Reading Shakespeare becomes habitual and comforting, like visiting your brother and resuming an interrupted conversation. We experience effortless recognition. No need to recalibrate or make allowances. Just talk or read, and understanding, if not agreement, follows. I’ve returned to Henry IV, Part I, and marvel at its comprehensiveness. So far as we know, Shakespeare never served as a soldier, yet his imagination was so inclusive, his characters embodied every understanding of war, heroism and honor. For the aptly named Hotspur, in Act I, Scene 3, honor is the supreme virtue:
“By heaven methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honor from the pale-fac’d moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks,
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities.
But out upon this half-fac’d fellowship.”
Worcester replies:
“He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.”
By the end of the play, Hotspur has died in battle. In Act V, Scene 1, Sir John Falstaff, who embodies a species of cowardice wedded to a powerful love of life, finds the body:
“Well, ‘tis no matter, honour pricks me on; yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? can honour set to a leg? no, or an arm? No, or take away the grief of a wound? no, honour hath no skill in surgery then? no, what is honour? a word, what is in that word honour? air, a trim reckoning. Who hath it? he that died a’Wednesday, doth he feel it? no, doth he hear it? no ‘tis insensible then? yea, to the dead, but will it not live with the living? no, why? detraction will not suffer it, therefore I’ll none of it, honor is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my Catechism.”
In talk of war, Hotspurs and Falstaffs predominate. The stance of each is uncomplicated, immoderate, resistant to nuance and appealing in simplicity and self-righteousness. No need to bother with ethical niceties. Both speak, long-windedly, in bumper stickers. Shakespeare endorses neither man’s intemperance. He contains more multitudes than Whitman.
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2 comments:
Hi Patrick
Another fine post. Your thoughts on Shakespeare sparked a question in me. I hope its not too off topic. I am in the midst of a Samuel Johnson bender and was wondering what your take is on Dr. Johnson. Do you like him? Does he move you? (I have just finished Bate's biography of Johnson and found the overview of Johnson's work on Shakespeare amazing.)
Patrick, have you heard the perspective (not at all original with me) that the Henry IV plays can be understood as offering Hal three conceptions of manhood: Hotspur, Falstaff and his father--his job is to pick and choose among the three. I think I first heard the point developed by Peter Saccio from Dartmouth (who sometimes lectures, so they tell me, in a purple cape, go figure).
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