Numbers in bold brackets [] indicate original page numbers.
NOTE: Current Oxfordian research contradicts some of Looney's arguments regarding The Tempest.
This chapter is preserved for historical purposes.
"THE TEMPEST"
[429] "I do not discern those marks of long practice in the dramatic art and the full maturity of the poet's genius which some have discovered in (The Tempest)." HUNTER.
Although, as was inevitable, difficulties have arisen in the course of our investigations, the surprising thing has been that they have proved so few and unformidable. Up to the present, the greatest obstacle is that presented by one play, "The Tempest." If we pass in review the different plays of Shakespeare, in order of the dates assigned to them, we find that this one occupies a very remarkable position. First of all, we notice that the great popular comedies are all attributed to the earlier part of Shakespeare's career, and the best known tragedies, with the exception of "Romeo and Juliet," to the later part. These tragedies culminate in "Hamlet" and "Othello," in the early years of what may be called the tragedy period, and taper off with such mixed compositions as the tragedies of "Coriolanus," "Timon," "Pericles" and "Cymbeline." The great dramatist is supposed to have paid his final respects to the dramatic world he had adorned for so many years, in a play which another man had been called in to finish — the composite and somewhat inharmonious play of "Henry VIII." Then we have "The Tempest" sandwiched in between the group which contains such a tragedy as "Pericles" and the nondescript history play "Henry VIII."
From this point of view it looks like a play that had [430] wandered away and fallen into bad company. Its natural associate, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is separated from it by almost as wide an interval as the Shakespearean period will permit. Under any theory of authorship this work occupies an anomalous position. To the views we are now urging it presents a real and serious difficulty: the only formidable obstacle so far encountered, and therefore demanding special attention.
It will be noticed that it is one of the twenty plays printed for the first time in the 1623 folio edition. Although printed then for the first time there is abundant evidence that a number of these plays were in existence many years before. In relation to "The Tempest" the only authoritative fact seems to be that a play of this name was amongst those performed to celebrate the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Frederick in 1613. There existed, however, a forged reference to it connecting it with the year 1611; and as the 1613 reference almost pushes it outside the Shakespearean period proper, the forged reference seems like an attempt, for some reason, to bring it more within the period. The circumstances are certainly suspicious. There is no record of its having been registered, and no indication of its having been in print before 1623. Facts like these, when connected with such a play as "Timon of Athens," do not strike us as being at all remarkable. In connection with a stage favourite like "The Tempest" they are not what we should have expected, whoever the author of the play may have been. It bears more heavily upon our own theories, however, than upon the Stratfordian view. It seems incredible that it could have been written and staged in the early Shakespearean period without some trace appearing, and it is very improbable that such a play should have been written and allowed to remain unstaged for many years, seeing that the staging element in it is more pronounced than in any other play attributed to "Shakespeare."
[431] In addition to all this, it is held to contain traces of contemporary events of the early years of James I's reign and even to be in part indebted to a pamphlet published in 1610. This fact by itself presents no insurmountable difficulty, seeing that the interpolation of other men's work is quite a recognized feature of the later Shakespearean plays; but, taken along with its more modern character, and what seems to us the less Elizabethan quality of its diction, it appears to justify the assumption that the work as a whole belongs to the date to which it has been assigned.
We have endeavoured to present the case in respect to "The Tempest" with all the adverse force with which it bears upon the theory of Edward de Vere being "Shakespeare"; and must confess that it appears, at first blush, as if "The Tempest" were threatening the shipwreck of all our hopes and labours in the cause of Shakespearean authorship.
The somewhat anomalous position occupied by the play has, however, already given rise to doubts respecting the accuracy of the date assigned to it. The first writer of eminence to raise these doubts was Hunter, who is described in the "Variorum Shakespeare" as "one of the most learned and exact of commentators." He also has been the first to question its title to the high praise which it is fashionable to lavish upon this composition: the words which we quote at the head of this chapter. Sir George Greenwood, too, has raised doubts as to whether the masking performance is from the hand of "Shakespeare."
Other critics and commentators have given attention to the question of its date, and although the great majority confirm the later date which is usually ascribed to it (1610-1613), we furnish now some authorities for an earlier production.
Hunter. 1596.
Knight.1602-1603
[432] Dyce and Staunton. After 1603.
Karl Elze. 1604.There exists, therefore, some Shakespearean authority both for an earlier date and also for the intervention of a strange hand. Nevertheless, we have not felt convinced by these authorities; and have therefore been indisposed to take refuge behind their findings. The reader who, in spite of the contents of this chapter, may continue to cling to the old estimate of the play may at any rate find comfort in the dates furnished above.
We must now ask the reader, who we assume is willing to take some trouble to, get at the truth of the matter, to first read carefully some of the earlier comedies like "Love's Labour's Lost," "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "As You Like It." When he has read these works appreciatively, and has got a sense, as it were, of Shakespeare's force of intellect and wit, the packed significance of his lines, his teeming imagery, the fecundity of his ideas on everything pertaining to the multiple forces of human nature, his incisive glances into human motives, his subtle turns of expression, the precision and refinement of his distinctions, the easy flow of his diction, the vocal qualities of his word combinations: all these well-known Shakespearean characteristics; let him then turn and read "The Tempest," thinking not so much of the broad situations presented by the stage play, but looking for that finer literary and poetical material that constitute the true Shakespeare work, and he will probably experience a much greater disappointment than he anticipated.
Take, for example, the second scene in the first act, the dialogue between Prospero and Miranda, especially where the former is relating his misfortunes to the latter. It seems all right, no doubt, on a first reading, or on hearing it repeated on the stage. It explains a particular situation lucidly, in bold outline, making no special demands [433] upon the mind of the reader or hearer; and, for those who wish to push on with the business of the play and see how things work out, it is just the thing wanted. One does not, however, feel a great desire to read it over again immediately so as to drink more deeply of its poetic charm; nor would any one seriously memorize its phrases for the purpose of enriching his own resources of expression.
The situation was, however, eminently suitable for fine poetic treatment; yet the prosy character of the narration, broken by Prospero's harping on the question of whether Miranda was attending to him or not, makes one wonder what there is in it to justify the attempt at blank verse. We use the word "attempt" advisedly; for a close examination of it will reveal a larger proportion of false quantities and non-rhythmic lines than can be found in an equal space in the best Shakespearean verse. Indeed, throughout the play there is a general thinness, so far as first-class literary matter and the figurative language which distinguishes the best poetry are concerned. Our task is to ascertain whether what there is possesses true Shakespearean characteristics.
Judging this point, not by its worst, but what is accepted at its best passages, we shall not attempt to select what may appear to us as the best, but take the one passage in "The Tempest" that has been singled out for special notice by others.
"These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."If our ideas of Shakespeare's style have been formed from studying this particular play, the passage will doubtless seem quite Shakespearean: not otherwise, however. [434] Before discussing it as a whole, however, we ask the reader to notice the word "and" at the end of the second line, as it connects itself with an important point which we shall presently have to consider. To what, then, do these lines owe their popularity? We know to what a speech of Portia's, or a meditation of Jacques', or a soliloquy of Hamlet's, owes its popularity. All these great Shakespearean utterances owe their power, not to the mere grandiloquence that fits them for perorations, but to their direct appeal to the human heart and mind which form their own subject matter. Cosmic theories come and go, but the fundamental constitution of human nature, the nature of man's inward experiences, sufferings and struggles, remains substantially and eternally the same. It is because Shakespeare's theme is ever this enduring spiritual matter that his influence suffers no waning, but grows with the centuries.
In the passage we have just quoted there is not a touch of Shakespeare's special interest. It is simple cosmic philosophy, and, as such, it is the most dreary negativism that was ever put into high-sounding words. Shakespeare's soul was much too large for mere negation. He was essentially positivist. When he handled his own theme of human nature he expounded what he saw and felt, always holding the subject down to its own realities, conditioned by its own essential relationships. In modern terms, he was an experimentalist; or, to use a clumsier though more accurate word, an experientialist. On the other hand he was no mere empiricist: his was a vision that "looked before and after," a "prophetic soul dreaming on things to come." Recognizing the limitations of human vision, his mind could yet take in the thought of the great unknown that stretched beyond the range of immediate faculties, but he filled it in with no mere negative, however undetermined his positive may have been.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."[435] The philosophy of the passage we have quoted from "The Tempest" is such as we might conceive Hamlet attributing to Horatio, and not that of Hamlet himself. Nor do we believe that it owes its popularity to the outlook it represents. It is rather the awe-inspiring vastness of the conception and its high-sounding phrases that have won for the passage its place in English rhetorical literature. Neither in theme nor in philosophy, however, does it seem to us to be Shakespearean.
Even the terms of the passage are not original to the writer of this much be lauded comedy, but are clearly suggested by a passage in a play written in the last years of the sixteenth century (see "Variorum Shakespeare"). Their value as evidence of Shakespearean authorship is therefore negligible. When, however, we come to the closing sentence of the passage we are assured by readers of Shakespeare that here, at least, we have the work of the master:
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."
Here we find ourselves faced with one of the chief difficulties in discussing Shakespeare: namely, dogmatic assertion based upon literary feeling or instinct, but offering no fixed standard of measurement by which the truth of the claim may be tested. Although, then, we are assured that these words are eminently Shakespearean, we make bold to say that they appear to us as un-Shakespearean as any utterance with which "Shakespeare" has been credited.
When we read that "all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players," we feel that the writer's mind, in dealing with life, is occupied with clear and definite conceptions, which he imparts vividly to his readers by the crispness and precision of the terms he employs. When the mind of Hamlet works upon the great [436] unknown, the "sleep of death," and the possible experiences after death, "what dreams may come," we have the same definiteness of conception, the same precise relationship of language to thought. We may think that he stops short: that he might have given us more; but we have no uncertainty respecting the part he has given. We move with him in the plane of realities alike, of life and death: and when he deals with what he does not know, he knows what it is he does not know. If, then, this mental clarity, this definiteness and precision alike of thought and expression, are not dominant notes of "Shakespeare," we must confess that our understanding of his work has yet to begin.
Compare now from this point of view the characteristic utterances of Shakespeare on life and death just quoted with the lines previously cited from "The Tempest." We may safely challenge any one to produce another passage from the whole of Shakespeare that will match with the latter in metaphysical vagueness. Abandon for a moment the practice of squeezing into or squeezing out of these words some philosophical significance, and attempt the simpler task of attaching a merely elementary English meaning to the terms and placing these meanings into some kind of coherent relationship to one another. We are stuff the stuff of dreams: dreams are made on (or "of"?) life rounded with a sleep — we will not say that Shakespeare never gives us such "nuts to crack," but we can say with full confidence that they are not characteristically Shakespearean. So far as we can get hold of the general drift of the metaphors, it seems that the present life of man is likened to dreams: "We are such stuff, etc.," and that he brings his dreams to an end by going to sleep. In common with Shakespeare and the majority of mankind, however, we are accustomed to associate our dreams with our actual times of sleep.
On its deeper side we would say that the sentence is [437] in flat contradiction to the mind of Shakespeare. To him human life is the one great objective reality. We are not now saying that he is right or wrong in this; but it is this objective pressure of human life upon him that has produced the immortal dramas; whether wholesome or vile it is real wholesomeness and real vileness; whether life is spent in earnest or is merely that of "men and women playing parts," his world is peopled by real men; not dreamy stuff.
Whether, then, we take the cosmic philosophy of the whole passage, or the touch of human philosophy with which it closes, we maintain that whether written by "Shakespeare" or not, it is not Shakespearean.
If we are disposed to deny to the play the possession of first-class Shakespearean work it would nevertheless be folly to discredit the good work, of what
might be called the second class, that it certainly does contain. The times were prolific of second-rate work, judged by the standard of Shakespeare; work which, but for this high standard, might have ranked as first class. There seems, indeed, to be in the play indications of a real collaboration between two men, a playwright proper and a poet. The passage quoted and others, especially the lyrical verse, seem to be from a different hand from the one that wrote the play as a whole; but it does not look like the unfinished work of one writer being finished by another. Our present business, however, is to see whether or not it is Shakespearean.Continuing this enquiry we shall first recall certain criticisms in "Hamlet" upon a class of play then coming into vogue.
"There is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyranically clapped for it."
". . . the groundlings. . . for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise."
[438] With these remarks in mind let the reader turn over the pages of the great Shakespearean dramas, noticing the stage directions. For the most part these are little more than the simple expressions "enter," "exit," "aside," "sleeps," "rises and advances," "trumpets," "noise within," and such like. When, as in the case of the dumb-show episode in the by-play in "Hamlet," directions are necessary, these are limited to mere outline, every particular action indicated being an essential part of the drama, and moreover quite explicable. Now, with Hamlet's special animadversion on "inexplicable dumb-shows and noise" in mind, turn to the stage directions in "The Tempest."
"A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard." "A confused noise within." "Thunder" (at intervals).
"Enter Prospero, above, invisible. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions and salutations; and, inviting the king, etc., to eat, they depart."
Again:
"Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes."
Again:
"He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance, with mocks and mows, and carry out the table."
Further on:
"Enter certain reapers, properly habited; they join with the Nymphs in a graceful dance; towards the end whereof Prospero starts suddenly and speaks; after which to a strange hollow and confused noise they heavily vanish."
And there is still more of this kind of thing. Yet it is supposed that the very man who penned all this had, six or seven years previously, taken up arms against such pantomimic products and entered into his great masterpiece a caveat against this development of "inexplicable dumb-shows and noise."
[439] In the First Folio only six out of all Shakespeare's plays are prefaced with lists of dramatis personae. Of these "The Tempest" is one and "Timon of Athens," an admittedly "collaborated" work, is another: in the latter work it is done most ostentatiously. As we shall find the singularities of the former play accumulate, the exceptional fact just narrated should be kept in mind. Turning to the list in "The Tempest" we find that one character is described as "drunken," another as "honest," and a third as "savage." Although in another of these lists ("The Two Gentlemen") Thurio is spoken of as "foolish," in none of them is there so much of it as in the play we are considering. The whole thing strikes one as alien to the spirit of "Shakespeare," whose method is naturally to reveal the character of his personae in the working of the plays. It is hardly probable that "Shakespeare" had a hand in any of the lists: they are editorial work; and the character they assume in this instance helps to emphasize the fact, which others have pointed out, that exceptional care was bestowed upon the editing of "The Tempest." The editor or editors had evidently some special interest in this particular drama.
Coming now to the question of general workmanship, we may take any other of the great Shakespearean comedies, and examine the dialogue throughout, particularly that between young people of the opposite sexes. What strikes us most is the constant clash of wit and the subtle teasing that takes place whenever young men and women meet, together with the playful cross-purposes in which Shakespeare's lovers invariably indulge. There is nothing like this in "The Tempest." In its place we get the milk and water sentimentality of Miranda and Ferdinand unillumined by a single flash of intellect. Yet Miranda was no child ignorant of life: a fact most evident from her previous conversation with her father. Possibly the dramatist, in composing this love scene, in which he wished to represent Miranda in a [440] particular light, had overlooked what he had already written in the previous scene. Be that as it may, the character of the intercourse between these two lovers is worth considering. They meet for the first time and spend about five minutes together. In that short space of time they have fallen deeply in love, confessed their sentiments and arranged their first tryst, "half-an-hour hence." All this, of course, is due to Prospero's magic. How interminable that half-hour must have seemed to the young people! And so, when it comes to an end, they meet again in the presence of Miranda's father, and listen to a lecture from him; but when he leaves them, and they are at last alone together, for the first time as a betrothed couple, in the transports of their new-born love they pour out their, mutual affection in a rapturous game of chess. Is it possible to conceive of "Shakespeare" representing thus any of the outstanding couples of his plays, like Romeo and Juliet, Orlando and Rosalind, Hermia and Lysander, Valentine and Sylvia, Berowne and Rosaline, Portia and Bassanio, or Beatrice and Benedick? In all these cases the interest centres in the play of dialogue: mind meeting mind; and not upon the play of limelight upon a pretty stage scene.
Not only in the kind of intercourse we have just been discussing, but throughout the play the great Shakespearean trait that we most miss is genuine wit, in the proper sense of intellectual refinement and subtlety. The drama depends for its interest very largely upon the spectacular, and is probably for this reason selected in modern times for displaying the skill more of the stage mechanics than of the actors. It has, indeed, been acknowledged by one authority that "there is no wit in The Tempest." Nevertheless its author was solicitous regarding the lighter side of the play; and so when fun and some relief from stage display is sought, the play makes its appeal to the grotesque, coarse, and ludicrous, drawing almost the whole of the laughter it contains from drunken buffoonery. Without its elaborate stage effects the [441] performance would probably fall very flat; and this fact supports the theory that it is not a true Elizabethan work, but belongs to the period to which it has been assigned, although such plays were evidently coming into vogue in the later Elizabethan period.
On the other hand, to think of it as coming from the greatest Elizabethan dramatist, when to his vast powers had been added the mellowing influence of a still larger experience, increases the mysteriousness in which the work is involved. The fact is that this play has always been looked at with the other dramas as an imposing background. Viewed as supplementary to a monumental literature, the greatness that is in the other writings has been carried forward and added to its account. Separated from the other works, however, it is seen to contain much thinner intellectual stuff than has been supposed.
The effect of these considerations is to raise the question, not merely of whether "The Tempest" contains a large admixture of other men's work, but the bolder and more momentous question of whether it is, in any sense, a work of Shakespeare's.
This is not a question of whether it is a good or a poor production, or whether certain genuine Shakespearean plays are not in some respects inferior to this one. The question is this: judging from a comparison of the characteristics of this play with the outstanding features of Shakespeare's work, what are the probabilities that it did not come from the same pen as the others?
We have already pointed out that its position amongst the other dramas, from the point of view of date, marks it at once as a work quite by itself. In other respects, too, we shall find that this is so. It is the only play staged with a background of the sea and sea-faring life; the nearest approach to it, curiously enough, being "Pericles." And it is the only one that has the practice of magic as a dominant element: the supernatural agents in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" not [442] being under human control and direction. This trinity of singularities constitutes a sufficient impeachment to begin with. We must, however, add to this what is perhaps the strongest general argument against it, that it is the only play attributed to "Shakespeare" which makes any attempt at conforming to the Greek unities. That "Shakespeare" should do this at any time seems highly improbable: it is contrary to the free spirit of his genius, and it is an illustration of that "tongue-tying of art by authority" which he explicitly repudiates. To think of him submitting to such unwholesome restriction at the extreme end of his career would require some extraordinary explanation.
Take the work now in its bearing upon some of those points according to which we sought to characterize "Shakespeare" at the beginning of our investigations. Although it contains a king and a duke no one can feel in reading it that he is in touch with the social structure of a medieval feudalism. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, represents in no way a ducal dignity, or the functions of a dukedom. He is, first and last, a magician, and it would have mattered little to his part in the play if he had been originally a patriarchal deacon.
King Alonso can hardly be regarded as a personage belonging to the play. In certain important scenes he is only required to stand and ejaculate such expressions as "Prithee peace," or "Prithee bestill." He is the most wooden and least royal of all Shakespeare's kings; a part to be relegated to a subordinate member of the company of actors. Prospero's brother, Antonio, the usurping duke, is a very ordinary stage villain, whom the writer of the drama seems almost to have forgotten after the second act, with a most curious result; for, although the anti-climax of the play consists in his undoing, his only part in the final act involving disaster to his fortunes is to make a single remark — about fish. This is neither feudalism nor "Shakespeare."
So much for the social side of medievalism. When we turn to its religious aspect, Catholicism, a more curious [443] situation is presented. Whatever "Shakespeare's" personal opinions may have been in respect to religion, there exists no doubt as to his, being thoroughly conversant with the Roman Catholic standpoint and quite familiar with its terminology; and all this he introduces frequently and appropriately into his dramas. Now "The Tempest" is a work dealing with Italian noblemen of Milan and Naples, that is to say, belonging to a Roman Catholic society, yet from the first word of the play to the last we cannot find a single term employed suggestive of a distinctively Catholic conception. At the same time innumerable occasions are presented when such touches of local colouring could have been inserted, and when any writer having the material at command would unconsciously have tended to introduce it. We need only cite the call "to prayers," the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda, and the serious religious cast given to some of Prospero's intercourse with his daughter.
Whether, therefore, we approach it on its social or its religious side, we may say that the medievalism which "Shakespeare" has, by embodying in his dramas, done so much to preserve in living colours, is almost, if not wholly, absent from this particular play. We are entitled to say that the man who wrote it had neither "Shakespeare's" intimacy with Catholicism nor his vitalized conception of what was best in feudalism.
Significant results are again obtained when we apply to "The Tempest" the test of the dramatist's treatment of woman. We shall put aside that definite and peculiar attitude we deduced from the Sonnets, which does not appear in the best Shakespearean comedies, and confine our attention to the dramas. Here we find the most frequent and varied references to the characters, disposition, moods, motives and conduct of women. That he had observed women accurately might be questioned, but that he had observed them closely and had a very great deal to say on the subject no one will [444] deny. Consequently the word "woman" is one most frequently in use in his plays. Now, in "The Tempest" the word "woman" never occurs once in connection with such matters as those to which we have just alluded. It will perhaps be a matter of surprise to many that the word only occurs twice in the whole play, and these are most formal and void of character. Miranda remarks that she "no woman's face remembers," and Caliban remarks "I never saw a woman but Sycorax my dam and she." The three occasions on which the plural is used are equally colourless. This is indeed a very poor show for a work that is supposed to have come from the hand of such an exponent of human nature as "Shakespeare."
In tracing indications of the life and character of Edward de Vere in the writings of "Shakespeare" we had occasion to remark upon the prominence given ship. to horses, and horsemanship generally. We find that the simple noun "horse," leaving out all compound derivatives, occurs, about 206 times; an average of about seven times in each of the 36 plays. If we add to these the words that suggest horse-riding, like "horseback" and "horsemanship," the total reaches nearly 300, not one of which occurs in "The Tempest" — the only play attributed to "Shakespeare" of which this can be said.
The word "colt" does, however, occur, and the passage is most instructive.
"Like unback'd colts they prick!d their ears,
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses,
As they smelt music."We shall pass no comment upon these awkward lines, but ask the reader to compare the passage with the following from "The Merchant of Venice," which either consciously or unconsciously seems to have suggested it.
"For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood,
[445] If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music."We are asked to believe that the former travesty of the latter passage was written by the same poet after he had added fifteen years to his experience as a writer. Had the dates been reversed we might have supposed a development of the idea and technical power. As they stand, however, it is outrageous to suppose that any eminent poet could so mutilate his own work.
Again, in the matter of falconry terms, in which the vocabulary of Shakespeare is so varied, "hawk," "falcon," "haggard," "eyas," "tercel," "tassel-gentle," "Puttock," "pitch," "to seel," "to prune," "to whistle off "; none of these occur in the play we are now examining. We find indeed the same state of things in all other matters relating to sport, the chase and archery (excepting a single reference to Cupid's bow and arrows). No deer, stag or pricket, hare or hound, greyhound, game, slips or trumpet, once appears. These are enough to show that not merely a few odd terms, any one or two of which might be missing from a true Shakespearean work, but whole strata of terms, dealing with the imagery in which the mind of Shakespeare habitually worked, are entirely missing from this play. A mere layman may be excused if his faith in the judgment of Shakespearean experts grows weak.
Shakespeare's special domain being human nature, how does "The Tempest" stand with respect to prominent words of the dramatist in this domain? One of his constantly recurring words is the word "will," and in Mary Cowden Clarke's concordance only when it is used as a noun is it recorded. In this sense it appears no less than 280 times, and out of these only once does it appear in "The Tempest," in the [446] following phrase, "the wills above"; so that, as a matter of fact, the human will, which meets us at every turn in Shakespeare, is never once referred to in this play except in some editions in which the noun "good-will" has been broken into two words. How important a word it is in the vocabulary of Shakespeare will be realized by any one who will take the trouble to read Sir Sidney Lee's chapter on the "Will" sonnets.
Take again so fundamental a word as "faith," which, with its derivatives, occurs about 250 times. Neither this word, nor any one of its derivatives, "faithful," "faithfully," "faithfulness," once appears in the play. Or, again, the word "duty," not once does it occur, nor any of its derivations, "dutiful" or "duteous," notwithstanding the fact that these words are bound up with the Feudal System, and occur about 200 times. We meet with exactly the same thing in reference to such dominant words as "courage" and "jealousy." The word "melancholy" and the noun "desire," the latter especially representing a most persistent idea in the mind of "Shakespeare," are again entirely absent. In short, many of the terms most essential in handling those problems of human nature with which "Shakespeare" deals are missing from the work which is supposed to represent the matured mind of the dramatist.
On the strength of the last group of words alone, we should be quite justified in rejecting absolutely any claim that this play was written by the same author as the great Shakespearean dramas. Of minor points we may mention the absence of the "red and white" contrast, and, of course, the "lily and the rose." Indeed, neither lily, rose, nor violet, which we take to be Shakespeare's favourite flowers, is once mentioned.
It is difficult to represent how "The Tempest" stands in the matter of general vocabulary. If, however, any Shakespearean concordance be taken, and a number of pages be selected at random from different parts of the [447] book, then closely examined, it will be found that "The Tempest" is more frequently absent than almost any other play from long lists of examples of the recurrence of words which appear in most of the other works. It will thus be seen that it has probably the poorest, as well as the least Shakespearean, vocabulary of them all; not even excepting "Pericles." Moreover, in reading it with an exclusive attention to this point, one gets the impression that its vocabulary is not only more restricted in range, but is drawn from quite a different stratum of the English language. In addition to this there appears about the language an artificiality and affected archaism suggestive of a later writer trying to compose in Shakespeare's vein.
After all the praise that has been lavished on this particular work it may seem presumptuous to question such a thing as the quality of its versification. If, however, a critical examination be made of the text of the play, the large proportion of bad metre to be found in it will probably occasion some surprise. From first to last its blank verse jogs and jolts in a most uncomfortable way. Such false quantities as occasionally interrupt the even flow in the best Shakespearean verse, so crowd upon one another in "The Tempest" that it is impossible to preserve for any length of time that sense of rhythmic diction which gratifies the sub-conscious ear in the silent reading of the other plays. There is nothing to be gained by rating the work below its true value, but we are bound to say that in many instances the scansion seems to us so wretched that we suspect the writer of building up his pentameters by mechanically counting syllables on his fingers: and counting badly.
In this connection we have already had occasion to draw attention to the blank verse of the first important piece of dialogue in the play: that between
Prospero and Miranda in which the former is relating the story of his misfortunes. A minute inspection of this discloses the fact that much of it [448] is not verse at all in the true sense, but merely prose, artificially cut up into short strips: precisely as, in an earlier chapter, we saw was actually done in "Coriolanus." Versification, which is fundamentally the breaking up of utterances into short pieces, or lines, according to some rule, always implies that, in a general way, the pause, formed by the end of the line corresponds to a pause, however slight, in the spoken utterance; the exceptions to this only serving to emphasize the rule. When the connection between the last word of one line and the first word of the next is too close, and such connections become too frequent, the sense of versification is lost and it becomes merely dismembered prose.Take then the two first lines of this dialogue:
"If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them."Now, it is hardly possible to get two words more closely connected in spoken utterances than a Principal and an Auxiliary Verb, when no adverb comes between them, as in the case of this, verb, "have put." Nor is this the only example of its kind. Broken up in precisely the same way we have the verb,
"had Burnt" (III. 1.); "will Revenge" (III. 2.);
"have Incensed" (III. 3.); "have Been" (V. 1.);
"have Received" (V. 1.); "must Take" (V. 1.)Taking "Hamlet" as our standard for measuring Shakespeare's style of versification, we do not find a single example of this defect in the great masterpiece.
Continuing our examination of this dialogue, we find, a few lines further on, this, passage:
"It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The fraughting souls within her."[449] This "and" at the end of lines in "The Tempest" is quite a feature of its author's style. We pointed it out in the passage "and Are melted into air." We find it repeated three times in this short dialogue:
"and A prince of power;"
"and She said;"the third being in the above quotation.
In exactly the same way we have:
"and My strong imagination" (II. 1.)
"and I'll seek" (III. 3.)
"and Harmonious charmingly" (IV. 1.)Again, not once does this defect appear in "Hamlet."
We have also instances of the conjunction "but" placed at the end of lines
"but For every trifle" (II. 2.)
"but The mistress" (III. 1.)
"but If thou dost break" (IV. 1.)Nor does this defect once appear in "Hamlet."
Examples also occur of lines ending in other Conjunctions, to which may be added Conjunctive Pronouns and Conjunctive Adverbs:
"who Art ignorant" (1. 2.)
"that Hath kept with thy remembrance" (1. 2.)
"who To trash for over topping" (1. 2.)
"that A noble Neapolitan" (1. 2.)
"that I prize" (1. 2.)
"for He's gentle" (1. 2.)
"whom We all were" (II. 1.)
"that We say befits" (II. 1.)
"which Lie tumbling" (II. 2.)And so it continues on to end of the play. Yet never once does this form of intimate connection between the end of one line and the beginning of the next appear in "Hamlet." How it is possible to hold, in face of a comparison of this [450] kind, that the versification of both plays came from the same pen, is most difficult to understand.
Another peculiar form of connection between the end of one line and the beginning, of the next is to split between them simple Prepositional phrases. For example:
"upon A most auspicious star" (1. 2.)
"upon Some god" (1. 2.)
"at Which end" (II. 1.)
"of Our human generation" (III. 3.)
"with A heaviness" (V. 1.)
"on The, strangeness" (V. 1.)The only Prepositions which appear at the end of lines in "Hamlet" are those which belong to the preceding verbs, and do not, except in one case, which has a special justification, enter into the formation of Prepositional phrases.
A critical and exhaustive examination of the line terminations in the blank verse of the plays attributed to "Shakespeare" will, we imagine, yield surprising results. We have therefore taken not only the play of "Hamlet," which we made our standard in examining the blank verse of "The Tempest," but all the Shakespearean plays which received a proper literary presentation between the publication of "Henry IV," part 1, the first of the issue in 1597, and "Hamlet" (1604), the last of the authentic issues prior to the First Folio, and we have spent some hours in running the eye over the terminations of their blank verse. Not once have we found a line ending in "and," "but," or other simple Conjunction or Conjunctive Pronoun. We will not venture to say that such an ending does not exist in "Richard III," "Richard II," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Love's Labour's Lost," "The Merchant of Venice," "Romeo and Juliet," "Much Ado," "Titus Andronicus" or "Hamlet"; but if any such termination should happen to be there we have not discovered it; and so extremely rare is it that it would have to be ranked with "Homer's nods" and [451] "Milton's lapses." In the case of "The Tempest," however, there is no need to search for these endings: they obtrude themselves in a most uncomfortable way.
When, however, we turn to the plays which "others were called upon at a later date to finish," a totally different state of things is met with. There is probably not one of these without several "and" and "but" terminations. The play which comes nearest to "The Tempest" in this particular we should imagine to be "Cymbeline." If we glance over it whilst the contrast between the true Shakespearean terminations and "The Tempest" terminations are still in mind, we recognize at once that the "Cymbeline" terminations belong to "The Tempest" order. "Ands," "buts," and Conjunctive Pronouns are met with frequently; and in versification, at any rate, there is a general suggestion of similarity in the two works. It is interesting, therefore, to note in this play, the sea, the scene before a cave, the thunder and lightning, and the dumb-show "mummery" (which Sir Sidney Lee admits could not have been penned by "Shakespeare"), and even the character of Imogen: all of which are suggestive of the work we are discussing.
If, then, the substance of the play of "Cymbeline" is Shakespearean, everything is suggestive of its having been versified by the writer who composed "The Tempest." A development of this line of study will probably do much to still further reduce the quantity of pure Shakespearean literature. In so far as the conceptions and general wording of the later plays are recognized as Shakespearean, it will tend to bear out a theory we have developed in an earlier chapter, that these dramas existed first as stage plays with a larger proportion of prose, and were subsequently converted into poetic literature; the later works having to receive their versification from strange hands. In the case of "Cymbeline" it is possible to ascribe the poetic dressing alone to the strangers. In the case of "The Tempest" we believe that the entire drama must be given [452] over to those who were engaged in finishing off "Shakespeare's" plays.
We are prepared to maintain, then, on the strength of the various points indicated, that "The Tempest" is no play of "Shakespeare's. " It is not the absence of an odd Shakespearean characteristic, but the absence of so many dominant marks of his work, along with the presence of several features which are quite contrary to his style, that compels us to reject it. If, therefore, it was actually put forward during William Shakspere's lifetime as a genuine Shakespearean play, it furnishes an additional testimony to the previous death of the dramatist, and what was at first a difficulty thus becomes a further support and confirmation of our theory. Who the writer or writers may have been, how the work came to find a place in the collected issue of Shakespeare's plays, (the First Folio), why it happens to be accorded the first place in that collection and is also edited with exceptional pains, are, no doubt, problems of considerable interest, which, if solved, might throw some light upon our own problem. Their solution, however, is neither pressing nor necessary, and therefore may be allowed to stand over.
We desire, however, to emphasize the fact that but for the theory that Edward de Vere was the writer of Shakespeare's plays we might never have been led to suspect the authenticity of "The Tempest." When, therefore, the theory of the De Vere authorship suggests doubts as to the genuineness of this play, and on examination we find such an accumulation of evidence that it is not Shakespeare's work, the discovery brings additional support to the supposition that the author of the genuine work was indeed Edward de Vere. And it is the frequency with which such examples of mutual or complementary corroboration have sprung from our theory, that has given to that theory such an air of certainty.
We are conscious that in putting forward these views respecting "The Tempest," we are probably "cutting [453] prejudice against the grain" as dangerously as in the theory of authorship we are advancing, and also risking the opening up of side issues which may divert attention from the central theme. This is why we have relegated the matter to an appendix. To those whom these arguments do not satisfy we would therefore, for the time being, indicate the earlier dates suggested by Hunter and others, and the general theory of collaboration held respecting "Shakespeare's" latest productions. Meanwhile we make it clear that we do not rest upon these earlier date theories, and that the rejection of "The Tempest" must in our view be incorporated ultimately into the general argument.