1. Introduction
1.2 Shakespeare as the Pioneer of Psychologically Shaping the Drama
William Shakespeare can rightfully be called a pioneer of the art of psychologically shaping the drama. He created dramatic styles and forms that were entirely innovative for his time, and through his diverse innovations he effectuated a reformation of the drama, whose impacts are relevant still today. To begin with, those novelties shall be shortly explained.
Thus “It is not the victims of wickedness and sin that the play is concerned with, but wickedness and sin itself, yet not from an attitude of orthodox certainty, but from a dramatic point of view so close to the protagonist that any superior detachment is made impossible.” (Mehl, p.106, l.1-4). Therefore the recipient can identify himself with the protagonist and oftentimes – just like in the case of Macbeth – also feel sympathy for him.
Furthermore, as for Shakespeare it is to be observed how the archetypical label of the tyrant makes more and more room for a complex and individual composition. The externalized presentation is progressively replaced by an internalization which gives us insights into the tyrant’s mind and, through precise mental differentiation, emphasizes his uniqueness as a personality (see Unterstenhöfer, p.49, ll.6-14).
The Roman historian Tacitus (c.56 AD – c.120 AD) already attempted to fathom the deeper problems of the regularities of the inner life and, thereby, paved the way for Shakespeare to transfer the psychological ideas of the Tacitean historiography onto the drama (Unterstenhöfer, p.50, l.24-28).
Through a strong differentiation of the psychological happenings of his tyrannic protagonists – as in Macbeth – Shakespeare, with his artistic skills and creativity, worked out a significant innovation of the drama: the discovery of “a particular concept of self or, more precisely, a ‘self-identity’.” (Mascuch, p.18, l.7-8).
Shakespeare was the first to use imagination, which was not supposed to reach its blooming period before Romanticism, in order to create grim scenarios and visions for his tragic protagonists and, in this way, be able to make their motivation for their respective actions more comprehensible and transparent for the audience. Even though its character was still of an experimental kind at that time, through the introduction of imagination the poet contributed substantially to the psychological shaping of the drama.
Only Shakespeare’s discovery of new linguistic devices for the depiction of a gradually emerging ‘psychology’ at that time – which nevertheless primarily only comes into its own in his later works – could ultimately implement such a multilayered fantasy-thinking, as for instance presented in the dagger-monologue (Macbeth1, Act 2, Scene 1, ll.33-64) which will be touched upon subsequently, into the poetic vision (see Clemen, p.49, ll.9-11).
A significant and constantly recurring means that Shakespeare makes use of, in order to clearly showcase deeper insights into the mental world and psychological processes of his protagonists to the recipient, is the monologue. By means of the monologue the audience becomes an intimate witness of the presented thoughts and feelings, in a sense, so as if they could take an unfiltered insight into the innermost spheres of a person (Mürb, p.34, l.28-30).
We encounter everything that marks Shakespeare’s art of characterization in his greatest dramas: the utter concentration of the statement, the ability to illustrate or concretize feelings and thoughts with sensuous forcefulness and, lastly, the extensive understanding of the human being, which is shown in both its rational awareness as well as its irrational actions – in short, in its entire contradictory complexity (Clemen, p.45, ll.8-17).
Herein the monologues, which additionally constitute a medium of self-portrayal for the tragic hero in the inwardness of his reflections and feelings (see Seeber, p.136, l.20-24), open up a fascinating look into Macbeth’s mental processes. Such an insight engages the viewer’s interest in a figure by including him into the events and also by creating an understanding for the respective motivations of the characters.
In Shakespeare’s great tragedies, such as Macbeth or Hamlet, the audience is given the impression of directly witnessing the genesis and unfolding of feelings and thoughts along with their spontaneous verbalization (Seeber, p.136, l.29-33). This act of verbalization itself becomes a mirror of an inner drama at this point, since the way in which a figure speaks – i.e. struggles for words and images, breaks off in a sentence, disrupts the blank verse, calls out excitedly, falls silent etc. – becomes an indication of unconscious or suppressed desires, hopes, fears and doubts (Seeber, p.136, l.38-42).
Another means for the insight into the characters’ minds is the ‘aside’, which often functions as a pre-form or a transition to the monologue in Shakespeare’s works. Nevertheless, in many cases a short version of a monologue cannot be distinguished from an ‘aside’. Shakespeare has developed this type of expression far above its original purpose, which was prescribed by the stage convention to the audience’s information, by evolving the ‘aside’ into a differentiated artistic means of the indirect characterization, the multilayered conversation, the preparation and the interpretation, whereby the same aspects and categories repeatedly arise which are also crucial for the consideration of the actual monologue (Clemen, p.51, ll.24-36).
Therefore, it can be conclusively stated that the function of the dramatic means during Shakespeare’s time was entirely new, since with the help of the monologue and the aside he – along with Marlowe – was the first to transfer mental processes and the innermost feelings and mindsets of his protagonists onto the stage. This can, to an extent, already be seen as a first dramatic depiction of a ‘psychology’, which during Shakespeare’s time was subliminally present at most.
1.1. Subject of interest
‘Imagination’ has always constituted a central term in both literary and intellectual history from the old Greeks up until postmodernism.