ABSTRACT
Shakespeare's history plays are concerned with politics and sociology, but we do not have to be kings or politicians in order to enjoy them; and his comedies, while they are mainly concerned with love and lovers, ‘hold the mirror up’ to more aspects of ‘nature’ than those which are peculiar to a lover's experience. In presenting his ideal of love's wealth in The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare necessarily presented commercial wealth and aspirations as well, and in his exploration of love's truth in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado, he also presented his discoveries about a poet's truth and an actor's. Nor are these contrasts—or dramatic metaphors—seen from a single aspect. The central theme of Much Ado is not only expressed through the dialogue and actions of the two pairs of lovers but also through those of Don Pedro, Leonato, Friar Francis, Don John, Borachio, Dogberry, and the watchmen; so in the last scene, when we observe the mazes which the lovers have trod in response to love's imagination, we may also find ourselves reflecting on other mazes, on the vanity of human knowledge and the necessity for it, on the human inability to walk simply, by the shortest route, to the fulfilment of desire. In The Merchant of Venice we are shown events through Shylock's eyes as well as through those of the lovers, and in the last act the focus is subtly altered again so that we view Portia and Bassanio as from a distance, against a wider background than that of a mere love story—we judge them as creatures living beneath the stars and we judge their love in comparison with a universal charity.
