The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

To the Greeks, suffering and misfortune are signs of the displeasure of the gods and must therefore be accepted by men as mysteriously just. One of the commonest kinds of suffering is to be compelled to commit crimes, either unwittingly, like the parricide and incest of Oedipus, or at the direct command of a god, like Orestes. These crimes are not what we mean by sins because they are against, not with, the desire of the criminal. But in Shakespeare, suffering and misfortune are not in themselves proofs of Divine displeasure. It is true that they would not occur if man had not fallen into sin, but, precisely because he has, suffering is an inescapable element in life—there is no man who does not suffer—to be accepted, not as just in itself, as a penalty proportionate to the particular sins of the sufferer, but as an occasion for grace or as a process of purgation. Those who try to refuse suffering not only fail to avoid it but are plunged deeper into sin and suffering. Thus, the difference between Shake­speare's tragedies and comedies is not that the characters suffer in the one and not in the other, but that in comedy the suffer­ing leads to self-knowledge, repentance, forgiveness, love, and in tragedy it leads in the opposite direction into self-blindness, defiance, hatred.

The audience at a Greek tragedy are pure spectators, never participants; the sufferings of the hero arouse their pity and fear, but they cannot think, "Something similar might happen to me," for the whole point in a Greek tragedy is that the hero and his tragic fate are exceptional. But all of Shake­speare's tragedies might be called variations on the same tragic myth, the only one which Christianity possesses, the story of the unrepentant thief, and anyone of us is in danger of re-enacting it in his own way. The audience at a tragedy of Shakespeare's, therefore, has to be both a spectator and a participant, for it is both a feigned history and a parable.

Dr. Johnson was right, surely, when he said of Shakespeare: "His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct." It seems to me doubtful if a completely satisfactory tragedy is possible within a Christian society which does not believe that there is a necessary relation between suffering and guilt. The dramatist, therefore, is faced with two choices. He can show a noble and innocent character suffering exceptional mis­fortune, but then the effect will be not tragic but pathetic. Or he can portray a sinner who by his sins—usually the sins have to produce crimes—brings his suffering upon him­self. But, then, there is no such thing as a noble sinner, for to sin is precisely to become ignoble. Both Shakespeare and Racine try to solve the problem in the same way, by giving the sinner noble poetry to speak, but both of them must have known in their heart of hearts that this was a conjuring trick. Any journalist could tell the story of Oedipus or Hippolytus and it would be just as tragic as when Sophocles or Euripides tells it. The difference would be only that the journalist is incapable of providing Oedipus and Hippolytus with the noble language which befits their tragedy, while Sophocles and Euripides, being great poets, can.

But let a journalist tell the story of Macbeth or Phedre and we shall immediately recognize them for what they are, one a police court case, the other a pathological case. The poetry that Shakespeare and Racine have given them is not an out­ward expression of their noble natures, but a gorgeous robe which hides their nakedness. D. H. Lawrence's poem seems to me not altogether unjust.

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder that such trivial people should muse and thunder in such lovely language.

Lear, the old buffer, you wonder his daughters

didn't treat him rougher,

the old chough, the old chuffer.

And Hamlet, how boring, how boring to live with, so mean and self-conscious, blowing and snoring his wonderful speeches, full of other folk's whoring!

And Macbeth and his Lady, who should have been choring,

such suburban ambition, so messily goring old Duncan with daggers!

How boring, how small Shakespeare's people are! Yet the language so lovely! like the dyes from gas-tar.