William Shakespeare

CHAPTER III

The glory of Shakespeare reached England from abroad. There was almost a day and an hour when one might have assisted at the landing of his fame at Dover.

It required three hundred years for England to begin to hear those two words that the whole world cries in her ear: "William Shakespeare."

What is England? She is Elizabeth. There is no incarnation more complete. In admiring Elizabeth, England loves her own looking-glass. Proud and magnanimous, yet full of strange hypocrisies; great, yet pedantic; haughty, albeit able; prudish, yet audacious; having favourites but no masters; her own mistress, even in her bed; all-powerful queen, inaccessible woman, – Elizabeth is a virgin as England is an island. Like England, she calls herself Empress of the Sea, Basilea maris. A fearful depth, in which are let loose the angry passions which behead Essex and the tempests which destroy the Armada, defends this virgin and defends this island from every approach. The ocean is the guardian of this modesty. A certain celibacy, in fact, constitutes all the genius of England. Alliances, be it so; no marriage. The universe always kept at some distance. To live alone, to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone, – such is Elizabeth, such is England.

On the whole, a remarkable queen and an admirable nation.

Shakespeare, on the contrary, is a sympathetic genius. Insularism is his ligature, not his strength. He would break it willingly. A little more and Shakespeare would be European. He loves and praises France; he calls her "the soldier of God." Besides, in that prudish nation he is the free poet.

England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made her, – Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together. The Bible opposes Shakespeare.

Certainly, as a literary book, the Bible, a vast cup from the East, more overflowing in poetry even than Shakespeare, might fraternize with him; in a social and religious point of view, it abhors him. Shakespeare thinks, Shakespeare dreams, Shakespeare doubts. There is in him something of that Montaigne whom he loved. The "to be or not to be" comes from the que sais-je?

Moreover, Shakespeare invents. A great objection. Faith excommunicates imagination. In respect to fables, faith is a bad neighbour, and fondles only its own. One recollects Solon's staff raised against Thespis. One recollects the torch of Omar brandished over Alexandria. The situation is always the same. Modern fanaticism has inherited that staff and that torch. That is true in Spain, and is not false in England. I have heard an Anglican bishop discuss the Iliad and condense everything in this remark, with which he meant to annihilate Homer: "It is not true." Now, Shakespeare is much more a "liar" than Homer.

Two or three years ago the journals announced that a French writer was about to sell a novel for four hundred thousand francs. This made quite a noise in England. A Conformist paper exclaimed, "How can a falsehood be sold at such a price?"

Besides, two words, all-powerful in England, range themselves against Shakespeare, and constitute an obstacle against him: "Improper, shocking." Observe that, on a host of occasions, the Bible also is "improper" and Holy Writ is "shocking." The Bible, even in French, and through the rough lips of Calvin, does not hesitate to say, "Tu as paillardé, Jerusalem." These crudities are part of poetry as well as of anger; and the prophets, those angry poets, do not abstain from them. Gross words are constantly on their lips. But England, where the Bible is continually read, does not seem to realize it. Nothing equals the power of voluntary deafness in fanatics. Would you have another example of their deafness? At this hour Roman orthodoxy has not yet admitted the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, although averred by the four Evangelists. Matthew, may say, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without… And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas. And his sisters, are they not all with us?" Mark may insist: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?" Luke may repeat: "Then came to him his mother and his brethren." John may again take up the question: "He, and his mother, and his brethren… Neither did his brethren believe in him… But when his brethren were gone up." Catholicism does not hear.

To make up for it, in the case of Shakespeare, "somewhat of a Pagan, like all poets"32 Puritanism has a delicate hearing. Intolerance and inconsequence are sisters. Besides, in the matter of proscribing and damning, logic is superfluous. When Shakespeare, by the mouth of Othello, calls Desdemona "whore," general indignation, unanimous revolt, scandal from top to bottom. Who then is this Shakespeare? All the biblical sects stop their ears, without thinking that Aaron addresses exactly the same epithet to Sephora, wife of Moses. It is true that this is in an Apocryphal work, "The Life of Moses." But the Apocryphal books are quite as authentic as the canonical ones.

Thence in England, for Shakespeare, a depth of irreducible coldness. What Elizabeth was for Shakespeare, England is still, – at least we fear so. We should be happy to be contradicted. We are more ambitious for the glory of England than England is herself. This cannot displease her.

England has a strange institution, – "the poet laureate," – which attests the official admiration and a little the national admiration. Under Elizabeth, England's poet was named Drummond.

Of course, we are no longer in the days when they placarded "Macbeth, opera of Shakespeare, altered by Sir William Davenant." But if "Macbeth" is played, it is before a small audience. Kean and Macready have tried and failed in the endeavour.

At this hour they would not play Shakespeare on any English stage without erasing from the text the word God wherever they find it. In the full tide of the nineteenth century, the lord-chamberlain still weighs heavily on Shakespeare. In England, outside the church, the word God is not made use of. In conversation they replace "God" by "Goodness." In the editions or in the representations of Shakespeare, "God" is replaced by "Heaven." The sense suffers, the verse limps; no matter. "Lord! Lord! Lord!" the last appeal of Desdemona expiring, was suppressed by command in the edition of Blount and Jaggard in 1623. They do not utter it on the stage. "Sweet Jesus!" would be a blasphemy; a devout Spanish woman on the English stage is bound to exclaim, "Sweet Jupiter!" Do we exaggerate? Would you have a proof? Let us open "Measure for Measure." There is a nun, Isabella. Whom does she invoke? Jupiter. Shakespeare had written "Jesus."33

The tone of a certain Puritanical criticism toward Shakespeare is, most certainly, improved; yet the cure is not complete.

It is not many years since an English economist, a man of authority, making, in the midst of social questions, a literary excursion, affirmed in a lofty digression, and without exhibiting the slightest diffidence, this: —

"Shakespeare cannot live because he has treated specially foreign or ancient subjects – 'Hamlet,' 'Othello,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Lear,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Coriolanus,' 'Timon of Athens,' etc. Now, nothing is likely to live in literature except matters of immediate observation and works made on contemporary subjects."

What say you to the theory? We would not mention it if this system had not met approvers in England and propagators in France. Besides Shakespeare, it simply excludes from literary "life" Schiller, Corneille, Milton, Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Æschylus, and Homer. It is true that it surrounds with a halo of glory Aulus-Gellius and Restif of Bretonne. O critic, this Shakespeare is not likely to live, he is only immortal!

About the same time, another – English also, but of the Scotch school, a Puritan of that discontented variety of which Knox is the head – declared poetry childishness; repudiated beauty of style as an obstacle interposed between the idea and the reader; saw in Hamlet's soliloquy only "a cold lyricism," and in Othello's adieu to standards and camps only "a declamation;" likened the metaphors of poets to illustrations in books, – good for amusing babies; and showed a particular contempt for Shakespeare, as besmeared from one end to the other with that "illuminating process."

Not later than last January, a witty London paper,34 with indignant irony, was asking which is the most celebrated, in England, Shakespeare or "Mr. Calcraft, the hangman: " —

"There are localities in this enlightened country where, if you pronounce the name of Shakespeare they will answer you: 'I don't know what this Shakespeare may be about whom you make all this fuss, but I will back Hammer Lane of Birmingham to fight him for five pounds.' But no mistake is made about Calcraft."

CHAPTER IV

At all events, Shakespeare has not the monument that England owes to Shakespeare.

France, let me admit, is not, in like cases, much more speedy. Another glory, very different from Shakespeare, but not less grand, – Joan of Arc, – waits also, and has waited longer for a national monument, a monument worthy of her.

This land which has been Gaul, and where the Velledas reigned, has, in a Catholic and historic sense, for patronesses two august figures, – Mary and Joan. The one, holy, is the Virgin; the other, heroic, is the Maid. Louis XIII. gave France to the one; the other has given France to France. The monument of the second should not be less high than the monument of the first Joan of Arc must have a trophy as grand as Notre-Dame. When shall she have it?

England has failed utterly to pay its debt to Shakespeare; but so also has France failed toward Joan of Arc.

These ingratitudes require to be sternly denounced. Doubtless the governing aristocracies, which blind the eyes of the masses, deserve the first accusation of guilt; but on the whole, conscience exists for a people as for an individual. Ignorance is only an attenuating circumstance; and when these denials of justice last for centuries, they remain the fault of governments, but become the fault of nations. Let us know, when necessary, how to tell nations of their shortcomings. France and England, you are wrong.

To flatter peoples would be worse than to flatter kings. The one is base, the other would be cowardly.

Let us go further, and since this thought has been presented to us, let us generalize it usefully, even if we should leave our subject for a while. No; the people have not the right to throw indefinitely the fault upon governments. The acceptation of oppression by the oppressed ends in becoming complicity. Cowardice is consent whenever the duration of a bad thing, which presses on the people, and which the people could prevent if they would, goes beyond the amount of patience endurable by an honest man; there is an appreciable solidarity and a partnership in shame between the government guilty of the evil and the people allowing it to be done. To suffer is worthy of veneration; to submit is worthy of contempt. Let us pass on.

A noteworthy coincidence: the man who denies Shakespeare, Voltaire, is also the insulter of Joan of Arc. But then what is Voltaire? Voltaire – we may say it with joy and sadness – is the French mind. Let us understand: it is the French mind, up to the Revolution exclusively. From the French Revolution, France increasing in greatness, the French mind grows larger, and tends to become the European mind; it is less local and more fraternal, less Gallic and more human. It represents more and more Paris, the city heart of the world. As for Voltaire, he remains as he is, – the man of the future, but also the man of the past. He is one of those glories which make the thinker say yes and no; he has against him two sarcasms, Joan of Arc and Shakespeare. He is punished through what he sneered at.

CHAPTER V

In truth, a monument to Shakespeare, cui bono? The statue that he has made for himself is worth more, with all England for a pedestal. Shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work.

What do you suppose marble could do for him? What can bronze do where there is glory? Malachite and alabaster are of no avail; jasper, serpentine, basalt, red porphyry, such as that at the Invalides, granite, Paros and Carrara, are of no use, – genius is genius without them. Even if all the stones had a part in it, would they make that man an inch greater? What vault shall be more indestructible than this; "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Julius Cæsar," "Coriolanus?" What monument more grandiose than "Lear," more wild than "The Merchant of Venice," more dazzling than "Romeo and Juliet," more amazing than "Richard III."? What moon could throw on that building a light more mysterious than "The Midsummer Night's Dream"? What capital, were it even London, could produce around it a rumour so gigantic as the tumultuous soul of "Macbeth"? What framework of cedar or of oak will last as long as "Othello"? What bronze will be bronze as much as "Hamlet"? No construction of lime, of rock, of iron and of cement, is worth the breath, – the deep breath of genius, which is the breathing of God through man. A head in which is an idea, – such is the summit; heaps of stone and brick would be useless efforts. What edifice equals a thought? Babel is below Isaiah; Cheops is less than Homer; the Coliseum is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda of Seville is dwarfish by the side of Cervantes; St. Peter of Rome does not reach to the ankle of Dante. How could you manage to build a tower as high as that name: Shakespeare.

Ah, add something, if you can, to a mind!

Suppose a monument. Suppose it splendid; suppose it sublime, – a triumphal arch, an obelisk, a circus with a pedestal in the centre, a cathedral. No people is more illustrious, more noble, more magnificent, and more magnanimous than the English people. Couple these two ideas, England and Shakespeare, and make an edifice arise therefrom. Such a nation celebrating such a man, it will be superb. Imagine the monument, imagine the inauguration. The Peers are there, the Commons give their adherence, the bishops officiate, the princes join the procession, the queen is present. The virtuous woman in whom the English people, royalist as we know, see and venerate their actual personification, – this worthy mother, this noble widow, comes, with the deep respect which is called for, to incline material majesty before ideal majesty; the Queen of England salutes Shakespeare. The homage of Victoria repairs the disdain of Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth, she is probably there also, sculptured somewhere on the surbase, with Henry VIII., her father, and James I., her successor, – pygmies beneath the poet. The cannon booms, the curtain falls, they uncover the statue, which seems to say, "At length!" and which has grown in the shade during three hundred years, – three centuries; the growth of a colossus; an immensity. All the York, Cumberland, Pitt, and Peel bronzes have been made use of, in order to produce this statue; the public places have been disencumbered of a heap of uncalled-for metal-castings; in this lofty figure have been amalgamated all kinds of Henrys and Edwards; the various Williams and the numerous Georges have been melted, the Achilles in Hyde Park has made the great-toe. This is fine; behold Shakespeare almost as great as a Pharaoh or a Sesostris. Bells, drums, trumpets, applause, hurrahs.

What then?

It is honourable for England, indifferent to Shakespeare.

What is the salutation of royalty, of aristocracy, of the army, and even of the English populace, ignorant yet to this moment, like nearly all other nations, – what is the salutation of all these groups variously enlightened to him who has the eternal acclamation, with its reverberation, of all ages and all men? What orison of the Bishop of London or of the Archbishop of Canterbury is worth the cry of a woman before Desdemona, of a mother before Arthur, of a soul before Hamlet?

And thus, when universal outcry demands from England a monument to Shakespeare, it is not for the sake of Shakespeare, it is for the sake of England.

There are cases in which the repayment of a debt is of greater import to the debtor than to the creditor.

A monument is an example. The lofty head of a great man is a light. Crowds, like the waves, require beacons above them. It is good that the passer-by should know that there are great men. People may not have time to read; they are forced to see. People pass by that way, and stumble against the pedestal; they are almost obliged to raise the head and to glance a little at the inscription. Men escape a book; they cannot escape the statue. One day on the bridge of Rouen, before the beautiful statue due to David d'Angers, a peasant mounted on an ass said to me: "Do you know Pierre Corneille?" "Yes," I replied. "So do I," he rejoined. "And do you know 'The Cid'?" I resumed. "No," said he.

To him, Corneille was the statue.

This beginning in the knowledge of great men is necessary to the people. The monument incites them to know more of the man. They desire to learn to read in order to know what this bronze means. A statue is an elbow-thrust to ignorance.

There is then, in the execution of such monuments, popular utility as well as national justice.

To perform what is useful at the same time as what is just, that will at the end certainly tempt England. She is the debtor of Shakespeare. To leave such a debt in abeyance is not a good attitude for the pride of a people. It is a point of morality that nations should be good payers in matters of gratitude. Enthusiasm is probity. When a man is a glory in the face of his nation, that nation which does not perceive the fact astounds the human race around.

CHAPTER VI

England, as it is easy to foresee, will build a monument to her poet.

At the very moment we finished writing the pages you have just read, was announced in London the formation of a committee for the solemn celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare. This committee will dedicate to Shakespeare, on the 23d April, 1864, a monument and a festival which will surpass, we doubt not, the incomplete programme we have just sketched out. They will spare nothing. The act of admiration will be a striking one. One may expect everything, in point of magnificence, from the nation which has created the prodigious palace at Sydenham, that Versailles of a people. The initiative taken by the committee will doubtless secure the co-operation of the powers that be. We discard, for our part, and the committee will discard, we think, all idea of a manifestation by subscription. A subscription, unless of one penny, – that is to say, open to all the people, – is necessarily fractional. What is due to Shakespeare is a national manifestation; – a holiday, a public fête, a popular monument, voted by the Chambers and entered in the Budget England would do it for her king. Now, what is the King of England beside the man of England? Every confidence is due to the Jubilee Committee of Shakespeare, – a committee composed of persons highly distinguished in the press, the peerage, literature, the stage, and the church. Eminent men from all countries, representing intellect in France, in Germany, in Belgium, in Spain, in Italy, complete this committee, in all points of view excellent and competent. Another committee, formed at Stratford-on-Avon, seconds the London committee. We congratulate England.