Shakespeare (61 page)

If we accept the pattern of
Julius Caesar
, followed by
Henry
V, we may note in their composition the harbinger of Shakespeare’s great tragedies.

O
f the two comedies
written at this time,
Much Ado About Nothing
and
As You Like It
, the evidence suggests that
Much Ado About Nothing
was written first. It may indeed have been performed at the Curtain, with Will Kempe in the immortal role of Dogberry, before the Lord Chamberlain’s Men removed to the Globe. Shakespeare’s plays were being launched and performed even as the Globe was being constructed.
Much Ado About Nothing
remains one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, largely because of the wit combats of Beatrice and Benedick. “Let but Beatrice and Benedicke be seen,” one versifier wrote in 1640, “the Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes are all full.”
¹
Theirs is a wit of high order, anticipating Congreve and Wilde, subtly shadowed by the farcical humour of Dogberry and his cohorts.

The entire play in fact provides a significant insight into the range and nature of Elizabethan comedy, consisting of fast repartee, complicated wordplay, extravagant conceits, endless sexual innuendo and what can only be described as a form of reckless melancholy. The Elizabethan age seems always to be on the edge of despair or dissolution, with the prospect of everything crashing down in flames; hence all the bravura and defiance of its major players.

The title of the play itself is indicative of its plot, in which the protagonists are led forward by a series of false reports and mistaken impressions. It
has also a predictably bawdy significance since “nothing” was a slang word for the female genitals. It is a play of improbabilities and coincidences lovingly embraced by Shakespeare, who seems to have countenanced everything for the sake of theatrical effect. It resembles one of those light dances often mentioned in the text, the cinque pace or the Scotch jig, where the swiftness and the delicacy of the pattern are paramount. We may recall here the Elizabethan love of artifice for its own sake.

As You Like It
was certainly performed at the Globe, not at the Curtain; Jaques’s speech, beginning “All the world’s a stage,” makes reference to the motto of the Globe on the world as a player. Perhaps more importantly, the character of Touchstone was played by a relatively new recruit to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The part was written for Robert Armin, comedian and musician, who was the replacement for Will Kempe. Kempe left the company at a point in 1599 with some ill-humour. It may have been suggested that his own brand of foolery would seem somewhat old-fashioned in the changed circumstances of the Globe, or he may have become disenchanted with the range of parts created for him. From various veiled references and allusions it seems that Shakespeare did not instinctively appreciate the type of humour in which Kempe himself was the star performer (and even, on occasions, writer). Kempe was too obstreperous and unpredictable; he insisted on making his personality central to his role. In turn Kempe may not have recognised the subtleties of Shakespeare’s art, being more used to an earlier generation of the theatre where writers were mere hired hacks. They represented a clash of two cultures. In any case, in Kempe’s own words, he “danced out of the world” or globe.

Whatever the circumstances of Kempe’s departure, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men decided to replace him with a new kind of comic player. Armin had begun the world as apprentice to a goldsmith in Lombard Street, but very quickly earned some kind of reputation as a dramatist and ballad writer. He wrote such popular plays as
The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke
and
A Nest of Ninnies
. Even if his principal career was as comic actor, he never gave up his profession as a writer; so he manifested some instinctive sympathy with Shakespeare that Kempe had lacked. He has even been described by one theatrical historian as an “intellectual.”
²
Certainly he knew Latin and Italian. He became a member of Lord Chandos’s Men, and must then have gained his reputation as a comic player or a natural wit. One of his publications was credited to “Clonnico de Curtanio Snuffe,” which intimates that he was Snuff the clown at the Curtain, followed by a later edition in which he is
described as “Clonnico del Mondo Snuffe”
³
or Snuff at the Globe itself. He was also known as Pink. There are two possibilities. He was already in the employment of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and simply took over from Will Kempe. He certainly assumed the role of Dogberry at a later date, since he is described in one source as “his Constableship.”
⁴
Or it may be that Armin was performing with Lord Chandos’s Men at the Curtain, and replaced Kempe on his departure at the end of 1599.

It is worth remarking that Shakespeare started writing parts for “fools” only after Armin had joined the company. Since Armin was also known for his singing voice, Shakespeare wrote many songs for him. From Touchstone forward emerge the fools who break into song. It is a moot point whether Shakespeare fashioned his new “fools” in the image of Armin, or whether Armin’s persona was fashioned by Shakespeare. No doubt both elements were at work in the creation of Touchstone and Feste, the Fool in
King Lear
and the gravedigger in
Hamlet
. With their mixture of melancholy and whimsicality, song and learning, mimicry and word-play, wit and proverb, satire and philosophy, they are of a distinctive and instantly recognisable type. Their costumes are motley, and their language is motley.

Armin had studied what were known as “natural fools” and with his instinctive skills in mimicry he had learned to imitate them; so he brought a self-consciousness or interiority to the role of clown that Kempe himself never provided. He did not “ad lib” or make impromptu jokes in the manner of his predecessor; he studied each role with care, and differentiated one from another. That was why he was important to Shakespeare’s dramaturgy. Since Armin played the part of the foul-mouthed and pustular Thersites in
Troilus and Cressida
, it is clear enough that he could undertake what at a later date would be called “character parts.” He may have played Casca in
Julius Caesar
, for example, and Caliban in
The Tempest
. This also makes a difference to the interpretation of Shakespeare’s drama. It is sometimes supposed that Menenius in
Coriolanus
is the voice of good sense or worldly wisdom; but if he were played by Armin, as has been suggested, he would have become a grotesque.

So he first appears as Touchstone in
As You Like It
, proclaimed as “Nature’s naturall.” He does not wear the conventional russet outfit of the clown but instead the fool’s costume of motley that included a long coat woven of green and yellow, an eared hood and a baton. For Armin Shakespeare invented the character of Touchstone, without relying upon his usual multifarious sources. He also gave Armin an extensive part, the third largest in the
play, with 320 lines of dialogue. In the third act he sings snatches of a song, “Wind away, Be gone, I say,” before he runs off the stage with Audrey. He probably doubled as Amiens—Armin/Amiens—with more lyrical ballads from the repertoire. There are in fact more songs in
As You Like It
than in any other Shakespearian play, and they are clearly related to the use of Armin as counter-tenor. When, a year later, Armin played the Clown in
Twelfth Night
he is given a significant compliment (1244-5):

Given the enclosure riots of the period, and the general fear of those who lived in forests as “outlaws” and “robbers,” it would have been relatively easy to turn
As You Like It
into a satirical portrait of greed and corruption; but he chose another path. By adopting the plot of Thomas Lodge’s
Rosalynde
, he writes charming pastoral satire with the additional figures of Jaques and Touchstone to lend comic depth to the proceedings. He was a literate man who preferred romance to reality. The forest prompts the characters, not into rapine or violence, but into poetry and song. It is a haven for generosity of spirit and for melancholy musing, a place where love is celebrated and confirmed; it is a locale in which the audience witnesses the conversion of evil to good as well as supernatural visitations. The spell of enchantment is upon everything.

Y
et it was
in many respects a hard and disenchanted age. Satire was very much in the air. Given the macabre atmosphere ‘ around the declining queen, it could hardly fail to be so. The final stages of an
ancien régime
always provoke black humour. It was the age of Donne’s satires and of such books as Lodge’s
Wits Miserie and the Worlds Madness
.

On I June 1599 the Archbishop of Canterbury banned all satire in verse. The Privy Council ordered that the number of plays be restricted. But the new vogue for satire came directly to involve Shakespeare in what is known as the “Poets’ War.” Like all internecine conflicts its origins are uncertain, and have as a result been endlessly debated. We may trace a source or origin, however, in John Marston’s association with the Middle Temple and with the choirboys of St. Paul’s who performed dramas in their singing-school by the cathedral.

John Marston had acquired a reputation as a precocious satirist, especially of those older writers who had attained success or renown. One of his earliest productions,
The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image
, was a burlesque upon
Venus and Adonis
. His satire at Shakespeare’s expense, however, did not prevent him from borrowing or copying extensively from the work of the older dramatist. Marston is a familiar type. Shakespeare already knew him; as a member of the Middle Temple Marston’s father had stood surety
for Shakespeare’s cousin, Thomas Greene, to become a member of that institution. For the members of the Middle Temple, in late 1598 or early 1599, Marston wrote a satirical play,
Histriomastix
, in which he glances unfavourably at both Shakespeare and Jonson.

Ben Jonson, never one to ignore or forgive an offence, then parodied Marston in
Every Man out of his Humour
. He had some reason to be sensitive. He had already been touched by Shakespeare. In
Henry V
the character of Nym continually repeats “That’s the humour of it,” a direct echo of Jonson’s favourite theatrical device. In
As You Like It
the character of Jaques, melancholy and voluble in his “humorous sadness,” has often been taken as a satirical if good-humoured presentation of Jonson himself.

Jonson was a less endearing humorist. In
Cynthia’s Revels
, in 1600, he pilloried Marston as well as his play-writing colleague, Thomas Dekker; one was “a light, voluptuous reveller” and the other “a strange arrogating puff.” In his next play,
The Poetaster
, he ridiculed Marston as a hack poet and plagiarist. Marston eventually counter-attacked with
What You Will
, in which Jonson was lampooned as an arrogant and insolent failure. In his aggressive manner Jonson then challenged Marston to a duel; since he was already branded on the thumb for murder, this was a foolhardy strategy. He probably guessed, however, that Marston would decline the challenge. Jonson then sought his man in the taverns of London, and found him. Marston pulled a pistol, whereupon Jonson took it from him and thrashed him with it. That is the story that went around London. Jonson repeated it later.

Dekker had already returned to the fray in
Satiromastix
in which Shakespeare is gently lampooned as the lecherous playwright Sir Adam Prickshaft but in which Jonson is more cruelly ridiculed as a failed court dramatist. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men nevertheless agreed to perform Dekker’s
Satiromastix
. At this point the literary feud ceased to be the “Poets’ War” and became known as the “War of the Theatres.”