For Shakespeare's Birthday, 2021

Notes on Othello and other matters

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“In reviewing the Life of George Eliot at the time of publication, Mr. John Morely recalled a discussion in which the novelist took part one day at the Priory in 1877. She spoke of the different methods of imaginative art, saying that she began with moods, thoughts, passions, and then invented the story for their sake, and fitted it to them; whereas Shakespeare picked up a story that struck him, and then proceeded to work in the moods, thoughts, passions as they came to him in the course of meditation on the story. 'We hardly need the result,' says Mr. Morley, 'to convince us that Shakespeare chose the better part.' This comment (prompts) a vexed and still obscure question. Shakespeare no doubt chose the better part—for Shakespeare. But it is conceivable also that George Eliot chose the better part for George Eliot. In any case, is it quite correct to say that an author 'chooses' his method of invention? Are the first beginnings of imaginative conception directed by the will? Are they, indeed, conscious at all? Do they not rather emerge unbidden from the vague limbo of subconsciousness? Because it fell in with some precedent train of thought, harmonised with some pre-existing mood. Even if we accept the theory of 'choice,' there may be another explanation for Shakespeare's plan of 'picking up' a story. For all we know to the contrary, he may have had a theme for a play in his head and then ransacked the story-books for a narrative to illustrate the theme. For instance, he may quite possibly have been turning over in his mind the dramatic possibilities of a crime perpetrated by a weak man at the instigation of a wife of sterner mould. Then he happens to turn up Holinshed, and says, 'Why, here is the very thing I wanted for my play!' Nothing, I fancy, is more difficult than to trace with certainty the genesis of a work of art. …

Source: pp. 85-86, A. B. Walkley*, Processes of Thought in Playmaking , reprinted in Drama and Life , (1907) London: Methuen & Co. publishers. First published in The Times of London, .

*Not the first occasion in which the name Walkley and Shakespeare have an association. One Thomas Walkley, bookseller (1619-1658), living at the sign of the “Eagle & Child” was the first stationer (according to surviving record) to have published Othello , one of the so-called “bad Quartos” :

“On October 6, 1621 (IV, p. 59) this entry was made in the Registers:

Thomas Walkley. Entred for his copie vnder the handes of Sir George Buck, and Master Swinhowe warden, The Tragedie of Othello, the moore of Venice. vjd

“The next year this copy was published:

“The Tragoedy of Othello, The Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diuerse times acted at the Globe, and at the Black-Friers, by his Maiesties Seruents. Written by William Shakespeare. London, Printed by N.O. for Thomas Walkley … 1622”

Leo Kirschbaum, Shakespeare and the Stationers , 1955, The Ohio State University Press, pp. 245-246.

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… “As a practical man of the theatre, actor as well as playwright, Shakespeare seems to have conceived his dramatic designs as much in visual as in narrative terms.”...

p. 36, “Introduction”, Michael Neill (Ed.), Othello, the Moor of Venice (The Oxford Shakespeare, (2006) Clarendon Press, Oxford.)

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… “My starting-point is how to tell a story on a stage, and this was also Shakespeare's starting-point, so far as one can tell; for he ransacked history and fiction for stories that could be made significant and told, or re-told, upon a stage.” …

… “What I am seeking to show, dispersedly among his plays, is the continual exercise of craftsman-like understanding of his art, such as I think cannot be matched (save for flashes here and there) in the work of his contemporaries. He always seemed to know how to use, or extend (by a kind of dramatic strategy) the resources at the disposal of a playwright.” …

… “Stories have to be planned into plays. ...Shakespeare's plays … exhibit subtle calculations in structure, a seemingly magical care in the disposition of theatrical effect, for the sake of intensified significance. … they are often more subtly planned than is generally thought: the scenes are designed both internally and in relation to the play as a whole, with an intellectual power for which I can hardly find parallel in other drama. Those … who are seeking Shakespeare's own meanings … can teach themselves...to distinguish between an interpretation that has genuine Shakespearean validity...by simply seeing if it could work on the stage;” … Critics, like producers, must feel for the ways in which the plays they discuss were meant to work, both as a whole and in points of detail. These ways, or some of them, are the subject of this book.” …
Preface, pp. x-xv.

… “Shakespeare saw the scene he was composing 'in the mind's eye' (a phrase he invented) with particular sharpness.”
Chapter I, Visual Meaning, p. 3
Nevill Coghill, Shakespeare's Professional Skills ((1964) Cambridge University Press.)


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(Othello at the Lyric Theatre, 20 Dec. 1902 graphic / T. Walter Wilson, R.I)

from Jacob Thomas (J. T.) Grein (1904) : Dramatic Criticism vol. IV: 1902-1903.
London: 1904, Eveleigh Nash publishers, p. 202

… “But, indeed, I venture to submit, Othello is one of the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, because it is the simplest, the truest—because it is the tragedy that approaches us all.” (1)

((1) the comment in context)

Theatre review: Lyric Theatre (London) : “Othello”
December 21, 1902

… “so I saw it on the third (performance night), when all was smooth, and there was none of the nervous strain that sometimes makes, but oftener mars, a great effort in the supreme hour. ...having glanced at the conflicting verdicts of my colleagues, I went to the theatre with little confidence. It was averred that Othello (the character as portrayed) lacked strength, and as strength of purpose and of passion form the dominant features of the character, I feared lest Mr. Robertson might not wholly succeed in Othello and repeat the experience of Macbeth. Nor did the opening scenes remove this anxiety. … This gentle Moor seemed to crave pardon for his very existence; he was weak after having done a brave deed. Thus it continued until...well into the second act, (it) verged towards tragedy. ...the very personality of the artist (actor Robertson) seemed to change. Jealousy overwhelmed him like a rising tide—not all of a sudden, not violently or melodramatically, but as the waters do when they lappingly, gently, but relentlessly annex the shore. There was constant evidence of struggle in Mr. Robertson's conception. It was a mortal strife between love and jealousy, between confidence and suspicion. The eyes alone spoke volumes, they dilated and fulgurated, but the lips, quivering with pain, tried to smile across the seething passion. It was an Othello in whom at times the spark of humour seemed to deride the upheaval of baseless frenzy. I can imagine an Othello more awe-inspiring by the roar of his voice, more oriental in felinity, more bloodthirsty with strained eyes that see red; but I cannot imagine an Othello more human. And I have seen all the great Othellos of my time from Salvini—the king of them all by his birthright under Southern suns—to Ernst Possart, the most consummate actor (in the word's real sense), whose oratory was as iridescent as his heart was frigid. If I am to class Robertson's creation, I would call it the most human Othello of the age. He does not harrow us, he does not freeze the blood in our veins, but stirs in us the feeling which makes all men kin. … He intensifies the tragedy because he mellows it. He thereby enhances the greatness of the play. Some people call Othello a melodrama, because the lesser lights of the dramatic profession often obscure the psychological depth of the play by superficial rant. But, indeed, I venture to submit, Othello is one of the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, because it is the simplest, the truest—because it is the tragedy that approaches us all. To see Othello played by a great artist like Robertson is to realise to the full the terror, the cruelty, the malady of jealousy.” …

Other Sources:
HENSLOWE: The Diary of Philip Henslowe From 1591 to 1609 , J. Payne Collier, Esq., (Ed.) London: 1845, The Shakespeare Society

BULLOUGH: Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare , Geoffrey Bullough, (Ed.), Vol. VII: Major Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear. Macbeth; London: 1973 Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York, Columbia University Press.

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Picture, please, the real author of work attributed to "William Shakespeare", whoever he may have been, "ransacking" story-books, or, still less, "literature" as though in search of, in need of because in want of "sources."

I'll wait as that image shapes up in your mind's eye.

With no documentation to support any reasonable theory that William Shaksper actually pursued and achieved anything in a formal education, imaginative of history have him ransacking the literature of his time. This term is well chosen for its work: it's vivid and evokes vigor, determination, dedication to the arts of letters and languages--all for those things in evidence of which there is nothing at all except this evocative term to support the belief that Shaksper was ever so engaged.

We have it on "good" authority (LOL!) that everything William did was done with vigor: he poached from neighboring ground. He scockered off to London—with vigor. Once there, he's said to have held theatre-goers' horses with vigor just as, earlier, according to Aubrey, “when he kill'd a calfe, he would doe it in a high style, and make a speech.”

“Ransacking” is no synonym for “study”, “learning”, “intellectual growth”.

Edward Oxford had the best tutorial instruction his day could provide a nobleman of high standing. His tutors wrote of his rare and outstanding intellectual abilities and those descriptions have survived. He learned Greek, Latin, French and Italian well. They came to mind spontaneously at myriad occasions when the context prompted his quick memory; there was no labored search, no “crib notes”, no need to refer to a book—yet books he had, unlike William Shaksper of Stratford.