SHAKESPEARE'S INTELLECTUAL VllL'AINS

The-sis for the Dogma of Ph. D.
MECHIGAN STATE UNEVERSITY
R. Jeremy Ma Namara
1961

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Shakespeare's Intellectual Villains

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R. Jeremy McNamara

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ABSTRACT
SHAKESPEARE'S INTELLECTUAL VILLAINS

by R. Jeremy McNamara

The Renaissance inherited from the Middle Ages a
conception of the universe as orderly, hierarchical, and
moral. Recent investigations have shown how specific au-
thors, including Shakespeare, utilized this orthodox
world view either for occasional commentary or, more in-
tegrally, as the theme of a play or as the philosOphy of
a major character. But there has been comparatively
little attention focussed on the negation of the values
posited by this orthodox world view in Shakespearean drama.
This present study of Shakespeare's plays reveals that
' one group of characters, the villains, consistently Oper-
ates from intellectual principles which negate the stand-
ard values of the Elizabethan world view. This means
that Shakespeare's villains practice primarily a villainy
of ideas. I have chosen the term intellectual villain
to describe this group of characters as it indicates the
ideological nature of their villainy as well as the fact
that the demonstration of their villainy is more often
mental than physical action. A second major point of
this study is that Shakespeare's dominant conception of
villainy differs from that of both his classical prede-

cessors and his contemporary playwrights.

This s?

 

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2 R. Jeremy ncNamara

This study is in three parts. The Opening section
is a critique of the major theories about Shakespeare's
villains beginning with Coleridge and continuing to the
present. These theories have viewed Shakespeare's vil-
lains either as conventional stage types, such as the
Machiavel or Vice, or else as satanic representations
of evil incarnate. These theories have failed to account
sufficiently for the intellectual nature of most of Shake-
speare's villains or else have not recognized the essen-
tial kinship of Shakespeare's villains and the unique-
ness of his conception of villainy.

The middle section presents the evidence for the
major point of the thesis. Neving chronologically through
Shakespeare's plays, I analyze the roles of the villains,
concentrating mainly on their motives, their ideas, and
their methods of attaining their goals. Though Claudius
among the major villains and a few lesser characters
do not entirely qualify as intellectual villains, most
of Shakespeare's villains follow a pattern of holding to
a world view which is egocentric, cynical, realistic,
naturalistic, materialistic, atheistic, and, in general,
"modern" rather than "medieval,” as well as using strat-
agems, verbal ambiguities, and deceit against the inter-
ests or person of a victim whose nature the villain thor-
oughly understands.

The final section contains a brief survey of vil-

lains in Greek and Senecan tragedy as well as a longer

characteriz
contemporar
deuce for t
of intellec
by the fact
intellectual
or monetary
View which

and third so
ing the val:
villain, su<
sence of any

critical ch.

 

 

3 R. Jeremy McNamara

characterization of the villains depicted by Shakespeare's
contemporaries. This section is intended to provide evi-
dence for the second point of the thesis, the uniqueness
of intellectual villainy. This uniqueness is borne out

by the fact that these villains are passionate rather than
intellectual, being motivated chiefly by ambition, revenge,
or monetary reward, but with no explicitly-stated world
view which denies orthodox values. In addition, the first
and third sections provide external referents for judg-
ing the validity of the conception of the intellectual
villain, such a framework being necessitated by the ab-
sence of any explicit theories of villainy in Renaissance
critical theory.

 

rt

 

SHAKESPEARE s INTELLECTUAL VILLAINS

By

c, I"

R.‘Jeremy'McNamara

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

1961

 

 

Preface

Since
Elizabethan
than world
generally a-
that is char
and guided t
tially this
though the P
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Plays climax
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Despite the ‘

Preface

Since the investigations of Hardin Craig into the
Elizabethan mind and E. M. W. Tillyard into the Elizabe-
than world picture, students of Shakespearean drama have
generally accepted the concept of a Shakespearean world
that is characterized by both secular and cosmic order
and guided by a moral, even religious, purpose. Essen-
tially this world view is a heritage of medieval thought,
though the Renaissance emphasized the human link in the
chain of being more than its divine culmination. In the
plays of Shakespeare this world view not only appears
as "background," but also constitutes a set of values
which are consistently upheld throughout Shakespeare's
dramatic career. These values might form the theme of
a play or series of plays, as in the tetralogy of history
plays climaxed by flgggy_!5 they might create the basic
outlook of an Othello or represent the matured wisdom~of
a Lear; or they might appear fragmentarily, but emphati-
cally, in the words of minor characters who undergo no
dramatic development, as in Ulysses' speech on order in
Iggilgg gag gngggidg. But drama, of course, is funda-
mentally contrast, and, in Shakespearean drama, this prin-
ciple extends to the depiction of opposing world views.
Despite the wide realization that Shakespearean drama
is rooted in the orthodox Elizabethan world view, the
commentators have not sufficiently recognized that one
group of Shakespeare's characters, the villains, consist-

ii

ently neg
orthodox
This lean
Iarily a
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ently negates this world view, completely inverting the
orthodox views about man, the universe, and morality.

This means that the Shakespearean villains practice pri-
marily a villainy of ideas. To be sure, from these ideas
stems action, the dramatic representation in time and space
of the villains' intellectual principles put into opera-
tion against other human characters. But the essential
quality of a Shakespearean villain lies in the nature of
his ideas; these villains are not merely bad men, but they
are drawn into evil deeds because their principles are
evil and are in conscious apposition to the good of the
Shakespearean universe. This conception of ideological
villainy means also that Shakespeare's villains are unique
when considered in relation to the villains created by

his contemporaries and classical predecessors.

In discussing this unique group of characters, I
have chosen the term intellectual villains because it has
a double significance. First, the word intellectual re-
flects the ideological nature of their villainy, the pri-
mary characteristic of these villains. Second, the word
indicates that in their secondary characteristic of ac-
tion the villains engage more often in mental rather than
purely physical activity. To avoid possible confusion,
however, I will use the term intelligent when referring
to this second quality alone.

As intellectual villains, the characters whom I will
discuss share a common world view which can be described

iii

 

as egocent
distiC, a
"medieval.
that they

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as egocentric, cynical, realistic, naturalistic, materi-
alistic, atheistic, and, in general, "modern" rather than
"medieval." As intelligent characters, the villains show
that they thoroughly understand their victims and can
thus manipulate either the strengths or weaknesses of
others. Also they are adept at creating stratagems (both
carefully planned and extempore), at employing verbal
ambiguities, and at utilizing deceit for their own ad-
vantage. Reason guides them more often than passion--
for many, a yielding to passion invites destruction.
Since the intellectual villaintappears in all dramatic
genres and in roles of widely-varying significance, the
end result is a certain pattern of belief and behavior
rather than a conventional, definite character type. A
character qualifies as an intellectual villain by express-
ing a particular world view and by working against the
person or the interests of the hero. All villains do the
latter; the intellectual villain is a separate species
in that his ideology as well as his actions is evil.
In Shakespearean drama the simple pattern of villain ver-
sus hero is occasionally obscured when an intellectual
villain happens to be the protagonist of the play, as
in fiighgzfi,;;;. In such a case the intellectual villain
works against the orthodox concepts and the characters
who embody or represent them rather than against a "hero."
I would emphasize that throughout this study I am
making no claims of insight into Shakespeare's personal
iv

 

 

 

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beliefs, but am rather presenting as a norm those values
considered orthodox by the Elizabethans. Shakespeare may
well have had strong partisan leanings or simply uncon-
sciously reflected the thought of his day, but drama is
a particularly dangerous literary form from which to
extract an author's own beliefs. Rather, drawing on the
work of Craig, Tillyard, Theodore Spencer, and others,
and seeing in the plays certain values consistently up-
held, I think I can legitimately formulate a set of or-
thodox principles which the villains continually violate
or negate.

This study consists of three parts. The Opening
section is a critique of major theories about Shake-
speare's villains. Those critics who have discussed Shake-
speare's villains specifically or who have necessarily
commented on a significant number of them when discuss-
ing Shakespearean tragedy, have usually assigned the vil-
lains to one or another conventional character type.
Whether these writers have ultimately employed the term
Senecan tyrant, Machiavel, or Vice, their emphasis has
been historical, comparative, objective. Other critics,
‘writing from a more subjective and less historically-
oriented point of view, have seen the villains as stand-
ins for the Devil or as evil incarnate rather than as
human characters or even as stage types. But all these
theories have failed in various ways: either they have
insufficiently noted the dual intellectual-intelligent

V

 

u“!

   

 

nature of the villains, neglecting to stress the inter-
relation of ideas with action, or else they have not rec-
ognized the kinship of nearly all of Shakespeare's villains
and their exclusiveness from the villains of other Ren-
aissance dramatists.

The middle section contains the evidence for my
thesis from.the plays themselves. The procedure followed
is simply description and analysis of the roles of the
intellectual villains, their motives, their ideas, their
methods of accomplishing their goals. Although Claudius
among the major villains is not conceived as an intel-
lectual villain and although some of the lesser villains
only partially fulfill the qualifications or show some
other deviation in the pattern, discussion of these char-
actors will nevertheless be included to sharpen the posi-
tive definition of intellectual villainy by focussing on
qualities which are not part of this pattern. It will
be seen, however, that the concept of the intellectual
villain describes most of the villains whom Shakespeare
created.

The final section, a discussion of the villains in
the drama of Shakespeare's contemporaries, serves a two-
fold purpose: it presents my evidence for stating that
Shakespeare's conception of villainy is unique and it pro-
vides an external referent for the study of the intellec-
‘tual villains by allowing me to compare Shakespeare's
villains with those in other drama in view of the absence

vi

of Renais:
and last I
work for .'
intellectu
Anyon
gation to
can only p
liographic.
an academi
tude for t1
01' courses
Philip W. '3
Talbert, Hg
University
w111M313 an
sity, In a
thank Profe
State Unive
on this (115
indebted to

of Renaissance critical theories of villainy. The first
and last sections, then, are intended to provide a frame-
work for Judging the validity of the conception of the
intellectual villain.

Anyone writing on Shakespeare feels a general obli-
gation to the centuries-old tradition of commentary that
can only partially be acknowledged by footnotes or bib-
liographical lists. Also, writing as a student seeking
an academic degree, I feel a particular sense of grati-
tude for the knowledge and inspiration of my teachers
of courses in dramatic literature: the late Professor
Philip W. Timberlake of Kenyon College, Professors E. W.
Talbert, Robert B. Sharpe, and Dougald MacMillan of the
University of North Carolina, and Professors Arnold
Williams and Herbert Weisinger of Michigan State Univer-
sity. In.addition to the last two named, I wish also to
thank Professors George Price and Harry Hoppe of Michigan
State University for reading and commenting critically
on this dissertation while in progress. I am especially
indebted to Professor Weisinger not only for the origi-
nal suggestion for this study, but also for continued
guidance and much-needed encouragement along the way.
And finally I want to express a special thanks to my
wife for her typing and editorial assistance and for, in
many other real ways, making this completed study pos-
sible.

vii

Preface

Part 1:

‘

 

 

CONTENTS

Preface ii

Part 1: The Villains and the Critics

I The Villains and the Critics I

Part 2: The Villains of Shakespearean Drama

II The Early Intellectual Villains 62
III An End and a Beginning 101
IV Some Deviations in the Pattern 131
V The Perfection of the Pattern 1L9
VI The Decline of the Pattern 181

Part 3: The Villains of Shakespeare's Contemporaries

VII The Villains of Shakespeare's Contemporaries 199

Bibliography 2L7

viii

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Chapter I
The Villains and the Critics

The first important statement about the nature of
Shakespeare's villains came with Coleridge's phrase,
"motiveless.malignity." Those literary critics of the
Renaissance who discussed contemporary drama concerned
themselves with the establishment of genres, the moral
value of drama, and, occasionally, the characteristics
of the dramatic hero, but they omitted any statement of
the requirements or rationale of the dramatic villain.1
Dryden and other nee-classical critics were even more in-
volved in formal matters, giving almost their entire
attention to the unities, decorum, and the strict formu-
lation of genre rules. Eighteenth-century criticism,
in addition to the usual formal considerations, broke
ground for two new approaches. One, the rise of literary
scholarship, was mainly textual in emphasis. The second,
initiated by Maurice Morgana, led to essays on characters
who could be sentimentalised, a category which automati-
cally eliminated consideration of the villains. But though
the Romantic critics continued the eighteenth-century
tradition of character analysis, they were, perhaps tem-

peramentally, attracted to the evil as well as the good.2

 

1 See, for example, the pertinent selections in Allan
11. Gilbert. Literary. 22mm film to Baden.

2 For a survey of the Satanic figure in Romantic lit-
erature see Mario Praz, The W Am. For the pos-
sible Shakespearean influences on this figure see espe-
cially pp. 58-60. Pras also stresses the subjective
element in defining romantic (p. 13).

l

So it is 1‘1
Shakespeare
of the gene
Shakespeare
standably,
Iajor cleav
can critici
ary study.
Coleri
nineteenth-
'3! 1n the
I believe,
once had We

to its Pure
Maine. 11

So it is fitting that the greatest Romantic critic of
Shakespeare should introduce this present critical sketch
of the general theories that have been preposed to explain
Shakespeare's villains. Not unexpectedly and quite under-
standably, these theories will be seen to conform to the
major cleavages which have made the history of Shakespear-
ean criticism such an intense, lively segment of liter-
ary study.

Coleridge's "motiveless malignity," having dominated
nineteenth-century thinking, has been gradually giving
way in the twentieth century to a diversity of opinions.

I believe, however, that the great influence this phrase
once had was due more to its success as a catchword than
to its revelation of any firm understanding of Coleridge's
meaning. 'Ue should recall that Coleridge, in discussing
Iago's remark at the end of Act I that he suspects Othello
of cuckolding him, writes:

The last speech, Iago's soliloquy shows the mo-

tive-hunting of motiveless malignity--how awful!

In itself fiendish; while yet he was allowed

to bear the divine image, it is too fiendish for

his-own steady view. He is a being next to devil,

only pg; quite devil--and this Shakespeare has
attempted--executed-awithout disgust, without
scandal!
This is the whole of Coleridge's comment on the subject.
As with so much of his Shakespearean criticism, the re-
mark exists as a note on a particular passage and is not

developed beyond that. But Coleridge, even in this frag-

mentary way, suggests a reservation that his followers

 

3 Coleridge'g‘Writingg 2g.Shake care, p. 171.

 

have 10:
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Hazlitt .
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have lost sight of. Not only does-he fail to erect a
general theory of villainy upon this insight, he does

not even make it the key to Iago's character. IMotiveless
malignity is merely a phase through which Iago passes in
this particular speech. Since it is "too fiendish for
his own steady view," presumably Iago himself would re-
ject motiveless malignity as a guiding principle.

Hazlitt, in his discussion of Iago, strove to extri-
cate himself from the influence of Coleridge. Referring
to those who feel that Iago's villainy is without motive,
Hazlitt affirms that Shakespeare was "as good a philoso-
pher as he was a poet" and knew that the love of power
was natural to man. According to Hazlitt, Iago preferred
evil "because it falls more readily in with his favor-
ite propensity." Further, Iago "plots the ruin of his
friends as an exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men
in the dark to prevent gnggi."4 So Hazlitt has not really
escaped the coils of Coleridge. There is nothing in his
remark that is an advance upon motiveless malignity as
an analytical concept and certainly nothing so pungently
phrased.

Bradley, who in many ways represents the climax of
the Coleridgean tradition, agrees that Iago's soliloquies
express inconsistent motives and are therefore to be re-
garded as mere motive-hunting. But Bradley explicitly
rejects the concept of motiveless malignity:

1, m, TV, 206-7.

 

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For love of the evil that advances my interest

and hurts a person I dislike, is a very different

thing from love of evil simply as evil.
To replace absolute evil as a cornerstone of Iago's char-
acter, Bradley offers a multiple motivation which itself
slides off into the supernatural: Iago reacts against
those who have slighted his sense of superiority; he
takes pleasure in excitement and danger; he gets an es-
thetic pleasure from manipulating the plot; and finally
he is "fated" to ruin Othello.6

Despite Bradley's disclaimer, some critics have at-
tempted to create a general theory about the nature of
Shakespeare's villains stemming from the idea of motive-
less malignity. Perhaps the culmination of these attempts
is Donald Stauffer's statement that the "image of the
almost completely evil man is the first moral idea clear
in Shakespeare's mind." The completely evil man is one
who needs no specific motive beyond his evil nature to act
villainously. That Stauffer is working toward a general
theory is clear when he adds, "Shakespeare is consistent
throughout his life in his interpretation of pure moral
evil."7 In a specific case, Stauffer speaks of Iago's
"fixed instinct of hate," another circumlocution for mo-

tiveless malignity as Coleridge's phrase came to be inter-

preted.

5 WW. 9. 18h-

6 Ibid., pp. 180-8.

7 Shakespeare's World of Images: The Development
if his Moral Ideas. P- 26.

 

 

 

 

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Some critics have used Coleridge's phraseology as
well as his basic insight in commenting on other villains,
usually Aaron. C. V. Boyer feels that Aaron displays
"absolutely motiveless malignity."8 Virgil Whitaker calls
Aaron the "embodiment of motiveless evil,"9 but discusses
him as an example of the Machiavel. Irving Ribner sees
Aaron as "the symbol of evil itself" and the evil in
‘Iitng Apnrgnigng as "a motiveless force which operates
through deception."10

An extension of Coleridge is evidenced in such crit-
ics as G. Wilson Knight and Robert Speaight, who speak
of the devilish or Satanic aspects of Iago. Speaight is
careful to say that Iago is not motiveless, but Satanic,
but the distinction seems fuzzy when he remarks that "what
is at work in him is the spirit of evil, pure and undi-
vided."11 Knight calls Iago "utterly devilish" and com-
pares him to.Mephistopheles in displaying cynicism and
mockery.12

The attitude I have been tracing is certainly the
most important romantic concept of Shakespeare's villains.
Several considerations make it a romantic point of view.
The attitude derives from Coleridge's highly subjective
insight, or even intuition. This intuition is part of

a discussion of Iago, the villain who most critics believe
3 Ihs_llainaa_emin_l_zahsthan_nemn. p. 109.
9 Wwflm. p. 105.
10 Min-W Imam. 1315;318-9-

11 Entire in.§hahssnsazian Izsésdx. po -
12 Ihsflheslni‘fiiu. pp. 125- .

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

displays at

the romant'
lute evil.
limitation
Lesser Shak
by this the
'Peare crea

710115 villa.

displays absolute evil and who has most consistently re-
sisted rational explanation, and of Aaron, the villain
who is superficially the closest to Iago. Moreover, the
parallels drawn to the Devil satisfy the romantic crav-
ing for the grandiose and absolute and also illustrate
the romantic predilection for evil, particularly abso-
lute evil. These qualities carry with them a built-in
limitation on the applicability of motiveless malignity.
Lesser Shakespearean villains cannot easily be covered
by this theory, the implication being that with Iago Shake-
speare created a villain differing in kind from all pre-
vious villains (though perhaps dimly foreshadowed in Aaron).
Although the phrase has often been used as if it explained
everything, quite obviously it cannot become a general
theory to account for the nature of Shakespeare's villains.
And, of course, if it can be shown that Iago and Aaron
are not motiveless, then the phrase had best be withdrawn
from general circulation and retired to its place in that
featureless fecundity which comprises Coleridge's Shake-
spearean criticism.13 I
In contrast to the limited applicability of motive-
less malignity, the term Machiavel, together with the com-
plex of associations surrounding it, has been used at
various times to describe Aaron, Richard III, Falstaff,

Iago, Edmund,and many other non-Shakespearean characters.

However, the widespread use of the term does not indicate

 

13 See following section for a discussion of the mo-
tives of Aaron and Iago.

any wide
relatiox
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7

any widespread agreement as to the exact nature of the
relationship between Machiavelli and the Elizabethan drama.
The tgzninng,gwqgg for this discussion can be definitely
set: the publication, in 1897, of Edward Meyer's Eagh -
s:alli.andttha.Elizshethan.2rsnao The thesis of this
study is that the Elizabethan dramatists learned of Machi-
avelli through Gentillet's antzgpflaghiaygl, of which an
English translation was made in 1577 and published in
1602,1‘ so that the Machiavellism of the English drama,
though not taken first hand from Machiavelli, at least
dealt with the Italian's ideas in their original form,
since Gentillet quoted maxims from The firing; in order
to refute them. Following Meyer's lead, many scholars
eagerly adapted the term.Machiave1 to explain the villains
they feund in Elizabethan drama, though even those who
used the term often seemed reluctant to indicate just
what was meant by it. In other words, for many the term
is evidently sufficient unto itself. The following gen-
eral description of the character Lorenzo, from Ihg_§pgg-
‘1ghwlzgggdy, can stand as a general definition of the type:

His fundamental likeness to the Machiavellian

comes in his ruthlessness toward all who stand

in the way of his plans, in his Perfect indif-

ference to the sufferings he causes others, in

his mania for secrecy and willingness to employ

other men as catspaws, and in the tortuous and

deceitful means he uses to attain his ends.

Lorenzo is fundamentally cold-blooded and un-

sentimental a practical man after Machiavelli's
own heart. 5

 

11. Mario Praz, 1h_9_ F1 Hggnt, p. 93.
15 Fredson Bowers, i figygggg Tragedy 15 Z-

léig. pp- 76-7.

 

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villain.he
symbol or m
Coleridge)

1'? playsn

The extreme statement of the influence of the real Machi-
avelli on Elizabethan drama occurs in Wyndham Lewis, whose
‘Ihg_Ligg,gnnpthg Egg postulates as the master subject of
Shakespeare's plays a struggle between chivalry, "celtism,"
and Christian mysticism on the one hand and the scientific
spirit of the Renaissance on the other, what Lewis calls
the battle of the lion and the fox, the simpleton and
Machiavel, worked out most clearly in the struggle be-
tween Othello and Iago.

Further investigation has revealed that the matter
of’Machiavelli's influence on the drama was not as simple
as mayor believed. It is apparent now that the real
Machiavelli was misunderstood by the Elizabethans and,
as Irving Ribner has shown, Gentillet was not the chief
source of the Elizabethans' knowledge of Machiavelli.
Ribner argues that the name Machiavel as a symbol of
immorality and evil was simply applied to the result of
two traditions already available to such dramatists as
Kyd and Marlowe who introduced the "Machiavel" to the
English stage. The combination consisted of the Senecan
villain-hero with "its plotting, murdering, fraudulent
symbol of motiveless malignity" (and we are back with
Coleridge) and the devil incarnate from the native moral-
ity plays.16 Mario Praz, who has studied the develop-
ment of the "Machiavel" in great detail, also feels that
Seneca is the logical starting point.

, 16 "The Significance of Gentillet's An§g4fla§higzel,"
£23, I (19h9), 153-7.

 

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The initiative for the study of Seneca in relation
to Elizabethan drama also came in the late nineteenth
century with the publication of J. W. Cunliffe's 2h;

Isthmus: 9.11 m an Elizabethan 1339.211 (1893). Cun-
liffe's thesis readily found devotees; among them was

H. B. Charlton, who summarized the importance of Seneca
to Elizabethan writers of tragedy:

He provided the most tragic motive, revenge ex-
acted on the closest consanguinity. He provided
the most tragic theme, the inevitability of fate's
decrees. He provided the most tragic appeal,
horror piling itself on horror. He provided the
most tragic machinery, ghosts, supernatural forces,
and foreboding dreams; the most tragic incidents,
murder inflicted in the most cruel and bloodthirsty
way. He provided the most tragic characters, super-
human villains dominated with one abnormal con-
suming passion. He provided the most tragic senti-
ment, morbid introspective self- ity and self-
reliance. He provided the super ative tragic
style, whether for the utterance of passion, pic-
ture, or sentence.

F. L. Lucas, who feels that Seneca is the most important
classical author to influence Elizabethan tragedy, con-
fines this influence to the revenge tragedy and denies
most of the parallel passages upon which Cunliffe based
his thesis, seeing only a general resemblance between
Elizabethan and Senecan tragedy.18
Moving completely to the Opposite pole, Howard Baker
has pointed out that the various elements of the form of

Elizabethan tragedy--five-act structure, chorus, disre-

gard of the unities, observance of the stage decencies,

ILGJBIWWHWW.
p. c .

18 MMWM.W.

10

messengers, ghosts, revenge motive, rant, sensationalism,
and sententious precepts--were not necessarily influenced
by Seneca, but could have come from a variety of non-
Senecan sources, notably the native English stage tradi-
tion. In showing how medieval developments shaped Ren-
aissance drama, Baker comments specifically on the wholly

wicked character:

Consequently we must suppose that Shakespeare's
complete villains are molded most importantly by
the enduring medieval view that the evil of the
world could and dig manifest itself in wholly
evil human beings. 9

Baker's study leads him to the following summary statement

about Seneca's influence:

‘We have very good reasons to believe that Seneca
contributed rhetorical patches and practically
nothing more; certainly nothing tangible to the
form of English tragedy; certainly nothing worth
mentioning to its philosOphy. Seneca, finally,
like Machiavelli, seems to have been dragged by
main force into modern criticism because he is

a convenient peg on which to hang the disorderly
and disintegrating materials which the Sackviales
and the Kyds could not quite straighten out.

The whole question of Seneca's influence on the vil-
lains of Elizabethan drama centers on two Senecan char-
acters, Medea and Atreus. The key to Medea is overtower-
ing passion which leads her wildly to seek revenge. Jason,
who says of Medea, "fierce she is and brooking no restraint,"
still feels she will listen to reason and believe that his

19% to Imam. p. 170-
20 hi ., p. 198. The whole discussion occupies

pp. 130-19 of Baker's book. As far as Senecan horrors
are concerned, Baker receives support from T. S. Eliot
in "Seneca in Elizabethan Translation," Selected E .
However, Eliot feels Seneca exerted strong influence I:
other directions.

 

I

11

second marriage was really for her good. But Medea has
no regard for any conventional moral values:

Away with every thought and fear of God and man;

Too lightly falls the rod that pious hands upbear.

Give passion fullest sway;21
In the extremity of passion she kills her children to
avenge herself against the wrongs of Jason.

The ideas of Atreus are brought out in the follow-
ing comments he makes to an attendant who utters in return
all the conventionally correct notions of kingship:

Herein is greatest good of royal power:

The populace not only must endure
Their master's deeds, but praise them.

When he who rules must wish for right alone
He hardly rules, except on sufferance.

Integrity,

Truth, loyalt , are private virtues; kings

Do as they wi l.

Atreus, like Medea, longs for the ultimate horror to en-
compass his revenge. When he serves Thyestes' sons to
their father at a banquet, the chorus comments: "The
ancient order of the universe/ Has perished!"

These quotations illustrate the intellectual con-
ceptions held by the greatest Senecan villains. Indeed,
the list represents almost all of the expressions in
Seneca's ten tragedies which would indicate any similar-
ity between Seneca's villains and Shakespeare's intel-
lectual villains. ‘Whatever influence Seneca may have had

on other Elizabethan dramatists (and Baker's study makes

even this appear doubtful or negligible), I don't believe

 

21 All quotations from Seneca are from Egg Complete
man D . Frank Justus Miller translated M; Ella
sabell arris, Ihzggtgs.

12

his name can be conjured up as a sufficient explanation
for the typical Shakespearean villain, a proposition which
I hope will become clearer in the second section of this
study.

Mario Praz has given a cogent account of the develop-
ment of the Elizabethan villain from Seneca through Machi-
avelli in a form substantially in agreement with similar
studies by C. V. Boyer, Irving Ribner, and Henri Fluchere.
Beginning with the stock character of the Senecan tyrant
"with his ambitious schemes and unprincipled maxims of
government," a figure best represented by Atreus, Praz '
discovers the Italian Cinthio to be the medium through
which Machiavellian elements were grafted onto the fami-
liar Senecan tyrant. Another contribution by Cinthio,
the utilization of a mere subject rather than a king as
a Senecan-Machiavellian figure, completes the transition
to the Elizabethan villain. Having arrived at Elizabethan
drama, however, Praz cautions against finding Machiavelli
"at the back of every Tudor mind," as Wyndham Lewis,
most notably, has done. Particularly, Praz denies that
Tamburlaine and other Elizabethan heroes are derived from
Machiavelli, finding the influence of Seneca much more
important. As positive examples of Machiavellian influ-
ence Praz cites Marlowe's flaw of Malta_and Kyd's The
'Spanigh ngggdy and, to a lesser extent, Shakespeare's
Richard 111.22

 

22 The Flgming Heart, pp. 109-123.

 

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13

The Shakespearean characters most commonly labeled
as Machiavels are Aaron, Richard III, Iago, and Edmund.
That this label is not itself sufficient to account for
even these four characters is shown by the critical com-
mentaries. Boyer considers Aaron a real Machiavellian
villain who owes his pleasure in the sufferings of others
to the Senecan villain-heroes and who shows "absolutely
motiveless malignity."23 'Whitaker says that Aaron shows
the standard characteristics of the Machiavel "including
the use of religion and honor for his own purposes" and
is also "the embodiment of motiveless evil."24 Boyer
calls Richard III the perfect Machiavel because he is

fearless, egotistical, haughty, audacious, sub-

tle, witty, intellectual, bold, treacherous, far-
sighted, remorseless, atheistical, cynical, and
above all gifted with almost superhuman energy
of‘w11125
an all-embracing catalogue which not even Machiavelli
‘would upheld in its entirety. 'Whitaker more cautiously
speaks of Shakespeare's "apparent identification of Richard
III with the Machiavel of contemporary drama," a figure
coming to Shakespeare from a stage tradition originated
byNarlowe.26 But even Whitaker believes that "Edmund
is a Machiavel in his adherence to Machiavelli's ethics
as well as in his dramatic origin."27 Iago is generally

felt to be the greatest Machiavel in Shakespeare, but

 

23 Boyer, pp. IDA-5.
2h ‘Whitaker, p. 105.
25 Boyer, p. 81.

26 Whitaker, pp. 76-7.

27 £91.10: P0 3060

 

concept b)
"pride or
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and thus I
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also something more. Whitaker goes beyond the 1Viachiavel
concept by stating that Iago's character is founded on
"pride or self-love, the very source of all sin."28 For
Boyer, Iago is the Machiavel humanized, even possessed
of a glimmer of conscience, so that he is not wholly evil
and thus his actions are all the more terrible.29 Praz
feels that the Iago of Cinthio is far more Machiavellian
than Shakespeare's. The conclusion reached by Praz I
will quote as summary of this account of the influence
of Machiavelli on Shakespeare:
Needless to say, the character of Iago does not
imply any acquaintance with Machiavelli's writings.
What Machiavellism is displayed in Shakespeare's
dramas seems either to be already present in the
historical sources (as in the case of Richard III)
or to be derived from the current pOpular legend.36
What are the results of this investigation into the
Senecan-Machiavellian complex? I think quite clearly
this account of a scholarly quarrel shows that neither
Seneca nor Machiavelli nor even a combination of the two
can be invoked to explain the nature of Shakespeare's vil-
lains. However, even if the real Machiavelli is disposed
of, the stage Machiavel remains. But this, too, is in-
sufficient explanation. The term stage Machiavel is more
a device of modern scholars than a meaningful description

of what Elizabethan dramatists really had on their minds.

Even the critics who have applied the Nachiavel label

 

28 Whitaker, p. 281.
30 The Flaming Heart, p. 161.

 

 

15

to Shakespeare's villains have usually felt constrained
to go beyond the mere term and to add some further des-
cription. And if the term does have a certain relevance
to the work of Kyd, Marlowe, and some other lesser dram-
atists, it is my contention that the term cannot be used
to describe adequately Shakespeare's villains, that in-
deed Shakespeare is unique in his conception of the char-
acters, and particularly the dominating ideas, of dra-
matic villains.

Early in the discussion of the Senecan-Machiavellian
complex I noted Irving Ribner's contention that the devil
incarnate, or the Vice, of the morality plays helped shape
the Elizabethan villain. Just as Boyer's use of "motive-
less malignity" looked back to Coleridge, this suggestion
looks ferward out of the Senecan-Machiavellian idea to
a third theory. Many writers other than Ribner have spoken
of a connection between the morality Vice and the Eliza-
bethan villain. The equation has become almost a truism
and is usually offered without fuller explanation or de-
tailed supporting evidence. However, a recent book, Bernard
Spivack's We and the sum 21 Exil. has com--
bined exact, wide-ranging scholarship, clear critical in-
sight, and an extremely forceful and expressive style to
give this thesis a thorough treatment as it applies par-
ticularly to Shakespeare.

Spivack's main concern, like that of other critics

who have developed a theory of villainy, is to explain

‘
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fl 'mw

 

the nature
applicabil
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16

the nature of Iago. 'With this established he extends the
applicability of his theory to three other villains, the
Family of Iago. The starting point for Spivack is a state-
ment that a literal interpretation of Iago and his motives
is insufficient since the motives are ambiguous and do not
conform to the impression Iago gives as a dramatic char-
acter. As Spivack sees it, the problem concerned with
the motives is three-fold. First of all, there is an
equivocation because "his motives and his life in the play
are at variance, and his words equivocate his motives be-
cause they express his life." The equivocation becomes
double because while the sexual motives are at least the-
oretically intelligible, several others, including the
daily beauty passage and Iago's hatred of Othello, do
not have intelligible human reference. Spivack rejects
the explanation that hatred is Iago's ruling passion since
this hatred lacks an objective correlative:

Iago's resentments and his Jealousies are, in

fact, Just such motives as a dramatist might em-

ploy to refashion into tragic naturalism a stock

figure out of an archaic dramatic convention that

had no use for the conventional incitements of

human life.
Secondly, there is a discrepancy between what Iago says
he feels and what he does in the play, a lack of emotional
expression of the wrongs done him. Iago apparently doesn't
believe his own accusations since "his Opinion of his

several victims is a chaos of contradictions." Finally,

Iago has a purpose which has nothing to do with vengeance,

 

 

 

 

 

 

so that
Ha‘
earlier
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17

so that the standard motives can be discarded.31

Having stated his belief that Iago derives from an
earlier dramatic convention, Spivack maintains that any
time there is a dislocation between a sharply defined in-
trigue and obscure or fuzzy motives there is an Iago-like
character; he postulates as the Family of Iago the char-
acters Aaron, Richard III, Don John, along with Cassius
(in one speech) and Edmund (in some aspects of his dram-
atization). The other, intelligible villains differ from
the Family of Iago in the following ways: the intelli-
gible villains never show any ambiguity obscuring cause
and effect, ends and means; they are not isolated from
the strains which arise when human desires are frustrated
in a moral world; they are never outside the play in their
soliloquies, but talk to themselves rather than address
the audience; they never say that they are types rather
than individuals. The Family of Iago, however, is not
involved morally, but rather artistically with their crimes;
the actions of these villains remain "an artistic demon-
stration that is not concerned with practical ends." They
talk directly to the audience, announcing their intentions
and celebrating their achievements; they are defiant and
triumphant at the end; they are all one and the same artist:

an artist in dissimulation, seduction, and intrigue;

and his purpose on the stage is to display his

talent triumphantly at work against the affections,

duties, and pieties which create the order and
harmony of humane society.

31 Wmmmmam, pp. 7-23.

 

Such an ax
to act vi]
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Havin
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18

Such an artist is ”not essentially a man who is provoked
to act villainously, but Eillainx disguised by late con-
vention to act like a man"; he is, in short, the Vice of
the allegorical morality plays.32

Having begun with a discussion of Shakespeare's vil-
lains and having established a separate class of them,
Spivack embarks on the long road back to Shakespeare by
finding the origin of the Vice in the Psychomachia, trac-
ing the growth of the Vice in the morality play with a
careful description of the dramatic and homiletic aspects
of the Vice, noting the emergence of a hybrid character
as the morality play evolves into secular drama, and then
following the develOpment of this hybrid character through
pre-Shakespearean drama and thus back to the Family of
Iago. In order to evaluate Spivack's thesis it will be
necessary to follow him on this long road and to engage
in some general discussion of the morality plays and the
nature of the Vice.

Many themes and strands from medieval literature and
society are woven into the completed texture of the English
morality play.' Surprisingly, the medieval religious drama
is an inconsiderable influence; one scholar feels that
the morality plays resulted from a chance combination of
allegory with the dramatic method.33 Allegory was a
dominant mode of medieval literature, particularly in

32 mummum pp. 3h-58.
33 J M.. Manly, quoted in Hardin Cra ig, figglignfl_g-

mm In 31.5.

 

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19

the treatment of the summons of death, the debate of the
body and soul, the parliament in heaven and the battle
between the vices and the virtues, the four themes which
comprise the content of the English moralities. Spivack
considers the last theme, deriving from Prudentius' Eggs
h hia, of prime importance, especially in the later
moralities (after 1500) when there was a loss of escha-
tological values and a growing concern with the individual
and his earthly life.3h The Psyghgmgchia concerns a battle
within the soul of man between the Seven Deadly Sins and
their opposites,the Seven Cardinal Virtues. This poem
supplied to the morality play "a moral definition of life,
a psychological method, and an artistic motif."35
Influences more immediate in time to the rise of the
morality play (late fourteenth century) include medieval
homilies,36 the great importance of death in the late
middle ages (illustrated by the Dance of Death in both
art and literature), and the various summations of the
vices and virtues compiled as guidebooks for the mendi-
cant friars in response to their need for knowledge of
human psychology as they heard the confessions of the
growing city populations. The only dramatic influence

of note was the Paternoster Play, known to have been

 

3h Spivack, p. 63.

35 Ibigo’ p. 820
36 See G. R. Owst, Lit gnd Pulpit i Mggigygl
England (Cambridge, l9§3 . Robert Withington in Excur-

signs 1g,§gglish_22gma , however, feels that Owst over-
emphasizes the importance of sermons to medieval drama.

“in as! N. .n 2"!~;4

 

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20

performed at York, Lincoln, and Beverley, in which the
Lord's Prayer was divided into seven petitions, each pre-
senting a vice and its opposite virtue. The cycle plays
appear to have exerted no direct influence; rather, the
moralities, reflecting above all an increasing medieval
interest in the individual, tended to supplant the cycles
and to substitute the life span and fate of one human for
the cyclic conception covering the scheme of salvation
for all men in the chronological span from Creation to
Doomsday.

Although at least one scholar has seen in the over-
all pattern of the moralities a stage in the development
to Elizabethan tragedy,37 my concern here will be with
one particular aspect of the moralities, the Vice, and
his possible influence on Shakespeare's villains. L. W;
Cushman, who has published the most complete compendium
of the characteristics of devils and vices in pro-Shake-
spearean drama, stresses the separation of the Vice from
the devil and, in fact, maintains that the devil, the Vice,
the clown, the fool, and the villain."are parallel figures
of quite independent origin and function."38 The devil
is a theological figure coming from the Bible and has as
traits revenge toward God for his fall from heaven and

hatred toward man as the cherished creation of God.39

37 Willard Famhan. She Mien; ignites: 9.1: ___saE11 -
beings Inseam.
3 mmmmmmmmm tic

Li at Bgfgne h e p. vii.
A”LIKE” mm.,pp.§3&‘§2m1.a. ’

 

 

Spivack a
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tain the s

 

 

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21

Spivack agrees with this distinction, pointing out that
the Devil is an historic character, not a personification,
and is thus not useful to the moralities; he is, more-
over, anthropomorphic and passionate, motivated by the
desire to achieve revenge on God by destroying his crea-
tures.LO Robert Withington, on the other hand, believes
that there is a closer connection between the devil and
the Vice than Cushman allows.“1 The plays usually main-
tain the separation Cushman and Spivack postulate. Marcy's
saying that Titivillus in Mankind "syngnyfyes the fend of
helle" is about the only specific connection made between
a Vice and the devil."2 In a few plays both devil and
Vice appear; in such cases there is often abuse heaped

on the devil by the Vice and they are clearly distinct

in function.

Most scholars are agreed the Vice got into morality
plays through some sort of association with the Seven
Deadly Sins, either as servant“3 or summationhh or dra-
matic outgrowth from them.h5 Before Spivack's study,

II A0 Spivack, pp. 132- 3.

Al mums 11 .rama p.50.

L2 Cushman calls Titivillus a devil, not a Vice, but
Spivack presents a good argument for considering Titivillus
a Vice.

L3 ‘Withington, g. #2.

Ah Cushman, p. 3.

k5 Spivack, p. 135. Spivack directly refutes the
summation notion; the Vice, he says, "springs, by a century-
long process of doctrinal emphasis and dramatic speciali-
sation, from the numerous vices, including the Deadly Sins,

who came upon the morality stage out of the diffuse homi-
letic allegory of medieval Christianity."

 

 

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ity of theh

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22

most scholars also agreed in emphasizing the low comical-
ity of the Vice;"6 the general theory was that the Vice
degenerated into a buffoon or a comic sort of villain at
best, passing out of English drama in this undistinguished
manner. Cushman, to some extent, and Withington, more
fully, both uphold this view. ‘Withington, for example,
sees connections between the Vice and the Fool of the folk
plays, personified devils such as Titivillus in medieval
sermons, Herod and Pilate of the cycle plays, the milgg
glgzigggg of Latin comedy, and the ranting Satan of the
miracle play Hazy Eagdalg_g. He then traces the develop-
ment of the Vice to the witty page and parasite of later
English drama."7 Although Withington allows that the
buffoonery and rascality of the Vice lead to both the
Elizabethan clown and villain, he emphasizes the clown~
ish buffoonery of the Vice which he says Iago has lost,
and offers the classic statement of the Vice as comical
figure:

The Vice, I think, was never regarded as a fear-

some character; his machinations were frustrated

by the Virtues in the Morality-play as inevitably

as ever Lucifer or Antichrist was overcome by the

power of God. It was the assurance of divine

victory which broke down the fear of the devils

and develzged the comic possibilities of their
villainy. .

 

L6 Craig, p. 380.) Craig, of course, had not seen
Spivack's later study, but he does refer to both Cushman
and Withington as evidence for his contention.

L7 ‘Withington, pp. t2-52, 69.

#8 Ibid., pp. 68-9, 58, 82. More generally, Craig
says that there is little evidence that the moralities
affected Shakespeare's dramatic work (p. 388).

signalled-

 

Cushman f

  
  
  
 
 
 
  

of the Vi
good is p
social in
pecially
"appear n
function

The

ness
and

23

Cushman feels that buffoonery is only one-third the role
of the Vice. The Vice is also the opponent of whatever
good is personified in the play as well as the church,
social institutions and customs, and moral ideals, es-
pecially temperance, industry, piety. These attacks
"appear never to have ulterior aims."h9 The Vice's third
function is to corrupt man:

The Vice appears as the embodiment of worldli-

ness and sensuality, he is free from all restraints

and from all bonds of moral ideals. He is con-

cerned only for one thing, that humanity shall

give free reign to his inclinations, not however

that a soul may by this means be ruined, but that

man may be led to enjoy an existence of freedom

and pleasure, the vicious ideal of happiness
being in every sense the reverse of the spiritual.

50
In the morality play, according to Cushman, the pattern
of action is the Vice coming between mankind and the good,
not a struggle of forces of good and evil for the posses-
sion of mankind (the Psychomachia). The future develop-
ment of the Vice on the Elizabethan stage Cushman sees

in the following characters: Ithamore (not Barebas) in
1h! :13! g; m; Mephistopheles in D . F tu ; Aaron;
Iago; Edmund; Richard III; Don John in Eggh_;dg_gbgg§
Nothigg; Antonio in Ihg,Tgmpest. He does, however, add
this qualification: "But until the Shakespearian villains
have been satisfactorily investigated and classified, it
seems idle to say whether these types are historically

connected with the Vice or not."51

-_-Z§;Cushman, p. 77.
50 Ibi e, p. 910 '
51 ILdIo. pp. 71-2. 75.

 

 

 

a di]
to t1
descx
the t
ities
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inate
as th
comed
taste
is re:

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2h

Spivack eschews this uncertainty. To him there is
a direct line from the Vice of the earliest moralities
to the villains of some of Shakespeare's plays. Spivack's
description of the Vice as "the allegorical aggressor,
the homiletic preacher, and the humorist of the moral-
ities"52 indicates the triple paths followed by this line
of influence. Whereas the third of these functions dom-
inates the thinking of other scholars, Spivack treats it
as the least important and least enduring. Indeed, the
comedy of the moralities, while it shows that the popular
taste called for some leavening of moral seriousness,
is really integrally involved with the homiletic purpose
of these plays:

This whole body of mirth is purveyed by vice

in a context where there is no such thing as

innocent merriment, where levity, even in a

form so apparently harmless as music, is the

positive sign of virtue's absence.53
The ultimate development of the comic aspects of the Vice
in Elizabethan drama is Falstaff.

Far more significant are the dramatic and homiletic
functions. Though these two are closely interwoven, they
can be distinguished for the purpose of analysis. The
homiletic function of the Vice is the "formal proclama-
tion of his name and its moral significance" to the audi-
ence. In doing this the Vice usually gives his moral
pedigree--” a bill of particulars elucidating the mean-
ing of the name and providing illustrative details for

52 Spivack, p. 135.
53 Me, Do 121a

 

the moral
acts as l
himself 0
telling t
meaning o

The
etized me
spiritual
strate t1
effect 0}
age!!! of :
Vhtuous
hero as :
Complex,
DhYsical
Victim a
humane,a
decGitfu
Such as
the trut
llam is {
Vice on

lent. ]
thi
cm
en:

5\'

55:

25

the moral quality it signifies." Essentially, the Vice
acts as liaison between the audience and the play; he puts
himself on display and directly addresses the audience,
telling them what he is going to do and assessing the moral
meaning of the action.5h

The whole action of the Vice Spivack calls a dram-
atized metaphor. The aim of the Vice is "the moral and
spiritual ruin of his victim in order that he may demon-
strate thereby the destructive force and characteristic
effect of the evil he personifies." In a two-fold strat-
agem of seduction, the Vice first divorces the here from
virtuous personifications and then unites himself to the
here as servant, friend, or teacher. His methods are
complex, including virtuous or equivocal pseudonyms;
physical disguise; tears which feign affection for the
victim and laughter which announces his triumph to the
audience, with rapid alternation from one mood to the other;
deceitful appearance as an honest man; and verbal deceits
such as asides or the equivocation of telling the victim
the truth and then claiming a slip of the tongue.55 Since
man is always won back to virtue in the moralities, the
Vice often hangs or receives some other form of punish-
ment. However,

the allegorical immunity of the Vice to any real

curtailment of his universal and timeless exist-
ence inevitably subdues the effect of his capture

5h Spivack, pp. 178, 182 186.
55 fluid... pp. 152, 152-163.

 

and
fare

Spivack cs
is "an an
traits of
moral ser:
the comic
drama.
Under
Vice is a
scheme, 1‘;
dramatic a
leadership
not only 1
Plan. D,
t° °°Pe wi
trinally,
of the Co!
Pride.”
full Comp;

 

the ”on d
tion whic}
Spivack In;
sidered t]

ouanSS h.
by Seduc11
5 m
57 SP:
58 \

&

26

:nd coggemnation into a kind of dark-grained

arce.
Spivack calls the Vice a hybrid in a double sense: he
is "an amoral, elemental force of nature overlaid with
traits of humanity" and "a composite of farce and high
moral seriousness.”7 This hybrid figure leads to both
the comic and the villain of Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama.

Underlying this description of the functions of the
Vice is a chronological development. There is, in Spivack's
scheme, first of all the emergence of the Vice. Both
dramatic and doctrinal considerations account for the
leadership of one Vice over all the other vices which were
not only possible but many times actually present in the
plays. Dramatically, the need arose for one intriguer
to cape with the increasingly individualized hero; doc-

trinally, the election of one supreme Vice is the result

of the common medieval belief in a radix malgzgg, usually
Pride.58 Even though The Qggtlg g; szseyergnce has a

full complement of the Seven Deadly Sins categorized under
the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and a full-scope ac-
tion which includes all four themes of the morality plays,
Spivack makes out a good case for Covetousness being con-
sidered the Vice of the play. He points out that Covet-
ousness has a scaffold to himself, dominates the action

by seducing mankind when the other vices have failed, and
m p. 196.

57 Ibid., p. 202.
58 Ibido, pp. lip-1-20

 

is called

In the sa.
3.129.: suc'
lesser vi
suality,

guieed as
sunlity a
Spivack i
dominant

been eedu
and stren
Which ind
600d: doe!
soul, to 1
clear she
Moralitie

27

is called the root of sorrow and sin by Generosity.59
In the same way, Titivillus dominates the action of Egg-
kigd, succeeding by guile when the frontal attacks of the
lesser vices fail. In Natur , Pride, rather than Sen-
suality, actually turns man from Reason; he appears dis-
guised as Worship and is equivocally described by Sen-
suality as "zggig yicigrum--root of all virtue." I think
Spivack is not as successful in finding'Worldly Goods the
dominant Vice in E n, as Everyman appears to have
been seduced from God's law by belief in his own prowess
and strength as much as by riches, though there are speeches
which indicate that Everyman loved his goods best and
Goods does explain his nature: "My condycyon is mannes
soule to kyll." At any rate, the general process seems
clear enough, even in the early moralities. Most later
moralities actually designate the Vice in the lists of
players or in stage directions.

In the sixteenth century, the morality play begins
to change largely as a result of the secular interests
of the Renaissance. Mankind is replaced by particular
characters, new themes such as romantic love and juvenile
delinquency occur, and there is a movement toward the
tragic ending. Occasionally such concreteness obscures
the Psychomachia motif. Eiggfflantgg (15L7-53) is explic-
itly concerned with telling parents to be strict with their
children to keep them from growing up wrong. There is

59 Spivack, p. lh3.

 

 

 

a Vice,
dissipai
actions
trademaz
a good t
counsel,
of seduc
period a
maintain
Lusty due
is seduc:
in and 15
The
roughly 1
concentra
Men, is
Iflay, a i

and of th

28

a Vice, Iniquity, who helps the two idle children in their
dissipation, but he does not originally urge them to evil
actions and displays few of the characteristics which
trademark the Vice's performance. Even though there is
a good brother who attempts to give the evil pair worthy
counsel, there is no struggle for their souls and no act
of seduction. However, Lusty J ntu , from the same
period and with the same theme of juvenile delinquency,
maintains the Psychomachia pattern more clearly: first
Lusty Juventus gets advice from good counselors, then
is seduced from the good by Hypocrisy whom Satan has called
in and is finally won back over by his good counselors.
The final phase of this chronological pattern, dating
roughly from the third decade of the sixteenth century but
concentrated in the first twenty years of Elizabeth I's
reign, is the development of what Spivack calls the hybrid
play, a fusion of abstract and concrete dramatic methods,
and of the metaphorical and the literal.60 The Vice in
these hybrid plays61 remains because of the homiletic
tradition and because he ceases to be metaphorical.62

60 Spivack, pp. 253- h

61 These plays are J hn %Evan 11 t (1520- 57);
G d1 Qggg_ He Ler (1525- ; JDarius (1559- 65); Kin
Joh (15 0- 6i Logs a_d Repentance— Q_ Ma dalen
c. 1550 ; Gle hSuc nn 15 8- 9 ; Patient
nastiest Gzigagll 0215m 1- 5 ceue_r__1 D b 50 (c. 1565);
H%_§W __zgi_iac (1559- 67)Tfi 7); C bi e
A155 anditiona (157e mlTyle: a_g Hi

!_fg (1550-C O . nThe dates are taken from Spivack's "Bib-
liography of Morality Plays."
2 Spivack, p. 278.

The homil
istic tra
fluomflxe
since it

any othe:
villain
hYbrid p.
iein ju
comes mo
0f the r
tenuous;
of his c
traditic
EOrical
though .
fault o
a3311181:
crete I
called

center

hazard
381f a

In th.

for V1

Seduc:

29

The homiletic transparency of the role "resists the natural-
istic transformation and keeps the moral record straight
through a formula of self-exposure of which the key word,
since it is no longer able to be Avarice, Hypocrisy, or
any other personified quality, is now literalized into
yillginy."63 The transitional stage represented by the
hybrid plays is essential to Spivack's thesis. But it
is in Just these plays that the comic nature of the Vice
comes more and more to the fore and the moral seriousness
of the role fades. His relationship to the plot is often
tenuous; he often seems to have survived more because
of his comic possibilities than because of the homiletic
tradition. In Apins,ann Virginia, to be sure, the alle-
gorical pattern of the Psychomachia is still apparent even
though the Vice represents not a Deadly Sin but the lesser
fault of Haphasard. His actions are no longer directed
against a representative of mankind or even against a con-
crete hero; rather he aids a character who can be rightly
called a villain. The play first presents Virginiaas the
center of a happy, loving,and chaste family. Then Hap-
hazard enters alone, proclaiming that he can disguise him-
self and work other deceits against the happiness of man.
In the third scene when Judge Apius discloses his love
for Virginia, Haphasard offers to him a stratagem for
seducing Virginia. At this point the Psychomachia occurs,
but for the soul of the villain. Conscience and Judgment
try to prevent Apius from carrying out the seduction, but
63 §pivack, p. 303.

 

Haphaza
not be
the hat
When sh
doers,
0t
degener
Vice of
turns 01
in the 1
as inst:
the plaj
leVel of
full of
t0 tie t
and com
Valiant
cruel ty
inc idem;
excellen
menting
Ambidext
fiPet en
or the w:
or his 8;
War, the:

He promi,

30

Haphasard rebuffs them, arguing that their_counsel should
not be considered by men. The denouement is entirely in
the hands of Virginia rather than good personifications.
When she chooses death instead of dishonor, all the evil-
doers, including Haphazard, are punished.

Other of the hybrid plays show a more considerable
degeneration from the pure morality form. Desire, the
Vice of In 211:: and H_i§ life has gotten Tom a wife who
turns out to be Strife, a shrew, but he does nothing else
in the play and hardly appears to be a Vice at all except
as instigator of the action. Rather than being allegorical
the play is simply the battle of the sexes on a very low
level of comedy. Qamgiggg, a lamentable tragedy mixed
full of pleasant mirth, offers a Vice, Ambidexter, mainly
to tie the diverse needs together and to serve as presenter
and commentator for the action. In the serious plot the
valiant King Cambises degenerates through drink into a
cruel tyrant. After many evidences of his cruelty (which
incidentally give the players the chance to show off some
excellent stage tricks), Cambises dies accidentally, com-
menting that his death is a just reward for his misdeeds.
Ambidexter, whose nature is to play with both hands,
first enters comically accoutered as a soldier in parody
of the war preparations of the previous scene. The burden
of his speech is largely vain-boasting of his prowess in
war, though he does mention his name and its significance.

He premises the ruin of Sisamnes, left behind as Judge

by CambielI
ruffians,
ternatee
one point!
Snirdie p
himself,

this geer

 

gator of|
naturalis
the V1c3v

The
an am;
by his a,
the Chalj

31

by Cambises, and then turns to low comedy with three
ruffians, Huf, Ruf, and Snuf. Throughout the play he al-
ternates between the comic and the serious action. At
one point he insinuates to Cambises that his brother
Smirdis plans murder and usurpation and, pleased with
himself, utters the Vice's traditional line: "Dooth not
this geere cotten?" However,Ambidexter is not the insti-
gator of all the serious action; Cambises' cruelty has
naturalistic causes. Moreover, the predominant effect of
the Vice's role is comic.

The same is true of Ill Report in Ing,§g§§ Viztuggs
agfi_§gfi11,§n§gnga. In this play the Vice is called in
by his "dad" Satan to corrupt Susanna. 111 Report accepts
the challenge; in a long soliloquy he gives his moral
pedigree and shows how Satan has failed by cataloguing
the sins and temptations Susanna has resisted. Determin-
ing to utilise a sexual approach, 111 Report wins Voluptas
and Sensuality to his cause. In the process he tries to
pass himself off as Will Report. However, True Report
and a loyal servant protect Susanna and nearly hang the
Vice,who is carried off by a Satan promising him great
tortures for his failure. It is interesting that Ill
Report's equivocating disguise is not an opposite and good
moral quality, but rather a shifting into an actual Chris-
tian name. Similarly, he tries to blunt True Report's
effectiveness by calling him Hugh Report. The Vice in
this play is a well-develoPed character who both presents

“Ht—um

a more
space!
farcic

C

plays,
farce

m
Spivack
of impc
Villain
lack v1
and his
intimac;
hybrid ;
man in 2
and Pie:
final as
Spivack!
tion I w
°f Iago.
Speare:

8
praISal <

spin
MOrality
PsYchOmaC

1

(tsp

32

a morally serious action and takes part in it, but his
speeches are full of nonsense and his actions are often
farcical so that again the total effect is one of comedy.

Spivack, who minimizes the comic aspects of these
plays, traces the hybrid image out of hybrid plays into
farce (such plays as Qagmgg 93:12; a Eggd1g_and Ralph
Egistgz-Egigigr) and serious drama. In the latter group
Spivack says the Vice figure is assimilated to someone
of importance and evil nature already in the plot, his
villainy is a demonstration of his nature, his motives
lack vitality because the character is really amoral
and his performance is homiletic showmanship, and his
intimacy with the audience survives.64 Spivack sees this
hybrid figure in Barabas in 1h; is); of W, 01013 Hoff-
man in 2h; Izgggn1_gf figfifmag, Eleazar in Lg§§§_nginiog,
and Piero in Antggig's Egygggg, among others. In the
final section of this study, I will deal specifically with
Spivack's comments on these characters as in the next sec-
tion I will consider his specific comments on the Family
of Iago. For at this point we have returned to Shake-
speare's villains and there remains for the present an ap-
praisal of Spivack's thesis.

Spivack is most successful in his discussion of the
morality plays. He has focussed on the main theme, the
Psychomachia, and has followed this pattern through its

various changes. He has described with often startling

 

54 Spivack, pp. 338-9.

insight t
correctih

leinta ini

 

oneness 1
pure more
have he

is often

ticular 1:
a descri;
ing and c
able that
than a c;
“Never
of the p

and the

33

insight the role of the Vice and has offered a valuable
corrective to theories viewing the Vice as only comic by
maintaining that the Vice has a great deal of moral seri-
ousness in later plays which have degenerated from the
pure morality pattern and atmosphere, though here I be-
lieve he has pushed his thesis too far by neglecting what
is often the dominant image created by the Vice in a par-
ticular play. Certainly his study of the Vice, which places
a description of that role into a framework of the develop-
ing and changing morality convention, is far more valu-
able than Cushman's earlier study, which is little more
than a cataloguing of the various qualities of the Vice.
Hereover, Spivack has provided the scholarly background
of the possible connections between later dramatic figures
and the Vice which many critics had previously assumed

in their discussions of villains and clowns. That there
was a strong dramatic convention carrying over from the
moralities and hybrid plays into the greater dramatic
flowering of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century
England cannot be disputed. That the Family of Iago and
the other villains mentioned by Spivack show in their
characterization and dramatic action certain specific
traits and qualities consistently utilized in the vari-
ous Vices he has proved beyond doubt. That this conven-
tion is a sufficient explanation of the nature of Shake-
speare's villains, however, has not been shown. Indeed,

Spivack makes no such general claim, though he does deem

% Java‘s;

that he
are he)
vation

believe
are mor
which w
disagren
gard to
will not
thesis j
to it.

into the

his cone

leads hi}

 

3h

that he can account for several of the major villains who
are key figures in any general theory. Part of my reser-
vation concerning Spivack's argument is simply that I
believe that more of the villains in Shakespearean drama
are more closely allied than he allows for. Another part,
which will be made explicit in the next section, includes
disagreement on specific poihts of interpretation in re-
gard to individual villains. However, my main approach
will not be the refutation of Spivack's argument. My
thesis is complementary to his, not diametrically opposed
to it. My concern with the ideas of the villains leads
into the naturalistic dimension of the villains' roles;
his concern with the remnants of an obsolescent convention
leads him away from the growing naturalism of Shakespeare's
dramaturgy.65
In its simplest terms, Spivack's theory has added
a native dramatic convention to Coleridge's motiveless
malignity to explain certain Shakespearean villains. The
intervening theory, the Seneca-Machiavel complex, is a
convention created not so much by the dramatists as by
modern scholars out of the classical literary tradition
and a common counter of Renaissance thought. The next
general theory to be considered is one which studies
the validity of various conventions applied to Shakespeare's
villains. The importance of this approach lies not so much

in its offering new insights as in its appearance in a

 

65 A tendency also discussed by Spivack, pp. h51-3.

recen

Bradl«
stres:
analy:
of the
Schhck
about

nine b1

35

recent book, Charles Norton Coe's Shakespearg's Villains.

In reaction to the romantic criticism of the Coleridge-
Bradley line of the nineteenth century, a line which
stressed subjective interpretations and elevated character
analysis to a supreme pedestal, certain scholar-critics
of the twentieth century, notably E. E. Stoll and Levin
Schficking, sought to get at the historical, objective truth
about Shakespeare's creations. Their credo aimed to under-
mine both subjectivism and bardolatry:

an historical understanding of Shakespeare is

to be reached only by taking him much more lit-

erally than we have been wont to do, his art as

more naivebéhis methods as frequently far more‘

primitive.

The research of these scholars led to the discovery of
a number of conventions, and in Schfihking's case to the
formulation of certain principles which pertain to Shake-
speare's dramas in general and his handling of villains

in particular.

Despite a new approach in his major study ghggggtg;
Emblems in W film, Schiicking is still work-

ing the old vein of character study. In cataloguing and
discussing what puzzles him about some of Shakespeare's
characters, Schhcking is quick to formulate general laws
which often have a bearing on the activities of the vil-
lains. First of all, Schhcking is bothered by the vil-
lains' habit of self-explanation. He decides that the
villains who Openly discuss their own villainy cannot

63 Levin :. Schficking, Character.Enablsns.ia.§haksr
speare'g Pl 3, pp. 26-7.

 

 

on thi:
of real
intent:
issues.
traditi
Presuma
charact
and all
appearai

Sc)
made by
1’18 of I
thorougt
Offers t
early in
sary age
bad Char
htny 1n
Edmund h
stands 1
the adje
h°nestyn
spearean
understa

Praise,

integral

\67\&
63 11

36

on this account be cynics and are by no means examples

of realistic characterisation, but rather report their
intentions so the audience will not be confused on moral
issues. This Procedure is one of the primitive stage
traditions Schdbking finds in Shakespearean drama.67
Presumably he has reference to the morality plays in which
characters, both good and bad, often explain their names
and allegorical significance to the audience on first
appearance.

Schubking sees further problems in the statements
made by villains about others. He considers Edmund's prais-
ing of Edgar as a noble brother inconsistent with Edmund's
thoroughly villainous nature. As explanation Schucking
offers the suggestion that the speech in question occurs
early in the play as part of the exposition and is neces-
sary again to keep the audience straight on the good and
bad characters.68 Schficking is apparently blind to any
irony in the drama and insensitive to double meanings.
Edmund hates Edgar because he is noble and because Edgar
stands in line of succession to the nobility. Furthermore
the adjective "noble" is coupled with the phrase "foolish
honesty"; Schucking overlooks the fact that the Shake-
spearean villain bases his deceitful actions on a thorough
understanding of the nature of his victims. Edmund's
praise, far from being an inconsistency, is rather an

integral part of his character and villainous technique.

67 SCEUCking, ppe 36-8e
68 Ibide, pp. 61-2e

s.
calling
amples

law:

Such a

that th.
highly a
tivenes:
seems pa

Ollary:

the
are
zat
in

ond
the

Even sue]
SChuck in!

deatmctj
is the he

 

37

Scthking sees a similar inconsistency in Iago's
calling Othello noble, upright, and true. With two ex-
amples of the same problem he is ready to state a general
law: '

‘We clearly see that the villains in Shakespeare

are not allowed to appear as honest characters

even in their own eyes, and that the noble char-

acters must be gable even in the eyes of their

‘wicked enemies.

Such a dramatic practice is one more instance for Schfibking
that the pendulum of Shakespeare's art swings from "a
highly advanced realism" to an "almost childish primi-
tiveness.“70 However, the formulation of this principle
seems particularly unnecessary, as does that of its cor-
ollary:

the first mention in the drama of things which

are important for the action or the characteri-

zation of the central figure must never be allowed

in the interest of the characterization of sec-
ondary figpies to distort the representation of

the facts.

Even such a tortured law as this has its exceptions, as
Schucking himself admits in the case of Lady Macbeth's
evaluation of Macbeth. But even more important to the
destruction of this legalistic approach to literary study
is the neglect by its practitioners of any complexity

or ambiguity. In short, Iago's statements, more than be-

ing mere exposition for the audience, are an essential

 

69 Schucking, pp. 65-6.

70 Ibid., p. 66.
’71 Ibige, p0 710

 

pan

the

an}

rea

one

38

part of his nature.72

Inevitably Schucking confronts Iago's motives. From
the other plays Schucking has derived the principle that
any explanation of motives by a character in a monologue
is correct. But Iago is an exception to this rule, even
a mistake; there is apparent in him a discrepancy between
Shakespeare's "instinctive processes of creation" and his
"conscious intention," because Iago does not give the real
reasons for his actions and his numerous motives cancel
one another out.73 In this case Schficking does not offer
a convention as solution; rather he takes the far more
dangerous and subjective course of determining what was
going on in Shakespeare's mind. In general Schucking's
laws stand condemned by his own exceptions. The positive
results of what could be a worthwhile approach to Shake-
speare turn out to be meager, particularly in increasing
our understanding of the villains.

Contemporaneously with Schucking, E. E. Stoll applied

the same general method. His conclusions concerning the

 

72 Samuel Bethell, §h§§§spggzg,§gg D -
gggig Tradition takes a similar attitude p. : ”Pro-
fessor Schficking regards the self-knowledge of Iago and
Edmund as purely conventional, but I should qualify this
assumption. Both are of the Machiavel type, characters
illustrating the new Renaissance cynicism, and it is there-
fore consistent to regard them as cynically self-aware.

. . . Each of them recognizes not only his own villainy,
but the virtues of those he is plotting against; yet I
cannot consider this as a conventional recognition, since
the virtues are recognized only to be despised."

73 Schflcking, pp. 210-13.

 

 

villain
"The CI
Stoll 1
real in
erary v
mixture
antithe
though '
should ‘
act dect
ceeds tr
order t<
Charactt

SO far.

39

villains are most conveniently assembled in the chapter
"The Criminals" in his Shgkgspggzg Studigs. Primarily,
Stoll is bothered because Shakespeare's villains are not
real in reference to fact and life. Whereas modern lit-
erary villains exhibit their humanity by being complex
mixtures of good and evil, Shakespearean villains are the
antithesis of human since they are completely evil. Even
though he warns against the fallacy of thinking literature
should be like life, Stoll maintains that real criminals
act decently and morally except for their crimes and pro-
ceeds to judge dramatic villains by this standard. In
order to account for these monolithic, consistently evil
characters, Stoll utilizes all the conventions mentioned
so far.

The main convention which Stoll sees Operating in
Shakespeare's villains is the stock figure of the Machi-
avel, deriving from a misconception of.Machiavelli and
from such Senecan figures as Atreus. Shakespearean Machi-
avels include Aaron, Richard III, and Iago, whom Stoll
considers the greatest Elizabethan Machiavel and the cul-
mination of a tradition beginning with Marlowe's Barabas.7h
According to Stoll, the Elizabethan dramatists blackened
the villains they found in their sources and created for
the stage diabolical figures, possessed of the violence
of the lion and the craft of the fox, who boasted of their

own prowess and their atheism, who exalted their own wills

7h Wit: Me. p. 382.

 

@- -«-w~

above a1
blasphem
its part
the Rena
God," St
medieval
he ties
on the g
Referrin
which in
in the o
the evil
nally be
and tota
Vanted t
Lik
Vention
“m qual
No
or
one

not
eel

St°1l, h,

 

——-——=

a:
lite/welt”

#0

above all other men, who rioted in lust, dissimulation,
blasphemy, murder.75 Native stage tradition also plays
its part in Stoll's account. Asserting that atheism in
the Renaissance meant "not scepticism but enmity with
God," Stoll observes that the devils did the mischief in
medieval plays and the villains in Elizabethan.76 Thus
he ties the Shakespearean villain to the morality Vice
on the grounds that both work against God's purposes.
Referring to Bradley's acute observation that it is evil
which in Shakespeare's plays brings about a convulsion
in the order of things, Stoll maintains that quite naturally
the evil came to be embodied in a single person, doctri-
nally because the age believed in demoniacal possession
and total depravity, dramatically because the dramatist
wanted to present struggle, intrigue, and external action.77

Like Schflcking, Stoll detects a primitive stage con-
vention at work in the direct exposition of a character's
own qualities to the audience:

No Elizabethan dramatist . . . quite realized,

or showed he realized, that a character is not

one who tells his story but acts it, and speaks,

not fag audience or dramatist, but only for him-

self.
Stoll, however, does argue that the frankness and self-
consciousness of the villains are not merely a technique

to Shakespeare because much of the plain-speaking is un-

necessary (gpg, Iago); the villain who speaks ill of

75 W Studies. 1313- 337. 31.3.
76 Ibid., p. 3&1.

77 Ibige, ppe 3h1'2e
78 Ibid., p. 36h.

 

himself

 

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himself need not speak so truly and justly of the good;
Shakespeare had a moral bias which applies to wicked
characters as well as those of mingled nature; and the

same technique is used, as in the boasting of great char-
acters, in situations not concerned with moral purpose.79
Stoll takes these factors to mean that the concept of point
of view, the difference between the author and his char-
acters, was alien to Shakespeare's dramatic method, par-
ticularly when matters of morals or conscience were at
stake or the villain was being presented.80 Stoll does
not see, however, that this direct self-explanation is

not merely a technique because it is an integral part

of the characterization of the villains, advancing our
notions of what they are like as well as giving their ideas
and their plans for coming action. Both Stoll and Schuck-
ing seem to feel that if they find traces of primitive,
unrealistic stage conventions in Shakespeare's plays,
Shakespeare thereby stands condemned. Despite their avowed
historical and comparative method, they proceed to judge
Elizabethan dramatists in the light of Ibsenian and

Shavian realism.

Among the expounders of the general theories presented
in this chapter, Stoll turns out to be the most eclectic
critic. He admits the presence in the make-up of Shake-
speare's villains of a variety of conventions and influ-

ences, each of which has been asserted to be the only

79 W Studies. pp. 369-73.
80 Ibid., p. 376.

 

 

 

 

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42

explanation by a critic or group of critics. This eclec-
ticism in itself is not bad; it is actually valuable if
only to call attention to the complexity of the problem.
But Stoll ruins some careful scholarship and some accurate
descriptions of the nature of Elizabethan villains by

an over-all point of view which is untenable at worst,
meaningless at best. The chapter heading and the continued
use of the word criminal are symptomatic. Villain is the
stage name for an evildoer; criminal, the term used in
real life--in police stations, in courts, and newspaper
accounts of crimes. This confusion in Stoll's mind is
further apparent in some of the comparisons he makes.

He points out that Iago, like Leapold and Loeb, takes

a somewhat esthetic interest in evil, but this is over-
shadowed by his hellishness, his love of evil for its own
sake.81 While Iago, along with Leopold and Loeb, might
make an interesting case study for the criminal psychol-
ogist, it is not necessary to be a criminal psychologist
to understand Iago. The modern notions of heredity and
environment that Stoll speaks of as controlling factors
in man's life are out of place in studying a stage crea-
tion which has no heredity or environment outside of the
play, particularly one created by a dramatist unaware of
these ideas. Stoll sees quite clearly that Shakespearean

villains are very wicked and have diabolic traits, but
-——§I_—§E§E§EEEQEQ Stugigs, p. 358. Incidentally, this

statement reverses Spivack's emphasis. Spivack would main-
tain that Iago's esthetic interest in demonstrating his
villainy is the dominant trait.

 

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instead of making this observation the key to their strength,
he makes it the basis of his condemnation of Shakespeare
for not copying nature and not drawing people as they
really are. The discriminating reader or spectator or
critic has never asked of the dramatist that he simply
mirror'nature in full fidelity, but only that the artist,
dealing with recognizable elements of human experience,
shape them into a meaningful and emotionally-satisfying
form. Iago, then, can be an extremely exciting stage
villain no matter whether he conforms to behavioral pat-
terns of twentieth-century criminals or not.

The most recent approach to an evaluation of Shake-
speare's villains through a study of stage conventions,
is Charles Norton Coe's §hakespgaze's Eillgigs. This
short book (some seventy pages) does manage to consider
eleven villains,82 a number greater than any other single
study. However, even this numerical achievement does not
indicate that Coe has the final word. Indeed, the limited
scope of his endeavor shows the need for further and more
penetrating studies.

Coe has found that twentieth-century historical
research has turned up seven conventions which govern the

activities of Shakespeare's villains. Even though some

 

82 These villains are grouped as follows: Aaron and
Iago; Richard III, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth; Angelo and
Shylock; Regan, Goneril, Edmund, Claudius. This listing
emphasizes the fact that not only is there disagreement
about the nature of the villains and their interrelation-
ships, there is no clear agreement as to just who the
villa ins are.

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of these conventions have been mentioned earlier, I will
summarize Coe's entire list to indicate the complete range:
1. the Elizabethan audience accepted villains as types,
so that insufficient individual motivation was not a prob-
lem to them; 2. sometimes, as in the case of Shylock,

the Elizabethan audience regarded villains as stock comic
characters, whereas modern critics have gone astray by
giving sympathy tO a Shylock; 3. the Elizabethan audience
had different notions of evil than we do; A. the villains
conventionally boasted Of their villainy and even praised
the heroes; 5. the disguises of a villain were always
convincing to other stage characters; 6. the slander of
a villain was always believed (in the particular case of
Iago, Coe feels this convention is insufficient; there

are other reasons for his success); 7. the Elizabethan
audience overlooked the absurdity of certain incidents,
such as Lear's dividing his kingdom, and merely accepted
them as part Of the story.83 Coe's intention is to see
how these conventions apply to Shakespeare's villains in
order to determine whether earlier critical Opinions about
the lifelike quality of Shakespeare's characters should

be modified. In order to do this, he tests the various
characters according to their effect on an audience, not

a reader, to see if they meet the following standards Of
"lifelike": the characters should have motivation (rea-
sons of their own for behaving as they do); the characters

13 T08, pp. 5’70

 

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should have background, a mind and a memory; the characters
should have variety and complexity in their presentation.8h
Working from this base, Coe finds among Shakespeare's
villains a scale ranging from Aaron at the bottom to
Claudius and Iago at the top. Aaron is colorless and un-
variable and is bad simply because the plot requires a
villain. Coe considers Aaron a prime exhibit in refuting
these critics who say Shakespeare always drew lifelike
characters.85 Claudius and Iago, on the other hand, are
very convincing villains. Iago deserves praise for his
intellect (the plot seems to originate in his mind) and
his many-sidedness (he is a complex character and "a real
man turned villain for a purpose"). Claudius is effective
because much of his past is disclosed, thus giving the
illusion that he is a real man, and because his problem
of not being able to repent or receive pardon for the
murder as he still possesses the rewards of the murder is
real and understandably human.86
The summary judgment attained by Gas from his study
is that "in the most effective plays a prOper balance
should be maintained between character and action."87
Equally disappointing as exciting insight are the con-
clusions Coe states: the eighteenth- and nineteenth-

century critics were too enthusiastic and uncritical in

saying that Shakespeare had great powers of characteri-

g? 509: PP. 7'8

1 . 11- 1h.
bi .: {Iago) pp. 15- -23; (Claudius) pp. 61- 6.
87 bid., p.

 

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A6

zation; the villains usually have a clear motive stated
early in the play; the appeal to conventions is usually
too pat an explanation of Shakespeare's characters.88
The historical scholars, with their discovery of
various stage conventions, helped to redress a serious
imbalance of subjective character study, but they have
not demonstrated that character study is an invalid method.
Certainly no one would want to discard completely the
results of historical scholarship, but as a separate and
only tool it has, I think, been far less productive of
real insight into the nature of Shakespeare's villains
than character study, particularly when the latter is in
the hands of a Coleridge or a Bradley. Quite Obviously
a combination of the two is needed; the ideal Shakespear-
ean commentator would possess clear critical insight
along with solid historical learning and perspective.
The method or approach which offers the greatest Oppor-
tunity for such a synthesis is the ideological. The ideas
of the characters not only offer an important clue to the
understanding of the character himself but also present
the maximum possibility for placing a character or group
of characters or even the dramatist himself in a firm and
Often partisan relationship to currents of thought, to a
definite historical milieu. Such is the approach, as
well as the underlying assumption, of the following study.
If, as I believe, a definite pattern in the ideology of

88 Coe, p. 67.

 

A7

Shakespeare's villains can be established, then our under-
standing Of these villains will be enlarged. However,

I would emphasize that it is the sense of this pattern

and the scope of this study which are new and in any

way original. The approach and many of the specific eval-
uations of characters have already been anticipated. I
would therefore like to conclude this chapter by surveying
some of the major contributions to the ideological study
Of Shakespeare's villains.

Despite the fact that the ideological approach has
been utilized most productively only within the past
thirty years, its genesis lies in the fertile, but scat-
tered and unfulfilled remarks of Coleridge. Coleridge
not only is responsible for the influential current Of
motiveless malignity which actually prompted all the other
approaches mentioned previously and finally ran out in
the arid wastes of convention study, but he also suggests
both the intelligent and the intellectual aspects Of
Shakespeare's villains. In one of his conversations re-
ported by J. P. Collier, Coleridge commented:

It was in characters of complete moral depravity,

but Of first-rate wit and talents, that Shake-

speare delighted.39
In Igblg,1glk Coleridge suggested the nature of the ideas
of the villains by remarking

the use which Shakespeare always makes of his

bold villains as vehicles for expressing Opin-
ions and conjectures of a nature too hazardous

39 Coleridge, p. 2A6.

1
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of the
illust
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the p1.

 

 

 

48

for a wise man to put forth directly as his own,

or from any sustained character.

Bradley also comes close to formulating a definition
of the intellectual villain when he says that Iago best
illustrates the two aspects of evil which seem to have
impressed Shakespeare most. These qualities are an in-
sufficiency Of fellow-feeling which makes an almost ab-
solute egoism possible and the compatibility of exceptional
powers Of will and intellect with evil.91 Though Coleridge
rarely developed the wealth of ideas so casually announced
in conversation and Bradley did not concern himself with
a specific theory of villainy, the soundness of their
insights has been demonstrated, and Often fully documented,
both by critics seeking to derive Shakespeare's ideas from
the plays and by scholars who have immersed themselves
in Renaissance thought.

Before presenting the findings of scholars who have
assessed Shakespeare's ideas against the external referent
of Renaissance thought, I would like to summarize briefly
the theories of several critics who pursue the ideological
method by attempting to discover Shakespeare's own ideas '
from recurrent images, patterns, themes, and other struc-
tural devices in the plays themselves. This group, though
widely divergent in approach and intent, is unified by
a downgrading of historical information in favor of the
artistic self-sufficiency of poetic drama and by a concern

9o Coleridge, p. 177.
91 Bradley, pp. 188-92.

 

 

‘Itinltf ’3

 

A9

for the ideas and values of the poetic creator rather than
the created characters, sometimes postulating elaborate
rationales for this last-named distinction. Since these
critics are not primarily interested in describing vil-
lains or villainy, I will mention their position as it
specifically relates to Iago, as well as indicate their
general approach and conclusions, in order to make their
views particularly relevant to this study.

Although he is probably the supreme anti-ideological
and anti-historical Shakespearean critic,92 G. Wilson
Knight is the logical starting point not only as the
prototype for the following critics but also by virtue
Of presenting in his own work the most complete exposition
of Shakespearean drama on an internal basis, with results
which, however, often appear similar to those Obtained
by the historical scholars. Indeed, all the critics to
be covered differ more in method and emphasis than in
results from the scholars who have gone outside the plays
first and then brought historical learning to bear on the
drama. Knight's interpretative method attempts to re-
construct the atmosphere and vision of each play by re-
jecting the concept Of character and ethical considera-
tions for what he calls personification, atmospheric sug-
gestion, and poetic symbolism.93 Instead Of dealing with
characters, Knight's interpretation conceives Of symbolic

personifications representing either values or anti-values

 

92 See es ecially the first essays in Ihg Wheel 9;

Fizg and Ihg mpgnia; Thgme.
93 11.1.9. M 9.1”. Kine. pp. 1-12.

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50

of the Shakespearean universe. For our present purpose,
one Of the more important recurring symbolic personifica-
tions is the cynic (Edmund, Iago, Lucio, Apemantus, Ther-
sites) who works against the value of spiritual love, and
is, in effect, a Devil coming between the hero (Mankind)
and the hero's loved one (the Divine Principle).9h This
triple pattern is best found in Oghgllo; Iago, "the spirit
of denial, wholly negative," pits his cynical intellect
against "lovable humanity transfigured by qualities of
heroism and grace."95 Instead of ethics, Knight finds

in Shakespeare a metaphysic consisting of Good, which is
spiritual love, immediate and intuitive; Hate, which is
an awareness of unspiritualized actuality and a consequent
abhorrence of finite forms separated from infinite spirit;
and Evil, which reflects the nothingness of naked spirit
unfitted to any external symbols.96 In the Shakespearean
universe, imaginatively apprehended, are values-~intuitiOnal,
emotional, and spiritual rather than material. The main
values, love and war, are attacked or negated by hate,
evil, and death. Symbolic imagery clusters reinforce the
metaphysical movement of the plays: aurally, music accom-
panies the values and tempests accompany the negations;
visually, light attends the values and dark attends the
negations. Finally, the tragic intuition of Shakespearean

drama unifies and harmonizes the dualism of good and evil,

 

‘_—

91. T kneels: ___r_eF1 . pp. 277-80.
95 bide, ppe 123-7e

96 2513., pp. 290-1.

 

life
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the 1
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cript

0r id

51

life and death.97 Even though Knight's whole point of
view is radically Opposed to the procedure of this and
similar studies, the results are much the same and the
methods complementary. ‘With his insistence on the poetic
atmosphere of the plays,Knight has enriched Shakespearean
commentary; working at a different, and probably deeper,
level, he has nevertheless found operating in Shakespeare
the same general forces that I have, though he pursues
their symbolic implications whereas I stop with a des-
cription of the naturalistic manifestations of these forces
or ideas or values.

A second critic in this group follows Knight in
determining Shakespeare's values from the plays, but also
owes allegiance to Bradley by concentrating on character
and moral responsibility. Arthur Sewell, in Character
and Society in Shakespeare, sees the concept of order,
embodied in character, as the primary Shakespearean value:

The generation of images, the fusion in language

of imaginative energies into living personality,

is a concrete representation, a mimesis, of a

human soul in the very process of striving for

identity, for ordered vision in the prolonged

gzzszzmhzzzmzotszxaa Wm ‘°
Character and order, which is the positive goal of Shake-

speare's moral vision, are inseparable; in Sewell's terms,

"character is moral vision getting to knowitself."99

In Qghgllg, which Sewell considers an enactment of the
97 its Enema. pp. 1-31.
98 Sewell, p. 8.

99 Ibid., p.60.

In“.
D...
I . .| l‘l.

 

 

52

Fall of'Man, this means that Iago brings Othello down from
a world of spirit to the society of Venice, a kingdom
wholly concerned with material means rather than spiritual
ends.100 However imbued with Christian sentiment and
phraseology, Shakespeare's moral vision is not ultimately
Christian but secular; tragedy originates because of
Renaissance anarchism rather than the Christian idea of
imperfection.101

Brents Stirling is even closer to Knight's technique
when he finds theme, based on the ideas, attitudes, and
values, either expressed or implied, which color the events
of poetic drama, to be the unifying element in Shakespear-
ean tragedy.102 Although he has some interest in char-
acter and a psychological and moral approach underlies
his study, Stirling shows his kinship with Knight’s assump-
tions: "Interpretation which views character as a func-
tion of poetic drama implies a rejection of naturalism
or the externals of realism."103 To Stirling, as to
Knight, the individual character is often symbolic. In
Othellg the dominant theme of reputation is manifested
in two ways: the first is a normal regard for esteem and
honor seen in Cassie and the early Othello; the second
is an inverted, egotistic def-use of good name when honor
or esteem is threatened, a practice utilized by Iago

which eventually causes him to deceive even himself. In

150 Sewell, pp. 93-7.
101 Ibid., p. 120.

102 Unit: ig_Shake§pegrign Tra d , p. 83.
103 Ibid., p. 196.

 

.. . 1:11;;

 

53

his soliloquies Iago moves from mere suspicion to belief
in the misdeeds of Desdemona and Emilia; to Stirling this
is motiveless malignity to the extent that Iago has no
objective reasons for his belief. Othello's downfall comes
in the temptation scene when he takes over Iago's view
of reputation and murders Desdemona under its influence,
but his last speech frees him from Iago's inversion of
the reputation idea1.10h

Harold S. Wilson and John Vyvyan arrive at conclusions
similar to those reached by Knight, but their methods and
assumptions are different from his. Wilson discusses and
classifies ten tragedies according to their internal phi-
losOphy and then arranges them into an external pattern
of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. He finds two kinds of
order Operating within the tragedies: the order of faith
with Christian assumptions which controls figmgg and_ggligt,
flgglgg, Othellg, and Macbeth; the order of nature with
no references to Christian thought which controls igligg
W.W,mmmms.mmmm,
Antgnx and Elggpgtza, and K1ng_Legr. The synthesis, or
solution of the tragic problems posed in the other plays,
occurs in terms of war and love in Agtggx and Clggpgtza
and in terms of family relationships in King Lear. These
plays show that "human love is the greatest good of human
life, that without it life is barren, or trivial, or evil."105

104 _n__zU it in SW1: Imam. pp- 111-35.
105 mmmuwm. p- 210.

 

fl! ‘ p. -nu'rn

 

 

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Shakes

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relate;

 

54

Even though the synthesis is achieved without direct ref-
erence to Christian thought, Wilson concludes that human
love is a Christian value, that Christianity is taken for
granted by Shakespeare and must not be overlooked by the
critic. In this Christian scheme, Iago is malign by na-
ture, a symbol of the negativeness of evil, whereas Othello
sins, but wins pity by admitting his wrong.106 Vyvyan
discovers from the plays Shakespeare's personal ethic,
founded on the principle of self-knowledge and truth to
one's self, a basic value not only of Christianity but
also of Buddhism and other major religions. Thus Iago's
"I am not what I am" marks him clearly as a villain. Like
Knight, Vyvyan attaches symbolic value to certain recurring
Shakespearean characters; the young girls stand for Love,
the old counselors stand for Fidelity, and such villains
as Iago stand for the fault in the hero's soul. Vyvyan
relates these symbolic characters to the archetypes of
Jungian psychology: Anima, Wise Old Man, Shadow.107
The final "internalist" critic is John Lawlor, who
describes the particular nature of Shakespearean tragedy
as the co-existence of opposites: appearance and reality,
man as agent and patient, accident and design, the natural
and supernatural, truth of imagination and the idea of
justice. The good which Lawlor finds expressed in the
tragedies is the natural bond, freely entered into, while

the evil is anything which destroys this bond or separates

105 .25 MMQWM. p- 61.
107 ‘Ihg Shakespearian Ethic, pp. 98, 146, 162.

 

Hound-ill-.. Illa

55

man from it. Although all the villains possess recogniz-
able human nature and no one is evil by a divine thrusting
on, the natural and supernatural do exist side by side.
This means that Iago has the natural cause of his mentioned
motives as well as a supernatural diabolic hatred to turn
him against Othello. Falling back on the term Machiavel
to describe Iago, Lawlor says that the evil of the Machi-
avel "must be the implacable enemy of all that is ordered,
submissive and cooperating."108 More generally, he finds
that the evil in Shakespeare is characterized by dread-
ful simplicity, plots its own destruction, has cunning
and energy, but is marked by a fatal immaturity.109
- All of these critics, concerned with the suggestive
element of poetic drama, with symbols and other non-natu-
ralistic features of the plays, have evolved, in their
own terms, some statement of order and harmony and value
as the good in Shakespeare and have found evil to be a
denial or negation of this good. Their intuitive con-
clusions have been supplemented by a group of historical
scholars who have placed Shakespearean drama in a context
of Renaissance thought and have made explicit in natural-
istic terms what values Shakespearean characters upheld
or attacked. An early pleader for an interpretation of
Elizabethan literature based on historical knowledge was
HardiHICraig, whose Ihe_§nghag§edIglg§s not only sounded

the call for a great synthesis of Renaissance background

 

108— The Tragic Sense in Shake eare, p. 100.
109 Ibid., p. 181.

'FhwlU-JI .

56

material but also, in the manner of Francis Bacon, whose
words were utilized for chapter headings, proceeded to lay
the ground rules and to summarize much Elizabethan knowl-
edge about cosmology, the nature of man, rhetoric, and
other areas of learning especially pertinent to literature.
This approach was furthered by E. M. W. Tillyard in Egg
‘§1;z§gg§ggnyflgnlgpPigtuze, a concise account of the con-
cept of cosmic order held by Shakespeare and his contem-
poraries. Almost simultaneously with the appearance of
Tillyard's book, Theodore Spencer, in America, formulated
similar principles of order against which he then projected
Shakespeare's statements about the nature of man.

Occasionally, Spencer strikes themes which are valid
generally for the villains, as in this discussion of
Richard III: .

Order and society are nothing to him; he is the

first of those Shakespearean villains who refuse

to see the interconnections between the various

spheres of Nature's activity. . . . "I am myself
alone”; Iago and Edmund would have said the same.

110
Or he helps to clarify the nature of a specific villain.
The Iago of scholarship, says Spencer, has been formalis-
tic, an equivalent to the Vice, and a manipulator of the
action; a typical Machiavellian who enjoys evil for its
own sake; or a neo-Senecan villain-hero out to justify
himself against circumstances which oppress him. Spencer
feels rather that Iago is the Renaissance ideal gone bad;
specifically, Iago is made up of "the concept of the

difference between outer show and inner fact"; "the

I10 Shakespeare and the Nature of flan, p. 72.

57

concept of the evil man as "individualist"; "the concept
of the evil man as the incomplete man, the man who does
not contain all the psychological levels that should make
up a human being."111

Eigg_ngr has been especially fruitful for students
of Shakespeare's ideas. In a short article R. C. Bald
linked Edmund's ideology to Renaissance free thought.
Bald describes Edmund's evil as reasoned and calculated
and says his creed is anarchy.112 Further Bald connects
Edmund's rejection of astrology to similar ideas in Cas-
sius and Iago. Since only freethinkers rejected astrology,
Bald concludes that these characters are subversives who
threatened the order of Renaissance society.113

In the year following Bald's article, John F. Danby
published a book-length exposition of the doctrine of
nature in King Egan. Danby sees in Edmund the New Man
of the Renaissance: opportunistic, emancipated, energetic,
clearheaded. Edmund's nature is scientific; he knows that
men can manipulate the laws of nature.

It is significant that in the figure of Edmund

the sense of separation from nature and superi-

ority to it goes with a sense of the individual's

separation from the communityh and a feeling of

superiority to his fellows.1
Though Danby believes that the Edmund-figure does not

appear again in Shakespearean drama, he does find several

111 W and the Ham 2f Kan. pp. 131-5.

112 "Edmund and Renaissance Free Thought,” g. 9. Adams
Memorial Studi , p. 3&7.

113 M0: PP. 3147-9-
1.8 $14 W: Dennis: of Ram. pp. 38, 3h-7.

 

 

58

figures who are ancestors of Edmund: Richard III, the
Bastard in King fighn, Falstaff. Strangely, Danby neglects
to include Iago in this category, calling him rather a
complete villain who could not be put to any good use "even
in the second-best world of the political."115

Robert Speaight also sees Edmund as the New Man, find-
ing him akin to Iago and Antony, Henry V and Falstaff, the
Bastard Falconbridge and Richard III. The world in which
these men operate

is the free-for-all society, the;ungle of unre-

stricted competition, the swaggering, rampant

capitalism of the New Age. Here is adventure

instead of custom, cogtract instead of status,

man instead of God.11
Speaight includes in his definition as many heroes as
villains; thus the world view he describes is not neces-
sarily utilized for evil ends. I believe, however, that
adherents to this ideological pattern were consistently
utilized in Shakespearean drama as evil characters. I
would not overlook the possibility that the protagonist
can perform evil deeds (Richard III and Macbeth are ob-
vious examples), but I feel Speaight's pattern of rela-
tionships could bear sharper definition. In short, the
differences between Iago and Antony are greater than the
similarities, requiring the two to be kept in separate

categories.

‘william Rosen has also generalized from a discussion

115 Shakespegzg'g Dgctzing g: flatuzg, pp. 164, 58-94.
116 Speaight, p. 95.

 

59

of the villains in Egg; to a wide view of the new society:
The representatives of the new society look at
the world in the same way. They advance their
fortunes by scrutinizing men and events to gain
mastery over them. They have a rational account
of everything; they live in the realm of fact where
22i§.‘2§.‘22“§3.2§2§1231;933:3313? mm”
As can be seen,there is fairly general agreement as to the
significance of the ideas in Kingng 2 and Othello and
a general feeling on the part of scholars that these plays
and possibly a few others represent Shakespeare's response
to some new, anti-traditional currents of thought. How-
ever, in the scholars noted, there has not been any attempt
to analyze all of Shakespeare's plays or all his villainous
characters in the light of these ideas.
Hiram Haydn has viewed the problem from another angle.
In The qugtg; Renaissance he has provided a wide-scope
background of ideas against which to place the thoughts
and activities of Shakespeare's villains. While the account
of specific villains is necessarily limited in a study con-
cerned with a broad range of humanistic, scientific,
philosOphical, and religious ideas, Haydn does give serious
consideration to Edmund and Iago. Edmund is essentially
individualistic, materialbtic, naturalistic, deterministic.
Generalizing from this portrait, Haydn notes that many
other Elizabethan adherents to naturalism were apt to be

villains who held in contempt the traditional humanistic

values of law, justice, right reason, virtue-~a11 things

117 Wmmmum. p- 22.

 

 

. . .IJ‘..III- ._ .‘Mq

 

60

which were man-made and not established in the nature of
things.118 Iago is held to be a Counter Renaissance
figure by Haydn because he is a thoroughgoing pragmatic
Mbchiavellian, he is a devotee of the science of the par-
ticular, and he has a "downward" view of human nature,
scorning all idealistic emotions. Haydn concludes that
most of Shakespeare's characters who express these and
similar Counter Renaissance ideas are villains.119
Finally, the ideological approach has centered on
Shakespeare's villains as Opponents of Christianity and
Christian humanism. Specifically, Herbert Weisinger has
stated that Iago's glorification of his own will is the
antithesis of Christian belief. He unites Iago to Falstaff
as villains whose villainy consists in their ideas.120
Paul N. Siegel, in discussing the relationships of Shake-
spearean tragedy to the Elizabethan compromise, makes a
more general application. He comments that Shakespeare's
villains employ reason but pervert it to their individual
desires; moreover, their individualism threatens the
natural order. Indeed they "blow themselves up in the
explosion they themselves cause by their disregard of the
law of nature." Ultimately these villains "embody values
"121

destructive to the ideal of Christian humanism.

New concepts of nature, of man, of religion, of

118* Haydn, pp. 640-9.
119 Ibid., p. 656.
120 "Ego's Iago," Q. of Kansas __3101 .an W. H (1951»).

.121 Shake earean Tragedy and he Elizabethan Com-
romise, pp. 52, 87.

 

85

61

society, and even, possibly, what we take to be the Ren-
aissance itself--a11 these are part of the ideological
background of Shakespeare's villains. It remains now to
examine the whole body of Shakespeare's plays to show what
use the villains make of these ideas and to describe the
Shakespearean pattern of villainy, a pattern that is con-
sistent both in ideology and mode of demonstration for

most of the characters who can be classed as villains.

Chapter II
The Early Intellectual Villains

Because of Shakespeare's growing dramatic artistry,
the appearance of villains in all types of plays, and the
fact that some later villains look pale and anemic in con-
trast to full-blown early examples, there is no single
organizational principle which will adequately allow for
all the complex elements in the development of the intel-
lectual villain. Of the possible organizational principles
which suggest themselves, the chronological approach seems
to offer the most positive qualities: it is customary
to think in terms of Shakespeare's chronological develop-
ment; the chronology of the plays can serve as a constant
against which to evaluate the other factors of development;
the treatment of the villains does follow certain broad

configurations based on chronology.

Henyy 1;
Although the action of Henry 1; is extremely complex

and the characters numerous, the struggle between Gloucester
and Winchester in the first and second parts of the trilogy
stands out as an important plot element and also provides
a suitable starting point for the discussion of the intel-
lectual villain. Winchester is clearly a villain and is
Opposed to a man of honesty, integrity, and undoubted pa-
triotic fervor. Mereover, Winchester appears in an early,
if not the first, Shakespearean play which is clearly

62

63

inferior to later plays in poetic and dramatic technique.
More importantly, Winchester is a primitive intellectual
villain; he possesses the typical qualities, but in a
rudimentary way.

The quarrel between Gloucester and Winchester is
really a struggle between secular and religious leaders
for control of the state: Gloucester accuses Bishop (later
Cardinal) Winchester of being too worldly to be an effec-
tive churchmen; Winchester's attempts to supplant Gloucester
as Protector tacitly admit Gloucester's charges while bring-
ing the issue to a climax. In I, 3, Winchester takes armed
control of the Tower of London, forcing a fight with
Gloucester's men. Gloucester, in making specific his ac-
cusations, calls the Cardinal a "manifest conspirator"
who plotted to kill Henry V. Further, he declares, Win-
chester licenses the brothels of London and thus gives
"whores indulgences to sin." When their fight is halted
by the Mayor of London, the two antagonists continue their
verbal warfare before him. Gloucester says succinctly
that Winchester regards neither God nor King. Winchester
replies at more length:

Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens,

One that still motions war and never peace,

O'ercharging your free purses with large fines,

That seeks to overthrow religion

Because he is Protector of the realm,

And would have armour here out of the Tower

To crown himself and suppress the Prince. (I, 3, 62-8)
Not only does Winchester show himself to be an intellectual
villain by utilizing his knowledge of peOple (he is here

arousing the citizens of London by threatening them with

 

x‘

—v

64

war, heavy taxes,and the downfall of religion), he also
attributes his own program to his opponent, a device most
successfully used by Edmund. These charges so outrage
Gloucester that he can answer only with blows. Again the
two forces are parted and required to make peace, though
there are threats on the part of Winchester, causing the
Mayor to remark:' "This cardinal's more haughty than the
devil."

The quarrel reaches the presence of the King in III,
1, when Gloucester reads a formal list of charges against
Winchester:

Thou art a most pernicious usurer,

Froward by nature, enemy to peace;

Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems

A man of thy profession and degree;
And for thy treachery, what's more manifest?

Besides, I fear me: if thy thoughts were sifted,

The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt

From envious malice of thy swelling heart.

(III, 1, l7-26)

Even though Gloucester's whole point is that Winchester
does not act as a Cardinal should, Winchester takes refuge
in his ecclesiastical calling and, in turn, accuses Glouces-
ter of pride and ambition. Once more the quarrel breaks
out into actual fighting, once more the parties are con-
strained to a truce. Gloucester swears to uphold the peace,
but Winchester remarks aside that he intends not to honor
his pledge.

The opening scene of the second part of Eggyy [I shows

the Protector and the Cardinal fighting again. This time

65

the various nobles begin to take sides, a foreshadowing
of the full-scale fighting of the'War of the Roses. Even
Gloucester's wife has become involved in the universal
desire for power. Her forays into conjuring prove not
only her undoing but eventually her husband's as well.
When Winchester takes advantage of this weakness to arrest
Eleanor, Gloucester is forced to reject her for the good
of the country. Gloucester himself is then arrested on
charges of treason, and the King is powerless to help him.
Gloucester clearly sees the plight of an England coming
under'Winchester's control:

Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition

And charity chas'd hence by rancour‘s hand.

Foul subornation is predominant

And equity exil'd your Highness' land. (III, 1, 143-6)
The principles of morality and order which are necessary
to the proper running of a Christian state are being ground
into the dust by the methods of the proud, ambitious Win-
chester. Mounting the final step which will place him at
his goal, control of the throne of England, Winchester
plots with York, Suffolk, and Queen Margaret to have
Gloucester killed in prison.

But Winchester does not reap the rewards of his vil-
lainy. In a fit of torment over his guilt in Gloucester's
death he dies, a babbling, broken man. He does not die
in a state of grace; his end is as irreligious as his life
had been. Shakespeare fittingly and ironically makes

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which he had manipulated to his own advantage during his
lifetime.

The obvious evil in Winchester's character is the
contrast between his spiritual profession and his secular
interests and ambition. By Opposing the morality of the
church as well as the safety and best interests of the
social organism, the state of England, Winchester sets the
ideological tone of the intellectual villain. His manner
of proceeding also forecasts that of the other villains

in this study.

Titus Andzgnigus

To the "Senecan" horrors, unspeakable cruelties, venge-
ance, and fierce passions of his earliest tragedy Shake-
speare adds a poetic atmosphere of terror and crime, partly
by repeated allusions to classical horror stories and vil-
lains and partly by conscious attention to the details
of the setting. In II, 3, Tamora describes a forest scene
in lovely, romantic terms as a backdrop to her lovemaking
to Aaron. Less than one hundred lines later she calls the
same place a barren, deserted vale, completely reversing
her earlier description because evil places should form
the backdrop for evil deeds, and because in her second
speech Tamora is setting the scene for the murder of
Bassianus and the rape and mutilation of Lavinia. The
net result of the poetry and the dramatic action is the
bloodiest and, to many, the most distasteful of all

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Shakespearean plays, but to a student of Shakespeare's
villains Tipgg Andnonicus offers a fertile field of in-
vestigation including the first opportunity to analyze
a villain in tragedy.

Out of the welter of plot and counterplot, revenge
and counterrevenge, four characters emerge as villains
in terms of their actions against the heroes, the Andronici.
Two of these villains are unimportant. Chiron and Demet-
rius, Tamora's surviving sons, are motivated in general
by the killing of their brother and their defeat by the
Romans under Titus, in particular by lust for Lavinia.
They are in the play to kill Bassianus and to rape Lavinia
and then to be served up in a pie to their mother. Dense,
easily led, they add nothing to any theory of villainy,
but simply follow their baser passions and do as they are
told by Aaron or Tamora. ‘

Tamora is more complex than her sons. Spivack finds
her a more intelligible villain than Aaron:

She is a bad character whom revenge sets in motion;

and she does not need to protest her villainy, she

acts it. Her actions, moreover, are organic to

the plot, not a stylized performance based on

premises outside it.
Certainly Spivack is right about Tamora's motive, but I
feel the rest of his statement distorts both the play and
Tamora's part in it.

Tamora's friends and enemies unite in calling her

a Semiramis, a figure who combined regal power with a

1 Wmmmmmm. 380.

 

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68

tendency to cruelty and unnatural lust. Throughout the
play Tamora alternates between cruelty and lust. Her lust
most clearly separates her villainy from Aaron's. In Aaron's
classical language Venus governs Tamora's desires, but
Saturn governs his. When she is not lusting after Aaron,
Tamera is plotting revenge. In much of the plotting Tamora
is led by Aaron, though she does occasionally plot by her-
self and she dissembles naturally. Her apparently noble
and forgiving speech to Titus in Act I is contradicted
immediately by an aside to Saturninus in which she reveals
her deceit and her intention to destroy the Andronici.
In this speech she also gives some politic advice to
Saturninus:

My lord, be rul'd by me, be won at last;

Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.

You are but newly planted in your throne;

Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,

Upon a just survey take Titus' part,

And so supplant you for ingratitude,

Which Home reputes to be a heinous sin,

Yield at entreats. (I, 1, 442-9)
These remarks show that Tamera has an outlook on life which
links her to the intellectual villains, but she is too
much dominated by lust, pride, and vengeance for her to
act consistently with such intellectual principles.

Tamora creates only one plot in the play; the rest
of the time she carries out Aaron's instructions. In IV,
4, Tamera and Saturninus hear that Lucius is leading the
Goths to attack Rome. Tamora comes to the aid of her

frightened husband by announcing that she will entreat

Titus to call off Lucius. She is sure that her charms

 

69

and her devices will end the threat. But when Tamora
visits Titus she goes as Revenge with her two sons as
Rape and Murder. After some seventy lines of humoring the
mad Titus she announces that she will arrange a banquet
and will find "some cunning practice out of hand" to end
the threat of the Goths. Her plot has not been worked
out in any great detail. Moreover, she is outwitted by
Titus and leaves her sons with him. So Tamora is not an
effective villain nor are her plans organic to the plot.
She is out of the action for a long stretch in the middle
of the play and spends much of her time protesting her
villainy, or at least announcing villainous intentions,
rather than acting her villainy as Spivack claims.
Tamora's speech to her sons dragging Lavinia off to rape
sums up her character and indicates nearly her whole range
of emotions:

Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.

Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed

Till all the Andronici be made away.

Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,

And let my spleenful sons this trull deflow'r.

(II, 3, 187-91)

Tamera readily acquiesces in the rape and murder Aaron
has arranged; she is cruel and pitiless; but she is far
more interested in her love affair with Aaron than in im-
plementing her revenge. Tamora seems to be an early
sketch for Goneril and Regan. Like them she is a mon-
strous woman, and like them she does not really belong

in the inner circle of Shakespeare's intellectual vil-

lains.

 

. Iris... . v 3

 

70

The villain who comes to dominate the action is Aaron
the Mbor, Tamora's lover. Most critics have condemned
him for lack of motivation. Boyer has said that Aaron
shows "absolutely motiveless malignity"; Whitaker calls
him "the embodiment of motiveless evil"; Coe feels that
Aaron has no motivation, but is bad simply because the
plot requires a villain. Spivack changes the pattern some-
what by saying that Aaron utters conventional motives but
does not act upon them. Spivack then goes on to discuss
Aaron as one of the Family of Iago, one of the villains
directly descended from the Vice of the morality plays.2
By lack of motive I suppose these critics mean that no
one has done anything specifically to Aaron to cause him
to strike back, and they have simply attributed his vil-
lainy to an evil nature or mere dramatic expediency.

I believe, however, that Aaron acts from recognizable mo-
tives, and even though he is colorless and flat as a
character, he is the first fully-developed intellectual
villain.

Throughout the long first scene Aaron is a silent
witness to the seesawing events. He has been brought to
Rome as a member of Tamora's defeated army of Goths and
he appears always in her retinue. In his first speech,

a soliloquy which Opens Act II, Aaron describes Tamora's

new stature as Empress of Rome. Moreover, Aaron identifies

2. The Villain as Hgyg_1g Elizabethgn ngma, p. 109;
Shakespeare's Egg g; Learning, p. 105; Shakespeayg's Vil-
lains, p. 12; and Spivack, pp. 380-6.

 

7l

himself as Tamora's lover; so he has a particular rather
than a general attachment to her. One aspect of the so-
liloquy is Aaron's girding his will to emulate Tamora's
success:

Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts

To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress. '

(II, 1, 12-13)
Aaron's motives, then, stem partly from a desire to get
ahead, and partly from his seeking vengeance for the kill-
ing of Tamora's sons. To get ahead Aaron must overcome
several obstacles: he is a Moor, he has an ostensibly
lowly position in a defeated army ("Away with slavish weeds
and servile thoughtsi"L,and his paramour is now married
to the Emperor of Rome. Aaron later tells Chiron and
Demetrius that "'Tis policy and stratagem must do/ That
you affect" and it is just such a program that he embarks
on to gain his two objectives: to wanton with Tamora and
to avenge her with the Andronici.

Before turning to a discussion of how Aaron achieves
these goals, I would like to return to Spivack's account
of Aaron. According to Spivack most of the Family of Iago
work against love and marriage, but Aaron specializes in
"enmity and internecine strife."3 Further, Aaron's vil-
lainy works against the harmony of Act I. By the end of
Act I, Titus Andronicus has grudgingly allowed the burial

of a son he himself has killed; Bassianus and Saturninus

are at odds over both the emperorship and the possession

 

3 Spivack, pp. 46-7, 382.

 

‘nllfllliyullq

 

72

of Lavinia; and Tamora's mollifying words which bring about
the harmony are declared deceitful in her own long aside.
So the situation is far from harmonious. The only harmony
Aaron could disturb is that in the family of the Andronici
and even there Titus is enraged at one son and his son-
in-law and at odds with his son Lucius and brother Marcus.
If anything, Aaron's actions bring the Andronici together
so that Titus, Lucius, and Marcus eventually present a
united front against their enemies.

Aaron is adept in both long-range plotting and quick
thinking when a new situation arises. He arranges the
death of Bassianus so that the blame will fall on two of
Titus' sons, Martius and Quintus. To do this Aaron has
buried gold, secured Tamora's aid, given Chiron and Demet-
rius instructions for the disposal Of Bassianus, and forged
a letter to add to the circumstantial evidence against
Martius and quintus. In Act IV when word is brought that
Tamora has been delivered of a black child, Tamora's sons
turn against Aaron. He quickly wins them over, kills the
nurse and plans to kill the other woman who knew of the
birth, and arranges for a white child to take the place
of the one he has fathered.

Until the end of Act III Aaron is unsuspected of
any villainy. Playing on his favorable reputation he
arranges a false ransom by which one of the Andronici is
to give up a hand in return for Martins and Quintus.

Titus actually calls Aaron "good" and "gentle" in a diluted

n:

v
-

 

 

73

version of the "honest Iago" theme. The irony is under-
lined by Aaron's asides during the scene. In one of them
he says:
0, how this villainy

Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!

Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace,

Aaron will have his soul black like his face.

(III, 1, 203-6)

Spivack, Coe, and the others find the taking of Titus'
hand to be one more blind act of evil, but Aaron is com-
mitted to vengeance against the Andronici and here he is
merely compounding the sorrow Titus, Marcus, and Lucius
will feel at the death of Martins and Quintus as well as
providing the audience with another spectacular and hor-
rible stage device. Further Aaron says he takes pleasure
in the thought of evil; this is important in an intellec-
tual villain. Aaron also mentions motives in this speech:
if fools do good, by implication, the "wise" or "thinking"
man will do evil; and a black man can get ahead by being
a villain. Moreover here, as in his first speech, Aaron
is stealing his will to do evil. He is not evil by nature
or the devil incarnate; rather he must see his goals and
then force himself into evil channels to attain them. The
critical point of view concerning Aaron which I have been
combating arises because Aaron is so consistent and so
shallow. Nearly every line he speaks directly concerns
his plotting or is self-appraisal. Such flatness in Aaron
no doubt makes him seem to be simply evil personified, but

actually he must overcome strong external obstacles and

 

iiiii.‘

 

 

74

he does share with the later villains the conscious use
of his will to attain what he wants from life. Moreover,
Aaron shares in some aspects the philosOphical outlook
of the later, more artistically depicted villains. He
is, for example, extremely sceptical about the value or
efficacy of religion. To Chiron and Demetrius he says:
"Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over." Later,
wishing Lucius to swear an oath, he taunts him with the
remark, "for that I know/ An idiot holds his bauble for
a god," indicating agnostic, even atheistic, tendencies.

Besides a deceitful appearance as a good man, there
is another similarity which shows that Aaron is a kind of
embryonic Iago. When Aaron flees with his child, he is
captured by the Goths under Lucius. Aaron is sentenced
to die, but threatens silence if the child is harmed.
He plays on Lucius' curiosity by promising talk of

murders, rapes, and massacres,

Acts of black night, abominable deeds,

Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,

Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd.

(v, 1, 63-6)

if the child lives,and gets Lucius' promise to that effect,
though Aaron could certainly not deliver all he promises
from the part he has played. So, once again he is showing
his intellectual supremacy by knowing his adversary and
outwitting him on the basis of that knowledge. Earlier
he had known that the concept of honor held by Titus would

make him eager to chop off his hand to save his sons,

even leading the noble and honorable Titus into deceit

75

to foil the other honorable Andronici who were eager to
sacrifice their own hands.

After Aaron has confessed the crimes he has committed
within the play, he is asked if he is sorry. His answer
is not only a villain's credo but also a faint attempt
to give Aaron some life outside the play:

Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day--and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse--
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,

As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks,
[Tu§7, I have done a thousand dreadful
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more. (V, 1, 124-44)

things

Aaron probably exceeds his own villainy in this speech
which is as much a part of the atmosphere Of the play as
it is of Aaron's characterization, but it is such a creed
which has given the critics cited the evidence for their
arguments. I would point out, however, that Aaron takes
pleasure in the devices as well as the actions of villainy.
If the purely intellectual villain should proceed only by
plots, then to the extent that Aaron kills, ravishes, and
breaks necks, he is not a complete intellectual villain.
He is simply an early version of what later comes to be a
distinct pattern of characterization. In the quoted lines
he is exaggerating his own villainy (and there is more

exaggeration in the lines left out) because he has been

76

caught and is about to die. He knows the terrible shock
his words have on his auditors. Therefore this speech
is not the best one on which to base a theory of Aaron's
character or his villainy, attractively as it may seem
to solve the problem.

There is one distinct chink in Aaron's armor of intel-
lectuality and will--his passionate love for his baby son.
Just as the passions of the hero Titus lead him into the
rash killing of his own son, rash anger against Bassianus,
rash vengeance against Tamora, and eventual death, so does
the one humanizing passion of Aaron lead him into rash
action and eventual capture. Insofar as villainy is con-
cerned, Aaron's love for his son is a blot and the chief
causecf his failure. But in the long speech I have quoted
and in his final words Aaron returns to his principles
and is unrepentant in the face of torture and a terrify-
ing death. The pattern of Aaron's career--reason and will
directed toward doing evil, a breakdown of these principles
because of passion, and then a return to the earlier prin-
ciples--is actually the pattern followed by most of Shake-
speare's villains, so that in this as well as his other
characteristics, Aaron is the earliest full-scale example
of Shakespeare's intellectual villains.

WEI

In the character of Richard III we have the first

Shakespearean villain who is also the protagonist of his

play. The critics have been nearly unanimous in calling

77

Richard a Mbchiavel. One of the more complete catalogues
of a stage Machiavel is offered by Boyer in his descrip-
tion of Richard as
fearless, egotistical, haughty, audacious, subtle,
witty, intellectual, bold, treacherous, far-sighted,
remorseless, atheistical, cynical, and above all
gifted with almost superhuman energy of will.4
Stoll compares Richard with Iago and Aaron on the basis
of Machiavellianism, but points out that while the Machiavel
usually shows no remorse, Richard does, "though it is
crudely and ambiguously represented."5 ‘Whitaker adds a
special feature to Richard's Machiavellianism, his frequent
use of Biblical allusions which "make him seem possessed
ofall the learning of the virtuous but able to turn that
learning to his own purposes."6 Whitaker notes that the
Machiavel was supposed to use religion for his own ends.
Probing even more deeply into the concept of the Machiavel,
John F. Danby says of Richard: "As Machiavel he analyses
the reality behind the pretensions of social man."7
The only major critical deviation is voiced by Spivack,
who claims Richard III for the Family of Iago. Richard
is descended from the Vice because.he uses verbal equiv-
ocation and frequent tears, he states clearly his moral
pedigree, and he works against the values of love and peace

in human relationships. The play is simply a demonstration

of his villainy. In summary Spivack writes:

 

4. Boyer, p. 81.

5 Shflkflfipgfirg Studiea, pp. 345‘s#.
6 Whitaker, p. 62.
7

WEB.“ k ' W) in Q: m: p° 63o

78

The dominant trait in his descent [Richard from

Vicg7 appears in the unnaturalistic dimension of

the role, in the repetitious and gratuitous deceit

surviving out of the old Christian metaphor, in

the hgmiletic method of the timeless personifica-

tion.

Again, while acknowledging the validity of the quoted in-
sights and recognizing in Richard some qualities of both

the stage Machiavel and the Vice, I feel that Richard can
more fruitfully be underStood as an intellectual villain.

Richard figures prominently in two plays; Henzy 1;
Part 3_begins the deveIOpment of his character along the
lines followed in Richard III. Indeed, Richard's plans
to become king are discussed several times in the earlier
play, but this goal is not mentioned specifically until
Act III of Righard III; apparently Shakespeare assumes
some knowledge of the earlier play on the part of the
audience.

In Hgnyy 1; Richard is both a bold warrior and a sub-
tle, shrewd plotter. Richard shows his subtlety in his
first appearance by convincing his father not to honor
an earlier oath to allow Henry VI to remain as king:

An oath is of no moment, being not took

Before a true and lawful magistrate

That hath authority over him that swears. (I, 2, 22-4)
Since the Yorks feel they have the only legitimate claim
to the throne, they do not feel themselves bound to up-

hold an oath sworn while a Lancaster is king. Though

younger than his brother Edward, Richard often takes the

 

8 Spivack, pp. 393-403.

79

lead in family councils, and is definitely fiercer and
more vindictive than the pleasure-loving Edward.

Once the House of York has been victorious and Edward
has been crowned, Richard shows that he is after the crown
for himself. In a long soliloquy in III, 2, Richard curses
Edward and all who stand in his way to the crown. But he
knows that he must do more than curse and dream. He needs
a course of action and he sets forth this course in a way
which both shows acute self-perception and also informs
the audience of his character:

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,

And cry "content" to that which grieves my heart,

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,

And frame my face to all occasions.

I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;

I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;

I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,

Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,

And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon, '

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it farther off, I'11_pluck it down.
(III, 2, 182-95)

This speech has been taken as an outline of Richard's quali-
fications as a Machiavel by Whitaker9 and as Richard's

moral pedigree in showing his kinship with the Vice by
Spivack.10 No doubt Shakespeare borrowed from both these
stage traditions in develOping the dramatic presentation

of Richard (and certainly the formal, balanced rhetoric

of the speech suggests that it has conventional elements),

9 Whitaker, p. 77.
10 Spivack, p. 395.

but the
later 51
man who
about h:
gerous 1
when Ric
in the 1
I,

Had
And

 

 

 

 

80

but the villainy of Richard as expressed here and in a
later speech really lies in the nature of his ideas. A
man who can negate all his emotions and deceive the world
about his own feelings and actions is a potentially dan-
gerous man. The actuality of this danger is made apparent
when Richard explains his motives after killing Henry VI
in the Tower:

I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear

Had I not reason, think y , t make haste

And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.

I have no brother, I am like no brother;

I am myself alone. (V, 2, 68-83)
Theodore Spencer has shown how this attitude is of danger
to society:

Even more striking is Shakespeare's characteriza-
tion of an evil figure, the villain Of the trilogy,
Richard of Gloucester. For what distinguishes him
is the fact that he is set apart from the rest of
mankind, first by his malformed body, which is the
outward sign of a malformed soul, and second by

his thoroughgoing individualism. Order and society
are nothing to him; he is the first of those Shake-
spearean villains who refuse to be a part of the
order of nature and who refuse to see the inter-
connections between the various spheres of Nature's
activity. He is, to use the old mistaken etymology
of the word, ab-hominable; cut off from the rest

of mankind. . . . 'I am myself elone"; Iago and
Edmund would have said the same.

Having stated his moral principles, Richard goes on with

the practical business of enumerating those who stand in

 

ll Shakespgayg and t_l'1_e Natuze of M_a_r_1_, p. 72.

81

his way and marking them for death. There is constant
interplay between the intellectual and intelligent sides
of Richard, between the man whose thoughts are dangerous
to society and the schemer who can plot how to work his
way against society. When necessary, Richard along with
the other villains can take a hand in the actual physical
performance of evil deeds.

Richard, then, in this early play is presented as
an ambitious man, bitter at the world because of his de-
formities, clearly aware of his own nature and of the
obstacles that lie before his ambition as well as the means
of surmounting them--in short, Richard is here presented
as he is to be develOped in the more famous fiighazd III.

Just as in the earlier play, Richard in Richard III
soliloquizes about his own nature and his plans to advance
himself. Such soliloquies as the long opening speech of
Righgzd II; have been objected to as unnatural by many
critics, but it is necessary for an intellectual villain
to communicate his ideas to the audience. Or to put it
another way, such soliloquies offer evidence that the vil-
lains are to be considered as intellectual. Stoll has
commented that no Elizabethan dramatist "quite realized,
or showed he realized, that a character is not one who
tells his story, but acts it, and speaks, not for audience
or dramatist, but only for himself."12 But ideas can be

more clearly and forcefully enumerated in direct exposition

 

12 Stoll, p. 364.

82

than they can be in action even at the risk of introducing
an "unnatural" convention into the drama.

Part of Richard's opening speech merely summarizes
the situation and brings the audience up to date: the
York faction has been successful, Edward is king, peace
has replaced.war, romance has now become the main interest
at court. But then Richard turns to himself:

since I cannot prove a lover

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days. '

Plots I have laid, inductions dangerous (I, 1, 28-32)
Here is a man who knows he is out of harmony with the world
around him. He knows that he cannot be happy with his world
as he has analyzed it and to this knowledge he adds a
strong will plus the ability to arrange situations which
'will yield results more in keeping with his own viewpoint.
These plots first of all are directed against Richard's
brother, Clarence, and will succeed if King Edward is as
true and just as Richard is "subtle, treacherous, and
false." The intellectual villain needs to know his victims
as well as himself. For him knowledge is power; he easily
manipulates men whose natures are Open to him.

‘With the intellectual groundwork laid, the rest of
the first scene shows Richard's intelligence at work on
a practical situation. Richard's first plot, the impli-
cation of Clarence as the king's enemy, has been success-

ful; Clarence is being led off to prison. Richard at

first feigns ignorance of Clarence's disgrace and sympathy

83

for him; one can afford to be sympathetic with his already
defeated victims. Casting the blame on the queen and

her faction, Richard goes on to describe the king as being
run by women, the queen and his mistress, Jane Shore.

When Clarence's guard breaks in to end the conference
between Richard and Clarence, Richard gives an innocent
account of what had been said and jests with the guard

to allay any suspicion. He promises to help Clarence with
the king, but in ambiguous terms: "I will deliver you,

or else lie for you." His intent is clarified when he
dismisses poor, simple Clarence to his death. Hearing
that the king is sick, Richard knows he must hasten to the
palace to have Clarence killed. In a characteristic phrase
Richard says he will urge Edward's hatred of Clarence
with "lies well steel'd with weighty arguments." This
scene clearly illustrates some of the verbal tricks--lies,
ambiguities, partial truths--which Richard employs to fur-
ther his plots.

Fresh from«his gulling of Clarence, Richard goes on
to an even greater triumph over a more formidable Opponent
in the wooing of Lady Anne. As Richard himself points
out, she has God, her conscience, the bleeding corpse of
Henry VI, and the remembrance of her own husband also
killed by Richard to make her loathe him. Anne realizes
that none Of these factors would affect Richard when she

says he knows "nor law of God nor man." To aid him Richard

84

has only "the plain devil and dissembling looks," yet he
succeeds in winning Anne. An analysis of the scene shows,
though, that he has a strong intellect and.will,as well
as a keen understanding of Anne,working for him. Anne,
like the other women in the play, often replies to Richard
by calling him devil or monster, but these names (which
seem to have influenced criticism of the play) really
obscure the extraordinary degree to which Richard has
developed certain recognizable human traits. i

As the wooing scene opens, Lady Anne laments over the
corpse of Henry VI and curses his killer. ,Richard forces
his way into her sorrow with drawn sword and imperious
voice. Anne curses him at length, but Richard merely calls
her sweet saint and lets her vent her wrath. Flattering
Anne all the while, Richard first tries a direct lie, say-
ing he didn't kill her husband; but since Anne knows befler,
he has to abandon this approach. Turning to the comforts
of religion, he says that the dead are better off in heaven.
Moving swiftly and boldly he tells Anne that he would like
to lie with her in her chamber. Then, slowing down and
gathering the forces of logical proof about him, he tells
her that her beauty caused him to kill her husband and
King Henry. In a long speech Richard shows that despite
his earlier protestations, he can be a lover and he woos
Anne in traditional love language, reaching an emotional
climax by offering her his sword and his breast open to

her revenge. But Anne cannot kill him, so Richard presses

85

his advantage by giving Anne a ring and arranging to
meet her later. He pledges himself to bury the king, and
Anne, feeling he is truly repentant, acquiesces. Her
capitulation puts Richard in such a good humor that for
a moment he is pleased with his own looks and makes plans
to dress fashionably since he is to be a lover. Coe argues
that Shakespeare "exceeds the limits of probability"13
in this scene, but Richard has successfully completed a
nearly impossible task by being a true intellectual vil-
lain. On the one hand he has disregarded all promptings
of religion and conscience; on the other he has shown a
strong will and a precise understanding of Anne's character.
So far Richard has acted on individuals. In I, 3, he
manipulates a whole group of people. The queen and several
nobles are lamenting the king's illness. Richard entens
taking the offensive immediately, but in a defensive tone:
"They do me wrong and I will not endure it." He goes on
to say that he is not a courtier or a flatterer, but a
plain-speaking, honest fellow. The queen and her fol-
lowers are inimical to Richard or at least form a faction
that he must contend with. Although he has need of the
queen, Richard makes slighting reference to the fact that
her relatives have recently been created nobility. He
even abuses the queen's person and accuses her of meddling
in politics, so the two are quickly at odds. Then the

old queen Margaret enters, pouring out vituperation on

 

l3 Coe, p. 27.

86

Richard as the murderer of her husband and her son. Richard
hurls names and charges back at her for a time; finally
she utters a long, harsh curse and departs the scene.
Richard then shifts his position to say, "She hath had too
much wrong, and I repent/ My part thereof that I have done
to her." When Richard adds the tormentors of Clarence
to his list of the forgiven, Rivers illustrates the ef-
fectiveness of Richard's remarks by saying, "A virtuous
and a Christian-like conclusion,/ To pray for them that
hath done scathe to us." Richard's public reply is "So
do I ever, being well advised," but his private, cynical
comment is "For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself."
Rivers' remark shows that he has been taken in by Richard's
shifts in position and that Richard is a master of control-
ling peOple by telling them whatever the situation requires.
This tactic is seen again, with the added device of reli-
gion used deceptively, when Richard appears between two
bishops to mollify the citizens of London and to win their
support for his kingship. Richard explains this device
in a soliloquy:_

I do the wrong and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs that I set abroach

I lay unto the grievous charge of others.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd Old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
(I, 3. 324-38)

In Richard's world a villain can succeed if he outwardly

conforms to the accepted beliefs and norms of behavior.

87

To Richard, continually mocking these beliefs, such suc-
cess brings hilarious rejoicing. The intellectual vil-
lain really scores twice: first when his plots are ef-
fective and second when a credulous world praises him for
apparently believing as it does.

The murderers whom Richard hires to kill Clarence
have the same moral standards as Richard. One murderer
feels his conscience bothering him about the deed, but
when reminded of the reward says that his conscience is
now in the Duke of Gloucester's purse. He even delivers
a little speech which declares that conscience is dangerous
and works against the best interests of man. But only the
other murderer remains steadfast in these convictions;
the first succumbs to Clarence's sermonizing, and though
he joins in the murder, he immediately compares himself
to Pontius Pilate and repents. Shakespeare's development
of the cynical world view of the murderers and their
eventually contrasting reactions to murder serves both to
emphasize the concept of the intellectual villain and also
to show how this concept can be used as a kind of dramatic
shorthand to give a valid rationale to minor characters.

Richard, in Act III, moves toward the crown, using
the devices already discussed. At court he is all for peace
and harmony, but at the same time casts suspicion on the
queen's faction for the murder of Clarence. Sometimes
he tells the truth about himself under the cover of general

remarks, as when he tells the young prince that the world

88

is full of deceit and a man cannot be judged by his out-
ward appearance. His fellow conspirator Buckingham des-
cribes their morality when he says:

The benefit thereof is always granted

To those whose dealings have deserved the place

And those who have the wit to claim the place.

(III, 1, 48-50)

Once king, Richard can no longer trust the "deep-
resolving, witty" Buckingham who sees men and events much
as he does. There is room for only one man of such per-
ception and such moral atrophy. So Buckingham is executed.

There remains only one further develOpment in the
portrait of Richard. On the eve of the Battle of Bosworth
Field, the ghosts of Richard's victims visit him and bid
him despair and die. Richard's immediate reaction is to
cry, "Have mercy, Jesul"--the only visitation upon him of
"coward conscience." The speech which follows shows the
social and spiritual sides of Richard struggling inwardly.lh
He fears that if he dies no soul shall pity him. He cannot
even pity himself. This episode shows that Richard is
not a devil or a supernatural representation of evil. He
is all too human and he can be afraid as well as recognize
the enormity of his crimes. But this view adds to his
greatness as an intellectual villain. To gain the throne
he has held fear and conscience in abeyance, using his

intelligence to work the devices discussed above. The

fact that emotion and conscience can touch him now merely

 

l4 Danby, pp. 66-7.

89

points up the human limitations of Richard and makes him
a credible human character.

But Richard is not left quaking on his knees. Once he is
in armor, the warrior's prowess displayed in Hgnyy_ll re-
turns to him and he feels in command of the situation. He
can now rebuke conscience:

For conscience is a word that cowards use,

Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.

Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law!

(V, 3, 309-11)
And he goes down fighting heroically.

Shakespeare calls the play a tragedy and Richard is
more than a villain; he is the protagonist and it is his
downfall which constitutes the tragedy. However, his as-
sumptions and procedures are patterns for later villains.
His ability to shift with the temper of a group and to make
them follow his lead marks the most important dramaturgic
advance of Richard over Aaron. Like Aaron, though, he
falls off slightly from total villainy. And again like
Aaron, it is a human failing, a yielding to emotion, rather
than a surrendering of intellectual principle which brings
about the deviation. Shakespeare's intellectual villains
are hardy and extremely consistent. They know what they
want and how to achieve what they want. They understand
others as well as themselves. Only their feelings and
passions occasionally betray them, though it is against

feelings and passions that many of their campaigns are

conducted.

 

 

90

In comedy the villains rarely have the broad oppor-
tunity of an Aaron or Richard to practice whatever evil
their brains conceive. The plot requirements doom their
efforts to frustration; the over-all atmosphere of the
play often makes them alien figures or at least subordinate
to the lovers and clowns. However, two villainous char-
acters from early Shakespearean comedies, Shylock and Don
John, though widely differing in importance to their plots,
utilize enough of the ideology and the technique of the
intellectual villain to warrant serious consideration in

this study.

TheMmihn efleuiee

Although E. E. Stoll has presented an extremely con-
vincing case for an interpretation of Shylock as a villain,15
he concludes that Shylock is a comic villain, a butt, and
pays little attention to Shylock's ideas or intellectual
attitudes. Donald Stauffer suggests the nature of these
ideas when he says that Shylock is "Shakespeare's first
seriously complete presentation of a somewhat justifiable
personal passion unreconciled to the social order."16 The
justifiable personal passion would be Shylock's ample and
definite motivation against Antonio. A Shylock unrecon-
ciled to the social order is a Shylock akin in intellectual

principles to Aaron, Richard III, and Iago. This kinship

 

15 W Studies. Cho VI-
16 Shakespgang's Egylg,g£ Images: The Dgyelgpmggt

2f Elam Ideas. 13- 106-

91

centers chiefly around Shylock's realistic view of life
and the rational basis for his conduct.

In the play Shylock is presented at first as a care-
ful man of business, one who weighs the financial position
of Antonio carefully before consenting to the loan. He
is realist enough to be aware of the dangers Antonio's
argosies are subject to, but prefers to base his decision
on the merchant's good reputation. Further, Shylock ex-
plains how he and his peOple have gotten ahead by their
wits by citing the example of Jacob. Antonio, in the first
of several explicit contrasts with Shylock, remarks that
the Jacob story shows only the blessing of Heaven. The
good people in Shakespeare often rely on good fortune,
providence, or Heaven to care for them; the evil consist-
ently rely on themselves and their own abilities. So
Shylock attempts to succeed by using his wits, studying
the situation and taking a realistic view. Even his ap-
parent lapse in granting the loan is part of a larger
design, or even plot, to get at Antonio. On the other
hand Antonio seems more content to let providence guide
him, to send out all his wealth and hope that it will
return safely.

Shylock has two strong motives for his hatred of
Antonio. Antonio is a Christian who rails against the
Jews and hates their "sacred nation." Hazlitt romantically

declares that Shylock is "the depository of the vengeance

92

of his race."17 But the second motive, money, seems even
more to the point. _Antonio's main complaint against the
Jews is that they take interest on loans; moreover, he
himself lends money without interest, thus harming Shy-
lock's business. Antonio makes no attempt to hide his
feelings for Shylock. Upon hearing the Jacob story,

Antonio says:

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart.

0, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

(I. 3. 99-103)

When Shylock rehearses the indignities he has received
from Antonio, Antonio retorts that he will continue to
curse and spit. Shylock's answer is to put on an appear-
ance of kindness and forgiveness and to suggest "in a merry
sport" that there be no interest on the loan, but only the
payment of the pound of flesh if the entire loan is for-
feit. The irony of Antonio's applying to the hated Shylock
'for a loan is compounded by Shylock's deceptive refusal
to seek interest, a major source of contention between
him and Antonio.

Carrying on the deceit and repeating his offer of
love and friendship, Shylock reproaches the Christians
for being suspicious (he says their own hard dealings make

them suspect others). If these speeches of Shylock were

meant sincerely, he would not be a villain. But he has

 

17 Works, IV, 320.

93

already expressed his hatred for Antonio and called down
curses on his tribe if he forgive the Christian merchant,
so Shylock is here laying the possible groundwork for the
legal killing of Antonio. As a realist Shylock knows the
dangers (land-rats, water-rats, water-thieves, land-thieves,
winds, waters, rocks) ahead for the badly over-extended
Antonio's argosies. Thus, while he cannot force Antonio's
ruin and does not actively work toward it, he can plan

on the basis of a possible course of action. His villainy
at this point is entirely mental rather than physical.
Bassanio evidently sees the same possibilities as Shylock
and warns his friend: "I like not fair terms and a vil-
lain's mind." (I, 3, 180)

The unfavorable picture of Shylock is augmented by
Launcelot, the comic servant, who is famished in Shylock's
service and considers the Jew to be the very devil incar-
nate. Even Shylock's daughter Jessica says, "Our house
is hell," and determines to leave. Shylock has a chance
at rebuttal with Launcelot, but since he accuses him of
gormandizing, it would seem that Launcelot is closer to
the truth of the matter. Shylock again gives himself away
when he says that he will go to Bassanio's feast "in hate,
to feed upon/ The prodigal Christian." (II, 5, 14-15)

In the first scene of Act III Shylock appears in
several moods. He is distraught about his daughter's flight
and her taking some of his treasure. He warns Antonio's

Christian friends with the line "let him look to his bond"

94

when he hears of Antonio's losses and is jubilant with
his Jewish friend Tubal over the same news. In the midst
of these alternating moods he makes his great speech on
the humanity of the Jews, his most eloquent plea for pity
and understanding. But his summation is:

And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If

we are like you in the rest, we resemble you in

that. . . . If a Christian wrong a Jew, what

should his sufferance be by Christian example?

Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will

execute, and it shall go hard but I will better

the instruction. (III, 1, 68-76)

As Stoll has pointed out,18 Shylock's plea for sympathy

is turned into a rationale for revenge. At the very point
in the play the romantics find their most congenial evi-
dence, Shylock is really at his most villainous. Continu-
ing in his role as villain, Shylock makes plans to bring
Antonio to justice if the bond is forfeit. It is clear
that Shylock wants to kill Antonio, to remove a dangerous
business rival from the scene in order to have a free hand
for himself.

In the trial scene Shylock appears to be anything but
an intellectual villain, but I think the thesis can be
maintained. Shylock is characterized as "A stony adver-
sary, an inhuman wretch/ Uncapable of pity, void and empty/
From any dram of mercy." (Iv, 1, 4-6) But this speech
is an attempt on the part of a character in the play to
explain evil. Shylock has already pleaded eloquently for

his own humanity. His reasons for wanting the pound of

18 Shakespeare Studies, p. 268.

 

95

flesh are rational and consistent with his own interest.

He himself tells the court that it is his humor, but he

has already explained why he wants Antonio dead. Seeking
to give the court further reasons, he mentions "a lodg'd
hate and a certain loathing" for Antonio. Even this does
not satisfy Bassanio, and Antonio lays the malice to Shy-
lock's hard, Jewish heart. But again, the motives are clear;
the basis for action is simply a rational plot to get rid
of a business and religious rival--the perfect murder as

it were. When the judgment goes against Shylock, he de-
teriorates from a demand for thrice the bond through a
willingness to accept his money to a whimpering, "Shall

I not have barely my principal?" That is, once he cannot
execute his revenge on Antonio he is again the man of
business, seeking to recoup a loss. His intellectual prin-
ciples remain intact.

Shylock is left with little at the end of the scene:
he must give up much of his wealth, he must become a Chris-
tian, he must leave his money to his daughter and Lorenzo.
It is no wonder that he is not well as he leaves the court-
room. Hazlitt says at this point "we pity him, and think
him hardly dealt with by his judges."19 This view has
not died out. Coe feels we should pity Shylock because
he is the underdog.20 But Shylock is first and foremost

a villain. To be sure he is a villain in comedy (not the

 

l9 Hazlitt, 320.
20 Coe, p. 48.

96

same as Stoll's comic villain). As such he does not have
complete control of the plot and his downfall stems from

a theatrical trick. But he is presented as a serious char-
acter and his outlook, his actions, and his whole nature
unite him with the intellectual villains. He has plotted
a course, knowing full well its consequences and he has
even attempted to force the issue he wanted. Like other
villains he has not accomplished his goal, and like the,
intellectual villains he has remained true to the set of

rules and morals which guided him throughout the play.

Much Ado About Ngthing
The casual reader or viewer of Much Adg Ahout Nothigg

is more likely to remember the wit combats between Benedick
and Beatrice or the humorous constables than the villain.
Don John has a very small part in the play and his mood

of discontent is swallowed up by the comic atmosphere.
However, Don John is drawn along the lines of the other
intellectual villains, though he resembles them more in

his manner of proceeding than in explicit intellectual
assumptions.

Spivack admits Don John as the weakest member of the
Family of Iago. Although he considers Don John somber,
wooden, and trivial as a character, Spivack feels that he
is a more plausible villain than his brothers and is only
slightly linked to the homiletic tradition, this heritage

surviving mainly in the language he uses.21 The difference

 

21 Spivack, pp. 408-12.

97

between Spivack's approach and mine can be gauged by the
fact that I consider Don John one of the weakest of the
intellectual villains. Since I believe that Don John's
villainy is largely a matter of demonstration, I would admit
that Spivack's theory comes nearer to explaining him than
any other villain. However, Don John has clear rather than
fuzzy motives; so I cannot accept Spivack's view of him.
Also the fact that he subordinates his will to his evil
thoughts and quite consciously sets out to work his will

on others makes him more an intellectual villain than a
Vice figure.

Don John is introduced and characterized as a villain
in I, 3. Even though he is talking with his confidante
Conrade, Don John is really in this scene continuing the
conventional opening soliloquy in which the villain makes
explicit his evil intentions. Don John, while self-con-
scious about his own villainy, lacks the usual accompany-
ing trait, deceit. "I cannot hide what I am," he says,
and goes on to reject Conrade's politic advice that he
flatter his way into grace. At the moment Don John is
extremely discontented. He has recently rebelled in some
way against his brother's authority, has been overcome,
and though pardoned is still under some sort of confine-
ment or loss of liberty. This situation has aroused a
general antipathy in Don John and since he confesses
himself a "plain-dealing villain" he needs only an ob-

jective to turn the potential into the actual.

98

The objective is provided when Borachio enters with
news of an impending marriage. "Will it serve any model
to build mischief on?" asks Don John. As it turns out,
the marriage will suit his purposes very well since Claudio
is to marry Hero. Don John has not only recently alienated
his brother, but he is also a bastard and thus has been
very much alarmed at his brother's fondness for Claudio
since he himself can easily be overlooked in the line of
succession, particularly if the court favorite is of noble
birth. So besides his general evil frame of mind, Don
John has a particular motive to act against Claudio's hap-
piness and good fortune: "That young start-up hath all
the glory of my overthrow. If I can cross him any way,

I bless myself every way." (I, 3, 68-70)

A masked ball gives Don John his first opportunity
to put his evil intentions into practice. Making no at-
tempt to hide his own identity, but purposefully mistaking
Claudio for Benedick, Don John plants the seeds of suspi-
cion in Claudio's mind by suggesting that Don Pedro, who
is to woo Hero for Claudio, really loves her for himself.
In this scene Don John shows the intelligent actions of
an intellectual villain.

But apparently Don John has reached the limit of
inventiveness, for he must accept from Borachio a plot
to hurt Claudio. Borachio is aware of the necessity for
deceit to bring a plot off. He says he will act "Not

honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall

99

appear." (II, 2, 9-10) Don John embraces the plot whole-
heartedly and condones the deceit he would not admit in
his own character. He acts out his part by accusing
Hero of disloyalty to Claudio and Don Pedro and by arrang-
ing for ocular proof. The plot works well for Don John,
but his confederate Borachio explains the plot to Conrade,
an explanation overheard by the members of Dogberry's watch.
The comic subplot is linked to the main plot and the vil-
lainy is subordinated to the humorous attempts to root
it out. '

When Claudio repudiates Hero at church, a search be-
gins to discover who has slandered Hero. ‘What Benedick
knows intuitively:

The practice of it lives in John the Bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.
(IV, 1, 190-1)

Dogberry arrives at painstakingly, though accidentally.
In the fifth act, through Dogberry's efforts, Don John's
villainy comes clearly to light. Don Pedro, who shares
Benedick's exaggerated view of Don John's abilities, re-
ports of him: "He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery.
And fled is he upon this villainy." (V, 1, 257-8) This
is the last mention of John until the very end of the play.
He drops out of view while the plot is unraveled and the
couples are paired off. In the last two speeches of the
play it is noted that he has been captured and will be
punished. By this time Don John has been forgotten and

his name is rather forcibly injected into the merriment

100

to tie up a loose end.

Appropriately enough for a comedy, Don John's plot
is defeated by the comic characters. He doesn't seem to
be taken very seriously in the play, and, as I have sug-
gested, can be easily overlooked. But his character and,
particularly, his method of operation link him with Shake-

speare's intellectual villains.

Chapter III
An End and a Beginning

The previous chapter described the intellectual vil-
lains who appeared in early tragedies, comedies, and his-
tory plays. Though these plays can be considered appren-
tice work, and mark a groping for the Shakespearean style,
the pattern of the intellectual villain was fully developed
in Aaron and Richard III and apparent to a lesser degree
in the others discussed. The develOpment of the intellec-
tual villain is not necessarily a growth or change in
the pattern of villainy; rather, Shakespeare's increasing
artistic mastery enriches the characters of the villains,
so that they begin to utilize the pattern in a more com-
plex fashion.° This chapter presents, as a culmination
of the early villains and a preview of the later, Cassius,
who is a major villain appearing in a major tragedy, and
Falstaff, who unites in his ample figure the double develop-

ment from comedy and history play.

1743111139328:

In Julius Cgesar four men, led by varying degrees
of ambition, vie for supremacy in the Roman Republic. Two
of the four, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, form one fac-
tion; the other two, Brutus and Cassius, form the main
opposition to Caesar and Antony. It is possible, then,
that there are two villains in the play; for whichever
pair is made out to be the hero group there is an impor-
tant pair of characters working against this interest.

lOl

102

Few people would deny that Cassius is a villain, though
discussion of him in this role has been limited, even
tentative and incidental, as in the following quotation
from Stoll:
Brutus is, though undoubtedly a patriot, not dis-
tinctly presented as such; and is led by Cassius,
whose role in this early stage of the tragedy
verges upon that of a villain, into conduct from
which, like Liar, Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth,
he is averse.
Critics have made of Brutus both a villain and a hero,
as Stoll here implies by his comparisons. If clear-cut
distinctions must be made, I would consider Brutus a vil-
lain along with Cassius since both of them work against
the interests (and indeed the life) of the nominal hero
of the play. I would recognize, however, some ambiguity
in the role played by Brutus as the nominal hero Caesar
is killed in Act III. Since neither Mark Antony nor the
ghost of Caesar adequately maintains the hero's dramatic
interest in the rest of the play, Brutus fills this vacuum
even though he has killed the hero. The nobility of Brutus'
character and his intellectual struggles enhance his
attractiveness for a hero's role. The major villain is
Cassius, who differs from Brutus in his intellectual assump-
tions and the conscious use of his intelligence. I will
attempt to develop this important distinction between

Brutus and Cassius in considering Cassius as one of Shake-

speare's intellectual villains.

1 mmmmmammem. p. 144.

 

103

The second scene of Act I sets all the important
characters in motion. We learn that Caesar is extremely
ambitious to become ruler of Rome, that he has great skill
in manipulating the crowd, that he is superstitious but
also personally fearless and apt to disregard such advice
as that given by the soothsayer. Antony is presented as
a playboy, seemingly without ambition at this time.

Most of the scene is given over to characterization
of Brutus and Cassius. Brutus is troubled, at war with
himself. He is a thinker, even a brooder; he wrestles
with his problems silently, neither seeking nor apparently
taking help or advice from others. In sum, he is a diffi-
cult man to lead or convert or seduce. But to win Brutus
over to his own viewpoint is precisely the task Cassius
has set for himself. He first Offers himself as Brutus'
true friend, then becomes Brutus' reflector to enable
Brutus to discover things about himself he doesn't yet
know.

When the crowd shouts for Caesar, Brutus betrays his
feelings and gives Cassius an Opening. Brutus says that
he will listen to anything which concerns the general good
and which is honorable. All throughout the play Brutus
is concerned with the general good and with honor. So
in speaking to Brutus, Cassius chooses honor as his theme.
To him honor is not living "In awe of such a thing as my-
self." He then belittles Caesar's strength and courage

and goes on to utter what is his characteristic position

104

throughout the play:

Men at some time are masters of their fates;

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Cassius knows what he will do to remedy this situation,
but he needs the help of Brutus. So he starts to work
on Brutus' vanity and his sense of honor. Brutus answers
that he has thought of the problem posed by Caesar and
has reached this conclusion:

Brutus had rather be a villager

Than to repute himself a son of Rome

Under these hard conditions as this time

Is like to lay on us. (I, 2, 172-5)
To which Cassius sarcastically replies: "I am glad that
my weak words/ Have struck but thus much show of fire from
Brutus." They are interrupted at this point by the re-
entrance of Caesar, who once again commands the center
of attention.

Most of Caesar's remarks characterize Cassius. The
famous

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,

He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

(I. 2. 194-5)
is followed by a fuller catalogue:
He reads much,

He is a great observer; and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men. (I, 2, 201-3)
Further, Cassius takes no pleasure in plays and music,
nor even in smiling at the ordinary affairs of life.

Also he is ambitious, too ambitious to live under a Caesar.

Though Caesar points out at length that he doesn't fear

105

Cassius, but rather Cassius is the type of man one should
fear, he unwittingly illustrates Cassius' view of him by
remarking on his deaf ear. Caesar actually describes
Cassius as an intellectual villain: a realist, a schemer,
a thinker who quickly gets to the heart of the matter
and who can contrive and probably put into action plots
to further his own ends. Caesar does not fear Brutus,who
is a purer intellectual, one who meditates on general con-
cepts and one for whom thought is often an end result.

After Caesar leaves the stage, Brutus and Cassius
hear of Caesar's performance before the crowds and his
attack of epilepsy. The latter gives Cassius a chance
to return to his theme: "you and I/ And honest Casca,
we have the falling sickness." (I, 2, 257-8) But the
only resolution with Brutus at the moment is an arrange-
ment for another meeting. Cassius then ends the long scene
by announcing his intention to work on Brutus:

Well, Brutus, thou are noble; yet, I see,

Thy honourable metal may be wrought

From that it is dispos'd; therefore it is meet

That noble minds keep ever with their likes;

For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd?

Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.

If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,

He should not humour me. (I, 2, 312-9)
According to Spivack these words of Cassius "dissolve the
dramatic imitation of a limited human personality caught
up in action and passion, replacing it by a detached and

illimitable homiletic voice."2 To the slight extent of

this speech Cassius, in Spivack's view, has affinities

 

2 Shakespeare end phe Allegeyy e: Evil, p. 413.

 

fij

 

106

with the Vice. More to the point, I think, is Cassius'
very clear understanding of Brutus, Caesar, and himself

and his willingness to act on this understanding, qualities
which are the hallmarks of intellectual villains. In con-
tinuing this speech Cassius decides to exploit Brutus'
vulnerability, namely his love of honor and concern for
general Opinion, by counterfeiting letters from Roman
citizens warning Brutus of Caesar's ambition.

At the end of this scene we see Caesar's massive am-
bition in operation as he seeks to rule Rome. Cassius'
equally great ambition is poised to st0p what he says will
be arbitrary and dictatorial rule. Brutus, ambitious that
Rome be great and that he be accounted one of Rome's honor-
able men, is vaguely aware that Caesar poses a threat to
his hopes but still requires definite molding from Cassius.
Antony has not yet begun to function as a public figure.

In the next scene, amidst thunder, lightning, and
fearful portents, Cassius appears, emphasizing and height-
ening the conception of himvas an intellectual villain.
Cassius braves the storm unbraced and presents himself to
the lightning unprotected. Casca gives the orthodox opin-
ion that men should fear and tremble when the gods are
angry, but Cassius feels men can make of things what they
will. For him the storm signifies a Caesar grown fearful
and prodigious, but still, in Cassius' view, a Caesar who
is "A man no mightier than thyself or me/ In personal
action." (I, 3, 76-7) Cassius will commit suicide if

107

(Caesar becomes a tyrant, but he prefers to act on the as-
sumption that Caesar is strong only because the Romans
are weak. A show of strength will save Rome from Caesar;
thus the conspiracy to kill Caesar is born and develops.

Just as Cassius has been presented as typically brav-
ing the storm and meeting dangers head on, so is Brutus
seen typically in his garden late at night, meditating,
revolving the problem within himself. Evidently the storm
is over; certainly Brutus would not be at good advantage
against the storm background. Brutus, too, has decided
that Caesar must be killed, for the general reason of his
ambition, not for any personal vices or defects. Brutus
admits that Caesar is more often guided by reason than by
passion, so he must condemn Caesar in an abstract, future
instance:

what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities.'
(II, 1, 30-1)

So Caesar is to be killed in his shell, before he hatches
out into an evil duckling. But such decisions do not set
Brutus off into subsequent action as they would Cassius.
His mind is still at war:

Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.

The Genius and the mortal instruments

Are then in council; and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection. (II, 1, 63-9)

But the gap to action must be bridged; the conspirators

arrive to plot the details. Brutus shows he has learned

108

one lesson: conspiracy should hide its true face in smiles
and affability. However, in Brutus' mouth the remark is
less a mark of worldly wisdom than it is a mark of the
disgust at the means he must use. Brutus' more typical
ideas appear when he describes the proper motives for the
conspirators. Eschewing oath-taking, he suggests rather
"the face of men/ The sufferance of our souls, the time's
abuse," all general, honorable, abstract ideas. He further
suggests some intellectual distinctions which would be hard
to put into practice and harder still to defend. For
example, Brutus proposes:

Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,

Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.

(II, 1, 173-4)
Brutus, in exercising the leadership over the conspiracy
which Cassius seems willing to abandon, makes the first
of a series of errors in judgment which prove fatal to
the cause of the conspirators. Not having Cassius' shrewd
ability to size up men, Brutus refuses to engage Cicero
in the conspiracy. His oratorical ability would have been
a valuable counterbalance to Antony's. More importantly
Brutus says to leave Antony alive. At this point Cassius
does object, but in vain.

Brutus continues making mistakes in his handling of
Antony after Caesar is killed. Cassius fears that Antony
will move the peOple, but Brutus, guided by faith in his
own ability to convey the conspirators' position to the

crowd, allows him to speak. Brutus, in his speech, stresses

109

honor, his own love for Rome, and Caesar's ambition. His
noble generalities hold up only until Antony mockingly
destroys the honor of the conspirators and baits the crowd
with Caesar's will, a more tangible and particular weapon
than Brutus' talk about love, honor, and ambition. The
conspiracy is foiled by Antony's speech and civil war
breaks out.

Brutus and Cassius head one army, but they are often
at odds., Brutus still attempts to uphold his abstractions
and generalities ("Did not great Julius bleed for justice'
sake?"), but such abstractions are even harder to follow
on a battlefield than they were in a conspiracy. Cassius
pleads his experience as a soldier; his plans of strategy
are always better than those devised by Brutus; but he
is continually overruled. At one point Brutus shows how
much events have unnerved him by an uncharacteristic out-
break of anger and invective at Cassius, but he continues
to be the noble,honorab1e Brutus:

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,

For I am arm'd so strong in honesty

That they pass me as the idle wind

Which I respect not. (IV, 3, 66-9)

Their quarrel is patched up after overtures by Cassius and
the two generals turn to battle plans.

Just before the battle of Philippi Cassius shows some
change in philosOphical position. He begins to put some
faith in omens and auguries, although it is only a partial

faith and he is still firmly resolved to meet what is in

110

store for him. This small lack of consistency is often
apparent in Shakespeare's intellectual villains before
they meet their end. Richard III suffers the pangs of
conscience, Edmund does some good despite his own nature.
The device is in the nature of the exception that proves
the rule rather than any glimmering of a fundamental change
for the villains. Certainly Cassius remains true to his
principles and commits suicide, though irony robs his death
of dignity when good news arrives just after he dies.
Brutus also takes the Stoic way out of defeat and
is properly eulogized by Antony as the noblest Roman of
them all. Antony points out that the other conspirators
acted in envy of Caesar, whereas Brutus acted for the common
good. This appraisal echoes the conspirators' views of
themselves and is an apt summary of the difference between
Cassius and Brutus. Cassius is the main villain because
he works against both Caesar and Brutus. The Brutus Of
the play would not have killed Caesar except through the
urgings of Cassius, who knew how to appeal to him. Cassius
is the more effective conspirator; he is the more fitted
for devising and carrying out plots, for foreseeing the
consequences of action, for taking his destiny in his own

hands. These qualities make him an intellectual villain.

3.99.1211!
The mere suggestion that Falstaff is any kind of a

villain goes counter to a long critical tradition stemming

111

from Maurice Morgann. Morgann, along with William Hazlitt,
A. C. Bradley, J. B. Priestly, and many others, considers
Falstaff one of the greatest comic characters ever created
and considers him a comic figure only. Despite the popu-
larity and frequent restatement of this viewpoint, though,
there have been attackers of the Morgann thesis. Therefore,
I would like to present a summary of this critical dispute
before turning to my own presentation of Falstaff as an
intellectual villain.

Morgann thinks of Falstaff as a real and historic
rather than dramatic being and he announces at the outset
of his essay that he wants to clear Falstaff from the
charge of being a coward. Then, distinguishing between
the understanding and emotions, Morgann goes on to say
that we feel rather than understand Falstaff. On this
basis we can like Falstaff even though he does dishonor-
able things; we are enchanted by Falstaff's wit, humor,
and vigor of mind. Falstaff's character is made up of
incongruities which raise laughter: he has noble connec-
tions but consorts with thieves and whores; he is brave
but often appears to be a coward; he practices frauds on
Justice Shallow and others but is really warm-hearted and
generous and has a good reputation. In the realm of thought
Falstaff is a military freethinker. He can see through
honor and not be tyrannized by its implications. Morgann
sentimentalizes and romanticizes the character of Falstaff

by refusing to condemn him for any of his immoral actions,

112

rather allowing all of Falstaff's crimes to be swallowed
up in his wit and dissolved away in laughter.3

Hazlitt follows this tendency by saying that Falstaff
"is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton,
etc. and yet we are not offended but delighted with him."h
According to Hazlitt, we do not condemn Falstaff from the
point of view of morality because of his wit.

Bradley places himself squarely in the Morgann tra-
dition but goes beyond the earlier writer in discussing
Falstaff's intellectual rationale. Bradley states that
"the bliss of freedom gained in humour is the essence of
Falstaff" and elaborates: "he is the enemy Of everything
that would interfere with his ease, and therefore of any-
thing serious, and especially of everything respectable
and moral." Falstaff simply does not recognize such ab-
stractions as honor, patriotism, duty; they are absurd
to him. However, he expresses his views on these cOmmonly-
held ideals "not with the sourness of a cynic, but with
the gaiety of a boy."5

Bradley suggests that there are limitations on Falstaff's
freedom. For one thing, even though Falstaff ridicules
noble rank and courage, he doesn't entirely rid himself
of respect for them. Secondly his freedom has such con-
sequences as bodily pain and such conditions as the neces-

sity for money. It is in order to get money for the

 

3 I have consulted the abridged version of Morgann's
essay in Shakespeaze czieigism 1628-l840 (World's Classics).

4 Wezks, IV, 279.

5 "The Rejection of Falstaff," Oxford Lectures on
222121. pp. 262-3. —

 

113

necessities of life that Falstaff turns to evil deeds,
but Bradley feels we should only note the comic aspects
of Falstaff's actions. Again, wit has overshadowed immo-
rality in the eyes of a critic.6
J. B. Priestly follows Morgann and Bradley explicitly
in declaring that incongruity and freedom are the keys
to Falstaff's character. He also adds several touches
to the conception of Falstaff as the supreme comic char-
acter. The scenes in which Falstaff appears are comic
relief to the harsh and heavy scenes of warfare and state
matters. Falstaff is not only not to be blamed for mis-
deeds, he actually stands for something good: "He is the
embodiment of masculine comradeship, ease, and merriment.
. . . He is the supreme example of the clubbable man."
Having stated these particular notions, Priestly returns
to the general thesis of the Morgann school. Falstaff
has escaped from our moral and social order, he says,
and has become a master of life.7
E. E. Stoll's chapter on Falstaff in his Shakespeene
Studiee serves both to attack the Morgann-Bradley position
and to offer a compromise between the extremes Of consider-
ing Falstaff as either a comic or a villainous character.
Stoll shows that Falstaff is really a coward, Morgann and

Bradley notwithstanding, pointing out among other things

 

6 "The Rejection of Falstaff," Oxfezd Lectures 9g
Poetr , pp. 269-70.
7 "Falstaff and His Circle," The English Comic Char-

ecteys, pp. 88-100.

114

Hal's view of Falstaff and the fact that Morgann refuses
to accept properly the evidence of the Gadshill episode.
Then, attacking Morgann's idea that Falstaff is a military
freethinker and Bradley's that Falstaff is a moral nihilist
and a Pyrrhonist, Stoll asserts that Falstaff merely dodges
and shirks honor rather than negating all moral values.
Falstaff uses his wit to cover his shame and Stoll points
out at great length other stage cowards who used the same
tactic. Falstaff's philosophy, according to Stoll, is
"for profit and a purpose, which is the negation of philos-
Ophy." Stoll does agree with Bradley in saying that Fal-
staff lacks cynicism; to him Falstaff is "as simple and
uncynical as the dramatist and his times." In general
Stoll explains Falstaff in terms of stage conventions:
he is a coward, a milee gloziosus (though he retains dig-
nity),and a double-dealer.8
A third group of critics has seen Falstaff in blacker
terms than either the Morgann line or Stoll, but like Stoll
sees Falstaff as a conventional stage figure, the Vice of
the morality drama. Dover Wilson calls Heeyy IV Shake-
speare's "great morality play" in which "the salvation
of England itself is at stake." In Wilson's view the
hero Hal must choose between Vanity and Government which
includes Chivalry (the matter of Part 1) and Justice (the
matter of Part 2). In this scheme Falstaff is Riot, the

Vice, the Buffoon, the Jester, and also a Miles Glorio us;

 

8 Stoll, pp. 403-72.

115

Hal is the Prodigal and his conversion is necessary to
the state.9 In discussing Morgann's term military free-
thinker Wilson says he prefers the term military cynic to
describe Falstaff's beliefs whereas Hal is "the soul of
true honour, caring nothing for renown, for the outward
show of honour in the eyes of men, so long as he has proved
himself worthy of its inner substance in his own."10

Hiram Haydn reaches the same conclusions about the
subject of honor, but views this in Aristotelian terms
so that Hal is the proper balance, the golden mean of honor,
Hotspur the excess and Falstaff the defect. Falstaff
"epitomizes the 'downward' materialistic emphasis of the
naturalistic deprecators of the romantic temper."11

Wilson observes that in Part 2 Hal is kept Off the
stage a great deal in order to preserve respect for his
character and that Shakespeare adopts a procedure very
close to that of the morality drama: "he brings embodi-
ments of the two conflicting principles upon the stage,
makes them engage in conversation together, so that we can
judge for ourselves, and then shows us the Prince choosing
between them."12 Wilson considers the rejection of Falstaff
just and both morally and dramatically proper and effective.
Since Hal does provide a pension for Falstaff, justice is

done. Shakespeare has achieved a balance "between the bliss

9 The 2221.12.11.21 of falsiaff. pp. 17-23.
10 Ibid., pp. 71-2.
11 The Counter R n i an e, pp. 600-5.
12 Wilson, p. 75.

 

116

of freedom and the claims of the common weal."13

Bernard Spivack, who argues that several of the villains
of Shakespearean drama are descended from the Vices of the
morality drama, also believes that the Vice led to such
a comic character as Falstaff:

'It is hard for us, if not impossible, to regard

Falstaff as a villain in any sense, Shakespeare

having marvelously exploited his affinity with

the comic aspects of the Vice. But Falstaff's

high comedy is still sufficiently close to its

origins in the double nature of his allegorical

forbears to prevent him from being a comic figure

merely. In him the direct accent of the Vice's

wit is not quite free from the faint echo of the

Vice's evil.1h
Like Wilson, Spivack finds the structure of the Henry I!
plays organized around the morality theme of the young
prodigal and the personalized vice, the final result
being allegory overlaid with history. But Falstaff,
according to Spivack, is "neigher morally unified nor .
self-consistent." He is much too rounded and specific
a character to be simply a personification of evil. Thus
Henyy I! is not a pure morality play, but simply has ele-
ments of the homiletic allegory.15

At the opposite pole from the Morgann conception are
a few critics who have considered Falstaff a villainous
character with no allegorical overtones. Morgann's con-
temporary Samuel Johnson was the first. Johnson feels

that even though Falstaff has the power to make us laugh

 

13 Wilson, pp. 120-8.
14 Spivack, p. 204.
15 Ibid., pp. 87-910

 

117

he has nothing in him that can make us esteem him. Johnson
goes through the familiar catalogue of Falstaff's qual-
ities: he is a thief, a glutton, a coward, a fraud,
a boaster, a bully. Further he is at once "Obsequious
and malignant, [Ehg7 satirizes in their absence those on
whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince
only as an agent of vice." Even with this view, though,
Johnson feels Falstaff redeems himself by his ability to
raise laughter, but he concludes with a statement of the
moral of the play: "no man is more dangerous than he
that with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please."
Johnson, then, draws a different conclusion from the sig-
nificance of Falstaff though he has viewed him on essen-
tially the same terms as Morgann.l6
Coleridge shows his agreement with Johnson by con-
cluding his own discussion of Falstaff with the following:
"It was in characters of complete moral depravity, but
of first-rate wit and talents, that Shakespeare delighted."
This statement could also serve as a definition for an
intellectual villain. Coleridge shows Falstaff's proper
milieu even more explicitly when he remarks that both
Falstaff and Richard III prized the intellectual above
the moral character.17
Finally, to close this summary of critical positions

and to lead into my own presentation of Falstaff as an

1 l6 Jehnson ea Shakespeare, ed. Walter Raleigh, pp.
23-50

17 Coleridge: "mi 1 2.11 W. ed. Terence
Hawkes, pp. 243-4, 246.

 

118

intellectual villain, I would refer to Herbert Weisinger's
statement that both Iago and Falstaff suffer from the
repudiation of values and both had the same ideological

and dramatic position, "the villain whose villainy is his
ideas."18 This is the position that I will elaborate

in the following pages. While I agree with much of Stoll's
realistic deprecation of Bradley's view, I find Bradley
more congenial in his evaluation of Falstaff's ideas than
Stoll. Though agreeing with Wilson that Falstaff is
cynical, I consider Falstaff a naturalistic character
rather than a personification of vice. Thus, though my
views will doubtless reflect in part many of those already
considered, I feel that the total picture will be different
from any other single view.

In general, I consider Falstaff an intellectual vil-
lain because his philoSOphical outlook is similar to that
of the other villains created by Shakespeare and also be-
cause his actions are directed against the best interests
of the hero.

One of the recurring themes in Falstaff's discourse
is the war between conscience and his evil or mischievous
instincts. The usual resolution of this struggle illus-
trates one of Falstaff's key intellectual principles:

a hard-headed appraisal Of what the world is really like

and a willingness to live life on its own terms. What

13 "IagO's Iago," gamut! of Kansas 211.! Rena.
XX (195L), 85‘60

 

119

obscures this iron rod of character and intellectual
honesty running through Falstaff is his charm, composed
largely of a superficial layer of self-deception and
cowardly withdrawal from the serious affairs of life.

In their first appearance in the play Falstaff begins
to talk about the evil reputations he and the prince suffer.
Falstaff, and here is the superficial self-deception, blames
Hal for his evil plight:

Thou hast done much harm u on me, Hal; God for-

give thee for it! Before knew thee, Hal, I

knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak

truly, little better than one of the wicked.

(I, 2, 102-6)
He promises to repent and says that if he does not he is
a villain. Then Hal suggests stealing a purse and Falstaff
is eager to join him, for "'tis no sin for a man to labour
in his vocation." The quickness of the turnabout, the
apparently evasive last word are humorous and make Falstaff
a delightful character. But there is more. Falstaff
shows he understands himself and the world. It is an evil
life and Falstaff is a villain in the eyes of the world.
Hal has led him on by upholding Falstaff's unyoked humor,
by giving him ampler opportunity and a royal audience and
companion. But Falstaff knows he cannot truly repent. His
instincts, his very character lead him irrevocably into
accepting Hal's offer, for indeed "purse-taking" is Fal-
staff's vocation. A little later Falstaff explains more

explicitly just what his vocation means to him. Hal has

backed down from the escapade and Falstaff berates him:

120

There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellow-

ship in thee, nor thou comest of the blood royal,

if thou dar'st not stand for ten shillin s.

I, 2, 155-8)
It is Falstaff's conception of what is honest here that
makes his ideas about the world dangerous and villainous.
His heresy extends even to the nature of kingship, though
Falstaff could be boldly pointing out in particular how
Henry IV got the crown.

Another speech later in the play shows Falstaff op-
erating from a similar realistic philOSOphic basis, though,
this time he plays verbal tricks with religious terminology:

Thou know'st in the state of innocency Adam fell;

and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days

of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than

another man, and therefore more frailty.

(III, 3, 185-9)
Falstaff here takes the abstract theological conception
of original sin as sufficient justification for his mis-
deeds, surely a violent wrenching of the intent of the
doctrine.

This same pattern is also followed in the great scene
after the robbery (II, 4). Falstaff enters, sounding off
boisterously with his insight into the world: "There's
nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man." There
are only three good men in England and he himself is one
of them. Falstaff then continues with his outburst by
calling Hal a coward and equating cowardice with villainy.

He further builds up his own imaginative view of the world

by picturing the robbery as a great heroic fight against

121

overwhelming odds. When this is shown to be false, Fal-
staff does not collapse, but coolly says that he knew Hal
had attacked him all along and his instincts would not
let him turn against the true prince. In the pattern I
have been discussing, this is a typical Falstaffian com-
promise. In order to protect his own over-extended posi-
tion he has rationalized. He has seized the only straw
that can save him from complete exposure and humiliation.
Hal sees through the device clearly enough, but Falstaff
has found a way to live with himself that skirts both his
cowardly instincts and the sharp reproaches of his con-
science. Incidentally, the act of rationalization in
this episode shows how Falstaff differs from the villains
of the Aaron-Iago-Edmund type. They use their wits to
devise plots to entrap their victims. Falstaff uses his
wits to extricate himself from embarrassing or even dan-
gerous situations.

As scene four progresses,Falstaff and Hal put on a
little play. First Falstaff as the king recommends the
company of Falstaff to Hal: "I see virtue in his looks."
This is part of the superficial self-deception which makes
Falstaff appear to be only a humorous character. But,
as I am trying to show, Falstaff also views himself and
the world realistically and always acts on the baSis of
his realistic rather than his imaginative knowledge.

Part of the composite picture of Falstaff as a vil-

lain is Hal's view. Hal is never fooled about Falstaff,

122

and when he plays the king to Falstaff's Hal, he emphasizes

Falstaff's evil qualities:

There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of

an old fat man. . . . Why dostthou converse with

. . . that reverend.vice, that grey iniquity, that

father ruffian, than vanity in years? Wherein

is he good . . . wherein crafty, but in villainy?

Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein

worthy, but in nothing? (II, 4, 492-505)

When Falstaff asks who is meant, Hal responds: "That
villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that
old white-bearded Satan."

An even profounder moment of truth occurs when Hal
believes Falstaff killed in the Battle of Shrewsbury:

I could have better spar'd a better man.

0, I should have a heavy miss of thee

If I were much in love with vanity! (V, 4, 104-6)
From Hal's first soliloquy to his rejection of Falstaff
his view of his companion is consistent.

Falstaff's reply to Hal's indictment in the playlet
scene again shows his ability to come to grips with the
real world after his own imaginative and deceptive picture
of himself has been rejected. First Falstaff points out
that "If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old
host that I know is damned." The way of the world is not
to be priggishly virtuous, but to enjoy the cakes and ale
of experience. Then Falstaff advances another step and
equates himself with this view of life: "Banish plump
Jack and banish all the world." With this line Falstaff
has won the argument as far as beauty and charm are con-

cerned, but he is leaving himself vulnerable to considera-

tions of strict virtue and moral idealism. Moreover, the

123

Hal who banishes Falstaff has a great deal of the world

left: honor, temporal power, and the opportunity to use

this power to achieve great good. Only the world as Fal-
staff sees it is lost: sensual pleasure, advancement through
deception rather than merit, all manner of immorality.

Being old and merry is not a sin, but Falstaff has evaded

the more serious charges Hal has laid against him. The
superficial self-deception has here even colored Falstaff's
usually keen perception of the realities of life. Even
Falstaff knows that all is not cakes and ale.

The little play is ended by the arrival of the sheriff.
Hal tells Falstaff to hide since those who will face the
sheriff should wear a true face and a good conscience.
Falstaff's comment: "Both which I have had, but their
date is out" leads into his next major intellectual prin-
ciple--comp1ete cynicism about the world and particularly
contemporary society. Falstaff's worldly wisdom gained
from his realistic view of life ends up as cynicism. This
is particularly evident in his military career.

Falstaff's first action as captain is to impress a
company of soldiers. As he says, he has "misus'd the King's
press damnably," taking money from those who could buy
off and signing up the leavings. The resultant group looks
as if Falstaff had "unloaded all the gibbets and pressed
the dead bodies." The men are scarecrows, walk with a
prison gait, and are poorly dressed. But, of course, says

Falstaff, the latter deficiency can be remedied; there's

124

linen enough on every hedge.

But what is the sum total of this mass of corrupted
and wasted humanity? When Hal calls them pitiful rascals,
Falstaff replies:

Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder,

food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as

better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

(IV, 2, 71-3)
Falstaff here displays a realistic view of war. Men are
killed in war; death makes all men equals. A ragamuffin
private and a splendid general may both die in the heat
of battle. Moreover, all men are mortal; the proudest
and the humblest equally will die. This is the ultimate
realism. In addition, Falstaff cynically views his dis-
reputable company as so many bodies to be fed to the enemy's
firepower. When he does consider them as human beings,
the accent is on mortal in the phrase "mortal men," and
the meaning is men with the quality of dying in them.

Falstaff clearly would not have them die for honor
or any glorious military catchword which infuses the
very being of a Hotspur or can arouse Hal to valorous ac-
tion when necessary. Honor, says Falstaff, is merely a
word. Honor cannot help a man who is wounded or dead.
The dead may have honor; thus a live man wants nothing
to do with it. Honor is a mere scutcheon; Falstaff will
have none of it. Later Falstaff sees the dead Walter

Blunt: "There's honour for you!" Falstaff says he does

not like the grinning honor of a dead man. "Give me life,

which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes unlook'd for,

125

and there's an end." (V, 3, 63-5) In battle Falstaff
plays dead to escape Hotspur, then excuses his conduct:
To die is to be a counterfldt, for he is but the
counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a
man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby
liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and
perfect image of life indeed. The better part Of
valour is discretion; in the which better part I
have saved my life. (V, 4, 116-22)
In this sequence on honor Falstaff's realistic view is
tinged occasionally with cynicism, particularly in the
line about the dead Walter Blunt. Falstaff goes on to stab
the already dead Hotspur and claim credit for the kill,
a further mockery of military honor. His villainous action
and his cynical realism here exist side by side; in this
way Falstaff is an intellectual villain. The knowledge
he gains from his realistic appraisal of the world he uses
to further his own ends. Honor and valor are mere words
and are relative terms. Since nothing confutes Falstaff
but eyes and nobody sees him, then he will attempt to force
his vision of the world on others. But Hal never yields
to Falstaff's view; so Falstaff is reduced to promises of
repentance, on condition his virtue will be rewarded.
So far I have discussed only Part 1 of the play.
In Part 2 Falstaff is more bitter and less humorous, much
more the intellectual villain than the comic virtuoso.
His familiar intellectual assumptions are shown in I, 2.
In self-appraisal he realizes that he is not only witty,

but the cause of wit in other men; for example, he is the

butt of practical jokes such as Hal's sending the small

126

page boy to precede the monstrous Falstaff. Knowing

the way of the world, Falstaff can even tell with assur-
ance that his tailor is being cuckolded when the man him-
self suspects nothing.

Falstaff's views come out most clearly in the inter-
view with the chief justice. In one of the few comic spots
of the play Falstaff pretends to be deaf and berates the
chief justice's servant as a beggar. Even here there is
a realistic and cynical undertone. There are wars on;
there is no need for beggary. A man can fight on either
side--there is no lack of Opportunity for employment. In
answer to a charge by the chief justice Falstaff says,
"The young prince hath misled me" and "God send the com-
panion a better prince." At this time the prince is appar-
ently a wastrel and Falstaff knows this only too well.
There is great irony in Falstaff's saying that the prince
has misled him, but Falstaff is completely unaware of it.
He is simply trying his familiar tactic of imposing his
self-deceptive and imaginative viewpoint on the chief
justice. More explicitly Falstaff spits out his cynical
view of the times:

Virtue is of so little regard in these costermon-

gers' times that true Valour is turned bear-herd;

Pregnancy is made a tapster, and his quick wit

wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts

appertinent to man, as the malice onEhie7 age
shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.
(I, 2, 190-6)
and

A man can no more separate age and covetousness
than 'a can part young limbs and lechery; but the

127

gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other,

and so both the degrees prevent my curses.
(I, 2, 256-60)

and

A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn
diseases to commodity. (I, 2, 276- )

In the rest of Part 2 Falstaff repeats various strat-
egies he had used in Part 1. In II, 1, he, as the chief
justice points out, wrenches "The true case the false way."
He succeeds in borrowing money from the Hostess, who
sought at the beginning of the scene to imprison him.

He cannot fool the chief justice, but such people as the
Hostess exist to be victimized. He can impose his imag-
inative view of the world on them and does not need to
compromise with the realities of life that he also sees.
But Falstaff does show, along with his quickness of wit,
the necessity of compromise in II, 4, the tavern scene
which balances the other great tavern scene in Part 1.
Falstaff belabors Prince Hal to Doll Tearsheet in Hal's
hearing. When Falstaff learns that he has been tricked,
he comes up with this explanation:

I disprais'd him before the wicked, that the wicked

might not fall in love with [Eig7; in which doing,

I have done the part of a careful friend and a true

subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for

it. (II, 4, 346-50)

Hal, as usual, will not let Falstaff get away easily and
forces him to declare that all those at the tavern are

wicked. This is, of course, true, since the gathering

includes whores and thieves. Once again Falstaff's realism

and his discretion arrive at the same conclusion. Falstaff

128

continues his realistic appraisal of his companions when
Hal calls Doll Tearsheet "gentlewoman." Falstaff comments:
"His grace says that which his flesh rebels against." Hal,
for the sake of a jest, is far readier to take a romantic,
rosy view of life, but Falstaff always hews to the realis-
tic, honest view when he finds he cannot get ahead any
other way.

Most of the rest of Part 2 concerns the gulling of
Justice Shallow. Nothing is added to the theory of Fal-
staff's world view, and the humor is not up to the rest
of Falstaff's appearances. However, Falstaff does see
through the cold-blooded and treacherous John of Lancaster.
Typically, Falstaff makes his analysis of Lancaster's
character in a speech extolling sherris-sack. We learn
just how it is that Prince Hal is more valiant and a better
man than his brother; sherris-sack has warmed his blood.

When Hal becomes King Henry V, Falstaff rushes to
London and preferment, but is rejected by his old friend.
It has been clear all along that Hal has never succumbed
to Falstaff or his view of life. An easy humor had tol-
erated the man he now calls "the tutor and feeder of my
riots." Falstaff holds to a pathetic hope that he will
be reinstated in private (after all, is this not the way
of Falstaff's world?), but he is actually arrested.

Morgann is so taken with Falstaff that he accepts
Falstaff's view of himself and feels he will bounce back

129

efyey the end 21; the play.19 Bradley shifts the burden
onto Hal's shoulders; he is a man of policy like his father

Henry IV and has no real affection for anyone.20 Despite
these romantic, sentimental views, Falstaff's rejection

is just and inevitable. His world view, compounded of
expediency, self-deception, cynical denial of ideals with
honesty included only when all else fails, is dangerous

to the social order and morality as Iago's, Edmund's,
Richard's world views are dangerous. Moreover, he has
been the bad influence on the young prince; he has led

him into an evil environment and association with vile
companions. But Hal has been superior to this temptation
all along, so that while Falstaff has acted like a villain,
there is not the dramatic conflict in his attempted seduc-
tion of the prince that there is in Iago's or Edmund's
plots and machinations. Falstaff works on Hal mostly by
precept and example; his plots are reserved for those
beneath him in social status and inferior in understand-
ing. He plots only against those whom he knows he can
outwit. Against Hal the tactic is paradoxically both

more subtle and more brazen.

The Percys, exemplified by Hotspur, represent the
official, external villainy of the two plays. Against
them Hal uses military action; he outshines Hotspur as
a soldier. But Falstaff is a villain because of his ideas,

especially certain moral concepts, which do not attack

 

l9 Morgann, p. 179.
20 Bradley, p. 354.

130

in the form of military rebellion, but come rather in the
guise Of wit and friendliness. If accepted, they would
undermine the whole philOSOphic structure prized by Hal,
the ideal representative of the English state. So Hal
must banish Falstaff as irrevocably as he has killed that

other threat to the state, Hotspur.

Chapter IV

Some Deviations in the Pattern

With Cassius and Falstaff, the pattern of the intel-
lectual villain is firmly established in significant plays.
But Falstaff is essentially end-stopped; no avenue for
further development opens up from him. Cassius, however,
reminds us that the real home of the intellectual villain a
is in tragedy. He points the way to the artistic fruition [1
of the type in Iago and Edmund. Before this goal is reached,
though, we must follow Shakespeare in a digression of de-
viation from the over-all pattern of the intellectual
villain. The plays written between Juliee Caesay (1599)
and Othelle (1604)--A_1l'_s well The}; eggs Hell. ngilgs
egg Cresaida, Measuze fez_M a r , Hemlet--all contain
figures who are like the intellectual villains in certain
respects, but unlike in others, so that the kinship is
distant. Strictly speaking, these figures are not intel-
lectual villains; but, as they appear to be experimental
models with recognizable features Of the finished product,
they deserve mention in this study. These four plays are
among the most difficult in Shakespeare to classify.
One symptom, or perhaps even a cause, of this uncertainty
is the ambiguous and indistinct role of the characters

who should be villains.

All'e Well Thet Ends Well
Parolles in All'e Well That Enee Well is called a
131

132

liar, a fool, and a coward before he appears on the stage;
throughout the play he lives up to this description. In-
deed, a subplot develops for the sole purpose of gulling
Parolles. However, there is another side to Parolles which
brings him into contact with the pattern of the intellec-
tual villain. For Parolles knows what is the rational
and politic thing to do and he is always ready to advise
others along these lines. His first appearance, a dis-
cussion of virginity with Helena, brings forth these state-
ments: "It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature
to preserve virginity" and "'tis against the rule Of na-
ture." (I, 1, 137-8, 147) Of course, this scene is
intended to be a wit combat on an indelicate subject;
but the stand taken by Parolles is realistic and rational
and completely natura1--there is no reference to any
external moral standards. The keen, politic eye of Parolles
also sees what is to be done to succeed at court. He cau-
tions his master Bertram:

Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords;

you have restrain'd yourself within the list of

too cold an adieu. . . . and though the devil lead

the measure, such are to be followed. (II, 1, 51-8)
The last comment certainly indicates the villain's willing-
ness to disregard moral restraints.

Since Parolles does not act on his own advice, does
not use his own world view to advance himself or plot
another's downfall, he cannot be considered a real intel-

lectual villain. His function in the play is to be the

133

fool; at the end Lafeu tells him: "wait on me home, I'll
make sport with thee." (V, 3, 323) Parolles does play

one significant role in the play, however; he is the scape-
goat for Bertram. Somehow Bertram's caddish actions must

be overcome and he turned into a husband suitable for

Helena. As early as III, 2, the Countess is blaming
Parolles, "a very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness"

for the defection of Bertram. The truth is that Parolles
merely seconded Bertram's suggestion that he go to the
Tuscan wars and leave Helena. But the conception of Parolles
as scapegoat is too convenient to be dropped on grounds

of falsity. Just before the final reconciliation, Lafeu
tells the Countess that Bertram was misled by Parolles.
Bertram emerges as lily-white; Parolles reverts to his role
as fool. When he is intellectual, Parolles is not a villain;
when he is a villain, he is not intellectual. He is bad
only because all the other characters have agreed that

his weaknesses make him an ideal scapegoat.

T291123 egg Cgesside

Another use for the intellectual villain-like figure
is illustrated by Thersites, who functions as a cynical
commentator on the action of Treilgs age Czeseid . Ther-
sites is never involved in the action except as the recipi-
ent of blows, but he is very perceptive concerning the
actions and motives of others. He sees clearly how the

shrewd Ulysses works on the brave but unintelligent heroes,

134

Ajax and Achilles; he knows that the "false-hearted"
Diomede is not to be trusted; and he is the first to com-
prehend the degeneration of Cressida. Thersites not only
punctures the inflated egos of the Greek warriors, he

also sees the unheroic, unromantic reality behind the whole
war: "All the argument is a cuckold and a whore; . . . war
and lechery confound all" (II, 3, 78-82) and "Lechery,
lechery; still wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion.
A burning devil take them!" (V, 2, 196-7) One explana-
tion of Thersites' significance is given by G. Wilson
Knight, who sees as one main strand of the play an Opposi-
tion between intellect (tending toward cynicism) and in-
tuition (in association with romantic love). Thersites,

as cynicism incarnate, "sees folly everywhere, and finds

no wisdom in mankind's activity . . . he is blind to man's
nobility." On the other hand, Troilus champions humanity
against cynicism.1 Knight's comments are perceptive; he
places the play in a valid conceptual framework. But I
think he does not go far enough in stressing Thersites'
function. By stating that Thersites is blind to any good-
ness in man's nature, Knight implies that this goodness

is upheld as a major theme of the play. I think, however,
that Thersites' cynicism is a valid and complete reaction
to the world of the play. Thersites sets the scene for

the final battle-action by hoping Troilus will defeat

Diomede and by commenting on the failure of Ulysses' policy
1 The Wheel 9f Eize, pp. 52, 63,77.

 

135

to work: both Ajax and Achilles are now proudly sitting
unarmed and idle. The action degenerates to the nadir

of Achilles' cowardly murder of Hector. Hector's comment
to the one in sumptuous armor he has killed, "Most putri-
fied core, so fair without," symbolizes the failure of

the romantic ideal and gives credence to Thersites' cyni-
cal views. This cynicism seems to be the final state-
ment of the play; all that is left for Troilus and the
Trojans is to lament Hector and promise revenge. I see
nothing of hope or humanity or nobility in the end of the
play. Our cynical commentator has saved his skin in battle,
leaving the field with curses ringing in his ears. Per-
haps the "honesty" of admitting cowardice is the only sig-
nificant action left in a world in which honor, valor,

love, intellect, and policy have all been thoroughly degraded.

Heasunefenl‘leasure

Meeaure fey Meesgze divides the role of the intellec-l
tual villain among three characters: Pompey is a realist
who acts on his knowledge of the world;1nnio is a cynical
commentator; and Angelo is the main villain by virtue of
his actions. To compound the confusion,the world view of
Angelo is orthodox in the extreme. He precisely and em-
phatically upholds the moral law the intellectual vil-
lains disregard. Even though power corrupts Angelo to
act contrarily to these standards, he never loses his

faith or belief in the standards.

136

Knight says the theme of Meeeere fey Meeeeze is
"the moral nature of man in relation to the crudity of
man's justice, especially in the matter of sexual vice."2
Each of the three "villains" illustrates one aspect of
man's concern with justice in sexual morality. Pompey,
the bawd, who recognizes clearly that man has sexual de-
sires, makes his living by catering to them. Pompey also
knows that the law cannot prosecute all those people who
commit a sin against strict sexual morality, although he
himself is sentenced to prison. The fact that Pompey
is among so many friends in jail indicates the human, if
illegal, nature of his profession and his outlook.

Lucio, in his exchanges with the Duke, comments
cynically on man's sexual mores and behavior, not with
the gravity of a Thersites but rather with the gossipy,
bantering tone of a society columnist. Lucio remains un-
committed to the action of the plot; he even refuses bail
for Pompey. But he never refuses to talk on the theme that
sexual crimes are not serious; he delights in pointing out
that a real man like the Duke would never invoke the death
penalty for fornication. Lucio stands for the old leniency
of the Duke, the morality in Vienna before the play opens.
Since the whole campaign of the Duke is to tighten the
lax standards, Lucio is severely rebuked and threatened
with death at the play's end.

Angelo does not determine his course of action on

 

2 The Wheel e: Fire, p. 80.

 

137

the basis of a realistic or cynical world view. Rather

he is tempted by a saintly person at the height of his

own sanctity. Once he succumbs to the very dangerous temp-
tation that Isabella's virtue offers him, Angelo is swept
away by passion. He recognizes man's true nature ("Blood,
thou art blood") and calls on Isabella to play her part

as a woman. Having embarked on his course, Angelo does
show some of the shrewd intelligence of the intellectual
villains in pointing out to Isabella that she will not

be believed if she tries to publicize Angelo's proposition
to her. Later, after the supposed assignation with Isabella,
he comments that reason will keep her from complaining
against him. However, Angelo is also very much worried
about his actions, particularly the killing of Claudio
whose revenge he feared. Unlike the intellectual villain,
Angelo feels that once man has sinned nothing goes right.
This attitude leads to his complete repentance in the

final scene.

One possible explanation for the diffusion of the
intellectual villain pattern in this play is Shakespeare's
well-known principle of plenty and variety in the treat-
ment of a given theme. Thus no one character possesses
all the component parts of the pattern. Moreover, the
end is not tragic, as it is not in any of these three plays.
Just as in his last plays, Shakespeare saves a potentially
tragic situation with a happy ending. In a world of harmony

won without struggle there is simply no room for a fully

138

developed intellectual villain.

Hamlet
As the fourth play to experiment with the concept

of the intellectual villain has little harmony in its con-

clusion, still another rationale is needed. Hamlet differs

from the other three plays in being a major tragedy with
a single major villain working against the hero. But
Claudius cannot be considered an intellectual villain.

Most of the critics who have discussed Claudius have
pointed out inconsistencies in his character. Not only
is Claudius felt to be different from other Shakespearean
villains, but he is seen to have two distinct, even in-
compatible, sides. Schficking notes that the character
we would expect for Claudius, that of a voluptuary, a
sneak, and a Scoundrel, is not borne out in the presenta-
tion of Claudius in the play. Rather Schficking describes
Claudius as a "clear-sighted, intelligent, dignified, and
tactful prince" who is a tender husband, a sympathetic
friend to Ophelia, and a heroic king. This man, says
Schficking, would not break down during the play scene.3
Bradley also stresses the good qualities of Claudius, but
does not allow him to be a tragic figure since he had a
small nature and mean appearance. According to Bradley,
Claudius

was no villain of force, who thought of winning

his brother's crown by a bold and open stroke,
but a cut-purse who stole the diadem from a shelf

 

3 Character Problems 33 Shakespeare's Plays, pp. 172-6.

 

139

and put it in his pocket.h
Danby points out that Claudius is not a Machiavel because
he is not a harsh, obdurate villain, but rather is uxori-
ous and penitent about a crime that has sickened him.
But Danby feels that Claudius is forced into the Machiavel's
role by Hamlet.5 Finally, there is the view of Coe,who
stresses the dramatic effectiveness of having Claudius
start out as a good character who is gradually discovered
to be bad and whose remorse grows naturally out of events
in the play.6 The role of Claudius actually offers another
variation on the pattern of intellectual villainy. In
this instance two characters combine to make up the whole.
Claudius is an intellectual villain in the secondary sense
that he uses his intelligence, first of all to win the
crown and then to plot against a possible rival, Hamlet.
But Claudius is not a unified character; his ideas and
his actions are not one as they are in Aaron or Iago or
Edmund. Claudius' world view is orthodox; much of the
tension in his character is due to the conflict between
what he has done and what his conscience tells him about
his actions. The unorthodox or "villainous" ideas in the
play are expressed by Hamlet. Particularly in the early
part of the play Hamlet's world view is dangerous to the
standard, accepted way. Hamlet is not a villain, though.

He is not just an egotistical cynic, piercing appearance

 

4 Shakespearean Tragedy, p. 139.
5 Shakeseeere's Doctrine 9; Nature, p. 149.
6 Shakespeere'e Villains, pp. 1-4.

140

to behold a reality upon which he can base actions leading
to his own advancement. Rather he sees rottenness in the
world and is both repelled by it and chastened by the
thought of purging the world.

In the play Claudius is first seen as the dignified
king, creditably handling the affairs of state. He dis-

poses of three pieces of business in the Opening scene,

'
e
a

all concerning the Hamlet-figures: Fortinbras, Laertes,

Ff

and Hamlet. Fortinbras, attempting to avenge his father's
death by bold military action, is dealt with easily through
diplomatic channels, with Chudius clearly showing that

age and experience are more valuable than merely youth-
ful determination. Next Claudius turns to Laertes, pro-
testing again and again his eagerness to please. This
overzealousness may reflect Claudius' sense of insecurity
on the throne, but since he does not appear insecure any-
where else, it may simply measure his respect for Polonius.
Laertes at this time poses no threat to the throne of
Denmark; so his petition to return to school in France

is quickly granted. Finally Claudius takes note of his
"cousin and son" Hamlet, who in appearance and deportment
is melancholy with grief for his father's death. Or so
Claudius chooses to interpret Hamlet's words and actions.
In consolation Claudius presents to Hamlet a rational pic-
ture of death and grief. Death, he says, is in the nature
of things and one should not overdo protestations of grief

at the loss of a loved one, even a father. This is unmanly

141

and shows
a will most incorrect to heaven,

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,

An understanding simple and unschool'd. (I, 2, 95-7)
At this stage of the play no one can really suspect Claudius
of hypocrisy; he is merely a royal figure, uttering an
orthodox consolation to a bereaved subject. Claudius ends
his speech by asking Hamlet to overcome his grief and to
stay in court as the "chiefest courtier, cousin, and our
son." Hamlet's mother also begs him not to go back to
school and Hamlet replies: "I shall in all my best obey
you, madam." The king accepts this as a gracious reply
and prepares to drink and carouse in celebration. Despite
the surface amenities, though, there is already apparent
an undercurrent of antagonism between Hamlet and Claudius
in this early scene. Hamlet shows his feelings in asides
and in directing his compliance to his mother, not to both
the king and queen. Claudius, who willingly lets Laertes
leave the court, wants Hamlet to remain where he can be
watched, though he says this in the language of diplomacy.
It is to this diplomatic manner of Claudius that Hamlet
refers when, after hearing the revelations of the ghost,
he says, "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!"
Hamlet's charge of duplicity is borne out by the ghost
and subsequent actions and revelations, so that his in-
stinctive distrust of Claudius in the first scene proves
correct. Hamlet goes on to call Claudius a satyr in his

soliloquy which tells how "weary, stale, flat, and un-

142

profitable" the world is to him. It must be remembered
that the vituperation of Claudius always comes from Hamlet;
at this point no one else sees any wrong in Claudius.

Hamlet poses more than a verbal threat to Claudius;
his apparent lunacy becomes for Claudius a particular
problem to be solved. AdOpting a method proposed by
Polonius ("By indirections find directions out") and used
by Hamlet (the play within the play), Claudius employs
two of Hamlet's fellow students to spy out the causes of
Hamlet's madness. Claudius, also willing to test Polonius'
hypothesis that unrequited love is behind Hamlet's actions,
arranges to overhear Hamlet and Ophelia. Claudius has
two motives for his actions. One is genuine personal con-
cern to see that his wife's son is cured of a strange mental
state. The second motive, personal fear, must still be
inferred at this stage; the only evidence against Claudius
is the ghost's accusation and even Hamlet is unsure of this.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are unsuccessful in their
attempt to get at Hamlet's mystery. During their inter-
view Hamlet explicitly states a world view completely
opposite to the orthodox Christian, humanistic conception:

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost

all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise; and

indeed it goes so [heavily7 with my disposition

that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me

a sterile promontory, this most excellent canOpy,

the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging [firma-

mene7 this majestical roof fretted with golden

fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than

a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculty, in form and moving! How

express and admirable in action! How like an angel

143

in apprehension! How like a god! The beauty of

the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to

me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man de-

lights not me,--no, nor woman neither, though by

your smiling you seem to say so. (11, 2, 306-22)

In setting up the second device, the eavesdrOpping
on Hamlet and Ophelia, Polonius remarks "that with de-
votion's visage/ And pious action we do [Eugay7 o'er/

The devil himself." Claudius reacts in an aside:

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

0 heavy burden! (III, 1, 50-4)

This is the first indication of guilt on the part of
Claudius, the first corroboration of the ghost's accusa-
tion. Claudius is a tormented man; he is bothered by re-
morse to a far greater degree than any other Shakespearean
villain. Hamlet ended Act II by stating that his play would
catch the conscience of the king. This remark by Claudius
foreshadows success for Hamlet's venture.

Claudius is convinced by Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia
that love has not caused his madness. Indeed, Claudius
feels that Hamlet isn't mad at all, but rather that some-
thing in Hamlet's soul causes him to brood and may lead
to dangerous action. So Claudius quickly determines to
send Hamlet to England. However, Polonius persists in
his own thesis, convincing Claudius to wait until Gertrude
has had a chance to talk to Hamlet. Claudius' remark,

"Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go," shows that

he accepts the standard view of Hamlet's conduct in order

144

not to seem too eager to send him away. Though Claudius
has committed one murder to get the throne, at the moment
this murder is undiscovered; Claudius does not wish to
jeopardize his position by rushing into another, hastily
conceived murder. He can afford to allow his plans to
mature, but unfortunately for Claudius, Hamlet is preparing
to force the issue that very evening.

At the performance of "The Mouse-Trap" Claudius ex-
changes a few enigmatical words with Hamlet, then settles
back to enjoy the play, leaving Hamlet in his overexcited
state to comment on the play and to involve the others in
its action. During one of these commentaries, Claudius
asks about the plot of the play: "Is there no offence
in't?" Partly this remark shows that Claudius did not watch
the dumb show closely, partly that Claudius evidently can
conceive of no play without villainy, a reflection of his
own guilt. Hamlet fastens on this in his comments to
Claudius: "'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what 0'
that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches
us not."

Lucianus, the villain of "The Mouse-Trap" is somewhat
of an intellectual villain: he has evil thoughts and the
perfect opportunity to do evil in order to further his
own ends. He can attempt to put his own corrupted version
of reality into effect, but as the Player King points out:

Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown.

145

After the poisoning takes place on stage, the king rises,
calls for light,and leaves in some confusion. Hamlet's
device has worked and he is giddy with joy. Guildenstern
breaks into this mood to report that Claudius is angry
and upset, but when he next appears (III, 3), Claudius
is the king again, handling a threat to the safety of his
kingdom by sending Hamlet off to England with Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern and a commission for Hamlet's death.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern acquiesce because a king
should be protected on both religious and political grounds.

Alone, Claudius confesses: "0, my offence is rank,
it smells to heaven." Claudius wants to pray, but cannot
because of his guilt and because he still possesses the
rewards obtained through his murder of the elder Hamlet.
Claudius also suggests the limits of villainous action:

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence's guilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law. But 'tis not so above:

There is no shuffling there the action lies

In his true nature. (111, 3, 57-62)
The end justifies the means and crime pays only on earth.
One cannot have a Christian conscience and be an intel-
lectual villain. Claudius tries a reconciliation in this
speech, but his failure marks the failure of all such at-
tempts. His prayer session ends in frustration, though
ironically Hamlet has spared Claudius because he is at

prayer. Hamlet feared a future life when he contemplated

suicide; Claudius fears specifically future retribution

146

for his sins on earth. He is much more in the Christian
framework than is Hamlet. This speech is a turning point
for Claudius; in the rest of the play he is more completely
the villain and quicker to create plots, though sometimes
he is forced to snatch at whatever remedy presents itself.

When Claudius hears that Hamlet has killed Polonius,
he fears that he himself will be blamed for not sending
Hamlet away sooner. Since he is talking to Hamlet's
mother, he says he acted solely out of love for Hamlet.
But now that Hamlet has committed murder, says Claudius,
even Gertrude must see how dangerous he is. Later Claudius
sounds the same chord in talking to several members of
the court. Claudius points out that he cannot punish
Hamlet since the people love him. Claudius clearly shows
he knows how to deal with his audience. To Hamlet's mother
he pleads his love for Hamlet; to the courtiers he raises
the spectre of popular uprising. The conclusion in both
cases is the same: Hamlet must be sent away, but it must
seem to be the result of deliberate action in order not
to arouse the pOpulace. Even so, the decisive step must
be taken because

Diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliance are reliev'd

Or not at all. (IV, 3, 9-11)
At the end of the scene Claudius reveals that Hamlet is
to be killed in England. This is the desperate remedy.
Conscience no longer is to be consulted, for only Hamlet's

death can cure the "hectic" in Claudius' blood.

147

Even with Hamlet gone problems mount up for Claudius.
The people are unhappy at Polonius' death; Ophelia has
gone insane; and Laertes is returning, shortly to lead
a rebellion against Claudius. Claudius handles the threat
of Laertes bravely and resolutely. He does not fear the
younger man who rushes on him in anger for

There's such divinity doth hedge a king

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will. (IV, 5, 123-5). .
Claudius wins over Laertes and upon hearing of Hamlet's
return to Denmark, quickly plots with Laertes to kill Ham-
let in a duel with a poisoned rapier. He even plans to
poison some wine in case the first method of killing Ham-
let is ineffectual.

Having set his course, Claudius follows it to the
end. Even when his villainy has been discovered and
Hamlet has wounded him, the Claudius who spoke of the di-
vinity around a king takes refuge in his position: "0,
yet defend me friends; I am but hurt." But Hamlet forces
him to drink the poisoned cup and thus effects the revenge
he had been seeking. Even Laertes remarks that Claudius
is justly served. Claudius dies, then, having seen his
queen die before him. He has brought about Hamlet's death,
but only at the cost of his own life. For Hamlet the rest
is silence, but Claudius faces a judgment that will see
his nature for what it truly was, the judgment he had

foreseen when he failed to find forgiveness for his crimes.

148

Claudius differs from the other villains in this study
in that remorse plays a major part in his character, whereas
it affects other villains in only a minor way and never
subdues any of them. Claudius is an intelligent villain,
but not an intellectual one. He shares too thoroughly the
orthodox world view for him to continue long and single-
mindedly in his course of villainy. His actions, rather

than his ideas, primarily constitute his villainy.

 

 

Chapter V

The Perfection of the Pattern

Just as the major tragedies constitute the apex of
Shakespeare's artistic achievement, so do they climax
the develOpment of the intellectual villain. In Iago and
Edmund Shakespeare has perfected, artistically and ideo-
logically, the pattern so simply begun in Winchester.
Bradley has said, "Evil has nowhere been portrayed with
such mastery as in the character of Iago,"1 and indeed
the laureateship of villainy must go to Iago. But Edmund
is a fit companion to share Iago's eminence. Equally con-
trOlled by villainous ideas, Edmund is wittier than Iago,
more charming and attractive as a person. The two char-
acters together provide not only the perfection but also
an epitome of Shakespeare's concept of the intellectual

villain.

Oehelle

Iago's supremacy has made him the focal point for any
theory of villainy. Since I have covered the leading the-
ories in Chapter I, any detailed summary of critical Opin-
ions here would be superfluous. There is, however, in
the problem of Iago's motives an Opportunity to reconstruct
the critical framework for my discussion of Iago from a
different, but extremely important, point of view.

In general, three positions have been maintained

1 W Tragedx. p. 169.
149

 

 

 

 

   

150

concerning Iago's motives. Coleridge's phrase, "the motive-
hunting of motiveless malignity," has marked one extreme

in this debate and has usually been the jumping-off point
for other critics. The views which stand at the opposite
pole from Coleridge center around the concept of revenge.
Bradley has put this case most convincingly: "For love

of the evil that advances my interest and hurts a person

I dislike is a very different thing from love of evil simply
as evil." Bradley also notes that Iago reacts with hatred
and hostility to those things which disturb his sense of
superiority.2 More fancifully, Wyndham Lewis sees Iago
operating from sex-revenge and race-revenge, wreaking "the
vengeance of the small nature on the great nature."3
Deve10ping this last concept extensively, Lewis, in a series
of images, sees Iago as David with the sling, the Charlie
Chaplin figure, and the ideal little man, whereas Othello

is "the ideal human galleon, twenty stories high, with

his head in the clouds, that the little man can vanquish."h
So great is Lewis' emphasis on the littleness of Iago that
he must be taken as the rare exception to the view expressed
in the first quotation from Bradley. Since Bradley's time,
critics have stressed views which are midway between the
‘motiveful-motiveless dichotomy. Generally such opinions
incline slightly toward Coleridge by saying that Iago's

motives as mentioned in the play are insufficient to

 

2 Shakespearean Iragedy, pp. 18h, 179.
3 lbs__sLLina_n_dthe£o_x. p- 197-
A Ibido , p0 1890

151

account for his villainy, but slip back toward center
by holding that the question of motivation is not the key
to Iago. For example, Spivack mentions that Iago equivo-
cates about his motives, that there is a discrepancy between
what Iago says he feels and what he does in the play, and
that he has a purpose which has nothing to do with venge-
ance; therefore, Iago is "not essentially a man who is
provoked to act villainously, but Villainy disguised by
late convention to act like a man." Iago is, in short,
the Vice of the allegorical morality plays.5 Stoll, who
says of Iago that "Having motives, then, he acts as if he
had them not," considers Iago a stage Machiavel who has
a charter to do evil.6 Theodore Spencer exemplifies the
middle-of—the-road approach with no external referent:

He gives one explanation after another for his

hatred of Othello, partly to make his behavior

superficially plausible, and partly to assure him-

self that it is justified.7

As can be seen from the above, the question of motives
leads naturally into the over-all vieWpoints concerning
Iago. Critics other than Spivack have seen the morality
scheme at work in Othello, but while some feel that Iago

is a Vice figure, others make him a devil in human form

or a demi-devil.8 Critics other than Stoll have seen

 

5 §bakasusane and Lbs.Alleanx.Q£.Elil. pp. 7-21. 55-
6 W _tllSi__S ies, p. 387.
7 Shakespeare and the.flaiurs cf.Man. p- 133.

8 G. Wilson Knight, Pzigcipleg of Shakespgazigg Pr -
duction, p. 151; Virgil Whitaker, Shakespeare's Usg g;
L nin , p. 280.

152

Iago as a Machiavel; but Bradley rejects this view since
Iago is not an atheist;9 Whitaker concludes that Iago
is more than a stage Machiavel since his character is
founded on pride, or self-love, the source of all sin;10

Spivack denounces the Machiavellian label as "too general
to carry us very far into the moral meaning of his role."11

Quibbling over labels will certainly not take one
far in his attempt to understand Iago. Many critics
have long recognized that a more fruitful approach is to
analyze Iago's ideas. Bradley says that Iago's creed "is
that absolute egoism is the only rational and proper
attitude, and that conscience or honour or any kind of
regard for others is an absurdity."12 Theodore Spencer
sees Iago as thoroughly rational, devoid of passion, un-
scrupulously individualistic--the Renaissance ideal gone
bad.13 Herbert Weisinger views Iago as "a man whose most
abiding principle is the rejection of principle," and
he makes explicit what this rejection consists of:

Iago's substitution of his own will, unaided by

any other source, for the Christian concept of

love and charity, founded on fa th, is the very

antithesis of Christian belief.
Since all these views stress the negation of orthodox

Renaissance ideals, we are obviously in the realm of the

intellectual villain. What follows will be a close

 

9 Bradley, p. 172.

10 Whitaker, pp. 280-1.

11 Spivack, p. A25.

12 Bradley, p. 178.

13 Spencer, pp. 132, 135.

IR "Iago's Iago," University of Kansas City Review,
XX (l95h), 85.

“0" 1A: _ "v‘ u is!
O

‘i

153

description and analysis of Iago's character and actions
to determine in what ways he is specifically to be con-
sidered an intellectual villain.

Iago is first presented as a discontented soldier
who has been passed over for promotion. Not unusually,
this has created in him a hatred for the man who controlled
the promotion, Othello. Toward Cassio, who has become the
lieutenant in his place, Iago feels at first only contempt, i
but his later plots against Cassio are motivated naturally gs
by this initial blow to his pride. The essential quality
which is developed in Iago's Opening speeches is an over-
whelming egoism. Iago tells Roderigo that he will continue
as Othello's ancient, but only for his own purposes, not
to serve Othello selflessly: "In following him, I follow
but myself." In Othello Iago has encountered an egoism
as strong as his own; this is only the first of a surpris-
ing number of parallels between the two. According to
Iago the position as lieutenant should have been his, but
Othello, "loving his own pride and purposes," chose instead
Cassio. Othello's egoism is grounded in experience; he
has successfully commanded men and has learned that his
judgment and the results of his own deliberate action have
worked. Iago's egoism is based primarily on his sense of
his own worth, an entirely subjective feeling that his
thoughts, his will, his existence are important, and even
more important than those of anyone else.

A significant aspect of Iago's egoism is the use he

makes of the distinction between appearance and reality:

15h

For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart

In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws to peck at. I am not what I am. 1
(I, 1, 61-5) 5

Fundamentally, of course, this means that there is deceit
in Iago's make-up, and we can expect him not only to act
always for his own good but also to appear to the other
characters as sincere, upright, honest. More generally,
though, the ability to cut through layers Of appearance
to get at reality is a distinguishing trait Of the intel-
lectual villain and makes himiin part an admirable figure
as well as setting him Offfrom the hero who usually accepts
the world at face value. The intellectual villain goes
wrong when he attempts to readjust reality to fit his own
needs; when, in other words, he superimposes his will on
the world.

The first sixty-five lines of the play contain an
introductory dialogue between Iago and Roderigo. Since
Roderigo simply plays straight man to Iago and since he
hears Iago's "I am not what I am" and continues to be
duped by Iago, Shakespeare is here obviously continuing
the tradition of the villain's Opening self-analytic
soliloquy with the slight dramatic advance of the addition
of a confidant. At the same time,Roderigo is being char-
acterized as a man who supplies Iago with money and as a

man easily duped, even led by the nose as asses are.

 

15 John Vyvyan notes that the last line negates Shake-
speare's standard Of integrity and marks Iago for a villain

(The Shakespearian Ethic, p. 98).

155

However, Roderigo makes one interesting contribution to
the dialogue. Having heard Iago pour out his scorn of
Cassio and his hatred of Othello, Roderigo remarks: "By
heaven, I would rather have been his hangman." The Ob-
vious meaning is that Iago should kill Othello in simple
revenge for the wrong Iago has suffered. But Iago replies,
"Why, there's no remedy"; his design would not be served
by killing Othello but rather by discomfiting and degrad-
ing him, by toppling Othello from his lofty pinnacle and
making him suffer the same humiliation Iago has suffered.
To implement this desire,IagO devises his first plot:
to inform Brabantio of the marriage between Othello and
Desdemona. Knowing Othello's importance to the state,
Iago does not intend this maneuver to completely over-
throw Othello, but to cause him trouble and lessen the
joys Of his wedding night. In rousing Brabantio Iago dis-
plays more of his own character. He speaks of the marriage
in vulgar terms and delights in picturing the intimate,
physical details Of sexual love. Indeed, love is only
sex to Iago; there is nothing noble or spiritual involved.
Iago is here getting at what he feels is the reality
lurking under much sentimental appearance, but it is not
a concept of reality generally shared by mankind. Actually,
the nobler aspects of love displayed by both Desdemona
and Othello really defeat Iago by proving that his world
view is deficient. Also, in this scene, Iago shows his

contempt for Brabantio, not because of any personal hatred

156

or because he motivelessly hates in general; rather Bra-
bantio is a senator, a man of wealth and power, and Iago
is very conscious of his own lowly position, particularly
'since he has been passed over for promotion.

Having alerted Brabantio, Iago moves into the second
phase Of his plot. Going to warn the Moor, he also gives
Brabantio exact directions to find Othello. Iago now slips
into his mask as a devoted follower Of Othello. Indeed,
Iago stands in physical fear of the Moor; he acts "for
necessity of present life." That is, he fears that Othello
will respond to Brabantio's anger by fighting and he wants
to be sure he is on the right side. SO there is no real
surprise, but a great deal Of irony, to be found in Iago's
Opening speech in scene two as he reports to Othello:

"I lack iniquity sometimes to do me service." Secure in
his relations with Othello, Iago can even tell the truth
about himself by saying "with the little godliness I have"
it was hard to keep from killing Brabantio. Iago, however,
has miscalculated Othellg's nobility and dignity. When
Brabantio arrives with an armed guard, Othello quickly
halts a potential fight: "Keep up your bright swords,

for the dew will rust them." This same dignified eloquence
enables Othello to carry the council scene and to receive
official support for his marriage to Desdemona. Othello
has really carried round one as well; Iago's first plot
has been ineffectual in harming Othello.

More Of Iago's philOSOphy is aired after the council

157

scene. Rebuking Roderigo's despondent love-sickness over
Desdemona, Iago supplants romantic notions about love with
the ego, will, reason. Love is "merely a lust of the blood
and a permission of the will." Iago also negates externally
imposed moral systems: "Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves
that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens,

to the which our wills are gardeners. . . . the power and

corrigible authority of this lies in our wills." (I, 3,

 

322-9) Man can do anything he wills himself to do and
fortunately has reason to act as a counterbalance to the
passions. This last notion is good Renaissance doctrine.
But Iago goes beyond the idea of reason controlling the
passions to become the complete rationalist, rigorously
excluding from his world anything ideal or abstract such

as honor or love or virtue. Each man carves out his own
way from day to day and the prize goes tO the man who under-
stands this and acts to get what he wants. Iago's realism
easily becomes cynicism. Looking at the world "realisti-
cally? he finds that it reflects his own preconceptions,

his own lack of principles and idealism. Thus Desdemona
will soon grow tired of Othello; "she must change for youth."
Even more to the point is Iago's reiterated and emphasized,
"Put money in thy purse." Most particularly this means

that Roderigo should prepare himself for Desdemona's love,
since, like all other women, she can be bought. Secondly,
the phrase means that Iago will therefore be aided as he

needs Roderigo's money. In the most general sense, Iago

158

is also saying that the way to succeed is by being rich;
money will buy anything. Love, honor, morality are all
empty terms; money can bend them to the possessor's will.
This is sound, practical advice if one shares Iago's world
view, but the harshest cynicism in a society upholding
Christian and humanistic ideals.

Iago keeps Roderigo on the string by enlisting him
in a common revenge against Othello: "If thou canst cuckold
him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport." Then Iago
dismisses Roderigo contemptuously: "Thus do I ever make
my fool my purse," even apologizing for the time he has
spent with him. Once again Iago says he hates the Moor.
He now mentions his fear that Othello has cuckolded him.
It is to this soliloquy that Coleridge applies the phrase
"motive-hunting Of motiveless malignity." I would agree
that the sexual motive here mentioned for the first time
is not the mainspring Of Iago's actions or cause Of his
hatred, but it is not motive-hunting. The reason for Iago's
hatred has already been established and is sufficient to
Iago; the sexual jealousy is merely one more aspect of
Iago's hatred. Ironically, Iago easily falls prey to the
same disease that destroys Othello, but, whereas Othello
requires "ocular proof" and then kills Desdemona, Iago
works from mere suspicion to a revenge which falls short
Of death, yet works a greater torment on the victim.

In the rest of this soliloquy Iago reviews the situa-

tion (his first plot has failed) and plans another course

159

of action. This time there is to be "double knavery";
Iago wants to get Cassio's place as well as work mischief
against Othello. SO Iago will accuse Desdemona and Cassio
of a love affair, a plan that will bring about the desired
end because Iago knows his man:

The Moor is Of a free and Open nature,

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,

And will as tenderly be led by the nose

As asses are. (I, 2, hos-8)

Othello makes the mistake, fatal in Iago's world, of con-

fusing appearance with reality. This is perhaps the major‘
difference between the two.

In discussing the nature Of women with Desdemona (II,
1), Iago takes a cynical, yet real and honest, look at
women from a man's point of view. Again he negates the
noble and ideal aspects of love. At the same time, Iago
also gets some evidence for his plot to link Desdemona and
Cassio. Although Iago doesn't believe in love, he is quick
to see signs Of lust. He is also quick tO win Roderigo
over to his View, for in dealing with fools,one can make
them believe anything. Iago realistically notes that the
wine Desdemona drinks is made from grapes; she is a woman,
not a blessed being. But the intellectual villain pushes
beyond realism and rationalism to cynicism; because she
is a woman, says Iago, Desdemona will turn from Othello

to Cassio. Iago, who can so clearly pierce appearance
to apprehend reality, occasionally lets his cynicism Obscure

his view as when he characterizes Cassio approaching

160

Desdemona:

no further conscionable than in putting on the mere

form Of civil and humane seeming, for the better

compassing of his salt and most hidden loose affec-

tion? (II, 1, 241-4)
Having prevailed upon Roderigo to take part in a plot
against Cassio, Iago again soliloquizes about motives.
Iago has convinced himself that Cassio loves Desdemona,
and feels it is credible that Desdemona could love Cassio.
However, the main focus continues to be on Othello. Iago
fears that Othello has cuckolded him; he will either even
with him wife for wife or else make Othello so jealous
that judgment will succumb to passion. This is the first
mention Of the specific goal which Iago has in mind for
Othello, some sort of mental torture brought on by jeal-
ousy. Since Iago is also a victim of sexual jealousy (he
has now enlarged his personal group of villains to include
Cassio), it would appear that his reaction has been to
seek refuge in a negation of all that is good and honorable
and honest. With Othello's reaction to sexual jealousy,
Iago seems not to be concerned; his miscalculation is to
prove fatal in the play. The beauty of Iago's present
position is borne out when he realizes that he can drive
Othello to madness but also receive promotion from Othello
by his accusations against Cassio.

Iago's plot against Cassio succeeds because, knowing
his man well, Iago is able to get Cassio drunk. A lie

convinces Montano that what he sees is Cassio's habitual

161

state so that, after the carefully planned incident be-
tween Cassio and Roderigo, Iago can condemn Cassio in
Othello's eyes with the truth, even though Iago tries to
minimize Cassio's guilt.

Cassio, having lost his rank, bemoans the loss Of
his reputation. Iago, sounding like Falstaff, consoles
Cassio with a realistic view Of reputation. Loss of
reputation is not a bodily wound and thus not a serious
hurt: "Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; ,‘
oft got without merit, and lost without deserving."
(II, 3, 268-9) The last part Of this statement is certainly
true, but once again Iago shows his failure to understand
abstract or ideal values. On a lesser, more practical
level, Iago also has a reasonable approach when he tells
Cassio not to blame wine for his misfortune: "Come,
come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well
us'd." (II, 3, 313-h) Completely in control of the situa-
tion, Iago can give Cassio good advice-~sue through Des-
demona to change Othello--and have this procedure aid his
accusations against Cassio and Desdemona. The pleasure
of this thought and a grateful "good-night, honest Iago"
from Cassio (the irony is here compounded since Iago is
honest at this point) bring Iago to a rare peak of exulta-
tion:

And what's he then that says I play the villain?

When this advice is free I give and honest,

Probal tO thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? (II, 3, 342-5)

162

Knowing Desdemona's character, Iago is sure she will take
up Cassio's cause. But Iago reverts to his principles
when he states that Desdemona can lead Othello to anything
because of her sexual hold on him. So when Iago asks again,
"How then am I a villain," the answer is a good deal blacker.
Like devils, Iago will appear good to work evil. He is
not a devil, but uses diabolic methodology. Part Of this
methodology is to utilize the virtues as well as the vices
of the victims against them. Speaking of Desdemona's place
in his plot, Iago says:

And by how much she strives to do him good,

She shall undo her credit with the Moor.

So will I turn her virtue into pitch,

And out of her own goodness make the net

That shall enmesh them all. (II, 3, 364-8)
Two things are Of interest here. Iago turns the values
of others upside down, just as his own values have been
reversed or negated. Also his plot will now enmesh them
all. This has been taken to mean that Iago is a devil
who hates all mankind or that Iago is the actual cause
Of Desdemona's death, but I do not think either alternative
must necessarily be followed. The "all" refers to only
three peOple: Othello, Desdemona, Cassio. The only addi-
tion here is Desdemona, and since Iago is going to use
her to help work his will on the other two he is simply
acknowledging that she will be irrevocably drawn into the
affair. Her goodness will not shield her, particularly
in Iago's world.

Roderigo now breaks in, impatient that he is not

163

succeeding with Desdemona. Iago replies that he works

by wit and not witchcraft, and wit takes time. This re-
mark not only characterizes the intelligent side of the
intellectual villain, but should also be sufficient rebuke
to those critics who think Iago is a devil who can destroy
a soul easily. Iago works at being a villain and we see
him grow in ability to handle plots, in quickness to create
plots, and in flexibility to enlarge his goals.

The great temptation scene (III, 3) is the most ef-
fective demonstration of the working of an intellectual
villain in Shakespeare. Othello enters loving Desdemona,
but by the end of the scene is ready to kill her, all
because of Iago's words and actions. First of all, Iago
plants the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind by remarking
on Cassio's leave-taking Of Desdemona. Iago's next step
is to echo Othello's words about Cassio in a way that
implies he doubts Cassio's honesty. Othello, taking the
bait, feels there is something more serious and more hideous
in Iago's mind. Thirdly, Iago lies to Othello and repudi-
ates his Own conceptions of life: he says that he loves
Othello and that men should be what they seem. Iago can
carry his rejection Of principle even to rejecting his
own principles if need be. In the next phase Iago partly
lies, partly tells the truth. When he says, "it is my
nature's plague/ TO spy into abuses, and [Sft7 my jealousy/
Shapes faults that are not" (III, 3, 1L6-8), he is being

truthful. But when he calls reputation "the immediate

16h

jewel" of man's soul, adding that he who steals my purse
steals trash but he who robs me of my good name steals
something very dear, he "lies" or at least repudiates
his earlier realistic position on reputation as expressed
to Cassio. Fifthly, he tells Othello to beware of jeal-
ousy, the green-eyed monster; this is not only turning the
knife in the wound, but is good advice, though neither
Othello nor Iago takes it. When Othello demands proof
of these insinuations, Iago has his cue to go on. He turns
next to realistic, but cynical, conjectures about Desdemona,
who, since she fooled her father, could as easily fool
Othello. Utilizing a new tactic, Iago starts to leave,
but returns to utter an afterthought: he tells Othello
to put Cassio Off and Observe how Desdemona acts. Again
this is good advice if one wishes to test Desdemona's
fidelity. Othello's remark:

This fellow's of exceeding honesty,

And knows all [qualitie§7,‘with a learn'd spirit,

Of human dealings. (III, 3, 258-60)
again shows double-edged irony, as Iago is both honest
and dishonest, or more correctly is honest in order to
be dishonest.

Iago does leave Othello for a few moments only to
be aided immeasurably by the good luck Of the handkerchief.
Like Edmund, Iago is Opportunistic and quickly finds a
use for the handkerchief. He also notes that "the Moor
already changes with my poison."

When Iago and Othello once again hold the stage

165

together, Othello is well on the road Iago wishes to lead
him. Othello's occupation is gone and he even speaks of
ocular proof, although he does threaten Iago if he is
lying. Iago responds to the threat with a lecture:

O monstrous world! Take note, take note, 0 world,

To be direct and honest is not safe.

I thank you for this profit; and from hence

I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence.

(III, 3, 377-80)

Iago is ironical here since he has already passed this
position early in the play. Returning to the demand for
ocular proof, Iago draws Othello on with his customary
gross sexual images; then, forced on "by foolish honesty
and love" (again Iago tells the truth: honesty is foolish
to him), he lies about Cassio's dream and the handkerchief.
Othello, completely overcome by sexual jealousy and given
over to thoughts of love, now seduces Iago, who becomes
Othello's lieutenant and the instrument of Othello's re-
venge on Cassio. But Iago suggests that Desdemona be
left alive. This could be a cunning device to increase
Othello's jealousy and torment, but it could be meant
literally. Iago has succeeded in his original design
and there is no reason for him to wish Desdemona dead.
But he has not reckoned with Othellds towering passion
and his desire to find "some swift means of death/ For
the fair devil." Iago is now Othello's own for ever. This
echoes ironically his Opening statements that in following

Othello he follows only himself, but again the phrase

is literally true since Iago has reached his goals and

166

would probably serve Othello faithfully as he had in the
past.

At this point Othello begins to dominate the action;
it is his revenge that is now put into effect. Iago
does not, Of course, drop out Of the action of the play;
indeed, he arranges one more plot (IV, 1) to drive his
barbs even deeper into Othello. Even though Iago begins
to lose control of the action in the final two acts, his
hatred Of Othello still compels him to torment his victim.
He leads Othello on with sexual images until Othello falls
into a trance. Over the prostrate body Iago gloats:

Work on,

My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;

And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,

All guiltless, meet reproach. (IV, 1, h5-8)
This speech and this staging are mentioned by Spivack as
evidence for his linking Iago to the Vice. But Shakespeare
could borrow the effective theatrical business of the Vice
exulting over the prostrate hero without modeling his
villain entirely on the Vice. The speech, while it may
reflect simply a general desire to do evil, is also a
cynical generalization made by an intellectual villain
who has triumphed over his particular nemesis.

Iago arranges for Uthello to overhear him questioning
Cassio about Bianca, whom Othello takes to be Desdemona.
Again Othello swears to kill Desdemona, but interposes his

threats with remembrances Of his love and of the grace

and beauty of Desdemona. Iago now reverses himself and

167

urges the death of Desdemona. When Othello cries out in
anguish: "But yet the pity Of it, Iago! O Iago, the
pity Of it, Iago!" Iago, who has no pity, remarks:

If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her

patent to offend; for it if touch not you, it comes

near nobody. (IV, 1, 208-10)
Iago even suggests a poetically just means of death for
Desdemona: strangle her in the bed she has contaminated.

In IV, 2, Iago must deny his own existence. Emilia
easily sees the source Of the trouble between Othello and
Desdemona; some rogue has slandered Desdemona in order to
get some office. Iago hastily remarks: "Fie, there is
no such man; it is impossible.". This is a flat and iter-
ated negation; no convincing reasons are given. Continu-
ing her theory, Emilia says:

Some such squire he was
That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.
(IV, 2, 1&5-7)

One can create from these lines, as Herbert Weisinger has
done, an Iago's Iago and thus postulate the reasons for
Iago's world view. At the veryleast, Emilia's comment
reinforces the parallel between Othello and Iago. Othellg
is a play in which two men react to sexual jealousy. The
hero reacts villainously, though "honorably," by killing

his suspected wife; the villain becomes an intellectual

villain who rejects all the principles Of the society around

him for an egoism which leads him to a wholesale destruc-

tion of the values of truth, love, sanity, honor, and virtue.

168

Iago persuades his dupe Roderigo to kill Cassio, feel-
ing that whichever one dies he will gain. Roderigo has
associated with Iago so long that some of Iago's outlook
has affected him:

I have no great devotion to the deed,

And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.

'Tis but a man gone. (V, 1, 8-10)

As a sign that Iago's luck has changed, Cassio, who pos-
sesses some concrete information which can condemn Iago,
remains alive.

But it turns out that Emilia is the real threat to
Iago's safety. When she first links him to Desdemona's
murder, he tries to bully her into submission. When this
tactic fails, he kills her. Ironically, Iago's downfall
comes because he was an intellectual villain, because he
lacked the sense Of honor to kill Emilia immediately upon
suspicion of infidelity as Othello had killed Desdemona.

Iago escapes momentarily after the death of Emilia,
but is returned a prisoner. Othello attempts to kill him,
but fails, leaving the impression that Iago is a devil.

TO Othello's question, "Why he hath thus ensnar'd my soul
and body?" Iago replies: "Demand me nothing; what you know,
you know./ From this time forth I never will speak word."
(V, 2, 303-4) Iago's egoism is rampant here. He has gambled
all and has failed, but he will not emphasize his failure

by making a detailed confession Of his activities. It

should be noted that he has talked a little Off stage.

(V, 2, 296) However, the dominant impression given by

169

Iago in the last moments of the play is unrepentant con-
tempt.

Iago is the measure Of the other intellectual villains
in many ways. He creates more plots, adapts more flexibly
to changing conditions, expresses more explicitly and com-
pletely the villain's world view. He differs from the other
villains not only in sc0pe, but in the fact that he never
deviates from his principles. Aaron, too, was alive and
unrepentant at the end of $2225 Andronicus, but Aaron's
downfall came when he ceased to be an intellectual villain;
Iago's downfall comes because he continues to be an intel-

lectual villain.

King.Lsan

King Lear Offers a number and variety Of evil char-
acters unmatched in Shakespeare except for the early 2133;
Andronicus. The types of villains in the two plays can
be roughly paralleled. Oswald and Cornwall, like Chiron
and Demetrius, merely act out evil parts under the direc-
tion or influence of more important characters and do not
contribute to any theory Of villainy. Goneril and Regan,
like Tamora, are Semiramis figures, combining ambition,
cruelty, regal power, and sexual lust. Edmund, like Aaron,
operates from an explicitly stated world view which is that
of the intellectual villain.

Two distinct critical views have developed concerning

Goneril and Regan. One view, shared by COleridge, Bradley,

170

Theodore Spencen and others, has made these two unnatural,
even monstrous and inhuman, creatures. Bradley suggests
-that there is a certain freshness in the conception of

16 but I think the

Goneril since she has no predecessor,
two sisters were foreshadowed, however faintly, in Tamora.
Spencer suggests this line of develOpment when he observes
that the lust of Goneril and Regan is "the clearest indica-
tion of their degeneration."l7 The other view sees Goneril
and Regan as credible human characters and normal, even
respectable,pe0ple.18 They share the sin of filial ingrati-
tude with Edmund, and William Rosen contends that the three
also share a similar philOSOphical outlook:
Their world view is one in which nature is not
fundamentally good, and evil is not a mere aberra-
tion, the result of misguided reason. . . . Rather,
the desire for power and sexual pleasure--natura1
Sfifitiigiisifiivfifig’fiifi $325131?” urges °f “”36
This statement is truer of Edmund than of Goneril and
Regan. Lear's daughters, Offering only their father's
foolish and rash acts of disowning Cordelia and banishing
Kent as motives, proceed to build on this flimsy structure
terrible careers of cruelty. The actions which they under-
take to fulfill their desires are cruel and harsh to such

a degree that they cannot be said to be following "natural

emotional drives." They lack what in the true intellectual

 

16I Bradley, p. 198.

17 Spencer, p. 14A.

18 John Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine 9f Nature, p. L2.
19 Shakgspeare BBQ.£££ Craft 9f T a ed , p. 21.

171

villain is actually a mitigating feature, a reasoned and
consciously followed world view which leads inexorably to
and "justifies" villainous deeds. Only once is there even
a hint of such a viewpoint. In Act V Albany confronts
Goneril with the letter in which she has pledged her love
to Edmund and has called on him to kill her husband. Albany
remarks: "I perceive you know it." Goneril replies: "Say,
if I do, the laws are mine, not thine." (V, 8, 157-9)
Goneril could be implying that her actions cannot be ques-
tioned since she is outside the existing moral framework
and has repudiated the values that Albany (a spokesman for
the orthodox position throughout the play) represents.
However, the only application of this remark is Goneril's
suicide. It would appear, then, that her remarks should
be interpreted only as regarding the immediate, particular
context: Goneril will not allow Albany to sit in judgment
on her, but rather, being found out, will be her own judge
and executioner, not allowing the man she loathes that
satisfaction. Goneril and Regan do not attain the dignity
of the true intellectual villains; rather they act from
evil natures with a minimum of rational explanation for
their behavior. I would compromise between the two criti-
cal viewpoints mentioned above and say that while Goneril
and Regan are human rather than monstrous characters, they
do not share Edmund's world view.
Critics have been fairly consistent in describing

Edmund in terms analogous to my concept of the intellectual

172

villain. Coleridge considers Edmund a man of strength,
charm, good looks, powerful intellect, and energetic will
who is motivated both by his illegitimacy and his status
as second son in an era of primogeniture into evil actions
to make his way in the world.20 Bradley repeats this gen-
eral description, like Coleridge comparing Edmund to Iago
except for a lack of motive hunting, and adds this com-
ment about Edmund and Nature:
He is the product of Nature--Of a natural appetite
asserting itself against the social order; and he
has no recognized place within this order. SO he
devotes himself to Nature, whose law is that Of
the stronger, and who does not recognize those moral
obligations which exist only by conventiin--by
"custom" or "the curiosity Of nations."2
Spencer points out that Edmund's view of man, like Iago's,

"22 This critical

is "a clear indication Of villainy.
tradition comes into even clearer focus in the works of
Hiram Haydn and John Danby. Haydn, in discussing natural-
ism in relation to what he calls the Counter Renaissance,
says that many Of the Elizabethan literary protagonists

of naturalism were apt to be villains with individualistic
and materialistic views which contemn the traditional hu-
manistic values Of justice, law, right reason, and virtue
because these values are man-made and are not in the nature
of things. By way of positive program these villains

share

The determination to get ahead, to preserve them-

 

20 Coleridge's Writings 9n Shakespeare, ed. Terence
Hawkes, p. 179.

21 Bradley, pp. 239-h1.

22 Spencer, p. 1&7.

173

selves and forward their own ambitions, to recog-
nize only the 'law of their own natures' and follow
their own inclinations.23
Danby's Shakespeare's Doctring 9f Nature expounds Edmund's
philOSOphical outlook, pointing out his dramatic predeces-
sors in this position. Danby discusses Edmund as the New
Man of the Renaissance, a man who has assimilated the new
scientific currents of thought and who realizes that since
man's mind is both free Of nature and superior to it, man
can manipulate the laws of nature.
It is significant that in the figure Of Edmund the
sense of separation from nature and superiority to
it goes along with a sense of the individual's
separation from the community and a feeling Of
superiority to his fellows.
Reason is no longer a normative drive but a cal-
culator of the means to satisfy the appetites with
which we were born.
These critical evaluations not only describe Edmund in
terms similar to those I will use but also help to justify
my claim that the intellectual villain has rejected his
medieVal heritage in favor of a modern view of man and
the universe. =
In keeping with the parallel with Aaron, Edmund is
on stage but virtually silent during the long Opening scene,
and then opens the next scene with a soliloquy which not
only presents his intellectual principles and the ground-

work for his villainy but also sets the tone of his char-

acter. From the brief exposition which opens the play we

23 Them: W, p. 61:1.
2L Danby. pp- 34-8.

 

174

know the following facts about Edmund: he is a bastard
and younger son who has been kept away from court by
Gloucester. Edmund has, then, some potentiality for vil-
lainy; his soliloquy which opens I, 2, makes this an
actuality:

Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should I

Stand in the plague of custom, and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines

Lag of a brother? (I, 2, 1-6)
Here is a villain's testament, as well as his motives.
Edmund's status and previous treatment have built up a
resentment within him, leading him to reject the laws and
customs Of his social order. In reaction he turns to Nature,
partly because he is a "natural" son, partly because only
the laws Of Nature will allow him the SCOpe and freedom
Of action he needs to realize his ambitions. In the world
of human law and custom the eldest son inherits titles and
lands. This concept Edmund repudiates in favor of natural
law which rewards the strong, the clever, the active--quali-
ties naturally inherent in a man. Finding in himself intel-
ligence and good looks, Edmund also displays humor, mani-
fested particularly in a semi-contemptuous comparison be-
tween the gusto accompanying the creation Of a bastard
and the tasteless, almost mechanical duty of conceiving

a legitimate child. Next Edmund indicates the specific

goal in mind and the means he will use to achieve it:

Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land

175

. . . . . . . . . . . .if this letter speed

And my invention thrive, Edmund the base

Shall [£637 th' legitimate. (I, 2, 15-21)

The soliloquy ends with a strong indication of the egoism
necessary for the intellectual villain to force the world
to accept his own individual values: "I grow; I prosper."
And the final line, "Now,gods, stand up for bastards!"
confirms the humorous tone in an attitude compounded Of
egoism, mockery, and self-conscious shattering of sacred
ideals.

Having the creculous Gloucester to deal with, Edmund
easily disposes his father to believe that Edgar is a
villain, ready to kill for an early inheritance. A trans-
parent example of Edmund's technique is his ascription to
Edgar Of Opinions which are similar to those in the forged
letter he has given Gloucester to read. Gloucester, of
course, rises neatly to the bait. Like Iago, Edmund gives
good advice when it furthers his own ends. When Gloucester
becomes enraged at the thought of Edgar's villainy, Edmund
counsels patience and the need for further proof. Edmund
then proceeds to arrange this proof.

Before he can direct Edgar's role, Edmund must listen
to his father's explanation of Edgar's supposed defection:
These late eclipses of the sun and moon portend
no good to us. Though the wiSdom Of nature can
reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself

scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools,

friendship falls Off, brothers divide: in cities,
mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces,

treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and
father. This villain of mine comes under the

 

176

prediction; there's son against father: the King
falls from bias of nature; there's father against
child. We have seen the best of our time; machina-
tions, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous
disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves.

(I, 2, 112-23)

Gloucester believes thoroughly in astrology: not only
do heavenly activities influence what happens in life,
but actual occurrences are viewed chiefly as illustrations
of astrological predictions.
Edmund, who believes in a determinism of a different
sort, wittily dismisses his father's folly:
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--Often the surfeits
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our dis-
asters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we
were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly com-
pulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical
predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by
an enforc'd obedience Of planetary influence, and
all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.
An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay
his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!
. . . Fut, I should have been that I am, had the
maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my
bastardizing. (I, 2, 128-as)
R. C. Bald comments that in the Renaissance only free-
thinkers rejected astrology altogether and such individu-
alism as Edmund shows in this speech is subversive.25
Moreover, Edmund illustrates the self-determinism Of the
intellectual villain; he wills himself to act and can make
of himself what he will, but also he takes full responsi-
bility for his own actions.
Turning now to his noble brother, Edmund utilizes

Edgar's "foolish honesty" just as he had played upon

 

25 "Edmund and Renaissance Free Thought," g. Q. Adams
Memorial Studies, pp. 3h7-9.

177

Gloucester's credulous, curious nature. When he reports
to his brother that Gloucester is angry with him, Edgar,
with a clear conscience, is sure that some villain has
done him wrong. Edmund readily agrees; unlike Iago he
does not have to deny his own existence. To further his
plot Edmund gives Edgar bad advice by telling him to go
armed, though he does his best to make the advice seem good.
Edgar cannot be duped. He must be gotten at through his
strength, a sense of honesty, which Edmund must prevent.
Ironically, in perverting truth, Edmund can still be truth-
ful: "I am no honest man if there be any good meaning
toward you." Edgar's foolish trust in Edmund's honesty
is one aspect of the irony; Edmund's truthful conclusion
is the other. Exultant over his success with father and
brother, Edmund ends the scene with an epitome of his phi-
lOSOphy:

Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit:

All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.

(I, 2, 199-200)

In addition to undertaking a formal, involved plot,
the intellectual villain must also show himself to be
flexible and Opportunistic. When, in the midst of his
action against Edgar, Edmund hears of the.arrival of the
Duke of Cornwall, he comments: "This weaves itself perforce
into my business." He then coolly concludes his plot against
Edgar, advising him to flee and wounding himself ("I have
seen drunkards/ Do more than this in sport") to further

blacken Edgar's name. This device, plus some additional

178

fabrications Of Edgar's words, enables Edmund to succeed
in becoming Gloucester's heir.

At this point Edmund has attained his original goal.
But Cornwall's recognition Of Edmund's trust and ability
Opens a new career for him. Edmund begins to grow in
villainy. Seizing the earliest Opportunity to show his
new allegiance, Edmund plans to tell Cornwall of Gloucester's
favoring Lear. His new goal is to supplant his father as
Duke of Gloucester: "the younger rises when the Old doth
fall." Cornwall seems to understand Edmund instinctively,
though the Duke makes no explicit statement Of his world
view and plays a small part in the action. This under-
standing is most evident in III, 5, though there is some
sparring around for form's sake:

Corn. I will have my revenge ere I depart this
house.

Egg. How, my lord, I may be censured that nature
thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to
think of.

Corn. I now perceive, it was not altogether your
brother's evil disposition made him seek his death;
but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reproveable
badness in himself.

,Egm. How malicious is my fortune, that I must
repent to be just! This is the letter which he
spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party
to the advantages of France. 0 heavens! that this
treason were not, or not I the detector!

Corn. GO with me to the Duchess.

Egg. If the matter Of this paper be certain, you
have mighty businessin hand.

Corn. True or false, it hath made thee Earl of
Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that

he may be ready for our apprehension.

Egg. [Isideg7 If I find him comforting the King,
it will stuff his suspicion more fully.--I will
persevere in my course of loyalty, though the con-
flict be sore between that and my blood.

Corn. I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt
find a [deareg7 father in my love. (III, 5, 1-26)

179

By Act V Edmund is Earl of Gloucester and both Regan
and Goneril love him. Since the sisters are now at Odds,
Edmund further shows his politic nature by shifting as
necessary while each makes advances to him. At the end
of V, l, he summarizes his position: he has sworn love
to both sisters and, wondering which one to take, decides
to favor the one who acts decisively in killing Albany.
Having already decided that Albany, the only character
representing the orthodox point of view who is not forced
into disguise or flight, is an enemy, Edmund rather rashly
allows the means of Albany's death to be a test of devo-
tion to himself. Killing Albany would not have completely
saved Edmund since Edgar is still free to act and is now
aware Of Edmund's treachery, but the failure to do so in-
dicates a fatal streak of overconfidence in Edmund.

When Edmund's army is victorious, he carries out
his plan to have Lear and Cordelia killed in prison. His
instructions to the captain picked for the job reflect his
own principles:l

Know thou this, that men

Are as the time is; to be tender-minded

Does not become a sword. (V, 3, 30-2)

On the threshold of becoming King of England, Edmund
shows some nobility of character in fighting his "fair and
warlike," but anonymous, challenger. But his hopes are
crushed when Edgar defeats him in single combat. Dying,
Edmund, like Iago, at first refuses to divulge information

to his captors: "Ask me not what I know." But he does

180

give them some satisfaction by pleading guilty as charged;
that is, he confesses his treachery against Edgar and
Gloucester. In defeat Edmund does not rail against fortune
but adOpts a stoic attitude of acceptance: "The wheel is
come full circle; I am here."

Edmund even undergoes a change of heart before the
end of the play. His attempt to reprieve Lear and Cordelia
is foreshadowed when he is affected by Edgar's recounting
of Gloucester's death. Partly Edmund's change is mere
dramatic necessity; only he knows that Lear and Cordelia
are to be killed. But the change is not an uncharacteristt
touch. Other intellectual villains have passed through
a momentary rejection of their evil principles. Edmund
has now accepted his fate. His course of deceit and ruth-
lessness took him far, but now he has lost. He is not a
monster; he has no reason to see people die needlessly.
Evil activities are not the keystone Of Edmund's char-
acter in the sense that he acts from a completely evil
nature as Goneril and Regan do. Rather he is a man who
views the world realistically, who places himself outside
the traditional moral system,and who utilizes his intellect
to achieve the goals which his individual will has set.
Edmund can mock himself as well as others; thus, defeated,
he can mock his own lack of principles in order to do

some good.

Chapter VI

The Decline of the Pattern

Perhaps any villains to appear after Iago and Edmund
would seem dull, but even without the specific comparison
it is Obvious that in the plays after King Lea; there is
a blurring Of the pattern of the intellectual villain.

Thus the last plays, the late tragedies and the romances,
mark a definite decline Of the intellectual villain and
establish a definite phase in his development. The reasons
for the decline differ for almost every play. However,
Shakespeare seems not to have changed his mind about what
constitutes villainy. When the intellectual villain appears
in these last plays, he holds all the familiar concepts
about the world, but the importance of his role has di-
minished. What this fact might say about any change in
Shakespeare's philOSOphy is, I feel, outside the scope

of this paper, tantalizing question that it is.

Macbgth
The decline in the pattern begins with a play that

has no dilution of evil. Indeed, Macbeth has been called
"The Apocalypse of Evil"1 and both major characters clamor
fOr consideration as villains. However much Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth are alike, though, they must ultimately be
considered as separate characters, with only Lady Macbeth

partaking Of the pattern Of intellectual villainy and that

 

l G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel Qi Fire, p. 17h.
181

182

only partially.
As a dramatic character Macbeth most readily calls
to mind Richard III. Coe makes this comparison explicit
in his study, showing that Macbeth is a greater, more
noble character, who, unlike Richard, shows remorse.2
Irving Ribner sees a pattern in Eighard III similar to
that in Macbeth: both plays present the rise and fall
of a figure of evil "who has challenged the moral fabric
of society deliberately and knowingly because it is his
very nature to do so."3 If Macbeth's intellectual prin-
ciples are as similar to Richard's as this quotation might
suggest, then Macbeth would also be an intellectual vil-
lain. I think, however, Macbeth's challenge to society
is more in his actions than in his ideas. In this respect
he is more similar to Claudius than to Richard III.
Throughout the play Macbeth is tormented by the deed
of murder-~tormented by its conception, its performance,
its consequences. Conscience, concern for human values,
and respect for the laws of society plague him continually.
Though a plot summary might suggest that in action Macbeth
follows a direct course from crime to crime, this straight-
forward develOpment is belied by the fears, doubts, and
hallucinations which make Macbeth's mental course twisted
and agonized. Ambition alone, as Macbeth himself realizes,
forces him to murder Duncan. Ambition Of itself is not

a destructive idea. Even though Macbeth's ambition urges

 

 

2 Shakespeare's Villains, p. 34.
3 Patterns lg Shakespearian Tragedy, pp. 22-3.

183

killing his king, he continually sees murder as an evil
deed. The real intellectual villain would take an amoral
attitude toward any crime which furthered his own interest.
This Macbeth can never do. The intellectual villains may
depart from their principles momentarily into conscience
or remorse, but Macbeth is continually beset by pity and
conscience and, above all, remorse for the evil he has done.

A contrast with Lady Macbeth will make this distinction
even clearer. Before Lady Macbeth appears in the play,
Macbeth has moved from the wan hope that chance will crown
him to a determination that he must do something himself:

Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires;

The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

(I, h, 50-3)

Macbeth will act, but he knows the planned act is evil
and he anticipates his own horror-struck reaction. In
Macbeth the crime and remorse are never far apart.

Immediately after this speech, Lady Macbeth takes
the stage, all purpose and will, nothing of scruple and
conscience. She fears her husband's nature and would take
steps to remedy his "human kindness." When Macbeth joins
her, she tells him how to act: "look like the innocent
flower,/ But be the serpent under't." At this point only
Lady Macbeth is willing to set a goal and employ the neces-
sary method to attain that goal. Macbeth even argues him-

self Out of the murder, requiring another speech from his

wife to rekindle his purpose and courage. This time she

18h

Shows the intelligent side of the intellectual villain;
she is ready with plots to kill Duncan and blame others.
She is so successful that by the end of the scene Macbeth
is talking like her: "False face must hide what the false
heart doth know." This new strength of purpose supports
Macbeth through the murder and one speech after it: "I
have done the deed." From this point Macbeth degenerates
by succumbing to his conscience. Lady Macbeth must re-
enter the death room to plant the evidence against the
grooms. In immediate reaction to the murder she feels that
a little water will clear Macbeth and herself from the
deed, but Macbeth wishes that he could pray, that he could
sleep, that Duncan were still alive.

In all this action, except for a momentary failing
("Had he not resembled/ My father as he slept, I had donét."),
Lady Macbeth is an intellectual villain. But she becomes
less and less important to the action. At the end she is
a woman driven mad by the knowledge Of her own evil she
carries within her. If her failure to kill Duncan and
her fainting at the discovery of the murder are, as I think,
foreshadowings of her eventual collapse, then she is not
tO be considered completely as an intellectual villain
for long in the play. She begins as an intellectual vil-
lain, but quickly departs from the pattern. Macbeth, though
he grows in villainy, committing even more monstrous crimes
as the play progresses, increases also in revulsion from

his deeds, and is never an intellectual villain.

185

Timon 2; Athens

Timon 9f Athgns contains a great number of characters
who act as the intellectual villains do. The point Of the
play is not so much a demonstration of villainy as it is
the devastating results of such wholesale depravity on
one man. We have, in effect, an inversion of the pattern.
The grace which Apemantus utters cynically illustrates the
intellectual principles of most of the characters in the
play:

Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;

I pray for no man but myself.

Grant I may never prove so fond

TO trust man on his oath or bond;

Or my friends, if I should need 'em. (I, 2, 63-70)
In Timon g: Ath n , however, such principles do not lead
to villainous action; hence the distinction between Ape-
mantus and his fellows and the intellectual villain. The
rejection Of Timon by his supposed friends is extremely
ungrateful and leads Timon to curse mankind completely,
but this is not the self-seeking villainy practiced by an
Iago or Edmund. The real villain of the play is gold:

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions, bless th' accus'd,

Make the hoar leprosy ador'd, place thieves

And give them title, knee, and approbation

With senators on the bench. (IV, 3, 33-7)
Of course, man's yielding to the power of money makes
him corrupt, but it is the general cause rather than specific

acts Of villainy that is condemned in Timon 9; Athens.

This play shows how nightmarish the world would become

186

if many people followed the principles of the intellectual

villain.

Antony agd CleOpatra

In Antony and Clgooatra and Coriglanus, villainy plays
a minor role partly because, as Willard Farnham has sug-
gested,]" the heroes themselves are more seriously flawed
than earlier tragic heroes and more of the evil impulses
are within. Only Enobarbus can qualify as a villain in
Antony gag Clegpatra and his villainy is minor and private.
A realist who clearly sees the danger CleOpatra poses for
Antony, Enobarbus finally acts on his knowledge:

When valour [preys Og7 reason,

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek

Some way to leave him. (III, 13, 199-201)
When he learns of this defection, Antony, recognizing the
essential honesty Of Enobarbus, sends his fortune after
him. Even before he learns of Antony's generosity, Enobarbus
is repentant:

I have done ill;

Of which I do accuse myself so sorely

That I will joy no more. (IV, 6, 17-9)
Hearing of Antony's goodness toward him, Enobarbus dies,
calling out Antony's name with his last breath. In the
structure Of the play the incident is too minor for Enobarbus
to be considered a major villain and his repentance is too
quick and too complete for him to be an intellectual vil-

lain. But, for a moment, principles similar to those held

by the intellectual villains cause Enobarbus to act

 

A Shakespeare's Tragic Frontier, passim.

187

villainously in deserting the hero. What complicates the
ideological picture is the fact that Enobarbus' judgment

of the situation is correct; he has been a reliable com-
mentator throughout the play. Had Antony heeded his advice,

there would have been no tragedy.

Coriolanus

Coriolanus is so sufficiently his own worst enemy
that it is somewhat surprising to see some external figures
also working against his interests. Actually two groups
seek the downfall of Coriolanus: Aufidius and the Volscians,
who simply use craft and treachery, and the Roman tribunes,
who operate as intellectual villains. The tribunes have a
clear motive: they know their power will be lessened if
Coriolanus becomes consul. They utilize the time-honored
means: knowing Coriolanus' nature, they need only give
his contempt of the commons clear and constant publicity.
They carry their rabble-rousing to the point of raising
mutiny. Even though this direct action falters, they are
successful in turning the minds of the peOple against
Coriolanus. Seeing their enemy banished, they resolve to
be humbler, but instead become proud in their exercise of
power and wrong in their judgments, as in IV, 6, when they
refuse to believe that Coriolanus is returning to Home at
the head of a Volscian army. The leadership of the tribunes
is ineffectual, and the people turn against them before

Home is finally saved by the mother of Coriolanus. Though

188

in their actions and in the principles behind those actions
the tribunes are intellectual villains, their part in the
play is obscured and diluted because they merely reinforce
externally an attack on the hero more ruinously carried

on by himself internally.

The final plays, with their themes of regeneration
and reconciliation, continue the process of blurring the
pattern of intellectual villainy. The evil in these plays
is relatively too unimportant and too readily overcome for
its adherents to gain much prominence. But those char-
acters who are villains in the romances are, for the most
part, intellectual villains. They differ only in degree,

not kind, from their predecessors.

Pegicles

Although she is a sympathetic character in her early
appearances, Dionyza becomes a villain in Act IV of Pericles.
In I, h, she is shown to be a sensible woman with a reason-
able view Of the world. When her husband Cleon pathetically
asks if they should discuss the griefs of others in an
,attempt to forget their own, Dionyza replies:
That were to blow at fire in hope to quench it;
For who digs hills because they do aspire
Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher.

0 my distressed lord, even such our griefs are;
I, ll», 1“?

These great griefs have arisen because the city Of Tarsus,
which Olson and Dionyza rule, is suffering from famine.
Pericles, in the midst of his travels, arrives with food

to become the savior of the city. Later he leaves his

 

189

daughter Marina in Tarsus (III, 3), and the grateful Cleon
and Dionyza promise to love her and care for her as their
own child. .

Marina grows into a gracious young lady at Tarsus,
but, as Gower comments in his prologue to Act IV, she
surpasses her companion Philoten in all skills, thus rais-
ing envy in the breast of Philoten's mother, Dionyza. So
envious is Dionyza that she plans to murder Marina, hiring
one Leonine for the job. It is Dionyza's comments to
Leonine which qualify her as an intellectual villain. In
order to accomplish her own purposes she subverts all
standards Of gratitude, justice, and morality. Under the
influence of jealousy she turns her heretofore admirable
reason to evil ends. Sheengages Leonine's aid by offer-
ing him the motivation of reward, telling him that the
blow he will strike will be very profitable. 'Having secured
his consent, she then tells him what ideas should guide
him; he should let neither conscience nor pity deter him,
but be "A soldier to [hig7 purpose." Dionyza arranges
the time and place for the murder, but before Leonine can
kill Marina she is carried off by pirates. Leonine reports
to Dionyza, however, that he has carried out his mission.
Since he is a witness to her villainy, Dionyza rewards
him with death by poisoning.

To cover up the supposed murder Dionyza concocts a
story to tell Pericles and is ready to go on as if nothing

had happened, since she realizes that the murder cannot

190

be undone. However, she meets some verbal Opposition to
her plans from Cleon. Their positions are adequately ex-
pressed in these two speeches:

Cle. Thou art like the harpy, -

Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face,

Seize with thine eagle's talons.

Dion. You are like one that superstitiously

UO swear to th' gods that winter kills the flies’

But yet I know you'll do as I advise. (IV, 3, A6-51)
And Cleon does follow orders. Eventually Pericles returns,
visits the tomb with its elaborate epitaph praising Marina
"In glittering golden characters." On this scene Gower

comments:

No visor does become black villainy
So well as soft and tender flattery. (IV, A, th-S)

Cleon and Dionyza appear no more in the play, but it
is interesting to note that in the explanations and dis-
coveries of Act V, Cleon is the one held responsible for
attempting to kill Marina (V, 1, 172-7; V, 1, 217-8;

V, 3, 7-9). Possibly Cleon's submission to his wife's
authority is enough to make him guilty, or possibly the
confusion simply arises from the suspected multiple author-
ship of the play. In concluding the play Gower completes
the story Of Olson and Dionyza. Their own people burn

them to death in the palace when their evil deed is made
known.

The gods for murder seemed so content

To punish [Ehem ; although not done, but meant.

(V, 3, 99-100)
So Cleon and Dionyza are linked together in punishment,

though the instigation of the murder attempt is entirely

191

Dionyza's. Her ideas and her manner of proceeding make

her an intellectual villain, though a lesser one.

Cymbeline

In the main plot of Cymbeline there are three villains
(Cloten, the queen, and Iachimo) working against the in-
terests of the hero and heroine, Posthumus and Imogen.

Of the three, Cloten, the queen's son, is described as

a fool; his actions bear out the validity of this descrip-
tion. His knavery is heavy-handed; he is ugly and stupid.
In the development of Shakespeare's villains, he seems

to be a precursor of Caliban and not similar to the vil-
lains under discussion in this study. His only apparent
connection with the rationale of the intellectual villain
is a fleeting Observation upon the effect of gold on men:
"What can it not do and undo?" (II, 3, 70-81)

Cloten's mother, the queen, is more typical of the
intellectual villain. She is described as a "crafty devil,"
a woman who "bears all down with her brain, who is hourly
coining plots." One Of the unusual features in her pres-
entation is the number of people who see through her and
know her for what she is. Early in the play, before much
characterization through action has been accomplished, the
queen does an apparent kindness to Imogen, who remarks:

0

Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant

Can tickle where she wounds! (I, 1, 83-5)

Later a doctor to whom she has applied for pabons gives

192

the queen instead a sleep-inducing drug:
I do know her spirit

And will not trust one of her malice with

A drug of such damn'd nature. (I, 5, 3h-6)
Posthumus' servant Pisanio, left behind, as a pledge with
Imogen, apparently succumbs to the queen's wishes, but when
alone remarks that he will remain true to his master rather
than do her bidding. However, the queen realizes this
essential loyalty in Pisanio and tries to make use of her
knowledge in involving him unsuspectingly in a plot to
poison Imogen. I think that the reason for this easy
recognition of the queen's character is that villainy does
not have absolute sway in the later plays; it does not
work unmolested until its consequences are fatal, as in
the tragedies.

The queen early gives an indication of her method of
Operation. Telling Posthumus and Imogen to enjoy their
last moments together in isolation, she instead sends the
king in to surprise them. She even boasts of her control
over the king:

I never do him wrong

But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;

Pays dear for my Offenses. (I, l, IDA-6)

When the queen's plots have caused Imogen to leave
the court, she makes clear the motive for her actions
against Imogen. She is the second wife of the king; her
son Cloten is not the king's son. With Imogen out of the

way, the queen hopes to persuade the king to name Cloten

the heir apparent.

193

As the action grows more complicated, the queen drops
from view. In Act V her death is reported by the doctor;
she died horribly, as she had lived. Moreover, she con-
fessed that she had been living a lie. She had not loved
the king, only his position; she had planned to poison
Imogen and would have poisoned the king to clear Cloten's
way to the throne. Hearing this report, the king com-
ments that she was not as she had seemed, but he was evi-
dently the only one who was fooled by her.

The third villain, Iachimo, is a crafty Italian. He
is, moreover, a realist who feels that Posthumus' praise
of Imogen's virtue is romantic nonsense. So he makes the
wager with Posthumus and then sets out to England to seduce
Imogen. He will make the world conform to his own picture
of it. In the British court he first appears as a ladies'
man. Arranging a meeting with Imogen, he tells her that
Posthumus is happy in his exile, even mocking lovers and
true love. With a subtle mixture of flattery and lies he
insinuates that Posthumus has forgotten the lovely Imogen
and is solacing himself with other women in Italy. SO he
suggests that she revenge herself and offers himself as
partner to her revenge. When this offer meets with an
absolute rebuff, Iachimo says that he was merely trying
Imogen's virtue and that, of course, Posthumus is really
true to her. This rekindles Imogen's confidence in him
so much that he can arrange to store a trunk in her room

overnight. Iachimo has quickly devised an alternate plan

19h

when his direct approach failed. In her room at night,
he first goes into poetic rapture at Imogen's beauty,
but stops himself and carefully notes details of the room
and her person to lend credibility to his story to Post-
humus. In this scene the rational man overcomes the pas-
sionate man in Iachimo, but there is a glimmer of the good
end in store for him in his appreciation of Imogen's beauty.
Iachimo reports back to Posthumus, but before recount-
ing his story says he will not swear an oath, for his wealth
of detailed information makes that unnecessary. Thus he
does not perjure himself in any legal or religious sense,
but rather commits the crime against absolute morality
of telling a half—truth. Not only half-truths, but ab-
solute lies to give verisimilitude, are used by Iachimo.
For example, in giving the bracelet to Posthumus, he des-
cribes how Imogen took it Off her arm: "Her pretty action
did outsell her gift,/ And yet enrich'd it too." Actually,
Iachimo had taken the bracelet from the sleeping Imogen.
Iachimo does swear by Jupiter that this statement is true,
but his oath is not meant to be binding. Having won the
bet, Iachimo is satisfied. He does not want to see any
harm come to Posthumus because of his anger over Imogen's
infidelity. Later, in England, he is unable to fight be-
cause of the heaviness and guilt within him. He confesses
in time to save Posthumus and Imogen, partly because such
confession is necessary to the plot, partly because remorse

is a major item in his characterization. He is forgiven

195

in the general reconciliation.
Iachimo is only a partial intellectual villain, like
Claudius, because of his method of procedure. Remorse is
so heavily emphasized in his later characterization that
he does not remain true to the intellectual principles which

had guided his early action and led him into villainy.

The Winterls Ialg

Autolycus, a minor villain who appears briefly and
late in The Winter's Talg, has motives and a philOSOphy
which gain him a place in this study. Autolycus is a rogue,
a thief, and a cheat. He lives by cozening the country
peOple, using his superior knowledge and the SOphistication
bred of experience in his confidence-man approach. Al-
though he glories in his ability to fleece the unwary and
innocent, Autolycus is honest enough with himself to admit
that he is a coward. Extremely afraid of temporal and
corporal punishment, Autolycus, however, has no thought
for any future life. He is, rather, an adherent of a
naturalistic philosophy, giving no allegiance to any power
beyond himself.

Honesty and trust among men are to him foolish gen-
eralities. This attitude is further borne out in his
realistic way of observing those around him. With Camillo
in IV, A, he appears to be a dull country bumpkin, but he
is actually watching and listening closely. Later he ex-

changes garments with Florizel as requested, but he is

196

aware of the significance of what he is doing:

I understand the business, I hear it. To have

an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is

necessary for a cut-purse; a good nose in neces-

sary also, to smell out work for the other senses.

I see this is the time that the unjust man doth

thrive. (IV, A, 683-8)

Having stated his general qualifications, Autolycus decides
more particularly that it is the greater knavery to with-
hold the information he has of Florizel's activities

rather than divulge it immediately and thus remain even
more constant to his chosen profession.

Autolycus has many irons in the fire. Immediately
after the above remarks, the clown and shepherd enter,
presenting a fresh opportunity for Autolycus. As he says,
every gathering of men "yields a careful man work." Later
he remarks that he could not be honest if he wanted to,
since life puts so many chances to be villainous in his
way. I

In the working out of the plot, Autolycus does good
against his will to the clown and shepherd. He passes out
of the play begging forgiveness and promising to amend
his life. A delightful rogue, Autolycus brings a realistic
touch of evil to the pastoral world of Act IV. His view
of the world, though barely sketched in, as well as his

cynical humor and occasional self-honesty, makes him a

lesser Falstaff among Shakespeare's intellectual villains.

Th§,Tempest

Caliban is the best example in Shakespeare of the

197

completely evil being who can perceive no glimmer of any-
thing good or decent. Caliban is entirely of the devil's
camp; his nature marks the complete antithesis of the
intellectual villain. Even though Caliban is the major
villain of Egg Tempest, I pass him by since my whole con-
cern is with human villains who consciously choose evil
and rationally plot their evil deeds, contemptuous of
any punishment they may receive and scorning the values
they trample underfoot. Of this brand of villain there
are two examples in Thg Tgmpgst, Sebastian and Antonio.

In the great confusion of the opening storm scene,
these two do nothing but hurl invectives at the crew.

When the ship splits and is apparently going down, Antonio,
remaining true to his class and position, does show some
consciousness of honor: "Let's all sink wi' th' King."
But Sebastian exhibits the egoistical side of the intel-
lectual villain: "Let's take leave of him."

In the second scene we learn that part of Antonio's
villainous game has already been played. While Prospero
dedicated himself to study and neglected worldly concerns,
his brother Antonio plotted with the King of Naples to
usurp Prospero's dukedom.

Sebastian and Antonio are seen in action in II, 1.
First they gull and bait the good, but rather stupid, Gonzalo.
Turning to more serious affairs, they plot to kill Alonzo
so that Sebastian can become King of Naples. Antonio,

who takes the initiative here, is evidently an expert in

198

getting rid of brothers who hold high positions. He
rationalizes such actions by a method reminiscent of
Richard III and other usurpers: a coldly realistic view
of the situation and a completely amoral attitude toward
conscience--"I feel not/ This deity in my bosom." The
plot is expanded to include Gonzalo, a potential witness,
but Ariel interrupts their activities so that fruition
of the plot must be postponed.

, In III, 3, Ariel accuses Antonio, Alonzo, and Sebastian
of usurping Prospero's dukedom. Even though Alonzo is
the potential victim of the other two, he must be con-
sidered one of them. Gonzalo comments of them:

All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,

Like poison given to work a great time after,

Now gives to bite the spirits. (III, 3, lOL—6)

The plot against Alonzo never succeeds and Sebastian
and Antonio are forgiven by Prospero at the end of the
play. Although they are minor elements in the play, the
general philOSOphy which guides Sebastian and Antonio is

that which guides Shakespeare's major intellectual villains.

 

Chapter VII

The Villains of Shakespeare's Contemporaries

In the absence of Renaissance critical theories of
villainy, it is necessary to turn to the practices of
Shakespeare's contemporary dramatists to determine the
degree of possible uniqueness of the intellectual villain.
While we no longer see Shakespeare as a god-like eminence
completely dwarfing his interesting, but essentially pygmy-
like fellows, we do not have to rebound to the other ex-
treme of seeing in Shakespeare only another Elizabethan
dramatist who handled the same materials, worked with the
same conventions and under the same conditions, and achieved
only what thirty other practical men of the theatre achieved,
with perhaps a bit more luck or a better command of the
language to account for his attaining the foremost rank-
ing. Certain similarities between Shakespeare and his
contemporary dramatists are undoubtedly apparent in the
plays and are important, but, as might be expected in such
an individualistic era of literary production, significant
differences of poetic and dramatic technique are also
manifested in the drama of the period.1 One major dif-
ference is in the handling of the villains; this chapter
will trace several of the outstanding concepts of villainy

utilized by Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists to show

 

1 This difference has been characterized as "Shake-
speare's simultaneous detachment from his contemporaries
and comprehension of them." Una Ellis-Fermor, The Jaco-
bean Drama, p. 2L8.

199

200

how they differ from intellectual villainy. Before con-
sidering the Renaissance drama, though, I will characterize
briefly the heritage of villainy these dramatists received
from classical drama to see what possible influence toward
intellectual villainy these plays offer. The conception
of villainy in medieval drama has already been extensively
discussed.

Greek tragedy rarely presents a character who could
be called a villain as the Renaissance came to understand
and use the term. The dominant image received from Greek
tragedy is of a strong-willed hero motivated by pride or
passion, rather than consciously evil ideas, to acts which
are evil in that they upset the order of the universe or
attempt to counteract the decrees of Fate or Necessity.2
The chorus, which usually upholds orthodox ideas, continu-
ally cautionsthe hero to self-knowledge and wisdom; gen-
erally this wisdom is learning to bow to Necessity, to
subordinate one's pride to the controlling power of the
universe.

H. D. F. Kitto says that Aeschylean tragedy occurs
when man is so "infatuate" as to set at defiance the funda-
mental moral principles, so that the hero "acts not from

evil motives but from moral blindness."3 This infatuation

 

2 A similar explanation is given by Henry Wells,
Elizabethan ggd Jagobgag Pl i ht , p. 17: "The uncer-
tainty of fate overshadowing mankind lies at the heart
of the Greek drama, while the English play becomes prin-
cipally a study in a particular vice."

3 Greek Tragedy, pp. 105, 111.

201

can issue in the rebellious pride of a Prometheus or the
vengeance of an Orestes. Prometheus may seem to be a
rebel against constituted authority, but he is actually
Opposing the tyrannous force of Zeus. The real power
of the Greek universe, Necessity, controls both Zeus and
Prometheus. SO Prometheus is not issuing any ultimate
challenge, but is rather a promise that eventually intel-
ligence, instead of brute force, will be man's chief at-
tribute. In the Oggstia none of the characters are clearly
good or evil; the long series of murders and judgments
is motivated entirely by vengeance, the original crime
having taken place before the story of the Orestia begins.
At Orestes' trial, the Furies, who prosecute him, uphold
the sanctity of the law:

The man who does right, free-willed, without constraint

shall not lose happiness

nor be wiped out with his generation.

But the transgressor, I tell you, the bold man

who brings in confusion Of goods unrightly won,

at long last and perforce, when ship toils

under tempest must strike hii sail

in the wreck of his rigging.
When Orestes is freed, the Furies lament that the Old law
has been overthrown, but they are placated by being in-
stalled as household gods of Athens. The judgment shows
that Orestes is "right" in avenging his father, even by
killing his mother; his ideas are thus not inimical to

the established order.

Creon, in SOphocles' Antigone, appears in Antigone's

 

11 A Aeschylus, Thg Eumggides, tr. Richmond Lattimore,
o 550‘?-

202

view to be a villain who puts man-made law above the law
of the gods. But Creon takes an orthodox view of social
order. His treatment of Polynices was occasioned because
Polynices warred against his own country; Creon clearly
sees the evil in anarchy and the good in discipline and
order. Eventually Creon accedes to Antigone's wishes,
but his change comes too late. Since his pride and will-
fulness have led to the death of his son and his wife,
the tragedy is as much his as Antigone's. He attains wisdom,
but only at a terrible cost.

Medea, the greatest female evildoer in classical
drama, is entirely motivated by passion. Kitto comments
that the point of Euripides' play is that passion is stronger
than reason.5 In the play the chorus is aware of a cer-
tain ambiguity and difficulty in Medea's position:

I both wish to help you and support the normal
Ways of mankind, and tell you not to do this thing.6

Medea is clearly an intelligent villain; she deceives
others and contrives ways to punish Jason and his new wife.
But she is not an intellectual villain; entirely controlled
by passion, she is,in Jason's words,

A monster, not a woman, having a nature 7
Wilder than that of Scylla in the Tuscan sea.

She oversteps the bounds of normal human nature, but she
is led to her crimes by a passionate nature seeking per-

sonal vengeance rather than by a clearly conceived world

 

5 Kitto, p. 193.
6 Euripides, The Medea, tr. Rex Warner, 11. 812-3.
7 $31-$10, 11. 131+2-30

 

203

view opposed to orthodox ideas.

But the Renaissance dramatists were more aware of
Seneca's reworkings of the classical legends than they
were of the versions written by the Greek tragedians. In
Seneca, even more than in Greek tragedy, the evildoers
are motivated by passion or are driven by an adverse For-
tune. Momentarily maddened through the hateful vengeance
of Juno, Hercules kills his wife and children. "Mad for
8

sovereignty," the sons of Oedipus wage a fierce war. When
Phaedra is guided by conSUming lust to sin, the chorus
comments:

Blind fortune rules the affairs of men

Dispensing with unthinking hand

Her gifts, oft favoring the worst.

And so the violent Oppress

The innocent;
Medea, wildly seeking revenge against Jason, cries, "Give
passion fullest sway,"10 before murdering her children.

The Senecan character who the scholars feel most pro-
foundly impressed Renaissance drama was Atreus. Like
Euripides' Medea, Atreus is a careful plotter and dis-
sembler; moreover, in contrast to the chorus' stoic ideal

Of a king, he displays some tyrannous ideas:

Integrity,
Truth, loyalty, are private virtues; kings

 

8—In the words of Oedipus in The Phoenician WOmen,
t2. Ella Isabell Harris, The Complete Roman Drama, II,
5 5.
6 69 Seneca, Phaedra, tr. Frank Justus Miller, Ibid.,
5 “'70
6 10 Seneca, Medea, tr. Frank Justus Miller, Ibid.,
13.

20h

Do as they will.11

Such views make it easy to see why Atreus came to be con-
sidered a prototype of the "Machiavellian" villain; his
atrocious actions grafted the element of specific evil
deeds onto the tyrannous-ruler type so that he appears

to be a plausible model for many Elizabethan villains.

But like the other classical evildoers, Atreus is led to
his crimes by vengeance and Fortune. He is caught up in
the enmities and hatreds of his family line; specifically,
he accuses Thyestes of adultery and fraud in Obtaining

the golden fleece, so that Thyestes, in his view, is not

a legitimate king. When he announces his plan to have
Thyestes eat his own children, Atreus says that he is goaded
by a great, inexplicable passion. For a moment, grasping
the crown he has sought, Atreus does feel himself above
the gods; but his actions have been motivated much more

by vengeance than by a desire for power and its freedom
from constraints. The theme of vengeance closes out the
play and projects itself into the future as Thyestes calls
on the gods to avenge him against Atreus. Atreus is a
colossal dramatic villain because of his enormous passion
and his gigantic appetite for perpetrating crimes and
horrors, but not because his ideas are evil. He is in

the grip of that very Fortune the true intellectual villains
defy with their whole being. If Atreus is seen as an

epitome of the classical heritage of villainy, then the

 

ll Seneca, Thyestes, tr. Ella Isabell Harris, Ibid.,
759.

205

earlier drama Offers no figure leading directly to Shake-
speare's intellectual villains.

In discussing the villains of Shakespeare's contem-
poraries, critics have adopted, at one time or another,
all the theories and terms which were considered in the
first chapter. In my own discussion of these villains,
however, I will not use these terms, as my intention is
to show that the bulk of the villains appearing on the
stage when Shakespeare was a practicing playwright, or
still a very major and immediate influence, were not intel-
lectual villains. In demonstrating this negative point,

I will forego the easy solution of adducing the first chap-
ter as sufficient evidence and will instead describe the
several types of villains that I see appearing in the plays,
concentrating in each case on the essential points of dif-
ference between these villains and the intellectual vil-
lains. As in the discussions of Shakespeare's villains,
however, I will present some of the typical critical com-
ments to frame my own remarks.

The significant lines of development for the non-
Shakespearean villains were initiated by Marlowe and Kyd.
Marlowe is responsible for popularizing the ambitious vil-
lain, Often the protagonist of his Play, whose goal is the
sweet fruition of an earthly crown. Kyd paves the way
for the villain who acts, either willingly or reluctantly,
because of a wrong that has been committed; his motive

is either vengeance or a sense of honor or even a feeling

206

that his own happiness is being blocked by another person.
From both Kyd and Marlowe comes the third type, the sub-
ordinate villain, who is either simply malign or else com-
mits evil for monetary reward but with no personal interest
in his victims.

Marlowe's mighty protagonist Tamburlaine differs from
his classical predecessors in his overwhelming ambition
which reflects the soaring exuberance of at least one phase
of the Renaissance mind and in his feeling that he is the
absolute master of his own fate. He is described in the
play as

A Scythian Shepheard, so imbellished

With Nature's pride, and richest furniture,

His looks do menace heaven and dare the Gods.

(11. 350-2)
And he says of himself:

I hold the Fates bound fast in yron chaines,

And with my hand turne Fortunes wheel about.

(11. 369-70)
The difference is usually accounted for by Marlowe's
absorption in the system of Machiavelli. Miss Ellis-
Fermor sees Marlowe as chiefly responsible for the stage
Machiavel which held the stage for more than twenty years.
Whereas Kyd and other dramatists saw in the Machiavel only
a theatrical figure capable of limitless villainy, Marlowe
studied the real system of Machiavelli, exploring a materi-

alistic and satanic interpretation of life.12 The system

which Machiavelli offered was based upon

 

12 The Jacobean Drama, p. 11.

207

the assumption of weakness, ingratitude and ill-
will as essential elements of human character and
society, upon the acceptance of religion only as
a means of making a peOple docile to their gov-
ernors, upon the Open admission of cruelty par-
simony and betrayal of faith as necessary if
regrettable) instruments.
George Buckley, who has described Machiavelli as a major
source of atheism in Western Europe, says that Marlowe,
particularly, derived his atheism from Machiavelli as
evidenced by direct references, the general tone of his
plays,and the conception of characters who subordinate
religion to their own desires.lh Henry Wells believes
that Tamburlaine unites both the religious and political
strands of Machiavelli's teachings. Tamburlaine is a
symbol of Anti-Christ who embodies all the ethical prin-
ciples denounced by Christianity, as well as a Machiavel
in political morals whose typical mood is boastful de-
fiance.15
Returning to the other dramatists,who did not know
Machiavelli first hand, or else distorted his real intent,
Miss Ellis-Fermor says they made Of the stage Machiavel
a diabolic character, forwarding a policy of self-seeking
and cynical aggression, who nevertheless "contained the
elements of his own destruction" and who "always operated
in a world in which there was 'no place to mount' to any

significant height." Shakespeare, after examining this

figure in Richard III, rejected it as psychologically con-

 

13 The Jacobean Drama, p. 12.
14 Atheism i3 thg English Ren i nce, pp. 31, 130.
15 Elinggthan and Jacgbean Playwrights, pp. 80-1.

208

tradictory and thus escaped the dominant influence of
the Machiavel.16

There are several factors in Tamburlaine which keep
the hero from being simply a dramatic embodiment of Machi-
avelli's teachings or an infillectual villain. Tamburlaine
is the scourge and wrath of God in the sense that he
carries on a kind of crusade to free the Christian captives
of the Mohammedan king, Bajazeth. At least superficially,
then, Tamburlaine upholds Christianity. More importantly,
Tamburlaine does not sin against the society of the play.
His leading opponent, Bajazeth, is equally proud and cruel;
he promises great tortures for Tamburlaine and his fol-
lowers if he should win, even suggesting the idea of human
captives drawing a chariot which Tamburlaine later puts
into practice. Rather than smashing inherent notions of
decency and humane conduct, Tamburlaine commits only the
crime of aspiring to the heights when he was basely born.
Marlowe does not condemn him for this within the play;
Tamburlaine wins all his battles, dying a natural death
at the end of Part 2. The trait which he bequeaths to
subsequent drama is soaring ambition, involving more of
a threat to social conventions than a wholesale ideological
attack against the fundamental principles which make society
and civilization possible. In short, a society of Tam-
burlaines, though staggering to contemplate,is possible;

a society of Iagos is inconceivable, even a contradiction

 

16 Ellis-Fermor, pp. 13-5.

209

in terms.

Marlowe also created the second great ambitious vil-
lain on the Elizabethan stage, Barabas, the Jew of Malta.
Barabas is not concerned with an earthly crown, but rather
wants to enclose "Infinite riches in a little roome."

C. V. Boyer Offers the traditional portrait of Barabas

as a Machiavel: he dissembles, shows religious hypocrisy,
is a treacherous egotist, acts under the control of the
devil, and dies cursing. To Boyer, the figure of Barabas
rather than Tamburlaine sets the pattern for the future
develOpment of this character, a hero who

commences his tragic career out of hatred and re-

venge, pursues his plot by guile, but oversteps

all bounds Of justice and reason in the cruelty

of his deeds, and is finally taken in his own

toils and destroyed.1
But Bernard Spivack sees in Barabas the hybrid image of
a Vice figure in a non-morality play. Especially after
his meeting with Ithimore, who supplements his Vice char-
acteristics, Barabas puts his villainy on demonstration
and shows the moral pedigree, the tricks of weeping and
laughter, and the deceitful stratagems which mark the Vice.18

Both these views have merit and can be supported from
the play. Machiavelli appears as Prologue, announcing

that Barabas has acquired his wealth through Machiavellian

means. Barabas himself uses the Machiavellian tag word,

 

17 .Ihfi IIIIEIB as.flsrc 1Q Elizabethan Drama, p. 52.
18 W and. the A_ll_sgsr_‘x 9.11 E 11. pp. 3h8-51.

210

policy, particularly in describing how he became Governor
of Malta and how he intends to pursue that office. The
elements which Spivack analyzes are present in the make-up
of Barabas, but they do not necessarily make him a Vice
figure. For Barabas can be considered naturalistically
as a man driven by two great passions: ambition to amass
wealth, which is primary, and hatred of Christians, which
often operates as a supplementary and only slightly lesser
motive. Barabas is introduced gloating over his riches
in a scene that sets the tone for the rest of the play.
He quickly strikes the second theme of his character, con-
tempt of all Christians, pointing out very clearly that
his ambition is for wealth and not power: the Christians
can be kings as long as the Jews, and particularly Barabas,
can be rich. As a normal concomitant to these main motives,
Barabas is an extreme egotist. When Malta is threatened
with invasion, he emphasizes that his only concern is for
himself: "Egg mihimet m mngxim 3." At another
point he brags that he was framed of a finer mold than
other men. Most of his characteristics are summed up in
his instructions to Ithimore:

First be thou voyd of these affections,

Compassion, love, vaine hope, and hartlesse feare,

Be mov'd at nothing, see thou pitty none,

But to thy selfe smile when the Christians moane."

(ll. 93h-7)

The negation of compassion and love by an all-consuming

egotism dOes give Barabas some kinship with the intellec-

tual villain and his general character makes a comparison

211

with Shylock inevitable. Both Jews are depicted as misers
who hate Christians. But Barabas' railing against Chris-
tians as faithless schemers is so pervasive in the play
and so often motiveless in a given situation as to suggest
that it reflects Marlowe's rather than Barabas' attack

on Christianity. Shylock, on the other hand, generally
has specific wrongs from Antonio or other Christians to
motivate his enmity. Moreover, Shylock views the world
realistically and plans on the basis of his knowledge,
whereas Barabas, though very adept at devising stratagems,
almost haphazardly races through a series of plots aimed
at satisfying one or both of his great passions. Marlowe
begins with the passion and the character evolves from
this, bursting forth in many directions. By contrast,
Shakespeare's intellectual villains seem more ordered;
extremely rational, they appear to exercise control over
the plot and with the expression of their distinctive
world view they consistently suggest that evil is much more
than simply criminal activity.

The line of the ambitious villain runs through three
plays of the early 1590's which require only a brief notice.
In The Massacrg at.£aris, the ruthless, scheming Duke of
Guise contrives the slaughter of French Protestants, not
primarily out of religious conviction but as a step in
a program Of Obtaining the French crown for himself. His
soliloquies do not advance villainous ideas, but simply

express his degree of resolution. His whole being is

212

devoted to the fulfillment of his ambition; he will either
succeed or die. When his plans fail and death is inevit-
able, Guise scorns flight and succumbs with the haughty
brazenness of a man who has staked all and lost. Muly
Mahamet of Thg Battlg Q: Alcazar varies the pattern some-
what by seeking to regain a crown he had originally usurped
but subsequently lost. His son suggests that Muly can
recover his power by valor or policy. Though he is valor-
ous enough, Muly is devoid not only of villainous ideas,
but of all ideas. He is reduced to raging against his
exile and nerving himself for another battle. Defeated,
he can only curse his enemies. The passion of love touches
the villain Sacripant of Orlando Furioso, but he views
the possession of Angelica merely as a stepping-stone
to his more important goal, the crown. Sacripant's all-
consuming ambition and its accompanying egotism are char-
acterized in the following speech:

Honor,--me thinkes the title is too base:

Mightie, glorious, and excellent,--

I,these, my glorious Genius, sound within my mouth;

These please the eare, and with a sweet applause,

Makes me in tearmes coequall with the Gods.l9
Although he is momentarily overcome by conscience when
Orlando defeats him and he confesses to wronging Angelica
in Orlando's eyes, the great egotism and the great dis-
appointment of unfulfilled ambition return in Sacripant's

final words:

Heaven, earth, men, beasts, and every living thing,

 

19 The Plays and Pgems g: Robert Greene, ed. J. Churton
Collins, I, 11. 254-8.

213

Consume and end with Countie Sacrepant. (11. 1290-1)

Citing their similar traits of aspiration and confi-
dence, Miss Ellis-Fermor would agree with me in placing
Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois in line of descent from Tamburlaine.
She thinks, however, that elements of Stoicism in Bussy's
character and "a sense of dislocation and uncertainty of
spiritual values, impossible to the unmoral Tamburlaine
and his creator" illustrate the Jacobean extensioncf Mar-
lowe's ideas.20 Stoic philOSOphy so colors Bussy's ambi-
tion as to make him unique among the characters dominated
by a desire for advancement, for Bussy will rise only through
virtue and not through policy or conquest. Finding himself
poor in a world in which "Fortune, not Reason, rules the
state of things," Bussy will nevertheless remain true to
his principles of honesty and possibly set a new fashion
at court by succeeding through virtuous actions. Even
though his philOSOphy tells him that no man rises through
his own merit, but only as Fortune shapes his course, and
the first step up is prelude to a man's fall, Bussy still
wants to advance:

I'll venture that; men that fall low must die,

As well as men cast headlong from the sky.

(I, l, lh2-3)

There is some question whether Bussy's actions can be con-
sidered villainous. Like Tamburlaine, he does only those
things which his society accepts. He kills men, but only

in a formal, arranged combat; he loves a married woman,

 

20 Ellis-Fermor, p. 65.

21h

but she returns the passion and they are certainly not

the only pair of adulterous lovers at the French court.
Moreover, Bussy is the victim, not the instigator of the
plots of the play. As Henry Wells has pointed out, the
distinctions between Elizabethan villains and heroes are
not always clear.21 The important thing is that Bussy

is goaded by ambition into actions which are sins against
absolute morality if not against the standards of his im-
mediate society. When Fortune turns against him, Bussy
still has the prop of his Stoic beliefs and dies nobly,
with great dignity and fortitude. Monsieur, the king's
brother, who first enlists Bussy's aid in his own struggle
for the crown and then turns against a Bussy favored by
the king, is an ambitious villain more clearly given to
evil actions. As Bussy charges, Monsieur's "politicall
head is the cursed fount/ Of all the violence, rapine,
cruelty,/ Tyrannie, and atheisme flowing through the realme."
(III, 2, 495-7) 80, whether he personifies the theme of
ambition in a protagonist or a villain, Chapman, in Egggy
D'Ambois, continues the dramatic portrayal of the character
out to make or mend his fortune.

Jonson's Sejanus is a character, who in Boas' des-
cription, is "wholly compact of evil."22 This evil is
entirely directed to maintaining and furthering Sejanus'
position of equal power and eminence with the emperor

Tiberius. His readiness to use any means is brought

 

21 Wells, p. 18.
22 Ag Introduction 23 Stuart Drama, p. 77.

 

215

out in the following exchange with Tiberius, after Sejanus

has suggested murder as a possible course of action:

Tib: That nature, bloud, and lawes of kinde forbid.
Sej: Doe policie, and state forbid it?

T;§:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Are rites. . . . .

Of faith, love, piety, to be trod down?

Forgotten? and made vaine? ng: All for a crowne.

The prince, who shames a tyrannes name to bear,

Shall never dare do anything, but feare." (II, 175-9)
Sejanus plans to use Tiberius' fear as an instrument to
get rid of his own rivals. For a while the scheme works
to perfection. At the beginning of Act V, Sejanus exults
at reaching the summit of power. When friends inform him
of prodigies and omens which presage ill, Sejanus comments:
"What excellent fooles/ Religion makes of men." (11. 69-70)
Not the Roman gods but Fortune is his deity; but when For-
tune turns her face against him, Sejanus says that men con-
trol Fortune. In his rejection of religion, his willingness
to use politic means, and his own mastery over fate, Sejanus
is very close to Shakespeare's intellectual villains; there
is an important difference, however, as Sejanus is foremost
a creature of an ambition that shapes and colors all of
the world for him. He does not look at the world as a thor-
ough-going rationalist, cynically rejecting those principles
and values which those around him hold dear,but rather sets
his sights on the imperial throne and then surrenders him-
self tO whatever means are necessary to achieve that end.

He is closer to Tamburlaine than to Richard III.

Seemingly pleased with Sejanus' actions, the emperor

216

Tiberius is actually very much concerned over his growing
power and sets a spy to watch Sejanus. This man, Macro,
is a worthy match for Sejanus:

He that will thrive in state, he must neglect

The trodden paths, that truth and right respect;

And prove new, wilder wayes: (III, 736-8)

After Tiberius and Macro have brought about the downfall

and death of Sejanus, the play is ended with an explicit

lesson drawn from the fate of the overly proud, ambitious
man:

Let this example moove the insolent man,

Not to grow proud, and carelesse of the gods:

It is an odious wisedome, to blaspheme,

Much more to slighten, or denie their powers.

For, whom the morning saw so great, and high,

Thus low, and little, 'fore the even doth lie.

In Cataline, similar in design and intent to Se’anus,
Jonson states, through the words of Cicero, just what the
evil effects of ambition are. Cataline's ambition is des-
cribed as

being both a rebell

Unto the soule, and reason, and enforceth

All lawes, all conscience, treades upon religion,

And offereth violence to nature's selfe.

So Cataline, like Sejanus, overpowered by ambition, moves
into actions and realms of thought destructive of the ideals
which Jonson would uphold for human beings. Both plays
present the degeneration of a man through the corrosive
action of great ambition; in the thoroughness of the pres-

entation, Jonson's two tragedies mark the culmination of

this often-utilized theme.

 

217

Two more ambitious villains deserve some attention.
Bernard Spivack considers Proditor in Middleton's Ih§_2hgg-
gig a post-Shakespearean Vice figure who is caught up in
the Psychomachia. In this late stage of development the
hybrid figure has moved far in the direction of naturalism
by having recognizable motives of ambition or revenge, but
still retains the quality of abstract evil, finding the
target for his enmity in the virtue of the victim.23
Proditor is a villain in both the main plot and the sub-
plot. In the latter, Proditor offers to help a boorish
captain get rid of his wife, Castiza, by buying the woman,
seducing her, and thus giving the captain grounds for
divorce. After the sale, Proditor reveals that he really
loves, or at least lusts after, Castiza for himself, and
rejects any further communicadon with the captain, who
is finally sent away in disgrace by Castiza's son. Castiza,
as befits her name, repels the advances of Proditor. In
the main plot Proditor's ambition comes to the fore. The
aged Duke of Ferrara prepares to hand over his power to
his son, Phoenix. Proditor, a courtier, shows his dislike
in muttered asides; aloud he suggests that Phoenix should
travel to complete his education, obviously so that Proditor
can take over in his absence. When Phoenix agrees to the
plan of travel and the other nobles commend him for his
wisdom, Proditor comments aside: "A little too wise, a

little too wise to live long." (I, l, 69) Proditor,

 

23 Spivack, p. 450.

218

occupied with Castiza, doesn't move against the duke

until Act IV and his motive of ambition must be read back
into his statements of Act I. Therefore, there is some
validity in Spivack's portrayal of him as an embodiment

of abstract evil. Spivack's reference to the Psychomachia
probably concerns the scene in which Proditor unknowingly
hires Phoenix, who has stayed in Ferrara in disguise in-
stead of traveling, to kill the duke, using the interesting

argument that Phoenix' posterity will benefit from the

 

wealth he will receive as a reward for the deed. This is
an extremely diluted Psychomachia in that Phoenix is never
really tempted to do evil, but is aware of his course from
the first moment of the play. His design in staying in
Ferrara is to keep such nobles as Proditor from usurping
the dukedom and to learn first hand of conditions there
so that he will be a better ruler when the title passes
into his hands legitimately. So rather than consider Prodi-
tor as a Vice, I think it is better to view him as part
of the line of ambitious villains, particularly because
of the intensity Of his commitment:

Ay, I'll turn my brain

Into a thousand uses, tire my inventions,

Make my blood sick with study, and mine eye

More hollow than my heart but I will fashion,

Nay, I will fashion it. (IV, 1, 15-9)
This is exactly the intense involvement of the ambitious
villain with his goal which has characterized the type from

Tamburlaine on.

The final ambitious villain, Sir Giles Overreach,

219

has been characterized by T. S. Eliot as "the terror of

a dozen parishes instead of the conqueror of a world."29

The type, then, plays out in a figure who has the same all-

consuming passion but a lesser field of operations. Like

Barabas, Overreach wants to amass wealth, but primarily

to the end of rising in the social order. .He tells his

daughter that he has done all for her and advises her:
Learn anything,

And from any creature that may make thee great;
From the devil himself. (III, 2, l20-2)

 

But she comments that this is devilish doctrine and refuses
to marry the lord he has picked out for her. Despite his
protestations that he is utilizing extortion, bribery, and
other harsh and inhumane methods only to pile up wealth
for his daughter, Overreach confesses to his prospective
son-in-law that there is also simply an evil streak in him:
'Tis for you,

My lord, and for my daughter, I am marble;

Nay more, if you will have my character

In little, I enjoy more true delight

In my arrival to my wealth these dark

And crooked ways, than you shall e'er take pleasure

In spending what my industry hath compass'd.

(IV, 1, 133-9)

Called a lion and a fox in his proceedings, Overreach's
first reaction when he has been outwitted and defeated
is to fight. But the violence of his overthrow unsettles
his mind and the memory of his evil past destroys his

ability to struggle ("Some undone widow sits upon my arm,/

And takes away the use of 't;"). Nerving himself to fight

 

2h Selected Essays, p. 193.

220

to the end rather than yield ingloriously, Overreach rushes
against his adversaries only to fall, helplessly and hOpe-
lessly mad, to the ground. Above his prostrate body, Lovell
intones the pious moral:

Here is a precedent to teach wicked men

That when they leave religion, and turn atheists,

Their own abilities leave 'em. (V, 1, 380-2)
Overreach's all-consuming passion for his daughter's advance-

ment and his evil methods make him a typical ambitious

villain. The constricted area in which he acts serves to

 

mark a definite stopping point for this discussion of a
type which has moved from seeking the sweet fruition of
an earthly crown to the sweet fruition of a noble title.
In all these villains the distinguishing trait has been
complete involvement in securing the goal of ambition,
not inherently evil ideas, which has led to villainous
action.

The second major group of villains I call self-seeking.
They are not ambitious in the sense of trying to attain
a position not rightfully theirs but rather are motivated
to act against specific characters by vengeance for the
death of a friend or relative, by a sense of honor, either
personal or familial, or by the pursuance of a passion,
such as love, which is being thwarted by someone. As in
the case of the ambitious villains, some of the self-seek-
ing villains are protagonists of their plays while others
are more prOperly villains, directing their evil against

the protagonist.

221

Of the possible motives for the self-seeking villain,
revenge proved the most pOpular in Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama. Ihg Spanish ngggdy offers the model of the type,
Hieronimo, with his solemn commitment to revenge, his mad-
ness, his impassioned speeches, his stratagems to entrap
the murderers, and his own final destruction, once the
revenge has been achieved. In addition to the protagonist
Hieronimo, Ihg S aglgh Tragedy also contains a true villain,

Lorenzo, who actually controls the action for more than

 

half of the play and who represents the non-vengeful as-
pects of the self-seeking villain. The enmity between
Lorenzo and Horatio arises when both claim the honor of
capturing the Portuguese prince, Balthazar, in a recent
war and becomes active when Lorenzo finds his sister Bel-
Imperia favoring the suit of Horatio instead of his own
candidate Balthazar. To Lorenzo this is sufficient motive
for the murder of Horatio and he goes about hiring con-
federates with this policy:

Where words prevail not, violence prevails;

But gold doth more than either of them both.

(II, 1, 108-9)

Lorenzo's sinister and double-dealing nature is shown as
he carefully and systematically kills off all, except
Balthazar, who had knowledge of the crime. When Bel-Imperia
complains of his harsh treatment of her, Lorenzo says he
has acted only to protect her honor. Though, in justify-
ing Horatio's murder to Bel-Imperia, Lorenzo must fab-

ricate a story to illustrate what he means by honor, honor

222

is nevertheless the mainspring of his actions. His sister
is a princess and thus above the attentions of a mere
marshal's son like Horatio; she can only marry a prince,
even if he is a former enemy. Subsequent dramatists eagerly
adopted the characters of Hieronimo and Lorenzo for their
own use. Indeed, Thg,§pagish Tnagggy is a veritable store-
house of villainy; as we shall see later, the third type,
the subordinate villain, is also well represented in the
play.

Clois Hoffman in Chettle's Hoffman follows the lead
set by Hieronimo, though Bernard Spivack considers him
a Vice because of his use of deceit and dissimulation,
particularly Hoffman's long disguise as another character,
and his rapid alternation between laughter and weeping.
In summary Spivack speaks of

the whole tendency of his role to gambol from the

purpose which defines him morally into successive

homiletic demonstrations of villainy, attended by

the temper and devices that for two centuries were

part of such a performance.25
Hoffman has the difficult task of avenging his father's
death against several powerful nobles, but from the first
is convinced of the justice of his cause and the necessity
to act:

Where truth leadeth, what coward would not fight?

Ill acts move some, but myne's a cause that's right.

(I, 1, 11-12)

Differing from Hieronimo in the vigorous and immediate

enactment of vengeance, Hoffman moves from success to

 

25 Spivack, p. 357.

 

223

success, largely because he has disguised himself as his
first victim and is able to roam freely the noble house-
hold where his intended victims are congregated. Hoffman's
only weak spot, one which proves fatal, is lust for his
supposed "mother." Interestingly, those intended victims
still alive in Act V band together to swear and execute
vengeance against Hoffman, using the woman to lure him to
his death. The dying Hoffman scorns all suggestions of

forgiveness and pardon and even refuses to accept any

 

prayers for his soul. During the play Hoffman's soliloquies
concern only his plots to achieve revenge and contain none
of the ideas which characterize the intellectual villain.

From beginning to end, except for his fatal weakness of

lust, Hoffman is entirely given over to the purSuit of
vengeance. Just as with the ambitious villains, his
involvement is total.

A second self-seeking villain whom Spivack considers
a Vice, because of his fixed and inveterate hatred, is
Piero of Marston's Antonio's nggng .26 The more traditional
vieWpoint is expressed by Miss Ellis-Fermor,who calls Piero
a cross between a Machiavel and a Senecan tyrant.27 Both
’conceptions receive strong support from the text. In the
first act of Antggig's Bgygpgg, Piero not only speaks Of
his great hatred for Andrugio, but also tells how he has
dissembled love and friendship in order to lure his victim

to his death. Piero not only quotes from Thyestes but also

 

26 Spivack, p. 360.
27 Ellis-Fermor, p. 16, fn. 5.

224

has several discourses on a ruler's power in the spirit
of both Atreus and Machiavelli.

Piero's development begins in Agygpig gag Mellida,
the dramatic predecessor of Antonio's Rgvgnge. His Ve-
netian navy has defeated the Genoan fleet commanded by
Andrugio and his son Antonio. The exultant Piero demands
the heads of his enemies as truce pledges because

The intestine malice, and inveterate hate

I alwaies bore to that Andrugio

Glories in triumph ore his misery:28
Later Piero says that he is revenging his family against
Andrugio in forbidding Antonio to marry his daughter Mel-
lida. But this play ends in reconciliation: Andrugio is
at peace with Piero and plans for the wedding of Antonio
and Mellida are made. Marston's intention in this play
is not to write a tragedy but to satirize certain vices
in society.

In the sequel Marston's intent has changed, requiring
some blackening of Piero's character, a process that was
begun in the earlier play. Antonio's Revenge opens with
a bloody Piero glorying in the murder of Andrugio and
another noble whose corpse he has bound to his daughter
in an attempt to dishonor her in Antonio's eyes:

I can scarce coope triumphing vengeance up
From bursting forth in braggart passion. (p. 71)

Piero gives as motive for the murder of Andrugio the fact

that both had loved the same woman and Andrugio had won her:

 

I 28 Thg Plgys 9f John Marston, ed. H. Harvey Wood,
15.
’

225

For which, I burnt in inward sweltring hate,

And festred rankling malice in my breast,

Till I might belke revenge upon his eyes: (p. 71)
While this motive cannot be read back to the earlier play,
the end result and direction of Piero's feelings, invet-
erate hatred of Andrugio, are the same in both plays.

Piero invites comparison with Hamlet in outlining his future
plans: "Poyson the father, butcher the son, & marrie
the mother; ha?" (p. 73)

Piero utilizes one of Lorenzo's favorite devices;
he gets underlings to carry out his plots, then kills them,
boasting of this as his policy:

Why, thus should States-men doe,

That cleave through knots of craggie pollicies

Use men like wedges, one strike out another. (p. 115)
In his only expression of a world view, Piero answers for

the killing of the noble whom he bound to his daughter:

There glowe no sparkes of reason in the world;
All are rak't up in ashie beastliness.

I he no r ason to be reasonable.. (p: 81)
In the context of Marston's consistent bitter satire this
statement reads more like the credo of the author than the
character. In any event the conclusion reached from this
cynical observation is not that reached by the intellec-
tual villains who advance from cynicism to a very rational
appraisal of the world and their place in it and often to
rational plots to better their position.

The play, of course, derives its title from Antonio's
revenge; in Act V he finally gets around to his statement

of dedication:

226

Now, therefore, pittie, piety, remorse,

Be aliens to our thoughts; rim fier-ey'd rage

Possess us wholly. (p. 130%

Joining with others wronged by Piero he tortures, then kills,
the tyrannous duke. However, the leading villain through-
out the two plays has been Piero, and, given his motives

and actions, the concept of the self-seeking villain not
only explains Piero but is more readily applicable to him
than to Antonio. This concept is broad and general enough
to contain, rather than deny categorically, the insights

of both Spivack and Miss Ellis-Fermor.

The Malpontent also presents two characters bent on
revenge. The Malcontent himself wants vengeance on those
who have usurped his dukedom, but he is a greater creation
and a more interesting character than a mere revenger, as
Miss Ellis-Fermor has pointed out, because of his variable-
ness, his consciousness of himself, his weariness and dis-
gust, his incisive wit, his hardness of purpose, and his
macabre jesting.29 Mendoza, however, emerges as the real
villain; like the Malcontent he is prompted to action by
a wrong to himself, though, later, ambition causes him to
seek the dukedom for himself.

In the court of the usurping duke, Pietro, Mendoza
is both a favorite of the duke and the lover of the duchess.
But this secure and pleasant life is shattered when the duke

suspects him of being the duchess' lover whereas the duchess

is replacing him with a rival. These new circumstances

 

29 Ellis-Fermor, p. 92.

 

 

227

lead Mendoza to revenge against the duke, the duchess, and

his rival, Ferneze:

Shall have swift vengeance, nothing so holy,

No band of nature so strong,

No law Of friendship so sacred,

But ile profane, burst, violate. (p. 163)
Mendoza even has a general philOSOphy of sorts which justi-
fies revenge:

and man is (all confesse)
More prone to vengeance then to gratefulnesse. (p. 166)

Mendoza, then, like the other self-seeking villains, makes
an extreme commitment to revenge; in its grip he challenges
principles of order and decency. He does this,however,

only at the height of passion; he does not have a consistent
world view which colors all his thoughts and actions. Hav-
ing achieved his revenge, he would probably become the same
self-satisfied courtier he was at the play's beginning.

The ease with which Mendoza gets rid of Ferneze, how-
ever, turns him from mere fulfillment of revenge to ambi-
tion for the ducal title. This ambition is his undoing as
the threat he poses unites Pietro and the Malcontent. When
the Malcontent returns to power,Mendoza is reduced to beg-
ging for his life, which is mercifully granted him. Men-
doza is resolute only when conceiving and carrying out his
self-seeking villainy; otherwise,he is in no way a char-
acter whose principles are a challenge to the universe.

With Chapman's Clermont D'Ambois of The Revenge pf
Bussv Q;Ambois we return to a revenger who is the protagonist

of the play. Clermont's attempts to avenge his brother are

228

complicated and postponed by his Stoic philOSOphy as well
as by his own dodging of the king's plots to kill him.
Actually Clermont is not, strictly speaking, a villain; the
perfect "Senecall man," he is loathe to kill to repay a
killing:

Doe ill for no ill; never private cause

Should take on it the part of publicke lawes.
(III, 2, 118-9)

Most of his speeches are discourses on Stoic philOSOphy--
the necessity of accepting and obeying God's will, the
belief in reason as a better guide for men than passions--
but he deserves consideration as an interesting variant

on the type of the revenger. As he is also a warrior, both
Wells and Miss Ellis-Fermor have seen in him a watered-
down Tamburlaine with an infusion of Stoic ideas; but since
his actions aim at revenge, it seems more suitable to group
him with the self-seeking villains, remembering that both
elements of this phrase are approximate rather than exact
description.

Clermont is even slower to perform the act of venge-
ance than Hamlet. In Act V the ghost of Bussy appears to
whet his purpose,which by now seems more non-existent than
blunted. Four acts of waiting have taught the ghost that
he must take the Stoic tack if he is to appeal successfully
to Clermont; this he does by stressing the justice of
revenge, whereupon Clermont forthwith kills Montsurry, his
brother's murderer. However, when Clermont hears that his

friend Guise has been killed by the king, he is quick to

229

recognize limits to revenge:

Theres no disputing with the acts of Kings;

Revenge is impious on their sacred ersons.

V, 5, 151-2)

So Clermont takes the Stoic way out of this dilemma by
killing himself. His ideas are far from villainous; rather
they remain consistently true to the Stoic ideal which
Chapman is exploring in the play.

Though they are contrasted throughout the play, both
the Cardinal and Ferdinand in The Duchess 9: Mali; are ex-
amples of the self-seeking villain. Ferdinand, who has in
Antonio's words "A most perverse, and turbulent Nature,"
always acts and reacts with violent passion; his eventual
madness is in keeping with his character. Although his state-
ment that he would have been wealthy if the duchess had
remained a widow is Obviously an attempt to give him some
motive late in the play, it does add the element of gain
to his more general motive of a sense of honor which includes
not only what is proper conduct for his noble sister who
should be under his control but also the feeling that she
lshould'be killed for marrying beneath her. Ferdinand's
immediate pity for the duchess and eventual madneSs show
that love and regard for the decencies of life were stronger
in him than even the pull to evil actions. The Cardinal,
by contrast, is always contrOlled and composed. Miss Ellis-
Fermor feels that he marks "the only surviving attempt to

present dramatically a figure derived directly from Machi-

230

avelli's Prince."30 The Cardinal has the same general
motive of honor as Ferdinand does; they act together in
I, 3, in telling the duchess not to remarry. Later, upon
hearing from Ferdinand that the duchess is a strumpet, the
Cardinal comments:
Shall our blood,

The royal blood of Arragon and Castile,

Be thus attainted? (II, 5, 22-A)
The Cardinal also has his position in the church and his
amhtion to be pope as more particular motives to keep any
family scandal or even hint of lust from damaging his own

reputation, careless as he might be furtively about his

own morals. Despite the Cardinal's calm, rational, politic

approach throughout the play, he succumbs to conscience near

the end. He dies with dignity and resignation, willing

to atone for the sin he has committed.

Massinger's Dukg gfi Milan inevitably invites comparison

with Othello. Wells is one critic who has drawn the Obvious

parallel between Francisco and Iago, pointing out that Fran-

cisco is more plausibly motivated than Iago.31 Spivack
believes that Francisco, like Iago, is a Vice figure.32
Like Iago, Francisco seduces a man into killing his cher-
ished, and innocent, wife. The motive he expresses for
his hatred of the Duke of Milan is revenge:

Revenge first wrought me; murder's his twin brother:

 

30 Ellis-Fermor, p.16, fn. 6.
31 Wells, p. 66.
32 Spivack, p. A50.

231

One deadly sin, then, help to cure another!33

And later:

Nay, all I could desire, and make way

To my revenge, which shall disperse itself

On him, on her, and all. (p. 60)
Like Iago also, Francisco utilizes the goodness of the
duchess against her. Francisco's specific cause for re-
venge is not made clear until Act V, thus leading Spivack
to his view that Francisco, as a descendant of the Vice,
is simply working against love and harmony. However, the
suggestion as early as II, 1, that Francisco rose by pros-
tituting his sister to the duke (borne out by his later
statement of seeking revenge against the duke for ill treat-
ment of the sister) plus the constant harping on the theme
of revenge inclines me to agree with Wells judgment. Fran-
cisco himself bolsters the Opinion that he committed his
evil acts not because of evil ideas or because he is evil
incarnate, but simply because he had a personal motive
against the duke:

Give me all attributes

Of all you can imagine, yet I glor

To be the thing I was born. I AM rancisco;

Francisco, that was raised by you, and made

The minion of the time; the same Francisco

That would have whored this trunk, when it had life,

And, after, breathed a jealousy upon thee,

As killing as those damps that belch out plagues

When the foundation of the earth is shaken:

I made thee do a deed Heaven will not pardon,

Which was--to kill an innocent. (p.100)

Since he has kept his word of vengeance, Francisco can

 

33 Phillip Massinger, ed. Arthur Symons, The Mermaid
Series, p. A2.

232

dare all the tortures promised him at the end of the play
and "leave the world with glory," having righted a great
wrong.

In sheer heaping up of incident, number of evil and
vengeful characters, and poetic atmosphere, The Revenger's
Tragedy culminates the portrayal of self-seeking villainy.
All the characters who seek revenge are motivated by some
sexual sin or crime; as Wells has stated, the world of the
play is one of "virtually unmixed evil" in which the "chaste
and virtuous Vendice is no less brutal than his wholly de-
praved enemies."3h Many of the conventional themes and
practices of the revenge plays unite in The Revenger's
Tragedy: the main revenger disguises himself as a mal-
content, satirizing the vices, particularly sexual, of the
society around him; there are many plots and stratagems
to effect the revenge; and there are many passionate avowals
of the solemn commitment to revenge. To all this Tourneur
adds unique touches of horror and depravity: corpses are
dressed to simulate a live person and then poisoned to serve
as instruments of death, and a son, to test his mother,
offers her a bribe to prostitute her daughter, only to
discover that the mother acquiesces. Miss Ellis-Fermor
has called the characters of this play "embodied passions,"35
and as such it is fitting that they climax the develOpment

of a type more marked by passions which have evil conse-

 

3h Wells, p. 3h.
35 Ellis-Fermor, p. 16A.

233

quences than by villainous ideas.

Another type of self-seeking villain is presented in
Ihg Changeling. Here the motive for murder is not revenge,
but the desire to get rid Of an unwanted fiance and thereby
make room for marriage to a lover. Critics have usually
pointed out a difference in the two main characters who
plot and execute the crime. To use Henry Wells' terms,
Beatrice-Joanna is "criminal almost by accident" whereas
DeFlores is "criminal by nature."36 Similarly, T. S. Eliot
sees in the play "the tragedy of the not naturally bad but
irresponsible and undeveloped nature, caught in the conse-
quences of its own action."37 Thus, the real tragedy for
Beatrice is that she becomes habituated to her sin and that
she has won DeFlores instead of the man she killed for.38
The foul and ugly DeFlores is also motivated by great love;
so great, indeed, that he endures vituperation merely for
a sight of Beatrice, even for the pleasure of hearing her
curse him. Both characters are completely dominated by
the passion of love and remain consistent at the end of
the play. Beatrice, realizing the horror of her actions,
acknowledges her defilement and her fate, but, as a basically
decent person, asks forgiveness. DeFlores, for whom the
love of Beatrice was the crown of life declares:

I thank life for nothing
But that pleasure; it was so sweet to me,

That I have drunk up all, left none behind
For any man to pledge me. (V, 3, 169-72)

 

36 Wells , p. [4.1.
37 Eliot, p. 142
38 M° ’ p0 11:3-

23h

then joyfully kills himself in a kind of love pact.

The issues raised by the self-seeking villains fade
out of the drama, not in time but in degree of seriousness
and consistency, in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. The
themes of honor and chastity still govern the activities
of the characters Of such typical plays as Philaster and
‘IQ§,Mgid's Tgagedy, but there are no completely developed
villains; rather the characters are always subordinated
to the melodramatic changes the dramatists can ring on the
plot. Miss Ellis-Fermor characterizes the work of Beaumont
and Fletcher as essentially escape into an unreal world in
which "the motives have been supplied after the situations
and emotional crises have been determined upon."39 This
drama need not concern us, then, except to mark the ex-
treme Opposite of the intellectual villain.

The third type of villainy commonly found in the drama
Vof Shakespeare's contemporaries is that performed by a sub-
ordinate, either a minor character in a subplot or the under-
ling of a major villain in the main plot. These villains
are unified as a group by having simply monetary reward
as their main motive; they do not have the great drive to
power of the ambitious villains or the destructive passion
of the self-seeking villains. They actually make a living
from villainy, Often selling their talents to the highest
bidder and even changing sides during the action of a play.

More often than not,these subordinate villains have no

 

39 Ellis-Fermor, p. 207.

235

personal interest in their victims.

The villain who is subordinate in being a secondary
character operating only in a subplot is exemplified in
Villuppo of The Spanish Tragedy,who explains his telling
the Viceroy of Portugal an untruth about his son's death:

Thus have I with an envious, forged tale

Deceiv'd the king, betray'd mine enemy

And hope for querdon of my villainy. (I, 3, 93-5)
Villuppo does Offer personal hatred as a partial motive,
but when his plot is uncovered in III, 1, he says in con-
fessing his misdeed that he acted for reward only and not
for the injury of the man he had implicated by his lie-

Ithimore of Egg ng gijalpg is an early example of
the subordinate villain who is the tool of a greater vil-
lain. Barabas was delighted to find in the Turk Ithimore
a man who shared his own passions:

we are villains both,

Both circumcised, we hate Christians both.

Be true and secret, thou shalt want no gold.

(11. 979-81)
Goaded by Barabas' ever more lavish promises of reward,
Ithimore carries out many Of his master's plots. Smitten
by lust for the courtesan Bellamira, however, Ithimore
changes allegiance and becomes a tool for Bellamira and
the "bully," Pilia-Borza, to blackmail Barabas. Later,
when captured by the authorities, Ithimore readily confesses
all of Barabas' villainy before going to his death.

Another Ithimore-like villain is Lorrique of The Tragedy

9f Hoffman. If ever villain exhibited complete and motive-

less malignity, Lorrique does:

236

I was made of no other stuffe, villainy is my onely

patrimony: though 1 bee an irreligious slave, yet

I bear a religious name, though I want courage,

yet in talke, I'le put them all downe, though I

have nothing in me that is good. (11. 89-92)
Lorrique also suggests the difference between himself and
the villain who has a personal stake in his victims:

Blood I begun in and in blood must end yet this

Clois is an honest villaine, ha's conscience in

his killing of men: he kils none but his fathers

enemies, and there issue, 'tis admirable, 'tis

excellent, 'tis well 'tis meritorious, where? in

heaven? no, hell. (ll. 659-6h)
After helping Hoffman achieve some of his intended revenge,
Lorrique yields to the first pressure put on him by Hoff-
man's enemies, joins their conspiracy to kill Hoffman,
but is himself killed by his suspicious master. Spivack,
who sees in Barabas and Hoffman the Vice of the morality
plays, comments that Ithimore and Lorrique SUpplement the
characteristics of the Vice role, particularly in taking
over the comic aspects, thus leaving the main villain with
an entirely serious role, and adding to the growing natural-
ism of the Vice figures."O But both Ithimore and Lorrique
can also be seen as self-conscious villains, differing
more in kind than degree from their masters. Their even-
tual change of allegiance gives them some life apart from
being mere complements to the characters whose fortunes
they originally serve.

Webster raises the subordinate villain to a position

of importance, somewhat uncertainly and obscurely in

Flamineo of The White Devil, more clearly and firmly in

 

ho Spivack, pp. 319—60.

237

Bosola of The Duchess Q: Ealf;. Miss Ellis-Fermor, who
weighs the Jacobean villains on a scale of Machiavellian-
ism, states that these two contain "flaws by which normal
humanity almost inevitably destroys the perfect flowering
of the complete politician." In differentiating the two,
she calls Flamineo "an imperfect Machiavellian who bungles
in practice though he is clear enough in intention" and
Bosola a "fitful, complex and inconsistent plotter" who
reflects on the concept of policy itself.hl

Flamineo, besides acting as Brachiano's tool, has
some personal interest in the plot in that he is pandering
his own married sister to the married Brachiano. Flamineo's
motive is entirely his own reward; he alerts his brother-
in-law to sexual jealousy in the hope of finding another
employer, and when Brachiano fails him, he tries to get
his sister to pay him for his services. Though he does
shift about in his allegiance, Flamineo most consistently
operates for Brachiano's interest, particularly in murder-
ing the two unwanted spouses. Coming under suspicion for
these murders, Flamineo puts on an antic disposition for
protection, and in this guise utters several cynical
comments:

0 Gold, what a God art thou! and 0 man, what a

devill art thou to be tem ted by that cursed

Minerall! (III, 3, 19-21

Religion; oh how it is commedled with policie.

The first bloudshed in the world happened about
religion. Would I were a Jew. (III, 3, 36-8)

 

Al Ellis-Fermor, p. 16, fn. 6; pp. 176-8.

238

But awareness of his own need to get ahead,as well as the
necessary means to accomplish this, controls Flamineo
rather than cynicism about the world's ideals: "Knaves
do grow great by being great mens apes? (IV, 2, 246)
After killing his brother, Flamineo confesses to feelings
of compassion and the pangs of conscience. Visited by
Brachiano's ghost, he asks: "What religion's best/ For

a man to die in?" (V, 4, 122-3) At his death Flamineo
becomes his own man: "My life hath done service to other
men,/ My death shall serve mine owne turne." (V, 5, 51-2)
He dies thinking nothing and remembering nothing, but

in no way breaking down. Flamineo is not a fundamentally
good man who has served an evil master, but an Opportunist
who has sought to advance himself through any means and
one who accepts resignedly the reverses in his fortunes
as well as the successes.

Bosola operates as the tool of the Cardinal and
Ferdinand in their campaign to prevent the remarriage of
the Duchess of Malfi. Although he is one of drama's slower
and blinder spies, Bosola eventually supplies the brothers
with the information which leads to the tragic denouement.
Outwardly a malcontented railer, his inner reality is
clearly perceived by Antonio:

Indeede he railes at those things which he wants,

Would be as leacherous, covetous, or proud,

Bloody, or envious, as any man,

If he had meanes to be so. (I, 1, 26-9)

Bosola proposes to get the means by working for the Cardinal

and Ferdinand:

239

Let good men, for good deeds, covet good fame,

Since place, and riches oft are bribes of shame--
Sometime the Divell doth preach. (I, 1, 315-7)
Cautious in his spying methods, Bosola is equally circum-
spect in his ambitions: "I looke no higher than I can reach:
they are the gods, that must ride on winged horses." (II,

1, 91-3) Bosola, then, has no all-consuming pride or am-
bition leading him to trample on others, but simply hires
himself out with the almost bourgeois goal of making a
competent living. Growing disgusted with the methods of
his employers, Bosola eventually changes sides and plans
to help Antonio after the duchess has been killed. Un-
fortunately Bosola miscarries, killing Antonio accidentally:
"We are meerely theStarres tennys-balls (strooke, and
bandied/ Which way please them)." (V, A, 63-4) Surer of
his aim, Bosola becomes the instrument of revenge on the
Cardinal and Ferdinand, though he is also killed in the
struggle. He confesses his part in the play's villainy,
saying that he acted "Much 'gainst mine owne good nature."
(V, 5’ 108) Much more than Flamineo, Bosola is a basically
decent man turned by his own bad luck into the instrument
of another's evil. Like all the subordinate villains, he
commits his evil actions simply for reward and not because
he consciously and actively rejects all good principles
and values.

Finally, I would like to consider, separately and apart
from the types previously discussed, two plays which will

provide an epitome of the concepts of villainy utilized

2&0

by Shakespeare's contemporaries. For this purpose, I have
chosen a decidedly inferior play, Lust's Dominion, a con-
venient repository for the standard, conventional notions

of villainy which appeared to be part of every dramatist's
equipment, and Thg Athgifit's Tgagedy, a play which in its
title and main character presents the most often recurring
element of the villain's world view, and, with its villain
conceived in terms of evil ideas, the play which comes clos-
est to Shakespeare's conception of villainy.

Lust's Dominion, though poor reading for the study,
must have been an exciting stage spectacle. The rapid action
and sudden turns of the plot would hold an audience rapt,
but leave little time for the development of character,
particularly the formulation of principles of conduct.

About the villain, however, there can be no doubt. From
his opening utterances to his final boast that he will out-
do the devils in villainy, Eleazar is every inch the villain.
He has both revenge and ambition to motivate his actions,
adding victims to his list whenever anyone crosses him.
He makes lofty invocations as preludes to his actions:

Now, purple villainy,

Sit like a robe imperial on my back,

That under thee I closelier may contrive

My vengeance; foul deeds hid do sweetly thrive. (I, 2)
Lleazar also calls on Mischief to aid him, in an apparent
carry-over from the morality tradition. He utilizes all
information and all means to further his interest: "Care

not who fall, 'tis real policy." For Eleazar this includes

241

even prostituting his wife to the lust of the king. He
is ingenious in devising cruel torments for those who be-
come his prisoners. He can sway multitudes to follow his
will, and also has the strength and shrewdness to get from
individuals what he wants, always rewarding confederates
with death, imprisonment, or betrayal in the true villain-
ous tradition. He takes his fortune in his own hands, defy-
ing the stars. He is, to make the stereotype complete,
a Moor, and realizes he has been created a villain:

Ha, ha! I thank thee, provident creation,

That seeing in moulding me thou didst intend

I should prove villain; thanks to thee and nature,

That skillful workman: thanks for my face:

Thanks that I have not wit to blush! (II, 2)
In short, Eleazar is a monster who vividly exemplifies what
the mass of Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists made from
the complex of traditions and conventions influencing the
concept of villainy. Spivack discusses Eleazar as a Vice,
citing particularly his opening remark that he hates all
unity (also, of course, the only villainous idea that Ele-
azar expresses), his speeches which detail all the places
where he can perform villainy, and his laughter. In Spivack's
view, Eleazar forsakes "a moral nature for the homiletic
dimension of evil personified."h2 Thus Spivack, concen-
trating on only one of the traditional strands of influence,
achieves a summary judgment similar to mine, though I would

include other traditional elements: the Senecan tyrant,

the Machiavellian, the Marlovian ambitious villain, the

 

42 Spivack, p. 360.

2h2

Elizabethan revenger, the villain as Moor. It has been

my contention throughout this study that Shakespeare, though
he may use some of these conventional elements in his stage
representation of villains, actually has an individual con-
ception of villainy centering on the ideas given to the
characters. In the most fully-develOped villains there is

a complete world view which is inimical to the orthodox
Elizabethan world view; in the lesser this world view is
sometimes only hinted at but is clear enough in outline

to show that only one concept of villainy is at work.

The non-Shakespearean villain who comes closest to
this concept of villainy is D'Amville of Tourneur's Ihg
Atheist'g Tragedy. With its complete emphasis on atheism,
the character of D'Amville illustrates for us the one sig-
nificant element of traditional villainy absent from Ele-
azar's make-up. D'Amville is an atheist before he is a
villain; his Opening remarks, and many others throughout
the play, lay down his phi1050phica1 ideas from which he
derives the particular principles that serve as specific
motives for action, namely the securing of wealth for him-
self and his posterity. Miss Ellis-Fermor has commented
that the characters of this play are embodied principles
or ideas:

[Tourneug7 appears to think that the Opinions a

man holds (atheism, nature worship, conventional

piety) can be regarded as the sources from which

his actions spring; in fact, that conduct rests
directly upon principles and ideas.43

 

A} Ellis-Fermor, p. 16A.

2b3

Throughout the play D'Amville expounds atheistic ideas:hh
he sees man and animals as essentially similar with nothing
above man's nature; he attacks the hypocrisy of Christians;
he revels in the sensual implications of a natural philos-
Ophy; he is a scientific materialist who sees nothing
fearful in such natural effects as thunder; he sees no
natural bar to incest; he views money as the controlling
force of man's destiny and knows that such a view gives
him an advantage over men who worship providence. Moreover,
he acts from these principles, laying plots and committing
murder to further his own interests. In addition, D'Amville
carries the intelligent side of the intellectual villain
to the peak of the perfect crime:

Ay, mark the plot. Not any circumstance

That stood within the reach of the design

9f persons, dispositions, matter, time or place

but by this brain of mine was made

An instrumental help; yet nothing from

The induction to the accomplishment igemed forced,

Or done 0' purpose, but by accident.
In this and other ways, D'Amville, as Miss Ellis-Fermor
has pointed out, "makes his every action a demonstration
and delivers brief explanatory lectures on the application

of his theory even in the heat of action, plotting, or

crime."“6 Here, and in the notion of D'Amville as an

 

44 Though Francis Bacon defines the term (in "Of
Atheism") as simply the denial of a Creator, it often,
as here in Tourneur's use, connoted much of what today's
"communist" does when used as a broad, smear term: holding
Opinions contrary to the orthodox, or "safe," views in
any area, including, for example, sexual morality.

45 John Webster and Cyril Tourneur, ed. John Addington
Symonds, The Mermaid Series, p. 250.

A6 Ellis-Fermor, p. 165.

2AA

embodied idea, lies the essential difference between him
and Shakespeare's intellectual villains. For D'Amville
is, in effect, atheism anatomized; we see not only what
constitutes the complete atheist, but also what turns
him from his course: the consciousness of sin, the fail-
ure of nature to sustain the life of his son for whom every-
thing was done, the argument for the existence of God from
creation, and the fear of death. The play presents the
rise and fall of an atheist; the tragedy lies not only in
the atheist's death, but also, in a sense, in his complete
turnabout of intellectual principles: "Nature is a fool."
The interest, then, is to see what kind of being an atheist
is, what he does, and what can change him. The intellec-
tual villain does not undergo this radical change in ideo-
logy, but, even more importantly, is not conceived as simply
a character embodying certain ideas and acting out the
implications of these ideas. Rather he is a character
whose world view encompasses such ideas as atheism and
who consciously chooses to act on the basis of the informa-
tion supplied him by his particular insight into the world.
The concept of villainy in Renaissance drama has been
treated by modern scholars as simply a matter of conven-
tions and stage traditions, tagging the villains as Machi-
avels or Vices or else describing them as motiveless mon-
sters of personified evil. In one way or another the vil-
lains have been put into as easily recognized stereotypes

as the pale, scheming Jesuits of Gothic romance, the

2A5

sneering, mustachioed villains of nineteenth-century
melodrama, or the lean, hard, black-garbed gunman of today's
westerns. An impression often received from scholarly
accounts of Renaissance villains is that the dramatist
simply reached into a bag labeled "Machiavel" or "Vice"

or "monster" and came up with a ready-made character. While
this may be essentially true of the lesser, imitative dram-
atists, such a view does an injustice not only to Shake-
speare but to Marlowe, Webster, Tourneur, and others who

in their own ways created individualized villains. Con-
centrating on the naturalistic aspects of the villains

and analyzing their motives, their methods, their explicitly
stated world views, I have tried to get behind and go be-
yond thecnnventional explanations, using, whenever pos-
sible, fresh terminology to stress my differences from

these views. One does not casually dismiss decades of
perceptive Shakespearean criticism, nor does one, because

of all the published commentary, achieve a completely new
reading of such a major topic as Shakespeare's villains.

My statements on some of the issues and characters are
therefore necessarily similar to many other statements.

But I think there is enough difference, both in emphasis and
in occasional radical disagreement, so that the end result
of this study is not merely the application of new names

to some old and proven concepts. For in casting aside

the conventional explanations and comparing Shakespeare's

plays with a substantial body of his contemporaries' work,

2A6

I have found that Shakespeare consistently, though often
with some modifications, created as villains characters

who hold a world view contrary to the orthodox Elizabethan
Opinions, characters who look forward out of the Janus-like
Renaissance into the cynical and chaotic modern world
rather than backward into the faithful and orderly medieval

world.

 

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V/ .

‘MANN