flaw. But the fatal imperfection or error, which
is never absent, is of different kinds and degrees.
At one extreme stands the excess and precipitancy
of Romeo, which scarcely, if at all, diminish our
regard for him; at the other the murderous
ambition of Richard III. In most cases the tragic
error involves no conscious breach of right; in
some (e.g. that of Brutus or Othello) it is accom-
panied by a full conviction of right. In Hamlet
there is a painful consciousness that duty is being
neglected; in Antony a clear knowledge that the
worse of two courses is being pursued; but Richard
and Macbeth are the only heroes who do what they
themselves recognise to be villainous. It is im-
portant to observe that Shakespeare does admit
such heroes, and also that he appears to feel,
and exerts himself to meet, the difficulty that arises
from their admission. The difficulty is that the
spectator must desire their defeat and even their
destruction; and yet this desire, and the satisfaction
of it, are not tragic feelings. Shakespeare gives to
Richard therefore a power which excites astonish-
ment, and a courage which extorts admiration.
gives to Macbeth a similar, though less extraordinary,
greatness, and adds to it a conscience so terrifying
in its warnings and so maddening in its reproaches
that the spectacle of inward torment compels a
horrified sympathy and awe which balance, at the
least, the desire for the hero's ruin.

He

The tragic hero with Shakespeare, then, need not be 'good,' though generally he is 'good' and therefore at once wins sympathy in his error. But it is necessary that he should have so much of greatness that in his error and fall we may be vividly conscious of the possibilities of human nature. Hence, in the first place, a Shakespearean 'Aristotle apparently would exclude them.

2

Richard II. is perhaps an exception, and I must confess that to me he is scarcely a tragic character, and that, if he is nevertheless a

King bear and Brutus are

Brutus are naively. naively simple. Algie toor in case of thamlet is brongit

awless passion rather than noble semplice in case of macteld and Autony.

tragedy is never, like some miscalled tragedies,
depressing. No one ever closes the book with the
feeling that man is a poor mean creature. He
may be wretched and he may be awful, but he is
not small.
His lot may be heart-rending and
mysterious, but it is not contemptible. The most
confirmed of cynics ceases to be a cynic while he
reads these plays. And with this greatness of the
tragic hero (which is not always confined to him)
is connected secondly, what I venture to describe
as the centre of the tragic impression. This central
feeling is the impression of waste. With Shake-
speare, at any rate, the pity and fear which are
stirred by the tragic story seem to unite with, and
even to merge in, a profound sense of sadness and
mystery, which is due to this impression of waste.
What a piece of work is man,' we cry; 'so much
more beautiful and so much more terrible than
we knew! Why should he be so if this beauty
and greatness only tortures itself and throws itself
away ?' We seem to have before us a type of
the mystery of the whole world, the tragic fact
which extends far beyond the limits of tragedy
Everywhere, from the crushed rocks beneath our
feet to the soul of man, we see power, intelligence,
life and glory, which astound us and seem to call
for our worship. And everywhere we see them
perishing, devouring one another and destroying
themselves, often with dreadful pain, as though they
came into being for no other end. Tragedy is the
typical form of this mystery, because that greatness
of soul which it exhibits oppressed, conflicting and
destroyed, is the highest existence in our view. It
forces the mystery upon us, and it makes us realise
so vividly the worth of that which is wasted that we
cannot possibly seek comfort in the reflection that
all is vanity.

tragic figure, he is so only because his fall from prosperity to adversity
is so great.

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and bring him down to tragic disaster Firo-them action SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

LECT. L

Bertrand
Russell.

4

In this tragic world, then, where individuals, however great they may be and however decisive their actions may appear, are so evidently not the ultimate power, what is this power? What account can we give of it which will correspond with the imaginative impressions we receive? This will be our final question.

The variety of the answers given to this question shows how difficult it is. And the difficulty has many sources. Most people, even among those who know Shakespeare well and come into real contact with his mind, are inclined to isolate and exaggerate some one aspect of the tragic fact. Some are so much influenced by their own habitual beliefs that they import them more or less into their interpretation of every author who is 'sympathetic' to them. And even where neither of these causes of error appears to operate, another is present from which it is probably impossible wholly to escape. What I mean is this. Any answer we give to the question proposed ought to correspond with, or to represent in terms of the understanding, our imaginative and emotional experience in reading the tragedies. We have, of course, to do our best by study and effort to make this experience true to Shakespeare; but, that done to the best of our ability, the experience is the matter to be interpreted, and the test by which the interpretation must be tried. But it is extremely hard to make out exactly what this experience is, because, in the very effort to make it out, our reflecting mind, full of everyday ideas, is always tending to transform it by the application of these ideas, and so to elicit a result which, instead of representing the fact, conventionalises it. And the consequence is not only mistaken theories; it is

that many a man will declare that he feels in reading a tragedy what he never really felt, while he fails to recognise what he actually did feel. It is not likely that we shall escape all these dangers in our effort to find an answer to the question regarding the tragic world and the ultimate power

in it.

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according Tillyard

It will be agreed, however, first, that this question must not be answered in religious' language. For although this or that dramatis persona may speak of gods or of God, of evil spirits or of Satan, of heaven and of hell, and although the poet may show us ghosts from another world, these ideas do not materially influence his representation of life, nor are they used to throw light on the mystery of its tragedy. The Elizabethan drama was almost wholly secular; and while Shakespeare was writing he practically confined his view to the world of non-theological observation and thought, so that he represents it substantially in one and the same way whether the period of the story is pre-Christian or Christian. He looked at this 'secular' world most intently and seriously; and he painted it, we cannot but conclude, with entire fidelity, without the wish to enforce an opinion of his own, and, in essentials, without regard to anyone's hopes, fears, or beliefs. His greatness is largely due to this fidelity in a mind of extraordinary power; and if, as a private person, he had a religious faith, his tragic view can hardly have been in contradiction with this faith, but must have been included in it, and supplemented, not abolished, by additional ideas.

Two statements, next, may at once be made regarding the tragic fact as he represents it: one, that it is and remains to us something piteous, fearful and mysterious; the other, that the

1I say substantially; but the concluding remarks on Hamlet will modify a little the statements above.

representation of it does not leave us crushed, rebellious or desperate. These statements will be accepted, I believe, by any reader who is in touch with Shakespeare's mind and can observe his own. Indeed such a reader is rather likely to complain that they are painfully obvious. But if they are true as well as obvious, something follows from them in regard to our present question.

From the first it follows that the ultimate power in the tragic world is not adequately described as a law or order which we can see to be just and benevolent,-as, in that sense, a moral order': for in that case the spectacle of suffering and waste could not seem to us so fearful and mysterious as it does. And from the second it follows that this ultimate power is not adequately described as a fate, whether malicious and cruel, or blind and indifferent to human happiness and goodness: for in that case the spectacle would leave us desperate or rebellious. Yet one or other of these two ideas will be found to govern most accounts of Shakespeare's tragic view or world. These accounts isolate and exaggerate single aspects, either the aspect of action or that of suffering; either the close and unbroken connection of character, will, deed and catastrophe, which, taken alone, shows the individual simply as sinning against, or failing to conform to, the moral order and drawing his just doom on his own head; or else that pressure of outward forces, that sway of accident, and those blind and agonised struggles, which, taken alone, show him as the mere victim of some power which cares neither for his sins nor for his pain. Such views contradict one another, and no third view can unite them; but the several aspects from whose isolation and exaggeration they spring are both present in the fact, and a view which would be true to the fact and to the whole of our imaginative experience must in some way combine these aspects.