othello marxist essay

Aleksandr A. Smirnov

Shakespeare: a marxist interpretation.

Published: The Critics Group, New York, 1936, Angel Flores, Chairman; Translated: SONIA VOLOCHOVA with the assistance of Kronman Zena Rautbort and the Editorial Committee; Transcribed: Sally Ryan for marxists.org, 2000.

The sixteenth century witnessed the flowering of the drama in England. At the end of the century a whole galaxy of brilliant dramatists appeared: Lyly, Kidd, Greene, Marlowe, Heywood, Dekker, and, somewhat later, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher. Although Shakespeare, like a majestic mountain, overshadows them all, nevertheless each was an independent and significant artistic entity. A similar blossoming of culture, although to a lesser degree, took place in other fields of artistic effort. The gifted Petrarchists, Surrey and Wyatt, were creating a new form of lyric, which reached its height in the sonnets of Shakespeare and the poems of Spenser. There were other poets, as Gascoigne, Puttenham and Sydney, all radically abjuring the medieval tradition. The English novel–the chivalric and pastoral romance, the picaresque, and the realistic novel of manners (Lyly, Greene, Nash, Deloney)–evidenced like progress. Although less brilliant than the Spanish novel of the same era, it was almost as colorful and interesting.

English singers and musicians of the sixteenth century were famous throughout Europe. While in the realm of the pictorial and plastic arts, there was only one outstanding English genius, the renowned architect and theatrical designer Inigo Jones, nevertheless, England attracted to her shores many great masters–Holbein, for instance.

A new secular learning and a new philosophy, supplanted the old scholasticism. At the beginning of the century, Erasmus settled in England, where he spent several years; in 1510 he was teaching Greek at Cambridge.

At this time England produced her great humanist, a friend of Erasmus, and one of the forerunners of socialism, Sir Thomas More (1478-1536), author of Utopia. When Henry VIII decreed that all schools in England include Latin in their curricula, a flood of translations was released, not only of the ancient poets, but of philosophers, scholars and historians as well. (Cicero, Herodotus, Suetonius, Pliny.)

Education was primarily confined to aristocratic and court circles. Most Elizabethan statesmen possessed culture, and were men of high attainment. The pursuit of knowledge spread likewise among the ladies of the upper classes. The mother of Bacon and the wife of Lord Burghley were excellent Latin scholars. Lady Jane Grey, the unhappy claimant to the English throne after the death of Edward VI (1553), read Plate in the original, and Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), a pupil of Ascham, knew Latin and Greek in addition to four other languages. She rendered one of the treatises of Plutarch into English and intended to translate Euripides. Nevertheless, judging by the number of mythological references and classical allusions in Shakespeare and in other dramatic writing for the public theatres, with their motley audiences, it must be admitted that quite a large section of London's population possessed some degree of culture.

This scientific-philosophic movement reached its apex at the end of the century with the appearance of the philosophical system of Bacon (1561-1626) whom Marx called the "first creator" of English materialism. [1]

The sixteenth century was the era of the Renaissance in England. This fruition of art and philosophy in England was analogous to that of other Western European countries. It also resulted from the radical upheaval in all domains of economic and social life–the decline of the old feudal order with its method of production, which was now being replaced by capitalist relations characteristic of the epoch of primary accumulation. This movement, which developed in England later than in the countries of southern Europe, swept over the land. It was colored by specific local conditions, which gave a distinctive character to English culture at the end of the sixteenth century.

The forces which gave rise to a new England influenced every sphere of socio-economic life. The first upheaval, and the greatest, affected agricultural relations. Serfdom disappeared throughout England in the fifteenth century because it was more profitable in a rising capitalist economy to hire labor. With the growth of the wool industry and export markets, sheep-raising increased tremendously and created a heightened demand for pasture land. This resulted in the enclosure system–the forcible seizure of the commons from the peasants by the rich landlords–which developed toward the close of the fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century. Moreover, with the development of the wool industry as a more profitable source of income, much cultivated land belonging to the landlords became converted into sheep-walks. The great mass of the peasantry found itself with no land to cultivate. Hence, a great supply of free agricultural labor was available, ready to work for a pittance to stave off hunger. This was a fundamental prerequisite for the development of capitalist industry.

Another temporary measure to satisfy land hunger was the sale of church land, confiscated by the state after the advent of the Reformation, about 1535. Most of the land was bought for a trifle by the bourgeoisie, who likewise purchased land from the old feudal lords, land devastated as a result of the feudal Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), graphically described by Shakespeare. Thus, a bond of unity was formed between the old landowners and the new bourgeoisie, since the former began to apply capitalist methods to agriculture. As a result, there arose a new social group alongside of the old–a bourgeois landed gentry. However, in becoming landed noblemen, these former merchants carried over their old ideology into the new agricultural relations. This resulted in the formation of the so called gentry, composed principally of the middle and petty landed nobility, which, by fusing with the old landed nobility, replenished its ranks. This revitalized and ascending class marked the start of that squirarchy which ruled England from the time of Queen Elizabeth to the middle of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, the class of wealthy peasant farmers, the so-called yeomanry–the backbone of old England–degenerated during the sixteenth century. They were dislodged by the new landowners drawn from the bourgeoisie and the nobility, and were forced to accept the status of tenants.

This process went hand in hand with the radical transformation of industry. A new system of manufacturing came into being, characterized not by the concentration of labor power in the workshop, but rather by the monopoly of the products of domestic industry. These products were made by the newly pauperized and dispossessed peasants, who were reduced to the status of wage workers. A prerequisite for the development of capitalist industry was already present. "The expropriation of the agricultural producers, the peasants, their severance from the soil, was the basis of the whole process." [2] The royal power was utilized to support the new order, whose interests depended upon the political power of the state. Thus, the ruling dynasty, the Tudors, was but the agent of the rising class of the epoch. All the decrees of Elizabeth evidenced a tendency to further the new manufacturing system. Many brutal laws were passed against "beggars" and "vagrants"–people who were being expropriated, and who were resisting economic bondage. During the reign of Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, 72,000 "thieves" were put to death. A decree was issued, regulating wages and establishing a fixed maximum. Despite this, the new industry had to carry on a bitter struggle against two obstacles–feudalism in the country, and the guild system in the city.

The new manufactures were inaugurated in seaports, or else in parts of the countryside where the old urban system did not run, and where the guilds which were a part of that system had no say. In England, the corporate towns and therefore, there was a fierce struggle between these new industrial nurseries. [3]

Finally, the intensive development of English trade was of great significance, closely connected as it was with the new naval and colonial policy.

To-day, industrial supremacy implies commercial supremacy. In the period of manufacture properly so-called, on the other hand, it was commercial supremacy which implied industrial supremacy. Hence the preponderant role of the colonial system in those days. [4]

At the beginning of the epoch raw wool was the chief article of export; later, woolen cloth. English merchants gradually freed themselves from foreign middlemen, sold and shipped their own wares, and established their own markets. Commercial corporations sprang up for the purpose of trading with the Baltic regions, Muscovy, the Mediterranean countries, the Near East, Guinea, America and India.

Characteristic of the epoch is the name of the oldest of the commercial companies, "The Merchant Adventurers," which, appearing at the end of the fourteenth century, numbered 3500 by the beginning of the seventeenth. They knew how to trade with the newly discovered lands, how to steal, smuggle and trade in slaves. If enclosure was the first prerequisite of primary accumulation, colonial trading was the second.

There also existed another type of merchant, who engaged in operations on a smaller scale. He traded primarily at home, and had close connections with the industrialists. He was thrifty, and carefully and systematically accumulated penny upon penny–the classic type of penurious accumulator, the Puritan. It was precisely this class that approached its goal with such force and certainty that it later was to take history into its hands and forge the great English revolution of the seventeenth century. Thus, the process developed, smoothly and uniformly, in all three fields. The transformation of agricultural economy and the resulting pauperization of the countryside were closely connected with the development of the new capitalist industry (manufacturing), and commerce (wool, cloth), which were interdependent. As a consequence, the social aspect of England changed completely. An entirely new alignment of class forces came into being, out of which developed new class struggles. Each class contained a number of conflicting groups. At the same time, the two most powerful classes, the landowning gentry and the bourgeoisie, antagonistic by nature, were during this stage of their development, to a certain extent collaborators and at times even allies, because of the specifically English conditions. Attending their growth were the early capitalization of the landowning economy, the Reformation with its confiscation of Church lands, and so forth.

The great feudal wars had destroyed the old feudal nobility, and the new nobles were children of their own age to whom money was the power of all powers. [5]

Engels developed this thought further:

Originally an oppressed state liable to pay dues to the ruling feudal nobilty, recruited from serfs and villeins of every type, the burghers conquered one position after another in their continuous struggle with the nobility, and finally, in the most highly developed countries, took power in its stead: in France, by directly overthrowing the nobility; in England, by making it more and more bourgeois, and incorporating it as the ornamental head of the bourgeoisie itself. [6]

In still another passage he characterized England's position on the eve of the great revolution:

The new starting point was a compromise between the rising middle class and the ex-feudal landowners. The latter, though called as now, the aristocracy, had been long since on the way which led them to become what Louis Philippe in France became at a much later period, "the first bourgeois of the Kingdom." Fortunately for England, the old feudal barons had killed one another during the Wars of the Roses. Their successors, though mostly scions of the old families, had been so much out of the direct line of descent that they constituted quite a new body, with habits and tendencies far more bourgeois than feudal. They fully understood the value of money, and at once began to increase their rents by turning hundreds of small farmers out and replacing them by sheep. Henry VIII, while squandering the Church lands, created fresh bourgeois landlords by wholesale; the innumerable confiscation of estates, regranted to absolute or relative upstarts, and continued during the whole of the seventeenth century, had the same result. Consequently, ever since Henry VII, the English "aristocracy," far from counteracting the development of industrial production, had, on the contrary, sought to indirectly profit thereby; and there had always been a section of the great landowners willing, from economical or political reasons, to co-operate with the leading men of the financial and industrial bourgeoisie. [7]

Foreigners, visiting England in the sixteenth century, were surprised by the unusual sight of castles with no military equipment, no armed guards, gates wide open. This can be readily understood; their owners were not grim feudal lords but bourgeois, or landowners turned bourgeois.

This partial coalescence of the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landowners is excellently illustrated by the history of the Verney family. The founder of the line, the merchant Ralph Verney, became Lord Mayor of London in 1465. After the Battle of Tewkeshury which ended the Wars of the Roses, Edward IV knighted twelve citizens in testimony of gratitude to his supporters; among these, Verney stood first and received a grant of land. Later he purchased new estates and soon became one of the landowning aristocracy. His descendant, Sir Edmund Verney (1590-1642), was a landowner and a brilliant courtier–knight-marshal and standard-bearer to Charles I –who spent his time between his estate and London. In his domain, organized on a sound capitalist footing, he retained, however, many patriarchal customs; he disliked buying flour, meat and hay, preferring instead to exact them according to feudal prerogative. In London he resorted to various schemes to supplement his income. He obtained patents-royal for "garblinge tobacco" (i.e. inspecting it), and for hackneys for hire. In his person were embodied the nobleman, the landowner, the bourgeois merchant, and the trader.

Nevertheless, the words of Marx concerning the extinction of the old feudal aristocracy and the change to capitalist technique on the part of its successors, must not be taken too literally. The economically backward regions of the West and North of England still held many feudal lords, hostile to the new economy and political life, and antagonistic to the spirit of the times. The impetuous Mortimers and Glendowers depicted in Shakespeare's Henry IV had not disappeared by the time of Queen Elizabeth. Enjoying superficial honors, boasting numerous privileges, and securing high posts when they took residence in London, they lived nevertheless under the watchful supervision of the central authorities and represented, not a living cultural force, but an outwardly impressive though impotent fragment of the past. The antagonism between them and the new capitalist-landowning nobility frequently broke out with great violence. Especially strong was the antipathy towards the gentry, who filled Parliament, controlled all local government in the counties, and acted in close alliance with the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie.

Similar divisions were to be observed in other classes. Antagonism also existed between the old corporation guild members and those who had begun to work under new capitalist methods; and between the poor tenants and the farmers who thrived under the new regime. Hence, the numerous coalitions among the various strata of different classes, which figured so importantly during the bourgeois revolution. Yet, with all these contradictions, the leading role of the two powerful classes, the bourgeoisie and the gentry, appears clearly, and in the twofold process which explains the collaboration between the landed nobility and the new bourgeoisie, it was the latter which predominated and survived.

It is to this arrangement of class forces and the general character of their development that we owe the monarchical form of rule of the political system of that epoch. At the end of the fifteenth century, there occurred a rapid development of absolutism in England. As everywhere else, this system, brought about by bourgeois development, was a class monarchy serving the interests of the middle and petty nobility, in England the gentry, under the conditions of new capitalist relations. This form of political rule was acceptable to the bourgeoisie insofar as it combatted the great feudal lords, who were oppressing them. However, in view of the specific situation in England, that is to say, the intensive reorganization of great sections of the landed nobility and their unification with the bourgeoisie in its early period (almost to the end of the sixteenth century), absolutism had a much more democratic and progressive character than in other countries. Hence, the profound attachment of the bourgeoisie for the monarch, an attachment which continued almost to the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

During the Wars of the Roses, the House of York, which depended upon the industrially and economically progressive eastern counties, was victorious, while the House of Lancaster was supported by the barons of the backward western and northern regions. Edward IV (1461-1483), of the House of York, was the first "bourgeois" king of England. He was the patron and friend of merchants, and his mistress was an untitled London lady. During his reign, the mercantile system in the economic field and absolutism in the political arena first made their appearance. Edward IV ruled almost without Parliament. When the House of York became extinct it was succeeded by the Tudors, who continued the same policy, now to an even greater degree dictated by the growth of the productive form of the country. Henry VII (1485-1509), aided by an especially created bureaucracy and the notorious Star Chamber, ruled with no regard whatsoever for Parliament. Henry VIII (l509-1517) went even further. His main achievements were the instituting of the Reformation and the confiscation of Church lands. The lower chamber of Parliament, consisting mainly of the gentry with a mixture of the bourgeoisie, gave its complete support to the policy of the king. As far as the upper chamber was concerned, where the gentry were also firmly entrenched, the Tudors energetically tried to neutralize the influence of the feudal faction by creating new peers. The short-lived reaction which set in during the reigns of Edward VI (1547-1553) and Bloody Mary (1553-1558), the latter supported by Spain, was indecisive, having little effect on the economic life of the country.

During the reign of Elizabeth, absolutism reached its climax, but toward the end of her rule it began to disintegrate. During her reign the English merchants established their own trading stations in Hamburg, penetrated the Mediterranean Sea, and opened a northern cell-route to Russia. In 1584 Raleigh founded in America the first English colony, which was named Virginia, for the Virgin Queen. Elizabeth herself was a shareholder in the colonial undertakings of her navigators, one of whom, Drake, she knighted. For a long time she listened attentively to the London merchants. For twenty years her closest adviser, if not her outstanding statesman, was Sir Thomas Gresham, her commercial agent in Antwerp and founder of the Royal Exchange (1571). To meet the needs of the state budget, she contracted no foreign loans, but borrowed money from rich merchants at home. The naval and colonial policy of England was dictated by similar motives. It led to the long war with Spain which terminated with the destruction of the Invincible Armada (1588), brought about the complete emancipation of England, and laid the foundation of her supremacy on the sea.

The bourgeoisie had considerable influence on the court and the government, determining to a certain extent the legislation and general policies of the state. One must not, however, exaggerate the extent of this influence. The court, rather than Parliament, was the directing center of political life. The nobility, among whom were remnants of the old feudal aristocracy, was the predominant class, and side by side with progressive statesmen, leaders of young capitalism, there were a number of unprincipled careerists, adventurers, and favorites of the Queen. Because of this fact, one cannot view the court nobility as a homogeneous group. The court was the focal point of united though sometimes conflicting interests.

In general, however, English absolutism, supported mainly by the middle and petty nobility, served primarily the interests of this nobility, not those of the bourgeoisie. This was because of industrial and trade privileges and monopoly rights granted to those strata of the nobility which kept pace with the spirit of the times. But the system of monopolies, acceptable and necessary in the early development of capitalism for the promotion of industry and trade, had become only a hindrance to that development. By the end of the sixteenth century the bourgeoisie had outgrown this system, which had been abused by Elizabeth during the last decade of her reign, and later by James I (1603-1625) and Charles I (1625-1649), in carrying out their policy of feudal reaction. Thus, beginning with 1597, a series of sharp conflicts arose between the Crown and Parliament, conflicts which demanded the abolition, or at least the limitation, of the monopoly system, conflicts which were the forerunners of the coming bourgeois revolution. It was the end of the idyllic friendship between the new bourgeois nobility, the gentry, and the court nobility.

This conflict was aggravated by the personal traits of Elizabeth. Ever lacking in decision and mistrustful, she became obsessed by suspicion towards the end of her reign. She saw treason everywhere, instituted a system of espionage, and meted out capital punishment unreservedly. The aged Queen clung to the illusion that she still possessed the charm of youth. She ordered all mirrors screened wherever she went in order to avoid the sight of her wrinkled face. She embarked on a series of love affairs with young men. Her last and most ardent love was the young Duke of Essex. In spite of his awkward role of lover to the aged Queen, he was the representative of the old "heroic" tendencies, now outmoded. He supported an aggressive policy against Spain, but his efforts were defeated by the intrigues of Lord Cecil, the Queen's minister. Essex lost favor with the Queen; she publicly insulted him, and when in 1601 he organized an unsuccessful insurrection, he was beheaded.

Toward the year 1590, Puritanism, which was only a religious screen for the class-consciousness of the bourgeoisie in its struggle against feudalism and absolutism, gained ground. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the political program of the Puritans was still moderate, since the leading force of the class was the big bourgeoisie, always ready'to compromise with the aristocracy and the king. This leading group, which called itself Presbyterian, aimed only at the confiscation of the property of the Church of England, and at the abolition of all privileges which hindered bourgeois development. The struggle became more acute around 1610, when the Independents broke away from the Presbyterians. This group demanded the complete liquidation of the church hierarchy, the revocation of all special privileges, and the establishment of a bourgeois-democratic system.

Not until this time, some thirty or forty years prior to the revolution, did the decisive mass of the English bourgeoisie take a resolute stand against the ruling class and the entire system of absolutism. This movement brought forth Milton, the great poet of the English bourgeois revolution, who was born in 1608. Only the very last years of Shakespeare's creative work correspond to this period, for he reached maturity during the epoch of peaceful collaboration of the ruling nobility with the big bourgeoisie under the protection of the then progressive royal power.

Shakespeare was no poet of the court, still less of the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, he had his roots in a young and vigorous aristocracy, before which extended wide horizons, and which still remained the ruling class of a great people. In Shakespeare's tragedies there resounds the roar of the sea; in Corneille's tragedies, only the splashing of the fountains at Versailles. [8]

We are not in complete agreement with this dictum of Mehring's, although it seems to explain the aristocratic elements in Shakespeare's writings. We are well aware of the fact that in the poetry of Shakespeare's time in France, during the sixteenth century, the leading place was occupied by the work of Ronsard and the Pléiade, highly esthetic, hedonistic and exuberant. However, it was devoid of the heroic and the tragic. In England, the Pléiade had its counterparts in the Petrarchist lyrics of Wyatt and Surrey, in Spenser's poems, in Sydney's pastoral novel, Arcadia, and even in the complicated trends of Elizabethan drama typified by Beaumont (1584-1616) and Fletcher (1579-1625).

The work of these two dramatists, who were usually collaborators, had much in common with that of Shakespeare. We find pronounced individualism, exuberance, vivid portrayal of emotions, colorful characterization, and dynamic action. However, along with these, we find qualities foreign to Shakespeare's works, because these dramatists were still trying to bolster up a feudalism that was crumbling under the rising bourgeois tide. Thus, they defended the code of the duel by ridiculing a bourgeoisie that attempted to usurp this noble prerogative. [9] As opposed to Shakespeare's criticism of monarchy, their eulogy of absolutism in The Maide's Tragedy approaches a worship so devout that it elevates the dissolute monarch of the play to a plane above criticism. This tendency is even more pronounced in Fletcher's tragi-comedy, The Loyal Subject, in which the hero suffers great abuse at the hands of his monarch, who finally restores him to grace. Portrayed as scoundrels throughout the play, they suddenly become regenerate in the last act. In another of his plays, The Bloody Brother, or, Rolio, Duk of Normandy, he advances the theory that true wisdom lies not in open opposition to a despotic monarch, nor in blind obedience to him, but in artful adaptation to the exigencies of the situation.

This reveals to us the undoubted influence which the Spanish dramatists of the period exercised on Fletcher. These dramatists were exponents of Spanish absolutism, which. "while bearing a superficial resemblance to the absolute monarchies of Europe in general, is rather to be placed in a class with the Asiatic form of government." [10]

Much more important, however, than these details is the general aspect of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramas. They contain an unconcealed epicureanism, devoid of all moral and tragic problems. The aim of their plays was solely to divert and to offer pointed and entertaining impressions. This accounts for the elegant mounting, the skillful handling of plot, the opulence of scenic effects. Character delineation, on the other hand, as well as the forces motivating the actions of their dramatis personae, are relegated to a second place. They strove for the most unusual, the most uncommon, the most pungent. With cynical frankness, Fletcher loved to linger over impotence, incest, sexual perversion. He looked upon the theatre as a place in which to spend a pleasant hour. Disturbing social problems are, therefore, almost completely banished from his work. Nor does it ever contain any genuinely heroic characters. No more than two, or possibly three, of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays can be called tragedies. All the rest are either light and elegantly frivolous comedies, or dramas with a happy ending.

All this is far removed from the heroic art of Shakespeare, strong to the point of vulgarity. There is no question that the roots of his art must be sought, not in the circles of epicurean noblemen, but in the revolutionary ideas and moods of the bourgeoisie.

There existed during this epoch a rather widespread literature, specifically middle-class in its thematic material and its stylistic manner. A whole group of Shakespeare's contemporaries, led by Thomas Heywood (1570-1640) and Thomas Dekker (1572-1632), belong in this category. Folk naturalism, depiction of the plebeian milieu, family life and manners, naive moralizing, are amusingly juxtaposed with intrigue, melodrama, and motifs as sensational as if they had been copied out of a daily chronicle of events-scenes in houses of prostitution, insane asylums, and so forth.

Heywood's historical drama Edward the Fourth is a glorification of merchants and artisans, the real heroes of the play. In Shakespeare's chronicles, the basic theme deals with two great problems–power and the fate of nations. Heywood's plays, on the other hand, attach greater significance to the sentimental questions of family life.

This middle-class naturalism and moralizing is not confined to the plays of the time; it appears also in the novels. The end of the sixteenth century witnessed the development of the naturalistic or autobiographical novel of manners (Greene, Nash), which depicted the life of the outcasts of society and the history of the hero's worldly "transgressions." Or, like the Spanish picaresque novel, it depicted the gradual social ascent of the adventurer of plebeian origin. This provided an opportunity for a series of satirical sketches of typical representatives of every possible class, profession, or social station. That most curious "industrial" trilogy, The Gentle Craft, Jack of Newberry, Thomas of Reading, by Thomas Deloney, the story of a Norwich silk-weaver, presented a most detailed picture of the lives of shoemakers and weavers–a sympathetic account of the transition from guild craftsmanship to manufacturing.

This leads us even farther away from Shakespeare's work than the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Shakespeare, a humanist and a man of historic perspective, concentrates on moral, political, and philosophical questions of universal significance; he strives to change the world. In all the other writers previously mentioned we have but the timid aspirations of the middle-classes, submissively accepting the whole existing mode of life, attempting to protect their right to a modest place in the world, a little happiness, and a shred of respect from the privileged aristocratic class. Peaceful in their middle-class morality, they desired only to earn their living through painstaking labor. Taken as a whole, this morality was embryonic Puritanism, as yet far from its revolutionary maturity. These people were completely fettered by their middle-class ideology, from which, as Engels says, the titans of the Renaissance were free.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) represented a different trend of bourgeois drama. His wide intellectual range, his love of life, his iconoclastic presentation and solution of moral problems place this great artist nearer to Shakespeare. Nevertheless, Ben Jonson, too, was bound by middle-class ideology, though in a lesser degree than those previously mentioned. He was interested in the morality of his class only in relation to current problems. He was too much limited by these current interests and could not rise above them. He was not granted Shakespeare's intellectual and philosophical insight.

A rationalist, slightly pedantic in his reasoning, he was the enemy of all "romanticism," which he angrily ridiculed. He maintained that the artist must depict only the people of every day life, and only those occurrences from which edification can be drawn. His main concern in all his plays was to be rational and plausible, in the popular, naturalistic meaning of the term, and to edify. It can be said that, inasmuch as the Puritans were enemies of the theatre, Ben Jonson was basically, in his point of view, very close to them.

Ben Jonson, like Molière, with whom he had much in common, "endeavors to correct morals through ridicule" in his comedies Every Man in his Humor, and Epicoene, or the Silent Woman. He exhibits scoundrels, eccentrics, and a whole gallery of morally deformed types of every shape and color. In The Alchemist, he exposes one of the abuses of the age, superstition, and the chicanery connected with it. In Bartholomew Fair, he ridicules the noble spendthrift, together with the predatory and hypocritical priest, the prototype of Tartuffe. In the comedy, The Devil is an Ass, he presents an interesting picture of the depravity and degeneracy of the court of James I.

At the same time, Ben Jonson also criticizes the class whose representative he is. His Volpone is a grotesquerie of a cunning old man, who not only makes fools of ail those who dream of inheriting his fortune, but robs them at the same time, until he falls prey to the greed of his assistants.

By thus having confined his thematic material to the realism of daily life, combined with a great deal of malice and even photographic copies of contemporaries, never to be found in Shakespeare, Ben Jonson limited the horizon of his art. This is particularly apparent in the construction of his characters. As in Molière, they are usually dominated by one particular trait, which colors all their feeling and actions. This explains their one-sided and schematic nature. Parody and distortion replace the broad and profound mirroring of reality to be found in Shakespeare. Ben Jonson was a great scholar, a man of enlightenment and erudition, but he was able to mirror only the milieu with which he was familiar, and that only to a limited degree; Shakespeare reflected an immense epoch in full with inspired insight into the future.

There was still another group of bourgeois dramatists, represented by the close forerunners and contemporaries of Shakespeare, with Marlowe at the head. It is to this group that Shakespeare belongs.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), the "stormy genius" of the English Renaissance, who died prematurely, reflected in his work the aspirations of the rising English bourgeoisie during the period of its initial strength. His plays expressed all the passion, all the super-abundance of strength, all the utopian daring of thought and will of a newly-born, exultant class, eager to rush into the fray for the conquest of the world.

Marlowe was the first to develop the heroic tragedy, the tragedy of a powerful individual whose passions and grandiose struggles encompass and unite all the action. "To know everything, to possess everything"–this is the motto of Marlowe's heroes. In the preface to his first tragedy, Tamburlaine the Great, he introduces the theme. The shepherd who becomes master solely through will, and faith in his star, is conceived on a high plane. He is a true conquistador of the sixteenth century, avid and drunk with his own strength, ready to conquer the world. Tamburlaine reckons with nothing, not even with the "will of the gods." And at the end of the tragedy he dies unbroken in spirit, with a proud challenge to "fate and death" on his lips. Tamburlaine, however, is not only a man of great ambitions; he is a thinker as well. Hungry for knowledge, he craves to understand "the marvelous construction of the world," to fathom the run of each planet. To the man of the Renaissance, knowledge and power were inseparable.

Such a superman is Dr. Faustus, who sells his soul to tile devil in exchange for mortal happiness, knowledge and power. But he desires this power in order to render his country impregnable, to surround it with an iron wall, to create an unconquerable army, to establish universities. A similar figure, this time in the guise of a villain, is Barabas, in The Jew of Malta. With gold, his one weapon, he fights the entire world. He commits incredible villainies, sacrificing his daughter for the sake of revenging himself on the Christians who had insulted him, and meets his downfall with his pride unbroken, as Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus. As if in contradistinction to these types, Marlowe, in The Troublesome Raigne and Deathe of Edward the Second, a chronicle play wherein, as in Shakespeare, certain fundamental problems of political power and national destiny are analyzed, portrays a weak character around whom swirl intense passions.

Bourgeois critics consider Marlowe the founder of the romantic drama. This is partly true, insofar as Marlowe's plays are filled with a daring imagination and poetic fantasy, far removed from the naturalism of Heywood or even of Ben Jonson. But it is a special kind of romanticism, a romanticism which Engels, in characterizing the epoch of primary accumulation, described as follows:

It was the knight-errant period of the bourgeoisie; it had, too, its romances and its amorous enthusiasms, but on a bourgeois footing and in the last analysis, with bourgeois aims. [11]

The basis of Marlowe's romanticism is a vigorous realism. Realistic are his powerful characters, hewn from granite; realistic, the ideological and psychological design of his plays; his language and his poetry. He introduced blank verse into drama, a poetic form far more flexible and expressive than the polished, rhymed metre of the older dramatists. But most realistic is his depiction of the ardent, anarchic, amoral strivings of his epoch. According to Engels:

...A period which loosened all the old ties of society and shattered all inherited conceptions. The world had suddenly become ten times bigger; instead of a quadrant of a hemisphere, the whole globe now lay before the eyes of the West Europeans, who hastened to take possession of the other seven quadrants. And along with the old narrow barriers of their native land, the thousand-year old barriers of mediaeval conventional thought were also broken down. An infinitely wider horizon opened out before both the outward and the inward gaze of man. What mattered the prospects offered by respectability, or the honorable guild privileges inherited through generations, to the young man tempted by the wealth of India, the gold and silver mines of Mexico and Potosi? [12]

Marlowe was the ideologist of the revolutionary, but as yet only elementally and anarchistically revolutionary, English merchant bourgeoisie of the end of the sixteenth century. A true humanist, he transferred their strivings to a higher plane. He did not use bourgeois themes, he reflected the very essence of the aspirations of this class in pure form, without the commonplace bourgeois wrappings.

It is this that relates Marlowe to Shakespeare. There exists, of course, a fundamental difference between them. Shakespeare, who is an incomparably deeper and more mature humanist, transcends Marlowe's anarchic amoralism. Nevertheless, Shakespeare has his roots in Marlowe. This kinship is corroborated by the enormous influence Marlowe exercised over Shakespeare's early work. Shakespeare borrowed not only the blank verse and certain stylistic details, but also the conception of a "lofty" tragic hero. In a series of early plays, Shakespeare follows in the footsteps of Marlowe; Richard III (1592) and Titus Andronicus [13] (1593) resemble, in many respects, The Jew of Malta (1589-1590) That Shakespeare borrowed from this play for his conception of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1596) cannot be doubted, while Richard II (1595) retraces the most essential aspects of Edward II (1592). Even in his later and greatest tragedies, Shakespeare remained indebted to his mentor Marlowe; there is something of Tamburlaine in King Lear (1605) and Macbeth (1605).

We do not, therefore, expect to find any specifically bourgeois content in Shakespeare which is normally absent from the works of the great humanists of the epoch. Marlowe and several other dramatists [14] of his group exemplify this theory. This is also true of the humanist poets of other countries. The ordinary middle-class thematic material is completely alien to Petrarch, and if we do find some aspects of it in Boccaccio, in The Decameron and partly in the Corbaccio, we must not forget that this is but a small part of his inheritance. An equally significant aspect of his literary output, unjustly neglected in the popular evaluations because of his Decameron, is presented by a number of poetic romances on legendary themes of chivalry. These are realistic in treatment and progressive in ideology. This is also true of the splendid pastorals, Ameto and the Ninfale Fiesolano, so truly revolutionary in content, and Fiammetta, which laid the foundation of the new realistic and psychological novel. Bourgeois themes are not to be found in any of the books, nor in the work of the great painters of the time. Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci carried out revolutionary ideas through aristocratic, mythological, and even religious subject-matter. Middle-class themes would not have adequately expressed their ideas and would have restricted the depth and extent of their efforts.

Shakespeare, too, followed this trend. It was even more natural that he should have done so, because the circumstances attending the historical development of England–the fusion between the nobility and the middle-classes-created conditions extremely favorable to such an art. In discussing the evolution of law, Engels says:

The form in which this happens can, however, vary considerably. It is possible, as happened in England, in harmony with the whole national development, to retain in the main the forms of the old feudal laws while giving them a bourgeois content; in fact, directly giving a bourgeois meaning to the old feudal name. [15]

Is this not equally applicable to the literary scene? It is impossible, purely on the basis of the aristocratic nature of his characterizations and subject-matter to draw the conclusion that Shakespeare was the ideologist of the new nobility which was fast acquiring bourgeois trappings. On the contrary, Shakespeare was strongly opposed to the attempt on the part of this new nobility to appropriate the fruits of primary accumulation and to monopolize all culture. However, Shakespeare found subject-matter and imagery of a feudal character to be a convenient form for the following reasons: the traditional dramatic plots, the blending of nobility and bourgeoisie, the avoidance of middle-class limitations. Since the substance was completely bourgeois, through contact with the "new" content, the form was materially changed.

Shakespeare is the humanist ideologist of the bourgeoisie of the time, for whom the source material of his plays had no importance, and which, as Engels has pointed out, he did not disdain to borrow even from the Middle Ages. He was concerned only with how he could adapt this material. It does not follow that he denied the living present around him, or that he was but another of that group of "closet humanists" whom Engels characterized as "second or third-rate men, or cautious Philistines who are afraid of burning their fingers (like Erasmus)." [16] His reactions to the world around him, and to the changes in the political and social currents of his time were strong but complex. They found expression not in impulsive outbursts or obvious allusions to the evils of the times, but in profound internal upheavals and changed evaluations of humanity and of the whole life process.

In view of this, Shakespeare's work, in spite of the internal unity and the correctness of its basic ideology, falls into three periods.

During the first period, until around 1601, there occurred the coalescence of all the foremost forces of the country: upper middle-class, the monarchy, the gentry, and even a part of the landed nobility. This process is reflected by the joyous optimism of Shakespeare s early work, which is filled with a bold and happy affirmation of life, and with obviously aristocratic elements. He has two main themes–the assertion of the new absolutist national state, and of the intoxicating joy of living now available to the individual, at last emancipated from feudal bondage. To the first theme he dedicated the cycle of chronicle plays; to the second, the series of enchanting, gay comedies. But the effects of the disintegration of the class alignment are already apparent in the plays written towards the end of the period, around 1597. The decomposition of the court had set in, the Puritans were becoming more and more aggressive, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the nobility had already begun. Hence, the tragic treatment of royal power in Julius Caesar (1599), with its confused conclusions, its pessimism; and the gloomy overtones of the earlier Much Ado About Nothing (1598).

During the second period, to 1609–years which marked the decline of Elizabeth's reign and the advent, under James I, of feudal reaction–the process of disintegration was completed. The nobility with the support of the monarchy, was preparing to defend its position against the imminent onslaught of the bourgeoisie and the gentry. Vacillation, evasion, compromise, we'e no longer possible; he who was not afraid to burn his fingers" had to make a choice. Shakespeare made his. He broke through the circle of superficial, aristocratic emotions, discontinued the gay comedies and the idealized depiction of the past, written in celebration of that "glorious" present which was no more. With powerful tragedies, as well as sharply dramatic comedies, he entered the arena as champion of the heroic ideals of bourgeois humanism.

Shakespeare, however, was not destined to retain this position. Reality was against him. The age of humanism was at an end. Narrow, fanatical Puritanism began increasingly to permeate the bourgeoisie and this, in turn, affected Shakespeare. He was forced to choose between the degenerate royalists and the revolutionary, though sanctimonious, Puritan "hagglers." An additional factor entered the situation. By 1610, the London theatre had become very strongly aristocratic in flavor because of the growing royalist patronage and the irreconcilable hatred of the Puritans for the stage. The Beaumont and Fletcher type of play became the vogue. Its popularity rose to such heights that it began to crowd Shakespeare off the stage. Necessity forced the bourgeois dramatists to face the dilemma. Shakespeare, therefore, made a slight compromise. Without betraying either his basic principles, or his social, ethical, and political convictions, he made certain ideological concessions which affected even his style. During this third period (1609-1611) he wrote a series of tragicomedies in the manner of Fletcher. Psychological analysis and definitely motivated action then began to disappear; grim realism gave way to fairy tale and legend. Shakespeare became preoccupied with the complicated, cleverly constructed plots (Cymbeline) demanded by the public. His plays were once more filled with those purely decorative, esthetic elements–masques, pastorals, and fairy scenes–which abound in the plays of his first period, and are completely absent from those of his second. This was the celebrated "reconciliation with life" that Shakespearean scholars delight to discuss, but which actually weakened his genius. Shakespeare could not long endure such self-imposed violation of his artistic integrity. For the last time he gave full voice to his humanist credo in his swan-song, The Tempest. Five years before his death, at the height of his creative power, he stopped writing for the theatre (1611).

Nevertheless, in spite of the critical phases through which he passed, the basic characteristics of Shakespeare's point of view and style–his militant, revolutionary protests against feudal forms, conceptions, and institutions–remained unaffected throughout his life.

What were these characteristics? First of all–a new morality, based, not on the authority of religion or of feudal tradition, but on the free will of man, on the voice of his conscience, on his sense of responsibility towards himself and the world. This called for the emancipation of the feelings and personality of the individual; in particular, this necessited individualism, that most vital and typical characteristic of the Renaissance, which found its fullest expression in Shakespeare. This resulted in a new approach towards social relations, the organization of the state, the nature of authority. To Shakespeare, the highest authority was that of absolute monarchy, but his conception of this was not so much the authority of divine right as the authority of responsibility. The monarch justifies his rank and existence only when he expresses the collective will of the people and realizes their collective welfare.

Secondly–a scientific attitude towards the world, life, and reality, which, rejecting all metaphysical interpretations, demands a causal explanation of all natural, social, and psychological phenomena. The possibilities of such a scientific approach to reality were, to be sure, very limited in Shakespeare's day. Nevertheless, this is the essence and the basis of Shakespeare's creative method.

And, finally–the energy and optimism so characteristic of the Renaissance. Shakespeare did not permit resignation and apathy to enter the soul of man; struggle was to him the whole meaning and content of life–creative struggle for the realization, if not of the highest ideals, at least of the organic desires inherent in his individualistic character. Inactive natures, sunk in abstract dreaming or hedonism, or lacking in a sense of responsibility towards themselves and towards humanity, were destined by Shakespeare either for destruction (Anthony in Richard II), or ridicule (Jaques in As You Like It). This approach is one of the most significant aspects of the new ethical philosophy of humanism as Shakespeare understood it.

Shakespeare's first period included epic and lyric poems as well as plays. Both these genres, so typical of the Renaissance, found fertile soil in England. His poems Venus and Adonis (1593), and Lucrece (1594), though more conventional in style than any of his works, reveal his characteristic manner. Their natural tone and vivid realism stand out in sharp relief and distinguish them from the work of his contemporaries. Let us compare Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis with Ronsard's poem on the same theme; instead of Ronsard's conciliatory, esthetically cold treatment of the dramatic end of Venus' beloved, and her great sorrow, we find in Shakespeare a genuine and ardent passion. Ronsald's poem is a graceful, inanimate picture; Shakespeare's, a dynamic, fervent cry of passion and suffering. Such is the contrast between the humanist poet of the progressive element of the gentry, and Shakespeare, the humanist poet of the bourgeoisie. His treatment of ancient themes closely resembles that of another great humanist poet of the bourgeoisie, the Boccaccio of Ameto and Ninfale Fiesolano. In England, the poem which most nearly approaches Venus and Adonis is Marlowe's Hero and Leander. Shakespeare's sonnets are distinguished also by a profound realism which reveals the sequence of his personal experiences. His poems were well received by his contemporaries. Lyric and epic poetry was the vogue. Hence it was more esteemed and remunerative than the drama. Still, Shakespeare early rejected both these forms for the drama, the most progressive and democratic genre of the epoch, in which he could express himself completely.

The plays of Shakespeare's first period fall into three groups: comedies, chronicles and tragedies. Beginning with the comedies, a division can be made between those we may term "realistic," as to both style and subject, and "romantic," as to subject alone.

The realistic comedies are: The Comedy of Errors (1592), which is an adaptation of Plautus' Menaechmi; The Taming of the Shrew (1593), and The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600).

The romantic comedies are The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1591), Love's Labour's Lost (1595), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1596), The Merchant of Venice (1596), Much Ado About Nothing (1598), As You Like It (1599), and Twelfth Night (1599). Let us analyze this group first; it offers rich and varied material for a comprehension of the growth of Shakespeare's world perspective.

The outstanding characteristics of these plays are usually considered to be the "carefree joy of living" and the "aristocratic" elements of the thematic material. This is partially true, but requires elucidation. The thematic material does not consist entirely of the aristocratic elements–the life of leisure led by the nobility, whose days, to all appearances, were spent in gay pursuits and games of love. These elements Shakespeare uses merely as a visible background, against which he unfolds the new humanist conception of love, and the more pedestrian emotions and attitudes. Beneath the gay, airy play of sensations and events is concealed the serious inner struggle for new ideals.

In as early a play as The Two Gentlemen of Verona are found two moral systems sharply juxtaposed: Proteus, the scapegrace aristocrat, a Don Juan type rooted in feudalism, believes himself entitled to all things and fills his life with empty, fugitive pleasures; on the other hand, Valentine longs to enrich his personality, and conceives of a harmoniously organized society based upon truth, honor and friendship, in which each person's conduct would be founded upon obedience to his own sincere inclinations. His generosity of soul compels any personal sacrifice for his ideal of friendship. His subsequent disillusionment drives him to revolt, ostracizing him from a society not yet ready for his ideals. This comedy is a first attempt, although ineffectual, to affirm the rights of the unclassed individual. The effort failed because of Valentine's confusion and naivete. Shakespeare is still groping his way, feeling for firm ground.

However, in his very neat play, Love's Labour's Lost, he poses one of the cardinal problems of the epoch by combatting the attempt of the aristocracy to appropriate humanism and turn it into a bubble of abstract hedonism. The King of Savarre and a few members of his retinue renounce human society and the love of women to ponder upon abstract philosophy. But a French princess, with her maids-in-waiting, arrives at the court, and all the sober intentions of these anchorites are scattered to the four winds; they fall in love. They continue to play the hypocrite, concealing their real feelings until Biron unmasks himself and his companions, when, in a magnificent monologue (IV, 3), he disclaims abstract philosophy and glorifies the force of love, the fountain-head of all authentic wisdom.

The antithetical character of these two aspects of humanism is manifested not only in the ideology, but also in the style. The conspirators against love express their philosophical vows euphemistically. After his metamorphosis Biron eschews such flourishes, and tells his beloved (V, 2) :

And I will wish thee never more to dance, Nor never more in Russian habit wait. 0, never will I trust to speeches penn'd, Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue; Nor never come in visard to my friend; Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song: Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation; I do forswear them: and I here protest, By this white glove,–now white the hand, God knows!– Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes:

In this play, Shakespeare refutes those who accuse him of sympathetically depicting the aristocracy by voicing through Biron, his most positive character, his rejection of the aristocratic manner of life.

There is also the dull and pedantic schoolmaster Holofernes, filled with the same bombast and rhetoric indulged in by the titled and florid aristocrats. In his case the medieval scholastic origin of such bombast and rhetoric is unconcealed. [18] Here, too, on a lower plane, is encountered a struggle between two styles and two world perspectives : Holofernes suffers a humiliating defeat at the hands of the clown, Costard, who possesses a healthy, realistic intellect.

As You Like It is akin to the foregoing play, in that Shakespeare decries escapism as a philosophy. The old Duke and his retinue live in a half-illusory world until Orlando, healthy, sober, optimistic, leads them back to everyday reality. Most of the scenes are delicate, tranquil pastorals, the peace of which Shakespeare himself quickly dispels by opposing the coarse, natural, healthy desires of Audrey, William, and Touchstone to the euphemistic shepherdess, Phebe. Here again, Touchstone, the clown, a plebeian, is the exponent of common sense.

Shakespeare quickly dispatches Jaques, the melancholy misanthrope, who is the implacable enemy of realism. Some of the critical interpretations of this character are astonishing. Brandes pronounces him to be the embodiment of Shakespeare himself, the mouthpiece of his dearest and most sacred thoughts, and Friche repeated his mistake, though from a different position. But is not Jaques, who, morose and sullen, remains alone in the forest when all the rest exultantly go back to a joyous life of reality, a negative, and at times, even a comical figure? Yet, just as Polonius, he was not deterred from expressing true ideas or from evaluating certain realistic points of view correctly and intelligently, Jaques is introduced to repel the audience, who would thus apprehend the play's basic meaning and direction.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the apotheosis of a free, self-determined love which transcends tradition, the ancient law of Athens, and paternal authority. Schematically, the play is a masque. Shakespeare does not destroy its form, as in the case of the pastoral in As You Like It, but uses another method. The formal, ancient mythology is supplanted by plebeian superstitions (fairies, the mischievous Puck). Shakespeare instills vital emotion into the tenuous scheme of the affected court masque.

The last two plays in this group deserve special attention.

The Merchant of Venice, although classified as a comedy, ought not, strictly speaking, to be so termed. The element of romantic intrigue plays a secondary role. The chief problem is of a broad, socio-moral nature. Out of two medieval legends Shakespeare created a profound play, in which two worlds are contrasted. One, a world of joy, beauty, and friendship, is represented by Antonio and his friends, Portia, Nerissa and Jessica; the other, a world of rapaciousness, greed, and malice, is represented by Shylock, Tubal, and their servants. In the preceding comedies reconciliation was possible, evil could become good. In The Merchant of Venice, however, this is not so; the war between the two worlds is a war to the death.

The conflict is not racial, as many critics contend, but social. Shylock tells us this in so many words (I, 3):

How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian;

then, immediately after:

But more for that, in low simplicity, He lends out money qratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

In the same vein, he explains the character and causes of Antonio's hatred for Shylock:

He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,

adding directly:

Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe If I forgive him!

Thus the racial conflict is immediately superseded by a greater one; the class conflict. But what is the social basis of these two groups? Friche maintains that Antonio's world represents the feudal aristocracy, lavish squanderers who lived for pleasure only. Shylock's world, on the other hand, represents the class which is about to supplant the other,.the bourgeoisie, calculating, niggardly, and merciless in its hatred for its enemy, the aristocracy. Fiche is incorrect. The social structure of the play is more complex, more subtle. Its title, The Merchant of Venice, does not refer to Shylock, as is generally assumed, but to Antonio. Antonio's class position as a practical and wealthy merchant is clearly stated at the beginning of the exposition (I, I), where Antonio's friend Gratiano, addresses him:

You look not well, Signior Antonio; You have too much respect upon the world: 'They lose it that do buy it with much care.

Antonio immediately denies this. However, since these words are uttered by Gratiano, so intimate a friend of Antonio, we are justified in assuming that they properly reflect Antonio's activities. Nor does it follow that, because Bassanio ruined his business with his wasteful extravagance, he "as an idle, parasitical arisrocrat. The hard-working, efficient merchant who lived on a luxurious scale, spending his profits lavishly and head over heels in debt, was a typical figure of the Renaissance. Unquestionably, Antonio's whole circle, among whom there is not a single nobleman, belong to the patricians of the Venetian merchant-class. It is of no consequence that the business activities of his friends, Lorenzo, Gratiano, Solanio, Salarnio, are not shown.

Shylock does not represent the entire bourgeoisie, but only one of its elements; he is a money-lender. Usury was but one aspect of capital, [19] and met with moral and legal disapprobation The lawmakers tried to regulate money-lending; the moralists inveighed against it. Even if Shakespeare did not differentiate between the two forms of capital, still, in Shylock, he depicted a representative of the least productive and most rapacious section of the bourgeoisie. In creating Shylock, Shakespeare was attacking the enemies of humanism, the Puritans.

As a perfect example of the wealthy merchant-adventurer, Antonio is brave, enterprising, generous, and keyed to the love of life and esthetic ideals of the Renaissance. He understands Portia's words on mercy (IV, 1), as well as the "touches of sweet harmony" (V, 1), to which Shylock is deaf:

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.

This is Jessica's justification for leaving her father for Lorenzo.

Friche claims that Shakespeare senses the inevitable victory of Shylock, the bourgeois, over Antonio, the feudal aristocrat. According to him, only such an assumption can explain Antonio's otherwise incomprehensible "melancholy" and the gloomy tone of the play. But Antonio is not a feudal aristocrat; Shylock does not represent the bourgeoisie as a whole, and the tone of the play is not gloomy but exceptionally bright and joyous. Lest the audience misinterpret his intentions, Shakespeare adds a last act which contributes nothing to the plot, but which glorifies the new, beautiful, and joyous life about to unfold before Shylock's opponents, after Antonio's victory. Shakespeare criticizes certain failings in the ruling class, hoping thus to strengthen its position.

Even more significant is his approach to the race problem, so striking in the profundity of its humanism. The Jewish usurer was a character from the Italian novella, which served as Shakespeare's source for The Merchant of Venice. The racial and religious motivations of the mutual hatred between Antonio and Shylock are replaced by the only true motivation, the social. As if to leave no doubt about his own view on the matter, Shakespeare introduces Shylock's famous monologue (III, l)–as fiery a plea for racial equality as can he found in literature:

...He hath disgraced me and hindered me of half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason?I am a Jew! hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

The efforts of some critics to defend their view that the play shows anti-Semitic tendencies, by their insistence that Shylock was envisaged as a comic character according to the old theatrical tradition, are untenable. In the first place, Shylock is not a simple comic character like the clowns. Like Polonius, his personality is complex. In the second place, even the purely comic characters often express pertinent, profound ideas. The claim that, if the monologue be taken seriously, the unity of Shylock's personality is destroyed, because he causes the audience alternately to hate and to sympathize with him, is likewise untenable. Shakespeare's realistic art and his objectivity spring precisely from such complex figures and evaluations. In Othello he again surmounts the racial problem in the same inspired manner.

In Twelfth Night, the last of the "romantic" comedies, Shakespeare again takes up the theme of love. At the same time, he treats the problem more openly than ever.

Two types of love are graphically contrasted. The play opens with the Duke, Orsino, languishing for the cruel beauty, the Countess Olivia; he seeks consolation in solitude and in melancholy song. He sends a messenger to Olivia, charging him to describe his love for her with all possible eloquence Shakespeare gently ridicules this "doomed" love, so typical of the feudal aristocracy, a love which leaves one completely unmoved. As a contrast, Shakespeare depicts the vital and realistic love of Viola for Orsino. Her love, which forms the basis of the play, calls forth the warmest sympathy. Similarly vital and unaffected is Olivia's passion for Sebastian. All her aristocratic reserve is forgotten, she abandons herself to the violence of her feeling. Orsino, on the other hand, remains a waxen figure, an elegant marionette in the aristocratic style, even after he is forced by circumstances to capitulate and to marry Viola. Yet he is a lover of music, like most humanists; he is magnanimous and kind. Although Shakespeare is careful not to caricature or slander him, he exposes him as a slave of aristocratic etiquette, thus destroying any sympathy one might have for him. Viola, on the other hand, is one of Shakespeare's most attractive women. Her moral firmness and initiative, combined with her feminine tenderness, her unswerving honesty in fulfilling obligations, endow her with that true humanist harmony which Shakespeare considered to be the highest expression of dignity.

The comedy also contains a group of characters who present a problem of the utmost social significance, expressed in a more pedestrian form than the love theme. They are Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's uncle, and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, his friend and imitator. In Shakespeare's time the title Sir was applied to a specific caste of the nobility–the knights. With the exception of the chronicles, which, because of their themes, necessitate the presence of many noblemen, Shakespeare seldom uses this title in his comedies of manners. It is usually indicative of a swaggering or licentious person. Falstaff and the priest Hugh Evans, the bombastic and stupid pedant, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, are knights, but not Fenton, who is a positive character. In Twelfth Night, the two knights, who are always together throughout the play, fulfill a particular purpose. They represent the aristocratic parasite, feudal in nature. Their parasitism is greater than is indicated. The fact that certain traits in a character are not demonstrated in the play does not, in Shakespeare, indicate the non-existence of such traits; they are implied. This is an important aspect of Shakespeare's art, as of all the humanist art of the Renaissance. The commercial activities of Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, and of the semi-bourgeois Page and Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor are not revealed in the plays. Their speeches and conduct permit us, in fact compel us, to assume the existence of such activities. The parasitism of both Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, on the other hand, is shown with painstaking care.

There exists, however, a basic difference between these two characters. Sir Andrew is despicable; Sir Toby is amusing and almost sympathetic. In contradistinction to the overbearing Sir Andrew, full of illusions about his dignity as a member of the nobility, Sir Toby is well aware of his own worthlessness, and deliberately reveals it. Shakespeare ironically rewards this degenerate noble for his honesty and wit by allowing him, a knight, to marry Maria, his niece's plebeian servant.

There is another interesting parallel. To retrieve his fortunes, Sir Andrew woos a rich bride, as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. While Petruchio's desire to retrieve his fortune by a wealthy marriage arises from a daring, enterprising, and progressive spirit, Sir Andrew's stems from a petty nobleman's attempt to cling to life. These are two perfect illustrations from Shakespeare of the fact that no evaluation of a situation or character can be made without considering the period and the social environment, as well as the personality of the character.

The "lower" plane, always so important with Shakespeare, is represented by the pert Maria, the clever Clown, Fabian, and Malvolio. They do not carry on any independent action, except for the jest played on Malvolio, but serve as a rational background for the main plot. Their presence lends it a healthy and concrete reality. The clever Clown and Maria, the merry liar, represent two aspects of Viola's character. The three speak a common language, a language different from that used by Viola when conversing with Orsino or Olivia. Malvolio is in sharp contrast to the other members of the group. It has been suggested that he, like Shylock, was intended as a caricature of the Puritans. This is possible. The portrait, however, is too indistinct. Essentially, Malvolio's function is to be the Duke's double on the "lower" plane. This is indicated, not so much by his attachment to Olivia as by his stilted and tedious punctiliousness. Surrounded by his magnificent court, Orsino is convincingly brilliant. Malvolio is only distasteful and ridiculous. Orsino's oratorical and musical propensities represent the aristocracy's unsuccessful attempt to appropriate humanist culture. The ascetic pedantry of the plebeian Malvolio is inimical to humanism.

The Comedy of Errors, first of the realistic comedies, is too unimportant for detailed analysis. The Merry Wives of Windsor will be discussed later, in connection with the analyses of the chronicles.

The Taming of the Shrew is one of the foremost expositions of the new humanist morality, though apparently farcical, lacking in ideological content, and derived largely from the old anonymous play of the same title, from which Shakespeare borrowed not only the plot but whole sections.

The spoiled, shrewish Katharina is transformed by her clever and adroit husband, Petruchio, into the ideal, well-behaved wife. In the last act, the formerly submissive Bianca has become a peevish, capricious beauty, whereas Katharina has become the essence of meakness and affability. Her famous monologue in the last act is so moralistic that it repels the audience. It is interesting that even in Shakespeare's time many resented the speech. Shortly after the appearance of The Taming of the Shrew, Fletcher wrote The Woman's Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed, a play in which Katharina is avenged. When Katharina dies, Petruchio marries again; the second wife behaves towards him as earlier he had behaved towards Katharina.

Shakespeare, however, found it necessary to present Katharina as a spoiled and ill-tempered woman from the beginning of the play, According to her acquaintances, she was "stark mad," "intolerable curst and shrewd and froward ...beyond all measure." There is no one mad enough to consider marrying her. No wonder Petruchio was forced to have recourse to such cruel measures in order to tame her! Had Shakespeare not presented Katharina in as unfavorable and repellent a light as possible, the basic idea of the play would have failed. But what is Katharina's real character? When her father tells Bianca's suitors that she cannot marry until her older sister finds a husband, Katharina, aware of the general attitude towards her, suffers from the humiliating position in which she has been placed (I,1):

Kath: I pray you, sir, is it your will To make a stale of me amongst these mates? Hort: Mates, maid! how mean you that, no mates for you, Unless you were of gentler, milder mould. Kath: I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear; I wis it is not half-way to her heart; But if it were, doubt not her care should be To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool, And paint your face, and use you like a fool.

Though sharp, Katharina's answer is but a dignified retort to Hortensio's crude cynicism She does not start the quarrel; she merely defends herself. Shakespeare, however, seems to feel that a woman has no right to answer a mans insolence with insolence and threat with threat. When Bianca hears her father's decision and begins to weep, Katharina says:

A pretty peat! it is best Put finger in the eye,–and she knew why.

Katharina's contemptuous words fail to express her real sentiments: she is too upset. Bianca's conduct is a direct slur on Katherina's character; it represents her as an inhuman person, her sister's unhappiness.

Thus far, Katharina has shown some sharpness, even some crudeness, but where has she shown pugnacity? Whe'e has she appeared as a spoiled and capricious child?

In the second act Katharina is found beating Bianca, but even this is justified (II, 1):

Bianca: Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself, To make a bondmaid and a slave of me; That I disdain: but for these other gawds, Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself, Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat; Or what you will command me I will do, So well I know my duty to my elders.

Is Bianca sincere or merely hypocritical? Neither; her last sentence simply indicates lack of personality. Since her psychology is that of a slave, she thinks that Katharina wants her ornaments. Bianca imputes only the lowest motives to Katharina; feelings of the heart, individualism, are incomprehensible to her.

Katharina is neither covetous nor envious. She is simply filled with the naive despair of a misunderstood human being who sees lavish praise and caresses showered upon her sister–a soulless doll set up for her emulation.

The audience's sympathy is with Katharina, who is neither "intolerable curst" nor "shrewd and froward"; she is merely fighting for the right of a woman to be an individual.

Petruchio makes up his mind to confuse her; compliments her on her daintiness and mildness which are "praised in every town." Such mockery incenses Katharina and explains the sharpness of her tongue and her insults. When Petruchio announces (II, 1):

we have 'greed so well together, That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.

she answers:

I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.

But she meekly goes to the altar. Her words are only a defense against arrogant interference, her darts are not sharper than Rosaline's in Love's Labour's Lost or Beatrice's in Much Ado About Nothing. Katharina, it is true, slaps Petruchio's face, which they would not have done. But neither would Biron or Benedick have behaved like Petruchio. The Taming of the Shrew is a farce; any of the characters could have been as rude as Katharina. This is the last of the "untamed" Katharina. How is the "taming" accomplished? Petruchio "tames" Katharina by humiliating and starving her. Where then, is the shrew? Here is only a woman fighting for her dignity and unreasonably insulted by her husband. Shakespeare borrowed the idea–the taming of a shrew–from an old play. He kept the traditional theme, but negated the traditional ethics through his treatment of the central character, Katharina. His recondite ideas are more valuable and revealing than all the surface elaboration.

The chronicle plays, of which there are nine, consist of the three parts of Henry VI (1590-1591), Richard III (1592), Richard II (1595), King John (1596), the two parts of Henry IV (1597), and Henry V (1598). It is more important to remember that Henry VI, Part I, was most likely an adaptation of an older play. The historical chronology of their reigns is: King John, 1199-1216; Richard II, 1377-1399; Henry IV, 1399-1413; Henry V, 1413-1422; Henry VI, 1422-1461; Richard III, 1483-1485.

Some critics insist that the sequence of these plays is unimportant because Shakespeare conceived the entire cycle long before writing any of it. According to these critics, Shakespeare intended to present a philosophy of the dynastic history of England for a definite period. Moral retribution furnishes the basis of this philosophy. Even though Richard II was a bad king, his overthrow by Bolingbroke–the future Henry IV–was a great sin. The consequences were visited, not only upon the usurper, but upon the whole nation, afflicted with the plague during the reign of Henry IV, and particularly upon his grandson, Henry VI, who appeared to carry within him the seeds of this hereditary sin. The House of York rose in revolt against the House of Lancaster and overcame it. Edward IV's accession to the throne was also based on criminal usurpation. "God's vengeance" was, therefore, once more visited upon the people in the form of the tyrannical rule of the predatory and cruel Richard III, who had gained the throne by murdering the other members of the royal house. Moral equilibrium was not restored until Henry VII, a Lancaster, married one of the princesses of the House of York, thus uniting the two warring houses. With his lawful occupation of the throne the "morally pure" dynasty of the Tudors ushered in an era of national prosperity.

A great deal of this is correct. It is true that Shakespeare held the overthrowing of a "lawful" ruler to be a great evil, even when justified by circumstances. Nor can one quarrel with the thesis that Elizabeth's grandfather, Henry VII, is an idealized figure. The concept of "inherited sin," however, is alien to Shakespeare. Other wise, he could not have depicted Henry V's reign so glamorously. The notion that the whole nation was doomed to suffer for the sin of its monarch is even more alien to Shakespeare, who is too profound a realist to subscribe to the metaphysics so characteristic of feudalism. The belief that the whole historical cycle concerns itself with but the narrow problems of dynastic rule, and that this accounts for the unity of the subject-matter; is also untrue. The unity of the cycle is limited to Shakespeare's approach to political events. Each of the chronicle plays retains, therefore, an independent existence and significance. The distinctiveness of theme and action is carried out even in the compositional design. The alternation of epic, though disjointed, scenes in Henry VI, the abundance of colorful folk elements in Henry IV and Henry V, the concentration of action around the protagonist in Richard III, are differences which belie the structural unity which these critics read into the cycle.

In his chronicles, Shakespeare fully revealed his political philosophy –his attitude towards royal power and his understanding of the historical process. It is a mistake, however, to attribute too much historio-graphical wisdom to Shakespeare, as some Soviet critics do.

Since the study of socio-economic phenomena was almost nonexistent in his time, Shakespeare could not present a rounded historical conception of the epoch. However, he grasped certain basic factors and aspects of social phenomena, harmonizing them with the more specific historical traits derived from other sources, which were meager, confused, and biased.

He wrote his historical cycle at a time when all the progressive forces of the land were–or at any rate, he thought were–united. Since such unity was then possible only under absolutism, the basic theme of the chronicles is the affirmation of absolute power. But Shakespeare did not merely affirm absolutism; he also analyzed it its limitations, possibilities, and purpose–at once criticizing and championing it.

Above all, Shakespeare recognized the necessity of a strong central power, which could be assured by a rigid succession to the throne. The problem of succession was very crucial at that time, when the Wars of the Roses and the unrest preceding Elizabeth's accession were still vivid in the minds of the people. Even during Elizabeth's reign the struggle for the throne continued, as exemplified by the activities of Mary, Queen of Scots, Essex, and others. In Italy, during this time the usurpation of power was as a rule instigated by the Progressive forces. In England, it was exactly the opposite. The necessity for a rigid law of succession was a constant subject of controversy. King Lear was the first humanist English tragedy dedicated to that problem. Shakespeare had in mind the horrors of civil war attendant upon the ancient British King Gorboduc's reckless division of his kingdom. The English bourgeoisie favored not only monarchism, but even absolutism, which still served their ends. This is the basic problem which occupied Shakespeare. This also explains the peculiar omissions in his works.

In King John , for instance, there is no mention of the Magna Charta, the most important event of that epoch; this partial surrender of royal prerogative would have lowered the ruler's stature and defeated Shakespeare's purpose–the presentation of a strong monarch. His unhappy choice of King John as the subject was motivated by the attempt of this monarch–the first such effort in English history–to effect a separation between Church and State, an act of tremendous importance in the subsequent development of England. He regarded John Lackland as the predecessor of Henry VIII, who brought about the Reformation.

Nevertheless, Shakespeare's objectivity compelled him to cite some of King John's negative traits–his questionable seizure of the crown, and the cruel punishment indicted upon Prince Arthur, the lawful heir. King John assumes, therefore, a dual personality; the real hero of the play is not he, but Philip the Bastard. Neither of these acts, however, reduces his stature as much as any reference to the Magna Charta would have done. He is fighting for the cause of nationalism; Arthus is a protege of France, against whom it is necessary to protect England's power. That, King John is strong enough to do.

When first the French and then the English king try to persuade the citizens of Anglers to open the gates to the "lawful" sovereign (II, 1), they stubbornly refuse to do so; they will have nothing to do with dynastic squabbles. Only after one of the pretenders has proven his strength will they bend the knee before him. This political wisdom of the bourgeoisie dominates the entire play. Whether King John or King Philip has a legitimate claim to the throne of France is of as little importance as their moral defects; only the strength and unity of England matter. This idea is clearly formulated in the words of Philip the Bastard, which end the play:

...nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

The bourgeoisie, the petty and middle gentry, and the absolutists were united by their common struggle against the powerful feudal nobles. The chronicle plays leave no doubt as to where Shakespeare's sympathies lay. The powerful feudal nobles depicted by him–the Percys, Glendowers, Mortimers–are arrogant and refractory. They are forever testing their strength against the king's and organizing rebellions and conspiracies. To Shakespeare, they were the scourge of the land. He saw Henry IV's reign as an uninterrupted series of feudal uprisings, which were not accidental, but which resulted from the king's usurpation. Shakespeare, however, is presenting not the idea of moral retribution, of a "higher, divine" judgment, but a sober political concept. Bolingbroke's usurpation of the throne set a precedent, thus showing the feudal nobles how they, too, could attain power. After he has seized the throne, they demand to be rewarded for their aid. When he refuses, they turn against him. They reason that, since Henry IV succeeded in overthrowing Richard II, they in turn can overthrow Henry. This is the "curse" of the usurper.

Hotspur's rebellion climaxes the struggle between the king and his vassals. Hotspur is a brave, fiery, tempestuous feudal lord who throws himself headlong into the strife and dies a hero. "Fare thee well, great heart!" exclaims Prince Henry as he kills him (Henry IV, Part I, V, 4). Shakespeare emphasizes Hotspur's greatness by contrasting it with the cowardice of Falstaff, who, feigning death, lies next to the fallen hero on the field. Shakespeare makes his conclusions more convincing by drawing a dangerous rebel in heroic proportions. Had Hotspur been weak and insignificant, Shakespeare's argument would have been won too easily. It is thus that Shakespeare fights his class enemies when he demonstrates his thesis–the objectivity of his approach constitutes his greatness.

Of great significance are the factors which hastened Hotspur's death: the vacillation of his own father and uncle, and their pursuit of personal political ends, which are tantamount to betrayal. The personal egotism of the feudal nobles, the lack of cohesion of their forces at a time when only the greatest unity could have assured their victory, proved fatal. Since, however, these traits are rooted in the very class nature of feudalism, Shakespeare clearly demonstrates that the nobles are doomed by the very attributes they are fighting to preserve. In Henry VI, Young Clifford is interested only in avenging his father's death; Somerset is constantly involved in political squabbles; Warwick alone is inspired by a hope for justice and desires to fight for the nation's welfare. When, however, he succumbs to his feeling of personal injury, betrays these principles and allies himself with his former enemies, he, too, perishes.

A strong king, according to Shakespeare, is the greatest political blessing a nation can enjoy; a strong monarchy is a guarantee of national prosperity. Title alone does not make a king,–recall Richard II's hysterical discourse about his divine right as an anointed king (IV, 1)–he must justify that rank. A king should be strong, upright and wise; he must express the collective will of the nation. Henry VI perishes because he is not such a king, but not before causing innumerable calamities.

Shakespeare did not say that such a king should be overthrown, but maintained that the overthrow of such a ruler was inevitable; nevertheless he repeatedly emphasized that the overthrow of a king was a great misfortune. The hopelessness of this dilemma is revealed in Shakespeare's selection of kings. King John at best is only tolerable; Henry IV is inadequate; Richard II, Henry VI, and Richard III are bad–only Henry V is a desirable king. The selection is still more illuminating when the rulers in his Roman tragedies and the kings in his historico-legendary plays are taken into account. Hamlet's father, and Duncan, had to be presented as good kings. They are, however, hardly more than mentioned. But what about Julius Caesar, Claudius, Macbeth, Lear, or even Antony? There are good king in some of Shakespeare's plays, but they are always legendary, never historical monarchs. They are the princes or dukes–the exact title does not matter; what does matter is that they are sovereign and absolute rulers. The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, and Measure for Measure contain such good princes and dukes. They are wise and high-minded, settle all conflicts, and restore justice. It is significant, however, that the term prince or duke, rather than the term King, is applied to them. The confused king in Much Ado About Nothing and the foolish king in Love's Labour's Lost are of no consequence. Henry V, however, is an exception. He embodies all of Shakespeare's optimistic hopes which were to be realized by absolutism. Henry V refers to himself as "the sun." When such an expression is not used ironically–and it is not so used in this play–it indicates Shakespeare's own evaluation. Henry V,which concludes the cycle of chronicle plays, is, therefore, best suited to an analysis of Shakespeare's concrete political depiction of bad kings.

Henry V is shown as a sovereign who has completely crushed feudalism. The conspiracy of the feudal lords in the first act creates an impression, not of the Precariousness of the king's position–as in Henry IV –but of absolute confidence and calm assurance. The same impression is created by the discussion of his pretensions to the French throne. Instead of anxious fears of an unclear future, the exposition induces full confidence in the success of a mission that is "just," while the triumphant note on which the play ends resounds with faith in a bright future, not to be found in any of the other chronicles.

Henry's confident power is founded on the support of the masses. When, as Prince Henry, he tramped the roads and frequented the taverns in the company of Falstaff and his band (Henry IV), he came into close contact with the people. He continued this practice when he became king. On the eve of a decisive battle (Henry V, IV, 1), he makes the rounds of the English camp in disguise and chats with the officers and soldiers to discover their real thoughts and feelings. In essence, the tactic he employs is no different from that used by his father, Bolingbroke, who, as he rode through the streets on his way to exile, "dived into their hearts with humble and familiar courtesy," threw away "reverence ... on slaves," wooed "poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles," doffed "his bonnet to an oyster-wench" (Richard II, I, 4). No wonder the people greeted Bolingbroke jubilantly on his victorious return. He replied to their greetings "from one side to the other turning, bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck" (V, 2). Such is Shakespeare's conception of a positive king. Henry IV's son did not need to bow "lower than his proud steed's neck"; he could converse with the people in a friendly and natural fashion without loss of dignity.

The democratic composition of Henry's army is emphasized. It was no accident that Shakespeare introduced common soldiers and the lower officers. Nor did he do it simply for the sake of color and innocent comic effect. They are the base upon which rests the king's strength. Three centuries before the appearance of scientific history, Shakespeare, through his intuitive genius, knew that the Battle of Agincourt was not worn by a little group of well-born heroes, but by the English soldiers. The English yeomanry conquered the disintegrating feudal nobility of France. This is graphically demonstrated in the scenes which depict the English and French camps on the eve of battle (III, 6-7),–on the one hand is the vapid foppishness, the boasting, the badinage, in the French camp; on the other, the serious concentration, the honest concern, the feeling of great national responsibility which animates every English soldier. It is not so much a national, as a class contrast. [20] Henry appreciates his plebeian soldiers; because of his silent approval, Fluellen makes short work of the insolent braggart Pistol, who had insulted him. Though not a feudal aristocrat, Pistol is at any rate a remnant of the dying feudal order (V, I). [21] Nor does the king confine himself to democratic sympathies; his very nature is profoundly democratic. In the last scene (V, 2), Henry, in telling the Drench princess of his feelings for her, emphasizes his "plebeian" moderation and simplicity, so different from the affectation of the court. According to historical facts available in Shakespeare's time, Henry was not nearly so simple and crude as he presented him. In this vivid, if exaggerated self-characterization, we find in a more developed and more socially rooted form that which Shakespeare previously revealed in Biron's monologue in Love's Labour's Lost: protestations against all affectation and empty aristocratic polish in the name of democratic simplicity, sincerity of feelings, and natural expression. Henry's speech puts him in the company of Fluellen and Williams. This, according to Shakespeare's idea, makes him a people's king.

Shakespeare's selection of soldiers is extremely interesting. Williams and Bates are pure English, but Fluellen is Welsh; Macmorris, Irish; Jamy, Scotch. Here are the nationalities of the future Great Britain; they are depicted fighting side by side like brothers for the common good, for the future imperial state. This amazingly perspicacious picture Shakespeare painted at a time when Ireland, nominally under the rule of the English king, was in a state of constant insurrection, and when Scotland was still completely independent.

Henry V is Shakespeare's "ideal" king. Nevertheless, in spite of its felicitous conception, this play is among the weakest of Shakespeare's works. Critics unanimously proclaim it too discursive and unconvincing. Is it not possible that the play was a failure because Shakespeare had already begun to be tormented by doubts; because his attitude towards absolutism had already become ambiguous,–a state of mind which prevented him from mobilizing all his creative resources in its defense?

Shakespeare's most brilliant play of this type is Richard III, an historical tragedy of epic proportions. Its distinguishing characteristics are the unity of its plot and the concentration of action around the leading character. Richard dominates the other characters. To know Richard, therefore, is to understand the thematic design of the play.

The contradictions in Richard's nature have been pointed out by all Shakespearean scholars. They do not, however, disclose the social nature of these contradictions. According to them, Richard is a villain, a monster, a devil incarnate, who is, nevertheless, not devoid of a certain attraction, particularly in the final scenes of the Battle of Bosworth Field.

In order to mate the transition from the psychological to the social antithesis, it is necessary to begin with the most positive basic constant in Richard's character, a constant which Shakespeare endows with immense human and social values. In intelligence, will-power, and even in valor, Richard excels everyone around him. He is a true hero in the style of Marlowe's Tamburlaine or Faust. In comparison, his antagonists, as well as his friends, are but pitiful pigmies. If, from the point of view of abstract morality, Richard is a villain, then who among the others is beyond reproach? Edward, the impotent voluptuary? The boastful and ambitious kinsmen of the queen: Rivers, Grey, Vaughan? Buckingham, the unprincipled careerist? The dull and stupid Hastings? Stanley, the hypocritical politician? Or Catesby, Richard's devoted slave?

The youthful princes slaughtered by Richard evoke pity, nothing more. Sympathy for Clarence is neutralized by his apathy and stupidity. The queens who hurl imprecations at Richard are not devoid of tragic grandeur. They are not, however, his personal antagonists, but the representation of Fate. Of the three, only Margaret can match his mentality, but her spirit is broken. Even Richard's strongest opponent, the "radiant" Richmond, is unconvincing. His role in the play is that of the deus ex machina, who ends the feudal Wars of the Roses. Richard towers over him as Hamlet over Fortinbras.

The selection of characters is significant; it emphasizes Richard's true greatness. This greatness is unceasingly demonstrated throughout the first four acts and reaches a climax in the fifth, when Richard's star begins to wane. He is revealed as a true hero, fighting against inexorable fate, and perishing in a burst of tragic glory. Shakespeare, mighty master that he was, has few passages as forceful as the one in which Richard reveals the daring mind and will of a conqueror, as he challenges the decrepit feudal morality (V, 3):

Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe: Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.

Or the passage in which Richard calls his men to the battle which is to be fatal to him (V, 3) :

Hark! I hear their drum. Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;

Richard's greatness is more than an abstract psychological attribute; it is an expression of Shakespeare's social and political thought. Richard represents the strong ruler, who firmly holds the reins of power and puts on end to the intrigues and quarrels of the court cliques. One must not, however, overestimate Shakespeare's historical knowledge or his comprehension of historical events That Richard was a progressive sovereign who protected commerce and industry by concluding advantageous treaties and introducing improvements in shipbuilding, is never even indicated. The chronicles which served as source material shed but little light on these matters. It is possible that even if Shakespeare were aware of these events, he did not care to make use of them. He was interested in only one central problem, the basic theme of all his chronicles: the affirmation of the principle of absolutism as the only power strong enough to suppress the anarchy of feudalism.

It does not follow, as Levidov states in his Three Shakespeares, that Richard is Shakespeare's favorite protagonist, whom he pretended to vilify in order to placate the censors and the court. Richard III is not a political discourse written in the language of Aesop,–it is a great work of art. Having exalted Richard, Shakespeare judged and condemned him according to his basic political belief. Richard is a scoundrel; such a man is not fit to control the reins of state. Shakespeare, instead of suppressing, emphasizes this aspect, attributing crimes to Richard the latter never committed.

This is more than mere moralizing, more than mere humanism; sentimentality is alien to Shakespeare,–when necessary he is stern and courageous. Hamlet slays the objectionable but innocuous Polonius as he would kill a rat, and Romeo does not for a moment hesitate to kill the harmless Paris. Friar Lawrence's speech in Romeo and Juliet is the key to many of Shakespeare's ideas (II, 3):

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse; Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; And vice sometimes by action dignified.

Shakespeare's condemnation of Richard indicates a definite political view. Power, based on villainy, violence, and usurpation, undermines its own roots. Like Bolingbroke (Henry IV), Richard combats feudalism and attains absolute power by means which give rise to anarchy and strengthen the forces of feudal reaction. The violation of the tradition of succession to the throne, so dear to the heart of Hastings, is of no importance; in Shakespeare's day, changes in the law of succession were constantly being formulated and accepted. Shakespeare was not opposed to such changes. Bolingbroke had at least maintained his usurpation through the support of the masses, whose hearts he succeeded in winning, but Richard was forced to rely on his mercenaries and on those lords who were attached to him for reasons of their own.

Immediately after his seizure of the throne, Richard's allies demand an accounting. New revolts, new wars are imminent. it is fortunate for England that Richard's conqueror is Richmond, Elizabeth's grandfather. Richard falters for lack of support. He merits his fate, –none of his actions had been dictated by concern for the welfare of the nation, but were all products of his boundless ambition and egoism.

Falstaff, who makes his first appearance in Henry IV, is mentioned in Henry V, and is resurrected in The Merry Wives of Windsor, is a figure of great social significance. Much has been written about his social import. The majority of bourgeois critics agree that Falstaff is a parody on the degenerate feudal nobility, the embodiment of all their vices–boastfulness, swashbuckling, drunkenness, libertinism. This evaluation is correct but not complete. It needs amplification, in order to explain Falstaff's vitality and inimitable appeal.

Falstaff is of feudal origin. He is forever swearing, he tries to dazzle the bourgeois Mistress Ford with his title; throughout, he makes use of feudal terms and ideas. His celebrated band–Nym, Poins, Bardolph–to whom he paid no wages, but who served him as vassals for a share in chance booty, is an amusing burlesque on the retainers of the medieval lord. He is not, however, the feudal lord of the old order, but an opportunist who has adapted himself to the spirit of the times and assimilated all the worst habits of primary accumulation; in short, he represents, on a lower and comic plane, the feudal lord for whom money became "the power of all powers."

This degenerate and declassed feudal knight has freed himself from all the illusions of his class. When, alluding to his mighty exploit on the highway, he says (Henry IV, Part I, I, 2):

.... let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade,

he is cynically ridiculing all the feudal conceptions of chivalry. Even more revealing in his discourse on knightly honor (Henry IV, Part J, V, 1), which, while reminiscent of Shylock's speech about Jews and Christians, undoubtedly contains Shakespeare's own ideas on the subject: [22]

... how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set-to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no still in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word, honour. What is that honour? air. a trim reckoning!–Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday, Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it:–therefore I'll none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.

Falstaff could so successfully adapt himself because of the similarity of the activities of the feudal knights and the "profit knights" of primary accumulation. The former, protected by their castles, plundered on the highways; the latter on the sea and in the colonies. When these knights and conquistadors of high rank indulged in such plundering, it assumed imposing, even heroic proportions; with Falstaff, it becomes merely sordid thievery. He sinks to such a level that he is kept by the mistress of a tavern. His end is well known; like refuse, he is thrown into the Thames, in a hamper of dirty clothes.

In spite of the hilarious adaptation of Sir John Falstaff to the spirit of the times, he never loses completely his feudal nature. Like the landowning nobility of the sixteenth century, the masters of the sheep-walks and enclosures, he too, on a lesser and comic plane, has but superficially acquired a "new quality." His class nature has not changed; he is a thorough parasite. His world perspective is not that of the Renaissance. He is no humanist, no daring individualist, he is not even the passionate anarchist of Marlowe's plays; he is only a cynic. He has lost the principles of the past and become imbued with the spirit of negation, retaining however, his lusty desire for life and pleasure.

Why, then, does he attract us? Because he is his own accuser, exposing and ridiculing himself through both word and deed. His cynicism thus becomes a moral attribute. Falstaff is clever and astute. His laughter spares no one, not even the king. He is witty, and a butt for others. Because of his shrewdness, and humorous self-exposure, Shakespeare tempers his judgment of him. Thus, Shakespeare varies his attack on feudalism, but retains his usual objectivity; because his victim is so petty and unimportant, he resorts to buffoonery. Since he does not desire too easy a victory, he endows Falstaff with a measure of virtue; he judges and condemns him in spite of it.

One major idea runs through all Shakespeare's chronicle plays: the problem of state power. Perhaps even more significant is the face that they also contain, in undeveloped, though clearly evidenced form, the philosophy of the historical process.

As emphasized by Marx and Engels, the social background in Shakespeare is not a mere detail of the plot, as the bourgeois critics conceive it to be. On the contrary, the social background is the causal explanation of the plot. Since scientific learning was practically nonexistent in Shakespeare's day–not even Bacon had fully succeeded in laying its foundations–Shakespeare's persistent though unformed striving to discover causal explanations of the historical process were remarkable. The insistence of bourgeois Shakespearean scholars that the action in his plays is determined solely by the individual will and energy of the protagonists, is completely untenable. Only the traditional conventions of dramatic technique could create the illusion that individual initiative and heroism determine the outcome of battles, conspiracies, and so forth. The protagonists of the plays personify the power of the mass rather than of the individual. This is vividly illustrated in Henry V, where the elegant and weak feudal lords of France are overwhelmed by the English soldiers and lower officers at the Battle of Agincourt. An even more striking example is to be found in Troilus and Cressida (V, 8), when Achilles, after ordering his bodyguard to kill Hector, boasts of his "brilliant victory."

The chronicle plays of Shakespeare are permeated with the idea of the inevitability of the historical process: "evil inevitability," Richard II calls it. There are many references to the "times" and the "spirit of the times." The Earl of Westmoreland (Henry IV, Part II, IV, 1) replies to the accusation of the rebellious feudal nobles with:

O, my good Lord Mowbray, Construe the times to their necessities, And you shall say indeed, it is the time, And not the king, that doth you injuries.

In like manner does the rebel Hastings defend his behavior (Henry IV, PArt II, I, 3)

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

The role played by individual temperament and personality in shaping the course of events is not minimized, but the individual is helpless to cope with the force of circumstances. This is shown by Warwick, when he comments on the Earl of Northumberland's treason (Henry IV, Part II, III, 1):

There is a history in all men's lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd; The which observ'd, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life.

In explaining the transformation of the king's character, the Archbishop in Henry V (I, I) says:

.... miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.

Shakespeare not only states his thesis of the causal conditioning of historical events, but demonstrates it through all the means at his command. One of his chief means is the social background. In Henry IV, the scenes in which Falstaff appears; in Henry V, the scenes in the camp; and in Richard III, the scenes of Richard's proclamation as king, depict the life which is the foundation from which spring major political events. A similar background is to be found in the Roman tragedies and the historico-legendary plays, not explicitly, but implicitly, in the pointed and expressive allusions of the characters. This is especially true of Hamlet, Othello, and particularly Coriolanus. Finally, this social background is also present in the comedies, where it is usually to be found on the "lower" plane, above all in the speeches of the jesters. Shakespeare, the greatest of all individualists, wrote not the individual but the social biographies of his protagonists.

Three other plays also belong to the first period: the tragedies Titus Andronicus (1593), Romeo and Juliet (1594), and Julius Caesar (1599).

The first is too unimportant to merit much attention, especially since its authorship is disputed. The second, however, deserves consideration.

The social aspect of the love theme in Romeo and Juliet is more obvious than in Shakespeare's other comedies. Here it becomes the struggle of the new man of the Renaissance against the feudal order. This struggle takes the form of a demand for freedom in love and opposition to antiquated moral traditions. The fact that the type of hereditary family feud, exemplified by the Montagues and Capulets, dates from pre-feudal times is of little consequence, since feudalism adopted, even perfected the institution of the blood feud. Nor is it of any greater importance that the two families involved are not members of the feudal aristocracy. They are bourgeois "patricians," rather than members of the new bourgeoisie of the epoch of primary accumulation, thoroughly medieval urban philistines permeated by feudal ideas. The struggle of the lovers against their social environment is the struggle of bourgeois humanism against feudalism, the Renaissance against the Middle Ages.

To make the situation clearer, Shakespeare introduces a number of secondary characters who indirectly bring into relief the class nature of the chief actors and the conflicting class forces. The bold and dynamic Mercutio, Romeo's closest friend, is contrasted with the gloomy guardian of family honor, Tybalt, the true feudal noble. Juliet's suitor, Count Paris, also represents feudalism. He woos Juliet through her father, not taking the trouble to inform himself about her feelings. Handsome and punctilious, he is as dull and lifeless as Orsino in Twelfth Night, a wax figure, as he is characterized by the coarse, but astute Nurse. He is a Count; his title is no accidental attribute. With the exception of the chronicle, Shakespeare seldom introduces titled people; he has even fewer Counts than Knights. Count Paris is an aristocrat in every sense of the word. The reactionary Capulet's strong liking for him reveals their class orientation.

Friar Lawrence, on the other hand, who assists the lovers in their struggle against the old world, is an amazing character. A churchman in name only, he is both scholar and philosopher, a stranger to all ecclesiastical bigotry, a true pantheist. He stems directly from Saint Francis of Assisi, the most progressive force of medieval Christianity, and Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for his bold opinions. He is one of Shakespeare's most progressive characters.

The social background against which the conflict is projected is broadly developed; every stage is shown. The two old men, Montague and Capulet, are secretly oppressed by the burden of the long family feud, which they permit to smoulder from inertia, but there are always young hot-heads such as Tybalt to inflame it anew. Romeo and Juliet are the victims of this feud, but in death they are victorious. The play ends with an affirmation of the new life; over the bodies of the lovers, the two families are at last reconciled. This reconciliation is expressed by the Prince, the absolute ruler, the exponent of the new morality.

The struggle against feudal aristocracy is also shown by the language and style of the play. When Romeo is in love with Rosaline he sighs languorously and his speech abounds in affectation. After meeting Juliet, he is completely transformed. Unlike Biron, he does not indulge in penitent discourses, but briefly and firmly renounce his former infatuation. From that moment his language is as passionate and unaffected as are his actions.

Julius Caesar was written at the end of the first period, when absolutism in England was beginning to show clear signs of deterioration. The court had become a centre of intrigue and favoritism; feudal reaction once more became a threat, while the bourgeoisie, together with the leading ranks of the new nobility, began to be imbued with greater and greater antagonism towards monarchical power.. Shakespeare was keenly aware of this, and his ideal of the absolute monarch, typified by Henry V, becomes tarnished; this awareness is shown in Julius Caesar, with its concept of tyranny.

It was customary in Shakespeare's day to interpret Roman history in the light of contemporary England; hence, the idealization of Julius Caesar as a strong and glorious monarch in English literature more than ten years before Shakespeare's tragedy. In his earlier plays, Shakespeare himself presented this point of view on more than one occasion, notably in Henry VI, Part III (V, 5), where the assassination of Caesar is stigmatized as the greatest of crimes. In Julius Caesar, however, he adopted a radically different attitude. Plutarch, from whom Shakespeare drew the material for his tragedy, was to a great extent responsible for this transformation. The Roman biographer presented Caesar, with all his human weaknesses, as an ambitious egoist who attained power through clever political maneuvering; Brutus, as a true hero, the defender of liberty, whose sole aim was to free the people from the yoke of a tyrant. Shakespeare took over this attitude in his play. Like Plutarch, he completely disregarded both the progressive, democratic character of Caesar's activities, and the reactionary tendencies of Brutus, the aristocrat-republican. Shakespeare concentrated on the problem of power and a ruler's responsibility to the people. Caesar lacks this sense of responsibility. He is another Richard III, an egoist, who, drunk with power, cares only for his crown. [23] Though he did not fail to emphasize Caesar's positive traits, his courage and colossal will-power, Shakespeare unhesitatingly condemned him, as he had condemned Richard III.

Brutus is, on the contrary, idealized. Shakespeare disregards all the moral defects pointed out by Plutarch: his greediness (he charged forty per cent interest on his loans), his hypocrisy (he accepted many favors and posts of honor from Caesar), and his cruelty to prisoners of war. Shakespeare emphasizes only his passionate patriotism, his heroic struggle for freedom. And yet Brutus depresses us. The tone of the play is more despairing than the gloomiest of Shakespeare's tragedies Brutus perished because the masses, carried away by the demagogic eloquence of Antony, denied him their support.

A great deal has been written about Shakespeare's portrayal of the masses. Bourgeois scholars are unanimous in their opinion that Shakespeare "despised and hated" the masses, that he depicted them as a dart, dangerous, unstable force. These scholars have not troubled to probe Shakespeare's attitude towards the people, nor to question the reasons for such an attitude.

As the ideologist of the rising bourgeoisie in the epoch of primary accumulation, an epoch of relentless conflict between the nascent capitalism and the peasant masses it was exploiting Shakespeare might conceivably not have been too tenderly inclined towards the masses. A contemptuous attitude towards the "rabble" is common to all the humanists, the "aristocracy of intellect"; to Chaucer, the founder of English humanism; even to the two most "democratic" contemporaries of Shakespeare, Heywood and Dekker. It was the feudal lords of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who made the "people's misery" an issue in their struggle against absolutism. Marx characterizes the "feudal socialism" of the first half of the nineteenth century as follows:

The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian almsbag in front for a banner. But the people, as often as it joined them, saw on their hind-quarters the old feudal coats-of-arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter. [24]

It is an old tactic, which dates from the beginning of the struggle between the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It is no accident that a "sympathetic" depiction of the people is often found in the most aristocratic of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Beaumont and Fletcher.

Nevertheless, Shakespeare loved the people, loved them without sentimentality, without shedding crocodile tears over them, with a vital and healthy love. Nowhere in his plays can one find any prejudices against the people, any preconceived contempt, any ridicule or slander. Solicitude for the welfare of the people, he considers to be one of the first duties of a king. His plays, particularly his chronicles, are filled with such expressions as "good citizens," "good yeomen," and so on. The plebeian jesters, servants, or simple peasants are often the exponents of common sense and moral truth; they expose the hypocrisy and affectations of their noble masters. Several times, he makes the people be the judge of the great ones of this world, and pronounce sentence on them. When Richard III, the usurper, is pronounced king, the people are expressively silent; these same people are jubilant when, in Richard II, Bolingbroke triumphantly ascends the throne. In Hamlet, Claudius admits that Hamlet is "lov'd by the multitude."

At the same time, Shakespeare points out the people's political immaturity, their fickleness, their lack of independent thought or action, their credulity. All this was true of the English people of his time. The Cade Rebellion of 1450 was, from the point of view of the development of capitalism, a reactionary movement; and a whole series of peasant uprisings in the sixteenth century were inspired by the Catholic clergy, who used them to gain their reactionary ends, and by the feudal lords who were dissatisfied with the absolutist regime. This is how the rebellious masses are depicted by Shakespeare. That is why Hamlet, who is so "lov'd by the multitude" does not seek the help of the undependable, immature masses, who, under the influence of demagogic agitators, are ready to follow anyone, even Laertes, who is completely useless to them.

Shakespeare's second period included the tragedies, Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1605), Antony and Cleopatra (1606), Coriolanus (1607), Timon of Athens (l607); and the comedies Troilus and Cressida (1601), All's Well That Ends Well (1602), Measure for Measure (1604), and Pericles [25] (1608). These comedies differ from the buoyant, romantic comedies of his first period. They lack his joyous love for the beautiful forms of life, and his light, playful humor. Instead, there is such an overtone of tragedy that the term drama would be more suitable, especially when applied to Measure for Measure. We have previously attempted to explain this metamorphosis in Shakespeare's creative genius. The last years of Elizabeth's reign and the first years of the reign of James I were marked by a grave political cleavage,'which caused a spiritual conflict in Shakespeare. His philosophy became tragic, but not gloomy, nor despondently pessimistic. Despite the austerity of his tragedies, they almost always end on a note of a courageous, heroic affirmation of life. According to Shakespeare, the value of life is in heroic struggle, even if this struggle ends in defeat.

Hamlet, which begins the series of Shakespeare's tragedies, is the most difficult to analyze. The idealist criticism or the nineteenth century, influenced by Goethe, claimed the basic idea in the tragedy to be the conflict between Hamlet's thought and will, in which he appears as the victim of the dominance of thought over will, a martyr to reflection, incapable of realistic action. This idea, however, is utterly false. It sprang from nineteenth century German petty-bourgeois thought, which strove to comprehend and justify its political and spiritual impotence. Actually, Hamlet is capable of action to the highest degree, even of heroic action, as evidenced by the episode of his sea-journey, and by the series of daring deeds performed in the palace. The idea of conflict between thought and action was alien to the artists of the Renaissance, and particularly to Shakespeare, who could not conceive of thought as divorced from action. What, then, prevents Hamlet from avenging his father's murder? Some critics claim that Hamlet's postponment of the killing of Claudius, the usurper, was logically motivated–for instance, Hamlet's reluctance to murder Claudius while praying, lest his soul should enter heaven–and that a five act play, without such delays, would not have been possible. But it is not so much his hesitation, as the tone which Hamlet adopts when he speaks of his revenge, that proves him lacking in will-power. No conflict, however, exists between his thought and will. He is horrified by the crime, by his mother's inconstancy in marrying the usurper, "ere those shoes were old," and by the rampant hypocrisy and debauchery of the entire court, even of his beloved Ophelia,–a debauchery and hypocrisy which he attributes to the world at large. It never occurs to him to take revenge as an act of personal justice. Firstly, because his father is dear to him, not only as a father, but as an image of beauty, a great man as well as a great monarch, especially in comparison with the insignificant and morally warped Claudius. Secondly, because Hamlet views this private crime only as an indication of the general corruption of the age, of universal and irreparable evil. Under such circumstances, personal revenge is futile. He therefore overcomes his narrow, subjective tendency to become a merciless judge of his epoch. It undoubtedly grieves Hamlet to break with Ophelia, but he does not lament, and ostensibly seems unaffected as he drowns this pain in a much greater pain for all humanity. What type of action could and should such thought produce? Only one, inner renunciation and departure from this world. This he succeeds in accomplishing. For Hamlet, the heir to the throne, a man of passionate, energetic nature, with an inherent capacity for appreciating the full joy and beauty of life, this is an act of tremendous strength. The traditional idea of ancestral revenge, an idea existing in society before social classes, and which later became one of the bases of the feudal world outlook, is minimized and almost utterly discarded in the tragedy. Hamlet is 'not entirely free from the idea of revenge, but he has lost the urgent impulse for it. He is essentially a man of the new age–a humanist. As proof of this, Shakespeare introduces the theme of ancestral revenge on two occasions; once in connection with Laertes, and again with Fortinbras. In both instances, their reactions are utterly different from those of Hamlet. When Laertes learns of his father's death, he behaves like a feudal lord, bursting into the palace with armed men to demand an answer from the king. Fortinbras, on the contrary, has no belief in the efficacy of ancestral revenge. Like a skillful man of business and a diplomat, he uses it merely as an excuse for political advancement. He is a thorough representative of primary accumulation. Hamlet stands midway between these two men. In the process of becoming a new man, a humanist, he frees himself only with difficulty from the old feudal outlook. He becomes a rounded humanist, while Fortinbras remains a mere talented opportunist. Hamlet suffers because he is far in advance of his time. He is tormented by his passivity. What underlies the great disillusionment and sorrow that Shakespeare expressed through Hamlet, and which he himself unquestionably experienced at this time? It is possible to interpret this attitude of Shakespeare's in terms of the decay of absolutism around 1600. The degeneracy of the English court stood out in sharp relief. Shakespeare depicted it with unusual depth, transferring the scene of action to Denmark. He portrays various degrees of pettiness and vulgarity,–the corrupt agents of the King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; the empty-headed and obsequious Osric; the shrewd but foolish Polonius. Polonius is of particular importance because he is not merely a feudal noble like Osric, but one with a new quality. Many traits reveal the aristocrat who has adapted himself to primary accumulation, and has become partly bourgeois–sagacious, and solicitous for his family. His son and daughter are equally practical and calculating, although, quite naturally, they also have feudal characteristics. Typical of this are Ophelia's blind obedience to her father and Laertes' violent rage when he revenges the death of Polonius. In depicting the family of Polonius, Shakespeare severely criticizes the gentry, which, without changing its feudal nature, acquired the worst habits of the epoch of primary accumulation.

To what, then, should Hamlet cling? The practical philistinism of the bourgeoisie disgusts him. He has no faith in the masses, seeing only their instability and political immaturity; he is surrounded by a tragic emptiness. Were he an egocentric, he would have seized the crown, led a secluded life, and found epicurean consolation in the society of his friends. Hamlet, the humanist, can exist only by comprehending and accepting the world–hence the hopelessness of his plight. But all these psychological motivations are but concrete personal reactions to the general socio-historical conditions. Court debauchery and the disintegration of absolutism are only the immediate clauses of Hamlet's deeply rooted pessimism. The epoch in which Shakespeare lived saw the rise of the bourgeoisie, which has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest and callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.... The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe...The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. [26]

All this happened later, but the beginnings of this gigantic moral cataclysm existed in Shakespeare's time and he reflected it with exceptional clarity and depth (Falstaff, Edmund in King Lear , Timon). The old morality was collapsing and Shakespeare was among the first to undermine it. No new morality had as pet been substituted, and the one being formulated by Shakespeare's class, Puritan morality with all its class limitations, repelled him. He therefore attempted to create a new morality based upon the great ideas and problems advanced by the humanist bourgeoisie of the Renaissance, which, in turn, had been derived from all the social classes except the ruling feudal class. The bourgeoisie did not carry out its promises at that time nor later. Immediately after its first victories, its class limitations and contradictions forced it to change; instead of universal truth, it advocated philistine hypocrisy; instead of universal freedom, the enslavement of the lower classes.

Even at that time, when the bourgeoisie was in its infancy, its best representatives, the great humanists of the Renaissance, felt the inevitability of this betrayal. They sensed the discrepancy between the magnitude of the problems which their class had undertaken to solve, and the possibility of putting their solutions into effect. Hence, the greatest creations of Michelangelo reflect angry grief, the canvases of Leonardo da Vinci, sad smiles, and Shakespeare's Hamlet is filled with "worldly sorrow." Hamlet, i.e. Shakespeare, saw the break which had already started in the old world of feudal morality; he did not bewail it. On the contrary, he exerted all his efforts to destroy the old world outlook. In his monologue "to be or not to be" he reaches the highest point of skepticism possible at that time. Even Marlowe did not permit himself such frankness. Hamlet's reasoning –that "your worm is your only real emperor for diet," that "your fat icing and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table" (IV, 3), and that Alexander of Macedonia "returned into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel?" (V, l)–destroys the idea of feudal monarchy in particular, and the entire feudal dogma of class hierarchy in general. "Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows," says Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (II, 2). "The toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe," says Hamlet to the grave-digger (V, l)–hinting at agrarian revolt. This is said with sarcasm but not at the peasants' expense. Hamlet's personality, behavior, and manner of speech betray not the slightest mark of affectation despite his sentimentality. He is anti-feudal, humanist, democratic. He does not mourn the old world. But, like the best minds of his time, he shudders at the sight; shudders because he does not see a new world that will satisfy him. Caught between the corruption of the court, the vulgarity of the growing bourgeoisie, and the masses in whom he has no belief, there is only one outlet for him: the half-pretended madness and apathetic action by which he accidentally brings about his futile revenge before he himself perishes. Thus, Hamlet yields to the healthier and less exacting Fortinbras. This mirrors the crisis of humanism. Although Hamlet is deeply pessimistic, it cannot be said to reflect Shakespeare's world perspective. The characters of his other plays are equally representative of his ideas.

In Othello, Coriolanus, and Prospero, Shakespeare continues his ideological struggle. Hamlet's pessimism is transitory and does not reveal Shakespeare's striving for his still nebulous ideals and for his love of life, which, in itself, is a fundamental basis of optimism. In Othello, Shakespeare returns to love as a theme. The first act echoes the theme of Romeo and Juliet, a love which struggles with a hostile social environment representative of the feudal conception of the home. But in Othello, love conquers immediately and its victory is the greater because it is attained despite the most tenacious of prejudices, that of race. The concept of Othello as a Moor was borrowed from the Italian novella. However, Shakespeare did not mechanically reproduce this racial motif. Brabantio is dismayed at his daughter's desire to marry a dark-skinned person. Iago, in attempting to strike Othello's most vulnerable spot in order to inflame his jealousy, never permits him to forget the color of his skin: "She will compare your appearance to the appearance of her magpies" (III, 3). Iago's efforts are unavailing; Desdemona loves Othello despite his race and color. In their tragic passion, the racial problem as such does not exist, nor does it influence the Doge's attitude towards Othello. Shakespeare solves the race problem in a more radical fashion than in the Merchant of Venice. In the latter, only one monologue, which is not even an integral part of the play, treats the problem whereas in Othello, the theme is treated in full. Othello is a thorough representative of the new age. The fact that the play hints Othello is of royal descent is unimportant. This is but an empty decoration that serves no thematic function. Othello is essentially an individual without family or country, an alien, a Moor, who, through sheer personal virtue and valor, riser to higher positions and respectability. Othello and Desdemona are not united by parental will, nor.by elemental passion, as are Romeo and Juliet, but by mutual understanding and friendship–the highest form of human love. This explains the nature of Othello's jealousy. It is not the wounded honor of a nobleman, nor is it the proprietary attitude of a philistine husband, whose rights have been invaded. It is rather a feeling of outrage at the violation of the implicit trust and mutual confidence that had united Othello and Desdemona. It is Desdemona's falseness that overwhelms Othello. His jealousy is of the same texture as his love. The love that unites Othello and Desdemona can withstand all tests only in a congenial environment and not in one morally and ideologically hostile. To Shakespeare, the tragic struggle does not bear an abstract psychological character, but is based upon a class conflict. Such is the nature of all Shakespeare's tragedies.

Othello and Desdemona are surrounded by Roderigo, Cassio and Iago. Roderigo is a noble who disposes of his estate, pockets the gold, and follows the young Desdemona to Cyprus, hoping to cuckold her Moorish husband. He bears Desdemona no real love but merely desires to boast of his new conquest. He represents the degenerating, vapid, feudal gentry. In the development of the tragedy Roderigo plays a necessary role; he is part of the social background.

Cassio resembles him in many respects. Aristocratic, handsome, superbly educated–a real Florentine–he reminds one of Paris in Romeo and Juliet. More wasted and slovenly than the latter, he gets drunk easily, and is inordinately fond of prostitutes.

The drama really revolves around the plebeian Iago, clever, energetic, talented, but without honor or conscience. In Iago many Shakespearean scholars have seen "evil incarnate," the offspring of the devil in medieval miracle plays. This is not the case. Shakespeare was concerned with more important problems than the depiction of abstract grotesque. Iago is not the embodiment of the medieval Christian devil, but of the predatory, cynical philistine merchant of the period of primary accumulation, rage's philosophy is expressed by the phrase, "put money in thy purse," advice which he continually imparts to Roderigo, and by the idea that the end justifies the means. This is the thesis of moral relativism and nihilism, or, as it was then called in England, Machiavellism, which was one of the chief doctrines of the epoch. Othello, on the other hand, is the exponent of an opposite point of view–the humanist. He believes in goodness and truth, and demands absolute moral standards, determined by the individual conscience of man. From this springs his credulity, of which Iago takes advantage.

The empty-headed Cassio, because of his noble birth, good manners, and influence in high places, is elevated over the head of the talented plebeian, Iago. Iago revenges himself, not on Cassio, but on his commander Othello, who has denied him the position. Revenge, arising from concrete, personal antagonism, develops into a struggle of two world outlooks, corresponding to two conflicting ideologies within the same class.

Othello perishes in this struggle, perishes at that moment when his trust in Iago conquers his faith in Desdemona. His murder of Desdemona marks the climax of this struggle; but as soon as Othello realizes that his jealousy was groundless, he transcends the deed and regains his faith. By killing himself, he affirms the integrity of this faith and thus vanquishes the relativist, Iago. Othello has overcome the hopeless gloom of Hamlet.

In King Lear, Shakespeare returns to his favorite theme, the problem of royal and state power, but this time expounds his meaning clearly.

Lear is absorbed in the illusion of kingship even more than the half-mad Richard II. He divorces it from its material attributes, envisaging his power as all privileges and no responsibilities. Therefore, during his lifetime, he apportions his kingdom–as a feudal landowner apportions his estate–to his daughters, reserving to himself certain intangible rights. He is the perfect type of feudal king. Feudal symbols, feudal formulas, are everything to him. He demands from his daughters not vital expressions of sincere feeling, but only ceremonial phrases expressing the love and devotion of a vassal. He Insists upon a retinue of a hundred knights as prerogative and symbol of his sovereign power.

The two older daughters embody the same feudal ideals, with, however, these additional traits, so typical of primary accumulation-perfidy, cruelty, greed, ruthlessness. Since these traits were as typical of feudalism, Regan and Goneril, like Falstaff, mark the transition. Cordelia, on the contrary, expresses the new era. She is a humanist, who knows only one law, the law of truth and simplicity. On hearing her sisters' protestation of love, she says (I, I):

Then poor Cordelia! And yet not so, since I am sure my love's More ponderous than my tongue.

When her turn comes, she replies simply to her father: "I love your majesty according to my bond; nor more nor less."

Lear: So young, and so untender? Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.

Lear, outraged, disowns her.

Later, Lear's delusions are dispelled. He undergoes great suffering, but through this he is regenerated. Having endured need and privation, he begins to understand a great deal of what had hitherto been incomprehensible, and to regard his power, life, and mankind in a different light (III, 4):

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That hide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? 0, I have ta'en Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.

He begins to sense the monstrous injustice of the feudal-aristocratic system, that system which he had unthinkingly upheld (IV, 6):

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.

Here and elsewhere Lear merely repeats that which his jester, who symbolizes the wisdom and expresses the moral of the play, expounds in his bitterly sarcastic song (III, 2):

When nobles are their tailors' tutors; No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors; When every case in law is right; No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; When slanders do not live in tongues; Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; When usurers tell their gold i' the field; And bawds and whores do churches build;– Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be us'd with feet.

But is there no character in the tragedy who exemplifies an active force,–it is difficult to consider Cordelia as such–free from the feudal illusions of Lear, and in that sense, distinct from him? Goneril and Regan appear to be such characters. But, to an even greater degree, this is true of Edmund, the son of Gloster. Edmund negates all the "most heavenly ecstasies," and all the "feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations." The quotations from the Communist Manifesto, previously cited in reference to Hamlet, are even more applicable to Edmund. Edmund destroys his brother through calumny, dooms his father to horrible torments, successively deceives Goneril and Regan, in his designs on the throne. Clever, crafty, energetic, he plays his game so skillfully, that were it not for the fact that disaster overtakes one of his agents, Goneril's steward, and for the foresight of Albany, his intrigues would have been completely successful. He is even more machiavellian than Iago, because there is some concrete justification–the insult he has received–for the latter's malice and cruelty. Only cupidity and ambition guide Edmund. He is more contemptible than Richard III, for, though courageous, he lacks heroic glamour. Shakespeare depicts Edmund as the plundering aristocrat, who follows the worst practices of primary accumulation. Goneril, Regan and Edmund–here is a new generation rising to replace the old; a new force, no less ruthless than the old and dying one.

Are there, then, no progressive characters in the drama? Besides Kent, who is a minor figure, and the unfortunate Gloster, there are Cordelia and Edgar. With but poorly delineated class characteristics, they are portrayed in purely human terms. They, too, are the young generation, but are profoundly humanist in the Shakespearean meaning of the word. Even if Cordelia is defeated, there remains Edgar, whom Albany invests with the royal power. Hope for a better future is not lost.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare once more fakes up the problem of royal power and usurpation.

Macbeth is, in a way, another Richard III, but more profoundly conceived. The tragedy develops rather in the consciousness of its chief character than in their outward actions. Like Richard and Bolingbroke, Macbeth, with his bloody usurpation, paves the way for a counter-usurpation. But, unlike Richard and Bolingbroke, Macbeth is aware from the very beginning of the consequences attendant upon his action. Even before killing Duncan he states the iron law (I, 7):

...in these cases We still have judgment here; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught return To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips.

After the crime and his seizure of the throne, long before there are any indications of revolt, Macbeth, recognizing the inexorability of this iron law, begins to prepare his defenses by new murders and acts of violence, which only serve to hasten the inevitable counter-action. It may be said, that having created the necessary conditions for counter-usurpation, Macbeth also supplied the immediate provocation.

In Richard III, some accident or other can always be adduced to explain any event–his enemies might have been frightened by Richard and might not have given him battle; Richmond might have been defeated; or, for that matter, there might have been no Richmond at all. In Macbeth similar alternatives are impossible. Macbeth himself creates his Richmond. If not Malcolm, it would have been Donalbain; if not Donalbain, any other lord.

No fear, except in the early scenes, or shadow of remorse is to be discerned in Macbeth and his wife. This is purely a struggle of active forces, developed in Macbeth's consciousness, which psychically reflect that which must inevitably transpire in the socio-historical arena.

This transference of the basic action to the psychic plane explains the prevalence of the supernatural in the tragedy. Shakespearean scholars have pointed out that, at the time of the writing of Macbeth, belief in spirits and witches was extremely widespread in England, even in the most cultivated circles of society. Shakespeare does not employ the supernatural in Macbeth as the creation of a deranged imagination. This is true, and it is possible that even Shakespeare, notwithstanding his enlightened mind, believed a little in the existence of spirits and witches. Vestiges of medieval superstitions are to be encountered in the works of the most brilliant scholars and philosophers of the Renaissance, and even in the works of Bacon, the creator of English materialism. Nevertheless, this bears no relation to Shakespeare's or Bacon's art and thought. For Shakespeare, the artist, the supernatural has no objective existence and no independent meaning, as for Calderon, nor does it even appear as a primary motivating force. As background and allegory, it serves only to emphasize the realistic elements which are the basic content of his plays. In Macbeth, which is utilized by some critics in their attempt to prove Shakespeare a symbolist and mystic, the supernatural as such is completely negated by the transference of the basic action to the psychic plane. The conversations of Macbeth with the witches and phantoms, like the famous dialogue of Ivan Karamazov with the devil, are but the inner dialectical struggle of Macbeth with himself. This struggle is projected on the supernatural plane, just as the socio-historical events arising from Macbeth's concrete actions are projected on the spiritual plane.

The lofty tragic pathos of this drama, one of the most profound and mature of Shakespeare's plays, has misled critics into emphasizing its gloominess. Such emphasis is correct insofar as it refers to the basic theme and situation. But on the periphery of the tragedy there move figures who relieve the gloom and prevent our accepting Macbeth as a picture of universal vileness. The chief protagonists, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, are surrounded by wholesome, energetic individuals: Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Macduff, Siward. Macbeth and his wife are a canker on the body of a society which, in contrast to that of Hamlet or Lear, is completely healthy.

The optimistic tone of the tragedy asserts itself especially in the figure of Malcolm. Fortinbras, who somewhat attenuates the pessimism of Hamlet, or Edgar, who partially dispels the gloom in King Lear, are vaguely outlined in their relationship to society. Malcolm's social relation, on the other hand, is fully revealed in the scene in which he and Macduff sound each other out before uniting against Macbeth (IV, 3). Malcolm, pretending he is unfit for the crown, mentions his fondness for women and his cupidity. Macduff is disturbed but is willing to overlook these defects. When, however, Malcolm announces that he is devoid of "justice, verity, temperance, stableness," Macduff recoils from him; he is placated only when he realizes that Malcolm has been subjecting him to a test. The advent of such a king augurs a beneficent reign.

In Antony and Cleopatra, we find in developed form the impact of two worlds: the old feudal and the new absolutist. The first is embodied in Antony, the second in Octavius. Antony is a ruler of the old type, devoid of responsibility to the people and to himself. As ruler, he exults in his power, gained and held through sheer force and valor, subordinating it to his selfish, hedonistic desires. These desires find expression in Cleopatra, for whom he is ready to sacrifice everything. At the decisive moment, when his fate hangs in the balance, although fully aware that only on land could he hope for victory, he elects to fight at sea, so that he may be near Cleopatra, who was reluctant to forsake her ship.

Shakespeare definitely debased Plutarch's portrayal of Cleopatra. He does not show the subtle mind of the "rare Egyptian," her elegance of wit, her art in handling people; he presents only her physical charms, and the dangerous capriciousness of her moods. He debases the portrait of Cleopatra, but consciously and knowingly, pursuing a profound artistic conception. He wanted to show that Antony was motivated by blind sensuality and frenzied passion, rather than by the lofty, humanist love which generally characterizes such ideologically positive forces as Romeo, Othello, and others. This sensuality was a basic defect in Antony's nature, which, if not provoked by Cleopatra, would have been aroused by mother woman.

Shakespeare endows Antony with spiritual strength, nobleness and charm, exalting him to such an extent that the majority of critics have concluded that he was one of the dramatist's favorite heroes. They reason, contrasting him with the dull and dry Octavius, that Shakespeare ennobles Antony and mourns the ruin of the "beautiful world" symbolized by Antony, which was being superseded by the new world of the prosaic man of affairs, Octavius. They forget the Antony in Julius Caesar who is an attractive adventurer of gigantic breadth, an egoist pursuing narrow personal aims with no regard for his country and no sense of responsibility. Even more important is the fact that they overlook Shakespeare's favorite method,–not to debase, not to caricature, but to elevate, to show objectively those forces which he exposes and judges, thus adding strength and cogency to his portrayal of great class conflicts.

At the end of the sixteenth century, feudalism, as exemplified by Antony, was far from that decay which it later suffered. But it had already received crushing blows, although the force which was to extirpate it was as yet inchoate. This was the first act of that great historical tragedy of which Marx writes: "So long as the ancien regime as the existing world order struggled with a nascent world, historical error was on its side, but not personal perversity. Its downfall was therefore tragic." [29] To convey this tragedy, Shakespeare ennobles Antony and does not invest Octavius with many attractive dualities, because by this time the dismal side of absolutism had already been disclosed to Shakespeare, as had the rising philistine capitalist culture. Shakespeare's moral perspicacity, wisdom, and objectivity, are here in evidence.

He perceived the tragic greatness of Antony, perhaps pitied him as he pitied the perishing Lear, but his world perspective prevented any regret at the passing of the reign of the Lears and the Antonys.

Unusually important for an understanding of Shakespeare's moral and Political views is the tragedy Coriolanus, which, unfortunately, has been subject to most erroneous interpretations by both bourgeois (G. Brandes) and Soviet (V. N. Friche) critics. Brandesin particular, with his untenable thesis about Shakespeare's "aristocracy," his "esthete's detestation of the "rabble," and the stupid and "stinking" masses, wrongly identifies Shakespeare with Coriolanus.

Coriolanus is a man of the Renaissance: an heroic individualist, consumed by boundless ambition and a lust for battle. Unlike the adventurers of the sixteenth century, or Richard III, he is not amoral; he is honorable, noble, generous. Truth, his highest law, compels him to shun indignantly his hypocritical and cowardly brother patricians, adherents of a compromising and double-dealing policy, whose sole aim was to betray the plebeians.

The mother of Coriolanus, the worthy matron Volumnia, fully approves this tactic of the patricians. In the scene where all those close to Coriolanus plead with him to humble himself hypocritically and to flatter the people, not only in order to insure his election as consul, but also to exonerate himself from a terrible accusation (III, 2), Volumnia counsels her son, "I would have had you put your power well on, before you had worn it out."

But Coriolanus does not wish to lie and dissemble. Just as he betrayed all his stubborn haughtiness and contempt for the plebeians before (II, 3), so does he now disdain to defend himself, preferring instead a direct attack, knowing full well that this invites ruin, yet unable to renounce native honesty and straightforwardness. He denounces the jesuitic tactics of the patricians in the most unsparing terms (III, 1):

·...Your dishonour Mangles true judgment, Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become't;

And later, when the patricians and his mother persuade him to make a humble apology to the people, he exclaims (III, 2):

I will not do't, Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth, And by my body's action teach my mind A most inherent baseness.

But he is not guilty of this baseness.

Like Hamlet, Cordelia, and Othello, Coriolanus knows only one law, the law of honour and truth, and in this he is at one with Shakespeare. This does not mean, however, that Shakespeare agrees with Coriolanus in his fierce hatred of the people and the betrayal of his country which this implies thereby.

The whole play contradicts such a conception. To the unprejudiced reader, the Roman plebeians are portrayed in the tragedy with rare sympathy, and, moreover, with a profound understanding of their socio-historical position. Of course, the plebeians are not yet politically mature, nor are they distinguished for military prowess, but, in their struggles with the patricians, Shakespeare's sympathies are all on their side.

As if to preclude any possible misunderstanding,-which nevertheless arose–in the very first lines of the play, which are as significant as the last, Shakespeare has the plebeians express their demands fully, in such a way that his own attitude towards them remains clear until the end. One of them exclaims (I, I) :

One word, good citizens.

But another interrupts him:

We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them.–Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become rakes: for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

One can find no hypocrisy in such words, and the poet who can write them must be in sympathy with them. The force and character of expression here are approached only by Shylock's monologue (III, 1), and by the words of the disillusioned Lear (IV, 6):

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.

Neither in this nor in any other scene in Coriolanus is there the faintest indication of hypocrisy, greed, or baseness on the part of the plebeians.

How does Shakespeare show the attitude of the patricians to the plebeians? Menenius recounts the fable of the stomach and the head (I, 1). Does Shakespeare agree? Menenius assures the plebeians:

..... for the dearth, The gods, not the patricians make it; and Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack, You are transported by calamity Thither where more attends you; and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers, When you curse them as enemies.

To which one of the citizens answers:

Care for us! True indeed! they ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain: make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich; and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us

He who so precisely explained that the aim of the patricians is only to betray the people could not possibly agree with Menenius that "the gods, not the patricians," are responsible for want and misery.

Coriolanus, however, sincerely believes that the demands of the plebeians arise solely from their rebellious nature. He is afflicted with social blindness, which, although it does not prevent him from being subjectively noble and ethical, is responsible for his crimes against society, such as treason. That the followers of Brandes are misled in their belief that Shakespeare justified and condoned such a crime, is amply proven by his series of chronicles, in which he emphasizes healthy patriotism and unselfish devotion to national unity as the highest attribute of king and citizen. This is clearly seen in Volumnia's speech to her son, when he is about to attack his native city (V, 3):

Making the mother, wife, and child to see Me The son, the husband, and the father tearing His country's bowels out........ Whose chronicle thus writ,–The means was noble, But with his last attempt he wip'd it out; Destroy'd his country; and his name remains To the ensuing age abhorr'd.

Coriolanus persists in his blindness; if he finally gives in to his mother's supplications, he does so only because of compassion for her rather than because of patriotic impulse. The blind, anarchistic Coriolanus is motivated by personal, not social, considerations; Shakespeare therefore, condemns him unequivocally, despite his magnitude.

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's gloomiest tragedies. It reflects his profound disillusionment with absolutism, the court, the state officials, and the upper classes, as is evidenced by the total absence of positive characters drawn from the privileged classes. Collectively, the plebeians constitute the only positive force in the play. Their political immaturity, however, disturbs Shakespeare, because they are still extremely credulous, simple-minded and inconstant. Shakespeare expresses this (I, 1) at the appearance of Menenius Agrippa, the most dangerous enemy of the people; a citizen announces (I, i):

Worthy Menenius Agrippa, one that hath always loved the people

And another hastens to corroborate him:

He's one honest enough; would all the rest were so!

The people allow themselves to be dazzled by the exploits of Coriolanus and trustingly give him their votes.

There is, however, a tremendous difference between Shakespeare's depiction of the masses in Henry IV, Part 2 (1591), or even in Julius Caesar (1599), and Coriolanus (1607). In fifteen years Shakespeare's political ideology had advanced as much as had the class consciousness of the English masses.

The last of Shakespeare's tragedies, Timon of Athens, is artistically one of his weakest plays; the characters are not clearly delineated and their emotional transitions are too abrupt. For these reasons its authenticity has been frequently doubted. This assumption is groundless; around 1609 Shakespeare passed through a crisis, brought on by disappointment with the social reality of his time, a crisis which undoubtedly marred his creative genius. Coriolanus was Shakespeare's last great tragedy.

Nevertheless, in Timon of Athens there are moments of power. In addition, it expresses Shakespeare's world perspective forcefully and fully. He exposes the very basis of primary accumulation: the corrupting influence of money, which debases all human relations, and which, in the words of Marx, "transforms all categories into their opposites."

The thrusts at the power of money, against the spirit of cupidity, which kill all noble motives in man, are so numerous in Shakespeare's works that it would be impossible to cite them all at this time. For instance, the familiar example from Romeo and Juliet (V, 1), when Romeo buys poison from the apothecary:

There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world .... I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.

Shakespeare is not alone in this position. It is also held by all the great humanists of the epoch, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie, who critically revealed the great evils which their class inflicted upon the world. No humanist, however, expressed so powerfully the evil force of money as did Shakespeare, and nowhere can it be found so explicitly proclaimed as in the celebrated monologue in Timon of Athens (IV, 3). [30]

In Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare condemns the dying world of feudalism; in Coriolanus, the aristocracy who tried to adapt themselves to the new historical conditions without surrendering their class nature; in Timon of Athens, the bourgeoisie, already sufficiently mature to discard their humanist cloak, to reveal all their class limitations, and to enter the struggle for power openly.

Timon is a bourgeois, free from aristocratic traces, but a bourgeois of the type of the old merchant class so admired by Shakespeare. He is another Antonio, receptive to the "touches of sweet harmony," noble, generous, and ready to make any sacrifice for his friends. But the era of generosity and nobleness has come to an end. The people surrounding Timon, his friends of yesterday, members of his class, all prove ungrateful, greedy and venal, hastily abandoning their "wounded comrade."

While Shakespeare does not mourn the death of the feudal world, he laments the passing of the world of the idealized bourgeois Timon, the shattering of the humanist dreams of his youth. The decade separating Timon of Athens from The Merchant of Venice was rich in political events and class upheavals; the bourgeoisie advanced toward the decisive struggle for power with feudalism, but with each of these steps, it narrowed its ideological scope and renounced the humanist standards it had set up. Shakespeare was driven to portray the ruination of the bourgeois superman. Hence the misanthropic gloom of his last tragedy.

However, Shakespeare express only a part of his thought in Timon of Athens; the tragedy is not entirely pessimistic. Through the mouths of sober characters such as Apemantus, Alcibiades, and the Fool, he criticizes the prodigal generosity and credulity of Timon. and later, his similarly unrestrained hatred of mankind. There are several positive characters in the play: Timon's faithful servants, the Fool, and, to a certain extent, the thieves, representative of the "lower" plane; and, on the other hand, Alcibiades, who has risen to a high position by virtue of his talent. Shakespeare curbed his own despair; he could not renounce life or abandon his struggle for an ideal.

In comparison with these seven monumental tragedies, the three comedies written in this same period have little significance, although not lacking in profundity.

Most complex of all is Troilus and Cressida, since it is not clear when Shakespeare wrote this motley and contradictory play. It is very probable that the love scenes, which are similar to those in Romeo and Juliet, were written around 1602, and that around 1609 Shakespeare radically revised the play, adding the story of Achilles and Hector. The years 1602 and 1609 mark the darkest moments of Shakespeare's pessimism- -Hamlet and Coriolanus.

In the comedy All's Well That Ends Well, one of Shakespeare's basic ideas is brought forth in its most developed and lucid form–equality and personal merit as the only criterion of man's "nobility." Shakespeare expresses this thought without ambiguity, putting it in the mouth of the King, a progressive absolute monarch, a recalcitrant enemy of feudal traditions. He chides Bertram, Count of Rousillon, the boastful aristocrat, who fears to "besmirch" his family honor by marrying a woman of the people, in a monologue (II, 3), which brings to mind Shylock's words about the human rights of Jews and the speeches of the plebeians in Coriolanus about honor:

'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods, Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together, Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off in differences so mighty....... From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer's deed: Where great additions swell 's, and virtue none, It is a dropsied honour: good alone Is good without a name; vileness is so: The property by what is it should go Not by the title.

Earlier in the play he drew the figure of the deal" lord, using as his model Bertram's late father (I, 2):

...... who were below him He us'd as creatures of another place; And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks, Making them proud of his humility, In their poor praise he humbled.

He also champions the equality of the sexes, showing the superiority of the clever, enterprising, and deeply human Helena over the worthless, insipid Bertram.

The ideology in Measure for Measure is just as clear as that in All's Well That Ends Well. It is a defense of humanist morality in contrast to the hedonistic amoralism of the degenerate nobility and the narrow-minded bourgeois morality of the Puritans, whose severity in the extermination of vice engendered new vices. Lucio, and, to a lesser extent, Claudio, represent the degenerate nobility; Angelo, the Puritan tradition, and Isabella, humanist morality. Like Portia, she protests against the literal interpretation of the law, and pleads for mercy (II, 2):

Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon nor the lodge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does.

An even stronger exponent of this morality is Vicentio, Duke of Vienna. He is a progressive, absolute ruler, like the Dukes and Kings in A Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well That Ends Well, and in other plays. His political activities, however, are more fully depicted.

This tragi-comedy shows better than any of Shakespeare's plays the internal problems of absolute monarchy, as is disclosed when Vicentio deplores his ignorance of the life of his subjects, criticizes himself, realizes his responsibilities, and seeks better ways of governing the people (I, 1, 4). Shakespeare also presents the social background–his subjects commenting on the character of Vicentio and on current political events; the dregs of humanity; young profligates of the court; procurers; corrupt constables; swindlers. Similar scenes are to be found in Whetstone's play, Promos and Cassandra (1578), from which Shakespeare derived some of the basic material for è In Whetstone's drama, however, they were inserted as comic interludes; in Shakespeare, they are an integral part of the root action, in that they serve to motivate Claudio's crime, Angelo's moral defection, and all Vicentio's political acts. Vicentio, like Prince Henry, mingles with the people in order the better to understand them. Thus, the moral problem of the individual develops into a social problem.

If we except Pericles, the authorship of which is extremely doubtful, Shakespeare wrote only three plays during his last period: Cymbeline (1609), The Winter's Tale (1610), and The Tempest (1611). Only a few of the scenes in Henry VIII were written by Shakespeare. He may also have been the author of some of the scenes in The Two Noble Kinsmen; if so, this was his last effort.

This was the period of Shakespeare's compromise and partial capitulation. The presentation of problems is less vivid, the emotional and ideological conflicts less strong. Themes, which during the first and second periods were presented in the light of heroic struggle against a broad social background, have now lost some of their former vigor and color. Such, for instance, is the theme of Cymbeline. The love of Posthumus for Imogen is but a faint echo of Romeo and Juliet; Iachimo is but a lesser Iago; and the Queen but a feeble Lady Macbeth. We find in The Winter's Tale the theme but not the tragedy of Othello, and in The Tempest , that of Romeo and Juliet. A happy ending is assured by the very tone and character of the exposition, stated by Prospero in the first act of The Tempest. There is no tragic tension; there is only captivating, slightly disturbing activity which ends happily. These are all typical tragi-comedies.

The conception of a fate stronger than man's will or intellect appears for the first time in these plays. It is radically different from that of Fortuna, which played so important a role in Shakespeare's earlier comedies. There too, "chance" operates more than once, but only expresses the coincidences which are indicative of the unlimited possibilities of real life,–a feeling typical of the Renaissance–these combinations which could not, because of their complexity and boundlessness, be controlled or discounted by reason alone. In the endless game of life, man's will and reason are the most important factors. It was the feeling, the urge to conquer and master the unknown, which animated the bold and enterprising merchant adventurers of Elizabethan England and induced them to risk their lives and all their wealth. Such is the meaning of Fortuna, a purely Renaissance conception, which played an important role in Boccaccio's Decameron as well as in many other works of the epoch.

An entirely different philosophy permeates the plays of the last period. In every one of them, with the possible exception of The Tempest, the role of destiny is to stand guard over man's thought and will. To all appearances, by rubbing the eyes of the sleeping lovers with the magic potion, Puck, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, abandons them to the mercy of fate. Actually, however, through this means he helps them to achieve the end for which they themselves are striving, although they never quite succeed in disentangling their emotions. The happy ending of the comedy is not so much the result of Puck's meddling–the imp merely plays the role of the lovers good fairy–but of the energetic struggle the lovers wage in the name of freedom, against paternal tyranny, the traditional law of Athens, and even the Duke himself, who does not at first side with them. Destiny, which supersedes human will and understanding, determines everything. Its role is indicated in the episode of The Winter's Tale in which the prophecy of the oracle, so reverently extolled by the King's envoys, is fulfilled (III, 1). [31] The supernatural becomes a powerful agent in motivating the action. As a corollary, the psychological analysis, the driving force of the action, the emotional transformation, and the revelation of character, are weakened. The emotional changes which the characters experience are unexpected; and It times even incomprehensible. Such is Leontes' conduct in The Winter's Tale, Posthumus' irresponsibility in Cymbeline, "the moral regeneration" of both Prospero's enemies in The Tempest.

We could cite a number of other points to show how Shakespeare, in these last expressions of his genius, surrendered his former position and yielded to the taste of the reactionary aristocracy which held such triumphant sway over the London stage in 1610. Motifs now appeared which were formerly completely alien to him–the idea of the "inherent" nobility of the two princes in Cymbeline who are unaware of their royal birth (IV, 4), and Prospero's insistence that Ferdinand and Miranda remain chaste until united in wedlock (The Tempest, IV, I). In addition, there are to be found a super-abundance of complicated and colorful episodes, whose obvious purpose is to entertain (Cymbeline), and numerous court genres in all three of the tragi-comedies: masques, pastorals–this time not as an example of lower forms as in As You Like It- -and an almost overzealous adaptation of ancient mythology (The Tempest, IV, 1; Cymbeline, V, 4).

Shakespeare, nevertheless, had not yet abandoned the most essential aspects of his credo. In all three plays, he still insists, though in an indistinct voice, masked by a wealth of ornamentation, on his former demands: truth, moral freedom, nobility, and creative love of life.

The most significant of the three plays is the last, The Tempest. This play presents Prospero, the wise humanist, who, with his knowledge–the magic and the spirits are, of course, allegorical–and nobility of soul, curbs all egoistic impulses, including his own, and succeeds in guiding the destinies of those around him towards their own as well as the general welfare. But all this happens without conflict; it is performed at the wave of Prospero's magic wand, the Prospero who knows in advance how he must act and what the results will be.

The Tempest contains another new and significant factor. Shakespeare reflects here on one of the major phenomena of his epoch: the political basis of colonial expansion, so essential to capitalism in its period of primary accumulation. His solution of these problems is as perspicacious as it is ambiguous.

The French humanist Montaigne, one of the older contemporaries of Shakespeare, who abhorred the rising feudal reaction, replied to it with an idealization of the American Indian, a new subject to the readers of that period. He presented a fantastic picture of the blissful existence of primitive people, ignorant of an oppressive state, of titles, rank, mercenary interests in short, of all the things which were tormenting civilized Europe. Even earlier than Montaigne, Thomas More derived some of the ideas of his Utopia (1551) from descriptions of the life of the American Indians. In The Tempest, however, Shakespeare not only justified but provided a basis for the enslavement of the natives as a policy of colonization by depicting Caliban as an inherently stupid and vicious creature, mentally and morally unfit, whose only usefulness consists in dragging wood and being lashed for his obstinacy. Prospero is shown as Caliban's natural master, a true bearer of culture to uncivilized lands. How little does such a solution of the racial problem resemble that of The Merchant of Venice or Othello. Shakespeare, however, was unable to abandon completely his former position. Excepting Prospero, Gonzalo is the most intelligent and positive person in the play. Like Montaigne, who is here Shakespeare's direct source, Gonzalo, too, dreams of creating a new state on this island where there would be "no contracts, succession; bound of land, tilth...." (II, 1). The other characters ridicule him, but Gonzalo enjoys the sympathy of Shakespeare

The play contains a still more revealing scene (II, 2)–the remarkable portrayal of the methods used by the "colonizers," when Stephano makes Caliban drunk, and the latter offers his island, with all its natural wealth, and himself as an eternal slave, in exchange for the "divine" drink:

I'll show thee every fertile inch o' the island; And kiss thy foot: I pr'ythee, be my god. I'll show thee the best springs: I'll pluck thee berries ; I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.

Drink and the whip–such were the methods employed on the natives by the first apostles of capitalist civilization. Caliban's revolt is also significant. He pours forth his complaints simply and awkwardly (I, 2):

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me.... For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest of the island.

This is followed by open revolt, not, it is true, in the name of complete liberation, but in order to exchange one master for another, a "bad" master for a "good," according to Caliban's understanding. That Caliban is confused does not matter; he is possessed by a passion for freedom. This finds expression in his tempestuous, truly revolutionary song (II, 2):

Farewell master; farewell, farewell....... No more dams I'll make for fish; Nor fetch in firing, At requiring, Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish, 'Ban 'Ban, Ca-Caliban Has a new master–get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day freedom! freedom! hey-day, freedom!

His method of revolt is instructive. Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo depart to kill Prospero, but are distracted from their aim by garments hung in their path by Ariel. In despair, Caliban begs his companions to disregard them, not to delay. He alone is inspired by freedom, he alone is a true revolutionary.

Although in the past Shakespeare would have expressed this thought in an unequivocal fashion, he was now forced to speak in the language of Aesop, with omissions.

Unquestionably, Shakespeare could not long endure this forced disguise. He preferred to retire from the theatre to lead the life of a bourgeois paterfamilias in Stratford-on-Avon, His decision was a conscious one, and we agree with those bourgeois critics who view The Tempest as Shakespeare's farewell to the stage.

The crisis of humanism, already reflected in Hamlet and Timon of Athens, found its final expression in The Tempest. According to some critics, the island and its spirits symbolize the stage and the forces of art, to which Shakespeare was bidding farewell. This is very possible, but should be interpreted in a different light. Prospero's departure from the island is the capitulation of a humanist. The bourgeoisie who had given birth to humanism, later distorted and rejected it. Rebellious Puritanism forced all true humanists to seek uncertain refuge in the camp of the enemy–in the patronage of the reactionary court. Because of his moral inability to accept such a compromise, Shakespeare was silenced forever.

Shakespeare was a humanist, a thorough representative of the epoch that Engels called "the greatest progressive revolution mankind had known up to that time. Inasmuch as he expounded the new morality, the new philosophy and ideology, which were about to supplant those of deteriorating feudalism, Shakespeare was an integral part of his epoch in the broadest sense of that word. But because a thousand threads bound him to the specific conditions which attended the development of capitalism in England, he also belonged to his generation.

The ideological contradictions and the extraordinary complexity of his work are due even more to the combination of these two factors than to the involved socio-economic conditions of his time, although these, too, were important. What Engels called "bourgeois content in feudal form" is always manifest in his works. Often in the same play, and even in the same act, there may be found conflicting ideas.

This complexity has so bewildered the bourgeois critics, that they have gone so far as to maintain that Shakespeare was a genius who merely presented all the possibilities and tendencies of human thought with no consideration or awareness of world perspectives. Some of them have attempted to ascribe Shakespeare's work to an aristocratic author; others have advanced the hypothesis that Shakespeare's plays were written by several authors, differing in their ideological and class position, and that Shakespeare merely edited the entire collection. Even Soviet critics have at times formulated incorrect theories, which attempted to settle the question by dismissing it. There has appeared quite recently the thesis of the "three" Shakespeares: the political adapter, the technical formalist, and the philosophical poet. Such theories are evasions. It is necessary not only to indicate the complexity of the plays, but to determine its causes, the organic rather than the formal unity.

The organic unity of Shakespeare's work emanates from his striving to mirror objectively the life process, by distinguishing the fundamental from the accidental, the permanent from the transitory, and to interpret this process in the light of the new world perspective.

The contradictions mentioned previously prevented Shakespeare's world perspective from fully crystallizing This world perspective is, therefore, revealed only as an aspiration and a tendency, which, because of the nature of the class that had championed it, could not be realized.

It would be futile to attempt to find a prescribed morality in Shakespeare. His morality is of a general tenor, not consisting of dogmatic tenets, but of broad rules of conduct. Such is the rule, or principle, of trust in Hamlet, King Lear, and, to a lesser extent, in Coriolanus; the principle of conscience in Othello and Macbeth; the principle of mercy in The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure, and so on. Even surpassing these is the principle of the creative love of life, and the heroic struggle for the preservation of its best aspects.

From his own generation, Shakespeare drew the material for the concrete expression of these abstract principles. It had either been created by his own generation or had survived in tradition. Together with a positive interpretation of royal power as the servant of the nation, his plays contain an apology for absolutism; together with a passionate plea for humanity, a relative exoneration of murder; together with an unconditional recognition of equality, a relative defense of hierarchy. Thus his vision of the present contained unerring intimation of the future.

Shakespeare does not sermonize; he is never didactic. The moral aspects of each problem and each situation are revealed so forcefully, that the reader is inescapably compelled to draw his own conclusions. In this light, it can be said that Shakespeare's work abounds in moral elements. Accordingly, he elucidates the problems of the individual: his rights, his relations to the family, the state and society, and the race question. He always stresses the social roots of every problem. His conception of society is based on a broad and profound conception of the individual.

The tragic and comic elements are presented with equal force; however, they are not confined to tragedy and comedy respectively. A sense of the tragic permeates the gayest comedies, each of which contains socio-molal dramatic conflicts which bring the protagonists to the verge of ruin. Every tragedy is illuminated by an affirmation of life: Lear's suffering leads to a spiritual regeneration; Othello's, to a rebirth of faith in Desdemona's purity and in human nature at large; Antony's death, to an enlightening revelation of the universal historical process. Shakespeare unceasingly strove towards an understanding of the life process in all its extent and profundity. He explored the depths of human suffering, and through his understanding pointed the way to ethical and social values. Shakespeare rejected the medieval notion of "predestination" and mans "mission on earth." He recognized but one destiny; to exhaust all human creative possibilities. Having faith, like all the other great humanists, in the innate "goodness" of human nature, he believed that if man were allowed to develop naturally and fully in accordance with the needs and demands of society, he would achieve not only happiness, but social perfection.

As for the problem of "evil," Shakespeare's point of view is best summed up in Romeo and Juliet (II, 3) :

Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; And vice sometimes by action dignified.

The whole meaning and content of the life process is man's unceasing struggle to achieve the "common good." It is a heroic struggle but there is no assurance of complete victory. Shakespeare's optimism, is strengthened by this philosophy. The necessity for man's development thus becomes the unavoidable result of his nature, which in turn is determined by a series of causal relations.

Shakespeare's analysis of the life process leads to a disclosure of these interconnections. His method is scientific, combining as does Bacon's, the empirical and rational approach to an explanation of natural events and the spiritual activities of man. We are, therefore, justified in characterizing it as a materialist method. Objectively, Shakespeare does not accept the supernatural; religion is not an active factor in his work. Religious phraseology is seldom found; when it does appear, as in Measure for Measure, it merely reflects the language of his day. Not one of his thirty-seven plays, although written when England was torn by religious dissension, contains any evidence as to whether he was Catholic or Protestant. Shakespeare accepts only two forces: nature and man, the latter being the highest and most complex manifestation of the former. Shakespeare is essentially a monist.

That Shakespeare was not the ideologist of the feudal aristocracy is definitely established by his characters, in whom the aspects and forms of feudalism are subjected to the most merciless criticism. King Lear and Antony represent the glory and historical grandeur of feudalism; the feudal lords of the chronicles, its tottering but as yet unbroken power; the French knights in Henry V, its bankruptcy; Bertram in All's Well That Ends Well, its degeneration; the Montagues and Capulets, its pernicious remnants.

Nor is it possible to accept the thesis that Shakespeare was the ideologist of that section of the nobility which was acquiring bourgeois trappings. They, too, are subjected to the severest criticism: the courtiers in Love's Labour's Lost, Falstaff, Polonius and his family, Edmund in King Lear, the patricians in Coriolanus.

The conclusion that Shakespeare was the ideologist of the bourgeoisie is inescapable. It is impossible, however, to designate him as such without reservations. The rapacity, greed, cruelty, egoism, and philistinism so typical of the English bourgeoisie-embodied in Shylock, Malvolio, Iago–are no less scathingly denounced.

Shakespeare was the humanist ideologist of the bourgeoisie, the exponent of the program advanced by them when, in the name of humanity, they first challenged the feudal order, but which they later disavowed. This enabled Shakespeare to subject his class to keen and profound criticism, a criticism motivated by a definite, though not clearly formulated ideal. His strong sense of concrete reality deterred him from creating a utopia, yet he possessed utopian ideals.

At a later stage of bourgeois development Shakespeare became a threat to that class which had given him birth. The bourgeoisie have never been able to understand or accept the revolutionary elements in Shakespeare's work, because these immeasurably transcend the narrow confines of bourgeois thought. They have attempted, therefore, to transform his revolutionary humanism into specious philanthropy and to interpret his concepts of mercy and truth as "tenderness" and "righteousness"; his continued appeals for patience–perseverance in the struggle to attain the ideal–as "submissiveness"; his disregard for religion and metaphysics as "philosophical and religious tolerance." And so, the bourgeoisie have crowned him with the empty title: "The Universal Man."

1. Holy Family, Section VI, Chapter 24; in English in Ludwig Feurbach, p. 85, N. Y., 1935;–A. F.

2. Capital (E. & C. Paul translation), Vol. I, Chapter 24, p. 793. New York, 1929.–A. F.

3. ibid, p. 832.

4. ibid, p. 835-836

5. Capital ed. cit., p. 796.

6. Anti-Dühring, Part II, Chapter 2, p. 186. N. Y. 1935.–A. F.

7. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Introduction, p. 19, N. Y. 1935.–A. F.

8. Franz Mehring: Die Lessing-Legende, p. 347. Stuttgart, 1920 (siebte unveränderte Auflage)–A. P.

9. Cf., Fletcher and Massinger's comedy, The Little French Lawyer.

10. Karl Marx: Spanish Revolutions, in "N. Y. Daily Tribune," Sept. 9, 1854, p. 4.–A. F.

11. The Origin of the Family, pp. 97-98. Kerr Edition, 1902. However, we quote from Emile Burns' re-translation in Handbook of Marxism, p. 310. New York, 1935.–A. F.

12. ibid., p. 97; Handbook, p. 310.–A. F.

13. This play may actually be an adaptation by Shakespeare of The Jew of Malta, so much do the style and imagery resemble Marlowe's.

14. Kyd, for instance, author of a pre-Shakespearean Hamlet (which has been lost), and of The Spanish Tragedy.

15. Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, p. 63. N. Y.-A. F:

16. "Alte Einleitung zur 'Naturdialektik'" in Marx-Engels Archiv, II, p. 240 Frankfurt, 1927.–A. F.

18. Master Tubal Holofernes, Gargantua's first teacher, whom Rabelais ridiculed, is considered, not without foundation to be his prototype. [cf. Chapter XIII of Rabelais' Gargantua. –A. F.

19. in analyzing this epoch Marx says: "... The Middle Ages had handed down two distinct forms of capital, ripening under extremely different socio-economic auspices; and both of these, prior to the era when the capitalist method of production became established, ranked as 'capital' without qualification. I refer to usurers' capital and merchants' capital." Capital, ed. cit. p. 831.–A F.

20. Shakespeare was strongly patriotic, but never indulged in the cruder forms of nationalism He does not refrain from praising the French when they deserve it. His "slandering" of Joan of Arc in Henry IV, Part I, which grieved the liberal critics of the nineteenth century, was due to her Catholicism.

21. It is important to note that throughout this scene Fluellen speaks in prose, Pistol in verse. This is a fine illustration of the fact that the smallest stylistic details in Shakespeare's plays are often full of ideological significance.

22. Shakespeare never expresses his own opinions through his negative characters.

23. This was also Bacon's interpretation of Caesar.

24. The Communist Manifesto, p. 32, N. Y., 1936. (6th & 7th ed.)

25. The authorship of Pericles is doubtful.

26. The Communist Manifesto, p. 11. N. Y., 1935. (6th be 7th ed.)–A.F.

29. A Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, in Selected Essays, pp. 18-19, N.Y., 1926–A.F.

30. Cf. Capital, Vol. I, Chap. 2.

31. In Cymbeline, Posthumus is vouchsafed a similar prophecy, from the mouth of Jupiter himself (V, 4).

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Othello Literary Perspectives Essay Breakdown

August 26, 2020

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When it comes to VCE Literature, ‘Literary Perspectives’ is a major component of your learning and exams. If you’re studying any of the Shakespearian texts, the idea of using different ‘lenses’ to interpret 400-year-old plays seems silly and is a difficult task to approach. So today, I’m writing a plan for a Literary Perspectives essay on Shakespeare’s  Othello . The question we are looking at is:

In Shakespeare’s  Othello,  Venetian society is depicted as unwelcoming to the ‘Other’. To what extent do you agree?

Breaking-it-Down

So what does this question mean? Well let’s first look at the keywords, and what each means.

“Venetian Society” -This is the group of people depicted in  Othello . Whilst some characters like Cassio and Othello are from other city-states, they adhere to the norms and traditions of the Venetians, who live in Venice, Italy. 

“Unwelcoming” - In my essay, I consider “unwelcoming” to be active discrimination against people, with the intent of alienating them from society at large, but this is open to interpretation. 

“The Other” -This is a technical term from a few different literary perspectives. On a broad level, the Other is a person or group of people who are viewed as the ‘enemy’ or different from the dominant culture. 

These keywords are essentially what you have to include in terms of knowledge. But, what is the question? Our essay topic says “To what extent do you agree?”. You can choose to agree, or not at all, or be somewhere in the middle. Any of these options consider the  extent  of Venice’s welcomeness, but you have to use evidence, and uniquely, a literary perspective. 

My Approach

Before I even choose my contention, now is the time to decide which perspective to use for my essay. A few apply to the question and  Othello , but I can only have one. Using Feminism you could argue that the women of the play are ‘Othered,’ but because they lack lots of meaningful dialogue I think it would be hard to uncover enough evidence. Marxism would also be good and would argue the working-class is othered. The issue with Marxist interpretations of  Othello , however, is that there are almost no lower-class characters. Marxist theorists also regularly adopt feminist and postcolonial language, meaning I could appear as though I used multiple perspectives. I think Postcolonialism is the ideal perspective. The term “Other” was coined by postcolonial theorists, and Othello’s race and place in Venetian society give me the ability to flex my understanding of postcolonialism. 

So, now that I know I am writing from a postcolonial perspective, I can come up with a contention. First of all, who is the Other, according to postcolonialism? In  Othello,  it is quite clearly Othello himself, who is from North Africa, and is constantly the victim of racism, which begins to answer my second question; is Othello welcomed by Venetian Society? Well, it’s complicated, he’s an army commander and woos a Venetian woman, but he constantly has to prove himself worthy of these things. As a result, my contention will be somewhere in between complete agreement and complete disagreement with the question. 

The othered characters in  Othello  are orientalised by most members of Venetian society, and must constantly prove their material worth to maintain their agency. Despite this, the women of the play act as a foil to the racism and distrust of society.

Postcolonialism

Postcolonial theory has roots in a more modern context than Shakespeare. The colonialism of the 19th century and the decolonisation of the 20th century lead to colonised people reevaluating their lives and the role of the European colonists on a global, social, and psychological scale. When writing from a postcolonial lens, you should try to focus on some key areas. The most significant is the relationship between the colonised and the coloniser. How do they interact? What do they think of each other? The next area is the psychology of colonialism. One useful theorist here is Frantz Fanon, a psychologist living during the French colonisation of Algier. His text  The Wretched of the Earth  stated the ways that colonised Africans were mentally oppressed, viewing themselves as less than human. This is important when discussing the Other because ‘other’ represents the dehumanisation of Native lives which caused such psychological distress. A term I used in my contention should also be explained: orientalism. This term was coined by Edward Said and it explores the way the Other is viewed by the West. To ‘orientalise’ something is to portray it as something wholly different to European cultures, and exaggerate these differences. It results in non-Europeans being viewed as ‘backwards’ or ‘savage’ and justifies racist stereotypes. Other useful Postcolonial terms include: the Subaltern, who are the groups completely outside the margins of society, or people who lack any freedom; and Agency is the ability to act out of free-will and have a degree of power.

With my contention and some useful postcolonial terms, I can now plan each paragraph. I am doing three, but it is possible to do four or more. I follow TEEL (Topic, explanation, evidence, link) structure quite closely, and have given simple but punchy topic sentences for each paragraph. When structuring the essay as a whole, I try to make sure each paragraph builds off of the previous argument, almost like a staircase leading to my conclusion. 

1. Othello is treated as an outsider and is a victim of racism and orientalisation due to his cultural background, constantly reminded that he is not fully Venetian. 

My goal in this paragraph is to agree with the question. My explanation has to show that Othello isn’t welcome in Venetian society, highlighting that his blackness and European views of the Moors fits Edward Said’s theory of orientalism. I will mainly rely on Iago’s perception of Othello, and Iago as a symbol of Venice’s intoleration towards the Other. 

Evidence of his culture being viewed as ‘backwards’ or fundamentally different from Venice will support this point. Iago’s first monologue (1.1.8-33) displays his intolerance to outsiders, specifically referring to Othello as “the Moor”, rather than by his name. Roderigo also displays a racist attitude, calling Othello “the thick-lips” (1.1.71). You should try to choose linguistically significant evidence. For example, Iago’s metaphor of a “black ram is tupping [Brabantio’s] white ewe” (1.1.96-7) provokes imagery of the devil (black ram) defiling a symbol of purity (a white ewe). 

To link this paragraph, refer to the use of orientalism as a method of othering that turns people against Othello, and intends to keep him separate (unwelcome) from society.

2. Despite Iago’s representation of an intolerant Venice, Othello displays a pathway for the Other to prove themselves in Venetian society, although this proof is constantly reevaluated by the dominant culture.

In this argument I’m going against my previous paragraph, saying that Othello is welcome, but on a case-by-case basis. My explanation will include an analysis of how Othello is othered and orientalised, but still displays agency and has a role of authority in Venice. Othello is trusted, but it is a very loose trust that relies on Othello’s continued adherence to society’s rules. To use postcolonial language, Othello is the Other, but he is not a subaltern; he has been given a place at the coloniser’s table. But despite viewing himself as a permanent part of this table, the colonisers are always ready to remove his seat. 

I could use Brabantio as evidence of this, as he had “loved [Othello” (1.3.145) but quickly begins to refer to his “sooty bosom” (1.2.85) and “foul charms” (1.2.88) when he thinks Othello has overstepped his place in Venetian society by marrying a white woman. Even though Othello has proven himself as a General, the senate makes him answer for accusations based on racism and stigma. Once Othello begins to fall for Iago’s trap of jealousy, Lodovico questions the faith placed in Othello, claiming “I am deceived in him” (4.2.310).

Therefore, despite being allowed a place within the Governmental structures of Venice, Othello’s agency is constantly at risk, being welcomed for his proven talents, but distrusted for his ‘Otherness’.

3. Although Venetian society at large is unwelcoming to Othello, either through racism or distrust, Desdemona represents an attitude of acceptance towards the Other.

This argument looks at a different aspect of the question; who is the Other welcomed by? Besides Othello, Othered characters are the women and Cassio, who is from Florence. Despite not fitting into the key areas of postcolonial thought, women still have a place in this analysis, as a subcategory of the native’s relationship with the coloniser. How does a group that is discriminated against in their own society treat someone else who is discriminated against? Well, we see in  Othello  that the women treat him quite well. 

Desdemona is the obvious source of evidence for this. Her adoration of Othello transcends his colour and she accepts him as part of her Venetian world. She is unswayed by the racist commentary on Othello from those around her, such as Emilia, and instead represents the welcoming of the Other on a personal, although not societal level.

Thus, Desdemona in her own Otherness and orderliness acts a foil to Iago’s disorder and discrimination. As a discriminated against woman, she represents the acceptance of the other in Venetian society, and the unbridled trust of Othello that the men of Venice lack.

Your conclusion should include a restatement of your arguments and your contention but also look at them in another way. I usually go through my points and how they relate to each other and my contention in a logical step-by-step way, each point building on the other to reach my contention. Point 1 leads to point 2, which leads to point 3, and combined, makes my contention. 

Hopefully, this brief guide to literary perspectives in  Othello , focusing on postcolonialism, acts as a starting point for your studies. It’s about understanding the beliefs of the lens and then using this to form an argument. It certainly isn’t easy, so I encourage you to read around and practice this writing style as much as possible. 

Recommended Resources

On shakespeare.

How to Approach Shakespeare-Studying Shakespeare for the First time

Post-colonialism in Shakespearean Work by Alina Popa (2013)

On Postcolonialism

Literary Perspectives 101

List of Postcolonial Terms

Definition of Postcolonialism

Benefits of Critical Essays for Literary Perspectives Essays

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (2001), Penguin Modern Classics, Great Britain.

Orientalism by Edward W. Said (2003), Penguin Modern Classics, Great Britain.

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‍ We’ve explored creative writing criteria, literary elements and how to replicate the text over on our The Ultimate Guide to VCE Creative Writing blog post . If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to creative writing, I highly recommend checking it out!

Creative Responses in VCE Literature

This was my favourite SAC in Literature; it allows so much creative freedom in creating and recreating a literary work. When else will you be able to depart from the (admittedly rather boring) standard essay structure?!

In your adaptations and transformations SAC (see my blog post about this literature assessment  here !), you learnt how the  meaning  of the text changed as the form changed. Here’s  your  opportunity to change the meaning of the text, maybe emphasising a particular thematic idea, or perhaps recreating a completely new perspective. Remember – you have almost complete creative licence in this assessment…use it to your advantage!

But don’t forget that the most important part of this task is that you must have a  highly convincing connection between the original text and your creative response . There must be a tangible relationship present, through an in-depth understanding of the original text’s features. These features include characterisation (what motivates these characters), setting, context, narrative structure, tone and writing/film style. Establishing a clear nexus between the original text and your creative piece does not mean you need to replicate everything of the text; you can stylistically choose to reject or contrast elements of the original text – as long as these choices are deliberate and unambiguous. Therefore, your creative response must demonstrate that you read your original text closely and perceptively by acknowledging these features of the text.

You can establish this relationship by:

• Adopting or resisting the same genre as the original text : e.g. an epistolary genre (written in letters) – do letters make an appearance in your text? Is that something you want to highlight? What about writing a monologue or a script if the text is a film or a play?
• Adopting or resisting the author’s writing/language style : does your writer characteristically write plainly or with great descriptive detail? What about irony or humour? Consider the length and style of sentences. Are there frequent uses of symbols or metaphors?
• Adopting or resisting the text’s point of view : do you want to draw readers’ attention to another thematic idea that was not explored in the original text? Will you align with the author’s views and values or will you oppose them? (See my views and values blogpost here!)
• Adopting or resisting the original setting, narrative structure or tone
• Writing through a peripheral character’s perspective : give a voice to a minor character that didn’t have a detailed backstory. Find a gap in the text and create and new perspective.
• Developing a prologue, epilogue or another chapter/scene : what new insight can you add with this addition and extension of the text? It must add something new – otherwise it is a redundant addition.
• Rewriting a key event/scene from another character’s point of view : does this highlight how important narrative perspective is?
• Recontextualising the original text : by putting the same story or characters into a completely different context, for example in the 21st century with technology, how does the meaning change in the narrative?

I chose to write a creative piece from the perspective of an inanimate object that followed the protagonist’s journey throughout the entire film, providing an unexpected point of view of the text. Be original and most importantly, enjoy it!

If you're doing a creative piece - whether for English or Literature - you'll find the following blogs super helpful:

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Creative Writing

‍ 5-Step Recipe for Creative Writing

How To Achieve A+ in Creative Writing (Reading and Creating)

Once you have finished all your Literature SACs for the year, all that is left is a 2 hour and 15 minute exam that will play a major part in determining your end of year study score. It seems extremely daunting, and because many of the SACs differ from the exam task, you may be feeling a bit nervous or confused about what exactly the exam entails.

In describing the task, the exam paper states:

For each of your selected texts, you must use one or more of the passages as the basis for a discussion of that text.

In your pieces of writing, refer in detail to the passage or passages and the texts. You may include minor references to other texts.

Therefore, you must write two close analysis pieces on the exam, one on each of your chosen texts. You must use the three passages included on the exam to explore and analyse the text as a whole. Most of your piece should be analysis of what is in front of you in the exam, but you must also use evidence from outside the passages, to demonstrate your knowledge and connection with the text.

The exam will be marked against a criterion that differs from any of your SACs (although it is quite similar to your close analysis SAC). Therefore it is imperative to understand the criteria you will be marked on before beginning to study for the Literature exam, and especially before you try some practice exams. They are as follows, and can be found on the VCAA Literature exam page.

Understanding of the text demonstrated in a relevant and plausible interpretation

This criteria relates to your ability to show your comprehension of the text. The examiner will be noting whether the concepts, ideas and themes in the text are understood. They will assess your interpretation of the text, and whether it is relevant and fair in relation to the meaning in the text

Ability to write expressively and coherently to present an interpretation

Literature is a writing subject, therefore this criteria asks that you write with fluency, an expressive vocabulary and clarity. Your piece must also be a coherent, unified work that clearly articulates your discussion and interpretation of the passages and text as a whole. This criteria can also relate to your use of grammar, punctuation and spelling as the clarity of your piece can be threatened if these are not used correctly.

Understanding of how views and values may be suggested in the text

You must demonstrate an ability to identify, discuss and analyze the views and values within the text. You must be able to support your discussion with evidence from the text

Analysis of how key passages and/or moments in the text contribute to an interpretation

Your ability to analyse the three passages, as well as the text as a whole, and draw an interpretation from them. Examiners will be looking to see that you can use set material and the whole text as a basis for discussion.  

Analysis of the features of a text and how they contribute to an interpretation

This criteria determines that you must identify factors including metalanguage, specific language and authorial techniques, and discuss how they create meaning. Remember that this is literature, so discussing the different elements used to construct a text (character, plot, setting, motifs, symbols” is imperative.

Analysis and close reading of textual details to support a coherent and detailed interpretation of the text

This criteria determines that you need to use evidence from the text (including quotes) in order to aid a logical and comprehensive interpretation of the text. Examiners will be looking at your ability to look deeply into smaller authorial choices, and how they create meaning.

Best of luck!

The big trap students doing both English and Literature fall into is the habit of writing Close Readings like a Language Analysis essay. In essence, the two of these essays must tick the same boxes. But, here’s why analysing texts in Literature is a whole different ball game – in English, you want to be focusing on the methods that the author utilises to get their message across, whereas Literature is all about finding your own message in the writing.

In a  Language Analysis  essay, the chances are that most students will interpret the contention of the writer in a similar fashion and that will usually be stated in the introduction of the essay. Whereas in Literature, it is the formulation of your interpretation of the author’s message that is what really counts. In a typical Language Analysis essay, the introduction is almost like a summary of what’s going to be talked about in the next few paragraphs whereas in a close reading, it is the fresh ideas beyond the introduction that the markers are interested in.

For this reason, every Close Reading that you do in Literature will be unique. The overarching themes of the text you are writing from may be recurring, but for every passage from the text that you are given, what you derive from that will be specific to it.

From my experience, this is what stumps a lot of students because of the tendency is to pick up on the first few poetic techniques used in the passages and create the basis for the essay from that. This usually means that the student will pick up on alliteration (or another technique that they find easy to identify) used by the author and then try and match it to an idea that they have discussed in class. Whilst this can be an effective way to structure paragraphs, many students aren’t consciously utilising this approach and instead are doing it ‘by accident’ under time pressure, or a lack of understanding of other ways to get a point across.

In general, there are two main approaches that can be followed for body paragraphs in a literature close reading analysis:

1. Start wide and narrow down.

What does this mean? So, as I mentioned before, each of your close readings should be very specific to the passages in front of you and not rehearsed. However, it’s inevitable that you are going to find some ideas coming back more often. So, after reading through the passage, you will usually get a general understanding of the tone that the author has utilised. This will indicate whether the author is criticising or commending a certain character or social idea. Using this general overview to start your paragraph, you can then move closer and closer into the passage until you have developed your general statement into a very unique and clear opinion of the author’s message (with the support of textual evidence of course).

This is the essay approach that is generally preferred by students but is often used poorly, as without practice and under the pressure of writing essays in exam conditions, many students revert back to the old technique of finding a literary device that they are comfortable with and pushing forth with that.

The good thing about this approach is that when you understand the general themes that the author covers, you will become better and better at using that lens to identify the most impactful parts of the passage to unpack as you scrutinise the subtle nuances of the writer’s tone.

2. Start narrow and go wide.

You guessed it - it’s basically the opposite of the approach above. However, this is a more refined way of setting out your exploration of the author’s message as opposed to what was discussed earlier (finding random literary devices and trying to go from there). Using this approach does not mean that you have no direction of where your paragraph might end, it just means that you think the subtle ideas of the author can be used in culmination to prove their wider opinion. For example, if you get a passage where the author describes a character in great detail (Charlotte Brontë students, you might be familiar!) and you think there is a lot of underlying hints that the author is getting at through such an intricate use of words, then you might want to begin your paragraphs with these examples and then move wider to state how this affects the total persona built around this character and then maybe even a step further to describe how the writer’s attitude towards this character is actually a representation of how they feel towards the social ideas that the character represents.

The benefit of this approach is that if you are a student that finds that when you try and specify on a couple of key points within a large theme, you end up getting muddled up with the potential number of avenues you could be writing about, this style gives a bit of direction to your writing. This approach is also helpful when you are trying to link your broader themes together.

The main thing to remember in the structure of your body paragraphs – the link between your examples and the broader themes that you bring up should be very much evident to the marker. They should not have to work to find the link between the examples you are bringing up and the points that you are making. Remember, a Close Reading is all about the passage that is right in front of you and its relation in the context of the whole text and the writer’s message. Be clear about your opinion, it matters!

Happy writing!

1. Don't focus just on ideas and avoid language engagement.

Language engagement is every bit as important as ideas. Sometimes, when you get stuck in philosophical musings, you might find yourself in a place where you're spouting on and on about solipsism or the intrinsic desire for independence in the 19th century Norwegian working class. Literature essays are all about finding balance, and here, that balance means language engagement. Whether you are writing about literary criticism or a passage analysis, you have to be able to support your interpretations with textual evidence.

Often, this requires some creative thinking. You can have a lot of fun with it and the examiners like you to pick up on small details and connect it to a grander scope.

Here's an example from Jane Eyre.

“my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple.”

“I was not surprised...to feel...the breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze...The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.”

In this passage, Jane is rejoicing over her marriage proposal, but readers are led to understand that this may be a false, idealistic dream of hers. Note the patterns of alliteration – the fricative 'f' shifting to the plosive 'b' in “fount of fruition” and “borrowed beams” then again from “fresh and fragrant breeze” to “blither birds”. What could it possibly mean?

Fricatives tend to indicate freedom, whereas plosives tend to indicate an abruptness – a harsh change. Perhaps, Jane's wild, free joy is immediately followed by plosive alliteration so as to illustrate how her happiness is cut short and her dream is a false one – she will attempt to achieve freedom through this romance, but she will be abruptly and unceremoniously prevented from attaining it.

Regardless, in any passage, there are always things to talk about and little language quirks to exploit to figure out an interpretation. Start from these little details, and build out and out until you tackle your big ideas. All of these ideas should be rooted in language.

2. Don't prioritise complicated language over ideas.

Often, when you think that expressive, complicated writing takes priority over ideas in Literature, you tend to end up with flowery material that becomes more convoluted than it is effective. If you are one of those people (I know it's hard) but kill your darlings. Focus on coming up with original ideas, and express them clearly. Cut out redundancies. Be expressive in a way that is natural and in a way where you know that first and foremost, your language is accurate. Don't go around using metaphors purely for the sake of sounding intellectual when you can express something equally eloquently and beautifully with simpler, fluent text.

Remember: this is not to say that you shouldn't be expressive in Literature. In fact, writing style and the ability to write well is a fundamental component to doing well in this subject. It is just vital that you strike the right balance. This is a good lesson to learn sooner rather than later - and you'll be steering into prime territory for the exam.

3. Don't treat Literature like an English essay. Be free!

Good Literature essays generally tend to be more lively and expressive than English essays. Why? Because Literature just doesn't operate under the same criteria, and it shouldn't be treated as such. 

Don't feel like putting in an introduction/conclusion? No need! Don't feel like sticking to a TEEL structure? No problem!

Your focus is creating writing that moves along at a natural, expressive pace, moving through textual evidence to broader ideas. You don't have a structure. You don't have a paragraph quota. You have free reign over a lot of how you write your Literature essays – so find out what works for you.

4. Come up with original interpretations and don't stick with popular readings.

Literature is one of very few subjects in the entirety of VCE that rewards original thinking. You don't need to go with the crowd consensus on how to read your text: as long as you have the evidence to support your reading! The examiners will reward complex, creative, and unique ideas. Every passage analysis you write should be approached with a fresh perspective – base your interpretation around the text in front of you, and not a dogmatic set of ideas that you bring with you.

5. Let the text before you provide you with the ideas, don't force your ideas into the text.

By reading literary criticism and expanding the scope of your ideas, you can apply original readings to each set of passages you have. Your essays stand out when they cover new, uncharted territory.

Literature is all about balance. If you can find it in you to balance language engagement, interpretation, and writing style, I'd say you have yourself a pretty good essay.

Remember not to fall into any of the common traps of the subject, and you'll have put yourself on solid footing to become a true literati.

Ever since literary perspectives have been introduced into the VCE Literature study design in 2017, there’s been a hell of a lot of confusion surrounding what they actually are, and what students are supposed to do with them. Due to the incredibly subjective nature of English, and especially Literature, as a subject, there is no single correct answer as to how to go about it. However, I hope to shed some light for you on how to go about this elusive component of VCE Literature.

So, what are they?

Firstly, what actually are perspectives? Well, they can be compared to a lens which you use to colour or filter your analysis of the text. You use the ideas and schools of thought that are specific to each perspective to shape, influence and guide your writing. There are a whole bunch of these perspectives, including psychoanalytical, Marxist, feminist and postcolonial. For your SAC during the year, you are going to need to use two different perspectives in your essay, whilst you will only use one in the end of year exam. Personally, while studying Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘North and South’, I used Marxist and feminist in my SAC and narrowed it down to Marxist for the exam.

How do I begin?

The best place to start, after having read the text of course, is to read up on what other people have to say about the book. Perspectives are closely intertwined with literary criticisms; that is, other people’s analysis and interpretation of the texts. For Literature, this needs to go into a bit more depth than someone telling you whether or not they liked the text. Some people like to include excerpts of other critics’ writing in their perspectives essays. Whilst this is not wrong, it isn’t the only way to go about it either. My class simply used these critics as a way of finding inspiration for our own ideas.

I was fortunate enough to be given a whole bunch of scholarly readings and critiques of ‘North and South’ by my teacher; however, if you aren’t as lucky, scholar.google.com and the State Library of Victoria’s online database are both amazing sources for such information. You can simply search up the title of your text, and maybe the author’s name to narrow down results, and you’re provided with scores of articles. I’d recommend reading as many of these as possible, and maybe even jotting down some key points or ideas that stand out to you as important or useful as you go along.

How do I choose which perspective to use?

With all those different perspectives out there, it can become difficult to narrow all the options down to two, and then one. Whilst some texts definitely lend themselves to certain perspectives more than others, the idea is that you can use whichever perspective you want for whichever text if you try hard enough. Sure, it may be hard to find evidence to support them all, but it is expected that, as a Literature student, you are able to read deep enough into the texts that you could find what you need to write on any of them.

My advice is to choose the perspective that initially jumps out at you. When you read the text for the first, second and even third time, there will be certain plot points and themes that present themselves to you. By analysing these, you’ll be able to see what connects them, and most likely be able to relate them to a particular perspective.

How do I write a perspectives essay? As I mentioned earlier, there is no stock standard formula that all perspectives essays must follow. But there are a few basic guidelines that can help you get the ball rolling.

Perspectives essays have the same basic structure as a normal English essay, but differ in the sense that they are more focused on a particular school of thought.  

Be sure to build up an inventory of useful words or phrases unique to your chosen perspective that will help clue the examiner in to what approach you’re taking. For example, when I was exploring a Marxist perspective, I would include phrases like “bourgeoisie”, “interclass relations” and “social hierarchy”. That being said, there is no need to explicitly state, “From a Marxist perspective…” in your essay. By including those subtle, little expressions unique to your chosen perspective, you should be able to signpost to the examiner what your perspective is without making your essay seem basic. As you spend more time exploring your chosen perspective, you will become more familiar and comfortable with a range of these specific expressions.

Help! I can’t decide which perspective to choose! What do I do?

If you find yourself, like I did, stuck when choosing which perspective you want to use, there are a couple of different things to can do to try and get yourself out of this funk.

To start off, Literature is an extremely collaborative subject. It naturally opens itself to a discussion between you and your classmates. In fact, this is a great way to build more ideas and strengthen the ones you already have for all parts of the Literature study design, not only this one. I’d recommend you have a chat with the other people in your class and talk through all your options and the evidence that you could use to support them. I find that by talking in this way, my jumbled ideas tend to become a bit clearer in my head, and I’m often exposed to new ideas as well.

Secondly, your Literature teacher is, of course, another port of call. You literally pay them to teach you Literature and make sure you walk into your SAC and exam as prepared as possible, so why wouldn’t you take full advantage of their expertise? Explain to them your problem and your thoughts up until this point, and I’m sure they’ll be able to, if not provide you with, point you in the right direction towards finding some clarification.

Lastly, you need to remember that you are ultimately the one who needs to make the decision. As cheesy and cliché as it sounds, just listen to what your gut tells you. Your first thoughts are usually the best ones, so just go with your instinct and see where it tells you to go!

To the Lit kids out there, you already know that VCE Literature is a whole different ball game – You’re part of a small cohort, competing against some of the best English students in the state and spots in the 40+ range are fairly limited. So how can you ensure that it’s your essay catches the assessor’s eye? Here are some tips which will hopefully give you an edge.  

• Constantly refer back to the language of the passages

Embed quotes from the passages into both your introduction and conclusion and of course, throughout the essay. Don’t leave any room for doubt that you are writing on the passages right in front of you rather than regurgitating a memorized essay. A good essay evokes the language of the passages so well that the examiner should barely need to refer back to the passages.

Here’s part of a sample conclusion to illustrate what I mean:

  In comparison to Caesar, who sees lands, the “’stablishment of Egypt,” as the epitome of all triumphs, the lovers see such gains, “realms and islands,” as “plates dropp’d from his pocket.” It is dispensable and transient like cheap coins, mere “dungy earth” and “kingdoms of clay.” This grand world of heroic virtue is set in the past tense, where the lover once “bestrid the ocean,” once “crested the world,” but it is the world which will arguably endure in our hearts.

So, you can see that analysis of the language does not stop even in the conclusion and yet it still ties into the overall interpretation of the text that I have presented throughout the essay.

• If appropriate, include quotes from the author of the text

A good way to incorporate views and values of the author in your writing is to quote things they have said themselves. This may work better for some texts than others but if you find a particularly poetic quote that ties in well with the interpretation you are presenting, then make sure to slip it in. It shows that you know your stuff and is an impressive way to show off your knowledge of the author’s views and values.

Here’s a sample from an introduction on Adrienne Rich poetry which includes a quote from her essay, “When We Dead Awaken.”

Adrienne Rich’s poetry is the process of discovering a “new psychic geography” (When We Dead Awaken) with a language that is “refuse[d], ben[t] and torque[d]” not to subjugate but as an instrument for “connection rather than apartheid.”

• Memorise quotes throughout the text

Yes, there are passages right in front of you, but don’t fall into the trap of not memorizing significant quotes from the text as a whole. Dropping a relevant quote in from another section of the text demonstrates that you understand the text as a whole.

The originality of your ideas and the quality of your writing come first and foremost, but these are little ways in which you can add a little extra something to your essay.

With the Literary Perspectives essay can come mild confusion regarding its structure, extent (as well as form) of analysis and differentiability from your standard English text response - which is why I’m here to tell you that this confusion, while inevitable, is easily overcome! A text like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is rife with complexities in both its narrative features and literary devices, all prime for discussion in your own essay. ‍

Consider the following prompt: “ Discuss the proposition that ‘ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ is a condemnation of 1950’s American society.”

Don’t let this prompt’s simple exterior fool you. What it leaves room for - and what the assessor will ultimately be looking for - is the development of your own complex ideas. It is this metamorphosis from the simple to complex that, when evident in your own writing, allows your essay to truly shine. This is obviously applicable to English as well, but where a clear fork in the road lies is in the act of grouping those complex ideas under the umbrella of a specific critical lens (or multiple!).  

For instance, this specific prompt is great in how a diverse range of literary perspectives can be applied to it due to its main subject being 1950s American society. These can include: feminist, psychoanalytical, queer, New Historicist, Marxist, and I’m sure many others!

When faced with a number of critical lenses you can choose from, it’s important to keep in mind the fact that focusing your essay on mainly two or three lenses will ensure it’s more streamlined and therefore easier to both write and read. I know incorporating more lenses as a means of adding variety within your essay is quite tempting, but this is sure to both hinder the depth of your analysis/discussion - which is where marks are ultimately rewarded - and run the risk of disrupting any form of cohesion in your writing. The lenses you choose will ultimately be dependent on the extent of their applicability to the prompt and how comfortable you are with using them (i.e don’t use a Marxist lens if you don’t know how to extensively discuss social classes). The combination of lenses you choose, coupled with your own interpretation, help to inform the development of your unique perspective of the text.

For this prompt, I personally chose to focus on using the critical lenses of New Historicism, psychoanalysis and queer theory. From here, I’m able to ask myself questions catered to each perspective such as “What specific cultural values are examined in COAHTR and how does Williams present them?” and, relating this to the prompt at hand by also asking: “Is this presentation condemnatory?”. The lenses you choose should be interlinked with your arguments and thus your analyses, enabling you to show the assessor you understand that this isn’t an English text response! ‍

Introduction

A frequently asked question regarding the intro of a literary perspectives essay is whether or not to state the critical lens/es you are using. The answer to this is that it’s ultimately up to you! Some important points to consider however are:

• Am I able to include this statement without it sounding janky and disruptive of flow?
• If I were not to include it, am I able to make it clear enough to the assessor from the get-go what perspective/s I am using?

Outside of that, a literary perspectives intro is pretty similar to that of any other essay.  One thing to remember however, especially with COAHTR, is to briefly explain certain significant concepts you choose to mention. A good example of this is the American Dream - demonstrating that you understand what it is at its core via a brief explanation in your intro is going to leave a far better impression on the assessor than not elaborating on it at all.

See mine below:

“Defined by its moral incongruity against socially upheld conservative values, Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof illuminates the debilitative effects of subscription to a belief system entrenched in immorality. By highlighting the ways in which values such as heteronormativity and the American Dream — deemed synonymous with “equal opportunity” — serve only as obstructions to genuine human connection, Williams underpins both his condemnation of such mores and, therefore, the eminent human struggle to attain true happiness."

As you can see, I personally chose not to explicitly state what critical lenses I was using in my essay. However, I did make sure to include certain words and phrases commonly associated with the critical lenses they represent.

For example:

• New Historicism: “socially upheld conservative values”, “belief system”, “values such as heteronormativity and the American Dream”
• Psychoanalytical: “moral incongruity”, “human connection/struggle to attain true happiness”
• Queer theory: “heteronormativity”

This allows me to inform the assessor of what lenses I'm using in spite of an absent explicit statement. It’s also far more efficient in this case than having to use the janky phrase “Under the critical lenses of New Historicism, psychoanalysis and queer theory…”.

Body paragraphs:

As I'm sure you already know by now, Literature grants you a lot more freedom than English in terms of structure - and this is especially applicable to the body of your essay! It's important however to find a balance between what structure you’re most comfortable writing with and what’s going to impress the assessor (as opposed to abusing this freedom and floundering about with zero cohesion).

What I personally tend to be comfortable doing is loosely following a TEEL structure, while spicing it up a little by switching around the order here and there.  This is especially evident in my first body paragraph below for the aforementioned prompt, in which I begin with some passage analysis rather than your typical topic sentence:

“Positioning the audience within an American plantation home’s “bed-sitting-room”, Williams immediately envelops the play’s moral foreground in domesticity and the conservative mores of 1950s American society that serve to define such an atmosphere. It being the bedroom of heterosexual couple Brick and Maggie evinces the nature of their exchanges as demonstrative of the morally debilitating effects of the values upheld by the society in which they live — illuminating Williams’ intention to present social mores as obstructive of genuine human connection. Such an intention is foregrounded by the disparity that exists between the external and internal; that is, the socially upheld status of Brick and Maggie’s heterosexual relationship — exempt from subjection to social “disgust” — and the “mendacious” reality of their marriage in its failure to provide either individual with the same sense of primordial wholeness Brick finds in his “clean”, “pure” and “true” homosocial relationship with Skipper. From the outset of the play, heteronormative values are debased as Williams subverts the domestically epitomised dynamic between husband and wife into an embodiment of the inhumane. Maggie is likened to a “priest delivering a liturgical chant”, her lines interspersed with “wordless singing” — alluding to her overly performative nature that compromises the genuineness of human connection. Brick’s visual absence during the play’s opening and his “masked indifference”, too, further undermine the social perception of heterosexuality as the pinnacle of love as it is this reticence that exemplifies the absence of happiness found in their marriage. This sense of disconnection, wherein “living with someone you love can be lonelier — than living entirely alone”, forces Maggie to navigate their relationship through the reductive mode of a “game” wherein it is only by detecting “a sign of nerves in a player on the defensive” that she can attempt to derive genuine emotion from her husband. To reduce human connection to a set of manoeuvrable tactics punctuated only by “the click of mallets” is an act portrayed by Williams as propagative of immorality, vehemently contrasting the reconciliation of the divided self afforded to Brick by the “one, great true thing” in his life: friendship with Skipper. By making the audience privy to the inhumanity lying at the helm of 1950s American social mores, Williams thus presents his scathing critique of such a system, reflecting its capacity for obstructing human connection and therefore the futility of conforming to its standards.”

A key feature of this paragraph is the nature of my analysis - it is, essentially, very similar to what you’d find in a passage analysis essay. It’s important to note that the skills you’ve learnt for the latter can be easily implemented in a literary perspectives essay and is often what allows it to truly stand out! It also forces you to frequently reference the text with quotes in the same way you would in a passage analysis essay, which is glorious in any assessor’s eyes.

With “zooming in” on certain passages in the text (think analysing literary devices, setting, syntax, etc.) however must also follow “zooming out” and evaluating their overall meaning, especially in relation to their significance to the prompt.

A concise example of “zooming in and out” from the previous paragraph can be seen below:

“ Maggie is likened to a “priest delivering a liturgical chant”, her lines interspersed with “wordless singing” — alluding to her overly performative nature that compromises the genuineness of human connection. ”

Below is another example from a different body paragraph for the same essay:

“ Hateful figures transformed into animalistic grotesques, the children of Mae and Gooper are depicted as “no-neck monsters” with “dawg’s names”, with the “fat old body” of Big Mama herself alternating in appearance from “an old bulldog” to a “charging rhino”. Here the moral degradation of a society so heavily reliant on the atomisation of its individuals is made most conspicuous, with Big Daddy’s semblance to a large animal who “pants and wheezes and sniffs” serving as a further testament to such a notion.”

Conclusion:

This is yet another portion of your essay granted freedom by the nature of VCE Literature, so whether or not you choose to intertwine it with your last body paragraph or separate it completely is entirely up to you. What you choose to emphasise in your conclusion is also very similar to that of any other essay as the main focus is to hammer home your interpretation of the text in relation to the prompt!

See my example below:

“Williams, by presenting 1950’s American society as both propagative of atomisation and obstructive of innate morality, ultimately highlights the futility that lies in assimilating to such a belief system as a means of attaining true happiness. The pressure to subscribe to morally reductive values wherein any remnants of the innate are wholly ignored only further shrouds the possibility of happiness at all, and it is here where Williams’ portrayal of the human struggle to attain this ideal is made most conspicuous.”

How Genre Works

We’re not supposed to judge a book based on its cover, but for some reason, we just can’t help it. Sure, we may not be able to tell if we’re going to enjoy the book, nor can we tell what exactly it’s about, but we can tell the tone, set our expectations, and most importantly, guess at the genre. Look at these three book covers and note how they perfectly show their genres - Sci-Fi, Horror and Life Drama, respectively. 

Genre is a way of categorising media. We split books, film and music into genres in order to better talk about them and because humans have a strange desire to sort and categorise things. Within whatever medium, genres display certain structures, characters and tropes that audiences expect from that genre . Audiences like to be able to tell the genre of a text because it’s comfortable. If I go to see a superhero movie I expect wacky costumes, cliche dialogue and a final battle scene that the heroes win - were these expectations not to be met, I would likely be a little bit peeved off. 

But why should you care about genre in VCE Literature? It’s not on the study design?  

Well, not explicitly. In each AoS of the study design, you must engage with ‘the ways the literary forms, features and language of texts affect the making of meaning’ , and/or ‘the ideas of a text and the ways in which they are presented’ . Genres are a feature of texts and are one of the ways that a text will present its ideas. Horror is the most notable example of a genre that uses its tropes to send a message - It Follows is a horror where the monster stands in for sexually transmitted disease, Carrie uses horror to show the horrors of high school, Frankenstein is a criticism of those who would ‘play god’. In the Literature study design, the horror genre is represented by Bram Stoker’s 1897 masterpiece, Dracula.  

For an overview of the Literature study design, check out The Ultimate Guide to VCE Literature . 

Dracula + The Gothic

I invite you to think hard about the horror films you’ve seen and to try to place Dracula into our modern view of horror. It’s hard to put Stoker’s vampire on the same stage as the Babadook , Annabelle or even the ‘70s slasher craze. This gives us an incredible opportunity to consider how audiences engaged and continue to engage with genres. In order to analyse genre, it is essential to recognise what the audience’s expectations were of a genre, and how the author has utilised those expectations for their own ends. Let’s consider Dracula in context .

‍ Dracula is a horror novel. But, we usually don’t think about those uptight Victorians reading texts that were designed expressly to scare. The Victorian era was actually one of the golden ages of horror literature though. But, it is distinctly different from our modern understandings of horror as defined by trailblazers like Stephen King. So, why is it different? It is here we must consider the sub-genre. If you have read anything about Dracula , you’ll note that it is referred to as a ‘gothic horror’ . The gothic genre of literature encapsulates some of the 19th century and certainly the Victorian period’s (1837-1901) best literature. Dracula of course belongs to this group, but it blows up around 1818 with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein . Edgar Allen Poe, with his short stories and poetry, is widely lauded as the ‘Father of American Gothic’, with ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ published in 1839. Note the dates here. Stoker published Dracula in 1897, a good 79 years after Frankenstein began haunting readers. Which means he had an established and large genre to work with. So, how did Stoker use the gothic in Dracula?

Tropes of the Gothic

1) the gothic monster.

The vampire myth used by Stoker is turned into the quintessential gothic monster. Dracula existed in the Victorian mind alongside Frankestein’s monster, Mr. Hyde, and Poe’s mixture of humans made monstrous and surreal monsters like that in ‘The Masque of the Red Death’. The defining feature of the gothic monster is its role in the story as a representation of something wrong with society, whether it’s increasingly amoral medicinal science, human greed or perverted desire. 

2) The Creepy Castle

The creepy castle doesn’t have to be a castle. It can be a mansion, a university or the graveyards of London. The important thing is that the setting of the gothic novel should always be - by default - terrifying and evoke a sense of danger. You can never get comfortable in Dracula’s castle, nor in Seward’s asylum, and neither can the characters. 

3) Damsel/s in Distress

For sure an outdated trope, but a constant in the gothic. It’s a quick and simple way to show that the innocence of young women is threatened by a malignant force. In Dracula , look to Mina, Lucy and Mrs. Westenra. But what happens when the damsel saves herself?

4) Omens, Portents, Visions

Visions in dreams? Random wild animals escaping from ships? Ships docking with a completely dead crew? Random changes in the weather? You might be dealing with a gothic villain, or going mad. In either case, Renfield, Dracula, Mina and Jonothan all deal with portents and visions. 

And This Is Important Because…

Stoker has followed the predominant tropes of the gothic horror genre. Why is this important for our analysis of Dracula ? The ways in which authors use genre and other stylistic elements like form, voice or plot relate directly to their intentions. If we investigate the particular aspects of Stoker’s use of the gothic, we may better understand the views and values that he is promoting. For instance, let’s take Dracula as the gothic monster. Since the gothic monster is always a way to reflect society back onto itself, how is Stoker doing that? A feminist analysis might take Dracula as a reflection of sexual deviancy, which then ties into his constant threat towards women. A post-colonial analysis might question the foreignness of Dracula, and view him as a part of the intrusiveness of foreigners in English society. Either way, you’re touching on a view or value presented by Stoker, and tying it to an aspect of the gothic genre in a way that conveniently also touches on characterisation. 

Let’s complicate things a little more. The ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope is clearly evident in Dracula , but what view or value is Stoker commenting on by its inclusion? The simplest answer is that, by showing that women cannot save themselves, Stoker is saying that women are inherently weak and need to be saved by men. But this answer isn’t sufficient for a number of reasons. Firstly, what are the women weak to? Is it a physical mismatch between the women and Dracula, keeping in mind that Dracula is also stronger than the novel’s men? Or is it a symbolic weakness to some aspect of Dracula’s character, be it sexuality or magic? Secondly, and more importantly, are all the women victimised by Dracula the same? Well, obviously not. 

It could very well be argued that Stoker is subverting the ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope by actually giving us a woman who is able to be her own saviour (which is actually becoming a trope in itself nowadays!). The dichotomy between Lucy and Mina is a crucial aspect of the text, and the way that Mina’s character doesn’t quite fit into the ‘Damsel in Distress’ archetype is a major interpretative dilemma. By considering the genre tropes, Lucy is clearly a ‘Damsel in Distress’ who cannot save herself and is unduly victimised by Dracula. It can be argued that her implicit promiscuousness is punished through her murder, but in whatever case, she is distressed and must be saved. Mina, however, has an entirely different view of her distresses. Not only does Mina take on a caring role towards Jonothan - in which Jonothan becomes a ‘Master in Distress’ - she actively supports the attempts to save her and kill Dracula. By compiling the journals, letters and newspaper clippings into the epistolary that we the audience are reading, and using herself as a window into Dracula’s mind through their psychic connection, Mina proves to be a means by which to save herself from her distress. So, the question of what Stoker actually thinks about women is still quite open: Lucy is seemingly punished for her character flaws, which indicates a misogynist view of women’s sexuality, but Mina is praised for her use of masculine qualities like leadership and stoicism. Is Stoker saying women should be more masculine? Less masculine and more traditionally feminine? This entire discussion revolves around how and why the ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope is being followed or subverted. 

Using Genre in VCE

Whilst a genre-based analysis (or a structural analysis) can be a fantastic way to open up discussion and leads to important questions about views and values , the way I have presented it may appear to be another useless and long-winded thing you have to try to shove into an essay when you already have to balance so much in Literature! Fear not, because there are a couple of really easy ways to fit genre into essays without taking up loads of space.

Option one is to use a genre trope as the basis of a paragraph. If your essay contention is that…

‍ ‘Stoker presents the dangers of foreign immigration to England at the height of its colonial empire’

…then you can easily write a paragraph discussing that…

‍ ‘Stoker employs the gothic trope of a supernatural monster in Dracula, using this vampire as a stand-in for foreigners in England’.

This paragraph would discuss Dracula’s characterisation, and the settings of Transylvania and London, whilst investigating Stoker’s views on England’s colonialism and race. In a Developing Interpretations or Close Analysis essay, you’ve just touched on several key criteria, including the author’s views and values , your own credible interpretation of the text and how the text presents its messaging (through characterisation and setting). You can do all these things without mentioning genre, but by explicitly using the language of genre analysis you are likely separating yourself from the student next to you - who had a similar idea but described it in a less interesting way. This is the utility of understanding genre, it gives you the words and concepts necessary to improve your writing and interpretation. The ‘Gothic monster’ is an easy way to describe an otherwise GIANT concept.

Another way is to add it to other analyses in passing. Instead of saying “ Dracula presents Lucy and Mina as foils to demonstrate the ways in which modern women’s promiscuity is ultimately harmful”, you can say “the presentation of Lucy and Mina as two ‘damsels in distress’ in dichotomy with each other demonstrates the differing ways in which Victorian women could doom or save themselves” . The latter sentence has not significantly changed the content of the first, still referring to the women’s opposition to each other, but by phrasing it with ‘damsels in distress’ I leave open the possibility of discussing not just Lucy’s promiscuity, but also Mina’s conservative womanhood. 

Finally, you need not even mention genre or its tropes in the essay, just use it as a thinking tool. If you go back through the previous section of this blog, you’ll see just how many questions I am asking about the tropes and ideas I am discussing. By using the trope as a jumping-off point for a series of questions, I can develop a nuanced understanding of multiple views and values and the ways in which they interconnect. Take a trope like the ‘creepy castle’ and ask:

“Why would Stoker put Dracula manor in the text?”

“Because it sets up the ‘otherness’ of Dracula.”

“Why do we need to know that Dracula is the other?” 

“Because he represents a supernatural foreignness that we need to be scared of.”

“Okay, but why is it right at the start, why is it from Jonothan’s perspective?” 

All of these questions offer ways of breaking down the text and they will naturally lead to questions about structure, characterisation and views and values. In doing this, you can start to come up with ways to turn those questions, or the order of those questions into an essay structure. Moreso, this type of questioning is what your teacher, tutors and top-tier Literature students are doing. It is a constant process of asking, answering, reconsidering, reasking and synthesising. And genre is an easy way to start the process. 

Studying both English and Literature in VCE is an interesting undertaking, and I’ve heard very mixed opinions about whether or not it’s a good idea. For me it was a no-brainer; I’d always loved English so why wouldn’t I take advantage of the opportunity to study two English-based subjects? Looking back on my VCE experience now, and comparing my experience of studying each subject, I can see that they are each very different. However, if you’re going to study both, don’t expect that each subject will unfold in isolation, because your work in one of these subjects will undoubtedly impact upon your work in the other - even if, like me, you complete them in different years. So if you enjoy English I would 100% endorse studying both VCE English and VCE Literature, but being an English-nerd I still think there are benefits to analysing the process of studying this dynamic-duo back to back.

The Content

At the beginning, I assumed that Literature and English would be fairly similar in terms of studying and writing. It’s all about reading books and writing essays, right? Well, whilst this is essentially true, it turns out that the process for each subject is quite different. I studied year 12 Literature first, completing it in 2017 as a year 11 student, and as my only unit 3/4 subject for that year it was the focus of a lot of my time, energy, and creativity. What I loved about VCE Literature from the beginning was the departure from formula; the impetus to “dive right in” as my teacher always used to say. Instead of worrying about how many sentences your introductions and conclusions have to be, in Literature you can simply get straight into the analysis and see how far it takes you.  So, if you’re the kind of person who needs to stick to that body paragraph structure acronym that has always served you so well, then when you first start studying Literature it might be a challenge to loosen up. Or, if you’re like me and can’t shake the compulsion to write paragraphs that take up double-sided sheets of paper, you might find this subject to be a welcome respite from some of the restrictions of English tasks.

Although English is often viewed as the more ‘basic’ of the two, in many ways I found it more difficult once I hit year 12. Having just finished VCE Literature, shifting my focus back to English definitely wasn’t as seamless as I might have expected. In comparison to my Literature essays where I would base paragraphs around in-depth analysis of a few of Gaskell’s sentences, my English text responses felt stunted and forced – English isn’t really compatible with tangents, and so it was difficult to train myself to be expressive whilst also being concise. In my opinion, the most daunting of the year 12 VCE English SACs is the comparative, and this is where my lack of flow was most evident. Being accustomed to delving into complex discussion of the details of my Literature texts, it seemed impossible to provide insightful analysis of two texts simultaneously, whilst also comparing them to each other and also keeping my essays well structured. My first comparative practices sounded somewhat awkward when I read over them, and I just felt like I never really knew what I was trying to get across. This provoked me to be frustrated with myself, and then my frustration distracted me from writing, and then my essays read even more contrived; you get the idea.

So, how do you push past this sense of friction between the study of English and the study of Literature? Well, I think the best way to reconcile the conflicting approaches is to realise that each subject brings out different strengths, but these strengths can be applied to either type of study. Yes to a certain extent English is supposed to be formulaic, but you can use the analysis skills you learn in Literature to enhance your English text responses and give your work a point of difference. On the flip side, the structure you work with in English can be applied to Literature to ensure that your essays always exhibit direction and purpose, even if they encompass a broader range of discussion. Once I realised that I didn’t have to discard all of my Literature skills and start writing my English work exactly the same as everybody else, I began to develop a more fluid, balanced writing style that enhanced all of my English tasks – even the comparative.

Let’s start with the obvious comparisons between the English exam and the Literature exam. Firstly, the English exam encompasses three essays in three hours (with 15 minutes reading time), whilst Literature is only two essays in two hours. The English exams tasks include a text response to a prompt, a comparative text response to a prompt, and a language analysis. The Literature exam involves a passage analysis, and a text response to a prompt influenced by a literary perspective. Where in the English exam you are given a choice of prompts for each text choice, whereas for both sections of the Literature exam only one choice is available for each text. Whilst both exams involve some supplied material, in Literature this material is a passage from one of the set texts, however for the language analysis section of the English exam this is completely unseen material created by the VCAA. For me, this felt like a very significant difference, because there is no familiar material (i.e. passages from the texts) to rely on in the English exam; if you get lost you can’t latch on to anything except what you have memorised.

Personally, I think that the study strategies I utilised for each exam were fairly similar, although obviously geared towards different tasks. I took in depth notes on my texts, planned essays, memorised quotations and explored their significance, timed my practice essays etc. My actual approach to each exam was also similar, for example I made sure to allocate one hour for each different task and did all of my planning mentally during reading time. So although obviously everyone’s study and exam techniques are different, this shows that your own personal strategies that you develop can be applied to both the Literature and the English exams. However, despite the continuity in this sense I still found myself feeling very different coming out of my English exam than I had leaving my Literature exam the year before. Where after the Literature exam I had been content with the knowledge that I had showcased the best version of my abilities, after the English exam I felt much more unsure and ready to believe the worst about the outcome. This particular comparison is of course specific to every individual person, however I think it could have something to do with the knowledge that most VCE students study English and the difficulty in believing that your work could stand out from the work of 40,000 others.

The Results

In the end, I achieved very different results from these two subjects, with English being my highest study score and Literature being one of my 10% contributions. It seems to be a general consensus (or at least it was at my school) that it is more difficult to crack the high 40s in Literature than in English, and whether this is true or not it definitely impacted my expectations of my results each subject. However, that said, after being slightly disappointed with my Literature results in year 11 I was not overly optimistic about doing much better in English. When talking about this with my Literature teacher, she told me to “remember that English is marked very differently to Lit, so don’t think you can’t get a 50” and I think this is very solid advice. Whilst you might feel you were equally skilled at both subjects, this doesn’t mean you will receive equally ‘good’ results’, but don’t let this disparity discourage you because, as we have discussed throughout this post, when it comes to Literature and English one size does not fit all.

This blog is part of a series of blogs breaking down the 2023-2027 VCE Literature Study design. For in-depth takes on the study design and the new AoS (Developing Interpretations) check out The Ultimate Guide to VCE Literature and A Guide to Developing Interpretations . 

Here, we’ll take a deep look into the SAC for Unit 3.2: Developing Interpretations. We’ll be using Margaret Atwood’s 1996 Alias Grace to demonstrate parts A and B of the SAC criteria so you can see the thinking process behind developing interpretations. 

‍ The SAC has two parts: 

Part A: An initial interpretation of the text’s views and values within its historical, social and cultural context.

Part B: A written response that compares/interweaves and analyses an initial interpretation with a subsequent interpretation, using a key moment from the text.

Your teacher may decide to do them in two separate SACs, Part A after considering the text, and Part B after considering the supplementary reading. Or they may do them together, having you analyse a passage and answer a question just based on your own understanding of the text, and then continuing that analysis by adding the supplementary reading. 

Understanding Context

Part A of the Developing Interpretations SAC task involves the text’s 'historical, social and cultural context’, so it is imperative we have an understanding of firstly, the author and their world, and the text and its world. 

‍ Alias Grace was published in 1996, close enough to our modern times that we can consider it contemporary literature. On the surface, there is not much to link it directly to the big global events of the 1990s - like the Gulf Wars, the Monica Lewinsky scandal or the uncertainty of the new millennium. Margaret Atwood is Canadian, and the events of Alias Grace also take place in Canada; any criticism of government or cultural issues in the text can then be considered criticisms of Canadian culture, but may also be of Western or Anglo societies at large. It’s also worth keeping in mind Atwood’s track record as a feminist activist who became famous for the feminist intentions in texts like The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Cat’s Eye (1988).

The world of Alias Grace is about 150 years prior to the text’s publication. The murder that put Grace in prison occurred in 1843, and Grace died sometime around 1873. Feminism as a socio-political movement did not exist at this time, so any ‘feminist bent’ that Grace or Mary Whitney display is the result of independent dissatisfaction, not the influence of wider cultural forces. The role of psychology is strong in Alias Grace and in the afterword, Atwood notes the increasing academic interest in the mind and subconscious. Whilst we could venture into the specific who’s who of 1850s new world psychological history, it is most important to recognise that there were disparate ideas of how memory is formed and recalled, and that defiant or mentally ill women were often stigmatised and categorised as 'insane', when we would now acknowledge the range of mental health diagnoses and traumatic backgrounds that would better explain certain behaviours. Note also that mental health institutions were tools of a patriarchal system that viewed the internment of women as a means of control over women, regardless of mental illness, leading to the regular and indiscriminate use of procedures like lobotomy or Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) to keep women 'in check'. 

Part A of the SAC: An Initial Interpretation

When forming an interpretation of the text, it is necessary to first decide two things. Firstly, you need to recognise the author’s intention and what you think are the primary views and values . Then, you need to find aspects of the text that support your understanding of the text’s primary meaning.

Of all the concepts and ideas in Alias Grace , two are particularly pertinent and stick out to me as a reader. One is memory , the other is sexuality . There are of course other ideas, but these two were the big ones I noted reading the text. Thinking about what you find interesting or core to the text will help you to form an initial interpretation. Once you have the initial ideas, try to expand them into full sentences. To use memory as our example:

‍ Atwood explores the fallibility and role of memory in our understandings of ourselves and our actions, in particular, noting how people subconsciously decide which memories to keep or forget.

See how meaty this sentence is? Even if I can’t quite touch on all of these ideas in a full essay, I have so much I can talk about that it basically makes it impossible to fall short. Now, I want some aspects of the text that help provide through-lines. By this, I mean that I want a smaller part of the text that helps to exemplify my interpretation and that, preferably, would be evident in a passage analysis. I’m someone who finds structure really interesting in texts, so I look at things like form, genre and plot very closely. Alias Grace is really interesting for its use of ‘primary source’ quotes at the start of sections, as well as the fact it has basically no quotation marks to delineate dialogue. Moreover, the fact that Grace’s narration is first-person and that Jordan’s narration is third-person provides ripe territory for analysis. I need to link this to memory, and put it in a sentence:

‍ Atwood’s use of Grace’s first-person narration without quoted dialogue, thus structuring the plot around her speech and remembering, provides a long-form case study in how the psychological process of remembering helps provide understandings of the self. 

So, just based on my understanding of the context (1850s psychology and its impact on women) and the world of the text, I am able to determine my initial interpretation: that Alias Grace is about memory and forgetting in the face of trauma and an indeterminate sense of self. This idea is displayed in the structure of the text which relies heavily on displaying thought processes. 

Part B of the SAC: The Supplementary Reading

The supplementary reading can be a number of pieces of writing given to you by your teacher. This could be something written by your teacher, an explainer of a literary theory (like Marxism or feminism), or as I’ll be using here, an academic article. Check out our blog on Developing Interpretations which goes into how to read academic articles. 

The article I’ve chosen is Margaret Rogerson’s ‘Reading the Patchworks in Alias Grace’ (1998). At the core of Rogerson’s argument is that the recurring motif of sewing and patchwork is a significant indicator of Grace’s identity and her self-expression and that Atwood uses the symbolism of various quilting patterns to reflect the ambiguity of Grace’s character and our understanding of her (since quilting symbols are heavily subjective). Just based on this brief summary of Rogerson’s interpretation, we can start to see how it is somewhat at odds with my initial interpretation (from Part A) - Rogerson isn’t as concerned with memory and psychology, nor am I concerned with symbolism because I focus on structures and narrative. 

Rogerson’s article doesn’t necessarily disagree with my interpretation, in fact, both exist alongside each other quite nicely. I would phrase Rogerson’s interpretation as 'running parallel' to my own because they don’t always touch on the same ideas. Recognising where the supplementary reading sits in relation to your own interpretation is important because it helps to break down how to respond to its position and enhance your own interpretation. Try to place it on a scale of ‘total disagreement’ to ‘total agreement’. It will probably be somewhere in the middle. 

Self-Reflection and Reinterpretation

Now that I’ve read my supplementary reading and placed it in relation to my initial interpretation, I need to ask myself a few questions, and be honest with myself:

• What new information have I learnt from the reading?
• What ideas/themes/motifs did I initially ignore?
• How do these new ideas and pieces of information challenge my interpretation?
• How do these new ideas and pieces of information support my interpretation?
• Can I find links between the seemingly challenging aspects of the reading and link them to my initial interpretation? 
• Can I link specific aspects of my initial interpretation to the theories and ideas presented in the supplementary reading?

Rogerson’s article contained a lot of ideas and information that I had previously glossed over. Significantly, I learnt that 'quilt patterns [...] appear with their names as section headings throughout the text' (p. 8), a theme I hadn’t noticed. Moreover, Rogerson explains the literary and political significance of quilting and patchwork symbolism, drawing attention to the role it played in women’s lives and the inaccessibility of this symbolism to men. 

Do these new ideas challenge my interpretation? Not really. Do they fully support my interpretation? Not really, BUT, they do provide a new way of thinking about my initial interpretation. I can link the quilting symbolism to the idea of Grace’s narrative style because Rogerson emphasises that when Grace discusses quilting, she is discussing her own life. In addition, Rogerson notes that 'sections of the novel [are] separate patterns that are to be fitted into a whole quilt' (p. 8) so that 'the reader becomes a quilt maker in the process of interpreting the text' (p.9). The concept of the physical book being a ‘quilt’ supports and extends on my understanding of structure, thus allowing me to further investigate how that structure functions. 

The notion of the reader as a ‘quilt maker’ interpreting the text also allows me to consider something else I have ignored in my initial interpretation: self-presentation. I initially took for granted Grace’s investigation into her own mind, and that her novel-length yarn reflects the burgeoning field of psychology. Rogerson emphasises through the quilting work, however, that Grace’s motivations are entirely ambiguous to Jordan, the reader and others, so we have to try to decide if she is actually remembering events, or simply telling a story. At the end of the text, Grace makes her own quilt using cloth given to her or taken from the women of her past, Rogerson posing the question 'does the quilt represent memory, amnesia, or madness?' (p. 21). The result, therefore, is that my initial interpretation does make sense, but with some important new additions to be made. 

‍ Atwood’s Alias Grace investigates how individuals relate to their memories through the use of Grace Marks’ speech and interactions with medical psychology, which intend to force her to remember (1). This process of remembering, however, is simultaneously hindered and deepened by Grace’s presentation of self, which wonders into utter performativity, amnesia, and potentially disingenuous motivations for her continued speech (2). Rogerson emphasises Grace’s relationship with the language of patchwork and how this relationship influences her narrative style and remembering, and thus the reader’s ability to fit separate patterns 'into a whole quilt' (p. 8) (3).

This interpretation is significantly more chunky, but that’s because I’m trying to make the nuance of the argument incredibly clear. The first sentence (1) is a reworded version of my initial interpretation with slightly less detail. The second sentence (2) is an elaboration of my previous interpretation that includes ideas gleaned from Rogerson’s article. The final sentence (3) is a brief summary of Rogerson’s method that introduces her work as well as some extra details about Grace’s story-telling and the analysis of readers’ responses. 

The key to developing interpretations is self-reflection. Constantly question why you think the things you do, and it will force you to reconsider your interpretation. The supplementary reading is to provide you with a way to self-reflect and another interpretation to respond to. I strongly encourage those looking to do exceptionally in developing interpretations to read widely and around the text you’ve been set. Some of those texts for Alias Grace are in the resources section below.

Further Resources

Rogerson, Margaret. ‘Reading the Patchworks in Alias Grace’ The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 33 (1998): 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/002200949803300102  

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Literature

VCE Literature Study Design (2023-2027): A Guide to Developing Interpretations

For Alias Grace 

Margaret Atwood’s other texts including: Cat’s Eye , The Handmaid’s Tale , and Oryx and Crake.

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles . 1916. Available here. ‍ A play cited in Rogerson’s article, featuring an accused murderess and a quilt. Sound familiar?

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams . 1899. Available Via Gutenburg ‍ A very dense text on the psychoanalysis of dreams. Useful for its discussions of symbolism as a signifier of psychology

‍ Atwood cites a number of texts in her acknowledgements (p. 543), the most interesting appear as follows:

Moodie, Susanna. Life in the Clearings . 1853

Crabtree, Adam. From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing . 1993. 

Brandon, Ruth. The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries . 1983. 

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A Modern Perspective: Othello

By Susan Snyder

Early in Act 2 of Othello, the newly married Othello and Desdemona are reunited in Cyprus, having survived a storm at sea that threatened their separate ships. The meeting is rapturous, almost beyond words:

  I cannot speak enough of this content.

  It stops me here; it is too much of joy.

                                                         They kiss.

  And this, and this, the greatest discords be

  That e’er our hearts shall make!

                                                   ( 2.1.214 –17)

In a film, the background music would swell at this point. These lovers, a dark-skinned Moorish general and a white Venetian lady, have triumphed over daunting obstacles: racial difference and the attendant cultural taboos, disparities of culture and of age, the angry opposition of Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, urged on by Othello’s malicious subordinate, Iago, the threat of the attacking Turkish fleet, and finally the raging storm that scattered the Turks and might well have swamped the Venetian ships as well. On this high note of joy, with the forces against their happiness destroyed or rendered powerless, the married life of Desdemona and Othello begins.

But less than two days later, the marriage is utterly destroyed and with it Othello and Desdemona themselves. Discords arise between them that cannot be resolved with kisses. Indeed, when we next see Othello kissing his wife ( 5.2.18 , 21 ), it is as a nostalgic gesture before he executes her as an unfaithful wife. Even allowing for the conventional economy and foreshortening of drama, this is a precipitous breakdown of love and trust. What goes so quickly and terribly wrong with the marriage of Othello and Desdemona? In what follows, I suggest various approaches to this question; some overlap, some point in opposing directions. Neither separately nor in conjunction can they offer anything like “the whole truth.”

The most obvious and immediate answer is Iago. It is he who plots to poison Othello’s happiness, and to bring down Cassio as well by getting him first stripped of his military position and then suspected by the Moor as Desdemona’s lover. It is Iago whom everyone onstage condemns at the play’s conclusion: in the space of the last 130 lines or so, various appalled characters call him viper, devil, wretch, pernicious caitiff, Spartan dog, and (repeatedly) slave and villain. At the Cyprus reunion in 2.1 , Iago’s malevolence already adds a jarring note to the triumphant background music. Directly after the speech quoted above—Othello’s wish that kisses be their greatest discords—Iago says, in an aside,

O, you are well tuned now,

But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,

As honest as I am.

The question of what drives Iago to ruin the Othello music is one that has long been debated. To his pawn, Roderigo, and to the audience in soliloquy, Iago speaks at one time or another of many grievances: Othello has made Cassio his lieutenant rather than Iago, who wanted, and claims to have deserved, the post; Iago suspects that his wife, Emilia, has betrayed him with the Moor; Iago wants revenge, whether by possessing Desdemona (to be “even with him, wife for wife”) or by shattering Othello’s marital happiness; Cassio is his chosen instrument because Cassio is attractive to women and an additional threat to Iago’s husbandly rights of ownership over Emilia. In spite of this wealth of inciting causes, critics have felt a disparity between the magnitude of Iago’s malevolent work and the motives he gives for it. There are too many of them, for one thing. The fears of being cuckolded, mentioned only once or twice, don’t seem to go very deep. And when Iago, after engineering Cassio’s downfall, does get the lieutenancy at the end of Act 3, scene 3 , he expresses no satisfaction either then or later.

Deeper insight comes from a few glimpses Iago affords us into his feelings, apart from the occasions he cites. “I hate the Moor” is his obsessive litany: “I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again . . .” ( 1.3.407 –8). This may well be suspect, like anything else he says to Roderigo, but even when alone he reiterates it:

                                      I hate the Moor,

And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets

’Has done my office.                      ( 1.3.429 –31)

The phrasing—“ And it is thought,” not “ Because it is thought”—detaches the hatred from any immediate cause, gives it a dark life of its own. Bernard Spivack pointed out this unexpected And and the resulting detachment. He concluded that Iago was a descendant of the Vice character in medieval allegorical drama. 1 At times, certainly, Iago’s malevolence seems too absolute for ordinary motivation, presenting rather what Melville called (in the Iago-like Claggart he created for Billy Budd ) “the mystery of iniquity.” But the reader or viewer, as well as the actor assigned to play Iago, may nevertheless find enlightenment of various kinds in human psychology. It is possible, for example, to see Iago not as an inhuman embodiment of evil but as a man who habitually feels the fine qualities and good fortunes of others as injuries to himself. He seems to point to that characteristic in himself later in the play when he tells us why Cassio has to die. As one who can expose Iago’s deception to Othello, Cassio is a practical danger, but that is just an afterthought to Iago’s more basic resentment of Cassio: “He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly” ( 5.1.20 –21).

If Iago feels himself a have-not, the graces of Cassio and Desdemona and the glamorous life and language of Othello must rankle in maddening contrast. Probing the subtext further, we may see recurring through his real and imagined grievances the anxiety of displacement. The fantasies of being dislodged from his sole rights as a husband by Othello or Cassio are problematic; more firmly based in reality, and more galling, is his displacement by Cassio as Othello’s lieutenant—and intimate friend. The Moor has passed over his ensign, Iago, with all his experience in the battlefield, to choose the well-bred Cassio, courtly in behavior and schooled in “bookish theoric” ( 1.1.25 ). Iago himself is of the lower class: “honest,” the label he constantly receives from others, is complimentary but also patronizing, used to pat inferiors on the head. Insecurity about his “place” in the social hierarchy blends into the specific obsession about the military position he has failed to attain. Complaining, he sounds rather like an NCO jeering angrily at the advancement of a West Point graduate:

                             ’Tis the curse of service.

Preferment goes by letter and affection,

And not by old gradation, where each second

Stood heir to th’ first.                      ( 1.1.37 –40)

Promotion by seniority ( gradation ) would presumably have rewarded Iago for his long service in the field, but now it is letter and affection that count: letters of recommendation from influential people, 2 and Othello’s own partiality for Cassio, stronger than any regard he had for Iago. In spite of the experience he and his general shared in several campaigns, Iago is shut out from this affection, the closeness that draws Othello naturally to make his (well-born) friend his lieutenant, the one who will act in his stead and represent him. The rejection can be seen as a double one: as Cassio appropriates Othello on the one hand, Desdemona draws him on the other, away from the bond of fellow soldiers into a new intimacy of marriage.

Iago might thus say with Hamlet, “How all occasions do inform against me”: each event stirs his general sense of being put down, discounted, and excluded. His shrewd intelligence makes him all the more resentful at being subordinate to both Othello and Cassio in the army hierarchy. He exults in manipulating them, in being the one truly in command. Manipulating Cassio is easy, for the lieutenant has a defined weakness, susceptibility to drink. With Roderigo’s help it is not difficult for Iago to lead Cassio on to brawling on the watch and quick demotion. Does Othello also show signs of vulnerability? For some critics, narcissism and self-dramatization are all too apparent in the “noble Moor,” enough to destroy his marriage even without much help from Iago. 3 Without so thoroughly discounting Othello’s greatness, we may well recognize in him a social insecurity that renders him open to Iago’s insinuations.

I know our country disposition well.

In Venice they do let God see the pranks

They dare not show their husbands. Their best

    conscience

Is not to leave ’t undone, but keep ’t unknown.

OTHELLO   Dost thou say so?           ( 3.3.232 –37)

Othello has no knowledge of his own to counter this insider’s generalizations about Venetian wives. He knows nothing of Venice apart from the few months’ residence during which his courtship took place. A soldier since boyhood, he is unused to any peacetime society. Although he is a Venetian by association and allegiance, whatever he knows of the customs and assumptions of Venice is learned, not instinctive. If Iago, a native, says Venetian women are habitually unfaithful, it must be so (“Dost thou say so?”). Paul Robeson, whose second New York Othello production opened soon after the end of World War II, compared the Moor’s insecurity to what an American soldier in the occupying army in Japan might feel in courting a Japanese woman, totally ignorant of the culture and its customs and having no basis on which to disbelieve the advice offered him.

Besides denying him cultural experience, Othello’s warrior-past unfits him for his present dilemma in another way. He is decisive, as a good commander must be. He does not hesitate in doubt, and when resolved must act:

                      To be once in doubt

Is once to be resolved. . . .

I’ll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;

And on the proof, there is no more but this:

Away at once with love or jealousy.

                                                  ( 3.3.210 –23)

What works for the soldier is tragic for the husband; it pushes him past the doubt he cannot tolerate to an act of closure that is irrevocable.

Between Othello’s years of exclusively masculine experience in the “tented field” and Desdemona’s sheltered Venetian girlhood stretches a gap that even the most loving marriage can hardly bridge. He is black, she is white. He is middle-aged, she is young. Neither this disparity in age nor Othello’s unfamiliarity with Venice is in the story on which Shakespeare based his play (in that story, for example, the Moor is a longtime resident) suggests that the playwright was deliberately accentuating this marriage as a union of opposites. The source story also has the bride and groom live together in Venice for several months after the marriage; Shakespeare, keeping his own emphasis, sends his newlyweds off immediately to the challenges of Cyprus, allowing no time to foster personal or social familiarity. Othello and Desdemona are so thoroughly deprived of common ground as to constitute a paradigm of difference in marriage. It is as if Shakespeare were directing our attention to the tragic vulnerability of love itself. Desdemona’s devotion is total; and while Othello’s love may be based in part on her mirroring back to him his best self (“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them” [ 1.3.193 –94]), he has clearly invested his life in their new relationship. Each is dependent on the other, yet each is necessarily separated in isolated selfhood. Beyond Othello’s personal deficiencies, then, we may focus on this unresolvable contradiction and the cross-purposes and misunderstandings it breeds, inherent in any love relation but in Othello dramatically accented and thematized.

The play’s hero as well as its villain may thus be implicated in the disaster that befalls the marriage. From a different perspective, one may see additional psychological dimensions to this tragedy, a tragedy in which social forces have determining power beyond merely individual drives and deficiencies. It is, of course, Venetian society that labels Othello and Iago inferior, Iago for being far down in the social hierarchy and Othello for being foreign and dark-skinned. 4 Yet while neither Othello nor Iago is at home in the prevailing social system, they are both deeply embedded in it, like all the other characters, and are shaped by it. The play’s title, as Michael Long notes, is not just Othello or The Moor but Othello, The Moor of Venice . 5 The tragedy evolves from and reacts to a particular society, which is dramatized for us first in Venice itself and then, precariously maintained, in its fortified outpost, Cyprus. Venetian society is in many ways attractive, embellished by graceful accomplishments like Desdemona’s singing, playing, and dancing ( 3.3.216 ), sustained by a civil order one can take for granted. Brabantio disbelieves those who claim he has been robbed: “This is Venice. My house is not a grange [i.e., a farmhouse]” ( 1.1.119 ). Act 1, scene 3 shows us a rational government whose officers deliberate carefully under pressure, hear evidence judiciously.

But if the senators do justice to the alien Moor who has married a senator’s daughter, they are motivated less by fairness than by their desperate need for General Othello to stop the Turkish “theft” of their possession, Cyprus. Brabantio charges Othello with a similar theft on a personal level ( 1.2.80 ), and even when it is plain that Desdemona married of her own accord, her father still addresses her as “jewel,” a precious possession whose “escape” is galling ( 1.3.225 ). The Venetian value system of acquiring and possessing is clear in the frequency of commercial images in the play’s language, including other literal and metaphoric “jewels” that implicate Iago and even Othello. When Iago repeatedly advises “put money in thy purse,” Roderigo is persuaded he can win Desdemona with jewels. Good name is a jewel, Iago assures Othello—and therefore can be stolen. Iago is in fact the thief of Desdemona’s good name, just as he pockets Roderigo’s real jewels. Othello, too, shows the shaping power of this preoccupation with buying and selling, manipulating and increasing wealth, fearing theft. “Had she been true,” he says of his beautiful wife,

If heaven would make me such another world

Of one entire and perfect chrysolite [i.e., topaz],

I’d not have sold her for it.                 ( 5.2.175 –77)

The pervasive notion of woman as property, prized indeed but more as object than as person, indicates one aspect of a deep-seated sexual pathology in Venice. Othello admires Desdemona’s skin as she sleeps, “whiter . . . than snow, / And smooth as monumental alabaster” ( 5.2.4 –5). Besides the beauty of alabaster—yet another precious substance—its coldness and stillness are the keynotes. Earlier he had been troubled to feel her hand, “Hot, hot, and moist,” and sense there “a young and sweating devil . . . That commonly rebels” ( 3.4.45 –49). What he wants, it seems, is a beautiful form with no wayward life at all. “Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee / And love thee after” ( 5.2.20 –21).

Fear of women’s sexuality is omnipresent in Othello. Iago fans to flames the coals of socially induced unease in Othello, fantasizes on his own about being cuckolded by Othello and Cassio. In an ideology that can value only cloistered, desireless women, any woman who departs from this passivity will cause intense anxiety. One result is a version of the familiar “virgin/whore syndrome,” which Cassio actually enacts in the play with the two women who concern him most. He exalts “the divine Desdemona,” commanding the Cypriots to kneel to her as if to a goddess ( 2.1.93 ). He resists strongly when Iago’s conversation puts her in a sexual context, refusing to speculate about the wedding night, insisting on her modesty ( 2.3.26 –27). The woman with whom he is sexually involved, Bianca, is a strumpet—or is she? Bianca denies it, and we have no evidence from the text that she sells her favors as Iago says. The 1623 Folio list of characters which labels her “a courtesan” is most likely the work of someone in the printing house, the label being derived from the accusations of Iago, Cassio, and Emilia; but perhaps we should separate Shakespeare’s characterization of Bianca from that of these characters. Perhaps what we ought to register is not that Bianca is a slut but that Cassio treats her like a slut. If she has desired him and slept with him, she has, in his eyes, become a slut. Desdemona’s own frankly expressed desire for her husband in Act 1, scene 3 contrasts significantly with his denial of such feelings for her, and after he has possessed her there are suggestions that the revulsion he feels is for his sexual bond with her as well as for her purported adultery with Cassio. 6

This is perhaps the most insidious tragic design in Othello, a psychosocial web that ensnares men and women alike. It is never named. In the last scene, Emilia vows to speak out in spite of men—“Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, / All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak” ( 5.2.262 –63). But before she can, Iago stabs her into silence. Othello tries to sum up his life before ending it, but his moving picture of “one that loved not wisely, but too well” is incomplete. In that same speech he likens Desdemona to “a pearl . . . richer than all his tribe,” still caught in the Venetian economy of worth. Othello stops his own groping self-analysis with his sword, and Iago, still alive, refuses explanation: “What you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak word.” And the onlookers cannot contemplate the marriage of opposites so disastrously concluded, Desdemona and Othello dead on their marriage bed. “The object poisons sight,” shudders Lodovico; “Let it be hid.”

• Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), p. 448 and more generally chs. 1 and 12.
• Iago himself has in fact tried to wield influence of this kind, employing “three great ones of the city” to plead his case with Othello ( 1.1.9 ).
• This view was most strongly argued by F. R. Leavis in “Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero: A Note on Othello ,” Scrutiny 6 (1937–38): 259–83. The National Theatre production of 1964, with Laurence Olivier as Othello, was based on Leavis’s interpretation.
• This shared status as outsiders may well draw Othello, when his confidence is shaken, to rely all the more on Iago. Director Joe Dowling took this approach in his 1991 production in New York’s Shakespeare in the Park series: Richard Bernstein, “Looking Inside that Outsider, Othello the Moor,” New York Times , June 16, 1991, pp. 5, 34.
• The Unnatural Scene: A Study in Shakespearean Tragedy (London: Methuen, 1976), p. 39.
• Desdemona, not Othello, begs that they may pursue their married life in Cyprus: “That I did love the Moor to live with him / My downright violence and storm of fortunes / May trumpet to the world. My heart’s subdued / Even to the very quality of my lord . . . if I be left behind, / A moth of peace, and he go to the war, / The rites [of lovemaking] for why I love him are bereft me.” She was also the initiator in their courtship. Othello in supporting her plea disclaims the urgency of desire: “I . . . beg it not / To please the palate of my appetite, / Nor to comply with heat (the young affects / In me defunct).” In the last scene, commanded to remember her sins, Desdemona replies, “They are loves I bear to you” ( 5.2.49 ). “Ay, and for that thou diest,” responds Othello, seeming to find that loving desire for her own husband as sinful as that he imagines she has for Cassio.

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Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Othello

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Othello

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 0 )

Of all Shakespeare’s tragedies . . . Othello is the most painfully exciting and the most terrible. From the moment when the temptation of the hero begins, the reader’s heart and mind are held in a vice, experiencing the extremes of pity and fear, sympathy and repulsion, sickening hope and dreadful expectation. Evil is displayed before him, not indeed with the profusion found in King Lear, but forming, as it were, the soul of a single character, and united with an intellectual superiority so great that he watches its advance fascinated and appalled. He sees it, in itself almost irresistible, aided at every step by fortunate accidents and the innocent mistakes of its victims. He seems to breathe an atmosphere as fateful as that of King Lear , but more confined and oppressive, the darkness not of night but of a close-shut murderous room. His imagination is excited to intense activity, but it is the activity of concentration rather than dilation.

—A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy

Between William Shakespeare’s most expansive and philosophical tragedies— Hamlet and King Lear —is Othello, his most constricted and heart-breaking play. Othello is a train wreck that the audience horrifyingly witnesses, helpless to prevent or look away. If Hamlet is a tragedy about youth, and Lear concerns old age, Othello is a family or domestic tragedy of a middle-aged man in which the fate of kingdoms and the cosmos that hangs in the balance in Hamlet and Lear contracts to the private world of a marriage’s destruction. Following his anatomizing of the painfully introspective intellectual Hamlet, Shakespeare, at the height of his ability to probe human nature and to dramatize it in action and language, treats Hamlet’s temperamental opposite—the man of action. Othello is decisive, confident, and secure in his identity, duty, and place in the world. By the end of the play, he has brought down his world around him with the relentless force that made him a great general turned inward, destroying both what he loved best in another and in himself. That such a man should fall so far and so fast gives the play an almost unbearable momentum. That such a man should unravel so completely, ushered by jealousy and hatred into a bestial worldview that cancels any claims of human virtue and self-less devotion, shocks and horrifies. Othello is generally regarded as Shakespeare’s greatest stage play, the closest he would ever come to conforming to the constrained rules of Aristotelian tragedy. The intensity  and  focus  of  Othello   is  unalleviated  by  subplots,  comic  relief,  or  any  mitigation  or  consolation  for  the  deterioration  of  the  “noble  Moor”  and  his  collapse into murder and suicide. At the center of the play’s intrigue is Shakespeare’s most sinister and formidable conceptions of evil in Iago, whose motives and the wellspring of his villainy continue to haunt audiences and critics alike. Indeed, the psychological resonances of the drama, along with its provocative racial and gender themes, have caused Othello, perhaps more than any other of Shakespeare’s plays, to reverberate the loudest with current audiences and commentators. As scholar Edward Pechter has argued, “During the past twenty-five years or so, Othello has become the Shakespearean tragedy of choice, replacing King Lear in the way Lear had earlier replaced Hamlet as the play that speaks most directly and powerfully to current interests.”

Shakespeare derived his plot from Giraldi Cinthio’s “Tale of the Moor,” in the story collection Hecatommithi (1565), reshaping Cinthio’s sensational tale of jealousy, intrigue, and murder in several key ways. In Cinthio’s story, Alfiero, the scheming ensign, lusts after the Moor’s wife, named Disdemona, and after she spurns his advances, Alfiero seeks vengeance by accusing her of adultery with Cassio,  the  Moor’s  lieutenant.  Alfiero,  like  Iago,  similarly  arouses  the  Moor’s  suspicions by stealing Disdemona’s handkerchief and planting it in Cassio’s bed-room. However, the Moor and Alfiero join forces to kill Disdemona, beating her  to  death  with  a  stocking  filled  with  sand  before  pulling  down  the  ceiling  on her dead body to conceal the crime as an accident. The Moor is eventually captured,  tortured,  and  slain  by  Disdemona’s  relatives,  while  the  ensign  dies  during torture for another crime. What is striking about Shakespeare’s alteration of Cinthio’s grisly tale of murder and villainy is the shift of emphasis to the provocation for the murder, the ennobling of Othello as a figure of great stature and dignity to underscore his self-destruction, and the complication of motive for  the  ensign’s  actions.  Cinthio’s  version  of  Iago  is  conventionally  driven  by  jealousy  of  a  superior  and  lust  for  his  wife.  Iago’s  motivation  is  anything  but  explainable in conventional terms. Dramatically, Shakespeare turns the focus of the play from the shocking crime to its causes and psychic significance, trans-forming Cinthio’s intrigue story of vile murder into one of the greatest dramatic meditations on the nature of love and its destruction.

What  makes  Othello  so  unique  structurally  (and  painful  to  witness)  is  that  it  is  a  tragedy  built  on  a  comic  foundation.  The  first  two  acts  of  the  play  enact  the  standard  pattern  of  Shakespeare’s  romantic  comedies.  The  young Venetian noblewoman, Desdemona, has eloped with the middle-aged Othello, the military commander of the armed forces of Venice. Their union is opposed by Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, and by a rival for Desdemona, Roderigo,  who  in  the  play’s  opening  scenes  are  both  provoked  against Othello  by  Iago.  Desdemona  and  Othello,  therefore,  face  the  usual  challenges of the lovers in a Shakespearean comedy who must contend with the forces of authority, custom, and circumstances allied against their union. The romantic climax comes in the trial scene of act 1, in which Othello success-fully defends himself before the Venetian senate against Brabantio’s charge that  Othello  has  beguiled  his  daughter,  “stol’n  from  me,  and  corrupted  /  By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks.” Calmly and courteously Othello recounts how, despite the differences of age, race, and background, he won Desdemona’s heart by recounting the stories of his exotic life and adventures: “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them.” Wonder at Othello’s heroic adventures and compassion for her sympathy have brought the two opposites together—the young, inexperienced  Venetian  woman  and  the  brave,  experienced  outsider.  Desdemona finally, dramatically appears before the senate to support Othello’s account of their courtship and to balance her obligation to her father and now to her husband based on the claims of love:

My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty: To you I am bound for life and education; My life and education both do learn me How to respect you; you are the lord of duty; I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband; And so much duty as my mother show’d To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess Due to the Moor, my lord.

Both Desdemona and Othello defy by their words and gestures the calumnies heaped upon them by Roderigo and Brabantio and vindicate the imperatives of the heart over parental authority and custom. As in a typical Shakespearean comedy, love, tested, triumphs over all opposition.

Vindicated by the duke of Venice and the senate, Othello, accompanied by Desdemona, takes up his military duties in the face of a threatened Turkish invasion, and the lovers are given a triumphal wedding-like procession and marriage ceremony when they disembark on Cyprus. The storm that divides the Venetian fleet also disperses the Turkish threat and clears the way for the lovers’ happy  reunion  and  peaceful  enjoyment  of  their  married  state.  First  Cassio lands to deliver the news of Othello’s marriage and, like the best man, supplies glowing praise for the groom and his bride; next Desdemona, accompanied by Iago and his wife, Emilia, enters but must await news of the fate of Othello’s ship. Finally, Othello arrives giving him the opportunity to renew his marriage vows to Desdemona:

It gives me wonder great as my content To see you here before me. O my soul’s joy, If after every tempest come such calms, May the wind blow till they have wakened death, And let the labouring barque climb hills of seas Olympus-high, and duck again as low As hell’s from heaven. If it were now to die ’Twere now to be most happy, for I fear My soul hath content so absolute That not another comfort like to this Succeeds in unknown fate.

The scene crowns love triumphant. The formerly self-sufficient Othello has now  staked  his  life  to  his  faith  in  Desdemona  and  their  union,  and  she  has  done the same. The fulfillment of the wedding night that should come at the climax of the comedy is relocated to act 2, with the aftermath of the courtship and the wedding now taking  center  stage.  Having triumphantly bested  the  social and natural forces aligned against them, having staked all to the devotion of the other, Desdemona and Othello will not be left to live happily ever after, and the tragedy will grow out of the conditions that made the comedy. Othello, unlike the other Shakespearean comedies, adds three more acts to the romantic drama, shifting from comic affirmation to tragic negation.

Iago  reviews  Othello’s  performance  as  a  lover  by  stating,  “O,  you  are  well tuned now, / But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music.” Iago will now orchestrate discord and disharmony based on a life philosophy totally opposed to the ennobling and selfless concept of love demonstrated by the newlyweds. As Iago asserts to Roderigo, “Virtue? A fig!” Self-interest is all that  matters,  and  love  is  “merely  a lust  of  the  blood  and  a  permission  of  the will.” Othello and Desdemona cannot possibly remain devoted to each other, and, as Iago concludes, “If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an err-ing barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her.” The problem of Iago’s motivation to destroy Othello and Desdemona is not that he has too few motives but too many. He offers throughout the play multiple justifi cations for his intrigue: He has been passed over in favor of Cassio; he suspects the Moor and Cassio with his wife, Emilia; he is envious of Cassio’s open nature; and he is desirous of Desdemona himself. No single motive is relied on for long, and the gap  between  cause  and  effect,  between  the  pettiness  of  Iago’s  grudges  and  the monstrousness of his behavior, prompted Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a memorable phrase to characterize Iago’s “motiveless malignity.” There is in Iago a zest for villainy and a delight in destruction, driven more by his hatred and  contempt  for  any  who  oppose  his  conception  of  jungle  law  than  by  a  conventional  naturalistic  explanation  based  on  jealousy  or  envy.  Moreover, Shakespeare, by deliberately clouding the issue of Iago’s motive, finds ever more sinister threats in such a character’s apparently bottomless and unmerited hatred and capacity for evil.

Iago will direct the remainder of the play, constructing Othello’s down-fall out of the flimsiest evidence and playing on the strengths and weaknesses of Othello’s nature and the doubts that erode Othello’s faith in Desdemona. Act 3, one of the wonders of the stage, anatomizes Othello’s psychic descent from  perfect  contentment  in  his  new  wife  to  complete  loathing,  from  a  worldview  in  which  everything  is  as  it  appears  to  one  in  which  nothing  is  as it seems. Iago leads Othello to suspect that love and devotion are shams disguising the basest of animalistic  instincts.  Misled  by  the  handkerchief,  his  love  token  to  Desdemona,  that  Iago  has  planted  in  Cassio’s  room  and  by a partially overheard conversation between Iago and Cassio, Othello, by the end of act 3, forsakes his wife and engages himself in a perverse version of the marriage ceremony of act 2 to Iago. As the pair kneels together, they exchange vows:

Iago: Witness you ever-burning lights above, You elements that clip us round about, Witness that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart To wronged Othello’s service. Let him command, And to obey shall be in me remorse, What bloody business ever.

Othello: I greet thy love, Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous, And will upon the instant put thee to’t. Within these three days let me hear thee say That Cassio’s not alive.

Iago: My friend is dead. ’Tis done at your request; but let her live.

Othello: Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her, damn her! Come, go with me apart. I will withdraw To furnish me with some swift means of death For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.

Iago: I am your own for ever.

This scene has suggested to some critics that Iago’s true motivation for destroying the marriage of Desdemona and Othello is a repressed homosexual love for Othello. An equal case can be made that Iago here completes his role as Vice, borrowed from the medieval morality plays, sealing the Faustian bargain for Othello’s soul in this mock or black marriage scene.

The play moves relentlessly from here to catastrophe as Othello delivers justice to those he is convinced have wronged him. As he attempts to carry out  his  execution  of  Desdemona,  she  for  the  first  time  realizes  his  charges  against her and his utter delusion. Ignoring her appeals for mercy and avowals of innocence, Othello smothers her moments before Emilia arrives with the proof of  Desdemona’s  innocence  and  Iago’s  villainy.  Othello  must  now  face  the  realization  of  what  he  has  done.  He turns  to  Iago,  who  has  been  brought before him to know the reason for his actions. Iago replies: “Demand me  nothing;  what  you  know,  you  know:  /  From  this  time  forth  I  never  will  speak  word.”  By  Iago’s  exiting  the  stage,  closing  access  to  his  motives,  the  focus remains firmly on Othello, not as Iago’s victim, but as his own. His final speech mixes together the acknowledgment of what he was and what he has become, who he is and how he would like to be remembered:

I have done the state some service, and they know’t. No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe.

Consistent with his role as guardian of order in the state, Othello carries out his own execution, by analogy judging his act as a violation reflected by Venice’s savage enemy:

And say besides, that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk Beat a Venetian and tradu’d the state, I took by th’ throat the circumcisèd dog, And smote him—thus.

Othello, likewise, has “tradu’d the state” and has changed from noble and valiant Othello to a beast, with the passion that ennobled him shown as corrosive and demeaning. He carries out his own execution for a violation that threatens social and psychic order. For the onlookers on stage, the final tableau of the dead Desdemona and Othello “poisons sight” and provokes the command to “Let it be hid.” The witnesses on stage cannot compute rationally what has occurred nor why, but the audience has been given a privileged view of the battle between good and evil worked out in the private recesses of a bedroom and a human soul.

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

Othello Oxford Lecture by Emma Smith

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critical perspectives (marxist & feminist) + Othello (1 Viewer)

• Thread starter sf_diegoxrock
• Start date Jul 16, 2005

sf_diegoxrock

hey all, just wondering whether anyone had any notes or essays on Othello, a critical study of the play and if anyone has any notes on the marxist and feminist theories/perspectives if anyone has any essays/notes about Othello AND the feminist/marxist approach to it then that would be even better! =DDDD thanks in advance  

I had to do a 1500 word essay on Othello "Othello is a play primarily about Othello. Discuss". If u r having trouble understaning the text and the themes and everything, i recommend u try www.sparknotes.com which gives an excellent chapter by chapter summary and analysis. If u want any futher help from me in any other way, just post a reply and let me know what i can do 4 u.  

excellent site for the english book im doing "othello" someone keep bumping this board for other peeps reading othello or shakespeare!!!  

bump.. can some give me or show me some psychoanalytic, marxist, and feminist readings of othello?? firstly can some tell me what are psychoanalytic, marxist, and feminist readings, im not really familar with them thanks  

Victory is mine.

which scene is effective for a psychoanalytic reading?? because i have to study a scene and transform it my own way  

For psychoanalytical, it depends on who you favour talking about, Iago or Othello. Really its only those two you can get a lot of depth for. For psychoanalytical, the best scene is where Othello strikes Desdemona in front of Lodovico. Lodovico says this quote (shortened) which is useful, "Is this the noble Moor... neither graze nor pierce". It gives you a good insight into his deterioation as a character. edit: Out of curiosite kadlil, what subjects are you doing and what do you estimate your ranks as.  

This are my summary readings summaried from summary readings, so with any student-created work take it with a grain of salt. if anyone else needs them feel free by all means. Psychoanalytical: A psychoanalytical reading of "Othello" focuses on the nature of Othello's behaviour as both delusional and symptomatic of a deeply disturbed psyche, which can only relate to Desdemona in terms of the bipolar extremes of pure and divine, or whoreish and unchaste. Othello undergoes an unsettling transition from matrimonial harmony to sinister thoughts of his wife committing infidelity, with intangible evidence lending itself to speculation. This change happens due to Othello's numerous insecurities, predominantly regarding his race, which makes him vulnerable to the machinations of Iago. It reflects upon Othello's own self absorbption and gullibility that his perception of Desdemona is so radically polarised. Analysis of Iago's character and language expresses his obsession with anamalistic behaviours, inward infections and pornographic imagery. He is an extremely base character who derides values such as love, honesty and loyalty as mere constructs with no substance or merit. Iago is motivated by the indignation he has 'suffered' over Cassio recieving the military promotion he believes was rightly his. Although he does not justify this hatred, it can be hypothesised Iago feels he must compensate for the lack of power he exudes in Venetian society, through the use of his manipulative prowess to hurt others. Feminist: A feminist reading of "Othello" would be seen as confirmtion of the misogynistic attitude of Renaissance society. Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca are all passive characters. They are controlled by their fathers, husbands or sons and never given independant status in society. Bianca for example, is used as an object of gratification by Cassio, and discarded when it is not convenient for Cassio to have her around. Desdemona's actions in marrying Othello against the requests of her father are symbolic of female independance attempting to gain foothold in a concieted Venetian society. Desdemona attempts to play an equal role in society, and pays the ultimate price for her actions. Once Iago's plans are well on their way to fruition, Othello begins to greet Desdemona with abuse and violence. He views his wife as his possession, thefore giving him the right to strike her at his whim which correlates with the context of the time. From a feminist perspective, these events are the equivalent of modern domestic violence, which portrays Othello as a very arrogant and misogynistic male. Spelling: forgive me x_x  

jodzzzzzzzzz15

i'm blowing in on the Othelo reading discussion, here, but thanx soo much for posting those summarises. BIG Help  

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Mirroring Change: Literature and Social Transformation

International Seminar

3rd & 4th October 2024

Organized by

Research and Cultural Forum (RCF)

Department of English

Pondicherry University

Puducherry-605014

Host Department : The Department of English at Pondicherry University has been an important educational destination for research scholars and students, ever since it commenced functioning in 1986. Over the years, the department has produced innumerable PhD and M. Phil scholars, in addition to a large number of postgraduate students. The faculty of the department with their different specializations and academic interests are at the forefront of innovative teaching and advanced research varying from contemporary literary, cultural and language studies to theoretical explorations. The department also runs a Post Graduate Diploma in Professional Communication in English, an add-on program, in much demand among students and employees.

Furthermore, the department has also sought to enhance the language and communication skills of students from across the University through Functional

English and other communication-oriented courses. Another hallmark of the department is the Research and Cultural Forum (RCF) which acts as an avenue for scholars and students to showcase their research work and creative abilities. The department has also been at the forefront of organizing seminars, workshops and faculty development programs.

About Research and Cultural Forum (RCF):

Conceived thirty-five years ago as Research and Journal Alert Forum (RJAF) at the Department of English, Pondicherry University, RCF is a platform for research scholars and students of the department to discuss their research findings in various areas related to literature and culture and also present their creative talents. Run exclusively by the research scholars of the department, under the guidance of the faculty members and the support of MA students the forum hosts invited talks, workshops and interactive sessions by experts of national and international repute in the emerging areas of English Studies. The forum was recently renamed Research and Cultural Forum to integrate the department's research and cultural outputs. Now, it proudly undertakes the mission of bringing together and highlighting the role of literature in social transformation through this two-day International Seminar.

About the Seminar:

A Two-Day International Seminar has been planned by the Department of English on the 3rd & 4th of October 2024, with the focus area “Mirroring Change: Literature and Social Transformation”.

Literature has been able to predict, analyze, and critique social, economic and political change for a long time. This, in turn, has contributed to understanding social and political transformation through a medium that has been conventionally seen to be largely imaginative and fictional. While Orwell’s cautionary tale, 1984 predicted the effects of totalitarian regimes and surveillance, Harriet Beecher’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin “helped lay the groundwork for the American Civil War” (Kaufman, 2006: 18). If Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath brought into full view the travails of America during the Great Depression, Munshi Premchand’s Godaan brutally exposed poverty and the evils of the zamindari system in India. Literature has thus been constantly in sync with the changing silhouettes of society.

The conference aims to explore how literature has closely interacted with and mirrored the intricate matrix of the social and political milieu. This interaction has resulted in innumerable texts that have reflected these significant changes and helped us understand an ever-changing world. The wide gamut of social, political, economic, cultural, sociological and anthropological change has prompted the writer to ask questions, show up the mirror and sometimes even offer prescriptions for ills, thus making literature a vehicle for social transformation.  The conference aims to investigate and explore the significant role that literature has played in reflecting these changes, therefore acting as truth-seeker, sentinel, chronicler, and critic, all rolled into one.   

The conference aims to explore the interchange between literature and social transformation across varied arenas and can include, but is not restricted, to the following areas:

•           Political upheaval and social movements

•           Caste, class and hierarchy

•           Reigns, regimes and democracy

•           Marxism and literature

•           Changing dimensions of gender

•           Queer narratives

•           Geographies, borders and migration

•           Indigenous literatures

•           Anthropocene, Ecocriticism and Ecofeminism 

•           Dalit literature and social justice

•           Technology and literature

•           Popular culture and subcultures

•           Medical imperialism and illness narratives

Registration Fee:

Faculty Members:      Rs. 2000

Research Scholars:     Rs. 1000

PG Students:               Rs. 500

Co-authors are required to pay individually.

UG students (participation only): Rs 200

Abstracts can be uploaded through the Google form link

below on or before 30th August 2024.

Registration Link: https://forms.gle/CA78DHY86yfQtzhW9

Your queries may be addressed to rcfseminar202 4 @gmail.com

Important Dates:

Last date for sending abstracts: 30th August 2024

Confirmation of acceptance will be communicated by: 2nd September 2024

Complete papers are to be sent by: 27th September 2024 

Travel and Accommodation:

We hope that you will be able to take care of your travel and accommodation. However, accommodation will be arranged for outstation paper presenters if intimated in advance.

Working lunch and local hospitality will be provided.

Chief Patron :

Prof. K.Tharanikkarasu, Honourable Vice-Chancellor (i/c), Pondicherry University

Prof. Clement S Lourdes, Director, Culture  & Cultural Relations

Prof. Rajneesh Bhutani, Registrar (i/c)

Prof. D. Lazar, Finance Officer (i/c)

Chairperson : Prof. Clement S Lourdes, Dean, School of Humanities

Convener : Dr. T Marx, Prof & Head, Department of English

Faculty Coordinator: Dr. Harpreet Kaur Vohra, Associate Professor

Coordinators: Drishya K, Steward C.

Members:     

                        Prof. Binu Zachariah

                        Prof. K. Reshmi

                        Prof. Lakhimai Mili

Dr. Aiswarya S. Babu

                        Dr. Vidya Sarveswaran

Dr. S. Visaka Devi

Address for Communication:

Steward  C.        

Research Scholars                                                     

Department of English                                              

Pondicherry University                                             

Puducherry-605014                                                   

8589825788, 8270410154