Chapter 5

Professor Thorndike expressly admits that of the six plays which are claimed as "romances," "A King and No King" "is the only one acted before 1612 the year of whose production is fixed," but he states without qualification that "Winter's Tale" and the "Tempest" were not acted until after "Philaster." As we have seen, "Winter's Tale" was acted May 15th, 1611, and Professor Thorndike himself says that "'The Tempest' was probably written and acted late in 1610 or early in 1611"; "Cupid's Revenge" "was acted the Sunday following New Year's 1612; 'A King and No King' in December, 1611." These are the only two of the six of which the date of acting is given. Nowhere does Professor Thorndike pretend to give any date whatever when "Philaster" was acted; the only question discussed is as to the year of authorship, and that is left uncertain. The statement that "Winter's Tale" and "The Tempest" were "not acted until after 'Philaster'" is utterly without warrant or authority. If Shakspere is to be adjudged the "imitator" of Beaumont and Fletcher, the judgment must rest upon facts or inference from facts, and not upon the unsupported opinion of Professor Wendell's pupil.

Professor Thorndike in fact admits that "we cannot be certain about the date of 'Cymbeline,'" but yet assumes that "Philaster" preceded it, both in date of production and public appearance, and proceeds to draw a long parallel between the "romances" of Beaumont and Fletcher and those of Shakspere, for the purpose of showing that the "romance" or the heroic "romance" was a new style of drama, "created" by Beaumont and Fletcher and probably adapted and improved by Shakspere.

Whether there is any difference in definition between the "romance" and the "heroic romance" seems immaterial, since Professor Thorndike uses one term as synonymous with the other. He gives "the most noticeable characteristics of the romances": "A mixture of tragic and idyllic events, a series of highly improbable events, heroic and sentimental characters, foreign scenes, happy denouements." This definition is elaborated in connection with the "romances" of Beaumont and Fletcher:

1st. They took the plots from any source.

2nd. The plots are ingenious and improbable.

3rd. The plots lack realism.

4th. The plots deal with heroic persons and actions.

5th. The characters are not historical.

6th. The plays are located far off, for example, in Milan, Athens, Messina, Lisbon.

7th. The action has little to do with the real life of any historic period, but with "romance."

8th. The story is of sentimental love, as contrasted with gross, sensual passion.

9th. There is variety of emotional effect.

10th. There is always a happy denouement.

All these elements of the definition are applied to "Cymbeline," "The Tempest" and "Winter's Tale," and it is maintained that none of Shakspere's previous dramas present the same features. This is a convenient method of showing that Beaumont and Fletcher "created the romantic drama" and that Shakspere was "influenced" in writing "Cymbeline" by "Philaster," but it is not criticism; it is rather an attempt to "create" a definition and apply it to "Philaster," and then to deny its application to "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Much Ado About Nothing," "The Merchant of Venice," "Twelfth Night" or "Measure for Measure."

Why does Professor Wendell call the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" a "romantic comedy," if Beaumont and Fletcher "created" the type which Professor Thorndike pronounces "romance"? He deliberately classifies "Much Ado" and "Twelfth Night" as "romantic comedies." Is not "Philaster" a "romantic comedy"? Then, as "Much Ado" was probably written in 1599, "Twelfth Night" in 1598, when Beaumont was twelve or thirteen and Fletcher twenty-two or twenty-three, it seems quite "probable" that they were "influenced" in writing their "romances" by Shakspere. If there is any fundamental difference between "romantic comedy" and "romance," what is it? This is a difficult question, which Professor Thorndike has attempted but failed to answer. He admits that "Philaster" has some generic resemblance to "Measure for Measure," but says that "No one would think of finding close resemblance between it and anyone of the 'romances.'" If the resemblance is generic, does it matter whether it is "close"? If "Measure for Measure" falls within the laborious definition of a "romance," or of a "tragi-comedy," as both that play and "Philaster" are called, why shouldn't we think of "Measure for Measure," produced in 1604, four years before the wildest conjecture puts the date of "Philaster," as the model upon which Beaumont and Fletcher built?

"Measure for Measure" answers every detail of the definition: the plot is taken from "Promos and Cassandra"; it is ingenious and improbable, lacks realism, deals with heroic persons and actions, a sovereign duke and his rascal brother; the characters are not historical; the location is far off; the action has little to do with the real life of any historical period; the story involves sentimental love, as distinctly contrasted with sensual passion; there is variety of emotional effect; the denouement is happy. If therefore the definition of "romance" is correct, "Measure for Measure" is as much of that type as "Philaster"; Beaumont and Fletcher did not "create" it, and there is no reason for supposing that Shakspere imitated them in "Cymbeline," "Tempest," or "Winter's Tale."

But certain traits of construction are named as peculiar to the six "romances" of Beaumont and Fletcher and those of Shakspere, and it is sought to show that Beaumont and Fletcher set the fashion in these also.

1st. They did not observe the unities.

2nd. They disregarded the chronicle method.

3rd. They left out battles and armies.

4th. They presented a series of contrasted and interesting situations leading up to a startling climax.

5th. The by-plots assist the main action.

6th. There is the use of tragi-comedy.

Does any attentive reader of Shakspere's comedies, whether called romantic or tragi-comic, or by whatever other name, need to be told that many of them contain all these traits? General review is impossible, but take "The Merchant of Venice" as an illustration:

The unities are not observed. We think it is generally thought that Shakspere was in the habit of disregarding them. The chronicle method is ignored. We are not aware that Shakspere ever followed it except in writing historical plays. Battles and armies are left out. This comedy, like others by the same cunning hand, presents a series of contrasted and interesting situations leading up to a startling climax. Need we call to mind the rash contract of the merchant, and its almost tragic result, the game of the caskets, the trial and defeat of the clamorous Shylock? The by-plot assists the main action, else why does Jessica keep house for Portia while she goes to play "A Daniel come to judgment"? There is the use of tragi-comedy in the ruin of the merchant, in the whetting of the Jew's knife for the heart of his assured victim. If these "traits" characterize the "romances" of Beaumont and Fletcher, they are possibly more likely to have been the "imitators," because "Shylock" was created in 1596 or 1597, some years before "Philaster" was exhibited as a stage decoration.

It is urged further that in the "romances" of Beaumont and Fletcher "the characters are not individuals, but types," and that those types are repeated until they became conventionalized. There is always a very bad and a very good woman, a very generous and noble man and one so bad as to seem a monster. There is the type of the "love-lorn maiden," of "the lily-livered" hero, of the faithful friend, of the poltroon. It is supposed by many that such types repeated in play after play do not mark the highest original power, but rather poverty of invention, weak and shadowy conception, indistinctness of coloring. Professor Thorndike, however, cannot too much commend this style, because it gives such wide scope for intense passion, startling situation, and successful stage effect, and proceeds to seek for similar types in Shakspere's "romances" as further proof that he "imitated" "Philaster." In his view, the characters show "surprising loss of individuality." Imogen's character "fails to supply really individual traits"; "Perdita and Miranda have even less marks of individuality than Imogen." They are like Beaumont and Fletcher's heroines who appear in the same stage costumes, wearing the same masks, differing only in stage postures and dialogue. More than this: Professor Thorndike would reduce the "creations" of Viola and Rosalynd to the conventional type of the "love-lorn" maiden, to mere adaptations for the stage, because they dressed in boy's clothes; of Perdita, to an "imitation" of Lady Amelia in "Palamon and Arcyte" because she gathered flowers prettily and was commended by the Queen. He makes the surprising statement that the three heroines in "Cymbeline," the "Tempest" and "Winter's Tale" have on the stage "few qualities to distinguish them from almost any of Beaumont and Fletcher's." It is difficult to discuss such generalizations with the temperance of criticism. They can be true only if Professor Thorndike's theory is correct,--that the delineation of character is solely for stage effect. There is another theory announced and recorded by Shakspere himself, and illustrated in every drama he wrote,--that the sole end and aim of the stage itself and of the characters it represents, is "to hold the mirror up to nature," and therefore his characters are not "types"; they are men and women who were born, not manufactured; each is a separate, individual human being; each different from every other. We know them, for they have entered our houses, sat at our tables, talked with us, laughed and wept with us, made us shudder at crime and exult in the triumph of virtue.

Therefore, there is but one "Lear": his madness was never imitated outside of Bedlam; but one Lady Macbeth, and we have seen her walking in her awful dream. Beaumont and Fletcher in six romances delineate "love-lorn maidens," "conventionalized types," who differ little from each other, except that three of them "masquerade in boy's clothing" and three do not. They have "little individuality," "are utterly romantic," "utterly removed from life"; all are presented to produce novel situations leading up to a startling climax.

Imogen is not like Miranda or Perdita; neither is a "type" of the "love-lorn" maiden; all are living, acting individuals, differing from each other like those we know, resembling each other only as one beautiful and pure woman resembles another. Professor Thorndike, who is the advocate of Beaumont and Fletcher, may keep his personal opinion that Imogen lacks "individual traits," but we respectfully decline to take his opinion as a critic that she is like Arethusa in "Philaster." For us and for all men and women, Shakspere has _created_ the character of Imogen, as of Perdita and Miranda, and her "individual traits" are clear enough, to those who have had the happiness of her acquaintance, to show that neither in feature or dress, neither in manners or morals, did she "imitate" any of the heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher. But even as a critic we must differ from Professor Thorndike; he accuses Miranda of unpardonable indelicacy, and says she "proposed" to Ferdinand! He gives her language from "Tempest," and remarks with satisfaction that it sounds "very much like one of Beaumont and Fletcher's heroines," meaning of course Arethusa, and so draws the obvious conclusion that Shakspere in this remarkable instance clearly "imitated" the "creators" of the "heroic romantic drama." The difficulty with this statement first of all is, that it is not true: Miranda does not "propose" to Ferdinand; before her sweet confession of love, Ferdinand had given all lovers the best form of proposal ever spoken, in this language:

"I, Beyond all limit of what else i' the world, Do love, prize, honor you."

Arethusa does "propose" to Philaster, and therefore her "proposal" does not "sound very much like" the proposal in "Tempest," or, if it does, it tends strongly to show that Beaumont and Fletcher attempted an "imitation" from "The Tempest." Professor Thorndike the critic has here been misled by his zeal as the partisan: isn't it just possible that the like zeal has misled him in the conclusion that "Cymbeline" was an imitation of "Philaster"?

The second class of "types," as shown by the dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher, is the "evil woman"--Evadne in the "Maid's Tragedy," Bacha in "Cupid's Revenge," Megra in "Philaster," Brunhalt in "Thierry and Theodoret" and Arane in "A King and No King." Professor Thorndike says that "four of them brazenly confess adultery, and four attempt murder," and that "the resemblance ... is unmistakable ... and on the stage even more than in print" these characters "must have seemed to all intents identical."

The only parallel to this in Shakspere's "romances," as drawn by Professor Thorndike, is that the "wicked Queen in 'Cymbeline' is very like the wicked queens of Beaumont and Fletcher," and that "there are other characters ... who show resemblances to Beaumont and Fletcher's stock types." What the resemblances are we are not told, and we need not inquire until we learn which "type" is the original, which the "imitation." Meanwhile, we may rest upon the fact that, so far as queens are concerned, there is no "stock type" in Shakspere; they differ from each other as widely as Hamlet's mother from Imogen's mother-in-law. If any of them resemble Beaumont and Fletcher's queens, it is clear that Beaumont and Fletcher were the "imitators," not Shakspere.

Further similarities are suggested between the "type" of the "faithful friend" as shown in five of Beaumont and Fletcher's "romances" and Gonzalo in "Tempest," Camillo in "Winter's Tale," and Pisanio in "Cymbeline." The "lily-livered heroes" and the "poltroons" are left out of the laborious comparison, perhaps because none of either can be found in Shakspere sufficiently like the original types in Beaumont and Fletcher. The examples of the "faithful friend" are not happy. For Gonzalo sets Prospero adrift in a crazy boat and Camillo betrays one patron to save another.

Still following the assumption that "Philaster" was earlier than "Cymbeline," we find Professor Thorndike asserting that "Cymbeline" "shows a puzzling decadence" in style, "an increase in the proportion of double endings," "a constant deliberate effort to conceal the metre"; "the verse constantly borders on prose"; "Shakspere's structure in general is like Fletcher's, particularly in the use of parentheses and contracted forms for 'it is,' 'he is,' 'I will.'" There is a "loss of mastery" in "Cymbeline," "an apparently conscious and not quite successful struggle to overcome the difficulties of the new structure." An apologetic phrase that all this does not impute any "direct imitation" of Fletcher does not redeem it from the imputation that Shakspere was not content with copying Fletcher's plot, characters, situations, but he deliberately departed, when "Philaster" met his eye, from the methods he had used for more than twenty years, and carefully copied the mannerisms of a contemporary who, according to established chronology, had been known to the public hardly three years. The merits of the charge, whether of direct or indirect imitation, must be determined solely by the priority in date of the two plays. Meanwhile, the critic's argument would have more force if he had told us how "Cymbeline" shows a "puzzling decadence," how "the structure is like Fletcher's," how the struggle to overcome the difficulty of its novelty appears. As the argument stands it reminds one of Lowell's remark in relation to this style of criticism: "Scarce one but was satisfied that his ten finger tips were a sufficient key to those astronomic wonders of poise and counterpoise ... in his metres; scarce one but thought he could gauge like an ale-firkin that intuition whose edging shallows may have been sounded, but whose abysses, stretching down amid the sunless roots of Being and Consciousness, mock the plummet."

Professor Thorndike takes the further point, in his review of the Drama from 1601 to 1611, that during that period "There are almost no romantic tragi-comedies"; that in fact, including "Measure for Measure," there are only five which offer the slightest generic resemblance to the heroic tragi-comedies like "Philaster" and "Winter's Tale"; that when "Philaster" appeared, there had been "no play for seven or eight years at all resembling it"; and draws the conclusion that Shakspere, who had been writing "gloomy tragedies" for several years, suddenly left that style and wrote "Cymbeline" in imitation of "Philaster," because "Philaster" had "filled the audience with surprise and delight." The uncomplimentary and uncritical remark is added that perhaps "Timon" and "Coriolanus" had not achieved great success on the stage--at any rate the success of "Philaster" aroused his interest.

"Timon" is assigned by most critics to the last of Shakspere's life, by many to the year 1612. "Cymbeline," as we have seen, was acted before May 15th, 1611; it is therefore difficult to understand, if the date assigned to "Timon" is correct, how its failure could have "influenced" the production of "Cymbeline."

But Professor Thorndike's statement is incorrect. During the decade named, "Measure for Measure" was acted at Court in 1604; his conjectural date of "Philaster" is 1608. As we have shown, "Measure for Measure" fully answers his definition of the "romance" or "heroic tragi-comedy," and he admits that it bears a generic resemblance to "Philaster." His statement that for seven or eight years before "Philaster" "no play had appeared at all resembling it" is therefore without support, and contradicts his own admission. He assumes much more, and to support his conclusion argues that "Philaster" was perhaps produced before 1608. The importance of the point justifies deliberate attention. Against the opinion of most scholars, against the express statement of Dryden, he assigns "Pericles" to the year 1608; credits Shakspere with the authorship of the "Marina story;" admits that "the plot is ... like those of the romances, and particularly like that of the 'Winter's Tale,' in dealing with a long series of tragic events leading to a happy ending," but endeavors to escape the inevitable conclusion, by the statement, utterly inconsistent with his own chronology, that, "if the play was as late as 1608, there is a possibility of Beaumont and Fletcher's influence just as in the romances."

"Pericles" contains a sentimental love story, the plot is like that of the "romances," the variety of the emotional effects is similar, and there is a contrast of tragic and idyllic elements. The play is founded upon a "romantic story." All this is admitted, but Professor Thorndike thinks the love story is not sufficiently prominent, the idyllic elements are not treated as in the romances, and Marina is therefore not like any of the heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher, but, while "something like Portia, more like Isabella." And so "Pericles" is distinguished from the romances because the "treatment" is "different," and finally, because Professor Thorndike is committed to the theory that Beaumont and Fletcher "created" a new type of drama, he asserts that "'Pericles' is doubtless earlier than Shakspere's romances, but there is no probability that it preceded all of Beaumont and Fletcher's." Dryden in his Prologue to Davenant's "Circe" says: "Shakspere's own muse his Pericles first bore," and the great weight of opinion is that it was a very early production. The "Story of Marina" is as romantic as "Cymbeline," and is of the same "type" as "Philaster," and therefore, if Dryden is right, there is a strong probability that "Pericles" preceded all of Beaumont and Fletcher's romances, and that in "Cymbeline" Shakspere did not imitate them.

We come at last to the end of the argument. Professor Thorndike, premising that the historical portion of "Cymbeline" and the exile of Posthumous have no parallels in "Philaster," institutes a detailed comparison between the plots, characters, and composition of the two plays, and shows that they are so strikingly similar as to justify the positive conclusion that "Shakspere influenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they influenced him." We may admit more than this: If "Cymbeline" followed "Philaster," he was not only influenced by them, he not only imitated them, he was a plagiarist; and no apologetic words that, upon the assumption stated, "Cymbeline" did not owe a very large share of its total effect to "Philaster," can make less the gravity of the charge, and if the assumption is groundless or even probably groundless, no excuse remains to the critic who makes it.

Let us see: After all his learned review of dramatic chronology, after all his statements conveying the assurance that "Philaster" was the original "type" of the "romance," Professor Thorndike says in so many words, which for accuracy we quote: "Some such statement of the influence of 'Philaster' on 'Cymbeline' could be adopted if we were certain of our chronology. But the evidence for the priority of 'Philaster' is not conclusive, and its support cannot be confidently relied upon. Leaving aside, then, the question of exact date, and only premising the fact that both plays were written at about the same time, we must face the questions,--which is more plausible, that Shakspere influenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they influenced him? Which on its face is more likely to be the original, 'Cymbeline' or 'Philaster'?"

If "Cymbeline" was first written, then "Philaster" becomes not an original but a copy, adaptation, imitation, plagiarism, if you will. The similarities remain the same, the argument is reversed. We have shown that the evidence is conclusive, in the opinion of the best critics, that "Cymbeline" preceded "Philaster." Coleridge, Ulrici, Tieck and Knight think that "this varied-woven romantic history had inspired the poet in his youth" to attempt its adaptation to the stage; that having had but a temporary appearance, Shakspere long afterwards, near the end of his career, may have remodelled it, and Malone, Chalmers, and Drake assign "Cymbeline" with "Macbeth" to 1605 or 1606. Our argument might be safely put upon this point alone. Professor Thorndike's is placed solely upon "plausibility" and "likelihood." To support it, he assumes again the certainty of "the priority of Philaster"--which he had just admitted to be uncertain--in order to show "the nature of Shakspere's indebtedness," and then concludes from "the nature of the indebtedness," and from the fact that "Philaster" "was followed immediately by five romances of the same style in plot and characters" "which mark Fletcher's work for the next twenty years," that "these facts create a strong presumption that 'Philaster' was the original," "a strong presumption that 'Cymbeline' was the copy," and finally ends the argument as it began, with these flattering words: "We may, indeed, safely assert that Shakspere almost never invented dramatic types." And this is the argument which Professor Wendell thinks "virtually proves that several of their plays (Beaumont and Fletcher's romances) must have been in existence decidedly before 'Cymbeline,' 'The Tempest' or 'Winter's Tale,'" "that the relation commonly thought to have existed between them and Shakspere is precisely reversed."