!

whole arrangement is contrived with regard to the spectator's point of view. This standpoint of the spectator enters fundamentally into all dramatic analysis. When we use such elementary terms as 'tragic,' 'comic,' we assume in their use the spectator's view point; we call the experience of Malvolio comic, yet it would be the reverse of comic to Malvolio. When Aristotle gives his famous definition of tragedy, as purifying the emotions of pity and terror by a healthy exercise of them, it is obviously the spectator's emotions with which his definition is concerned. Similarly the present inquiry, besides plot, must give attention to dramatic 'tone' the technical expression for such differences as tragic, comic, humorous, and all their varieties and shadings. The moral system of Shakespeare will be traced alike in plot, the course of events appearing in the play, and in tone, the sympathetic response of the spectator.

With these preliminary observations the chapters that follow may be left to explain themselves. The inquiry falls into three natural parts. In the first, particular dramas will be presented to illustrate what may be recognised as root ideas in the moral system of Shakespeare. Then the inquiry will widen, and survey the world of Shakespeare's creation in its moral complexity. In the third part will be considered the forces of life in Shakespeare's moral world, so far as these express themselves in dramatic forms, from personal will at one end of the scale to overruling providence at the other end.

BOOK I

ROOT IDEAS OF SHAKESPEARE'S MORAL

SYSTEM

CHAPTER I: Heroism and Moral Balance: The first four Histories

CHAPTER II: Wrong and Retribution: The second four Histories CHAPTER III: Innocence and Pathos: The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

CHAPTER IV: Wrong and Restoration: The Comedies of Winter's Tale and Cymbeline

CHAPTER V: The Life Without and the Life Within: The MaskTragedy of Henry the Eighth

I

HEROISM AND MORAL BALANCE: THE FIRST FOUR

HISTORIES

WITHOUT doubt Henry of Monmouth is to be regarded as the grand hero of the Shakespearean world. It is in approaching this theme that the dramatist feels the limitations of dramatic form. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment.

But

The historic materials limit what follows to a picture of war. wise counsellors of the King-not speaking in the presence, which might suggest flattery, but in secret conference with one another indicate the universal genius of Henry.

Hear him but reason in divinity,

And all-admiring with an inward wish

You would desire the King were made a prelate :

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

You would say it hath been all in all his study:

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear

A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.1

1 Henry the Fifth: I. i. 38.