Society and the Individual in Shakespeare’s Conception of Character

Summary

The social dimension in Shakespeare’s conception of character suggests itself perhaps most strikingly when Ulysses, in pursuing his well-devised strategy of ‘strangeness’ and ‘pride’ towards Achilles, is made to remark

That no man is the lord of anything,

Though in and of him there be much consisting,

Till he communicate his parts to others.

(Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.115–17)

The weight of the passage, over and beyond the immediate scheme of the Greek general, is underlined by Ulysses himself in his earlier reference to that 'strange fellow' who

Writes me that man - how dearly ever parted,

How much in having, or without or in -

Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,

Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;

As when his virtues shining upon others

Heat them, and they retort that heat again

To the first giver.

(ll. 96-102)