Summing
up so far
The great plays about love take us to the core of
Shakespeare's work. We meet a rich assortment of attitudes,
embedded in different contexts and circumstances. Among the
most important circumstances are youth, war, and threats
from others. Different cases are contrasted to throw light
on their intrinsic worth. Clashes are portrayed with clear
warnings directed towards the spectator's sense of
self-preservation.
The action as it unfolds is often complicated. The author's
simplest starting point is natural attractions. In
themselves they are never so consistent that they can be a
safe foundation for lasting arrangements, since all natural
feelings can come into conflict with other, equally strong,
feelings, or with unfortunate consequences. Enduring
relationships demand care in addition.
Even though Shakespeare tells us a lot about the
consequences of actions, little emerges about the
backgrounds of the different personality types. Through
plays like As
You Like It we get
an inkling, but no more, that ordinary family backgrounds
are preferable to growing up within political power-games.
The depth of each individual is therefore limited.
Shakespeare contents himself with differentiating between
types of characters and between heroes and villains. The
rest is elaborations of the interactions and brushes with
the unfolding forces. Why is Iago so evil, why is Desdemona
so much of an angel? Is Cleopatra in love with Antony at
all, or is she just concerned about power and security for
her children? Such questions are at most touched upon
briefly, and they remain largely unanswered.
The story that comes the closest to offering an explanation
is the one about Troilus. Clearly his betrayal by his
beloved causes his aggressiveness to grow. Troilus
therefore points to an intimate connection between our
personal world and that larger world which we have in
common.
In the late play The
Winter's Tale jealousy
echoes again, this time as pure aberration. The play shows
a case of how power destroys those who hold it, and the
story develops into a critical consideration of the class
pride of the absolute monarch. The
Winter's Tale leads
far into the revolt of the citizens against the feudal
society of the past. In England that revolt led to the
revolution and Cromwell, only thirty years later.
On this note we can suitably end our first section, in
which we have delved into Shakespeare's analysis of
individuals and their personal relationships. A major line
of thought from the early plays is precisely the
relationship of political developments to basic attitudes
taken from everyday life. The intertwining gains in
importance through the historical plays and the tragedies.
As we penetrate Shakespeare's love stories further, we
perceive increasingly clearly that emotions are connected
to politics; and the deeper we dig down into the political
plots, the more important personal background turns out to
be. In such ways we are led over towards a consideration of
life in society.