Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

52
Henry V exhibits a contrast between "the popularity, the showy
heroism" of the king, and tho material preoccupations of
humanity - there is a poignancy in the isolation of the monarc
which anneals to Pater, and he finds it even in Richard Ox
Gloucester:
.o.touched, like John, with an effect of real
heroism,...spoiled like him by something of
criminal madness, Richard reaches hie highest
level of tragic expression when cinrcunatances
reduce iiin to tie terns of rore human nature...
(p.508)
Pater reserves most of his cpace for Richard II, who emerges
as a gently cynical aesthete, not unlike Biron, except in GO
far :D Iiic cietachment is the DCII.'CO of tragedy. lis eloquence
never forsake;- him and becomes, "like ;.jiy other of those
fantastic ineff ec o Aal easily discredited, prroonrl graces, as
capricious in its operation on raen'c v/ills as mere physical
beauty 1*. Richard is a sensitive outsider, able to nove the
Philistines who victimise him by "an eloquent self--iity,
infectin;; others in cpite of themselves, till they too become
irresistibly eloquent about Iiin" (p.510). He has "an extraord­
inary refinement of intelligance and variety of piteous mpeal"
and "fccility of ~> jetic invention" which places him in a class
with Keats and Chatterton - whcco best work is "voracil and
ivory". The examples chosen by Pater to show trio chrr. cter'3
and the ;ol;:,y*s, poetic power arc illustrative of r process
by \vhich "tho f^rancliooe aspects of ;;ar" rro r.ct ;\r'oinct its
ovil f'licj unsightly conoequencos. ;o re rG.; ^in^ ec?. tiiat the
countryside io described as pale ('"?h:'-t v:j.o, the t ;.hite fac*d
ahore", and "her mild-pale peace") and .^cen ("Tiie f refill croon
lap of fair ling Eiicliard's land") and. po."coful. Richard's
nature is, according to Pater, correlated ;vit'.-. "the oolicate
cwcetnesD of tlie Unrlis i field, still swoet run1 fro on, li.'.:c
London ant! her other £ i r towns in that Enplane? of Chaucer"
(p.508), '^'-'.is comparison ni y not have been orcsent in 3na.i:o, -
por.ro f c mind, and Pater clocc not produce evi ence that he
conceived of ..ichard II f s ^iglrnd ac being different from
tiiat of Elisabeth. Indeed, r-o Pater v;rote lie ;-.ay Iio-«?n had in
riind '.yillian :lorris*c corrrx'.rir.on of Ricardian o.ncl Vt-rrtorian