King John affords an amusing instance of this reverential attitude. The play, as is generally known, was based upon a slightly earlier and utterly3 un-Shakespearean production entitled The Troublesome Raigne of King John. The only character Shakespeare added to those he found ready to his hand was that of James Gurney, who enters with Lady Falconbridge after the scene between the Bastard4 and his brother, says four words, and departs for ever.
'Bast.—James Gurney, wilt5 thou give us leave awhile?
Gur.—Good leave, good Philip.
Bast.—Philip! Sparrow! James.'
It is obvious that Shakespeare's sole motive6 in introducing Gurney is to provide an occasion for the Bastard's characteristic, though not to a modern mind quite obvious, jest, based on the fact that Philip was at the time a common name for a sparrow. The Bastard, just dubbed7 Sir Richard Plantagenet by the King, makes a thoroughly8 natural jibe9 at his former name, Philip, to which he had just shown such breezy indifference10. The jest could not have been made to Lady Falconbridge without a direct insult to her, which would have been alien to the natural, blunt, and easygoing fondness of the relation which Shakespeare establishes between the Bastard and his mother. So Gurney is quite casually11 brought in to receive it. But this is not enough for the Shakespeare-drunken Coleridge.
'For an instance of Shakespeare's power in minimis, I generally quote James Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the four words allowed to his dramatic life!'
Assuredly it is not with any intention of diminishing Coleridge's title as a Shakespearean critic that we bring forward this instance. He is the greatest critic of Shakespeare; and the quality of his excellence12 is displayed in one of the other few notes he left on this particular play. In Act III, scene ii., Warburton's emendation of 'airy' to 'fiery13' had in Coleridge's day been received into the text of the Bastard's lines:—
'Now by my life, this day grows wondrous14 hot;
Some airy devil hovers15 in the sky.'
On which Coleridge writes:—
'I prefer the old text: the word 'devil' implies 'fiery.' You need only to read the line, laying a full and strong emphasis on 'devil,' to perceive the uselessness and tastelessness of Warburton's alteration16.'
The test is absolutely convincing—a poet's criticism of poetry. But that Coleridge went astray not once but many times, under the influence of his idolatry of Shakespeare, corroborates17 the general conclusion that is forced upon any one who will take the trouble to read a whole volume of the modern Variorum. There has been much editing, much comment, but singularly little criticism of Shakespeare; a half-pennyworth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack. The pendulum18 has swung violently from niggling and insensitive textual quibble to that equally distressing19 exercise of human ingenuity20, idealistic encomium21, of which there is a typical example in the opening sentence of Mr Masefield's remarks upon the play: 'Like the best Shakespearean tragedies, King John is an intellectual form in which a number of people with obsessions22 illustrate23 the idea of treachery.' We remember that Mr Masefield has much better than this to say of Shakespeare in his little book; but we fasten upon this sentence because it is set before us in the Variorum, and because it too 'is an intellectual form in which a literary man with obsessions illustrates24 his idea of criticism.' Genetically25, it is a continuation of the shoddy element in Coleridge's Shakespeare criticism, a continual bias26 towards transcendental interpretation27 of the obvious. To take the origin a phase further back, it is the portentous28 offspring of the feeble constituent29 of German philosophy (a refusal to see the object) after it had been submitted to an idle process of ferment30 in the softer part of Coleridge's brain.
King John is not in the least what Mr Masefield, under this dangerous influence, has persuaded himself it is. It is simply the effort of a young man of great genius to rewrite a bad play into a good one. The effort was, on the whole, amazingly successful; that the play is only a good one, instead of a very good one, is not surprising. The miracle is that anything should have been made of The Troublesome Raigne at all. The Variorum extracts show that, of the many commentators31 who studied the old play with Shakespeare's version, only Swinburne saw, or had the courage to say, how utterly null the old play really is. To have made Shakespeare's Falconbridge out of the old lay figure, to have created the scenes between Hubert and John, and Hubert and Arthur, out of that decrepit32 skeleton—that is the work of a commanding poetical34 genius on the threshold of full mastery of its powers, worthy35 of all wonder, no doubt, but doubly worthy of close examination.
But 'ideas of treachery'! Into what cloud cuckoo land have we been beguiled36 by Coleridge's laudanum trances? A limbo—of this we are confident—where Shakespeare never set foot at any moment in his life, and where no robust37 critical intelligence can endure for a moment. We must save ourselves from this insidious38 disintegration39 by keeping our eye upon the object, and the object is just a good (not a very good) play. Not an Ibsen, a Hauptmann, a Shaw, or a Masefield play, where the influence and ravages40 of these 'ideas' are certainly perceptible, but merely a Shakespeare play, one of those works of true poetic33 genius which can only be produced by a mind strong enough to resist every attempt at invasion by the 'idea'-bacillus.
In considering a Shakespeare play the word 'idea' had best be kept out of the argument altogether; but there are two senses in which it might be intelligibly41 used. You might call the dramatic skeleton Shakespeare's idea of the play. It is the half-mechanical, half-organic factor in the work of poetic creation—the necessary means by which a poet can conveniently explicate and express his manifold ?sthetic intuitions. This dramatic skeleton is governed by laws of its own, which were first and most brilliantly formulated42 by Aristotle in terms that, in essentials, hold good for all time. You may investigate this skeleton, seize, if you can, upon the peculiarity43 by which it is differentiated44 from all other skeletons; you may say, for instance, that Othello is a tragedy of jealousy45, or Hamlet of the inhibition of self-consciousness. But if your 'idea' is to have any substance it must be moulded very closely upon the particular object with which you are dealing46; and in the end you will find yourself reduced to the analysis of individual characters.
On the other hand, the word 'idea' might be intelligibly used of Shakespeare's whole attitude to the material of his contemplation, the centre of comprehension from which he worked, the aspect under which he viewed the universe of his interest. There is no reason to rest content with Coleridge's application of the epithet47 'myriad-minded,' which is, at the best, an evasion48 of a vital question. The problem is to see Shakespeare's mind sub specie unitatis. It can be done; there never has been and never will be a human mind which can resist such an inquiry49 if it is pursued with sufficient perseverance50 and understanding. What chiefly stands in the way is that tradition of Shakespeariolatry which Coleridge so powerfully inaugurated, not least by the epithet 'myriad-minded.'
But of 'ideas' in any other senses than these—and in neither of these cases is 'idea' the best word for the object of search—let us beware as we would of the plague, in criticism of Shakespeare or any other great poet. Poets do not have 'ideas'; they have perceptions. They do not have an 'idea'; they have comprehension. Their creation is ?sthetic, and the working of their mind proceeds from the realisation of one ?sthetic perception to that of another, more comprehensive if they are to be great poets having within them the principle of poetic growth. There is undoubtedly51 an organic process in the evolution of a great poet, which you may, for convenience of expression, call logical; but the moment you forget that the use of the word 'logic52,' in this context, is metaphorical53, you are in peril54. You can follow out this 'logical process' in a poet only by a kindred creative process of ?sthetic perception passing into ?sthetic comprehension. The hunt for 'ideas' will only make that process impossible; it prevents the object from ever making its own impression upon the mind. It has to speak with the language of logic, whereas its use and function in the world is to speak with a language not of logic, but of a process of mind which is at least as sovereign in its own right as the discursive55 reason.
Let us away then with 'logic' and away with 'ideas' from the art of literary criticism; but not, in a foolish and impercipient reaction, to revive the impressionistic criticism which has sapped the English brain for a generation past. The art of criticism is rigorous; impressions are merely its raw material; the life-blood of its activity is in the process of ordonnance of ?sthetic impressions.
It is time, however, to return for a moment to Shakespeare, and to observe in one crucial instance the effect of the quest for logic in a single line. In the fine scene where John hints to Hubert at Arthur's murder, he speaks these lines (in the First Folio text):—
'I had a thing to say, but let it goe:
The Sunne is in the heauen, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasure of the world,
Is all too wanton, and too full of gawdes
To giue me audience: If the midnight bell
Did with his yron tongue, and brazen56 mouth
Sound on into the drowzie race of night,
If this same were a Churchyard where we stand,
And thou possessed57 with a thousand wrongs:
… Then, in despight of brooded watchfull day,
I would into thy bosome poure my thoughts….'
If one had to choose the finest line in this passage, the choice would fall upon
'Sound on into the drowsy58 race of night.'
Yet you will have to look hard for it in the modern editions of
Shakespeare. At the best you will find it with the mark of corruption:—
+'Sound on into the drowsy race of night ('Globe');
and you run quite a risk of finding
'Sound one into the drowsy race of night' ('Oxford').
There are six pages of close-printed comment upon the line in the Variorum. The only reason, we can see, why it should be the most commented line in King John is that it is one of the most beautiful. No one could stand it. Of all the commentators, only one, Miss Porter, whom we name honoris causa, stands by the line with any conviction of its beauty. Every other person either alters it or regrets his inability to alter it.
'How can a bell sound on into a race?' pipe the little editors. What is 'the race of night?' What can it mean? How could a race be drowsy? What an awful contradiction in terms! And so while you and I, and all the other ordinary lovers of Shakespeare are peacefully sleeping in our beds, they come along with their little chisels59, and chop out the horribly illogical word and pop in a horribly logical one, and we (unless we can afford the Variorum, which we can't) know nothing whatever about it. We have no redress60. If we get out of our beds and creep upon them while they are asleep—they never are—and take out our little chisels and chop off their horribly stupid little heads, we shall be put in prison and Mr Justice Darling will make a horribly stupid little joke about us. There is only one thing to do. We must make up our minds that we have to combine in our single person the scholar and the amateur; we cannot trust these gentlemen.
And, indeed, they have been up to their little games elsewhere in King John. They do not like the reply of the citizens of Angiers to the summons of the rival kings:—
'A greater powre than We denies all this,
And till it be undoubted, we do locke
Our former scruple61 in our strong-barr'd gates;
Kings of our feare, untill our feares resolu'd
Be by some certaine king, purg'd and depos'd.'
Admirable sense, excellent poetry. But no! We must not have it. Instead we are given 'King'd of our fears' ('Globe') or 'Kings of ourselves' ('Oxford'). Bad sense, bad poetry.
They do not like Pandulph's speech to France:—
'France, thou maist hold a serpent by the tongue,
A cased lion by the mortall paw,
A fasting tiger safer by the tooth
Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.'
'Cased,' caged, is too much for them. We must have 'chafed,' in spite of
'If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive
And case thy reputation in thy tent.'
Again, the Folio text of the meeting between the Bastard and Hubert in
Act V., when Hubert fails to recognise the Bastard's voice, runs thus:—
'Unkinde remembrance: thou and endles night,
Have done me shame: Brave Soldier, pardon me
That any accent breaking from thy tongue
Should scape the true acquaintaince of mine eare.'
This time 'endless' is not poetical enough for the editors. Theobald's emendation 'eyeless' is received into the text. One has only to read the brief scene through to realise that Hubert is wearied and obsessed62 by the night that will never end. He is overwrought by his knowledge of
'news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible,'
and by his long wandering in search of the Bastard:—
'Why, here I walk in the black brow of night
To find you out.'
Yet the dramatically perfect 'endless' has had to make way for the dramatically stupid 'eyeless.' Is it surprising that we do not trust these gentlemen?
[APRIL, 1920
The End
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1
derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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jibe
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| v.嘲笑，与...一致，使转向；n.嘲笑，嘲弄 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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corroborates
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| v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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encomium
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| n.赞颂；颂词 | |
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obsessions
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| n.使人痴迷的人（或物）( obsession的名词复数 )；着魔；困扰 | |
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23
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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25
genetically
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| adv.遗传上 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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constituent
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| n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的 | |
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ferment
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| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
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commentators
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| n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员 | |
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decrepit
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| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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35
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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36
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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39
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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41
intelligibly
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| adv.可理解地，明了地，清晰地 | |
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42
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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45
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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46
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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47
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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49
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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50
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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51
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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52
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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53
metaphorical
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| a.隐喻的，比喻的 | |
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54
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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55
discursive
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| adj.离题的，无层次的 | |
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56
brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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57
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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58
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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59
chisels
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| n.凿子，錾子( chisel的名词复数 )；口凿 | |
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redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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61
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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