Geophysical fluid dynamics : understanding

(almost) everything with rotating shallow water

models First Edition Zeitlin pdf download

https://ebookmass.com/product/geophysical-fluid-dynamics-
understanding-almost-everything-with-rotating-shallow-water-
models-first-edition-zeitlin/

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookmass.com

We have selected some products that you may be interested in
Click the link to download now or visit ebookmass.com
for more options!.

Free-surface flow: shallow-water dynamics Katopodes

https://ebookmass.com/product/free-surface-flow-shallow-water-
dynamics-katopodes/

Incompressible Fluid Dynamics P. A. Davidson

https://ebookmass.com/product/incompressible-fluid-dynamics-p-a-
davidson/

Computational fluid dynamics : a practical approach Third

Edition Liu

https://ebookmass.com/product/computational-fluid-dynamics-a-
practical-approach-third-edition-liu/

Fluid Dynamics Part 4: Hydrodynamic Stability Theory

Anatoly Ruban

https://ebookmass.com/product/fluid-dynamics-part-4-hydrodynamic-
stability-theory-anatoly-ruban/
Fluid Dynamics: Part 3 Boundary Layers Anatoly I. Ruban

https://ebookmass.com/product/fluid-dynamics-part-3-boundary-layers-
anatoly-i-ruban/

Lagrangian & Hamiltonian dynamics First Edition. Edition

Mann

https://ebookmass.com/product/lagrangian-hamiltonian-dynamics-first-
edition-edition-mann/

Understanding Large Language Models Thimira Amaratunga

https://ebookmass.com/product/understanding-large-language-models-
thimira-amaratunga/

Moving particle semi-implicit method: a meshfree particle

method for fluid dynamics Kondo

https://ebookmass.com/product/moving-particle-semi-implicit-method-a-
meshfree-particle-method-for-fluid-dynamics-kondo/

Everything, More or Less : a defence of generality

relativism First Edition. Edition James Studd

https://ebookmass.com/product/everything-more-or-less-a-defence-of-
generality-relativism-first-edition-edition-james-studd/
GEOPHYSICAL FLUID DYNAMICS
 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Understanding (Almost) Everything with Rotating
Shallow Water Models

Vladimir Zeitlin
Laboratory of Dynamical Meteorology, Sorbonne University and École Normale
Supérieure Paris, France

3
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Vladimir Zeitlin 2018
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017959942
ISBN 978–0–19–880433–8
DOI 10.1093/oso/9780198804338.001
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
To the memory of G. Zaslavsky
Preface

The book explains the key notions and fundamental processes of the dynamics of the
fluid envelopes of the Earth (transposable to other planets) from the unifying viewpoint
of rotating shallow-water model (RSW). The model, in its one- or two-layer versions,
plays a distinguished role in geophysical fluid dynamics. It has been used now for about
a century to aid conceptual understanding of various phenomena, for elaboration of
approaches and methods to be used later in more complete models, for development
and testing of numerical codes and schemes of data assimilations, and for many other
purposes. In spite of its simplicity, the model grasps the essential features of the com-
plete ‘primitive equations’ models of large- and medium-scale atmospheric and oceanic
motions. Although RSW, most often, can not give a full quantitative explanation of ob-
servations, it provides qualitative (and, in many cases, semi-quantitative) understanding.
It gives simple and clear representation of the principal dynamical processes and helps
to develop physical intuition. In addition, it allows for efficient high-resolution numer-
ical methods which achieve, with modest computational resources, resolutions and time
spans hardly possible with the full primitive equations. The quasi-geostrophic reduction
of the model is no less celebrated, having been used, for example, for the first successful
numerical weather prediction.
After deriving one- and two-layer versions of the RSW model directly from the
primitive equations and exploring its properties, we will explain and illustrate the funda-
mentals of geophysical fluid dynamics with its help, and treat traditional and recently
arisen applications. We will be explaining both mathematics and physics underlying
dynamical phenomena and the methods used to analyse them, with necessary demon-
strations. However, most often we will remain on a heuristic level and will be, frequently
in the first place, looking for qualitative insights. Hence, we will illustrate dynamical pro-
cesses under consideration with abundant figures, and often sacrifice technical details or
relegate them to exercises.
The book targets fluid dynamicists, physicists, and applied mathematicians inter-
ested in the dynamics of the climate system and the modelling of atmospheric and
oceanic phenomena, mathematically minded meteorologists and oceanographers, in-
cluding graduate and post-graduate students. It can be used as a complement to standard
textbooks in geophysical fluid dynamics, dynamical meteorology, and physical ocean-
ography. The book is self-contained and provides, in a concise manner, all necessary
prerequisites, except for basic mathematics. It is divided in to three parts. Part I is a geo-
physical fluid dynamics course in RSW terms and is supplied with problems/exercises
which complement demonstrations in the main text. Solutions of the problems can
be obtained from the Editorial Office on demand. Part II contains advanced top-
ics and studies of principal dynamical phenomena. Part III considers some modern
viii Preface

developments in rotating shallow-water modelling. Each chapter of the book ends by

a short résumé of the main points, and bibliographic remarks, for better orientation. A
detailed Index serves the same purpose.
The first, and partially the second part are based on the course in geophysical fluid
dynamics which is being taught by the author at the Université P. and M. Curie and
École Normale Supérieure (Paris). The rest of the book is largely based on the original
works of the author with students and collaborators.
Acknowledgements

A considerable part of material of this book is based on my work with friends and col-
laborators F. Bouchut, S. Medvedev, G. Reznik, and T. Dubos as well as with former
masters and PhD students, some of them now colleagues, M. BenJelloul, E. Gouzien, J.
Gula, N. Lahaye, J. Lambaerts, J. LeSommer, R. Plougonven, B. Ribstein, M. Rostami,
E. Scherer, A. Stegner, and M. Tort, all of which is gratefully acknowledged.
Visit https://ebookmass.com today to explore
a vast collection of ebooks across various
genres, available in popular formats like
PDF, EPUB, and MOBI, fully compatible with
all devices. Enjoy a seamless reading
experience and effortlessly download high-
quality materials in just a few simple steps.
Plus, don’t miss out on exciting offers that
let you access a wealth of knowledge at the
best prices!
Contents

Part I Modelling Large-scale Oceanic and Atmospheric

Flows: From Primitive to Rotating Shallow-Water Equations
and Beyond
1 Introduction 3
2 Primitive Equations Model 6
2.1 Preliminaries 6
2.2 A crash course in fluid dynamics 6
2.2.1 The perfect fluid 6
2.2.2 Real fluids: incorporating molecular transport 13
2.3 Rotation, sphericity, and tangent plane approximation 14
2.3.1 Hydrodynamics in the rotating frame with gravity 14
2.3.2 Hydrodynamics in spherical coordinates
and the ‘traditional’ approximation in GFD 15
2.3.3 The tangent plane approximation 17
2.4 Primitive equations in the oceanic and atmospheric context 17
2.4.1 Oceanic context 18
2.4.2 Atmospheric context 19
2.4.3 Remarkable properties of the PE dynamics 22
2.4.4 What do we lose by assuming hydrostatics? 26
2.5 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 27
2.6 Problems 28
3 Simplifying Primitive Equations: Rotating Shallow-Water
Models and their Properties 29
3.1 Vertical averaging of horizontal momentum and mass conservation equations 29
3.2 Archetype models 33
3.2.1 One-layer RSW model 33
3.2.2 Two-layer RSW model with a rigid lid 34
3.2.3 Two-layer RSW model with a free upper surface 34
3.2.4 RSW model on the sphere 36
3.3 Vortices and waves in rotating shallow-water models 36
3.3.1 One-layer RSW model 36
3.3.2 Two-layer RSW model 40
3.4 Lagrangian approach and variational principles for shallow-water models 42
3.4.1 Lagrangian formulation of one-layer RSW 42
3.4.2 Lagrangian formulation of two-layer RSW 46
xii Contents

3.5 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 47

3.6 Problems 48
4 Wave Motions in Rotating Shallow Water with Boundaries,
Topography, at the Equator, and in Laboratory 49
4.1 Introducing lateral boundaries and shelf 49
4.1.1 Kelvin waves in RSW with an idealised coast 49
4.1.2 Waves in RSW with idealised coast and a shelf 52
4.2 Waves over topography/bathymetry far from lateral boundaries 57
4.2.1 Topographic waves 57
4.2.2 Mountain (lee) waves in RSW 59
4.3 Waves in outcropping flows 62
4.4 Equatorial waves 67
4.4.1 Equatorial waves in one-layer model 67
4.4.2 Waves in two-layer RSW with a rigid lid on the equatorial
beta plane 75
4.5 Waves in rotating annulus 77
4.5.1 RSW in cylindrical geometry 77
4.5.2 Analytic solution of the eigenvalue problem 79
4.6 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 83
4.7 Problems 85
5 Getting Rid of Fast Waves: Slow Dynamics 86
5.1 General properties of the horizontal motion. Geostrophic equilibrium 86
5.2 Slow dynamics in a one-layer model 88
5.2.1 Derivation of the QG equations 88
5.2.2 Rossby waves and vortex dynamics: β plane vs f plane 90
5.2.3 QG dynamics in the presence of topography. Mountain
Rossby waves 91
5.2.4 Frontal geostrophic dynamics 95
5.3 Slow dynamics in the two-layer model with a rigid lid 96
5.3.1 Derivation of the QG equations 96
5.3.2 Rossby waves in the two-layer QG model 98
5.3.3 Baroclinic instability: first acquaintance 98
5.3.4 Frontal geostrophic regimes 100
5.4 Slow dynamics in two-layer model with a free surface 101
5.4.1 Equations of motion, parameters, and scaling 101
5.4.2 QG equations 102
5.5 Large-scale slow dynamics in the presence of wave guides 102
5.5.1 A reminder on multi-scale asymptotic expansions 102
5.5.2 Slow motions in the presence of a lateral boundary 103
5.5.3 Slow motions over escarpment 106
5.5.4 Slow motions at the equator 108
 Contents xiii

5.6 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 114

5.7 Problems 116
6 Vortex Dynamics on the f and beta Plane and Wave Radiation
by Vortices 117
6.1 Two-dimensional vortex dynamics 117
6.1.1 2D Euler equations in stream-function–vorticity variables 117
6.1.2 Lagrangian formulation of 2D hydrodynamics of a perfect
fluid 119
6.1.3 Dynamics of point vortices 120
6.1.4 Contour dynamics 121
6.1.5 Structure (Casimir)-preserving discretisations of vorticity
equation in Fourier space 122
6.2 Quasi-geostrophic modons in the β- and f -plane approximations 124
6.2.1 Influence of the beta effect upon a monopolar vortex 124
6.2.2 Constructing QG modon solutions: one-layer case 125
6.2.3 Constructing QG modon solutions: two-layer case 127
6.3 A crash course in 2D turbulence 134
6.3.1 Reminder on statistical description of turbulence 134
6.3.2 Developed turbulence: energy and enstrophy cascades 136
6.4 When vortices emit waves: Lighthill radiation 137
6.4.1 2D hydrodynamics and vortex-pair solution in complex
notation 138
6.4.2 Gravity waves in cylindrical geometry 138
6.4.3 Lighthill radiation 139
6.4.4 Back-reaction of wave radiation 140
6.4.5 Lighthill radiation in the presence of rotation 141
6.5 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 142
6.6 Problems 143
7 Rotating Shallow-Water Models as Quasilinear Hyperbolic
Systems, and Related Numerical Methods 144
7.1 One-layer model 145
7.1.1 1.5-dimensional one-layer RSW model 145
7.1.2 Lagrangian approach to the 1.5-dimensional model 145
7.1.3 Quasilinear and hyperbolic systems 147
7.1.4 Wave breaking in non-rotating and rotating one-layer RSW 148
7.1.5 Hydraulic theory applied to rotating shallow water 150
7.1.6 A brief description of finite-volume numerical methods for
one-layer RSW 153
7.1.7 Illustration: breaking of equatorial waves 158
7.2 Two-layer model 159
7.2.1 1.5 dimensional two-layer RSW 159
xiv Contents

7.2.2 Characteristic equation and loss of hyperbolicity 160

7.2.3 Rankine–Hugoniot conditions 162
7.2.4 A finite-volume numerical method for two-layer RSW 163
7.3 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 164
7.4 Problems 166

Part II Understanding Fundamental Dynamical Phenomena

with Rotating Shallow-Water Models
8 Geostrophic Adjustment and Wave–Vortex (Non)Interaction 169
8.1 Geostrophic adjustment in the barotropic (one-layer) model 169
8.1.1 Quasi-geostrophic regime 169
8.1.2 Frontal geostrophic regime 175
8.2 Geostrophic adjustment in the baroclinic (two-layer) model 180
8.2.1 Quasi-geostrophic regime 180
8.2.2 Frontal geostrophic regime 181
8.3 Geostrophic adjustment in one dimension and the first idea
of frontogenesis 183
8.3.1 Theoretical considerations 183
8.3.2 Numerical simulations: Rossby adjustment 189
8.4 Geostrophic adjustment in the presence of boundaries, topography,
and at the equator 191
8.4.1 Geostrophic adjustment with a lateral boundary 191
8.4.2 Geostrophic adjustment over escarpment 191
8.4.3 Geostrophic adjustment in the equatorial beta plane 192
8.5 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 194
9 RSW Modons and their Surprising Properties: RSW Turbulence 197
9.1 QG vs RSW modons: one-layer model 197
9.1.1 General properties of steady solutions 197
9.1.2 ‘Ageostrophic adjustment’ of QG modons 198
9.1.3 Properties of RSW modons 201
9.2 QG vs RSW modons: two-layer model 203
9.2.1 Adjustment of barotropic QG modons 203
9.2.2 Adjustment of baroclinic QG modons 204
9.2.3 Adjustment of essentially ageostrophic modons 204
9.3 Shock modons 206
9.4 Interactions of RSW modons 208
9.4.1 2 modons → 2 modons collision 209
9.4.2 2 → 2 ‘loose’ modon collision 209
9.4.3 2 modons → tripole collisions 210
9.4.4 2 modons → tripole + monopole collisions 210
9.4.5 Collisions of shock modons 213
 Contents xv

9.5 2D vs RSW turbulence 213

9.5.1 Set-up and initialisations 214
9.5.2 General features of the evolution of the vortex system 215
9.5.3 Non-universality of RSW turbulence 218
9.6 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 219
10 Instabilities of Jets and Fronts and their Nonlinear Evolution 221
10.1 Instabilities: general notions and techniques 221
10.1.1 Definitions and general concepts 221
10.1.2 (In)stability criteria for plane-parallel flows 223
10.1.3 Direct approach to linear stability analysis
of plane-parallel and circular flows 225
10.2 Geostrophic barotropic and baroclinic instabilities of jets 226
10.2.1 Barotropic instability of a Bickley jet on the f plane 226
10.2.2 Baroclinic instability of a Bickley jet in the f plane 228
10.3 Ageostrophic instabilities in the Phillips model: Rossby–Kelvin
and shear instabilities 232
10.4 Ageostrophic instabilities of jets and their nonlinear evolution 235
10.4.1 Linear stability 235
10.4.2 Nonlinear saturation of essentially ageostrophic
instabilities 241
10.4.3 A brief summary of the results on essentially
ageostrophic instabilities of mid-latitude jets 244
10.5 Understanding the nature of inertial instability 244
10.6 Instabilities of jets at the equator and their nonlinear evolution,
with emphasis on inertial instability 248
10.6.1 Linear stability and nonlinear saturation of instabilities
in one-layer RSW model at the equator 248
10.6.2 Linear stability and nonlinear saturation of instabilities
in two-layer RSW model at the equator 254
10.6.3 A brief summary of the results on instabilities
of equatorial jets 260
10.7 Instabilities of coastal currents and their nonlinear evolution 261
10.7.1 Passive lower layer: results of the linear stability analysis 261
10.7.2 Passive lower layer: nonlinear evolution of the instability 262
10.7.3 Active lower layer: results of linear stability analysis 266
10.7.4 Active lower layer: nonlinear saturation of instabilities 269
10.7.5 A brief summary of the results on instabilities of coastal
currents 273
10.8 Instabilities of double-density fronts and the role of topography 275
10.8.1 Set-up, scaling, parameters, and boundary conditions 275
10.8.2 Linear stability analysis 277
xvi Contents

10.8.3Nonlinear saturation of the instabilities 280

10.8.4A brief summary of the results on instabilities of double
fronts over topography 283
10.9 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 284
11 Instabilities in Cylindrical Geometry: Vortices and Laboratory Flows 289
11.1 Axisymmetric vortex solutions in rotating shallow water 290
11.1.1 One-layer model 290
11.1.2 Two-layer model 291
11.2 Instabilities of isolated quasi-geostrophic vortices and their
nonlinear evolution 292
11.2.1 One-layer configuration, barotropic vortices 292
11.2.2 Two-layer configuration, baroclinic upper-layer vortex 295
11.3 Instabilities of ageostrophic vortices and their nonlinear evolution 299
11.3.1 General considerations 299
11.3.2 Results of the linear stability analysis 300
11.3.3 Nonlinear saturation of the instabilities 305
11.4 Instabilities of intense hurricane-like vortices and their nonlinear evolution 310
11.4.1 Idealised rotating shallow-water hurricane 311
11.4.2 Results of the linear stability analysis 313
11.4.3 Nonlinear saturation of the hurricane’s instability 314
11.4.4 A brief summary of the results on instabilities
of idealised hurricanes 317
11.5 Instabilities of laboratory flows in rotating annuli 317
11.5.1 Stability of two-layer flows under the rigid lid 317
11.5.2 Stability of flows in rotating annulus with outcropping
and topography 325
11.5.3 A brief summary of the results of analysis of instabilities
in the rotating annulus 335
11.6 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 336
12 Resonant Wave Interactions and Resonant Excitation
of Wave-guide Modes 338
12.1 Resonant wave triads: first acquaintance 338
12.1.1 Perturbation theory for Rossby waves 338
12.1.2 Wave resonances and wave modulation 340
12.2 Resonant excitation of trapped coastal waves by free
inertia–gravity waves 341
12.2.1 Resonant excitation of wave-guide modes: general
philosophy 341
12.2.2 Resonant excitation of Kelvin waves by free
inertia–gravity waves at abrupt shelf: barotropic model 342
 Contents xvii

12.2.3 Resonant excitation of Kelvin waves by free

inertia–gravity waves at abrupt shelf: baroclinic model 347
12.2.4 Resonant excitation of coastal waves by free
inertia–gravity waves at the shelf with gentle slope 355
12.3 Resonant excitation of baroclinic Rossby and Yanai waves in the
equatorial wave guide 364
12.3.1 Reminder on two-layer equatorial RSW and general
conditions of removal of resonances 364
12.3.2 Wave–wave resonances 365
12.3.3 Wave mean current resonances 372
12.4 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 376
13 Wave Turbulence 379
13.1 The main hypotheses and ideas of the wave turbulence approach 379
13.1.1 A reminder on Hamiltonian description of wave
systems 379
13.1.2 The principal idea of wave turbulence approach 383
13.1.3 Kinetic equations for decay and non-decay dispersion
laws 383
13.1.4 Exact solutions of kinetic equations 384
13.1.5 Conservation laws and dimensional estimates 388
13.2 Applications of the wave turbulence theory to waves in rotating
shallow water 389
13.2.1 Wave turbulence of inertia–gravity waves on the f plane 389
13.2.2 Weak turbulence of short inertia–gravity waves
on the equatorial β plane 393
13.2.3 Weak turbulence of the Rossby waves on the β plane 399
13.3 Turbulence of inertia–gravity waves in rotating shallow water:
theory vs numerical experiment 401
13.4 Historical comments, summary, and bibliographic remarks 403

Part III Generalisations of Standard Rotating Shallow-water

Model, and their Applications
14 Rotating Shallow-Water model with Horizontal Density and/or
Temperature Gradients 409
14.1 Derivation of the thermal rotating shallow-water model and its properties 409
14.1.1 Derivation of the model 409
14.1.2 Gas dynamics analogy 411
14.1.3 Waves and vortices 411
14.1.4 Quasi-geostrophic TRSW 412
14.1.5 Variational principle for TRSW 413
14.2 Instabilities of jets and vortices in thermal rotating shallow water 414
xviii Contents

14.2.1 New instabilities in TRSW: first example 414

14.2.2 Instabilities of thermal vortices in TRSW 414
14.2.3 Stationary vortex solutions 415
14.2.4 Results of the linear stability analysis of a thermal
cyclone 415
14.2.5 Nonlinear saturation of the instability 418
14.2.6 Discussion of the results 419
14.3 Summary, comments, and bibliographic remarks 419
15 Rotating Shallow-Water Models with Moist Convection 421
15.1 Constructing moist-convective shallow-water models 421
15.1.1 General context and philosophy of the approach 421
15.1.2 Introducing moisture in primitive equations 422
15.1.3 Vertical averaging with convective fluxes 422
15.1.4 Linking convection and condensation 424
15.1.5 Surface evaporation and its parameterisations 425
15.1.6 Two-layer model with a dry upper layer and its
one-layer limit 426
15.2 Properties of moist-convective RSW models 427
15.2.1 Limiting cases 427
15.2.2 Conservation laws 429
15.3 Mathematics of moist-convective rotating shallow water 430
15.3.1 Quasilinear form and characteristic equations 430
15.3.2 Discontinuities and Rankine–Hugoniot conditions 432
15.3.3 Illustration: wave scattering on a moisture front 432
15.4 Applications to ‘moist’ instabilities of geostrophic jets and vortices 434
15.4.1 Moist instability of the baroclinic Bickley jet 434
15.4.2 Moist instability of geostrophic vortices 435
15.5 Moist dynamics of tropical cyclone-like vortices 439
15.6 Summary, discussion, and bibliographic remarks 441
16 Rotating Shallow-Water Models with Full Coriolis Force 446
16.1 ‘Non-traditional’ rotating shallow-water model in the tangent
plane approximation 446
16.1.1 Vertical averaging of ‘non-traditional’ primitive
equations 446
16.1.2 Non-traditional RSW models 449
16.2 ‘Non-traditional’ rotating shallow-water model on the sphere 450
16.2.1 Including the effects of curvature in the RSW with full
Coriolis force 450
16.2.2 Variational principle for the primitive equations
in spherical geometry 452
16.2.3 Characteristic scales and parameters 455
 Contents xix

16.2.4 Columnar motion reduction in the variational principle 456

16.2.5 Derivation of the non-traditional rotating shallow-water
equations 460
16.3 Example of crucial influence of non-traditional corrections:
inertial instability with full Coriolis force 463
16.3.1 Inertial instability with full Coriolis force: theoretical
considerations 463
16.3.2 Inertial instability with full Coriolis force: direct
approach to the linear stability analysis 467
16.4 Summary, discussion, and bibliographic remarks 472

References 475
Index 485
Visit https://ebookmass.com today to explore
a vast collection of ebooks across various
genres, available in popular formats like
PDF, EPUB, and MOBI, fully compatible with
all devices. Enjoy a seamless reading
experience and effortlessly download high-
quality materials in just a few simple steps.
Plus, don’t miss out on exciting offers that
let you access a wealth of knowledge at the
best prices!
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
antiquity. But he entirely lacks the comic vein which we find in the
first English imitations of Plautus and Terence—in Ralph Roister
Doister and in Gammer Gurtoris Needle, acted, respectively, in the
middle of the century and in the middle of the sixties, by Eton
schoolboys and Cambridge students.
Kit Marlowe is the creator of English tragedy. He it was who
established on the public stage the use of the unrhymed iambic
pentameter as the medium of English drama. He did not invent
English blank verse—the Earl of Surrey (who died in 1547) had used
it in his translation of the Æneid, and it had been employed in the
old play of Gorboduc and others which had been performed at court.
But Marlowe was the first to address the great public in this
measure, and he did so, as appears from the prologue to
Tamburlaine, in express contempt for "the jigging veins of rhyming
mother-wits" and "such conceits as clownage keeps in pay," seeking
deliberately for tragic emphasis and "high astounding terms" in
which to express the rage of Tamburlaine.
Before his day, rhymed couplets of long-drawn fourteen-syllable
verse had been common in drama, and the monotony of these
rhymes naturally hampered the dramatic life of the plays.
Shakespeare does not seem at first to have appreciated Marlowe's
reform, or quite to have understood the importance of this rejection
of rhyme in dramatic writing. Little by little he came fully to realise it.
In one of his first plays, Love's Labour's Lost, there are nearly twice
as many rhymed as unrhymed verses, more than a thousand in all;
in his latest works rhyme has disappeared. There are only two
rhymes in The Tempest, and in A Winters Tale none at all.
Similarly, in his first plays (like Victor Hugo in his first Odes),
Shakespeare feels himself bound to make the sense end with the
end of the verse; as time goes on, he gradually learns an ever freer
movement. In Love's Labour's Lost there are eighteen end-stopped
verses (in which the meaning ends with the line) for every one in
which the sense runs on; in Cymbeline and A Winter's Tale they are
only about two to one. This gradual development affords one
method of determining the date of production of otherwise undated
plays.
Marlowe seems to have led a wild life in London, and to have been
entirely lacking in the commonplace virtues. He is said to have
indulged in a perpetual round of dissipations, to have been dressed
to-day in silk, to-morrow in rags, and to have lived in audacious
defiance of society and the Church. Certain it is that he was killed in
a brawl when only twenty-nine years old. He is said to have found a
rival in company with his mistress, and to have drawn his dagger to
stab him; but the other, a certain Francis Archer, wrested the dagger
from his grasp, and thrust it through his eye into his brain. It is
further related of him that he was an ardent and aggressive atheist,
who called Moses a juggler and said that Christ deserved death more
than Barabbas. These reports are probable enough. On the other
hand, the assertion that he wrote books against the Trinity and
uttered blasphemies with his latest breath, is evidently inspired by
Puritan hatred for the theatre and everything concerned with it. The
sole authority for these fables is Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments
(1597), the work of a clergyman, a fanatical Puritan, which appeared
six years after Marlowe's death.
There is no doubt that Marlowe led an extremely irregular life, but
the legend of his debaucheries must be much exaggerated, if only
from the fact that, though he was cut off before his thirtieth year, he
has yet left behind him so large and puissant a body of work. The
legend that he passed his last hours in blaspheming God is rendered
doubly improbable by Chapman's express statement that it was in
compliance with Marlowe's dying request that he continued his
friend's paraphrase of Hero and Leander. The passionate, defiant
youth, surcharged with genius, was fair game for the bigots and
Pharisees, who found it only too easy to besmirch his memory.
It is evident that Marlowe's gorgeous and violent style, especially as
it bursts forth in his earlier plays, made a profound impression upon
the youthful Shakespeare. After Marlowe's death, Shakespeare made
a kindly and mournful allusion to him in As You Like It (iii. 5), where
Phebe quotes a line from his Hero and Leander:—
"Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might:
'Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?'"
Marlowe's influence is unmistakable not only in the style and
versification but in the sanguinary action of Titus Andronicus; clearly
the oldest of the tragedies attributed to Shakespeare.
The evidence for the Shakespearian authorship of this drama of
horrors, though mainly external, is weighty and, it would seem,
decisive. Meres, in 1598, names it among the poet's works, and his
friends included it in the First Folio. We know from a gibe in Ben
Jonson's Induction to his Bartholomew Fair that it was exceedingly
popular. It is one of the plays most frequently alluded to in
contemporary writings, being mentioned twice as often as Twelfth
Night, and four or five times as often as Measure for Measure or
Timon. It depicts savage deeds, executed with the suddenness with
which people of the sixteenth century were wont to obey their
impulses, cruelties as heartless and systematic as those which
characterised the age of Machiavelli. In short, it abounds in such
callous atrocities as could not fail to make a deep impression on iron
nerves and hardened natures.
These horrors are not, for the most part, of Shakespeare's invention.
An entry in Henslowe's diary of April 11, 1592, mentions for the first
time a play named Titus and Vespasian ("tittus and vespacia"),
which was played very frequently between that date and January
1593, and was evidently a prime favourite. In its English form this
play is lost; no Vespasian appears in our Titus Andronicus. But about
1600 a play was performed in Germany, by English actors, which has
been preserved under the title, Eine sehr klägliche Tragœdia von
Tito Andronico und der hoffertigen Kayserin, darinnen denckwürdige
actiones zubefinden, and in this play a Vespasian duly appears, as
well as the Moor Aaron, under the name of Morian; so that, clearly
enough, we have here a translation, or rather a free adaptation, of
the old play which formed the basis of Shakespeare's.
We see, then, that Shakespeare himself invented only a few of the
horrors which form the substance of the play. The action, as he
presents it, is briefly this:—
Titus Andronicus, returning to Rome after a victory over the Goths,
is hailed as Emperor by the populace, but magnanimously hands
over the crown to the rightful heir, Saturninus. Titus even wants to
give him his daughter Lavinia in marriage, although she is already
betrothed to the Emperor's younger brother Bassianus, whom she
loves. When one of Titus's sons opposes this scheme, his father kills
him on the spot.
In the meantime, Tamora, the captive Queen of the Goths, is
brought before the young Emperor. In spite of her prayers, Titus has
ordered the execution of her eldest son, as a sacrifice to the manes
of his own sons who have fallen in the war; but as Tamora is more
attractive to the Emperor than his destined bride, the young Lavinia,
Titus makes no attempt to enforce the promise he has just made,
and actually imagines that Tamora is sincere when she pretends to
have forgotten all the injuries he has done her. Tamora, moreover,
has been and is the mistress of the cruel and crafty monster Aaron,
the Moor.
At the Moor's instigation, she induces her two sons to take
advantage of a hunting party to murder Bassianus; whereupon they
ravish Lavinia, and tear out her tongue and cut off her hands, so
that she cannot denounce them either in speech or writing. They
remain undetected, until at last Lavinia unmasks them by writing in
the sand with a stick which she holds in her mouth. Two of Titus's
sons are thrown into prison, falsely accused of the murder of their
brother-in-law; and Aaron gives Titus to understand that their death
is certain unless he ransoms them by cutting off his own right hand
and sending it to the Emperor. Titus cuts off his hand, only to be
informed by Aaron, with mocking laughter, that his sons are already
beheaded—he can have their heads, but not themselves.
He now devotes himself entirely to revenge. Pretending madness,
after the manner of Brutus, he lures Tamora's sons to his house, ties
their hands behind their backs, and stabs them like pigs, while
Lavinia, with the stumps of her arms, holds a basin to catch their
blood. He bakes their heads in a pie, and serves it up to Tamora at a
feast given in her honour, at which he appears disguised as a cook.
In the slaughter which now sets in, Tamora, Titus, and the Emperor
are killed. Ultimately Aaron, who has tried to save the bastard
Tamora has secretly borne him, is condemned to be buried alive up
to the waist, and thus to starve to death. Titus's son Lucius is
proclaimed Emperor.
It will be seen that not only are we here wading ankle-deep in blood,
but that we are quite outside all historical reality. Among the many
changes which Shakespeare has made in the old play is the
dissociation of this motley tissue of horrors from the name of the
Emperor Vespasian. The part which he plays in the older drama is
here shared between Titus's brother Marcus and his son Lucius, who
succeeds to the throne. The woman who answers to Tamora is of
similar character in the old play, but is Queen of Ethiopia. Among the
horrors which Shakespeare found ready made are the rape and
mutilation of Lavinia and the way in which the criminals are
discovered, the hewing off of Titus's hand, and the scenes in which
he takes his revenge in the dual character of butcher and cook.
The old English poet evidently knew his Ovid and his Seneca. The
mutilation of Lavinia comes from the Metamorphoses (the story of
Procne), and the cannibal banquet from the same source, as well as
from Seneca's Thyestis. The German version of the tragedy,
however, is written in a wretchedly flat and antiquated prose, while
Shakespeare's is couched in Marlowesque pentameters.
The example set by Marlowe in Tamburlaine was no doubt in some
measure to blame for the lavish effusion of blood in the play adapted
by Shakespeare, which may in this respect be bracketed with two
other contemporary dramas conceived under the influence of
Tamburlaine, Robert Greene's Alphonsus King of Arragon and George
Peele's Battle of Alcazar. Peele's tragedy has also its barbarous Moor,
Muley Hamet, who, like Aaron, is probably the offspring of Marlowe's
malignant Jew of Malta and his henchman, the sensual Ithamore.
Among the horrors added by Shakespeare, there are two which
deserve a moment's notice. The first is Titus's sudden and
unpremeditated murder of his son, who ventures to oppose his will.
Shocking as it seems to us to-day, such an incident did not surprise
the sixteenth century public, but rather appealed to them as a touch
of nature. Such lives as Benvenuto Cellini's show that even in highly
cultivated natures, anger, passion, and revenge were apt to take
instantaneous effect in sanguinary deeds. Men of action were in
those days as ungovernable as they were barbarously cruel when a
sudden fury possessed them.
The other added trait is the murder of Tamora's son. We are
reminded of the scene in Henry VI, in which the young Prince
Edward is murdered in the presence of Queen Margaret; and
Tamora's entreaties for her son are among those verses in the play
which possess the true Shakespearian ring.
Certain peculiar turns of phrase in Titus Andronicus remind us of
Peele and Marlowe.[1] But whole lines occur which Shakespeare
repeats almost word for word. Thus the verses—
"She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won,"
reappear very slightly altered in Henry VI., Part I.:—
"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
She is a woman, and therefore to be won;"
while a similar turn of phrase is found in Sonnet XLI.:—
"Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;"
and, finally, a closely related distich occurs in Richard the Third's
famous soliloquy:
 "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?"
It is true that the phrase "She is a woman, therefore may be won,"
occurs several times in Greene's romances, of earlier date than Titus
Andronicus, and this seems to have been a sort of catchword of the
period.
Although, on the whole, one may certainly say that this rough-hewn
drama, with its piling-up of external effects, has very little in
common with the tone or spirit of Shakespeare's mature tragedies,
yet we find scattered through it lines in which the most diverse
critics have professed to recognise Shakespeare's revising touch, and
to catch the ring of his voice.
Few will question that such a line as this, in the first scene of the
play—
"Romans—friends, followers, favourers of my right!"
comes from the pen which afterwards wrote Julius Cæsar. I may
mention, for my own part, that lines which, as I read the play
through before acquainting myself in detail with English criticism,
had struck me as patently Shakespearian, proved to be precisely the
lines which the best English critics attribute to Shakespeare. To one's
own mind such coincidences of feeling naturally carry conviction. I
may cite as an example Tamora's speech (iv. 4):—
"King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name.
Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?
The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby;
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody.
Even so may'st thou the giddy men of Rome."
Unmistakably Shakespearian, too, are Titus's moving lament (iii. I)
when he learns of Lavinia's mutilation, and his half-distraught
outbursts in the following scene foreshadow even in detail a
situation belonging to the poet's culminating period, the scene
between Lear and Cordelia when they are both prisoners. Titus says
to his hapless daughter:
"Lavinia, go with me:
I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee
Sad stories chanced in the times of old."
In just the same spirit Lear exclaims:
"Come, let's away to prison ...
. . . . . so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales."
It is quite unnecessary for any opponent of blind or exaggerated
Shakespeare-worship to demonstrate to us the impossibility of
bringing Titus Andronicus into harmony with any other than a
barbarous conception of tragic poetry. But although the play is
simply omitted without apology from the Danish translation of
Shakespeare's works, it must by no means be overlooked by the
student, whose chief interest lies in observing the genesis and
development of the poet's genius. The lower its point of departure,
the more marvellous its soaring flight.

[1] "Gallops the zodiac" (ii. I, line 7) occurs twice in Peele. The phrase "A
thousand deaths" (same scene, line 79) appears in Marlowe's Tamburlaine.

IX

SHAKESPEARE'S CONCEPTION OF THE RELATIONS OF THE

SEXES—HIS MARRIAGE VIEWED IN THIS LIGHT—LOVES
LABOUR'S LOST—ITS MATTER AND STYLE—JOHN LYLY AND
EUPHUISM—THE PERSONAL ELEMENT

During these early years in London, Shakespeare must have been

conscious of spiritual growth with every day that passed. With his
inordinate appetite for learning, he must every day have gathered
new impressions in his many-sided activity as a hard-working actor,
a furbisher-up of old plays in accordance with the taste of the day
for scenic effects, and finally as a budding poet, in whose heart
every mood thrilled into melody, and every conception clothed itself
in dramatic form. He must have felt his spirit light and free, not
least, perhaps, because he had escaped from his home in Stratford.
Ordinary knowledge of the world is sufficient to suggest that his
association with a village girl eight years older than himself could not
satisfy him or fill his life. The study of his works confirms this
conjecture. It would, of course, be unreasonable to attribute
conscious and deliberate autobiographical import to speeches torn
from their context in different plays; but there are none the less
several passages in his dramas which may fairly be taken as
indicating that he regarded his marriage in the light of a youthful
folly. Take, for example, this passage in Twelfth Night (ii. 4):—
"Duke. What kind of woman is't?
Vio. Of your
complexion.
Duke. She is not worth thee then. What years, i'
faith?
Vio. About your years, my lord.
Duke. Too old, by Heaven. Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart:
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are.
Vio. think it well, my lord.
Duke. Then, let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour."
And this is in the introduction to the Fool's exquisite song about the
power of love, that song which "The spinsters and the knitters in the
sun And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use
to chant"—Shakespeare's loveliest lyric.
There are passages in other plays which seem to show traces of
personal regret at the memory of this early marriage and the
circumstances under which it came about. In the Tempest, for
instance, we have Prospero's warning to Ferdinand (iv. I):—
"If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may,
With full and holy rite, be minister'd,
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow, but barren hate,
Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly,
That you shall hate it both."
Two of the comedies of Shakespeare's first period are, as we might
expect, imitations, and even in part adaptations, of older plays. By
comparing them, where it is possible, with these earlier works, we
can discover, among other things, the thoughts to which
Shakespeare, in these first years in London, was most intent on
giving utterance. It thus appears that he held strong views as to the
necessary subordination of the female to the male, and as to the
trouble caused by headstrong, foolish, or jealous women.
His Comedy of Errors is modelled upon the Menœchmi of Plautus, or
rather on an English play of the same title dating from 1580, which
was not itself taken direct from Plautus, but from Italian adaptations
of the old Latin farce. Following the example of Plautus in the
Amphitruo, Shakespeare has supplemented the confusion between
the two Antipholuses by a parallel and wildly improbable confusion
between their serving-men, who both go by the same name and are
likewise twins. But it is in the contrast between the two female
figures, the married sister Adriana and the unmarried Luciana, that
we catch the personal note in the play. On account of the confusion
of persons, Adriana rages against her husband, and is at last on the
point of plunging him into lifelong misery. To her complaint that he
has not come home at the appointed time, Luciana answers:—
"A man is master of his liberty:
Time is their master; and, when they see time,
They'll go, or come: if so, be patient, sister.
Adriana. Why should their liberty than ours be more?
Luciana. Because their business still lies out o' door.
Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
Luc. O! know he is the bridle of your will.
Adr. There's none but asses will be bridled so.
Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
There's nothing situate under heaven's eye
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls.
Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world, and wild wat'ry seas,
. . . . . . . . .
Are masters to their females, and their lords:
Then, let your will attend on their accords."
In the last act of the comedy, Adriana, speaking to the Abbess
accuses her husband of running after other women:—
"Abbess. You should for that have reprehended him.
Adriana. Why, so I did.
Abb. Ay, but not rough
enough.
Adr. As roughly as my modesty would let me.
Abb. Haply, in private.
Adr. And in assemblies too.
Abb. Ay, but not enough.
Adr. It was the copy of our conference.
In bed, he slept not for my urging it:
At board, he fed not for my urging it;
 Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
In company, I often glanced it:
Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.
Abb. And therefore came it that the man was mad:
The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing,
And thereof comes it that his head is light.
Thou say'st, his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:
Unquiet meals make ill digestions;
Thereof the raging fire of fever bred:
And what's a fever but a fit of madness?"
At least as striking is the culminating point of Shakespeare's
adaptation of the old play called The Taming of a Shrew. He took
very lightly this piece of task-work, executed, it would seem, to the
order of his fellow-players. In point of diction and metre it is much
less highly finished than others of his youthful comedies; but if we
compare the Shakespearian play (in whose title the Shrew receives
the definite instead of the indefinite article) point by point with the
original, we obtain an invaluable glimpse into Shakespeare's comic,
as formerly into his tragic, workshop. Few examples are so
instructive as this.
Many readers have no doubt wondered what was Shakespeare's
design in presenting this piece, of all others, in the framework which
we Danes know in Holberg's[1] Jeppe paa Bjerget. The answer is,
that he had no particular design in the matter. He took the
framework ready-made from the earlier play, which, however, he
throughout remodelled and improved, not to say recreated. It is not
only far ruder and coarser than Shakespeare's, but does not redeem
its crude puerility by any raciness or power.
Nowhere does the difference appear more decisively than in the
great speech in which Katharine, cured of her own shrewishness,
closes the play by bringing the other rebellious women to reason. In
the old play she begins with a whole cosmogony: "The first world
was a form without a form," until God, the King of kings, "in six days
did frame his heavenly work":—
"Then to his image he did make a man,
Olde Adam, and from his side asleepe
A rib was taken, of which the Lord did make
The woe of man, so termd by Adam then,
Woman for that by her came sinne to vs,
And for her sin was Adam doomd to die.
As Sara to her husband, so should we
Obey them, loue them, keepe and nourish them
If they by any meanes doo want our helpes,
Laying our handes vnder theire feete to tread,
If that by that we might procure there ease."
And she herself sets the example by placing her hand under her
husband's foot.
Shakespeare omits all this theology and skips the Scriptural
authorities, but only to arrive at the self-same result:—
"Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.
. . . . . . . . .
A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labour, both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,
Too little payment for so great a debt.
 Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?"
In these adapted plays, then, partly from the nature of their subjects
and partly because his thoughts ran in that direction, we find
Shakespeare chiefly occupied with the relation between man and
woman, and specially between husband and wife. They are not,
however, his first works. At the age of five-and-twenty or
thereabouts Shakespeare began his independent dramatic
production, and, following the natural bent of youth and youthful
vivacity, he began it with a light and joyous comedy.
We have several reasons, partly metrical (the frequency of rhymes),
partly technical (the dramatic weakness of the play), for supposing
Love's Labour's Lost to be his earliest comedy. Many allusions point
to 1589 as the date of this play in its original form. For instance, the
dancing horse mentioned in i. 2 was first exhibited in 1589; the
names of the characters, Biron, Longaville, Dumain (Duc du Maine),
suggest those of men who were prominent in French politics
between 1581 and 1590; and, finally, when we remember that the
King of Navarre, as the Princess's betrothed, becomes heir to the
throne of France, we cannot but conjecture a reference to Henry of
Navarre, who mounted that throne precisely in 1589. The play has
not, however, reached us in its earliest form; for the title-page of the
quarto edition shows that it was revised and enlarged on the
occasion of its performance before Elizabeth at Christmas 1597.
There are not a few places in which we can trace the revision, the
original form having been inadvertently retained along with the
revised text. This is apparent in Biron's long speech in the fourth act,
sc. 3:—
"For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence,
 Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They are the ground, the books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire."
This belongs to the older text. Farther on in the speech, where we
find the same ideas repeated in another and better form, we have
evidently the revised version before us:—
"For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
. . . . . . . .
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire,
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else none at all in aught proves excellent."
The last two acts, which far surpass the earlier ones, have evidently
been revised with special care, and some details, especially in the
parts assigned to the Princess and Biron, now and then reveal
Shakespeare's maturer style and tone of feeling.
No original source has been found for this first attempt of the young
Stratfordian in the direction of comedy. For the first, and perhaps for
the last time, he seems to have sought for no external stimulus, but
set himself to evolve everything from within. The result is that,
dramatically, the play is the slightest he ever wrote. It has scarcely
ever been performed even in England, and may, indeed, be
described as unactable.
It is a play of two motives. The first, of course, is love—what else
should be the theme of a youthful poet's first comedy?—but love
without a trace of passion, almost without deep personal feeling, a
love which is half make-believe, tricked out in word-plays. For the
second theme of the comedy is language itself, poetic expression—
for its own sake—a subject round which all the meditations of the
young poet must necessarily have centred, as, in the midst of a
cross-fire of new impressions, he set about the formation of a
vocabulary and a style.
The moment the reader opens this first play of Shakespeare's, he
cannot fail to observe that in several of his characters the poet is
ridiculing absurdities and artificialities in the manner of speech of the
day, and, moreover, that his personages, as a whole, display a
certain half-sportive luxuriance in their rhetoric as well as in their wit
and banter. They seem to be speaking, not in order to inform,
persuade, or convince, but simply to relieve the pressure of their
imagination, to play with words, to worry at them, split them up and
recombine them, arrange them in alliterative sequences, or group
them in almost identical antithetic clauses; at the same time making
sport no less fantastical with the ideas the words represent, and
illustrating them by new and far-fetched comparisons; until the
dialogue appears not so much a part of the action or an introduction
to it, as a tournament of words, clashing and swaying to and fro,
while the rhythmic music of the verse and prose in turns expresses
exhilaration, tenderness, affectation, the joy of life, gaiety or scorn.
Although there is a certain superficiality about it all, we can
recognise in it that exuberance of all the vital spirits which
characterises the Renaissance. To the appeal—
"White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee,"
comes the answer—
"Honey, and milk, and sugar: there are three."
And well may Boyet say (v. 2):—
"The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor's edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen;
Above the sense of sense, so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
 Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter
things."
Boyet's words, however, refer merely to the youthful gaiety and
quickness of wit which may be found in all periods. We have here
something more than that: the diction of the leading characters, and
the various extravagances of expression cultivated by the
subordinate personages, bring us face to face with a linguistic
phenomenon which can be understood only in the light of history.
The word Euphuism is employed as a common designation for these
eccentricities of style—a word which owes its origin to John Lyly's
romance, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, published in 1578. Lyly was
also the author of nine plays, all written before 1589, and there is no
doubt that he exercised a very important influence upon
Shakespeare's dramatic style.
But it is a very narrow view of the matter which finds in him the sole
originator of the wave of mannerism which swept over the English
poetry of the Renaissance.
The movement was general throughout Europe. It took its rise in the
new-born enthusiasm for the antique literatures, in comparison with
whose dignity of utterance the vernacular seemed low and vulgar. In
order to approximate to the Latin models, men devised an
exaggerated and dilated phraseology, heavy with images, and even
sought to attain amplitude of style by placing side by side the
vernacular word and the more exquisite foreign expression for the
same object. Thus arose the alto estilo, the estilo culto. In Italy, the
disciples of Petrarch, with their concetti, were dominant in poetry; in
Shakespeare's own time, Marini came to the front with his antitheses
and word-plays. In France, Ronsard and his school obeyed the
general tendency. In Spain, the new style was represented by
Guevara, who directly influenced Lyly.
John Lyly was about ten years older than Shakespeare. He was born
in Kent in 1553 or 1554, of humble parentage. Nevertheless he
obtained a full share of the literary culture of his time, studied at
Oxford, probably by the assistance of Lord Burleigh, took his
Master's degree in 1575, afterwards went to Cambridge, and
eventually, no doubt on account of the success of his Euphues,
found a position at the court of Elizabeth. For a period of ten years
he was Court Poet, what in our days would be called Poet Laureate.
But his position was without emolument. He was always hoping in
vain for the post of Master of the Revels, and two touching letters to
Elizabeth, the one dated 1590, the other 1593, in which he petitions
for this appointment, show that after ten years' labour at court he
felt himself a ship-wrecked man, and after thirteen years gave
himself up to despair. All the duties and responsibilities of the office
he coveted were heaped upon him, but he was denied the
appointment itself. Like Greene and Marlowe, he lived a miserable
life, and died in 1606, poor and indebted, leaving his family in
destitution.
His book, Euphues, is written for the court of Elizabeth. The Queen
herself studied and translated the ancient authors, and it was the
fashion of her court to deal incessantly in mythological comparisons
and allusions to antiquity. Lyly shows this tendency in all his writings.
He quotes Cicero, imitates Plautus, cites numberless verses from
Virgil and Ovid, reproduces almost word for word in his Euphues
Plutarch's Treatise on Education, and borrows from Ovid's
Metamorphoses the themes of several of his plays. In A Midsummer
Night's Dream, when Bottom appears with an ass's head and
exclaims, "I have a reasonable good ear for music; let's have the
tongs and the bones," we may doubtless trace the incident back to
the metamorphosis of Midas in Ovid, but through the medium of
Lyly's Mydas.
It was not merely the relation of the age to antiquity that produced
the fashionable style. The new intercourse between country and
country had quite as much to do with it. Before the invention of
printing, each country had been spiritually isolated; but the
international exchange of ideas had by this time become very much
easier. Every European nation begins in the sixteenth century to
provide itself with a library of translations. Foreign manners and
fashions, in language as well as in costume, came into vogue, and
helped to produce a heterogeneous and motley style.
In England, moreover, we have to note the very important fact that,
precisely at the time when the Renaissance began to bear literary
fruit, the throne was occupied by a woman, and one who, without
possessing any delicate literary sense or refined artistic taste, was
interested in the intellectual movement. Vain, and inclined to secret
gallantries, she demanded, and received, incessant homage, for the
most part in extravagant mythological terms, from the ablest of her
subjects—from Sidney, from Spenser, from Raleigh—and was
determined, in short, that the whole literature of the time should
turn towards her as its central point. Shakespeare was the only great
poet of the period who absolutely declined to comply with this
demand.
It followed from the relation in which literature stood to Elizabeth
that it addressed itself as a whole to women, and especially to ladies
of position. Euphues is a ladies' book. The new style may be
described, not inaptly, as the development of a more refined method
of address to the fair sex.
Sir Philip Sidney, in a masque, had done homage to Elizabeth, then
forty-five years old, as "the Lady of the May." A letter which Sir
Walter Raleigh, after his disgrace, addressed from his prison to Sir
Robert Cecil on the subject of Elizabeth, affords a particularly striking
example of the Euphuistic style; admirably fitted as it certainly was
to express the passion affected by a soldier of forty for the maiden
of sixty who held his fate in her hands:—

"While she was yet nigher at hand, that I might hear of her
once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less; but even
now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I that was
wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana,
walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about
her pure cheeks like a nymph; sometime sitting in the shade like
a goddess; sometime singing like an angel; sometime playing
 like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow of this world! Once amiss, hath
bereaved me of all."[2]

The German scholar Landmann, who has devoted special study to

Euphuism,[3] has justly pointed out that the greatest extravagances
of style, and the worst sins against taste, of that period are always
to be found in books written for ladies, celebrating the charms of the
fair sex, and seeking to please by means of highly elaborated wit.
This may have been the point of departure of the new style; but it
soon ceased to address itself specially to feminine readers, and
became a means of gratifying the propensity of the men of the
Renaissance to mirror their whole nature in their speech, making it
peculiar to the point of affectation, and affected to the point of the
most daring mannerism. Euphuism ministered to their passion for
throwing all they said into high and highly coloured relief, for
polishing it till it shone and sparkled like real or paste diamonds in
the sunshine, for making it ring, and sing, and chime, and rhyme,
without caring whether reason took any share in the sport.
As a slight but characteristic illustration of this tendency, note the
reply of the page, Moth, to Armado (iii. I):—

"Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
"Arm. How meanest thou? brawling in French?
"Moth. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the
tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning
up your eyelids, sigh a note, and sing a note; sometime through
the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love; sometime
through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love;
with your hat, penthouse-like, o'er the shop of your eyes; with
your arms crossed on your thin belly-doublet, like a rabbit on a
spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old
painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and
away. These are complements, these are humours, these betray
nice wenches, that would be betrayed without these, and make
 them men of note (do you note me?), that most are affected to
these."

Landmann has conclusively proved that John Lyly's Euphues is only

an imitation, and at many points a very close imitation, of the
Spaniard Guevara's book, an imaginary biography of Marcus
Aurelius, which, in the fifty years since its publication, had been six
times translated into English. It was so popular that one of these
translations passed through no fewer than twelve editions. Both in
style and matter Euphues follows Guevara's book, which, in Sir
Thomas North's adaptation, bears the title of The Dial of Princes.
The chief characteristics of Euphuism were parallel and assonant
antitheses, long strings of comparisons with real or imaginary
natural phenomena (borrowed for the most part from Pliny's Natural
History), a partiality for images from antique history and mythology,
and a love of alliteration.
Not till a later date did Shakespeare ridicule Euphuism properly so
called—to wit, in that well-known passage in Henry IV., Part I.,
where Falstaff plays the king. In his speech beginning "Peace, good
pint-pot! peace, good tickle-brain!" Shakespeare deliberately
parodies Lyly's similes from natural history. Falstaff says:—

"Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but
also how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, the
more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it
is wasted, the sooner it wears."

Compare with this the following passage from Lyly (cited by

Landmann):—

"Too much studie doth intoxicate their braines, for (say they)
although yron, the more it is used, the brighter it is, yet silver
with much wearing doth wast to nothing ... though the
Camomill, the more it is troden and pressed downe, the more it
 spreadeth, yet the Violet, the oftner it is handeled and touched,
the sooner it withereth and decayeth."

Falstaff continues in the same exquisite strain:—

"There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it
is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch,
as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company
thou keepest."

This citation of "ancient writers" in proof of so recondite a

phenomenon as the stickiness of pitch is again pure Lyly. Yet again,
the adjuration, "Now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears;
not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also,"
is an obvious travesty of the Euphuistic style.
Strictly speaking, it is not against Euphuism itself that Shakespeare's
youthful satire is directed in Love's Labour's Lost. It is certain
collateral forms of artificiality in style and utterance that are aimed
at. In the first place, bombast, represented by the ridiculous
Spaniard, Armado (the suggestion of the Invincible Armada in the
name cannot be unintentional); in the next place, pedantry,
embodied in the schoolmaster Holofernes, for whom tradition states
that Florio, the teacher of languages and translator of Montaigne,
served as a model—a supposition, however, which seems scarcely
probable when we remember Florio's close connection with
Shakespeare's patron, Southampton. Further, we find throughout the
play the over-luxuriant and far-fetched method of expression,
universally characteristic of the age, which Shakespeare himself had
as yet by no means succeeded in shaking off. Only towards the close
does he rise above it and satirise it. That is the intent of Biron's
famous speech (v. 2):—
"Taffata phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,
Figures pedantical: these summer-flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
 I do forswear them; and I here protest,
By this white glove, (how white the hand, God
knows)
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes."
In the very first scene of the play, the King describes Armado, in too
indulgent terms, as—
"A refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
One, whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony."
Holofernes the pedant, nearly a century and a half before Holberg's
Else Skolemesters,[4] expresses himself very much as she does:—

"Holofernes. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is

liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon: the word is
well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir; I do
assure."

Armado's bombast may probably be accepted as a not too

extravagant caricature of the bombast of the period. Certain it is that
the schoolmaster Rombus, in Sir Philip Sidney's Lady of the May,
addresses the Queen in a strain no whit less ridiculous than that of
Holofernes. But what avails the justice of a parody if, in spite of the
art and care lavished upon it, it remains as tedious as the
mannerism it ridicules! And this is unfortunately the case in the
present instance. Shakespeare had not yet attained the maturity and
detachment of mind which could enable him to rise high above the
follies he attacks, and to sweep them aside with full authority. He
buries himself in them, circumstantially demonstrates their
absurdities, and is still too inexperienced to realise how he thereby
inflicts upon the spectator and the reader the full burden of their
tediousness. It is very characteristic of Elizabeth's taste that, even in
1598, she could still take pleasure in the play. All this fencing with
words appealed to her quick intelligence; while, with the unabashed
sensuousness characteristic of the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne
Boleyn, she found entertainment in the playwright's freedom of
speech, even, no doubt, in the equivocal badinage between Boyet
and Maria (iv. I).
As was to be expected, Shakespeare is here more dependent on
models than in his later works. From Lyly, the most popular comedy-
writer of the day, he probably borrowed the idea of his Armado, who
answers pretty closely to Sir Tophas in Lyly's Endymion, copied, in
his turn, from Pyrgopolinices, the boastful soldier of the old Latin
comedy. It is to be noted, also, that the braggart and pedant, the
two comic figures of this play, are permanent types on the Italian
stage, which in so many ways influenced the development of English
comedy.
The personal element in this first sportive production is, however,
not difficult to recognise: it is the young poet's mirthful protest
against a life immured within the hard-and-fast rules of an artificial
asceticism, such as the King of Navarre wishes to impose upon his
little court, with its perpetual study, its vigils, its fasts, and its
exclusion of womankind. Against this life of unnatural constraint the
comedy pleads with the voice of Nature, especially through the
mouth of Biron, in whose speeches, as Dowden has rightly
remarked, we can not infrequently catch the accent of Shakespeare
himself. In Biron and his Rosaline we have the first hesitating sketch
of the masterly Benedick and Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing.
The best of Biron's speeches, those which are in unrhymed verse,
we evidently owe to the revision of 1598; but they are conceived in
the spirit of the original play, and merely express Shakespeare's
design in stronger and clearer terms than he was at first able to
compass. Even at the end of the third act Biron is still combating as
well as he can the power of love:—
"What! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock,
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookmasss.com