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The Machiavels of tragedy are back-stabbing villains who manipulate events and who murder for their own self-aggrandizement. The comedies and romances, however, employ another kind of manipulator, a female "Machiavelle," who is cunning and dissembling, though for benign reasons. Like the traditional Machiavel, these women employ "rare tricks," but of a different order and for different ends. The movement of comedy is toward social and familial reconstruction and the reformation of character, and it is clear from a number of Shakespearean comedies that the office of reconstruction, to paraphrase Paulina in The Winter's Tale, becomes a woman best (2.2.29-30). The reasons why women are best suited for this role are conventional and traditional. Women have traditionally been seen as creators and nurturers both as mothers and in the healing tradition of witchcraft. "Match-making," a favorite intrigue of comedy, has historically been assigned to women. The medieval convention of "Processus Belial" held that, despite the devil's claim of mankind on the grounds of justice, the Blessed Virgin advocated and obtained mercy, just as Portia and Paulina manipulate other systems of "justice" to obtain mercy. There is also a long line of historical and literary women who are strong, yet good, stretching from Boedicia to Britomart, from the Virgin Mary to the Virgin Queen, who provide a model for the Machiavelle. Shakespeare weaves together traditional notions of women with the tradition of the stage Machiavel and the traditions of comedy to create a supreme class of comic dissemblers.

The question of what makes great art has intrigued us for nearly as long as the art itself has cast its peculiar spell over our minds and souls. Only recently have we begun to understand something of the way in which the human psyche works, thanks to the work of Dr. Freud and those who came after him. According to Carl Jung, consciousness is a relatively recent part of human evolution. We are still evolving into conscious beings, so that each individual's progress is a microcosm of the whole of humankind. Shakespeare and other great artists tap into the collective unconscious, the place where all our archetypes are stored, waiting to be brought to light and integrated into our conscious mind. His work is so powerful because it is a reinactment of the inner drama that all of us experience on an unconscious level, in the process of individuation. The problem plays present an unusually fertile field for Jungian tillage. Like a face glimpsed in a crowd and then lost, these plays seem to hint at truths that cannot quite be grasped. Viewed through Jung's lens, the puzzles fall into place with remarkable clarity, each revolving around a specific critical axis that allows us to see the form and structure that elude us in other readings. My argument is that, from a psychological view, Jung furnishes us with what is, to date, the best map of Shakespeare's work in these plays. Shakespeare, on the other hand, as the universal poet, proves the validity of Jung's theories by furnishing material that yields to analysis by Jung's methods. This work is meant to champion Jung, not Shakespeare, who needs no champions. I hope to bring the work of two giants together in an effort to add something to our common understanding of both.