Historical Criticism and the Interpretation of Shakespeare

Abstract

HERE is no doubt that Shakespeare scholarship has advanced far beyond the Romantic criticism which confused literature 54@ and life. Yet it is possible that future generations will in their turn smile at the naivete of some of our Shakespeare studies, particularly those concerned with the ethics of the plays. In recent decades the definition of Shakespeare's moral attitudes has been viewed as a problem in the history of ideas that can be solved by the accumulation of objective factual evidence. At best such an approach oversimplifies a complex aesthetic problem; at worst it ignores the essential realities of dramatic art. Professor E. E. Stoll suggested some years ago that we cannot intelligently discuss Shakespeare's characters unless we understand how the impression of character is created in poetic drama. I would suggest, in addition, that we cannot accurately interpret Shakespeare's moral intention unless we understand how moral judgments are translated into the artifice of poetic drama and apprehended by an audience. It has been too frequently assumed that the moral interpretation of Shakespeare is the province of the scholarly researcher, who relates the thought and action of a play to the commonplace political, moral, and religious beliefs of the Elizabethan age. But the same assumptions about a dramatist and his cultural milieu which lead scholars to interpret Shakespeare by means of La Primaudaye, Charron, and Coeffeteau should lead us to interpret A Streetcar Named Desire by reference to Norman Vincent Peale, a latter-day ethical psychologist no less influential than his Renaissance counterparts. To be sure, Dr. Peale sheds some light on the tragedy of Blanche Du Bois: she has no mustard seeds, no Attitude of Gratitude; she might possibly have been saved had she been more of a positive thinker. We would not be surprised, moreover, to find striking similarities between Mitch's views on marriage and motherhood and those of Dr. Peale. Still we must insist that Tennessee Williams' view of life is not Dr. Peale's. We must distinguish between popular and intellectual levels of thought when discussing the cultural milieu of any dramatist. And we must recognize the difference between a moral intuition expressed in art and the traditional platitudes of systematized ethics. That scholarly research enriches our understanding of Shakespeare is undeniable; that it affords a unique revelation of the meaning of the plays is debatable. The very nature of Elizabethan dramaturgy-the immediate plunge into dramatic action-demands that the moral apprehension of character be immediate. Motivation may be complex, subterranean, even inscrutable. The psychological depths of a character like Iago may be dark indeed; but we penetrate to