GOETHE VERSUS SHAKESPEARE
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clue to
his
conception of the drama. Any further explanation would
have threatened to trivialize Iago's wickedness, to explain it away
and reduce his terrifying stature.
As
he stands, Iago invites compar–
ison with Judas or the serpent ·in Eden. What he does is enigmatic
and inevitable; and to ask why he is evil or why Othello is deceived
by him, is almost like asking why the end is tragic. Why did Prome–
theus steal fire from heaven? Such questions miss the point, and
Shakespeare's tragedies retain something of the sacramental quality
of the Greek drama and the Bible.
Iago is no exception: in
Hamlet
the action is propelled by a
ghost; in
Macbeth,
by witches. Nor are these spirits
dei ex machina,
extraneous to the action, interfering in it inappropriately, and hence
more or less objectionable. They bring about an action which would
lose its essential character without them, and they point to a supra–
psychological significance which raises the drama beyond mere ac–
cident. They create that "numinous" atmosphere-to use Rudolf
Otto's apt word for what is simultaneously majestic, awe-inspiring,
overpowering and fascinating-which is of the essence of Shake- '
speare's great tragedies and gives them the depth and intensity of the
religious experiences which Otto describes.
This numinous quality which becomes incarnate in ghosts and
witches is by no means confined to spirits, but is found in those
tragedies, too, in which no supernatural beings make their appear–
ance. Lear has something of this: his conduct in the first scene sug–
gests less-as Goethe characteristically supposed-insufficient motiva–
tion than the inevitability of an ancient myth. His titanism is insepar–
able from this. And in
Macbeth,
too, the witches' numinous quality
is reflected by the hero whom they choose as the vehicle of destiny.
Nor does Othello lack this dimension-nor Caesar and Coriolanus,
nor even such gentler souls as Richard II and Hamlet. Some details
of their characters are drawn with the most admirable psychological
skill,
but in each case the hero far surpasses any such consideration
and is raised to the unquestionable majesty of myth.
To achieve this effect, Shakespeare relies not only on occasional
contacts with ghosts or witches, but above all upon a radical distinc–
tion between the hero and the other figures in the play. Like Saul,
the hero is "higher than any of the people from his shoulders and
upward"-a man marked and set apart, one with a destiny, a tragic
