Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (182 page)

In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare’s plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama.  This should be determined by the general spirit of the play, more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it.  Most
Hamlets
I have seen were placed far too early. 
Hamlet
is essentially a scholar of the Revival of Learning; and if the allusion to the recent invasion of England by the Danes puts it back to the ninth century, the use of foils brings it down much later.  Once, however, that the date has been fixed, then the archaeologist is to supply us with the facts which the artist is to convert into effects.

It has been said that the anachronisms in the plays themselves show us that Shakespeare was indifferent to historical accuracy, and a great deal of capital has been made out of Hector’s indiscreet quotation from Aristotle.  Upon the other hand, the anachronisms are really few in number, and not very important, and, had Shakespeare’s attention been drawn to them by a brother artist, he would probably have corrected them.  For, though they can hardly be called blemishes, they are certainly not the great beauties of his work; or, at least, if they are, their anachronistic charm cannot be emphasised unless the play is accurately mounted according to its proper date.  In looking at Shakespeare’s plays as a whole, however, what is really remarkable is their extraordinary fidelity as regards his personages and his plots.  Many of his
dramatis personae
are people who had actually existed, and some of them might have been seen in real life by a portion of his audience.  Indeed the most violent attack that was made on Shakespeare in his time was for his supposed caricature of Lord Cobham.  As for his plots, Shakespeare constantly draws them either from authentic history, or from the old ballads and traditions which served as history to the Elizabethan public, and which even now no scientific historian would dismiss as absolutely untrue.  And not merely did he select fact instead of fancy as the basis of much of his imaginative work, but he always gives to each play the general character, the social atmosphere in a word, of the age in question.  Stupidity he recognises as being one of the permanent characteristics of all European civilisations; so he sees no difference between a London mob of his own day and a Roman mob of pagan days, between a silly watchman in Messina and a silly Justice of the Peace in Windsor.  But when he deals with higher characters, with those exceptions of each age which are so fine that they become its types, he gives them absolutely the stamp and seal of their time.  Virgilia is one of those Roman wives on whose tomb was written ‘Domi mansit, lanam fecit,’ as surely as Juliet is the romantic girl of the Renaissance.  He is even true to the characteristics of race.  Hamlet has all the imagination and irresolution of the Northern nations, and the Princess Katharine is as entirely French as the heroine of
Divorçons
.  Harry the Fifth is a pure Englishman, and Othello a true Moor.

Again when Shakespeare treats of the history of England from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, it is wonderful how careful he is to have his facts perfectly right — indeed he follows Holinshed with curious fidelity.  The incessant wars between France and England are described with extraordinary accuracy down to the names of the besieged towns, the ports of landing and embarkation, the sites and dates of the battles, the titles of the commanders on each side, and the lists of the killed and wounded.  And as regards the Civil Wars of the Roses we have many elaborate genealogies of the seven sons of Edward the Third; the claims of the rival Houses of York and Lancaster to the throne are discussed at length; and if the English aristocracy will not read Shakespeare as a poet, they should certainly read him as a sort of early Peerage.  There is hardly a single title in the Upper House, with the exception of course of the uninteresting titles assumed by the law lords, which does not appear in Shakespeare along with many details of family history, creditable and discreditable.  Indeed if it be really necessary that the School Board children should know all about the Wars of the Roses, they could learn their lessons just as well out of Shakespeare as out of shilling primers, and learn them, I need not say, far more pleasurably.  Even in Shakespeare’s own day this use of his plays was recognised.  ‘The historical plays teach history to those who cannot read it in the chronicles,’ says Heywood in a tract about the stage, and yet I am sure that sixteenth-century chronicles were much more delightful reading than nineteenth-century primers are.

Of course the aesthetic value of Shakespeare’s plays does not, in the slightest degree, depend on their facts, but on their Truth, and Truth is independent of facts always, inventing or selecting them at pleasure.  But still Shakespeare’s use of facts is a most interesting part of his method of work, and shows us his attitude towards the stage, and his relations to the great art of illusion.  Indeed he would have been very much surprised at any one classing his plays with ‘fairy tales,’ as Lord Lytton does; for one of his aims was to create for England a national historical drama, which should deal with incidents with which the public was well acquainted, and with heroes that lived in the memory of a people.  Patriotism, I need hardly say, is not a necessary quality of art; but it means, for the artist, the substitution of a universal for an individual feeling, and for the public the presentation of a work of art in a most attractive and popular form.  It is worth noticing that Shakespeare’s first and last successes were both historical plays.

It may be asked, what has this to do with Shakespeare’s attitude towards costume?  I answer that a dramatist who laid such stress on historical accuracy of fact would have welcomed historical accuracy of costume as a most important adjunct to his illusionist method.  And I have no hesitation in saying that he did so.  The reference to helmets of the period in the prologue to
Henry the Fifth
may be considered fanciful, though Shakespeare must have often seen

The very casque
That did affright the air at Agincourt,

where it still hangs in the dusky gloom of Westminster Abbey, along with the saddle of that ‘imp of fame,’ and the dinted shield with its torn blue velvet lining and its tarnished lilies of gold; but the use of military tabards in
Henry
the Sixth
is a bit of pure archaeology, as they were not worn in the sixteenth century; and the King’s own tabard, I may mention, was still suspended over his tomb in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in Shakespeare’s day.  For, up to the time of the unfortunate triumph of the Philistines in 1645, the chapels and cathedrals of England were the great national museums of archaeology, and in them were kept the armour and attire of the heroes of English history.  A good deal was of course preserved in the Tower, and even in Elizabeth’s day tourists were brought there to see such curious relics of the past as Charles Brandon’s huge lance, which is still, I believe, the admiration of our country visitors; but the cathedrals and churches were, as a rule, selected as the most suitable shrines for the reception of the historic antiquities.  Canterbury can still show us the helm of the Black Prince, Westminster the robes of our kings, and in old St. Paul’s the very banner that had waved on Bosworth field was hung up by Richmond himself.

In fact, everywhere that Shakespeare turned in London, he saw the apparel and appurtenances of past ages, and it is impossible to doubt that he made use of his opportunities.  The employment of lance and shield, for instance, in actual warfare, which is so frequent in his plays, is drawn from archaeology, and not from the military accoutrements of his day; and his general use of armour in battle was not a characteristic of his age, a time when it was rapidly disappearing before firearms.  Again, the crest on Warwick’s helmet, of which such a point is made in
Henry the Sixth
, is absolutely correct in a fifteenth-century play when crests were generally worn, but would not have been so in a play of Shakespeare’s own time, when feathers and plumes had taken their place — a fashion which, as he tells us in
Henry the Eighth
, was borrowed from France.  For the historical plays, then, we may be sure that archaeology was employed, and as for the others I feel certain that it was the case also.  The appearance of Jupiter on his eagle, thunderbolt in hand, of Juno with her peacocks, and of Iris with her many-coloured bow; the Amazon masque and the masque of the Five Worthies, may all be regarded as archaeological; and the vision which Posthumus sees in prison of Sicilius Leonatus— ‘an old man, attired like a warrior, leading an ancient matron’ — is clearly so.  Of the ‘Athenian dress’ by which Lysander is distinguished from Oberon I have already spoken; but one of the most marked instances is in the case of the dress of Coriolanus, for which Shakespeare goes directly to Plutarch.  That historian, in his Life of the great Roman, tells us of the oak-wreath with which Caius Marcius was crowned, and of the curious kind of dress in which, according to ancient fashion, he had to canvass his electors; and on both of these points he enters into long disquisitions, investigating the origin and meaning of the old customs.  Shakespeare, in the spirit of the true artist, accepts the facts of the antiquarian and converts them into dramatic and picturesque effects: indeed the gown of humility, the ‘woolvish gown,’ as Shakespeare calls it, is the central note of the play.  There are other cases I might quote, but this one is quite sufficient for my purpose; and it is evident from it at any rate that, in mounting a play in the accurate costume of the time, according to the best authorities, we are carrying out Shakespeare’s own wishes and method.

Even if it were not so, there is no more reason that we should continue any imperfections which may be supposed to have characterised Shakespeare’s stage mounting than that we should have Juliet played by a young man, or give up the advantage of changeable scenery.  A great work of dramatic art should not merely be made expressive of modern passion by means of the actor, but should be presented to us in the form most suitable to the modern spirit.  Racine produced his Roman plays in Louis Quatorze dress on a stage crowded with spectators; but we require different conditions for the enjoyment of his art.  Perfect accuracy of detail, for the sake of perfect illusion, is necessary for us.  What we have to see is that the details are not allowed to usurp the principal place.  They must be subordinate always to the general motive of the play.  But subordination in art does not mean disregard of truth; it means conversion of fact into effect, and assigning to each detail its proper relative value

‘Les petits détails d’histoire et de vie domestique (says Hugo) doivent être scrupuleusement étudiés et reproduits par le poète, mais uniquement comme des moyens d’accroître la réalité de l’ensemble, et de faire pénétrer jusque dans les coins les plus obscurs de l’oeuvre cette vie générale et puissante au milieu de laquelle les personnages sont plus vrais, et les catastrophes, par conséqueut, plus poignantes.  Tout doit être subordonné à ce but.  L’Homme sur le premier plan, le reste au fond.’

This passage is interesting as coming from the first great French dramatist who employed archaeology on the stage, and whose plays, though absolutely correct in detail, are known to all for their passion, not for their pedantry — for their life, not for their learning.  It is true that he has made certain concessions in the case of the employment of curious or strange expressions.  Ruy Blas talks of M, de Priego as ‘sujet du roi’ instead of ‘noble du roi,’ and Angelo Malipieri speaks of ‘la croix rouge’ instead of ‘la croix de gueules.’  But they are concessions made to the public, or rather to a section of it.  ‘J’en offre ici toute mes excuses aux spectateurs intelligents,’ he says in a note to one of the plays; ‘espérons qu’un jour un seigneur vénitien pourra dire tout bonnement sans péril son blason sur le théâtre.  C’est un progrès qui viendra.’  And, though the description of the crest is not couched in accurate language, still the crest itself was accurately right.  It may, of course, be said that the public do not notice these things; upon the other hand, it should be remembered that Art has no other aim but her own perfection, and proceeds simply by her own laws, and that the play which Hamlet describes as being caviare to the general is a play he highly praises.  Besides, in England, at any rate, the public have undergone a transformation; there is far more appreciation of beauty now than there was a few years ago; and though they may not be familiar with the authorities and archaeological data for what is shown to them, still they enjoy whatever loveliness they look at.  And this is the important thing.  Better to take pleasure in a rose than to put its root under a microscope.  Archaeological accuracy is merely a condition of illusionist stage effect; it is not its quality.  And Lord Lytton’s proposal that the dresses should merely be beautiful without being accurate is founded on a misapprehension of the nature of costume, and of its value on the stage.  This value is twofold, picturesque and dramatic; the former depends on the colour of the dress, the latter on its design and character.  But so interwoven are the two that, whenever in our own day historical accuracy has been disregarded, and the various dresses in a play taken from different ages, the result has been that the stage has been turned into that chaos of costume, that caricature of the centuries, the Fancy Dress Ball, to the entire ruin of all dramatic and picturesque effect.  For the dresses of one age do not artistically harmonise with the dresses of another: and, as far as dramatic value goes, to confuse the costumes is to confuse the play.  Costume is a growth, an evolution, and a most important, perhaps the most important, sign of the manners, customs and mode of life of each century.  The Puritan dislike of colour, adornment and grace in apparel was part of the great revolt of the middle classes against Beauty in the seventeenth century.  A historian who disregarded it would give us a most inaccurate picture of the time, and a dramatist who did not avail himself of it would miss a most vital element in producing an illusionist effect.  The effeminacy of dress that characterised the reign of Richard the Second was a constant theme of contemporary authors.  Shakespeare, writing two hundred years after, makes the king’s fondness for gay apparel and foreign fashions a point in the play, from John of Gaunt’s reproaches down to Richard’s own speech in the third act on his deposition from the throne.  And that Shakespeare examined Richard’s tomb in Westminster Abbey seems to me certain from York’s speech:-