Shakespeare

Armin had studied what were known as “natural fools” and with his instinctive skills in mimicry he had learned to imitate them; so he brought a self-consciousness or interiority to the role of clown that Kempe himself never provided. He did not “ad lib” or make impromptu jokes in the manner of his predecessor; he studied each role with care, and differentiated one from another. That was why he was important to Shakespeare’s dramaturgy. Since Armin played the part of the foul-mouthed and pustular Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, it is clear enough that he could undertake what at a later date would be called “character parts.” He may have played Casca in Julius Caesar, for example, and Caliban in The Tempest. This also makes a difference to the interpretation of Shakespeare’s drama. It is sometimes supposed that Menenius in Coriolanus is the voice of good sense or worldly wisdom; but if he were played by Armin, as has been suggested, he would have become a grotesque.

So he first appears as Touchstone in As You Like It, proclaimed as “Nature’s naturall.” He does not wear the conventional russet outfit of the clown but instead the fool’s costume of motley that included a long coat woven of green and yellow, an eared hood and a baton. For Armin Shakespeare invented the character of Touchstone, without relying upon his usual multifarious sources. He also gave Armin an extensive part, the third largest in the play, with 320 lines of dialogue. In the third act he sings snatches of a song, “Wind away, Be gone, I say,” before he runs off the stage with Audrey. He probably doubled as Amiens – Armin/Amiens – with more lyrical ballads from the repertoire. There are in fact more songs in As You Like It than in any other Shakespearian play, and they are clearly related to the use of Armin as counter-tenor. When, a year later, Armin played the Clown in Twelfth Night he is given a significant compliment (1244-5):

This fellow is wise enough to play the foole,

And to do that well, craues a kinde of wit.

Given the enclosure riots of the period, and the general fear of those who lived in forests as “outlaws” and “robbers,” it would have been relatively easy to turn As You Like It into a satirical portrait of greed and corruption; but he chose another path. By adopting the plot of Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde, he writes charming pastoral satire with the additional figures of Jaques and Touchstone to lend comic depth to the proceedings. He was a literate man who preferred romance to reality. The forest prompts the characters, not into rapine or violence, but into poetry and song. It is a haven for generosity of spirit and for melancholy musing, a place where love is celebrated and confirmed; it is a locale in which the audience witnesses the conversion of evil to good as well as supernatural visitations. The spell of enchantment is upon everything.

CHAPTER 68 Now, One the Better; Then, Another Best

Yet it was in many respects a hard and disenchanted age. Satire was very much in the air. Given the macabre atmosphere ‘ around the declining queen, it could hardly fail to be so. The final stages of an ancien régime always provoke black humour. It was the age of Donne’s satires and of such books as Lodge’s Wits Miserie and the Worlds Madness.

On I June 1599 the Archbishop of Canterbury banned all satire in verse. The Privy Council ordered that the number of plays be restricted. But the new vogue for satire came directly to involve Shakespeare in what is known as the “Poets’ War.” Like all internecine conflicts its origins are uncertain, and have as a result been endlessly debated. We may trace a source or origin, however, in John Marston’s association with the Middle Temple and with the choirboys of St. Paul’s who performed dramas in their singing-school by the cathedral.

John Marston had acquired a reputation as a precocious satirist, especially of those older writers who had attained success or renown. One of his earliest productions, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image, was a burlesque upon Venus and Adonis. His satire at Shakespeare’s expense, however, did not prevent him from borrowing or copying extensively from the work of the older dramatist. Marston is a familiar type. Shakespeare already knew him; as a member of the Middle Temple Marston’s father had stood surety for Shakespeare’s cousin, Thomas Greene, to become a member of that institution. For the members of the Middle Temple, in late 1598 or early 1599, Marston wrote a satirical play, Histriomastix, in which he glances unfavourably at both Shakespeare and Jonson.