i. iv.

e.g. 85-104; ii. ii, &c.

CH. XIX. four actions: there is the action initiating the problem with the three tragedies which make up its solution, there is again the action generating the intrigue and the three tragedies which constitute its nemesis. The threefold tragedy in the Main plot has its elements exactly analogous, each to each, to the threefold tragedy of the Underplot: Lear and Gloucester alike reap a double nemesis of evil from the children they have favoured, and good from the children they have wronged; the innocent Cordelia has to suffer like the innocent Edgar; alike in both stories the gains of the wicked are found to be the means of their destruction. Even in the subactions, which have only a temporary distinctness in carrying out such elaborate interworking, the same Parallelism manifests itself. They run in pairs: where Kent has an individual mission as an agency for good, Oswald runs a course parallel with him as an agency for evil; of the e. g. iv. ii. two heirs of Lear, Albany, after passively representing the viii, from good side of the Main plot, has the function of presiding over the nemesis which comes on the evil agents of the Underplot, while Cornwall, who is active in the evil of the Main plot, is the agent in bringing suffering on the good iv. ii; iv. victims of the Underplot; once more from opposite sides ▼; v. iii. 238. of the Lear story Goneril and Regan work in parallel intrigues to their destruction. Every line of the pattern runs parallel to some distant line. Further, so fundamental is the symmetry that we have only to shift the point of view and the Parallelism becomes Contrast. If the family histories be arranged around Cordelia and Edmund, as centres of good and evil in their different spheres, we perceive a sharp antithesis between the two stories extending to every detail though stated already in the chapter on Lear, I should like to state it again in parallel columns to do it full justice.

29;

59.

iii. vii.

The play of Lear is itself sufficient to suggest to the critic that in the analysis of Shakespeare's plots he may safely expect to find symmetry in proportion to their intricacy.

CH. XIX.

B b

CHAP. XX.

Movement applied to Plot.

Motive
Form.

Movement:

WE

XX.

INTEREST OF PLOT: DYNAMICS.

E now reach the Dynamics of Plot: the important department of dramatic interest which comprehends the effects dependent upon the actual progress of the story, as distinguished from those which imply the selection and comparison of its various parts. This interest of Movement falls under two heads--Motive Form and Motive Force. The first is made by a succession of incidents acting upon our sense of design. But motion implies force: and the second type of interest is in watching the underlying causes or principles which the current of incidents reveals. The first addresses itself to our sense of symmetry, the second to our sense of economy. They will be considered separately.

Motive Form is the impression of design left by the succession of incidents in the order in which they actually Simple stand. The succession of incidents may suggest progress to the Line of a goal, as in the Caskets Story. This is Simple1 Movement: the Line of Action becomes a straight line. We get the next step by the variation that is made when a curved line is Compli substituted for a straight line: in other words, when the ment: the succession of incidents reaches its goal, but only after a

Action a

straight

line.

cated Move

Line of

Action a

curve.

diversion. This in its most prominent form is what is known as Complication and Resolution. A train of events is obstructed and diverted from what appears its natural course, which gives the interest of Complication: after a time the obstruction is removed and the natural course is restored,

1 See note on page 74.

which is the Resolution of the action: the Complication, like CHAP. XX. a musical discord, having existed only for the sake of being resolved. No clearer example could be desired than that of Antonio, whose career when we are introduced to it appears to be that of leading the money-market of Venice and extending patronage and protection all around; by the entanglement of the bond this career is checked and Antonio turned into a prisoner and bankrupt; then Portia cuts the knot and Antonio becomes all he has been before. Or again, the affianced intercourse of Portia and Bassanio begins with iii. ii. 173. an exchange of rings; by the cross circumstances connected with Antonio's trial one of them parts with this token, and iv. ii. the result is a comic interruption to the smoothness of lovers' life, until by Portia's confession of the ruse the old footing is v. i. 266. restored.

Movement

sion-Move

Complicated Movement as so stated belongs to the Action Actionside of dramatic effect. It rests upon design and the inter- distinworking of details; its interest lies in obstacles interposed to guished be removed, doing for the sake of undoing, entanglement for from Pasits own sake; in its total effect it ministers to a sense of ment. intellectual satisfaction, like that belonging to a musical fugue, in which every opening suggested has been sufficiently followed up. We get a movement which is at once different, and yet a counterpart, when the sense of design is inseparable from effects of passion, and the movement is, as it were, traced in our emotional nature. In this case a growing strain is put upon our sympathy which is not unlike Complication. But no Resolution follows: the rise is made to end in fall, the progress leads to ruin; in place of the satisfaction that comes from restoring and unloosing is substituted a fresh appeal to our emotional nature, and from agitation we pass only to the calmer emotions of pity and awe. There is thus a Passion-Movement distinct from Action-Movement; and, analogous to the Complication and Resolution of the latter, Passion-Movement has its Strain and Reaction. The

The Line

CHAP. XX. Line of Passion has its various forms. A chapter has been devoted to illustrating one form of Passion-Movement, which of Passion may be called the Regular Arch-if we may found a techa Regular nical term on the happy illustration of Gervinus. The Arch, example was taken from the play of Julius Caesar, the emotional effect in which was shown to pass from calm interest to greater and greater degree of agitation, until after culminating in the centre it softens down and yields to the different calmness of pity and acquiescence. The movement an Inclined of Richard III, Othello, and many other dramas more rePlane sembles the form of an Inclined Plane, the turn in the emoiv. ii. 46. tion occurring long past the centre of the play. Or again, or a Wave there is the Wave Line of emotional distribution, made by

Line.

For

repeated alternations of strain and relief. This is a form of Passion-Movement that nearly approaches Action-Movement, and readily goes with it in the same play; in The Merchant of Venice the union of the two stories gives such alternate Strain and Relief, and the Episode of the Rings comes as final Relief to the final Strain of the trial.

The distinction between Action-Movement and Passion

Comedy, Movement is of special importance in Shakespeare-Criticism, 'Tragedy,' substitute, inasmuch as it is the real basis of distinction between the in the case two main classes of Shakespearean dramas. Every one of Shake

speare,

feels that the terms Comedy and Tragedy are inadequate, and indeed absurd, when applied to Shakespeare. The distinction these terms express is one of Tone, and they were quite in place in the Ancient Drama, in which the comic and tragic tones were kept rigidly distinct and were not allowed to mingle in the same play. Applied to a branch of Drama of which the leading characteristic is the complete Mixture of Tones the terms necessarily break down, and the so-called 'Comedies' of The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure contain some of the most tragic effects in Shakespeare. The true distinction between the two kinds of plays is one of Movement, not Tone. In The Merchant