Memories of the Son of Memory (Part XVIII): Elder Shakespeare

I fully acknowledge that Shakespeare's religion is one of two things: Unknowably opaque, or allusively scripted. To consider him as secular Scripture would be considered blasphemous if it weren't for the fact that it's true. Only the Bible competes with Shakespeare in terms of quotes and penetration of social and linguistic ubiquity. While Shakespeare's personal religion, I think, falls into the first of those abovementioned categories, it makes no sense to argue about a man's universality and then insist he had nothing to say that couldn't be a part of religion.

Of course, when I say "religion" I pretty much mean Christian--though that's a troubled phrase that I won't deal with now--in the limited sense of that's what I'm most familiar with. It's patent that Shakespeare lived in a tumultuously Christian time (more stable than much of Europe, though) and probably had limited exposure to other ideas of faith. His few passing references to Saracens (Muslims) are usually allusive and stereotypical. His exploration of Shylock the Jew in The Merchant of Venice is fantastic, though the post-Holocaust West shies away from his homicidal desire in order to make Shylock a martyr of anti-Semitic impulses.

Shakespeare would have been Anglican, if only because he was an Englishman during Elizabeth's reign. If he believed it, preferred Catholicism, or something else entirely is up to the reader to consider. (If you're interested, Hamlet in Purgatory by StephenGreenblatt and Shakespeare and the Jewsby James Shapiro could be interesting approaches on the topic of Shakespeare and religion.) At any rate, as a religious person, attaching Shakespeare to my convictions has been a natural outgrowth of my personality and spiritual journey.

The problem with using Shakespeare as a lens for one's religious approach is that of proof-texting, the process in which we pull a quote out of context in order to justify something in our thoughts. We do this constantly: Politics is notorious for this, as are a great many quotes from the Founding Fathers. So any time I find a piece of Shakespeare that agrees with my Mormonism, I run the risk of proof-texting--in large part because Shakespeare isn't LDS. (I think part of my infatuation with John Milton is because the caliber of poet is about the same, but Milton's heterodoxical views on religion fit more tightly with the heterodoxy that is Mormonism. Milton isn't a Mormon, either, but the greatness of these two poetic souls is something that resonates with me.)

So, while Shakespeare is less effulgent in spirituality than Milton, he still has a lot to say. I think it falls more in line with "universal truths", which--by definition--would have to be encompassed into the truth that a religion proposes.

As a Mormon, I'm asked to give Sunday School lessons, as well as speeches to the congregation as a whole, on an infrequent basis. It's one of the perks of being a part of a lay-clergy religion.

Whenever I can, I insert a Shakespeare quote into the lesson. Sometimes, the quote fits snuggly. (Speaking of forgiveness allows me to incorporate "The quality of mercy is not strained" speech from The Merchant of Venice--though I proof-text enough to ignore that Portia's mercy is not really the sort of thing that a sinner ought to hope for from a divine power.) Other times, it's a little bit more strained. (How to get Shakespeare into a conversation about the importance of, say, paying tithing can sometimes strain the pertinence of the quote past its breaking point.) Still, it's an important part of my life and it helps me shape the way I want the information presented.

Part of what I love about Shakespeare's works is that, though there are narrative-based reasons for his speeches, or personal ones, or philosophical ones, because so much of his work is poetry, there's more than superficial meanings that I can attach to it. The example that springs most readily to mind--indeed, the one I share with students who are moving into their next phase of life (university, LDS missionary service, or even marriage) comes from the sonnets. I read them Sonnet 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

In particular, I find this as an insightful way of processing the disappointments that are inherent in the high expectations of a life that turns out more mundane than anticipated.

See, in the tradition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, young men (for me, aged 19--nowadays, aged 18) are expected to serve for two years as full-time proselytizing missionaries. We're called to serve all over the world--for me, in Florida--and to learn new languages, preach the gospel, and baptize willing converts. It's a time filled with sacrifices (missionaries are only to call home twice a year, and dedicate all of their time toward the ministry) but, according to the culture, worth the time. "Your mission," I was told, "will be the best two years of your life!" Promises of incredible experiences and unforgettable emotions were given to me.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned that I was still myself. I didn't have any water-walking theophanies that gave me cosmic understandings of the universe. I was still introverted (I'm a little better now, but being told constantly to "open your mouth" to proclaim the gospel when you didn't even like asking store employees where they kept items was a genuine struggle); I was still depressed (yeah, you want to know what a double-dose of guilt tastes like, just suffer from chronic depression, drizzled with personal disappointment about your emotional state, then heap on the feeling of having sinned, topped off with a dollop of assuming that your own shortcomings would spell a failure for others to gain eternal salvation, and you've a recipe for shaken mental health); I still loved playing the guitar and collecting Spider-Man themed paraphernalia. These things don't sound so groundbreaking or unusual--of course I was still myself. Why wouldn't I be?

And that's what Sonnet 130 does so well. Shakespeare will use his sonnets to consider a great many things--mostly time, our obligations to the future, and what it means to be in love--but this one is different from the others. Using the poetic etude of a sonnet, he inverts the purpose of poetry, decrying the hyperbole that infuses the genre. Then, in the volta (that is, the little twist at line 13--the first line forming the final couplet), Shakespeare spins the entire deconstruction, pointing out that his experience--his "love" is rare and worthwhile the way she is.

I encourage my students to take their imagined mistresses--be they missions, university, marriage, or career--and listen to what Shakespeare is telling them. Life is hard. We say that all of the time, but students often think that means acne before a dance and getting a B- on a paper. So when the true difficulties of life--children with diseases, the crushing fear of poverty, the unintelligible hatred of others, the torments of inequality (or, as Hamlet said, "[T]he whips and scorns of time,/The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,/The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,/The insolence of office and the spurns/That patient merit of the unworthy takes…")--come rearing their hideous heads, we can be tempted to assume we've somehow been lied to.

We think that our missions will be nothing but sunshine. We presume our college courses will never feel like a waste of time. We always thought that our angel children wouldn't shriek for hours because we gave them the wrong color of sippy-cup. We assume that our mothers-in-law will be kind and patient and refrain from meddling (actually the case for me, but not for all). In short, we assume the rosy picture is our future. When it turns out, however, that all of our assumptions were wrong--sometimes in a minor way, other times in major ways--it can scald us.

The great wisdom--indeed, gospel truth--that Shakespeare gives in Sonnet 130 is that the quality of that future is less about it meeting expectations, but embracing the fact that it is ours. My mission was nothing like the sun, and had I understood what Shakespeare said here, I would have been able to read that sonnet and know that there was great beauty within the bookends of Floridian heat. Had I been able to hear his 400 year advice when I first read this sonnet in middle school, I--maybe--would have been able to alleviate some of the stress and guilt that I carted about on my shoulders from 2002 to 2004.

He may not have been a Mormon, but Shakespeare certainly knew enough about the world to tell me the truth of it--and as a Mormon, I have to accept the truth as part of my understanding of God. William Shakespeare makes me a better Latter-Day Saint.