Author: Wang Yiqun
The study of Shakespeare must not be separated from the time in which he lived.
Shakespeare lived in a glorious era. The Renaissance movement, which began in Italy, has influenced all of Europe. It was a revolutionary movement that took place in the fields of scholarship, thought, literature and art, and "the greatest and most progressive change that mankind has ever experienced" (Engels). Although the magnificent Renaissance was over from shakespeare's birth, its influence still spread throughout Europe.
At the same time, within Britain, society has developed considerably since Henry Tudor seized the throne from Richard II in 1485 and established the 120-year Tudor dynasty. In particular, during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the economy took off, the mind was open, and the fortunes of the country were prosperous, which was known as the golden age in the history of the British monarchy. Shakespeare's immersion and influence by the ethos of this must reflect the characteristics of such a colorful era in his works.
The opening of a new chapter in the Renaissance was an important external factor in opening the key to Shakespeare
"One early afternoon in London in 1601, people from all over the city gathered on the north bank of the Thames, waiting for the boats to ferry them to the south bank, and everyone rushed to see Shakespeare's Hamlet." This passage in the historical records records the enthusiasm of the British public for drama at that time. The audience's love of Shakespeare's plays also reflects the prosperity of British theater at that time, which is the same as Italian painting and sculpture in the Renaissance. People's ardent pursuit of spiritual life and entertainment is exactly what the Renaissance advocated.
The European Renaissance movement originated in Italy, and its emergence was inextricably linked to the geographical discoveries and great migrations of peoples at that time.
Since ancient times, the peoples of the Mediterranean coast in Europe have had a different spirit of adventure than the inland inhabitants. By the fifteenth century, the Italian navigator Columbus made his first famous ocean-going attempt in 1492 in search of a "sea route to the East Indies". He crossed the Atlantic four times with the patronage of the King of Spain to the American continent. At the same time, the Portuguese explorer and navigator Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe not only opened up new routes, but also broke people's cognition, proved that the earth is round, and thus greatly expanded people's understanding of the world.
In fact, there were far more navigators involved in the great geographical discoveries than these two at that time. We can also cite the Portuguese Dias, who discovered the southernmost tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, da Gama, who opened a new route from the Cape of Good Hope to India, and Albert Tasman, a Dutchman who sailed as far as Australia and New Zealand. There is also a navigator who is rarely mentioned but well worth mentioning, the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, a contemporary of Columbus. Later generations even named this new continent after his name, Amerigo.
Shakespeare's writing was closely related to the discovery of the world at that time. The great discoveries of geography directly contributed to the rise of the scientific geography of Europe; the drawing of maps became a "science of manifestation" at that time; Petrarch, a famous humanist of the Renaissance, mentioned in his letters to friends that he had planned to draw a map of Italy. It is conceivable that after a long period of the Middle Ages, curiosity and yearning for the outside world is an important external factor that opens up the key to Shakespeare's plays.
Let's look at the axis of time.
The wind of the European Renaissance blows across the channel in England, through Genoa, Tripoli, Lisbon, and through Shakespeare's windows. At this time, England, which was the Elizabeth I period of the Tudor dynasty, was in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, known as the golden age in the history of British monarchy. Previously, during the reign of Henry VIII, he broke with the Holy See and established an independent Anglican Church, laying the foundation for the subsequent Reformation. After Elizabeth's succession, with the help of strong economic strength and well-trained sailors, English warships defeated the Spanish Armada that dominated Europe in one fell swoop. In August of that year, in front of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, a grand thanksgiving ceremony such as public prayer and victory parade was held, presenting a scene of national jubilation and marking the british national strength. Driven by strong national strength, Queen Elizabeth actively participates in the development of overseas markets. Trade routes in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean region and the Far East were opened to the northeast and southeast, the American market was opened to the west, and a colony was established in Virginia. In addition, the Queen has established a series of overseas companies abroad through the concession trade system. Between 1554 and 1600, multinational corporations were established in Moscow, Morocco, Guinea, Turkey, and the East Indies. Under her rule, Britain's trading partners spread across all continents, expanded rapidly, and the total value of imports and exports increased significantly, which promoted the prosperity of the domestic economy and showed a thriving atmosphere.
Therefore, Shakespeare's plays often give us a sense of the outdoors. What we see is the sea, the harbor, the streets, the squares, the forests, the battlefields... In The Merchant of Venice, too, the script tells us the love story of a young Italian Bassanio who pursues a rich woman, Portia, and thus leads to the "debt of a pound of meat" between the Jewish usurers and the Venetian merchant Antonio. In this script, the characters inadvertently talk about the beach, the reef, the sailboat, the mast, the hourglass, the monsoon, and so on. At the beginning of the play, the audience can feel the risks of maritime trade. "Rough waves", "big ships with sails bumping on the ocean", because of the fear of accidents at sea, the merchant's heart has been hanging on the merchant ship, "often have to uproot the grass to observe the direction of the wind blowing, in the map pile to see the names of the port, dock and street" (one scene after another), these situations set up, let the audience at the time refreshed.
A central plot of the script of The Merchant of Venice is that suitors from all over the world flock to Belmont to meet Portia, the beautiful and dignified heir to wealth. As the play's bassanio put it, "The wind from all directions has brought famous suitors from every shore", among them the Prince of Naples, the French nobleman, the English baron, the nephew of the German duke, the prince of Morocco... The Portia Mansion in Belmont became a meeting point for international people.
There is a passage in the play in which the heroine Portia satirizes the English baron's unsuitable words: "His tights were bought in Italy, his trousers were bought in France, his soft hats were bought in Germany, and as for his mannerisms, they were learned from all directions" (scene two). With a few faint strokes, the image of an emerging bourgeoisie that has opened up the market and traveled through Eurasia jumped out. In addition, Indian spices and oriental satin ayas can be seen everywhere in the script. The script first borrows from Sherlock's mouth (three scenes in one act) and later through Bassanio (two scenes in three acts), mentioning Antonio's merchant ships stopping at ports around the world: Mexico, Genoa, Tripoli, Lisbon, the West Indies, England. In this work, we can feel the atmosphere of an era of great change everywhere.
The theatrical structure, enshrined as the golden rule, was broken
In an era of innovation and pluralism in the European Renaissance, the diversity of Shakespeare's theatrical creations conformed to the trend of the times.
First of all, it is a breakthrough in the "Trinity" of theatrical creation. The so-called Trinity law, which Aristotle summed up the Greek tragedy and put forward, emphasized the high concentration of time, place, and plot. In short, the plot of a script must take place in the same location, the time of the plot must not exceed one day and night, and the plot of the script must also be single. Of course, Aristotle's trinity made some sense at the time. We know that Greek tragedies were staged in open-air amphitheaters, which had no lighting facilities, and people who sat in the sun for two or three hours could not believe that the plot had passed for days, even years. Moreover, at that time, the stage did not have a large curtain, and it was impossible to change the scene, and it was impossible to create the effect of stage illusion. Therefore, the change of location is also greatly limited.
However, in the play "The Merchant of Venice", we see that the plot can be switched between Venice and Belmont at will. Obviously, through the transformation of scenes, Shakespeare allows us to see a "tale of two cities" in the period of social transformation. This treatment has its own profound implications. Some commentators believe that Venice in the play is like a man's kingdom, while Belmont is a woman's world. Venice represents a bustling society of money, with streets, courts, exchanges, notary offices... Here people practice the spirit of contract, the loan of capital and the competition of commerce, and the words and swords of judges and lawyers make the city resemble a sword-rattling fighting field, and the poetic Belmont shows us a pastoral and quiet life. There's poetry, music, friendship and love. This kind of harmonious coexistence between people embodies the playwright's vision of an ideal society.
In addition, the diversity of "The Merchant of Venice" is also reflected in the diversity of plots. As mentioned earlier, in addition to the restrictions on time and place, the "Trinity" also requires a single plot. At this point, "The Merchant of Venice" also made a big breakthrough. The plot of the play is developed in a multi-line parallel manner, in addition to the two main plots of Bassanio's pursuit of Portia and Antonio's borrowing money from Shylock, there are also a series of secondary clues such as various suitors choosing color boxes, Portia Qiao playing the judge to preside over the trial, Sherlock's daughter Jessica eloping with the Christian youth Lorenzo, the bridegroom's friend and the bride's maid Nilisha and so on. Due to the complexity of the plot and the interspersing of various people, Shakespeare presents a completely different appearance from the previous "Trinity" storytelling method, and a vivid and vivid social scene is rolled out.
Shakespeare's innovation is not innovation for the sake of innovation. It is tightly at the service of expressing the subject. I remember asking students a question in Shakespeare's Selective Reading Class before: according to the general screenwriting method, a multi-act play, each scene is usually composed of three or four scenes, balanced and regular. But The Merchant of Venice is a bit special, with its scene division completely irregular. There are five acts in total: three in the first act, nine in the second act, five in the third act, two in the fourth act, and one in the fifth act. Nine scenes are arranged in the second act alone. In this scene, there are dazzling scenes, including the Prince of Morocco and the Prince of Aragon who come to propose, Ransilo who escapes from his master, Ransilo meets his father on the road, Jessica and Lorenzo are secretly destined for life, and Lonsilo delivers love letters to Jessica, and other details that seem to have little to do with the main plot. What exactly is the reason? It was actually Shakespeare who wanted to solve the problem of a three-month usurious loan period in act II. Since the Elizabethan theater did not have a curtain, it is not like the current curtain that has been pulled for three months, and the curtain has been pulled for three years. So how to solve this time problem? Shakespeare's method is to create a sense of time passing through the influx of events, the endless flow of characters, and the appearance of various people. It can be seen from this that whether it is the "Trinity" or the pure rules and precepts of various plays, it is impossible to restrain Shakespeare, who is full of talent and wanton in the field of theatrical creation.
Shakespeare let the "man" really go to the C position
We know that the "Trinity" has the advantages of concise plot, compactness, and concentration, but it will cause the shortcomings of single character and type, which have been completely changed in Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's characters give a sense of fullness and three-dimensionality. In the case of Portia, for example, what we see in her is a dignified, virtuous, lively, playful, humorous, and witty showman. She has both a well-spoken and deeply righteous side, and a side that is not afraid of danger, brave and calm, and dares to take responsibility. These are vividly reflected in the script.
In particular, the young Italian Bassanio, who pursues Portia, not only has a diverse personality, but also his personality develops with the development of the plot. He was originally a clumsy boy, profligate and in debt. Portia, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, may not have had the purpose of pursuing wealth. When he borrowed money from his friend Antonio, he confessed his heart, saying that in order to support the scene of external strength and hard work, I had hollowed out my family property, and now I can no longer swing as wide as before. I'm thinking a lot now about how I can get out of my current predicament. Speaking of this, he used an analogy: when he was a child, he learned archery, and after losing one arrow, he shot in the same direction with another arrow in an attempt to retrieve the original one. The same is true of borrowing money from a friend to go to Belmont this time, to "take the double risk of either getting the two arrows back together or returning your second increase" (one scene after another). It can be seen from this that he borrowed money for a blind date this time and had the mentality of risking "gambling". However, such a utilitarian person, under the influence of the gentlemanly demeanor of his friend Antonio who is generous and righteous and does not hesitate to insert a knife in both ribs for his friend, under the inspiration of his fiancée Portia's humble and benevolent, righteous and merciful spirit of benevolence, and inspired by the spirit of Jessica, Lorenzo, Lonsilo, Nilisha and others who strive for marriage freedom and pursue personality liberation, gradually completed the reshaping of personality, and finally sacrificed his life for his friend, becoming a "person" with heavy love and righteousness.
Portia in The Merchant of Venice has historically been considered by literary critics to be a figure in the spirit of Shakespeare's humanism. "Mercy is not out of reluctance, it is descended from heaven like Ganlin; it is not only for those who are happy to be given, but also to those who are happy to give; it has a supreme power beyond all, more than the crown to show the nobility of an emperor: the royal staff only symbolizes the authority of the world, so that the people are awe-struck by the dignity of the king; the power of mercy is higher than power, it is hidden in the heart of the emperor, it is a virtue that belongs to God, and if the law enforcers can adjust mercy to justice, There is no difference between human power and God's divine power—Zhu Shenghao's translation. Portia's famous court monologue in act IV has been circulated for many years as a "manifesto of humanism."
Of course, there are many more influences on Shakespeare's zeitgeist, such as the influence of the Reformation we mentioned earlier, which is also worth mentioning, but due to space limitations, I will not expand on them here.
In short, Shakespeare lived in an age of great talent, "an age of giants who needed and produced giants—giants in terms of mental ability, enthusiasm and character, in versatility and knowledge" (Engels). Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Martin Luther, Erasmus, Thomas More, Bacon, etc. are the proud sons of this era. If space permits, the list can go on forever. These giants are like towering trees, becoming landmarks in the history of human civilization. Enthusiastically celebrating sincere friendship and love, celebrating benevolence and fraternity, and holding high the banner of humanism, Shakespeare is one of these towering trees, and worthy of being the tallest of them.
(The author is a European and American drama expert, a professor at Shanghai Overseas Chinese University)
The wind that blew through Genoa, Tripoli, Lisbon, and also blew through his window – shakespeare's time from The Merchant of Venice
Source: Wen Wei Po