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OTHELLO

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preternatural cast of thought as the citizen says in

Richard III. :

"Before the days of change, still is it so,

By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
Pursuing danger."-Richard III., ii. 3.

Mr. Tyler discovers in these passages and "the wide world's prophetic soul" of the sonnets, evidence of Shakespeare's pantheism.1 But as we have seen, this "finding of signs in the heavens" accurately portrays Catholic feeling prevalent in the poet's time, and is based on the Gospel teaching. Shakespeare's own opinions of signs and wonders may be gauged on the one hand by Lafeu's warning, already quoted against making trifles of terrors, "ensconcing ourselves in seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear"; and on the other hand by Edmund's speech, "that it is the foppery of the world to make the stars guilty of disasters which we have brought on ourselves by our own misconduct." The attitude of mind thus indicated is the mean betwixt superstition and scepticism or intelligent discriminating faith.

In "Othello" it is the deep moral lesson which gives the play its absorbing interest, and that we shall consider in Chapter IX. The religious allusions are on the side of Catholicism. Shakespeare generally makes the woman the embodiment of the religious conscience. If so, Iago's perpetual mistrust of

1 Shakespeare's Sonnets, c. 11. 1890.

woman's honour, and confidence of his power of leading her astray, is simply the representation of the Machiavellian idea of religion; and his assurances of Desdemona's fickleness in her faith are no more trustworthy than his confidence in the unreasoning blindness of Othello's love—

"For her

To win the Moor-were't to renounce his baptism,

All seals and symbols of redeemèd sin—

His soul is so enfettered to her love

That she may make, unmake, do what she list" (ii. 3).

Thus Othello is represented by Shakespeare as a Catholic. Witness again the regimen he prescribes for Desdemona's imaginary wanderings

"This hand of yours requires

A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout;

For here's a young and sweating devil here
That commonly rebels" (iii. 4).

If there is anything seeming to savour of Reformed doctrine, he puts it into the mouth of Iago, or the drunken Cassio, who in his cups informs us in somewhat Calvinistic manner-" God's above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved;" and in reply to Iago's hope to be saved, says; "Ay, but by your leave, not before me; the lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient" (ii. 3)—a strange dream, as if predestination made salvation a matter of seniority, and

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a consequence of rank: and again Othello says before he murders her

"If you bethink yourself of any crime
Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.

...

I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;

No, heaven forfend, I would not kill thy soul" (v. 2).

And Gratiano says of Brabantio—

"This right would make him do a desperate turn,

Yea, curse his better angel from his side
And fall to reprobation" (v. 2).

Y

CHAPTER VIII.

DIDACTIC PLAYS.

MR. SIMPSON believes that in the plays classed in the following chapter as didactic there may be traced, besides the primary moral lesson, certain covert political allusions bearing on the religious situation of the poet's time. Commentators of the realistic school deny that Shakespeare ever employed allegory in his drama. The penetration and soundness of his judgment was seen, they say, in the avoidance of all theories, whether on politics or religion, and in confining himself exclusively to the psychological development of character. Now, the faithful portraiture of character was doubtless the poet's primary intention; but the absolute denial of the possibility of any secondary or figurative application of his plays shows a complete misunderstanding of both Shakespeare and his times.

Allegory was, indeed, universally employed in the Elizabethan age. Spenser's "Faerie Queene" was simply one long allegorical eulogy of Elizabeth, whose praise was the common theme of writers of the day. This kind of poetry was specially serviceable for purposes of attack. Under the veil of trope,

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Thus

the dramatist could satirise the object of his dislike, whether social, political, religious, even the Government itself, without fear of losing his ears. Bale and Fletcher, and the other dramatists mentioned in Chapter II., attacked the Papists. Lily, Marlowe, Greene, and Nash were engaged by Archbishop Whitgift, through Bancroft, to caricature the Puritans in revenge for the Marprelate Tracts. Further, a whole series of plays-"Gorbeduc" (1561), by Norton; "Damon and Pythias" (before 1568), by Walton; "The Woman in the Moon" (1597), "Midas" (1592), both by Lily; Marlowe's "Tamburlaine" (1587), aimed at exposing the abuses of the Government, the exactions and covetousness of ministers, the manoeuvres of Elizabeth and her favourites, or the despotism of Philip II. or of James of Scotland.

Shakespeare was no exception

to the general rule. If, as he tells us himself, his purpose was to "hold the mirror up to Nature," it must have been reflected first from existing individuals, men and women, who were reproduced as universal types by his own genius. A thorough grasp of the real involves no exclusion of the universal and ideal. In truth, the more thoroughly the real is apprehended, the more easy is it to conceive the universal, which always has its basis on the real.

That the contemporary public believed in his allegory and unhesitatingly interpreted it, there is no doubt. Elizabeth saw herself in Richard II.,

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