Chapter L: Act III: begins with thunder, lightning, and storm--a special kind of (2)

In the legend Hamlet’s personality is quite intelligible: he is revolted by the conduct of his uncle and his mother, wishes to be revenged on them, but fears that his uncle may kill him as he had killed his father, and therefore pretends to be mad, wishing to wait and observe all that was going on at court. But his uncle and his mother, being afraid of him, wish to find out whether he is feigning, or is really mad, and send a girl he loves to him. He keeps up his rôle, and afterwards sees his mother alone, kills a courtier who was eavesdropping, and convicts his mother of her sin. Then he is sent to England. He intercepts letters, returns from England, and revenges himself on his enemies, burning them all.

This is all intelligible and flows from Hamlet’s character and position. But Shakespeare, by putting into Hamlet’s mouth speeches he wished to publish and making him perform actions he needed to secure effective scenes, destroys all that forms Hamlet’s character in the legend. Throughout the whole tragedy Hamlet does not do what he might wish to do, but what is needed for the author’s plans: now he is frightened by his father’s ghost, and now he begins to chaff it, calling it “old mole”; now he loves Ophelia, now he teases her, and so on. There is no possibility of finding any explanation of Hamlet’s actions and speeches, and therefore no possibility of attributing any character to him.

But as it is accepted that Shakespeare, the genius, could write nothing bad, learned men devote all the power of their minds to discovering extraordinary beauties in what is an obvious and glaring defect--particularly obvious in Hamlet--namely, that the chief person in the play has no character at all. And, lo and behold, profound critics announce that in this drama, in the person of Hamlet, is most powerfully presented a perfectly new and profound character, consisting in this, that the person has no character; and that in this absence of character lies an achievement of genius--the creation of a profound character! And having decided this, the learned critics write volumes upon volumes, until the laudations and explanations of the grandeur and importance of depicting the character of a man without a character fill whole libraries. It is true that some critics timidly express the thought that there is something strange about this person, and that Hamlet is an unsolved riddle; but no one ventures to say, as in Hans Andersen’s story, that the king is naked; that it is clear as day that Shakespeare was unable, and did not even wish, to give Hamlet any character and did not even understand that this was necessary! And learned critics continue to study and praise this enigmatical production, which reminds one of the famous inscribed stone found by Pickwick at a cottage doorstep,--which divided the scientific world into two hostile camps.

So that neither the character of Lear, nor of Othello, nor of Falstaff, and still less of Hamlet, at all confirms the existing opinion that Shakespeare’s strength lies in the delineation of character.

If in Shakespeare’s plays some figures are met with that have characteristic traits (mostly secondary figures as Polonius in _Hamlet_, and Portia in _The Merchant of Venice_) these few life-like figures--among the five hundred or more secondary figures, and with the complete absence of character in the principal figures--are far from proving that the excellence of Shakespeare’s dramas lies in the presentation of character.

That a great mastery in the presentation of character is attributed to Shakespeare arises from his really possessing a peculiarity which, when helped out by the play of good actors, may appear to superficial observers to be a capacity to manage scenes in which a movement of feeling is expressed. However arbitrary the positions in which he puts his characters, however unnatural to them the language he makes them speak, however lacking in individuality they may be, the movement of feeling itself, its increase and change and the combination of many contrary feelings, are often expressed correctly and powerfully in some of Shakespeare’s scenes. And this, when performed by good actors, evokes, if but for a while, sympathy for the persons represented.

Shakespeare, himself an actor and a clever man, knew not only by speeches but by exclamations, gestures, and the repetition of words, how to express the state of mind and changes of feeling occurring in the persons represented. So that in many places Shakespeare’s characters instead of speaking, merely exclaim, or weep, or in the midst of a monologue indicate the pain of their position by gesture (as when Lear asks to have a button undone), or at a moment of strong excitement they repeat a question several times and cause a word to be repeated which strikes them, as is done by Othello, Macduff, Cleopatra, and others. Similar clever methods of expressing a movement of feeling--giving good actors a chance to show their powers--have often been taken by many critics for the expression of character. But however strongly the play of feeling may be expressed in one scene, a single scene cannot give the character of a person, when, after the appropriate exclamations or gesture, that person begins to talk lengthily not in a natural manner proper to him, but according to the author’s whim--uttering things unnecessary and not in harmony with his character.

V

“Well, but the profound utterances and sayings delivered by Shakespeare’s characters?” Shakespeare’s eulogists will exclaim. “Lear’s monologue on punishment, Kent’s on vengeance, Edgar’s on his former life, Gloucester’s reflections on the perversity of fate, and in other dramas the famous monologues of Hamlet, Antony and others?”

Thoughts and sayings may be appreciated, I reply, in prose works, in essays, in collections of aphorisms, but not in artistic dramatic works the aim of which is to elicit sympathy with what is represented. And therefore the monologues and sayings of Shakespeare, even if they contained many very profound and fresh thoughts, which is not the case, cannot constitute the excellence of an artistic and poetic work. On the contrary, these speeches, uttered in unnatural conditions, can only spoil artistic works.

An artistic poetic work, especially a drama, should first of all evoke in reader or spectator the illusion that what the persons represented are living through and experiencing, is being lived through and experienced by himself. And for this purpose it is not more important for the dramatist to know precisely what he should make his acting characters do and say, than it is to know what he should not make them say and do so as not to infringe the reader’s or spectator’s illusion. However eloquent and profound they may be, speeches put into the mouths of acting characters if they are superfluous and do not accord with the situation and the characters, infringe the main condition of dramatic work--the illusion causing the reader or spectator to experience the feelings of the persons represented. One may without infringing the illusion leave much unsaid: the reader or spectator will himself supply what is needed and sometimes as a result of this his illusion is even increased; but to say what is superfluous is like jerking and scattering a statue made up of small pieces, or taking the lamp out of a magic lantern. The reader’s or spectator’s attention is distracted, the reader sees the author, the spectator sees the actor, the illusion is lost, and to recreate it is sometimes impossible. And therefore without a sense of proportion there cannot be an artist, especially a dramatist. And Shakespeare is entirely devoid of this feeling.

Shakespeare’s characters continually do and say what is not merely unnatural to them but quite unnecessary. I will not cite examples of this, for I think that a man who does not himself perceive this striking defect in all Shakespeare’s dramas will not be convinced by any possible examples or proofs. It is sufficient to read _King Lear_ alone, with the madness, the murders, the plucking out of eyes, Gloucester’s jump, the poisonings, and the torrents of abuse--not to mention _Pericles_, _A Winter’s Tale_--or _The Tempest_, to convince oneself of this. Only a man quite devoid of the sense of proportion and taste could produce the types of _Titus Andronicus_ and _Troilus and Cressida_, and so mercilessly distort the old drama of _King Leir_.

Gervinus tries to prove that Shakespeare possessed a feeling of beauty, _Schönheit’s Sinn_, but all Gervinus’s proofs only show that he himself, Gervinus, completely lacked it. In Shakespeare everything is exaggerated: the actions are exaggerated, so are their consequences, the speeches of the characters are exaggerated, and therefore at every step the possibility of artistic impression is infringed.

Whatever people may say, however they may be enraptured by Shakespeare’s works, whatever merits they may attribute to them, it is certain that he was not an artist, and that his works are not artistic productions. Without a sense of proportion there never was or could be an artist, just as without a sense of rhythm there cannot be a musician. And Shakespeare may be anything you like--only not an artist.

“But one must not forget the times in which Shakespeare wrote,” says his belauders. “It was a time of cruel and coarse manners, a time of the then fashionable euphuism, that is, an artificial manner of speech--a time of forms of life strange to us, and therefore to judge Shakespeare one must keep in view the times when he wrote. In Homer, as in Shakespeare, there is much that is strange to us, but this does not prevent our valuing the beauties of Homer,” say the belauders. But when one compares Shakespeare with Homer, as Gervinus does, the infinite distance separating true poetry from its imitation emerges with special vividness. However distant Homer is from us, we can without the slightest effort transport ourselves into the life he describes. And we are thus transported chiefly because, however alien to us may be the events Homer describes, he believes in what he says and speaks seriously of what he is describing, and therefore he never exaggerates and the sense of measure never deserts him. And therefore it happens that, not to speak of the wonderfully distinct, life-like, and excellent characters of Achilles, Hector, Priam, Odysseus, and the eternally touching scenes of Hector’s farewell, of Priam’s embassy, of the return of Odysseus, and so forth, the whole of the _Iliad_ and particularly the _Odyssey_, is as naturally close to us all as if we had lived and were now living among the gods and heroes. But it is not so with Shakespeare. From his first words exaggeration is seen: exaggeration of events, exaggeration of feeling, and exaggeration of expressions. It is at once evident that he does not believe in what he is saying, that he doesn’t need it, that he is inventing the occurrences he describes, is indifferent to his characters, and has devised them merely for the stage, and therefore makes them do and say what may strike his public; and so we do not believe either in the events, or in the actions, or in the sufferings of his characters. Nothing so clearly shows the complete absence of esthetic feeling in Shakespeare, as a comparison between him and Homer. The works which we call the works of Homer, are artistic, poetic, original works, lived through by their author or authors.

But Shakespeare’s works are compositions devised for a particular purpose and having absolutely nothing in common with art or poetry.

VI

But perhaps the loftiness of Shakespeare’s conception of life is such as, even though he does not satisfy the demands of esthetics, discloses to us so new and important a view of life that in consideration of its value all his artistic defects become unnoticeable. This is indeed what some belauders of Shakespeare say. Gervinus plainly says that besides Shakespeare’s significance in the sphere of dramatic poetry, in which in his opinion he is the equal of “Homer in the sphere of the epic; Shakespeare being the greatest judge of the human soul, is a teacher of most indisputable ethical authority, and the most select leader in the world and in life.”

In what then does this indubitable authority of the most select teacher in the world and in life consist? Gervinus devotes the concluding chapter of his second volume (some fifty pages) to an explanation of this.

The ethical authority of this supreme teacher of life, in the opinion of Gervinus, consists in the following: “Shakespeare’s moral view starts from the simple point,” says Gervinus, “that man is born with powers of activity,” and therefore, first of all, says Gervinus, Shakespeare regarded it as “an obligation to use our inherent power of action.” (As if it were possible for man not to act!)[140]

“_Die thatkräftigen Männer, Fortinbras, Bolingbroke, Alcibiades, Octavius spielen hier die gegensätzlichen Rollen gegen die verschiedenen Thatlosen; nicht ihre Charaktere verdienen ihnen Allen ihr Glück und Gedeihen etwa durch eine grosse Ueberlegenheit ihre Natur, sondern trotz ihrer geringern Anlage stellt sich ihre Thatkraft an sich über die Unthätigkeit der Anderen hinaus, gleichviel aus wie schöner Quelle diese Passivität, aus wie schlechter jene Thatigkeit fliesse._”[141]

That is to say, that active people like Fortinbras, Bolingbroke, Alcibiades and Octavius, Gervinus informs us, are contrasted by Shakespeare with various characters who do not display energetic activity. And, according to Shakespeare, happiness and success are attained by people who possess this active character, not at all as a result of their superiority of nature. On the contrary, in spite of their inferior talents, their energy in itself always gives them the advantage over the inactive people, no matter whether their inactivity results from excellent impulses, or the activity of the others from base ones. Activity is good, inactivity is evil. Activity transforms evil into good, says Shakespeare, according to Gervinus. “Shakespeare prefers the principle of Alexander to that of Diogenes,” says Gervinus. In other words, according to him, Shakespeare prefers death and murder from ambition, to self-restraint and wisdom.[142]

According to Gervinus, Shakespeare considers that humanity should not set itself ideals, but that all that is necessary is healthy activity, and a golden mean in everything. Indeed Shakespeare is so imbued with this wise moderation that, in the words of Gervinus, he even allows himself to deny Christian morality, which makes exaggerated demands on human nature. “How thoroughly penetrated Shakespeare was with this principle of wise moderation,” says Gervinus, “is shewn perhaps most strongly in this, that he ventured even to oppose Christian laws which demand an overstraining of human nature; for he approved not that the limits of duty should be extended beyond the intention of nature. He taught therefore the wise and human medium between the Christian and heathen precepts” (p. 917)--a reasonable mean, natural to man, between Christian and pagan injunctions--on the one hand, love of one’s enemies, and on the other, hatred of them!

“That it is possible to do too much in good things, is an express doctrine of Shakespeare, both in word and example.... Thus excessive liberality ruins Timon, whilst moderate generosity keeps Antonio in honour; the genuine ambition which makes Henry V great overthrows Percy, in whom it rises too high. Exaggerated virtue brings Angelo to ruin; and when in those near him the excess of punishment proves harmful and cannot hinder sin, then mercy, the most Godlike gift that man possesses, is also exhibited in its excess, as the producer of sin.”

Shakespeare, says Gervinus, taught that one _may do too much good_. He teaches, says Gervinus, “that morality, like politics, is a matter so complicated with relations, conditions of life, and motives, that it is impossible to bring it to final principles” (p. 918).

“In Shakespeare’s opinion (and here also he is one with Bacon and Aristotle) there is no positive law of religion or morals which could form a rule of moral action in precepts ever binding and suitable for all cases.”

Gervinus most clearly expresses Shakespeare’s whole moral theory by saying that Shakespeare does not write for those classes for whom definite religious principles and laws are suitable (that is to say, for 999 out of 1000 of mankind), but for the cultivated, who have made their own a healthy tact in life and such an instinctive feeling as, united with conscience reason and will, can direct them to worthy aims of life. But even for these fortunate ones, in the opinion of Gervinus, this teaching may be dangerous if it is taken incompletely. It must be taken whole. “There are classes,” says Gervinus, “whose morality is best provided for by the positive letter of religion and law; but for such as these Shakespeare’s writings are in themselves inaccessible; they are only readable and comprehensible to the cultivated, of whom it can be required that they should appropriate to themselves the healthy measure of life, and that self-reliance in which the guiding and inherent powers of conscience and reason, united with the will, are, when consciously apprehended, worthy aims of life” (p. 919). “But even for the cultivated also, Shakespeare’s doctrine may not always be without danger.... The condition on which his doctrine is entirely harmless is this, that it should be fully and completely received and without any expurging and separating. Then it is not only without danger, but it is also more unmistakable and more infallible, and therefore more worthy of our confidence, than any system of morality can be,” (p. 919).

And in order to accept it all, one should understand that according to his teaching it is insane and harmful for an individual to rise against, or “disregard the bonds of religion and the state” (p. 921). For Shakespeare would abhor a free and independent personality who strong in spirit should oppose any law in politics or morals and should disregard the union of the state and religion “which has kept society together for centuries” (p. 921). “For in his opinion the practical wisdom of man would have no higher aim than to carry into society the utmost possible nature and freedom, but for that very reason, and that he might maintain sacred and inviolable the natural laws of society, he would respect existing forms, yet at the same time penetrate into their rational substance with sound criticism, not forgetting nature in civilization, nor, equally, civilization in nature.” Property, the family, the state, are sacred. But the aspiration to recognize the equality of man, is insane. “It’s realization would bring the greatest harm to humanity” (p. 925).

“No man has fought more strongly against rank and class prejudices, than Shakespeare, but how could his liberal principles have been pleased with the doctrines of those who would have done away with the prejudices of the rich and cultivated, only to replace them with the interests and prejudices of the poor and uncultivated? How would this man, who allures so eloquently to the course of honour, have approved, if in annulling rank, degrees of merit, distinction, we extinguish every impulse to greatness, and by the removal of all degrees, ‘shake the ladder to all high designs’? If indeed no surreptitious honour and false power were longer to oppress mankind, how would the poet have acknowledged the most fearful force of all, the power of barbarity? In consequence of these modern doctrines of equality, he would have apprehended that everything would resolve itself into power; or if this were not the final lot which awaited mankind from these aspirations after equality, if love between nationalities and endless peace were not that ‘nothing’ of impossibility, as Alonso expresses it in the _Tempest_, but could be an actual fruit of these efforts after equality, then the poet would have believed with this time the old age and decrepitude of the world to have arrived, in which it were worthless to the active to live” (p. 925).

Such is Shakespeare’s view of life as explained by his greatest exponent and admirer. Another of the recent belauders of Shakespeare, Brandes, adds the following:

“No one, of course, can preserve his life quite pure from injustice, from deception, and from doing harm to others, but injustice and deception are not always vices, and even the harm done to other people is not always a vice: it is often only a necessity, a legitimate weapon, a right. At bottom, Shakespeare had always held that there were no such things as unconditional duties and absolute prohibitions. He had never, for example, questioned Hamlet’s right to kill the King, scarcely even his right to run his sword through Polonius. Nevertheless he had hitherto been unable to conquer a feeling of indignation and disgust when he saw around him nothing but breaches of the simplest moral laws. Now, on the other hand, the dim divinations of his earlier years crystallised in his mind into a coherent body of thought: no commandment is unconditional; it is not in the observance or non-observance of an external fiat that the merits of an action, to say nothing of a character, consists: everything depends upon the volitional substance into which the individual, as a responsible agent, transmits the formal imperative at the moment of decision.”[143]

In other words Shakespeare now sees clearly that the morality of the aim is the only true, the only possible one; so that, according to Brandes, Shakespeare’s fundamental principle, for which he is extolled, is that _the end justifies the means_. Action at all costs, the absence of all ideals, moderation in everything, the maintenance of established forms of life, and the maxim that “the end justifies the means.”

If one adds to this a Chauvinistic English patriotism, expressed in all his historical plays: a patriotism according to which the English throne is something sacred, the English always defeat the French, slaughtering thousands and losing only scores, Jeanne d’Arc is a witch, Hector and all the Trojans--from whom the English are descended--are heroes while the Greeks are cowards and traitors, and so forth: this is the view of life of the wisest teacher of life according to his greatest admirer. And anyone who reads attentively the works of Shakespeare cannot but acknowledge that the attribution of this view of life to Shakespeare by those who praise him is perfectly correct.

The value of every poetical work depends on three qualities:

1) The content of the work: the more important the content, that is to say, the more important it is for the life of man, the greater is the work.

2) The external beauty achieved by the technical methods proper to the particular kind of art. Thus in dramatic art the technical method will be: that the characters should have a true individuality of their own, a natural and at the same time a touching plot, a correct presentation on the stage of the manifestation and development of feelings, and a sense of proportion in all that is presented.

3) Sincerity, that is to say that the author should himself vividly feel what he expresses. Without this condition there can be no work of art, as the essence of art consists in the infection of the contemplator of a work by the author’s feeling. If the author has not felt what he is expressing, the recipient cannot become infected by the author’s feeling, he does not experience any feeling, and the production cannot be classed as a work of art.

The content of Shakespeare’s plays, as is seen by the explanations of his greatest admirers, is the lowest, most vulgar view of life, which regards the external elevation of the great ones of the earth as a genuine superiority; despises the crowd, that is to say, the working classes; and repudiates not only religious, but even any humanitarian, efforts directed towards the alteration of the existing order of society.

The second condition is also absent in Shakespeare except in his handling of scenes in which a movement of feelings is expressed. There is in his works a lack of naturalness in the situations, the characters lack individuality of speech, and a sense of proportion is also wanting, without which such works cannot be artistic.

The third and chief condition--sincerity--is totally absent in all Shakespeare’s works. One sees in all of them an intentional artificiality; it is obvious that he is not in earnest but is playing with words.

VII

The works of Shakespeare do not meet the demands of every art, and besides that their tendency is very low and immoral. What then is the meaning of the immense fame these works have enjoyed for more than a hundred years?

To reply to this question seems the more difficult because if the works of Shakespeare had any kind of excellence, the achievement which has produced the exaggerated praise lavished upon them, would at least be to some extent intelligible. But here two extremes meet: works which are beneath criticism, insignificant, empty, and immoral--and insensate, universal laudation, proclaiming these works to be above everything that has ever been produced by man.

How is this to be explained?

Many times during my life I have had occasion to discuss Shakespeare with his admirers, not only with people little sensitive to poetry, but also with those who felt poetic beauty keenly, such as Turgénev, Fet,[144] and others, and each time I have encountered one and the same attitude towards my disagreement with the belaudment of Shakespeare.

I was not answered when I pointed out Shakespeare’s defects; they only pitied me for my want of comprehension and urged on me the necessity of acknowledging the extraordinary supernatural grandeur of Shakespeare. They did not explain to me in what the beauties of Shakespeare consist, but were merely indefinitely and exaggeratedly enthusiastic about the whole of Shakespeare, extolling some favourite passages: the undoing of Lear’s button, Falstaff’s lying, Lady Macbeth’s spot which would not wash out, Hamlet’s address to the ghost of his father, the “forty thousand brothers,” “none does offend, none, I say none,” and so forth.

“Open Shakespeare,” I used to say to these admirers of his, “where you will or as may chance, and you will see that you will never find ten consecutive lines that are comprehensible, natural, characteristic of the person who utters them, and productive of an artistic impression.” (Anyone may make this experiment.) And the belauders of Shakespeare opened pages in Shakespeare’s dramas by chance, or at their own choice, and without paying any attention to the reasons I adduced as to why the ten lines selected did not meet the most elementary demands of esthetics or good sense, praised the very things that appeared to me absurd, unintelligible, and inartistic.

So that in general in response to my endeavours to obtain from the worshippers of Shakespeare an explanation of his greatness, I encountered precisely the attitude I have usually met with, and still meet, from the defenders of any dogmas accepted not on the basis of reason but in mere credulity. And just this attitude of the belauders of Shakespeare towards him--an attitude which may be met with in all the indefinite, misty articles about Shakespeare, and in conversations about him, gave me the key to an understanding of the cause of Shakespeare’s fame. There is only one explanation of this astonishing fame: it is one of those epidemic suggestions to which people always have been and are liable. Such irrational suggestion has always existed, and does exist in all spheres of life. Glaring examples of such suggestion, considerable in scope and deceptiveness, were the mediæval Crusades, which influenced not only adults but also children, and many other epidemic suggestions astonishing in their senselessness, such as the belief in witches, in the utility of torture for the discovery of truth, the search for the elixir of life, for the philosopher’s stone, and the passion for tulips valued at several thousand guilders a bulb, which overran Holland. There always have been and always are such irrational suggestions in all spheres of human life--religious, philosophic, economic, scientific, artistic, and in literature generally, and people only see clearly the insanity of such suggestions after they are freed from them. But as long as they are under their influence these suggestions appear to them such undoubted truths that they do not consider it necessary or possible to reason about them. Since the development of the printing-press these epidemics have become particularly striking.

Since the development of the press it has come about that as soon as, from accidental circumstances, something obtains a special significance, the organs of the press immediately announce this significance. And as soon as the press has put forward the importance of the matter, the public directs yet more attention to it. The hypnotization of the public incites the press to regard the thing more attentively and in greater detail. The interest of the public is still further increased, and the organs of the press, competing one with another, respond to the public demand.

The public becomes yet more interested, and the press attributes yet more importance to the matter; so that this importance, growing ever greater and greater like a snowball, obtains a quite unnatural appreciation, and this appreciation, exaggerated even to absurdity, maintains itself as long as the outlook on life of the leaders of the press and of the public remains the same. There are in our day innumerable examples of such a misunderstanding of the importance of the most insignificant occurrences, occasioned by the mutual reaction of press and public. A striking example of this was the excitement which seized the whole world over the Dreyfus affair. A suspicion arose that some captain on the French staff had been guilty of treason. Whether because this captain was a Jew, or from some special internal party disagreements in French society, this event, which resembled others that continually occur without arousing anyone’s attention and without interesting the whole world or even the French military, was given a somewhat prominent position by the press. The public paid attention to it. The organs of the press, vying with one another, began to describe, to analyse, to discuss the event, the public became yet more interested, the press responded to the demands of the public, and the snowball began to grow and grow, and grew before our eyes to such an extent that there was not a family which had not its disputes about _l’affaire_. So that Caran d’Ache’s caricature, which depicted first a peaceful family that had decided not to discuss the Dreyfus affair any more, and then the same family represented as angry furies fighting one another, quite correctly depicted the relation of the whole reading world to the Dreyfus question. Men of other nationalities who could not have any real interest in the question whether a French officer had or had not been a traitor--men moreover who could not know how the affair was going--all divided for or against Dreyfus, some asserting his guilt with assurance, others denying it with equal certainty.

It was only after some years that people began to awaken from the “suggestion” and to understand that they could not possibly know whether he was guilty or innocent, and that each one of them had a thousand matters nearer and more interesting to him than the Dreyfus affair. Such infatuations occur in all spheres, but they are specially noticeable in the sphere of literature, for the press naturally occupies itself most of all with the affairs of the press, and these are particularly powerful in our day when the press has obtained such an unnatural development. It continually happens that people suddenly begin to devote exaggerated praise to some very insignificant works, and then if these works do not correspond to the prevailing view of life suddenly become perfectly indifferent to them and forget both the works themselves and their own previous attitude towards them.

So within my recollection, in the eighteen-forties, there occurred in the artistic sphere the exaltation and laudation of Eugène Sue and George Sand; in the social sphere, of Fourier; in the philosophic sphere, of Comte and Hegel; and in the scientific sphere, of Darwin.

Sue is quite forgotten, George Sand is being forgotten and replaced by the writings of Zola and the Decadents, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Maeterlinck and others. Fourier, with his phalansteries, is quite forgotten, and has been replaced by Karl Marx. Hegel, who justified the existing order, and Comte, who denied the necessity of religious activity in humanity, and Darwin, with his law of struggle for existence, still maintain their places, but are beginning to be neglected and replaced by the teachings of Nietzsche, which though perfectly absurd, unthought-out, obscure, and bad in their content, correspond better to the present-day outlook on life. Thus it sometimes happens that artistic, philosophic, and literary crazes in general, arise, fall rapidly, and are forgotten.

But it also happens that such crazes, having arisen in consequence of special causes accidentally favouring their establishment, correspond so well to the view of life diffused in society and especially in literary circles, that they maintain their place for a very long time. Even in Roman times it was remarked that books have their fate, and often a very strange one: failure in spite of high qualities, and enormous undeserved success in spite of insignificance. And a proverb was made: _Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli_, that is, that the fate of books depends on the understanding of those who read them. Such was the correspondence of Shakespeare’s work to the view of life of the people among whom his fame arose. And this fame has been maintained, and is still maintained, because the works of Shakespeare continue to correspond to the view of life of those who maintain this fame.

Until the end of the 18th century Shakespeare not only had no particular fame in England, but was estimated less than his contemporaries: Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and others. His fame began in Germany, and from there passed to England. This happened for the following reason:

Art, especially dramatic art which demands for its realisation extensive preparations, expenditure, and labour, was always religious, that is to say, its object was to evoke in man a clearer conception of that relation of man to God attained at the time by the advanced members of the society in which the art was produced.

So it should be by the nature of the matter, and so it always had been among all nations: among the Egyptians, Hindoos, Chinese, and Greeks--from the earliest time that we have knowledge of the life of man. And it has always happened that, with the coarsening of religious forms, art had more and more diverged from this original aim (which had caused it to be recognised as an important matter--almost an act of worship) and instead of the service of religion, it adopted instead of religious aims worldly aims for the satisfaction of the demands of the crowd, or of the great ones of the earth, that is to say, aims of recreation and amusement.

This deflection of art from its true and high vocation occurred everywhere, and it occurred in Christendom.

The first manifestation of Christian art was in the worship of God in the temples: the performance of Mass and, in general, of the liturgy. When in course of time the forms of this art of divine worship became insufficient, the Mysteries were produced, depicting those events regarded as most important in the Christian religious view of life. Afterwards, when in the 13th and 14th centuries the centre of gravity of Christian teaching was more and more transferred from the worship of Jesus as God, to the explanation of his teaching and its fulfilment, the form of the Mysteries, which depicted external Christian events, became insufficient and new forms were demanded; and as an expression of this tendency appeared the Moralities, dramatic representations in which the characters personified the Christian virtues and the opposite vices.

But allegories by their very nature, as art of a lower order, could not replace the former religious drama, and no new form of dramatic art corresponding to the conception of Christianity as a teaching of life had yet been found. And dramatic art, lacking a religious basis, began in all Christian countries more and more to deviate from its purpose, and instead of a service of God became a service of the crowd (I mean by “crowd” not merely the common people, but the majority of immoral or non-moral people indifferent to the higher problems of human life). This deviation was helped on by the fact that just at that time the Greek thinkers, poets, and dramatists, with whom the Christian world had not hitherto been acquainted, were re-discovered and favourably accepted. And therefore, not having yet had time to work out for themselves a clear and satisfactory form of dramatic art suitable to the new conception entertained of Christianity as a teaching of life, and at the same time recognising the previous Mysteries and Moralities as insufficient, the writers of the 15th and 16th centuries, in their search for a new form, began to imitate the newly discovered Greek models, which were attractive by their elegance and novelty. And as it was chiefly the great ones of the earth who could avail themselves of the drama--the kings, princes, and courtiers--the least religious people, not merely quite indifferent to questions of religion but for the most part thoroughly depraved--it followed that to satisfy the demands of its public the drama of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries was chiefly a spectacle intended for depraved kings and for the upper classes. Such was the drama of Spain, England, Italy, and France.

The plays of that time, chiefly composed in all these countries according to ancient Greek models, from poems, legends, and biographies, naturally reflected the national characters. In Italy what was chiefly elaborated were comedies with amusing scenes and characters. In Spain the worldly drama flourished, with complicated plots and ancient historical heroes. The peculiarity of English drama was the coarse effects produced by murders, executions, and battles on the stage, and popular comic interludes. Neither the Italian, nor the Spanish, nor the English, drama had European fame, and each of them enjoyed success only in its own country. General fame, thanks to the elegance of its language and the talent of its writers, was enjoyed only by the French drama, which was distinguished by strict adherence to the Greek models, and especially to the law of the three Unities.

So matters continued till the end of the 18th century, but at the end of that century this is what happened: in Germany which lacked even mediocre dramatists, (though there had been a weak and little known writer, Hans Sachs), all educated people, including Frederick the Great, bowed down before the French pseudo-classical drama. And yet at that very time there appeared in Germany a circle of educated and talented writers and poets who, feeling the falsity and coldness of the French drama, sought a newer and freer dramatic form. The members of this group, like all the upper classes of the Christian world at that time, were under the charm and influence of the Greek classics and, being utterly indifferent to religious questions, thought that if the Greek drama depicting the calamities, sufferings, and struggles of its heroes supplied the best model for the drama, then for drama in the Christian world such representation of the sufferings and struggles of heroes would also be a sufficient subject, if only one rejected the narrow demands of pseudo-classicism. These men, not understanding that the sufferings and strife of their heroes had a religious significance for the Greeks, imagined that it was only necessary to reject the inconvenient law of the three Unities, and without containing any religious element corresponding to the beliefs of their own time, the representation of various incidents in the lives of historic personages, and of strong human passions in general would afford a sufficient basis for the drama. Just such a drama existed at that time among the kindred English people and, becoming acquainted with it, the Germans decided that just such should be the drama of the new period.

The masterly development of the scenes, which constitutes Shakespeare’s speciality, caused them to select Shakespeare’s dramas from among all other English plays which were not in the least inferior, but often superior, to Shakespeare’s.

At the head of the circle stood Goethe, who was then the dictator of public opinion on esthetic questions. And he it was--partly from a wish to destroy the fascination of the false French art, partly from a wish to give freer scope to his own dramatic activity, but chiefly because his view of life agreed with Shakespeare’s--he it was who acclaimed Shakespeare a great poet. When that falsehood had been proclaimed on Goethe’s authority, all those esthetic critics who did not understand art threw themselves upon it like crows upon carrion, and began to search Shakespeare for non-existent beauties, and to extol them. These men, German esthetic critics--for the most part utterly devoid of esthetic feeling, ignorant of that simple direct artistic impression which for men with a feeling for art clearly distinguishes artistic impression from all other, but believing the authority that had proclaimed Shakespeare as a great poet--began to belaud the whole of Shakespeare indiscriminately, selecting passages especially which struck them by their effects or expressed thoughts corresponding to their own view of life, imagining that such effects and such thoughts constitute the essence of what is called art.

These men acted as blind men would if they tried by touch to select diamonds out of a heap of stones they fingered. As the blind man, long sorting out the many little stones, could finally come to no other conclusion than that all the stones were precious and the smoothest were especially precious, so the esthetic critics, deprived of artistic feeling, could come to no other result about Shakespeare. To make their praise of the whole of Shakespeare more convincing they composed an esthetic theory, according to which a definite religious view of life is not at all necessary for the creation of works of art in general, or for the drama in particular; that for the inner content of a play it is quite enough to depict passions and human characters, that not only is no religious illumination of the matter presented required, but that art ought to be objective, that is to say, it should depict occurrences quite independently of any valuation of what is good or bad. And as this theory was educed from Shakespeare, it naturally happened that the works of Shakespeare corresponded to this theory, and were therefore the height of perfection.

And these were the people chiefly responsible for Shakespeare’s fame.

Chiefly in consequence of their writings, the inter-action of writers and the public came about which found expression, and is still expressed, by the insensate belaudment of Shakespeare without any rational basis. These esthetic critics wrote profound treatises about Shakespeare (eleven thousand volumes have been written about him, and a whole science of Shakespeareology has been formulated); the public became more and more interested, and the learned critics explained more and more, that is to say, they added to the confusion and belaudment.

So that the first cause of Shakespeare’s fame was that the Germans wanted to oppose something freer and more alive to the French drama of which they were tired, and which was really dull and cold. The second cause was that the young German writers required a model for their own dramas. The third and chief cause was the activity of the learned and zealous esthetic German critics who lacked esthetic feeling and formulated the theory of objective art, that is to say, deliberately repudiated the religious essence of the drama.

“But,” I shall be asked, “what do you mean by the words ‘religious essence of the drama’? Is not what you demand for the drama religious instruction, didactics: what is called a tendency--which is incompatible with true art?” By “the religious essence of art,” I reply, I mean not an external inculcation of any religious truth in artistic guise, and not an allegorical representation of those truths, but the expression of a definite view of life corresponding to the highest religious understanding of a given period: an outlook which, serving as the impelling motive for the composition of the drama, permeates the whole work though the author is unconscious of it. So it has always been with true art, and so it is with every true artist in general and with dramatists especially. Hence, as happened when the drama was a serious thing, and as should be according to the essence of the matter, he alone can write a drama who has something to say to men--something highly important for them--about man’s relation to God, to the universe, to all that is infinite and unending.

But when, thanks to the German theories about objective art, an idea had been established that, for drama, this is not wanted at all, then a writer like Shakespeare who in his own soul had not formed religious convictions corresponding to his period, and who had even no convictions at all, but piled up in his plays all possible events, horrors, fooleries, discussions, and effects, could evidently be accepted as the greatest of dramatic geniuses.

But all these are external reasons: the fundamental inner cause of Shakespeare’s fame was, and is, that his plays fitted _pro captu lectoris_, that is to say responded to the irreligious and immoral attitude of the upper classes of our world.

VIII

A series of accidents brought it about that Goethe at the beginning of the last century, being the dictator of philosophic thought and esthetic laws, praised Shakespeare; the esthetic critics caught up that praise and began to write their long foggy erudite articles, and the great European public began to be enchanted by Shakespeare. The critics, responding to this public interest, laboriously vied with one another in writing fresh and fresh articles about Shakespeare, and readers and spectators were still further confirmed in their enthusiasm, and Shakespeare’s fame kept growing and growing like a snowball, until in our time it has attained a degree of insane laudation that obviously rests on no other basis than suggestion.

“There is no one even approximately equal to Shakespeare either among ancient or modern writers.” “Poetic truth is the most brilliant gem in the crown of Shakespeare’s service.” “Shakespeare is the greatest moralist of all times.” “Shakespeare displays such diversity and such objectivity as place him beyond the limits of time and nationality.” “Shakespeare is the greatest genius that has hitherto existed.” “For the creation of tragedies, comedies, historical plays, idylls, idyllic comedies, esthetic idylls, for representation itself as also for incidental verses, he is the only man. He not only wields unlimited power over our laughter and our tears, over all phases of passion, humour, thought and observation, but he commands an unlimited realm of imagination, full of fancy of a terrifying and amazing character, and he possesses penetration in the world of invention and of reality, and over all this there reigns one and the same truthfulness to character and to nature, and the same spirit of humanity.”

“To Shakespeare the epithet of great applies naturally; and if one adds that independently of his greatness he has also become the reformer of all literature, and moreover has expressed in his works not only the phenomena of the life of his time, but also from thoughts and views that in his day existed only in germ has prophetically foreseen the direction which the social spirit would take in the future (of which we see an amazing example in Hamlet)--one may say without hesitation that Shakespeare was not only a great, but the greatest of all poets that ever existed, and that in the sphere of poetic creation the only rival that equals him is life itself, which in his productions he depicted with such perfection.”

The obvious exaggeration of this appraisement is a most convincing proof that it is not the outcome of sane thought, but of suggestion. The more insignificant, the lower, the emptier, a phenomenon is, once it becomes the object of suggestion, the more supernatural and exaggerated is the importance attributed to it. The Pope is not only holy, but most holy, and so forth. So Shakespeare is not only a good writer, but the greatest genius, the eternal teacher of mankind.

Suggestion is always a deceit, and every deceit is an evil. And really the suggestion that Shakespeare’s works are great works of genius, presenting the climax both of esthetic and ethical perfection, has caused and is causing great injury to men.

This injury is two-fold: first, the fall of the drama and the substitution of an empty immoral amusement for that important organ of progress, and secondly, by the direct degradation of men by presenting them with false models for imitation.

The life of humanity only approaches perfection by the elucidation of religious consciousness (the only principle securely uniting men one with another). The elucidation of the religious consciousness of man is accomplished through all sides of man’s spiritual activity. One side of that activity is art. One part of art, and almost the most important, is the drama.

And therefore the drama, to deserve the importance attributed to it, should serve the elucidation of religious consciousness. Such the drama always was, and such it was in the Christian world. But with the appearance of Protestantism in its broadest sense--that is to say, the appearance of a new understanding of Christianity as a teaching of life--dramatic art did not find a form corresponding to this new understanding of religion, and the men of the Renaissance period were carried away by the imitation of classical art. This was most natural, but the attraction should have passed, and art should have found, as it is now beginning to find, a new form corresponding to the altered understanding of Christianity.

But the finding of this new form was hindered by the teaching, which arose among German writers at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, of the so-called objectivity of art--that is to say, the indifference of art to good or evil--together with an exaggerated praise of Shakespeare’s dramas, which partly corresponded to the esthetic theory of the Germans and partly served as material for it. Had there not been this exaggerated praise of Shakespeare’s dramas, accepted as the most perfect models of drama, people of the 18th and 19th centuries and of our own, would have had to understand that the drama, to have a right to exist and be regarded as a serious matter, ought to serve, as always was, and cannot but be, the case, the elucidation of religious consciousness. And having understood this they would have sought a new form of drama corresponding to their religious perception.

But when it was decided that Shakespeare’s drama is the summit of perfection, and that people ought to write as he did without any religious or even any moral content--all the dramatists, imitating him, began to compose plays lacking content, like the plays of Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and, among us Russians, Púshkin, and the historical plays of Ostróvski, Alexéy Tolstóy, and the innumerable other more or less well-known dramatic works which fill all the theatres and are continually produced by anyone to whom the thought and desire to write plays occur.

Only thanks to such a mean petty understanding of the importance of the drama do there appear among us that endless series of dramatic works presenting the actions, situations, characters, and moods of people, not only devoid of any spiritual content but even lacking any human sense. And let not the reader suppose that I exclude from this estimate of contemporary drama the pieces I myself have incidentally written for the theatre. I recognise them, just like all the rest, to be lacking in that religious content which should form the basis of the future drama.

So that the drama, the most important sphere of art, has become in our time merely an empty and immoral amusement for the empty and immoral crowd. What is worst of all is that to the art of the drama, which has fallen as low as it was possible to fall, people continue to attribute an elevated significance, unnatural to it.

Dramatists, actors, theatrical managers, the press--the latter most seriously publishing reports of theatres, operas, and so forth--all feel assured that they are doing something very useful and important.

The drama in our time is like a great man fallen to the lowest stage of degradation, who yet continues to pride himself on his past, of which nothing now remains. And the public of our time is like those who pitilessly get amusement out of this once great man, now descended to the lowest depths.

Such is one harmful effect of the epidemic suggestion of the greatness of Shakespeare. Another harmful effect of that bepraisement is the setting up of a false model for men’s imitation.