I thought the theme of Othello was not racism and xenophobia, but I was shocked to discover it was. Of course none of Shakespeare's work is encompassed by a 'theme' as such.
Of course Iago is a banker, a Thatcherite, an 80s City boy on the make. A social Darwinist, a realist - a democrat. Simon Bowel is an Iago so are the corporate sharks in Glencore, the Liberals who writing stories about the Arab spring joke about putting sexy Tunisian girls instead of grieving mothers on the front cover, the social entrepreneurs who fight to sustain dependency relations with the poorest producers of commodities, the jobbing builders who work for cash in hand, and all the different levels of British society who belong on different levels of the inferno. They speak in unison and they say:
O, sir, content you;
I follow him to serve my turn upon him.
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd:
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lin'd their coats
Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
On the other hand, this is also an argument for the Arab uprisings, and the uprisings against divinely instituted monarchy, so it is a call for democracy.
The Apache helicopters shooting up Tripoli right now should turn of the ride of the Valkyrie and instead play Lawrence Olivier in his whiny drawl through the loudspeakers, bolted on.
Shakespeare licensed himself to speak on these and all other matters. He self licensed. He was more profound than ever Marlow or Bacon could be.
The instinct to downplay Shakespeare is interesting. What right did he have to reach explore the nature and concerns of humanity in his plays so deeply and with such tender loving respect for the truth that he broke through whorfian barriers and all the different varieties of etymological change, different languages, dialects and idiolect, into universality?
Cultural revolution is about a change in society where the article and creative output of heretofore humble and ignored people is valued. Shakespeare had the great, great chutzpah to license himself. He needed no revolution to raise him. And he was too well rounded and normal to go mad like John Clare, or to see angels like William Blake.
A whirring burning wheel of metaphor, getting hotter and hotter, with no traction or grip in their Victorian society. Poor Cassandras. Oddballs, ignored and famous only amongst their fellow poets only 50 years ago, according to Zwieg.
people say Shakespeare was a Sufi in retrospect, because the Sufis thought profoundly about their experience of life and its origins and they did so outside the limits of the way their religion was used for social management. Shakespeare came from a Catholic family and yet though he has been called a propagandist for the Tudors - he was not - he was not a crude anti-Catholic, of course not. And so, he too wrote and endured buried under Two households, both alike in indignity.
Not too different then from those professional journalists with principles who have to write between the lines in the British press to try and express what they really think.
And around the world a few people mark their books where they used to collect cuttings, and say: 'But read this!'
Being from a Catholic family and yet not being Catholic, but merely human, an provincial intellectual excited by the southern and northern renaissance and the discovery of the new world and new worlds of possibility. Drinking too much ale but staying sharp.
It was an age of cabals and secret societies. Marlow was proof of that. I think the idea that William Shakespeare was a lone genius is also a mistake. Of course he discussed how the lines would scan in performance, of course he took suggestions. Of course he had changing circles of friends and much of his thought would have come from conversation, Walter Raleigh organised the secret room where he met with friends to work things out and where people could spark off each other. Shakespeare must have attended occasionally. His good friend Ben Jonson must have been a great comfort and have prompted him to think of many things. Shakespeare, that man who was so sensitive and perceptive wrote of his loves. there were women and men worthy of his love. That was the conceit of the little film that explored this idea. That Shakespeare's love was worthy of Shakespeare.
The elitists hate Shakespeare because he is difficult to appropriate. The dumbest of them try and say that he had a ghost writer.
But, in lieu of that, they call him a lone genius.
He was not. He was not alone. His ideas and thoughts and feelings and perceptions were not those of a Montaigne in his tower - and Montaigne was alright - they were the nexus of his experience which was of close knit bands and a broader society, a society more dynamic than we can conceive of.
How ridiculous the idea of this protean figure standing forth from the crowd. And how blandly ridiculous the people who propose it. We can read the truisms of the Victorian authors about class and women and life and art and race and we would laugh at them if we cared.
In the same way, they will look back at the fatuous truisms people write nowadays, and fatuous truisms about Shakespeare's 'genius'.
Of course Iago is a banker, a Thatcherite, an 80s City boy on the make. A social Darwinist, a realist - a democrat. Simon Bowel is an Iago so are the corporate sharks in Glencore, the Liberals who writing stories about the Arab spring joke about putting sexy Tunisian girls instead of grieving mothers on the front cover, the social entrepreneurs who fight to sustain dependency relations with the poorest producers of commodities, the jobbing builders who work for cash in hand, and all the different levels of British society who belong on different levels of the inferno. They speak in unison and they say:
O, sir, content you;
I follow him to serve my turn upon him.
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd:
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lin'd their coats
Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
On the other hand, this is also an argument for the Arab uprisings, and the uprisings against divinely instituted monarchy, so it is a call for democracy.
The Apache helicopters shooting up Tripoli right now should turn of the ride of the Valkyrie and instead play Lawrence Olivier in his whiny drawl through the loudspeakers, bolted on.
The instinct to downplay Shakespeare is interesting. What right did he have to reach explore the nature and concerns of humanity in his plays so deeply and with such tender loving respect for the truth that he broke through whorfian barriers and all the different varieties of etymological change, different languages, dialects and idiolect, into universality?
A whirring burning wheel of metaphor, getting hotter and hotter, with no traction or grip in their Victorian society. Poor Cassandras. Oddballs, ignored and famous only amongst their fellow poets only 50 years ago, according to Zwieg.
Not too different then from those professional journalists with principles who have to write between the lines in the British press to try and express what they really think.
And around the world a few people mark their books where they used to collect cuttings, and say: 'But read this!'
Being from a Catholic family and yet not being Catholic, but merely human, an provincial intellectual excited by the southern and northern renaissance and the discovery of the new world and new worlds of possibility. Drinking too much ale but staying sharp.
The elitists hate Shakespeare because he is difficult to appropriate. The dumbest of them try and say that he had a ghost writer.
But, in lieu of that, they call him a lone genius.
He was not. He was not alone. His ideas and thoughts and feelings and perceptions were not those of a Montaigne in his tower - and Montaigne was alright - they were the nexus of his experience which was of close knit bands and a broader society, a society more dynamic than we can conceive of.
In the same way, they will look back at the fatuous truisms people write nowadays, and fatuous truisms about Shakespeare's 'genius'.