CHAPTER IV SHAKESPEARE'S EARLIER COMEDIES: INFLUENCE OF LYLY NOTHING is more remarkable in the comedies of Shakespeare than their variety of type. Between the first draft of The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night there is as wide an interval, both intellectually and artistically, as between Titus Andronicus and King Lear. This interval is filled with various groups of plays, bound to each other by a common vein of thought and sentiment, yet separated by marked differences of comic motive; and in these groups themselves each particular play is so highly individualised that no two resemble one another as do the comedies of Plautus and Terence. Thus while The Taming of A Shrew and The Comedy of Errors may be classed together, each, as compared with Love's Labour's Lost and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, has a very specific character of its own; and the same is true of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. Equal versatility is shown by the poet in blending comedy with tragedy: the character of the grave-digger's discourse in Hamlet differs from the wit of the fool in Lear, and both kinds are as distinct from the raillery of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet as the style of the latter is from the gossiping chatter of Juliet's nurse. The reason is that the comedies and comic scenes in Shakespeare are the product of a great and philosophic mind, always learning new lessons from experience and observation, not seeking to express its own conceptions in a mere abstract form, but patiently striving to adopt its ideas of life and nature to the actual requirements of the stage. Every student of Shakespeare should be interested in discovering the gradual process by which he attained to that perfect balance of art which delights us in plays like The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado about Nothing. When Shakespeare began to write for the stage he found in existence three types of comedy. One of these was derived from the Morality. The Morality indeed was, in intention, not comic but didactic; but it was a decaying form of entertainment, and the only part of it suited to the changing taste of the age was the character of the Vice. In the hands of actors like Tarlton and Wilson, this part lent itself to exhibitions of broad extempore buffoonery, and the fool's dress, always worn by the Vice, appealed to that elementary sense of the ludicrous which is satisfied with ideas of incongruity. In a word, the conception of comedy, bequeathed to the stage by the Morality, was much the same in quality as the performances of the clown in the modern pantomime. Specimens of the wit which approved itself to theatrical audiences before the rise of Shakespeare may be seen in Marlowe's Faustus and Greene's Looking Glass for London. On a higher level stood the type of the New Comedy. The leading idea of the New Comedy is, up to a certain point, identical with that of tragedy, being the representation of Misfortune-misfortune, however, of a kind which arouses the passion, not of pity and terror, but of laughter, because we perceive that the situation is not serious or irremediable, and are in the meantime pleased both with the sense of our own impunity, as well as with the confusions, mistakes, and intrigues in which other persons are involved. Rude imitations of the New Comedy, retaining some characteristics of the Morality, had been introduced upon the stage in Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle. George Gascoigne had further refined the idea of comic action by his translation of Ariosto's Suppositi; and a poor but original attempt to naturalise the Italian variety of the New Comedy had been made in Lyly's Mother Bombie. From Italy, in fact, English dramatists and audiences had acquired a knowledge of what was required for comedy in the way of plot and situation. There was, however, in the New Comedy a certain element alien to the spirit of the Middle Ages, at least as far as that manifested itself in the northern nations of Europe. Its genius was essentially prosaic. As conceived by the Greeks, its merit lay in the close imitation of real life both in action and language; all the intricacies of plot in the plays of the Latin imitators of the Greeks, Plautus and Terence, arise out of incidents which might actually have happened, such as the carrying off of children by pirates; questions about the rights of citizenship; marriages between native citizens and slaves or foreigners. Something resembling this imitation of action on the stage was possible in the restricted life of the self-governing cities of Italy. But nothing like it was as yet conceivable in the still feudal society of England: hence the slowness with which the tradition of the Moralities was displaced by the action of the New Comedy; and hence too the favour at first shown to the "witty" comedies of Lyly, who may be said to have originated the movement which resulted in the Romantic Comedy of Shakespeare. Lyly's first object was to make the action of his dramas unreal.1 He chose his subjects almost invariably from classical mythology. His heroes and heroines, Midas, Cynthia, Gallathea, and others, were removed from all touch with ordinary humanity. His plots were of the most improbable structure. He invested his actions with a kind of fairy atmosphere, and worked out his dénouements (if indeed his plays can be said to have any dénouement) by means of divine 1 In the prologue to Endimion he says: "We present neither comedy, nor tragedy, nor story, nor anything, but whosoever heareth may say this, Why, here is a tale of the Man in the Moon"; in the prologue to Sapho and Phao: "In all humbleness we all, and I on knee for all entreat, that your Highness imagine yourself to be in a deep dream, that staying the conclusion in your rising your Majesty vouchsafe but to say, and so you awaked"; in the prologue to The Woman in the Moon : "If many faults escape in her discourse agencies. And while he thus studied unreality in his situations, he threw all the strength of his invention into his dialogue, which he endeavoured to enliven by a constant display of the peculiar form of "wit" that he had brought into fashion at Court. I have already described the general characteristics of Lyly's euphuistic dialogue;1 the following specimen, taken from his Mydas, will at once sufficiently illustrate that description, and what will be said hereafter of the influence of this style on the early comedies of Shakespeare: LICIO. But, soft! here comes Pipenetta, what news? PIPENETTA. I would not be in your coats for anything. LICIO. Indeed if thou shouldest rig up and down in our jackets, thou wouldest be thought a very tom-boy. PIP. I mean I would not be in your cases. PETULUS. Neither shalt thou, Pipenetta, for first they are too little for thy body, and then too fair to pull over so foul a skin. PIP. These boys be drunk, I would not be in your takings. LICIO. I think so, for we take nothing in our hands but weapons; it is for thee to use needles and pins, a sampler not a buckler. PIP. Nay, then, we shall never have done! I mean I would not be so curst 2 as you shall be. PET. Worse and worse! We are no chase (pretty mops); for deer we are not, neither red nor fallow, because we are bachelors, and have not cornucopia, we want heads; hares we cannot be, because they are male one year, and the next female, we change not our sex; badgers we are not for our legs are one as long as another; and who will take us to be foxes that stand as near a goose and bite not. PIP. Fools you are, and therefore good game for wise men to hunt; but knaves I leave you for honest wenches to talk of. LICIO. Nay, stay, sweet Pipenetta, we are but disposed to be merry. PIP. I marvel how old you will be before you will be disposed to be honest. But this is the matter, my master has gone abroad, and wants his page to wait on him; my mistress would rise, and lacks your worship to fetch her hair. PET. Why is it not on her head? 1 See vol. ii. p. 362. 2 It would appear from the following speech of Petulus that the true reading should be "chased." 3 This must necessarily, both for the sense and rhythm of the sentence, be the true punctuation. Fairholt (Lyly's editor) reads: "We are no chase (pretty mops) for deer; we are not, etc."—which is nonsense, besides destroying the antithesis. 72 A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY CHAP. Lyly's Mother Bombie. From Italy, in fact, English dramatists and audiences had acquired a knowledge of what was required for comedy in the way of plot and situation. There was, however, in the New Comedy a certain element alien to the spirit of the Middle Ages, at least as far as that manifested itself in the northern nations of Europe. Its genius was essentially prosaic. As conceived by the Greeks, its merit lay in the close imitation of real life both in action and language; all the intricacies of plot in the plays of the Latin imitators of the Greeks, Plautus and Terence, arise out of incidents which might actually have happened, such as the carrying off of children by pirates; questions about the rights of citizenship; marriages between native citizens and slaves or foreigners. Something resembling this imitation of action on the stage was possible in the restricted life of the self-governing cities of Italy. But nothing like it was as yet conceivable in the still feudal society of England: hence the slowness with which the tradition of the Moralities was displaced by the action of the New Comedy; and hence too the favour at first shown to the "witty" comedies of Lyly, who may be said to have originated the movement which resulted in the Romantic Comedy of Shakespeare. Lyly's first object was to make the action of his dramas unreal.1 He chose his subjects almost invariably from classical mythology. His heroes and heroines, Midas, Cynthia, Gallathea, and others, were removed from all touch with ordinary humanity. His plots were of the most improbable structure. He invested his actions with a kind of fairy atmosphere, and worked out his dénouements (if indeed his plays can be said to have any dénouement) by means of divine 1 In the prologue to Endimion he says: "We present neither comedy, nor tragedy, nor story, nor anything, but whosoever heareth may say this, Why, here is a tale of the Man in the Moon"; in the prologue to Sapho and Phao: "In all humbleness we all, and I on knee for all entreat, that your Highness imagine yourself to be in a deep dream, that staying the conclusion in your rising your Majesty vouchsafe but to say, and so you awaked"; in the prologue to The Woman in the Moon : |