THE DUCHESS' RED SHOES
61
The full force of what is difficult and troubling in Mr. Trilling's
views cannot be made clear until we come to Mr. John Aldridge.
who, by quoting Mr. Trilling, seems to make his views a starting–
point and who prompted my rereading of Mr. Trilling's essay. Yet
clearly Mr. Trilling is not wholly responsible for Mr. Aldridge's
statements. It may be true that Mr. Aldridge has been brash and
rash enough to make explicit some of the direct implications of Mr.
Trilling's doctrine of manners in literature. Yet since all talk of im–
plication risks the injustice of imputation, let me try to stick for a
while longer to what Mr. Trilling says explicitly. He says that Shake–
speare bears out his thesis and Dostoevsky does too: "The establish–
ment of a person of low class in the privileges of a high class always
suggested to Shakespeare's mind some radical instability of the senses
and reason." Here Mr. Trilling is speaking of society in the sense
of social status, and, unless I am entirely deceived, he is saying that
we have the authority of the greatest of poets for the view that any
change of social status is derangement and madness: is this Shake–
speare's penetration of the illusion that snobbery generates? Is not
Mr. Trilling saying that for Shakespeare, snobbery is no illusion ;
that for Shakespeare the illusion, delusion, and insanity, is to imagine
a human being ever becoming somewhat free of his social status?3
As
for Dostoevsky, he is cited by Mr. Trilling in an analogous
manner: "The Russian novel, exploring the ultimate possibilities of
the human spirit, must start and end in class-every situation in
Dostoevsky, no matter how spiritual, starts' with a point of social
pride and a certain number of rubles." This may seem plausible
enough at first glance, for it is not far from such comprehensive re–
marks as that every situation, no matter how spiritual, has its roots
3 It is impossible to make out what Mr. Trilling has in mind, concretely, in
making this generalization about Shakespeare's social attitudes. He cites
Twelfth
Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming
of
the Shrew,
no other in–
stances; and he does not explain how important, or unimportant, the madness
of social climbing is to the theme and substance of each play. But surely
As
You Like I t,
in which a king and his followers prefer the equality of the forest
to their place at the top of the social hierarchy, and
The Tempest,
in which
Prospero makes a like choice with equal conviction, are but two important ex–
amples of how for Shakespeare to give up class status entirely, despite one's
lofty or regal station, is not only
not
madness, but on the contrary is liberation,
freedom,
self-realization and a profound accession to superior individuality and
magical existence.
4-
"Starts" is a deceptive word. Mr. Trilling uses "begins" in a like way:
"The
greatness of
Great Expectations
begins in its title."
