not end in nothingness butproceeds vengeance unachieved,his will broken, mankind at the sustaining love of (whoagainst a city, and against on into eternity in considered a traitor by his allies Cod, as taught by the Christiantheology murder him in the end), heexclaimslarge, is ree shed in Timon of Athens, which immediately followsCoridlanusthat Shakespeare knew, the world ofhis prophetically: Afterwards there comes the relaxationimagination declines to affirm it, except 0 mother, mother! of Pericles, Cymbeline, TheWinter'sas an occasionalsad last resort. What have you done? Behold, theheav- Tale, The Tempest, dramas of forgive- Shakespeare's imagination has great ens do ope, of the lost and dead,scope andrichness but it is theimagina- The gods look down, and thisunnaturalness and recovery where tenderness emerges asnowheretion of a man who hasbad dreams. We scene accompanied,can set other greatimaginations beside They laugh at. 0 my mother,mother! 0!else in Shakespeare, but quality ofhis, like Milton's and Dante's,and see at You have won a happy victory toRome;it must be added, by an eerie out-of-this-worldness. Four years beforeonce that hehas not given us the only But, for your son,believe it,0, believe his death he writes the epitaphof hisworld imaginable. Opinionswill vary as it, dramatic life in the famous wordsofto whether his is truer orless true than Most dangerously you havewith him Prospero: theirs, but certainly it is notthe same. prevailed, It lacks a divine hierarchyof power un- If not most mortal to him. Our revels now are ended.These our Scale this heroic tragedy down to actors, dergirding it with eternity. and I am referring to thesurface of the more modestproportiorig, letting RomeAs I foretold you, were all spirits becomeAre' melted into air, into thin air: plays. Beneath the surface, of course, become Stratford, Volumnia discover other currents of mean- be-And, like the baseless fabric ofthisone may Mary Arden Shakespeare, Coriolanus Oedipus corn- the war against Rome vision, ing: more sex and more come William, plex, if one follows Freud andErnest become legal and financial andsocial The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous Jones; more Christianity, if onefollows measures taken againstStratford, and palaces, The solemn temples, the greatglobeE. A. Armstrong. Yet whatever maybe; the story approaches the kind of every- Shake- itself. obscurely present in the depths of day reality befitting the playright con- else, we must have a' sidered as a man in exile. For Shake-Yea, all which it inherit,shall dissolvespeare or anybody concern for whatreaches the surface and speare, even inLondon, was not indif-And, likethis insubstantial pageant is given public expression.There's the ferent to his home town. faded, Leave not a rack behind. We aresuchcutting edge of the imaginationthat Edwin Arlington Robinson dwells on shapes the future. In many respects this fact in his "Ben Jonson Entertains a stuff As dreams are made on,and our littleShakespeare is a very modern man, Man from Stratford," particularly on ready for alienation, Being and N othing-, Shakespeare's concern for having a big life house there. Why that house? Was itIs rounded with a sleep. ness, and thedeath of Cod.

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