Leading Motives in the Tragedies

Abstract

I t is a curious thing that the part played by recurrent images in raising, developing, sustaining and repeating emotion in the tragedies has not, so far as I know, ever yet been noticed. It is a part somewhat analogous to the action of a recurrent theme or ‘motif’ in a musical fugue or sonata, or in one of Wagner's operas. Perhaps, however, a more exact analogy to the function of Shakespeare's images in the tragedies is the unique work of another great artist, of the peculiar quality of which they constantly remind one, that is, Blake's illustrations to his prophetic books. These are not, for the most part, illustrations in the ordinary sense of the term, the translation by the artist of some incident in the narrative into a visual picture; they are rather a running accompaniment to the words in another medium, sometimes symbolically emphasising or interpreting certain aspects of the thought, sometimes supplying frankly only decoration or atmosphere, sometimes grotesque and even repellent, vivid, strange, arresting, sometimes drawn with an almost unearthly beauty of form and colour. Thus, as the leaping tongues of flame which illuminate the pages of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell show the visual form which Blake's thought evoked in his mind, and symbolise for us the purity, the beauty and the two-edged quality of life and danger in his words, so the recurrent images in Macbeth or Hamlet reveal the dominant picture or sensation—and for Shakespeare the two are identical—in terms of which he sees and feels the main problem or theme of the play, thus giving us an unerring clue to the way he looked at it, as well as a direct glimpse into the working of his mind and imagination.