CHAP. II. intensified by the dying speech of Antonio, calmly welcoming death for himself, anxious only to soften Bassanio's remorse, his last human passion a rivalry with Portia for the love of his friend. Bid her be judge iv. i. 276. 299. Whether Bassanio had not once a love. iv. i, from When the final judgment can be delayed no longer its opening sentences are still lengthened out by the jingling repetitions of judicial formality, reaction. and comic effect; The law allows it, and the court awards it, &c. Only when every evasion has been exhausted comes the thunderstroke which reverses the whole situation. Now it is clear that had this situation been intended to have a tragic termination this prolonging of its details would have been impossible; thus to harrow our feelings with items of agony would be not art but barbarity. It is because Portia knows what termination she is going to give to the scene that she can indulge in such boldness; it is because the audience have recognised in Portia the signal of deliverance that the lengthening of the crisis becomes the dramatic beauty of suspense. It appears then that, if this scene be regarded only as a crisis of tragic passion, the dramatist has been able to extract more tragic effect out of it by the device of assisting the tragic with a light story. Again, it is a natural law of the human mind to pass from strain to reaction, and suspense relieved will find vent in vehement exhilaration. By giving Portia her position in the crisis scene the dramatist is clearly furnishing the means for a reaction to follow, and the reaction is found in the iv. i, from Episode of the Rings, by which the disguised wives entangle their husbands in a perplexity affording the audience the bursts of merriment needed as relief from the tension of the Trial Scene. The play is thus brought into conformity with the laws of mental working, and the effect of the reaction 425. is to make the serious passion more keen because more CHAP. II. healthy. mixed 202. Finally, there are the effects of mixed passion, neither effects of wholly serious nor wholly light, but compounded of the two, which are impossible to a drama that can admit only a single tone. The effect of Dramatic Irony, which Shakespeare inherited from the ancient Drama, but greatly modified and extended, is powerfully illustrated at the most pathetic point of the Trial Scene, when Antonio's chance iv. i. 273reference to Bassanio's new wife calls from Bassanio and 294. his followers agonised vows to sacrifice even their wives if this could save their patron-little thinking that these wives are standing by to record the vow. But there is an effect higher than this. Portia's outburst on the theme of iv. i. 184– mercy, considered only as a speech, is one of the noblest in literature, a gem of purest truth in a setting of richest music. But the situation in which she speaks it is so framed as to make Portia herself the embodiment of the mercy she describes. How can we imagine a higher type of mercy, the feminine counterpart of justice, than in the bright woman, at the moment of her supreme happiness, appearing in the garb of the law to deliver a righteous unfortunate from his one error, and the justice of Venice from the insoluble perplexity of having to commit a murder by legal process? And how is this situation brought about but by the most intricate interweaving of a story of brightness with a story of trouble? In all branches then of dramatic effect, in Character, in Plot and in Passion, the union of a light with a serious story is found to be a source of power and beauty. The fault charged against the Romantic Drama has upon a deeper view proved a new point of departure in dramatic progress; and in this particular case the combination of tales so opposite in character must be regarded as one of the leading points in which Shakespeare has improved the tales in the telling. III. HOW SHAKESPEARE MAKES HIS PLOT MORE SIMPLE. A Study in Underplot. CHAP. III. THE title of the present study is a paradox: that ShakeParadox of speare makes a plot more complex 1 in order to make it simplicity more simple. It is however a paradox that finds an illustraby means of tion from the material world in every open roof. The complexity. architect's problem has been to support a heavy weight increased without the assistance of pillars, and it might have been expected that in solving the problem he would at least have tried every means in his power for diminishing the weight to be supported. On the contrary, he has increased this weight by the addition of massive cross-beams and heavy irongirders. Yet, if these have been arranged according to the laws of construction, each of them will bring a supporting power considerably greater than its own weight; and thus, while in a literal sense increasing the roof, for all practical purposes they may be said to have diminished it. Similarly a dramatist of the Romantic school, from his practice of uniting more than one story in the same plot, has to face the 1 It is a difficulty of literary criticism that it has to use as technical terms words belonging to ordinary conversation, and therefore more or less indefinite in their significations. In the present work I am making a distinction between 'complex' and 'complicated': the latter is applied to the diverting a story out of its natural course with a view to its ultimate ‘resolution'; 'complex' is reserved for the interweaving of stories with one another. Later on 'single' will be opposed to 'complex,' and 'simple' to 'complicated.' difficulty of complexity. This difficulty he solves not by seek- CHAP. III. ing how to reduce combinations as far as possible, but, on the contrary, by the addition of more and inferior stories; yet if these new stories are so handled as to emphasise and heighten the effect of the main stories, the additional complexity will have resulted in increased simplicity. In the play at present under consideration, Shakespeare has interwoven into a common pattern two famous and striking tales; his plot, already elaborate, he has made yet more elaborate by the addition of two more tales less striking in their character-the Story of Jessica and the Episode of the Rings. If it can be shown that these inferior stories have the effect The Jessica of assisting the main stories, smoothing away their difficulties Story and and making their prominent points yet more prominent, it Episode will be clear that he has made his plot more complex only in assist the reality to make it more simple. The present study is de- stories. voted to noticing how the Stories of Jessica and of the Rings minister to the effects of the Story of the Jew and the Caskets Story. the Rings main serves as To begin with: it may be seen that in many ways the The Jessica Story. It mechanical working out of the main stories is assisted by the Jessica story. In the first place it relieves them of their Underplot superfluous personages. Every drama, however simple, must chanical contain 'mechanical' personages, who are introduced into personages. the play, not for their own sake, but to assist in presenting incidents or other personages. The tendency of Romantic Drama to put a story as a whole upon the stage multiplies the number of such mechanical personages : and when several such stories come to be combined in one, there is a danger of the stage being crowded with characters which intrinsically have little interest. Here the Underplots become of service and find occupation for these inferior personages. In the present case only four personages are essential to the main plot-Antonio, Shylock, Bassanio, Portia. But in bringing out the unusual tie that binds together e. g. i. i; iii. iii iv. i. esp. 14-18. i. ii. 124. v. i, &c. i. ii, &c. &c. CHAP. III. a representative of the city and a representative of the nobility, and upon which so much of the plot rests, it is an assistance to introduce the rank and file of gay society and depict these paying court to the commercial magnate. The high position of Antonio and Bassanio in their respective spheres will come out still clearer if these lesser social peri. i; com- sonages are graduated. Salanio, Salerio, and Salarino are pare iii. i, mere parasites; Gratiano has a certain amount of ini.i.74-118. dividuality in his wit; while, seeing that Bassanio is a scholar as well as a nobleman and soldier, it is fitting to give prominence amongst his followers to the intellectual and artistic Lorenzo. Similarly the introduction of Nerissa assists in iii. i. So, presenting Portia fully; Shylock is seen in his relations with his race by the aid of Tubal, his family life is seen in connection with Jessica, and his behaviour to dependants in connection with Launcelot; Launcelot himself is set off by Gobbo. Now the Jessica story is mainly devoted to these inferior personages, and the majority of them take an animated part in the successful elopement. It is further to be noted that the Jessica Underplot has itself an inferior story attached to it, that of Launcelot, who seeks scope for his good nature by transferring himself to a Christian master, just as his mistress seeks a freer social atmosphere in union with a Christian husband. And, similarly, side by side with the Caskets Story, which unites Portia and Bassanio, we have a iii. ii. 188, faintly-marked underplot which unites their followers, Nerissa and Gratiano. In one or other of these inferior stories the mechanical personages find attachment to plot; and the multiplication of individual figures, instead of leaving an impression of waste, is made to minister to the sense of Dramatic Economy. ii. ii, iii; iii. v. &c. It assists mechanical develop ment: occupying the three Again: as there are mechanical personages so there are mechanical difficulties-difficulties of realisation which do not belong to the essence of a story, but which appear when the story comes to be worked out upon the stage. The Story of |