`The Terror of Pleasure'

In one of his essays Guy Davenport observed that Americans are the first people in history to possess documented proof of their illiteracy: Just ask them to produce a college degree. He wrote that in the seventies, when the trivialization of higher education was well underway but not yet complete. Last week at his blog, Ron Rosenbaum reported on the finalization of the dumbing-down process:

“U.S.A. Today recently reported deeply depressing news on the study of Shakespeare in U.S. colleges. With one exception (Harvard) no study of Shakespeare, the greatest artist of the English language is required in any U.S. college, and indeed even by most English major programs at those colleges.”

Explanations for the creeping idiocy include the juggernaut of pop culture, especially television, but Rosenbaum blames most of the problem on precisely the people who are paid to know better -- English professors and “two generations of pseudo-scientific sophistry that gave itself the shorthand name Theory in literary studies.” Rosenbaum reiterates the argument he made in The Shakespeare Wars, rooted in what he calls “the terror of pleasure”:

“A terror that had led them to flee to, to fabricate, elaborate scaffoldings of French literary theory to shield themselves from having to stare into the abyss of pleasure close reading opened up, to give themselves an illusion of control over, indeed superiority to the literature.”

Rosenbaum’s clear-eyed witness is bracing. For thoughtful readers, Shakespeare is an indulgence in pure pleasure. It doesn’t cost a penny and lasts a lifetime. Can we even call a person truly literate if he or she hasn’t read and internalized Shakepeare? If you’re reading this, you most likely know the answer.

In the April 28-29 edition of The Wall Street Journal, Edward Herrmann reviews The Shakespeare Riots, an account by Nigel Cliff of street fights between partisans of two leading Shakespearean actors in 1849. They occurred in New York City and resulted in at least 23 deaths. One-hundred sixty years ago, average Americans, people without benefit of college degrees, took their Shakespeare seriously. Hermann writes:

“It is hard to believe, but is nonetheless true, that the words of Shakespeare meant more to 18th- and 19th-century America than those of any other author, except the Bible’s. Mr. Cliff is eloquent when describing the hold that Shakespeare had on the psyche of a young America: We made him our own around campfires, in barrooms, on riverboats and within tents along the farthest reaches of the West.”

Walt Whitman, who never set foot on a college campus, enjoyed reciting the Shakespearean set pieces, and mentioned the playwright more than 100 times in his late conversations with Horace Traubel. Here’s an excerpt from “A Thought on Shakspere,” a brief essay from November Boughs:

“The inward and outward characteristics of Shakspere are his vast and rich variety of persons and themes, with his wondrous delineation of each and all – not only limitless funds of verbal and pictorial resource, but great excess, superfoetation – mannerism, like a fine, aristocratic perfume, holding a touch of musk (Euphues, his mark) – with boundless sumptuousness and adornment, real velvet and gems, not shoddy nor paste – but a good deal of bombast and fustian – (certainly some terrific mouthing in Shakspere!)”