S IV. SHAKESPEARE AS TRAGEDIAN HAKESPEARE is known by his tragedies rather than by his poems or comedies. They are not the most pleasing of his writings but are indisputably the most powerful. I have not in mind any very strict definition of the term tragedy, but mean by it a drama that is nes in a sad and remediless catastrophe. The result reached is due to nature rather than mischance. It indicates a universal ather than a particular weakness, and hakespeare has been spoken of often as an interpreter of humanity because he has brought to view its fundamental as well as individual traits. We will notice first some of the circumstances which turned his thoughts to tragic themes, and then his treatment of such topics. With all his vivacity he tended naturally to that which is somber and melancholy. In his earlier career he may be spoken of as the interpreter, perhaps better, the delineator of human life, but there followed a period in which he became the in terpreter of humanity itself. He adhered still to narrative, to actions attributed to men and women, but he dwelt on what might be, what on occasions is, rather than on the ordinary occurrences of human experience. What is human nature at bottom? seems to have been the question over which his mind was brooding. Here he took a depressing view of man's being and nature. He had always been sensitive to thoughts of decay and death. Turning back to clay was a repulsive picture to his mind, but lingered in his imagination against his will. Before middle life sentiments like these were rather floating suggestions, however, than controlling ideas. But as early as 1602, when he wrote Hamlet, somber if not melancholy ideas bore sway in his soul. Brandes, a Danish critic, an appreciative and admiring student of the poet, says of the play Measure for Measure: that it is pessimistic, and adds: "Shakespeare's melancholy increases, he broods over the problem of human existence, the prevalence of evil, the power of wickedness." His surroundings were depressing and aggravated the drooping of his spirits. The royal court was corrupt, the private life of those high in authority disgraceful. Men of mark, justly or unjustly, suffered before the law. Raleigh was sent to the Tower in 1603, Essex beheaded in 1601. Under such circumstances and in such a state of mind the dramatist went on to fulfil his engagements with the theatre and wrote his great tragedies. In these he gave his views of man when he most unrestrainedly acts out himself. His gentlemen, like Prospero, Bassanio, the Duke in As You Like It, are respected, honored, but not men of force. Especially noticeable is it that he has brought upon the stage no women of the highest character; some of them are smart, witty, resourceful, others are amiable, mild, attractive, still others are daring, defiant, reckless, but there is no Shunamite, no Deborah, no Mother in Israel, no oracle to stand beside the wise women of the German tribes. These general facts and the tendencies of mind developed in the tragedies can to some extent be accounted for by the personal experiences manifested in a close study of his life. While he did much for woman, he suffered much from her. Henry Ward Beecher once said, on the question whether Shakespeare should be tolerated for popular reading, women owe more to him than to any other person for the advanced standing they hold in modern times. This may be questioned, but he certainly has thrown a fascination about the female character. This is due, in part, to his own personal susceptibility. He seems to have been very responsive to a woman's eyes. They are the creators of love. We only know life's value by encountering their piercing glance. For where is any author in the world, 66 Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?'' But one extreme leads extreme leads to another. Shakespeare, in his youthful enthusiasm, based the power and value of woman on this frail foundation, viz: the gleam and glow of her face radiant with the Promethean fire of her eyes. But he came to put another estimate on this power to fascinate the judgment and subdue the will. He felt in later experiences the degradations inflicted on one enslaved by feminine tyranny. After a time the victim of the charmer writhes in his helplessness, and delight is displaced by remorse. Close pen etrating students find in the poet's writings evidence that his admiration was at times turned into bitterness. A dark lady figures largely in the sonnets and an almost demoniac power is attributed to her. In sonnet 132 we find these lines: "Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, In sonnet 141 we have this pitiful confession: "In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes It is not known how far these sonnets are biographical; it is to be hoped not to a great extent. I am sure they are not wholly so, and express sentiments that he outgrew, but they express what he considered possible, what he had seen, doubtless what he had in part felt, and give us thus a trustworthy clue to his estimate of human nature. In more definable ways he acquired a knowledge of the tragic in life. Perhaps he did not suffer defeats and disappointments beyond those of ordinary men, but |