Verse and Universe
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Wed, 15 Jul 1998 18:51:40 -0400
patrick flaherty wrote:
> What is it that has caused the work of Shakespeare to remain universal,
> excuse me, "widely accepted" four hundred years later?
Please--at this level or point in the discussion, the distinction
between "universal" and "widely accepted" is not merely gratuitous. In
the immediate context, it is of fantastic importance. Shakespeare is
not universal.
Shakespeare is widely read, accepted and appreciated because the key
themes (for lack of a more incisive term) in his major works match up
with many of the key themes that form the cornerstones of western
experience and western thinking. And also because Shakespeare has been
invoked as the guardian or representative of many important
(consequential, at least) movements of political, social, economic (etc)
thought since the Renaissance. We see ourselves in Shakespeare because
we believe--have been taught to believe--that what he tells us about our
human experience is true and accurate, approaching universal. I don't
mind this. Perhaps it's only in retrospect, but I am glad I have been
thus acculturated.
This idea intriguing, but I haven't really worked through it yet.
Nonetheless: Shakespeare's plays--we'll use _Hamlet_ as an
example--offer reenactments of feasibly real human experiences on
stage. Stories--tellings or retellings, figurative or literal, of
situations in which people experience this or that aspect of life. This
is where it gets a little sticky. The tellings and retellings, the
dramatizations, if you like, tend to focus (by necessity, really) on
certain parts of that experience. The result is themes. The words in
_Hamlet_ focus on certain parts of the characters' experiences, such as
Hamlet's disappointments in his inability to take action or in his
mother's failure to mourn longer for her dead husband.
Some of Holden's themes--people are phony, little kids are great--are
very important to many of us, but they aren't as universal (God save me)
as themes in Shakespeare. I'm not prepared to say why, exactly, but
think of it this way: you can find the Shakespearean analogue for more
general human experiences in the west than you can the Salingerian
analogue. Some reasons for this are that Shakespeare wrote more things,
more people read them and have been reading them for many more years,
and Shakespearean themes are somehow less specialized and local than
Salingerian themes.
Hamlet ponders suicide and life after death. "To be or not to be" is
probably the best-known speech in the play. And it's sort of a focal
point; it ties the play together. People think of "to be or not to be"
when they think of _Hamlet_ in the same way we might think of "phonies"
or Stradlaters when we think of _Catcher_. But there are more people
who have had experiences in life (thoughts, fears, etc) that correspond
to "to be or not to be" and all that goes along with it than there are
people who have had roommates like Stradlater or who have mourned the
phoniness of urban people in post WWI America. Western thinking and
living isn't likely to change such that the experiences of Salinger's
characters will be as widely available to as many people as
Shakespeare's are today.
The only reason, of course, that "to be or not to be" isn't an
opportunity for a universal touchstone is that perhaps not all people
ever have happened upon feelings similar to Hamlet's.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu