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Shakespeare and the Rose of Love

A Study of the Early Plays in Relation to the Medieval Philosophy of Love

Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd

The Terentian Pattern

In 1584, at the age of twenty, Shakespeare left Stratford – a fugitive, perhaps, from the heavy-handed justice of Sir Thomas Lucy. What became of him for the next few years is unknown. As his earliest work cannot be dated with certainty, the length of this interval is not agreed upon. But by 1592 he had already made his mark in the London theatre – 'an upstart crow', in the malicious words of poor Greene, 'that is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country'. So however Shakespeare had spent the missing years, they would seem to have been conducive to his self-assurance.

Almost everything that a young Elizabethan might have done has been imagined of him in those eight years. In an age when brilliant panache was esteemed a virtue, it is likely that he did his best to give them colour; and one of the striking things about the early plays is the social accomplishment they imply in their author. From the first, he writes of high circles as if he felt at home in them, with confidence and fluency. In Love's Labour's Lost, he treats of the trivialities that are much harder to counterfeit than the formalities of society; and it does not appear that he ever blunders. That part of his Wanderjahre were spent, therefore, in a nobleman's household – where patronage may have ripened into friendship – seems to be a reasonable guess. But we do not know.

There is one fact, however, that I should like to stress: the earliest work that is certainly Shakespeare's is that of an experienced man. Twenty-eight is a late beginning for genius; many poets have reached their apogee by then. At that age, Keats was already dead and Shelley had only two more years to live. Therefore, although the plays of Shakespeare's first period show that he had an immense amount to learn in the art of expressing his ideas, we should not be surprised that their thought-content is mature.

In boyhood, it is usually assumed, he went to Stratford Grammar School. If he did, he would have received an excellent literary education there. The Elizabethan grammar school was guided by the enlightened spirit of Erasmus. On the basis of the old trivium – grammar, rhetoric and logic – the Latin classics were conscientiously taught, and, in the higher forms, the Greek. Compared with a modern curriculum, the subjects were few; and for that reason, a much higher standard was obtained in them. But there are only two points about Shakespeare's early reading on which I should like to lay emphasis: he had been thoroughly grounded, as every Elizabethan schoolboy was, in the plays of Terence; and at some time, probably for his own delight, he had read Chaucer's translation, The Romaunt of the Rose. From Terence, and his commentators, he learnt the five-part construction of a play; and from The Romaunt of the Rose he learnt, among other things, the elements of the medieval philosophy of love.

Ce est li Romanz de la Rose
Ou l'Art d'Amors est toute enclose.

As the poem turned out, that is an over-statement. It does not embrace the whole art of love: both Dante and the Renaissance Neo-Platonists had much to add. But before we consider Shakespeare's debt to The Romaunt of the Rose we must look rather more briefly at what he owed to Terence.

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The fact that Shakespeare and his contemporaries conceived their plays in five logical parts – although these were not necessarily presented as separate units on the stage – does not at first seem relevant to the theme of love. But I think it will be granted that structure may be a guide to meaning: and I hope to show that, in the present case, it is an important one. I have discussed elsewhere the temptation-sequence in Shakespeare. This was incorporated later, its origins are different, and it need not detain us here.

The five-act structure, as the Renaissance understood it, was mainly derived from Roman comedy, and particularly from long study of the plays of Terence. I do not propose to analyse it in detail, but only in so far as it may give a clue to ideas in Shakespeare which we might otherwise miss. Essentially, it is a method of plot-construction, not of stage-presentation. We may consider the five acts as five phases of the story; but when an interval was needed in the theatre, it was natural to place it at the close of such a phase. The logic of this construction – although its first use was for light entertainment – will be readily revealed by a metaphor of war.

Act I

We find that a war is about to break out. We are told the cause of it; the objective of each side is made clear to us; and our sympathies are definitely enlisted on one side only. Briefly, the first act gives the rational and emotional background of the coming action.

Act II

The action opens with the preliminary skirmishes and manoeuvres of both armies. The main battle is not joined; but all the moves leading up to it are made, and we await it in suspense.

Act III

The battle begins with the attack of the side we hope will lose; but at the end of the act, it seems as if it is going to win. Our suspense is accordingly greater.

Act IV

The counter-attack is launched; and the act closes with everything prepared for the final victory, but just short of it.

Act V

There may be a persona ex machina, or twist of surprise. And then the crowning success of the side we always hoped would win.

There is sound dramatic logic in this. The opening satisfies the wish of the audience to be 'in the know', gives it an outcome to hope for, and engages its sympathies. The action provides the conflict, which is the heart-beat of drama. The climactic point of each act creates mounting suspense. And the conclusion gives the audience its heart's desire. It is particularly suited to comedy, for which, of course, it was created; but it has been brilliantly adapted to other purposes. Reduced to schematic simplicity (with apologies to The Lady of Andros), Terence builds a plot on it somewhat as follows.

Act I

A young man is in love with a charming girl of whom his father disapproves, and he has promised to marry her. The father is determined that he shall marry someone else. Each of them is well-intentioned. Although no action has begun, it is clear that conflict lies ahead. The background of it is understood, the aim of each side is clear, and the sympathies of the audience are enlisted for the son.

Act II

The son finds that a friend of his is in love with the girl he does not want to marry; so, naturally, they join forces. There is also a clever slave – a little too clever, and by him an amusing knot of error is tied.

Act III

The father takes the field. He approaches the family of the girl he wants his son to marry, and wins their consent to the match. The wedding is to take place at once. The outlook is calamitous.

Act IV

The son and his allies make a counter-attack. This is to let the family find out that he and his true-love have already had a baby. The wedding is therefore called off, and the situation is reversed.

Act V

Harmony is now to be established. It is discovered that the son's sweetheart is really a long-lost daughter of the other girl's family – in fact, the girls are sisters. The father withdraws his opposition, and finds that his son's own choice will be the perfect daughter-in-law after all. The second girl is paired with her right young man, and everyone is happy. There are no losers.

It will be seen that however nugatory the story may be, this construction gives it logic, balance and proportion. It is shaped consciously as a work of art. Without losing the artistic unity, a sub-plot can be interwoven, if required, to make the pattern as complex, yet well-designed as a cobweb. And this web may catch and exhibit the fleeting things of life, whether bluebottles or dewdrops. In the knot-of-error kind of play, the opposing sides may represent error and truth, which can be taken as lightly or seriously as the author pleases. The audience naturally hopes that truth will prevail, and the interplay or conflict between them may be shaped according to the formula. This opens the way for an allegorical under-meaning; and so, no doubt, endeared the plan to Shakespeare. In general, the structure comes so logically to an entertaining story that many authors have used it, or approximated to it, without giving Terence a thought.

Later commentators reduced this construction to three parts, which they termed protasis, epitasis and catastrophe. There was some difference of opinion as to where the protasis should end, and medieval commentaries confine it to the first act; but in the form in which the theory probably reached Shakespeare, it covered the first two. Baldwin has shown that there are good grounds for believing that the edition of Terence published by Willichius about 1550, with a preface by Wagnerus, in which he analyses the structure of the Andria, greatly influenced Shakespeare. Wagnerus, in the preface, distinguishes two internal goals for a play:

The first goal is the thing towards which the protasis tends, at the end of the second act. The second is the thing towards which the epitasis tends, the occasion of the catastrophe, at the end of the fourth act. So the first and second acts form a sub-unit, as do the third and fourth. This integrated formula of Wagnerus (Willichius) gives a very definite framework indeed for constructing a play.

On this analysis, then, the protasis is the content of the first two acts; that is, everything up to the decisive struggle. The epitasis is the third and fourth acts; that is, the whole decisive engagement, attack and counterattack. And the catastrophe is the happy ending. The triple division is of less importance than the five-fold one, which became the norm of staging as well as of construction; but it is sometimes convenient, and when used in this book the definitions of Wagnerus will be assumed.

It is worth while to stress that these principles of construction were not a matter of recondite knowledge in the sixteenth century. Every grammar-school boy knew them. At the beginning of a new term at Winchester, in 1565, the headmaster included the following in his speech to the boys:

Of comedies three parts are enumerated, protasis, epitasis, catastrophe. But comedies are said to be imitations of those things which are in life, as there is no one who doubts that these same parts are in life. You know that there are also three stages in diseases, augmentation, state, decline. The same thing has happened to these holidays, for they have had a beginning, a middle, and an end ...

The importance of this pattern in Shakespeare is far greater than is usually assumed. He learnt the Terentian construction at the beginning of his career, and he was still using it in his maturity. It will give us a better sense of direction if we establish this end-point first, although it will necessitate a digression. If we date Shakespeare's earliest plays about 1590, we may look ahead twenty years to The Winter's Tale and find the Terentian formula clearly discernible.

Structurally, The Winter's Tale is perhaps the most fascinating of all Shakespeare's plays. I have pointed out elsewhere that it exhibits the tragic sequence up to the end of the third act. Then there is a turning-point, marked by the confrontation with death. And the regeneration sequence leads up to the triumph of love at the end. How these two elaborate patterns – and much else – are exactly fitted into a Terentian fabric is a constructional tour de force; but it is only the act-plotting that concerns us now.

Act I

The opposing forces are jealousy and love. Leontes represents jealousy, Hermione love. We are shown how jealousy was unreasonably awakened. We see the death-directed intrigue that jealousy sets afoot, the objective being Hermione's execution. And we see the counter-forces tending to reconciliation. Thus we have what Terence requires: the rational and emotional background of the conflict, clear objectives, and awakened sympathy.

Act II

There are preliminary moves by both sides. Those made by jealousy result in Hermione being sent to prison. Those made by love result in the new-born child being sent to Leontes, as an ambassadress of love. He rejects her. This concludes what the commentators call the protasis, everything leading up to the decisive struggle.

Act III

Jealousy – the side to which our sympathies are opposed – now launches its main offensive. Hermione is brought to trial, and all but condemned. We reach the blackest hour: the death of Leontes' son, the feigned death of Hermione, and the casting away of Perdita.

Act IV

This is the counter-action of love. The fourth act, as I have tried to show, is an allegory of the healing of the tragic wound by love. It also does everything that the Terentian rules require: it ends the epitasis, by providing the conditions for the final victory, and yet stops short of it.

Act V

Harmony is established. There are no losers, in spite of the preceding conflict. The unions of love form a perfect end.

The Winter's Tale has often been judged to be a poorly constructed play. But when we understand the principles on which Shakespeare planned it, we find it to be a miracle of construction. The ingenious use of the Terentian pattern is the least astonishing element in its design. Within this, Shakespeare has incorporated his hellward sequence and heavenward sequence, illustrated these with allegory, and made implicit a philosophy of life. But I must not digress into these complexities here; and if my readers will endure one more skeleton plot, we shall have taken our bearings, from this glance at Shakespeare's mature work, and return to the opening of his career. Another play in which tragedy is resolved, Measure for Measure, written in 1604, will also yield to a Terentian analysis.

Act I

The background plan of the Duke of Vienna is introduced, but not elucidated fully. Then we are given a clear-cut issue. Is Claudio to live or die? Angelo has sentenced him to death. Lucio and Isabella are trying to save him. Again, reduced to stark simplicity, there are death-directed forces, and life-directed forces. Conflict is immanent, and our sympathies are engaged on the side of life.

Act II

The usual preliminary moves and counter-moves take place; Lucio and Isabella intercede, the outcome is uncertain; Angelo counters with an unacceptable proposal. Claudio's chances seem definitely less. But the Duke's forces have not been committed to the battle yet, and we do not doubt that they will be. So the protasis ends here.

Act III

The death-forces play their trump card, which is to win over Isabella. Now she also condemns Claudio, 'Die, perish!' His case looks hopeless, and he gives it up himself. But the Duke begins to pull the strings.

Act IV

The life-forces, now directed by the Duke, play their trump card, which is to bring in Mariana. She represents the active power of love. We are left convinced that they will win, but uncertain how. This ends the epitasis.

Act V

The 'power divine' of the Duke, supported by the love-power of Mariana pleading for life, accomplish much more than the saving of Claudio: there is an all-inclusive victory for love and life.

We may now see that, especially in the plays of resolution of tragedy, it would be difficult to over-estimate the importance of the Terentian influence – difficult, but not impossible; because there is so much more in them besides. In analysis, these plays all show a life-intrigue and a death-intrigue in conflict. The death-powers and their activities are more complex; but of the life-powers we are now in a position to establish some important constants. Life always plays its trump card in the fourth act; and it is usually the same card – love. This is exhibited dramatically by the activity and fortunes of the character who is, in her second nature, the allegorical figure either of love itself or of the beauty by which love is awakened.

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Excerpted from Shakespeare and the Rose of Love by John Vyvyan, Richard Wythe. Copyright © 2013 The Estate of John Vyvyan. Excerpted by permission of Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd.
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