Furness's the Tempest

THE history of Shakespearean criticism is a record of strange pedantries and prejudices as well as of rare learning and imaginative insight. For more than two hundred years scholars have been investigating the limits, laws, motives, and mysteries of Shakespeare’s works, each generation witnessing fresh attempts to sound the deep but dazzling darkness that has surface beneath surface, and to compass the clear infinite by all kinds of methods, from verbal emendation and antiquarian illustration to philosophical theories and metrical tests applied by a purely arithmetical process. When the follies and superfluities of Shakespearean criticism are remembered, it is hardly matter for surprise that it is the fashion in many quarters to gird at Shakespearean editors and commentators, and to sneer at them as unnecessary evils. Stupidity and presumption have undoubtedly made some of them tiresome and ludicrous enough, but those who are inclined to dismiss all Shakespearean criticism as mere pedantry and folly will do well to consider what Shakespeare’s works would be without the careful critical recension of the most capable scholarship. Shakespeare, so far as we know, edited none of his own plays. The first copies of them appear to have been printed surreptitiously from imperfect manuscripts ; it was not until seven years after the poet’s death that the First Folio was published by two of his fellow-actors, in days when there was no revision of proof-sheets other than that of the printing-office. Small wonder that Shakespeare’s works have come down to us in a condition of such manifest and admitted corruption that it is only competent scholarship and critical acumen that can render them intelligible!

Nowhere do we see more clearly the necessity and importance of Shakespearean criticism, and at the same time the immense amount of Shakespearean comment, than in a variorum edition of the poet’s works. Here we find along with the text the various readings of previous editions of authority and interest, and the notes and comments that the variorum editor deems worthy of preservation. In the course of this century three such editions of Shakespeare’s plays have been published, and of these two are conspicuous for worth and importance: the variorum of 1821, edited by Boswell, son of Johnson’s biographer, and the great Cambridge edition of 1863, edited by Messrs. Glover, Clark, and Wright. The activity and advance of Shakespearean criticism during the last fifty years have rendered the variorum of 1821 sadly antiquated and inadequate; and the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare’s works is a complete variorum only as to readings, not as to notes and comments, and has this further deficiency, that, while it gives the readings of all the old editions, it omits to note the adoption or rejection of them by the various editors. In consequence of this, an important element in estimating these readings is wanting; for in the case of disputed passages it is always well to see at a glance on which side lies the weight of evidence.

These defects of the Cambridge edition and the great mass of valuable critical matter that has accumulated since 1821 have made a new variorum edition of Shakespeare’s works a literary necessity. It is this great need that Mr. Furness has set himself to supply, and the thorough and scholarly way in which he is carrying through his enormous undertaking ought to silence that carping at Shakespearean editors of which we hear so much. Eight handsome octavo volumes of this new variorum have for some time had their place on our bookshelves, and a ninth, containing The Tempest, is now before us.¹

A Shakespearean editor, to be perfect, would need to unite in himself more qualifications than perhaps would be required of a man in any other editorial capacity. Ability to take infinite pains, philological acquaintance with Elizabethan English, intellectuality, knowledge of human nature, mastery of the science of verse, imaginative insight, conscientious judgment, inspired good sense, and unfailing good humor are but a few of the qualifications that we should look for in our ideal editor, and we think that we find these in finer balance in Mr. Furness than in any other Shakespearean editor with whose work we are acquainted. The ninth volume of his variorum is a fresh example not only of his marvelous industry and painstaking research, but of his wide range of knowledge, excellent taste, mastery of all possible shades of appreciation, and perfect freedom from prejudice, presumption, and that “acrimony of scholiasts” of which Dr. Johnson wrote so wittily in the brilliant preface to his edition of Shakespeare’s works.

It is one of the characteristics of Mr. Furness as an editor that he obtrudes himself on the attention of the reader as seldom as possible. He introduces many editors and many commentators, but very rarely does he introduce himself. In the preface, however, which forms a singularly graceful and appropriate introduction to the most magically beautiful product of Shakespeare’s genius, we have such touches of delicate and appreciative criticism as make us regret the self-restraint and self-repression that have led Mr. Furness to give us so much of every one else and so little of himself. These few sentences in the preface, like the fragments of criticism left by Charles Lamb, make us long for more of that sympathetic and imaginative reading between the lines which is true criticism and interpretation, and is all alive with a joyful sense of creative activity.

Few plays have afforded the material for as voluminous an amount of comment as The Tempest, but in all the interesting annotations and criticisms to be found in the appendix of the volume now before us there is nothing that more clearly reveals the poetic insight born of sympathy and imagination than the remarks that Mr. Furness makes on Caliban. “In some respects,” said Coleridge, “Caliban is a noble being,” and, feeling the truth of this, Mr. Furness, in a few sentences, winsome with charm and quiet beauty, takes a broader and loftier view of the weird offspring of Sycorax than any other critic has done. He dwells on the human and poetical side of Caliban’s character, which the general and abhorrent repulsiveness of his nature has caused so many to overlook. “It has become,” says Mr. Furness, “one of the commonplaces, in criticisms on the play, to say that Caliban is the contrast to Ariel (sometimes varied by substituting Miranda for Ariel), and that as the tricksy sprite is the type of the air and of unfettered fancy, so is the abhorred slave typical of the earth and all brutish appetites.... Is there, then, nothing to be said in favor of Caliban ? Is there really and truly no print of goodness in him ? Kindly Nature never wholly deserts her offspring, nor does Shakespeare. . . . Why is it that Caliban’s speech is always rhythmical? There is no character in the play whose words fall at times into sweeter cadences. . . . When Caliban says that it was his mistress who showed him the man in the moon with his dog and his bush, what a picture is unfolded to us of summer nights on the enchanted island, where, however quiet lies the landscape in the broad moonlight, every hill and brook and standing lake and grove is peopled with elves, and on the shore, overlooking the yellow sands where fairies foot it featly, sits the young instructress deciphering for the misshapen slave at her feet the features of the full-orbed moon ! . . . It was by Miranda’s pure loveliness and rare refinement that the soul of poetry was distilled out of that evil thing. Without this poetic feeling in Caliban, and its expression, whence would come our knowledge of the pervading life of enchantment which, by Prospero’s wand, has converted that ‘uninhabited island ’ into the one magic isle of our imaginations, forever floating in unknown summer seas? ”

Of all Shakespeare’s plays, The Tempest is one of the best in the way of text that has come down to us. It shares with The Two Gentlemen of Verona the excellence of being printed with more correctness than any other play in the First Folio. The cruces are singularly few in number. One of these — the word “scamels,” in Act II. Scene ii. — affords Mr. Furness opportunity for genial comment, twinkling through which we see that spirit of strong sense and rich humor that goes far to explain his success as a Shakespearean editor: “What ‘scamels ’ are, or are not, may be learned from the portentous notes on the word, extending to two pages, wherein there has been proposed as a substitute every article of food known to man which begins and ends with s, from ‘shamois ’ to ‘sea-owls. ’ For my part, I unblushingly confess that I do not know what ‘scamels ’ are, and that I prefer to retain the word in the text, and to remain in utter, invincible ignorance. From the very beginning of the play we know that the scene lies in an enchanted island. Is this to he forgotten? Since the air is full of sweet sounds, why may not the rocks be inhabited by unknown birds of gay plumage, or by vague animals of a grateful and appetizing plumpness? Let the picture remain, of the dashing rocks, the stealthy, freckled whelp, and in the clutch of his long nails a young and tender scamel.” This is pleasant and sagacious, — a happy summing up of the two pages of “portentous notes ” and suggested emendations of previous editors. The only occasion on which Mr. Furness shows the slightest impatience in dealing with the work of his predecessors is in his recapitulation of the evidence regarding the date of composition of The Tempest. “Is there any really valuable end,” he asks, “to be gained by an investigation into the years when Shakespeare wrote this play ? Is there any possible intellectual gain in the knowledge of the exact date ? As a mere intellectual exercise an elaborate investigation may prove beneficial; but a second-rate drama, by an insignificant poet, will serve this purpose quite as well as The Tempest.” We venture to suggest that, as it may not be considering too nicely to conjecture a profound personal meaning in The Tempest, it is a matter of deep interest to know as nearly as possible the date of its composition. It was a natural and graceful fancy which assumed the last lines spoken by Prospero to be likewise the last completed work of Shakespeare. The play has something in its spirit of the nature of a solemn vision. Its atmosphere is one of reconciliation and forgiveness. As we leave the enchanted island, ringed round by the mysterious sea, there lingers in no nook or corner any memory of an inexpiable evil. Everywhere is the breath of a free and gracious spirit. That The Tempest seems to express Shakespeare’s highest and serenest view of life is surely sufficient reason for inquiry as to when in his life-history he attained to this clear and solemn vision.

An interesting feature of the appendix of the volume is a summary of the arguments of the German critics in support of the theory that the source of the plot of The Tempest is an old German comedy, The Fair Sidea, by Jacob Ayrer, which was unearthed eighty years ago by Tieck. As it is still commonly asserted in many quarters that Shakespeare, in writing The Tempest, borrowed directly from the work of the Nuremberg notary, and as The Fair Sidea is not easily accessible, Mr. Furness has given a translation of it, an examination of which will show that, while there may be one or two points of contact, there is really no ground common to the two plays. The most careful investigation has revealed no drama, story, or legend which was used by Shakespeare as the foundation for The Tempest, except the not improbable personal relation by Strachey of Sir Thomas Gates’s disastrous voyage. The play, in its ethereal beauty as of summer air, remains the fairy offspring of an enchanted sire.

No Shakespearean editor has worked on a scale so grand as that of Mr. Furness. The rare balance of qualities that he brings to his work constitutes what is almost infallibility of judgment. As we rise from the perusal of this latest volume of the new variorum, and place it beside its fellows on the shelves, we express the earnest hope that he may have health and energy to complete the great work which thus far he has executed with brilliant success; and may he long have the help of him to whom he alludes with such grace and feeling in the closing words of the preface: “The aid afforded by the hand whose cunning ninety years have not abated is here gratefully and reverently acknowledged by the whitehaired son.”