Believing Shakespeare

One could argue that this post's title is a little sacrilegious--at least, if you're a Mormon who's read Believing Christ. I'm not necessarily invoking this piece of LDS ephemera, though that could certainly fit. Robinson's book has an excellent parable that I think about quite frequently, and there are pieces of Shakespeare that I, likewise, reflect on quite often. I think what's interesting about the title of Robinson's book is it's not Believing In Christ, but believing Him. That difference seems deliberate and worthwhile.

What does it mean to believe Shakespeare, though? There's no salvation in his words, though Harold Bloom argues that Shakespeare is "secular scripture", read or quoted as much as the Bible--at least, in the Western world. Indeed, despite the (admittedly opaque) allusion, I'm not really trying to draw any parallel between Christ and Shakespeare. I confess to being a Bardolator, but it's not a full-blown case.

If I'm not equating the Bard with the Lord, what am I doing? Here's my best guess: Shakespeare writes the way that Hamlet encourages the players to act: "To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature" (3.2). Hamlet, argues Marjorie Garber, more than any other Shakespearean play, reflects the reader to herself. We see ourselves in that play. I suspect that most people who don't like Hamlet don't like who is reflected back at them. And if Hamlet doesn't fit the bill, one of the other plays will. To believe Shakespeare is to believe that he has spoken to the human inside of us all.

But can he really? I've friends whose opinions I respect and admire who are dismissive of the Bard. They tend to admit that they don't read him carefully or often, which is less to do with Shakespeare and more to do with them. But I'm convinced that he has touched on conditions that they have experienced. And, because of the ways that he wrote, he has expressed humanity better than any other.

Have you felt alone and out of place? Uncertain of what to do in a new situation? Wishing for company of some sort? Here (from Comedy of Errors, of all places) is a speech that touches on that:

He that commends me to mine own content
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself:

Have you lost a child? Known the despair of burying your son or daughter? Been haunted by their loss? So has Constance, from King John:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.
I will not keep this form upon my head,
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!

Who can look at those last two lines and not recognize a universal preoccupation and pathos there?

I'll admit, of course, there are people who have no affinity for mankind--children or adults, they care little for others. Can they recognize beauty and still feel that way? If so, Hamlet has their number:

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

 What about joy that seems to take your breath away? Look at the brief description of Edgar describing the passing of his father in King Lear:

...but his flaw'd heart,
Alack, too weak the conflict to support!
'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.

There's something for everyone in Shakespeare. Now, I'll admit that I proof-texted this post--there's no sense of who is saying what where or why. That's to be expected in a post this short. Suffice to say, I think there's a reason we should believe Shakespeare has spoken to our humanity. I think it's incumbent on us to hear him.