Richard Strier, "Why Shakespeare?"

okay well welcome to the post lunch session with the title why thanks beer now I'm sure I'm Richard Starr in the English department at the University so I'm sure that the answer to that question that formed the title of this lecture seems laughably obvious Shakespeare is known to every educated person in the english-speaking world and elsewhere because he's so great he is obviously the greatest or one of the greatest poets dramatists writers choose one or more in English so there's really no problem in answering the question but what if we ask how we know this how we're so sure of it that's where the trouble and the real work begins it might seem though that the answer to these questions is also obvious we know this because it has been taught to us said to us over and over again in the course of our schooling and in the culture at large we're sure of it because we have it on good authority but how do we know we have it on good authority we rather than simply on authority and now that we're being even minimally serious about the question we can go back to our initial answer let's say that we are all in a position to judge literary greatness a statement that may or may not be true so we can stipulate that we're right that Shakespeare is great but what about the comparatives what makes him the greatest or one of the greatest here we have no good answer at all except that we've been told so how many of us have read enough of the world's great literature to make a competent comparison between Shakespeare and other contenders for greatness or others who are equally established as great one might say that this doesn't matter that it's really not important to say whether Shakespeare is greater or less great than Homer Sophocles don't Dostoevsky Proust or Joyce and I agree with that position it makes no difference what ever and only has the status of a rather silly parlor game the one that might grow quite heated but what if we asked the question in a more sensible way what if we ask why William SHAKSPER shacks Byrd shacks burg etc spelling wasn't standardized in his period is only is the only one of the dramatists of his period who was widely known read and produced in theatres this can be seen as a genuine question since it is the case and every knowledgeable person would agree that if master Shakespeare had never lived the period in which he was not born in which he did not live the late Elizabethan and Jacobean period would nonetheless be recognized as the greatest period in English drama Christopher Marlowe George Chapman Benjamin Jonson John Webster John Ford Thomas Middleton and a number of others are all playwrights of obvious talent why is it that most of us have never even heard of many of them let alone read or seen a play by them here we have something like a genuine historical question and even if we retreat to our initial position now somewhat defensively and say but surely shakes me was the best of them that still leaves open not only the impertinent the obvious question of how we know it also leaves open the question of why only Shakespeare has survived in a serious way from this thriving and tremendously impressive theatrical scene Ben Jonson Shakespeare's friend and rival did poor put forth the view after Shakespeare was safely dead that Shakespeare was better than any of his contemporaries even Marlowe's mighty line and was as good a tragedy as the greet the great Greek playwrights of fifth century BCE Athens and better than anyone in history for comedy but it still took the authority of Ben Jonson to say this and it's not as if everyone immediately agreed and again even if it's true why do we not know and see the work of the others it shakes me so much better than all of them that he alone should be known and they reduced to cultural darkness or almost worse existence only in the minds of specialized scholars the beginning of an answer to this question I would say starts with a very strange fact that Shakespeare spelled as we spell it became seven years after his death a name on the title page of a very large beautiful and expensive book the famous first folio of his plays which some of the summer which some of you was probably seen a copy this is a book that was put together by two members of Shakespeare's Acting Company who worked with him closely and it contains all of the plays that we consider canonical with the exception of Pericles and perhaps more remarkably no plays that we do not consider canonical even though some of them were and have since been associated with Shakespeare now it might not seem to you at all strange that Shakespeare's plays should have been collected and put into a big book but it was and it was very strange indeed there was only one obvious model for such a thing Johnson the author of the comments on the special status of Shakespeare wrote the poem in which this phrase occurs for the first folio and he had published his own works in a folio volume in 1616 only one English poet had ever done such a thing before and he Samuel Daniel did not write for the public stage the works of Benjamin Johnson included a number of plays as well as poems and other writings a wit from the time said that what he Johnson calls works others call plays the point was that Johnson was treating his own productions works in English the vernacular as if they were equivalent to classical texts texts in Latin and Greek generally only classical Arthur's had an opera omnia a works Jonson putting forth his own productions this way was this for Johnson to put forth his own productions this way was a statement of cultural confidence and aspiration it was a true renaissance act one that meant to claim a status equal to that of the great Ancients for a body of contemporary literary productions after the Shakespeare folio which was all plays only one other folio composed entirely of plays was published in the first half of the 17th century comedies and tragedies written by Frances Bowmont and John Fletcher gentlemen was published in 1647 to understand why folio publication was so important and unusual we need a bit of information most players written for the popular stage a great Renaissance reinvention in itself were not printed they were scripts for production and the acting companies owned them and treated them as that when plays were printed they were printed in quarto or smaller format what quarto and folio designate is the number of times that a standard sheet of paper was folded or cut a quarter was folded to produce four pages of folio - this meant that a court Oh had for the most part the status and appearance and price of a cheap paperback there was some fancy quarters but these were rare a folio on the other hand was a book mantel lest a large stately volume that old that the only the relatively well-off could afford exactly half of the plays that we take to constitute the Shakespearean dramatic corpus were published in quarter editions some fairly well printed some awfully printed but all under this cheap and mostly ephemeral format the other half were published for the first time in the folio of 60 23 but why does this matter so much surely Shakespeare's plays would have survived on the stage even if they were not printed this is not so clear not all over the players were great hits like Henry the fourth part one Hamlet will Richard the third moreover the theatrical life of England came to I can't help the pun a dramatic halt on September 2nd 1642 when the House of Commons which at this time was at war with the king declared that in a time of such public calamities as civil wars public stage plays shall cease and before born so suddenly there was no continuous stage tradition in England when the monarchy in the established Church and the public theatres were restored in 1660 many plays that existed only in quarto had been lost or destroyed or forgotten in a command Ettore poem prefixed to the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 a major part of the time John Denham spoke of Fletcher Johnston and Shakespeare as quote the triumvirate of wit John Dryden the major literary figure of the restoration period in England continued this estimate doing a detailed comparison of Shakespeare with Johnson and highly valuing Beaumont and Fletcher it cannot be an accident that the three playwrights who were most viable in the literary culture of the post-revolutionary period where the three whose productions were published in folio editions and to give her further sense of what folio publication means there were a tiny number of Shakespeare quote owes in the world eleven total of King Lear for instance well there are over 230 surviving folios and a new one was recently discovered as you probably know in northern France before I go on with the question of what we have lost an only remembering Shakespeare I want to pause for a moment on what I call the wheel Shakespeare authorship questions the one that everyone knows about did man from Stratford write the plays attributed to him is entirely from a scholarly point of view a non question the only issue it raises is why anyone would want to raise the issue in the first place the real issues or how much collaboration with other playwrights is present in the plays we have Titus Andronicus one Henry six Pericles Timon of Athens and Henry the eighth are all in part collaborations and a more controversial issue did Shakespeare write his plays in the expectation of being an author that is an author in the modern sense of someone who wrote with the intention of having his work printed the reason why this is a question is that until very recently the sophisticated supposedly historical view of what Shakespeare thought he was doing and writing the players was that he was and thought he was producing scripts for production and that he was indifferent to print there are a number of reasons for thinking this the first is that he made no money from having his plays printed the money for him in which he seems to have been keenly interested was from ticket sales he was a stockholder in the joint stock company that his acting troupe was the second reason for thinking this is that even though almost half of his plays eighteen appeared in court out during his lifetime many of these were very poorly printed and filled with all sorts of mistakes verbal mistakes verse printed as prose etc etc etc no one who cared about his appearance in print would have wanted these additions and this is especially apparent when we compare the so-called bad quarters with the two works that Shakespeare did fairly early in his career prepare for the press his two narrative poems Venus and Adonis and the waif of Lucas these are very beautifully printed so it seems clear that Shakespeare as a playwright was in fact uninterested in having his work printed and that insofar as he thought of himself as an author in the modern sense he was a writer of narrative poems it's not clear whether not he authorized the printing of his sonnets the majority opinion says no however there are some other facts to be considered although a number of Shakespeare's plays appeared in print between 1594 and fifty ninety-seven without his name on the title page the first Cortes of Titus Andronicus to Henri six Love's Labour's Lost richard ii which was the third Romeo and Juliet and the octavo of 306th in 1598 ii cortos of Love's Labour's Lost Richard the third and Richard the second appeared suddenly all with shakespeare's name featured on the title page in the sick in 1600 korto's of three henry six to henry for henry the fifth much ado about nothing Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice appeared with shakespeare's name on the title page along with the second courthouse now with the name of to Henry the sixth and Titus by the time Shakespeare retired from the stage in 1611 1218 of his plays had appeared in print often as you've heard more than once and from 1598 to 1623 predominantly with his name on the title page and there's some evidence that Shakespeare cared about the use of his name in print at one point he objected to his name being used by a printer for work that was not by him so he was not uninterested in this matter and then there's this question could such a stream of plays in manuscript have flown into the hands of printers between 1594 and 1600 without the knowledge of Shakespeare who was right there in London and certainly was aware of the booksellers use of his scripts moreover to take the question further why did the plays written after King Lear probably 1605 with the exception of Troilus and Pericles not appear in court Oh did Shakespeare start blocking the flow of scripts into quarters was he anticipating a collected plays in folio long before Ben Johnson went ahead and had something like that created would his friends and co-workers who put the folio together have done so if they knew that Shakespeare to whom they were truly devoted would have objected finally we might add that many of Shakespeare's plays are quite long over a thousand lines longer than most Elizabethan plays and chase mere must have known that at least in some cases when the company was on tour or when the days were shorter since they were written for an open-air amphitheater the long version of the plays couldn't be performed so why light them was he anticipating a print audience will never definitively know the answers to these questions but they lead us to think that Shakespeare might well have thought of himself as an author in our sense as well as as a writer of scripts Shakespeare had the great advantage of being highly viable in both worlds that of print and the world of literature and that of the world of theatrical production but if one has been following this lecture closely wake up you should now be asking the question of why this was not true of the other playwrights in folio the other two members of the triumvirate of wit this is a real question I think that one could say that Beaumont and Fletcher at least equally valued in the restoration as Shakespeare wrote in a way that pleased the aristocratic audience in both periods their own and the restoration but in a way that did not have wide enough appeal to survive indefinitely either on the page or the stage their plays were we would now say precious and language and limited in ideology and why did Johnson whom Jordan in some ways preferred to Shakespeare not survive triumphantly on stage and page the answer here is harder but Johnson's plays are devoted to plot to stock characterization and often to an extremely dense linguistic structure sometimes high and sometimes low they mostly comedies or hard-edged and satirical and don't lend themselves to empathy and emotional audience-participation their language though always impressive is often hard to follow on the stage and even sometimes on the page Johnson does however more or less survive as a playwright if one is lucky one can see a production of Volpone of The Alchemist or bartoleme fair but there are hundreds of productions of Shakespeare plays for every production of one of those and unless you are a graduate student in English god help you one does not read Johnson's plays in school this is a loss I think but now I want to turn to an even greater one Christopher Marlowe was never blessed with a folio edition of his works or his plays but he was the major force in the Elizabethan theatre until Shakespeare came along they were born in the same year 1564 and if Shakespeare had died when Marla did killed were probably assassinated in a tavern duel in 1593 there's no doubt who would be the more important and almost certainly the more remembered playwright Marlowe lived on is the author of a very famous lyric come live with me and be my love and a somewhat famous mythological erotic narrative poem hero and Leander but his plays fell into de siouah tude and it's a very lucky person who has been able to see a production of Doctor Faustus Tamburlaine Edward the second or the Jew of Malta yet these are plays that in some sense made Shakespeare possible since they were the plays that established the popular stage in London as a locus for major poetry no play before or after in the period including Shakespeare's made quite the splash that Tamburlaine did and rightly so Marlowe indeed introduced a mighty line to the English popular theatre not only blank verse lines but blank first paragraph that brought the whole glamour of the Renaissance on to the stage no one ever expressed the love of glory more fully than Marlowe did it's in Aaron nature Marlowe research through Tamburlaine a shepherd become Emperor to have quote aspiring minds and to aspire here's where the blasphemous aspect of Marlowe's humanism comes in entirely to earthly glory that perfect list and soul Felicity the sweet flow ition of an earthly crown only Marlowe had the daring to speak of earthly power in terms of perfect bliss and in an utterly breathtaking phrase sweet fruition the sweet fruition not of heaven but of an earthly crown Shakespeare's Richard the third would not exist in the way he does without Timberland but his aspiring mind does not have this kind of Glanzer but the best way to think about Shakespeare in relation to Marlowe is to spend some time on the play of Shakespeare's that is in the most direct dialogue with a play of Marla's Shakespeare might have written a play on Richard the third without the more lovely and precedent but there is no doubt that the Merchant of Venice would not exist were it not for the Jew play that preceded in the popular theatre Marla's Jew of Malta in comparing these plays we can see what we have lost in not knowing Marlow as well as what Shakespeare uniquely gives us Marlar specialize in Outsiders and in those who stepped outside of normal bounds a Scythian Shepherd Sofia was synonymous since the Greeks with extreme barbarism that's Tamburlaine a scholar turned diabolical magician fastest a homosexual king edward ii and a Machiavellian jew Marla's gift was to give each of these characters though creations might be the better term an ideology appropriate to them and the language fully to express this ideology we've heard Tamburlaine on what Macbeth echoing him called the Imperial theme Marlowe created in his Jew a self delighted villain a happy machiavel to use the Elizabethan term think again have Richard the third and a figure with an unabashed delight in worldly goods and goodies where Marlowe got the idea of writing a play about a Jew we don't know there's no clear source or analogue probably the idea came to him from thinking about Christianity about the supposed values of Christianity since the Jew is always the figure who haunts the Christian imaginary whether there are any actual Jews around or not and Jews had been expelled from England centuries before back in 1290 under Edward the first and if there was a Jewish community in London in the Elizabethan period it was very small and inconsequential Marlowe was a devastating critic of Christian hypocrisy in tymberlee in part too the play was so popular that Marlowe wrote a sequel to it it is the Christians not the quote barbarians who break a solemn oath sworn by God arguing that they are not bound to keep an oath made to infidels this was I would suggest the seed of the Jew of Malta a play sharply focused on Christian hypocrisy in the second scene of Marla's play the Christian governor of Malta is faced with playing paying an undue and overdue tribute to the Turkish overlord of the island the Turks as Barabbas Marla's Jews speculated have purposely let the tribute mount up so as to take control over the island in policy to use the great Elizabethan Machiavellian word the governor's situation the governor's idea to get out of this situation is to levy of forced tax quote amongst the Jews and each of them to pay one half of his estate if any Jew Demers he must convert to Christianity and if he refuses to do that his entire estate will be confiscated and this is all done the governor whose name is fern as a says because the islands sufferance of the Jews who stand accursed in the sight of heaven is the cause why these taxes and afflictions are befallen something we know is false since the whole thing is as we know a matter of Turkish policy the other Jews immediately agree to condition one Barrabas protest that half his substance is a city's wealth but then under threat agrees to pay F but for Nazy asserts that Barabbas is acquiescence came too late and Barabbas his whole estate is to be confiscated the laws the law thou has denied the articles and now it cannot be recalled one of the Knights of Malta explains to Barabbas that if Barabbas has made poor tis not our fault but thy inherit sin Baraboo's asks bring your scripture to confirm your wrongs the answer is yes for Nessa having done all this confiscation pious Lida claims against covetousness Meribah sex with the Christians we need to take his life to for Daisy again piously a verse such as far from us in our profession Barabbas notes that to take everything from him is equivalent to taking his life for an AZ tells him to be content because quote thou hast naught but right this mockery or expose continues Barabbas tells for an AZ son who's in love with Barabbas as daughter then it was of course out of quote me charity and Christian truth that fern AZ seized all I had and thrust me out of doors later in this scene Marla returns to the point about oaths that he had made in Tamburlaine and arguing the quote tis no sin to deceive a Christian berra berra base observes that they themselves hold it a principle that faith is not to be held with heretics Marlowe hammers the hypocrisy and self-interest themes home later in the play in another soliloquy normally before Shakespeare given to villains or tricksters barabbas asserts that he understands the word friend to mean he from whom most advantage comes he states that this perspective captures quote the life we Jews are used to lead adding and reason to four questions do the like one of the Turkish emissaries speaks of the wind that blows all the world besides desire of gold and that is certainly the picture that we have given in the play politicians desired merchants do and so do monks and nuns Barabbas ultimately receives his comeuppance falling literally into a trap of his own devising the play ends with fern as a praising heaven for the deal he is made with the Turks this is powerful enough and is the heart of the play but it's not all that the play offers being a Marlar play there's also the scene the theme of sweet fruition bebes is not a miser and he's not a usurer he's a grand merchant trafficking and trafficking in luxury goods which he sends to and gets from all the world the play opens with a vision of him in his counting-house where he describes some of his merchandise Spanish oils and lines of gliese and expresses his strong preference for jewels which have beauty as well as value and which come from exotic places over mere cash he glories in listing and describing precious stones he revels in a brilliantly expressed paradox of simultaneous expansion and extra and contraction infinite riches in a little room it's hard to know whether there's ever been greater poetry of material wealth Johnson copied it for his miser involve Pony before bear abysus daughter betrays him by sincerely becoming a nun he had had her pretend to be one before he values her almost as his wealth oh girl oh gold oh beauty oh my bliss where it's unclear where the beauty and bliss refer to the gold or the girl and of course Shakespeare borrows this for parody of therapist mocks asceticism and is deeply offended by the accusation that he does not live well that he lives a miserly life of stricture and squalor it's typical of Marlow that pleasure is what drives him along with the contemplation of both successful villainy and grandeur a kingly kind of trade to purchase towns by treachery one of the deepest questions about Shakespeare's play is its relation to marilla's Shakespeare may have gotten the idea of writing his own Jew play from a current event the trial and execution of the Queen's converse a physician what do we Colo pez in 1594 which led to many revivals of Merlin's play that year there's no doubt that Merlin's play was on Shakespeare's mind but the question is what to make of this Shakespeare's Jew is a usurer rather than a merchant is not the title character a vision of the grandeur of trade argos ease with portly sale like seniors and which burgers on the flood is given to fran is describing The Merchant of Venice Antonio rather than to the Jew the merchant in Shakespeare's play is a melancholy character he's confident of his wealth but expresses no pleasure in it I hold the world but as the world he says in most on on Marlow vien fashion his pleasure seems to consist entirely in male camaraderie and friendship particularly in his friendship with a young handsome and extremely prodigal aristocrat Bassanio unlike Marla's Jew Shakespeare's merchant does not equate friendship with advantage since Bassanio is a major financial liability shakespeare's jew is presented as the traditional though very long out-of-date figure of the moneylender were usurer he's a miser he is a miser worrying about expenses and living or steer Lee without it seems worldly pleasure except perhaps in money-making itself though this is minimally suggested the focus of the play is not as it is in Marlow exclusively on the Jew might dominate our imaginations but he does not dominate the script or work in the way that Barabbas does Marla's play Barabbas has by far the longest part in his play does not Shakespeare follows his source text which combines a version of the famous flesh bond story with a romantic quest but Shakespeare makes two major changes from his source which is an Italian Avella called el pecho donae which means the sheep or the dunce he makes the object of the romantic quest an extremely wealthy landed lady rather than a Sorcerer's ruler and he makes the merchants the good friend rather than the Godfather of the prodigal romantic Questor this allows for something of a more normal courtship of the lady those they still attest in LP corona the test is whether the suitor can successfully have sex with the lady who drugs them to make sure that he can't and it brings the theme of male friendship into the Nexus created by the romantic quest and the flesh bond stories so the structure of the play is more complex than in Marlowe's where only the story of Barabbas is unfaithful servant Ethel Moore is something of a second plot and it makes for a potentially richer mix of themes it also provides for the possibility of a major female part where Marla's fly only had the Jews daughter an element Shakespeare borrows and a courtesan and the added female part turns out in Shakespeare to have the longest part in the play Portia in Shakespeare's play greed the desire for gold is not the wind that blows all the world besides the merchant as we've seen does not focus on his wealth the prodigal wants money to party with his friends and to court the lady whose immense wealth is only part of her attractions money in the play is seen as profoundly social recall the those Argus's large ships like seniors and witch burgers on the flood and the Sene links money with deep affection my purse my person says Antonio the merchant money here is more than a source of power and egotistical pleasure a remarkable confirmation of this occurs in the flesh bond scene itself a scene that's worth looking at in some detail and that might help answer the question why Shakespeare the scene is riveting on the stage and on the page it's dramatic action is subtle and complex and it's poetry rich and strange at first all seems familiar is only concerned with the details of the transaction 3,000 ducats for three months and Antonio bound meaning Antonio will stand surety for the bond is suspicious of merchant adventuring rather than seeing the widespread places to which Antonio's ships are going as romantic sees them as dangerous and irresponsible ventures he has squandered abroad but he decides to make the loan nonetheless so far only and Bassanio are on stage but when Antonio appears perhaps to give his word for the surety something happens has given us soliloquy one in which a strong passion emerges not love but hatred I'm gives a list of reasons why he hates Antonio he's a Christian he lends out money interest-free he hates quote the sacred nation and he rails against Shylock's quote bargains Antonio equates taking interest with usury as in the Deuteronomic and medieval prohibitions but he is willing in this case to enter into that transactional world and here are something no one could have predicted happens Shakespeare gives an elaborate stretch of biblical interpretation in blank verse spoke only prose until his soliloquy tells the story of how Jacob tricked Laban out of a flock of sheep Jacob cleverly entered into the world of biology which describes with clinical disgust when the work of generation was between these wooly bleeders in the act and Jacob thereby produced the spotted sheep they were agreed to be his is working to justify his profession Jacobs behavior was a matter of careful calculation of as says thrift and thrift is blessing if one steal it not but Antonio sees the story as about grace not ingenuity this was a venture sir that Jacob served for a thing not in his power to bring to pass this was an anti usury argument a venture was contrasted with a contract since in the former they were shared wisk whereas a contract had to be honored regardless of outcomes but this was not the major economic argument against taking interest the major argument which explains the discussion of ewes and rams was the Aristotelian one their taking interest treat something inanimate money as if it were animate and could bleed this was seen as quote against nature contra not Wharram Sherlock is implicitly arguing that it can be seen as working with in nature or within nature with human intervention no scholar has found a source for the use of this story as a defense of interest taking Shakespeare invented for this piece of biblical interpretation the scene could end here with a normal contract at interest with a guarantor being signed but this is not what happens Charlotte goes on to describe in detail Antonio's behavior toward him Antonio called him misbeliever cutthroat dog spit into his face and kicked him all as says for use of that which is my own where use has both its general meaning and its meaning as usury points out the paradox in dehumanizing someone for acting in the economic sphere hath the dog money he pertinently asks Antonio does not of course answered that particular question but he does accept Shylock's account of their relationship Antonia was ready he tell to spit on the again to spurn that is kick D to Antonio then makes another key contrast interest versus friendship he folds the Contra nutter 'm argument into it when did friendship take a bleed of barren metal of his friend shakespeare gives us both a serious intellectual debate and a serious dramatic confrontation here it's more complex than more or less straightforward revelation of greed and hypocrisy though not necessarily more profound but even this is not the end of the scene who's very tuned in picks up on on Tonio's characterization of friendship as defined by not taking interest for reasons that shakespeare does not have disclose decides to take antonia at his word and be Antonio's friend in exactly this sense he says I would be friends with you and have your love which means in this context that he's willing to lend the money perhaps directly to Antonio now and take note of usance Bassanio is impressed and says this work kindness why decides to do this is as I said unclear what is clear is that he's accepting Antonio's anti-economic definition of friendship and that Charlotte wants for whatever reason perhaps simply to show that he can to enact this Antonio says nothing at this point and here is where introduces the famous penalty clause the pound of flesh in the event of non-payment on time he presents this as a kind of joke a game among friends he calls it a merry sport we would call that it was Antonio who introduced the notion of a penalty clause in defining interest taking as anti friendship he urged to lend quote as to thine enemy so that he will feel no compunction in acting quote the penalty if the loan is not repaid no specific penalty was mentioned and that's what that fills in again does not Shakespeare does not give an explanation for the strange penalty he proposes one that as points out continues the anti-economic nature of this bond or contract since a points out there's no market value to a pound of man's flesh is continuing following Antonio's logic to act in friendship probably he doesn't at this point actually expect to get the penalty Antonio after all has been expressly confident of his ability to pay back the loan on time perhaps thinks he will win in a sense either way either he proves that he is capable of friendly loving behavior as Antonio has defined it which Antonio thinks incapable of or he gets to act on the hatred that the economic that the two economic actors the merchants and the moneylender actually as we know feel through each other well whatever is doing here one thing is clear he is not acting in his professional capacity so by the end of Act one the issue of usually disappears from the play by octree has liked Barabbas experienced betrayal by his daughter and at this point we hear that some of Antonio's shipping ventures have failed suddenly the penalty clause becomes important and suddenly it's Shylock's focus he becomes as Barabbas sometimes presents himself as being a figure of revenge here Shakespeare picks up the Marlow vien theme defends his behavior by appealing as he says to quote Christian example the virtues that supposedly define the Christian humility and turning the other cheek a buck if a Jew wrong a Christian what is his the Christians humility we venge if a Christian wrong a Jew what should his the Jews sufferance that is patient acceptance be like an example why we avenge Shakespeare exactly echo Barabbas is delight in being even worse than the questions and less hypocritical the villainy you teach me I will execute and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction and yet this moment in the play is one that shows the distance between Shakespeare and Marlowe as well as this deep continuity between Sherlock's initial mention of feeding his revenge and the lines we've examined on questions as models of revenge come some of the most famous lines in the Shakespearean corpus and therefore in world literature they show how compilations of jambs from Shakespeare could have been compiled and were in a way the gems from Marlowe could not have been and we're not Sherlock suddenly sees the antagonism of Antonio toward him as going beyond the immediate situation as we qing back to the reason why on Deuteronomic principles Jews were given the social role of moneylenders Deuteronomy 23 1920 said in the King James translation thou shalt not land upon usually to thy brother but to a stranger thou mayest land on usery but Christians are supposed to treat all men as brothers so they could not lend it at interest but Jews supposedly were under no such universalizing command the ultimate reason for Antonio hatred says in words that have resonated down the ages is I am a Jew Shakespeare then gives charlyk his famous plea for universality for recognition of fundamental human sameness if you prick us do we not bleed if you tickle us do we not laugh the claim is that biological and psychological commonality should be recognized as being deeper than religious or cultural differences this is one of those moments when the word seemed truly to transcend their context one has some sympathy for the gems from Shakespeare approach here one could hardly find a more eloquent argument for Brotherhood and toleration but of course that is not where is going as soon as he gets to if you poison us do we not die he's back to the identity and villainy idea but Shakespeare has perhaps because of the eloquence that he's already given somehow allowed the ethical cat to escape from the contextual bag actors reciting this speech as a gem usually stopped before the conclusion about revenge is reached in doing so they're both right and wrong they're certainly wrong within the perspective of the character but they are right that the words cannot be kept within the satiric and moral of Ian bounds the same set of issues whether the play is yet another expose of Christian hypocrisy or whether it contains a material that actually supports the claim that Christian morality a universalizing ethic truly is something appealing and meaningful come to a head in the greatest scene of Shakespeare's play the famous trial scene that constitutes almost the entirety of act 4 I don't have the time here to analyze the scene in detail but let me make a few remarks about it Sherlock in the scene is almost entirely the stereotyped Jew not here as a figure of usury but instead as a figure of legalism and most of all of hatred but this latter focus leads to a characteristic characteristically Shakespearean complexity hatred for one's oppressor is not hard to understand indeed hatred for anyone who has wronged one is not hard to understand but just at the moment when one would think that Shakespeare would have rehearsed the list he's already given of the wrongs that Antonia has done him spit on me spurned me called me dog etc Shakespeare instead gives an astonishingly peculiar speech about people doing things under a compulsion that they themselves do not understand and that serves to shame we have learned to satisfy them a speech that culminates in the picture of someone who urinates on himself when he here is a bagpipe playing I'm not making this up so implicitly recognizes that his own hatred goes beyond or beneath rationality and implicitly he feels it as infantile and shaming but this is all below the surface what is on the surface is Shylock's repeated call for law for the strict enforcement of his bond not for payment which he repeatedly refuses it amounts way beyond the original loan what he wants his enforcement of the penalty anyone who knows the play at all Oh even the underlying story knows that is outmaneuvered and legalism by Portia in her disguised as a young and of course male lawyer the drop of blood gambit is in Shakespeare source text the question is what are we to think about all this Portia has made a speech for mercy another jam from Shakespeare the quality of Mercy speech which is ostensibly addressed to resists it on the same grounds that he defended his taking of interest in Act one Scene three that he's doing nothing wrong either morally or illegally when he's out maneuvered he recognizes it maintaining his faith in the law this puts us in a very odd position are we to cheer when the great advocate of Mercy turns out to be an even greater legalist than the Jew to put the matter more pointedly but more cogently and crudely are we to be happy at seeing Portia out Jew and in case we think that we are certainly intended to be so Shakespeare gives us gives this point of view to a character into play ironically and Graziano who is gleefully anti-christian in his love for punishment and revenge ANILCA Corona the source text when the trick is pulled on the Jew and it gets nothing at all neither flesh nor money he simply goes off in a huff and that's the end of the story but Shakespeare doesn't end there Portia speech was aimed at the Duke who shows mercy to by not having him executed and merely confiscating his estate the Duke tells that quote the difference in our spirit is shown in the Duke granting his life before even asks that this be done but we were called it for an essay Marlo similarly tells Barabbas that executing him is quote far from us in our profession is no more impressed than Barabbas was at this gesture as Barabbas did points out that in taking away everything everything he has they might as well be taking his life and they are in a sense doing so Antonio in fact had said something similar about the horror about living ones wealth but Shakespeare adds yet another development after some lines that seemed to mitigate the financial punishment of although the details are obscure Antonio tell Sherlock that for this favor must quote presently become a Christian a penalty picked up from the confiscation seen in Marlow the merciful duke then chimes in with the further four nazy like provision that if does not do this the Duke will would camp this day of Shylock's execution so shall lagu Glee's he's asked whether he is contented he states that he is and goes off saying that he will obey the system we call that fern Aziz said tube Erebus after that confiscation contently and that for a neza assured Barabbas that quote thou hast naught but right so is Shakespeare's play more or less ironic than Marlowe's community is established in the play not by virtue of difference being tolerated but by virtue of being conceptually discounted Heather not a Jew eyes and has the Christian community had mercy on were taking revenge on him Shakespeare's play is different from Marlowe's in that it does not provide a clear answer to these questions but Marlowe's play haunts Shakespeare's and the rather silly fifth act of the merchant which is sometimes dropped from performances only serves at best as a distraction but last paragraph but we all know Shakespeare's play and very few of us before this lecture at least even knew of Marla's there's no doubt that Shakespeare's plays or certainly the best of them deserve to be studied and performed as they are in that sense why Shakespeare is easy answer but their shakespeare deserved the absolutely unique cultural place that he has I would ask why not Marlow a number of Elizabethan writers aware of Marla's talent and early death spoke of poor kit Marlowe I would say poor Marlow poor Johnson poor Chapman poor Webster poor Middleton poor Messinger etc etc thank you so I don't know if we have time for questions if people have to go to another session but I'd be glad to take any I'm so how do i how do I graduate well Johnson is is a wonderful critic in that he tells you what he likes and doesn't like about everyone he treats he absolutely hated John Milton for instance although he thought Paradise Lost might be the greatest epic poem ever idiot he thinks Shakespeare is filled with nonsense he thinks Shakespeare love of puns was ridiculous he says equivalent was this fatal Cleopatra on the other hand he says when he needed to be great he always rose to the occasion and I think that's true of Johnson as well that he quibbles he has all sorts of objections some well taken some not to writers but when he needs to appreciate greatness he does so I would say I would give a kind of john sony and critique of of johnson he well i'll leave it at that other questions yes oh well I'd really just be elaborating on I mean on what I suggested I mean here well first of all they the quality of Mercy speech is the people who would say it have to done don't know what they're saying so the quality of Mercy is not strained it's a difficult line and it doesn't mean it's not put through a strainer like a kitchen implement it means it's not to be constrained it can't be you can't be made to feel mercy and then then that speech is ends with a long description of how mercy is best at the heart of Kings right and you wonder why is this being said to Sherlock should I elects not a king it's completely real well it's clearly aimed at the Duke so so the question is is the Duke in the play a figure of mercy Wow he's fully willing to go for the confiscation of part of partial confiscation of Shylock's wealth including a provision that makes him not in control of his own inheritance which people often don't don't mention he has to give his inheritance to Lorenzo the man who ran off with his daughter or Andy has to be converted and if he's not going willing to be converted the Duke I'll have him executed so I think Shakespeare really means to to leave it as a question well are we seeing mercy and acted here or not and is there the Duke says in showing and giving his pardon to shock thou shalt see the difference of our spirit and that's the question that's the question that the Marlow comparison raises so sharply is there a difference of spirit between the Jews and Christians in the play and I think the trial scene is often read as if it's obvious there is and you are supposed to cheer when Porsha pulls out her legal maneuver but when you think about it why should you be cheering at a piece of extreme and absurd legalism since the drop of blood thing makes no sense in any legal context and of course she's as judge Posner's pointed out committing a fraud on the court by being in disguise in the first place so so it's not so clear that you're supposed to be cheering at that moment because it's are very weird that so here are great exponent of mercy wins by super legalism and the guy who's happiest about this who wants to see hand is a character in the play Graziano he keeps saying right on right on and it's hard to think we're supposed to be there with him and so I think the scene really is meant to be deeply troubling and ambiguous about what exactly have we witnessed here and are the Venetians living up to their own values and what would it mean for them to live up for their own values would it mean that gets to actually have his contract enforced and have Antonio killed well do we want that either so it's it's it's a very common Shakespeare I think sets it up to make it extremely difficult to judge ethically socially politically legally yes yeah well that's certainly false because we know we know the books that were circulating about Venice I mean they'd lead to of the major Italian plays the ones that are most detailed about their setting and to gentleman Verona could be anywhere whereas Merchant of Venice and Othello the two venetian plays are show real knowledge of Venetian procedures but we know the book that was available in translation about vanish that Shakespeare could have read so all of the in English in English translation well I mean there's no reason there's no doctor in new French because one of the sources of Hamlet is is in French there's no reason to think he didn't know Italian so I made the source of ill pepperoni the source text for a merchant there's no translation of so either someone translated at forum or II knew Italian which is perfectly perfectly positive lots and lots of Elizabethans new Italian sir well no one thinks in new Greek I mean when when when doctor when dr. Johnson said he has some or latinum last week he was exaggerating his Greek and diminishing his Latin Shakespeare had really good Latin because we have the syllabus from the school and his one of the supposed arguments the chase but could have been the author of the plays he didn't have enough education well we have the syllabus of the high school that he went to in Stratford which was a good humanist school and if you read that there's a big book on this called Shakespeare small Latin unless Greek two volumes that thick that shows that that Shakespeare had in his grammar school would we would call high school the equivalent of what a classics major in Latin now knows so he knew the Latin classics absolutely perfectly well no one thinks he knew Greek almost no one knew Greek Johnson was unusual and actually knowing Greek as was Milton and as was Queen Elizabeth yes right and with there is another an earlier Elizabethan play called with three ladies of London that has an eloquent and sympathetic Jew in it so it's not not completely unheard of but it is part of what makes Shakespeare Shakespeare is his willingness to give these remarkable speeches - apparently unlikely characters I mean what what professional soldier ever took like Oh thell oh maybe Packard would be a case of someone who did but it's pretty unusual eloquent women is one of Shakespeare's specialties and I think it simply is one of his specialties and pushes just one of many although she she speaks more elaborately probably than any other woman except viola and Cleopatra but you know women characters is one of Shave clearly one of Shakespeare specialties and something that does differentiate them from merlot since there are the women's parts in in Marlowe plays are pretty minimal there were there were few decent women's parts and edward ii which is probably the first history play that shakespeare model is on although who are the first one is a little unclear but it's you're right absolutely right that that eloquent women is one of Shakespeare's specialties and to think that it's anachronistic to think that there's a sort of feminist motive in this is to ignore there's a huge debate about the status of women in the period so you know Shakespeare's clearly entering into a discourse that's going on but entering into it in this imaginative way yes it's a great question I think he wanted to lighten it up I think he realized and when I think one of the one of the great things about Shakespeare in this period is this is the period when he was inventing characters who didn't really fit into their script I think took over his play in a way that Shakespeare didn't might not have initially intended the way Falstaff takes over his plays and I think in every one out I mean the trial scene is riveting and disturbing however you read it even if you think it is an example of Christian mercy it's still pretty jarring but this play is supposed to be a comedy I mean every time we see it my life says to me and that's a comedy and she's very smart and so I think Chase was trying to lighten it up and that's silly business with the wings is it kind of rewriting as a light-hearted way of the trial scene so I think he's trying to distract you of like no because I think he knows that there's something that that goes beyond comedy in the trial scene and he's trying to sort of reclaim it for the genre I think unsuccessfully I mean I think the fifth act is mostly just fluff well but it has some beautiful poetry in it in this sorry well it was listed in the common one of the you know one of one of the interesting things about the folio that I talked about is it it divides the plays generically it's the first account we have of English plays being divided up that way and they used tragedy and comedy which are classical terms and then invent the term history as another as another term and what the difference between a history and a tragedy is a little complicated because what makes Richard the third a history rather than tragedy but they les Merchant of Venice is one of the comedies so I mean right from the beginning it was seen as as comedy yeah lie this should probably be the last question cuz many of you want to go to another presentation well I mean it's hard to well I mean the play has probably the most disturbing afterlife of any of Shakespeare's plays because after all the term a has become comes from this play although it's interesting someone pointed out that it's the only name in the fly that's actually an ordinary English name so if you look in the phone book in London there are many Shylock's it's just an ordinary English name that that the Jew gets that we're Denari English name everybody else's name Graziano or Antonio but so it's certainly I mean whether historically it contributed to anti-semitism I think the answer is no question it did whether it was meant to I think is much more complicated and I think that that given that the character whose blood thirsty for revenge against is Graziano who's not a very admirable character I think does and the fact that is given as this gem it said so much to say for himself so eloquently and makes you know many many powerful points not just the things I mentioned about the way he's acting a Christian example but of course makes the famous plea for biological commonality of of the human but also in a speech that that very little attended to says in defense of him having the right to the contractual right the legal right to to take his pound of flesh from Antonio's body the fight he points out that then he says with Venice is a slaveholding society and you guys think you can own people as persons legally so why can't I and that point is never never disputed and I remember I when I first read this I thought hmm is he right and I went and looked up stuff on 16th century Venice and lo and behold they had lots of household slaves so he was right so I think the it's impossible I think to do a a serious reading of the play and simp think that in any simple sense it's anti-semitic it might be in the Marlow V and since anti everybody and think that all the religious types are hypocrites which is what Marla thought but it's I think that that is given enough to say for himself and is sympathetic enough as a character that that internally the anti-semitic reading I think doesn't hold up but I think it has there's no doubt that it's that probably if you ask you know which of Shakespeare's plays a done most harm in world history this would probably be your example for better or worse okay thank you I guess we have to [Applause]

Channel: UChicago Division of the Humanities

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Id: iUJpTEIN714

Length: 67min 57sec (4077 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2017