Учебное пособие 4 unit I. The renaissance 1485-1649

SHAKESPEARE’S CHARACTERS
Shakespeare’s characters emerge in his plays as distinctive human beings.
Although some of the characters display elements of conventional dramatic
types such as the melancholy man, the braggart soldier, the pedant, and the
young lover, they are nevertheless usually individualized rather than
caricatures or exaggerated types. Falstaff, for example, bears some
resemblance to the braggart soldiers of 16th-century Italian comedy and to
representations of the character Vice in medieval morality plays, but his
vitality and inexhaustible wit make him unique. Hamlet, one of the most
complex characters in all literature, is partly a picture of the ideal
Renaissance man, and he also exhibits traits of the conventional melancholic
character. However, his personality as a whole transcends these types, and he
is so real that commentators have continued for centuries to explore his
fascinating mind.
The women in Shakespeare’s plays are vivid creations, each differing
from the others. It is important to remember that in Shakespeare’s time boy
actors played the female parts. Actresses did not appear in a Shakespeare
play until after the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660 and
the introduction of French practices such as women actors. It says much
about the talent of the boy actors of his own day that Shakespeare could
create such a rich array of fascinating women characters. Shakespeare was
fond of portraying aggressive, witty heroines, such as Kate of
The Taming of
the Shrew
, Rosaline of
Love’s Labour’s Lost
, and Beatrice of
Much Ado
About Nothing
. However, he was equally adept at creating gentle and
innocent women, such as Ophelia in
Hamlet
, Desdemona in
Othello
, and
Cordelia in
King Lear
. His female characters also include the treacherous
Goneril and Regan in
King Lear
, the iron-willed Lady Macbeth, the witty and
resourceful Portia in
Merchant of Venice
, the tender and loyal Juliet, and the
alluring Cleopatra.
Shakespeare’s comic figures are also highly varied. They include
bumbling rustics such as Dogberry and Verges in
Much Ado About Nothing
,
tireless punsters like the Dromios in
The Comedy of Errors
, pompous
grotesques like Don Armado in
Love’s Labour’s Lost
, elegant wits like Feste
in
Twelfth Night
, cynical realists like Thersites in
Troilus and Cressida
, and
fools who utter nonsense that often conceals wisdom, such as Touchstone in
As You Like It
and the Fool in
King Lear
.
Shakespeare drew his characters with remarkable insight into human
character. Even the most wicked characters, such as Iago in
Othello
, have

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human traits that can elicit understanding if not compassion. Thus, Macbeth’s
violent end arouses pity and awe rather than scornful triumph at a criminal’s
just punishment for his deeds. The characters achieve uniqueness through
their brilliantly individualized styles of speech. Shakespeare’s understanding
of the human soul and his mastery of language enabled him to write dialogue
that makes the characters in his plays always intelligible, vital, and
memorable.