Certain Nezv Elucidations of Shakespeare 35 



away from interest in the old racial superstitions. Knowing that 

 nothing would take better than a spectacle revealing the antics of 

 these tricksy children of the air, it is not strange at all that Shake- 

 speare should decide to make it the basis of the play proposed. 



Now Shakespeare had an idea, different considerably from 

 modern literary and dramatic notions, that it is often well to do 

 vital things incidentally rather than openly and directly. We 

 find it hard to imagine him even tempted to make up solid action 

 with an Oberon as hero and a Titania as heroine of a proper plot. 

 We may expect him to keep these elvish figures, with Puck, as 

 the age conceived them, fairly behind the scenes, and apart from 

 human sympathy. We remember that when he wishes to show 

 the helplessness of strong natures, as Benedict and Beatrice, in 

 relation to their own psychology, he does not write a Much Ado 

 with these as leading parts. He trumps up a pair o'f lovers, 

 Claudio and Hero, and starts the play off on the beaten track. 

 Later, when Beatrice has made Benedict vow, with a lover's 

 absurd subjectivity, to kill Claudio, he inscribes upon these 

 natures the lesson of the play. But, we must mark, he holds us 

 from the first and throughout, according to his rule of dramatic 

 construction, with the conceived and coveted ' consummation,' that 

 Claudio and Hero wed, — that Jack shall have his Gill. Again, 

 wishing to exploit the story of ' the Jew of Venice,' he fixes up a 

 plot that makes the part in seeming incidental, while subordinat- 

 ing the progress of the drama to it. In other words, The Mer- 

 chant of Venice means fuhdamentally and vitally Shylock, though 

 the dramatic construction makes of his evil purpose only a ' minor 

 obstruction ' to the ' consummation ' which we prefigure and de- 

 sire, and which is of course the union of Bassanio and Portia. 

 So here, in the play which Shapespeare has now in hand, he pro- 

 ceeds similarly, and will unfold certain occult concerns and doings 

 of the fairies on a background of real people and real life. 



And who shall be the people? What real life shall be enacted? 

 Shakespeare's audiences, at this stage of his popularity, would 

 answer, ' Why, of course, the highest. Deal for us again with 

 kings, and queens, and great folk, and affairs above our own 

 narrow and insipid range.' We must not forget that it was a 



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