CHAPTER IV

SHAKESPEARE'S CONTEMPORARIES AND

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SUCCESSORS IN THE DRAMA

'HE race of giants" was the name given by the poet John Dryden, more than fifty years after Shakespeare's death, to that band of prominent, and in a measure great dramatists, who would have stamped the half-century between 1590 and 1640 as the golden age of European drama, even though it had produced no Shakespeare. Certainly, the extraordinary standard set by the latter causes nearly all the works of his contemporaries and successors to appear faded imitations or inadequate attempts at rivalry with the one who surpassed them all. But if we apply, for instance, the standard of contemporary Spanish drama (with the single exception of Calderon's two or three best pieces), or that of the somewhat later classical drama of the French, the phenomena of England's dramatic century assume gigantic proportions. The discovery (in 1881) of the drama Oldenbarneveld shows that by no means everything which lies buried in libraries in the form of old quartos-perhaps not even the best-has been reprinted; yet the more we become acquainted with the dramatic life of which Shakespeare was the centre, the greater becomes our astonishment at that really unique period in the life of the English people.

The dramatists of that period have been compared to a world of planets, of which Shakespeare was the sun. But the comparison is not accurate, since Shakespeare's contemporaries in the drama also went their own ways. He did not form a "school": and thus the consideration of those numerous independent poets, who nearly all obtained-and partly also deserved-great success as writers for the stage is rendered more attractive. We must bear in mind that the eleven theatres, which were in existence about 1603, offered a powerful incentive to continually renewed dramatic activity, and that the hundreds of pieces belonging to that period, which are preserved to us in addition to the thirty-six or thirty-seven genuine pieces of

Shakespeare, represent only a fragment of the stock of plays which the greedy public of that time swallowed in the fifty years or so between Shakespeare's arrival in London and the closing of the theatres by the Puritans.

In originality of invention, in freedom in the choice of subjects and in execution, in dramatic boldness and vigour, the non-Shakespearian English drama surpasses all contemporary European conceptions. What is even Corneille, compared with the tragic greatness of a Massinger, a Webster, or a Fletcher? Many of the comedies of Beaumont, Heywood, and Middleton are quite equal, in wit, grace and joyous humour, to those produced in France at that time and later, with the single exception of Molière's. In fidelity to nature in the matter of language, nothing at all belonging to that period can be compared in Europe to the English drama at the time of Shakespeare and later. It is a great pity, although easily accounted for, that, in consequence of Shakespeare's overwhelming greatness, all the many beautiful, or at any rate remarkable, productions of his time are to a large extent unknown even to the most highly educated. A knowledge of them is almost indispensable for a true understanding of Shakespeare's perfect greatness. It first enables us to comprehend why he, but not one of his contemporaries, has become for posterity a name of world-wide reputation. One of the best methods of properly appreciating Shakespeare is to consider what it is he possesses which all others lack.

Dramatic impetuosity is common to all. Yet all, without exception, lack what is most important in Shakespeare's art, the convincing reality of the action, the natural, irresistible result of the characters, necessary to great poetical justice. Goethe calls this Shakespeare's "comprehensibility" (das Fassliche), meaning the internal consistency which at once becomes obvious even to the uneducated amongst the audience; and this "comprehensibility" it is which is lacking in all Shakespeare's competitors. In them striking details are to be found in abundance: "beautiful passages," which in themselves honourably hold their ground by the side of Shakespeare; on the other hand, those poets want the sure and firm hand which creates a full, genuine picture of life in the outline and development of men and their actions. The characters suddenly break down without any necessity: the bad become good, the good or half-good become wholly bad, virtuous women fall-a thing unheard of in Shakespeare; murderers repent and reform; actions take place, the reasons for which are either not set forth at all, or with great lameness. To this must be added the attempt to please the public by forced effect-without having recourse to well-known old materials-by singular contrivances and characters, even by making

use of striking events of the day. This tendency became especially prevalent after Shakespeare's death. Such demoralisation of taste took a bitter revenge upon the poets and the English drama: perhaps it is in a measure responsible for the stage having fallen into such disrepute in Puritan times.

We know much less in every respect of the life of those dramatists than of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson at best forms an exception, but he was not simply a dramatist: he also had a care for his own reputation. Of some of the others we know scarcely anything; of not a single one do we know much.

It is hard to explain why it is that BEN JONSON (1574-1637) as a rule is named immediately after Shakespeare, almost as on a footing of equality. Compared with him, Shakespeare the poet rises to so gigantic a height, that he completely overshadows the dull, feeble light of his younger contemporary. Amongst all the noteworthy dramatists Benjamin Jonson, as a poet, was the feeblest as compared with Shakespeare. It was not the result of an irresistible inclination that he took to the stage at all; the necessity of earning a livelihood drove him to it at that time the theatre afforded an author without means the only possibiltiy of making his way honourably through the world. At bottom he was essentially a philologer, a savant; he also wrote a Latin Grammar and translated Horace's Ars poetica.

THOMAS FULLER (born 1608) has left a striking comparison of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, derived from the oral tradition of the personality of the former, and from personal knowledge of the latter, which also agrees with the description of other contemporaries. According to this, Ben Jonson was "like a clumsy Spanish galleon, built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances; on the other hand, Shakespeare was like an English warship, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, and could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds by his quickness of wit and invention." A glance at the certainly thoughtful, but genial, bright face of Shakespeare, as shown in all his portraits, and at the coarse, sullen, almost gloomy features of Ben Jonson, most strikingly confirms Fuller's judgment.

In their course of life, also, the two were as different as possible. Apparently, both grew old in the same circle, the theatrical: yet Shakespeare remained all his life the thorough "gentleman." Jonson ended his days in want, like a forgotten comedian, little better than the jovial, dissolute pre-Shakespearian dramatists. Born in London (?) in 1574, he was apprenticed to a bricklayer by his stepfather, who followed the same calling. Disliking the occupation, he enlisted as a soldier, fought in the Netherlands, where (as subsequently in London)

he was engaged in bloody affairs of honour, which nearly brought him to the scaffold; on one occasion he killed his adversary in a duel; he changed his religion several times; and, when twenty years old, went on the stage.

In 1598, he submitted his first play Every Man in his Humour to the company of which Shakespeare was a member : it was on the point of being rejected, but, owing to the intervention of the latter, was accepted for representation. He then wrote, in fairly regular succession, about fifty dramatic pieces, the most important of which are Every Man out of his Humour (1599), Cynthia's Revels (1600), The Poetaster (1601), Sejanus (1603), Volpone, or The Fox (1605), The Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Catilina (1611), Bartholomew Fair (1614). He died in 1637.

In two points Ben Jonson had the advantage of Shakespeare: the University of Oxford made the poet, who was marvellously well-read in classical literature, a Master of Arts, and King James I. of England appointed him poet laureate. An obituary notice described him in eulogistic terms as having more Latin at his command than Shakespeare could even understand:1 thus, the old philological priggishness constantly asserts itself. Latin and Greek were Ben Jonson's worst enemies: his enormous learning extinguished the feeble poetic spark, which perhaps had originally glimmered within him. For Shakespeare, the works of ancient and modern authors were only the rawest of raw material, out of which he produced something better of his own. Jonson, on the other hand, was fond of introducing, with or without reason, a line from Anacreon here, one from Euripides there, a stanza from Horace or some distichs from Juvenal, a jest from Petronius or a powerful passage from the dramatist Seneca, almost literally translated. He was the pedant, vain of his wide reading, who thinks he can do more than anyone else, since he possesses more knowledge of doubtful value. At the same time, there was hardly a man who had less real taste for the essence of classical literature than Ben Jonson: he transplants some lovely gem from Anacreon or other ancient author into the midst of the flattest and most nauseous scenes. Thus, he makes a hideous old miser, the hero in Volpone (II. 2), describe his lustful passion for an honourable woman in a paraphrase of Anacreon's charming fourteenth Ode! And, in a still more repulsive scene, in which the same hideous creature attempts to ravish the woman, he sings in his modest victim's face a love song which is nothing but an imitation, pure and simple, of Catullus's delightful poem of kisses addressed to his Lesbia!

1 He could command

That which your Shakespeare scarce could understand.

H. RAMSAY (Upon the Death of Ben Jonson).

Ben Jonson's efforts were not devoted to representing actual human beings, but to making use of the stage for the purposes of moralising. In each of his pieces a weakness or a vice (according to the language of the time, one of the many "humours ") is lashed, but the colours are laid on so thickly, that the moral lesson is lost. In Volpone greedy legacy-hunting, in the Alchemist the folly of alchemy, is intended to be chastised but there is no ring of reality in them. Everything appears distorted, exaggerated, pedantic: it is the poet that inculcates morality, not the action nor the characters in themselves. Ben Jonson's character-comedies bear most resemblance to the old moralities: not living human beings, but allegorical puppets loosely clad take part in the performance of a piece; they do not, as in Shakespeare, represent themselves; there is nothing life-like about them. To begin with, the mode of designating the characters in Ben Jonson is remarkable: the name as a rule expresses the nature. Volpone is the brutal sly fox: Morose (in the Silent Woman) is a sullen old grumbler: Knowell, Downright, Cash (in Every Man in his Humour) are what they are labelled.

We must add to this his complete lack of real humour. It is only with difficulty that, when reading his best comedies, we can force as much as a smile; never does that heart-warming laughter, for which we so often have to thank Shakespeare, break forth. Ben Jonson's mirth has nothing in common with Shakespeare's humour, which is a compound of the laughter of a child and the joyousness of a man; it is morose, surly, misanthropical. After one of Jonson's comedies, our head is weary, our heart empty, and we have a bitter taste like ashes in our mouth. Shakespeare's humour at all times retains something of the milk of human kindness: Ben Jonson's jesting shows ill humour against himself and the whole of mankind. His poetical method agrees with all that we are told of his perpetual quarrels with other writers. He even scoffed at Shakespeare during his lifetime. In the prologue to Every Man in his Humour he inveighs against the romantic Shakespeare-drama with its rapid change of place and time, and prides himself upon his own conformity to rule, for which, however, he has to thank no one but Seneca. And in Volpone (III. 2) he indirectly casts in Shakespeare's teeth his plagiarisms from Guarini and Montaigne. Mention has already been made (p. 162 and 164) of his other innuendoes against Shakespeare. He always wavered between admiration for his greatness as a poet and jealous philological selfexaltation.

It must be confessed that Ben Jonson proved himself capable in all that is merely the result of ordinary common-sense calculation. His plays, like a mathematically-measured wooden structure, are con